The version I used about 3 months ago didn't work with any copy-protection schemes. For example no Ubisoft games worked with it including Doom 3, Far Cry, and XIII. The really funny thing was that Ubisoft tech support didn't understand that I was using a beta XP 64-bit OS. They just kept telling me that there are no problems with Windows XP. I finally gave in, and reverted back to XP 32-bit.
Note that it also doesn't run 16-bit applications, which is rarely a problem, but every now and then I see something dumb, like an installer that has a 16-bit stub somewhere.
Certain types of games are better-suited to touchpads, trackballs, mice, cameras, etc. I am surprised that no aftermarket trackball controllers are available for home game consoles. Two types of games suffer from this limitation, and they are both types of games that do better on PCs than consoles:
1) Resource management / icon-based / menu-based games - It is easier to move and click a mouse/trackball than with a joystick or d-pad. - Examples: The Sims, Black and White, Warcraft, etc.
2) FPS games - The ability to quickly aim and - The ability to move with a different hand than the aiming hand - Examples: Doom, Quake, Half-life, Unreal, and probably 50% of PC games
In general, a mouse/trackball offers higher-precision, greater feedback, and an infinite range of speeds over a d-pad or trackball. But it is bad with simple forward, backward, left, and right. But fewer games today use that model. Why do we continue to use these old-style inputs?
FYI: This is called multimodal input, where each device complements the abilities of the other. The keyboard/mouse paradigm is the most generally powerful multimodal combination discovered thus far.
Does that mean I can register www.BetterThanGeico.com and sell my car insurance? Wouldn't that fall under the same reasoning? Historically, people get slapped for registering companyxsucks.com (although usually they are using the company's own trademarks)
I taught a high school computer programming class in '95 and had reasonable success with completely non-math and non-computer people. The classroom next to mine was teaching mechanical engineering. The trick was simply to come up with applied uses of these sciences.
Example 1: Intro to Computer Programming for High School Juniors
I covered the absolute basics as quickly as possible, then assigned the students with creating a Christmas demo. I gave them a very easy to use graphics library (setColor, drawLine, drawCircle, etc.) Some students drew static images, some made animations. As the students worked, they discovered the need for loops, or arrays, floating-point, optimization, etc. Every week or so, I would show them one of these, and they could then apply them.
Then everyone demonstrated their projects to the class. Much laughter and learning ensued.
Example 2: Intro to Engineering (for G&T Seniors)
Another teacher taught this class. Assignments included interfacing a computer to various bits of hardware such as toggling a bit on a parallel port to turn on a light, etc. One project was to build a perpetual motion car and see which one went the farthest. The students were given basic building materials, and they built rubber-band powered cars, etc. As they went, they were forced to learn the basics of engineering and to consult the text for designs and ideas. Many projects didn't get off the ground, but even those groups learned.
I think I'm going to go to the nearby movie theater, pay for a movie ticket, and then download the movie. After I watch it once I will delete it. No ads, no previews, no "turn off your friggin phone!" and "don't smoke!" messages wasting my time. No commercial jingles stuck in my head.
These are some ideas I've built-up from reading related Slashdot articles:
1) Duct tape all the factory remotes together into one franken-remote. 2) Same as #1, but add a gratuitous LCD screen. 3) Same as #2, but running Windows CE. 4) Same as #2, but running Linux 5) Create a robot that pushes the buttons on the TV. Completely universal! Even works on TVs with no IR receiver! 6) Hack an iPod 7) Hack a Nintendo DS 8) Create a Brainwave remote
I've been looking for someone who feels that way to discuss this with since my own opinion keeps changing. Would you humor me here?
Suppose I create a new piece of software that can compress significantly better than MPEG-4, in less CPU time. I call it Moby-4. So I decide to start a company and create Moby-4 players, Moby-4 encoders, convince studios to release Moby-4 formatted movies, etc.
Another company, Zonee, reverse-engineers my algorithm from the code on the BIOS chip. Zonee has bigger manufacturing capabilities than I do, so they start creating Moby-4 products and run me out of business.
#1: Should I be able to legally force Zonee to pay me royalties on all their devices that incorporate Moby-4? If so, why? If not, why?
#2: An individual named Jackie reverse engineers my algorithm and creates a Linux-based player and gives it away for free. Should I be able to sue her for royalties or damages? If so, why? If not, why?
That's like complaining that a Linux application stores user data in the user's home directory and system-level data in/etc. That's the standard, it's how all applications are supposed to work. FireFox follows Microsoft's standards to the letter, thus allowing multiple users to have separate FireFox profiles, and allowing non-administrators to run the software. (Woe is me! If only most off-the-shelf applications adhered to that standard) And yes, you can override those settings if you want.
"We didn't closely review these," Dave Dormire, superintendent of the Jefferson City Correctional Center, told The Kansas City Star. "We were told these games had more like cartoon violence."
How close do you need to look?
Game Name: "Hitman: Contracts"
ESRB Rating: Mature (17+) for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs
Sounds coming from prison: "That !@#* warden Dormire is gonna get !$*#$!"
Also note that the ESRB does explicitly label Cartoon Violence as opposed to Violence.
I am amazed at how warning labels are ignored, even when they are simple and relevant! I bet I could put a label on something that says using it will kill you, and people would still buy it... Oh wait, they call that Tobacco!
The image put out by the NoSoftwarePatents.com organization is detrimental to the cause:
Has anyone looked at the immature banners that are provided by NoSoftwarePatents.com? The European banner is misspelled: Europe's better off without software patents. Learn the difference between a contraction and a possessive before making banners to be distributed around the world. The other notable one is "Stop the patent mafia!" That may be a valid analogy, but it is so childish that no one will take it seriously. Then, a barely readable sign surrounded by flowers.
The advocates of this side tend to cite naive outrageous one-sided claims, then wonder why businessmen and politicians don't get the message. Some of the over-hyped Slashdot headines serve as good examples. Pictures of students protesting isn't going to sway anyone's opinion. Try a picture of a company losing money because everything they try to do is covered by some trivial patent.
...by storing the energy in hydrogen fuel cells during the day, Stirling solar-dish farms could supply U.S. electrical-energy needs at night too, as well as enough juice for future fuel-cell-powered automobiles...
I would think that flywheels would be a more appropriate way to store power for the night-time use. Hydrogen fuel cell has become a a buzzword, and I wonder if that was thrown in there because no alternative power sounds cool unless it deals with hydrogen and cars. (Although the EE times is very good about technical stuff). These things are better-off producing grid power.
The issue of GIMP and multiple windows (lowercase w) comes up every timethere is an article about GIMP. Initially it was blamed on GIMP being old and requiring a rewrite. Then it was a feature, designed into the GIMP. Now it is Windows fault for not having multiple desktops?!!??! Oh I forgot, if all else fails blame Microsoft.
Statements like that sound like marketing-speak. Optimization is a trade-off between size, speed, and quality. I doubt you can get much benefit out of size for a driver. That leaves a trade-off between speed and quality. So which did they pick?
...permit people to use technology to skip objectionable content -- like a gory or sexually explicit scene -- in films, a right that consumers already have
This part is very interesting to me. Is it good to have a law that explicitly states people's rights? The pure libertarian / constitutionalist in me says no. But the realist in me says this is good - state the rights we have. Of course, giving up the right to skip commercials isn't a fair trade for that.
Now, commercials are what pay for the free content. So if I watch TV, should I feel morally obliged to watch commercials? If I read a newspaper, should I be obliged to read some ads? Should I be legally required to do so? If I stop watching the commercials, will they stop providing the free content? Am I willing to give that up?
People need to have a sane discussion about these points before legislation of any kind makes sense. Either way, the death knell for free content-paid advertising may already be audible. Anyone have any ideas on this?
What is the purpose of this desalinization plant? The article says "The process is intended to decrease the salt content of the Colorado River downstream..." but why would we want to do that? If the purpose was to remove it for human consumption, I would understand. But that doesn't seem to be the case if it is just removing the salt for the downstream river.
This whole thing reminds me of the Rhine River which was straightened so it flowed faster, causing massive erosion and removing the natural process of detoxifing the water. Eventually, the river had to be un-straightened to fix the problem.
It looks like Halo 2 checks the model # and serial # of the hard drive. Will someone tell me why Microsoft cares what hard drive you have in the system? Instead, why don't they check the serial # of Halo 2 game itself? That way, they are detecting piracy rather than modded X-boxes. Seems more fair to me.
Not that it matters. Now that we know what they check and how, it should be easy to disable the check or to spoof it.
(Next thing you know, they will have a camera checking to see if you have illegal stickers on the side of it. Error: XBOX Banned - GameCube detected in same room.:-) )
Instead of writing wrappers so that drivers from other OSs work on Linux, we should turn those wrappers into development kits and make them available to manufacturers. By "make them available" I don't mean place them on Sourceforge and announce them on Freshmean. I mean they should be marketed to hardware manufacturers so that they know that they exist, and that they can gain market share by using this simple tool to make a Linux driver.
(But then we get into the whole binary driver thing and it all goes to hell. Maybe that has to be resolved first.)
We also need to partner with manufacturers, like Microsoft does, so that kernel developers know when new hardware and drivers are available. This will fix the catch-up game where Linux drivers aren't deployed until the hardware is already on the shelf. We can also ease driver development using the feedback from manufacturers.
This is the point where much software starts to go down hill. It happens with open-source stuff as well as commercial applications. Things that one check box become a whole screen of options. The product goes from 10MB to 100MB. More "non-features" are added that average users don't want.
A better idea at this point is to go back and refactor portions of code that aren't clean. Or to eliminate options by making the browser smarter. Fix security holes.
If they want to add features beyond this point, I believe they should fork the product into some sort of "advanced" version. I don't want desktop searching. I don't want a better popup blocker (AFAIK - It is absolutely perfect as is!). I don't want even one checkbox in the preferences. Mozilla and Firefox do very well with mom & pops, which is very important for gaining market share. For every new feature or option, you alienate them a little more.
Even in a fast-moving field such as software, there is a time to slow down the pace or even stop.
No, not at all. Sky Captain was filmed in black-and-white in front of a blue screen, the backgrounds were added in, then colorized. But all the characters you see are the actual filmed characters, in their actual costumes. The Polar Express is completely digital, based on advanced motion capture. Nobody wears costumes, and nothing you see came from film.
Why did two people reply and ask the same question, which I answered in my message. Google for AVI VBR audio or something like that.
The AVI format does not support VBR audio. Audio blocks MUST be the same size. There is a hack that allows you to multiplex VBR audio into AVI files, but it requires hacking the format and causes a number of sync issues. The whole point of AVI is Audio-Video-Interleave as shown in high-quality ASCII art:
This means that the audio data is ahead or behind the video data, and requires extra seeking, and extra player logic. It also impossible to stream if the audio data is sufficiently out-of-sync with the video.
Slashdot Mirror
The version I used about 3 months ago didn't work with any copy-protection schemes. For example no Ubisoft games worked with it including Doom 3, Far Cry, and XIII. The really funny thing was that Ubisoft tech support didn't understand that I was using a beta XP 64-bit OS. They just kept telling me that there are no problems with Windows XP. I finally gave in, and reverted back to XP 32-bit.
Note that it also doesn't run 16-bit applications, which is rarely a problem, but every now and then I see something dumb, like an installer that has a 16-bit stub somewhere.
This is why digital ink systems are going to be very important in the future. They only use power when the image changes.
Certain types of games are better-suited to touchpads, trackballs, mice, cameras, etc. I am surprised that no aftermarket trackball controllers are available for home game consoles. Two types of games suffer from this limitation, and they are both types of games that do better on PCs than consoles:
1) Resource management / icon-based / menu-based games
- It is easier to move and click a mouse/trackball than with a joystick or d-pad.
- Examples: The Sims, Black and White, Warcraft, etc.
2) FPS games
- The ability to quickly aim and
- The ability to move with a different hand than the aiming hand
- Examples: Doom, Quake, Half-life, Unreal, and probably 50% of PC games
In general, a mouse/trackball offers higher-precision, greater feedback, and an infinite range of speeds over a d-pad or trackball. But it is bad with simple forward, backward, left, and right. But fewer games today use that model. Why do we continue to use these old-style inputs?
FYI: This is called multimodal input, where each device complements the abilities of the other. The keyboard/mouse paradigm is the most generally powerful multimodal combination discovered thus far.
Does that mean I can register www.BetterThanGeico.com and sell my car insurance? Wouldn't that fall under the same reasoning? Historically, people get slapped for registering companyxsucks.com (although usually they are using the company's own trademarks)
I taught a high school computer programming class in '95 and had reasonable success with completely non-math and non-computer people. The classroom next to mine was teaching mechanical engineering. The trick was simply to come up with applied uses of these sciences.
Example 1: Intro to Computer Programming for High School Juniors
I covered the absolute basics as quickly as possible, then assigned the students with creating a Christmas demo. I gave them a very easy to use graphics library (setColor, drawLine, drawCircle, etc.) Some students drew static images, some made animations. As the students worked, they discovered the need for loops, or arrays, floating-point, optimization, etc. Every week or so, I would show them one of these, and they could then apply them.
Then everyone demonstrated their projects to the class. Much laughter and learning ensued.
Example 2: Intro to Engineering (for G&T Seniors)
Another teacher taught this class. Assignments included interfacing a computer to various bits of hardware such as toggling a bit on a parallel port to turn on a light, etc. One project was to build a perpetual motion car and see which one went the farthest. The students were given basic building materials, and they built rubber-band powered cars, etc. As they went, they were forced to learn the basics of engineering and to consult the text for designs and ideas. Many projects didn't get off the ground, but even those groups learned.
We need a DRM standard so that we only have one thing to crack before we can play our music files on whatever we want. :-)
:-)
Personally, I'm getting tired of using the "analog hole" to rp my mp3s to LPs and 45s.
I think I'm going to go to the nearby movie theater, pay for a movie ticket, and then download the movie. After I watch it once I will delete it. No ads, no previews, no "turn off your friggin phone!" and "don't smoke!" messages wasting my time. No commercial jingles stuck in my head.
Everyone wins.
In the army of the future, Frito-eating guys from the local online-game center will be remotely controlling cyborgs made from football players.
These are some ideas I've built-up from reading related Slashdot articles:
1) Duct tape all the factory remotes together into one franken-remote.
2) Same as #1, but add a gratuitous LCD screen.
3) Same as #2, but running Windows CE.
4) Same as #2, but running Linux
5) Create a robot that pushes the buttons on the TV. Completely universal! Even works on TVs with no IR receiver!
6) Hack an iPod
7) Hack a Nintendo DS
8) Create a Brainwave remote
I've been looking for someone who feels that way to discuss this with since my own opinion keeps changing. Would you humor me here?
Suppose I create a new piece of software that can compress significantly better than MPEG-4, in less CPU time. I call it Moby-4. So I decide to start a company and create Moby-4 players, Moby-4 encoders, convince studios to release Moby-4 formatted movies, etc.
Another company, Zonee, reverse-engineers my algorithm from the code on the BIOS chip. Zonee has bigger manufacturing capabilities than I do, so they start creating Moby-4 products and run me out of business.
#1: Should I be able to legally force Zonee to pay me royalties on all their devices that incorporate Moby-4? If so, why? If not, why?
#2: An individual named Jackie reverse engineers my algorithm and creates a Linux-based player and gives it away for free. Should I be able to sue her for royalties or damages? If so, why? If not, why?
Thanks.
That's like complaining that a Linux application stores user data in the user's home directory and system-level data in /etc. That's the standard, it's how all applications are supposed to work. FireFox follows Microsoft's standards to the letter, thus allowing multiple users to have separate FireFox profiles, and allowing non-administrators to run the software. (Woe is me! If only most off-the-shelf applications adhered to that standard) And yes, you can override those settings if you want.
Game Name: "Hitman: Contracts"
ESRB Rating: Mature (17+) for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs
Sounds coming from prison: "That !@#* warden Dormire is gonna get !$*#$!"
Also note that the ESRB does explicitly label Cartoon Violence as opposed to Violence.
I am amazed at how warning labels are ignored, even when they are simple and relevant! I bet I could put a label on something that says using it will kill you, and people would still buy it... Oh wait, they call that Tobacco!
The image put out by the NoSoftwarePatents.com organization is detrimental to the cause:
Has anyone looked at the immature banners that are provided by NoSoftwarePatents.com? The European banner is misspelled: Europe's better off without software patents. Learn the difference between a contraction and a possessive before making banners to be distributed around the world. The other notable one is "Stop the patent mafia!" That may be a valid analogy, but it is so childish that no one will take it seriously. Then, a barely readable sign surrounded by flowers.
The advocates of this side tend to cite naive outrageous one-sided claims, then wonder why businessmen and politicians don't get the message. Some of the over-hyped Slashdot headines serve as good examples. Pictures of students protesting isn't going to sway anyone's opinion. Try a picture of a company losing money because everything they try to do is covered by some trivial patent.
The issue of GIMP and multiple windows (lowercase w) comes up every time there is an article about GIMP. Initially it was blamed on GIMP being old and requiring a rewrite. Then it was a feature, designed into the GIMP. Now it is Windows fault for not having multiple desktops?!!??! Oh I forgot, if all else fails blame Microsoft.
Statements like that sound like marketing-speak. Optimization is a trade-off between size, speed, and quality. I doubt you can get much benefit out of size for a driver. That leaves a trade-off between speed and quality. So which did they pick?
They are in the places they remain profitable:
1) Freely downloadable adware/spamware/shareware
2) Bundled with an OS.
3) Online (casino games, cell phone games)
4) Arcades
5) Standalone game-in-a-joystick devices
Now, commercials are what pay for the free content. So if I watch TV, should I feel morally obliged to watch commercials? If I read a newspaper, should I be obliged to read some ads? Should I be legally required to do so? If I stop watching the commercials, will they stop providing the free content? Am I willing to give that up?
People need to have a sane discussion about these points before legislation of any kind makes sense. Either way, the death knell for free content-paid advertising may already be audible. Anyone have any ideas on this?
What is the purpose of this desalinization plant? The article says "The process is intended to decrease the salt content of the Colorado River downstream..." but why would we want to do that? If the purpose was to remove it for human consumption, I would understand. But that doesn't seem to be the case if it is just removing the salt for the downstream river.
This whole thing reminds me of the Rhine River which was straightened so it flowed faster, causing massive erosion and removing the natural process of detoxifing the water. Eventually, the river had to be un-straightened to fix the problem.
It looks like Halo 2 checks the model # and serial # of the hard drive. Will someone tell me why Microsoft cares what hard drive you have in the system? Instead, why don't they check the serial # of Halo 2 game itself? That way, they are detecting piracy rather than modded X-boxes. Seems more fair to me.
:-) )
Not that it matters. Now that we know what they check and how, it should be easy to disable the check or to spoof it.
(Next thing you know, they will have a camera checking to see if you have illegal stickers on the side of it. Error: XBOX Banned - GameCube detected in same room.
Instead of writing wrappers so that drivers from other OSs work on Linux, we should turn those wrappers into development kits and make them available to manufacturers. By "make them available" I don't mean place them on Sourceforge and announce them on Freshmean. I mean they should be marketed to hardware manufacturers so that they know that they exist, and that they can gain market share by using this simple tool to make a Linux driver.
(But then we get into the whole binary driver thing and it all goes to hell. Maybe that has to be resolved first.)
We also need to partner with manufacturers, like Microsoft does, so that kernel developers know when new hardware and drivers are available. This will fix the catch-up game where Linux drivers aren't deployed until the hardware is already on the shelf. We can also ease driver development using the feedback from manufacturers.
1) Feature creep
2) Feature creep
3) Increase market share
This is the point where much software starts to go down hill. It happens with open-source stuff as well as commercial applications. Things that one check box become a whole screen of options. The product goes from 10MB to 100MB. More "non-features" are added that average users don't want.
A better idea at this point is to go back and refactor portions of code that aren't clean. Or to eliminate options by making the browser smarter. Fix security holes.
If they want to add features beyond this point, I believe they should fork the product into some sort of "advanced" version. I don't want desktop searching. I don't want a better popup blocker (AFAIK - It is absolutely perfect as is!). I don't want even one checkbox in the preferences. Mozilla and Firefox do very well with mom & pops, which is very important for gaining market share. For every new feature or option, you alienate them a little more.
Even in a fast-moving field such as software, there is a time to slow down the pace or even stop.
No, not at all. Sky Captain was filmed in black-and-white in front of a blue screen, the backgrounds were added in, then colorized. But all the characters you see are the actual filmed characters, in their actual costumes. The Polar Express is completely digital, based on advanced motion capture. Nobody wears costumes, and nothing you see came from film.
Why did two people reply and ask the same question, which I answered in my message. Google for AVI VBR audio or something like that.
The AVI format does not support VBR audio. Audio blocks MUST be the same size. There is a hack that allows you to multiplex VBR audio into AVI files, but it requires hacking the format and causes a number of sync issues. The whole point of AVI is Audio-Video-Interleave as shown in high-quality ASCII art:
[--VBR video--][CBR audio] [VBR video][CBR audio] [----VBR video--][CBR audio] [VBR video-][CBR audio] etc.
The only way to handle VBR audio in this format is to do this:
[--VBR video--][VBR au] [VBR video][ioVBR a] [----VBR video--][udio VBR audio VB] [VBR video-][R audi] etc.
This means that the audio data is ahead or behind the video data, and requires extra seeking, and extra player logic. It also impossible to stream if the audio data is sufficiently out-of-sync with the video.
- .MOV - Evil: Proprietary and not editable by free software;
- .AVI - Bad; Not-evil, but the format is getting old and limiting. (Support for VBR audio is a bad hack and causes problems)
- .WMV - Evil; A patent-encumbered replacement for AVI
- .MPG - Bad; MPEG-1 is old and inefficient
- .MP2 - Evil; MPEG-2 is patent encumbered
- .MP4 - Good; Standard, less patent encumbered; Limited to MP4+AAC audio (but that isn't too bad); But nobody seems to use this format!
We either need to: