As a former programmer on auto-bill systems for this sort of company (service provider, not necessarily satellite radio), I can say that it's most likely checking all CC#'s through a vetted card number table before it ever even attempts to process payment.
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Typical Microsoft. Don't make it work in every browser by using standard markup, just make sure that it works in IE and that-other-browser-that's-kicking-IE's-ass. Just keep ignoring Safari users, MS. See how far it gets you in the "hip and trendy" market. Oh, did I mention that Apple holds the patent on "cool"?
I'm pretty sure that they do it for business reasons (regardless of what others are suggesting). It makes excellent business sense for both Id and Epic to port their engines (and trivially, the games themselves) to Linux because Linux is "the server OS" and their games have traditionally been enjoyed more as client/server networked games than as standalone or non-WAN games.
It's interesting to note that during that same era, one of the foremost Mac porting houses was Westlake Interactive, and they recently were purchased by MacSoft. They lasted a few years longer than Loki did, but ultimately, the same platform apathy took them out of the games game. I just wonder how long GameRanger will last. I still remember talking to the Westlake devs and owners(!) on that service back in the 2000-2002 era. Good times, they were. Gone, they are. Talking like Yoda, I am. Stop now, I will.
Not necessarily. There are noticeable differences in price between pro audio gear and "audiophile" audio gear. Pro gear is technically superior, more flexible, more powerful, and cheaper. Audiophile gear has gold connectors and blue LED's on the front and the prices are anywhere from double to quadruple that of similar pro gear.
The former is undoubtedly a nice amp. 600W x 2 channels. Fancy-looking VU's on the front, gold-plated connectors, and a recognized name make this a "must have" for the audiophile with more money than sense (and his neighbor, who now has to keep up with that Jones guy next door...). And on a more substantial note, it has balanced inputs, a feature you don't often see on gear meant for non-pros, and it's a feature that can make a meaningful difference in audio quality.
The latter is nicer. 1100W x 2 channels or 2000W x 1 channel, a pro-level class-A amp circuit, a multitude of options for configuration, and the ability to buy 11 of them for the same price as the other amp and still have $300 left for cables 'n' stuff (or pizza for all the nights you'll spend hooking 11 amps up). Things like balanced inputs are a given on this type of gear. VU's are left out, since pros generally like to have the VU's on the console and stuff the amp in a rack somewhere out of sight. There's still a "peak" indicator, just in case.
I'd be worried more about pro-gear getting the gouge-em-for-all-they-have reputation of audiophile gear. Which would suck, because as it stands, I can keep up with the Joneses (so to speak) for a fraction of what "they" spend. Hell, I can usually afford enough power to melt "the Joneses'" walls from 1000 feet away.
The difference between the two numbers is due to this:
Manufacturers have an interest in you paying more and getting less, while computers do not. Manufacturers who are successful and have the cash to spend can then lobby international standards bodies to skew "standards" in their favor, regardless of historical context and practical day-to-day usage patterns (both technical and linguistic).
Don't side with "the man" on/. unless you enjoy tar + feathers, not even if it means bucking the "standard".
I'm a C# fanboy (and a Mac fanboy, oddly enough), and I promise not to rant.
I'm fairly certain that if you're writing against the.NET CLR, then bloat isn't your concern. It's pretty obvious that.NET has that as a bullet-point feature (so does JRE, to be fair). You're using.NET because it allows you to quickly develop stuff that does what you need, not because it's the most efficient code possible.
I'm also certain that if you're writing "Hello, World!"-level programs, then you're not among those who care about bloat and performance. If you are, then echo echo Hello, World! > helloworld.bat is probably WAY more efficient.
I just don't understand the hate... C# and.NET are actually good products from Microsoft. Hate the crap like Windows. Don't bring down the good stuff.
There was active 68k code in the classic MacOS right up to the end. The end was over 10 years after they produced the final 68k Mac. That doesn't mean the system would run on 68k, but it does mean that Apple isn't afraid to support legacy code.
Similarly, if they want OS X to work on 32-bit CPU's for the next 5-10 years, it will. They'll support it. And given the fact that they're still selling 32-bit Core systems (the Mac Mini does not have the Core 2 yet), they'll support it for a long time to come. I'd give it until 2015 before Apple tells Core system users that they're up a certain creek sans paddle.
My comment stands. You're not a fanatic, since you're reasonable about why you like one over the other and are willing to hear the other side of the argument. You aren't part of the group I was describing.
Freedom of speech means the right to say stupid and outrageous things.
No, freedom of speech means that you are free to speak. You can say anything that you want to say. No one is allowed to keep you from saying it. Note that you do not have a right to speak, only the freedom to do so. And you are not free of the consequences of your speech.
The right granted to the citizens of the USA is only the "right to the freedom of speech". Thus it is your right to expect to always be free to speak your mind in the USA. It is not your right to avoid any bad consequences of what you say.
Yes. Nyquist. There's a Theorem, a Limit, and a Guy that discovered these, all by the same name.
A 44.100kHz sample rate will theoretically get you up to a 22.050kHz max frequency in the audio signal. Humans can focus on any part of the audible spectrum, but voices won't typically fall outside the 300-3300 Hz range. Thus aLaw (US) and mu-Law (outside the US, a.k.a. "uLaw", since the Greek mu looks like a u with a tail) are typically 8000 Hz sample rate, 8-bit-sample, monophonic (who has a stereo telephone?) signal when digitized.
The GP was worried that the bit depth is "coarse". This is not the case. Bit depth "distance" is constant for a given depth.
CD's are 44.1kHz, 16-bit, stereo. Always. So there are always 44100 samples per second per channel. There are always two channels (stereo, one left, one right). And each sample in each channel is always 16 bits. A 16-bit integer can represent numbers from 0-65535 (2^0-1 through 2^16-1), and since there's no need for negative numbers (this is Pulse Code Modulation, or PCM, so no, you don't need to represent a +/- of a waveform) you get the full 0-65535 swing. From there, the value is directly translatable into a DC voltage that goes to the speakers. (Most of the heavy lifting is done in the A/D phase, D/A phase is a simple value-to-DC conversion.) The change in DC voltage over time is what causes the magnets to move, which moves the speaker cones, which moves air, which moves your tympanic membrane, which blah-blah-blah... eventually you hear sound.
So there's no need to worry. Nothing gets coarse. Nothing loses fidelity. Nothing loses audible quality. This is why vinyl fanatics get laughed at by people who know how and why digital audio works. The limits of even now-mundane CD audio are far above the possible limits of even hypothetically perfect human hearing. Nobody can hear 22kHz. Nothing below 22kHz is misrepresented in CD-quality audio. For mastering work, where effects will be applied later, higher quality recordings are wonderful, since you can guarantee that it will stay high-quality when downsampled to CD-quality, but other than that (and "economies of scale" where better parts are just as cheap to produce), there's no need for anything better.
Basically, the constitution contains an abstract concept of protection of "writings or discoveries" (now called "intellectual property") and states that Congress has the authority to establish laws that protect these to "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
Some things I notice here are... - Science must be making progress in order to be promoted. DRM is regression of rights, thus it cannot be protected. - Arts must be useful to be protected. I doubt entertainment can be considered "useful" in the way that was meant when the Constitution was written. - Newer forms of media are not "writings" nor are they "discoveries". They cannot be protected. - Algorithms are discovered, and thus, they can be protected. - Trademarks are not even considered to be part of this framework.
In other words, everything you knew about patent, trademarks, and copyrights is probably wrong. Unfortunately, getting someone to apply this correctly now is going to be facing an uphill battle.
My first language was Logo. It taught me nothing more than scripted graphics and sound generation.
A few years later, I had a general "introduction to computers" class that included a short BASIC program or two. These had GOTOs in them. The teacher explained what the GOTO did, and at the time I recall thinking "man, that's a pain in the ass if I have to remember to jump in and out of these chunks of inline code, can't the computer do that for me?"
The next year, I took my Computer Programming I course (vo-tech-in-high-school course) and was promptly notified of the utility of using "top-down" coding, never using a GOTO, and always using loops and functions (GOSUB at first, but then we started using Pascal). The teacher simply would not accept code with even a single GOTO in it.
I've never had a problem with not using GOTO, and I learned using BASIC. This talk of BASIC being inadequate for teaching is simply a way for someone to make themselves feel important.
Don't bother with the Marathon game. It won't run on reasonable hardware anymore. Just read the story.
BTW...
Sargeant Eddings => the player ("Destiny"?) => Master Chief
Eddings is in 1994. The player in Marathon is in the 2400's. Master Chief is in the next universe. They're all the same guy. That makes "Halo 3" really "Pathways Into Darkness 7".
Unlike power utilities, the phone company (back when it was The Phone Company, a.k.a. Ma Bell) saw the wisdom of putting all lines underground. Look for the orange "buried cable" signage. Gas lines are usually marked with yellow, water with blue, sewer with green. Power is still on friggin poles like it's 1899.
That's why it won't happen. The diesel powerplant would be too reliable, too cheap to fuel and maintain. The electric drivetrain would effectively remove 90% of the most common failure points in an engine and would conserve fuel by brake-recharging, removing inefficiency of mechanical energy transfer, and removing weight.
Except most UAV (Urban Assault Vehicle, a.k.a. SUV) drivers don't drive a real Hummer (a military HUMMV, or the commercially available "H1" Hummer). They drive a whored (not pimped) version of a GMC Denali (Chevy Suburban) called "H2". Or even a shrink-ray-victim version of the H2 called "H3", also available in a "fake truck" version (see also: El Camino or Ford-Explorer-with-an-open-truck-bed).
If you want to join a dick-waving contest, at the very least, bring a dick to wave. H2's don't count. In fact, I mostly see women driving H2's, and everyone knows they don't have a dick to wave (hopefully...).
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder how long until we will have to pay for the privilege of merely existing in a particular space.
Umm... Taxes cease at death. Both are inevitable, but they're also mutually exclusive, so no double dipping.
As a former programmer on auto-bill systems for this sort of company (service provider, not necessarily satellite radio), I can say that it's most likely checking all CC#'s through a vetted card number table before it ever even attempts to process payment.
Typical Microsoft. Don't make it work in every browser by using standard markup, just make sure that it works in IE and that-other-browser-that's-kicking-IE's-ass. Just keep ignoring Safari users, MS. See how far it gets you in the "hip and trendy" market. Oh, did I mention that Apple holds the patent on "cool"?
I'm pretty sure that they do it for business reasons (regardless of what others are suggesting). It makes excellent business sense for both Id and Epic to port their engines (and trivially, the games themselves) to Linux because Linux is "the server OS" and their games have traditionally been enjoyed more as client/server networked games than as standalone or non-WAN games.
It's interesting to note that during that same era, one of the foremost Mac porting houses was Westlake Interactive, and they recently were purchased by MacSoft. They lasted a few years longer than Loki did, but ultimately, the same platform apathy took them out of the games game. I just wonder how long GameRanger will last. I still remember talking to the Westlake devs and owners(!) on that service back in the 2000-2002 era. Good times, they were. Gone, they are. Talking like Yoda, I am. Stop now, I will.
Not necessarily. There are noticeable differences in price between pro audio gear and "audiophile" audio gear. Pro gear is technically superior, more flexible, more powerful, and cheaper. Audiophile gear has gold connectors and blue LED's on the front and the prices are anywhere from double to quadruple that of similar pro gear.
Examples?
Power amp: McIntosh MC602 vs. Yamaha P7000S.
$8000 (Source) vs. $700 (Source)
The former is undoubtedly a nice amp. 600W x 2 channels. Fancy-looking VU's on the front, gold-plated connectors, and a recognized name make this a "must have" for the audiophile with more money than sense (and his neighbor, who now has to keep up with that Jones guy next door...). And on a more substantial note, it has balanced inputs, a feature you don't often see on gear meant for non-pros, and it's a feature that can make a meaningful difference in audio quality.
The latter is nicer. 1100W x 2 channels or 2000W x 1 channel, a pro-level class-A amp circuit, a multitude of options for configuration, and the ability to buy 11 of them for the same price as the other amp and still have $300 left for cables 'n' stuff (or pizza for all the nights you'll spend hooking 11 amps up). Things like balanced inputs are a given on this type of gear. VU's are left out, since pros generally like to have the VU's on the console and stuff the amp in a rack somewhere out of sight. There's still a "peak" indicator, just in case.
I'd be worried more about pro-gear getting the gouge-em-for-all-they-have reputation of audiophile gear. Which would suck, because as it stands, I can keep up with the Joneses (so to speak) for a fraction of what "they" spend. Hell, I can usually afford enough power to melt "the Joneses'" walls from 1000 feet away.
Do not taunt SuperAwesomeFunPlug.
If SuperAwesomeFunPlug starts to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Caution: SuperAwesomeFunPlug may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly, and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to SuperAwesomeFunPlug.
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!
Unless I call a number where I expect an automated system, the first thing I do is press and hold the 0 button for about 10 seconds.
I'm usually talking to a real person within a minute or so.
And hopefully less pig-rape.
Oh, and sucks to your ass-mar.
The difference between the two numbers is due to this:
/. unless you enjoy tar + feathers, not even if it means bucking the "standard".
Manufacturers have an interest in you paying more and getting less, while computers do not. Manufacturers who are successful and have the cash to spend can then lobby international standards bodies to skew "standards" in their favor, regardless of historical context and practical day-to-day usage patterns (both technical and linguistic).
Don't side with "the man" on
I'm a C# fanboy (and a Mac fanboy, oddly enough), and I promise not to rant.
.NET CLR, then bloat isn't your concern. It's pretty obvious that .NET has that as a bullet-point feature (so does JRE, to be fair). You're using .NET because it allows you to quickly develop stuff that does what you need, not because it's the most efficient code possible.
.NET are actually good products from Microsoft. Hate the crap like Windows. Don't bring down the good stuff.
I'm fairly certain that if you're writing against the
I'm also certain that if you're writing "Hello, World!"-level programs, then you're not among those who care about bloat and performance. If you are, then echo echo Hello, World! > helloworld.bat is probably WAY more efficient.
I just don't understand the hate... C# and
There was active 68k code in the classic MacOS right up to the end. The end was over 10 years after they produced the final 68k Mac. That doesn't mean the system would run on 68k, but it does mean that Apple isn't afraid to support legacy code.
Similarly, if they want OS X to work on 32-bit CPU's for the next 5-10 years, it will. They'll support it. And given the fact that they're still selling 32-bit Core systems (the Mac Mini does not have the Core 2 yet), they'll support it for a long time to come. I'd give it until 2015 before Apple tells Core system users that they're up a certain creek sans paddle.
My comment stands. You're not a fanatic, since you're reasonable about why you like one over the other and are willing to hear the other side of the argument. You aren't part of the group I was describing.
Freedom of speech means the right to say stupid and outrageous things.
No, freedom of speech means that you are free to speak. You can say anything that you want to say. No one is allowed to keep you from saying it. Note that you do not have a right to speak, only the freedom to do so. And you are not free of the consequences of your speech.
The right granted to the citizens of the USA is only the "right to the freedom of speech". Thus it is your right to expect to always be free to speak your mind in the USA. It is not your right to avoid any bad consequences of what you say.
Yes. Nyquist. There's a Theorem, a Limit, and a Guy that discovered these, all by the same name.
A 44.100kHz sample rate will theoretically get you up to a 22.050kHz max frequency in the audio signal. Humans can focus on any part of the audible spectrum, but voices won't typically fall outside the 300-3300 Hz range. Thus aLaw (US) and mu-Law (outside the US, a.k.a. "uLaw", since the Greek mu looks like a u with a tail) are typically 8000 Hz sample rate, 8-bit-sample, monophonic (who has a stereo telephone?) signal when digitized.
The GP was worried that the bit depth is "coarse". This is not the case. Bit depth "distance" is constant for a given depth.
CD's are 44.1kHz, 16-bit, stereo. Always. So there are always 44100 samples per second per channel. There are always two channels (stereo, one left, one right). And each sample in each channel is always 16 bits. A 16-bit integer can represent numbers from 0-65535 (2^0-1 through 2^16-1), and since there's no need for negative numbers (this is Pulse Code Modulation, or PCM, so no, you don't need to represent a +/- of a waveform) you get the full 0-65535 swing. From there, the value is directly translatable into a DC voltage that goes to the speakers. (Most of the heavy lifting is done in the A/D phase, D/A phase is a simple value-to-DC conversion.) The change in DC voltage over time is what causes the magnets to move, which moves the speaker cones, which moves air, which moves your tympanic membrane, which blah-blah-blah... eventually you hear sound.
So there's no need to worry. Nothing gets coarse. Nothing loses fidelity. Nothing loses audible quality. This is why vinyl fanatics get laughed at by people who know how and why digital audio works. The limits of even now-mundane CD audio are far above the possible limits of even hypothetically perfect human hearing. Nobody can hear 22kHz. Nothing below 22kHz is misrepresented in CD-quality audio. For mastering work, where effects will be applied later, higher quality recordings are wonderful, since you can guarantee that it will stay high-quality when downsampled to CD-quality, but other than that (and "economies of scale" where better parts are just as cheap to produce), there's no need for anything better.
Read this.
Basically, the constitution contains an abstract concept of protection of "writings or discoveries" (now called "intellectual property") and states that Congress has the authority to establish laws that protect these to "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
Some things I notice here are...
- Science must be making progress in order to be promoted. DRM is regression of rights, thus it cannot be protected.
- Arts must be useful to be protected. I doubt entertainment can be considered "useful" in the way that was meant when the Constitution was written.
- Newer forms of media are not "writings" nor are they "discoveries". They cannot be protected.
- Algorithms are discovered, and thus, they can be protected.
- Trademarks are not even considered to be part of this framework.
In other words, everything you knew about patent, trademarks, and copyrights is probably wrong. Unfortunately, getting someone to apply this correctly now is going to be facing an uphill battle.
I had a similar experience.
My first language was Logo. It taught me nothing more than scripted graphics and sound generation.
A few years later, I had a general "introduction to computers" class that included a short BASIC program or two. These had GOTOs in them. The teacher explained what the GOTO did, and at the time I recall thinking "man, that's a pain in the ass if I have to remember to jump in and out of these chunks of inline code, can't the computer do that for me?"
The next year, I took my Computer Programming I course (vo-tech-in-high-school course) and was promptly notified of the utility of using "top-down" coding, never using a GOTO, and always using loops and functions (GOSUB at first, but then we started using Pascal). The teacher simply would not accept code with even a single GOTO in it.
I've never had a problem with not using GOTO, and I learned using BASIC. This talk of BASIC being inadequate for teaching is simply a way for someone to make themselves feel important.
Don't bother with the Marathon game. It won't run on reasonable hardware anymore. Just read the story.
BTW...
Sargeant Eddings => the player ("Destiny"?) => Master Chief
Eddings is in 1994. The player in Marathon is in the 2400's. Master Chief is in the next universe. They're all the same guy. That makes "Halo 3" really "Pathways Into Darkness 7".
Unlike power utilities, the phone company (back when it was The Phone Company, a.k.a. Ma Bell) saw the wisdom of putting all lines underground. Look for the orange "buried cable" signage. Gas lines are usually marked with yellow, water with blue, sewer with green. Power is still on friggin poles like it's 1899.
Hey, yesterday was MILF Day, wasn't it?
Please read this.
If you like Halo's story, go read the previous installment.
Marathon.
A warning, though... Halo is a bit "hollow" after reading all of that.
And if you want to go further back...
Pathways Into Darkness.
All-electric drivetrain + diesel recharge powerplant = hosed auto-dealer mechanics and oil industry.
That's why it won't happen. The diesel powerplant would be too reliable, too cheap to fuel and maintain. The electric drivetrain would effectively remove 90% of the most common failure points in an engine and would conserve fuel by brake-recharging, removing inefficiency of mechanical energy transfer, and removing weight.
Pipe-dream++.
But I doubt the GP's Saturn could reach escape velocity at all, at any rate of burn within its mechanical capabilities.
How's the 0-60 on that thing, anyway?
Except most UAV (Urban Assault Vehicle, a.k.a. SUV) drivers don't drive a real Hummer (a military HUMMV, or the commercially available "H1" Hummer). They drive a whored (not pimped) version of a GMC Denali (Chevy Suburban) called "H2". Or even a shrink-ray-victim version of the H2 called "H3", also available in a "fake truck" version (see also: El Camino or Ford-Explorer-with-an-open-truck-bed).
If you want to join a dick-waving contest, at the very least, bring a dick to wave. H2's don't count. In fact, I mostly see women driving H2's, and everyone knows they don't have a dick to wave (hopefully...).