I knew someone was going to say this - I was just looking for the person who got modded a 5 with the statement "who needs a better soundcard?"
I agree that a soundcard intuitively doesn't do much. At its simplest it is a glorified D/A converter. But realistically, as the summary points out, hardware acceleration makes a difference. When I upgraded from my soundblaster live (a pretty good soundcard) to audigy 2 I got about 10 more frames per second in unreal tournament 2004 (a cpu-bound game). I would like to point out that this is about as much, or better, as I would get if I upgraded my video card to the next level. Plus everything sounds better because I have better control over speaker settings (this is a driver thing - creative is retarded about drivers) and the hardware is slightly better. So, as a gamer, the 70 dollars I spent on the audigy 2 was some of the best money spent on my gaming experience.
I agree that they will never be able to complete this task, because it is ridiculously impossible. how are they going to get their hands on an ancient chinese text whose only copy is in some guys attic in bejing?
But assuming the problem is indexing 5 Mtb of information that is already available on the internet (songs, movies, whatever - just not things that haven't been digitized because this introduces the need to have humans working) it will be possible in the next 50 years. Both computation power and storage are exponential whereas the amount of new information is constant (or at best log) which would make the total amount of information the integral of linear or log, which is exponential. Therefore, at some point (probably less than 30-40 years) google would be able to do have an index of 5 million tb
you forget that storage capacity increases exponentially with time. In 30 years we will have 15,000-20,000 terabyte drives (assuming that capacity doubles every two years and current drives are 500 gb). At that point we could easily hold 5 million tb of information.
Re:Is the Video iPod worth the wait?
on
No Video iPod Coming?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Yeah, but its not like it's going to cost them much to add the video. They have the screen, they have the harddrive and sound hardware/processing - all they need to add is a chip which (i am guessing) costs less than 20-30 dollars that can decompress video files. When they are charging 300-400 dollars, that isn't much.
Normally you could use it just like your old ipod, but on long trips or airplane rides you could watch a movie or something. My friend had an iriver on our europe trip this summer, and it was so nice to be able to watch our favorite tv shows - especially after not watching any english tv for a month. Made my monochrome ipod mini seem dull in comparison. Plus his battery life was pretty comprable to mine.
Don't they offer unlimited text messages for some sort of fee? Also, there are online services that allow you to send out text messages for free (i think you can do it by e-mail)
I don't know if that's true. I know very smart people making decent money who work in them. The problem with this advice:
1. it disregards smaller companies who can't afford to give its engineers offices. That job you turn down for making you work on folding tables could be the next microsoft (or google or whatever). Find a job you enjoy and that lets you live comfortably in your lifestyle. 2. engineers who aren't that valuable to a company will find it hard to get a job in an office. I know what you are thninking: that's exactly the point of not working in a cubicle. The unfortunate truth is many people, straight out of college, are simply not competent enough to get their dream job. 3. your first job is often not your last. Think of it as experience for when you are looking for a better job (or promotion). Yeah, cubicles suck, but if you work hard you won't be there for long.
I never said I hate the lack of choice. In fact I like it (duh). I just said it annoys me that there isn't more large-scale innovation - very few new features come out. Two large, multi-billion dollar companies should be able to do a little more.
As an example of my point, two image search engines require double the effort of one, but only provide incremental benefit to the user. Instead of copying altavista's image search (which I still think is better), google could have implemented something entirely new. This is just an example, and I understand the image search probably didn't take much effort, but that misses my point. My point is that the large search engines haven't innovated much because all they care about is offering the same service as everyone else, just improved a little.
I am getting tired of the big internet companies straight up copying each other. Yes, it means that products slowly get improved over time (eg. yahoo mail -> gmail -> yahoo mail) but it also means that the companies aren't innovating enough. Yahoo is spending time and money on providing a product that is already offered. We would probably be better off if they spent the effort on providing a unique service - like scanned magazines or something.
"Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and/or sentenced to 20 years in prison."
That's not a very big deal to the RIAA because: a. 25,000 isn't much to them b. you can't send an organization to prison. Even if someone did go to prison, it probably wouldn't be anyone very high up. c. The most important reason? I think racketeering is too creative a charge in this case. I am NOT a legal expert, so this is just a guess and I may be wrong. Yes, the RIAA uses the courts to intimidate people, but so do plenty of organizations and people. It's not what I think of when I hear the word racketeering however. I think of someone in the mob or a corrupt businessman threatening your well-being. Not someone taking you to court for potentially stealing from them (and breaking the law).
I hate what what the RIAA is doing - they are esentially using tax payer money to attack the typical tax payer. Everybody I know and their mom has downloaded an MP3. But I don't think racketeering charges are the answer.
"At least under the US, the citizens of one country have some oversight. Give them their own little organization independent of everyone, and they'll have absolutely none."
The problem is majority of the internet users have NO oversight if the US runs things. I would trust a carefully chosen and organized body to organize things than a single government (which tends to be more unstable). For example, if Washington DC were nuked by terrorists, the US government could fall apart into an authoritorian government for at least a while. I would not want to trust some military government with the internet.
If everything is set up well, even an incompetent power-hungry organizing body could be kept in check. I would propose a system with so much bureaucracy controlling the body that not a whole lot would be drastically changed. For example, all the major countries could contribute a few intelligent people in the know-how (think professors) who would watch over the body like the senate over the president.
"When problems do happen, the open source community is notorious for getting them fixed very quickly."
notorious (n-tôr'-s, -tr'-) 1. Known widely and *usually unfavorably*
just sayin'
To stay on topic, I would guess that they did have people look at it, but companies often don't have the resources and time to constantly debug things (and looking on the internet for solutions can take a decent amount of time). In this case, Windows just worked. Linux did not. He listed several examples of Windows working better. I find it sad because I always root for the open source alternative:)
He fails some weed out classes, then somehow claims the the fact he is not an engineer is everyone else's fault. For those of you who don't know, a "weed out" class is one that is made to be hard on purpose. They are low level classes in which the average person gets a bad grade. The point? Discourage people who don't belong from wasting their time for 4 years. If you don't do well in these classes, you weren't cut out for the major. Yes, engineering is hard. Some people's brains are made for it, others aren't.
I agree that the professors who don't care and the incompetent TAs contribute to this difficulty, but just about every engineer goes through it. The smart ones get As, the average ones get Bs, and the ones who don't belong in engineering or science get Cs. It's a crappy system but it does its job.
Furthermore, this is not really the reason that engineering is faultering. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people out there who do just fine in enginering. Although the average GPA in the first year or two is a 2.7, it goes way up once the people who belong find classes that interest them and the rest drop out.
I would contribute the lack of interest in engineering to money and respect. Engineers work their asses off for four years and then make 50-60,000 dollars a year. Then they see their econ friends who partied a lot more make 100,000. Additionally, as an engineer you are stuck working in a cubicle for the rest of your life. Your boss, a liberal arts major, has his own office and looks down at you. In fact, every non-engineer looks down at you because you are an engineer. IMO, engineers as a whole are quiet anti-social types who don't command respect, and aren't given much.
From what I can tell, most people in the west (at least the US and europe) assume Korea means South Korea. I guess that is the western anti-communist bias.
"Exact definitions are subjective but general ones should be easy enough"
Yes, exact definitions are subjective (and impossible). The problem in the first place was general definitions. We have generally defined planets as a large object orbiting a star. But this has only led us into problems and "scientifically splitting hairs."
I guess the lesson is if we can't define a planet, it doesn't really matter what a planet is. After all, "planet" is just a label. There realistically isn't a whole lot in common with Jupiter and the Earth, so why place them into the same category?
Thats an observational definition (all the planets are round, so that makes a good definition) but like all definitions of planets that have been so far this produces problems. A couple I can think of:
1. We will have to define round. This is a gray scale, and picking what "round" is will create controversy too. For example, how rough can the surface be? How oval can it be (even the earth isn't a sphere). 2. What about a baseball orbiting the sun? You need some sort of size requirement. The more liquidy a substance, the more easily it will become round at smaller sizes.
I don't mean to put down your definition - I actually like it - just pointing out that nothing is obvious in this debate.
From winmx.com cache: "WinMX from winmx.com does not contain ANYTHING besides WinMX. No spyware or other parasite programs will ever be in our software. We respect your privacy and security."
The article mentions On Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins' book about intelligence. I read it this summer, and think it is a great book with a lot of insightful comments that will seem almost obvious after you finish the book. On Intelligence presents his theory of how the brain becomes intelligent and how that information can be applied to computers. Anyone interested in AI should look into it (although it's not exactly a light read).
Wow, I wonder how Sony will respond to this. After all, bands usually have to give away all their freedom (and their souls) to the record companies when they sign.
Respect to Switchfoot. Oh, and down with the record companies, who don't give a damn about the artists or their music.
I was thinking specifically of airplanes. I frequently make 30+ hour one-way plane trips (obviously including layovers). Airplanes often don't have outlets.
Also, my car doesn't have an outlet. And I don't neccesarily want to buy and carry around a car adapter for all my electronics.
The charging is actually one of the really cool things about fuel cells. Instead of charging your Ipod for 8 hours, you can place your ipod into a charging station (which would be publically available and/or sold in stores) that would charge it in about 2 seconds. If the technology takes off, methanol (or whatever fuel will be used) will be easily available.
You may be right about methanol being dangerous. This is one of those things that will be worked on, and when/if it is fixed, will be available.
Wow, this looks really cool. I especially like the AA batteries. I have about 10 rechargeable AAs and could easily pack them with me on vacation and keep this thing going for a long time. Not something you can do with proprieatary batteries
They offer really good sound isolation (I sat next to the engines in a loud airplane last month and when I wore them I heard almost nothing).
They are a good alternative to sound cancellation - if you don't let sound in, you don't need to cancel it with iffy technology. Plus it costs less than 10% of the money and gives superb sound quality (not audiophile, but the best you can expect for less than a 100 imo).
It is sad how easily people in the government concede defeat to the terrorists. One of the things that define modern, western democracies is the freedoms it gives its people. When the terrorists see that they have succesfully destroyed those freedoms, they must feel very succesful.
I admit that governments need to make a compromise, but they shouldn't so easily show it off.
I don't like that system. It makes upgrading firefox a dreaded experience for me, as usually at least one of my many beloved extentions doesn't work without at least a little effort. I seriously am scared of upgrading to the next version of Firefox because of this problem. Something always breaks. Ideally, once you have something working and tweaked the way you like, you should be able to leave it alone.
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I knew someone was going to say this - I was just looking for the person who got modded a 5 with the statement "who needs a better soundcard?"
I agree that a soundcard intuitively doesn't do much. At its simplest it is a glorified D/A converter. But realistically, as the summary points out, hardware acceleration makes a difference. When I upgraded from my soundblaster live (a pretty good soundcard) to audigy 2 I got about 10 more frames per second in unreal tournament 2004 (a cpu-bound game). I would like to point out that this is about as much, or better, as I would get if I upgraded my video card to the next level. Plus everything sounds better because I have better control over speaker settings (this is a driver thing - creative is retarded about drivers) and the hardware is slightly better. So, as a gamer, the 70 dollars I spent on the audigy 2 was some of the best money spent on my gaming experience.
I agree that they will never be able to complete this task, because it is ridiculously impossible. how are they going to get their hands on an ancient chinese text whose only copy is in some guys attic in bejing?
But assuming the problem is indexing 5 Mtb of information that is already available on the internet (songs, movies, whatever - just not things that haven't been digitized because this introduces the need to have humans working) it will be possible in the next 50 years. Both computation power and storage are exponential whereas the amount of new information is constant (or at best log) which would make the total amount of information the integral of linear or log, which is exponential. Therefore, at some point (probably less than 30-40 years) google would be able to do have an index of 5 million tb
you forget that storage capacity increases exponentially with time. In 30 years we will have 15,000-20,000 terabyte drives (assuming that capacity doubles every two years and current drives are 500 gb). At that point we could easily hold 5 million tb of information.
Yeah, but its not like it's going to cost them much to add the video. They have the screen, they have the harddrive and sound hardware/processing - all they need to add is a chip which (i am guessing) costs less than 20-30 dollars that can decompress video files. When they are charging 300-400 dollars, that isn't much.
Normally you could use it just like your old ipod, but on long trips or airplane rides you could watch a movie or something. My friend had an iriver on our europe trip this summer, and it was so nice to be able to watch our favorite tv shows - especially after not watching any english tv for a month. Made my monochrome ipod mini seem dull in comparison. Plus his battery life was pretty comprable to mine.
Don't they offer unlimited text messages for some sort of fee? Also, there are online services that allow you to send out text messages for free (i think you can do it by e-mail)
"Don't work in cubicles, ever."
I don't know if that's true. I know very smart people making decent money who work in them. The problem with this advice:
1. it disregards smaller companies who can't afford to give its engineers offices. That job you turn down for making you work on folding tables could be the next microsoft (or google or whatever). Find a job you enjoy and that lets you live comfortably in your lifestyle.
2. engineers who aren't that valuable to a company will find it hard to get a job in an office. I know what you are thninking: that's exactly the point of not working in a cubicle. The unfortunate truth is many people, straight out of college, are simply not competent enough to get their dream job.
3. your first job is often not your last. Think of it as experience for when you are looking for a better job (or promotion). Yeah, cubicles suck, but if you work hard you won't be there for long.
I never said I hate the lack of choice. In fact I like it (duh). I just said it annoys me that there isn't more large-scale innovation - very few new features come out. Two large, multi-billion dollar companies should be able to do a little more.
As an example of my point, two image search engines require double the effort of one, but only provide incremental benefit to the user. Instead of copying altavista's image search (which I still think is better), google could have implemented something entirely new. This is just an example, and I understand the image search probably didn't take much effort, but that misses my point. My point is that the large search engines haven't innovated much because all they care about is offering the same service as everyone else, just improved a little.
I am getting tired of the big internet companies straight up copying each other. Yes, it means that products slowly get improved over time (eg. yahoo mail -> gmail -> yahoo mail) but it also means that the companies aren't innovating enough. Yahoo is spending time and money on providing a product that is already offered. We would probably be better off if they spent the effort on providing a unique service - like scanned magazines or something.
"Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and/or sentenced to 20 years in prison."
That's not a very big deal to the RIAA because:
a. 25,000 isn't much to them
b. you can't send an organization to prison. Even if someone did go to prison, it probably wouldn't be anyone very high up.
c. The most important reason? I think racketeering is too creative a charge in this case. I am NOT a legal expert, so this is just a guess and I may be wrong. Yes, the RIAA uses the courts to intimidate people, but so do plenty of organizations and people. It's not what I think of when I hear the word racketeering however. I think of someone in the mob or a corrupt businessman threatening your well-being. Not someone taking you to court for potentially stealing from them (and breaking the law).
I hate what what the RIAA is doing - they are esentially using tax payer money to attack the typical tax payer. Everybody I know and their mom has downloaded an MP3. But I don't think racketeering charges are the answer.
"At least under the US, the citizens of one country have some oversight. Give them their own little organization independent of everyone, and they'll have absolutely none."
The problem is majority of the internet users have NO oversight if the US runs things. I would trust a carefully chosen and organized body to organize things than a single government (which tends to be more unstable). For example, if Washington DC were nuked by terrorists, the US government could fall apart into an authoritorian government for at least a while. I would not want to trust some military government with the internet.
If everything is set up well, even an incompetent power-hungry organizing body could be kept in check. I would propose a system with so much bureaucracy controlling the body that not a whole lot would be drastically changed. For example, all the major countries could contribute a few intelligent people in the know-how (think professors) who would watch over the body like the senate over the president.
"When problems do happen, the open source community is notorious for getting them fixed very quickly."
:)
notorious (n-tôr'-s, -tr'-)
1. Known widely and *usually unfavorably*
just sayin'
To stay on topic, I would guess that they did have people look at it, but companies often don't have the resources and time to constantly debug things (and looking on the internet for solutions can take a decent amount of time). In this case, Windows just worked. Linux did not. He listed several examples of Windows working better. I find it sad because I always root for the open source alternative
He fails some weed out classes, then somehow claims the the fact he is not an engineer is everyone else's fault. For those of you who don't know, a "weed out" class is one that is made to be hard on purpose. They are low level classes in which the average person gets a bad grade. The point? Discourage people who don't belong from wasting their time for 4 years. If you don't do well in these classes, you weren't cut out for the major. Yes, engineering is hard. Some people's brains are made for it, others aren't.
I agree that the professors who don't care and the incompetent TAs contribute to this difficulty, but just about every engineer goes through it. The smart ones get As, the average ones get Bs, and the ones who don't belong in engineering or science get Cs. It's a crappy system but it does its job.
Furthermore, this is not really the reason that engineering is faultering. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people out there who do just fine in enginering. Although the average GPA in the first year or two is a 2.7, it goes way up once the people who belong find classes that interest them and the rest drop out.
I would contribute the lack of interest in engineering to money and respect. Engineers work their asses off for four years and then make 50-60,000 dollars a year. Then they see their econ friends who partied a lot more make 100,000. Additionally, as an engineer you are stuck working in a cubicle for the rest of your life. Your boss, a liberal arts major, has his own office and looks down at you. In fact, every non-engineer looks down at you because you are an engineer. IMO, engineers as a whole are quiet anti-social types who don't command respect, and aren't given much.
From what I can tell, most people in the west (at least the US and europe) assume Korea means South Korea. I guess that is the western anti-communist bias.
"Exact definitions are subjective but general ones should be easy enough"
Yes, exact definitions are subjective (and impossible). The problem in the first place was general definitions. We have generally defined planets as a large object orbiting a star. But this has only led us into problems and "scientifically splitting hairs."
I guess the lesson is if we can't define a planet, it doesn't really matter what a planet is. After all, "planet" is just a label. There realistically isn't a whole lot in common with Jupiter and the Earth, so why place them into the same category?
Thats an observational definition (all the planets are round, so that makes a good definition) but like all definitions of planets that have been so far this produces problems. A couple I can think of:
1. We will have to define round. This is a gray scale, and picking what "round" is will create controversy too. For example, how rough can the surface be? How oval can it be (even the earth isn't a sphere).
2. What about a baseball orbiting the sun? You need some sort of size requirement. The more liquidy a substance, the more easily it will become round at smaller sizes.
I don't mean to put down your definition - I actually like it - just pointing out that nothing is obvious in this debate.
What are you talking about? I was always under the impression that winmx was spyware free.
http://www.docsdownloads.com/Tier1/winmx.htm
From winmx.com cache:
"WinMX from winmx.com does not contain ANYTHING besides WinMX.
No spyware or other parasite programs will ever be in our software. We respect your privacy and security."
The article mentions On Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins' book about intelligence. I read it this summer, and think it is a great book with a lot of insightful comments that will seem almost obvious after you finish the book. On Intelligence presents his theory of how the brain becomes intelligent and how that information can be applied to computers. Anyone interested in AI should look into it (although it's not exactly a light read).
Wow, I wonder how Sony will respond to this. After all, bands usually have to give away all their freedom (and their souls) to the record companies when they sign.
Respect to Switchfoot. Oh, and down with the record companies, who don't give a damn about the artists or their music.
I was thinking specifically of airplanes. I frequently make 30+ hour one-way plane trips (obviously including layovers). Airplanes often don't have outlets.
Also, my car doesn't have an outlet. And I don't neccesarily want to buy and carry around a car adapter for all my electronics.
The charging is actually one of the really cool things about fuel cells. Instead of charging your Ipod for 8 hours, you can place your ipod into a charging station (which would be publically available and/or sold in stores) that would charge it in about 2 seconds. If the technology takes off, methanol (or whatever fuel will be used) will be easily available.
You may be right about methanol being dangerous. This is one of those things that will be worked on, and when/if it is fixed, will be available.
Wow, this looks really cool. I especially like the AA batteries. I have about 10 rechargeable AAs and could easily pack them with me on vacation and keep this thing going for a long time. Not something you can do with proprieatary batteries
original works for me
I just bought these headphones: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 065BP9/
They offer really good sound isolation (I sat next to the engines in a loud airplane last month and when I wore them I heard almost nothing).
They are a good alternative to sound cancellation - if you don't let sound in, you don't need to cancel it with iffy technology. Plus it costs less than 10% of the money and gives superb sound quality (not audiophile, but the best you can expect for less than a 100 imo).
It is sad how easily people in the government concede defeat to the terrorists. One of the things that define modern, western democracies is the freedoms it gives its people. When the terrorists see that they have succesfully destroyed those freedoms, they must feel very succesful.
I admit that governments need to make a compromise, but they shouldn't so easily show it off.
I don't like that system. It makes upgrading firefox a dreaded experience for me, as usually at least one of my many beloved extentions doesn't work without at least a little effort. I seriously am scared of upgrading to the next version of Firefox because of this problem. Something always breaks. Ideally, once you have something working and tweaked the way you like, you should be able to leave it alone.