And what would you do with the paper trail? Paper trails are good to appeal to your boss's boss, but when you're dealing with an owner, what good does it do you? Are you going to try to sue for wrongful termination?
I have never encountered a special kind of MKV, AVI or other video file that I need to open in one specific media player that I don't use for most files of the same type
Then you're either not very experienced or... maybe you've been using nothing but VLC your whole life? For example, both Quicktime and WMP are set to open AVIs by default and can open AVI files. However, they can't open DivX AVI files without installing a special codec. Some of this has been addressed in Windows 7, which includes more codecs by default, but there are quite a lot of instances where a given player can play some kind of AVI, MP4, or AAC file but not *all* AVI, MP4, or AAC files. Sometimes the problem is the codec. Sometimes it's because they're using slightly altered containers.
I've also seen the problem with individual devices. It's one thing if the device can't play a specific resolution or bitrate, but I've seen it where the device will play one MP4 file at a certain resolution and bitrate, but not play another MP4 file at the same resolution and bitrate. I had to transcode the file from MP4 to MP4 using FFMPEG in order to get the thing to play. It's retarded.
Why not change the part that's causing the problem, the player? That doesn't require a whole industry standard to bend over backwards to support one specific device that, I might add, only came out recently.
Yeah, that might make sense if the problem were 1 specific player rather than an assortment of software players, software editors, and hardware devices which each use different incompatible variations and don't include support for other variations. Perhaps people would make a greater effort to standardize, then all the players, editors, and encoders could interoperate better.
Still, I'd say the varied use of vague container formats makes matters worse. I don't have a problem with container formats like MKV per se, but I'd rather encourage vendors to standardize on a subset of the format, carrying a different extension, that specifies codecs and even tries to standardize the sort of content and metadata it holds. You'd lose some flexibility, but it would make the whole experience of dealing with video a little less stupid and arbitrary.
I think this deserves a warning, though: some people are unreasonable.
Depending on how reasonable the owner is, it might be that absolutely nothing will solve the problem. Any reasonable argument, no matter how valid it is, even if it's a clear business case about cost, can easily be shot down or ignored by someone who isn't reasonable. People often aren't reasonable about their own family.
For example, here's a very possible (condensed) scenario:
You go to the owner with this sort of argument, and he says, "Go ahead and do the last one. Inform the Production Director that he shouldn't access people's hard drives anymore."
You say, "Well I'm not sure it's my place to manage the Production Director. Perhaps you'd like to inform him?"
To which he responds, "No, I'm asking you to do it."
You go ahead and clarify, "Ok, so I'm going to inform [his son], the Production Director, that he should change his workflow."
"Yes, go ahead. I want you to really enforce this rule strictly in order to save money. If he gives you any trouble, really yell at him."
So you go back and you inform the owner's son that he should change his workflow, and he gives you a dirty look and yells at you. Half an hour later, while trying to figure out how to handle things, you get called into the owners office.
"It has come to my attention that you and [his son] aren't getting along too well. He said you're being unreasonable and asking him to change his workflow. What's that about?" he asks.
"Ah, yes. If you remember, we talked about that. You said I should ask him to change his workflow...?"
"Um... yes, I think I must have misunderstood. Look, I don't know where you get off making these unreasonable decisions all on your own without consulting anyone. According to my son, you're a lying poopy-head. You'd better straighten out right now, or you're in trouble."
"But... I don't understand. What would you like me to do, then?"
"Just make things work however [his son] tells you to and leave me out of it."
Sorry if that's not exactly clear, but my point is, if your actions in any way mar your boss's ego or his son's ego, you'll probably get yourself into trouble. It might not be reasonable, but people in a position of power don't necessarily need to be reasonable. I've seen many small business owners who would allow their whole business to tank rather than swallow their pride. Be careful.
Having been in similar situations, I more or less agree.
There's no way around it: If the owner is really letting his son do whatever he wants, then any successful technical solution is likely to cause you real-world trouble. You may allow your designers to work better, but if the son goes complaining behind your back to the owner, you'll find yourself suffering more.
The real questions for this situation are (a) Is there any chance the owner is intelligent and reasonable enough for you to discuss the situation? and (b) If not, is your job otherwise good enough to tolerate a boss who's unprofessional enough to allow this sort of thing?
No, file extensions denote one thing very clearly: The file type.
And what's a "file type" then? What distinguishes one "file type" from another?
It seems you'd like a circular definition where what distinguishes "file types" is what extension they have. JPEG and JPEG2000 are different "file types" because they have different kinds of data in them, but MKV is always the same "file type" because it has the same extension.
In reality, the reason we use extensions and file-types is so that we can know which viewer to throw the file into. Either the OS does this automatically based on extension, or we know by looking at the extension ourselves. Having multiple different kinds of files using different types of encoding which might need to be viewed in different viewers, but all having the same extension and "file type" pretty well defeats the purpose.
Good comment. Additionally, it *COULD*, MIGHT, be an attempt by a CIO/CTO/whatever to get rid of non-approved software they feel might be a security risk.
Yeah, well of course the question is, did they decide "We're going to go with all Microsoft products," or was it more like, "We want to standardize on a single OS and a single browser, and we've decided on Windows and IE [for some set of reasons]." I definitely understand wanting to standardize on a set of software. Speaking as an IT person, having to maintain a hodgepodge of "whatever software a particular user wants" is a nightmare. I won't do it. Though I would personally like everyone to use more standards-compliant browsers, IE does have advantages (unfortunately).
The command line is a fine interface. Graphical interfaces are fine too. Haven't we all learned by now that there isn't one UI that is absolutely superior to all others, but rather it depends on the user, what the user is trying to accomplish, and the context?
Of course not, because an MP3 file can't possibly contain an AAC stream.
But... but... that precludes future codecs from being used in ".mp3" files! Oh, right, that's totally not a problem, because we come up with new formats for the new codecs.
Of course, because.jpg files can't contain JPEG 2000 data.
Of course they can. Rename a JPEG 2000 file to have the ".jpg" extension, and a.jpg file will be containing JPEG 2000 data. It's not what you're supposed to do, though, because that would be stupid. We use the file extension to indicate the encoding so that we know whether a certain viewer will be able to display it.
It's called MPEG-4 Part 14 (more commonly known as.mp4).
Files with the.mp4 extension can still use different codecs and be incompatible. For example, I've seen.mp4 files that will play on my PS3 and some that won't play on my PS3. Same with AVI.
So essentially your problem with Matroska is...
No, my problem with the way people use container formats in general is that it's confusing to users. From a users perspective, vendors are choosing to use the same extension for several similar but incompatible file formats for no apparent reason. If we want to do that, we may as well just give all video files the extension ".vid" and be done with it.
they're unlikely to limit their container to an arbitrary subset of all codecs, especially since this precludes all future codecs from ever being used.
Just come up with a different extension, for christ's sake. What's so hard about that?
We do it with all sorts of things. We don't say, "We can't limit what goes into a MP3, because that will proclude future codecs from ever being used!" No, we say, "This is what's in an MP3 file. If we create new audio codecs and new file formats, we'll use a different extension."
And there's a very good reason we handle things this way: when you get an MP3 (or whatever), you don't want confusion over whether you can play it. If your media player says it supports MP3s and you try to play an MP3, it shouldn't tell you that you need to download a different MP3 codec.
And when MPEG came up with AAC, people didn't continue to use the extension ".mp3" for it. When JPEG came up with a new incompatible graphics format, they didn't keep using ".jpg". I don't know what's so crazy about coming up with a standardized MPEG4 container that you can assume is H264, AAC, support for chapters, alternate audio, and subtitles, and leaving it at that. When something better than H264 comes out or people want to include some new kind of metadata, pick a different extension so that people know it's an incompatible standard.
FPS is also a sub-genre of "shooter", just like shmup. So you can't use "shmup" to refer to an FPS as they are different.
Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but that's pedantic and retarded. First, I didn't even say "shmup". I wouldn't really ever use the term "shmup" since I'm not 12 years old anymore. Second, two sub-genres of the same genre can, in fact, overlap. Genres often aren't mutually exclusive-- a horror film might also be science fiction, a slasher film, and a mystery all at the same time. If a "shoot'em up" game can be played from a first-person perspective, then it's also a FPS.
And *regardless*, I was using the term "shoot'em up" in the generic sense that the gaming-specific term derived from. "Shoot'em up" is a genre of movie (originally westerns) that are basically semi-mindless gunslinging action movies. Sometimes the term has been used more generically to mean something like "mindless violent fun". I don't know exactly when the term got applied to gaming, but I'm quite sure the normal meaning came first.
Well first, I believe "shoot'em up" has been a term since before there were video games. Second, it has been used to describe any kind of "shooter" game where you run around and shoot things semi-mindlessly. Even your link describes it as a sub-genre of the genre "shooter". FPS = "First Person Shooter".
Well they might get separated and lost more easily. It's easier to keep track of a single file than to track multiple files and make sure they all keep their relationship. Plus container formats do things like... keep the various streams in sync, allow embedding of metadata.
Is it too crazy to say, "If it has an MKV extension, then it can only use [certain streams, bitrates, and codecs]. Don't say your player supports MKV unless it supports all of those. If you want to make a container that uses different codecs, use a different container."
I mean, from a consumer/user standpoint, it's just a little retarded to have to say, "This player plays files encoded in H264 with the MP4 extension, but not all H264 encoded files with an MP4 extension. If you know a crapload about container formats, then maybe you know the difference."
Yes, and you can even include alternate streams and additional metadata into the same container. So a single container file might hold a video stream divided into chapters, stereo audio with English, surround sound audio with English, stereo audio dubbed into Spanish, English subtitles, and Spanish subtitles. The player might then be able to choose which streams to play.
So that's the point of having a container format, but it can be somewhat annoying have multiple files using the same container format with the same extension, but with different codecs and incompatible with different players. I do agree that it'd be nice if vendors would give incompatible implementations different extensions so that you could spot them from looking at the file system. Like I don't really like getting an AVI file and not knowing whether I need to install an additional codec, or getting an MP4 file and not knowing straight off whether it will play on my PS3.
Once manufacturers recoup their R&D costs and achieve economies of scale, the prices on SSD will come down too.
Yes, there are multiple factors. There's R&D costs, the costs of retooling the factories, and the costs of retraining personnel. I don't know about SSDs, but at least in the case of LCDs, there were also problems with defects in the factories. Even if it was cheaper to produce a panel, there was a greater failure rate and they had to account for the cost of producing failed units.
I mean, yes, these companies want to jack up the price as much as they can, but there is real competition in the market which I would guess would keep it somewhat honest. There isn't really an SSD or LCD monopoly.
Your post is funny, but I think it's a fair complaint even if you don't agree. The fact that it's a FPS doesn't really mean that it has to be a mindless shoot-em-up.
There are some really great games which have taken the basic technical setup of a FPS and gone a different direction, with terrific results. Portal is one, but a real pioneer in that sort of thing was "Thief: The Dark Project". Awesome game. I don't quite remember if there was any time in the game which you had to engage in combat, but certainly most missions didn't require it. Some missions, depending on the difficulty level, forbid you from shooting anyone.
On the other hand, I wouldn't say that Half Life was a mindless shoot-em-up, and I don't necessarily mind mindless shoot-em-up games either. Still, I do really appreciate it when a game like Portal or Thief come along and do something that's a little more interesting and less... shooting-centric.
It's a good theory, but really it doesn't pan out too well. I think the problem is that people are so damned habitual. If you sit around thinking violent thoughts, that becomes the way you think, the way you see things, and the way your brain works.
It's like complaints; contrary to what you might think, complaining and "getting it out" doesn't really tend to make you feel better. The more you talk about your complaints and criticisms, the more you dwell on them. If complaints and criticisms dominate your thoughts, you'll only feel worse. Sometimes it is better to just gloss over some of the bad things, just so long as you don't get caught up in denial of the factual reality.
Still, I don't believe that playing violent games has a big effect on violent behavior. I think some of these studies may make the classic mistake of confusing causation and correlation. Sorry, I know it's a cliche to point that out, but it's appropriate here. If you want to say there's a high correlation between kids who play massive amounts of violent video games and kids who become violent, I'll believe you. Maybe kids disposed to violence are attracted to violent games. Maybe kids who have extremely lonely and unsatisfying lives are more disposed to play video games. Maybe kids who sit around playing video games all day have some overlap with kids who are emotionally neglected by their parents?
It's not that I don't think video games can have a negative effect, but (not really based on any science) I don't think they particularly make you violent. I think they're far more likely to make you detached, even passive. The primary experience of video games, even in FPS, is that you are not really a part of the world.
I know it's a joke, but in fairness, it's not that New Yorkers are uncaring.
It's more like... you have to learn to ignore *everyone*. It's not that we learn to ignore the few homeless people we encounter; it's that we learn to ignore our millions of neighbors. The homeless are just lumped into the group of "the millions of people in this city that I don't have time to think about right now."
New Yorkers are actually pretty nice and helpful and look out for each other. The funniest thing is, I said something like that to someone and they said, "No way. I went to New York and was hanging around in Times Square, and everyone there was horribly rude and nasty."
I laughed pretty hard at that. New Yorkers don't spend time in Times Square. Those horrible, nasty, rude people you run into at all the New York tourist traps? Those are other tourists.
Or another sort of question: maybe time is running backwards, and you can turn an egg into an omelet, but you can't turn an omelet into an egg.
The only thing that really tells us that time has an arrow is our perception of it and our understanding of causality. But ultimately that's ok, since we can't really hope to understand the universe independent of human understanding.
I know, I sound like a freshman philosophy major. I just don't have time to go into a real exploration of the idea.
Why do GNU license holders have any more rights than the people trying to protect their IP?
They don't, but then people who license their work under the GNU aren't usually suing grandmothers who don't own computers for license violation. They also aren't lobbying the government for special protection to erode consumer rights and fair use provisions. Their lawsuits are generally regarding straight-up copyright infringement by other publishers who are profiting from someone else's copyrighted work.
Make no mistake: we're in a propaganda war. You might call it "marketing" or "public relations" or "lobbying" or whatever else you want to call it, but the intention is the same. Publishers of games, books, movies, music, and software are all trying to convince you of a particular view of "intellectual property". They're not trying to convince you through honest rational arguments, but rather through logical fallacies and mass brainwashing.
They're trying to convince us all that they are, as industries, entitled to exist, and entitled to a governmental guarantee of profitability. They're trying to convince us that copyright was always considered an inalienable human right, and that authors of creative works have always been entitled to absolute control of their creations in perpetuity. Further, they're trying to convince us that they, the publishers, are the true authors of these works. The guy who wrote the song or the novel, the band who performed the song, the developer who actually wrote the code-- these people are just employees. They're assistants in the process, but the company who funded the work is the true author, and the only one entitled to protection.
That's the propaganda being sold to the public. Don't think for a second that we're involved in an honest debate.
Right, and according to the US Constitution, at least, copyright is not really a "right".
What I mean by that is, look at the Constitution. Look at where it talks about real human rights, like freedom of speech, freedom against cruel and unusual punishment, etc. Where's all that stuff? It's in the amendments, where the authors wanted to list some of the inalienable human rights that the government was forbidden from intruding on.
Now let's find where it talks about copyrights. You know where that is? Article 2, section 8, under "Powers of Congress". Congress is granted the power to grant special rights in order to promote science and art. It comes right under the Congress's power to build communications infrastructure, i.e. directly in the section where the US government is being granted some of its most socialist powers.
Whereas the Bill of Rights are inalienable human rights that the government is forbidden from taking away, copyright is a socialist program that the government was empowered to create. However, the government is not constitutionally obligated to provide copyright protection of any kind; they're merely allowed to provide it insofar as the goal is to promote science and art.
There is no legitimate reason for holding back the full hardware interface documentation. NONE.
I always assumed hardware manufacturers were concerned about trade secrets-- like if NVIDIA released all the information on their cards, there might be some information in there that ATI could use to make their cards faster. Is there really absolutely no possibility of that sort of thing?
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And what would you do with the paper trail? Paper trails are good to appeal to your boss's boss, but when you're dealing with an owner, what good does it do you? Are you going to try to sue for wrongful termination?
I have never encountered a special kind of MKV, AVI or other video file that I need to open in one specific media player that I don't use for most files of the same type
Then you're either not very experienced or... maybe you've been using nothing but VLC your whole life? For example, both Quicktime and WMP are set to open AVIs by default and can open AVI files. However, they can't open DivX AVI files without installing a special codec. Some of this has been addressed in Windows 7, which includes more codecs by default, but there are quite a lot of instances where a given player can play some kind of AVI, MP4, or AAC file but not *all* AVI, MP4, or AAC files. Sometimes the problem is the codec. Sometimes it's because they're using slightly altered containers.
I've also seen the problem with individual devices. It's one thing if the device can't play a specific resolution or bitrate, but I've seen it where the device will play one MP4 file at a certain resolution and bitrate, but not play another MP4 file at the same resolution and bitrate. I had to transcode the file from MP4 to MP4 using FFMPEG in order to get the thing to play. It's retarded.
Why not change the part that's causing the problem, the player? That doesn't require a whole industry standard to bend over backwards to support one specific device that, I might add, only came out recently.
Yeah, that might make sense if the problem were 1 specific player rather than an assortment of software players, software editors, and hardware devices which each use different incompatible variations and don't include support for other variations. Perhaps people would make a greater effort to standardize, then all the players, editors, and encoders could interoperate better.
Still, I'd say the varied use of vague container formats makes matters worse. I don't have a problem with container formats like MKV per se, but I'd rather encourage vendors to standardize on a subset of the format, carrying a different extension, that specifies codecs and even tries to standardize the sort of content and metadata it holds. You'd lose some flexibility, but it would make the whole experience of dealing with video a little less stupid and arbitrary.
I think this deserves a warning, though: some people are unreasonable.
Depending on how reasonable the owner is, it might be that absolutely nothing will solve the problem. Any reasonable argument, no matter how valid it is, even if it's a clear business case about cost, can easily be shot down or ignored by someone who isn't reasonable. People often aren't reasonable about their own family.
For example, here's a very possible (condensed) scenario:
You go to the owner with this sort of argument, and he says, "Go ahead and do the last one. Inform the Production Director that he shouldn't access people's hard drives anymore."
You say, "Well I'm not sure it's my place to manage the Production Director. Perhaps you'd like to inform him?"
To which he responds, "No, I'm asking you to do it."
You go ahead and clarify, "Ok, so I'm going to inform [his son], the Production Director, that he should change his workflow."
"Yes, go ahead. I want you to really enforce this rule strictly in order to save money. If he gives you any trouble, really yell at him."
So you go back and you inform the owner's son that he should change his workflow, and he gives you a dirty look and yells at you. Half an hour later, while trying to figure out how to handle things, you get called into the owners office.
"It has come to my attention that you and [his son] aren't getting along too well. He said you're being unreasonable and asking him to change his workflow. What's that about?" he asks.
"Ah, yes. If you remember, we talked about that. You said I should ask him to change his workflow...?"
"Um... yes, I think I must have misunderstood. Look, I don't know where you get off making these unreasonable decisions all on your own without consulting anyone. According to my son, you're a lying poopy-head. You'd better straighten out right now, or you're in trouble."
"But... I don't understand. What would you like me to do, then?"
"Just make things work however [his son] tells you to and leave me out of it."
Sorry if that's not exactly clear, but my point is, if your actions in any way mar your boss's ego or his son's ego, you'll probably get yourself into trouble. It might not be reasonable, but people in a position of power don't necessarily need to be reasonable. I've seen many small business owners who would allow their whole business to tank rather than swallow their pride. Be careful.
Having been in similar situations, I more or less agree.
There's no way around it: If the owner is really letting his son do whatever he wants, then any successful technical solution is likely to cause you real-world trouble. You may allow your designers to work better, but if the son goes complaining behind your back to the owner, you'll find yourself suffering more.
The real questions for this situation are (a) Is there any chance the owner is intelligent and reasonable enough for you to discuss the situation? and (b) If not, is your job otherwise good enough to tolerate a boss who's unprofessional enough to allow this sort of thing?
No, file extensions denote one thing very clearly: The file type.
And what's a "file type" then? What distinguishes one "file type" from another?
It seems you'd like a circular definition where what distinguishes "file types" is what extension they have. JPEG and JPEG2000 are different "file types" because they have different kinds of data in them, but MKV is always the same "file type" because it has the same extension.
In reality, the reason we use extensions and file-types is so that we can know which viewer to throw the file into. Either the OS does this automatically based on extension, or we know by looking at the extension ourselves. Having multiple different kinds of files using different types of encoding which might need to be viewed in different viewers, but all having the same extension and "file type" pretty well defeats the purpose.
Good comment. Additionally, it *COULD*, MIGHT, be an attempt by a CIO/CTO/whatever to get rid of non-approved software they feel might be a security risk.
Yeah, well of course the question is, did they decide "We're going to go with all Microsoft products," or was it more like, "We want to standardize on a single OS and a single browser, and we've decided on Windows and IE [for some set of reasons]." I definitely understand wanting to standardize on a set of software. Speaking as an IT person, having to maintain a hodgepodge of "whatever software a particular user wants" is a nightmare. I won't do it. Though I would personally like everyone to use more standards-compliant browsers, IE does have advantages (unfortunately).
The command line is a fine interface. Graphical interfaces are fine too. Haven't we all learned by now that there isn't one UI that is absolutely superior to all others, but rather it depends on the user, what the user is trying to accomplish, and the context?
Of course not, because an MP3 file can't possibly contain an AAC stream.
But... but... that precludes future codecs from being used in ".mp3" files! Oh, right, that's totally not a problem, because we come up with new formats for the new codecs.
Of course, because .jpg files can't contain JPEG 2000 data.
Of course they can. Rename a JPEG 2000 file to have the ".jpg" extension, and a .jpg file will be containing JPEG 2000 data. It's not what you're supposed to do, though, because that would be stupid. We use the file extension to indicate the encoding so that we know whether a certain viewer will be able to display it.
It's called MPEG-4 Part 14 (more commonly known as .mp4).
Files with the .mp4 extension can still use different codecs and be incompatible. For example, I've seen .mp4 files that will play on my PS3 and some that won't play on my PS3. Same with AVI.
So essentially your problem with Matroska is...
No, my problem with the way people use container formats in general is that it's confusing to users. From a users perspective, vendors are choosing to use the same extension for several similar but incompatible file formats for no apparent reason. If we want to do that, we may as well just give all video files the extension ".vid" and be done with it.
Does your "work" include battling Batman while wearing clown makeup?
they're unlikely to limit their container to an arbitrary subset of all codecs, especially since this precludes all future codecs from ever being used.
Just come up with a different extension, for christ's sake. What's so hard about that?
We do it with all sorts of things. We don't say, "We can't limit what goes into a MP3, because that will proclude future codecs from ever being used!" No, we say, "This is what's in an MP3 file. If we create new audio codecs and new file formats, we'll use a different extension."
And there's a very good reason we handle things this way: when you get an MP3 (or whatever), you don't want confusion over whether you can play it. If your media player says it supports MP3s and you try to play an MP3, it shouldn't tell you that you need to download a different MP3 codec.
And when MPEG came up with AAC, people didn't continue to use the extension ".mp3" for it. When JPEG came up with a new incompatible graphics format, they didn't keep using ".jpg". I don't know what's so crazy about coming up with a standardized MPEG4 container that you can assume is H264, AAC, support for chapters, alternate audio, and subtitles, and leaving it at that. When something better than H264 comes out or people want to include some new kind of metadata, pick a different extension so that people know it's an incompatible standard.
FPS is also a sub-genre of "shooter", just like shmup. So you can't use "shmup" to refer to an FPS as they are different.
Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but that's pedantic and retarded. First, I didn't even say "shmup". I wouldn't really ever use the term "shmup" since I'm not 12 years old anymore. Second, two sub-genres of the same genre can, in fact, overlap. Genres often aren't mutually exclusive-- a horror film might also be science fiction, a slasher film, and a mystery all at the same time. If a "shoot'em up" game can be played from a first-person perspective, then it's also a FPS.
And *regardless*, I was using the term "shoot'em up" in the generic sense that the gaming-specific term derived from. "Shoot'em up" is a genre of movie (originally westerns) that are basically semi-mindless gunslinging action movies. Sometimes the term has been used more generically to mean something like "mindless violent fun". I don't know exactly when the term got applied to gaming, but I'm quite sure the normal meaning came first.
Well first, I believe "shoot'em up" has been a term since before there were video games. Second, it has been used to describe any kind of "shooter" game where you run around and shoot things semi-mindlessly. Even your link describes it as a sub-genre of the genre "shooter". FPS = "First Person Shooter".
Well they might get separated and lost more easily. It's easier to keep track of a single file than to track multiple files and make sure they all keep their relationship. Plus container formats do things like... keep the various streams in sync, allow embedding of metadata.
Is it too crazy to say, "If it has an MKV extension, then it can only use [certain streams, bitrates, and codecs]. Don't say your player supports MKV unless it supports all of those. If you want to make a container that uses different codecs, use a different container."
I mean, from a consumer/user standpoint, it's just a little retarded to have to say, "This player plays files encoded in H264 with the MP4 extension, but not all H264 encoded files with an MP4 extension. If you know a crapload about container formats, then maybe you know the difference."
Yes, and you can even include alternate streams and additional metadata into the same container. So a single container file might hold a video stream divided into chapters, stereo audio with English, surround sound audio with English, stereo audio dubbed into Spanish, English subtitles, and Spanish subtitles. The player might then be able to choose which streams to play.
So that's the point of having a container format, but it can be somewhat annoying have multiple files using the same container format with the same extension, but with different codecs and incompatible with different players. I do agree that it'd be nice if vendors would give incompatible implementations different extensions so that you could spot them from looking at the file system. Like I don't really like getting an AVI file and not knowing whether I need to install an additional codec, or getting an MP4 file and not knowing straight off whether it will play on my PS3.
Once manufacturers recoup their R&D costs and achieve economies of scale, the prices on SSD will come down too.
Yes, there are multiple factors. There's R&D costs, the costs of retooling the factories, and the costs of retraining personnel. I don't know about SSDs, but at least in the case of LCDs, there were also problems with defects in the factories. Even if it was cheaper to produce a panel, there was a greater failure rate and they had to account for the cost of producing failed units.
I mean, yes, these companies want to jack up the price as much as they can, but there is real competition in the market which I would guess would keep it somewhat honest. There isn't really an SSD or LCD monopoly.
Your post is funny, but I think it's a fair complaint even if you don't agree. The fact that it's a FPS doesn't really mean that it has to be a mindless shoot-em-up.
There are some really great games which have taken the basic technical setup of a FPS and gone a different direction, with terrific results. Portal is one, but a real pioneer in that sort of thing was "Thief: The Dark Project". Awesome game. I don't quite remember if there was any time in the game which you had to engage in combat, but certainly most missions didn't require it. Some missions, depending on the difficulty level, forbid you from shooting anyone.
On the other hand, I wouldn't say that Half Life was a mindless shoot-em-up, and I don't necessarily mind mindless shoot-em-up games either. Still, I do really appreciate it when a game like Portal or Thief come along and do something that's a little more interesting and less... shooting-centric.
It's a good theory, but really it doesn't pan out too well. I think the problem is that people are so damned habitual. If you sit around thinking violent thoughts, that becomes the way you think, the way you see things, and the way your brain works.
It's like complaints; contrary to what you might think, complaining and "getting it out" doesn't really tend to make you feel better. The more you talk about your complaints and criticisms, the more you dwell on them. If complaints and criticisms dominate your thoughts, you'll only feel worse. Sometimes it is better to just gloss over some of the bad things, just so long as you don't get caught up in denial of the factual reality.
Still, I don't believe that playing violent games has a big effect on violent behavior. I think some of these studies may make the classic mistake of confusing causation and correlation. Sorry, I know it's a cliche to point that out, but it's appropriate here. If you want to say there's a high correlation between kids who play massive amounts of violent video games and kids who become violent, I'll believe you. Maybe kids disposed to violence are attracted to violent games. Maybe kids who have extremely lonely and unsatisfying lives are more disposed to play video games. Maybe kids who sit around playing video games all day have some overlap with kids who are emotionally neglected by their parents?
It's not that I don't think video games can have a negative effect, but (not really based on any science) I don't think they particularly make you violent. I think they're far more likely to make you detached, even passive. The primary experience of video games, even in FPS, is that you are not really a part of the world.
I know it's a joke, but in fairness, it's not that New Yorkers are uncaring.
It's more like... you have to learn to ignore *everyone*. It's not that we learn to ignore the few homeless people we encounter; it's that we learn to ignore our millions of neighbors. The homeless are just lumped into the group of "the millions of people in this city that I don't have time to think about right now."
New Yorkers are actually pretty nice and helpful and look out for each other. The funniest thing is, I said something like that to someone and they said, "No way. I went to New York and was hanging around in Times Square, and everyone there was horribly rude and nasty."
I laughed pretty hard at that. New Yorkers don't spend time in Times Square. Those horrible, nasty, rude people you run into at all the New York tourist traps? Those are other tourists.
Or another sort of question: maybe time is running backwards, and you can turn an egg into an omelet, but you can't turn an omelet into an egg.
The only thing that really tells us that time has an arrow is our perception of it and our understanding of causality. But ultimately that's ok, since we can't really hope to understand the universe independent of human understanding.
I know, I sound like a freshman philosophy major. I just don't have time to go into a real exploration of the idea.
Why do GNU license holders have any more rights than the people trying to protect their IP?
They don't, but then people who license their work under the GNU aren't usually suing grandmothers who don't own computers for license violation. They also aren't lobbying the government for special protection to erode consumer rights and fair use provisions. Their lawsuits are generally regarding straight-up copyright infringement by other publishers who are profiting from someone else's copyrighted work.
Make no mistake: we're in a propaganda war. You might call it "marketing" or "public relations" or "lobbying" or whatever else you want to call it, but the intention is the same. Publishers of games, books, movies, music, and software are all trying to convince you of a particular view of "intellectual property". They're not trying to convince you through honest rational arguments, but rather through logical fallacies and mass brainwashing.
They're trying to convince us all that they are, as industries, entitled to exist, and entitled to a governmental guarantee of profitability. They're trying to convince us that copyright was always considered an inalienable human right, and that authors of creative works have always been entitled to absolute control of their creations in perpetuity. Further, they're trying to convince us that they, the publishers, are the true authors of these works. The guy who wrote the song or the novel, the band who performed the song, the developer who actually wrote the code-- these people are just employees. They're assistants in the process, but the company who funded the work is the true author, and the only one entitled to protection.
That's the propaganda being sold to the public. Don't think for a second that we're involved in an honest debate.
Right, and according to the US Constitution, at least, copyright is not really a "right".
What I mean by that is, look at the Constitution. Look at where it talks about real human rights, like freedom of speech, freedom against cruel and unusual punishment, etc. Where's all that stuff? It's in the amendments, where the authors wanted to list some of the inalienable human rights that the government was forbidden from intruding on.
Now let's find where it talks about copyrights. You know where that is? Article 2, section 8, under "Powers of Congress". Congress is granted the power to grant special rights in order to promote science and art. It comes right under the Congress's power to build communications infrastructure, i.e. directly in the section where the US government is being granted some of its most socialist powers.
Whereas the Bill of Rights are inalienable human rights that the government is forbidden from taking away, copyright is a socialist program that the government was empowered to create. However, the government is not constitutionally obligated to provide copyright protection of any kind; they're merely allowed to provide it insofar as the goal is to promote science and art.
There is no legitimate reason for holding back the full hardware interface documentation. NONE.
I always assumed hardware manufacturers were concerned about trade secrets-- like if NVIDIA released all the information on their cards, there might be some information in there that ATI could use to make their cards faster. Is there really absolutely no possibility of that sort of thing?
Is IE8 much better? I haven't done any meaningful web design in the past several years, so I really don't know.