I'd started rewatching Babylon 5 on streaming...but actually switched back to DVD. I was disappointed with the 4x3 aspect ratio of the streaming..ended up being worth it to see the clearer picture on DVD. Instant gratification from the streaming is nice, but the quality is hit & miss...Maybe I'll check back in on streaming when "HD" streams are back up to at least 1080i.
Yeah -- discontinuing Aries/Constellation does seem an odd decision. Looking at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDwL6eVCQ2c it seems like it Ares was at least well on it's way to being working/viable with a successful prototype launch. I'd wonder how much savings there would be to going back to the drawing board and trying to re-derive something based on shuttle components.
Seems like it'd be helpful to fund some of this stuff differently -- seems having different administrations coming in and re-tasking NASA with new long-term missions-du-jour is just a formula for cancelled projects and waste..If we stuck to A mission (whatever it is) we'd probably be in much better shape..
I'll be impressed when I see a VT330 or VT340 showing a graphical web browser -- heck, you could go back as far as a VT125 to get monochrome graphics...Not that sending bitmaps over serial would be fun, but modern vector graphics might be..altered..to something ReGIS compatible. That'd be a cool hack.
Neat to see a VT320 going again though, anyway -- been ages since I've seen one fired up.
There are services that will give you, in effect, a virtual post office box. You'll indeed by emailed pdfs of the mail you receive. Haven't used such a thing myself, but one service is at http://www.paperlessmail.com/
Well, it does bear a striking resemblance to Alpha EV7, which had glueless SMP and an on-chip memory controller. The interprocessor ports do strongly resemble hypertransport.
Here (http://www.neoseeker.com/news/5536-amd-hypertransport-the-next-generation/) they even call it a derivative of the EV7 bus.
Sounds like what you're looking for would be a D-VHS recorder. It'll record 5c encrypted shows directly from your cable box via firewire in full HD. The format never really took off, but it's basically the only removable media HD solution I'm aware of that works as you describe.
Now...if someone would just come out with that as a BluRay recorder I'd be happy. Bonus points if it'll transcode MPEG2 to MPEG4 and burn to DVD. A cablecard based HD recorder would be terrific, but a firewire unit that'd record from the cable box would be just dandy too...
So I'm curious what you'd think about one of the laser based turntables. (http://www.elpj.com/ for example) I guess my objection to LPs is you're basically damaging them every time you play them. My impression is laser-read vinyl is about as good quality as you can get.
I haven't had the chance to play with one though -- not much of the music I listen to is available on LP. Oggs of my music all sound "good enough" for my ears/equipment.
You do bring up an interesting point...As I sit here using my admittedlty aincent 400MHz Pentium 2 notebook it occurs to be that embedded class hardware would use much, much less power then current hardware would use.
Granted, you'd be stuck with yesteryear's speeds, but you just don't (well..shouldn't) need 3GHz to browse the web and write email. Anyone know any good notebook like devices using embedded type hw? Hopefully something that's still got a decent screen?
I don't know -- the backwards compatibility was significant to me. I've got a PS3 and it's my first Sony console. I used to be a big Sega fan, so I've got all their systems...given their exit from the console hw market, it was time to switch sides.
I did snag an Xbox (not 360) a few years back -- made an excellent myth frontend, and could play games too. With a new HDTV I was looking for a HD frontend..I'd have gotten a 360 if there were a way to run myth on it (yes, it's got linux now, but I believe it still doesn't support sound...and forget about using it for online games once you do get linux on there..).
The PS3 fit the bill nicely -- it's a nifty little HD frontend I don't have to hack to run linux on, and it gets me access to 3 generations of additional games I mostly haven't played. Without the backwards compatibility I might well have just slapped together a small pc for the same price.
Wonder how this compares to em86? I recall mention of that a few years back as a way to run x86 linux apps on alpha cpus. Not sure DEC/Compaq/HP ever released the source to the x86 execution engine, but em86 was pretty cool back in the day nonetheless..
Every now and then I see CompUSA have specials for $200 PCs. My parents just picked one up to replicate my myth HD setup. That's cheaper then I can piece together. On the off-chance that the video included doesn't support XVMC, a PCI XVMC card can be had for as little as $50.
For capturing..Myth does have support for firewire input from the cable box. You're kinda dedicating your cable box to myth that way, but it does seem to work okay..just not for the scrambled stuff. What you can get through firewire seems to vary by region. Check out the AVS forums -- they have info on what's available for most (larger) areas.
If you don't want to dedciate a cable box to myth, there are a couple linux-friendly cards for ~$100. I picked up an Air2PC card for that, as it's supported under both linux and windows.
For a remote, I might suggest the ATI Remote Wonder 2. It's an RF remote with lots of buttons -- nice for myth. Should be available for $40.
So...a HD PVR is quite doable for ~$500 if you're willing to wait for the right sales to come around.
Yes..Tivo is great..unless you want to use it with HDTV media. Then Myth starts looking quite a lot better.
I might change my tune once the HD Tivo is out, though -- somehow I doubt we'll be seeing any myth boxes with functioning cablecard slots any time soon.
What really annoys me about games that require the cd/dvd in the drive is they won't actually run from the cd/dvd. Back in the DOS days some of the first cd games were quite well behaved -- they'd save a few savegame or config files on the hd, and run the rest from the cd.
I'd rather just pop in a DVD in my nice fast DVD-ROM game and have it play all the movies and load game data from there. I know HD space is cheap these days, but it seems inexcusable to require users to have cutscenes they'll only see once loaded on their hard drive..
Playing from cd works for game consoles..it should (still) work for PCs too.
As someone who recently joined a company doing the time quota things (under notes, not exchange though) it's caught me by surprise a few times. No option to retrieve auto-deleted mail, either.
It'd be nice if we'd get a reminder that messages are about to disappear -- no issues with making folks stay on top of email, but it sucks to have stuff auto-disappear into the ether..
Excellent..Good to see there's a way to turn it off.
You know..features like this can really get under my skin on occasion. I expect page navigation to require network access. Same goes with file indexing features under windows xp..I expect file searches to take a while. I don't expect (or want the computer periodically waste cycles indexing to provide) google speed searches of the full contents of my hard drive.
Guess I'm just an old fogie who always likes to know what my computer is doing and why it's consuming memory..
Could I get a side order of encryption with that?
on
Zoep Goes Open Source
·
· Score: 1
Are there any actively maintained open source voip programs that support encrypted connections? I'm currently filling that need with speakfreely. It does the job well, but has it's shortcomings.
Skype is almost there, but I find it unsuitable for conversing with folks using dial-up connections, in addition to not being open source.
So here's a silly question..Does Darwin boot on the Intel Macs? Perhaps an analysis of whatever needs to be done to make that happen would help get linux booting on the intel macs.
If not..perhaps Apple can be coaxed into providing a recompilable installation cd/process for Darwin.
A little off topic, I know, but it had to be said since you say she wasn't an engineer. She does have a rather handy guide to semiconductor physics (http://britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm) out there...
I seem to recall a few years back they had a beta out that DID support OS/2. I played with it for a bit..It seemed nice and all, but the feature didn't make it into product. Guess the banks weren't quite willing to pay enough for the privilege...
...or, you can just look for a compact disc logo. Philips is the keeper of that standard, and doesn't approve of it going onto copy protected cds. (Since they generally protect them by subtly corrupting them)
Granted, it's not as flashy as a warning label, but it seems to get the job done.
If you have a server box handy, you can just leave squirrelmail (http://www.squirrelmail.org/) going to serve a web imap interface. I use my phone's web browser to get my imap mail through squirrelmail.
It's probably not as easy to use as the pay apps, but it does get the job done just fine for quick email checks..
Not exactly what you're looking for, but you might check out the minibosses. (http://minibosses.com/) They're a band that plays old video game soundtracks..quite amusing, actually.
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I'd started rewatching Babylon 5 on streaming...but actually switched back to DVD. I was disappointed with the 4x3 aspect ratio of the streaming..ended up being worth it to see the clearer picture on DVD. Instant gratification from the streaming is nice, but the quality is hit & miss...Maybe I'll check back in on streaming when "HD" streams are back up to at least 1080i.
Yeah -- discontinuing Aries/Constellation does seem an odd decision. Looking at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDwL6eVCQ2c it seems like it Ares was at least well on it's way to being working/viable with a successful prototype launch. I'd wonder how much savings there would be to going back to the drawing board and trying to re-derive something based on shuttle components.
Seems like it'd be helpful to fund some of this stuff differently -- seems having different administrations coming in and re-tasking NASA with new long-term missions-du-jour is just a formula for cancelled projects and waste..If we stuck to A mission (whatever it is) we'd probably be in much better shape..
I'll be impressed when I see a VT330 or VT340 showing a graphical web browser -- heck, you could go back as far as a VT125 to get monochrome graphics...Not that sending bitmaps over serial would be fun, but modern vector graphics might be..altered..to something ReGIS compatible. That'd be a cool hack.
Neat to see a VT320 going again though, anyway -- been ages since I've seen one fired up.
There are services that will give you, in effect, a virtual post office box. You'll indeed by emailed pdfs of the mail you receive. Haven't used such a thing myself, but one service is at http://www.paperlessmail.com/
Well, it does bear a striking resemblance to Alpha EV7, which had glueless SMP and an on-chip memory controller. The interprocessor ports do strongly resemble hypertransport.
Here (http://www.neoseeker.com/news/5536-amd-hypertransport-the-next-generation/) they even call it a derivative of the EV7 bus.
Sounds like what you're looking for would be a D-VHS recorder. It'll record 5c encrypted shows directly from your cable box via firewire in full HD. The format never really took off, but it's basically the only removable media HD solution I'm aware of that works as you describe.
Now...if someone would just come out with that as a BluRay recorder I'd be happy. Bonus points if it'll transcode MPEG2 to MPEG4 and burn to DVD. A cablecard based HD recorder would be terrific, but a firewire unit that'd record from the cable box would be just dandy too...
So I'm curious what you'd think about one of the laser based turntables. (http://www.elpj.com/ for example) I guess my objection to LPs is you're basically damaging them every time you play them. My impression is laser-read vinyl is about as good quality as you can get.
I haven't had the chance to play with one though -- not much of the music I listen to is available on LP. Oggs of my music all sound "good enough" for my ears/equipment.
You do bring up an interesting point...As I sit here using my admittedlty aincent 400MHz Pentium 2 notebook it occurs to be that embedded class hardware would use much, much less power then current hardware would use.
Granted, you'd be stuck with yesteryear's speeds, but you just don't (well..shouldn't) need 3GHz to browse the web and write email. Anyone know any good notebook like devices using embedded type hw? Hopefully something that's still got a decent screen?
I don't know -- the backwards compatibility was significant to me. I've got a PS3 and it's my first Sony console. I used to be a big Sega fan, so I've got all their systems...given their exit from the console hw market, it was time to switch sides.
I did snag an Xbox (not 360) a few years back -- made an excellent myth frontend, and could play games too. With a new HDTV I was looking for a HD frontend..I'd have gotten a 360 if there were a way to run myth on it (yes, it's got linux now, but I believe it still doesn't support sound...and forget about using it for online games once you do get linux on there..).
The PS3 fit the bill nicely -- it's a nifty little HD frontend I don't have to hack to run linux on, and it gets me access to 3 generations of additional games I mostly haven't played. Without the backwards compatibility I might well have just slapped together a small pc for the same price.
Wonder how this compares to em86? I recall mention of that a few years back as a way to run x86 linux apps on alpha cpus. Not sure DEC/Compaq/HP ever released the source to the x86 execution engine, but em86 was pretty cool back in the day nonetheless..
Maybe Microsoft just hadn't gotten around to optimizing the idle loop like IBM did for PPC and darwin: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/librar y/pa-unrollav3/
Every now and then I see CompUSA have specials for $200 PCs. My parents just picked one up to replicate my myth HD setup. That's cheaper then I can piece together. On the off-chance that the video included doesn't support XVMC, a PCI XVMC card can be had for as little as $50.
For capturing..Myth does have support for firewire input from the cable box. You're kinda dedicating your cable box to myth that way, but it does seem to work okay..just not for the scrambled stuff. What you can get through firewire seems to vary by region. Check out the AVS forums -- they have info on what's available for most (larger) areas.
If you don't want to dedciate a cable box to myth, there are a couple linux-friendly cards for ~$100. I picked up an Air2PC card for that, as it's supported under both linux and windows.
For a remote, I might suggest the ATI Remote Wonder 2. It's an RF remote with lots of buttons -- nice for myth. Should be available for $40.
So...a HD PVR is quite doable for ~$500 if you're willing to wait for the right sales to come around.
Yes..Tivo is great..unless you want to use it with HDTV media. Then Myth starts looking quite a lot better.
I might change my tune once the HD Tivo is out, though -- somehow I doubt we'll be seeing any myth boxes with functioning cablecard slots any time soon.
IIRC multicast isn't supported by the current DOCSIS standard for cable modems. That'd cut out a huge chunk of people right there. Looks like folks are working on it though, there's an interesting case study on Cisco's site here: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk828/technologies _case_study0900aecd802e2ce2.shtml
What really annoys me about games that require the cd/dvd in the drive is they won't actually run from the cd/dvd. Back in the DOS days some of the first cd games were quite well behaved -- they'd save a few savegame or config files on the hd, and run the rest from the cd.
I'd rather just pop in a DVD in my nice fast DVD-ROM game and have it play all the movies and load game data from there. I know HD space is cheap these days, but it seems inexcusable to require users to have cutscenes they'll only see once loaded on their hard drive..
Playing from cd works for game consoles..it should (still) work for PCs too.
As someone who recently joined a company doing the time quota things (under notes, not exchange though) it's caught me by surprise a few times. No option to retrieve auto-deleted mail, either.
It'd be nice if we'd get a reminder that messages are about to disappear -- no issues with making folks stay on top of email, but it sucks to have stuff auto-disappear into the ether..
Excellent..Good to see there's a way to turn it off.
You know..features like this can really get under my skin on occasion. I expect page navigation to require network access. Same goes with file indexing features under windows xp..I expect file searches to take a while. I don't expect (or want the computer periodically waste cycles indexing to provide) google speed searches of the full contents of my hard drive.
Guess I'm just an old fogie who always likes to know what my computer is doing and why it's consuming memory..
Are there any actively maintained open source voip programs that support encrypted connections? I'm currently filling that need with speakfreely. It does the job well, but has it's shortcomings.
Skype is almost there, but I find it unsuitable for conversing with folks using dial-up connections, in addition to not being open source.
So here's a silly question..Does Darwin boot on the Intel Macs? Perhaps an analysis of whatever needs to be done to make that happen would help get linux booting on the intel macs.
If not..perhaps Apple can be coaxed into providing a recompilable installation cd/process for Darwin.
Re: Britney Spears...
A little off topic, I know, but it had to be said since you say she wasn't an engineer. She does have a rather handy guide to semiconductor physics (http://britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm) out there...
I seem to recall a few years back they had a beta out that DID support OS/2. I played with it for a bit..It seemed nice and all, but the feature didn't make it into product. Guess the banks weren't quite willing to pay enough for the privilege...
...or, you can just look for a compact disc logo. Philips is the keeper of that standard, and doesn't approve of it going onto copy protected cds. (Since they generally protect them by subtly corrupting them)
Granted, it's not as flashy as a warning label, but it seems to get the job done.
If you have a server box handy, you can just leave squirrelmail (http://www.squirrelmail.org/) going to serve a web imap interface. I use my phone's web browser to get my imap mail through squirrelmail.
It's probably not as easy to use as the pay apps, but it does get the job done just fine for quick email checks..
I dunno -- I prefer the periodic table table here:
http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/
Not exactly what you're looking for, but you might check out the minibosses. (http://minibosses.com/) They're a band that plays old video game soundtracks..quite amusing, actually.