They won't let us copy over-the-air, "high value" programming, but how many of you will watch a movie when it comes on TV even though you already own it in several formats? How many of you have started buying DVDs of your favorite VHS movies?
When did this whole "us vs them" attitude start where these companies are putting so many restrictions on new technology because they feel like there is POTENTIAL for their IP to be lost. Well, bullocks to that. Anything they do will be broken anyway. Why not just forget the whole thing and move on. Hell, they're so damn scared they MIGHT lose IP they will spend millions to prevent it.
And all of you will say Napster was a Good Thing, but I say Napster brought the end of the Good Thing. The free ride is over my friends. Copy protection on CDs, TV you can't even watch. Digital Rights Management on downloaded things. What's next? A car that gets 10MPG less unless you pay a yearly fee to the company that sold it to you? A keyboard that disables the letter 'e' unless you pay.001 cents per keystroke?
Napster screwed everything up. It made companies afraid of technology that they're willing to sacrifice features (e.g. TiVo) for fear of lawsits from other companies. And this "Intellectual Property" they banter on about is so etherical anyway.
Oh? So you can only make 3 billion dollars next year instead of 5. Oh, so record sales have doubled in the past year after lagging for 5 years yet you'll still put a business out of business.
Capitalism sucks when the people with the power aren't the ones with the money. I'm not sure when it happened, but it'll be the downfall of everything we currently hold sacred. Our paradigm shift will be watching all the things we used to enjoy going away. Our children will not think twice about paying to breathe, and we'll hate the fact we pay for it.
How are you going to get electricity from the fusion reactor (heat)? No, we probably won't be using free electrons from the reaction (heat). The fusion reaction produces a lot more energy in other forms (heat). So (heat), you (heat) probably (heat) would (heat) use (heat) that (heat) energy (heat). Perhaps you would use heat (heat!).
Yes, heat is the current method of gathering kinetic energy for a power plant. But who's to say we won't find a better, more efficient means of energy capture in the future. Be able to use fusion to STORE energy much like chemical batteries do today. It's just a matter of time.
.anacron
Since when did the posts on/. have to be logical? Isn't dreaming and speculation allowed anymore?
Actually, I believe Thomas Edison orginally evisioned power production in this way -- with a small generation plant on every city block. However, electrical utilities have figured out that producing power at really large power plants is more efficient than many smaller ones. A 50 kilowatt deisel turbine power station is more efficient at generating power than a Honda generator in everybody's backyard. And every tiny little gain in efficiency for the big utilities is money in the bank.
Yes, but I wonder if that all changes with fusion reactors. I am not as educated on the inner workings of them as I'd like. I understand the basic concept, but the energy requirements needed to sustain the magnetic field are probably the largest single energy expense in the reactor model. Once we achieve sustainable fusion the next step will likely be making the input energy requirements smaller (so the yeild is larger) and the first place I'd probably look is in the magnetic containment field.
What happens if the containment field fails -- the internal plasma would presumably fly apart, but would it dissapate or would it cause wide spread damage?
Does anyone have an equations or links or any online resources that would indicate what would happen if a "backyard sun" (i.e. home fusion generator) containment field failed? I'd also imagine if you had a "cluster" of these spread out over a home neighborhood or high-rise that a chain reaction could occur if the stability in one is lost. Much like current ICBMs work. A seed explosion which causes the rest of the reaction to start. I wonder what the safe operating distance between these things would be. Or how you'd even find out. Anyone have any ideas?
The economics wouldn't be because of more power generated, but because "extra" or "unused" power could be fed back into the system and sent somewhere else. A closed, self-sustaining system which is capable of routing power as appropriate, much like the power grid in the USA, but less centralized. You could use your reactor at home and sell power to your neighbors when you weren't there. Or your reactor could do a quick peer-to-peer auction (next killer JXTA app anyone?) in your neighborhood to find out if it would be less expensive to buy from a neighbor or to produce electricity itself.
So I was thinking more along the lines of clustering for sharing, profitibility and expense mitigation rather than clustering for total energy output increases.
Because it's not yet possible I wonder if anyone has thought about this before -- would it be less expensive to "cluster" smaller fusion reactors together to achieve energy output, or is building one large reactor the "best" way? I just look at the progression of things: Room-sized computers->high-end workstations->desktops->distributed computing... maybe power generation can follow a similar model? We've already scaled up -- moved from small output steam generators.. is it time to start scaling down again?
Yes. Redundancy and competition is bad. Because most people are too inept to compete effectively. And becase redundant solutions tend to be less expensive (vis a vis lesser quality) rip-offs of the original product.
Make me the best product in the world, put all your resources to it, and I'll buy it. I don't buy things based on name brand, flashiness or promises. I buy based on quality. And I just can't believe that electric lines are going to be able to compete (in the long term) with more viable consumer solutions.
Schrodinger's cat may be dead, but only because you opened the box. Leave the damn box closed for a decade or more and *then* we'll talk about quality of broadband service.
Does anyone else but me think it's a Bad Thing that we will eventually have 10 or so differnet ways to get broadband access to our homes? Or am I missing the point? Not only does each different implementation tie us to the standards of the delivery mechanism, but we also have political boundaries to overcome when dealing with the players involved in every medium. Getting local power companies to agree on a standard might be easier than cable companies (b/c there tends to be fewer power companies), but how many delivery mechanisms do we *really* need for the world to have broadband?
Wouldn't it be easier if, instead of having everyone jump on the bandwagon trying to make money, they just pooled their resources to make a single, unified delivery solution?
I attended JavaOne last week. There were 20,000+ java developers there. Much bigger than any single C++ conference. The power of Java is not the syntax of the language, which is what most discussions get in to.
The power of Java is that once you understand the fundamentals of the language, learning something new is just a matter of learning a new API. C++ has a similar concept, but the centralization (Sun) and open development nature of Java lend it to doing more robust applications.
Now, I bet many of you don't know about the Java Community Process. Basically if Sun wants to change the language, or more importantly *you* want to change the language, you just submit it and a JSR is created. You work with other people who have similar interests, and BAM you've made a difference.
Also, the flexibility of Java is pretty powerfull too. Sure, it has a lot of the same features, but the monetary benefits of decreased code maintenence really make a difference.
Of course, if you're a bad programmer than no language will help, Java even less slow. It's possible for Java to be 90% as fast as C++ when a JIT (just in time) compiler is used. The JIT compiler reads the compiled bytecodes and basically recompiles on the fly to code written for the local platform. So when using a JIT you get speed, performance, memory optimization, etc.
Java is not just better than C++. It blows it out of the water. Anyone who says differently doesn't understand the fundamentals of the language and is ignorant enough to be content.
Open winamp. Hit shift-L and select your top-level MP3 directory. This should load all the MP3s on your system. Hit Ctl-P, select output plug ins, and select "Nullsoft Disk Writer plug-in". Click 'configure' and select the directory where you want all your wavs to go. Go back to the main window and click 'play' and wait. Wait some more. And make sure you have lots of HD space.
Then open the Ogg encoder of your choice, and do the same thing, but in reverse.
Alternatively, you could just set up winamp as described above, and then create a batch file which does something like:
<pseudocode>
for all files in a directory {
call winamp %i where %i is the current file
call oggEncoder with appropraite options and pass it.wav file
}
<\pseudocode>
This would be maybe 15-20 lines of code in Java. The question is can the current incarnations of the Ogg encode handle command line params to do encoding?
The point of all of this is that Fraunhauffer (sp?) will begin charging licensing fees for ANYONE who has an MP3 encoder/decoder built in. By making a similar/equal open source, free, extensible standard, music will remain free.
Yes, you can still keep all your MP3s around. But expect to start paying more (you do pay for all the software on your machine, right?) for both encoders and decoders.
Also, because one person owns the MP3 standard, they can make changes to it at will and discontinue licensing older versions. If Fraunhauffer ever gets in bed with the recording industry, find a nice soft spot to hide and don't come out untill the lawyers' dust settles.
The openness of this standard is the differientiator, and it's the only one that should ever exist. All other qualities, file size, sound quality, compression rates, etc. should remain the same.
I don't understand this.. how can open source software hinder development? If anything it provides a common base with which companies can aggregate components to make even better software.
Why is it that open source software is viewed as 'ammature' or 'non-professional' when it's compared to closed-source products? It's almost as if people believe that the only programmers who work on open source projects are somehow of a lesser quality than those who work at large corporations. Well, I've got news for you. I'd argue that open source programmers are usually BETTER than most closed source programmers.
But companies don't view things this way. Rather, they refuse to belive that something which is inherently free to the world can provide any value. After all, once it's 'free', how can you make money on it.
And herin lies the real problem that's facing companies. Open source software limits companies abilities to make money. This is the competition with the 'American Way' that Allchin is talking about. The American Way has come to mean the same thing as 'make a lot of money'. If you can't make a lot of money on a product because there is a free version, then the free product must go against the American Way...
The companies that have made names for themselves by innovating over the last 10 years of the technology boom are nervous. People -- smart people -- are finally figuring out that the software that companies are charging money for really isn't that great. People are figuring out that quality is something that can be just as inherent in an organic software product (one grown from a community of developers) than one that is done in the dimly lit cubicles of a large corporation.
The trick for successful, well-placed companies in the industry today will become to figure out what the 'next big thing' is going to be, and being looking at innovating (read: develop enabling technologies) for that thing. We're at a bit of a stagnant place right now.
On the brink of change, everyone is worried that the forthcoming change will negatively impact them. So companies blame those things which operate in the same space as them.
Imagine the same thing in the manufacturing world. If you could get a house designed and built for you for free, don't you think the architects and construction companies would be a bit worried?
If it's been this easy, why haven't they just sent a rover out that can return asteroid samples? I mean, if they can set a craft down that wasn't even supposed to land, how much harder is it to make one that is?
This is what I'm building. It's written in Java, so it's cross platform. Also, you can specify different 'mounting points' for the root of MP3 directories. They could be on the same machine, or on multiple machines. I have a helper program which then goes out and reads the ID3 tags and tries to put them into the database... if nothing is found it tries to guess using the filename, and if that doesn't work, it lets you specify.
Also, my program has the ability for different users to assign adjectives (categories) to different songs.. so you may call one thing "electronica" where I might call it "bristol breakbeat".. then using the playlist manager you can specify that you want to only hear 'bristol breakbeat' songs..
The whole application is basically a data-driven user-centric mp3 catelog that also happens to serve up Mp3 files.
I should have at least a beta available in the next few months. I have a lot of functionality already in place, it's just a matter of bringing it together.
There are two ways Mp3s can be streamed from servers. The first is the shoutcast model, where UDP packets are sent to multiple IP addresss at the same time. The second method is to do what MP3.com does and let the client side "stream" the file from the server.
The second method has the advantage that you can push playlists to the client, and allow the client to move through the playlists without having to change anyone else's stream. That is, you basically have N streams running for N users, and each user can navigate their own stream independently.
In the shoutcast model, you have 1 stream for N users, and changing the stream (by controlling it through the jukebox) affects all users.
I personally prefer the Mp3.com model, as it allows more control over the end user, but it's not as scalable as the shoutcast model.
I'm building one in Java/J2EE. If you'd like to help, reply to this.:)
There are a few features that the existing ones don't have that I have put in mine.. the ability to support multiple users listening to multiple songs at the same time.. the ability to create custom playlists for unique users, the ability to auto-create playlists (similar to musicmatch jukebox), etc. I also want this to be a web interface set up on a server in my house, and have terminals be able to hit it and stream music to a particular room, or to piggy-back on an existing playlist/stream.
I haven't decided if I will opensource it yet. I expect to be complete with at least a beta within the next two months. I'm hoping the free J2EE servers will be robust enough to handle EJBs by that time. Enhydra, last I checked, doesn't.
It's amazing that people are daft enough to believe that humans are still going to be around in 3 billion years. What, we can live as long as we'd like just because we're human. HA!
I've wanted for a long time to make an online Tradewars variant. I used to log on to several dozen BBSes that all had TW running. The ones that were really hardcore were the ones that made you post first...
When the Challenger was lost, they brought TVs out into the hallways.. I was in 4th grade.. they had the whole school watching it. It's going to be the defining moment of our generation. People will ask, "Where were you when the Challenger was lost?" just as they ask our parents, "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?"
Why would you do that?! You're sending bills to a company and they're scanning ALL the info on the bills into their database. Hrm. You get a telephone bill and all the numbers you called are scanned in. Same with cell phone bill. I bet they sit around and laugh at all the PPV movies that show up on your cable bill. Automotive insurance? Sure, they have your VIN number, etc. They even know how much water and electricity you use.
I can't imagine why you would want to have a company know this much about you.. sure it only costs 8 bucks a month.. but how much is your privacy worth?
You have to be coming in at a relatively low angle to bounce off the atmosphere. The precice calculation of the angle is dependent on the speed you're moving at when you hit the upper atmosphere. I don't think these guys will ever leave the atmosphere completely.. and they'd be doing a pretty much perpendicular (relatively) trajectory.
Go back and read my original post.. the word air is in quotes. There is very little "air" up there.. but it's still part of the atmosphere. The reason things burn up when they hit the atmosphere is due to one thing : friction. At 20,000 miles an hour, even very little "air" causes great friction. So things get hot and they burn. They need the baloon chutes not to slow down, but to keep them oriented in the correct position. The baloon keeps them from tumbling in 3-space. It's the same concept as a drogue chute that's deployed during a tandem skydive.
The problem is that when you get into the lower atmosphere, the baloon causes too much pull. The air is denser, so you can ditch the baloon and switch to a drogue chute to achive the same results -- no spinning.
anacron
Re:Mildly OT: space.com
on
Space Diving
·
· Score: 1
Slashdot Mirror
They won't let us copy over-the-air, "high value" programming, but how many of you will watch a movie when it comes on TV even though you already own it in several formats? How many of you have started buying DVDs of your favorite VHS movies?
.001 cents per keystroke?
When did this whole "us vs them" attitude start where these companies are putting so many restrictions on new technology because they feel like there is POTENTIAL for their IP to be lost. Well, bullocks to that. Anything they do will be broken anyway. Why not just forget the whole thing and move on. Hell, they're so damn scared they MIGHT lose IP they will spend millions to prevent it.
And all of you will say Napster was a Good Thing, but I say Napster brought the end of the Good Thing. The free ride is over my friends. Copy protection on CDs, TV you can't even watch. Digital Rights Management on downloaded things. What's next? A car that gets 10MPG less unless you pay a yearly fee to the company that sold it to you? A keyboard that disables the letter 'e' unless you pay
Napster screwed everything up. It made companies afraid of technology that they're willing to sacrifice features (e.g. TiVo) for fear of lawsits from other companies. And this "Intellectual Property" they banter on about is so etherical anyway.
Oh? So you can only make 3 billion dollars next year instead of 5. Oh, so record sales have doubled in the past year after lagging for 5 years yet you'll still put a business out of business.
Capitalism sucks when the people with the power aren't the ones with the money. I'm not sure when it happened, but it'll be the downfall of everything we currently hold sacred. Our paradigm shift will be watching all the things we used to enjoy going away. Our children will not think twice about paying to breathe, and we'll hate the fact we pay for it.
You just wait. The worst is yet to come.
.anacron
How are you going to get electricity from the fusion reactor (heat)? No, we probably won't be using free electrons from the reaction (heat). The fusion reaction produces a lot more energy in other forms (heat). So (heat), you (heat) probably (heat) would (heat) use (heat) that (heat) energy (heat). Perhaps you would use heat (heat!).
/. have to be logical? Isn't dreaming and speculation allowed anymore?
Yes, heat is the current method of gathering kinetic energy for a power plant. But who's to say we won't find a better, more efficient means of energy capture in the future. Be able to use fusion to STORE energy much like chemical batteries do today. It's just a matter of time.
.anacron
Since when did the posts on
Actually, I believe Thomas Edison orginally evisioned power production in this way -- with a small generation plant on every city block. However, electrical utilities have figured out that producing power at really large power plants is more efficient than many smaller ones. A 50 kilowatt deisel turbine power station is more efficient at generating power than a Honda generator in everybody's backyard. And every tiny little gain in efficiency for the big utilities is money in the bank.
Yes, but I wonder if that all changes with fusion reactors. I am not as educated on the inner workings of them as I'd like. I understand the basic concept, but the energy requirements needed to sustain the magnetic field are probably the largest single energy expense in the reactor model. Once we achieve sustainable fusion the next step will likely be making the input energy requirements smaller (so the yeild is larger) and the first place I'd probably look is in the magnetic containment field.
What happens if the containment field fails -- the internal plasma would presumably fly apart, but would it dissapate or would it cause wide spread damage?
Does anyone have an equations or links or any online resources that would indicate what would happen if a "backyard sun" (i.e. home fusion generator) containment field failed? I'd also imagine if you had a "cluster" of these spread out over a home neighborhood or high-rise that a chain reaction could occur if the stability in one is lost. Much like current ICBMs work. A seed explosion which causes the rest of the reaction to start. I wonder what the safe operating distance between these things would be. Or how you'd even find out. Anyone have any ideas?
.anacron
The economics wouldn't be because of more power generated, but because "extra" or "unused" power could be fed back into the system and sent somewhere else. A closed, self-sustaining system which is capable of routing power as appropriate, much like the power grid in the USA, but less centralized. You could use your reactor at home and sell power to your neighbors when you weren't there. Or your reactor could do a quick peer-to-peer auction (next killer JXTA app anyone?) in your neighborhood to find out if it would be less expensive to buy from a neighbor or to produce electricity itself.
So I was thinking more along the lines of clustering for sharing, profitibility and expense mitigation rather than clustering for total energy output increases.
.anacron
Because it's not yet possible I wonder if anyone has thought about this before -- would it be less expensive to "cluster" smaller fusion reactors together to achieve energy output, or is building one large reactor the "best" way? I just look at the progression of things: Room-sized computers->high-end workstations->desktops->distributed computing ... maybe power generation can follow a similar model? We've already scaled up -- moved from small output steam generators.. is it time to start scaling down again?
Yes. Redundancy and competition is bad. Because most people are too inept to compete effectively. And becase redundant solutions tend to be less expensive (vis a vis lesser quality) rip-offs of the original product.
Make me the best product in the world, put all your resources to it, and I'll buy it. I don't buy things based on name brand, flashiness or promises. I buy based on quality. And I just can't believe that electric lines are going to be able to compete (in the long term) with more viable consumer solutions.
Schrodinger's cat may be dead, but only because you opened the box. Leave the damn box closed for a decade or more and *then* we'll talk about quality of broadband service.
.anacron
Does anyone else but me think it's a Bad Thing that we will eventually have 10 or so differnet ways to get broadband access to our homes? Or am I missing the point? Not only does each different implementation tie us to the standards of the delivery mechanism, but we also have political boundaries to overcome when dealing with the players involved in every medium. Getting local power companies to agree on a standard might be easier than cable companies (b/c there tends to be fewer power companies), but how many delivery mechanisms do we *really* need for the world to have broadband?
Wouldn't it be easier if, instead of having everyone jump on the bandwagon trying to make money, they just pooled their resources to make a single, unified delivery solution?
I attended JavaOne last week. There were 20,000+ java developers there. Much bigger than any single C++ conference. The power of Java is not the syntax of the language, which is what most discussions get in to.
The power of Java is that once you understand the fundamentals of the language, learning something new is just a matter of learning a new API. C++ has a similar concept, but the centralization (Sun) and open development nature of Java lend it to doing more robust applications.
Now, I bet many of you don't know about the Java Community Process. Basically if Sun wants to change the language, or more importantly *you* want to change the language, you just submit it and a JSR is created. You work with other people who have similar interests, and BAM you've made a difference.
Also, the flexibility of Java is pretty powerfull too. Sure, it has a lot of the same features, but the monetary benefits of decreased code maintenence really make a difference.
Of course, if you're a bad programmer than no language will help, Java even less slow. It's possible for Java to be 90% as fast as C++ when a JIT (just in time) compiler is used. The JIT compiler reads the compiled bytecodes and basically recompiles on the fly to code written for the local platform. So when using a JIT you get speed, performance, memory optimization, etc.
Java is not just better than C++. It blows it out of the water. Anyone who says differently doesn't understand the fundamentals of the language and is ignorant enough to be content.
.anacron
Apparantly not a lot of /. fans are Radiohead fans.
.anacron
Um, That's really bizarre. I have the same plans. Though I picked a meaningfull 8 letter word. "Infinity".
I was even thinking of bar-coding it. I want the 8x8 matrix on my foot. Uber cool. And very few people will get it.
Batch conversion? Do this:
.wav file
Open winamp. Hit shift-L and select your top-level MP3 directory. This should load all the MP3s on your system. Hit Ctl-P, select output plug ins, and select "Nullsoft Disk Writer plug-in". Click 'configure' and select the directory where you want all your wavs to go. Go back to the main window and click 'play' and wait. Wait some more. And make sure you have lots of HD space.
Then open the Ogg encoder of your choice, and do the same thing, but in reverse.
Alternatively, you could just set up winamp as described above, and then create a batch file which does something like:
<pseudocode>
for all files in a directory {
call winamp %i where %i is the current file
call oggEncoder with appropraite options and pass it
}
<\pseudocode>
This would be maybe 15-20 lines of code in Java. The question is can the current incarnations of the Ogg encode handle command line params to do encoding?
anacron
The point of all of this is that Fraunhauffer (sp?) will begin charging licensing fees for ANYONE who has an MP3 encoder/decoder built in. By making a similar/equal open source, free, extensible standard, music will remain free.
Yes, you can still keep all your MP3s around. But expect to start paying more (you do pay for all the software on your machine, right?) for both encoders and decoders.
Also, because one person owns the MP3 standard, they can make changes to it at will and discontinue licensing older versions. If Fraunhauffer ever gets in bed with the recording industry, find a nice soft spot to hide and don't come out untill the lawyers' dust settles.
The openness of this standard is the differientiator, and it's the only one that should ever exist. All other qualities, file size, sound quality, compression rates, etc. should remain the same.
I don't understand this .. how can open source software hinder development? If anything it provides a common base with which companies can aggregate components to make even better software.
Why is it that open source software is viewed as 'ammature' or 'non-professional' when it's compared to closed-source products? It's almost as if people believe that the only programmers who work on open source projects are somehow of a lesser quality than those who work at large corporations. Well, I've got news for you. I'd argue that open source programmers are usually BETTER than most closed source programmers.
But companies don't view things this way. Rather, they refuse to belive that something which is inherently free to the world can provide any value. After all, once it's 'free', how can you make money on it.
And herin lies the real problem that's facing companies. Open source software limits companies abilities to make money. This is the competition with the 'American Way' that Allchin is talking about. The American Way has come to mean the same thing as 'make a lot of money'. If you can't make a lot of money on a product because there is a free version, then the free product must go against the American Way...
The companies that have made names for themselves by innovating over the last 10 years of the technology boom are nervous. People -- smart people -- are finally figuring out that the software that companies are charging money for really isn't that great. People are figuring out that quality is something that can be just as inherent in an organic software product (one grown from a community of developers) than one that is done in the dimly lit cubicles of a large corporation.
The trick for successful, well-placed companies in the industry today will become to figure out what the 'next big thing' is going to be, and being looking at innovating (read: develop enabling technologies) for that thing. We're at a bit of a stagnant place right now.
On the brink of change, everyone is worried that the forthcoming change will negatively impact them. So companies blame those things which operate in the same space as them.
Imagine the same thing in the manufacturing world. If you could get a house designed and built for you for free, don't you think the architects and construction companies would be a bit worried?
.anacron
I wonder .. has anyone ever set up a webserver in space?
anacron
If it's been this easy, why haven't they just sent a rover out that can return asteroid samples? I mean, if they can set a craft down that wasn't even supposed to land, how much harder is it to make one that is?
anacron
This is what I'm building. It's written in Java, so it's cross platform. Also, you can specify different 'mounting points' for the root of MP3 directories. They could be on the same machine, or on multiple machines. I have a helper program which then goes out and reads the ID3 tags and tries to put them into the database ... if nothing is found it tries to guess using the filename, and if that doesn't work, it lets you specify.
.. then using the playlist manager you can specify that you want to only hear 'bristol breakbeat' songs ..
Also, my program has the ability for different users to assign adjectives (categories) to different songs.. so you may call one thing "electronica" where I might call it "bristol breakbeat"
The whole application is basically a data-driven user-centric mp3 catelog that also happens to serve up Mp3 files.
I should have at least a beta available in the next few months. I have a lot of functionality already in place, it's just a matter of bringing it together.
There are two ways Mp3s can be streamed from servers. The first is the shoutcast model, where UDP packets are sent to multiple IP addresss at the same time. The second method is to do what MP3.com does and let the client side "stream" the file from the server.
The second method has the advantage that you can push playlists to the client, and allow the client to move through the playlists without having to change anyone else's stream. That is, you basically have N streams running for N users, and each user can navigate their own stream independently.
In the shoutcast model, you have 1 stream for N users, and changing the stream (by controlling it through the jukebox) affects all users.
I personally prefer the Mp3.com model, as it allows more control over the end user, but it's not as scalable as the shoutcast model.
anacron
I'm building one in Java/J2EE. If you'd like to help, reply to this. :)
.. the ability to support multiple users listening to multiple songs at the same time .. the ability to create custom playlists for unique users, the ability to auto-create playlists (similar to musicmatch jukebox), etc. I also want this to be a web interface set up on a server in my house, and have terminals be able to hit it and stream music to a particular room, or to piggy-back on an existing playlist/stream.
There are a few features that the existing ones don't have that I have put in mine
I haven't decided if I will opensource it yet. I expect to be complete with at least a beta within the next two months. I'm hoping the free J2EE servers will be robust enough to handle EJBs by that time. Enhydra, last I checked, doesn't.
anacron
It's amazing that people are daft enough to believe that humans are still going to be around in 3 billion years. What, we can live as long as we'd like just because we're human. HA!
anacron
I've wanted for a long time to make an online Tradewars variant. I used to log on to several dozen BBSes that all had TW running. The ones that were really hardcore were the ones that made you post first ...
anacron
When the Challenger was lost, they brought TVs out into the hallways .. I was in 4th grade .. they had the whole school watching it. It's going to be the defining moment of our generation. People will ask, "Where were you when the Challenger was lost?" just as they ask our parents, "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?"
.anacron
Why would you do that?! You're sending bills to a company and they're scanning ALL the info on the bills into their database. Hrm. You get a telephone bill and all the numbers you called are scanned in. Same with cell phone bill. I bet they sit around and laugh at all the PPV movies that show up on your cable bill. Automotive insurance? Sure, they have your VIN number, etc. They even know how much water and electricity you use.
.. but how much is your privacy worth?
I can't imagine why you would want to have a company know this much about you.. sure it only costs 8 bucks a month
.anacron
You have to be coming in at a relatively low angle to bounce off the atmosphere. The precice calculation of the angle is dependent on the speed you're moving at when you hit the upper atmosphere. I don't think these guys will ever leave the atmosphere completely .. and they'd be doing a pretty much perpendicular (relatively) trajectory.
anacron
Go back and read my original post .. the word air is in quotes. There is very little "air" up there .. but it's still part of the atmosphere. The reason things burn up when they hit the atmosphere is due to one thing : friction. At 20,000 miles an hour, even very little "air" causes great friction. So things get hot and they burn. They need the baloon chutes not to slow down, but to keep them oriented in the correct position. The baloon keeps them from tumbling in 3-space. It's the same concept as a drogue chute that's deployed during a tandem skydive.
The problem is that when you get into the lower atmosphere, the baloon causes too much pull. The air is denser, so you can ditch the baloon and switch to a drogue chute to achive the same results -- no spinning.
anacron
Seems like there already is. ;)
anacron