I just wanted to point out that the problem isn't as big as I'd thought. Apparently Webkit uses gstreamer now, so Chrome already supports Theora and Vorbis (at least on Linux), and Firefox is capable of using gstreamer (there has been a patch available since 3.0), so they could theoretically support anything. Safari will probably remain married to Quicktime, but with some work we could probably convince Apple to make Theora/Vorbis codecs ship by default. Similarly, I expect IE to use directshow when it gets HTML5 support, and while Microsoft will never add Theora/Vorbis by default, it's extremely easy to install.
Just thought I'd add this since I learned some since writing my other reply.
No I'm not going to find an example. Every time this comes up I hear "OMG BUT THEORA SUCKS", while in every comparison I've seen, Theora just does fine (except comparisons of old versions of Theora). If someone wants to convince me that there's a problem with the codec, why don't they post their proof? Instead all of the responses to me are "OMG BUT THEORA SUCKS" or "LOLZ EVERYONE KNOWS THAT THEORA SUCKS. QED.".
Using Theora for new videos doesn't seem like such a big deal though. The article says that Vimeo's new HTML5 stuff doesn't work on 35% of their videos. I assume that has something to do with the encoding. The problem is that if we just accept the formats that require thousands of dollars for licensing, we'll never get to use free ones. Unless they're forced to (by a company like Google), Microsoft and Apple will never support a free format, because they can easily afford the licensing fees and they know that Mozilla can't.
Honestly, as much as I'd like to stop using Flash immediately, I'd rather have Mozilla try to stick this out. Somewhere around a third of all people on the internet use Firefox (and I assume a higher number of Youtube users). If Mozilla can push Google to support Theora it will be worth the wait.
Possibly you also believe that Windows' stranglehold on the desktop is due to the intrinsic virtues of the OS too?
Oh definitely. Windows is amazing. Have you seen how amazing Windows 7 is? Totally not just Vista with a different taskbar. (Sorry have to annoy as many fanboys as possible in this thread)
Anyway, I don't use any Microsoft products, but that doesn't change history. Netscape was a bloated piece of crap. Opera was expensive. In the land of shitty browsers, IE was "not so bad". Now we have better browsers, but honestly IE7/8 aren't that bad either. I prefer Firefox and Chrome, but most people don't care about fast Javascript, SVG, and fancy new tags.
So in other words, Microsoft "conquered" the market by making the best product, and then once they stopped producing the best product, other companies began reentering the market? It's almost like the free market destroyed a monopoly, but of course that's impossible because everyone knows that the free market props up failing businesses.
I agree that in most cases it's not a big deal whether a website is encrypted or not, but the question is why there is so much encrypted traffic still, and the reason is that it's not trivial. If encrypted "might be nice", it's probably not worth it. Buying a certificate is only worth it if you have to. Because of that, banks and shopping websites are pretty much the only ones who use SSL.
I think the main problem with encryption is the need for certificates. Why not make all traffic encrypted and then use certificates when you want to be "extra sure"? I know, I know, "OMG WITHOUT CERTIFICATES WHAT'S THE POINT?!!?", but 90% of websites don't use SSL at all, so you obviously trust them well enough now..
By that vague statement do they mean that nouvea will be included or is someone else making yet another set of nvidia drivers? (nv is from nVidia right?)
This isn't really a case of "the grass is always greener..". That would be everyone assuming that other companies are better than theirs. This is a case of everyone realizing they all suck.
Unlimited texting: $5
Unlimited minutes: $99
It's not a hard choice. Not to mention that people can get back to you when you're not busy without stupid voicemails and texting is easy to do while doing other things like cooking.
If only there was a way to avoid having to going through the voicemail menu and try to understand what someone said when you didn't pick up the phone..
Well then you can say goodbye to alot of creative endeavors. Why write a book when it will only sell a single copy before being copied all over the internet? I can't make a living off the time spent writing when sales drop. Can't be a very successful band without some form of digital media, whether you're signed or produce it yourself. That won't turn a profit once its all across the web.
Tell that the open source movement and bands that encourage fans to download their music. Also, the people who make icons, wallpapers and gui themes and then release them for free online. Worried about movies? The only movie I can think of from last year that was worth getting was Ink. Did I mention that the creators are happy about how frequently torrented it is? Maybe we'll lose some Hannah Montana and generic comedy movies but that's what makes it win-win.
What confuses me is why they're doing performance tests on alpha releases. Obviously the answer is to get page views, but how long will it take people to realize that performance isn't what they're trying for in the alpha..
Natural monopoly? Without the government stopping other companies from making compatible processors, there would be a lot of competition. If you look at other places where processors are used, you notice that no one has any problem competing. The only reason Intel/AMD have their oligopoly (duopoly?) is because no one else is legally able to compete with them.
And there's nothing wrong with games like Guitar Hero. If I was willing to pay $100 for a fake guitar I would get it. The problem is that they're pushing this as something that should be used in all games. First person shooters, RPGs, platformers, racing games.. there are a lot of games that should not be using gimmicky controls like this, and if the Wii is a good indicator, all of them will anyway.
It sounds like just mounting an ext2 partition at ext4 should give some performance increase, but it won't be able to use extents, which are apparently a big deal.
They seem to be suggesting that we shouldn't throw away 30 years of research for shitty toys. The Wii is the perfect example in fact. It's a nice control scheme if your game is incredibly simple (like Wii sports), but even for something as complicated as Zelda, it becomes a huge pain. Want to spin? Shake the nunchuck. Want to do a shield bash? Punch with the nunchuck. The fact that those are pretty much the same movement so the result will be random (if it detects it at all)? FUCK YOU THE WII IS AWESOME!! Not to mention how bringing up the map involves hitting a button around where your thumb connects to the rest of your hand.. Luckily you can get through Twilight Princess without ever using the spin or shield bash, and you can get to the map by using your other hand to hit the button, but none of these problems exist on other controllers.
Fortunately, the Wii is mostly for gimmicky games anyway so I don't usually use it, but I seriously hope Xbox developers don't start expecting to stand up and dance like an idiot to play Gears of War 3.
No. One does not have to accept an extraordinary scientific claim just because one does not yet have another explanation. There is lots of data on UFOs. For some of this data, there is no reasonable alternative explanation. That doesn't mean that I have to start believing in UFOs. It just means that UFOlogy is a field where the data are all a big pile of doggy doo. Science has many subfields in which the state of the art is so terrible that reputable people don't want to get involved, and no progress is being made. Two good examples that spring to mind are nanobacteria and IQ testing.
UFO's aren't a very good analogy because there usually is an alternate explanation (weather balloons, secret military experiments, gullible people), not to mention that "OMG ALIENS" isn't a scientific explanation. In the worst case, "unexplained phenomenon" is still a more accurate explanation than "aliens".
From the discussions, it sounds like these people actually do have some decent evidence for what they're claiming, and while they may never be able to prove 100% that they're right, it's not like we can prove anything 100%.
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There was also a patch for Firefox 3.0 that made it use gstreamer. Seems like Mozilla didn't like it though. :(
I just wanted to point out that the problem isn't as big as I'd thought. Apparently Webkit uses gstreamer now, so Chrome already supports Theora and Vorbis (at least on Linux), and Firefox is capable of using gstreamer (there has been a patch available since 3.0), so they could theoretically support anything. Safari will probably remain married to Quicktime, but with some work we could probably convince Apple to make Theora/Vorbis codecs ship by default. Similarly, I expect IE to use directshow when it gets HTML5 support, and while Microsoft will never add Theora/Vorbis by default, it's extremely easy to install.
Just thought I'd add this since I learned some since writing my other reply.
No I'm not going to find an example. Every time this comes up I hear "OMG BUT THEORA SUCKS", while in every comparison I've seen, Theora just does fine (except comparisons of old versions of Theora). If someone wants to convince me that there's a problem with the codec, why don't they post their proof? Instead all of the responses to me are "OMG BUT THEORA SUCKS" or "LOLZ EVERYONE KNOWS THAT THEORA SUCKS. QED.".
Using Theora for new videos doesn't seem like such a big deal though. The article says that Vimeo's new HTML5 stuff doesn't work on 35% of their videos. I assume that has something to do with the encoding. The problem is that if we just accept the formats that require thousands of dollars for licensing, we'll never get to use free ones. Unless they're forced to (by a company like Google), Microsoft and Apple will never support a free format, because they can easily afford the licensing fees and they know that Mozilla can't.
It's hard to find a good comparison, but most seem to be pretty favorable to Theora.
Honestly, as much as I'd like to stop using Flash immediately, I'd rather have Mozilla try to stick this out. Somewhere around a third of all people on the internet use Firefox (and I assume a higher number of Youtube users). If Mozilla can push Google to support Theora it will be worth the wait.
Possibly you also believe that Windows' stranglehold on the desktop is due to the intrinsic virtues of the OS too?
Oh definitely. Windows is amazing. Have you seen how amazing Windows 7 is? Totally not just Vista with a different taskbar. (Sorry have to annoy as many fanboys as possible in this thread)
Anyway, I don't use any Microsoft products, but that doesn't change history. Netscape was a bloated piece of crap. Opera was expensive. In the land of shitty browsers, IE was "not so bad". Now we have better browsers, but honestly IE7/8 aren't that bad either. I prefer Firefox and Chrome, but most people don't care about fast Javascript, SVG, and fancy new tags.
So in other words, Microsoft "conquered" the market by making the best product, and then once they stopped producing the best product, other companies began reentering the market? It's almost like the free market destroyed a monopoly, but of course that's impossible because everyone knows that the free market props up failing businesses.
I agree that in most cases it's not a big deal whether a website is encrypted or not, but the question is why there is so much encrypted traffic still, and the reason is that it's not trivial. If encrypted "might be nice", it's probably not worth it. Buying a certificate is only worth it if you have to. Because of that, banks and shopping websites are pretty much the only ones who use SSL.
I think the main problem with encryption is the need for certificates. Why not make all traffic encrypted and then use certificates when you want to be "extra sure"? I know, I know, "OMG WITHOUT CERTIFICATES WHAT'S THE POINT?!!?", but 90% of websites don't use SSL at all, so you obviously trust them well enough now..
By that vague statement do they mean that nouvea will be included or is someone else making yet another set of nvidia drivers? (nv is from nVidia right?)
This isn't really a case of "the grass is always greener..". That would be everyone assuming that other companies are better than theirs. This is a case of everyone realizing they all suck.
I thought the problem was how much you can fit vertically. I was under the impression that pretty much all screens are wide now.
No u
Unlimited texting: $5
Unlimited minutes: $99
It's not a hard choice. Not to mention that people can get back to you when you're not busy without stupid voicemails and texting is easy to do while doing other things like cooking.
If only there was a way to avoid having to going through the voicemail menu and try to understand what someone said when you didn't pick up the phone..
Well then you can say goodbye to alot of creative endeavors. Why write a book when it will only sell a single copy before being copied all over the internet? I can't make a living off the time spent writing when sales drop. Can't be a very successful band without some form of digital media, whether you're signed or produce it yourself. That won't turn a profit once its all across the web.
Tell that the open source movement and bands that encourage fans to download their music. Also, the people who make icons, wallpapers and gui themes and then release them for free online. Worried about movies? The only movie I can think of from last year that was worth getting was Ink. Did I mention that the creators are happy about how frequently torrented it is? Maybe we'll lose some Hannah Montana and generic comedy movies but that's what makes it win-win.
What confuses me is why they're doing performance tests on alpha releases. Obviously the answer is to get page views, but how long will it take people to realize that performance isn't what they're trying for in the alpha..
Natural monopoly? Without the government stopping other companies from making compatible processors, there would be a lot of competition. If you look at other places where processors are used, you notice that no one has any problem competing. The only reason Intel/AMD have their oligopoly (duopoly?) is because no one else is legally able to compete with them.
You do realize that there's a native 64 bit version of flash for Linux now right?
And there's nothing wrong with games like Guitar Hero. If I was willing to pay $100 for a fake guitar I would get it. The problem is that they're pushing this as something that should be used in all games. First person shooters, RPGs, platformers, racing games.. there are a lot of games that should not be using gimmicky controls like this, and if the Wii is a good indicator, all of them will anyway.
It sounds like just mounting an ext2 partition at ext4 should give some performance increase, but it won't be able to use extents, which are apparently a big deal.
They seem to be suggesting that we shouldn't throw away 30 years of research for shitty toys. The Wii is the perfect example in fact. It's a nice control scheme if your game is incredibly simple (like Wii sports), but even for something as complicated as Zelda, it becomes a huge pain. Want to spin? Shake the nunchuck. Want to do a shield bash? Punch with the nunchuck. The fact that those are pretty much the same movement so the result will be random (if it detects it at all)? FUCK YOU THE WII IS AWESOME!! Not to mention how bringing up the map involves hitting a button around where your thumb connects to the rest of your hand.. Luckily you can get through Twilight Princess without ever using the spin or shield bash, and you can get to the map by using your other hand to hit the button, but none of these problems exist on other controllers.
Fortunately, the Wii is mostly for gimmicky games anyway so I don't usually use it, but I seriously hope Xbox developers don't start expecting to stand up and dance like an idiot to play Gears of War 3.
No this is completely different! Get this, we're doing it with... a computer!
No. One does not have to accept an extraordinary scientific claim just because one does not yet have another explanation. There is lots of data on UFOs. For some of this data, there is no reasonable alternative explanation. That doesn't mean that I have to start believing in UFOs. It just means that UFOlogy is a field where the data are all a big pile of doggy doo. Science has many subfields in which the state of the art is so terrible that reputable people don't want to get involved, and no progress is being made. Two good examples that spring to mind are nanobacteria and IQ testing.
UFO's aren't a very good analogy because there usually is an alternate explanation (weather balloons, secret military experiments, gullible people), not to mention that "OMG ALIENS" isn't a scientific explanation. In the worst case, "unexplained phenomenon" is still a more accurate explanation than "aliens".
From the discussions, it sounds like these people actually do have some decent evidence for what they're claiming, and while they may never be able to prove 100% that they're right, it's not like we can prove anything 100%.