If an author doesnt disclose that he submitted his own work, 50% of the comments will be about how bad all the slashvertisements are, how full-of-him-self the author is and how the article is a piece of crappy self-promotion.
Yes, however I prefer to do lossy encoding from a lossless source, in which case my audio quality will never be less than it is at step 2. I know I probably wouldn't be able to hear quality loss before maybe the fourth transcoding (Just a theoretical out-of-my-rear-cavity number), but I'd rather not experience it happen to my music.
I'm happy that I don't have ears trained to hear artifacts, because when/if I do hear them, it completely ruins my experience of the music.
Well without DRM you'd be free to decode the high bitrate MP3 and then re-encode it. That's called "transcoding". Please lookup the relevant part of my post for my comment on that.
I categorize myself as an "audiophile", but not as one who believes in any of the audio-voodoo out there. I've done blind ABX testing to see how low my threshold is, and it really hurts to admit this - But when a track (Using music I normally listen to) is encoded with LAME, I cant hear the difference between 128kbps MP3 and a FLAC. That threshold is around the -V5 LAME preset with problem samples.
However, I firmly insist that music downloads should not only be provided free of DRM, but also losslessly to avoid codec-lock in. What if mp3 suddenly dies and SRGLC* is the new hot thing on portable players, such as iPod? What am I then to do with all my lossy files? Transcode them and lose quality? Yes, with decreasing storage prices, I hope that we will soon all have lossless audio files on our computers, portable media players and other multimedia storage hardware.
I guess you have never tried being a 196cm tall person with a kid right behind you who thinks it's very funny to first kick the seat in front of him (Incidentally, the seat you are placed in!) and later being surrounded by three children who are crying as if they've just lost a limb or two.
Actually, if you want to merge two identical folder trees (Just as an example), you can simply hold in [SHIFT] and press "No" or "Yes" if it asks you something, which will result in the dialog box assuming a "YES/NO to all". This, of course, does not work with stuff like "Do you want to register"-boxes and such. Only daily Windows tasks.
You are the same kind of self-righteous egomaniac dipsit I hate for censoring good peoples opinions on Slashdot.
Mod points are not supposed to give you the power to emphasise your own opinions. They are supposed to help you weed out the bad quality posts from the good quality posts. Notice how I'm using the word quality here. The quality of a post is not determined by how well you agree with the poster. Quality is about how well-written this persons opinions are, how much real information is passed, and how little of that is bullshit.
When I get mod points, I only mod up posts which are against my own opinion but are written in a manner which makes me respect that opinion. And everyone should do that. This is why people use the Post Anonymously button. So they dont get a permanent censor on their opinions by people who just cant handle the fact that not everybody agrees with their world view and morality.
Steve Irwin is dead, so what? We all have to die at some point, and the fact that he died doing what he liked is just pure awesome! His family will probably experience a brief period of justified sadness. However, the rest of you people who only "knew" this dude from his documentaries and whichever press he might have accumulated, I just want to say - get a fucking grip!
Oh wait, I see it now. Totally awesome effect. Also, great music. I'm usually into Death Metal and stuff, but this really kicks butt. Nice relaxation music. Might just be my headache, though.
I tried to visit your website, first in Firefox then in Internet Explorer.
In firefox, the page rendered normally. Although I did not see any text effects - It's just a regular monospace font on a black background. Ok, I'm missing the point here, obviously. Tried to "turn off" the effect. No change. Alright, maybe it's just a wrong browser. Who knows, it might be IE-only.
I am very young. 19 years old. And, you know what? I wholeheartedly agree with you. My style of computing is staring at a black terminal screen waiting for my input. I've blocked *.swf from my browser, and I'm keeping it that way forever.
A text book, or a text document to be read in vi, is much more pleasant than reading content on a site with flash/gif ads.
Especially because you can select a very broad range of countries from a drop-down box when typing in your delivery address. On the other hand, I dont remember checking a box labeled "I agree to these terms and services".
A 14-year old is suing the Internet for $30 billin, claiming that the technology failed to protect her from a 19-year old she met... wait, screw this parody.
What the fuck is a 14-year kid old doing meeting a 19-year old she met om MySpace? I think she should sue her parents for not beating her enough.
No. In the real world, if BIG CORPORATION depended on COOL, they would have hired INHOUSE DEVELOPER 1 and 2 to support COOL, or even just SYSADMIN 1 to just keep the thing running. If EXECUTIVE 1 and 2 use software which isnt feature-stable in their CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT, they are STUPID EXECUTIVE 1 and 2, also their IT DEPARTMENT should be fired for not opposing the usage of the alpha-quality software in the corporation.
Now, the pun. DEVELOPER 1: Hey, lets make something USEFUL.
DEVELOPER 2: Ok, fine. We'll licence it as Open-Source, and charge for support.
(Meanwhile) SOFTWARE HOUSE EXEC: Programmers. Please start working on BLING. My marketing dept says it should have feature X, Y and Z for us to earn BIG CASH.
(Some time passes) BIG CORP 1 EXEC: We are going to use USEFUL for our accounting. Hire INHOUSE DEVELOPER and SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR.
BIG CORP 2 EXEC: We are going to use BLING from SOFTWARE HOUSE because it has feature X, Y and Z.
Some years pass. BIG CORP 1 and 2 are happily using USEFUL and BLING respectively. DEVELOPER 1 and 2 died in a freak car crash/lightning/stabbing accident. Nobody develops USEFUL anymore, except for INHOUSE DEVELOPER, with SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR to help him.
SOFTWARE HOUSE: Hey, BIG CORP 2. We can see that your entire corporate infrastructure depends on BLING. Also, we're not gonna patch SECURITY ISSUE 1, 2 and 3 unless you pay many more BIG CASH.
BIG CORP 2 EXEC 1::(
SOFTWARE HOUSE: Hey BIG CORP 2. We're closing down our business. Better migrate to some other software which is like BLING.
BIG CORP 2 EXEC 1: Ok, but can we have source so we can develop it ourselves?
SOFTWARE HOUSE: Nope. Corporate secret.
BIG CORP 2 EXEC 1: Ok, but can you atleast document the format in which all of our corporate data is stored?
SOFTWARE HOUSE: Nope. Corporate secret.
BIG CORP 2 is screwed and ended up paying much more BIG CASH than BIG CORP 1, because they depended on SOFTWARE HOUSE to support BLING, while BIG CORP 1 actually saved a lot of BIG CASH because they optimized USEFUL to suit their needs over time.
When we read, we are actually speaking the words, albeit silently, to ourselves
... In our own voice, at our own speed of comprehension.
This can be directly metaphored to the technology behind XML. If you recieve an XML file, you decide how you want to interpret the file, how to represent it and what else to do with it. If you, however, recieve an image (ie png, jpg), the image can only be represented in one way. Hint: "image" is metaphor for podcast. "XML File" is metaphor for plaintext material.
Also, you should not make assumptions about how any person on this planet interprets data served to him in any format, be it visual, kinetic or audiovisual.
Written articles take time to read, while sitting at the computer, which some people don't do very much, or do not like to do. An alternative is to print out the article, which takes some time and effort. Then you have to find a time and place to read the article. A podcast, however, can be listened to in a variety of situations where reading is impractical, inconvenient, or dangerous, such as while driving.
Which is exactly the reasons for not listening to a podcast while doing something which requires your undivided attention. You can NOT absorb any information if all your focus is directed elsewhere. I've tried listening to podcasts, and found myself abandoning them after 40 seconds because I couldnt sit still doing nothing but listening, or percieve the material while doing something else.
Also, some of us read faster than the time it takes for someone to pronounce the text, which makes it much easier to find time to read something rather than listening to it.
Try this experiment: Ask someone who is good at non-interactive lecturing speak about something which interests both you and the lecturer, and record it (Without you knowing much about the subject beforehand and without listening to the lecture while it is being recorded) Now, listen to the record while doing something else which requires your undivided, constant attention. Then check if you percieved any of the information from the audio recording you just listened to. If your result is different than what I would expect it to be, please notify your local PhD's.
Slashdot Mirror
One word: "Vista"
Same here, man. I *just* finished installing a 6.1-RELEASE and patching it up to p12, and now I have to start all over again.
Oh well, I guess that's just the way Beastie likes to torture us sometimes.
You must be new here...
If an author doesnt disclose that he submitted his own work, 50% of the comments will be about how bad all the slashvertisements are, how full-of-him-self the author is and how the article is a piece of crappy self-promotion.
I need junk food. Lots of junk food...
Q: How many rings does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
Yes, however I prefer to do lossy encoding from a lossless source, in which case my audio quality will never be less than it is at step 2. I know I probably wouldn't be able to hear quality loss before maybe the fourth transcoding (Just a theoretical out-of-my-rear-cavity number), but I'd rather not experience it happen to my music.
I'm happy that I don't have ears trained to hear artifacts, because when/if I do hear them, it completely ruins my experience of the music.
What you say is, indeed, true.
I categorize myself as an "audiophile", but not as one who believes in any of the audio-voodoo out there. I've done blind ABX testing to see how low my threshold is, and it really hurts to admit this - But when a track (Using music I normally listen to) is encoded with LAME, I cant hear the difference between 128kbps MP3 and a FLAC. That threshold is around the -V5 LAME preset with problem samples.
However, I firmly insist that music downloads should not only be provided free of DRM, but also losslessly to avoid codec-lock in. What if mp3 suddenly dies and SRGLC* is the new hot thing on portable players, such as iPod? What am I then to do with all my lossy files? Transcode them and lose quality? Yes, with decreasing storage prices, I hope that we will soon all have lossless audio files on our computers, portable media players and other multimedia storage hardware.
* Some Random Generic Lossy Codec.
Also, this will neither affect the software pirates, as they will all be running copies intended for Corporate customers. Pirates 'aint that dumb.
Once again, the only victim of DRM and anti-piracy technologies is the honest buyer, who laid out hard cash for the product.
I guess you have never tried being a 196cm tall person with a kid right behind you who thinks it's very funny to first kick the seat in front of him (Incidentally, the seat you are placed in!) and later being surrounded by three children who are crying as if they've just lost a limb or two.
But then again, tolerances may vary.
Actually, if you want to merge two identical folder trees (Just as an example), you can simply hold in [SHIFT] and press "No" or "Yes" if it asks you something, which will result in the dialog box assuming a "YES/NO to all".
This, of course, does not work with stuff like "Do you want to register"-boxes and such. Only daily Windows tasks.
But we also know that the RockBox alternative firmware for iPod manages gapless playback of mp3 files just perfectly.
What gives?
You are the same kind of self-righteous egomaniac dipsit I hate for censoring good peoples opinions on Slashdot.
Mod points are not supposed to give you the power to emphasise your own opinions. They are supposed to help you weed out the bad quality posts from the good quality posts. Notice how I'm using the word quality here. The quality of a post is not determined by how well you agree with the poster. Quality is about how well-written this persons opinions are, how much real information is passed, and how little of that is bullshit.
When I get mod points, I only mod up posts which are against my own opinion but are written in a manner which makes me respect that opinion. And everyone should do that.
This is why people use the Post Anonymously button. So they dont get a permanent censor on their opinions by people who just cant handle the fact that not everybody agrees with their world view and morality.
Steve Irwin is dead, so what? We all have to die at some point, and the fact that he died doing what he liked is just pure awesome! His family will probably experience a brief period of justified sadness. However, the rest of you people who only "knew" this dude from his documentaries and whichever press he might have accumulated, I just want to say - get a fucking grip!
I'm not. This stuff is great, although I dont really like the way you handle your voice some times. Guess it's just a matter of taste, though ;)
Oh wait, I see it now. Totally awesome effect.
Also, great music. I'm usually into Death Metal and stuff, but this really kicks butt. Nice relaxation music. Might just be my headache, though.
Dude, I totally missed your point, but my best guess is, yeah, it probably was valid.
Good luck with the site. I'm heading an ache.
I tried to visit your website, first in Firefox then in Internet Explorer.
In firefox, the page rendered normally. Although I did not see any text effects - It's just a regular monospace font on a black background. Ok, I'm missing the point here, obviously. Tried to "turn off" the effect. No change.
Alright, maybe it's just a wrong browser. Who knows, it might be IE-only.
IE doesnt render the page at all.
Nope. According to listening tests conducted by HydrogenAudio, Vorbis and mp3 become transparent at approximately the same bitrates.
So what's your point?
Yeah, bacause mp3 isn't a transparent codec if used right, right? Oh, wait, no, it is indeed transparent!
I am very young. 19 years old.
And, you know what? I wholeheartedly agree with you. My style of computing is staring at a black terminal screen waiting for my input.
I've blocked *.swf from my browser, and I'm keeping it that way forever.
A text book, or a text document to be read in vi, is much more pleasant than reading content on a site with flash/gif ads.
I have things more rigid than my spine she can coax...
Especially because you can select a very broad range of countries from a drop-down box when typing in your delivery address. On the other hand, I dont remember checking a box labeled "I agree to these terms and services".
A 14-year old is suing the Internet for $30 billin, claiming that the technology failed to protect her from a 19-year old she met...
wait, screw this parody.
What the fuck is a 14-year kid old doing meeting a 19-year old she met om MySpace? I think she should sue her parents for not beating her enough.
No. In the real world, if BIG CORPORATION depended on COOL, they would have hired INHOUSE DEVELOPER 1 and 2 to support COOL, or even just SYSADMIN 1 to just keep the thing running.
:(
If EXECUTIVE 1 and 2 use software which isnt feature-stable in their CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT, they are STUPID EXECUTIVE 1 and 2, also their IT DEPARTMENT should be fired for not opposing the usage of the alpha-quality software in the corporation.
Now, the pun.
DEVELOPER 1: Hey, lets make something USEFUL.
DEVELOPER 2: Ok, fine. We'll licence it as Open-Source, and charge for support.
(Meanwhile)
SOFTWARE HOUSE EXEC: Programmers. Please start working on BLING. My marketing dept says it should have feature X, Y and Z for us to earn BIG CASH.
(Some time passes)
BIG CORP 1 EXEC: We are going to use USEFUL for our accounting. Hire INHOUSE DEVELOPER and SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR.
BIG CORP 2 EXEC: We are going to use BLING from SOFTWARE HOUSE because it has feature X, Y and Z.
Some years pass. BIG CORP 1 and 2 are happily using USEFUL and BLING respectively. DEVELOPER 1 and 2 died in a freak car crash/lightning/stabbing accident. Nobody develops USEFUL anymore, except for INHOUSE DEVELOPER, with SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR to help him.
SOFTWARE HOUSE: Hey, BIG CORP 2. We can see that your entire corporate infrastructure depends on BLING. Also, we're not gonna patch SECURITY ISSUE 1, 2 and 3 unless you pay many more BIG CASH.
BIG CORP 2 EXEC 1:
SOFTWARE HOUSE: Hey BIG CORP 2. We're closing down our business. Better migrate to some other software which is like BLING.
BIG CORP 2 EXEC 1: Ok, but can we have source so we can develop it ourselves?
SOFTWARE HOUSE: Nope. Corporate secret.
BIG CORP 2 EXEC 1: Ok, but can you atleast document the format in which all of our corporate data is stored?
SOFTWARE HOUSE: Nope. Corporate secret.
BIG CORP 2 is screwed and ended up paying much more BIG CASH than BIG CORP 1, because they depended on SOFTWARE HOUSE to support BLING, while BIG CORP 1 actually saved a lot of BIG CASH because they optimized USEFUL to suit their needs over time.
This can be directly metaphored to the technology behind XML. If you recieve an XML file, you decide how you want to interpret the file, how to represent it and what else to do with it. If you, however, recieve an image (ie png, jpg), the image can only be represented in one way.
Hint: "image" is metaphor for podcast. "XML File" is metaphor for plaintext material.
Also, you should not make assumptions about how any person on this planet interprets data served to him in any format, be it visual, kinetic or audiovisual.
Which is exactly the reasons for not listening to a podcast while doing something which requires your undivided attention. You can NOT absorb any information if all your focus is directed elsewhere.
I've tried listening to podcasts, and found myself abandoning them after 40 seconds because I couldnt sit still doing nothing but listening, or percieve the material while doing something else.
Also, some of us read faster than the time it takes for someone to pronounce the text, which makes it much easier to find time to read something rather than listening to it.
Try this experiment: Ask someone who is good at non-interactive lecturing speak about something which interests both you and the lecturer, and record it (Without you knowing much about the subject beforehand and without listening to the lecture while it is being recorded)
Now, listen to the record while doing something else which requires your undivided, constant attention. Then check if you percieved any of the information from the audio recording you just listened to.
If your result is different than what I would expect it to be, please notify your local PhD's.