I've not seen any ads that advertise unlimited gigabytes.
Verizon has/had a plan simply called "Unlimited Access" that they sold in New York State. They didn't specifically use any terms denoting quantity ("gigabytes") or any other usage restrictions in their plan name or advertising; they left it wide open to the customer's imagination, in their advertising/marketing (although not in the actual contract), as to what "Unlimited" implied. And, they got spanked for it by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo back in 2007 for "deceptive marketing." Verizon agreed to stop the "deceptive marketing" and reimburse Verizon customers in New York State $1 million.
Apparently, at least in New York State, the contract doesn't mean much if you are judged to have engaged in deceptive advertising while trying to sell that contract.
* * * * *
All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific.
—Jane Wagner
Funny, but my backup workstation, an elderly AMD Thunderbird (32-bit, dog-ass slow) with a crappily small hard drive and 1gig of RAM, can handle both Gnome and KDE libraries and not skip a beat, or beg me to run down to NewEgg for a new hard drive.
May I quote your post here on my website as an entry in the '100 Stupidest Comments of 2010'?
I pointed them to a Microsoft knowledgebase entry which supposedly fixes it, but they reported that it didn't work for them. I don't use Windows much so the issue is puzzling to me; the Chamber has a system builder on retainer but apparently nobody there has seen fit to rectify the problem (or just can't).
* * * * *
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. —Mark Twain
OK, you make good points. Although I'm not sure that the x264 library qualifies as a complete "encoder" (stream output functions?) but it's close enough.
Furthermore, it is completely legal to encode video with a patent-encumbered encoder if you have a license to do so.
But this gets back to the whole point of the thread. In fact, the x264 team does not have a license (from MPEG-LA) to the h264 IP according to all accounts that I can find. They released under their own, separate (GPL) license. And, according to posts on the x264 developer's list, a practical, real-world usage in patent-honoring jurisdictions would require adherence to both licenses, according to Alex Izvorski:
However (and this is an extremely important and possibly confusing point) the patent license for H264 is *completely separate*
from the copyright license for x264. You need both; you need to comply with the terms of both; if one says you can do something and the other
says you can't, then you can't.
x264 is only an encoder for the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard. It does not handle decoding.
Doesn't make an iota of difference what decodes your video, if you're not legally allowed to encode it in your jurisdiction using a patent-encumbered codec in the first place.
Citation definitely needed. The project calls itself a H.264/AVC encoder [videolan.org].
It appears you're using Microsoft's flavor of Javascript, which has notorious issues with my brower/platform of choice (Firefox/Linux).
There might be an apt analogy here to the situation between x264 and h264, but I'm too tired right now to explore the idea further.
By the way, I'm a professional videographer/photographer/editor/graphic designer. I personally have made use of x264 (in VLC), but I would be extremely hesitant to use it on a professional project, where I was prominent as the author, due to it's extremely shaky legal foundation in the US. I'm not a lawyer, but I have three decades of experience plowing through IP/copyright law (with the help of lawyers) as practiced in the US. Frankly speaking, I feel that the x264 implementation doesn't have a legal leg to stand on in the US and the EU, and if you'll do some basic research you'll find that there are many IP lawyers on both continents who concur with my view. You're exposing yourself to huge risks by using the x264 libraries, and distributing the works thereof...at least where I live.
The recent FAT32 fiasco where Microsoft lowered the boom on TomTom is a direct compare. TomTom assumed they were in the clear since an open source reverse-engineer (dosftools) had been in use for quite a while by many vendors, until Microsoft's legal team educated them otherwise.
I disagree. Discussions about a "standard" are moot if legal, non-encumbered implementations are unavailable for a considerable subset of users. Which seems to be the Mozilla team's stance.
That's a valid question. The original reason we made this graph was to offer a rebuttal to a quite sloppy paper that both incorrectly claimed x264 exceeded Theora PSNR by nearly 20dB (!) on this specific clip, as well as incorrectly implied that PSNR comparisons conclusively indicate relative codec superiority. This paper was beginning to see wide distribution as yet another piece of 'evidence' that Theora has no hope of competing and was not worth considering for use. Although we've contacted the author, he's not yet shown any inclination to correct the errors.
Everyone likes to whine about patents for h.264, but there are free/oss decoders available and the best h.264 encoder is probably the open source x264.
Apparently, even though x264 is GPL'd, it violates MPEG-LA's patents in jurisdictions that recognize software patents:
Second, if h264 needs to be licensed at such exorbitant prices, how do x264, VLC, and MPC-HC do it?
I don't know about MPC-HC, but x264 (which is the h264-compatible codec used in VLC) is a cleanroom reverse-engineering job. So, it's technically not h264. Just very compatible. And it's GPL'd. However, we now have the question of why the Mozilla folks aren't supporting a GPL'd codec. I'm guessing because there are possible legal patent-related issues surrounding a reverse-engineered codec like x264.
x264 is a free library for encoding H.264/AVC video streams. x246 has features such as CABAC and DirectShow encoding. It is released under the terms of the GPL, but this license is incompatible with the MPEG-LA patent licenses in jurisdictions that recognize software patents.
* * * * *
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect. —Stephen Wright
So great, Inkscape SVGs are renderable in Inkscape, and really simple ones will work in Firefox and Opera. Whoopdee-doo.
Just out of curiosity, I opened the native Inkscape (0.47) version of a logo I'm working on in Firefox (Linux, v3.5.5). It rendered beautifully. Same with Opera v9.63. The art has ~50 paths with more than 600 nodes each (largest ones around 3000 nodes each), transparency and blur filter effects, linear color blends and I'm pretty sure I've got a couple of radial blends in there as well. So, what's all this f*cking nonsense about "really simple ones will work in Firefox and Opera?"
* * * * *
I'd horse whip you, if I only had a horse."
—Groucho Marx
In a proprietary project if your boss says "do this" you either do it or find another job.
No, what's much more common in the proprietary world is that you tell your boss "Say, we really need to fix this code before it costs us customers or becomes a security risk" and your boss replies, "Listen, Ace, as soon as you become CFO you can initiate that little project and go explain to our stockholders why we blew $54 million retasking 1,200 of our people to rewrite something we should have coded properly 10 years ago . But until the time you're named CFO, Ace, the Marketing and Accounting Departments dictate the shots. And they're happy with the new-customer-to-lost-customer ratio. Now, go get me coffee."
Real-world examples:
Microsoft's ActiveX (security experts first pointed out how dangerous it was in a networked environment way back in '94; it remains unfixed 15 years later despite an average of one new major ActiveX exploit-in-the-wild per month since then).
IBM's Lotus Notes (which IBM cheerfully refused to do anything about until 2007 despite it creating an entire cottage industry of Websites chronicling its many failures; finally God Himself intervened and threatened Sam Palmisano with enternal damnation unless he did something about it)
Adobe Creative Suite (which, in each subsequent Windows version, becomes less compatible with SMB and spends more and more CPU cycles attempting to find unauthorized copies of itself on your network and fewer cycles focusing on the task you just gave it.
* * * * *
"All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific."
—Jane Wagner
I don't have any affiliation with Wilson, and I don't do Internet in the field, but their cellphone amps and antennas have enabled me to establish voice service with cellular towers many miles further away than what I normally could when I'm out doing nature photography in remote parts of the U.S. Southwest. Their gear is also said to be popular with long-haul truckers who need cellular access in remote areas. They may just be able to recommend a setup (typically an amplifier/antennna combo) that will put you in business for terrestrial 2G/3G services. Do note that even with my kit, I still find black holes; they're just not as huge as they would be with a non-amplified phone.
Moonlight is always hot on their heels [tirania.org].
I've got Moonlight 1.0.1 installed with Firefox 3.5 on Fedora and so far, I've not been able to find a single Silverlight/Moonlight demo which will work, even when I go to a Moonlight 1.0-specific demo site.
Most things just display that silly "Install Microsoft(R) Silverlight(TM)" button. Other demos don't even get that far.
Impressive. Truly impressive.
_ _ _
I'd horse whip you, but I don't have a horse!
—Groucho Marx
You know, all you had to do was check the Yellow Pages for the Sutter Buttes/Tarantula Junction exchange, and there right under the "World Domination, Evil Genetic Engineering Consultants" heading was this listing:
"Tarantek: Your one-stop source for mutants, clones, evil world domination schemes, improbability manipulation and 'unapproved' research. Arachnids our specialty. We're also California's largest wholesaler of Chia Pets. We take MasterCard, Discover Card and VISA."
* * * * *
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
—Abraham Lincoln
..but I run an advertising agency that uses "free replacements" (on Linux) and am today wrapping up my fourth high-quality print project of the young year and a Website upgrade. Just for your edification, GIMP's had a very good CMYK export plugin for several years now, and I'll put my print portfolio up against anyone's.
Slashdot Mirror
Lord Palmerston (1784-1865): "Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests."
Verizon has/had a plan simply called "Unlimited Access" that they sold in New York State. They didn't specifically use any terms denoting quantity ("gigabytes") or any other usage restrictions in their plan name or advertising; they left it wide open to the customer's imagination, in their advertising/marketing (although not in the actual contract), as to what "Unlimited" implied. And, they got spanked for it by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo back in 2007 for "deceptive marketing." Verizon agreed to stop the "deceptive marketing" and reimburse Verizon customers in New York State $1 million.
http://riskman.typepad.com/peerflow/2007/10/cuomo-to-verizo.html
Cuomo's action was most likely brought on by vocal consumer backlash in various forums:
http://consumerist.com/2007/04/verizon-unlimited-access-plan-is-extremely-limited.html
Apparently, at least in New York State, the contract doesn't mean much if you are judged to have engaged in deceptive advertising while trying to sell that contract.
* * * * *
All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific.
—Jane Wagner
"Vast sets of libraries..."
Seriously, stop and listen to yourself.
Funny, but my backup workstation, an elderly AMD Thunderbird (32-bit, dog-ass slow) with a crappily small hard drive and 1gig of RAM, can handle both Gnome and KDE libraries and not skip a beat, or beg me to run down to NewEgg for a new hard drive.
May I quote your post here on my website as an entry in the '100 Stupidest Comments of 2010'?
All of the desktops in use at my local Chamber of Commerce (WinXP) can't show/mount a thumbdrive, apparently related to this issue:
www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/find-your-missing-usb-drive-on-windows-xp
I pointed them to a Microsoft knowledgebase entry which supposedly fixes it, but they reported that it didn't work for them. I don't use Windows much so the issue is puzzling to me; the Chamber has a system builder on retainer but apparently nobody there has seen fit to rectify the problem (or just can't).
* * * * *
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
—Mark Twain
OK, you make good points. Although I'm not sure that the x264 library qualifies as a complete "encoder" (stream output functions?) but it's close enough.
Furthermore, it is completely legal to encode video with a patent-encumbered encoder if you have a license to do so.
But this gets back to the whole point of the thread. In fact, the x264 team does not have a license (from MPEG-LA) to the h264 IP according to all accounts that I can find. They released under their own, separate (GPL) license. And, according to posts on the x264 developer's list, a practical, real-world usage in patent-honoring jurisdictions would require adherence to both licenses, according to Alex Izvorski:
However (and this is an extremely important and possibly confusing point) the patent license for H264 is *completely separate* from the copyright license for x264. You need both; you need to comply with the terms of both; if one says you can do something and the other says you can't, then you can't.
x264 is only an encoder for the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard. It does not handle decoding.
Doesn't make an iota of difference what decodes your video, if you're not legally allowed to encode it in your jurisdiction using a patent-encumbered codec in the first place.
Citation definitely needed. The project calls itself a H.264/AVC encoder [videolan.org].
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1500342/h264-decoder-source-code
Being implemented through reverse-engineering doesn't matter. Anyway, it seems the specification is freely downloadable [itu.int].
The specs for FAT32 are available, too. Didn't seem to do TomTom much good, did it?
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/fatgen.mspx
Can't, sorry:
XML Parsing Error: not well-formed Location: http://cid-bee3c9ac9541c85b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/ Line Number 77, Column 184:
It appears you're using Microsoft's flavor of Javascript, which has notorious issues with my brower/platform of choice (Firefox/Linux).
There might be an apt analogy here to the situation between x264 and h264, but I'm too tired right now to explore the idea further.
By the way, I'm a professional videographer/photographer/editor/graphic designer. I personally have made use of x264 (in VLC), but I would be extremely hesitant to use it on a professional project, where I was prominent as the author, due to it's extremely shaky legal foundation in the US. I'm not a lawyer, but I have three decades of experience plowing through IP/copyright law (with the help of lawyers) as practiced in the US. Frankly speaking, I feel that the x264 implementation doesn't have a legal leg to stand on in the US and the EU, and if you'll do some basic research you'll find that there are many IP lawyers on both continents who concur with my view. You're exposing yourself to huge risks by using the x264 libraries, and distributing the works thereof...at least where I live.
The recent FAT32 fiasco where Microsoft lowered the boom on TomTom is a direct compare. TomTom assumed they were in the clear since an open source reverse-engineer (dosftools) had been in use for quite a while by many vendors, until Microsoft's legal team educated them otherwise.
http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2006-August/002052.html
Keep in mind that a difference of 4 dB would mean that you need about twice the bitrate for the same quality.
Pretty strong evidence here that this assertion is incorrect in real-world tests:
http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html
I disagree. Discussions about a "standard" are moot if legal, non-encumbered implementations are unavailable for a considerable subset of users. Which seems to be the Mozilla team's stance.
A quote from the Xiph paper referenced:
That's a valid question. The original reason we made this graph was to offer a rebuttal to a quite sloppy paper that both incorrectly claimed x264 exceeded Theora PSNR by nearly 20dB (!) on this specific clip, as well as incorrectly implied that PSNR comparisons conclusively indicate relative codec superiority. This paper was beginning to see wide distribution as yet another piece of 'evidence' that Theora has no hope of competing and was not worth considering for use. Although we've contacted the author, he's not yet shown any inclination to correct the errors.
Everyone likes to whine about patents for h.264, but there are free/oss decoders available and the best h.264 encoder is probably the open source x264.
Apparently, even though x264 is GPL'd, it violates MPEG-LA's patents in jurisdictions that recognize software patents:
http://www.unmediated.org/archives/2005/05/videolan_x264_e.php
Second, if h264 needs to be licensed at such exorbitant prices, how do x264, VLC, and MPC-HC do it?
I don't know about MPC-HC, but x264 (which is the h264-compatible codec used in VLC) is a cleanroom reverse-engineering job. So, it's technically not h264. Just very compatible. And it's GPL'd. However, we now have the question of why the Mozilla folks aren't supporting a GPL'd codec. I'm guessing because there are possible legal patent-related issues surrounding a reverse-engineered codec like x264.
Doing a bit more searching, we find this:
http://www.unmediated.org/archives/2005/05/videolan_x264_e.php
x264 is a free library for encoding H.264/AVC video streams. x246 has features such as CABAC and DirectShow encoding. It is released under the terms of the GPL, but this license is incompatible with the MPEG-LA patent licenses in jurisdictions that recognize software patents.
* * * * *
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect. —Stephen Wright
Just out of curiosity, I opened the native Inkscape (0.47) version of a logo I'm working on in Firefox (Linux, v3.5.5). It rendered beautifully. Same with Opera v9.63. The art has ~50 paths with more than 600 nodes each (largest ones around 3000 nodes each), transparency and blur filter effects, linear color blends and I'm pretty sure I've got a couple of radial blends in there as well. So, what's all this f*cking nonsense about "really simple ones will work in Firefox and Opera?"
* * * * *
I'd horse whip you, if I only had a horse."
—Groucho Marx
There was an old quip I used to hear from auto racing folks a couple of decades ago...
Q. How do you make a million bucks in racing?
A. Start out with two million.
* * * * *
Error 416: Sig not found.
Citations needed
Here you go:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/867178/posts
No, what's much more common in the proprietary world is that you tell your boss "Say, we really need to fix this code before it costs us customers or becomes a security risk" and your boss replies, "Listen, Ace, as soon as you become CFO you can initiate that little project and go explain to our stockholders why we blew $54 million retasking 1,200 of our people to rewrite something we should have coded properly 10 years ago . But until the time you're named CFO, Ace, the Marketing and Accounting Departments dictate the shots. And they're happy with the new-customer-to-lost-customer ratio. Now, go get me coffee."
Real-world examples:
Microsoft's ActiveX (security experts first pointed out how dangerous it was in a networked environment way back in '94; it remains unfixed 15 years later despite an average of one new major ActiveX exploit-in-the-wild per month since then).
IBM's Lotus Notes (which IBM cheerfully refused to do anything about until 2007 despite it creating an entire cottage industry of Websites chronicling its many failures; finally God Himself intervened and threatened Sam Palmisano with enternal damnation unless he did something about it)
Adobe Creative Suite (which, in each subsequent Windows version, becomes less compatible with SMB and spends more and more CPU cycles attempting to find unauthorized copies of itself on your network and fewer cycles focusing on the task you just gave it.
* * * * *
"All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific."
—Jane Wagner
You might want to forward your question(s) to these folks:
http://wilsonelectronics.com/
I don't have any affiliation with Wilson, and I don't do Internet in the field, but their cellphone amps and antennas have enabled me to establish voice service with cellular towers many miles further away than what I normally could when I'm out doing nature photography in remote parts of the U.S. Southwest. Their gear is also said to be popular with long-haul truckers who need cellular access in remote areas. They may just be able to recommend a setup (typically an amplifier/antennna combo) that will put you in business for terrestrial 2G/3G services. Do note that even with my kit, I still find black holes; they're just not as huge as they would be with a non-amplified phone.
* * * * *
Error 416: Sig not found.
http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/nochargesearch.jsp?cat=&q0=&pf=&k=ALL&pn=&pid=&rs=&S_TACT=104CBW71&status=Active&S_CMP=&b=&sr=1&q=symphony+1.3&ibm-search=Search
* * * * *
I'd horse whip you, if I only had a horse!
—Groucho Marx
So, Moonlight 1.0.1 won't display stuff created for Moonlight 1.0.0? It's not even backwards compatible through a point-point release difference?
Even more impressive.
I've got Moonlight 1.0.1 installed with Firefox 3.5 on Fedora and so far, I've not been able to find a single Silverlight/Moonlight demo which will work, even when I go to a Moonlight 1.0-specific demo site.
Most things just display that silly "Install Microsoft(R) Silverlight(TM)" button. Other demos don't even get that far.
Impressive. Truly impressive.
_ _ _
I'd horse whip you, but I don't have a horse!
—Groucho Marx
Hear, hear!
ObjectPAL, anyone?
_ _
This sig is in 100% feature compliance with the latest draft proposal for the Open Sig Specification version 1.0.
You know, all you had to do was check the Yellow Pages for the Sutter Buttes/Tarantula Junction exchange, and there right under the "World Domination, Evil Genetic Engineering Consultants" heading was this listing:
"Tarantek: Your one-stop source for mutants, clones, evil world domination schemes, improbability manipulation and 'unapproved' research. Arachnids our specialty. We're also California's largest wholesaler of Chia Pets. We take MasterCard, Discover Card and VISA."
* * * * *
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
—Abraham Lincoln
http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i121/djblinky/Subgenius-JHVH-1-by-St-Ken.jpg
* * * * *
Once you reach the end of this sig, turn your monitor over and continue the test on the other side.
..but I run an advertising agency that uses "free replacements" (on Linux) and am today wrapping up my fourth high-quality print project of the young year and a Website upgrade. Just for your edification, GIMP's had a very good CMYK export plugin for several years now, and I'll put my print portfolio up against anyone's.
OK, so I'm confused now. When Al Michaels talked about "going long," was he referring to action on the field or in the porn clip?
* * * * *
NOTE: my normal sig line has been replaced by 30 seconds of Richard Feynman discussing quantum electrodynamics. We apologize for this interruption.