No, I just said it was 1995 before MS caught up to the Amiga, and lo and behold, the "other" 90% of computer users could finally multitask and leave EGA & Beeping internal sound systems behind (because they were all obsolete, finally).
Just because MS is around now doesn't mean shit as to where they where 5, 10, 15 years ago.
x86 hardware / MS software couldn't touch Amiga hardware/software for 10 years after the Amiga's release in '85.
And yes, now we all use windows. Whoopdee-do. I'm truely glad PCs caught up. Finally.
Yes, and MS finally met the Amiga's performance some ten years after the Amiga was released.
Ooooh, ooh, I can connect to other computers, listen to music and play games at the same time! Neat-- for 1985.
I'm just glad they finally caught up to the rest of the industry.
*yawn* ---------------------------
Don't know if you are aware or not... But DivX has now been open sourced which makes this point of yours totally irrelevant. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it has the potential of becoming better
How does that make it irrelevenat? Even if DivX is still open source it still sucks as a format.
I wasn't able to get a clear-cut answer, but is the Project Mayo OpenDivx codec backwards compatable with DivX? Or is it a whole new codec. I then get back to my orginal questions. Does it us the crappy.AVI file format? Does it still have piss-poor dark-value encoding? Has the data-rate tracking improved?
Perhaps it's time for me to do my own research. ---------------------------
DivX is not a good format. It encodes dark values all wrong (hint: they eye does not detect values linearly). The data rate tracking is terrible. It relies on the.avi file architecture (better the.asf but still a dog in the industry). DivX IS NOT MPEG4!!! It is simply MicroSoft's copy of an old MPEG4 spec.
So what do we need? We need a video file format with BETTER compression. We need to move away from Microsoft file formats and support open standards (for example, MPEG4). And that brings us to the last point, wait for MPEG4 compliant codecs. MPEG4 gives you many advantages over DivX. Look them up for yourself if you want to find them. Better file format, better scalability, even some better compression.
I understand that DivX was simply at the right place at the right time. But here's to hoping that the format does not become another.GIF. Closed, unexpandable and bad. At least it's not patented (but it's hardly even legal!) ---------------------------
Scientology doesn't have shit for support from the US population. Less shit for support from the US Geek population. The only support the Co$ has from the US is from the political machine, which they long ago beat into submission. Ever hear what the Co$ did to the IRS? They had literly thousands of individual Scientologists sue individual IRS auditors and agents untill the entire IRS org basicallY said "PLEASE STOP SUING US, YOU CAN BE A CHURCH, OK? NO PLEASE STOP, WE'LL BURN OUR FILES. THANK YOU, L. RUN HUBBARD. LOVE, THE IRS"
Not only do they know about all of these sites, they attack them on a regular basis. Did you know it was Scientology that oirginally shut down anon.petit.fi? Anybody remember that? They raided the guys place and had him turn over the IPs of people who were posting "Trade Secrets" of the Co$.
However, in the Internet, one site goes down, two go up. Once you realize how EVIL these people are, you'd do the same.....that is, if you can live with the smear campaign they will run against you. ---------------------------
Actually, they are. Microsoft just puts their competition out of buisiness...or buys them. Scentology will smear your name on your way down/out. Please check the links above to see just how evil they are. ---------------------------
I am especially impressed with the multimedia capabilities of these sort of products. While I don't quite agree with their 128MB for 160 mins of video numbers, I DO like the *IDEA* of a palm pilot sized device that can play back 320x240(!) full screen (almost, full screen horizontal and 2/3 screen vertical) video. We can probably work something out where we put the device sideways and watch widescreen video on it. However, as DIVX has shown us, we need storage devices in the 300-1G range for high qualitity video clips. Since this device can play back MPEG1 (I'm assuming 1) then experience tells me you'll need 1G for full screen video. Perhaps when they say "160 mins" they mean 160 mins at 120x80!
Oh well, a man can dream though...a man can dream.... ---------------------------
I buy a lot online and it disturbs be that this goes on. Why haven't the companies informed their customers when their security has been breached?
Furthermore, how many Unix-guyz ritualistically install security updates? I think that relates more to the individual person's diligence instead of what OS they use. Of course, you could argue that more diligent people use Unix, but that's another story all together. ---------------------------
The cassette tape and VCR businesses faced this exact problem and eventually came up with invisible programs to pay the music, TV, and film industries a small royalty on each blank tape. The same thing should happen for CD-Rs and RWs INSTANTLY. Add a few cents to the cost of every blank disk, throw in a few dollars for every CD burner, and suddenly you have $1 billion or so to pay to artists, writers, and publishers in the exact proportions specified by the Napster servers. That $1 billion is approximately equal to the entire profits of the recording industry, and it is $1 billion they aren't getting now.
The problem I have with this is that in all of my CD-Rs I have ever burned, only ONE (1) was used to burn music. And it was a collection of indy, non-signed artists. So, in essence, I would be paying a TAX to the MUSIC INDUSTRY (and not the artists) just because I'm using a file-storage mechanism that CAN record audio. That's fsck'ed up! I have burnt probably at least 150 CD-Rs and I don't feel the music industry should get a cent from me.
Now the movie industry, on the other hand.... well let's just say I don't use all of my CD-Rs for data storage....;-) ---------------------------
Well, here's the list I came up with (off the top of my head)
LPs, Reel-to-reels (12mm I think, hey I had one in college!), 8-tracks, Analog tapes, DATs, CDs, Minidisc.
I've had my hands on all of these technologies at one point or another. It gets even crazier when you add computers to the mix. MP3, mod., MIDI, etc..)
You are probably correct though, the media format explosion has only taken place recently. It still does not excuse the absolute avoidance of the record companies of all things digital and good.
I don't knw what planet YOU came from, but maybe you noticed that we as humans go through audio/visual format changes at least once every ten years. What's another one?
Or perhaps you might have noticed that record companies DO release music and videos on one disc, on the crap DVD format, with all of the digital restrictions it comes with.
Oh yeah, they also charge ~$30 for this. ---------------------------
Darn. Even after all this hoopla, I just got around to installing Napster a couple weeks ago. The softwares not too bad.
Looks like I'll be going back to Hotline, which is where many of my MP3s came from (the rest were ripped from CD).
Got to love these record companies who still distribute their warez on uncompressed optical discs when they could have been using audio+video compression technology to distribute all of the bands songs and music videos on CD.
Perhaps if they spent less money suing people and more money on R&D, people might be more willing to shell out $$ for their product (I know I would shell out $$ for the aforementioned item!) ---------------------------
Doh, it still sounds like me! That must be why I have my dual processor Mac. Ah well, after seeing what WinTel did to the computer market (held it back a good 15 years) I vowed never to jump on THAT side of the fence!
What he was saying is that...the compression isn't all that great. What I think he means, is that Divx (the old Divx) compresses TOO MUCH (or not effectively enough), giving you a picture quality a little better than Real Video, which is shit.
Divx will destroy motion (everything goes "blocky" and out of focus), destroy dark values (hint to MSFT, the human eye does NOT see values linearly), drops frames and has TERRIBLE bit-rate tracking.
It also doesn't help with all of these rip groups that release poorly encoded, small files in two parts. Who does these?
Or prehaps what is meant is that by owning these complex and expensive labor saving devices, they require a multitude of people to keep it running. Your automobile keeps gas stations, auto repair shops, state lincensing and the like busy. Computers are also acheiving the same complexity. Each computer and software program has had a thousand minds working on it. Not too mention when it breaks you need to send to a repair shop were professionals can fix it.
The question that may need to be asked is if technology is benefiting soiciety as a whole? With each new device that is created, is it worth having an army of technicians and designers to create, update and maintain it?
I can't verify it for you. I could go on and on about HOW the data is stored there. They use magnetic pulses for the clock and the data is stored in between the pulses.
We just used various cards we had to prove that it worked. The card I used for the demonstration was my college ID card which had, amoung other things, my Social Security Number on it.
As for changing you number later. That's plausible. I remember when I got my ATM, they had my type in my PIN number first, then they stuck my card in a laser printer sized machine which then encoded my card.
That is correct. The pin number, and the card number itself is stored unencrypted on your debit card. We did a lab at school where we interfaced a 6812 to a card swiper. It was real freaky to swipe your ATM card and be able to get at your pin so easy.
The very morning of the day my wife's Powerbook 1400 broke, we talked of selling it to fund a new computer purchase. As Murphey's Law would have it, that day I managed to crack the screen-- leaving about 85% of the screen unviewable.
What did I do? Put it up on eBay anyway!
[Up for bid, one Powerbook 1400/117 48M Ram, 750M HD. Everything works except screen and ethernet card.]
Included a description of the screen and picture. I also noted that I had a practically new 3 gig 2 1/2inch drive I could throw in for an extra $150.
The result? Final bid over $400. Buyer opted to buy the HD. In the end, we got over $650 for a BROKEN Powerbook! I love eBay! That was close to what we wanted to get if it was working!
The only reason we put it up is that I noted that someone had sold a near identical model, with a borken screen. However, he had only gotten $150 for it. Personally, I would have been glad to have gotten that.
I wanted to post a link to the auction, but it was over 6 months ago and it has disaapeared from eBay's server.:-(
I've been actively play Magic: The Gathering for years now.....in the Type I environment. Austin has a very active Type I envorinment. But, like you said, it's not sanctioned. But I couldn't give a flying flip. I play to have fun, not to play in Japan or UK or whever the Pro Tour is going.
Not to mention I like to play beyond the fourth turn.:-)
I heard about the Hasbro buyout earlier today and haven't yet been able to draw any conclusions about what it will mean for Magic players. Most likely it won't affect me at all. If WOTC never releases a set again, that'll be fine. I still play with people who haven't bought a pack of cards in a long time. If they do, hey that'll be great. I have been enjoying the sets they have released over the past couple years. They are FAR, FAR more enjoyable than sets like Fallen Empires-> Homelands...Yuch.
Ahhh, the Amiga. The Workbench is basically an ultra stripped down single-user version of UNIX with an intergrated GUI and absolutely AWESOME hardware to back it up (for the time anyway.)
But of course people just purchased PCs instead and used DOS and were impressed when EGA came out. Sigh.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I just said it was 1995 before MS caught up to the Amiga, and lo and behold, the "other" 90% of computer users could finally multitask and leave EGA & Beeping internal sound systems behind (because they were all obsolete, finally).
Just because MS is around now doesn't mean shit as to where they where 5, 10, 15 years ago.
x86 hardware / MS software couldn't touch Amiga hardware/software for 10 years after the Amiga's release in '85.
And yes, now we all use windows. Whoopdee-do. I'm truely glad PCs caught up. Finally.
---------------------------
Yes, and MS finally met the Amiga's performance some ten years after the Amiga was released. Ooooh, ooh, I can connect to other computers, listen to music and play games at the same time! Neat-- for 1985. I'm just glad they finally caught up to the rest of the industry. *yawn*
---------------------------
Don't know if you are aware or not... But DivX has now been open sourced which makes this point of yours totally irrelevant. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it has the potential of becoming better
.AVI file format? Does it still have piss-poor dark-value encoding? Has the data-rate tracking improved?
How does that make it irrelevenat? Even if DivX is still open source it still sucks as a format.
I wasn't able to get a clear-cut answer, but is the Project Mayo OpenDivx codec backwards compatable with DivX? Or is it a whole new codec. I then get back to my orginal questions. Does it us the crappy
Perhaps it's time for me to do my own research.
---------------------------
DivX is not a good format. It encodes dark values all wrong (hint: they eye does not detect values linearly). The data rate tracking is terrible. It relies on the .avi file architecture (better the .asf but still a dog in the industry). DivX IS NOT MPEG4!!! It is simply MicroSoft's copy of an old MPEG4 spec.
.GIF. Closed, unexpandable and bad. At least it's not patented (but it's hardly even legal!)
So what do we need? We need a video file format with BETTER compression. We need to move away from Microsoft file formats and support open standards (for example, MPEG4). And that brings us to the last point, wait for MPEG4 compliant codecs. MPEG4 gives you many advantages over DivX. Look them up for yourself if you want to find them. Better file format, better scalability, even some better compression.
I understand that DivX was simply at the right place at the right time. But here's to hoping that the format does not become another
---------------------------
Scientology doesn't have shit for support from the US population. Less shit for support from the US Geek population. The only support the Co$ has from the US is from the political machine, which they long ago beat into submission. Ever hear what the Co$ did to the IRS? They had literly thousands of individual Scientologists sue individual IRS auditors and agents untill the entire IRS org basicallY said "PLEASE STOP SUING US, YOU CAN BE A CHURCH, OK? NO PLEASE STOP, WE'LL BURN OUR FILES. THANK YOU, L. RUN HUBBARD. LOVE, THE IRS"
---------------------------
No, it just made it a lot easier. Slashdot can wash their hands of anything bad by just removing the comment. That's what the DMCA says.
Before, Co$ would just have the police raid the building. They were getting quite good at it.
---------------------------
Not only do they know about all of these sites, they attack them on a regular basis. Did you know it was Scientology that oirginally shut down anon.petit.fi? Anybody remember that? They raided the guys place and had him turn over the IPs of people who were posting "Trade Secrets" of the Co$.
However, in the Internet, one site goes down, two go up. Once you realize how EVIL these people are, you'd do the same.....that is, if you can live with the smear campaign they will run against you.
---------------------------
Actually, they are. Microsoft just puts their competition out of buisiness...or buys them. Scentology will smear your name on your way down/out. Please check the links above to see just how evil they are.
---------------------------
Exactly.
Could be cool, but it's not. Then they lie with numbers.
"up to 160 minutes of MPEG, AVI, Quicktime 3/4 video"!!!!
Yeah, what ever. As you pointed out, that's a bitrate of 12K/s, which by my in-the-head calculations equals 80x40 video at 30fps MPEG1.
Yippie.
Call me again when Sony has implemented MPEG4 and 1G storage.
---------------------------
I am especially impressed with the multimedia capabilities of these sort of products. While I don't quite agree with their 128MB for 160 mins of video numbers, I DO like the *IDEA* of a palm pilot sized device that can play back 320x240(!) full screen (almost, full screen horizontal and 2/3 screen vertical) video. We can probably work something out where we put the device sideways and watch widescreen video on it. However, as DIVX has shown us, we need storage devices in the 300-1G range for high qualitity video clips. Since this device can play back MPEG1 (I'm assuming 1) then experience tells me you'll need 1G for full screen video. Perhaps when they say "160 mins" they mean 160 mins at 120x80!
Oh well, a man can dream though...a man can dream....
---------------------------
I buy a lot online and it disturbs be that this goes on. Why haven't the companies informed their customers when their security has been breached?
Furthermore, how many Unix-guyz ritualistically install security updates? I think that relates more to the individual person's diligence instead of what OS they use. Of course, you could argue that more diligent people use Unix, but that's another story all together.
---------------------------
Simple question.
What's the best thing that happened to you since Slashdot started? Conversly, what's the worst?
---------------------------
The problem I have with this is that in all of my CD-Rs I have ever burned, only ONE (1) was used to burn music. And it was a collection of indy, non-signed artists. So, in essence, I would be paying a TAX to the MUSIC INDUSTRY (and not the artists) just because I'm using a file-storage mechanism that CAN record audio. That's fsck'ed up! I have burnt probably at least 150 CD-Rs and I don't feel the music industry should get a cent from me.
Now the movie industry, on the other hand.... well let's just say I don't use all of my CD-Rs for data storage....
---------------------------
Well, here's the list I came up with (off the top of my head)
LPs, Reel-to-reels (12mm I think, hey I had one in college!), 8-tracks, Analog tapes, DATs, CDs, Minidisc.
I've had my hands on all of these technologies at one point or another. It gets even crazier when you add computers to the mix. MP3, mod., MIDI, etc..)
You are probably correct though, the media format explosion has only taken place recently. It still does not excuse the absolute avoidance of the record companies of all things digital and good.
P.S. I'm 24.
---------------------------
I don't knw what planet YOU came from, but maybe you noticed that we as humans go through audio/visual format changes at least once every ten years. What's another one?
Or perhaps you might have noticed that record companies DO release music and videos on one disc, on the crap DVD format, with all of the digital restrictions it comes with.
Oh yeah, they also charge ~$30 for this.
---------------------------
Darn. Even after all this hoopla, I just got around to installing Napster a couple weeks ago. The softwares not too bad.
Looks like I'll be going back to Hotline, which is where many of my MP3s came from (the rest were ripped from CD).
Got to love these record companies who still distribute their warez on uncompressed optical discs when they could have been using audio+video compression technology to distribute all of the bands songs and music videos on CD.
Perhaps if they spent less money suing people and more money on R&D, people might be more willing to shell out $$ for their product (I know I would shell out $$ for the aforementioned item!)
---------------------------
Yes, and I've done them myself. While I do enjoy the fast encoding times, the quality is no where near the orginal souce material.
And just like me in the Amiga days.
Doh, it still sounds like me! That must be why I have my dual processor Mac. Ah well, after seeing what WinTel did to the computer market (held it back a good 15 years) I vowed never to jump on THAT side of the fence!
What he was saying is that...the compression isn't all that great. What I think he means, is that Divx (the old Divx) compresses TOO MUCH (or not effectively enough), giving you a picture quality a little better than Real Video, which is shit.
Divx will destroy motion (everything goes "blocky" and out of focus), destroy dark values (hint to MSFT, the human eye does NOT see values linearly), drops frames and has TERRIBLE bit-rate tracking.
It also doesn't help with all of these rip groups that release poorly encoded, small files in two parts. Who does these?
Or prehaps what is meant is that by owning these complex and expensive labor saving devices, they require a multitude of people to keep it running. Your automobile keeps gas stations, auto repair shops, state lincensing and the like busy. Computers are also acheiving the same complexity. Each computer and software program has had a thousand minds working on it. Not too mention when it breaks you need to send to a repair shop were professionals can fix it.
The question that may need to be asked is if technology is benefiting soiciety as a whole? With each new device that is created, is it worth having an army of technicians and designers to create, update and maintain it?
Probably, hey it's great for the economy!
I can't verify it for you. I could go on and on about HOW the data is stored there. They use magnetic pulses for the clock and the data is stored in between the pulses.
We just used various cards we had to prove that it worked. The card I used for the demonstration was my college ID card which had, amoung other things, my Social Security Number on it.
As for changing you number later. That's plausible. I remember when I got my ATM, they had my type in my PIN number first, then they stuck my card in a laser printer sized machine which then encoded my card.
That is correct. The pin number, and the card number itself is stored unencrypted on your debit card. We did a lab at school where we interfaced a 6812 to a card swiper. It was real freaky to swipe your ATM card and be able to get at your pin so easy.
Here's a story of something I sold on eBay.
:-(
The very morning of the day my wife's Powerbook 1400 broke, we talked of selling it to fund a new computer purchase. As Murphey's Law would have it, that day I managed to crack the screen-- leaving about 85% of the screen unviewable.
What did I do? Put it up on eBay anyway!
[Up for bid, one Powerbook 1400/117 48M Ram, 750M HD. Everything works except screen and ethernet card.]
Included a description of the screen and picture. I also noted that I had a practically new 3 gig 2 1/2inch drive I could throw in for an extra $150.
The result? Final bid over $400. Buyer opted to buy the HD. In the end, we got over $650 for a BROKEN Powerbook! I love eBay! That was close to what we wanted to get if it was working!
The only reason we put it up is that I noted that someone had sold a near identical model, with a borken screen. However, he had only gotten $150 for it. Personally, I would have been glad to have gotten that.
I wanted to post a link to the auction, but it was over 6 months ago and it has disaapeared from eBay's server.
I've been actively play Magic: The Gathering for years now.....in the Type I environment. Austin has a very active Type I envorinment. But, like you said, it's not sanctioned. But I couldn't give a flying flip. I play to have fun, not to play in Japan or UK or whever the Pro Tour is going.
:-)
Not to mention I like to play beyond the fourth turn.
I heard about the Hasbro buyout earlier today and haven't yet been able to draw any conclusions about what it will mean for Magic players. Most likely it won't affect me at all. If WOTC never releases a set again, that'll be fine. I still play with people who haven't bought a pack of cards in a long time. If they do, hey that'll be great. I have been enjoying the sets they have released over the past couple years. They are FAR, FAR more enjoyable than sets like Fallen Empires-> Homelands...Yuch.
Ahhh, the Amiga. The Workbench is basically an ultra stripped down single-user version of UNIX with an intergrated GUI and absolutely AWESOME hardware to back it up (for the time anyway.)
But of course people just purchased PCs instead and used DOS and were impressed when EGA came out. Sigh.