Meh... we've gone downhill over the past 20 years or so, just look at the citroen AX for fuel efficiency. From Wikipedia:
In 1989 a naturally aspirated diesel AX, using the 1360 cc all aluminium alloy TUD engine, managed a figure of 2.7 L/100 km (87 mpgâ"U.S. / 105 mpgâ"imp), totalling over 1,000 miles (1,609 km) from Dover to Barcelona.
Monopolies do not crumble naturally due to market forces. That's completely backwards thinking, and if it were true, the government would not have to regulate the markets to prevent monopolistic practices. Monopolies do not destroy themselves, ever.
I'm writing this from a Vista machine that is 100% stable so far, had it for 8 months or so. Longest uptime is about a week, but it's my personal computer, it's not a server, so I turn it off every so often (note I didn't _have_ to turn it off for any reason, I just didn't need it on). It boots from boot manager to usable desktop in about 20 seconds. I'm not calling you wrong on how shitty Vista is for some people, but it works a lot better for me than anything else for what I do. If Vista is shitty, every other Windows is shittier.
I did try to install Linux, but got hit with big fakeraid problems when I got to partitioning. I still do intend to install linux at some point in the future, it is (seemingly) possible on my system - just not easy. That being said, Vista wasn't easy to install either...
The point is not that people want stuff for free. If you think that you're either being deliberately obtuse or are ignorant. The point is the scope and extent of copyright, especially in regards to consumer "purchases" which are actually just licenses according to "the man". There has long been an argument by "intellectual property" owners that we, the consumer, are not actually buying anything when we purchase a CD or game (fortunately book publishers do completely admit that when you buy a book, you can do what you want with it). The trouble is, if you're buying a license to use said music or software for any period of time, you should know your fucking rights beforehand. This is absolutely impossible now for the end user with the licenses and EULAs etc. Legalese has made it impossible for end users to make informed choices about purchases - the reason everyone just clicks yes is because they simply do not have enough time on this earth to read everything they agree to. Any kind of restrictive license aimed at end users is inherently shit purely because end users will not read the terms.
Video and DVD rental is obviously different because everyone already knows the basic terms of the rental. However, unreasonable terms on DVD rental (like, for example only being able to play it on one machine) are not expected.
Also, finishing each snide question with interesting? Shit.
Disagree mail sure does pay good don't they! Is there anyone not on the Disagree mail payroll at Slashdot? If you're going to become an Disagree mail mouthpiece you might want to try and hide it better! How much does a frontpage Slashdot story cost anyway? I hope it's a lot. If you're going to become a Disagree mail whore you might as well get paid well. Just know that I know it's rotten to the core!
Ok... Say all your family have access to your car, which they all use every so often. A speeding ticket comes through the post a couple of weeks after the offence, and no one can remember who was driving. It's now your problem, and that is shit... you should not have to log who is driving what when _all_ the time.
OT - Regarding your sig, atheism is lack of faith, not faith in lack. Many atheists also do believe in a lack of god too, but atheism at its simplest is just no belief in a higher entity, not a belief in no higher entity. There's an important difference.
I agree completely, and 1 year is the minimum expectation on consumer electronics in the UK IIRC. AFAIK, the 1 year limit is not set in stone, it is just one of these interpretations by the courts of a law in which 'reasonable' is used. If something like this happened to me here in the UK, I'd go back to the shop I bought it from and ask for a refund or replacement, which they have to give by law. If they don't, I'd go straight to small claims court, which costs hardly anything. Your contract is not with the hardware manufactorer, it is with the retail outlet you bought the item from, and it is their duty to replace something if it breaks within the proscribed time limits.
Personally, however, I think they should go for as late in the alphabet as possible, and just go for the Zygia Metalmark, or the overall winner, Zygophyllacea Scale.
If the lorry in question was articulated, and the trailer was what hit him, then no, you wouldn't feel it at all. Many accidents are caused by the trailer cutting in to corners - cyclists undertaking lorries then sitting underneath the mirror is a bad idea.
Much as I would love to believe that Australia is a land of milk and honey, where everyone has lived in harmony since records begans, it seems that is not the case.
I was thinking about court.... basically I was wondering who's going to wheel out the "But officer, the Chinese government said she was 16" defense first:P.
Nice theory, but I've seen loads of dead crows on the road, as well as pigeons which seem to love attempting to dive bomb my van. The other day I was driving along, and there was a pigeon pecking away at something in the middle of the road. I braked, expecting it to fly away, but it didn't, and I didn't have time to stop. I didn't feel any impact, so I looked in my rear view mirror, and it was still happily pecking away in the middle of the road, seconds after my car had gone straight over the top of it. I'm not sure if this indicates extreme stupidity or extreme intelligence though.
You're a true anonymous coward. I'm perfectly happy saying that the entire system is completely screwed, and I'll be damned if I'm going to become anonymous.
An example of the absolutely screwed up laws in the UK : It is perfectly legal for anyone to screw a 16 year old girl, any way they want. However, if after they banged her every which way, they drew a picture of her naked and gave it to her, they can be done for distributing child pornography and put away for god knows how many years. I'm perfectly happy to say that this is fucked up legislation, and if you're not happy to come out and say that publically, then you're part of the problem.
Before you say this could never happen, something like this did happen somewhere in the US (I don't remember any exact details). It was a state where the age of consent was 16, and two 17 year old partners got busted for sending naked images of _themselves_ to each other. They got community service and put on the sexual offenders register for life. This is a farce, and the more people who say it is a farce, the quicker it will get fixed.
You know wrong about alcohol. It is pretty difficult to get physically addicted to alcohol (I should know), but it is most definately possible. Part of the pain of a hangover is withdrawal symptoms, which is why hair of the dog can be effective. It is also, as far as I know, the only drug which can kill you with withdrawal symptoms. Yup, that's right - hardcore alcoholics can't just go cold turkey, because the withdrawal symptoms include death. It is truly a nasty nasty drug if you actually get addicted.
Actually, you only need to pay the license fee if you are watching or recording broadcast television. Anything else is not covered by the license fee. You could get a friend to record all the programs on TV you like, then watch them the next day, and that wouldn't contravene license regulations. It would, however, fall foul of copyright law. I'm guessing that using a friend's licensed DVD recorder yourself to record shows you like, then watching them later on your (not connected to an aerial) television would be completely legal, though IANAL.
The BBC was originally created for Radio, so the original license was a radio license. They abolished that in 1971, and now the television license pays for all the BBC's radio stations (I think about 5% of the TV license goes to radio IIRC). That is except for the world service, which is funded by the foreign office, and makes it the only part of the BBC directly governmentally funded.
These are directly from the FAQ at the Dirac website:
Do the BBC have patents in Dirac?
No. We did have patent applications in train which included some of the techniques involved in Dirac, but we let those parts that related to Dirac lapse. If we had allowed them to continue, users of the Dirac code would still have been covered in perpetuity by the licence: by letting them lapse, the BBC has no IPR interest in any implementation of Dirac by anyone, based on the Dirac software or not.
Do you infringe any patents?
The short answer is that we don't know for certain, but we're pretty sure we don't.
We haven't employed armies of lawyers to trawl through the tens of thousands of video compression techniques. That's not the way to invent a successful algorithm. Instead we've tried to use techniques of long standing in novel ways.
What will you do if you infringe patents?
Code round them, first and foremost. There are many alternative techniques to each of the technologies used within Dirac.
Dirac is relatively modular (which is one reason why it's a conventional hybrid codec rather than, say, 3D wavelets) so removing or adding tools was relatively easy, even though this may mean issuing a new version of the specification.
The BBC is not a company. It's primary goal is not to pay dividends to shareholders, it is to provide the best service to those who fund it, and nothing more. It is not commercial. The BBC has innovated a lot in the past, and if they did decide to go Ogg Vorbis and Theora, people would just go download the codecs. It's not a big deal.
The BBC was also instumental in the development of Dirac. From the FAQ at their Website:
Is the BBC going to stream video using Dirac?
A good question. Now we have version 1.0 of Schro, the BBC is exploring opportunities to adopt Dirac for operational use. We have real-time decoding, integration with players, a bytestream spec and a choice of transport stream formats.
Or as I found out recently, running fakeraid and trying to install Linux as a second OS will fubar everything. Fortunately I was not stupid enough to just click next on everything, and checked the partitioning info during the install. That being said, Vista64 wouldn't install on my system either, because it doesn't like nvidia chipset motherboards with more than 4gb of RAM. There is a hotfix available, but you've got to be running Vista to get it:P.
Back on topic... erm... wait... erm... I know nothing about macs, but they are *shiny* apparently, and therein lies the appeal.
Slashdot Mirror
the real number of pure code lines: 6.399.191, with 96.4% of them developed in C, and 3.3% using assembler.
Personally I thought the news was that no one knows what 0.3% of the linux kernel is written in. THAT'S news! (I'm betting it's BASIC).
Who the hell modded this troll? It's still pixelated, just less so. ffs...
Meh... we've gone downhill over the past 20 years or so, just look at the citroen AX for fuel efficiency. From Wikipedia:
In 1989 a naturally aspirated diesel AX, using the 1360 cc all aluminium alloy TUD engine, managed a figure of 2.7 L/100 km (87 mpgâ"U.S. / 105 mpgâ"imp), totalling over 1,000 miles (1,609 km) from Dover to Barcelona.
The UK still uses mpg primarily, and they're obviously UK gallons.
Monopolies do not crumble naturally due to market forces. That's completely backwards thinking, and if it were true, the government would not have to regulate the markets to prevent monopolistic practices. Monopolies do not destroy themselves, ever.
I'm writing this from a Vista machine that is 100% stable so far, had it for 8 months or so. Longest uptime is about a week, but it's my personal computer, it's not a server, so I turn it off every so often (note I didn't _have_ to turn it off for any reason, I just didn't need it on). It boots from boot manager to usable desktop in about 20 seconds. I'm not calling you wrong on how shitty Vista is for some people, but it works a lot better for me than anything else for what I do. If Vista is shitty, every other Windows is shittier.
I did try to install Linux, but got hit with big fakeraid problems when I got to partitioning. I still do intend to install linux at some point in the future, it is (seemingly) possible on my system - just not easy. That being said, Vista wasn't easy to install either...
The point is not that people want stuff for free. If you think that you're either being deliberately obtuse or are ignorant. The point is the scope and extent of copyright, especially in regards to consumer "purchases" which are actually just licenses according to "the man". There has long been an argument by "intellectual property" owners that we, the consumer, are not actually buying anything when we purchase a CD or game (fortunately book publishers do completely admit that when you buy a book, you can do what you want with it). The trouble is, if you're buying a license to use said music or software for any period of time, you should know your fucking rights beforehand. This is absolutely impossible now for the end user with the licenses and EULAs etc. Legalese has made it impossible for end users to make informed choices about purchases - the reason everyone just clicks yes is because they simply do not have enough time on this earth to read everything they agree to. Any kind of restrictive license aimed at end users is inherently shit purely because end users will not read the terms.
Video and DVD rental is obviously different because everyone already knows the basic terms of the rental. However, unreasonable terms on DVD rental (like, for example only being able to play it on one machine) are not expected.
Also, finishing each snide question with interesting? Shit.
Disagree mail sure does pay good don't they! Is there anyone not on the Disagree mail payroll at Slashdot? If you're going to become an Disagree mail mouthpiece you might want to try and hide it better! How much does a frontpage Slashdot story cost anyway? I hope it's a lot. If you're going to become a Disagree mail whore you might as well get paid well. Just know that I know it's rotten to the core!
Ok... Say all your family have access to your car, which they all use every so often. A speeding ticket comes through the post a couple of weeks after the offence, and no one can remember who was driving. It's now your problem, and that is shit... you should not have to log who is driving what when _all_ the time.
OT - Regarding your sig, atheism is lack of faith, not faith in lack. Many atheists also do believe in a lack of god too, but atheism at its simplest is just no belief in a higher entity, not a belief in no higher entity. There's an important difference.
I agree completely, and 1 year is the minimum expectation on consumer electronics in the UK IIRC. AFAIK, the 1 year limit is not set in stone, it is just one of these interpretations by the courts of a law in which 'reasonable' is used. If something like this happened to me here in the UK, I'd go back to the shop I bought it from and ask for a refund or replacement, which they have to give by law. If they don't, I'd go straight to small claims court, which costs hardly anything. Your contract is not with the hardware manufactorer, it is with the retail outlet you bought the item from, and it is their duty to replace something if it breaks within the proscribed time limits.
After a full day at work of programming, I prefer not to strain my already sore wrists with too much fast action.
Funny, I'm the complete opposite. Oh, wait... you were talking about computer games, weren't you?
Or indeed the Zonkey (or Zeedonk), Zebroid, Zony or Zorse!
Personally, however, I think they should go for as late in the alphabet as possible, and just go for the Zygia Metalmark, or the overall winner, Zygophyllacea Scale.
If the lorry in question was articulated, and the trailer was what hit him, then no, you wouldn't feel it at all. Many accidents are caused by the trailer cutting in to corners - cyclists undertaking lorries then sitting underneath the mirror is a bad idea.
Much as I would love to believe that Australia is a land of milk and honey, where everyone has lived in harmony since records begans, it seems that is not the case.
Emoticons were invented for those unable to express their meaning using those complex entities sometimes known as words, right?
Oh, and :P
Well, whatever you decided to do you just screwed up by posting :P.
It's all fun and games until it gets confused and kills all the innocents while leaving the aggressors.
You mean when it switches to US military mode?
I kid, I kid ;)
I was thinking about court.... basically I was wondering who's going to wheel out the "But officer, the Chinese government said she was 16" defense first :P.
Nice theory, but I've seen loads of dead crows on the road, as well as pigeons which seem to love attempting to dive bomb my van. The other day I was driving along, and there was a pigeon pecking away at something in the middle of the road. I braked, expecting it to fly away, but it didn't, and I didn't have time to stop. I didn't feel any impact, so I looked in my rear view mirror, and it was still happily pecking away in the middle of the road, seconds after my car had gone straight over the top of it. I'm not sure if this indicates extreme stupidity or extreme intelligence though.
You're a true anonymous coward. I'm perfectly happy saying that the entire system is completely screwed, and I'll be damned if I'm going to become anonymous.
An example of the absolutely screwed up laws in the UK : It is perfectly legal for anyone to screw a 16 year old girl, any way they want. However, if after they banged her every which way, they drew a picture of her naked and gave it to her, they can be done for distributing child pornography and put away for god knows how many years. I'm perfectly happy to say that this is fucked up legislation, and if you're not happy to come out and say that publically, then you're part of the problem.
Before you say this could never happen, something like this did happen somewhere in the US (I don't remember any exact details). It was a state where the age of consent was 16, and two 17 year old partners got busted for sending naked images of _themselves_ to each other. They got community service and put on the sexual offenders register for life. This is a farce, and the more people who say it is a farce, the quicker it will get fixed.
Don't be silly. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are death, war, famine and BSOD.
You know wrong about alcohol. It is pretty difficult to get physically addicted to alcohol (I should know), but it is most definately possible. Part of the pain of a hangover is withdrawal symptoms, which is why hair of the dog can be effective. It is also, as far as I know, the only drug which can kill you with withdrawal symptoms. Yup, that's right - hardcore alcoholics can't just go cold turkey, because the withdrawal symptoms include death. It is truly a nasty nasty drug if you actually get addicted.
Actually, you only need to pay the license fee if you are watching or recording broadcast television. Anything else is not covered by the license fee. You could get a friend to record all the programs on TV you like, then watch them the next day, and that wouldn't contravene license regulations. It would, however, fall foul of copyright law. I'm guessing that using a friend's licensed DVD recorder yourself to record shows you like, then watching them later on your (not connected to an aerial) television would be completely legal, though IANAL.
The BBC was originally created for Radio, so the original license was a radio license. They abolished that in 1971, and now the television license pays for all the BBC's radio stations (I think about 5% of the TV license goes to radio IIRC). That is except for the world service, which is funded by the foreign office, and makes it the only part of the BBC directly governmentally funded.
These are directly from the FAQ at the Dirac website :
Do the BBC have patents in Dirac?
No. We did have patent applications in train which included some of the techniques involved in Dirac, but we let those parts that related to Dirac lapse. If we had allowed them to continue, users of the Dirac code would still have been covered in perpetuity by the licence: by letting them lapse, the BBC has no IPR interest in any implementation of Dirac by anyone, based on the Dirac software or not.
Do you infringe any patents?
The short answer is that we don't know for certain, but we're pretty sure we don't.
We haven't employed armies of lawyers to trawl through the tens of thousands of video compression techniques. That's not the way to invent a successful algorithm. Instead we've tried to use techniques of long standing in novel ways.
What will you do if you infringe patents?
Code round them, first and foremost. There are many alternative techniques to each of the technologies used within Dirac.
Dirac is relatively modular (which is one reason why it's a conventional hybrid codec rather than, say, 3D wavelets) so removing or adding tools was relatively easy, even though this may mean issuing a new version of the specification.
The BBC is not a company. It's primary goal is not to pay dividends to shareholders, it is to provide the best service to those who fund it, and nothing more. It is not commercial. The BBC has innovated a lot in the past, and if they did decide to go Ogg Vorbis and Theora, people would just go download the codecs. It's not a big deal.
The BBC was also instumental in the development of Dirac. From the FAQ at their Website:
Is the BBC going to stream video using Dirac?
A good question. Now we have version 1.0 of Schro, the BBC is exploring opportunities to adopt Dirac for operational use. We have real-time decoding, integration with players, a bytestream spec and a choice of transport stream formats.
Or as I found out recently, running fakeraid and trying to install Linux as a second OS will fubar everything. Fortunately I was not stupid enough to just click next on everything, and checked the partitioning info during the install. That being said, Vista64 wouldn't install on my system either, because it doesn't like nvidia chipset motherboards with more than 4gb of RAM. There is a hotfix available, but you've got to be running Vista to get it :P.
Back on topic... erm... wait... erm... I know nothing about macs, but they are *shiny* apparently, and therein lies the appeal.