>At some point, people will get beyond the PR, dreams, and hype and realize that the resources >required for such an effort FAR exceed any possible benefit.
At some point, someone with a dream will harness the resources necessary to profit from the benefits that you cannot yet foresee.
I used to relish the old Computer Shopper magazine, back when it was the size of a phone book. In the middle thereabouts was always a multi-page spread for Gateway. They used to be about the cheapest mainstream source for PCs and I used their ads as a benchmark for what the going price was for things.
That was a great video explaining the problem. I had no idea things like that were going on.
I don't understand why it is felt necessary to record the music "loud", though. Don't they know people can and will adjust the volume however they want with the volume control on their stereo? I don't understand the perceived benefit.
Years ago we heard how PCs were going to be embedded in everything from the dishwasher to the refrigerator, and I was left wondering, "why?"
Perhaps now I know.
It would be nice if I could set my house up on a "power budget", and let my appliances vie for electrical power and load-balance themselves to stay within that budget. If all appliances spoke over the in-house wiring (or perhaps wireless) and could turn themselves off or adjust their power usage that would be awesome.
You could implement something similar to this today with an X10 system or the like, but this is more of an off/on scenario, and is not based on actual power demands.
It would be great if all of my electrical things in my house could get together and say, "OK, guys, we have X amount of electricity to use today between all of us. Let's figure out, based on past usage patterns, who needs to be on and when in order to hit this budget".
It's not social ineptitude, it's being different!
on
Failing Our Geniuses
·
· Score: 1
>You weren't getting ostracized/teased/beat up in high school because you were smart, you were getting ostracized/teased/beat up because you were socially inept...
I have news for you. When you are smart, you are different. I don't know why, but school-age children absolutely hate people who are different. If you don't conform, your non-conformity will become the convenient pick-on target. Don't wear the right clothes? You get picked on. Don't have the right hair cut? You get picked on.
Are you smarter than everyone else? You get picked on.
It's not about being smart or not, or being socially inept or not.
It's about being different. If you are different, you are doomed.
So has someone figured out how to hack their signal yet and get it for free? With all other DRM schemes getting hacked, I haven't heard of any yet for satellite content like DirectTV, Sirius, or XM.
Email is the "situational awareness" of the workplace. I don't understand how having better visibility, through better communications, is "more stressful". To me, it is empowering and makes me feel BETTER about being on top of things. To me, it is far more stressful "being in the dark" - I'd rather be "in the know".
I guess for some people ignorance really is bliss.
Thanks for the info. I have been using 3-pass encoding with the SlySoft stuff and the quality is very good.
A typical DVD ends up as about a 1.7GB.AVI file.
The thing I am really amazed about with the Slysoft stuff is it takes about 30 minutes to rip and only about 40 minutes to re-encode!
I'm not sure I can explain the sense of wonder. It was like the first time I got my modem working and realized I was _connected_to_another_computer! It was amazing to be able to type in a command or a question and have the computer _talk_back_to_you. Even though we all _knew_ it wasn't real AI, it felt like AI.
It wasn't the format of the _game_ that was special. Like was said, there were books that could do something similar. It was the fact that you were, basically, talking to a machine that was special.
>Hey, just because your plant is better than a concentration camp, that doesn't make you a humanitarian for >exploiting jewish slave labor. These major corporations know damn well that they're exploiting these >people--that's why they outsource to China. It's not like they're going there and offering >Western-style pay and working conditions.
Of course not - because the locals don't demand such compensation, and even if they did, it could be terribly disruptive to the local economy anyway.
A buddy of mine just got back from Iraq. He was in charge of hiring local Iraqis to clean the bathrooms. Originally they paid the sanitation staff $5/hour. They had to scale their pay back. Why? Because the local merchants discovered that the Iraqis working on base made enough money to afford more expensive goods, so they raised their prices. But the effect was that things were now much worse for all the Iraqis who were not working on base.
Second of all, it isn't exploitation if it is a willing business arrangement by both the employer and the employee. In this case, it's a win-win situation - the employer it getting a less expensive labor force, and the laborers are getting better wages and working conditions than what was available previously.
Well, all I can say is I'm a big proponent of "people get the government they deserve".
Sometimes you have to be willing to lay down your life to achieve basic human rights.
But I think things will improve for them even without such drastic measures. So it has gone with every developing nation that has embraced economic growth.
No, I meant it empowers the workers. They now have wages where before they had less or none. This allows them to build wealth and improve their lot in life.
>That's the real reason why they and every 3rd world country is where it is. China is one of the oldest, >largest countries in existence and they have lots of natural resources, why do you think they are still where they are?
That depends, where do you think they "are"? The way I see it, every day they are outstripping where they were the day before. I don't understand what you are trying to say.
>Unfortunately I won't be able to believe this until I see a more concerted effort on the part of the Chinese >labor communities to fight for better living and working conditions.
It is theirs for the taking, just as it was for us.
>The way things became better for workers in the >US was when the prospect of strikes cajoled management into finally acknowledging workers rights. Buying their >products just puts more and more money into the ever-growing Chinese plutocracy, and encourages them to maintain >the status quo. International pressure would be far more effective.
Did we require international pressure for our economy to grow and our workforce to demand ever-better standards of living? No. Neither will theirs.
Something to consider here is that in many cases though the job conditions and pay looks terrible to/you/, the actual workers love it compared to what they had.
This is not to say that we nor they should be satisfied with their present lot in life, but rather to say that things are improving. Their economy is primitive by modern standards. It will grow, rapidly, and working conditions will improve - just like they did in our country.
The answer to helping these people advance is not to stop buying their products, which puts them right back where they were - with nothing. The answer is to continue to buy their products, which empowers them and gives them options.
What are the things championed here on Slashdot more than anything else? DRM and Free Software.
So why is it that I couldn't find a free solution to ripping and re-encoding DVDs? I must have tried 5 or 6 different applications with no luck - the audio and video were always out of sync. Even tried the much-ballyhooed Auto Gordian Knot with the same result. Reading the support forums is a joke. "Oh, you need to go pull it up in AutoDub or VirtualDub and adjust the sync rate". Oh, go download this and that codec to make it work.
It seems like you needed 5 or 6 independent "free" pieces of the pie to make it go, and none of them did the trick.
What did I finally do? I went and spent $80 over at Slysoft for a single software package that just worked.
The amazement of technical capabilities of women is not what is driving the shortage of women in IT. The shortage of women in IT is driving the amazement of technical abilities of women.
It's not about condescension. It's about commenting on rarity.
>I recall one of the many controversies in the 2000 election in Florida was some people were staying home in the panhandle (Central Time) >because they were being told by the TV talking heads that Florida was already decided (in the rest of the state, Eastern Time) and so their vote didn't count.
I keep hearing this argument, but I'm unmoved. If you don't go and vote just because you think the outcome is already determined you are a moron. Everyone knows the old saw, "It ain't over 'till it's over". If you give up before the election is over, too bad for you. You should know better.
>and then the servers go down, but you don't get the page...
No, perhaps you missed what I was saying. I was saying you TELL them you left the phone in your car, but instead you leave it in your pocket, or your wife's purse (on silent of course, like you would have done anyway).
Hey MojoStan, hope you see this - I tried the AutoGK you suggested and my audio is terribly out of sync with my video - same problem I've been having with other re-encoders. I can play the.vob files just fine, but when converted into a.avi the audio and video are way out of sync. I did a single-pass encoding. Any suggestions?
Slashdot Mirror
>At some point, people will get beyond the PR, dreams, and hype and realize that the resources
>required for such an effort FAR exceed any possible benefit.
At some point, someone with a dream will harness the resources necessary to profit from the benefits that you cannot yet foresee.
Steve
Cop Out.
I used to relish the old Computer Shopper magazine, back when it was the size of a phone book. In the middle thereabouts was always a multi-page spread for Gateway. They used to be about the cheapest mainstream source for PCs and I used their ads as a benchmark for what the going price was for things.
That was a great video explaining the problem. I had no idea things like that were going on.
I don't understand why it is felt necessary to record the music "loud", though. Don't they know people can and will adjust the volume however they want with the volume control on their stereo? I don't understand the perceived benefit.
Years ago we heard how PCs were going to be embedded in everything from the dishwasher to the refrigerator, and I was left wondering, "why?"
Perhaps now I know.
It would be nice if I could set my house up on a "power budget", and let my appliances vie for electrical power and load-balance themselves to stay within that budget. If all appliances spoke over the in-house wiring (or perhaps wireless) and could turn themselves off or adjust their power usage that would be awesome.
You could implement something similar to this today with an X10 system or the like, but this is more of an off/on scenario, and is not based on actual power demands.
It would be great if all of my electrical things in my house could get together and say, "OK, guys, we have X amount of electricity to use today between all of us. Let's figure out, based on past usage patterns, who needs to be on and when in order to hit this budget".
>You weren't getting ostracized/teased/beat up in high school because you were smart, you were getting ostracized/teased/beat up because you were socially inept...
I have news for you. When you are smart, you are different. I don't know why, but school-age children absolutely hate people who are different. If you don't conform, your non-conformity will become the convenient pick-on target. Don't wear the right clothes? You get picked on. Don't have the right hair cut? You get picked on.
Are you smarter than everyone else? You get picked on.
It's not about being smart or not, or being socially inept or not.
It's about being different. If you are different, you are doomed.
So has someone figured out how to hack their signal yet and get it for free? With all other DRM schemes getting hacked, I haven't heard of any yet for satellite content like DirectTV, Sirius, or XM.
Email is the "situational awareness" of the workplace. I don't understand how having better visibility, through better communications, is "more stressful". To me, it is empowering and makes me feel BETTER about being on top of things. To me, it is far more stressful "being in the dark" - I'd rather be "in the know". I guess for some people ignorance really is bliss.
Cool story.
Thanks for the info. I have been using 3-pass encoding with the SlySoft stuff and the quality is very good. A typical DVD ends up as about a 1.7GB .AVI file.
The thing I am really amazed about with the Slysoft stuff is it takes about 30 minutes to rip and only about 40 minutes to re-encode!
I'm old enough to remember, though I was a kid.
I'm not sure I can explain the sense of wonder. It was like the first time I got my modem working and realized I was _connected_to_another_computer! It was amazing to be able to type in a command or a question and have the computer _talk_back_to_you. Even though we all _knew_ it wasn't real AI, it felt like AI.
It wasn't the format of the _game_ that was special. Like was said, there were books that could do something similar. It was the fact that you were, basically, talking to a machine that was special.
Is it part of Mplayer?
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
>Hey, just because your plant is better than a concentration camp, that doesn't make you a humanitarian for
>exploiting jewish slave labor. These major corporations know damn well that they're exploiting these
>people--that's why they outsource to China. It's not like they're going there and offering
>Western-style pay and working conditions.
Of course not - because the locals don't demand such compensation, and even if they did, it could be terribly disruptive to the local economy anyway.
A buddy of mine just got back from Iraq. He was in charge of hiring local Iraqis to clean the bathrooms. Originally they paid the sanitation staff $5/hour. They had to scale their pay back. Why? Because the local merchants discovered that the Iraqis working on base made enough money to afford more expensive goods, so they raised their prices. But the effect was that things were now much worse for all the Iraqis who were not working on base.
Second of all, it isn't exploitation if it is a willing business arrangement by both the employer and the employee. In this case, it's a win-win situation - the employer it getting a less expensive labor force, and the laborers are getting better wages and working conditions than what was available previously.
Well, all I can say is I'm a big proponent of "people get the government they deserve".
Sometimes you have to be willing to lay down your life to achieve basic human rights.
But I think things will improve for them even without such drastic measures. So it has gone with every developing nation that has embraced economic growth.
>Uh, you mean empowers their government.
No, I meant it empowers the workers. They now have wages where before they had less or none. This allows them to build wealth and improve their lot in life.
>That's the real reason why they and every 3rd world country is where it is. China is one of the oldest,
>largest countries in existence and they have lots of natural resources, why do you think they are still where they are?
That depends, where do you think they "are"? The way I see it, every day they are outstripping where they were the day before. I don't understand what you are trying to say.
>Unfortunately I won't be able to believe this until I see a more concerted effort on the part of the Chinese
>labor communities to fight for better living and working conditions.
It is theirs for the taking, just as it was for us.
>The way things became better for workers in the
>US was when the prospect of strikes cajoled management into finally acknowledging workers rights. Buying their
>products just puts more and more money into the ever-growing Chinese plutocracy, and encourages them to maintain
>the status quo. International pressure would be far more effective.
Did we require international pressure for our economy to grow and our workforce to demand ever-better standards of living? No. Neither will theirs.
Something to consider here is that in many cases though the job conditions and pay looks terrible to /you/, the actual workers love it compared to what they had.
This is not to say that we nor they should be satisfied with their present lot in life, but rather to say that things are improving. Their economy is primitive by modern standards. It will grow, rapidly, and working conditions will improve - just like they did in our country.
The answer to helping these people advance is not to stop buying their products, which puts them right back where they were - with nothing. The answer is to continue to buy their products, which empowers them and gives them options.
That's the conclusion I've come to.
What are the things championed here on Slashdot more than anything else? DRM and Free Software.
So why is it that I couldn't find a free solution to ripping and re-encoding DVDs? I must have tried 5 or 6 different applications with no luck - the audio and video were always out of sync. Even tried the much-ballyhooed Auto Gordian Knot with the same result. Reading the support forums is a joke. "Oh, you need to go pull it up in AutoDub or VirtualDub and adjust the sync rate". Oh, go download this and that codec to make it work.
It seems like you needed 5 or 6 independent "free" pieces of the pie to make it go, and none of them did the trick.
What did I finally do? I went and spent $80 over at Slysoft for a single software package that just worked.
>Sorry, I missed the obvious truth that thinking it's fair to pay for the delivery of goods and services makes me a "crusader." What was I thinking?
Apology accepted.
>Maybe there are just a few people who think that it's fair to pay for the delivery of goods and services. Ever think of that?
You must have missed the part in my post where I said:
>>Sure, there will be a few crusaders who want to "support the artists".
>Just because it's easy to (illegally) get things free doesn't mean you should.
My point is that most people will do it anyway.
>You might be happy to live with robbing people. I'm not, so I pay for my music.
Again, my point is that you are probably in a minority.
Free will trump anything else every time.
Sure, there will be a few crusaders who want to "support the artists".
Sure, there will be a few people who can't figure out how to make bittorrent work who prefer the convenience of a one-stop download site for a fee.
But the majority of the users who have already drunk from the fountain of free music will continue to do so.
The amazement of technical capabilities of women is not what is driving the shortage of women in IT. The shortage of women in IT is driving the amazement of technical abilities of women.
It's not about condescension. It's about commenting on rarity.
>I recall one of the many controversies in the 2000 election in Florida was some people were staying home in the panhandle (Central Time)
>because they were being told by the TV talking heads that Florida was already decided (in the rest of the state, Eastern Time) and so their vote didn't count.
I keep hearing this argument, but I'm unmoved. If you don't go and vote just because you think the outcome is already determined you are a moron. Everyone knows the old saw, "It ain't over 'till it's over". If you give up before the election is over, too bad for you. You should know better.
>and then the servers go down, but you don't get the page...
No, perhaps you missed what I was saying. I was saying you TELL them you left the phone in your car, but instead you leave it in your pocket, or your wife's purse (on silent of course, like you would have done anyway).
Hey MojoStan, hope you see this - I tried the AutoGK you suggested and my audio is terribly out of sync with my video - same problem I've been having with other re-encoders. I can play the .vob files just fine, but when converted into a .avi the audio and video are way out of sync. I did a single-pass encoding. Any suggestions?
Steve