I can't say on the subject of FM or XM, but one possible reason that an AM radio isn't included with the iPod could be that the device itself could intefere with good AM radio reception (since it never actually turns off). I've noticed that many digital audio players (DAP) that include an FM radio don't include the ability to receive AM, so it could be that the nature of a DAP makes it unsuitable for use as an AM radio, possibly because its relatively small size makes it difficult to isolate the AM circuitry.
It could also be that the size of the antenna needed for AM would require an increase in the size of the iPod. I have a small portable AM/Stereo FM radio and it is roughly the same size (it's a little shorter and a little thicker) as the current iPod Nano. It could be that the size of the AM antenna limited how small the device could be made.
I saw "Mr. Magoo" too and the problem with the movie is that they got away from what made the character work: Now matter how bizarre and/or dangerous the real-world situation is, it works together perfectly to match Magoo's own perceptions. In the movie, it seems like they crossed Magoo with Maxwell Smart.
the entire frame will be in focus like a BAD cartoon.
There... corrected that for you...
...didn't Disney, even circa Snow White, have some sort of elaborate tower system for simulating "depth of field" with cells? Actually, I take it back - even BAD cartoons will often just have blur in the background to save money and allow re-use of shots (e.g. the transformation scene in just about every Japanese TV cartoon).
To be fair, maybe the answer to making something look like a cartoon is to exaggerate the flaws of cartoons - so lets not pre-judge it until we've seen it.
I agree that we should wait and see before rendering an opinion on the Speed Racer movie. I hope that it is good, considering how long the project has been in work (when I first heard about a proposed Speed Racer movie, Johnny Depp was considered for the role of Speed, at a time when he was close to Speed's age).
I'm sure that techniques like the reuse of transformation sequences are used to save money, like the technique of moving the camera over a still frame to simulate a moving scene without having motion in the picture. The need to keep costs low also drove Hanna-Barbara's use of limited animation to make it more practical on television.
Related to the issue of depth of field, the Fleicher Brothers used an incredible technique to provide an almost 3D look to some of their cartoons (including some of their black and white Popeye cartoons). They constructed sets and placed the animation cells within the set, making the characters look as if they were moving through a 3D environment, because they were.
Returning to the topic of Speed Racer, the largest problem I see with a Speed Racer movie (and most projects based on anime) is that a single movie doesn't have enough time to tell the story that (with Speed Racer) it took 52 TV episodes to tell. Like most movies based on comic books and anime, it would take several movies to do an adequate job of telling the entire story. Just the prologue for story (including Rex leaving home) could fill much of a movie itself.
It might have been heavy stuff as compared the Wizard of Oz movie, but in the books Dorothy or Ozma were quite regularly in serious danger and dealing with bizarre perhaps horrific things. I don't really see why your parents were suprised. Then again if you made a movie based on most fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm it would have to be rated "R" for violence. But most parents just assume that stories for kids of 80 years ago are going to be just fine with their modern ideas of how to raise a child.
To support the above point, one of my favorite stories from the comic JLA featured The Queen of Fables as a villain. She is literally every villain in all of the old fairy tales, and she had the power to bring any character from any story to life.
The attitude of the team was that it was no big deal to fight fairy tales, until Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner, who is an artist and studied the stories in college) pointed out that these are the original tales, the stories from a time before they were toned down for children. Before the story was over, the team had to face creatures from their worst childhood nightmares, creatures able to do what they did in the old tales.
Betamax, Minidisc, ATRAC... the answer is, don't back the one promoted by Sony.
Not all formats supported by Sony have failed. Compact disc (CD) was a joint venture between Sony and Philips and it is quite successful.
What is unfortunate is that the video industry didn't learn from the success of CD. Although different formats were proposed, the entire music industry agreed on a single format and avoided a format war. It avoided the disaster of Quadraphonic (at one point there were seven incompatible formats).
A format war is the main reason that I'm avoiding both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, right now DVD is good enough. I will stay away from both formats until the war is clearly over and the industry has gone to a single format. I don't want to get burned again by supporting yet another failed format.
There was something that was part of the Red Book Standard from the beginning that could have provided more than CD-Text: graphics. Although they wouldn't display on the player, on a player with a graphics decoder you could display them on a standard TV. Both the Philips CD-i player and the Sega Genesis CD were capable of displaying the graphics.
I have a few discs with graphics on them and they provided a running slide show while the music plays. One disc (On the Cutting Edge - GRP Digital Sampler) provides information on every artist and every song via the graphics. Another disc by The Firesign Theater (Eat or Be Eaten) used the graphics to illustrate the action going on in the audio program.
Its unfortunate that the CD makers didn't take full advantage of graphics. If fully embraced, it would have eliminated the need for the CD booklet and could have provided far more information that possible in a thin booklet, and in a form that couldn't be lost.
The current issue of the abso!ute sound (dated September 2007) has a retrospective on the CD. The article was written by Robert Harley and the information in the following paragraph is taken from that article.
Per the article (page 48) Philips wanted to have a 100mm disc that could hold 60 minutes of music, and Sony wanted a 120mm disc that could hold up to 80 minutes of audio. Norio Ohga, the vice president of Sony and a classically trained musician, said "Let the music dictate the technical specifications." The 74-minute maximum limit was set since that would hold the longest-known recording of Beethhoven's Ninth Symphony.
BTW, although the original time limit for CDs was 74 minutes, due to better precision in the making of CDs it is possible to fit 80 minutes of music on a CD and still remain with the Red Book standard.
End of information from the article
I remember reading back when CD was introduced that the reason that CDs play from the center to the outer edge of the disc (the opposite of LPs/singles). This way, the final standard size of the CD could be established later.
Why is "human readable" an important aspect of document formats? Are MP3s human readable? What about video?
I think if you get rid of that single caveat, I'd be all over an "open" format.
I don't know why it bothers me so much that people think that formats have to be human readable - I think that's an unnecessary restriction.
When it comes to document formats (word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation) formats, one of the most important reasons for a human readable format is that the user is able to see all of the information actually contained in the document, including the hidden information. You are not limited to just the information the application will show you. This will allow you to see if the document contains information that you'd rather not release, and to strip it out (if the application will allow you).
With non-human readable formats, especially non-publically documented formats, you can't be sure what information is actually contained in your document. It is similar to buying a car where the hood is sealed, the only vehicle information you are allowed to have access to on the internal workings of your car is via the dashboard indicators.
Oh get off your high horse. He's probably just sensitive to those sorts of things. The main reason why I tend to buy CDs over shopping at iTunes or a similar store is quality - I simply can't stand 128kbps recordings. They simply sound weak and fuzzy. Most other people are fine with it though, it's just that I'm very sensitive to quality of sound, maybe because I played instruments as a child and had musical training. But I almost always can't tell the difference between 256kbps MP3 and CD quality, so your argument breaks down a bit there.
The ability to choose my own bitrate is one of the strongest reasons for choosing to purchase my music in CD form over a downloaded form. I agree strongly that encoding an MP3 file at 128kbps is generally not enough quality for most music, although a very important factor in this is the listener's own ability to hear.
What convinced me of this is the song "Only Yesterday" by the Carpenters. At 128kbps, song's opening drum beats (which are the only sound at that time) sound different from the original, more like dull thuds than actual drums. But at 192kbps (the bit rate I now use for all music) I was not able to tell the difference from the original and the compressed version. Even with audiobooks I've found that often a 128kbps bitrate is not adequate, and I encode mine at 160kbps for that reason.
In my own humble opinion, I think that there is so much focus on smaller file sizes that sound quality has taken a back seat. Meanwhile, the factors that have necessitated smaller file sizes, such as available internet download speeds, have become less of a factor.
With downloaded music this should be a non-issue, and it would be possible to have the best of all worlds. Music could be available in many formats, lossless, high-bit-rate lossy, and low-bit-rate lossy, with the consumer able to choose the format he/she wants.
For years we were limited only certain specific forms for music, such as records, CDs, and cassettes. One of the best things about music now is that we now are the ones who can choose the form for our music and how we want to carry it.
They are about even further separating content from presentation.
The idea being, you design your content in HTML, then you use CSS to specify some presentation. Not all of it, you leave some up to the browser, but some, allowing you to tweak things for print vs web vs handheld.
But if you're wanting to design something intended to be printed, HTML is probably not the best thing to use, and certainly not the easiest.
I agree. With so many variables out there, using only HTML it's not possible to ensure that what the user sees will match what the creator intended. The best a designer can to is to provide suggestions of what the page should look like and hope that the users will follow those suggestions. Other formats can provide appearance control if needed.
But this also works as an advantage because it makes it possible for a webpage to be displayed legibly on many different devices. To me, a text of a webpage should be able to be displayed on all devices, rather than being designed with only one type of device in mind.
Also, based on comments in this thread, there seem to be many fonts that people dislike, and everyone has their own opinions. But due to the display flexibility of HTML, users can choose fonts that they do like, rather than having to put up with fonts that they dislike.
2. Word.doc files are bloated. 99% of the files sent as Word.doc files would be better if sent as.txt or.rtf files, and not overfill my mailbox on the Domino server.
To support the above point, several years ago I did an informal test out of curiosity. In MS Word I created a one-character document (containing the letter "a") and saved it as a plain-text document, then as an RTF document, and finally as an MS Word document. The results:
Plain Text: 1 byte
RTF: 32 bytes (due to the addition of heading information needed by RTF)
MS Word Document: 19kb
On the topic of the OpenDocument formats as a viable option, as time passes I see it becoming a viable alternative format to the MS formats. Right now, OpenDocument is still fairly new and it will take time for people to become aware of the format and to see its advantages.
I think a less-mentioned reason that MS formats have become so dominant is that there are so many widely available non-MS options for using the formats. How many people would have chosen to use MS Word formats if the only possible way to use it is to purchase a copy of MS Word?
Bah, we all know that the user does a system upgrade to a new motherboard, et al, then ghosts his system over, and installs AVG and Megabyte bites the dust.
I don't think this will be possible. Based on how time works in the series, the entire series took place in a few minutes (at the most) of real-world time. This is based on Enzo having his one-second birthday during the series (in the same episode [Talent Day] where Bob and Megabyte have their classic guitar battle). Logically, the entire series up to that point took place in less than a second since Enzo was always there.
Okay, just kidding. I agree, they should pick up where it left off. Tradition and all that. I'm a 49 year old Reboot fan, and it really eats me up to see that this will never happen.
Well, we can hope. But any continuation of ReBoot is good news. At the point the series ended there were so many story possibilities left open, easily enough to support several movies.
What I hope they don't do is completely change the character design. Although there were changes in the characters with Season 3 (such as characters becoming much more expressive), they were still clearly recognizable as the same characters that we've been following. That kind of subtle change is what I hope will happen with the new movies.
One of the thing I hope they do is resolve the final cliffhanger before moving on to a new story. To me, that alone would be enough to support a movie on its own.
Concerning voice actors, I hope that they are able to get most of original the voice actors to return to the series, although it is not possible in some cases (in the recent Neon Genesis Evangelion movie they had to recast the voice actors for some characters because they couldn't find some of the originals). If it can't be done, I hope they voice actors that sound similar to the originals.
I'd rather not have the drastic change like they did when they changed the dubbing company for Dragonball Z. In at least one case (Krillin), the new voice actor was such a change from the original that it was jarring. In the same way, In Ranma 1/2, when they changed the voice actor for the male Ranma, the new one sounds quite different (the same individual now provides the voice for Inuyasha in the series of the same name).
But for me, this is good news. Although I enjoyed the first two seasons, beginning with the second season episode "AndrAIa" is when the series became outstanding. The new movies are going to have high standard to meet.
From what I understand, the original reason for the QUERTY keyboard layout was to slow down typists. When keywriters were introduced there was a problem with key jams. The QUERTY arrangement is designed to separate the keys that are often used together to reduce the number of key jams. For example, the S and T keys are separated by 10 keys on key-type typewriters.
With the introduction of electric typewriters that used a ball element (like the original IBM Selectric), the problem was key jams was eliminated and the QUERTY keyboard arrangement was no longer needed. I think the reason that QUERTY persists is due to user inertia, people simply staying with what is familiar.
Yeah, keyboard shortcuts suck and no-one can remember them. That's why keys like Shift and Ctrl are so rarely used these days, particularly by experienced typists, and never in combination.:-)
I strongly disagree that keyboard shortcuts suck. I tend to use them to this day because I find it faster, easier, and more accurate than using a mouse and menu, especially for immediate commands like saving and moving around the document
Even when using the menu system, I tend to use the "alt" keystrokes to access the menu items versus the mouse. For me, it is much easier and faster to simply hit "Control-S" or "Alt,F,S" to save a document versus using the menu system with the mouse (less than one second versus two to three seconds).
When I used to use Wordstar, I got so good with the keyboard commands that all I had to do was think of what I wanted to do and my fingers automatically hit the correct key combination. For me, it is still much faster to hit "Control-K,S" than to use a menu system to save a document.
Personally, I've always quite fancied trying one of these Datahand units, but obviously there's a high cost involved and quite a steep learning curve. I can well believe that when properly configured, it's much nicer for things that aren't simple typing jobs, such as programming, writing in mark-up languages like LaTeX, or playing games with complicated UIs.
I don't see a learning curve as a problem. One of the reasons that Palm's original Graffiti handwriting system worked was that it required you to learn to write the way it expected, versus having to teach it to understand the way that you write. Once mastered, you can accurately write with it even while not looking at the device. Its not as fast as using a keyboard, but I estimate that at times I've managed to get about 10 words per minute using a stylus and writing area.
I admit that using morse code for input is an interesting possibility and would allow for a very small input area with very fast data entry possible. Learning it takes time, but then again it took time to learn to type and it was worth the effort.
Why must I turn on javascript to read a book? I assume that it has something to do with lawyers and IP matters, but I hope someone can explain another reason that plain old HTML or text won't work. Deep inside I suspect that like many other content sites (YooToub) you can upload all you want, but you can't download.
A reason I can see for formatting a book this way is to preserve the actual look of the original book, including the fonts and illustrations. That is something that is difficult to do with HTML.
But an advantage that HTML has is its flexibility, including the easy ability to adjust the font and size for easy reading by individual users. One of the problems I've had with PDFs in the past has been that what looks fine when printed on paper is not readable on a smaller computer/PDA/ebook reader screen even after adjusting the page as much as possible.
To me, there is a place for multiple formats in the world of e-books. It doesn't have to be only one format.
They can't let HTML die. The W3C would become irrelevant quickly if they stopped tweaking the language. Finally, even nomral users and web surfers have started to use HTML in web forums and MySpace (to usually garish effect, but still. XHTML just doesn't have the portability and ease of use that HTML did for things like forums.
I think a reason that XHTML has not taken off is due to its unforgiving strictness. From what I understand, if you make a single mistake in XHTML the page will not work and for that reason it is not intended to be handwritten. But with HTML you often have different ways of achieving the same effect, such as with centering.
Take Fark for instance. After years and years, a critical mass of people are finally learning a, b, u, i, big, super, img, and other standard tags, most of which just don't work the same or at all under XHTML.
This is the reason for the continuing appeal of HTML: its simplicity. My understanding that XHTML requires is that document formatting be separate from the content of the document. Yet sometimes is so much simpler to use a CENTER tag versus having to mark a section of text with a customized tag and then go into a style sheet to center a single section of text.
Sadly, many useful old tags probably won't work in HTML 5, or not in any useful fashion. The W3C will most certainly mess with the language to bring it in line with XHTML conventions. They've already taken target="_blank" from us, what other useful gizmos are they going to futz with this time, bookmarks? You can pry my octothorpe from my cold, carpel-tunnel hands.
Sure, CSS is damn useful and nobody generally liked frames. However, everything else about HTML was fine circa 1995. Maybe I'm being an old codger who still writes HTML pages without fancy crap like Frontpage, but I'm getting tired of their self-important crap. Breaking useful conventions just makes trying to communicate on the web that much harder. But, every time I tag font or add target="_blank", I do think about the W3C. Maybe that was just their goal all along.
I think what the only way that HTML 5 will succeed is if it continues to allow the use of "depreciated" tags as an option as a recognized part of the standard. It seems like the often the simple-but-works is being tossed away for the complex.
Maybe what is needed are two different forms of HTML. One form would be a basic HTML with the commonly used tags (and designed for easy hand coding), and the second would be a high-level version that is considered "current" (and more appropriate for use of a webpage making tool). Since web browsers already have to handle so many version of HTML, doing this should not be difficult.
..... this brings the iPhone down from a category of dependable, reliable devices to a category of toys........
NO cellphone nor even high speed Internet gets anywhere close in reliability to good old fashioned POTS that has been around for about a hundred years now. So by that measure ALL cell phones are unreliable toys. There are many rural places where cell phones are useless. Even in some cities there are dead spots with no or poor service.
I know this from experience. In the apartment I used to live (in a major city) the signal strength was so low that my cell phone was basically unusable. I had to go out to my car to make a cell phone call and even there I couldn't be sure my cell phone would work. In the end, I cancelled my cell phone and went with a landline.
In my own opinion, I think that a cell phone is a viable complete replacement for a landline phone for most people. This is due to issues of reliablity and cost.
For me, I've found a numeric pager gives me all of the wireless connectivity I need at a very low cost (one year of pager service costs less than a month of cell phone service). But this is what works for me and, as with most things, each individual's situation is different.
"It looks like paper is a better choice for keeping records than digital formats."
Not quite the same problem; there are two factors at work here. The first is the medium on which the data is stored, which has to last.
The second is the encoding of the data. Had they stored the constitution in Word format they could have written it in stone and still have the same trouble reading it.
True. I see the largest problem with the MS Word format is not that it is proprietary, but that it is not (as far as I know) publically documented. This makes it difficult for anyone, other than Microsoft, to accurately render a document in the MS Word format. This is not a problem with OpenDocument formats.
Of course, our ancestors thankfully weren't quite as... challanged... as some members of the current generations.
Take a clue from the forefathers, store your data in ASCII. Or Unicode.
Personally I always keep original data in a pure text format. Typeset it afterwards if you wish a nice presentation, otherwise typesetting just gets in the way of both the writing and the reading.
I agree about storying your data in various formats. Unless the text is intended for a specific use in a specific medium, it is best to keep it in a form that can easily be formatted for various uses.
I save my word processing documents in RTF for this reason. It gives me the basic formatting I need, and I can take the same document and use it in my word processor, e-book reader, and PDA without having to reformat it for each use. Plus, its easy enough to strip out the text of the document by hand if that become necessary.
A problem I've had with the whole issue of DRM is that it tends to be used to attempt to take away consumer rights/abilities that have been well established, whether the music or video industry (referred to collectively as "The Industries" from hereon) approves or not. For example, if I purchase a CD why should I be prevented from making a copy for my own personal use?
Despite what The Industries hope to accomplish with DRM, I think that it will lead to the death of any future formats. This, in turn, will cut off one of their biggest sources of income: customers repurchasing of items they have already bought (selling the same thing twice, or three times, or...) because of format changes.
I think this is one of the major reasons that the sales of CD has dropped greatly, and the sales of on-line music has not made up the difference. Simply put: I've bought an album on CD, why it again? I used to re-buy music on LP and cassette because they would wear out, but this isn't the case with CD.
For any music format to succeed like CD has, it is going to have to be as freely usable as CD has been. Otherwise, it is likely to remain a niche format at best.
Returning to the issue of Star Trek, although it is obvious, the reason the red shirts tend to get killed is because they are Security. They are the crew members whose job it is to put themselves in danger. In the same way, in Star Trek - The Next Generation, Worf tended to be the one member of the main crew who put himself into danger for the same reason (being in Security), and it is also the reason that Tasha Yar was the one most likely in direct danger.
It is also the reason that Riker tended to be in more danger than Picard. As second in command it was he, rather then Picard, who had the job to take on the dangerous missions away from the ship. Looking over the episodes, there have been at least three cases where Riker was put in personal danger that is directly related to his duties due to this. This doesn't include times when he was in danger along with the rest of the crew.
We're all for DRM-free music, but 256Kb/s still seems like a pretty low bit rate--especially when you're using a lossy codec.
Are they on crack? 256 Kbps is quite a high bitrate for a lossy CODEC. Their wording is also really bizarre. A low bitrate would be worse for a lossless track, because an uncompressed or lossless track, by definition, should have a much higher bitrate than a track compressed with a lossy CODEC.
I second the above. My understanding of a lossless CODEC is that there is a limit to amount of compression that can be accomplished because to go below that amount would cause it to become lossy since elements of the original file would have to be deleted to compress it further. Simply put, it is not possible to combine a lossless CODEC with a low bitrate. From what I've read, a lossless CODEC compresses the music to about half of its original size, the equivalent of a bitrate of 720kbs.
To me, the most important advantage of the higher bitrate for a lossy format is that it results in a file that sounds, to your ear, the same as the original source. In my opinion, for most people a bit rate of 128kbs for music is simply too low to meet the above standard, unless the quality of the original source is also low.
Something I think will improve the quality of music encoded at a low-bit rate is when music is encoded with this in mind, versus the music simply being converted from other sources into a low-bit rate format. Then, part of the sound quality of the resulting song file will be based on what was chosen to be part of the music, versus having a computer program make its best decision of what to delete from the original source file.
When the vinyl was the dominant format, the final mix of the music was created with the limits of vinyl in mind (such as the need to limit the bass to keep the needle from jumping out of the track). One of the reasons the sound quality of CD was an improvement over that of vinyl is that with CD music was released from the limits of vinyl.
As mentioned above, I think the sound quality of compressed files will improve when music in that format that is intended for that format.
While better at low bitrates (good for streaming!), it doesn't make a difference when you get to a reasonable rate, like 192-256, then they are just the same. Anything lower and they are audibly below the original CD quality, so I won't bother with that. Personally, I have switched to lossless. ALAC in my case because iTunes+iPod support it nicely.
I agree that, at least with MP3, a high bit rate is essential for acceptable sound quality. I've tried encoding music 128 bit and found that sound quality is significantly degraded from the original. At 192 bit I have trouble telling the compressed sound from the original, but at 128 bit it is easy to tell the difference. For me, the sound quality is easily worth the increased file size.
One of my main reasons for choosing MP3 over other compressed audio formats is due to compatibility. Simply put, MP3 is the only format that will play on all of my audio devices, I can encode them once and play them everywhere.
Re:Same with the ipods back when they hit 1 mil.
on
A Million Zunes Sold
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I've noticed that most people tend to replace the stock headphones that come with their portable player. I've wondered why manufacturers don't just stop including the headphones with the player, since no single set of headphones will please everybody. I'd rather see a slightly lower price on the player and then choose my own headphones (I prefer ear clips over any other type of headphones).
There is also a recent comic book series about TRON. It continues the story from both the movie and the game.
Also, in the game Kingdom Hearts II there is a TRON world. As with the first Kingdom Hearts game it features many worlds, most based on a different Disney movie.
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I can't say on the subject of FM or XM, but one possible reason that an AM radio isn't included with the iPod could be that the device itself could intefere with good AM radio reception (since it never actually turns off). I've noticed that many digital audio players (DAP) that include an FM radio don't include the ability to receive AM, so it could be that the nature of a DAP makes it unsuitable for use as an AM radio, possibly because its relatively small size makes it difficult to isolate the AM circuitry.
It could also be that the size of the antenna needed for AM would require an increase in the size of the iPod. I have a small portable AM/Stereo FM radio and it is roughly the same size (it's a little shorter and a little thicker) as the current iPod Nano. It could be that the size of the AM antenna limited how small the device could be made.
I saw "Mr. Magoo" too and the problem with the movie is that they got away from what made the character work: Now matter how bizarre and/or dangerous the real-world situation is, it works together perfectly to match Magoo's own perceptions. In the movie, it seems like they crossed Magoo with Maxwell Smart.
itsdapead wrote and included with a post:
I agree that we should wait and see before rendering an opinion on the Speed Racer movie. I hope that it is good, considering how long the project has been in work (when I first heard about a proposed Speed Racer movie, Johnny Depp was considered for the role of Speed, at a time when he was close to Speed's age).
I'm sure that techniques like the reuse of transformation sequences are used to save money, like the technique of moving the camera over a still frame to simulate a moving scene without having motion in the picture. The need to keep costs low also drove Hanna-Barbara's use of limited animation to make it more practical on television.
Related to the issue of depth of field, the Fleicher Brothers used an incredible technique to provide an almost 3D look to some of their cartoons (including some of their black and white Popeye cartoons). They constructed sets and placed the animation cells within the set, making the characters look as if they were moving through a 3D environment, because they were.
Returning to the topic of Speed Racer, the largest problem I see with a Speed Racer movie (and most projects based on anime) is that a single movie doesn't have enough time to tell the story that (with Speed Racer) it took 52 TV episodes to tell. Like most movies based on comic books and anime, it would take several movies to do an adequate job of telling the entire story. Just the prologue for story (including Rex leaving home) could fill much of a movie itself.
Original Replica wrote as part of a post:
To support the above point, one of my favorite stories from the comic JLA featured The Queen of Fables as a villain. She is literally every villain in all of the old fairy tales, and she had the power to bring any character from any story to life.
The attitude of the team was that it was no big deal to fight fairy tales, until Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner, who is an artist and studied the stories in college) pointed out that these are the original tales, the stories from a time before they were toned down for children. Before the story was over, the team had to face creatures from their worst childhood nightmares, creatures able to do what they did in the old tales.
LordSnooty wrote:
Not all formats supported by Sony have failed. Compact disc (CD) was a joint venture between Sony and Philips and it is quite successful.
What is unfortunate is that the video industry didn't learn from the success of CD. Although different formats were proposed, the entire music industry agreed on a single format and avoided a format war. It avoided the disaster of Quadraphonic (at one point there were seven incompatible formats).
A format war is the main reason that I'm avoiding both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, right now DVD is good enough. I will stay away from both formats until the war is clearly over and the industry has gone to a single format. I don't want to get burned again by supporting yet another failed format.
There was something that was part of the Red Book Standard from the beginning that could have provided more than CD-Text: graphics. Although they wouldn't display on the player, on a player with a graphics decoder you could display them on a standard TV. Both the Philips CD-i player and the Sega Genesis CD were capable of displaying the graphics.
I have a few discs with graphics on them and they provided a running slide show while the music plays. One disc (On the Cutting Edge - GRP Digital Sampler) provides information on every artist and every song via the graphics. Another disc by The Firesign Theater (Eat or Be Eaten) used the graphics to illustrate the action going on in the audio program.
Its unfortunate that the CD makers didn't take full advantage of graphics. If fully embraced, it would have eliminated the need for the CD booklet and could have provided far more information that possible in a thin booklet, and in a form that couldn't be lost.
The current issue of the abso!ute sound (dated September 2007) has a retrospective on the CD. The article was written by Robert Harley and the information in the following paragraph is taken from that article.
Per the article (page 48) Philips wanted to have a 100mm disc that could hold 60 minutes of music, and Sony wanted a 120mm disc that could hold up to 80 minutes of audio. Norio Ohga, the vice president of Sony and a classically trained musician, said "Let the music dictate the technical specifications." The 74-minute maximum limit was set since that would hold the longest-known recording of Beethhoven's Ninth Symphony.
BTW, although the original time limit for CDs was 74 minutes, due to better precision in the making of CDs it is possible to fit 80 minutes of music on a CD and still remain with the Red Book standard.
End of information from the article
I remember reading back when CD was introduced that the reason that CDs play from the center to the outer edge of the disc (the opposite of LPs/singles). This way, the final standard size of the CD could be established later.
I hope that helps.
ThosLives wrote:
When it comes to document formats (word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation) formats, one of the most important reasons for a human readable format is that the user is able to see all of the information actually contained in the document, including the hidden information. You are not limited to just the information the application will show you. This will allow you to see if the document contains information that you'd rather not release, and to strip it out (if the application will allow you).
With non-human readable formats, especially non-publically documented formats, you can't be sure what information is actually contained in your document. It is similar to buying a car where the hood is sealed, the only vehicle information you are allowed to have access to on the internal workings of your car is via the dashboard indicators.
strider44 wrote as part of a post:
The ability to choose my own bitrate is one of the strongest reasons for choosing to purchase my music in CD form over a downloaded form. I agree strongly that encoding an MP3 file at 128kbps is generally not enough quality for most music, although a very important factor in this is the listener's own ability to hear.
What convinced me of this is the song "Only Yesterday" by the Carpenters. At 128kbps, song's opening drum beats (which are the only sound at that time) sound different from the original, more like dull thuds than actual drums. But at 192kbps (the bit rate I now use for all music) I was not able to tell the difference from the original and the compressed version. Even with audiobooks I've found that often a 128kbps bitrate is not adequate, and I encode mine at 160kbps for that reason.
In my own humble opinion, I think that there is so much focus on smaller file sizes that sound quality has taken a back seat. Meanwhile, the factors that have necessitated smaller file sizes, such as available internet download speeds, have become less of a factor.
With downloaded music this should be a non-issue, and it would be possible to have the best of all worlds. Music could be available in many formats, lossless, high-bit-rate lossy, and low-bit-rate lossy, with the consumer able to choose the format he/she wants.
For years we were limited only certain specific forms for music, such as records, CDs, and cassettes. One of the best things about music now is that we now are the ones who can choose the form for our music and how we want to carry it.
SanityInAnarchy wrote:
I agree. With so many variables out there, using only HTML it's not possible to ensure that what the user sees will match what the creator intended. The best a designer can to is to provide suggestions of what the page should look like and hope that the users will follow those suggestions. Other formats can provide appearance control if needed.
But this also works as an advantage because it makes it possible for a webpage to be displayed legibly on many different devices. To me, a text of a webpage should be able to be displayed on all devices, rather than being designed with only one type of device in mind.
Also, based on comments in this thread, there seem to be many fonts that people dislike, and everyone has their own opinions. But due to the display flexibility of HTML, users can choose fonts that they do like, rather than having to put up with fonts that they dislike.
Saint Fnordius wrote as part of a post:
To support the above point, several years ago I did an informal test out of curiosity. In MS Word I created a one-character document (containing the letter "a") and saved it as a plain-text document, then as an RTF document, and finally as an MS Word document. The results:
On the topic of the OpenDocument formats as a viable option, as time passes I see it becoming a viable alternative format to the MS formats. Right now, OpenDocument is still fairly new and it will take time for people to become aware of the format and to see its advantages.
I think a less-mentioned reason that MS formats have become so dominant is that there are so many widely available non-MS options for using the formats. How many people would have chosen to use MS Word formats if the only possible way to use it is to purchase a copy of MS Word?
Ticklemonster wrote:
I don't think this will be possible. Based on how time works in the series, the entire series took place in a few minutes (at the most) of real-world time. This is based on Enzo having his one-second birthday during the series (in the same episode [Talent Day] where Bob and Megabyte have their classic guitar battle). Logically, the entire series up to that point took place in less than a second since Enzo was always there.
Well, we can hope. But any continuation of ReBoot is good news. At the point the series ended there were so many story possibilities left open, easily enough to support several movies.
What I hope they don't do is completely change the character design. Although there were changes in the characters with Season 3 (such as characters becoming much more expressive), they were still clearly recognizable as the same characters that we've been following. That kind of subtle change is what I hope will happen with the new movies.
One of the thing I hope they do is resolve the final cliffhanger before moving on to a new story. To me, that alone would be enough to support a movie on its own.
Concerning voice actors, I hope that they are able to get most of original the voice actors to return to the series, although it is not possible in some cases (in the recent Neon Genesis Evangelion movie they had to recast the voice actors for some characters because they couldn't find some of the originals). If it can't be done, I hope they voice actors that sound similar to the originals.
I'd rather not have the drastic change like they did when they changed the dubbing company for Dragonball Z. In at least one case (Krillin), the new voice actor was such a change from the original that it was jarring. In the same way, In Ranma 1/2, when they changed the voice actor for the male Ranma, the new one sounds quite different (the same individual now provides the voice for Inuyasha in the series of the same name).
But for me, this is good news. Although I enjoyed the first two seasons, beginning with the second season episode "AndrAIa" is when the series became outstanding. The new movies are going to have high standard to meet.
From what I understand, the original reason for the QUERTY keyboard layout was to slow down typists. When keywriters were introduced there was a problem with key jams. The QUERTY arrangement is designed to separate the keys that are often used together to reduce the number of key jams. For example, the S and T keys are separated by 10 keys on key-type typewriters.
With the introduction of electric typewriters that used a ball element (like the original IBM Selectric), the problem was key jams was eliminated and the QUERTY keyboard arrangement was no longer needed. I think the reason that QUERTY persists is due to user inertia, people simply staying with what is familiar.
Anonymous Brave Guy wrote:
I strongly disagree that keyboard shortcuts suck. I tend to use them to this day because I find it faster, easier, and more accurate than using a mouse and menu, especially for immediate commands like saving and moving around the document
Even when using the menu system, I tend to use the "alt" keystrokes to access the menu items versus the mouse. For me, it is much easier and faster to simply hit "Control-S" or "Alt,F,S" to save a document versus using the menu system with the mouse (less than one second versus two to three seconds).
When I used to use Wordstar, I got so good with the keyboard commands that all I had to do was think of what I wanted to do and my fingers automatically hit the correct key combination. For me, it is still much faster to hit "Control-K,S" than to use a menu system to save a document.
I don't see a learning curve as a problem. One of the reasons that Palm's original Graffiti handwriting system worked was that it required you to learn to write the way it expected, versus having to teach it to understand the way that you write. Once mastered, you can accurately write with it even while not looking at the device. Its not as fast as using a keyboard, but I estimate that at times I've managed to get about 10 words per minute using a stylus and writing area.
I admit that using morse code for input is an interesting possibility and would allow for a very small input area with very fast data entry possible. Learning it takes time, but then again it took time to learn to type and it was worth the effort.
swell wrote as part of a post:
A reason I can see for formatting a book this way is to preserve the actual look of the original book, including the fonts and illustrations. That is something that is difficult to do with HTML.
But an advantage that HTML has is its flexibility, including the easy ability to adjust the font and size for easy reading by individual users. One of the problems I've had with PDFs in the past has been that what looks fine when printed on paper is not readable on a smaller computer/PDA/ebook reader screen even after adjusting the page as much as possible.
To me, there is a place for multiple formats in the world of e-books. It doesn't have to be only one format.
palladiate wrote:
I think a reason that XHTML has not taken off is due to its unforgiving strictness. From what I understand, if you make a single mistake in XHTML the page will not work and for that reason it is not intended to be handwritten. But with HTML you often have different ways of achieving the same effect, such as with centering.
This is the reason for the continuing appeal of HTML: its simplicity. My understanding that XHTML requires is that document formatting be separate from the content of the document. Yet sometimes is so much simpler to use a CENTER tag versus having to mark a section of text with a customized tag and then go into a style sheet to center a single section of text.
I think what the only way that HTML 5 will succeed is if it continues to allow the use of "depreciated" tags as an option as a recognized part of the standard. It seems like the often the simple-but-works is being tossed away for the complex.
Maybe what is needed are two different forms of HTML. One form would be a basic HTML with the commonly used tags (and designed for easy hand coding), and the second would be a high-level version that is considered "current" (and more appropriate for use of a webpage making tool). Since web browsers already have to handle so many version of HTML, doing this should not be difficult.
arminw wrote:
I know this from experience. In the apartment I used to live (in a major city) the signal strength was so low that my cell phone was basically unusable. I had to go out to my car to make a cell phone call and even there I couldn't be sure my cell phone would work. In the end, I cancelled my cell phone and went with a landline.
In my own opinion, I think that a cell phone is a viable complete replacement for a landline phone for most people. This is due to issues of reliablity and cost.
For me, I've found a numeric pager gives me all of the wireless connectivity I need at a very low cost (one year of pager service costs less than a month of cell phone service). But this is what works for me and, as with most things, each individual's situation is different.
Znork wrote:
True. I see the largest problem with the MS Word format is not that it is proprietary, but that it is not (as far as I know) publically documented. This makes it difficult for anyone, other than Microsoft, to accurately render a document in the MS Word format. This is not a problem with OpenDocument formats.
I agree about storying your data in various formats. Unless the text is intended for a specific use in a specific medium, it is best to keep it in a form that can easily be formatted for various uses.
I save my word processing documents in RTF for this reason. It gives me the basic formatting I need, and I can take the same document and use it in my word processor, e-book reader, and PDA without having to reformat it for each use. Plus, its easy enough to strip out the text of the document by hand if that become necessary.
A problem I've had with the whole issue of DRM is that it tends to be used to attempt to take away consumer rights/abilities that have been well established, whether the music or video industry (referred to collectively as "The Industries" from hereon) approves or not. For example, if I purchase a CD why should I be prevented from making a copy for my own personal use?
Despite what The Industries hope to accomplish with DRM, I think that it will lead to the death of any future formats. This, in turn, will cut off one of their biggest sources of income: customers repurchasing of items they have already bought (selling the same thing twice, or three times, or...) because of format changes.
I think this is one of the major reasons that the sales of CD has dropped greatly, and the sales of on-line music has not made up the difference. Simply put: I've bought an album on CD, why it again? I used to re-buy music on LP and cassette because they would wear out, but this isn't the case with CD.
For any music format to succeed like CD has, it is going to have to be as freely usable as CD has been. Otherwise, it is likely to remain a niche format at best.
Returning to the issue of Star Trek, although it is obvious, the reason the red shirts tend to get killed is because they are Security. They are the crew members whose job it is to put themselves in danger. In the same way, in Star Trek - The Next Generation, Worf tended to be the one member of the main crew who put himself into danger for the same reason (being in Security), and it is also the reason that Tasha Yar was the one most likely in direct danger.
It is also the reason that Riker tended to be in more danger than Picard. As second in command it was he, rather then Picard, who had the job to take on the dangerous missions away from the ship. Looking over the episodes, there have been at least three cases where Riker was put in personal danger that is directly related to his duties due to this. This doesn't include times when he was in danger along with the rest of the crew.
dangitman wrote as part of a post:
I second the above. My understanding of a lossless CODEC is that there is a limit to amount of compression that can be accomplished because to go below that amount would cause it to become lossy since elements of the original file would have to be deleted to compress it further. Simply put, it is not possible to combine a lossless CODEC with a low bitrate. From what I've read, a lossless CODEC compresses the music to about half of its original size, the equivalent of a bitrate of 720kbs.
To me, the most important advantage of the higher bitrate for a lossy format is that it results in a file that sounds, to your ear, the same as the original source. In my opinion, for most people a bit rate of 128kbs for music is simply too low to meet the above standard, unless the quality of the original source is also low.
Something I think will improve the quality of music encoded at a low-bit rate is when music is encoded with this in mind, versus the music simply being converted from other sources into a low-bit rate format. Then, part of the sound quality of the resulting song file will be based on what was chosen to be part of the music, versus having a computer program make its best decision of what to delete from the original source file.
When the vinyl was the dominant format, the final mix of the music was created with the limits of vinyl in mind (such as the need to limit the bass to keep the needle from jumping out of the track). One of the reasons the sound quality of CD was an improvement over that of vinyl is that with CD music was released from the limits of vinyl.
As mentioned above, I think the sound quality of compressed files will improve when music in that format that is intended for that format.
daBass wrote as part of a post:
I agree that, at least with MP3, a high bit rate is essential for acceptable sound quality. I've tried encoding music 128 bit and found that sound quality is significantly degraded from the original. At 192 bit I have trouble telling the compressed sound from the original, but at 128 bit it is easy to tell the difference. For me, the sound quality is easily worth the increased file size.
One of my main reasons for choosing MP3 over other compressed audio formats is due to compatibility. Simply put, MP3 is the only format that will play on all of my audio devices, I can encode them once and play them everywhere.
I've noticed that most people tend to replace the stock headphones that come with their portable player. I've wondered why manufacturers don't just stop including the headphones with the player, since no single set of headphones will please everybody. I'd rather see a slightly lower price on the player and then choose my own headphones (I prefer ear clips over any other type of headphones).
There's another show to mention: ReBoot. In a way, I see ReBoot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReBoot/ as what TRON had the potential to be.
There is also a recent comic book series about TRON. It continues the story from both the movie and the game.
Also, in the game Kingdom Hearts II there is a TRON world. As with the first Kingdom Hearts game it features many worlds, most based on a different Disney movie.