I think it's great that this is being created, but surely I can't be the only person thinking that there is no way this is going to get any sort of traction outside of niche markets with the other codecs being so entrenched already unless there is some insanely good reason to switch (twice the compression with no noticeable quality changes or something similar)?
At risk of replying to my own post, following the links right through to a far more detailed article reveals that Mars was specifically mentioned by the Director of the Space Research Institute but left out of the article linked in the summary. The above article is a much more informative and interesting read on the plans for the Russian space industry.
Russia currently can afford it, with its large oil and gas reserves giving it a very significant cashflow boost over the last few years. The questions will be (a) whether it can still afford it in 10-20 years time, which is the timescale for the project, and (b) whether they will deem that money better spent elsewhere.
There's no mention of the Moon or Mars in the translated article, so that is purely speculation in the summary. It's very much pie in the sky (pun intended) at the moment, with reporting just saying "it was proposed" and "The government's Security Council supported the idea". Nothing about funding or plans at this point in time.
This would be a great step forward for space exploration, and hopefully it will kick start the rest of the world into launching their own if/when this proves to be a success. Something this big really needs governments to support it, it is too big for the nascent private space industry at the moment.
I found the following paragraph in http://shaver.off.net/diary/2008/03/12/year-of-the-gecko/, linked off the article:
It's a time-honoured programming tradeoff that using more space speeds you up, but that's not what happened here: our memory-reduction regimen actually made us faster in a lot of cases by making us more cache-friendly and by side-effects like using a better allocator. So in this case the memory changes provided significant other performance improvements. I'm a huge fan of the memory changes because it can significantly impact performance when you have Firefox with a large memory usage while trying to use virtual machines or other apps/games that require large amounts of memory as well.
I've switched to FF3 Beta 4 on my home computer and have been amazed at the difference. It used to reach 500 MB in memory usage on FF2, but now tops out at just over 100 MB despite me using many more tabs that I previously would have in order to try and stretch it.
This is currently how the majority of the Australian ISP market operates, with download caps varying at different price points. As a result you get what you pay for, oversubscription is rare (though still possible) and in general you can utilise the full bandwidth of what you're paying for.
The main devils people run into over here are in details like counting uploads against your quota, throttling download speeds vs charging people at exorbitant rates for excess usage and time-based bandwidth allocations. The main culprit in all of these are Telstra, our former government monopoly telecom and now 500 pound gorilla with shocking customer service.
I was with you up until
Rudd-Labor in bold to emphasise that this wasn't a problem under the Liberals, who had a realistic approach based on educating children, which was very successful If you're referring to the ridiculous "scare everyone" ad campaign I saw pre-election, I would hardly deem that successful. It was more a laughing stock. If you're referring to the original "everyone gets a free filtering product", I would hardly deem that successful. It had basically no one using it. And Howard tried several times to get industry-wide filtering adopted, but was rebuffed each time by ISPs telling him it simply wasn't feasible.
You may not personally agree with the Labor party, but trying to claim Howard and the Liberals were the party of sense regarding Internet censorship is either duplicitous or naive. Both pander to the "think of the children" brigade.
Mod parent up and ignore grandparent as irrelevant. Both parties are practically identical on the issue of filtering.
The former Liberal government announced the investigation and trial of this policy during the recent election campaign, and when Labor won it continued the process. To quote from one of our daily newspapers, Howard announced this in August of last year:
As well as practical tools to assist families to put internet pornography beyond the reach of children, the Government will form partnerships with major computer providers in upgraded steps to block porn sites. - http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22218715-15306,00.html
For the first time in many years this is an actual viable option for me. Living in the previous Prime Minister's electorate meant that I could write all I want but given it was him personally creating the policy (effectively, anyway), I had a donkey's chance in Hell at getting any change made.
Given this change I'm in the middle of writing such a letter and encourage any other Aussies to do so as well, especially given Australia regularly has one of the highest two (usually along with the UK) rates of downloads - specifically U.S. TV shows which usually take a year or longer to reach our shores (if they make it at all).
This was the exact company I was going to point to, along with iiNet while I was with them. They do still seem to be the exception amongst Australian ISPs but they definitely have the best reputations and generally best prices too.
Slashdot Mirror
Pffft we're talking about the RIAA facing the music... CCR FTW!!! *runs*
Millions? Even the article disagrees with that - "...the five different computers that PlaysForSure...".
I think it's great that this is being created, but surely I can't be the only person thinking that there is no way this is going to get any sort of traction outside of niche markets with the other codecs being so entrenched already unless there is some insanely good reason to switch (twice the compression with no noticeable quality changes or something similar)?
At risk of replying to my own post, following the links right through to a far more detailed article reveals that Mars was specifically mentioned by the Director of the Space Research Institute but left out of the article linked in the summary. The above article is a much more informative and interesting read on the plans for the Russian space industry.
Russia currently can afford it, with its large oil and gas reserves giving it a very significant cashflow boost over the last few years. The questions will be (a) whether it can still afford it in 10-20 years time, which is the timescale for the project, and (b) whether they will deem that money better spent elsewhere.
There's no mention of the Moon or Mars in the translated article, so that is purely speculation in the summary. It's very much pie in the sky (pun intended) at the moment, with reporting just saying "it was proposed" and "The government's Security Council supported the idea". Nothing about funding or plans at this point in time.
This would be a great step forward for space exploration, and hopefully it will kick start the rest of the world into launching their own if/when this proves to be a success. Something this big really needs governments to support it, it is too big for the nascent private space industry at the moment.
Inconceivable!
I've switched to FF3 Beta 4 on my home computer and have been amazed at the difference. It used to reach 500 MB in memory usage on FF2, but now tops out at just over 100 MB despite me using many more tabs that I previously would have in order to try and stretch it.
The main devils people run into over here are in details like counting uploads against your quota, throttling download speeds vs charging people at exorbitant rates for excess usage and time-based bandwidth allocations. The main culprit in all of these are Telstra, our former government monopoly telecom and now 500 pound gorilla with shocking customer service.
Typical roleplaying games... always wanting to Nerf undead.
FBI goon: "What's the matter??? CAT GOT YOUR TONGUE?"
Don't let the fact that you're male stop you impersonating Hillary Clinton. After all, it hasn't stopped Hillary.
It's not the links that are the problem. It's the "behaviour" pattern of following the links that the FBI are using to determine who to raid.
NO CARRIER? Did you miss and shoot your phone line?
Examples:
Howard endorsing ISP-level filtering last year - http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22224981-11949,00.html
Communications Minister Richard Alston contemplating mandatory filtering software in 2003 - http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/04/1046540188131.html
The original filtering software a failure in 1999 - http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/PR990730.html
You may not personally agree with the Labor party, but trying to claim Howard and the Liberals were the party of sense regarding Internet censorship is either duplicitous or naive. Both pander to the "think of the children" brigade.
The former Liberal government announced the investigation and trial of this policy during the recent election campaign, and when Labor won it continued the process. To quote from one of our daily newspapers, Howard announced this in August of last year: As well as practical tools to assist families to put internet pornography beyond the reach of children, the Government will form partnerships with major computer providers in upgraded steps to block porn sites. - http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22218715-15306,00.html
"IDDQD!!!"
Given this change I'm in the middle of writing such a letter and encourage any other Aussies to do so as well, especially given Australia regularly has one of the highest two (usually along with the UK) rates of downloads - specifically U.S. TV shows which usually take a year or longer to reach our shores (if they make it at all).
Mod parent redundant. Meta-mod redundant mods as ironic.
(Brought to you by the Alliance of People Who Are Sick Of Almost Losing the Front of Their Car, or APWASOALFTC for short.)
Mod parent up. My IQ is over 200 and I agree with him!
Who's to say all-paper doesn't work? Many countries use all-paper and yet somehow democracy survives in such third world countries as Australia.
This was the exact company I was going to point to, along with iiNet while I was with them. They do still seem to be the exception amongst Australian ISPs but they definitely have the best reputations and generally best prices too.
We also have The Shooter's Party. Not to mention the Freemarijuana boys who run in every election with a fairly self-explanatory platform.