Did we not learn anything from "The Simpsons?" Once you give the dolphins an inch they will rise up and take back the land, pushing all of humanity out to sea! Granting them personhood is the first step to our eventual doom. DOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
There was this article in Wired magazine talking about space junk and bringing them down with a giant tether. It seems like the balloon idea might work with large pieces of junk, but it seems like the bigger threat are the small pieces no larger than a few inches. The article stated that the ISS had a few close calls with some pieces of junk no larger than a baseball that could have caused massive damage if it hit the station. We can't tied a balloon or tether to every little piece out there. We need a giant space vacuum like this one!
I'm reading a lot of posts about the effectiveness of this new regulation -- how doable it will be, overpopulation, manufacturing costs, etc. But I think many of you are missing one large point. That is, it's none of the government's business how a television set is made! I feel like today everyone is running around asking whether we can do something that we forget to ask whether we should do it. I know, it's a stupid television. But it's just one more step in the over-regulation of our lives and the loss of our freedoms.
Look, if this is really such an issue then a television manufacturer could just release low-energy models of their products. If people think they are a good deal then they will buy them. I know that if I saw two equal television sets but one said that I will save $50/year on energy costs then I would be tempted to buy it. If the manufacturers sell enough then perhaps they will make more low-energy models or convert their entire line to it. It's how a free market works.
My Netflix queue is already 200+ movies long. I'm watching movies for the first time that came out 20+ years ago. So I don't really care if it takes another month for the DVD release because I have plenty of other movies to watch. I can't think of many situations where I absolutely need to watch a certain movie and I will be in that one-month, money-suck period. I'm sure the great majority of netflix and other movie renters fall into the same category.
I say we let the studio's try this and let the market decide. If it doesn't bother too many people and they make a little more money then fine. If no one likes it and they see a continued decline in sales then they will get the message and drop the idea. The one big fear is that they see a decline in sales and don't get the message and then go whining all the way up the hill to the congressmen that they own.
SUPER is extremely powerful while having every available function made as obvious as possible (and all have float-over hints), making it also useful as a training device for learning audio and video compression and conversion.
So true. I just finished converting my wedding videos from uncompressed DV to MPEGII and Super was the only application that provided me the options I wanted. I know that it is just a front end, but I got so frustrated with other applications (especially commercial ones) that did not give me the options I wanted. I'm not a big fan of templates that other programs seem to use (like "convert to iPod", "convert to DVD", etc.) because they always leave out one or two important options.
Super has now earned a prominent spot in my software collection and I hope they integrate the new ffmpeg functionality soon.
If you want something to last indefinitely then you have to store it in multiple locations. You will need to store it on a hard drive that is either in a RAID configuration or is backed up on another drive. You will also want to back it up somewhere online (http://www.mozy.com is a good one). Over the course of 20+ years it is completely possible that a fire or earthquake could wipe out your home so you need to have everything backed up on a remote site. You could also back things up on a family or friend's computer if you trust them (or you encrypt the data). In general, you want the media backed up on several different physical media and in multiple locations. Since it is so cheap to store data on multiple mediums in multiple locations, there really isn't any reason not to.
As time goes on and new formats come out and old ones die, you will have to convert those files from one format to another. If these files are in some sort of proprietary format (not recommended), then also backup the installer to the application that is needed to read them. However, a DVD iso image should stick around for a while and it's not like the format will just disappear overnight. But if another format becomes "THE STANDARD" then I'm sure there will be tools for converting DVDs to that format.
"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." - H.L. Mencken
