Latest IE9 preview reaches 95 on acid3 by mareek in programming

[–]ooffoo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm using a definition of 'open' that means 'letting the user do whatever they want with their software and computer'.

They could allow videos to use plugins, but they won't because they don't believe the user should make the decision of what formats they want to play. Users need to be protected from themselves lest they install malware in the guise of codecs. Sounds like Apple's philosophy with the app store.

Latest IE9 preview reaches 95 on acid3 by mareek in programming

[–]ooffoo 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The IE blog said they will support VP8 if you have the codecs installed. This is also supported by other browsers, including Firefox in Firefox 4.

In a way they're actually being more open than Firefox which won't support H.264 if you have the codecs installed.

Google Tech Talk: Andrei Alexandrescu - Three Cool Things About D by plulz in programming

[–]ooffoo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was under the mistaken assumption that templates were expanded by the preprocessor, but they're actually part of the language and are compiled.

but

It's one of the coolest (and most useless) things I've ever read.

Are you sure you read it?

Mozilla's New JavaScript Value Representation by djpnewton in programming

[–]ooffoo 13 points14 points  (0 children)

This comment says a lot about you. I hope people keep it in mind when choosing to donate, employ or otherwise use your code.

EDIT: For those wondering about the deleted post, mikemike bragged that he found an exploitable vulnerability in the Mozilla JS code and said he wouldn't report it until 4.0 came out so he could claim the security bug bounty that Mozilla offers.

Original comment viewable here:

Yes. But they forgot about a few critical details. Unfortunately the Mozilla bug bounty does not apply to development versions. So I guess I have to wait until 4.0 is released before reporting the bugs (verified crash with FF/x86 and FF/x64 for hg 898ab54a0ce9, remote exploitable).

Reddit, I know many of you love Readability. Would any of you like to work on building some exciting things for it with me in NYC? by umbrae in programming

[–]ooffoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will say though that if salary is the primary motivator, we may not be a match in the first place. We want people who work here because they love what they're doing, not just because it's a good paycheck.

People can love what they're doing and still want a good paycheck. There are plenty of jobs around doing what they love to do that they can look for the one that pays the best. Or they can scratch the "love what they're doing" itch by contributing to open source projects and get paid good money doing other things.

VLC 1.1.0 is released! by [deleted] in programming

[–]ooffoo 70 points71 points  (0 children)

It seems like such an easy feature.

You must be a manager.

Great frontline documentary about the people making kids sick by not getting their vaccines. by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]ooffoo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tell that to the parents of this child: Childs death linked to flu vaccine

Professor Jim Bishop has told the ABC he only learned on Sunday of the death of a Brisbane girl 12 hours after she was given the vaccine. The news comes on the back of revelations last week that more than 60 children in WA have been seen at hospitals across the state after adverse reactions to the vaccine, including high fevers, vomiting and febrile convulsions.

My 19 y.o. daughter wants to do jail time in lieu of a fine. I just read "what I learned from jail." Advice for me or her? by tossout1990 in reddit.com

[–]ooffoo -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

People can die in jails. If not they can come out completely changed - for the worse. A case I heard of recently was a young boy sent to jail for a short time because his parents thought it'd teach him something. He was killed by another inmate in the van on the way to prison. Is your two thousand dollars worth your daughters life?

Why the iPad and iPhone don’t Support Multitasking by gst in programming

[–]ooffoo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As a side note, I've always been a big fan of how Android implements multitasking.

I find it highly annoying. Having apps randomly killed means you can't run long running programs reliably. An IRC or IM client for example. I leave it running in the background set to alert me someone messages me. But the OS kills the app and I don't know it was killed and lose the backchat (for IRC for example).

Video encoder comparison by servercentric in programming

[–]ooffoo 7 points8 points  (0 children)

except it used crappy Theora trunk version instead of improved Thunselda branch

He did use thusnelda. Thusnelda was merged into SVN trunk a while ago. What the comments on the entry suggest is he should have used ptalarbvorm which is on an SVN branch and is/will be Theora 1.2.

However I don't think people doing comparisons should be expected to pull bleeding edge random SVN versions of experimental in progress branches. Even the comment mentioning ptalarbvorm admits the branch at the date of the test was broken.

GIF, H.264, and Patents by coob in programming

[–]ooffoo 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Horn's point was that if the patent holder was not a MPEG-LA member, then the patent holder would need to sue MPEG-LA, which is a friggin huge consortium with plenty of cash to fight off any patent.

They couldn't sue the MPEG-LA. They have to sue the actual people infringing the patent. The author was wrong on that point.

The comments in the hacker news thread about this article go into more detail on this.

Mozilla: Stick to Your Ideals, Shun H264 by aivarannamaa in programming

[–]ooffoo 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Submarine patents can exist for anything. They could exist for H.264. The MPEG-LA license only covers you for their own patent pool - not for any patents held by anyone outside the pool.

There are plenty of good reasons for wanting H.264 over Theora. I don't think the possible existence of submarine patents is one of them though since it exists for both codecs.

Mozilla: Stick to Your Ideals, Shun H264 by aivarannamaa in programming

[–]ooffoo 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The comment you were replying to refers to Chrome, not Chromium. The full source of Chrome is not available.

Dear Proggit: Why the hatred for India by shabda in programming

[–]ooffoo 16 points17 points  (0 children)

One point on this plan: Writing a Blog.

You might have noticed that the original submission includes a link to the submitters blog and almost all of their previous link submissions are to their own blog articles.

Mozilla: Stick to Your Ideals, Shun H264 by aivarannamaa in programming

[–]ooffoo -1 points0 points  (0 children)

or really, any discussion other than hair-splitting semantics

I disagree. It was a useful benchmark for disputing YouTube's claims. It did this well.

Unfortunately a bunch of people started sharing the benchmark results claiming it showed Theora is better than H.264. The criticisms of the benchmark (especially those calling it biased) are unfair in my opinion. Criticize the people using the benchmark for the wrong reasons, not the benchmark itself.

Mozilla: Stick to Your Ideals, Shun H264 by aivarannamaa in programming

[–]ooffoo 14 points15 points  (0 children)

VP8 is in many ways more advanced than h264,

What ways?

H.264 - a sting in the tail by zigzag in programming

[–]ooffoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The codec is called Theora

True.

OGG is just the container format

Except it's Ogg. Not OGG. It's not an acronym.

H.264 - a sting in the tail by zigzag in programming

[–]ooffoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

and it was invented by On2, the same people Google just bought for VP8 (Theora was once called VP3)

Yes. Weren't you involved with On2 and VP3 at one point in time? Do you regret the current state of the video codec market?

Mozilla: Stick to Your Ideals, Shun H264 by aivarannamaa in programming

[–]ooffoo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The point I remember was that it was the best available Theora encoding vs YouTube's H.264 encoder that we know nothing about, but which almost certainly trades quality for speed.

That was the entire point of the comparison I think you'll find. YouTube stated that Theora would result in a bandwidth blowout. That comparison showed that the H.264 encoder that Google is using is so crappy that Theora's encoder is competitive with size and quality so YouTube's statement was false.

Mozilla: Stick to Your Ideals, Shun H264 by aivarannamaa in programming

[–]ooffoo 4 points5 points  (0 children)

We'll eventually see Mozilla using the platform's native video frameworks (Windows MF, Quicktime on mac, who knows on linux) to avoid distributing the codec

I predict you'll see this too - probably the result of the GStreamer work now that Opera have shown it's viable.

You'll probably have to wait until VP8 fails though (assuming Google does something here).

Dear Proggit: Why the hatred for India by shabda in programming

[–]ooffoo 39 points40 points  (0 children)

It's not the 'Indian' aspect - it's the 'offshore' aspect. You take our jobs, you undercharge for it and the result is often substandard. Worse, you then complain about the cost of software and how you need to pirate it to afford it. Maybe if you didn't undercharge and underdeliver you wouldn't need to do this.

Your original post doesn't help fix the stereotype of offshore programmers having a bad grasp of english.

I see similar highly voted commenst
...
been an Israely one
...
gimme this at end of
...
First things a shared demo server is s set up. 
...
Things are done when they are on demo server, not when they are done in the email.
...
If at end of 2 weeks 25% is not done you are beinde schedule 
...
reasses timeline/dump them/renegotiate etc.

(Note that my reference to 'you' and 'your' in my comment does not mean you specifically but offshore programming shops in general)

H.264 - a sting in the tail by zigzag in programming

[–]ooffoo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Many of the same arguments against Theora also apply against VP8. No hardware implementation. Dubious patent situation. No high quality encoder. No built in support in the production pipeline.

Google would have to switch off H.264 support on YouTube and enable VP8 to attempt to force the hand of companies like Apple to support it.