Nanochick wrote:
] skullaria wrote:
] ] I did 72% with an average of 80 miles error.
] ]
] ] What's your score?
]
] On first try: 88%, 16 miles, 277 seconds. Those New England
] states always screw me up. That, and trying to exactly place
] Arkansas or some other inland state without any rivers or
] other markers for guidance. ;)
]
] Fun test though!
]
] [First try 80% with 87 mile avg. error.....damn the midwest:)
] I have been cooped up in the lab too long...need to go see
] more of the world now - Nano]

98% 4 miles avg (I got my placement of utah slightly off, all other states perfect), then again I have always been obsessed us geography as well as an obsession to visit all states on land (flying does not count) (11 left). It took me 560 secs, but I did not know I was timed till the end.

J.P.

RE: Test your knowledge - US geography

Acidus wrote:
] ] MusicBrainz also takes this concept one step further in
] ] applying it to digital audio files like MP3 files and Ogg
] ] Vorbis files. The metadata contained in these files is
] ] often incorrect or missing altogether. If this data is
] ] not present or correct, it makes it difficult for users
] ] to find the music they wish to play. Many MP3 lovers have
] ] a huge collection of MP3 files but often have a hard time
] ] finding the music to which they want to listen. The
] ] MusicBrainz solution for this is the MusicBrainz Tagger,
] ] a Windows application that uses acoustic fingerprints
] ] (TRMs) to semiautomatically identify tracks in your music
] ] collection and then write clean and accurate metadata to
] ] your music files.
]
]
] I believe some of us were having a conversation about needing
] something liek this integrated into BitTorrent while at
] Phreaknic 8.

I have been using this software for over a year now, here are some pros and cons as I see them:

Pro:
-Accurate most of the time. It tends to get ALL mainstream songs correct and many non-mainstream songs.
-Features like searching for a match after finding partial information are nice as well as sorting by likely hood of matches.

Con:
-UI does not necessarily handle throwing 10000 or so songs at it. Performance is there, but they dont have the concept of a "bulk" action, so after running the algorithms, its really still a 1 by 1 operation to check for accuracy.
-Covers/Remixes/Collisions, have any covers of songs? or a remix? Well it will likely tag it as the original since the fingerprinting software can not handle these common musical situations. Likewise there seem to be many collisions in their hashing because I quite frequently have to tell the software that what it has tagged as classical music is in fact vocal trance. Again, this leads back to the primary con of still having to go through 1 by 1 even on the 100% matches to ensure accuracy.
-No history. There is no history of what has been renamed. That means that if you happen to miss one of those songs that was tagged as some classical work, then you are SOL, there is no way to go back and change it without manually changing the info in some other tool.

Overall (even with the cons) I still would reccomend the software, Its just good to know what you are getting into beforhand.

J.P

RE: MusicBrainz - Music Identifier

Elonka wrote:
] Not quite a live stream, but it does have images that are
] updated every 5 minutes. According to the webpage, this USGS
] cam is the closest-operating camera to the volcano, which
] means about 4 miles away. There was a closer one at the
] Johnston Ridge Observatory, but since the Level III alert went
] out earlier today, that facility has been evacuated.

The volcanocam IS at the Johnson ridge observatory...
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/VolcanoCam/volcanocam_FAQ.html
:)

Also, they have changed it to only update every 10 minutes :(.
I have just about every picture that was uploaded to the site since Friday. (yea for C# and easy web client programming.)

Not only that, but There is a 10 minute image delay + 10 minute server delay, so you see what the mountain looked like 20 mins ago. I found that watching NWCN in one window and MSNBC in another window was the best way to monitor what is going on (I managed to be watching the recent blast this morning as it happened).

This IS all VERY cool though. :)

J.P.

RE: Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam

Anyone going to BlackHat or DefCon? Want to meet up for coffee? I will be there for both.

J.P.

inignoct wrote:
] ] It may just be pocket change for the richest man in the
] ] world, but Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has been fined
] ] $800,000 by the federal government for violating an
] ] antitrust rule.
] ]
] ]
] ] ] The technical incident has nothing to do with the
] ] government's massive antitrust battles with Microsoft
] ] (MSFT: Research, Estimates).
] ]
] ] Gates, whose fortune has been estimated at more than $40
] ] billion, ran afoul of the Federal Trade Commission and
] ] the Justice Department's Antitrust Division for his
] ] purchases of stock in a drug company and a waste-hauling
] ] firm.
]
]
] Doh
]
] [ Of course, if you do the ratio of $800k:$40B and then do
] $X:$your_net_worth, and solve for X this amounts to less than
] a parking ticket in relative terms. It's a lot of money, but
] fortunately for him, he has it, a lot. -k]

True, true, but also keep in mind that since this is a fine and not actually garnishing of profits or something similar that this is 800,000 that could have gone to a charity. (where 800,000 would actually BE worth much more.)

Just speculating, since I dont know how he runs his finacials, but still...there are multiple ways of seeing it.

RE: Microsoft Gates fined $800,000 for antitrust violations - May. 3, 2004