Jason Scott, who has been working on the Internet Archive's Console Living Room, recently posted what he calls a "desperate" plea for help fixing serious sound problems with JSMESS and Web Audio API. He asks that people share the request 'far and wide' in hope that someone capable of fixing the problem sees it.
The situation: Internet Explorer gets no audio, Safari is unpredictable, and for Firefox, SeaMonkey, and Chrome the audio ranges from "very nice" to "horrible, grating." (For comparison, see the Web Audio API compatibility chart he linked to.) The Archive has two test cases people can try (click on "toggle MESS performance indicator" to see how your system fares):
Here is the Wizard Test. It's an emulator playing the Psygnosis game "Wiz n' Liz" on an emulated Sega Genesis. This is extremely tough on the browser almost nothing can play it at 100% speed.
Here is the Criminal Test. It is an emulator playing Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal as rendered on a Colecovision. It is not tough on the browser at all. Almost everything should be able to do it at 100% or basically 100%.
He says that he's "happy to entertain all ideas, discuss all possibilities" and will "spend all the time you need to ramp up, or try any suggestion." If anyone might be able to help, he says to go to #jsmess on EFNet if you use IRC, or email him at audio@textfiles.com.
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As a result of book publishers successfully suing the Internet Archive (IA) last year, the free online library that strives to keep growing online access to books recently shrank by about 500,000 titles.
IA reported in a blog post this month that publishers abruptly forcing these takedowns triggered a "devastating loss" for readers who depend on IA to access books that are otherwise impossible or difficult to access.
To restore access, IA is now appealing, hoping to reverse the prior court's decision by convincing the US Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit that IA's controlled digital lending of its physical books should be considered fair use under copyright law. An April court filing shows that IA intends to argue that the publishers have no evidence that the e-book market has been harmed by the open library's lending, and copyright law is better served by allowing IA's lending than by preventing it.
[...]
IA will have an opportunity to defend its practices when oral arguments start in its appeal on June 28."Our position is straightforward; we just want to let our library patrons borrow and read the books we own, like any other library," Freeland wrote, while arguing that the "potential repercussions of this lawsuit extend far beyond the Internet Archive" and publishers should just "let readers read."
[...]
After publishers won an injunction stopping IA's digital lending, which "limits what we can do with our digitized books," IA's help page said, the open library started shrinking. While "removed books are still available to patrons with print disabilities," everyone else has been cut off, causing many books in IA's collection to show up as "Borrow Unavailable."
[...]
In an IA blog, one independent researcher called IA a "lifeline," while others claimed academic progress was "halted" or delayed by the takedowns."I understand that publishers and authors have to make a profit, but most of the material I am trying to access is written by people who are dead and whose publishers have stopped printing the material," wrote one IA fan from Boston.
[...]
In the open letter to publishers—which Techdirt opined "will almost certainly fall on extremely deaf ears"—the Internet Archive and its fans "respectfully" asked publishers "to restore access to the books" that were removed.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @09:37PM
Solution: Stop using Javascript for stuff it sucks dick at.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 18 2014, @10:33PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19 2014, @12:42AM
What's uninformed? Javascript is clearly shit at this job hence his call for help.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Saturday July 19 2014, @12:54AM
So, do you recommend flash?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Tork on Saturday July 19 2014, @12:59AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday July 19 2014, @02:19AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday July 19 2014, @02:49AM
Uhhh how EXACTLY is it less informed? We have been bolting more and more sheeeeit onto JavaScript over the years and all it has done is make a big stinking security nightmare of a mess. We have Java, .NET, whatever the one Google was pushing (Dart?) to run apps, stop trying to run everything in fricking JavaScript already!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19 2014, @03:53AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday July 18 2014, @10:30PM
Why should an archive even care what format that information is in?
If it can't interpret the data it has, then it clearly wasn't actually archiving information in the first place. Which means the problem was *way back then*.
If the problem is that some clients do not know how to stream certain types of data then that is *not a problem*. They can *downlowd* the data and play it using a dec (that's like a codec, but doesn't need the 'co' part) at any point in the future.
If they're worried about the *formats* that they want to serve to people then they are completely missing the point. They should be serving *information*. As long as the *information* is there, then it can be played back using the medium du jour.
But maybe I'm misunderstanding things. It's been a scarily long day.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 18 2014, @10:59PM
This is not about using .OGG or .MP3 or anything like that.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 1) by forkazoo on Saturday July 19 2014, @04:49AM
The question still remains, does the browser matter? It's great that they have ROM's. So, I can just install an emulator and download them. Maybe emulators can start volunteering to download available ROM's from archive.org. In any event, not playing correctly in IE isn't actually a disastrous loss of a part of our culture.
When we invent time travel, we should send back a robot to kill the mother of the inventor of JavaScript.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday July 19 2014, @05:13AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 20 2014, @04:31PM
It is not their job. It's your platform's/your job to handle the interpretation and transformation of data. It is their job to store and serve the data. Putting it in terms of other formats, they should not, say, make their own PDF viewer; they should just serve the fucking PDF.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday July 20 2014, @07:47PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈 - Give us ribbiti or make us croak! 🐸
(Score: 1) by forkazoo on Sunday July 20 2014, @09:28PM
I don't really have any problem with it. I mean, it's their time and resources, and it's kind of cool if they make it work. I certainly won't try to stop them from doing something they find interesting. But, when it turns into a massive call for help because it is unworkable with the chosen tools, I don't feel bad about pointing out that their project is kind of a dumb idea, and them having a dumb idea doesn't really instill any obligation elsewhere in the community to bail them out.
If somebody finds the project interesting and does their work for them, then I'll probably play a few games in my web browser at some point, and find it amusing. But, that doesn't change the fact that the experience would be miles better with a native emulator.
(Score: 1) by Jiro on Saturday July 19 2014, @04:49AM
99% of the ROMs are illegal to download anyway. What's the point in keeping them there?
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday July 19 2014, @04:40PM
Exactly, they may as well be hosting links to games on TPB for the legality of the whole thing! Like it or not these are all protected by DMCA and unless they are hosted outside of Berne territory these are nearly all illegal.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday July 19 2014, @12:17AM
I went and tried out a couple of the links, and even after closing the browser windows, my mouse was slow as hell in my FPS shooter game. Something had two cores pegged.
Hadn't had any problem for months till I visited those tests. Had to reboot.
Could have been some weird combo going on. No clue what it was
Not accusing, just saying...
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Saturday July 19 2014, @12:57AM
Uh-oh, your box has been hijacked by the GRU. :D