

Hippies from Hell - LostCrew
http://hippies.waag.org/

======
pan69
On YouTube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuOOmjdYEt8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuOOmjdYEt8)

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leoc
Apparently the xs4all QuakeWorld server finally died at the end of last year:
[http://www.quakeworld.nu/news/920/xs4all-
down](http://www.quakeworld.nu/news/920/xs4all-down) .

~~~
seanp2k2
Ooh snap, I'm pretty sure I played on that quite a bit back when GameSpy was a
good way to find servers. IIRC they had a box running Mr. Pants Excessive
Overkill. Weapons Factory Arena is my all-time favorite mod/game, but XO is up
there.

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rdl
HIP/HAL/HAR are still some of the best experiences I've ever had -- by far the
best conferences, approached only by CCC Congress (and Camp, presumably, but
I've never made it to that).

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bartwe
I remember going to hal2k1 and all that, fun stuff :) I remember leaving my
laptop with friends and finding the tent gone the next day :) got it back
luckily

~~~
sanswork
I still have my hardcopy of Phrack from HAL. I showed up with just my sleeping
bag and some clothes with the expectation of staying in the shared tent. After
wandering around the campus for 2 hours with the map in hand I couldn't find
it and while wandering around had a random conversation with some Dutch guys
that recognized my name from some of the old alt hack or hacking newsgroups
and invited me to stay with them.

Seeing Emmanuel Goldstein being followed around by like 20 people(Seeing those
20 people follow him right up to the outdoor urinal then stand around
awkwardly waiting for him to finish). Sitting in the back of the room watching
him introduce a documentary about Phiber Optik then looking to my left and
realizing he was sitting right next to me. Gosh I could go on for hours. Such
a great experience.

~~~
wink
Was a pretty good mix of barbecue, beer and talks. I don't remember many
details - but I suppose after 14 years the technical contents aren't relevant
for the most part anyway...

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anaran
divx, seriously?

~~~
DanBC
> 2002/ 2003 HIPPIES FROM HELL

What codec should they have used back in 2003?

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes, but why are they still using it?

This is an industrial problem in the film world. Celluloid film keeps
remarkably well in moderately good conditions (cool and dry), and more
importantly it's so standardized that you can load a decades-old film into a
new projector and it will just play back correctly. The Academy standard for
35mm film has been in place since 1932 for example, and specifies everything
down to the shape of the little holes on the side:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_perforations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_perforations)

Digital video archival is a nightmare. Although the physical storage media
problems are now going away thanks to cloud services and suchlike, there isn't
yet an established standard for picture storage - the main contenders are MXF
and Adobe's Cinema DNG.

~~~
userbinator
_Yes, but why are they still using it?_

Because it works, and transcoding would lose even more quality?

 _Digital video archival is a nightmare. Although the physical storage media
problems are now going away thanks to cloud services and suchlike, there isn
't yet an established standard for picture storage_

MPEG, H.264, etc. are not standards?

~~~
ubernostrum
_MPEG, H.264, etc. are not standards?_

Sure. Are they still going to be the relevant useful standards 40-50 years
from now? Will software/hardware for working with them still be readily
available? Will the storage media be in as good condition as film would be?

Most "classic" movies are at least that old, and many are decades older than
that. Archiving and preserving them requires something other than the flavor-
of-the-decade codec.

~~~
ars
Did you seriously call MPEG "flavor-of-the-decade"?

Are you aware that probably 1 billion TV's can decode it? If there is ever a
codec that can be called a "forever codec" it's MPEG. (MPEG-2 to be specific.)

H.264 support is not far behind.

It's only getting easier, not harder, to support every video format ever made.

~~~
ubernostrum
_Are you aware that probably 1 billion TV 's can decode it? If there is ever a
codec that can be called a "forever codec" it's MPEG._

And what is the expected lifetime of those billion TVs?

Let's talk again in 30 years and see if MPEG-2 and H.264 are "forever codecs"
with widespread easy support then.

~~~
ars
I have a 40 year old TV, works fine (except for a Y2K bug), a little dim but
good enough for what I use it for.

The point is that the codec is so widespread, used in so many places, there is
zero chance it will ever not be supported.

