Day: July 14, 2005

Bomb Scare In Derby

Jyoti

I just got the email below from my mate Keith. The pic was taken yesterday morning:

Bomb Robot

It was a lovely morning until i looked out of the
window. Not something youll see everyday!

Keithx

This gives me a nostalgic, retro feeling, reminding me of when the IRA bombed Main Centre.

What the hell is going on with the world?

Does anyone sane still believe Bush and Blair’s claim that their illegal war has made the world safer from terrorists?

Look, a fucking bomb robot on a Derby street!

This is what happened:

A bomb disposal unit from Chilwell barracks carried out a controlled explosion at about 11.20am.

The suspect package on examination was found to be a size 10 dress from Marks & Spencer.
(Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

Somewhere, a skinny woman is crying…

MP3 – Now We Are Ten!

Jyoti

iPod

On July 14th, the name “MP3? celebrates its tenth anniversary. On this day back in 1995, the researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS decided to use “.mp3? as the file name extension for their new audio coding technology. Soon MP3 became the generally accepted acronym for the ISO standard IS 11172-3 “MPEG Audio Layer 3.”
(Source: Data Compression News)

In 1995 I was a student at Derby Uni. I’d just done an essay about the growth of the internet and how, as more people got modems, more of everyday life would be mediated by the hydra-headed TCP/IP.

Ten years later…

Even non-geeks use the net (although they unfailingly think it’s only the web) and MP3 has become the new compact cassette. It’s been surpassed in terms of compression and, allegedly, audio quality but it’s the de-facto standard for music exchange and archival. I could use AAC to encode all my CDs but I stick to high-rate MP3 instead because I want the greatest compatibility. It’s the JPEG of music!

Ogg, AAC, Atrac, WMA and many other formats may come and go but I think MP3 will be around for a long time…