I don't know about "usually" - I usually thank the gods that I don't check a bag, because the ticket counters at my friendly local airport (one of the top 5 busiest in the country) have literally hundreds of people in line when I arrive for a peak-hours flight, and security is usually 10 minutes or less waiting in line; they seem to have enough people at the x-ray machines to handle the large numbers of people.
That being said, you're right in your second sentence. I'm not sure that this chip would speed my travel any, since I print a boarding pass online at home anyway.
Most of the CDs on the most popular music tracker are ripped from... well, actual CDs. If someone buys a CD, and rips it for everyone else online to enjoy, how does watermarking help the RIAA in tracking down who originally ripped it?
Pirates don't even have to go through the miniscule effort of removing the watermark, they can just LEAVE it there and continue on as if nothing was different. Because, in fact, nothing is.
This is an interesting point of view, and I'm wondering how it would apply in a case of file-sharing that would more closely resemble the situation you describe.
Let's say I have an open wireless network from my home (which I do) and my neighbors are free to access it as much as they want. If one of them goes hog-wild on Oink and downloads and then shares 50 different torrents and uploads a few GB of music, I would get the letter from the RIAA demanding $XXXXX and then allowing me to settle for $XXXX. If I choose to fight 'em in court, and I demonstrate in court that I have an open network, and my neighbors are accessing the internet from it, is the burden of proof then on the RIAA to show that I was actually the one with the offending files on my computer, and that my computer was doing the distributing to the people around the world?
My point was actually more that even in the 70's, parents of kids listening to Led Zeppelin declared that Led Zeppelin was crap compared to whatever they had decided was "real" music. There is certainly music today that will stand the test of a couple/few decades, but whatever that music is, people in their 40s today almost certainly believe it to be crap if kids are listening to it. It's not a bad or good thing, it's just the way it is.
And don't ask me what that current music is - I'm 35 and I already find myself listening to my old stuff more than the current stuff. But I don't tell kids like my nephews that everything they're listening to is crap, because it's probably not. Most of it? Maybe. But then again, who are you or I to say? It'd be like asking your parents, when you were a teenager, "out of the stuff I listen to, what's crap and what's good?" They'd probably tell you it was all crap. Just like all the old farts here complaining that ALL the current music on the radio is crap. Same old trap.
Nobody likes getting old, and this discussion deals with one of the surest barometers of aging.
What's funny is this branch of this thread has come full circle - the OP making fun of old people always saying "It was better in my day!", and now a serious post declaring "That crap you're listening to isn't music!"
I'm pretty sure my dad's parents said the same thing to him when they heard him playing the Beatles. In fact, I know they did, because I used that story he told me against him when he complained about me playing The Cult in the late 80's.
Face it, you've fallen victim to the most tired, played-out cliche ever - absolutely every generation believes as teenagers that they're listening to the best music ever, and when they're old, they declare current music is "crap", and it happened in the 1920's, in the 1950's, and you get the idea.
Yeah, I'm well aware of the entrance requirements and how many credit hours I racked up, thanks...:)
Also, I'm well aware that actual pilots that have flown "real" planes are flying the drones, sorry if I didn't make that clear. My point was that the "army" (original poster's error) doesn't need to release software to give teens a head start on flying them, because even if playing such video games would prepare you any better, a lot of guys in the AF already played the games that were commercially available.
Yeah, I think we're sort of making the same points... obviously you don't get to fly a UAV without considerable training from the military, but before that, I would have to believe it's likely that many of those guys were playing with your standard consumer-grade flight sims on their PCs. I know anecdotal evidence doesn't count for much, but at the USAF Academy in the early 90's, it was not uncommon to see two roommates hook up their computers to be able to dogfight against each other in "Knights of the Sky", as geeky as that may sound. There's a lot more geeks at that school than you might think. My point was, some of those same geeks are now flying these UAVs or coordinating with the guys who are flying them.
It's completely unnecessary for them to do this, as the video game industry has been doing it for them for decades (please note, I'm not anti-video-game; quite the opposite, I make my living partly as a result of programming and playing games as a teenager).
Who do you think is sitting in those darkened control rooms flying these things NOW?
The last part of your post was racist, indeed, and has nothing to do with the article you point us to. So, let's assume for the moment that your first point is valid (it's not, but I'll get to that) - sticking in the last bit robs you of any credibility you may have been posing with. So yes, racist.
For support of your "enlistees are smarter than you think" argument, you point us to an article from an avowedly partisan conservative group, and that article cites as a reference a study done by - oh, that same conservative group. Not sure that quite meets the standard of proof I'd require to actually believe your point. Even without my personal experience dealing with enlistees of all backgrounds in the USAF, of which you have obviously zero.
I'm 37 soon, and now I finally have it all figured out. When I was 27, I hadn't figured out ANYthing, and worse yet, I THOUGHT I had grown a brain in the last few years, just like others my age. I know there's probably plenty of people reading this aged 27 who'll hate this simple fact. Your [sic] too young to have learned how to spell "you're" or to have much of a world view.
Where to start? I was in the military and I think you pulled that first stat right out of your posterior; I certainly didn't see many airmen coming from a wealthier background than the average, nor did more than a handful of them have anything past a HS education.
Your "read-between-the-lines" reference to African-Americans in this country is so blatantly racist that I can't believe at least 1 person modded you up for it. And by the way, the other thing I noticed about 18-22-year-old-airmen in the AF was how many of them took on two massive car payments that ate up most of their paychecks because they didn't have to worry about housing. Then they'd take on massive credit card debt on top of that, to the point where the AF had (and probably still has) programs instructing these kids on how to be financially responsible, teaching them even during basic training. It didn't seem to do much good, however; many of them still engaged in that type of behavior that did not seem to indicate they were well-educated or had familiarity with money in any way.
Not quite, but almost... that story was about touch-sensitive monitors, this one about a multi-touch trackpad, but you're right, the same comment was made by that guy that wants so badly for his prediction to come true he's posting it multiple times in hopes of a reverse-less-space-than-a-nomad legacy.
Didn't even remove the now-irrelevant comment about greasy monitors. Sheesh, talk about lazy!
Actually, my point was that even though it's probably changed a lot since the islands were discovered, it's still more untouched than all but a few spots that you could easily visit on the planet, and the current administrators seem to be working to limit human contact. Also, you'll notice if you read carefully that I said the largest town had 10,000 people living in it, not the entire island group; however, the actual number wasn't the point, it was that Ecuador is now limiting how many people can move there, in order to keep the population growth under control. As for the animals being wary... I think you're misleading people with whatever limited contact you had. You're the only person I've ever heard say that, and I'll say again, it doesn't sound like you went to the same place I did, at all.
The animals are a bit less wary of people than in other places but not by much.
I know you didn't say you were there or anything, but lest anyone get that impression, I have to say you're completely wrong about this. I've been to a lot of places, and nowhere I've been even comes close to what I experienced in the Galapagos. True, there are a couple of towns there, and the largest one was much bigger and more developed than I expected (about 10,000 people living there), but outside those few tiny areas, "a pristine wonder" is EXACTLY what the Galapagos are. It's certainly not too late to save them; even if they aren't as pristine as they were 500 years ago, they're still an amazing treasure.
I was there on a 75-foot catamaran. It only used diesel when necessary and sparingly, like to get in and out of the Puerto Ayora harbor.
From what I could see, they're pretty careful about preserving the ecosystems there while still allowing people an up-close look at those same ecosystems. As another poster mentioned, we were in a tightly controlled group led by a very professional guide who actually lives in Puerto Ayora. And guess what, for those of you that think it would be easy to just close off the islands to people altogether, there are over 10,000 people already living there. A majority of them were born there, and Ecuador is making it increasingly difficult to emigrate to the Galapagos. If you're not Ecuadorian, it's next to impossible.
No, it didn't, mainly because that situation doesn't exist in the first place. From the first link that was posted:
For starters, Coca-Cola, the world's largest soft-drink maker, does not purchase any gum arabic from Sudan.
In 2006, America imported 12 percent, or $6.2 million worth, of its gum arabic from Sudan. That figure represents a 54 percent drop year over year from 2005. Most gum arabic, nearly 38 percent, is now imported from Chad.
There were some kids that stole cars after playing GTA because they thought it was cool. What kind of things could we expect those kids to do after playing this game? Do you have a source for this assertion? I'm not saying you're lying, I'm just saying that statements like that tend to sound like they've been pulled out of thin air. I did a couple of google searches and found nothing. I would gladly admit I'm wrong about my suspicions if presented with any evidence that a kid ACTUALLY stole a car after playing GTA because they "thought it was cool."
During WWII, the British and Germans both independently and secretly discovered chaff as a radar countermeasure. Neither side used it in the beginning because they were more afraid of the enemy copying them and gaining a bigger advantage than they themselves would receive.
Why didn't the Brits just patent chaff? Silly limeys.
Are you kidding me? I'm supposed to listen to that entire thing? I want my predictions of media-in-the-future presented to me in easily digested 30-second sound bites, dammit.
The problem is, when they indicate the source is WAV, it's often not. Or perhaps, at some point an mp3 was transcoded to WAV, and then re-ripped to your mp3 bitrate of choice. Either way, you're paying for something that you might believe you're getting, when you're not. But don't take my word for it. Go buy 5 random tracks at 256k, throw them into your audio app of choice that shows you a spectral analysis, and see for yourself.
Check those downloaded 384 kbps songs again. Most of them (if you believe some people, ALL of them, although I can't confirm that) are transcoded 128kbps mps3, sometimes 160 or 192. If you put them into any audio software that gives you a spectral frequency picture, you'll the clipping that results when a lower-bitrate mp3 is transcoded into a higher one.
I know, hard to believe that allofmp3 can't be trusted, right?
How many times will you ignore the fact that it's not about the firings? And that it's about people lying, and covering up, and (back to the original topic) deleting e-mails that would've, at best, made the administration look like liars, and at worst, expose perjury?
That's either naive or you're just lying about how much you know about our executive branch. Do you honestly believe that GWB had no knowledge of what was going on with these firings and the subsequent rush to cover up the real reasons for them? I'd say it's as much about the president as anyone else in the White House. Last I checked, doesn't he RUN the friggin place?
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That being said, you're right in your second sentence. I'm not sure that this chip would speed my travel any, since I print a boarding pass online at home anyway.
Pirates don't even have to go through the miniscule effort of removing the watermark, they can just LEAVE it there and continue on as if nothing was different. Because, in fact, nothing is.
Let's say I have an open wireless network from my home (which I do) and my neighbors are free to access it as much as they want. If one of them goes hog-wild on Oink and downloads and then shares 50 different torrents and uploads a few GB of music, I would get the letter from the RIAA demanding $XXXXX and then allowing me to settle for $XXXX. If I choose to fight 'em in court, and I demonstrate in court that I have an open network, and my neighbors are accessing the internet from it, is the burden of proof then on the RIAA to show that I was actually the one with the offending files on my computer, and that my computer was doing the distributing to the people around the world?
And don't ask me what that current music is - I'm 35 and I already find myself listening to my old stuff more than the current stuff. But I don't tell kids like my nephews that everything they're listening to is crap, because it's probably not. Most of it? Maybe. But then again, who are you or I to say? It'd be like asking your parents, when you were a teenager, "out of the stuff I listen to, what's crap and what's good?" They'd probably tell you it was all crap. Just like all the old farts here complaining that ALL the current music on the radio is crap. Same old trap.
Nobody likes getting old, and this discussion deals with one of the surest barometers of aging.
I'm pretty sure my dad's parents said the same thing to him when they heard him playing the Beatles. In fact, I know they did, because I used that story he told me against him when he complained about me playing The Cult in the late 80's.
Face it, you've fallen victim to the most tired, played-out cliche ever - absolutely every generation believes as teenagers that they're listening to the best music ever, and when they're old, they declare current music is "crap", and it happened in the 1920's, in the 1950's, and you get the idea.
Yeah, I'm well aware of the entrance requirements and how many credit hours I racked up, thanks... :)
Also, I'm well aware that actual pilots that have flown "real" planes are flying the drones, sorry if I didn't make that clear. My point was that the "army" (original poster's error) doesn't need to release software to give teens a head start on flying them, because even if playing such video games would prepare you any better, a lot of guys in the AF already played the games that were commercially available.
Yeah, I think we're sort of making the same points... obviously you don't get to fly a UAV without considerable training from the military, but before that, I would have to believe it's likely that many of those guys were playing with your standard consumer-grade flight sims on their PCs. I know anecdotal evidence doesn't count for much, but at the USAF Academy in the early 90's, it was not uncommon to see two roommates hook up their computers to be able to dogfight against each other in "Knights of the Sky", as geeky as that may sound. There's a lot more geeks at that school than you might think. My point was, some of those same geeks are now flying these UAVs or coordinating with the guys who are flying them.
Who do you think is sitting in those darkened control rooms flying these things NOW?
The last part of your post was racist, indeed, and has nothing to do with the article you point us to. So, let's assume for the moment that your first point is valid (it's not, but I'll get to that) - sticking in the last bit robs you of any credibility you may have been posing with. So yes, racist.
For support of your "enlistees are smarter than you think" argument, you point us to an article from an avowedly partisan conservative group, and that article cites as a reference a study done by - oh, that same conservative group. Not sure that quite meets the standard of proof I'd require to actually believe your point. Even without my personal experience dealing with enlistees of all backgrounds in the USAF, of which you have obviously zero.
Thank you for your time.
I'm 37 soon, and now I finally have it all figured out. When I was 27, I hadn't figured out ANYthing, and worse yet, I THOUGHT I had grown a brain in the last few years, just like others my age. I know there's probably plenty of people reading this aged 27 who'll hate this simple fact. Your [sic] too young to have learned how to spell "you're" or to have much of a world view.
Where to start? I was in the military and I think you pulled that first stat right out of your posterior; I certainly didn't see many airmen coming from a wealthier background than the average, nor did more than a handful of them have anything past a HS education. Your "read-between-the-lines" reference to African-Americans in this country is so blatantly racist that I can't believe at least 1 person modded you up for it. And by the way, the other thing I noticed about 18-22-year-old-airmen in the AF was how many of them took on two massive car payments that ate up most of their paychecks because they didn't have to worry about housing. Then they'd take on massive credit card debt on top of that, to the point where the AF had (and probably still has) programs instructing these kids on how to be financially responsible, teaching them even during basic training. It didn't seem to do much good, however; many of them still engaged in that type of behavior that did not seem to indicate they were well-educated or had familiarity with money in any way.
Didn't even remove the now-irrelevant comment about greasy monitors. Sheesh, talk about lazy!
Actually, my point was that even though it's probably changed a lot since the islands were discovered, it's still more untouched than all but a few spots that you could easily visit on the planet, and the current administrators seem to be working to limit human contact. Also, you'll notice if you read carefully that I said the largest town had 10,000 people living in it, not the entire island group; however, the actual number wasn't the point, it was that Ecuador is now limiting how many people can move there, in order to keep the population growth under control. As for the animals being wary... I think you're misleading people with whatever limited contact you had. You're the only person I've ever heard say that, and I'll say again, it doesn't sound like you went to the same place I did, at all.
I was there on a 75-foot catamaran. It only used diesel when necessary and sparingly, like to get in and out of the Puerto Ayora harbor. From what I could see, they're pretty careful about preserving the ecosystems there while still allowing people an up-close look at those same ecosystems. As another poster mentioned, we were in a tightly controlled group led by a very professional guide who actually lives in Puerto Ayora. And guess what, for those of you that think it would be easy to just close off the islands to people altogether, there are over 10,000 people already living there. A majority of them were born there, and Ecuador is making it increasingly difficult to emigrate to the Galapagos. If you're not Ecuadorian, it's next to impossible.
God, I wish I had some mod points after reading this.
In fact, I've already lost interest in typing th
The problem is, when they indicate the source is WAV, it's often not. Or perhaps, at some point an mp3 was transcoded to WAV, and then re-ripped to your mp3 bitrate of choice. Either way, you're paying for something that you might believe you're getting, when you're not. But don't take my word for it. Go buy 5 random tracks at 256k, throw them into your audio app of choice that shows you a spectral analysis, and see for yourself.
I know, hard to believe that allofmp3 can't be trusted, right?
How many times will you ignore the fact that it's not about the firings? And that it's about people lying, and covering up, and (back to the original topic) deleting e-mails that would've, at best, made the administration look like liars, and at worst, expose perjury?
That's either naive or you're just lying about how much you know about our executive branch. Do you honestly believe that GWB had no knowledge of what was going on with these firings and the subsequent rush to cover up the real reasons for them? I'd say it's as much about the president as anyone else in the White House. Last I checked, doesn't he RUN the friggin place?