Now, however, carbon nanotubes might be the key to unlocking giant sound in your living room. Exciting times!
But that's not what I want. I want the sound piped directly into my brain, bypassing my ears - my brain goes up to 20khz without a problem, my ears don't anymore. Convolution reverb would allow you to add any "room" or ambience afterwards, plus you wouldn't be distracted by anything while listening to music - the perfect monitoring system.
I think the electric small/lightweight/trike cars are more akin to the rise of the netbooks such as the Eee PC - the realization that for certain tasks less space is adequate (and even preferable). I'd love a 1-2 passenger car like the Volkswagen 1L - stability, streamline and a roof over your head solves what motorcycles don't, while taking up less space and consuming less, but we'll have to wait until 2010.
Bingo! Listen to music produced today and compare it to what was around up to 15 years ago. The quality has sunk.
Sturgeon's Law doesn't like being violated - 90% of everything is still crap. This was no different 15 years ago. The difference is that the total of 100% is a lot bigger nowadays (which makes the 90% of crap bigger), and that getting exposure is a lot easier, and of course, one's personal bias and the tendency to remember the good songs.
but mathematics has no bearing on my music apart from the incidental involvement of things like acoustics.
So you don't use scales? Or synthesizers?
to say otherwise is to turn the human composer into a mere algorithm machine.
This is a fallacy based on the fact that most perceive mathematics to be cold, unemotional and icky, and that there is a magical spark somewhere machines can't ever emulate.
I think Ray Kurzweil already proved this wrong in the 80s when people had to pick a composition (out of three - one was his own, one was the computer's, one was a lesser-known classical piece) that which they thought was generated by a computer (his own piece got the most votes). Now, of course, one could pose that live music is different - audience engagement, showmanship - but this approach conveniently ignores the dull, uninspired playing of a bar pianist or wedding band who just wants to go home or get plastered.
You're working with soundwaves, time intervals and different frequencies. Of course you're working with mathematics, whether you like it or not. The benefit of the computer is that you can remove its preconceived notions about how something should sound, which is a lot harder to do with the well-worn paths in the human mind.
I'll bet a lot of people love mario but never beat world 8-4.
They would, after judicious use of Warp zones. Same thing in SMB3 with the warp whistle, albeit that SMB3's variety is a stronger incentive to not use it (the levels in SMB1 are repetetive so you're not missing much except for palette swaps).
It shows that the welding shut and burying is a stupid idea in the first place. The thing is that with a time capsule you can go out of sight, out of mind - making it a true "surprise" for yourself what you see in 25 years. That's an attractive idea - more attractive than actively maintaining that information and transferring it from medium to medium. Yet it's the latter approach that has the longevity while the former depends on a crapton of factors, technology base and some good luck.
I think I saw one: the fact that most of the US is built for cars, which is a problem itself. Population densities are too low. It'd be better if most of the stuff you'd need was closer by and you'd have parts of the road reserved for other traffic, so you'd be able to walk or use a bike, the latter being a vastly superior means of short-distance transport with incredible efficiency. There are all-weather bikes that look like raindrops on wheels - and possible of doing ~50mph when you're assisted by the battery. Add a little cart and you can do your grocery shopping for a week. I'd love to use this on the freeway - but its maximum speed is the freeway's minimum speed.
Another thing I'm in favor of (but this would be easier to implement in most larger cities or here in Europe) - replacing all truck traffic with "email for things".
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/02/a-world-without.html
It'd do miracles for the traffic congestion here in the Netherlands, since a lot of stuff has to go to Rotterdam anyway. One of the main freeways is blocked every day thanks to this. Trucks are limited to 50 mph (80 km/h) here and when one goes 49 due to the load, the next one will try to pass it - which takes 5 minutes.
There is good reason to believe that these records are truthful history
There is not. Taking the stories literally (as history) doesn't do justice to the Bible, and ignores all allegorical accounts. For Noah, refer to the Ziusudra epic, because upping the water levels (e.g. taking the story literally) means boiling the entire atmosphere.
The question is: Did Methuselah REALLY live 969 years, as recorded, or is that simply untrue, fictitious imaginations?
That's not really a question. The 969 years are a translation error. When you recalculate it with "moons" (the only reliable indicator of timespan back then) you end up with 969 * 28 days, which makes you end up with a much more realistic but still respectable 74 years.
Maybe the Borg started off as a very advanced MMORPG.
Blizzard Online Role-playing Game.
I think you're onto something here.
Re:Uncle Sam is too fat. You need to trim it.
on
The SUV Is Dethroned
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Laws in this way are a lot like computer code, the more complex they become the more places bugs can hide.
You mean, the simpler they are, the fewer factors they can take into account, and the easier it is to make a buffer overflow.
The moment you simplify things several asshats will try to interpret "do not put dog in microwave" as "well, they didn't say anything about a cat, did they?" or "well, it's not just a microwave, it's also an oven!". You can't just say "well, you KNOW what I mean".
why are the royalties so low? eBooks should cut out a lot of middle men.
Is an author entitled to make a living of his books? What's so wrong about a part-time job?
Global market. None of this "US only" or "UK only". Countless people in other countries read English without any problems and would like to have access; electronic distribution would immediately solve the small shelf space now handed to books in English. I'm Dutch, and I've ordered for nearly $200 from Baen. The $6 (to me) is a very reasonable price and it gets even more reasonable with a bundle.
Text files aren't "plain"; there's character encoding. Furthermore, you need to store it; the medium you store it on (magnetic tape or disks) requires a lot of research, materials science and an industrial revolution to make the parts all in uniform sizes. Yes, there's punch cards - bloody useless because they're not human readable and store far less compared to scribbling just text on these, and their only advantage is the speed of processing which would lead ordinary humans to be bored out of their eyesockets in 3 minutes.
My Hanlin book reader holds several thousand books on a 2gb SD card
And after World War III, nobody knows what to do with that little plastic square because the tech base for the equipment has disappeared. With dead tree books, the tech base has much lower requirements. Even if you can't copy with a printing press, you can copy by hand.
Yes, Baen is great - I've read several books on my Palm Tungsten since 2004 (and now since the Tungsten is dead, my HTC S710) and I'm due for another load of 'm. Yes, I'd also like to see textbooks and schoolbooks going the electronic way with a subscription-based model for updates and corrections (or better, freed from any shackles in that regard so that the best educational method wins) since it's just stupid to pay a lot for a heavy bag full of books that are going to be obsolete in a year or so because a page number has changed, so I don't think I'm a Luddite;)
Slashdot Mirror
Wait, what is this? manbearpig.jpg! Clearly, you're in posession of bestiality.
But that's not what I want. I want the sound piped directly into my brain, bypassing my ears - my brain goes up to 20khz without a problem, my ears don't anymore. Convolution reverb would allow you to add any "room" or ambience afterwards, plus you wouldn't be distracted by anything while listening to music - the perfect monitoring system.
Correlation may be Caucasian, instead of causation.
I think the electric small/lightweight/trike cars are more akin to the rise of the netbooks such as the Eee PC - the realization that for certain tasks less space is adequate (and even preferable). I'd love a 1-2 passenger car like the Volkswagen 1L - stability, streamline and a roof over your head solves what motorcycles don't, while taking up less space and consuming less, but we'll have to wait until 2010.
Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the prettiest virus of them all?
As long as you have a souped-up Pursuit Special you're probably free to go where you want. Just make sure to avoid the biker gangs.
Sturgeon's Law doesn't like being violated - 90% of everything is still crap. This was no different 15 years ago. The difference is that the total of 100% is a lot bigger nowadays (which makes the 90% of crap bigger), and that getting exposure is a lot easier, and of course, one's personal bias and the tendency to remember the good songs.
So you don't use scales? Or synthesizers?
This is a fallacy based on the fact that most perceive mathematics to be cold, unemotional and icky, and that there is a magical spark somewhere machines can't ever emulate.
I think Ray Kurzweil already proved this wrong in the 80s when people had to pick a composition (out of three - one was his own, one was the computer's, one was a lesser-known classical piece) that which they thought was generated by a computer (his own piece got the most votes). Now, of course, one could pose that live music is different - audience engagement, showmanship - but this approach conveniently ignores the dull, uninspired playing of a bar pianist or wedding band who just wants to go home or get plastered.
You're working with soundwaves, time intervals and different frequencies. Of course you're working with mathematics, whether you like it or not. The benefit of the computer is that you can remove its preconceived notions about how something should sound, which is a lot harder to do with the well-worn paths in the human mind.
They would, after judicious use of Warp zones. Same thing in SMB3 with the warp whistle, albeit that SMB3's variety is a stronger incentive to not use it (the levels in SMB1 are repetetive so you're not missing much except for palette swaps).
This, exactly. Quit thinking with your dicks, people, and start thinking with your wallet. I can't wait for the Volkswagen 1L.
Can I borrow $1000 from you? I'll pay it back in a week.
Nature will find a way!
It shows that the welding shut and burying is a stupid idea in the first place. The thing is that with a time capsule you can go out of sight, out of mind - making it a true "surprise" for yourself what you see in 25 years. That's an attractive idea - more attractive than actively maintaining that information and transferring it from medium to medium. Yet it's the latter approach that has the longevity while the former depends on a crapton of factors, technology base and some good luck.
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.
It doesn't even need to be able to play blackjack!
^^ and later I noticed that this was already covered in the list in "Objections".
I think I saw one: the fact that most of the US is built for cars, which is a problem itself. Population densities are too low. It'd be better if most of the stuff you'd need was closer by and you'd have parts of the road reserved for other traffic, so you'd be able to walk or use a bike, the latter being a vastly superior means of short-distance transport with incredible efficiency. There are all-weather bikes that look like raindrops on wheels - and possible of doing ~50mph when you're assisted by the battery. Add a little cart and you can do your grocery shopping for a week. I'd love to use this on the freeway - but its maximum speed is the freeway's minimum speed.
See http://www.twike.com/ and http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html
Another thing I'm in favor of (but this would be easier to implement in most larger cities or here in Europe) - replacing all truck traffic with "email for things".
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/02/a-world-without.html It'd do miracles for the traffic congestion here in the Netherlands, since a lot of stuff has to go to Rotterdam anyway. One of the main freeways is blocked every day thanks to this. Trucks are limited to 50 mph (80 km/h) here and when one goes 49 due to the load, the next one will try to pass it - which takes 5 minutes.
There is not. Taking the stories literally (as history) doesn't do justice to the Bible, and ignores all allegorical accounts. For Noah, refer to the Ziusudra epic, because upping the water levels (e.g. taking the story literally) means boiling the entire atmosphere.
That's not really a question. The 969 years are a translation error. When you recalculate it with "moons" (the only reliable indicator of timespan back then) you end up with 969 * 28 days, which makes you end up with a much more realistic but still respectable 74 years.
Blizzard Online Role-playing Game.
I think you're onto something here.
The moment you simplify things several asshats will try to interpret "do not put dog in microwave" as "well, they didn't say anything about a cat, did they?" or "well, it's not just a microwave, it's also an oven!". You can't just say "well, you KNOW what I mean".
I hope you're not being serious here.
Text files aren't "plain"; there's character encoding. Furthermore, you need to store it; the medium you store it on (magnetic tape or disks) requires a lot of research, materials science and an industrial revolution to make the parts all in uniform sizes. Yes, there's punch cards - bloody useless because they're not human readable and store far less compared to scribbling just text on these, and their only advantage is the speed of processing which would lead ordinary humans to be bored out of their eyesockets in 3 minutes.
Yes, Baen is great - I've read several books on my Palm Tungsten since 2004 (and now since the Tungsten is dead, my HTC S710) and I'm due for another load of 'm. Yes, I'd also like to see textbooks and schoolbooks going the electronic way with a subscription-based model for updates and corrections (or better, freed from any shackles in that regard so that the best educational method wins) since it's just stupid to pay a lot for a heavy bag full of books that are going to be obsolete in a year or so because a page number has changed, so I don't think I'm a Luddite