Yes, front projectors are the way to go if you have the proper light conditions and space. You get a much larger picture and better quality for about the price of a direct view CRT HDTV set.
> the American public (the majority thereof [...]) happens to want dumbed down news.
I wouldn't say the majority, but a sizeable portion. That would explain why Fox News is popular, but not THAT popular. There's a certain segment of the population that cannot stomach criticism of anything American, and unfortunately since the current administration is part of it, this segment gets over-targetted by the mainstream media.
> Working compromise for downloadables? A hard to remove unique waterstamp > in every song downloaded legally, but no usage restrictions.
Long term, I don't see that. Truly effective DRM is proving again and again to be simply elusive, and eventually the mainstream labels will give up. It might take another ten years for that to sink in, though. I think in the long term pragmatism will win out, coupled with the realization that given a reasonable price point, most people would prefer legal ways to ownership. I'm talking averages here, because there will always be a fringe that prefers to live "dangerously". But as long as legitimate purchases stay above a certain threshold, the system will still work. This approach is standard in many other fields, such as insurance or even law enforcement, so eventually even the dense labels will get it.
Incidentally, I'm saying that DRM is unworkable because there will always be the analog loophole, even if really got watermarking systems are developed. Look at the number of people willing to watch truly sh!tty screen captures from Asia. You can still get very decent sound quality by resampling analog output, and except for true audiophiles most people wouldn't even know the difference. Once you do that, pretty much any watermarking goes out the window.
Another way labels could make music purchase enticing is by making it preferable for more practical reasons. For example, they could build a really beefy downloading infrastructure that offers faster and more reliable downloads than P2P services. A lot of people would pony up the $0.99 for a track just to be able to have it in 30 seconds instead of ten minutes later.
> I think you're talking about different things. > CD quality is arguably good enough for final storage of the finished product [...] > But it's not really good enough to use during production
> Next time you go to the record store notice how many High Resolution > DVD-Audio recordings are [being mastered from tapes].
You could have saved yourself the bit in brackets, because that's about where SACD and its competitor are. For audio purists at least, the sad fact is that the CD is the cat's meow to the VAST MAJORITY of people, and the remaining dissenters just aren't enough of a market. I doubt higher quality audio will make much inroads in the future except in niche markets. Yes, the CD will be displaced, but it will give way to medium agnosticity rather than higher quality. IOW, people will be buying music in all shapes and forms (increasingly online), the CD will be just one of the formats, and of ever decreasing importance.
Then again, maybe this trend will indeed facilitate higher quality audio. Since the software won't be bound to a particular medium anymore, new formats (such as SACD) won't have to reach critical mass anymore to survive. Studios can simply record everything at the highest rate, and then sell the audio at various quality (and perhaps price) levels. Since you're downloading your new album anyway, you can either buy the 96KHz 4GB version for $25, or the 44KHz 600MB version for $15, or the compressed-to-hell MP3 version for $10. It's up to you how you store and play it back. And the industry doesn't have to go through the risky business of pushing yet another audio format through. I'm not sure the labels are there yet mentally, though, since at the moment they still seem to think that the medium equals the music.
I can think of various reasons for that state of affairs, one of them being inertia. If recording engineers are like many other engineers (and I'm using engineer here very loosely), they're a conservative bunch who are loath to learn and use new things. The old "if it ain't broke" thing. The thing about accurate clocks for digital sampling that you mentioned I don't see as an issue. If there's one thing we can produce cheaply in this digital world it's accurate quartz clocks. Let's be real, even 96K sampling rates aren't all that high speed really, compared to really high-bandwidth converters such as in (esp. HDTV) video. There's no reason in the world a good quality true 96k sound card would have to be even $200, except that there's probably not much of a market for that. The hardware required for high-bandwidth AUDIO is really not all that high-end anymore nowadays. In 1990 maybe, but not today.
> Exception handling (or lack there-of) is the nail in the coffin for me!
Yes, forgot that. Actually, you can write robust exception handling in VB as well, but the semantics are awkward with a lack of structured exception handlers--back to GOTO and line labels, yuck!
> I speak of VB6 -- things might be better in VB.Net, but I wouldn't know!
Yes,.NET has finally joined our times with try..catch..finally blocks. The only thing is the horrendous performance when an exception is generated. It can take over a second to enter the exception handler, so exception handling is quite useless as a branching mechanism in.NET. I was spoiled in Delphi, which can handle exceptions at blazing speeds. In.NET the advice is the good old "check each return value and don't use exceptions for general branching!" Bleh!
You can write clear and maintainable programs in any language that can create executable applications, including VB6. I have seen lots of very well written and maintainable VB apps. The problems with VB as a "serious" language are more subtle, and different issues annoy different people. What gets me the most are these:
- no boolean expression short circuiting, leading to sometimes unnecessarily awkward IF constructs and extra temporary variables - no INCLUDE mechanism at the individual file level, making library code reuse more awkward - very small code library in the box, in particular there are hardly any container classes or other advanced data structures - poor string handling, requiring MID() for character access, leading to slow code - very poor GUI encapsulation, requiring straight win32 API calls for a lot of more advanced operations
After several years with VB6 I've developed enough support libraries and code to work around most of these issues. Still,.NET is a huge step ahead and a worthwhile productivity enhancer. If one works in a MS shop, that is. Personally, I've been a long-time Delphi fan, but you go where the money is.
They kinda painted themselves into a corner with that one--where do you go from there? Infomercial superlativa perhaps, a la Super Deluxe Order of a Bygone Era? Starts sounding like fast food to me.
Reminds me of the comfy fireside chats between Hitler and Mussolini regarding the relative merits of representative democracy and genocidal totalitarianism. Ah, those good old Telefunken sets made you think you were right there next to them...
Right, I couldn't decide what was sadder: the original story, or the WSJ reporter checking up on it. Just wait till they discover the subservient chicken, they'll close Wall Street for a week.
> The EU and US may not get on with each other that well, > but they're not going to be so churlish as to allow > people to be killed by terrorists.
That is the sensible and pragmatic way to view this, and the way real-world diplomacy usually works out. Except that the current administration wouldn't put it in such cooperative and non-threatening language, without the possibility to flex muscle. Usually it starts with sneers and "Old Europe" masked by coughs, only to later degenerate into "hey, old buddy" and "could you spare a few thou troops".
...is just how many people all over the US this guy has suckered into spending the wee hours of the morning inflating balloons, just for him alone to get his kicks. He must be a really smooth talker.
In the majority of WHAT? The only people using Usenet nowadays (or even knowing about it) ARE those who appreciate it. Usenet is MUCH less well known than you might believe, and I would say that well over 90% of Google users have NO IDEA what that third link above the query box means. It's frightening even how many programmers I meet that have never heard of Usenet, and amongst those that know about it, how few really use it for research. Frankly, without Usenet I'd be a much less productive developer, and the day they fatally cripple it Google will have a revolt on their hands. Frankly, I want Deja back!
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, front projectors are the way to go if you have the proper light conditions and space. You get a much larger picture and better quality for about the price of a direct view CRT HDTV set.
3. Tape presentations ahead of time
> the American public (the majority thereof [...]) happens to want dumbed down news.
I wouldn't say the majority, but a sizeable portion. That would explain why Fox News is popular, but not THAT popular. There's a certain segment of the population that cannot stomach criticism of anything American, and unfortunately since the current administration is part of it, this segment gets over-targetted by the mainstream media.
> Working compromise for downloadables? A hard to remove unique waterstamp
> in every song downloaded legally, but no usage restrictions.
Long term, I don't see that. Truly effective DRM is proving again and again to be simply elusive, and eventually the mainstream labels will give up. It might take another ten years for that to sink in, though. I think in the long term pragmatism will win out, coupled with the realization that given a reasonable price point, most people would prefer legal ways to ownership. I'm talking averages here, because there will always be a fringe that prefers to live "dangerously". But as long as legitimate purchases stay above a certain threshold, the system will still work. This approach is standard in many other fields, such as insurance or even law enforcement, so eventually even the dense labels will get it.
Incidentally, I'm saying that DRM is unworkable because there will always be the analog loophole, even if really got watermarking systems are developed. Look at the number of people willing to watch truly sh!tty screen captures from Asia. You can still get very decent sound quality by resampling analog output, and except for true audiophiles most people wouldn't even know the difference. Once you do that, pretty much any watermarking goes out the window.
Another way labels could make music purchase enticing is by making it preferable for more practical reasons. For example, they could build a really beefy downloading infrastructure that offers faster and more reliable downloads than P2P services. A lot of people would pony up the $0.99 for a track just to be able to have it in 30 seconds instead of ten minutes later.
> I think you're talking about different things.
> CD quality is arguably good enough for final storage of the finished product [...]
> But it's not really good enough to use during production
You're right, I lost sight of the original topic.
Oh, one more thing:
> Next time you go to the record store notice how many High Resolution
> DVD-Audio recordings are [being mastered from tapes].
You could have saved yourself the bit in brackets, because that's about where SACD and its competitor are. For audio purists at least, the sad fact is that the CD is the cat's meow to the VAST MAJORITY of people, and the remaining dissenters just aren't enough of a market. I doubt higher quality audio will make much inroads in the future except in niche markets. Yes, the CD will be displaced, but it will give way to medium agnosticity rather than higher quality. IOW, people will be buying music in all shapes and forms (increasingly online), the CD will be just one of the formats, and of ever decreasing importance.
Then again, maybe this trend will indeed facilitate higher quality audio. Since the software won't be bound to a particular medium anymore, new formats (such as SACD) won't have to reach critical mass anymore to survive. Studios can simply record everything at the highest rate, and then sell the audio at various quality (and perhaps price) levels. Since you're downloading your new album anyway, you can either buy the 96KHz 4GB version for $25, or the 44KHz 600MB version for $15, or the compressed-to-hell MP3 version for $10. It's up to you how you store and play it back. And the industry doesn't have to go through the risky business of pushing yet another audio format through. I'm not sure the labels are there yet mentally, though, since at the moment they still seem to think that the medium equals the music.
I can think of various reasons for that state of affairs, one of them being inertia. If recording engineers are like many other engineers (and I'm using engineer here very loosely), they're a conservative bunch who are loath to learn and use new things. The old "if it ain't broke" thing. The thing about accurate clocks for digital sampling that you mentioned I don't see as an issue. If there's one thing we can produce cheaply in this digital world it's accurate quartz clocks. Let's be real, even 96K sampling rates aren't all that high speed really, compared to really high-bandwidth converters such as in (esp. HDTV) video. There's no reason in the world a good quality true 96k sound card would have to be even $200, except that there's probably not much of a market for that. The hardware required for high-bandwidth AUDIO is really not all that high-end anymore nowadays. In 1990 maybe, but not today.
> Exception handling (or lack there-of) is the nail in the coffin for me!
.NET has finally joined our times with try..catch..finally blocks. The only thing is the horrendous performance when an exception is generated. It can take over a second to enter the exception handler, so exception handling is quite useless as a branching mechanism in .NET. I was spoiled in Delphi, which can handle exceptions at blazing speeds. In .NET the advice is the good old "check each return value and don't use exceptions for general branching!" Bleh!
Yes, forgot that. Actually, you can write robust exception handling in VB as well, but the semantics are awkward with a lack of structured exception handlers--back to GOTO and line labels, yuck!
> I speak of VB6 -- things might be better in VB.Net, but I wouldn't know!
Yes,
> I'd love to see something like this which builds proper executables and allows C or C++ for the language.
There is: Kylix. It's got its issues, just like everything else, but it's there.
It looks like they don't have a forms designer yet, though, right?
You can write clear and maintainable programs in any language that can create executable applications, including VB6. I have seen lots of very well written and maintainable VB apps. The problems with VB as a "serious" language are more subtle, and different issues annoy different people. What gets me the most are these:
.NET is a huge step ahead and a worthwhile productivity enhancer. If one works in a MS shop, that is. Personally, I've been a long-time Delphi fan, but you go where the money is.
- no boolean expression short circuiting, leading to sometimes unnecessarily awkward IF constructs and extra temporary variables
- no INCLUDE mechanism at the individual file level, making library code reuse more awkward
- very small code library in the box, in particular there are hardly any container classes or other advanced data structures
- poor string handling, requiring MID() for character access, leading to slow code
- very poor GUI encapsulation, requiring straight win32 API calls for a lot of more advanced operations
After several years with VB6 I've developed enough support libraries and code to work around most of these issues. Still,
VB.NET, not VB6. This here looks more like a VB6 wannabe.
> You are not allowed to use the prefix "sir" even IF you are a
> citizen of a Commonwealth Country - you must be a UK citizen.
Tell that to my bank clerk, it's always "Sir" this and "Sir" that.
> The Most Excellent Order
They kinda painted themselves into a corner with that one--where do you go from there? Infomercial superlativa perhaps, a la Super Deluxe Order of a Bygone Era? Starts sounding like fast food to me.
I'll take a sausage-eating German over a sausage-shaped American anyday.
He had me at "The Elektra Project tries to upgrade a '1+1=2' system into a '1*1=1' one." That's positively poetic--what does it mean?!
Reminds me of the comfy fireside chats between Hitler and Mussolini regarding the relative merits of representative democracy and genocidal totalitarianism. Ah, those good old Telefunken sets made you think you were right there next to them...
Right, I couldn't decide what was sadder: the original story, or the WSJ reporter checking up on it. Just wait till they discover the subservient chicken, they'll close Wall Street for a week.
Or how about sending Tom Clancy to Guantanamo for his obvious lack of patriotism in giving terrorists all these great ideas?!
> The EU and US may not get on with each other that well,
> but they're not going to be so churlish as to allow
> people to be killed by terrorists.
That is the sensible and pragmatic way to view this, and the way real-world diplomacy usually works out. Except that the current administration wouldn't put it in such cooperative and non-threatening language, without the possibility to flex muscle. Usually it starts with sneers and "Old Europe" masked by coughs, only to later degenerate into "hey, old buddy" and "could you spare a few thou troops".
And everyone who cannot distinguish shades of gray and can only deal in absolutes, join this guy in his misguided cynicism.
> You say that like it's a bad thing...
Absolutely not, I just wouldn't necessarily consider it an expression of sophisticated styling, that's all.
> am reminded in these robots of everything cool
;-)
> about design from a Japanese ethic
Well, one of the "robots" looks like she's sitting in a huge wheeled vagina. So much for ethics of any particular sort
...is just how many people all over the US this guy has suckered into spending the wee hours of the morning inflating balloons, just for him alone to get his kicks. He must be a really smooth talker.
> Face it, we're not in the majority.
In the majority of WHAT? The only people using Usenet nowadays (or even knowing about it) ARE those who appreciate it. Usenet is MUCH less well known than you might believe, and I would say that well over 90% of Google users have NO IDEA what that third link above the query box means. It's frightening even how many programmers I meet that have never heard of Usenet, and amongst those that know about it, how few really use it for research. Frankly, without Usenet I'd be a much less productive developer, and the day they fatally cripple it Google will have a revolt on their hands. Frankly, I want Deja back!