I can understand this. A few years ago, my dad and I were talking about the inevitable demise of the US; and while I didn't care other than the repurcussions for the rest of the world, he was genuinely sad to see the "bright spark" of the post-war era dying.
That said, don't assume that _all_ of your country's conduct is reprehensible. They've been very good at getting aid to disaster areas, and most of the people I've met have been very repectable (and respectful).
His comment makes it clear that your question is irrelevant to the case.
Internet access is not worth 15 years in jail. Subversion is. He was convicted of working for a covert organization towards the overthrow of the Cuban government. Hell, in the USA that can be a death sentence.
When I was a kid, I got invited to take a (short) computer camp one summer, due to my grades. Turns out, it was on the University's PLATO system. So cool! I learned to program in Pascal on that system. Also played games.
Yeah yeah, everything you say is true. But at the end of the day, modern jets came about because bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece, we learned from and improved on the Wright flyer. Forgetting this piece of history is a GREAT way to repeat the mistakes it made, instead of learning from them.\
Kate Bush had some thoughts on this
on
Happy Pi Day
·
· Score: 1
It is suggested in this article that games are different than other media for two reasons: 1) Interactivity 2) Sexual maturity
I'll certainly give him (1), but point (2) is debatable. In fact, society in general has a damned immature perspective on sexuality. It's something which is kept behind closed doors (which is fine) but that we're compelled to talk about, hint at, and pump our own egos over. In the article, the author says "First up, lock up your daughters, sons and dependants, because we're going to talk about sex." I realise that this was a facetious comment, but the mere fact that it made sense points to society's prevailing view of sex. Let's restrict ourselves to the entertainment media. How many TV shows tackle sex in a mature, sophisticated, and nuanced manner versus the number that treat it as a shallow subject for adolescent sniggering? Movies might be better, but not by a lot--especially in Hollywood. We can't show naked but non-penetrative sex on screen without it (a) being labelled as softcore porn, and (b) getting an NC-17 (or whatever) rating. (Aside: We can show explicit, violent, bloody dismembering with only an R rating, though.) Music? Worse again.
Yes, there are exceptions. Yes, there are more bright spots in the other media than in gaming, but how many video games are released per year, vs. hours of TV, movies, music, or...anything? Comparatively few, I'd wager.
Add in the uncomfortable aspect of interactivity (and the ludicrous awkwardness of a keyboard or game controller as a sex controller), and it's a steep hill to climb, which doesn't really have a lot to do with anything particular to the industry.
OK, it's not the technology, it's the interactivity. The article makes that clear. I'm surprised that this is considered news, though. It's the reason I can sleep after cycling but not after fencing.
My brother is a full-time professional musician. He has been on at least seven albums that I can think of, one of which was nominated for a Juno. He has received *exactly* nothing from the tarrif on blank media. Nothing. Nada. Celine Dione, one of Canada's top-selling artists, made a comment once about how she never saw enough money from the tariffs to make any difference in her income.
This will be the same, if it goes through. A cash-grab by the industry that goes to middle-managers, never artists.
For one company's "extreme" offering, if you maxed out your download speed you'd consume your entire monthly cap in about 30 hours. So no, you don't get to use that speed very often.
In Canada, we are facing a fight over Usage-Based-Billing, and whether the federal government can effectively force it on ISPs. The idea isn't actually terrible per se, but the way they're trying to implement it certainly is. One thing that has come up time and time again is that it's to protect the consumer from the excess of the 1% of extreme consumers. They're often implicitly labelled as pirates by the ISPs, but in fact are the vanguard. An excellent article in the Globe and Mail had this to say on the matter:
The knowledge that penalties await heavy Internet usage does something quite terrible: discourage desirable behaviour. Most of Bell’s arguments for treating consumers as wrongdoers rely on the villainization of “bandwidth hogs” who use up everyone else’s bandwidth and generally bring misery to the land. But there are better words for big users of the Internet: “pioneers” and “innovators.” A nation that spends its time worrying about bandwidth caps is not a nation that leads.
They are a near-monopoly. Erecting barriers to entry isn't a sign of a monopoly either, it's a sign of a monopoly that is unfairly using its position/power. (In fact, in most of the western world, anti-monopoly legislation doesn't prevent monopolies, it only prevents them from misusing their monopolistic power.)
But regardless, it's the lack of a better (or comparable and competing) search engine that I lament.
Hey, I've worked with some excellent Windows admins! People I considered to be skilled, competent, responsible, and insightful. They're not all that common, but they do exist. Part of the problem is that Windows is (still!) a fundamentally flawed system, and us old-timers resent the fact that it has dragged the entire computing world down to a much lower level overall. If you're supporting Windows, you're part of the problem. (It's not fair, but it's a fairly prevalent attitude). The other problem is that too many of your comrades actually think that rebooting or reinstalling is an acceptable way of fixing things; and in the server world, it just isn't.
I wish someone - even Microsoft - would come up with a decent alternative to Google. Being a monopoly is making them more and more corrupt, and by being the gatekeeper, they now own too much of the internet.
(Note: Reposting this while logged in - why did they get rid of the 'login at post' option?)
Virtualisation is definitely a very solid example of the degradation of Admin skills, but isn't the cause in and of itself.
Here is the problem: Poor practices can get into production faster.
Anyone can slap an OS onto a system. Building an OS for an enterprise with certain requirements and demands may involve a lot more work, which of course means time and money up front - a slower time to deployment. Ask a manager if he wants to wait an extra week (or two) to get a server out the door, and the answer will of course be "no!" However, here is where the false economy lies: That generic DVD-install may well be slower, less stable, less reliable, and less secure than the one that was tweaked and properly configured. Time not spent up-front will lead to a less stable environment. Now when a system blew up before, rebuilding it would take a day or two, unless the admin was able to say "I told you so!" and get his week to set it up properly. Now, with VMs, it takes half an hour to get back into production, so why bother working on it? Who cares if the environment is shitty, unstable, and badly-designed, if it can be rebuilt in bits and pieces in minutes?
The thing is, you WILL be rebuilding it - constantly - and ultimately there's a decent chance that the entire pile of crap will implode on you (or at least run into a dead-end), requiring a complete re-architecture. Of course by that point, the people who pushed for and deployed the entire unsustainable environment will have been promoted to management because of their amazing speed to production, and they encourage the same thing.
In other words, VMs aren't a problem, they're a facilitator for problem behaviour.
Indeed. I didn't mention live music (which I attend as much as possible--not always easy with a three-year-old!) because we weren't discussing live music. This is a discussion about recording and playback.
As an aside for anyone who wants to get a good system for cheap: Buy used! Low-end audiophile gear (Rotel, Cambridge Audio, Parasound) tend to sell used for about $0.50 on the dollar, and are generally in flawless condition.
Agreed. The exact limits are vague, but these numbers are pretty close to my experience.
Through my portable headphones (Sennheiser PX-100; DAMNED good for casual listening!), I can tell the difference between 192kbps and 256kbps (both fixed-rate) if I'm listening carefully to a well-known passage, looking for differences. For casual and even attentive musical listening (i.e. listening to the music, not the sonics), the difference is small. I was able to consistently tell apart a 256kbps and 320kbps VBR rip of a particular track after repeated listening (both on the stereo and in my studio cans), but that was not a typical case. In general, beyond 192kbps the 'damage' caused by MP3 encoding tends to be in the spatial encoding, rather than overt frequency issues like you hear in low-bitrate encoding.
What on earth makes you think they're mutually exclusive?
For the vast majority of 'audiophiles', live and recorded music are two parts of the same equation. For me, live music is ALWAYS the preferred choice. I have seen hundreds of performances at concerts, festivals, street corners, and bars. However, I will never get to see Jimi Hendrix or Miles Davis live, so I listen to them on the stereo. I have a young son and for the next few years our concert-going is limited, so I listen to more music on the stereo. This, of course, is when I'm not making music myself - I play a number of instruments (although not particularly well).
So I love live music, I love MAKING music, and I love listening to it - and this somehow gives you license to heap scorn upon me because I've invested the time, money, and effort required to make listening to recorded music more enjoyable.
Slashdot Mirror
I can understand this. A few years ago, my dad and I were talking about the inevitable demise of the US; and while I didn't care other than the repurcussions for the rest of the world, he was genuinely sad to see the "bright spark" of the post-war era dying.
That said, don't assume that _all_ of your country's conduct is reprehensible. They've been very good at getting aid to disaster areas, and most of the people I've met have been very repectable (and respectful).
His comment makes it clear that your question is irrelevant to the case.
Internet access is not worth 15 years in jail. Subversion is. He was convicted of working for a covert organization towards the overthrow of the Cuban government. Hell, in the USA that can be a death sentence.
When I was a kid, I got invited to take a (short) computer camp one summer, due to my grades. Turns out, it was on the University's PLATO system.
So cool! I learned to program in Pascal on that system. Also played games.
Yeah yeah, everything you say is true. But at the end of the day, modern jets came about because bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece, we learned from and improved on the Wright flyer. Forgetting this piece of history is a GREAT way to repeat the mistakes it made, instead of learning from them.\
From her last album.
"I hardly ever talk of my love of whole grain pepper, but that doesn't make it a dirty secret. "
Yeah sure, keep justifying your perversions to make yourself feel better. Sicko!
Screw that! This is what pi sounds like.
It is suggested in this article that games are different than other media for two reasons:
1) Interactivity
2) Sexual maturity
I'll certainly give him (1), but point (2) is debatable. In fact, society in general has a damned immature perspective on sexuality. It's something which is kept behind closed doors (which is fine) but that we're compelled to talk about, hint at, and pump our own egos over.
In the article, the author says "First up, lock up your daughters, sons and dependants, because we're going to talk about sex." I realise that this was a facetious comment, but the mere fact that it made sense points to society's prevailing view of sex.
Let's restrict ourselves to the entertainment media. How many TV shows tackle sex in a mature, sophisticated, and nuanced manner versus the number that treat it as a shallow subject for adolescent sniggering? Movies might be better, but not by a lot--especially in Hollywood. We can't show naked but non-penetrative sex on screen without it (a) being labelled as softcore porn, and (b) getting an NC-17 (or whatever) rating. (Aside: We can show explicit, violent, bloody dismembering with only an R rating, though.)
Music? Worse again.
Yes, there are exceptions. Yes, there are more bright spots in the other media than in gaming, but how many video games are released per year, vs. hours of TV, movies, music, or...anything? Comparatively few, I'd wager.
Add in the uncomfortable aspect of interactivity (and the ludicrous awkwardness of a keyboard or game controller as a sex controller), and it's a steep hill to climb, which doesn't really have a lot to do with anything particular to the industry.
OK, it's not the technology, it's the interactivity. The article makes that clear. I'm surprised that this is considered news, though. It's the reason I can sleep after cycling but not after fencing.
Good luck with that.
My brother is a full-time professional musician. He has been on at least seven albums that I can think of, one of which was nominated for a Juno. He has received *exactly* nothing from the tarrif on blank media. Nothing. Nada.
Celine Dione, one of Canada's top-selling artists, made a comment once about how she never saw enough money from the tariffs to make any difference in her income.
This will be the same, if it goes through. A cash-grab by the industry that goes to middle-managers, never artists.
I sort of agree. It's train-wreck entertainment, at its wreckiest. However, I just don't have time for it.
Hey, that's hardly fair! The script was wretched as well!
...again.
My thought as well. When I hear "Spam King", Sanford is always the first name that comes to mind.
Did some calculations on that exact matter.
For one company's "extreme" offering, if you maxed out your download speed you'd consume your entire monthly cap in about 30 hours.
So no, you don't get to use that speed very often.
Bah!
The way to clean exposed contacts is with a pink pencil eraser.
In Canada, we are facing a fight over Usage-Based-Billing, and whether the federal government can effectively force it on ISPs. The idea isn't actually terrible per se, but the way they're trying to implement it certainly is.
One thing that has come up time and time again is that it's to protect the consumer from the excess of the 1% of extreme consumers. They're often implicitly labelled as pirates by the ISPs, but in fact are the vanguard.
An excellent article in the Globe and Mail had this to say on the matter:
The knowledge that penalties await heavy Internet usage does something quite terrible: discourage desirable behaviour. Most of Bell’s arguments for treating consumers as wrongdoers rely on the villainization of “bandwidth hogs” who use up everyone else’s bandwidth and generally bring misery to the land. But there are better words for big users of the Internet: “pioneers” and “innovators.” A nation that spends its time worrying about bandwidth caps is not a nation that leads.
They are a near-monopoly. Erecting barriers to entry isn't a sign of a monopoly either, it's a sign of a monopoly that is unfairly using its position/power. (In fact, in most of the western world, anti-monopoly legislation doesn't prevent monopolies, it only prevents them from misusing their monopolistic power.)
But regardless, it's the lack of a better (or comparable and competing) search engine that I lament.
Moammar? Is that you?
Yes! But not the Moammar you think I am.
Hey, I've worked with some excellent Windows admins! People I considered to be skilled, competent, responsible, and insightful. They're not all that common, but they do exist.
Part of the problem is that Windows is (still!) a fundamentally flawed system, and us old-timers resent the fact that it has dragged the entire computing world down to a much lower level overall. If you're supporting Windows, you're part of the problem. (It's not fair, but it's a fairly prevalent attitude).
The other problem is that too many of your comrades actually think that rebooting or reinstalling is an acceptable way of fixing things; and in the server world, it just isn't.
Now if only it didn't suck.
I wish someone - even Microsoft - would come up with a decent alternative to Google. Being a monopoly is making them more and more corrupt, and by being the gatekeeper, they now own too much of the internet.
(Note: Reposting this while logged in - why did they get rid of the 'login at post' option?)
Virtualisation is definitely a very solid example of the degradation of Admin skills, but isn't the cause in and of itself.
Here is the problem: Poor practices can get into production faster.
Anyone can slap an OS onto a system. Building an OS for an enterprise with certain requirements and demands may involve a lot more work, which of course means time and money up front - a slower time to deployment. Ask a manager if he wants to wait an extra week (or two) to get a server out the door, and the answer will of course be "no!" However, here is where the false economy lies: That generic DVD-install may well be slower, less stable, less reliable, and less secure than the one that was tweaked and properly configured. Time not spent up-front will lead to a less stable environment.
Now when a system blew up before, rebuilding it would take a day or two, unless the admin was able to say "I told you so!" and get his week to set it up properly. Now, with VMs, it takes half an hour to get back into production, so why bother working on it? Who cares if the environment is shitty, unstable, and badly-designed, if it can be rebuilt in bits and pieces in minutes?
The thing is, you WILL be rebuilding it - constantly - and ultimately there's a decent chance that the entire pile of crap will implode on you (or at least run into a dead-end), requiring a complete re-architecture. Of course by that point, the people who pushed for and deployed the entire unsustainable environment will have been promoted to management because of their amazing speed to production, and they encourage the same thing.
In other words, VMs aren't a problem, they're a facilitator for problem behaviour.
Indeed. I didn't mention live music (which I attend as much as possible--not always easy with a three-year-old!) because we weren't discussing live music. This is a discussion about recording and playback.
As an aside for anyone who wants to get a good system for cheap: Buy used! Low-end audiophile gear (Rotel, Cambridge Audio, Parasound) tend to sell used for about $0.50 on the dollar, and are generally in flawless condition.
Agreed. The exact limits are vague, but these numbers are pretty close to my experience.
Through my portable headphones (Sennheiser PX-100; DAMNED good for casual listening!), I can tell the difference between 192kbps and 256kbps (both fixed-rate) if I'm listening carefully to a well-known passage, looking for differences. For casual and even attentive musical listening (i.e. listening to the music, not the sonics), the difference is small. I was able to consistently tell apart a 256kbps and 320kbps VBR rip of a particular track after repeated listening (both on the stereo and in my studio cans), but that was not a typical case.
In general, beyond 192kbps the 'damage' caused by MP3 encoding tends to be in the spatial encoding, rather than overt frequency issues like you hear in low-bitrate encoding.
What on earth makes you think they're mutually exclusive?
For the vast majority of 'audiophiles', live and recorded music are two parts of the same equation. For me, live music is ALWAYS the preferred choice. I have seen hundreds of performances at concerts, festivals, street corners, and bars. However, I will never get to see Jimi Hendrix or Miles Davis live, so I listen to them on the stereo. I have a young son and for the next few years our concert-going is limited, so I listen to more music on the stereo. This, of course, is when I'm not making music myself - I play a number of instruments (although not particularly well).
So I love live music, I love MAKING music, and I love listening to it - and this somehow gives you license to heap scorn upon me because I've invested the time, money, and effort required to make listening to recorded music more enjoyable.
Nice.