I have nothing against people with low IQ, if one has a mediocre IQ, say 90, which is quite low for many purposes actually, he/she might be a good leader or a brilliant businessman. However, the lack of common sense, or basic 'wisdom' is absolutely infuriating: i.e. I bet that one can teach a chimp not to use electric devices while taking a bath. Well, i saw problems at tech support with people complaining that device X does not work after being dropped in . How stupid can that be? most manufacturers write that with caps on the instruction manual, even place symbols for it. Of course, having a low IQ will not make you an acceptable geek, and you might often be disagreed with, at least from an analitical view. For this reason i find that what Sweden's pro-piracy represents is nor rogueish, nor utopist. They seem to be the right people at the right time, and do have some bits of wisdom. But this wisdom i speak about means also to keep a balance: you may be favour piracy and be against civil monitoring i.e. cameras and large corporate 'evil' databases, but how further will you go to enforce these things? Some are a necessity unfortunately, and in order to minimise the risk of having displeased people turn on a strike, or worse even, leave the country (or do any other damaging action from an economic POV)because of conflicting political views a certain balance must be respected.
Ix1, as a student, end-user with a low income rate, can be completely indifferent to the money hungry industry, whilst being employed Ix1Major might feel the contrary, as he feels that another Ix2 is steling his money.
This is a very sad true-neutral view from most people's part. I am not saying that every standard should be open and that no patents or so should exist, but if there wouldn't be so much hammering upon DRMs and whatever copyleft protections, perhaps word of mouth alone would promote quality.
This is however very utopian too, because if Mr. W relases a code\invention with no licensing, a random company may take his code\invention and make profit, whereas Mr. W didn't intend in the first place. A solid and uncorrupt justice system could solve problems like this, but we know there isn't any, so this is sort of a paradox.
In all, I expect to see further developements on the party's behalf. Best wishes, and be wise in your decisions.
there is a very original and artistic anime concerning biophysics and sci-fi myths, along with a complex political plot and inversed archetypes, left alone the eerie japanese ethics. It is quite fucked-up for the layman, and those versed in these sciences might also find it particularely interesting. Here's a wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TexhnolyzeTexhnolyze. I know, the name sounds cheesy, but it is a series of 30 episodes each worth 22 minutes, so it won't be very time consuming, and it is really worth buying\leeching. Hopefully the/. effect won't bring wikipedia to it's knees:)
Instead of already writing the oh-so-obvious i'll let this cartoon do the speaking. The days some of us will have the honour to be "texhnolyzed" may or may not be far off, despite my general lack of credibility in the human race. Of course, the merge between machine and man is only a cliche topic in that anime, but it really stands out as a different philosophy - how far can we go? Not that i'm against bioengineering, i actually wish to pursue a career in the field and I feel that today's society and mass-media flutter might actually inhibit the developement. As an unproud son of some technofobic parents I really feel this is the case, despite most of you slashdotters would embrace such news, perhaps some of you even researching further for academic papers on the matter. However, if ethics was such a big issue when they cloned Dolly, imagine what kind of idiotic debates will this subject rise.
This urban myth really runs amok for some time and as a Slashdot lurker, I'm quite fed up of seeing here as well. Firstly, there are technical reasons to take into consideration. I recently upgraded my PC for instance and the motherboard comes with a separated soundcard (the processing is still done by the cpu+audio chip on the mobo, but there is a separate in\out card). The overhaul in the sound was incredible for me, as i thought that intel's standard ALC were quite decent...
Furthermore, some may be right. As far as i know vynil supports 48khz as a standard, whilst cds are being encoded 44khz. Wow, you lose a whole spectrum of inaudible audio! you might say. It may or it may not be the case. The mastering and quality of recording are critical here, that's why sometimes a cd sounds better or by contrary, the vynil takes the cake.
Which bring me to the next point: there are a lot of decent cdplayers out there, varying from "crap" to "excellent", besides being obsolete. Who wants cd's in the '08s when BDrom 7.1 is knocking at our door? However, audio equipement that can read your CH2=CH2 disks is basically divided in two: crap, and very high-def. I know this because i have some (limited) experience with magnetic pick-ups, both as dj and guitarist. Coils are not cheap to produce if you want a perfect response out of them (like Ni-Co-Sm magnets for instance) also resulting in overpriced products.
Digital is cheap, reliable, does not scratch as easy (not really applicable when the data density per sqin of the disk rises such as de hd-dvd or BD).
Furthermore, no matter what file you have mp3,aac,flac,ogg,ape,mkv,whatever-codec, they WILL sound different providing that you have a top notch audio system. This means at least 7W rms(output power, not some marketing gimmick omfg 70W 5cm speakers!!!1) for a small quiet room, and stereo and more importantly, as-close as linear as possible. For instance, most headphones overemphasize bass impact and sounds, open-cabinet speakers tend to spread out mids while keeping a low tonal profile for base and HF (let's say, >8000hZ).
It also depends very much on the genre you are listening to. Most perfectly linear audio equipement is unsuitable for the average home user, because most find the sound "borring". That's because they're unused to listening their music with a flat eq, or at least a reasonable preamp\compressor when the music is too loudly\silently recorded.
For instance trance music and house tend to sound okay on any lo-end speaker or headphone, but as the complexity of the genre rises, i.e. black metal, experimental, progressive\kraut rock, zeuhl, (very few) death metal, hell, even stringwizard genres like jazz or bossanova sound different when listened carefully say LAMEmp3 q2@192kbps,44khz vs flac lossless(mp3-320 is a different story, but a trained ear still can hear the difference). Some soundcards(like mine, which i repeat is a cheap piece of shit), or DACs also have smart soundstage algorhytms implemented, which can basically make a poorly recorded 80's cd or tape sound like you are actually in the middle of the hall. Of course, many experts will blatantly disagree with this but i think software emulation has become a lot more than decent to proove effective in this case, without detracting the quality or intended artistic view (usually screwed up by the recording companies' mastering process).
Some real life examples: Thorns' Aerie Descent (album Thorns vs Emperor) sounds a lot colder, gloomier and more atmospheric in flac as opposed to mp3@192. Nuobo Uematsu Final Fantasy soundtracks sound much clearer and one can even distinguish the synthetic wave generator on flac as opposed to the smudgy texture an mp3 gives, the background gutar riffs ar hearable on Amon Tobin's A day in my garden(bricolage) whereas on an mp3 version you would hear none. The lack of these details do detract if you listen to music (or noise if that's your favourite flavour). Sorry for the rather obscure genres, but these are the things that popped in my mind; I would love to hear how Sonny Sha
Slashdot Mirror
I have nothing against people with low IQ, if one has a mediocre IQ, say 90, which is quite low for many purposes actually, he/she might be a good leader or a brilliant businessman.
However, the lack of common sense, or basic 'wisdom' is absolutely infuriating: i.e. I bet that one can teach a chimp not to use electric devices while taking a bath. Well, i saw problems at tech support with people complaining that device X does not work after being dropped in . How stupid can that be? most manufacturers write that with caps on the instruction manual, even place symbols for it.
Of course, having a low IQ will not make you an acceptable geek, and you might often be disagreed with, at least from an analitical view.
For this reason i find that what Sweden's pro-piracy represents is nor rogueish, nor utopist. They seem to be the right people at the right time, and do have some bits of wisdom.
But this wisdom i speak about means also to keep a balance: you may be favour piracy and be against civil monitoring i.e. cameras and large corporate 'evil' databases, but how further will you go to enforce these things? Some are a necessity unfortunately, and in order to minimise the risk of having displeased people turn on a strike, or worse even, leave the country (or do any other damaging action from an economic POV)because of conflicting political views a certain balance must be respected.
Ix1, as a student, end-user with a low income rate, can be completely indifferent to the money hungry industry, whilst being employed Ix1Major might feel the contrary, as he feels that another Ix2 is steling his money.
This is a very sad true-neutral view from most people's part. I am not saying that every standard should be open and that no patents or so should exist, but if there wouldn't be so much hammering upon DRMs and whatever copyleft protections, perhaps word of mouth alone would promote quality.
This is however very utopian too, because if Mr. W relases a code\invention with no licensing, a random company may take his code\invention and make profit, whereas Mr. W didn't intend in the first place. A solid and uncorrupt justice system could solve problems like this, but we know there isn't any, so this is sort of a paradox.
In all, I expect to see further developements on the party's behalf. Best wishes, and be wise in your decisions.
there is a very original and artistic anime concerning biophysics and sci-fi myths, along with a complex political plot and inversed archetypes, left alone the eerie japanese ethics. It is quite fucked-up for the layman, and those versed in these sciences might also find it particularely interesting. Here's a wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TexhnolyzeTexhnolyze. I know, the name sounds cheesy, but it is a series of 30 episodes each worth 22 minutes, so it won't be very time consuming, and it is really worth buying\leeching. Hopefully the /. effect won't bring wikipedia to it's knees :)
Instead of already writing the oh-so-obvious i'll let this cartoon do the speaking. The days some of us will have the honour to be "texhnolyzed" may or may not be far off, despite my general lack of credibility in the human race. Of course, the merge between machine and man is only a cliche topic in that anime, but it really stands out as a different philosophy - how far can we go?
Not that i'm against bioengineering, i actually wish to pursue a career in the field and I feel that today's society and mass-media flutter might actually inhibit the developement. As an unproud son of some technofobic parents I really feel this is the case, despite most of you slashdotters would embrace such news, perhaps some of you even researching further for academic papers on the matter.
However, if ethics was such a big issue when they cloned Dolly, imagine what kind of idiotic debates will this subject rise.
This urban myth really runs amok for some time and as a Slashdot lurker, I'm quite fed up of seeing here as well. Firstly, there are technical reasons to take into consideration. I recently upgraded my PC for instance and the motherboard comes with a separated soundcard (the processing is still done by the cpu+audio chip on the mobo, but there is a separate in\out card). The overhaul in the sound was incredible for me, as i thought that intel's standard ALC were quite decent... Furthermore, some may be right. As far as i know vynil supports 48khz as a standard, whilst cds are being encoded 44khz. Wow, you lose a whole spectrum of inaudible audio! you might say. It may or it may not be the case. The mastering and quality of recording are critical here, that's why sometimes a cd sounds better or by contrary, the vynil takes the cake. Which bring me to the next point: there are a lot of decent cdplayers out there, varying from "crap" to "excellent", besides being obsolete. Who wants cd's in the '08s when BDrom 7.1 is knocking at our door? However, audio equipement that can read your CH2=CH2 disks is basically divided in two: crap, and very high-def. I know this because i have some (limited) experience with magnetic pick-ups, both as dj and guitarist. Coils are not cheap to produce if you want a perfect response out of them (like Ni-Co-Sm magnets for instance) also resulting in overpriced products. Digital is cheap, reliable, does not scratch as easy (not really applicable when the data density per sqin of the disk rises such as de hd-dvd or BD). Furthermore, no matter what file you have mp3,aac,flac,ogg,ape,mkv,whatever-codec, they WILL sound different providing that you have a top notch audio system. This means at least 7W rms(output power, not some marketing gimmick omfg 70W 5cm speakers!!!1) for a small quiet room, and stereo and more importantly, as-close as linear as possible. For instance, most headphones overemphasize bass impact and sounds, open-cabinet speakers tend to spread out mids while keeping a low tonal profile for base and HF (let's say, >8000hZ). It also depends very much on the genre you are listening to. Most perfectly linear audio equipement is unsuitable for the average home user, because most find the sound "borring". That's because they're unused to listening their music with a flat eq, or at least a reasonable preamp\compressor when the music is too loudly\silently recorded. For instance trance music and house tend to sound okay on any lo-end speaker or headphone, but as the complexity of the genre rises, i.e. black metal, experimental, progressive\kraut rock, zeuhl, (very few) death metal, hell, even stringwizard genres like jazz or bossanova sound different when listened carefully say LAMEmp3 q2@192kbps,44khz vs flac lossless(mp3-320 is a different story, but a trained ear still can hear the difference). Some soundcards(like mine, which i repeat is a cheap piece of shit), or DACs also have smart soundstage algorhytms implemented, which can basically make a poorly recorded 80's cd or tape sound like you are actually in the middle of the hall. Of course, many experts will blatantly disagree with this but i think software emulation has become a lot more than decent to proove effective in this case, without detracting the quality or intended artistic view (usually screwed up by the recording companies' mastering process). Some real life examples: Thorns' Aerie Descent (album Thorns vs Emperor) sounds a lot colder, gloomier and more atmospheric in flac as opposed to mp3@192. Nuobo Uematsu Final Fantasy soundtracks sound much clearer and one can even distinguish the synthetic wave generator on flac as opposed to the smudgy texture an mp3 gives, the background gutar riffs ar hearable on Amon Tobin's A day in my garden(bricolage) whereas on an mp3 version you would hear none. The lack of these details do detract if you listen to music (or noise if that's your favourite flavour). Sorry for the rather obscure genres, but these are the things that popped in my mind; I would love to hear how Sonny Sha