This is a pretty common thing to do. We call it "Daddy I want a Pony".
Here's how it works:
Kid: Daddy, I want a pony Dad: Honey, be reasonable. A pony requires land, a stable, and constant care! Kid: But Daddy, I want a pony! Dad: It would cost thousands of dollars, we can't afford it, you don't know if you like horses. Kid: (crying) BUT DADDY, I WANT A PONY! Dad: Uh uh uh... How about a dog instead? Kid: (crying stops) Oh okay, I can settle for that.
So dad thinks "Phew! That was close, I almost had to buy a pony"......and the kid thinks "Easiest way to get a dog!"
You see this with taxes all the time. They threaten to tax everything... cars, boats, children, blades of grass, pimples on your chin. And then they "settle" for raising income tax another few points. And then you're supposed to feel "relieved".
When I run into a tailgater, I (... and don't criticize me if this seems wacked out or dangerous) I pull to another lane. Then they go on by.
And if I'm on a road that is 2 lanes, and I get a guy 2 inches from my bumper I (... get this...) I pull off the road for two seconds as soon as I can and let some other person deal with them as they rush on past..
Seriously, I want to concentrate on driving, not whether some nutball in back of me is going to slip up and ram into me because he's got anger management issues.
To my way of thinking, guys who slow down in front of tailgaters have the same mentality as the tailgaters, they only express it differently.
No, I did read it, but if you download something to your PC to take the tests, you're listening on... the speakers connected to your PC. There's no way around that. I've got old speakers on my PC that are about 10 years old. Whether that's important depends largely on your viewpoint. I think it reduces the test to the "interesting" category rather than the "it's telling us something that's really imporant" category.
You're right but it has nothing to do with WAV being lossless. You're arguing the entire recording chain involves loss. And you're right, but again, that has nothing to do with WAV being a lossy/lossless compression mechanism.
"Using up to date encoders, for the vast majority of people, for the vast majority of tracks, 128 kbps is indistinguishable from source."
Particularly when listening on cheap speakers that are connected to a PC.
I mean, I wish I could listen to 64kb/s encoded music and say "sounds just like source" because it would be cheaper all around and I would be happy.
A perfect example (to me) is Sirius satellite. I like their programming. But their bit rates are so low that it sounds like shortwave radio. I have their service in the car, and if not for the talk stations I'd drop them. You certainly can't listen to music that poorly rendered and enjoy it. On the other hand, I hear people telling me "it's CD quality", so I suspect there are some people who really can't hear the difference. God bless them, they're much happier overall than I am.
For me, phase/stereo information is the first thing to get lost when you really crank down the bit-rate on mp3's. 128kb/s it has all the stereo separation of FM radio. You'll start to hear increase sibilance on "S" sounds (like cymbals). For whatever reason, I seem to be able to hear this more with speakers rather than headphones.
"Doesn't sound too bad, and if I really want to hear my music losslessly I can just go to the CDs on my shelf. Done."
Actually, that's not the point. If you own the CD, then you always have the "reference" sound that you can re-encrypt to any format that comes along. I do that myself. It sounds fine, and on earphones in the gym, you can't hear the difference. In fact, I've let iTunes re-encode some WMA files and they're fine on the headphones.
The trouble is if you go to Apple, but it in aac (m4p) at 128, and you either (a) decide 128 isn't good enough or (b) some new format becomes popular. YOu can't really do anything about it at that point. If you re-encode, it certainly won't sound *better*
But I recently ran into a dilemma. I finally connected my iPod to a good stereo that I just set up in my office and 128kb is very "fm-like". So I experimented and on good speakers, I need to go up to 192 or higher. So now I either live with sound that isn't that good (which will drive me crazy over time), or do I reencode the CD, which is drudge work to do a couple of hundred CD's not to mention the fact that I'll give up almost half my storage space.
But at least I have the option of re-encoding. If I buy a locked in format, that option is gone.
"Zune is basically going to pretty much kill off all non-iPod players"
Not likely. Despite the title of the article, go take a look at the actual sales rank of the MS-Zune players on Amazon. The black is #52, the rest are significantly below that (greater than 250). Sansa has a player in the top 10, and a 2nd one at number 11, Creative has a player in the top 20, Sansa has a couple more scattered around the top 100. Apple has players everywhere on this list. Everywhere.
Again, I urge folks to look at the actual Amazon site instead of reading articles about Amazon.
Keeping in mind that the holiday is when a big portion of sales, unless MS drops the Zune prices down by about 40%, this this is headed for the bottom pretty quickly. While that's obviously my opinion, all you need to do is watch the trend of the player. Just the novelty of this thing should have kept it in the top 10 until xmas. But to fall to #52 in just a week is pretty amazing.
"On the other hand, I have to think that if someone makes a recording that can continue to sell for 50+ years, that person deserves some sort of financial reward for it."
This situation is so rare that it seems silly to change all of copyright to accommodate what is literally a one in a million chance. Elvis records still sell. So that means all of copyright should change?
I think iTunes has one major problem... it makes it really difficult to add already ripped songs to your library. They made it so hard that one assumes it was on purpose. And it doesn't let you add songs to your iPod until the song is part of your library. That's really a killer.
That said...
iTunes is a superior way to organize and tag your music properly. And Apple is nice enough to give it away so that you can take advantage of it even if you don't want to give Apple a dime.
I overall like iTunes, but when I want to add things to my iPod in a hurry, I use the Anapod manager. It lets you treat an iPod like a hard drive and it takes care of changing the songs to the proper format and hides the complexity. It's a nice piece of software (I'll let you google for it yourself).
Which brings me to my last point... the iPod, love it or hate it, has so much 3rd party support that even if MS hadn't shot itself in the foot with the DRM nonsense and Microsoft Bux it would have a hard time gaining traction. As it is, the Zune will only be useful once 3rd parties figure it out and have software that lets you treat the Zune like a hard drive. I'm aware of some registry hacks right now, but they aren't terribly elegant. Without 3rd party support, I'd be surprised to see the Zune survive past next spring.
"you could also argue that the Zune's sound quality and battery life are diminished if the software fails to install. "
Not really. If you don't load the Zune software, you don't have to deal with a.DLL incompatibility, you'll marvel at how quiet it is, and the battery life will be amazing.
You know, this may be a new marketing angle for Microsoft..."Buy the Zune, don't load the software, maximize your pleasure!"
The exception looks to be granted specifically to allow you to use your handset with other providers, not to allow you to play games/ringtones, etc.
More to the point, Verizon's phones have no ability to be hooked to other carriers since their basic radio technology, so Verizon will argue that you can't legally hack their phone because the narrow exemption granted by the library of congress can't be used for the purpose mentioned.
"When you buy a lamp, do you get to negotiate terms? No,"
Actually yes.
Or do you mean you pay list price wherever you're asked? That can't be true!
When I buy a car or house or most items great than a few dollars, I generally either negotiate with the seller or make sellers compete against each other to get a lower price.
A perfect example... some people complain that $18-20 is too much for a CD. So I've joined the Sony/BMG record club, where Sony regularly sells me CD's for under $7 or I buy them used from many places. I've effectively altered the terms of the deal. [incidentally, don't you love that Sony and others basically screwed Tower records by selling CDs directly to consumers at a cheaper price than they'd sell them to Tower? I'm sure all the Tower owners and employees loved that too].
In the magical digital world, there is only one supplier, he charges what he wants and he's made it technologically difficult and legally impossible to buy used. So the wonderful future of the digital world is only magical for producers who (as always) have a monopoly on supply, but also control the distribution and secondary market as well.
All for the common good... keep telling yourself that. Congress doesn't even understand what they've given the record companies... all for the sake of a few dollars in campaign contributions. Who would have thought they'd give consumers rights away all for just a handful of millions of dollars in total. Amazing.
I think they misspelled CABAL. Grace Hopper invented the CABAL which led directly to a lot of secret meetings on whether to release the information to the public.
...about the selections. I assume Paris Hilton is on the list just to be controversial and create a buzz. Daryl Hannah? Huh?
And to be kind, the "facts" about Grace Hopper can be disputed. Contrary to the layman's belief, she didn't invent COBOL. There is a dispute about whether she invented the compiler (there are many people who give credit to John Backus at IBM), and certainly she didn't discover the first "bug" nor did she popularize the term. Now Grace Hopper was brilliant, but I always got the feeling that the Navy made sure we knew about Adm. Hopper just because her story was so appealing to the public.
(Next thing you know, somebody will claim Henry Ford invented Mass Production, or that Columbus discovered the world was round).
"I don't know a lot of 21 year olds who decide to leave the stove on all day after making tea. "
We need to make tea kettles more available. Basically a tea kettle with a heating element that shuts off when the water boils.
I had never heard of them until about 25 years ago when I was visiting England and every B&B had one in the room. The best part is that its very energy efficient and when it's done it shuts off so the danger is mainly from scalding.
I found some about 15 years ago made by Kenwood (!), but I rarely see them. I guess most people are coffee drinkers. But it's handy for instant soups, hot chocolate, etc.
I'm surprised that people here are so upset about it.
Here's a religious group exercising their freedom of religion and freedom of speech. They're building a museum with their own money to build an edifice to their beliefs. So what. The worst that you can say is they're exercising the freedoms that most people admire.
You may not agree with it, but heck, I don't agree completely with anybody on everything.
I think perhaps people need to be more tolerant, and that goes both ways.
"But so are pirated copies of windows sold as being legit. "
I'm not advocating anything this, but it's unclear why pirated copies of Windows are a pain for the end user. Doesn't the existence of pirate copies form a barrier to MS's ability to raise prices to a certain extent?
"As you get older you lose your mental faculties. That's not patronizing - it's what happens. Eventually - if you live long enough - you'll start to make bad decisions."
It's not clear you lose mental faculties; certain your body gets older. But the idea that people become senile as a normal part of aging is false.
As for old people making bad decisions, so does everyone. And if I was betting, I'm betting that 21 year olds make more bad decisions than 80 year olds.
Slashdot Mirror
"How are content creators supposed to support themselves? I mean writers, actors, singers."
5 -artists-rights_x.htm
Well, apparently the first thing is to avoid being associated with record companies that belong to the RIAA:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-1
That's probably 90% of the battle right there.
This is a pretty common thing to do. We call it "Daddy I want a Pony".
... ...and the kid thinks "Easiest way to get a dog!"
Here's how it works:
Kid: Daddy, I want a pony
Dad: Honey, be reasonable. A pony requires land, a stable, and constant care!
Kid: But Daddy, I want a pony!
Dad: It would cost thousands of dollars, we can't afford it, you don't know if you like horses.
Kid: (crying) BUT DADDY, I WANT A PONY!
Dad: Uh uh uh... How about a dog instead?
Kid: (crying stops) Oh okay, I can settle for that.
So dad thinks "Phew! That was close, I almost had to buy a pony"
You see this with taxes all the time. They threaten to tax everything... cars, boats, children, blades of grass, pimples on your chin. And then they "settle" for raising income tax another few points. And then you're supposed to feel "relieved".
When I run into a tailgater, I (... and don't criticize me if this seems wacked out or dangerous) I pull to another lane. Then they go on by.
And if I'm on a road that is 2 lanes, and I get a guy 2 inches from my bumper I (... get this...) I pull off the road for two seconds as soon as I can and let some other person deal with them as they rush on past..
Seriously, I want to concentrate on driving, not whether some nutball in back of me is going to slip up and ram into me because he's got anger management issues.
To my way of thinking, guys who slow down in front of tailgaters have the same mentality as the tailgaters, they only express it differently.
No, I did read it, but if you download something to your PC to take the tests, you're listening on... the speakers connected to your PC. There's no way around that. I've got old speakers on my PC that are about 10 years old. Whether that's important depends largely on your viewpoint. I think it reduces the test to the "interesting" category rather than the "it's telling us something that's really imporant" category.
"Yes, it is. "
No, a WAV captures exactly what's on the disc.
"then tape, vinyl, and eardrums are all lossy"
You're right but it has nothing to do with WAV being lossless. You're arguing the entire recording chain involves loss. And you're right, but again, that has nothing to do with WAV being a lossy/lossless compression mechanism.
"Using up to date encoders, for the vast majority of people, for the vast majority of tracks, 128 kbps is indistinguishable from source."
Particularly when listening on cheap speakers that are connected to a PC.
I mean, I wish I could listen to 64kb/s encoded music and say "sounds just like source" because it would be cheaper all around and I would be happy.
A perfect example (to me) is Sirius satellite. I like their programming. But their bit rates are so low that it sounds like shortwave radio. I have their service in the car, and if not for the talk stations I'd drop them. You certainly can't listen to music that poorly rendered and enjoy it. On the other hand, I hear people telling me "it's CD quality", so I suspect there are some people who really can't hear the difference. God bless them, they're much happier overall than I am.
For me, phase/stereo information is the first thing to get lost when you really crank down the bit-rate on mp3's. 128kb/s it has all the stereo separation of FM radio. You'll start to hear increase sibilance on "S" sounds (like cymbals). For whatever reason, I seem to be able to hear this more with speakers rather than headphones.
"Doesn't sound too bad, and if I really want to hear my music losslessly I can just go to the CDs on my shelf. Done."
Actually, that's not the point. If you own the CD, then you always have the "reference" sound that you can re-encrypt to any format that comes along. I do that myself. It sounds fine, and on earphones in the gym, you can't hear the difference. In fact, I've let iTunes re-encode some WMA files and they're fine on the headphones.
The trouble is if you go to Apple, but it in aac (m4p) at 128, and you either (a) decide 128 isn't good enough or (b) some new format becomes popular. YOu can't really do anything about it at that point. If you re-encode, it certainly won't sound *better*
But I recently ran into a dilemma. I finally connected my iPod to a good stereo that I just set up in my office and 128kb is very "fm-like". So I experimented and on good speakers, I need to go up to 192 or higher. So now I either live with sound that isn't that good (which will drive me crazy over time), or do I reencode the CD, which is drudge work to do a couple of hundred CD's not to mention the fact that I'll give up almost half my storage space.
But at least I have the option of re-encoding. If I buy a locked in format, that option is gone.
"Zune is basically going to pretty much kill off all non-iPod players"
5 1549011/ref=pd_ts_pg_1/002-1687820-0216019?ie=UTF8 &pg=1
Not likely. Despite the title of the article, go take a look at the actual sales rank of the MS-Zune players on Amazon. The black is #52, the rest are significantly below that (greater than 250). Sansa has a player in the top 10, and a 2nd one at number 11, Creative has a player in the top 20, Sansa has a couple more scattered around the top 100. Apple has players everywhere on this list. Everywhere.
Again, I urge folks to look at the actual Amazon site instead of reading articles about Amazon.
Here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/
Keeping in mind that the holiday is when a big portion of sales, unless MS drops the Zune prices down by about 40%, this this is headed for the bottom pretty quickly. While that's obviously my opinion, all you need to do is watch the trend of the player. Just the novelty of this thing should have kept it in the top 10 until xmas. But to fall to #52 in just a week is pretty amazing.
I think MS said something like "We'll give a dollar to the RIAA after we begin making a profit on the Zune".
That's like a movie studio saying "We'll give you a cut of the profit on this next motion picture..."
Microsoft calls it "Soviet Brown"
"On the other hand, I have to think that if someone makes a recording that can continue to sell for 50+ years, that person deserves some sort of financial reward for it."
This situation is so rare that it seems silly to change all of copyright to accommodate what is literally a one in a million chance. Elvis records still sell. So that means all of copyright should change?
.NET = SAA
Vista = OS/2
Proving the computer industry is like a Saturday afternoon matinee...if you hang around long enough, things start repeating themselves.
"I love the color brown. "
I think MS calls this particular shade "Soviet Brown".
I think iTunes has one major problem... it makes it really difficult to add already ripped songs to your library. They made it so hard that one assumes it was on purpose. And it doesn't let you add songs to your iPod until the song is part of your library. That's really a killer.
That said...
iTunes is a superior way to organize and tag your music properly. And Apple is nice enough to give it away so that you can take advantage of it even if you don't want to give Apple a dime.
I overall like iTunes, but when I want to add things to my iPod in a hurry, I use the Anapod manager. It lets you treat an iPod like a hard drive and it takes care of changing the songs to the proper format and hides the complexity. It's a nice piece of software (I'll let you google for it yourself).
Which brings me to my last point... the iPod, love it or hate it, has so much 3rd party support that even if MS hadn't shot itself in the foot with the DRM nonsense and Microsoft Bux it would have a hard time gaining traction. As it is, the Zune will only be useful once 3rd parties figure it out and have software that lets you treat the Zune like a hard drive. I'm aware of some registry hacks right now, but they aren't terribly elegant. Without 3rd party support, I'd be surprised to see the Zune survive past next spring.
"you could also argue that the Zune's sound quality and battery life are diminished if the software fails to install. "
.DLL incompatibility, you'll marvel at how quiet it is, and the battery life will be amazing.
Not really. If you don't load the Zune software, you don't have to deal with a
You know, this may be a new marketing angle for Microsoft..."Buy the Zune, don't load the software, maximize your pleasure!"
The exception looks to be granted specifically to allow you to use your handset with other providers, not to allow you to play games/ringtones, etc.
More to the point, Verizon's phones have no ability to be hooked to other carriers since their basic radio technology, so Verizon will argue that you can't legally hack their phone because the narrow exemption granted by the library of congress can't be used for the purpose mentioned.
"When you buy a lamp, do you get to negotiate terms? No,"
Actually yes.
Or do you mean you pay list price wherever you're asked? That can't be true!
When I buy a car or house or most items great than a few dollars, I generally either negotiate with the seller or make sellers compete against each other to get a lower price.
A perfect example... some people complain that $18-20 is too much for a CD. So I've joined the Sony/BMG record club, where Sony regularly sells me CD's for under $7 or I buy them used from many places. I've effectively altered the terms of the deal. [incidentally, don't you love that Sony and others basically screwed Tower records by selling CDs directly to consumers at a cheaper price than they'd sell them to Tower? I'm sure all the Tower owners and employees loved that too].
In the magical digital world, there is only one supplier, he charges what he wants and he's made it technologically difficult and legally impossible to buy used. So the wonderful future of the digital world is only magical for producers who (as always) have a monopoly on supply, but also control the distribution and secondary market as well.
All for the common good... keep telling yourself that. Congress doesn't even understand what they've given the record companies... all for the sake of a few dollars in campaign contributions. Who would have thought they'd give consumers rights away all for just a handful of millions of dollars in total. Amazing.
I just found it used on Amazon for $6. Thanks for the tip.
I think they misspelled CABAL. Grace Hopper invented the CABAL which led directly to a lot of secret meetings on whether to release the information to the public.
...about the selections. I assume Paris Hilton is on the list just to be controversial and create a buzz. Daryl Hannah? Huh?
And to be kind, the "facts" about Grace Hopper can be disputed. Contrary to the layman's belief, she didn't invent COBOL. There is a dispute about whether she invented the compiler (there are many people who give credit to John Backus at IBM), and certainly she didn't discover the first "bug" nor did she popularize the term. Now Grace Hopper was brilliant, but I always got the feeling that the Navy made sure we knew about Adm. Hopper just because her story was so appealing to the public.
(Next thing you know, somebody will claim Henry Ford invented Mass Production, or that Columbus discovered the world was round).
"I don't know a lot of 21 year olds who decide to leave the stove on all day after making tea. "
We need to make tea kettles more available. Basically a tea kettle with a heating element that shuts off when the water boils.
I had never heard of them until about 25 years ago when I was visiting England and every B&B had one in the room. The best part is that its very energy efficient and when it's done it shuts off so the danger is mainly from scalding.
I found some about 15 years ago made by Kenwood (!), but I rarely see them. I guess most people are coffee drinkers. But it's handy for instant soups, hot chocolate, etc.
I'm surprised that people here are so upset about it.
Here's a religious group exercising their freedom of religion and freedom of speech. They're building a museum with their own money to build an edifice to their beliefs. So what. The worst that you can say is they're exercising the freedoms that most people admire.
You may not agree with it, but heck, I don't agree completely with anybody on everything.
I think perhaps people need to be more tolerant, and that goes both ways.
"But so are pirated copies of windows sold as being legit. "
I'm not advocating anything this, but it's unclear why pirated copies of Windows are a pain for the end user. Doesn't the existence of pirate copies form a barrier to MS's ability to raise prices to a certain extent?
"As you get older you lose your mental faculties. That's not patronizing - it's what happens. Eventually - if you live long enough - you'll start to make bad decisions."
It's not clear you lose mental faculties; certain your body gets older. But the idea that people become senile as a normal part of aging is false.
As for old people making bad decisions, so does everyone. And if I was betting, I'm betting that 21 year olds make more bad decisions than 80 year olds.