Off topic as well, but: I don't think Big Tobacco really fits the role here. They are in defensive mode now. We have managed to strip them of most of the benefits of a capitalist system and still manage to vilify them.
Big Tobacco is in the defensive now, but historically, they have been very powerful. Lots of money, lots of jobs at stake, and ruthlessly unethical management made for very effective lobbyists and influencers of legislation/policy.
It took decades of solid science, credible whistleblowers, and a powerful lobby of people dying of lung cancer to take them down. Truth and justice won out, but how many millions have died....
"In other words, Koster explains, the government has a legal obligation to protect the privacy of people submitting comments on legislation and, therefore, it can be difficult if not impossible to assign any kind of special weight to a comment from an expert on a topic.
"You're not allowed to look at the history of the given proposals that person's made in the past to see if they have a good history," Koster argues.
with the following caveat:
"There's not a whole lot of anonymity," Stuart Shulman says. "Most people want you to know where they're from, who they are... to be part of the justification for taking their comments seriously."
The first statement is hopelessly naive. The second only partially hits the real point.
Politicians do have screens to identify high-value high-credibility input. These include:
- Reputation - Power - Money
Together, these traits are wielded by lobbyists. Lobbyists, by practical definition, yield influence through reputation, power, money.
Reputation. A highly reputable source of input can have a very high impact to legislation. When the National Academy of Sciences (historically very objective, and producer of excellent research) makes a finding or suggestion, it certainly has more weight than the Federation of American Scientists (which, although it has over 60 Nobel-prize winning endorsers, was founded on a political stance against the A-bomb).
Power. Legislation always involves compromises, and input coming from a very powerful party usually takes much more weight. When the Sierra Club, America's largest (and oldest) environmental advocacy club, makes a statement or sponsors research that could have legislative impact, you can bet that legislators will give it more thought than many other groups.
Money. When a certain company is a legislator's former employer or when the company is funnelling money into a legislator's pocket/campaign-fund, you can certainly bet that that company will have a big say in legislation.
Everybody with a stake in legislation has a chance to make their voice heard in a democracy. But face it, some voices just will be louder, clearer, and more persuasive. That sometimes works to the benefit of society (FSF, EFF, etc.) as well as to its harm (Big Tobacco, oil lobby, etc.) To beat the game, you've got to play the game.
> DARPA-funded research project in highly > scalable and survivable multi-agent systems. > Cougaar is currently used in next-generation > military logistics systems, commercial > applications, and research projects.
Sounds like a certain Cyberdyne-developed distributed neural-net supercomputer that could integrate all of the USs strategic arsenal under a single command structure, and would survive a nuclear armagedden... gulp... lets just make sure there is a deadman backdoor switch.
Although MIT doesn't have a law school of its own, there are some excellent courses on law.
Specially, 15.628: Patents, Copyrights, and the Law of Intellectual Property is a half-semester course that provides a great intro to the spectrum of IP law issues. Gosh, it might even provide some insight to the topic at hand... The instructor, Prof. Meldman is a real treasure to the Institute, and if you've seen him lecture, you'll understand why. At MIT, you'd have to bid for it, but it is also offered on OpenCourseware (OCW):
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School-of-Manage me nt/15-628Patents--Copyrights--and-the-Law-of-Intel lectual-PropertySpring2003/CourseHome/
The course packet alone makes excellent reading - the cases used provide pretty much the foundation of US IP law.
Taking a class is probably more important in modern neurosciences than reading textbooks.
The leading edge of knowledge in neuroscience is moving forward very quickly and in many different directions. Biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, computer science, systems biology, and the traditional subjects of brain and cognitive science are all taking their own productive directions in the areas of learning, memory, behavior, ailments, and intelligence. Lots of the neatest stuff isn't in textbooks yet, and the best way to get an understanding of the state of the art is to take classes or seminars.
If I was an undergrad having to choose my major again, I couldn't be more excited. As it is, joining the business world, the areas of neuro imaging, pharma/biotech, and neuro medical devices have so much potential and are growing such that getting into neurotechnologies is really a no-brainer.
> The UK is wary of the EU, because it wants to maintain it's excellent economic relations with the US.
Here's an alternative perspective: England doesn't support an ESA mannned space program because english scientists and industrial corporations aren't in the loop. In addition, the english science minister would destroy his political career if he put billions of pounds into a project that wouldn't benefit the people of england.
Re:And here's how they're going to do it
on
To the Moon and Beyond
·
· Score: 4, Informative
> if this is to be a Euro deal, well then I see your point, why does the article mention GB?
Because the ESA can't force its members to follow and pay for a program. The ESA merely coordinates the national space policies of its member states.
Some background: the ESA has 2 budgets, a mandatory budget and a discretionary budget. The mandatory budget is set in proportion roughly to each member's GDP. The discretionary budget is made up of each member's additional funding.
Projects funded under the mandatory budget have to have very broad-based benefits (and no, "mankind" doesn't count) because they take money from every member and therefore require the vote of every member. Usually, this is made possible by dividing up the industrial support base into every ESA member country, so that Germany makes control systems, France makes engines, Italy makes SW, etc. If a country's Space Minister doesn't think that his/her country will receive direct (scientific) or indirect (industrial) benefit from a project, he won't vote the the budget allocation.
If all the Space Ministers won't vote for a program, individual Ministers can do a project anyway, but pay for it themselves. Thus Italy, which has a vested industrial interest in getting its small-launcher program off the ground, is paying for the entire program on its own, using its discretionary budget. France, which has a major vested industrial interest in launchers, is fighting hard to get major launch programs on the mandatory budget, but will probably go through the discretionary budget if the other members veto.
It'll be very difficult for a ESA human-spaceflight program to be supported by all ESA members. That is why this article, which highlights England's valid objections, is so important.
> To some extent, everything is politics, but the scientists of the ESA-SPC have generally been well focused on scientific merits, and on consensus within the scientific community
It is all about politics. Why else was the scientific budget frozen for much of the latter half of the 90's, while the launchers budget bloomed, or the massive amount of funds on the table for Galileo?
The ESA's budget is practically set by the European space ministers, who are usually ministers of science of the european governments. The science ministers are influenced much more by industrialists (who supposedly build European space capabilities and labor force) than by scientists.
As a general rule, you should ignore any statements about multi-billion dollar multi-decade programs made by individual scientists, ESA members, and departments, and focus more on the proceedings and commentaries of the actual each ESA Minister meetings which occur once every couple of years. That's where the real committments are made. Since most major programs require committment from all ESA members, a pork-barrel policy supported by France might not neccesarily be supported by Germany or England.
SpaceDev, the company that constructed CHIPSat, today sent out an email announcement that the launch of CHIPSat was delayed due to problems with the launch vehicle.
The announcement is reproduced below:
eAnnouncement
CHIPSat Launch Delayed December 19, 2002
Due to circumstances beyond our control, the CHIPSat launch scheduled for Thursday, December 19, 2002 on a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base has been delayed and is now targeted for January 8, 2003.
The launch was delayed due to a technical glitch in the Boeing-manufactured launch vehicle. The technical problem is associated with the signal the ordnance box provides for launch vehicle devices to unlatch and separate the payload fairing. NASA is expecting the replacement of this unit to take approximately two weeks.
SpaceDev designed and built the CHIPS (Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer) spacecraft and associated subsystem products (e.g. Miniature Flight Computer) for the University of California, Berkeley under a NASA-funded contract. The CHIPS mission is designed to study the formation of stars, and will have a life span of about one year.
CHIPSat will be the first mission ever to use end-to-end satellite operations over the Internet with TCP/IP and FTP. This concept was analyzed and demonstrated by the OMNI team via UoSat-12; however, SpaceDev will be the first to implement the concept as the only means of satellite communication.
SpaceDev has overall responsibility for the design of the mission, the design, assembly, integration and testing of the microsatellite, and mission control and operations from Spacedev's Mission Control Center.
If there are any further delays, we will send out an update immediately.
> History says that you should never put your satellite on the first launch of a new launch vehicle
If it is truly irreplacable, and if nobody is willing to insure it, then sure. But what else is supposed to go into a inaugural launch, an amateur satellite? Oh yeah... those worthless things usually *do* make it up on inaugural launches.
> Do insurance companies really cover stuff like this?
SES Global an insurance policy covering the launch and early-orbit operations just days before liftoff. The company paid about $46.75 million for an nsurance policy valued at $275 million.
> What I am now wondering is how anyone found out about this, and discovered the finer details.
SES, the company that would have operated the satellite, and Astra, the company that built the satellite, are normal western companies. International Launch Services markets the Proton launch vehicle, which is made by a Russian company and launched out of Kazakhstan. SES is a major client of International Launch Services.
Why wouldn't ILS divulge as much information as it could about this unfortunate incident? If that was your satellite, wouldn't you pound the table to make sure that you got the inside data?
Sheesh, this isn't the 60's, with shifty Russians lying to the west....
The Proton made it to Low Earth Orbit without any problem. The space station is at LEO. The problem occured with the Block DM upper stage rocket which was to take the satellite to Geosynch orbit.
Actually, The Audible Difference has a very good rep, and pretty much everything they were quoted in the article seemed correct.
Apologies for ragging on The Audible Difference, but when CNN paraphrases them as "refusing to sell SACD or DVD-Audio players until manufacturers can ship a hybrid unit that plays both formats as well as legacy CDs in the highest quality sound available," it makes them seem very silly.
For one, units that can play all the formats do exist (see my original post). But come on, play every format, perfectly? That's like saying that a car dealer wont sell cars until the manufacturers can ship cars that are as stylish as sports cars, perform like F-1s, have the imposing nature of SUVs, and the economy of the Prius... The Sony SCD-777ES plays SACDs brilliantly, and CDs better than 99% of CD players sold today. The Pioneer hybrid plays SCDs and DVD-As wonderfully, and CDs much better than any mass market unit. New hybrid products in every price range are coming out. What more are they looking for?
As for the digital output issue, its been argued time and time again. Correctly in Stereophile, TAS, and Audio Asylum. Wrongly in Slashdot. BTW, the Accuphase and dCS units also do DSD digital output, usually through firewire.
And despite being designed with some features that audiophiles hate, SACD is also designed with the one "feature" that any audiophile should be willing to forgive all sins for: beautifully realistic sound.
The SACD watermark is actually an analog watermark. The surface of the CD itself is watermarked, not the data, which is pristine.
> Moreover, there are no digital outputs on any SACD or DVD-Audio players now available,
The Accuphase DP-100 transport has a digital output, although it isn't a coaxial or Toslink. The Meridien reference 800 also has a digital output.
Sure, these are high-end players. But if you want low-end digital output, just play the CD layer on the SACD, and get the digital outp of the 16b/44.1khz stream.
> The Audible Difference in Palo Alto, California, is refusing to sell SACD or DVD-Audio players until manufacturers can ship a hybrid unit that plays both formats as well as legacy CDs in the highest quality sound available.
Should've picked a more knowledgable or reputable dealer. The Pioneer DV-AX10 plays both SACD and DVD-A. Even low-end companies like Apex have DVD-A/SACD/MP3/CD players (AD-7701).
Sony's ideal marketing strategy 5 years from now will probably be like this:
MP3 THROUGH SUBSCRIPTION-BASED NAPSTER-CLONE Target customer: People who don't care about music quality, want "perfect" digital backups, want to play on pc, home stereo, and portable player. aka Typical Slashdot reader Willingness to pay: Low Value proposition: The music you want. When you want it. Where you want it. Faster, more convenient, and more music than Napster or Kazaa Quality: 128kbps MP3 equivalent, but claimed to be "CD quality" Releases: Entire catalog Cost: Cheap (50c a track or $12.50/month for unlimited downloads)
SINGLE LAYER SACD Target Customer: People who care about music quality, want to listen primarilly on home stereos. Typically classical, jazz, or historical recording fans. Willingness to pay: High Value proposition: Perfect sound forever:) Quality: SACD Releases: 20% of catalog, or selected albums by specialty order Cost: Expensive ($20/SACD for catalog, or 30$ for specialty order)
The result: labels make more money, consumers get precisely what they want at a bargain.
> I own a small record label, how am I supposed to distribute my bands' music?
It is the small record labels which have been most prolific in releasing works on SACD. Small labels like Chesky Records, Telarc, Groove Note, and ABKCO have been doing SACD releases at a rate that put the big labels to shame. If there were any arbitrary royalty fees, barriers to entry, required equipment (besides the mastering and playback equipment), do you think they would do this?
SACDs offer incomparably better quality over CDs. The difference is like that of a digital satellite TV over analog cable, or an Apple Cinema Display over a no-name digital LCD. There's no reason why naive slashdotters should be criticizing this new technology based on an incomplete understanding of the specifications - Just Listen!
If you think the redbook CD is the perfect digital audio format, ask yourself whether CDs have ever made you feel like there was a live performance being played right in front of you. Even on wonderfully mastered recordings with >$50,000 sound systems, I've never really been convinced that what I was hearing was the real thing, and not just a recording. Even binaural recordings on >$3,000 headphone systems don't convince me. SACD does.
I've listened to Miles Davis improvising an immortal work of jazz, Isaac Stern playing Vivaldi, Ben Zander conducting Mahler's 9th, Gould playing the Goldberg Variations, Bernstein conducting Gershwin to the background of the subway under Carnegie Hall.
The music was THERE. I could close my eyes and hear the musicians there, I could position them in my minds eye, every note so clear and fluid and relaxed. Musicians dead for decades were reborn, reliving their greatest moments right in front of me. SACD doesn't sound like a recording. It sounds like the real thing.
If some silly slashdotters want to complain about this preservation of the human music legacy, well, let them. Their lives are poorer from not hearing this wonderful music as it was meant to be heard. All they have to do to understand is Just Listen.
Olin students sometimes hang around MIT, and they are a cool bunch. One of them mentioned how the inaugural class was so small and the facilities so underutilized, that each student was housed inside a spacious fully-furnished air-conditioned trailer. Sure beats 4/room like the MIT undergrads!
Ooops, the "Showcase of Japanese Keitai Culture" is actually at http://nooper.co.jp/showcase/?l=en. It's a great site that shows the latest cool keitai (mobile phones) from Japan.
Japan's mobile phones are generations ahead of anything coming out of Europe, let alone the US. That's one of the reasons why Motorolla and Nokia haven't been able to penetrate the Japanese market at all. (The other reason is that they don't want to invest in network compability).
J-phone started selling phones with video cameras years before the Sony Ericsson T68. The latest lineup from Sony Ericsson seriously puts the T68 to shame. You can hardly find monochrome phones anymore - nearly every new phone in the market has a color screen. All those cool features that are being promised in 5 years from 3G (video conferencing, multi-player games, streaming music, Java, etc.) were available yesterday by au, j-phone , and DoCoMo.
Now I don't want to write Apple off just yet - Apple has a great brand in Japan for product innovation and design. But to think that Apple will come out with a phone that can beat the Japanese in cool factor (see the Keitai Gallery for the newest and coolest) is pushing it.
Maybe Apple's going to make the one phone for all network, complete with software upgradable protocols? Is that even possible?
Nokia and pals would have the most to gain from network interoperability. They deal with interoperability issues on a world-wide scale, in markets besides the US.
Besides, Apple's largest markets are the US, Europe and Japan. Europe is GSM land, Japan uses a whole slew of network technologies that interoperates with nobody else, and the US uses an equally diverse slew but a generation or two behind. Develop a phone for one market, and it wouldn't work in the other markets.
If Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorolla could develop network/operator-independant phones, they would, and would invest much more money than Apple could possibly invest alone. If I were Apple, I wouldn't even try to get into that market.
The problem with phones is that there are significant issues of network compatability.
The US, Apple's core market, has too many incompatible cellular phone networks. Having multiple versions of the iPhone that support PCS, GSM, and god-knows-how-many-analog versions would be a pain in the ass in the logistics and product development perspective. Making a phone available only on one network would limit the market significantly.
Even worse, an iPhone would have to compete with phones given away for free from the network operators. The Nokia 3390 phone that Voicestream gave me for free is extremely well designed and easy to use - I don't see how Apple could improve on it, besides maybe Bluetooth PC-phone integration. But I would certainly never pay hundreds of dollars for that.
Slashdot Mirror
Off topic as well, but:
I don't think Big Tobacco really fits the role here. They are in defensive mode now. We have managed to strip them of most of the benefits of a capitalist system and still manage to vilify them.
Big Tobacco is in the defensive now, but historically, they have been very powerful. Lots of money, lots of jobs at stake, and ruthlessly unethical management made for very effective lobbyists and influencers of legislation/policy.
It took decades of solid science, credible whistleblowers, and a powerful lobby of people dying of lung cancer to take them down. Truth and justice won out, but how many millions have died....
The article states:
... to be part of the justification for taking their comments seriously."
"In other words, Koster explains, the government has a legal obligation to protect the privacy of people submitting comments on legislation and, therefore, it can be difficult if not impossible to assign any kind of special weight to a comment from an expert on a topic.
"You're not allowed to look at the history of the given proposals that person's made in the past to see if they have a good history," Koster argues.
with the following caveat:
"There's not a whole lot of anonymity," Stuart Shulman says. "Most people want you to know where they're from, who they are
The first statement is hopelessly naive. The second only partially hits the real point.
Politicians do have screens to identify high-value high-credibility input. These include:
- Reputation
- Power
- Money
Together, these traits are wielded by lobbyists. Lobbyists, by practical definition, yield influence through reputation, power, money.
Reputation. A highly reputable source of input can have a very high impact to legislation. When the National Academy of Sciences (historically very objective, and producer of excellent research) makes a finding or suggestion, it certainly has more weight than the Federation of American Scientists (which, although it has over 60 Nobel-prize winning endorsers, was founded on a political stance against the A-bomb).
Power. Legislation always involves compromises, and input coming from a very powerful party usually takes much more weight. When the Sierra Club, America's largest (and oldest) environmental advocacy club, makes a statement or sponsors research that could have legislative impact, you can bet that legislators will give it more thought than many other groups.
Money. When a certain company is a legislator's former employer or when the company is funnelling money into a legislator's pocket/campaign-fund, you can certainly bet that that company will have a big say in legislation.
Everybody with a stake in legislation has a chance to make their voice heard in a democracy. But face it, some voices just will be louder, clearer, and more persuasive. That sometimes works to the benefit of society (FSF, EFF, etc.) as well as to its harm (Big Tobacco, oil lobby, etc.) To beat the game, you've got to play the game.
> DARPA-funded research project in highly
> scalable and survivable multi-agent systems.
> Cougaar is currently used in next-generation
> military logistics systems, commercial
> applications, and research projects.
Sounds like a certain Cyberdyne-developed distributed neural-net supercomputer that could integrate all of the USs strategic arsenal under a single command structure, and would survive a nuclear armagedden... gulp... lets just make sure there is a deadman backdoor switch.
Although MIT doesn't have a law school of its own, there are some excellent courses on law.
e me nt/15-628Patents--Copyrights--and-the-Law-of-Intel lectual-PropertySpring2003/CourseHome/
Specially, 15.628: Patents, Copyrights, and the Law of Intellectual Property is a half-semester course that provides a great intro to the spectrum of IP law issues. Gosh, it might even provide some insight to the topic at hand... The instructor, Prof. Meldman is a real treasure to the Institute, and if you've seen him lecture, you'll understand why. At MIT, you'd have to bid for it, but it is also offered on OpenCourseware (OCW):
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School-of-Manag
The course packet alone makes excellent reading - the cases used provide pretty much the foundation of US IP law.
> take a class, read a book, learn.
Taking a class is probably more important in modern neurosciences than reading textbooks.
The leading edge of knowledge in neuroscience is moving forward very quickly and in many different directions. Biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, computer science, systems biology, and the traditional subjects of brain and cognitive science are all taking their own productive directions in the areas of learning, memory, behavior, ailments, and intelligence. Lots of the neatest stuff isn't in textbooks yet, and the best way to get an understanding of the state of the art is to take classes or seminars.
If I was an undergrad having to choose my major again, I couldn't be more excited. As it is, joining the business world, the areas of neuro imaging, pharma/biotech, and neuro medical devices have so much potential and are growing such that getting into neurotechnologies is really a no-brainer.
> The UK is wary of the EU, because it wants to maintain it's excellent economic relations with the US.
Here's an alternative perspective: England doesn't support an ESA mannned space program because english scientists and industrial corporations aren't in the loop. In addition, the english science minister would destroy his political career if he put billions of pounds into a project that wouldn't benefit the people of england.
> if this is to be a Euro deal, well then I see your point, why does the article mention GB?
Because the ESA can't force its members to follow and pay for a program. The ESA merely coordinates the national space policies of its member states.
Some background: the ESA has 2 budgets, a mandatory budget and a discretionary budget. The mandatory budget is set in proportion roughly to each member's GDP. The discretionary budget is made up of each member's additional funding.
Projects funded under the mandatory budget have to have very broad-based benefits (and no, "mankind" doesn't count) because they take money from every member and therefore require the vote of every member. Usually, this is made possible by dividing up the industrial support base into every ESA member country, so that Germany makes control systems, France makes engines, Italy makes SW, etc. If a country's Space Minister doesn't think that his/her country will receive direct (scientific) or indirect (industrial) benefit from a project, he won't vote the the budget allocation.
If all the Space Ministers won't vote for a program, individual Ministers can do a project anyway, but pay for it themselves. Thus Italy, which has a vested industrial interest in getting its small-launcher program off the ground, is paying for the entire program on its own, using its discretionary budget. France, which has a major vested industrial interest in launchers, is fighting hard to get major launch programs on the mandatory budget, but will probably go through the discretionary budget if the other members veto.
It'll be very difficult for a ESA human-spaceflight program to be supported by all ESA members. That is why this article, which highlights England's valid objections, is so important.
> To some extent, everything is politics, but the scientists of the ESA-SPC have generally been well focused on scientific merits, and on consensus within the scientific community
It is all about politics. Why else was the scientific budget frozen for much of the latter half of the 90's, while the launchers budget bloomed, or the massive amount of funds on the table for Galileo?
The ESA's budget is practically set by the European space ministers, who are usually ministers of science of the european governments. The science ministers are influenced much more by industrialists (who supposedly build European space capabilities and labor force) than by scientists.
As a general rule, you should ignore any statements about multi-billion dollar multi-decade programs made by individual scientists, ESA members, and departments, and focus more on the proceedings and commentaries of the actual each ESA Minister meetings which occur once every couple of years. That's where the real committments are made. Since most major programs require committment from all ESA members, a pork-barrel policy supported by France might not neccesarily be supported by Germany or England.
SpaceDev, the company that constructed CHIPSat, today sent out an email announcement that the launch of CHIPSat was delayed due to problems with the launch vehicle.
The announcement is reproduced below:
eAnnouncement
CHIPSat Launch Delayed
December 19, 2002
Due to circumstances beyond our control, the CHIPSat launch scheduled for Thursday, December 19, 2002 on a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base has been delayed and is now targeted for January 8, 2003.
The launch was delayed due to a technical glitch in the Boeing-manufactured launch vehicle. The technical problem is associated with the signal the ordnance box provides for launch vehicle devices to unlatch and separate the payload fairing. NASA is expecting the replacement of this unit to take approximately two weeks.
SpaceDev designed and built the CHIPS (Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer) spacecraft and associated subsystem products (e.g. Miniature Flight Computer) for the University of California, Berkeley under a NASA-funded contract. The CHIPS mission is designed to study the formation of stars, and will have a life span of about one year.
CHIPSat will be the first mission ever to use end-to-end satellite operations over the Internet with TCP/IP and FTP. This concept was analyzed and demonstrated by the OMNI team via UoSat-12; however, SpaceDev will be the first to implement the concept as the only means of satellite communication.
SpaceDev has overall responsibility for the design of the mission, the design, assembly, integration and testing of the microsatellite, and mission control and operations from Spacedev's Mission Control Center.
If there are any further delays, we will send out an update immediately.
> History says that you should never put your satellite on the first launch of a new launch vehicle
If it is truly irreplacable, and if nobody is willing to insure it, then sure. But what else is supposed to go into a inaugural launch, an amateur satellite? Oh yeah... those worthless things usually *do* make it up on inaugural launches.
> Do insurance companies really cover stuff like this?
SES Global an insurance policy covering the launch and early-orbit operations just days before liftoff. The company paid about $46.75 million for an nsurance policy valued at $275 million.
> What I am now wondering is how anyone found out about this, and discovered the finer details.
SES, the company that would have operated the satellite, and Astra, the company that built the satellite, are normal western companies. International Launch Services markets the Proton launch vehicle, which is made by a Russian company and launched out of Kazakhstan. SES is a major client of International Launch Services.
Why wouldn't ILS divulge as much information as it could about this unfortunate incident? If that was your satellite, wouldn't you pound the table to make sure that you got the inside data?
Sheesh, this isn't the 60's, with shifty Russians lying to the west....
The Proton made it to Low Earth Orbit without any problem. The space station is at LEO. The problem occured with the Block DM upper stage rocket which was to take the satellite to Geosynch orbit.
> Seeing as it was made by Alcatel Space and Alcatel just axed another 10,000 jobs yesterday (or the day before?) Do you think it was a sign?
Absolutely not. The failure was due to an anomaly in the 2nd firing of the upper stage engine. The satellite had nothing to do with it.
Actually, The Audible Difference has a very good rep, and pretty much everything they were quoted in the article seemed correct.
Apologies for ragging on The Audible Difference, but when CNN paraphrases them as "refusing to sell SACD or DVD-Audio players until manufacturers can ship a hybrid unit that plays both formats as well as legacy CDs in the highest quality sound available," it makes them seem very silly.
For one, units that can play all the formats do exist (see my original post). But come on, play every format, perfectly? That's like saying that a car dealer wont sell cars until the manufacturers can ship cars that are as stylish as sports cars, perform like F-1s, have the imposing nature of SUVs, and the economy of the Prius... The Sony SCD-777ES plays SACDs brilliantly, and CDs better than 99% of CD players sold today. The Pioneer hybrid plays SCDs and DVD-As wonderfully, and CDs much better than any mass market unit. New hybrid products in every price range are coming out. What more are they looking for?
As for the digital output issue, its been argued time and time again. Correctly in Stereophile, TAS, and Audio Asylum. Wrongly in Slashdot. BTW, the Accuphase and dCS units also do DSD digital output, usually through firewire.
And despite being designed with some features that audiophiles hate, SACD is also designed with the one "feature" that any audiophile should be willing to forgive all sins for: beautifully realistic sound.
- patiwat
The CNN article is full of shit.
> Yet each format contains digital watermarks
The SACD watermark is actually an analog watermark. The surface of the CD itself is watermarked, not the data, which is pristine.
> Moreover, there are no digital outputs on any SACD or DVD-Audio players now available,
The Accuphase DP-100 transport has a digital output, although it isn't a coaxial or Toslink. The Meridien reference 800 also has a digital output.
Sure, these are high-end players. But if you want low-end digital output, just play the CD layer on the SACD, and get the digital outp of the 16b/44.1khz stream.
> The Audible Difference in Palo Alto, California, is refusing to sell SACD or DVD-Audio players until manufacturers can ship a hybrid unit that plays both formats as well as legacy CDs in the highest quality sound available.
Should've picked a more knowledgable or reputable dealer. The Pioneer DV-AX10 plays both SACD and DVD-A. Even low-end companies like Apex have DVD-A/SACD/MP3/CD players (AD-7701).
- patiwat
Telephone sex workers should be able to work at home instead of at call centers...
Sony's ideal marketing strategy 5 years from now will probably be like this:
:)
MP3 THROUGH SUBSCRIPTION-BASED NAPSTER-CLONE
Target customer: People who don't care about music quality, want "perfect" digital backups, want to play on pc, home stereo, and portable player. aka Typical Slashdot reader
Willingness to pay: Low
Value proposition: The music you want. When you want it. Where you want it. Faster, more convenient, and more music than Napster or Kazaa
Quality: 128kbps MP3 equivalent, but claimed to be "CD quality"
Releases: Entire catalog
Cost: Cheap (50c a track or $12.50/month for unlimited downloads)
SINGLE LAYER SACD
Target Customer: People who care about music quality, want to listen primarilly on home stereos. Typically classical, jazz, or historical recording fans.
Willingness to pay: High
Value proposition: Perfect sound forever
Quality: SACD
Releases: 20% of catalog, or selected albums by specialty order
Cost: Expensive ($20/SACD for catalog, or 30$ for specialty order)
The result: labels make more money, consumers get precisely what they want at a bargain.
> I own a small record label, how am I supposed to distribute my bands' music?
It is the small record labels which have been most prolific in releasing works on SACD. Small labels like Chesky Records, Telarc, Groove Note, and ABKCO have been doing SACD releases at a rate that put the big labels to shame. If there were any arbitrary royalty fees, barriers to entry, required equipment (besides the mastering and playback equipment), do you think they would do this?
SACDs offer incomparably better quality over CDs. The difference is like that of a digital satellite TV over analog cable, or an Apple Cinema Display over a no-name digital LCD. There's no reason why naive slashdotters should be criticizing this new technology based on an incomplete understanding of the specifications - Just Listen!
If you think the redbook CD is the perfect digital audio format, ask yourself whether CDs have ever made you feel like there was a live performance being played right in front of you. Even on wonderfully mastered recordings with >$50,000 sound systems, I've never really been convinced that what I was hearing was the real thing, and not just a recording. Even binaural recordings on >$3,000 headphone systems don't convince me. SACD does.
I've listened to Miles Davis improvising an immortal work of jazz, Isaac Stern playing Vivaldi, Ben Zander conducting Mahler's 9th, Gould playing the Goldberg Variations, Bernstein conducting Gershwin to the background of the subway under Carnegie Hall.
The music was THERE. I could close my eyes and hear the musicians there, I could position them in my minds eye, every note so clear and fluid and relaxed. Musicians dead for decades were reborn, reliving their greatest moments right in front of me. SACD doesn't sound like a recording. It sounds like the real thing.
If some silly slashdotters want to complain about this preservation of the human music legacy, well, let them. Their lives are poorer from not hearing this wonderful music as it was meant to be heard. All they have to do to understand is Just Listen.
Olin students sometimes hang around MIT, and they are a cool bunch. One of them mentioned how the inaugural class was so small and the facilities so underutilized, that each student was housed inside a spacious fully-furnished air-conditioned trailer. Sure beats 4/room like the MIT undergrads!
Ooops, the "Showcase of Japanese Keitai Culture" is actually at http://nooper.co.jp/showcase/?l=en. It's a great site that shows the latest cool keitai (mobile phones) from Japan.
Japan's mobile phones are generations ahead of anything coming out of Europe, let alone the US. That's one of the reasons why Motorolla and Nokia haven't been able to penetrate the Japanese market at all. (The other reason is that they don't want to invest in network compability).
J-phone started selling phones with video cameras years before the Sony Ericsson T68. The latest lineup from Sony Ericsson seriously puts the T68 to shame. You can hardly find monochrome phones anymore - nearly every new phone in the market has a color screen. All those cool features that are being promised in 5 years from 3G (video conferencing, multi-player games, streaming music, Java, etc.) were available yesterday by au, j-phone , and DoCoMo.
Now I don't want to write Apple off just yet - Apple has a great brand in Japan for product innovation and design. But to think that Apple will come out with a phone that can beat the Japanese in cool factor (see the Keitai Gallery for the newest and coolest) is pushing it.
Maybe Apple's going to make the one phone for all network, complete with software upgradable protocols? Is that even possible?
Nokia and pals would have the most to gain from network interoperability. They deal with interoperability issues on a world-wide scale, in markets besides the US.
Besides, Apple's largest markets are the US, Europe and Japan. Europe is GSM land, Japan uses a whole slew of network technologies that interoperates with nobody else, and the US uses an equally diverse slew but a generation or two behind. Develop a phone for one market, and it wouldn't work in the other markets.
If Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorolla could develop network/operator-independant phones, they would, and would invest much more money than Apple could possibly invest alone. If I were Apple, I wouldn't even try to get into that market.
The problem with phones is that there are significant issues of network compatability.
The US, Apple's core market, has too many incompatible cellular phone networks. Having multiple versions of the iPhone that support PCS, GSM, and god-knows-how-many-analog versions would be a pain in the ass in the logistics and product development perspective. Making a phone available only on one network would limit the market significantly.
Even worse, an iPhone would have to compete with phones given away for free from the network operators. The Nokia 3390 phone that Voicestream gave me for free is extremely well designed and easy to use - I don't see how Apple could improve on it, besides maybe Bluetooth PC-phone integration. But I would certainly never pay hundreds of dollars for that.