William Shirer is famous for his books about the rise and fall of the Nazi regime in Germany during the 1930s/1940s. He lived in Germany until 1941 or 1942, one of the last USians to remain until Hitler forced out all foreign journalists.
Reading "The Berlin Diaries" or "The Nightmare Years" I'm stunned to read statements from the common Germans of those days that literally echo the kind of talk I hear from so many of my countrymen. Authoritarianism and acquiescence is on the rise here in the States, with probably a majority of citizens absolutely believing that there are things they should't know about (and thus no-one else should know either, unless they're authorized to know).
I won't make the kind of statement like "The US is turning into Nazi Germany !" But I will point out that it is the worst sort of naivete to believe that because it's a black woman she couldn't possibly be a fascist, or because it's a Latino official he couldn't possibly be a supporter of torture and assassination.
The US is now ruled by a corporate plutocracy with no intention of ever letting go of the control of a machine that makes vast profits for them through the waging of war. When the war profiteers run the government, exactly what kind of society do you think will result ? And why in the world would those who profit so much from this war (and those already being planned) want to end this profitable state of affairs ? Most USians are now just fools with a level of ignorance equal to the German populace in the 1930s. Read Shirer, and fear for this nation and its people.
Btw, the US people are not represented by the Senate at all. Senators represent large corporate interests who pay them to vote for corporate interests. There isn't a single populist Senator in the Congress, and their despite for the common man is evident. They are the same kind of men and women who would have willingly followed Hitler to Hell if it meant the possibility of increasing their personal profits. Conscience is dead in Congress, and it's been buried for a long time now.
Welcome to the nightmare of the real. Prepare yourself.
"There is another good reason to buy DVDs in France. They are an excellent new tool for learning the language."
Amen. I'm studying Italian, and the "sottotitoli per non udenti" DVDs are a real blessing. In more ways than one: After my girlfriend discovered that the DVDs we bought in Italy won't work in her region-rigid DVD player she's become rather vocal about informing her friends and co-workers about region encoding. Not one of them had ever heard of it before she talked about it. Alas, they're still pretty dim about its significance where they're concerned, but the topic does raise a few eyebrows.
Amazing, how uninformed so many intelligent people can be.
"...and sell Microsoft Excrement at a profit"... Umm, forgive me for stating the obvious, but they've been doing it for years. It's what crappy software is made of.
[OT rant] But I also believe that M$ users have become so used to eating that merda that by this point they think it tastes pretty good. As the Master Kung said, "Follow your nose". A beautifully wrapped turd is still a turd, and you can only eat it if you make a real effort to keep your nose pinched shut. Substitute "mind" for nose in that last sentence, and you'll have a better understanding why my countrymen elected an equally stinking pack of liars and thieves for four more years. Their piety and gag-me-with-a-spoon sincerity is the oh-so-attractive wrapping around an especially noxious brown bomb. Well, USian voters have learned to eat it, like it, and now they're asking for more. Bon appetit ! [/OT rant]
1. This is Fraunhofer we're talking about here, and they were quite aggressive in ridding the world of those damned pesky free MP3 encoders. This announcement may be news for nerds, but it ain't stuff that matters to the free & open-source community (technically speaking)..
2. As another post points out, wave field synthesis is hardy a new thing. Marije Baalman demonstrated her recent work at the last Linux audio conference in April, you can check out her implementation of the system at http://gigant.kgw.tu-berlin.de/~baalman/program/in dex.html. Cool stuff...
"Music is powerless to express anything at all"... or something like that, I think from it comes from his (in)famous Poetics Of Music... there we go with that poetry schtick again... most readers agree that Igor was probably being somewhat facetious, but his point was (as I take it) that music doesn't "express" or "have meaning", it just "sounds", and we go ahead and stick any number of beliefs and ideas on the experience... see Morton Feldman's commentary on this sort of thing... we can't have music that just sounds, now can we ?... also see Copland's remarks on audiences and what they think happens in a complex piece of music...
"Give them a jig and tale of bawdry, else they sleep." [William Shakespeare on his audience...]
You're right, my bad. I checked against the Penguin atlas of the ancient world, Tiberius was indeed relatively conservative about expansionism. I think I have too much Suetonius and Graves rolling around in my head when it comes to Tiberius.
Nice reply. Yes, I'd agree that Livia may not have been as bad as her biographers picture her, but I don't think she was an especially likable person either. IIRC she was implicated in the death of Germanicus to make way for Tiberius's succession. OTOH she is also generally held responsible for the amazing economic machinery that held the empire together for the next 400 years, despite the repeated excesses of the emperors.
Still, naming anyone after the Emperor Tiberius seems a bit crass, or there's a barb in there somewhere. And yes, I agree also that he was actually a fairly competent administrator, but there's little doubt that his personality was, shall we say, a tad disfunctional. Too bad Claudius's works haven't survived, I wonder what he might have had to say about his family ties...
Interesting implications. Tiberius was a less-than-lovable Caesar, notable for his indulgence towards Caligula (who may have been responsible for smothering the old man) and his cruely towards just about everyone else. So who was responsible for naming Captain JTK and why did they choose the moniker for one of the more distasteful emperors ? Perhaps because Tiberius was also one of those emperors who whole-heartedly espoused colonial expansionism ? Hmmm...
I live in a rather prosperous small city in NW Ohio USA. Since childhood I've made great use of the city library's resources, and I'm quite pleased with the librarians' attitudes towards things like censorship (they have 'banned books' display once a year) and the use of the Internet. The library has a room with perhaps a dozen PCs, reservation and sign-up are required, but I know nothing of their usage policies (I never use the machines there, I have one at home). I do know that the computer room is always filled with users, and yes, they do fit the profiles named by the article. Teenagers, seniors, and low-income folks are constantly using the computers, which I consider a Good Thing.
The library has also seen an enormous rise in checkouts, primarily due to their stock of DVDs and videocassettes. Some of my friends who work there have implied that book checkouts are not so numerous, but they admit they don't know any actual revealing statistics. The New Books section is always receiving new items, the library is quickly respnsive to interlibrary loan requests, and I can request any book/video title for permanent addition (no guarantee they'll get it though).
So I'm pretty bullish about my local library. It's been valuable to me for many years, and I don't mind contributing a little money towards their efforts. Their existence is essential for many people who simply cannot afford the cost of technology and/or the printed word. I should also point out that my hometown doesn't have a bookstore worth squat, and the library is often the only place I can find certain titles.
Kudos to librarians ! They may yet stand as a last bastion of free access to information before Ashcroft & Co. (aka The Pious Bastards) are done dismantling the Constitution here...
Righto: "Linux will never have a world-class browser"... "Linux will never take over the server market"... "Linux will never support pro-audio A/V"... I've lost track of the number and variety of "Linux will never [your favorite hobby horse here]" messages and screeds I've read here and elsewhere on the Web in the nine years I've been using Linux. Fine, bitch all you want, it's certainly much easier than working on the problems, isn't it ? And don't whine if you're not a coder: neither am I, but I've made efforts to learn the basics of enough programming languages (it ain't rocket science: learning to play the guitar is harder) in order to make a contribution beyond whining and whinging.
Wake up guys: If you're not part of the solution, you're a part of the problem. Write to those manufacturers who won't release specs to the ALSA team, or start a Web page to advise new users on what sound cards work (or don't) for you, or just do something constructive. Blaming developers for a situation forced on them by manufacturers is a red herring that leads away from the real issue of non-support from those manufacturers. And in a world that increasingly litigates against reverse engineering we find ourselves in the nasty trap of being unable to acquire specs and being at risk if we try to reverse engineer an audio chipset.
Oh, and stop paying attention to predictions: that's just journalistic bullshit meant to impress people who thrive on journalistic bullshit. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and while you're resolutely not helping, there are crews working quietly and consistently to improve every "weak" aspect of Linux. So if you're not here to help, well, have a good time with the work being done by others, but don't expect to get much respect from us.
Normally I don't respond to comments made by the/. crowd when it comes to Linux sound issues. The level of ignorance here regarding the simplest issues about sound is truly impressive. But I've been using Linux for sound work since 1995, and I've successfully installed and utilized at least nine different soundcards. Hopefully you can understand my lack of interest in responding to the slashnoise regarding audio under Linux. The lack of support from manufacturers is appalling enough, and I'd rather spend time trying to motivate *them* than explain things to/. readers (who typically fancy ourselves as the technical elite). I have no time to assist someone (regardless of their technical savvy) who:
Didn't check first to see if his card was supported under Linux;
Didn't bother reading the installation and configuration instructions;
Didn't check Google for the possibility that someone else has dealt with the problem;
Didn't ask the development group for help before starting to publicly bitch about problems.
Okay, Fred Langa's response would probably be "But that's my whole point! No-one should have to go through all that just to get their soundcard working!". I agree, but I'll say it again: This is Linux, not Windows, and where M$ gets device drivers written for it by the manufacturers, we can't even get specs. Is it possible that in all the time you and Fred have been using Linux that you really don't know about the logjam created *not* by any unwillingness or inability of Linux audio driver developers, but by the intransigence and/or lack of interest from the card manufacturers themselves ?
Btw, this reply isn't especially aimed at you, Mr Tommy (consider the "you" as the collective "you"), but it is aimed at what I perceive as a common mindset. This is Linux, people, and it isn't what *any* journalist makes it out to be, it's what *you and I* make it to be.
A final note: Nine different distros ?? Umm, there are exactly three well-known sound systems for Linux: ALSA, the deprecated OSS/Free, and the commercially available OSS/Linux. Alas, the distribution's soundcard detection and configuration may be faulty, which is why I normally configure soundcards *without* the aid of distro configuration tools. But again, if I'm going to bitch about that, perhaps I'd better write some messages to the developers first...
Yazoo may have released some of it, I haven't looked at their catalog for a long time. Wouldn't surprise me...
Re: the Lomaxes: I don't know much more about them beyond the Leadbelly and LoC connections. Amazon lists a selection of books by or about John and Alan.
Excellent points and suggestions. Do you know where that gear can be seen these days ? I wonder if the LoC displays it...
In the 1970s someone published a series of small paperbacks about interesting aspects of blues history. The series included John Fahey's graduate thesis on the music of Charley Patton. It also included a volume focused on the blues labels, and how and by whom the material was collected, recorded, and distributed. Interesting history...
The LoC collection of American folk music was certainly one of the strangest ventures ever carried out by the US government. In a way, it paralleled the ancient Chinese venture that resulted in the Shih Ching (Book Of Odes). Both govs sent recording agents into the country with the directive to collect the songs of the people. The Chinese had only ink & paper (or whatever they used for paper circa 800 BC), while their US counterparts (beginning in the 1920s, I think) utilized their day's equivalent of direct-to-disk recording, i.e., big in-field acetate disc cutters with acoustic recording gear. For the most part these intrepid researchers are unknown, but they collected an incredible mass of disparate music. Black & white music from the deep South and the Appalachians, cowboy music from the plains states, music from native American tribes... The impression I have is that they were told something like "Go ye forth, collect their songs so we may know the mind of the the people". Well, that's what the Chinese collectors did anyway...
There are some well-known LoC recordings that have gained some fame, including a series of recordings by Leadbelly and an awesome set of music and reminiscences by Jelly Roll Morton. However, both those sets were recorded "in studio" and are not field recordings. They are magnificent though.
Btw, I should make special mention of the Lomax family. Father John and son Alan were responsible for some remarkable recordings, including the work by Leadbelly and Jelly Roll. Alan also made the earliest recordings of Muddy Waters and some excellent recordings of Son House while working for the LoC. John was something of a Texas cracker (check out his dialog with Willie McTell on the LoC recordings), but he was a brave man going into some of the places he visited. He also wrote a very weird account of his acquaintance with Leadbelly in a book he wrote about the great self-proclaimed King of the 12-string Guitar..
Some of the catalog has been available to the public for quite a while, but I doubt that catalog has listed anything close to the amount of material the LoC must have in their vaults. Those acetate masters won't last forever, and I'm glad to learn that an attempt will be made to save those recordings.
Btw, I doubt copyright is an issue with this material. Unless I'm mistaken I believe all of it is in the public domain now. Perhaps someone else can clarify ?
No recent US administration would dream of doing such a project now. They definitely would *not* want to do it to know the collective mind of the people...
As I read these screeds about Real's popup-mania I'm wondering, "What OS/browser are they using ?" I use the RealPlayer daily, have zero popups along with it, and enjoy it immensely. OTOH, I'm running Linux and Mozilla, no popups or other adcrap/spycrap here... yet...
And people, please: Apple is as hostile to open-source as Microsoft, they just peddle themselves differently. Historically Apple has *always* been hostile to openness.
I'm assuming you mean you don't know who Neal Stephenson is, and/or why his work should be interesting to/. readers. His famous Snow Crash is a novel with about half its storyline taking place in a higher-tech cyberspace. Various other NS works and activities put him on/. readership radar, including his non-fiction "In The Beginning Was The Command-line..." (in which he espouses Linux with the memorable analogy with the Hole Hawg) and his novels dealing with the favorite post-cyberpunk theme of The Impact of Technology on Society (tm). I'm a fan, have read most of the novels, and even got all the way through QuickSilver. If any of this interests you, I'd recommend starting with Snow Crash for the fiction, and I think you can find some of his non-fiction on the Web. Btw, his Cryptonomicon was "echt geek", with a pretty good story and another memorable character (Bobby Shaftoe).
I read Gates's comments a few days ago and noted that at no point does he even come close to admitting that every virus, worm, or other exploit that hits Windows is able to do so because Windows own code has made it possible. "Windows security" should be used as a perfect example for a dictionary definition of an oxymoron.
Seriously, with approximately sixty billion dollars in the bank, exactly what prevents M$ from producing a secure OS ?
I wrote a 400-page book a few years ago using only vi (and the old XView for the screenshots). I still do all my writing in vi (vim, actually) first, and I format in OO if required. In 1999 my publisher had to have my work in Word97 DOC format. No more: they've switched to OO, I can send in my work in OO's format, and I have no more need for Windows.
When I started the second edition of my book I still had need of the DOT templates we used in 1999. OO uses them nicely, I was quite surprised to discover.
Lately I've been using emacs more, primarily because some of the apps I profile run best in an emacs environment. I've become more comfortable with it, to the point where I'd probably agree with Neal Stephenson's estimation of emacs as a "thermonuclear word processor"...
Last year I used OO to prepare a series of slides for some presentations. I had never done that in OO or any other program. The process was ridiculously simple, and the presentations looked professional.
These days I use OO a lot for pretty formatting and printing, but I'm still wedded to vi. As a writer's tool it's hard to beat.
Well, I'll try doing what I can, but I agree with the summary re: intermittent problems. I can buy a used 4150 for less than quoted repair costs, but I don't have the moolah either way. I'll check for a power regulator, and I'll do the Knoppix check too. It's been a handy machine, I'll try to keep it working. Thanks for the suggestions and comments !
I've taken an ailing HP Omnibook 4150 laptop to my local computer repair place where I was told (in this order):
1. I needed a new power supply. 2. I needed a new motherboard. 3. They didn't really know what was wrong with it.
It suffers from intermittent power failure, otherwise it runs fine. I wish I knew how to locate the trouble or if I'm just wasting my time thinking this machine can be fixed. I'm loathe to take it to another repairman, I'm already out some $$ that got me no closer to a real solution. I hope this is an appropriate question to ask, 'cause I like that machine and would rather not junk it. Any civil advice will be vastly appreciated (including suggested URLs for diagnostic tools such as those mentioned in the original article). TIA!
Btw, the repair house told me that their "diagnostics" consisted of letting the machine run for a day or two. I paid them their bench fee and swore I'd never take another machine there again.
and he is saying it. Having written three books on M$-related topics, he's supposed to be an expert on open-source ? I don't think so... "You get what you pay for"... Sheesh, I paid nothing for his article, and that's what I got, so he's at least right in one particular instance.
I despise journalism like his, it's just yellow crap.
Slashdot Mirror
And this is news ?!
William Shirer is famous for his books about the rise and fall of the Nazi regime in Germany during the 1930s/1940s. He lived in Germany until 1941 or 1942, one of the last USians to remain until Hitler forced out all foreign journalists.
Reading "The Berlin Diaries" or "The Nightmare Years" I'm stunned to read statements from the common Germans of those days that literally echo the kind of talk I hear from so many of my countrymen. Authoritarianism and acquiescence is on the rise here in the States, with probably a majority of citizens absolutely believing that there are things they should't know about (and thus no-one else should know either, unless they're authorized to know).
I won't make the kind of statement like "The US is turning into Nazi Germany !" But I will point out that it is the worst sort of naivete to believe that because it's a black woman she couldn't possibly be a fascist, or because it's a Latino official he couldn't possibly be a supporter of torture and assassination.
The US is now ruled by a corporate plutocracy with no intention of ever letting go of the control of a machine that makes vast profits for them through the waging of war. When the war profiteers run the government, exactly what kind of society do you think will result ? And why in the world would those who profit so much from this war (and those already being planned) want to end this profitable state of affairs ? Most USians are now just fools with a level of ignorance equal to the German populace in the 1930s. Read Shirer, and fear for this nation and its people.
Btw, the US people are not represented by the Senate at all. Senators represent large corporate interests who pay them to vote for corporate interests. There isn't a single populist Senator in the Congress, and their despite for the common man is evident. They are the same kind of men and women who would have willingly followed Hitler to Hell if it meant the possibility of increasing their personal profits. Conscience is dead in Congress, and it's been buried for a long time now.
Welcome to the nightmare of the real. Prepare yourself.
"You are not free while you watch TV." - OtL
"There is another good reason to buy DVDs in France. They are an excellent new tool for learning the language."
Amen. I'm studying Italian, and the "sottotitoli per non udenti" DVDs are a real blessing. In more ways than one: After my girlfriend discovered that the DVDs we bought in Italy won't work in her region-rigid DVD player she's become rather vocal about informing her friends and co-workers about region encoding. Not one of them had ever heard of it before she talked about it. Alas, they're still pretty dim about its significance where they're concerned, but the topic does raise a few eyebrows.
Amazing, how uninformed so many intelligent people can be.
you still have to pay for the host, right ?
yuk yuk yuk
Stonehenge was nearly crushed by dwarves...
(for all us ST fans out here)
"...and sell Microsoft Excrement at a profit"... Umm, forgive me for stating the obvious, but they've been doing it for years. It's what crappy software is made of.
[OT rant]
But I also believe that M$ users have become so used to eating that merda that by this point they think it tastes pretty good. As the Master Kung said, "Follow your nose". A beautifully wrapped turd is still a turd, and you can only eat it if you make a real effort to keep your nose pinched shut. Substitute "mind" for nose in that last sentence, and you'll have a better understanding why my countrymen elected an equally stinking pack of liars and thieves for four more years. Their piety and gag-me-with-a-spoon sincerity is the oh-so-attractive wrapping around an especially noxious brown bomb. Well, USian voters have learned to eat it, like it, and now they're asking for more. Bon appetit !
[/OT rant]
"... it is totally against the concept of a modern constitutional state."
You mean like the current US administration ?
1. This is Fraunhofer we're talking about here, and they were quite aggressive in ridding the world of those damned pesky free MP3 encoders. This announcement may be news for nerds, but it ain't stuff that matters to the free & open-source community (technically speaking)..
n dex.html.
2. As another post points out, wave field synthesis is hardy a new thing. Marije Baalman demonstrated her recent work at the last Linux audio conference in April, you can check out her implementation of the system at http://gigant.kgw.tu-berlin.de/~baalman/program/i
Cool stuff...
"Music is powerless to express anything at all"... or something like that, I think from it comes from his (in)famous Poetics Of Music... there we go with that poetry schtick again... most readers agree that Igor was probably being somewhat facetious, but his point was (as I take it) that music doesn't "express" or "have meaning", it just "sounds", and we go ahead and stick any number of beliefs and ideas on the experience... see Morton Feldman's commentary on this sort of thing... we can't have music that just sounds, now can we ?... also see Copland's remarks on audiences and what they think happens in a complex piece of music...
"Give them a jig and tale of bawdry, else they sleep." [William Shakespeare on his audience...]
You're right, my bad. I checked against the Penguin atlas of the ancient world, Tiberius was indeed relatively conservative about expansionism. I think I have too much Suetonius and Graves rolling around in my head when it comes to Tiberius.
Thanks for the corrective posts !
Nice reply. Yes, I'd agree that Livia may not have been as bad as her biographers picture her, but I don't think she was an especially likable person either. IIRC she was implicated in the death of Germanicus to make way for Tiberius's succession. OTOH she is also generally held responsible for the amazing economic machinery that held the empire together for the next 400 years, despite the repeated excesses of the emperors.
Still, naming anyone after the Emperor Tiberius seems a bit crass, or there's a barb in there somewhere. And yes, I agree also that he was actually a fairly competent administrator, but there's little doubt that his personality was, shall we say, a tad disfunctional. Too bad Claudius's works haven't survived, I wonder what he might have had to say about his family ties...
Interesting implications. Tiberius was a less-than-lovable Caesar, notable for his indulgence towards Caligula (who may have been responsible for smothering the old man) and his cruely towards just about everyone else. So who was responsible for naming Captain JTK and why did they choose the moniker for one of the more distasteful emperors ? Perhaps because Tiberius was also one of those emperors who whole-heartedly espoused colonial expansionism ? Hmmm...
And omigod was his mother something else !
I live in a rather prosperous small city in NW Ohio USA. Since childhood I've made great use of the city library's resources, and I'm quite pleased with the librarians' attitudes towards things like censorship (they have 'banned books' display once a year) and the use of the Internet. The library has a room with perhaps a dozen PCs, reservation and sign-up are required, but I know nothing of their usage policies (I never use the machines there, I have one at home). I do know that the computer room is always filled with users, and yes, they do fit the profiles named by the article. Teenagers, seniors, and low-income folks are constantly using the computers, which I consider a Good Thing.
The library has also seen an enormous rise in checkouts, primarily due to their stock of DVDs and videocassettes. Some of my friends who work there have implied that book checkouts are not so numerous, but they admit they don't know any actual revealing statistics. The New Books section is always receiving new items, the library is quickly respnsive to interlibrary loan requests, and I can request any book/video title for permanent addition (no guarantee they'll get it though).
So I'm pretty bullish about my local library. It's been valuable to me for many years, and I don't mind contributing a little money towards their efforts. Their existence is essential for many people who simply cannot afford the cost of technology and/or the printed word. I should also point out that my hometown doesn't have a bookstore worth squat, and the library is often the only place I can find certain titles.
Kudos to librarians ! They may yet stand as a last bastion of free access to information before Ashcroft & Co. (aka The Pious Bastards) are done dismantling the Constitution here...
Righto: "Linux will never have a world-class browser"... "Linux will never take over the server market"... "Linux will never support pro-audio A/V"... I've lost track of the number and variety of "Linux will never [your favorite hobby horse here]" messages and screeds I've read here and elsewhere on the Web in the nine years I've been using Linux. Fine, bitch all you want, it's certainly much easier than working on the problems, isn't it ? And don't whine if you're not a coder: neither am I, but I've made efforts to learn the basics of enough programming languages (it ain't rocket science: learning to play the guitar is harder) in order to make a contribution beyond whining and whinging.
/. crowd when it comes to Linux sound issues. The level of ignorance here regarding the simplest issues about sound is truly impressive. But I've been using Linux for sound work since 1995, and I've successfully installed and utilized at least nine different soundcards. Hopefully you can understand my lack of interest in responding to the slashnoise regarding audio under Linux. The lack of support from manufacturers is appalling enough, and I'd rather spend time trying to motivate *them* than explain things to /. readers (who typically fancy ourselves as the technical elite). I have no time to assist someone (regardless of their technical savvy) who:
Wake up guys: If you're not part of the solution, you're a part of the problem. Write to those manufacturers who won't release specs to the ALSA team, or start a Web page to advise new users on what sound cards work (or don't) for you, or just do something constructive. Blaming developers for a situation forced on them by manufacturers is a red herring that leads away from the real issue of non-support from those manufacturers. And in a world that increasingly litigates against reverse engineering we find ourselves in the nasty trap of being unable to acquire specs and being at risk if we try to reverse engineer an audio chipset.
Oh, and stop paying attention to predictions: that's just journalistic bullshit meant to impress people who thrive on journalistic bullshit. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and while you're resolutely not helping, there are crews working quietly and consistently to improve every "weak" aspect of Linux. So if you're not here to help, well, have a good time with the work being done by others, but don't expect to get much respect from us.
Normally I don't respond to comments made by the
Didn't check first to see if his card was supported under Linux;
Didn't bother reading the installation and configuration instructions;
Didn't check Google for the possibility that someone else has dealt with the problem;
Didn't ask the development group for help before starting to publicly bitch about problems.
Okay, Fred Langa's response would probably be "But that's my whole point! No-one should have to go through all that just to get their soundcard working!". I agree, but I'll say it again: This is Linux, not Windows, and where M$ gets device drivers written for it by the manufacturers, we can't even get specs. Is it possible that in all the time you and Fred have been using Linux that you really don't know about the logjam created *not* by any unwillingness or inability of Linux audio driver developers, but by the intransigence and/or lack of interest from the card manufacturers themselves ?
Btw, this reply isn't especially aimed at you, Mr Tommy (consider the "you" as the collective "you"), but it is aimed at what I perceive as a common mindset. This is Linux, people, and it isn't what *any* journalist makes it out to be, it's what *you and I* make it to be.
A final note: Nine different distros ?? Umm, there are exactly three well-known sound systems for Linux: ALSA, the deprecated OSS/Free, and the commercially available OSS/Linux. Alas, the distribution's soundcard detection and configuration may be faulty, which is why I normally configure soundcards *without* the aid of distro configuration tools. But again, if I'm going to bitch about that, perhaps I'd better write some messages to the developers first...
Yazoo may have released some of it, I haven't looked at their catalog for a long time. Wouldn't surprise me...
Re: the Lomaxes: I don't know much more about them beyond the Leadbelly and LoC connections. Amazon lists a selection of books by or about John and Alan.
Excellent points and suggestions. Do you know where that gear can be seen these days ? I wonder if the LoC displays it ...
In the 1970s someone published a series of small paperbacks about interesting aspects of blues history. The series included John Fahey's graduate thesis on the music of Charley Patton. It also included a volume focused on the blues labels, and how and by whom the material was collected, recorded, and distributed. Interesting history...
The LoC collection of American folk music was certainly one of the strangest ventures ever carried out by the US government. In a way, it paralleled the ancient Chinese venture that resulted in the Shih Ching (Book Of Odes). Both govs sent recording agents into the country with the directive to collect the songs of the people. The Chinese had only ink & paper (or whatever they used for paper circa 800 BC), while their US counterparts (beginning in the 1920s, I think) utilized their day's equivalent of direct-to-disk recording, i.e., big in-field acetate disc cutters with acoustic recording gear. For the most part these intrepid researchers are unknown, but they collected an incredible mass of disparate music. Black & white music from the deep South and the Appalachians, cowboy music from the plains states, music from native American tribes... The impression I have is that they were told something like "Go ye forth, collect their songs so we may know the mind of the the people". Well, that's what the Chinese collectors did anyway...
There are some well-known LoC recordings that have gained some fame, including a series of recordings by Leadbelly and an awesome set of music and reminiscences by Jelly Roll Morton. However, both those sets were recorded "in studio" and are not field recordings. They are magnificent though.
Btw, I should make special mention of the Lomax family. Father John and son Alan were responsible for some remarkable recordings, including the work by Leadbelly and Jelly Roll. Alan also made the earliest recordings of Muddy Waters and some excellent recordings of Son House while working for the LoC. John was something of a Texas cracker (check out his dialog with Willie McTell on the LoC recordings), but he was a brave man going into some of the places he visited. He also wrote a very weird account of his acquaintance with Leadbelly in a book he wrote about the great self-proclaimed King of the 12-string Guitar..
Some of the catalog has been available to the public for quite a while, but I doubt that catalog has listed anything close to the amount of material the LoC must have in their vaults. Those acetate masters won't last forever, and I'm glad to learn that an attempt will be made to save those recordings.
Btw, I doubt copyright is an issue with this material. Unless I'm mistaken I believe all of it is in the public domain now. Perhaps someone else can clarify ?
No recent US administration would dream of doing such a project now. They definitely would *not* want to do it to know the collective mind of the people...
As I read these screeds about Real's popup-mania I'm wondering, "What OS/browser are they using ?" I use the RealPlayer daily, have zero popups along with it, and enjoy it immensely. OTOH, I'm running Linux and Mozilla, no popups or other adcrap/spycrap here... yet...
And people, please: Apple is as hostile to open-source as Microsoft, they just peddle themselves differently. Historically Apple has *always* been hostile to openness.
I'm assuming you mean you don't know who Neal Stephenson is, and/or why his work should be interesting to /. readers. His famous Snow Crash is a novel with about half its storyline taking place in a higher-tech cyberspace. Various other NS works and activities put him on /. readership radar, including his non-fiction "In The Beginning Was The Command-line..." (in which he espouses Linux with the memorable analogy with the Hole Hawg) and his novels dealing with the favorite post-cyberpunk theme of The Impact of Technology on Society (tm). I'm a fan, have read most of the novels, and even got all the way through QuickSilver. If any of this interests you, I'd recommend starting with Snow Crash for the fiction, and I think you can find some of his non-fiction on the Web. Btw, his Cryptonomicon was "echt geek", with a pretty good story and another memorable character (Bobby Shaftoe).
I read Gates's comments a few days ago and noted that at no point does he even come close to admitting that every virus, worm, or other exploit that hits Windows is able to do so because Windows own code has made it possible. "Windows security" should be used as a perfect example for a dictionary definition of an oxymoron.
Seriously, with approximately sixty billion dollars in the bank, exactly what prevents M$ from producing a secure OS ?
I wrote a 400-page book a few years ago using only vi (and the old XView for the screenshots). I still do all my writing in vi (vim, actually) first, and I format in OO if required. In 1999 my publisher had to have my work in Word97 DOC format. No more: they've switched to OO, I can send in my work in OO's format, and I have no more need for Windows.
When I started the second edition of my book I still had need of the DOT templates we used in 1999. OO uses them nicely, I was quite surprised to discover.
Lately I've been using emacs more, primarily because some of the apps I profile run best in an emacs environment. I've become more comfortable with it, to the point where I'd probably agree with Neal Stephenson's estimation of emacs as a "thermonuclear word processor"...
Last year I used OO to prepare a series of slides for some presentations. I had never done that in OO or any other program. The process was ridiculously simple, and the presentations looked professional.
These days I use OO a lot for pretty formatting and printing, but I'm still wedded to vi. As a writer's tool it's hard to beat.
Well, someone was going to say it...
Well, I'll try doing what I can, but I agree with the summary re: intermittent problems. I can buy a used 4150 for less than quoted repair costs, but I don't have the moolah either way. I'll check for a power regulator, and I'll do the Knoppix check too. It's been a handy machine, I'll try to keep it working. Thanks for the suggestions and comments !
I've taken an ailing HP Omnibook 4150 laptop to my local computer repair place where I was told (in this order) :
1. I needed a new power supply.
2. I needed a new motherboard.
3. They didn't really know what was wrong with it.
It suffers from intermittent power failure, otherwise it runs fine. I wish I knew how to locate the trouble or if I'm just wasting my time thinking this machine can be fixed. I'm loathe to take it to another repairman, I'm already out some $$ that got me no closer to a real solution. I hope this is an appropriate question to ask, 'cause I like that machine and would rather not junk it. Any civil advice will be vastly appreciated (including suggested URLs for diagnostic tools such as those mentioned in the original article). TIA!
Btw, the repair house told me that their "diagnostics" consisted of letting the machine run for a day or two. I paid them their bench fee and swore I'd never take another machine there again.
and he is saying it. Having written three books on M$-related topics, he's supposed to be an expert on open-source ? I don't think so... "You get what you pay for"... Sheesh, I paid nothing for his article, and that's what I got, so he's at least right in one particular instance.
I despise journalism like his, it's just yellow crap.