But it wasn't really an apology, it was a justification for their actions. Oh sure, they said the tone and content of their letter was out of line--and at least they recognize this... However, what they really said, if you read between the words, is that they're going after the lyrics sites next, and that if his software points to unliscensed lyrics, he could still be ass-deep in lawyer-shit.
One question: is there currently *A SINGLE* liscensed lyrics database/site, anywhere, even if its not free? Also, would RIAA would have to be responsible for the accounting and distribution of royalties, or would it be up to BMI and ASCAP or other international organizations--like liscensing for radio/internet broadcast?
I feel that it's going to be too complicated to ever do on a legally-liscensed basis, even if there's a modest subscription price for the service.
You know how they warn you on service lines that your call may be recorded, for training purposes, or whatever? That bullshit should cut both ways. As long as you let someone know that they're being recorded, the wire-tapping laws mostly don't apply, as I understand it, and it could be admissible into court as evidence. You, the caller, have no gurantee that whatever you say won't come back to bite your ass later.
"This call may be recorded" stuff should work for your advantage, simply because at that moment everyone knows that their conversation could be recorded for review later, by whomever. It could be their boss or a jury doing the listening. I have no idea if it is or not legal to do at that point, just sayin'. If you actually tell the service person up front that you're recording the call, you're likely to not get anywhere, and that's the unfortunate thing. I wouldn't really want to try and find out, either!
My dad keeps all sorts of old machines around, and he's about as novice as anyone. My 85 year old grandma is better with computers than he is, even if she's going blind. Seriously. She loves to get on chatrooms and rag on Bush.
It's not unreasonable for a noob to have many computers, especially if they just can't throw or give anything away. He's got about seven by my last count, three are networked (that's my fault) but four haven't been used in ages. He's so bad that I had to network at least two, because he likes to use one for his business invoicing, and the other for the usual stuff. The other one was running and had a NIC, and so...what the hell? It gets used as hot backup for his desktop/email machine, because he loves to download viruses.
Nobody uses CF because of the 4GB disk drives... For one, they suck up a bunch more power--and that makes a big difference for compact cameras, particularly when you're using the LCD. Secondly, they don't have the burst write speed of some of the newer CF cards. Thirdly, there are some questions about their reliability--it's not such a big deal if you lose an iPod mini full of music, because you've already got it on your computer, right? If you, as a semi-serious hobbyist photographer, lose a gigabyte of photos, you're probably going to be upset.
And that's another reason why microdrives, and very large compact flash cards don't appeal to many photographers... If something happens to the card, you're sunk. It's about as easy to carry around a few 1-2GB cards, and it's quick and simple to swap them out. Even with pro-consumer cameras in RAW mode, more than a hundred shots will fit on a 2GB card. you can pick up on 2GB cards, save money relative to larger cards and microdrives, and switch cards every hundred or so shots--which is all too easy to do with an SLR!
Obviously, professional photographers using professional cameras (8+MP), shooting in RAW mode will consume huge amounts of storage (~15MB each for 8 megapixel, 30MB for each photo on a 16MP Canon 1Ds MkII!)... This is why 4GB won't represent a huge number of photos to professional photographers using such expensive equipment. And, if you've got over ten thousand in camera equipment in your bag, the $500 each your 4GB CF cards cost probably isn't going to scare you too badly.
Honestly, though, I'm very suprised Sorny went with CF, ever. I would have guessed they'd recall every memory stick unit ever to modify it to take super mega ultra pro memory sticks before they went with CF. It's gotta be gettin pretty cold in Lucifers' place tonight!
There was an adapter of some sort that allowed use with VGA and DVI inputs, but IIRC it was about half the price of a used 1600SW a few years back (~$600US)--i.e. approacing the price of a newer, but not widescreen LCD with faster response time. I think someone even made copies that were third party. It is an awesone monitor, though.
It's not the hands that matter. It's the brain. Multitasking isn't using the mouse and keyboard at the same time. Not even close. It's all in the wetware.
Multitasking, does come into play when you're playing CTF whilst having your team mates shout at you, some using voice some using type, comprehending what they're saying in a split second, and most importantly, doing all of the above AND not being killed by enemy fire. It is practice for the brain to grow in multitasking function, simple as that.
When you're racing cars, it's the same thing--I've done a bit of this myself, I know from experience. Depending on what kind of racing you're doing you could have a co-driver, spotter, helicopter, coach, or pit crew yelling at you all at once, and you've got to keep your several thousand pound 100+Mph hunk of metal from flying off the track/road/path, keep it from creaming another car, and possibly keep it from creaming some poor spectators who may be lined up along the race course (depending on the race). I'd expect that an experienced race driver could handle this lab test about as well as anyone. A few miliseconds of hesistation, and you could be dead!
I'd also expect that fighter jet pilots, having to do all of the things they have to do, all at once, and under extreme physical duress (just like a race driver), would excell at driving while talking on the phone on a normal, peaceful highway.
I kinda' feel the same way. Lyrics sorta' ruined it for one of my favoritest songs ever, Jimi Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower... There's two lines "Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth". I always swore he's saying in the last part "come and take my herb". Not true. And later "So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.", I knew it just had to be "So let us not talk falsely now, 'casue I was gettin' laid"... But alas, I was wrong yet again.
It's an awesome song, it's just that (with all respect to Bob Dylan) the lyrics kinda' de-romanticized it to me. Now whenever I hear it, I say in my head "Damnit, enunciate, you bastard!".... *sigh*
Totally... The only time I've ever seen a horse talk was when I was intoxicated... They're obviously telling everyone to sober up? Yeah, that must be it.
"Isn't 99 cents too much to pay for music that appeals to just a few people?"
Holy shit, this part made my chin hit the floor. It's clear that stupid just got a new champion. Every song, pretty much no matter how bad it is, is going to appeal to someone out there to the point where they're willing to fork over 99 cents! It's a perfectly resonable price.
I would consider it a Christmas miracle if iTunes, for no apparent reason, produced a penis-shaped sound wave through this guy's iPod that would unclog the bullshit that's crammed between his ears... It might even renew my faith in the universe!
I've thought of that believe me, and yeah, DVD ripping is no problem for me. There are two things that bother me, though... I can only seem to find these DVDs:
Top Gear - Back in the Fast Lane, with seasons 1,2: sounds like a 90-minute dealie with clips of stuff and whatnot.. Sort of a Best Of album-Uaeah I hate those:D Top Gear - Revved Up: apparently Jeremy disses automakers, or something. Meh?
They're probably pretty good, but I've watched quite a few ripped/downloaded shows, and these sound like what everyone else in the US experienced with Discovery Channel's take on it. No celebrity interviews, fewer power laps, etc. If you can point me to a place with actual season DVDs, as aired, that would be super!
My only other issue is the exchange rate... It'd be worth it, though, oh yes;) But, damn our stupid government! A month ago it was 1 GBP:1.65 USD, now it's 1:1.74! Give it another month or two and it's gonna be 1:2! #$%@! Like we actually produce anything here--what good is devalued currency?! *sigh*
Hell, if that happened, I'd be all over Top Gear, even though I don't have an iPod. The Brits have some great shows, and this one is up among the best. I have yet to find a collection of the many seasons shows that wasn't (illegally) ripped from TV. The video quality sucks, the sound sucks and is often mis-aligned.
Why the heck can't they just give us a set of region-free DVDs to horde--just direct cuts from the aired shows? I'd buy like a dozen sets as gifts, and another dozen just for me! I was starting to like discovery channel version, even though they compressed the show for commercials and sucked most of the fun out of it... Goes to show that it's a great show regardless!
Why not just lock high traffic articles from editing for a short time?... Or make it such that an article can't be edited by non-mods more than a couple times a minute? I have no idea if they do this, but good password systems, for example, force a wait time upon login failure, such that the user must wait a few seconds before the next login attempt. Slashdot has done a similar thing fairly recently.
They should make the editing wait time increase logarithmically with the number of edit attempts from unique IPs per ten seconds, and there will be much fewer high traffic trolls. Politely tell them to wait till later if they want to edit, and they'll probably just get bored and bugger off.
10.0 Was never meant to be a consumer release, as such. It was mostly out there so that developers (without the Apple developers deal) could develop their stuff and early adopters could give it a run for its money. That's why it wasn't installed by default on computers that came with it. In many ways, it was a beta, and many people understood this. IIRC, it was even compiled with debugging turned on, and that's why it was so slow compared to 10.1, 10.2! To most people, it was essentially a technology preview, and I think that was Apple's plan from the very beginning. They needed to get something out there, to get the ball rolling. I think it worked!
Hopefully Arperture will get better, and maybe they'll do the same.
It'll work as a good anti-theft tag in any electronic item: any energy levels high enough to disable the tag will certainly be high enough to fry the desirable electronics.
Heh, yeah that's true I suppose, I didn't consider that. Stupid, stupid, stupid... There's always a catch, isn't there?:D I guess I'd be the kind of thief to detonate the vault, and everything inside, and then curse at myself.
Anyway, I've never had the opportunity to come across a chip. Maybe a radio frequency with a wavelength closer to the length of a chip itself would be more effective than regular 'ol 2.5Ghz? Yeah, I'll leave that to smarter people.
What's to stop one from carrying around an RFID disabling device of some sort... It could be as simple as a magnetron from a microwave, or a custom built EM pulse generator! The purpose being that you don't have to cut the package apart to get at the RFID. You hold it up to your jacket, fry the RFID wherever it may be, and stick another RFID inconspicuously ON the box/package that you swapped from some other item outside of the store. Heck, maybe use a makeshift RFID syringe to just inject it into the corrugations in the cardboard, or into the plastic case, or whatever packaging your item of desire is contained in. Nobody is going to pay attention to a millimeter wide hole, even if they do see it.
Of course, you'd be barking mad to make your iPods $5. That's far too noticeable. In fact, it would be best to avoid the bigger name brand items, because everyone knows about how much they are. Tons of people have iPods, and so I'd guess a fair amount of cashiers do as well. So, I guess the thieves have to buy or at least steal a product with a desirable tag--or perhaps buy and return, sans tag.
RFID is not a solution to theft. It's probably not going to slow anyone down, even. If there is money to be stolen, someone clever will figure it out, and they'll tell someone else about it, and so on. Having an intelligent chunk of meat there to reference everyone's receipt to their items... Now, that's a solution that can't be defeated so easily.
Oh sure, you can say that all naively--until the tornados from various towers, fed up with their oppression, form a union and combine into one giant-ass tornado that's hell-bent on giving you the Judy Garland treatment!
Actually, I think it's supposed to be "issued" (being past tense), and I think that would also make it an intransitive verb in this context, since it appears to take no direct object. Maybe the English teachers out there will disagree, though. I think this is exactly what the grandparent poster was pointing out. At any rate, I'd agree that it seems to be poorly written for an official government correspondence. It could be a completely average letter, maybe they're all this bad.
And if you've got a dark/big enough place to put a front projection system in, the time has never been better to do so. For the price of a small plasma, you can get a decent HDTV resolution projector and a screen that will hook right up to a computer no sweat, though I don't know how well a setup like this will work for watching live TV. Maybe it would be best to throw in a tuner box, and let the computer do its business if one desires to watch TV live. I've been seriously thinking about doing this myself, but there are so many things out there to pick from that it's sort of a difficult thing. The projector people are even taking this into account and are desiging many projectors specifically for home theatres, and there's enough of it out there that anyone looking at different price points can probably get the system that's going to make them happy.
A full on home theatre isn't out of reach of many people like it used to be, and it's more versatile than it has been in the past... It could be good for TV, movies, games, PC stuff, showing pictures to your nearly blind grandma, you know, whatever. I would have already done it, but there's always other considerations, darn it.
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But it wasn't really an apology, it was a justification for their actions. Oh sure, they said the tone and content of their letter was out of line--and at least they recognize this... However, what they really said, if you read between the words, is that they're going after the lyrics sites next, and that if his software points to unliscensed lyrics, he could still be ass-deep in lawyer-shit.
One question: is there currently *A SINGLE* liscensed lyrics database/site, anywhere, even if its not free? Also, would RIAA would have to be responsible for the accounting and distribution of royalties, or would it be up to BMI and ASCAP or other international organizations--like liscensing for radio/internet broadcast?
I feel that it's going to be too complicated to ever do on a legally-liscensed basis, even if there's a modest subscription price for the service.
You know how they warn you on service lines that your call may be recorded, for training purposes, or whatever? That bullshit should cut both ways. As long as you let someone know that they're being recorded, the wire-tapping laws mostly don't apply, as I understand it, and it could be admissible into court as evidence. You, the caller, have no gurantee that whatever you say won't come back to bite your ass later.
"This call may be recorded" stuff should work for your advantage, simply because at that moment everyone knows that their conversation could be recorded for review later, by whomever. It could be their boss or a jury doing the listening. I have no idea if it is or not legal to do at that point, just sayin'. If you actually tell the service person up front that you're recording the call, you're likely to not get anywhere, and that's the unfortunate thing. I wouldn't really want to try and find out, either!
you cannot literally, directly, physically destroy a plane through beating on it with a book or throwing a book at it.
Yes, this is absolutely true; however, I think Turn-X Alphonse's noddle could probably make a pretty good dent. I mean, holy shit...
Are you referring to the coffee holder? Because I've seen a few of those broke in my time...
My dad keeps all sorts of old machines around, and he's about as novice as anyone. My 85 year old grandma is better with computers than he is, even if she's going blind. Seriously. She loves to get on chatrooms and rag on Bush.
It's not unreasonable for a noob to have many computers, especially if they just can't throw or give anything away. He's got about seven by my last count, three are networked (that's my fault) but four haven't been used in ages. He's so bad that I had to network at least two, because he likes to use one for his business invoicing, and the other for the usual stuff. The other one was running and had a NIC, and so...what the hell? It gets used as hot backup for his desktop/email machine, because he loves to download viruses.
*sigh* I often wish I never met a computer.
Haven't you ever watched TV? The rich never shit or piss!
They're obviously wealthy enough to have someone do it for them!
Nobody uses CF because of the 4GB disk drives... For one, they suck up a bunch more power--and that makes a big difference for compact cameras, particularly when you're using the LCD. Secondly, they don't have the burst write speed of some of the newer CF cards. Thirdly, there are some questions about their reliability--it's not such a big deal if you lose an iPod mini full of music, because you've already got it on your computer, right? If you, as a semi-serious hobbyist photographer, lose a gigabyte of photos, you're probably going to be upset.
And that's another reason why microdrives, and very large compact flash cards don't appeal to many photographers... If something happens to the card, you're sunk. It's about as easy to carry around a few 1-2GB cards, and it's quick and simple to swap them out. Even with pro-consumer cameras in RAW mode, more than a hundred shots will fit on a 2GB card. you can pick up on 2GB cards, save money relative to larger cards and microdrives, and switch cards every hundred or so shots--which is all too easy to do with an SLR!
Obviously, professional photographers using professional cameras (8+MP), shooting in RAW mode will consume huge amounts of storage (~15MB each for 8 megapixel, 30MB for each photo on a 16MP Canon 1Ds MkII!)... This is why 4GB won't represent a huge number of photos to professional photographers using such expensive equipment. And, if you've got over ten thousand in camera equipment in your bag, the $500 each your 4GB CF cards cost probably isn't going to scare you too badly.
Honestly, though, I'm very suprised Sorny went with CF, ever. I would have guessed they'd recall every memory stick unit ever to modify it to take super mega ultra pro memory sticks before they went with CF. It's gotta be gettin pretty cold in Lucifers' place tonight!
There was an adapter of some sort that allowed use with VGA and DVI inputs, but IIRC it was about half the price of a used 1600SW a few years back (~$600US)--i.e. approacing the price of a newer, but not widescreen LCD with faster response time. I think someone even made copies that were third party. It is an awesone monitor, though.
It's not the hands that matter. It's the brain. Multitasking isn't using the mouse and keyboard at the same time. Not even close. It's all in the wetware.
Multitasking, does come into play when you're playing CTF whilst having your team mates shout at you, some using voice some using type, comprehending what they're saying in a split second, and most importantly, doing all of the above AND not being killed by enemy fire. It is practice for the brain to grow in multitasking function, simple as that.
When you're racing cars, it's the same thing--I've done a bit of this myself, I know from experience. Depending on what kind of racing you're doing you could have a co-driver, spotter, helicopter, coach, or pit crew yelling at you all at once, and you've got to keep your several thousand pound 100+Mph hunk of metal from flying off the track/road/path, keep it from creaming another car, and possibly keep it from creaming some poor spectators who may be lined up along the race course (depending on the race). I'd expect that an experienced race driver could handle this lab test about as well as anyone. A few miliseconds of hesistation, and you could be dead!
I'd also expect that fighter jet pilots, having to do all of the things they have to do, all at once, and under extreme physical duress (just like a race driver), would excell at driving while talking on the phone on a normal, peaceful highway.
I kinda' feel the same way. Lyrics sorta' ruined it for one of my favoritest songs ever, Jimi Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower... There's two lines "Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth". I always swore he's saying in the last part "come and take my herb". Not true. And later "So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.", I knew it just had to be "So let us not talk falsely now, 'casue I was gettin' laid"... But alas, I was wrong yet again.
.... *sigh*
It's an awesome song, it's just that (with all respect to Bob Dylan) the lyrics kinda' de-romanticized it to me. Now whenever I hear it, I say in my head "Damnit, enunciate, you bastard!"
Oh dear, that Dr. Pepper in my mouth didn't have a chance. Wet cleanup on on my monitor!
Totally... The only time I've ever seen a horse talk was when I was intoxicated... They're obviously telling everyone to sober up? Yeah, that must be it.
"Isn't 99 cents too much to pay for music that appeals to just a few people?"
Holy shit, this part made my chin hit the floor. It's clear that stupid just got a new champion. Every song, pretty much no matter how bad it is, is going to appeal to someone out there to the point where they're willing to fork over 99 cents! It's a perfectly resonable price.
I would consider it a Christmas miracle if iTunes, for no apparent reason, produced a penis-shaped sound wave through this guy's iPod that would unclog the bullshit that's crammed between his ears... It might even renew my faith in the universe!
I've thought of that believe me, and yeah, DVD ripping is no problem for me. There are two things that bother me, though... I can only seem to find these DVDs:
:D
;) But, damn our stupid government! A month ago it was 1 GBP:1.65 USD, now it's 1:1.74! Give it another month or two and it's gonna be 1:2! #$%@! Like we actually produce anything here--what good is devalued currency?! *sigh*
Top Gear - Back in the Fast Lane, with seasons 1,2: sounds like a 90-minute dealie with clips of stuff and whatnot.. Sort of a Best Of album-Uaeah I hate those
Top Gear - Revved Up: apparently Jeremy disses automakers, or something. Meh?
They're probably pretty good, but I've watched quite a few ripped/downloaded shows, and these sound like what everyone else in the US experienced with Discovery Channel's take on it. No celebrity interviews, fewer power laps, etc. If you can point me to a place with actual season DVDs, as aired, that would be super!
My only other issue is the exchange rate... It'd be worth it, though, oh yes
Hell, if that happened, I'd be all over Top Gear, even though I don't have an iPod. The Brits have some great shows, and this one is up among the best. I have yet to find a collection of the many seasons shows that wasn't (illegally) ripped from TV. The video quality sucks, the sound sucks and is often mis-aligned.
Why the heck can't they just give us a set of region-free DVDs to horde--just direct cuts from the aired shows? I'd buy like a dozen sets as gifts, and another dozen just for me! I was starting to like discovery channel version, even though they compressed the show for commercials and sucked most of the fun out of it... Goes to show that it's a great show regardless!
Yeah, well, what you're not telling us is how many tabs full of hot, juicy gay porn you've got open... :)
Why not just lock high traffic articles from editing for a short time?... Or make it such that an article can't be edited by non-mods more than a couple times a minute? I have no idea if they do this, but good password systems, for example, force a wait time upon login failure, such that the user must wait a few seconds before the next login attempt. Slashdot has done a similar thing fairly recently.
They should make the editing wait time increase logarithmically with the number of edit attempts from unique IPs per ten seconds, and there will be much fewer high traffic trolls. Politely tell them to wait till later if they want to edit, and they'll probably just get bored and bugger off.
Yeah, probably, still... Maybe OS X was sort of a master-Beta?
10.0 Was never meant to be a consumer release, as such. It was mostly out there so that developers (without the Apple developers deal) could develop their stuff and early adopters could give it a run for its money. That's why it wasn't installed by default on computers that came with it. In many ways, it was a beta, and many people understood this. IIRC, it was even compiled with debugging turned on, and that's why it was so slow compared to 10.1, 10.2! To most people, it was essentially a technology preview, and I think that was Apple's plan from the very beginning. They needed to get something out there, to get the ball rolling. I think it worked!
Hopefully Arperture will get better, and maybe they'll do the same.
From other items that you have bought/stolen and dissected... Just like I said. Maybe I wasn't clear enough.
It'll work as a good anti-theft tag in any electronic item: any energy levels high enough to disable the tag will certainly be high enough to fry the desirable electronics.
:D I guess I'd be the kind of thief to detonate the vault, and everything inside, and then curse at myself.
Heh, yeah that's true I suppose, I didn't consider that. Stupid, stupid, stupid... There's always a catch, isn't there?
Anyway, I've never had the opportunity to come across a chip. Maybe a radio frequency with a wavelength closer to the length of a chip itself would be more effective than regular 'ol 2.5Ghz? Yeah, I'll leave that to smarter people.
What's to stop one from carrying around an RFID disabling device of some sort... It could be as simple as a magnetron from a microwave, or a custom built EM pulse generator! The purpose being that you don't have to cut the package apart to get at the RFID. You hold it up to your jacket, fry the RFID wherever it may be, and stick another RFID inconspicuously ON the box/package that you swapped from some other item outside of the store. Heck, maybe use a makeshift RFID syringe to just inject it into the corrugations in the cardboard, or into the plastic case, or whatever packaging your item of desire is contained in. Nobody is going to pay attention to a millimeter wide hole, even if they do see it.
Of course, you'd be barking mad to make your iPods $5. That's far too noticeable. In fact, it would be best to avoid the bigger name brand items, because everyone knows about how much they are. Tons of people have iPods, and so I'd guess a fair amount of cashiers do as well. So, I guess the thieves have to buy or at least steal a product with a desirable tag--or perhaps buy and return, sans tag.
RFID is not a solution to theft. It's probably not going to slow anyone down, even. If there is money to be stolen, someone clever will figure it out, and they'll tell someone else about it, and so on. Having an intelligent chunk of meat there to reference everyone's receipt to their items... Now, that's a solution that can't be defeated so easily.
Oh sure, you can say that all naively--until the tornados from various towers, fed up with their oppression, form a union and combine into one giant-ass tornado that's hell-bent on giving you the Judy Garland treatment!
Fear the artificial vortices!
Actually, I think it's supposed to be "issued" (being past tense), and I think that would also make it an intransitive verb in this context, since it appears to take no direct object. Maybe the English teachers out there will disagree, though. I think this is exactly what the grandparent poster was pointing out. At any rate, I'd agree that it seems to be poorly written for an official government correspondence. It could be a completely average letter, maybe they're all this bad.
And if you've got a dark/big enough place to put a front projection system in, the time has never been better to do so. For the price of a small plasma, you can get a decent HDTV resolution projector and a screen that will hook right up to a computer no sweat, though I don't know how well a setup like this will work for watching live TV. Maybe it would be best to throw in a tuner box, and let the computer do its business if one desires to watch TV live. I've been seriously thinking about doing this myself, but there are so many things out there to pick from that it's sort of a difficult thing. The projector people are even taking this into account and are desiging many projectors specifically for home theatres, and there's enough of it out there that anyone looking at different price points can probably get the system that's going to make them happy.
A full on home theatre isn't out of reach of many people like it used to be, and it's more versatile than it has been in the past... It could be good for TV, movies, games, PC stuff, showing pictures to your nearly blind grandma, you know, whatever. I would have already done it, but there's always other considerations, darn it.