What's your point? Microsoft is a big company that sells a lot of OS' and Apple has iTMS which sells the most online music, therefore Apple is as "evil" as Microsoft?
As you admitted yourself, they've sold more DRM infected files than anyone else.
The DRM in AAC allows you to burn CDs and convert those CDs back to whatever format you want without any hacks or trickey. This is something that most non-techy users know, though I doubt they really noticed in the first place since the DRM is as lax as it is. That's about as flexible as it gets, and you can bet your ass they had to put some form of DRM on their files to get these music companies to get onboard and thus get the whole thing rolling. If you want to buy music online legally right now from someone with a considerably large library, it's probably gonna have some DRM on it.
Remember, noone is forcing you into buying an iPod, noone is outlawing Ogg from portable players. If you don't want the iPod because you want Ogg that bad, then you're not in the market anyhow. Implying the product is evil because it doesn't cater to you when it quite obviously does so to the majority of other users is a bit silly.
Mac users love to ignore the fact that Ogg Vorbis is more popular than AAC.
That might have been a factor if iTunes didn't primarily use AAC.
I don't even know if what you said is true (in fact I highly doubt it, given iTMS' popularity), but even if Ogg is more popular than AAC, you're still dealing with a very small amount of users that are going to be vehement about using Ogg.
More portable players support Ogg Vorbis than AAC.
Most portable players also don't have the iTMS, the most successful online music store out there right now.
How many non-nerds do you know actually have knowledge of Ogg's existence? How many of those people actually encode in Ogg as opposed to MP3 or whatever their music store throws at them?
Ogg is a cool format, but its lack of support on the iPod is most definitely not as detrimental as you're making it out to be for 99.99% of the market.
Actually, there are a couple of softmods that will allow you to run unsigned code without owning a modchip. You need a Action Replay thingy that allows you to download savegames off the 'net, and then you use a copy of 007: Agent Under Fire to exploit a loadgame hack. After that, you're pretty much to go.
It's actually really easy to do, it's just not well known.
Oh please moderators, that post wasn't flamebait. It's interesting and probably only a matter of time before it happens anyhow... why develop the CLR if only for x86 platforms?
Sound quality. Measurably better than iPod, also has fully adjustable 5 band parametric EQ.
The sound quality is almost totally a function of the compression and the quality of the actual output hardware, not the player itself. There's going to be a difference between players with all other things being equal, but I wouldn't say it's measurable to any user who doesn't have speakers or headphones worth a mint. My iPod sounds almost as good as CDs through my stereo setup which is worth about five grand, but I've also plugged a Rio in there with the exact same mp3 and did not notice any real difference.
And if you had read the auction listing, you would've seen that the seller was well aware of that and was selling it all together for different reasons.
Stern has a ridiculous amount of fans. OnA aren't a threat to his listenership, and if they were and he was afraid of them, he wouldn't be taking himself out of the realm of free radio where he is most easily accessible.
don't think maybe he actually started talks with XM and Sirius a couple months ago
Not really, because he's been talking about satellite radio for over a year now. It's possible, but he had interest in it for a while. This didn't come out of nowhere and surprised no long-time listeners of the show.
think the fact that he announced it three days after their show started airing, and about 2 months after the O&A announcement was made by XM, is a complete coincidence?
That's possible, but what's the advantage of waiting until 3 days AFTER the show has been going, when the fans have probably already bought XM? Stern also said this morning that Sirius had him keep a lid on it and this was the first day he could say anything about it, so I think that was more of a function of Sirius than Stern trying to up-end OnA. We'll never know for sure, but I really don't think Stern's primary concerns are OnA. If you listen to the show, you'd know that Howard's been complaining about FCC/Clearchannel for at least all of last year. Howard said he signed up for 5 years because his beef is with Clearchannel and he wants to bury them, those seem to be his main motives. He could've retired, I mean it's not as if he wasn't rich enough already.
You don't think that his announcement was timed, probably at the behest of Sirius, to take the steam out of the O&A launch 3 days ago?
Yeah, definitely possible and I'm sure Sirius was at least conscious that could happen, but that would be their motives, not necessarily Stern's.
If you don't see the connection here, I'm not going to bother trying to explain it to you.
I'm not an idiot, you don't have to imply that I'm one for not agreeing with you. Again though, if you listened to the show, you'd know that Howard has been very passionate about being against Clearchannel, the FCC and the like; I mean at LEAST 20 minutes a day he's talking about it.
If OnA are Stern's target, he's done a DAMN good cover-up with it, having set the whole thing up for over a YEAR.
Stern has MANY more fans, anyhow, although OnA were doing well and picking up steam, they still weren't really in Stern's league. I don't think they were much competition. Stern is going after the airwaves controlled by what he views as the right-wing FCC. That's a mighty bigger fish.
Stern will innovate Satellite radio just because he's going to bring so many people over to it, it's going to become a major force.
Opie and Anthony don't have nearly the same sized following.
Stern has been talking about the FCC and censorship since the Janet Jackson incident and has been getting fined. He's been talking about satellite radio for a while now. I highly doubt Opie and Anthony has anything to do with it.
The millions of Reserve and National Guard members probably didn't receive the deferments that Bush did, nor would that even be a big deal if they weren't trying to talk badly about a man who was actually in the line of fire and received a medal.
See the difference?
Don't pretend to take a stand based on your convictions when you are simply blinded by nothing more partisanship.
I'm not, I just find it ironic that Bush is trying so hard to discredit Kerry's record when his is more questionable. This is comparing simple facts, not political rhetoric.
I don't even care about their war records, but if it's going to be brought up, then all I see is the extreme right wing spin machine hard at work. Sorry.
the same people that supported Clinton over both George Herber Walker Bush and Bob Dole?
I'd say most Kerry supporters aren't doing so for his war record, so it's not really the factor you might think it to be. The only reason it's even any sort of discussion point is because the spin machine has done its best to bring it to the limelight. It's there, and it's extremely easy to retort to given Bush's record.
Realistically, I think most Kerry supporters are Kerry supporters because they despise Bush and Kerry is telling them what they want to hear, not for Kerry's war record. War records aren't exactly a big priority when the whole world despises this country, Osama is still running around, and Iraq is a mess. These are the factors, not Kerry's war record or the spin on how Kerry has changed his mind based on facts instead of refusing to admit mistakes.
Of course, the first of these things didn't happen with insanely massive media coverage nor did they involve a fucking spaceship blowing up 100 miles in the air with high-profile millionaires onboard...
I suppose it would be silly to ask, then, what qualifies in your mind as worthy of a purple heart? Stitches? Broken bones? Cardiac arrest?
Once again, Bush wasn't even there.
But go ahead, choose the lesser of two evils. Every election the uniparty tries its damnedest to make sure the candidates are equally evil... that loophole is fast evaporating.
Oh jeez. Politics are f'ed up, that's certain, but let's please take our tinfoil hats. If you really view the situation as that, then perhaps you won't be happy at all in the US.
How are all of those medals a joke? Because the right-wing spin machine has managed to change the perception of what THREE purple hearts mean?
Bush can't even be compared on the same level just because he wasn't there!
They're both dickless morons that shouldn't be leading our country.
I don't think the war records should be the deciding factor, but I also think it's plainly obvious (well, to me) that Kerry is the lesser of two evils, if not just because he wants out of Iraq ASAP and wants actual allies.
The Bush administration is hyping Kerry's supposedly bad record as one of the primary reasons to not vote for him. Kerry does use the fact that he was in the war prominently to emphasize that he's an honorable man who actually knows what it means to send men to war, but the Bush administration has attempted to make Kerry's war participation as a determining factor in votes.
Kerry was at Vietnam. Kerry earned multiple medals. The medals have been called into question by the Bush administration, but by doing that they are calling every issued purple heart into question. Kerry was there. He was shot at. In some way, shape, or form, he was injured.
Bush was not in Vietnam in any way, shape, or form. This cannot be disputed. Bush was not in the line of fire. Bush was safe. There is a good deal of material that indicates that Bush was a bit of a draft dodger, but in the big picture of things, it doesn't even matter because Bush was not there. Kerry doesn't need to bite back as desperately as the Republicans just for that simple fact.
How can you possibly try to argue that Bush's service was somehow superior to Kerry's? He didn't deserve the medals? Bush wasn't even there! Is this even something that the vote should hinge on in the first place (not that I, as a pro-Kerry person care, as any inspection of the facts makes Bush look like a coward next to Kerry)? How about the important stuff, like what the candidates are actually going to do if they get the presidency?
Well then hold him responsible for his actions.
How can that possibly work when Bush will not admit that he has made any mistakes? This is one of the big things the Bush campaign is trying to emphasize, that he is steadfast and won't be changing his mind any time soon. Re-electing him to hold him responsible makes no sense when he clearly will not say that he did any wrong. Fool me once, uh... you can't get fooled again!
You also said that you laughed as if it was obviously not forged. The actual professionals would disagree with you. Writing an essay of a post isn't going to get past this simple fact.
If you're going to try to bash Kerry for his war record, don't get angry when the opposition plays your game and points out how ridiculous it is that you attack Kerry's record when Bush was not even there.
You retards see problems when there are none
1,000 dead kids (with the numbers rising each month!), an absolute mess in Iraq, Bin Laden running around (war against terror? Isn't he the PRIME SUBJECT???), and an absolutely SHATTERED foreign policy is a BIG problem. The US under Bush looks like a country of complete asses.
The short answer is there are magnetic breaks on both sides of the track leading up to and headed away from the tophat. Before the ride launches, you'll see the catchcar (which is attatched to the cable) attach to the train. On the track ahead of you, you'll see a line of metallic plates sticking up from the middle of the track - these are the breaks. IMMEDIATELY before you launch, you'll see these breaks go down, underneath the upper part of the track. When your train clears the break run, as it's rising to the top hat, the breaks go back up. If the train doesn't have enough momentum, it'll fall back on that break line, where the breaks will be up and safely slow the train down.
Actually, it's a pretty simple solution - just put breaks on both sides of the tophat. You can see this in action if you do a search for Dragster videos.
I've seen it happen at least once, but I know it's happened on at least one other occasion. There was noone on the train both times. What happens is a guy actually has to go up the elevator and PUSHES the train over, usually with one hand.
Once an empty train got caught at the very top of the hill and stayed there. One of the maintainance guys went up the elevator and literally pushed it over.
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True, but isn't it safe to say that these units are luxury items?
Microsoft, that's who.
What's your point? Microsoft is a big company that sells a lot of OS' and Apple has iTMS which sells the most online music, therefore Apple is as "evil" as Microsoft?
As you admitted yourself, they've sold more DRM infected files than anyone else.
The DRM in AAC allows you to burn CDs and convert those CDs back to whatever format you want without any hacks or trickey. This is something that most non-techy users know, though I doubt they really noticed in the first place since the DRM is as lax as it is. That's about as flexible as it gets, and you can bet your ass they had to put some form of DRM on their files to get these music companies to get onboard and thus get the whole thing rolling. If you want to buy music online legally right now from someone with a considerably large library, it's probably gonna have some DRM on it.
Remember, noone is forcing you into buying an iPod, noone is outlawing Ogg from portable players. If you don't want the iPod because you want Ogg that bad, then you're not in the market anyhow. Implying the product is evil because it doesn't cater to you when it quite obviously does so to the majority of other users is a bit silly.
Mac users love to ignore the fact that Ogg Vorbis is more popular than AAC.
That might have been a factor if iTunes didn't primarily use AAC.
I don't even know if what you said is true (in fact I highly doubt it, given iTMS' popularity), but even if Ogg is more popular than AAC, you're still dealing with a very small amount of users that are going to be vehement about using Ogg.
More portable players support Ogg Vorbis than AAC.
Most portable players also don't have the iTMS, the most successful online music store out there right now.
How many non-nerds do you know actually have knowledge of Ogg's existence? How many of those people actually encode in Ogg as opposed to MP3 or whatever their music store throws at them?
Ogg is a cool format, but its lack of support on the iPod is most definitely not as detrimental as you're making it out to be for 99.99% of the market.
No sir... ever used the Agent Under Fire exploit?
If not, the short of it is that it is now possible to mod the XBox without cracking open the case.
Do you have a PAL Xbox, or does the fact that this is a PAL DVD not matter in terms of being able to play the game on an NTSC Xbox?
Actually, there are a couple of softmods that will allow you to run unsigned code without owning a modchip. You need a Action Replay thingy that allows you to download savegames off the 'net, and then you use a copy of 007: Agent Under Fire to exploit a loadgame hack. After that, you're pretty much to go.
It's actually really easy to do, it's just not well known.
Oh please moderators, that post wasn't flamebait. It's interesting and probably only a matter of time before it happens anyhow... why develop the CLR if only for x86 platforms?
I suppose it could have something to do with the fact that I was using the line-out on the iPod's dock.
Point taken.
Sound quality. Measurably better than iPod, also has fully adjustable 5 band parametric EQ.
The sound quality is almost totally a function of the compression and the quality of the actual output hardware, not the player itself. There's going to be a difference between players with all other things being equal, but I wouldn't say it's measurable to any user who doesn't have speakers or headphones worth a mint. My iPod sounds almost as good as CDs through my stereo setup which is worth about five grand, but I've also plugged a Rio in there with the exact same mp3 and did not notice any real difference.
And if you had read the auction listing, you would've seen that the seller was well aware of that and was selling it all together for different reasons.
Stern has a ridiculous amount of fans. OnA aren't a threat to his listenership, and if they were and he was afraid of them, he wouldn't be taking himself out of the realm of free radio where he is most easily accessible.
don't think maybe he actually started talks with XM and Sirius a couple months ago
Not really, because he's been talking about satellite radio for over a year now. It's possible, but he had interest in it for a while. This didn't come out of nowhere and surprised no long-time listeners of the show.
think the fact that he announced it three days after their show started airing, and about 2 months after the O&A announcement was made by XM, is a complete coincidence?
That's possible, but what's the advantage of waiting until 3 days AFTER the show has been going, when the fans have probably already bought XM? Stern also said this morning that Sirius had him keep a lid on it and this was the first day he could say anything about it, so I think that was more of a function of Sirius than Stern trying to up-end OnA. We'll never know for sure, but I really don't think Stern's primary concerns are OnA. If you listen to the show, you'd know that Howard's been complaining about FCC/Clearchannel for at least all of last year. Howard said he signed up for 5 years because his beef is with Clearchannel and he wants to bury them, those seem to be his main motives. He could've retired, I mean it's not as if he wasn't rich enough already.
You don't think that his announcement was timed, probably at the behest of Sirius, to take the steam out of the O&A launch 3 days ago?
Yeah, definitely possible and I'm sure Sirius was at least conscious that could happen, but that would be their motives, not necessarily Stern's.
If you don't see the connection here, I'm not going to bother trying to explain it to you.
I'm not an idiot, you don't have to imply that I'm one for not agreeing with you. Again though, if you listened to the show, you'd know that Howard has been very passionate about being against Clearchannel, the FCC and the like; I mean at LEAST 20 minutes a day he's talking about it.
If OnA are Stern's target, he's done a DAMN good cover-up with it, having set the whole thing up for over a YEAR.
Stern has MANY more fans, anyhow, although OnA were doing well and picking up steam, they still weren't really in Stern's league. I don't think they were much competition. Stern is going after the airwaves controlled by what he views as the right-wing FCC. That's a mighty bigger fish.
Stern will innovate Satellite radio just because he's going to bring so many people over to it, it's going to become a major force.
Opie and Anthony don't have nearly the same sized following.
Stern has been talking about the FCC and censorship since the Janet Jackson incident and has been getting fined. He's been talking about satellite radio for a while now. I highly doubt Opie and Anthony has anything to do with it.
The millions of Reserve and National Guard members probably didn't receive the deferments that Bush did, nor would that even be a big deal if they weren't trying to talk badly about a man who was actually in the line of fire and received a medal.
See the difference?
Don't pretend to take a stand based on your convictions when you are simply blinded by nothing more partisanship.
I'm not, I just find it ironic that Bush is trying so hard to discredit Kerry's record when his is more questionable. This is comparing simple facts, not political rhetoric.
I don't even care about their war records, but if it's going to be brought up, then all I see is the extreme right wing spin machine hard at work. Sorry.
the same people that supported Clinton over both George Herber Walker Bush and Bob Dole?
I'd say most Kerry supporters aren't doing so for his war record, so it's not really the factor you might think it to be. The only reason it's even any sort of discussion point is because the spin machine has done its best to bring it to the limelight. It's there, and it's extremely easy to retort to given Bush's record.
Realistically, I think most Kerry supporters are Kerry supporters because they despise Bush and Kerry is telling them what they want to hear, not for Kerry's war record. War records aren't exactly a big priority when the whole world despises this country, Osama is still running around, and Iraq is a mess. These are the factors, not Kerry's war record or the spin on how Kerry has changed his mind based on facts instead of refusing to admit mistakes.
Of course, the first of these things didn't happen with insanely massive media coverage nor did they involve a fucking spaceship blowing up 100 miles in the air with high-profile millionaires onboard...
Come on, there's a difference.
No, but skipping out on real service sure does...
I suppose it would be silly to ask, then, what qualifies in your mind as worthy of a purple heart? Stitches? Broken bones? Cardiac arrest?
Once again, Bush wasn't even there.
But go ahead, choose the lesser of two evils. Every election the uniparty tries its damnedest to make sure the candidates are equally evil... that loophole is fast evaporating.
Oh jeez. Politics are f'ed up, that's certain, but let's please take our tinfoil hats. If you really view the situation as that, then perhaps you won't be happy at all in the US.
How are all of those medals a joke? Because the right-wing spin machine has managed to change the perception of what THREE purple hearts mean?
Bush can't even be compared on the same level just because he wasn't there!
They're both dickless morons that shouldn't be leading our country.
I don't think the war records should be the deciding factor, but I also think it's plainly obvious (well, to me) that Kerry is the lesser of two evils, if not just because he wants out of Iraq ASAP and wants actual allies.
Here are the plain facts.
The Bush administration is hyping Kerry's supposedly bad record as one of the primary reasons to not vote for him. Kerry does use the fact that he was in the war prominently to emphasize that he's an honorable man who actually knows what it means to send men to war, but the Bush administration has attempted to make Kerry's war participation as a determining factor in votes.
Kerry was at Vietnam. Kerry earned multiple medals. The medals have been called into question by the Bush administration, but by doing that they are calling every issued purple heart into question. Kerry was there. He was shot at. In some way, shape, or form, he was injured.
Bush was not in Vietnam in any way, shape, or form. This cannot be disputed. Bush was not in the line of fire. Bush was safe. There is a good deal of material that indicates that Bush was a bit of a draft dodger, but in the big picture of things, it doesn't even matter because Bush was not there. Kerry doesn't need to bite back as desperately as the Republicans just for that simple fact.
How can you possibly try to argue that Bush's service was somehow superior to Kerry's? He didn't deserve the medals? Bush wasn't even there! Is this even something that the vote should hinge on in the first place (not that I, as a pro-Kerry person care, as any inspection of the facts makes Bush look like a coward next to Kerry)? How about the important stuff, like what the candidates are actually going to do if they get the presidency?
Well then hold him responsible for his actions.
How can that possibly work when Bush will not admit that he has made any mistakes? This is one of the big things the Bush campaign is trying to emphasize, that he is steadfast and won't be changing his mind any time soon. Re-electing him to hold him responsible makes no sense when he clearly will not say that he did any wrong. Fool me once, uh... you can't get fooled again!
You also said that you laughed as if it was obviously not forged. The actual professionals would disagree with you. Writing an essay of a post isn't going to get past this simple fact.
If you're going to try to bash Kerry for his war record, don't get angry when the opposition plays your game and points out how ridiculous it is that you attack Kerry's record when Bush was not even there.
You retards see problems when there are none
1,000 dead kids (with the numbers rising each month!), an absolute mess in Iraq, Bin Laden running around (war against terror? Isn't he the PRIME SUBJECT???), and an absolutely SHATTERED foreign policy is a BIG problem. The US under Bush looks like a country of complete asses.
Please tell me you're just writing out what's going through your head and not trying to make an actual point.
Please moderators, the editors not having perfect spelling is an old and tired theme, this is "Offtopic," not "informative."
The short answer is there are magnetic breaks on both sides of the track leading up to and headed away from the tophat. Before the ride launches, you'll see the catchcar (which is attatched to the cable) attach to the train. On the track ahead of you, you'll see a line of metallic plates sticking up from the middle of the track - these are the breaks. IMMEDIATELY before you launch, you'll see these breaks go down, underneath the upper part of the track. When your train clears the break run, as it's rising to the top hat, the breaks go back up. If the train doesn't have enough momentum, it'll fall back on that break line, where the breaks will be up and safely slow the train down.
Actually, it's a pretty simple solution - just put breaks on both sides of the tophat. You can see this in action if you do a search for Dragster videos.
I've seen it happen at least once, but I know it's happened on at least one other occasion. There was noone on the train both times. What happens is a guy actually has to go up the elevator and PUSHES the train over, usually with one hand.
So yes, it IS rare, but it has happened!
Once an empty train got caught at the very top of the hill and stayed there. One of the maintainance guys went up the elevator and literally pushed it over.