It's a publishing format, not an academic format. (Mathematicians use TeX AFAIK).
Mathematicians and scientists. I write my papers in LaTeX and it's great. Everytime I have to go back to Word I shudder. I first used it for the equations (I find it much easier to write equations in TeX than Word), but now I'd rather write simple text documents in TeX, too.
It's the same reason I prefer Linux over Windows: the feeling of being in control of the tool you're using, and being able to change everything. Maybe you can do that with Word, too, but I always get the impression Word wants to tell me what to do instead of the other way around.
At the places I've been, the glasses of beer (Koelsch...some people should be able to guess where I am now) were all very small (200mL) and served cold. This was explained to me (by a German) that it enabled you to drink the complete glass without your beer getting warm.
Agreed. After months of trying to decide who to vote for, I ran across Badnarik's site yesterday.
I don't agree with everything he says, but I agree with more of it than with Bush or Kerry. Badnarik's getting my vote this year, even though he has a snowball's chance at winning.
G.R.R. Martin is one of my favourite authors of the genre. Another good one is Stephen Erikson. It's a bit darker, and a bit too gory at times, but I think he has better characters and a more complex/intriguing plot than Jordan does in the WoT series.
Book Three, "Memories of Ice," is the first one I read in the series and my favourite. The major problem I have is that most of his books are out of print, which makes them harder to find and more expensive when you do (the library only had the third book, which is where I initially read it).
Okay. That's not bad, then. What kind of lab do you use? I found that professional labs do a pretty good job (both in developing slides and printing them), though they are significantly more expensive. I don't get digital scans, but the shop I use (E&J Photo Lab, in Dublin, CA) is careful (they will reprint until the color closely matches the slide and there is no particulate matter showing up as black spots), so I'd imagine they'd do the scans very well. My guess is this is true for any professional lab.
Nice photos. I was bummed when I learned you edited them all with Photoshop, though. I'm a big fan of no alteration (no filters, no Photoshop, no darkroom tricks...the extent of my manipulation is the film I use). How much were most of them altered? Burning/dodging, color manipulation, object addition/removal?
Huh? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but why does the fact that most Rock-n-Roll is I-IV-V mean there are hardly excessive accidentals? If I want accidentals, they are going to show up when I play a solo over the top of that progression, irrespective of what the progression is. I can play a solo over a I-IV-V progression entirely in accidentals. It may sound like crap, but I can do it.
Perhaps I'm talking about accidental notes, and you're talking about accidental chords.
Excellent. Near the birthplace of John Lee Hooker. So you're familar with the music. As an aside, do you enjoy it?
Agreed, those three I mentioned are hardly the only blues musicians in the country. However, them and the people like them are considered by myself (and many others) to be the epitome of the various genres. I still argue that they are the best to learn from because of this. Would live shows be better than CDs? Undoubtably. However, musicians rarely take the same trip through solo land in live shows (the same solo gets boring, if you even remember how you did it last time). This gives me a better feel for how they work, true, but also makes for a much steeper learning curve. It makes more sense, at this stage, to listen to the same track repeatedly and attempt to figure out what's going on. Am I trying to play the exact notes they play? Of course not. I don't want to copy them, I want to learn from them, but it's difficult to learn when the guitarist goes on tour and you have three-six months between lessons. And you can only listen to these lessons once.
Also, unlike you, I am not fortunate enough to live in the heart of the deep south, permeated as it is with the blues. I've lived in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, California, and Australia for varies periods of time in my life. Three of these places are, in fact, close to a blues hotbed (Chicago), and Minneapolis and Milwaukee are big enough to attract names. However, how often are you going to drive between 2-8 hours each way for a lesson, and then pay for a ticket on top of it? Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? That adds up, both in cost and in time. And, as mentioned before, quite of a few of these guys are dead. If I was near "clubs" like you mentioned, I would spend many an hour there. But I'm not, and therefore I have to make due in other ways.
I'm familar with the legend of Robert Johnson, if not his music (I was looking for a CD of his last time I went buyin', but unable to find one). The man who went down to the Crossroads in order to be able to play the guitar. It's funny, because people feel you have to do the same in order to get a recording deal. Jimmie Rodgers is a name I have not heard, though I will remember it for future reference. You're right, neither of them will care if I grab FLACs instead of buying CDs. To be honest, I doubt B.B. King or EC care how I get their music. They have enough money, and make enough through live shows, that CD royalties are probably trivial to them. I saw a quote somewhere that Bruce Springsteen probably makes more in ten nights at the Meadowlands than he did his entire recording career. So what good are record labels? They spread the music. They don't create it, don't control it, they distribute it. And their days are probably numbered, with the growing use of the Internet for that purpose.
I think herein lies the difference between us. You view the RIAA as a corrupt entity that needs to be destroyed. I see them as an antiquated institution that will destroy themselves, even if I occasionally support them. Consequently, the one CD I purchase every couple of months is no weight on my soul. The benefits I gain from having the music outweighs the benefits the RIAA gains from me purchasing the music. One could argue that those same reasons justify downloading the songs from Kazaa. That, however, would put me on the wrong side of current laws, which is an additional burden that I choose not to shoulder at this time.
To summarize my position:
I am a burgeoning blues guitarist, who wishes to learn from the masters.
Due to cost and time, I cannot attended a couple live performances every week in order to develop my skills.
I feel the RIAA will collapse with or without my support, and when they do (or I can purchase music in a format that I can use directly from the desired musician) or I can make my own music to my satisfaction, things will change. Until then, however, I will not abandon my dreams.
I think I need to clarify why I buy CDs. I'm not buying CDs just to listen to the music. I'm buying them to learn from. Therefore, I'm looking for the best (aim high, right?). I go into record stores looking for certain people, not looking for a certain type of music.
The last three CDs I bought were by John Lee Hooker, Freddie King, and Eric Clapton/B.B. King. All of those CDs were released by a RIAA member, according to RIAA Radar. Do I care? In this case, no. These are some of the greatest blues guitarists of their generations, and I'd be a fool not to learn from them. Since I doubt any of them are going to show up on my doorstep offering lessons (especially since two of them are dead), I need to buy their CDs.
I agree, music is a culture. And where did modern blues orginate? In the United States. Delta blues (from the Mississippi river delta) and Chicago blues are born and bred US music styles, though the Chicago blues can be found with a very pleasant English twist (Eric Clapton, for instance). This is the culture and music that I want to experience, which means I will frequently need to "support" the RIAA, as all the classical blues musicians have released the vast majority of their work with RIAA labels. Until I feel very comfortable with my own style, I will continue to purchase the music of the masters.
Why are you so afraid of the RIAA? Do you seriously think they can win this fight? Do you honestly believe they can control all aspects of music in the United States? Not unless they outlaw instruments and musical styles. This will be as effective as the War on Drugs (indeed, all the legislation appears to be directed at "distributers" of copyrighted music). I do not morally support the RIAA or the tactics they use, but until a better option appears for people in my situation (the one you present - to look outside the US - is not valid for this situation, as I've previously explained) I have no choice.
I look forward to your response, in hopes that you come up with a viable option (and refrain from personal attacks).
Okay, so what other options do I have? I'd like to tell the RIAA what music I like (so maybe they'll produce more of that style). Would you rather I write them an e-mail? I'm sure they'd pay attention to that.
Also, how is buying a CD "subsidizing the lobbying of ever greater restrictions" on my own intellectual freedom? Are you referring to the RIAA filing lawsuits against P2P downloaders? Don't do it, so it doesn't affect me. What else can they do? If they stop making good music (or stop releasing it, to be more precise), I'll stop buying it and concentrate more on making my own. I know what I like, and every day I'm closer to being able to play it as well as I would like. My intellectual freedom is in no way threatened by buying a CD.
I buy CDs rarely. When I do, I only buy the CDs under $10 (maybe $10.99).
I think that's a fair price for music (RIAA-controlled or not), so that's what I pay. If I want a CD and it's $17.99, I buy a different one, or none at all.
Aluminum is very pyrophoric. If you grind it up into a fine enough powder, it ignites in the air (see this MSDS, for example...sorry, no cool pictures).
If your professor administrates whatever finances your degree, and you are above broccoli intelligence, he WILL try to hold you as long as he can (5-7 years in most schools).
Bullshit. That's what's known as a "bad" advisor, and it's easy enough to figure that out before you start working for him (ask his graduate students about stuff like that, and other people in the department).
Can't say I agree with a few other points you raised (as they don't agree with my experience), but this is the only one that really bothered me. There are good advisors and there are bad advisors, and one can normally make a good choice if they think a little about it.
Related to time, here's a suggestion that I don't ever recall seeing posted here w.r.t. password security, but is part of the security implimented where I work: only allow users 3 guesses per [time interval]. At work, this is about 30 seconds.
Now a brute force attack on a six character password made up of only upper and lowercase letters takes 197706096640 seconds for all possible combinations. That's 150000 years. I hope you change your password a bit more often than that.:-)
This is also a really nice system because the time required remains the same even though hardware will get faster. So why is this solution not common? Do users complain too much?
I've noticed that, too. Things get really strange with four lanes. I've noticed that people sit in the secondmost lefthand lane.
I've seen ten cars in that lane and nobody in the other three. That's nice, actually, because in the rightmost lane you have to deal with merging traffic. With four lanes, if everyone is in the secondmost lefthanded lane, you can go around either right or left and not have to deal with merging.
A good point, especially since you included "selling" in your list (not something I'd previously considered, though it does seem identical, in the abstract sense, to loaning/giving). I still believe that copying a book is fundamentally different than loaning, giving, or selling it, though. It seems to be a matter of scale.
After I give/sell/loan a book, I no longer have it. I cannot give/sell/loan it again without reacquiring it. If I copy a book, nothing prevents me from copying again, and again, and again, effectively redistributing the work. For lack of a better word, this is not "fair." If you think enough of the book to redistribute it, some profits should go back to the author (and publisher).
Make sense? This is a slippery topic, and I'm finding it difficult to voice my thoughts on it accurately.
That's a bad example, because you still have your copy of the e-book, correct? Therefore, it's closer to you photocopying a whole book and giving it to a friend.
Is this wrong? Probably, because then you're not loaning. You're distributing.
That results from gravitationally confined plasmas (when the outward force of fusion no longer balances the inward force of graviation, so the star collapses and rebounds, ripping most of itself to shreds).
I imagine this could only happen in a magnetically confined plasma if the field strength was increased from "confinement" to "compression". OTOH, that would take a helluva strong field.
On the other hand, to do most physics or engineering problems, you definitely need a calculator. Although usually they want you to arrange the problem symbolically first before plugging in the numbers, so you can get almost full marks even if you mess up the calculation.
Agreed, for most things. One of my physics classes back in college was large enough that the prof gave multiple choice exams, with no partial credit. He also didn't allow calculators. That would've been no problem, except that some of the problems involved solving the quadratic equation...and the answers differed in the third significant digit. That made it more of a challenge (to the point that the average on the first exam was 15%).
I think a major problem is how many teachers are needed. Universities are forced to relax requirements for degrees in education in order to graduate enough people to teach our kids. Because of this, the programs are frequently easier to get into than other professional programs (med school, law school, grad school, pharmacy, etc.). This leads people to think, "I can't do anything else, but I can get a degree in education."
I know of too many people who found their desired field to be "too hard," so they became teachers. I really admire people who love teaching and strive to be good teachers, but I get the feeling that isn't the majority.
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Curious as to your thoughts on nerd vs. geek, since you used both in your comment. Is there a difference, or are they interchangable?
I think a nerd is science oriented, while geeks are techy. Not completely, but tend to lean more in one direction than the other.
I don't know what that makes me, since I'm a computational chemistry grad student. A neek?
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of superfluous "k"s, either. However there is a chain of gas stations in the midwestern United States called "Kum and Go."
Good thing they didn't use a "c" in that case.
Mathematicians and scientists. I write my papers in LaTeX and it's great. Everytime I have to go back to Word I shudder. I first used it for the equations (I find it much easier to write equations in TeX than Word), but now I'd rather write simple text documents in TeX, too.
It's the same reason I prefer Linux over Windows: the feeling of being in control of the tool you're using, and being able to change everything. Maybe you can do that with Word, too, but I always get the impression Word wants to tell me what to do instead of the other way around.
At the places I've been, the glasses of beer (Koelsch...some people should be able to guess where I am now) were all very small (200mL) and served cold. This was explained to me (by a German) that it enabled you to drink the complete glass without your beer getting warm.
Good idea, I think. I don't like warm beer.
Agreed. After months of trying to decide who to vote for, I ran across Badnarik's site yesterday.
I don't agree with everything he says, but I agree with more of it than with Bush or Kerry. Badnarik's getting my vote this year, even though he has a snowball's chance at winning.
Book Three, "Memories of Ice," is the first one I read in the series and my favourite. The major problem I have is that most of his books are out of print, which makes them harder to find and more expensive when you do (the library only had the third book, which is where I initially read it).
Okay. That's not bad, then. What kind of lab do you use? I found that professional labs do a pretty good job (both in developing slides and printing them), though they are significantly more expensive. I don't get digital scans, but the shop I use (E&J Photo Lab, in Dublin, CA) is careful (they will reprint until the color closely matches the slide and there is no particulate matter showing up as black spots), so I'd imagine they'd do the scans very well. My guess is this is true for any professional lab.
Nice photos. I was bummed when I learned you edited them all with Photoshop, though. I'm a big fan of no alteration (no filters, no Photoshop, no darkroom tricks...the extent of my manipulation is the film I use). How much were most of them altered? Burning/dodging, color manipulation, object addition/removal?
Perhaps I'm talking about accidental notes, and you're talking about accidental chords.
You have to do a lot of things right in order to get away with a crime. You only have to do one thing wrong in order to get caught.
Agreed, those three I mentioned are hardly the only blues musicians in the country. However, them and the people like them are considered by myself (and many others) to be the epitome of the various genres. I still argue that they are the best to learn from because of this. Would live shows be better than CDs? Undoubtably. However, musicians rarely take the same trip through solo land in live shows (the same solo gets boring, if you even remember how you did it last time). This gives me a better feel for how they work, true, but also makes for a much steeper learning curve. It makes more sense, at this stage, to listen to the same track repeatedly and attempt to figure out what's going on. Am I trying to play the exact notes they play? Of course not. I don't want to copy them, I want to learn from them, but it's difficult to learn when the guitarist goes on tour and you have three-six months between lessons. And you can only listen to these lessons once.
Also, unlike you, I am not fortunate enough to live in the heart of the deep south, permeated as it is with the blues. I've lived in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, California, and Australia for varies periods of time in my life. Three of these places are, in fact, close to a blues hotbed (Chicago), and Minneapolis and Milwaukee are big enough to attract names. However, how often are you going to drive between 2-8 hours each way for a lesson, and then pay for a ticket on top of it? Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? That adds up, both in cost and in time. And, as mentioned before, quite of a few of these guys are dead. If I was near "clubs" like you mentioned, I would spend many an hour there. But I'm not, and therefore I have to make due in other ways.
I'm familar with the legend of Robert Johnson, if not his music (I was looking for a CD of his last time I went buyin', but unable to find one). The man who went down to the Crossroads in order to be able to play the guitar. It's funny, because people feel you have to do the same in order to get a recording deal. Jimmie Rodgers is a name I have not heard, though I will remember it for future reference. You're right, neither of them will care if I grab FLACs instead of buying CDs. To be honest, I doubt B.B. King or EC care how I get their music. They have enough money, and make enough through live shows, that CD royalties are probably trivial to them. I saw a quote somewhere that Bruce Springsteen probably makes more in ten nights at the Meadowlands than he did his entire recording career. So what good are record labels? They spread the music. They don't create it, don't control it, they distribute it. And their days are probably numbered, with the growing use of the Internet for that purpose.
I think herein lies the difference between us. You view the RIAA as a corrupt entity that needs to be destroyed. I see them as an antiquated institution that will destroy themselves, even if I occasionally support them. Consequently, the one CD I purchase every couple of months is no weight on my soul. The benefits I gain from having the music outweighs the benefits the RIAA gains from me purchasing the music. One could argue that those same reasons justify downloading the songs from Kazaa. That, however, would put me on the wrong side of current laws, which is an additional burden that I choose not to shoulder at this time.
To summarize my position:
I am a burgeoning blues guitarist, who wishes to learn from the masters.
Due to cost and time, I cannot attended a couple live performances every week in order to develop my skills.
I feel the RIAA will collapse with or without my support, and when they do (or I can purchase music in a format that I can use directly from the desired musician) or I can make my own music to my satisfaction, things will change. Until then, however, I will not abandon my dreams.
The last three CDs I bought were by John Lee Hooker, Freddie King, and Eric Clapton/B.B. King. All of those CDs were released by a RIAA member, according to RIAA Radar. Do I care? In this case, no. These are some of the greatest blues guitarists of their generations, and I'd be a fool not to learn from them. Since I doubt any of them are going to show up on my doorstep offering lessons (especially since two of them are dead), I need to buy their CDs.
I agree, music is a culture. And where did modern blues orginate? In the United States. Delta blues (from the Mississippi river delta) and Chicago blues are born and bred US music styles, though the Chicago blues can be found with a very pleasant English twist (Eric Clapton, for instance). This is the culture and music that I want to experience, which means I will frequently need to "support" the RIAA, as all the classical blues musicians have released the vast majority of their work with RIAA labels. Until I feel very comfortable with my own style, I will continue to purchase the music of the masters.
Why are you so afraid of the RIAA? Do you seriously think they can win this fight? Do you honestly believe they can control all aspects of music in the United States? Not unless they outlaw instruments and musical styles. This will be as effective as the War on Drugs (indeed, all the legislation appears to be directed at "distributers" of copyrighted music). I do not morally support the RIAA or the tactics they use, but until a better option appears for people in my situation (the one you present - to look outside the US - is not valid for this situation, as I've previously explained) I have no choice.
I look forward to your response, in hopes that you come up with a viable option (and refrain from personal attacks).
Also, how is buying a CD "subsidizing the lobbying of ever greater restrictions" on my own intellectual freedom? Are you referring to the RIAA filing lawsuits against P2P downloaders? Don't do it, so it doesn't affect me. What else can they do? If they stop making good music (or stop releasing it, to be more precise), I'll stop buying it and concentrate more on making my own. I know what I like, and every day I'm closer to being able to play it as well as I would like. My intellectual freedom is in no way threatened by buying a CD.
I think that's a fair price for music (RIAA-controlled or not), so that's what I pay. If I want a CD and it's $17.99, I buy a different one, or none at all.
Aluminum is very pyrophoric. If you grind it up into a fine enough powder, it ignites in the air (see this MSDS, for example...sorry, no cool pictures).
Bullshit. That's what's known as a "bad" advisor, and it's easy enough to figure that out before you start working for him (ask his graduate students about stuff like that, and other people in the department).
Can't say I agree with a few other points you raised (as they don't agree with my experience), but this is the only one that really bothered me. There are good advisors and there are bad advisors, and one can normally make a good choice if they think a little about it.
Now a brute force attack on a six character password made up of only upper and lowercase letters takes 197706096640 seconds for all possible combinations. That's 150000 years. I hope you change your password a bit more often than that. :-)
This is also a really nice system because the time required remains the same even though hardware will get faster. So why is this solution not common? Do users complain too much?
At least, that's why I'm assuming it was done. Sometimes mods just don't make any sense.
I've seen ten cars in that lane and nobody in the other three. That's nice, actually, because in the rightmost lane you have to deal with merging traffic. With four lanes, if everyone is in the secondmost lefthanded lane, you can go around either right or left and not have to deal with merging.
After I give/sell/loan a book, I no longer have it. I cannot give/sell/loan it again without reacquiring it. If I copy a book, nothing prevents me from copying again, and again, and again, effectively redistributing the work. For lack of a better word, this is not "fair." If you think enough of the book to redistribute it, some profits should go back to the author (and publisher).
Make sense? This is a slippery topic, and I'm finding it difficult to voice my thoughts on it accurately.
Is this wrong? Probably, because then you're not loaning. You're distributing.
I imagine this could only happen in a magnetically confined plasma if the field strength was increased from "confinement" to "compression". OTOH, that would take a helluva strong field.
Agreed, for most things. One of my physics classes back in college was large enough that the prof gave multiple choice exams, with no partial credit. He also didn't allow calculators. That would've been no problem, except that some of the problems involved solving the quadratic equation...and the answers differed in the third significant digit. That made it more of a challenge (to the point that the average on the first exam was 15%).
I know of too many people who found their desired field to be "too hard," so they became teachers. I really admire people who love teaching and strive to be good teachers, but I get the feeling that isn't the majority.
This was not a good idea. I got a gruff "Told ya so!" and haven't heard the end of it. Parents are as bad as kids sometimes.