If it's dissolved, it's basically murder, and creating a copy on the other end doesn't make it less so. If it's not dissolved, then the user didn't move anywhere at all, it just was copied.
Well, a lot of the quantum teleportation stuff that was floating around a while back had a pretty neat way of working. The original had to be destroyed in order for the copy to come into existance. It was a requirement.
Of course, you could be pedantic about it and say, well, your body replenishes itself by digestion of food into molecules, that become part of "you". So, really, none of you is the same after however long it takes to totally replenish you (however long that is).
But, let's ask the tougher questions:
When does the food you eat cease to be part of the food and become part of "you"?
When do "you" become self-aware? What counts for self-awareness? A human egg is not self-aware, nor is a fertilized ovum (sp?). At some point in the growth of a human, that human reaches critical mass, lacking a better term, and becomes aware of itself and the world around it as being two separate things. Why does this happen? When does it happen? What causes it to happen?
Are you self-aware at all? Can you prove it to another person?
Would an exact copy of you be self-aware? What if that copy wasn't physical, but virtual? (There is no spoon.:-)
If a virtual copy of your body, all it's functionality, right down to the atomic (quantum?) level could exist and be perfectly reproduced in a virtual world, would it be self-aware? Would it still be you?
Annals of the Heechee (Haven't read this one -- anyone know if it's any good?)
It's not the best (I liked Gateway best myself), but if you've read the other three then you have to read the ending.. It deals a lot more with some interesting aspects of being a computer simulated person that are pretty relevent actually.
This comes around (after some more arguement) to Free Will vs. Pre-Destination.. Which is true? Do Humans have free will? Or is everything pre-determined and decided beforehand, with no real choices involved?
Let's say you pop a copy of my neural function into a computer and emulate the functionality of the neurons, perfectly. In other words, as long as the inputs to me are the same as you feed to the emulated brain, both my brain and the emulated one will behave in the same way. That pretty much eliminates free will, if the simulation is perfect. The emulated neurons must behave in exact ways, being electronic components of a computer system. Free will states that you cannot predict human behavior, because identical inputs do not produce identical outputs.
This is, of course, purely theoretical, as the inputs to the system could never be exactly duplicated. Perfection is a pretty unattainable goal. So you could argue that the copy is not exactly the same as "me".
Oh well.. Personally, I say that both free-will and pre-destination are aspects of the same truth, depending on how you see at the flow of time. You must consider the observers point of view.
A posse has to be organized not just thrown together.
Did anyone besides me think of that Far Side cartoon where there's a pile of horses and people lying in the street of a western town, with a sherriff telling his deputy, "Damnit, Jenkins, you can't just throw a posse together, you have to organize!"
I mean you still can copy the thing, you just can't convert it to another format. These guys are claiming you can't digitally read the thing in a CD-ROM drive, but that it plays fine on most audio players.
Which of course is bull. Gimme any cd that is readable in a player, a few minutes with my burner, and some good software, and I'll rip a digital image of the entire disk to the hard drive. It may not have a TOC, so burning is problematic, but that's not really a big deal.. You can fake that.:-)
The point is that they're trying to do the impossible. You can ALWAYS copy the sucker, if you can read it at all.
Personally, I'm not interested in photorealism (as some people are), I'm not sure I'd even like it if it were possible. I like games that feel immersive like System Shock 2 (or on consoles, the much maligned Resident Evil) but this is a personal opinion. If a game will sell in big numbers, someone will try to make it. I just think photorealistic graphics will continue to be a low priority if it continues to mean low player interaction.
To some extent, I think that's the point.
We want photorealism, without using photos (who wants to be limited to reality? ), and without cutting back on any interactivity.
Quake 3, while a bit boring of a game currently, does have some of the most amazing graphics I've seen on a PC. I loaded the demo up on my G200 video card and my jaw hit the floor. I spent a hour wandering the 4 demo levels just checking out the stuff. The levels themselves are not too impressive. The potential is staggering. I never realized curved surfaces could make a lot of difference, but they can.
My personal view of the future? Reality, but with ammo and a health meter.:-)
From http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/unix.html (note the last line) :
Version 2.0 Upgrade procedure: -1. Stop your currently running v1.x client -2. Put the new v2.0 binary in place of your v1.x binary -3. Start the new client -The v2.0 client will restart processing of your current work-unit from the beginning. -Please discard your v1.x binary. It will soon be unable to obtain new work units.
It's not a bad patent, but it depends on intent. The intent here seems to be to protect themselves while telling everyone else how to do it too.
However, I don't like patents in general. So therefore, I am going to patent the splicing of genes from two homo-sapiens, to create a third homo-sapien with characteristics from the first two.:-)
the thing that killed DIVX was the implied erosion of privacy
No, the thing that killed DIVX was that it was a stupid idea in the first place.
Seriously, how many people mind returning a rental? I don't, because I usually rent another while I'm there. You've still gotta get the damn things somehow.
This is throwing a lot of effort and technology at a non-existant problem. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I'd be willing to venture that consumers biggest problem with video rental isn't returns, it's quality. I've rented thousands of VHS tapes over the years, and a whole lot of them jittered and sucked. DVD fixes that. I rent DVD's now. It's nice, because the disk is just as good as it ever was. I have yet to get one that won't play.
Rather than degrade over time, I think the score needed to get the +1 should be higher..
I think it's 25 now.. 25 Karma is almost trivally easy to get.. 50 or even 75 would be better..
Look at it this way... the 25 was set when there were less than 100 moderators. Now there's hundreds of new ones every day, right? Each with 5 moderator points..
6 posts that get a rating of 5 and boom, you get +1? No, with the sheer number of people posting and number of posts reaching 5 scores, I think that needs to be increased..
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Re:Will this really be the future?
on
MP3.com's Beam-It
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· Score: 1
When buying certain stuff I in part do it for a feeling of owning something cool. Downloading a bunch of mp3's doesn't give me that feeling and, as such, lacks in user experience. And that's why I'll keep spending money on lame booklets and easy breakable plastic cases.
A feeling of ownership? Sorry, I just don't grasp that. I own my computer, I own my car, I own my house.
I listen to music. It's the same whether I listen to it on a CD I own, a CD I made, or a non-CD that I still own. You can hear it either way, so what's the big deal about having a plastic version of it?
Maybe it's just me, maybe not.. I'm not anti-material possessions here..:-) But then I hate to waste my ca$h on something I have no need to waste it on. When I was a poor college student, this made more sense, possibly, but now that I'm a non-poor college graduate, I find that I still don't want to buy a CD. I have no need. Most of the songs on the CD are probably crap, and the one or two good ones I just download on MP3.. Since I probably won't be listening to them after a few weeks, I go through and delete old crap after a while...
Now don't get me wrong. I'd still buy some CD's.. Box sets of great bands; anything collectable, sure.. Same way I buy DVD's, get the really good movies that you want to own for a long time.. But most CD's aren't like that, just like most movies aren't like that.
No, but if you check out http://taxes.com you see it is a domain name for sale by greatdomains.com or something like that...
it's phony. ---
Re:Will this really be the future?
on
MP3.com's Beam-It
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· Score: 1
I'm still not so very sure if this is going to be the future of music. Even though I can download every piece of music I might ever want from the internet I keep on coming back to my (on-line or not) music store to buy my favorite music in hardcopy, complete with a nice booklet maybe for once not a diamond box and a few pictures of my (at that moment) favorite artist. I want to be able to hold that box, look at it while listening to the music on my home stereo for the first time. I'd be hard pressed to find an attractive software equivalent for that. Now I suppose there are a lot of people out there that don't need that physical representation of their music but I do and a lot of my friends agree with me.
In point of fact, I'd venture to state that the majority of the population doesn't agree with you. At least, the majority of the college students with some bandwidth..:-)
Personally, I don't buy CD's much anymore. Haven't bought a CD in.. oh.. 2 years? 3? I'm not sure.. I've been playing with MP3's since it was brand new, and I switched wholly to it nearly instantly...
I was DJing parties at my fraternity with MP3's 2 years ago... One hell of a lot better than CD's. Why? Well, it's not a serious DJ thing, mixing and such, so all I had to do was make a playlist then go drink.:-) That's one nice thing you can do.
But the point I'm trying to make is that the music is the same either way. Hook a computer to a stereo, boom, essentially no difference (okay, a bit of noticable audio difference on anything lower than 160k mp3's, but most people can't hear it). I can't really recall ever looking at those worthless little booklets more than that first time I got a cd, except to see what track a certain song was on.
Is it really worth the $15 you pay for the CD to get that little booklet? Does the jewel case mean $15 of value to you? Most people I know use a CD carrier that doesn't hold the jewel case anyway..
Now, it's one thing to be able to show off your cd collection I admit, but for those of us that aren't interested in "physical" ways to show off our collection, the "virtual" collection is just even better. You might have a whole lot of CD's, but say I have 20 GIG of Mp3's (not really, not yet).. That's almost 2 weeks of solid music. For next to no cost. Admittedly, you can carry a lot of CD's around with you in a much more portatble format, but I can buy a burner and burn any songs I choose to a CD and do the same. For less than a buck a CD.
All I'm trying to say is that on-line music will continue to exist, but not in the format that you (or the record companies) think. Pay-for-play will not work, nor will buying songs online. I'm uncertain of what will work (hey, if I knew that I'd be making a load of money by doing it!)..
The Beam it software gets some info from the CD, to identify it. Then it sends that info to mp3.com, to match with their database. If they have that CD in their database, you can listen to the songs from the CD online.
Question: What's the point? If I have the CD, and I have a CD drive, then play the damn thing. As for being portable, CD's are easily portable now.
The big thing seems to be the sales aspect. If you buy a CD from there, then you can listen to the songs while you're waiting for the cd to arrive via snail mail.
Still, I think that this type of marketing can only go so far. Is any company actually having big success in this type of venture? (selling music online) I know that everyone said is was the next big thing, but you have to take that with a grain of salt. Given the option of spending 5 minutes to find a song as an MP3, and buying it for $1.00 or so, I'll take the 5 minutes.. Legality doesn't bother the majority of people. I mean, it's not an easily prosecutable offense, now is it?
"Your honor, this guy stole a song from us and gave it to... errr.. well, 3 people.. costing us a total revenue of.. umm.. $3.95... errr...."
I'd love it if the talking heads would take a bit more time in explaining to people that the faster-cheaper-better missions NASA is undertaking these days allow us to have a greater incidence of failure while still spending less and learning more than on average than in the old days. Instead, the Dan Rathers of the world just talk about what a disappointment NASA has been of late.
Face it, NASA saved all that money by firing it's public relations people. Which is fine... But without good PR they're not going to keep up even the funding they currently have.
A lack of public confidence is, IMHO, the worst thing that could happen to NASA. With two big public failures (well, at least made out that way in the media), NASA's gonna be hurting soon.
Don't blame the media for it, it's always been like that. The best news is bad news, from their viewpoint. Success is not shown off nearly as well as failure, so you must have a huge success rate to cope with one failure. ---
However, this technology won't work with animated billboards and it may force the companies spring for that. Another thought, you can buy ad space on the boxer's shorts for some prize fights. The ad is constantly moving and changes shape in regard to the boxer's movement. It is impossible for the near fututre to remove something like this.
Who said you can't remove animated billboards? I can think of several ways to do it. have the system watch the corners of the billboard instead of the content. Then fill in blue between the 4 corners. After that it's the same problem as before.
Also, what sick weirdo watches a boxer's shorts? That's a bit disturbing.:-)
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Re:From the goebbels-would-be-proud dept.? Huh?
on
Live or Memorex?
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· Score: 1
Goebbels was extremely cynical and was willing to manipulate the public for causes that he was indifferent towards.
And just what do you think advertising is all about, hmmm?
TV guy: "I don't believe in your product." Ad guy: "Here's loads of cash." TV guy: "Okay, here's your time-slot..."
Advertising IS manipulation of the public.
Not that this is entirely a bad thing.. I think they should keep this kind of advertising out of the news, for the simple reason that they shouldn't start a precedent of digital manipulation of news stories. However, the technology has other uses that I have no problems with.
Watch any interview on TV, most of the cutaway shots to the reporter are done after the fact. Often the questions are reshot later to give the reporter a heightened air of professionalism. Have you ever contrasted the way a reporter speaks to the way the typical person speaks? Some of it is professionalism but a lot of it is a cheat on the part of the producers.
If you really want to see this, watch a Barbara Walters interview very closely..
In fact, some of these are so bad that it's even made fun of.. Ever see "the Daily Show" on Comedy Central? Their interviews are sometimes blatently making fun of this type of editing.
When will people learn to always think a "feature" through completely?
Any feature, on any system, can be used and abused. You have to think of the possible aspects of a feature before you design it.
Example: Macros in MS Office having so much power. Reason: you can do some pretty amazing stuff with the right programming in a macro. Actual usage (abusage?): Macro Viruses
This is just another example of someone not thinking ahead.
What services does an e-business utilize that would justify taxation? e-businesses do not use the same resources that typical brick and mortar businesses do.
Since when has that mattered? Taxes have nothing to do with services for the business. Taxes have to do with paying for the existance of government and government-payed services.
What services do I get for paying damn near a buck a pack tax on cigarettes? Nothing to do with cigarettes, that's for damn sure. No, that money goes into roads, schools, and politicans wallets.
Suddenly, you seem like an ignorant, self-agrandizing jerk. Do you really think so highly of CS and intend to dismiss EE out of hand like that? EE stuff is easy to pick up? Not quite. So what if you know a little about Ohm and Kirchoff and even a little RLC or gate logic? Beyond that, EE gets VERY tough. That's why mostly only those with a true passion for it manage to graduate.
Well, excuse me for generalizing then.
The point I wanted to make, but couldn't because I hate typing long annoying things: If you're going into the software world, you don't need to know as much about EE as a EE major will teach you. Since most every EE person I know graduated and then got a mostly programming job, I feel that learning the majority of that stuff was a waste of time in the immediate future. Perhaps in the long term they'll pick it up again.
Advanced EE Stuff is NOT easy to learn. EE Stuff that you'll most likely need to know is a lot simpler.
Honestly, if everyone had the time I'd say do both as a double major. Learning is a never-ending process.
As for programming, what does knowing FORTRAN have to do with whether or not you are any good? Plenty of good code was written in FORTRAN... that's why it's been around for so long. Are you so big a tool that you don't recognize that once you learn good programming methodology, the tools you use (i.e. language) are irrelevant?
No, but the method in which you learn it is extremely relevant. Fortran classes (in case you've never taken one) at most universities do NOT teach you programming. They teach you Fortran. There's a world of difference between those two methods.
A person who learns a language knows that language and _may_ be able to learn others. A person who learns _programming_ and computer programming theory can learn _any_ language relatively quickly and easily. Of course, this depends on the individual. Your mileage may vary, etc, etc...
The first time I took a formal language class, it was taught in PASCAL, a useless language. However, once I learned good structured programming techniques, I was able to pick up FORTRAN, C, and PERL with little to no difficulty.
Exactly my point. I hate to say "me too" but I learned my programming exactly the same way (except I also learned C64 basic way back when I was a kid).
The people I've known to take the engineering programming classes (fortran) did not learn to program. They learned to make some fortran code that worked, but not by learning structures, not by learning software methodology. They learned to pass that class. That's it.
Everything I say is tainted by what I see, what I hear. Take it in that context. If you like, preface "In my experience," to each one of my sentences.
I admit, EE is some crazy hard shit.. One of my friends took an antenna class once, and that book had me completely baffled. However, he ended up working in the computer networking field, mainly doing programming. Why? Because those were the people hiring EE majors. Not to say that later in life that stuff won't be useful, because it will. All knowledge is good. But we're talking about preparation for "the real world" here. If you're a programmer, that hardcore EE stuff is most likely not needed.
Now it's time for me to be a pedantic ass: Solder. Soldering iron.
You pedantic bastard!:-)
Actually, I spotted that myself, but had hit submit too fast. Very well, smack me in the back of the head with a dictionary.
Slashdot Mirror
If it's dissolved, it's basically murder, and creating a copy on the other end doesn't make it less so. If it's not dissolved, then the user didn't move anywhere at all, it just was copied.
:-)
Well, a lot of the quantum teleportation stuff that was floating around a while back had a pretty neat way of working. The original had to be destroyed in order for the copy to come into existance. It was a requirement.
Of course, you could be pedantic about it and say, well, your body replenishes itself by digestion of food into molecules, that become part of "you". So, really, none of you is the same after however long it takes to totally replenish you (however long that is).
But, let's ask the tougher questions:
When does the food you eat cease to be part of the food and become part of "you"?
When do "you" become self-aware? What counts for self-awareness? A human egg is not self-aware, nor is a fertilized ovum (sp?). At some point in the growth of a human, that human reaches critical mass, lacking a better term, and becomes aware of itself and the world around it as being two separate things. Why does this happen? When does it happen? What causes it to happen?
Are you self-aware at all? Can you prove it to another person?
Would an exact copy of you be self-aware? What if that copy wasn't physical, but virtual? (There is no spoon.
If a virtual copy of your body, all it's functionality, right down to the atomic (quantum?) level could exist and be perfectly reproduced in a virtual world, would it be self-aware? Would it still be you?
I have no answers, just questions.
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since we all know that reverse engineering is illegal (DVD case, et al, ad nauseum), what happens if we lose the source to the decode process? ;-)
:-P
Even worse, someone encrypts you and sues everyone trying to decrypt you so they can port you to other OS's..
hahahahah
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Annals of the Heechee (Haven't read this one -- anyone know if it's any good?)
It's not the best (I liked Gateway best myself), but if you've read the other three then you have to read the ending.. It deals a lot more with some interesting aspects of being a computer simulated person that are pretty relevent actually.
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This comes around (after some more arguement) to Free Will vs. Pre-Destination.. Which is true? Do Humans have free will? Or is everything pre-determined and decided beforehand, with no real choices involved?
Let's say you pop a copy of my neural function into a computer and emulate the functionality of the neurons, perfectly. In other words, as long as the inputs to me are the same as you feed to the emulated brain, both my brain and the emulated one will behave in the same way. That pretty much eliminates free will, if the simulation is perfect. The emulated neurons must behave in exact ways, being electronic components of a computer system. Free will states that you cannot predict human behavior, because identical inputs do not produce identical outputs.
This is, of course, purely theoretical, as the inputs to the system could never be exactly duplicated. Perfection is a pretty unattainable goal. So you could argue that the copy is not exactly the same as "me".
Oh well.. Personally, I say that both free-will and pre-destination are aspects of the same truth, depending on how you see at the flow of time. You must consider the observers point of view.
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A posse has to be organized not just thrown together.
:-)
Did anyone besides me think of that Far Side cartoon where there's a pile of horses and people lying in the street of a western town, with a sherriff telling his deputy, "Damnit, Jenkins, you can't just throw a posse together, you have to organize!"
Okay, maybe it's just me.
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Well, that's not really the same now is it?
:-)
I mean you still can copy the thing, you just can't convert it to another format. These guys are claiming you can't digitally read the thing in a CD-ROM drive, but that it plays fine on most audio players.
Which of course is bull. Gimme any cd that is readable in a player, a few minutes with my burner, and some good software, and I'll rip a digital image of the entire disk to the hard drive. It may not have a TOC, so burning is problematic, but that's not really a big deal.. You can fake that.
The point is that they're trying to do the impossible. You can ALWAYS copy the sucker, if you can read it at all.
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I'll reserve my opinions about LinuxOne and fall back on Otto's Rule of Life #4:
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
(Note: this is not original, as explained by Otto's Rule of Life #2: "If you have to, steal it.")
:-)
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Personally, I'm not interested in photorealism (as some people are), I'm not sure I'd even like it if it were possible. I like games that feel immersive like System Shock 2 (or on consoles, the much maligned Resident Evil) but this is a personal opinion. If a game will sell in big numbers, someone will try to make it. I just think photorealistic graphics will continue to be a low priority if it continues to mean low player interaction.
:-)
To some extent, I think that's the point.
We want photorealism, without using photos (who wants to be limited to reality? ), and without cutting back on any interactivity.
Quake 3, while a bit boring of a game currently, does have some of the most amazing graphics I've seen on a PC. I loaded the demo up on my G200 video card and my jaw hit the floor. I spent a hour wandering the 4 demo levels just checking out the stuff. The levels themselves are not too impressive. The potential is staggering. I never realized curved surfaces could make a lot of difference, but they can.
My personal view of the future? Reality, but with ammo and a health meter.
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Ask and ye shall recieve. It's bundled with the 2.0 download.
. txt
Check out http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/README.xsetiathome
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From http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/unix.html (note the last line) :
Version 2.0 Upgrade procedure:
-1. Stop your currently running v1.x client
-2. Put the new v2.0 binary in place of your v1.x binary
-3. Start the new client
-The v2.0 client will restart processing of your current work-unit from the beginning.
-Please discard your v1.x binary. It will soon be unable to obtain new work units.
So, bye bye to those who won't upgrade...
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It's not a bad patent, but it depends on intent. The intent here seems to be to protect themselves while telling everyone else how to do it too.
:-)
:-)
However, I don't like patents in general. So therefore, I am going to patent the splicing of genes from two homo-sapiens, to create a third homo-sapien with characteristics from the first two.
(I'll let the crowd figure that one out.
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the thing that killed DIVX was the implied erosion of privacy
No, the thing that killed DIVX was that it was a stupid idea in the first place.
Seriously, how many people mind returning a rental? I don't, because I usually rent another while I'm there. You've still gotta get the damn things somehow.
This is throwing a lot of effort and technology at a non-existant problem. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I'd be willing to venture that consumers biggest problem with video rental isn't returns, it's quality. I've rented thousands of VHS tapes over the years, and a whole lot of them jittered and sucked. DVD fixes that. I rent DVD's now. It's nice, because the disk is just as good as it ever was. I have yet to get one that won't play.
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Don't tell me you've never done EverClear shots?
BTW, Everclear = 194 (?) proof. Darn near as pure as Ethanol gets.
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Rather than degrade over time, I think the score needed to get the +1 should be higher..
I think it's 25 now.. 25 Karma is almost trivally easy to get.. 50 or even 75 would be better..
Look at it this way... the 25 was set when there were less than 100 moderators. Now there's hundreds of new ones every day, right? Each with 5 moderator points..
6 posts that get a rating of 5 and boom, you get +1? No, with the sheer number of people posting and number of posts reaching 5 scores, I think that needs to be increased..
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When buying certain stuff I in part do it for a feeling of owning something cool. Downloading a bunch of mp3's doesn't give me that feeling and, as such, lacks in user experience. And that's why I'll keep spending money on lame booklets and easy breakable plastic cases.
:-) But then I hate to waste my ca$h on something I have no need to waste it on. When I was a poor college student, this made more sense, possibly, but now that I'm a non-poor college graduate, I find that I still don't want to buy a CD. I have no need. Most of the songs on the CD are probably crap, and the one or two good ones I just download on MP3.. Since I probably won't be listening to them after a few weeks, I go through and delete old crap after a while...
A feeling of ownership? Sorry, I just don't grasp that. I own my computer, I own my car, I own my house.
I listen to music. It's the same whether I listen to it on a CD I own, a CD I made, or a non-CD that I still own. You can hear it either way, so what's the big deal about having a plastic version of it?
Maybe it's just me, maybe not.. I'm not anti-material possessions here..
Now don't get me wrong. I'd still buy some CD's.. Box sets of great bands; anything collectable, sure.. Same way I buy DVD's, get the really good movies that you want to own for a long time.. But most CD's aren't like that, just like most movies aren't like that.
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No, but if you check out http://taxes.com you see it is a domain name for sale by greatdomains.com or something like that...
it's phony.
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I'm still not so very sure if this is going to be the future of music. Even though I can download every piece of music I might ever want from the internet I keep on coming back to my (on-line or not) music store to buy my favorite music in hardcopy, complete with a nice booklet maybe for once not a diamond box and a few pictures of my (at that moment) favorite artist.
:-)
:-) That's one nice thing you can do.
I want to be able to hold that box, look at it while listening to the music on my home stereo for the first time. I'd be hard pressed to find an attractive software equivalent for that.
Now I suppose there are a lot of people out there that don't need that physical representation of their music but I do and a lot of my friends agree with me.
In point of fact, I'd venture to state that the majority of the population doesn't agree with you. At least, the majority of the college students with some bandwidth..
Personally, I don't buy CD's much anymore. Haven't bought a CD in.. oh.. 2 years? 3? I'm not sure.. I've been playing with MP3's since it was brand new, and I switched wholly to it nearly instantly...
I was DJing parties at my fraternity with MP3's 2 years ago... One hell of a lot better than CD's. Why? Well, it's not a serious DJ thing, mixing and such, so all I had to do was make a playlist then go drink.
But the point I'm trying to make is that the music is the same either way. Hook a computer to a stereo, boom, essentially no difference (okay, a bit of noticable audio difference on anything lower than 160k mp3's, but most people can't hear it). I can't really recall ever looking at those worthless little booklets more than that first time I got a cd, except to see what track a certain song was on.
Is it really worth the $15 you pay for the CD to get that little booklet? Does the jewel case mean $15 of value to you? Most people I know use a CD carrier that doesn't hold the jewel case anyway..
Now, it's one thing to be able to show off your cd collection I admit, but for those of us that aren't interested in "physical" ways to show off our collection, the "virtual" collection is just even better. You might have a whole lot of CD's, but say I have 20 GIG of Mp3's (not really, not yet).. That's almost 2 weeks of solid music. For next to no cost. Admittedly, you can carry a lot of CD's around with you in a much more portatble format, but I can buy a burner and burn any songs I choose to a CD and do the same. For less than a buck a CD.
All I'm trying to say is that on-line music will continue to exist, but not in the format that you (or the record companies) think. Pay-for-play will not work, nor will buying songs online. I'm uncertain of what will work (hey, if I knew that I'd be making a load of money by doing it!)..
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And it seems like a strange program...
The Beam it software gets some info from the CD, to identify it. Then it sends that info to mp3.com, to match with their database. If they have that CD in their database, you can listen to the songs from the CD online.
Question: What's the point? If I have the CD, and I have a CD drive, then play the damn thing. As for being portable, CD's are easily portable now.
The big thing seems to be the sales aspect. If you buy a CD from there, then you can listen to the songs while you're waiting for the cd to arrive via snail mail.
Still, I think that this type of marketing can only go so far. Is any company actually having big success in this type of venture? (selling music online) I know that everyone said is was the next big thing, but you have to take that with a grain of salt. Given the option of spending 5 minutes to find a song as an MP3, and buying it for $1.00 or so, I'll take the 5 minutes.. Legality doesn't bother the majority of people. I mean, it's not an easily prosecutable offense, now is it?
"Your honor, this guy stole a song from us and gave it to... errr.. well, 3 people.. costing us a total revenue of.. umm.. $3.95... errr...."
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I'd love it if the talking heads would take a bit more time in explaining to people that the faster-cheaper-better missions NASA is undertaking these days allow us to have a greater incidence of failure while still spending less and learning more than on average than in the old days. Instead, the Dan Rathers of the world just talk about what a disappointment NASA has been of late.
Face it, NASA saved all that money by firing it's public relations people. Which is fine... But without good PR they're not going to keep up even the funding they currently have.
A lack of public confidence is, IMHO, the worst thing that could happen to NASA. With two big public failures (well, at least made out that way in the media), NASA's gonna be hurting soon.
Don't blame the media for it, it's always been like that. The best news is bad news, from their viewpoint. Success is not shown off nearly as well as failure, so you must have a huge success rate to cope with one failure.
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However, this technology won't work with animated billboards and it may force the companies spring for that. Another thought, you can buy ad space on the boxer's shorts for some prize fights. The ad is constantly moving and changes shape in regard to the boxer's movement. It is impossible for the near fututre to remove something like this.
:-)
Who said you can't remove animated billboards? I can think of several ways to do it. have the system watch the corners of the billboard instead of the content. Then fill in blue between the 4 corners. After that it's the same problem as before.
Also, what sick weirdo watches a boxer's shorts? That's a bit disturbing.
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Goebbels was extremely cynical and was willing to manipulate the public for causes that he was indifferent towards.
And just what do you think advertising is all about, hmmm?
TV guy: "I don't believe in your product."
Ad guy: "Here's loads of cash."
TV guy: "Okay, here's your time-slot..."
Advertising IS manipulation of the public.
Not that this is entirely a bad thing.. I think they should keep this kind of advertising out of the news, for the simple reason that they shouldn't start a precedent of digital manipulation of news stories. However, the technology has other uses that I have no problems with.
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Watch any interview on TV, most of the cutaway shots to the reporter are done after the fact. Often the questions are reshot later to give the reporter a heightened air of professionalism. Have you ever contrasted the way a reporter speaks to the way the typical person speaks? Some of it is professionalism but a lot of it is a cheat on the part of the producers.
If you really want to see this, watch a Barbara Walters interview very closely..
In fact, some of these are so bad that it's even made fun of.. Ever see "the Daily Show" on Comedy Central? Their interviews are sometimes blatently making fun of this type of editing.
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When will people learn to always think a "feature" through completely?
Any feature, on any system, can be used and abused. You have to think of the possible aspects of a feature before you design it.
Example: Macros in MS Office having so much power.
Reason: you can do some pretty amazing stuff with the right programming in a macro.
Actual usage (abusage?): Macro Viruses
This is just another example of someone not thinking ahead.
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What services does an e-business utilize that would justify taxation? e-businesses do not use the same resources that typical brick and mortar businesses do.
Since when has that mattered? Taxes have nothing to do with services for the business. Taxes have to do with paying for the existance of government and government-payed services.
What services do I get for paying damn near a buck a pack tax on cigarettes? Nothing to do with cigarettes, that's for damn sure. No, that money goes into roads, schools, and politicans wallets.
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Suddenly, you seem like an ignorant, self-agrandizing jerk. Do you really think so highly of CS and intend to dismiss EE out of hand like that? EE stuff is easy to pick up? Not quite. So what if you know a little about Ohm and Kirchoff and even a little RLC or gate logic? Beyond that, EE gets VERY tough. That's why mostly only those with a true passion for it manage to graduate.
:-)
Well, excuse me for generalizing then.
The point I wanted to make, but couldn't because I hate typing long annoying things:
If you're going into the software world, you don't need to know as much about EE as a EE major will teach you. Since most every EE person I know graduated and then got a mostly programming job, I feel that learning the majority of that stuff was a waste of time in the immediate future. Perhaps in the long term they'll pick it up again.
Advanced EE Stuff is NOT easy to learn. EE Stuff that you'll most likely need to know is a lot simpler.
Honestly, if everyone had the time I'd say do both as a double major. Learning is a never-ending process.
As for programming, what does knowing FORTRAN have to do with whether or not you are any good? Plenty of good code was written in FORTRAN... that's why it's been around for so long. Are you so big a tool that you don't recognize that once you learn good programming methodology, the tools you use (i.e. language) are irrelevant?
No, but the method in which you learn it is extremely relevant. Fortran classes (in case you've never taken one) at most universities do NOT teach you programming. They teach you Fortran. There's a world of difference between those two methods.
A person who learns a language knows that language and _may_ be able to learn others. A person who learns _programming_ and computer programming theory can learn _any_ language relatively quickly and easily. Of course, this depends on the individual. Your mileage may vary, etc, etc...
The first time I took a formal language class, it was taught in PASCAL, a useless language. However, once I learned good structured programming techniques, I was able to pick up FORTRAN, C, and PERL with little to no difficulty.
Exactly my point. I hate to say "me too" but I learned my programming exactly the same way (except I also learned C64 basic way back when I was a kid).
The people I've known to take the engineering programming classes (fortran) did not learn to program. They learned to make some fortran code that worked, but not by learning structures, not by learning software methodology. They learned to pass that class. That's it.
Everything I say is tainted by what I see, what I hear. Take it in that context. If you like, preface "In my experience," to each one of my sentences.
I admit, EE is some crazy hard shit.. One of my friends took an antenna class once, and that book had me completely baffled. However, he ended up working in the computer networking field, mainly doing programming. Why? Because those were the people hiring EE majors. Not to say that later in life that stuff won't be useful, because it will. All knowledge is good. But we're talking about preparation for "the real world" here. If you're a programmer, that hardcore EE stuff is most likely not needed.
Now it's time for me to be a pedantic ass:
Solder. Soldering iron.
You pedantic bastard!
Actually, I spotted that myself, but had hit submit too fast. Very well, smack me in the back of the head with a dictionary.
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