Why why WHY does Speilberg have to blow most of his movies in the last 15 minutes? I was really into it until it all tied up in a big shiny bow. The bad guys are punished, the good guys come out on top and life is better. COME ON. Movies should tell you something, not BEAT you OVER the HEAD with a HAMMER with "The world is a better place" engraved on the handle.
Bah.
Triv
Anyone else remember the dark red code sheets that came with the original Simcity? They were dark red to prevent photocopying. You had to match the symbols with the population and give them the name of the city (I think).
My Grandfather had a copy of the game that we both wanted so my grandmother and I spend an afternoon copying the damn sheet out onto graph paper. It was like a game then (I was...12?). I wouldn't be caught dead doing that now.
I find it interesting that when Maxis rereleased the game on CD they killed the protection. I almost would've liked them to include it for the history of it. Almost.
When I used Audiogalaxy it was specifically to get live recordings, mostly of artists with a pro-trading stance (Bruce Hornsby, lots of indie artists, etc). Since the settlement is opt-in not opt-out for the copyright holders, am I going to lose that access unless the 'copyright holders' (meaning the record companies 'acting on behalf of their artists, yes?) specifically say it's ok?
Piano music is essentially two things: How hard you hit a key and how long you hold it for, repeated for every depression of the key. That sounds clinical, but bear with me (I'm a pianist who's worked with midi far, far too much, so I'm a good guy).
Measuring the time the key is depressed is relatively simple until you take pedal mechanics into play. Then it's a helluva lot more than the up and down of the keys (Which is STILL more subtle than an on/off, true/false relationship anyway). You can strike a key with the pedal down and slowly release the pedal so the sound...it doesn't fade, it's more like it slowly dies if you can imagine the difference.
Here's the kicker. Key velocity. There are two major, glaring problems with the way the key pressure us measured.
1. The velocity is only measured when the key is struck. Therefore the velocity remains constant until the key is released - then it stops. How the sound fades, etc, depends on the makeup of the sound, not the mechanism of the recording itself You can have the greatest keyboard in the world, but if the piano sound you're using it with is badly done, you're sunk. (This is primarily a MIDI problem - I realize the system the article talks about is analog, sensors on strings, but that doesn't mean it's not an issue.)
Well, according to imdb Frank Oz didn't do Yoda's voice in this one, he was on the set only as a consultant.
Triv
fifth avenue
on
DRM Helmet
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Interesting point - Most of the facades of the major buildings on New York's fifth avenue (or practically anywhere else in the city, really) are copyrighted - film producers go through days worth of paperwork just to make sure the nuilding their shooting ouside of isn't protected.
What'd this helmet do to walking down the street? Would you have to buy the rights to your walk to work so you didn't get hurt, kinda like seatbelts Buy the rights - it's for your own protection?"
I realise it's a stretch and that people walk down the street all the time, but if there's one thing we've learned about the copyright industry it's that it's real good at pulling fast ones.
I havn't seen "the Young Ones" in years. I want it on DVD so badly I could burst. That, Red Dwarf, the New Statesman and the Brittas Empire is all I ask for.:)
wow, that brought back memories. When I was a practicing musician (I'm still a musician, I just don't practice) I used to see that all the time - music publishers put musicless pages in their scores with that written on it, the purpose being to elminate difficult page turns. Never seen it in a manual tho.
Careful buster.
This statement:
Combine that with the homeless degenerates that skulk about it for hours to escape the summer heat and it's not a place I'd consider leaving my kid alone in for a second.
and this one:
The library is a public accomodation, not your private accomodation to control or do with as you will.
don't jive. Libraries are public property, for the public benefit, be that benefit in the form of knowledge or air conditioning. Those "homeless degenerates" as you call them have as much of a right to be there as you or your kids do. I've ducked int the local library on swelteringly hot days to avoid the sun - does that make me a degenerate?
I'm not trying to beat you down, but that minor hypocracy kinda lept out at me. Information should be free to access by all. Yes. As someone else already quoted, not everyone owns a computer and a library is all about free access to information, just like some people can't afford books.
Just as information should be free and public, public spaces by definition should be free and open to anyone.
Sounds like enforced password formats and mandatory changing of passwords would help, but how many companies actually make them policy and enforce it
Mine did. Every 3 months our payroll server refused to let us in if we didn't send in a new Password, then and there. Same thing with the filesharing/print server. The cool thing is, they were staggered so that you've have to change one of your passwords every six weeks or so. Kept it regular, kept it part of routine.
FWIW, the New York No Call list works wonderfully - I went from getting 10(ish) calls a week to absolutely none.
But there's another trick - if you move around a bit, don't tell ANYONE where you're going. When I lived with the 'rents in Jersey I got lotsa calls (which is funny - I got a great professional rate deal for Time magazine when I was 15 because my father told them I was a psychiatrist. I guess they assumed I needed it for my waiting room or something) Anyway, when I moved to Queens I told the Phone Company, ConEd, and the NYTimes where I was going. Haven't been called or spammed since.
there's a great essay by Scott Carrier on this subject in his new book - s'called "Running After Antelope." I hightly recommend the book itself, let alone the essay.
my TiBook has a Matshita drive though.
Inidentally, Matshita's a wholly owned subsidiary of Panasonic. They made most Macintosh drives - My Slot-loading iMac's got a matdrive.:)
The "Phantom Menace" bootleg I saw on a friend's computer at college had turkish(?) subtitles. It was so cool - to my admittedly western eyes it made the damn thing look really alien.
MOST romance novels are printed in Mass Market (the little paperbacks that fall apart after you read 'em once) with a few exceptions. Interestingly enough, any romance author popular enough to print their novels in hardcover first REFUSES to be filed with the Romance books - Danielle Steele is filed in fiction.
Most hardcover fiction sales are new fiction. Most Mass Market sales are Romance - Romance makes up easily 3/4 of the paperback market. Sci-Fi is pretty much ignored. Flame on if you want, but I used to run the sci-fi section in the largest B&N in the country. Over time, you notice that the romance shelves need to be restocked a helluva lot more than anything else (the people who come in a sit it romance all day reading that crap always used to amaze me) and Sci-Fi hardly ever had to be touched. New Age and Astrology always looked like a bomb hit it come closing time as well.
Didn't I see something here awhile ago about someone trying to proove Schrodinger's Cat by locking a kitten in a boiler with a quickcam diligently watching the outside? Can't seem to find it tho.
I worked for a company for a month. They announced that they had been bought and were closing their NYC office (this was a bit of a shock - the company's been around for 148 years, and always headquartered in New York.) instead of canning us all immediately, they offered us our old wages until the office was officially closed, plus vacation, plus unemployment, plus a stay-pay bonus of 2 months pay for sticking it through to the end. The advantage? I guarantee that none of us who eventually got laid off has a single, bad thing to say about the company. T'was smart of them.
This series was doing ethics themes based on designer babies, corporate controlled media, brain scanning and more before some of us were capable of hitting record on the old VCR.
Ahem. Speak for yourself. I was the only person in my family who could Program the VCR. I was 4 years old. My dad still hasn't figured it out.
Anyone remember the original Batman movie (the Adam West one) where Penguin has his fingers encased in plastic to get into the Bad Cave? I know it was more complicated than that, but it was funny.
"I don't know who you are, so I'll take you to my super-secret hideaway to discover your identity. What, you're a super-villan? I never would've guessed. Your disguise was transparent but strangely effective."
In business, stored presentation data can be transmitted to a BluetoothTM-enabled printer or projector without the need of an intermediary PCs. When large volumes of data do have to be transferred to a PC, an integrated USB port can be used to optimize the speed of the transaction.
What, no firewire? I understand that it's s'posed to be wireless in the first place, but since they DO include a wired interface you'd think they'd use the fastest available one.
True: Most new music is targeted at the teeniebopper age group, and is therefore (mostly) unlistenable to other people.
True: There's no point in copy protecting a band no one's heard about. Celine Dion? Sure. Mike Errico? Jude Christodal? Accoustic Junction? Uhhhh...Who?
Therefore: any copy protected disc that hits the market is going to be from a HUGE artist, a HUGE label and be unlistenable.
I know the arguments - it's a stepping stone to universal copy protection, it's a violation of our rights, etc. I agree with all of that. BUT. For now it has less of a (musical) effect, so I prefer to see it as less dire. When they protect (insert favorite indie artist here) I'll throw a fit. But Backstreet? Sell it in a steel case that can't be opened without a blowtorch. I'd prefer ithat kind of protection anyway.
Tesla apparently figured out how to turn the entire planet into a giant battery so that, in order to get power, you'd simply stick a copper pole in the ground. He went to J.P. Morgan and asked for some cash to implement his idea. Morgan listened and then asked Tesla how exactly he was supposed to charge people for it.
:)
It's a shame he was so nuts (he lived in a hotel room filled with pigeons, hated spherical objects and was terrified of body hair) some of his ideas would've been wonderful to try, even if they didn't work. I mean, the guy invented the radio (marconi got the credit but Tesla got the patent):)
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention the fact that the Techie explains that their 'goo' contains sedatives to keep them under control. Dopemine, I believe.
Triv
Why why WHY does Speilberg have to blow most of his movies in the last 15 minutes? I was really into it until it all tied up in a big shiny bow. The bad guys are punished, the good guys come out on top and life is better. COME ON. Movies should tell you something, not BEAT you OVER the HEAD with a HAMMER with "The world is a better place" engraved on the handle.
Bah.
Triv
Anyone else remember the dark red code sheets that came with the original Simcity? They were dark red to prevent photocopying. You had to match the symbols with the population and give them the name of the city (I think).
My Grandfather had a copy of the game that we both wanted so my grandmother and I spend an afternoon copying the damn sheet out onto graph paper. It was like a game then (I was...12?). I wouldn't be caught dead doing that now.
I find it interesting that when Maxis rereleased the game on CD they killed the protection. I almost would've liked them to include it for the history of it. Almost.
Triv
When I used Audiogalaxy it was specifically to get live recordings, mostly of artists with a pro-trading stance (Bruce Hornsby, lots of indie artists, etc). Since the settlement is opt-in not opt-out for the copyright holders, am I going to lose that access unless the 'copyright holders' (meaning the record companies 'acting on behalf of their artists, yes?) specifically say it's ok?
That's a pain.
Triv
Piano music is essentially two things: How hard you hit a key and how long you hold it for, repeated for every depression of the key. That sounds clinical, but bear with me (I'm a pianist who's worked with midi far, far too much, so I'm a good guy).
Measuring the time the key is depressed is relatively simple until you take pedal mechanics into play. Then it's a helluva lot more than the up and down of the keys (Which is STILL more subtle than an on/off, true/false relationship anyway). You can strike a key with the pedal down and slowly release the pedal so the sound...it doesn't fade, it's more like it slowly dies if you can imagine the difference.
Here's the kicker. Key velocity. There are two major, glaring problems with the way the key pressure us measured.
1. The velocity is only measured when the key is struck. Therefore the velocity remains constant until the key is released - then it stops. How the sound fades, etc, depends on the makeup of the sound, not the mechanism of the recording itself You can have the greatest keyboard in the world, but if the piano sound you're using it with is badly done, you're sunk. (This is primarily a MIDI problem - I realize the system the article talks about is analog, sensors on strings, but that doesn't mean it's not an issue.)
Triv
Well, according to imdb Frank Oz didn't do Yoda's voice in this one, he was on the set only as a consultant.
Triv
Interesting point - Most of the facades of the major buildings on New York's fifth avenue (or practically anywhere else in the city, really) are copyrighted - film producers go through days worth of paperwork just to make sure the nuilding their shooting ouside of isn't protected.
What'd this helmet do to walking down the street? Would you have to buy the rights to your walk to work so you didn't get hurt, kinda like seatbelts Buy the rights - it's for your own protection?"
I realise it's a stretch and that people walk down the street all the time, but if there's one thing we've learned about the copyright industry it's that it's real good at pulling fast ones.
Triv
Ack!
:)
I havn't seen "the Young Ones" in years. I want it on DVD so badly I could burst. That, Red Dwarf, the New Statesman and the Brittas Empire is all I ask for.
(rik Mayall is sooooo cool)
triv
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wow, that brought back memories. When I was a practicing musician (I'm still a musician, I just don't practice) I used to see that all the time - music publishers put musicless pages in their scores with that written on it, the purpose being to elminate difficult page turns. Never seen it in a manual tho.
Triv
Careful buster. This statement: Combine that with the homeless degenerates that skulk about it for hours to escape the summer heat and it's not a place I'd consider leaving my kid alone in for a second.
and this one:
The library is a public accomodation, not your private accomodation to control or do with as you will.
don't jive. Libraries are public property, for the public benefit, be that benefit in the form of knowledge or air conditioning. Those "homeless degenerates" as you call them have as much of a right to be there as you or your kids do. I've ducked int the local library on swelteringly hot days to avoid the sun - does that make me a degenerate?
I'm not trying to beat you down, but that minor hypocracy kinda lept out at me. Information should be free to access by all. Yes. As someone else already quoted, not everyone owns a computer and a library is all about free access to information, just like some people can't afford books.
Just as information should be free and public, public spaces by definition should be free and open to anyone.
Triv
Sounds like enforced password formats and mandatory changing of passwords would help, but how many companies actually make them policy and enforce it
Mine did. Every 3 months our payroll server refused to let us in if we didn't send in a new Password, then and there. Same thing with the filesharing/print server. The cool thing is, they were staggered so that you've have to change one of your passwords every six weeks or so. Kept it regular, kept it part of routine.
Triv
FWIW, the New York No Call list works wonderfully - I went from getting 10(ish) calls a week to absolutely none.
But there's another trick - if you move around a bit, don't tell ANYONE where you're going. When I lived with the 'rents in Jersey I got lotsa calls (which is funny - I got a great professional rate deal for Time magazine when I was 15 because my father told them I was a psychiatrist. I guess they assumed I needed it for my waiting room or something) Anyway, when I moved to Queens I told the Phone Company, ConEd, and the NYTimes where I was going. Haven't been called or spammed since.
triv
there's a great essay by Scott Carrier on this subject in his new book - s'called "Running After Antelope." I hightly recommend the book itself, let alone the essay.
Triv
my TiBook has a Matshita drive though. Inidentally, Matshita's a wholly owned subsidiary of Panasonic. They made most Macintosh drives - My Slot-loading iMac's got a matdrive. :)
Triv
The "Phantom Menace" bootleg I saw on a friend's computer at college had turkish(?) subtitles. It was so cool - to my admittedly western eyes it made the damn thing look really alien.
triv
In Hardcover?
MOST romance novels are printed in Mass Market (the little paperbacks that fall apart after you read 'em once) with a few exceptions. Interestingly enough, any romance author popular enough to print their novels in hardcover first REFUSES to be filed with the Romance books - Danielle Steele is filed in fiction.
Most hardcover fiction sales are new fiction. Most Mass Market sales are Romance - Romance makes up easily 3/4 of the paperback market. Sci-Fi is pretty much ignored. Flame on if you want, but I used to run the sci-fi section in the largest B&N in the country. Over time, you notice that the romance shelves need to be restocked a helluva lot more than anything else (the people who come in a sit it romance all day reading that crap always used to amaze me) and Sci-Fi hardly ever had to be touched. New Age and Astrology always looked like a bomb hit it come closing time as well.
Triv
Triv
Didn't I see something here awhile ago about someone trying to proove Schrodinger's Cat by locking a kitten in a boiler with a quickcam diligently watching the outside? Can't seem to find it tho.
Triv
I worked for a company for a month. They announced that they had been bought and were closing their NYC office (this was a bit of a shock - the company's been around for 148 years, and always headquartered in New York.) instead of canning us all immediately, they offered us our old wages until the office was officially closed, plus vacation, plus unemployment, plus a stay-pay bonus of 2 months pay for sticking it through to the end. The advantage? I guarantee that none of us who eventually got laid off has a single, bad thing to say about the company. T'was smart of them.
Triv
This series was doing ethics themes based on designer babies, corporate controlled media, brain scanning and more before some of us were capable of hitting record on the old VCR.
Ahem. Speak for yourself. I was the only person in my family who could Program the VCR. I was 4 years old. My dad still hasn't figured it out.
Triv
Anyone remember the original Batman movie (the Adam West one) where Penguin has his fingers encased in plastic to get into the Bad Cave? I know it was more complicated than that, but it was funny.
"I don't know who you are, so I'll take you to my super-secret hideaway to discover your identity. What, you're a super-villan? I never would've guessed. Your disguise was transparent but strangely effective."
Triv
In business, stored presentation data can be transmitted to a BluetoothTM-enabled printer or projector without the need of an intermediary PCs. When large volumes of data do have to be transferred to a PC, an integrated USB port can be used to optimize the speed of the transaction.
What, no firewire? I understand that it's s'posed to be wireless in the first place, but since they DO include a wired interface you'd think they'd use the fastest available one.
triv
Or, if you'd like to dive in and use the terminal if you're uninitiated, head over to this article on O'reilly.net for a tutorial on crontab, etc.
Triv
I look at music copy protection this way:
True: Most new music is targeted at the teeniebopper age group, and is therefore (mostly) unlistenable to other people.
True: There's no point in copy protecting a band no one's heard about. Celine Dion? Sure. Mike Errico? Jude Christodal? Accoustic Junction? Uhhhh...Who?
Therefore: any copy protected disc that hits the market is going to be from a HUGE artist, a HUGE label and be unlistenable.
I know the arguments - it's a stepping stone to universal copy protection, it's a violation of our rights, etc. I agree with all of that. BUT. For now it has less of a (musical) effect, so I prefer to see it as less dire. When they protect (insert favorite indie artist here) I'll throw a fit. But Backstreet? Sell it in a steel case that can't be opened without a blowtorch. I'd prefer ithat kind of protection anyway.
Triv
goes something like this:
:)
:)
Tesla apparently figured out how to turn the entire planet into a giant battery so that, in order to get power, you'd simply stick a copper pole in the ground. He went to J.P. Morgan and asked for some cash to implement his idea. Morgan listened and then asked Tesla how exactly he was supposed to charge people for it.
It's a shame he was so nuts (he lived in a hotel room filled with pigeons, hated spherical objects and was terrified of body hair) some of his ideas would've been wonderful to try, even if they didn't work. I mean, the guy invented the radio (marconi got the credit but Tesla got the patent)
So...are these adverstories going to be labelled as such, or are we pulling a Yahoo! here?
Triv