Good call. There's a movie, "Mr. Frost," that I've been wanting to buy for a while. Last I checked, it wasn't available on anything but VHS. (I don't have a VCR.) If it were on DVD, or available for a pay download, I'd be all over it.
Same goes for music, except there's no good limited-use version of music.
However, I've purchased more CDs now that I can preview music than I ever did before. Amazon has the right idea with their track previews, but I want to hear it in decent quality before I commit to it.
If I could somehow preview good-quality music legally from the content producer, then I'd have no use for downloading illegal rips from p2p sources.
The audio provided on Tobin's site is an improvement from Amazon's usual fare, but it's still not CD-quality.
Regardless, Tobin's definitely on the right track. They're catching on to what the consumer wants...
Yeah. I find it impossible to find a station that plays Fluke, or the newest Amon Tobin stuff.
If it's out of the mainstream at all, your chances for hearing it on the radio plummet. That's why I don't listen to the radio - it never plays what I want to hear.
Shareware DOES work. Or maybe you mean unlimited-use shareware. Sure, that's less likely to bring in sales than normal shrink-wrapped software.
But publishers that release limited evaluation/shareware versions of programs and games are allowing everyone to kick the tires before plunking down $50 for a program. I've bought probably 20-30 shareware programs over the last 4 years. And many of those I wouldn't've purchased if I hadn't been able to evaluate them first.
Same goes for music, except there's no good limited-use version of music. However, I've purchased more CDs now that I can preview music than I ever did before. Amazon has the right idea with their track previews, but I want to hear it in decent quality before I commit to it.
If I could somehow preview good-quality music legally from the content producer, then I'd have no use for downloading illegal rips from p2p sources.
'Course, I'm also the guy that bought Photoshop when I graduated from college instead of using the warez version I'd been using up until then... so maybe I'm not the norm.
The newest experimental versions of the BitTorrent client allow you to throttle your upstream usage.
I don't have the problem very often on my cable connection, but the one time I experienced a major BT-related slowdown, I was quite annoyed - so I can empathize with your hatred.
Yeah, exactly. I'm all for this experimentation. But it's a fair bit less natural than breeding out Shetland ponies... so I think it warrants just a bit of caution. Not FUD.
Yeah you can. This is something that doesn't occur naturally. Selective breeding is different than jamming a jellyfish gene into a peppermint plant - peppermint and jellyfish would never, and can never, reproduce.
The unnatural quality of that makes me wonder about the other repercussions - the way that the genes interact.
The problem isn't with the added features , it's with the possible weaknesses that it adds.
Taking your Roundup example, maybe the new GM plants are susceptible to... potato bugs, or blight, or whatever - whereas the originals were not. If the GM crops took over the normal crops, you've introduced the possibility of disaster where there previously was none.
We have no way of knowing the full extent of the way different genes interact, and are arrogant if we think we do.
In case there are lots of people reading in Nested as opposed to Newest First, here's my attempt to reduce the slashdotting of the geology.heroy.smu.edu server:
For the record, it's not "koh-bee." It's kind of halfway between "koh-beh" and "koh-bay." Saying "koh-bee", rhymes with "flo-bee", will get you dirty looks at best, and thrown out of the restaurant at worst.
Ah, thanks for the pronunciation info.
Though I hope I might just get a mild correction instead of certain death.:) At least, that's what I try to do for fellow audiophiles that mispronounce brand names...
Yep, you're right. Kuru is another name for CJD. The main culprit in cannibalism (whether man or cow) is the brain tissue, where the protein fragments (prions) are in highest concentration. In fact, the human form was discovered in highest concentration (double-digit percentages, IIRC) among a tribe that still practiced cannibalism on death. The incidence of CJD/Kuru was quite a lot higher higher among the women... who were traditionally given the brain to eat.
There's also a version of Kuru in sheep called "scrapie," so-named because the affected animals lose enough of their lower brain functions that they will rub on things until a patch of skin is rubbed raw.
Re:Kobe (koh-bee)
on
Chicken Run
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
However, if fouled from the contents of the entrails (E. Coli), or comes from a cow infected with Mad Cow disease (transmitted via the spinal cord and brain), it can be dangerous.
Yeah. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. One of the creepier diseases out there. And the infectious agent is impervious to normal cooking methods.
I interned at a gelatine processing plant a few years ago. They didn't have anything for me to do for my first few days, so they gave me a book to read that had some bearing on the industry (I think it was this one, but I can't recall for sure). It detailed BSE and it's human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Wow. It's the stuff of nightmares - you lose your mind slowly, there's no known treatment, it can't be easily detected, the prions (damaged proteins that are the carriers) are indestructible, etc... No wonder the US cut off imports from Canada when a single infected cow was discovered in Canada.
Worst part, CJD can have an "incubation" period of years.
When they actually find a treatment for the disease, I'll be quite fascinated to know how it works.
I remember seeing it on Food Network... The guy they were interviewing was happy to eat a bit of it raw, which the food reporter and cameraman watched with some apparent amazement. I've tried raw steak, and unfortunately it tastes pretty much like it smells - not too enticing. So to be enjoyable, that stuff must be dramatically different. Or maybe I didn't add enough salt.
But the nVidia driver also substituted a shader for one of the water effects, which degraded/modified the image quality.
And past history has shown that companies are willing to sacrifice quality for performance (see ATI's Radeon 8500 drivers and Quake 3 for an example)... It's almost like this is a cold war, of sorts, between the testers/benchmarkers and the card manufacturers.
I was going to set up a BitTorrent tracker on my home machine last night, just for situations like this... I got Python installed, but then I got distracted. If I'd only known then that it would have been required today...
Yeah, here's a mirror of that 760k file - though it won't be up for long, since I've only got 1.9 GB of transfer left for this month. Be nice and download the zip or the bzip2'd version instead, if you're able.
I meant to say, they can add "optimizations" for other applications as well. Quake III is a notorious target for "optimizations". As the report said, the drivers can even detect when you're really playing the game as opposed to running a benchmark, and adjust visual quality appropriately. Nothing is safe from these... though your original point of diversifying could help.
Slashdot Mirror
Good call. There's a movie, "Mr. Frost," that I've been wanting to buy for a while.
Last I checked, it wasn't available on anything but VHS. (I don't have a VCR.)
If it were on DVD, or available for a pay download, I'd be all over it.
I like your OIPM digital library idea.
I suppose that depends on your definition of "worked".
I don't think that shareware is pirated any more (or less) than regular commercial software.
So I've really just resigned myself to accepting that not everyone is as honest as I am when it comes to software and music.
I just wish that I could continue to use it for my own eventually-legal methods.
The audio provided on Tobin's site is an improvement from Amazon's usual fare, but it's still not CD-quality.
Regardless, Tobin's definitely on the right track.
They're catching on to what the consumer wants...
Yeah. I find it impossible to find a station that plays Fluke, or the newest Amon Tobin stuff.
If it's out of the mainstream at all, your chances for hearing it on the radio plummet.
That's why I don't listen to the radio - it never plays what I want to hear.
Shareware DOES work.
Or maybe you mean unlimited-use shareware. Sure, that's less likely to bring in sales than normal shrink-wrapped software.
But publishers that release limited evaluation/shareware versions of programs and games are allowing everyone to kick the tires before plunking down $50 for a program.
I've bought probably 20-30 shareware programs over the last 4 years. And many of those I wouldn't've purchased if I hadn't been able to evaluate them first.
Same goes for music, except there's no good limited-use version of music.
However, I've purchased more CDs now that I can preview music than I ever did before.
Amazon has the right idea with their track previews, but I want to hear it in decent quality before I commit to it.
If I could somehow preview good-quality music legally from the content producer, then I'd have no use for downloading illegal rips from p2p sources.
'Course, I'm also the guy that bought Photoshop when I graduated from college instead of using the warez version I'd been using up until then... so maybe I'm not the norm.
The newest experimental versions of the BitTorrent client allow you to throttle your upstream usage.
I don't have the problem very often on my cable connection, but the one time I experienced a major BT-related slowdown, I was quite annoyed - so I can empathize with your hatred.
Here's the link to the experimental client:
http://ei.kefro.st/projects/btclient/
Yeah, exactly.
I'm all for this experimentation. But it's a fair bit less natural than breeding out Shetland ponies... so I think it warrants just a bit of caution. Not FUD.
Yeah you can. This is something that doesn't occur naturally.
Selective breeding is different than jamming a jellyfish gene into a peppermint plant - peppermint and jellyfish would never, and can never, reproduce.
The unnatural quality of that makes me wonder about the other repercussions - the way that the genes interact.
The problem isn't with the added features , it's with the possible weaknesses that it adds.
Taking your Roundup example, maybe the new GM plants are susceptible to... potato bugs, or blight, or whatever - whereas the originals were not.
If the GM crops took over the normal crops, you've introduced the possibility of disaster where there previously was none.
We have no way of knowing the full extent of the way different genes interact, and are arrogant if we think we do.
In case there are lots of people reading in Nested as opposed to Newest First, here's my attempt to reduce the slashdotting of the geology.heroy.smu.edu server:
BitTorrent link to a tarball of the nBot movies:
http://www.mskf.org/nbot-movies.torrent
Here's a BitTorrent link to a tarball of the nBot movies:
http://www.mskf.org/nbot-movies.torrent
I'm running it on my own tracker, so my apologies in advance if it blows up or doesn't work.
Though I hope I might just get a mild correction instead of certain death.
At least, that's what I try to do for fellow audiophiles that mispronounce brand names...
Yep, you're right. Kuru is another name for CJD.
The main culprit in cannibalism (whether man or cow) is the brain tissue, where the protein fragments (prions) are in highest concentration.
In fact, the human form was discovered in highest concentration (double-digit percentages, IIRC) among a tribe that still practiced cannibalism on death. The incidence of CJD/Kuru was quite a lot higher higher among the women... who were traditionally given the brain to eat.
There's also a version of Kuru in sheep called "scrapie," so-named because the affected animals lose enough of their lower brain functions that they will rub on things until a patch of skin is rubbed raw.
Yeah. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. One of the creepier diseases out there.
And the infectious agent is impervious to normal cooking methods.
I interned at a gelatine processing plant a few years ago. They didn't have anything for me to do for my first few days, so they gave me a book to read that had some bearing on the industry (I think it was this one, but I can't recall for sure). It detailed BSE and it's human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob
Disease.
Wow. It's the stuff of nightmares - you lose your mind slowly, there's no known treatment, it can't be easily detected, the prions (damaged proteins that are the carriers) are indestructible, etc... No wonder the US cut off imports from Canada when a single infected cow was discovered in Canada.
Worst part, CJD can have an "incubation" period of years.
When they actually find a treatment for the disease, I'll be quite fascinated to know how it works.
Kobe beef.
I remember seeing it on Food Network... The guy they were interviewing was happy to eat a bit of it raw, which the food reporter and cameraman watched with some apparent amazement.
I've tried raw steak, and unfortunately it tastes pretty much like it smells - not too enticing. So to be enjoyable, that stuff must be dramatically different.
Or maybe I didn't add enough salt.
In terms of the clipping planes, you're right.
But the nVidia driver also substituted a shader for one of the water effects, which degraded/modified the image quality.
And past history has shown that companies are willing to sacrifice quality for performance (see ATI's Radeon 8500 drivers and Quake 3 for an example)...
It's almost like this is a cold war, of sorts, between the testers/benchmarkers and the card manufacturers.
my 5.7 GB of recently-acquired X-Men comics would disagree with you.
Well, you know, if they were sentient, and all.
I was going to set up a BitTorrent tracker on my home machine last night, just for situations like this... I got Python installed, but then I got distracted. If I'd only known then that it would have been required today...
Yeah, here's a mirror of that 760k file - though it won't be up for long, since I've only got 1.9 GB of transfer left for this month.
Be nice and download the zip or the bzip2'd version instead, if you're able.
I meant to say, they can add "optimizations" for other applications as well. Quake III is a notorious target for "optimizations".
As the report said, the drivers can even detect when you're really playing the game as opposed to running a benchmark, and adjust visual quality appropriately.
Nothing is safe from these... though your original point of diversifying could help.
Wrong - as they point out in the article, these "optimizations" are usually reductions in quality. They don't just improve performance.
I almost got the impression that he'd been driven slightly mad by the whole process - like it wasn't perfectly done, so his mind was falling apart.
Creepy to have him on the ship, regardless.