Yet another way for the veterans affairs office to waste taxpayers dollars.
http://fnonsl.fantasy-net.net/category/vet-center ^^^__Did you know the VA hospital owns property in second life? They're going to build virtual ski slopes for the legless vets to ski down. Woohoo!
Kind of reminds me of the carlin skit "Dollys for froggys"
I don't know why I have an odd fascination with this little java game There are no puzzles there are no goals it's not quite a painting program but it's not quite a game either
Looking at the videos, does anyone notice the racers resemble the Swordfish II from Cowboy Bebop? (Follow the link below if you don't know wtf i'm talking about)
Maybe it's not a 100% match, but it's sort of interesting how the designers of Bebop knew that a rocket propelled plane would have to have a mid cantelliver wing design, with the wings being mounted to the rear of the craft with little to no delta sweeping.
Managing a million lines of code that controls a device that will forever change how humanity views itself and the universe. No, the universe doesn't revolve around the earth. There is life out there, and there is no god.
Heh it was the exact opposite for me. My wife isn't exactly a night owl, so the first few months when the baby had to be fed every two hours I'd stay up till dawn playing WoW with my daughter parked by my side.
Only problem with this playstyle is it limited what I could do in WoW. No more 4 hour grinds, let alone trying to find players to raid with at the later hours. Eventually I just gave up on WoW and went back to FPS gaming. I got so bored with FPS gaming that I went back and started cleaning some of the CSS on some of my old websites.
To play "Trace the picture of the doggy" or "The $10,000 Pyramid"
I'm not knockin the interface, it's great, but if I went to any 12 year old it would bore them to tears after 1 minute, with them whining "Can we play another game?"
Here's an idea. Give some OLPC's to kids in 3rd world countries. Teach them to read, then pay them $0.01 per problem they solve. Then sell your DB of solutions to Google for $0.03 a solution.
EMU was a really cool synth company in Scotts Valley creative bought out a few years back. The EMU line became the "Professional" series of cards from creative.
Well, Creative never really marketed them to the right people, and the entire EMU line is about to be dropped from Creative. They've shut down the scotts valley office completely, let at least 40 people go, and at some point in the not too distant future they're going to get out of the sound card business completely and stick to stuff like making speakers, Ipod docking stations, etc.
Now I know a ton of folks from the EMU side. One of the things that ticked off a lot of them was the EMU10k chip and the driver support. EMU10k was used in just about every creative product before the Xfi chip. With the EMU line of cards though you got some really enhanced drivers, and a awesome mixing application called patchmix.
From the folks i've talked to there's no reason Patchmix couldn't have run on lets say a SBLive card. The 1820m and the SBlive both use the same EMU10k chip. The only difference between the interfaces was the EMU has nicer mic pre-amps and A2D converters. EMU folks wanted it. Creative decided it would be better to make a split between "Home" and "Pro" use then charge a premium for the pro version.
Which is really sad because if creative had included patchmix support on the lower end cards, it would have lead to more home studio use. If everyone is using patchmix at home on a SBLive card, every pro studio out there would have bought a EMU card just for patchmix, since it would have been a home standard.
I don't know anyone currently employed by creative. Everyone I know has quit or been fired in the last year. My guess is the people at creative bitching about this guy breaking thier copyright by making the drivers work on vista are just doing some "make busy" work to avoid the inevitable which is creative is getting out of the sound card business.
People might wonder why this is happening. Bunch of reason, mostly on board sound has killed them. M-Audio is kicking thier ass in the "Pro" line of sound cards, which is why EMU in scotts valley got shut down.
Supposidly the company is doing thier best to become a logitec. Really sad, seeing as how creative was the company that gave birth to sound on the PC.
Here's a statement from a guy that deals with both sexes at the core of thier honest drunkness when it comes to getting what they want. In this case, it mostly happens when our playlist is so full we cannot take anymore requests.
Guys will typically flash cash, or they'll do a intimidation display (beating thier chest) to get what they want. Girls on the other hand will flirt, pout, or use some other form of sexual display.
So when a slobbering drunk girl is pouting at me, bent over the booth, cleavage showing, saying "PLEASE MR KARAOKE MAN! LET ME HAVE ONE MORE SONG!" You mean to tell me as a male i'm misreading what she's trying to communicate?
She's trying to tell me "I'll fuck your brains out of this world if you let me sing." 99% of the women will pretend this is thier offer, but never deliver. (Yes, there's a small maybe even less than 1% that would deliver. (Cue up the "TOQER PLZ INTRO ME jokes now)
Just because a woman has no intent on fullfilling the message she's projecting, it doesn't diminish the fact that she *IS* trying to get that message across. It could be cleavage, it could me smiling and acting all cute, it could be putting thier arm around you, women have a lot of body language things they can do to convey it.
Not all men can tell the difference either. In fact, I'd say the majority can't. It's not fair to lump all us men together as one chauvenist mass though because women are trying to decieve us. Who's worse? The dumb man that can't tell the difference, or the salacious seductructress using her false (read lying) sexual messages?
And maybe I just don't know WTF i'm talking about because I have a skewed view of the world based on where I work, but I did work in desktop support in corporate enviroments for many years prior (think netware, early.com, NT3.51 days) I used to see women use the very same techniques at work to size new hires up, or get guys to help them on projects, or whatever. I think this is pre-programmed into us from our primate ancestors (ever see female chimps in heat with the swollen red asses? How about the bonobo chimps trading sex for food, etc.)
My wife is a very paranoid lady when it comes to other women. I think deep down inside all women know that all other women use sexual body cues in the same way. I used to think my wife was nuts when she would be all jealous of other girls standing around me, but after 14 years of her giving me cues I can sort of spot what's going on now too.
I believe a lot of this behavior is going to end at my generation. We didn't have this tharn intarnet in the 70's when I was born. I believe that the net, womens sufferage, and globalization has lead to a balancing out of the genders (at least here in the US) We are really on the verge of having a woman president, and that says a lot for how much gender roles have changed in this country. A lot of men (like me) had to take what jobs they could in 2001 between the layoffs and 9/11. I'm not the breadwinner in my household anymore, and i'm OK with that.
I look forward to it. It's got to be better than the message tradition beliefs and pop culture has tried to teach us. Western Christianity has typically conveyed that the man is in a dominant role, and the woman is a sexual toy/servant/baby launcher. I think the best balance is a true partnership, but so many women, men are running around ignorantly trying to assert thier gender role that they don't learn that till many years down the road.
There's also another side to this and that's the pop culture aspect. How many of you have watch Margeret Cho and Andrew Dice Clay?
I've known girls that follow Cho like she's Jesus, and guys follow ADC like he's uhh I dunno, Jesus? I'm sure other folks have seen the same. People a
What are they going to do, encase the entire reactor in a giant epoxy glob? Humans have a knack for being able to open things (opposable thumbs, reasoning, abstract thinking)
I understand AC has it's transmission limits, so lets backpedal a bit here.
Put the reactor under the ocean at some insane depth near the 3rd world country, and run undersea cables to the shore.
That's what this software means to achieve: Use stuff you've bought legally, in the way YOU want it
DRM is the result of mass pirating, not the other way around. Remember when we had things on non-drm CD's? We had these things called "Brick and Mortar" CD stores. The Wherehouse, Tower Records, all wiped out.
I've compiled some charts based on 2 factual sources in regards to karaoke . You're more than welcome to dispute the facts any way you want, but please show sources.
My two sources are. NAMM Global music reports. Namm is considered to be the definitive resource for music sales info. Microsoft Netscan. Netscan provides statistics on newsgroups. I took a sampling of the newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.karaoke
It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on. You can see that pre AI(American Idol) karaoke had some decent yearly sales which were on a nice upward trend. The volume of posts in alt.binaries.sounds.karaoke was not really epic. Then came AI in 2002.
What happened was a shift in karaoke's popularity. Post count almost quadrupaled. Now sure, you can say "Oh karaoke just apexed" but that's bullshit because AI is still on the air with a ton of copycats. Not only that, there are more karaoke shows now than ever before. What was once considered *just* a Japanese oddity was now cool with most Americans. The post count would decrease if suddenly millions of people just suddenly decide "Oh karaoke is lame, I don't want to do it no more".
Let's get back to the subject of DRM though....
People are responsible for thier own behavior, but what technology has done is to aid in anonymizing copyright infringement. It's the old addage, "Would you do it if you knew you couldn't get caught?"
Do I mind DRM? Not at all. I have a napster account I pay $10@mo for. I listen to what I want, when I want. I have a really nice Jazz radio station (KCSM) in the car. I can access Napster from home or work.
Right now publishers are in a bind. If DRM isn't the answer, then what is the answer to stop people from anonymously stealing music? Education? Ha, don't make me laugh.
My friend is in charge of writing drivers for a pretty famous hardware company. He's been there 11 years. Can't/won't say who but i'm sure everyone replying in the thread has used their products at least once.
Before Vista's release (before any OS release) MS invites the people in charge of driver development from major companies up to redmond. They put them up in a nice hotel, all expenses paid trip. While they're there MS gives each dev a guest pass to the MS store.
The guest pass allows them to spend only a certain dollar amount at the store. In his case, it was $150. He got me 2 copies of XP, and I think some stuff for his other friends/family while he was there.
I just compared EULA's from my $99 Fry's copy of XP to the EULA's from the ones from the MS store. They're identicle. The only difference is my MS store copies came in a box, while my Fry's copy was just a scint manual and CD encased in shrinkwrap.
I saw a lot of "OMG YOU'RE VIOLATED" replies to my original post. I guess this makes those moot.
Figured i'd respond to yours, it'd space things out a bit between posts.
And how many of those were just people who legally bought a new PC with Windows preinstalled on it
Try none?
These types of customers were the worst. Always wanting cheaper cheaper cheaper. If they needed a "new" PC i'd first suggest going new dell, and if that was shot down i'd source quality parts, and they would ALWAYS pull crap at the last minute like "Oh my brother in law can build it cheaper". I'd sit there and explain things like, "If you buy a genuine intel motherboard, it's not hard to find drivers or updates, and they run solid" The brother in law would always end up getting some crap mobo that would constantly crash/bluescreen/whatever. Finding out who made the Mobo was even worse, i'd always end up having to track them down through their FCC #, and even that was a deadend sometimes.
The other nightmarish shit I had to deal with was the "Ebay" client. This guy always had to buy his stuff from Ebay. It would arrive not working, 1/2 working, missing parts and what not and it was always up to me to fix it.
Ok, here's where we get into some other nagging issues I had with these guys...
You buy crap hardware that breaks constantly or causes blue screens, then send that crap out to your employees that have to work with it all day who's the first person they're going to call? The IT guy right?
So I would get calls on the same problems. "Toqer why does it blue screen?" I'd do the usual defrag, scandisk, canned air to the case. It wasn't really my fault that their boss bought crap hardware and ran pirated software on it, but the employees still needed some sort of consolation that these problems were not thier fault.
"Toqer why am I paying for the same thing 5 times?" was what one lawyer customer would ask me. "Shouldn't you have fixed it right the first time so it didn't break and additional 4?"
Heh, I remember that day pretty clearly. I looked him square in the eye and told him, "I don't care if you no longer want my services for being honest, but I warned you that buying crap hardware would result in this situation. You have nobody to blame except your cheapness for this."
Anyways, again, to reiterate my original point, the type of people that refuse to pay for software / pirate it are the same type of people I don't want to do business with. They just have a fucked up sense of entitlement, like they're doing you a favor by breathing.
This is a slightly different slant on the other article, but it's funny how this comment about cheap clients plays into this new article.
So the IT guy leaves and rats out the business for stealing software. First thing that pops into my head is it must have been some pretty fucked up bosses to work for to motivate someone to take it as far as snitching.
Of course, i'm going to get the normal "OMFG YOU'RE NOT A SLASH FANBOI!" dipshit comments from this.. Bring em.
Maybe if these bosses didn't value their employees as low as the software they steal, there wouldn't be a problem with them quitting and going to the BSA.
I've mostly worked in desktop support for over 1/3rd of my life so far. I don't do cubicles or offices anymore unless it's a favor for someone that's not going to be a pain in the ass, or ask me to do back breaking work (like breaking my back lifting an 200lb IBM netfinity server onto a rack). No no, those days are over.
Over those years though I can't recount how many times a customer would need a windows re-install, or an office re-install, whatever. I'd ask for the original CD and they'd tell me "Don't you have a copy?"
The "Don't you just have a copy?" people were the same people that would nag and haggle me on my billing, like it was some sort of open air arab market, instead of a indoor air conditioned "professional" workplace.
These days i've all but quit doing IT type support, cept for a few special cases. My current business/company uses windows, and i've gotten legit copies from various places. A few programmer friends got me copies of XP from the MS employee store for $35 each, which I have running on 2 machines. I also purchased a copy for another machine for $99. The rest of the machines at my business are running Linux.
Open Office does fine for me.
Maybe because I started off in IT and knew what type jerks steal stuff, I made a personal choice that I didn't want to be like them.
I dunno, maybe you could make it run on DC...Prolly could get away with a power inverter. Still though, would you don't really want moving parts and it's a lame way to do it.
Ok games related stub, but i'm going to use karaoke as an example since that's what I work with.
Karaoke fair use is a subject of hot debate between singers, KJ's (Karaoke Jocks) and karaoke manufactuers. Basically guys like me (1 man shows) are considered "commercial". Therefore fair use doesn't apply to us. This whole argument extends not just to karaoke, but music and gaming as well.
Am I allowed to make a copy of my discs for archive purposes? This is one of the most confusing issues involving copyrighted music. It is also one of the arguments often presented by those who want to break the copyright laws. This entire issue revolves around the definition of the class of copyrighted material. By law, you are permitted to make an archive copy of "Software" class copyrighted material. However, music (including Karaoke CDGs) is part of the "Phonorecord" class of copyrighted materials. Archive copies are not permitted in this class. So, no, you may not make an archive copy of your Karaoke discs.
Some of the most prominent karaoke companies want to see the practice of PC based karaoke outlawed. Doesn't matter if you're pirating or not.
Now for a counterpoint from an IP lawyer. http://ipjustice.org/wp/2007/02/22/karaoke_legal_myths/ TRUTH: While a commercial use weighs against fair use, copyright law permits copying a CDG disc in a number of commercial circumstances. Commercial use, does not by itself, determine if it is an illegal use.
I'm all for a new law that promotes fair use, but the one question I have in mind is will it protect guys like me. Will fair use extend to both personal and "Commerical".
Re:I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy
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RIAA Sues Usenet.com
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· Score: 1
Wow 25 replies. I'm going to respond to anyone with a +3 score. Won't waste my time on the anons and trolls.
SomeJoel: Agreed. I recently saw an episode of Boondocks last week that parodied this. The freeman family was at the theater, with camcorders. At the beggining was an MPAA commercial about piracy. It showed a little old lady getting mugged, and the caption "YOU'LL GET THE SAME PUNISHMENT FOR PIRACY AS YOU WOULD MUGGING A LADY!"
I thought to myself that wasn't cool at all. I agree, the punishment should be equal to the crime. Maybe for the folks making tons of $$$ it should be the same punishment as mugging, but for some 12yro kid, nah.
Jugalator : Perve:)
kindbud:
Cool name:) Ok, lets play logic here. I own a house, and I know someone is running a meth lab, or storing stolen goods. Or let's say I know about a murder but don't say anything about it. Usenet.com knows what's on their servers, which as much as I love technology, I hate to say they're an accomplice.
E-mail is different. The messages aren't public.
These last few answers are for all the folks below +3.
Price: Karaoke costs more to license and has a thinner profit margin than the original songs do. I could put together a compilation CD of dance hits, and make way more money on that than I would "Karaoke dance hits" simply because more people just listen to music than karaoke. Karaoke is a small fish in a big pond.
The "I don't like you for your $500b comment guy": Hey, seriously, i'd hope our.gov would be smarter than that to waste all that money on combating karaoke piracy. I'd rather see things like they were in Clinton years.
Everyone else: Thanks for reading, commenting.
--toqer
I've seen the trickle down effects of piracy
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RIAA Sues Usenet.com
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Take a look at that old man in the middle of this picture. He's my boss. He owns a karaoke bar in San Jose California called the 7 Bamboo.
This guy has been doing karaoke a loooong time. Up until 2002 and American idol, karaoke was sort of frowned on by most Americans. Then AI came out and there was a sudden surge in karaoke's popularity.
I did some screenshots of the Namm global music report in that article. I'll just summarize, basically the entire karaoke industry is making less money now than it was 10 years ago in 1997.
Myself, i've seen our business hurt by piracy. Before 2002, we were some quirky little Japanese karaoke bar, pretty much one of maybe 4 karaoke venues in San Jose, but between 2002 and 2004 we saw a sharp decline in attendance, and a sharp growth in karaoke venues and it's been a constant uphill battle to keep customers coming back.
I made a choice to not pirate karaoke at our club. We have about 7000 songs in our collection. This in in contrast to the 10-15 venues that have popped up in our area with anywhere between 50,000-150,000 songs.
Karaoke is expensive. About $2 a track. So somebody please tell me, with a straight face how these new guys that just popped out of nowhere suddenly have a $300,000 karaoke collection. Fact is, they don't.
It's still competition for us. Everyone that works at 7bamboo makes less money because of it. Less tips, less sales, less everything, but more work.
Look at the face of that old man and tell me that usenet.com is in the right by enabling these people to screw his business over with competition running on pirated songs. The business he and his wife built was in jeopardy until I came along and gave it a hot beef injection of technology.
Fortunately for them, and the rest of the 7b's employees, I can keep the place on the bleeding edge of karaoke technology without resorting to piracy. Still though, I think my time would have been better spent doing more worldly things.
Personally, I hope the RIAA wins this one. Don't mod me a troll for voicing this opinion either, because since when has someone voicing a legitimate, validated opinion considered trolling.
It's just not fair. Karaoke CD's have to be ripped carefully at 1x, so i've put over 400 manhours into ripping our 300 original CDG's. A pirate can suck off a newsgroup and have 7000 songs in a few hours. Given a few days, they'll have a 40-50k+ collection.
BTW RIAA if you're reading this, look into alt.binaries.sounds.karaoke. Shut that one down first, plzktnx.
Karaoke is about 10 years behind the music industry, we *just* started getting PC based karaoke systems rolling.
2 karaoke companies have decided that copying a karaoke disc to your PC isn't covered under fair use laws. Below are their press statements.
ANTI-PIRACY CAMPAIGN STATEMENT 12/28/06
Stellar Records in a collaborative effort with some of its clients, customers, law enforcement agencies, and in some cases even its competitors has stepped up its campaign against piracy. As part of this campaign, Stellar will be directing much of its attention at the venue level and soon will be taking steps to notify suspected venues as to the potential risks and hazards involved when using unauthorized copies of Stellar Records products.
Stellar Records, its customers, clients as well as several of its legitimate competitors have been damaged considerably through the illegal copying and distribution of their products, as well as other acts of piracy, some of which pertain to the violation of trademarks that are also the property of Stellar Records.
Prior to pursuing any further action, we do recognize the possibility that at least some venues may not be aware of these violations and may be engaging in these activities unknowingly. Hopefully this communication will provide the information necessary in helping to determine if the use of a Stellar Records product is authorized, or in any way infringes on its copyrights and/or trademarks. At the very least, we hope this will provide the impetus to seek legal advice on these matters before continuing to engage in these practices.
To be more specific, it has been brought to our attention that there are several venues in the Phoenix and Scottsdale area that have been promoting karaoke shows which are using unauthorized copies of karaoke products either directly through the use of in-house systems or vicariously through the contracting or employment of KJ/DJ hosts and/or hosting companies. Some of these products have been identified as karaoke products containing the copyrights and/or trademarks of Stellar Records including products bearing the trademarks " Pop Hits Monthly", "Top Hits Monthly", or "Stellar Records". In addition it has been suggested that there could be other products containing Stellar Records' copyrights and/or trademarks being illegally distributed, and an investigation is currently under way in an effort to identify those products as well.
In order to assist those in determining what constitutes an unauthorized use of Stellar Records' products, please be advised that Stellar does not support nor does it have the authority to support (due to contractual limitations in its licensing agreements with various publishers) any device which stores, and/or plays karaoke products from a hard drive or any device other than a device that plays directly from a CD+G disc. For example products include but are not limited to the CAVS JB199 as well as the RSQ-500 when play back is not directly from a CD+G disc. There are a number of software based products as well like MTU's Hoster, PCDJ, CompuHost, TriceraSoft, Sax N Dotty Show Hoster, and Dart just to mention a few, when play back is not directly from a CD+G disc.
Stellar Records does empathize with the concerns of some of its customers who may want to make copies of their legally purchased products for the purposes of making back-ups or to rip them onto a hard drive in a more convenient format. However we do not have the authority to grant anyone the right to do so. Most if not all of our karaoke products contain the copyrights owned by parties other than Stellar, namely the writers, authors and/or publishers of the work (song) itself to which we must seek prior approval for use in producing our final karaoke products. The licenses and/or approvals that we secure from these publishers do not include the right to distribute t
I thought for a long time how great geothermal must be, then I thought about the possible drawbacks and long term effects.
For instance, ever heat glass up and shove it in a tub of water? It shatters. Rock 3 miles under the earth, under pressure from all the rock above it, and heated from the core is probably just as brittle as glass. The article did mention earthquakes.
Also what effect would this have on the magma flows below the rocks? I would imagine a geothermal cooled area might create stalagtites around the cooled area, much like the lava vents on the bottom of the sea floor, but in reverse. These cool stalagtites spread all over the earth would certainly have an effect on the magma flow.
With the magma flow change, what effect would that have on the Earths magnetosphere? What about other volcanic areas? Would they suddenly dry up because we're sucking the heat out from somewhere else?
On the surface geothermal looks great, but what about underneath the surface? We don't even know if there is long term effects at this point.
Slashdot Mirror
Yet another way for the veterans affairs office to waste taxpayers dollars.
http://fnonsl.fantasy-net.net/category/vet-center
^^^__Did you know the VA hospital owns property in second life? They're going to build virtual ski slopes for the legless vets to ski down. Woohoo!
Kind of reminds me of the carlin skit "Dollys for froggys"
http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/
I don't know why
I have an odd fascination
with this little java game
There are no puzzles
there are no goals
it's not quite a painting program
but it's not quite a game either
Looking at the videos, does anyone notice the racers resemble the Swordfish II from Cowboy Bebop? (Follow the link below if you don't know wtf i'm talking about)
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w239/PetarB/Sideup.jpg
Maybe it's not a 100% match, but it's sort of interesting how the designers of Bebop knew that a rocket propelled plane would have to have a mid cantelliver wing design, with the wings being mounted to the rear of the craft with little to no delta sweeping.
Managing a million lines of code that controls a device that will forever change how humanity views itself and the universe. No, the universe doesn't revolve around the earth. There is life out there, and there is no god.
Heh it was the exact opposite for me. My wife isn't exactly a night owl, so the first few months when the baby had to be fed every two hours I'd stay up till dawn playing WoW with my daughter parked by my side.
Only problem with this playstyle is it limited what I could do in WoW. No more 4 hour grinds, let alone trying to find players to raid with at the later hours. Eventually I just gave up on WoW and went back to FPS gaming. I got so bored with FPS gaming that I went back and started cleaning some of the CSS on some of my old websites.
To play "Trace the picture of the doggy" or "The $10,000 Pyramid"
I'm not knockin the interface, it's great, but if I went to any 12 year old it would bore them to tears after 1 minute, with them whining "Can we play another game?"
Here's an idea. Give some OLPC's to kids in 3rd world countries. Teach them to read, then pay them $0.01 per problem they solve. Then sell your DB of solutions to Google for $0.03 a solution.
EMU was a really cool synth company in Scotts Valley creative bought out a few years back. The EMU line became the "Professional" series of cards from creative.
Well, Creative never really marketed them to the right people, and the entire EMU line is about to be dropped from Creative. They've shut down the scotts valley office completely, let at least 40 people go, and at some point in the not too distant future they're going to get out of the sound card business completely and stick to stuff like making speakers, Ipod docking stations, etc.
Now I know a ton of folks from the EMU side. One of the things that ticked off a lot of them was the EMU10k chip and the driver support. EMU10k was used in just about every creative product before the Xfi chip. With the EMU line of cards though you got some really enhanced drivers, and a awesome mixing application called patchmix.
From the folks i've talked to there's no reason Patchmix couldn't have run on lets say a SBLive card. The 1820m and the SBlive both use the same EMU10k chip. The only difference between the interfaces was the EMU has nicer mic pre-amps and A2D converters. EMU folks wanted it. Creative decided it would be better to make a split between "Home" and "Pro" use then charge a premium for the pro version.
Which is really sad because if creative had included patchmix support on the lower end cards, it would have lead to more home studio use. If everyone is using patchmix at home on a SBLive card, every pro studio out there would have bought a EMU card just for patchmix, since it would have been a home standard.
I don't know anyone currently employed by creative. Everyone I know has quit or been fired in the last year. My guess is the people at creative bitching about this guy breaking thier copyright by making the drivers work on vista are just doing some "make busy" work to avoid the inevitable which is creative is getting out of the sound card business.
People might wonder why this is happening. Bunch of reason, mostly on board sound has killed them. M-Audio is kicking thier ass in the "Pro" line of sound cards, which is why EMU in scotts valley got shut down.
Supposidly the company is doing thier best to become a logitec. Really sad, seeing as how creative was the company that gave birth to sound on the PC.
I've worked for a karaoke bar called the 7 Bamboo since 2001. Here's some video clips of the mayhem.
.com, NT3.51 days) I used to see women use the very same techniques at work to size new hires up, or get guys to help them on projects, or whatever. I think this is pre-programmed into us from our primate ancestors (ever see female chimps in heat with the swollen red asses? How about the bonobo chimps trading sex for food, etc.)
http://uncutvideo.aol.com/users/sevenbamboovideo
Here's a statement from a guy that deals with both sexes at the core of thier honest drunkness when it comes to getting what they want. In this case, it mostly happens when our playlist is so full we cannot take anymore requests.
Guys will typically flash cash, or they'll do a intimidation display (beating thier chest) to get what they want. Girls on the other hand will flirt, pout, or use some other form of sexual display.
So when a slobbering drunk girl is pouting at me, bent over the booth, cleavage showing, saying "PLEASE MR KARAOKE MAN! LET ME HAVE ONE MORE SONG!" You mean to tell me as a male i'm misreading what she's trying to communicate?
She's trying to tell me "I'll fuck your brains out of this world if you let me sing." 99% of the women will pretend this is thier offer, but never deliver. (Yes, there's a small maybe even less than 1% that would deliver. (Cue up the "TOQER PLZ INTRO ME jokes now)
Just because a woman has no intent on fullfilling the message she's projecting, it doesn't diminish the fact that she *IS* trying to get that message across. It could be cleavage, it could me smiling and acting all cute, it could be putting thier arm around you, women have a lot of body language things they can do to convey it.
Not all men can tell the difference either. In fact, I'd say the majority can't. It's not fair to lump all us men together as one chauvenist mass though because women are trying to decieve us. Who's worse? The dumb man that can't tell the difference, or the salacious seductructress using her false (read lying) sexual messages?
And maybe I just don't know WTF i'm talking about because I have a skewed view of the world based on where I work, but I did work in desktop support in corporate enviroments for many years prior (think netware, early
My wife is a very paranoid lady when it comes to other women. I think deep down inside all women know that all other women use sexual body cues in the same way. I used to think my wife was nuts when she would be all jealous of other girls standing around me, but after 14 years of her giving me cues I can sort of spot what's going on now too.
I believe a lot of this behavior is going to end at my generation. We didn't have this tharn intarnet in the 70's when I was born. I believe that the net, womens sufferage, and globalization has lead to a balancing out of the genders (at least here in the US) We are really on the verge of having a woman president, and that says a lot for how much gender roles have changed in this country. A lot of men (like me) had to take what jobs they could in 2001 between the layoffs and 9/11. I'm not the breadwinner in my household anymore, and i'm OK with that.
I look forward to it. It's got to be better than the message tradition beliefs and pop culture has tried to teach us. Western Christianity has typically conveyed that the man is in a dominant role, and the woman is a sexual toy/servant/baby launcher. I think the best balance is a true partnership, but so many women, men are running around ignorantly trying to assert thier gender role that they don't learn that till many years down the road.
There's also another side to this and that's the pop culture aspect. How many of you have watch Margeret Cho and Andrew Dice Clay?
I've known girls that follow Cho like she's Jesus, and guys follow ADC like he's uhh I dunno, Jesus? I'm sure other folks have seen the same. People a
What are they going to do, encase the entire reactor in a giant epoxy glob? Humans have a knack for being able to open things (opposable thumbs, reasoning, abstract thinking)
I understand AC has it's transmission limits, so lets backpedal a bit here.
Put the reactor under the ocean at some insane depth near the 3rd world country, and run undersea cables to the shore.
DRM is the result of mass pirating, not the other way around. Remember when we had things on non-drm CD's? We had these things called "Brick and Mortar" CD stores. The Wherehouse, Tower Records, all wiped out.
I've compiled some charts based on 2 factual sources in regards to karaoke . You're more than welcome to dispute the facts any way you want, but please show sources.
My two sources are.
NAMM Global music reports. Namm is considered to be the definitive resource for music sales info.
Microsoft Netscan. Netscan provides statistics on newsgroups. I took a sampling of the newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.karaoke It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on. You can see that pre AI(American Idol) karaoke had some decent yearly sales which were on a nice upward trend. The volume of posts in alt.binaries.sounds.karaoke was not really epic. Then came AI in 2002.
What happened was a shift in karaoke's popularity. Post count almost quadrupaled. Now sure, you can say "Oh karaoke just apexed" but that's bullshit because AI is still on the air with a ton of copycats. Not only that, there are more karaoke shows now than ever before. What was once considered *just* a Japanese oddity was now cool with most Americans. The post count would decrease if suddenly millions of people just suddenly decide "Oh karaoke is lame, I don't want to do it no more".
Let's get back to the subject of DRM though....
People are responsible for thier own behavior, but what technology has done is to aid in anonymizing copyright infringement. It's the old addage, "Would you do it if you knew you couldn't get caught?"
Do I mind DRM? Not at all. I have a napster account I pay $10@mo for. I listen to what I want, when I want. I have a really nice Jazz radio station (KCSM) in the car. I can access Napster from home or work.
Right now publishers are in a bind. If DRM isn't the answer, then what is the answer to stop people from anonymously stealing music? Education? Ha, don't make me laugh.
I'm sorry DRM is so inconvenient for you.
I think google should stick to it's corporate charter.
I'm holding them in my hand...Uhh... Yah?
My friend is in charge of writing drivers for a pretty famous hardware company. He's been there 11 years. Can't/won't say who but i'm sure everyone replying in the thread has used their products at least once.
Before Vista's release (before any OS release) MS invites the people in charge of driver development from major companies up to redmond. They put them up in a nice hotel, all expenses paid trip. While they're there MS gives each dev a guest pass to the MS store.
The guest pass allows them to spend only a certain dollar amount at the store. In his case, it was $150. He got me 2 copies of XP, and I think some stuff for his other friends/family while he was there.
I just compared EULA's from my $99 Fry's copy of XP to the EULA's from the ones from the MS store. They're identicle. The only difference is my MS store copies came in a box, while my Fry's copy was just a scint manual and CD encased in shrinkwrap.
I saw a lot of "OMG YOU'RE VIOLATED" replies to my original post. I guess this makes those moot.
That kind of hot geek talk gets my protien rich liquid scintillator scintillated.
Try none?
These types of customers were the worst. Always wanting cheaper cheaper cheaper. If they needed a "new" PC i'd first suggest going new dell, and if that was shot down i'd source quality parts, and they would ALWAYS pull crap at the last minute like "Oh my brother in law can build it cheaper". I'd sit there and explain things like, "If you buy a genuine intel motherboard, it's not hard to find drivers or updates, and they run solid" The brother in law would always end up getting some crap mobo that would constantly crash/bluescreen/whatever. Finding out who made the Mobo was even worse, i'd always end up having to track them down through their FCC #, and even that was a deadend sometimes.
The other nightmarish shit I had to deal with was the "Ebay" client. This guy always had to buy his stuff from Ebay. It would arrive not working, 1/2 working, missing parts and what not and it was always up to me to fix it.
Ok, here's where we get into some other nagging issues I had with these guys...
You buy crap hardware that breaks constantly or causes blue screens, then send that crap out to your employees that have to work with it all day who's the first person they're going to call? The IT guy right?
So I would get calls on the same problems. "Toqer why does it blue screen?" I'd do the usual defrag, scandisk, canned air to the case. It wasn't really my fault that their boss bought crap hardware and ran pirated software on it, but the employees still needed some sort of consolation that these problems were not thier fault.
"Toqer why am I paying for the same thing 5 times?" was what one lawyer customer would ask me. "Shouldn't you have fixed it right the first time so it didn't break and additional 4?"
Heh, I remember that day pretty clearly. I looked him square in the eye and told him, "I don't care if you no longer want my services for being honest, but I warned you that buying crap hardware would result in this situation. You have nobody to blame except your cheapness for this."
Anyways, again, to reiterate my original point, the type of people that refuse to pay for software / pirate it are the same type of people I don't want to do business with. They just have a fucked up sense of entitlement, like they're doing you a favor by breathing.
So yah, we just had a discussion less than a few hours ago on this.
This is a slightly different slant on the other article, but it's funny how this comment about cheap clients plays into this new article.
So the IT guy leaves and rats out the business for stealing software. First thing that pops into my head is it must have been some pretty fucked up bosses to work for to motivate someone to take it as far as snitching.
Of course, i'm going to get the normal "OMFG YOU'RE NOT A SLASH FANBOI!" dipshit comments from this.. Bring em.
Maybe if these bosses didn't value their employees as low as the software they steal, there wouldn't be a problem with them quitting and going to the BSA.
BTW if you're bored with these BSA stories, here's a story I submitted a few weeks ago about hackers bypassing the hypervisor on the PS3 for access to the Nvidia RSX GPU. I thought that story was way more signifigant than these BSA stories because once the X drivers are finished, game dev's can use linux for free to create PS3 games instead of paying sony a wad of cash for a dev kit. Maybe it got rejected because slash thinks rehashing the same shit stories with different headlines is news.
Ball should have paid for their software.
I've mostly worked in desktop support for over 1/3rd of my life so far. I don't do cubicles or offices anymore unless it's a favor for someone that's not going to be a pain in the ass, or ask me to do back breaking work (like breaking my back lifting an 200lb IBM netfinity server onto a rack). No no, those days are over.
Over those years though I can't recount how many times a customer would need a windows re-install, or an office re-install, whatever. I'd ask for the original CD and they'd tell me "Don't you have a copy?"
The "Don't you just have a copy?" people were the same people that would nag and haggle me on my billing, like it was some sort of open air arab market, instead of a indoor air conditioned "professional" workplace.
These days i've all but quit doing IT type support, cept for a few special cases. My current business/company uses windows, and i've gotten legit copies from various places. A few programmer friends got me copies of XP from the MS employee store for $35 each, which I have running on 2 machines. I also purchased a copy for another machine for $99. The rest of the machines at my business are running Linux.
Open Office does fine for me.
Maybe because I started off in IT and knew what type jerks steal stuff, I made a personal choice that I didn't want to be like them.
I dunno, maybe you could make it run on DC...Prolly could get away with a power inverter. Still though, would you don't really want moving parts and it's a lame way to do it.
http://www.u-nav.com/picopilot/picopilotn.html
$500 gets you a solid state autopilot programmable with GPS waypoints. It also already has a interface to servo's.
Just because you could build a guidance system from a game system, doesn't mean it's really going to have any advantage in the real world.
Ok games related stub, but i'm going to use karaoke as an example since that's what I work with.
Karaoke fair use is a subject of hot debate between singers, KJ's (Karaoke Jocks) and karaoke manufactuers. Basically guys like me (1 man shows) are considered "commercial". Therefore fair use doesn't apply to us. This whole argument extends not just to karaoke, but music and gaming as well.
Ok from the karaoke anti-piracy agency faq.
http://www.karaokeantipiracyagency.com/faq.html
Am I allowed to make a copy of my discs for archive purposes?
This is one of the most confusing issues involving copyrighted music. It is also one of the arguments often presented by those who want to break the copyright laws. This entire issue revolves around the definition of the class of copyrighted material. By law, you are permitted to make an archive copy of "Software" class copyrighted material. However, music (including Karaoke CDGs) is part of the "Phonorecord" class of copyrighted materials. Archive copies are not permitted in this class. So, no, you may not make an archive copy of your Karaoke discs.
Some of the most prominent karaoke companies want to see the practice of PC based karaoke outlawed. Doesn't matter if you're pirating or not.
Now for a counterpoint from an IP lawyer.
http://ipjustice.org/wp/2007/02/22/karaoke_legal_myths/
TRUTH: While a commercial use weighs against fair use, copyright law permits copying a CDG disc in a number of commercial circumstances. Commercial use, does not by itself, determine if it is an illegal use.
I'm all for a new law that promotes fair use, but the one question I have in mind is will it protect guys like me. Will fair use extend to both personal and "Commerical".
Wow 25 replies. I'm going to respond to anyone with a +3 score. Won't waste my time on the anons and trolls.
:)
:) Ok, lets play logic here. I own a house, and I know someone is running a meth lab, or storing stolen goods. Or let's say I know about a murder but don't say anything about it. Usenet.com knows what's on their servers, which as much as I love technology, I hate to say they're an accomplice.
.gov would be smarter than that to waste all that money on combating karaoke piracy. I'd rather see things like they were in Clinton years.
SomeJoel:
Agreed. I recently saw an episode of Boondocks last week that parodied this. The freeman family was at the theater, with camcorders. At the beggining was an MPAA commercial about piracy. It showed a little old lady getting mugged, and the caption "YOU'LL GET THE SAME PUNISHMENT FOR PIRACY AS YOU WOULD MUGGING A LADY!"
I thought to myself that wasn't cool at all. I agree, the punishment should be equal to the crime. Maybe for the folks making tons of $$$ it should be the same punishment as mugging, but for some 12yro kid, nah.
Jugalator :
Perve
kindbud:
Cool name
E-mail is different. The messages aren't public.
These last few answers are for all the folks below +3.
Price: Karaoke costs more to license and has a thinner profit margin than the original songs do. I could put together a compilation CD of dance hits, and make way more money on that than I would "Karaoke dance hits" simply because more people just listen to music than karaoke. Karaoke is a small fish in a big pond.
Right for a business to transform media:
Refer to this article from IP Lawyer Robin Gross: http://ipjustice.org/wp/2007/02/22/karaoke_legal_myths/
Our business is failing:
Heh, stupid troll.
http://www.7bamboo.com/cms/?q=node/54
10 years best karaoke in the South SF bay area. I don't think so.
The "I don't like you for your $500b comment guy":
Hey, seriously, i'd hope our
Everyone else:
Thanks for reading, commenting.
--toqer
http://stashbox.org/23136/P1010004.JPG
Take a look at that old man in the middle of this picture. He's my boss. He owns a karaoke bar in San Jose California called the 7 Bamboo.
This guy has been doing karaoke a loooong time. Up until 2002 and American idol, karaoke was sort of frowned on by most Americans. Then AI came out and there was a sudden surge in karaoke's popularity.
http://www.7bamboo.com/cms/?q=node/210
I did some screenshots of the Namm global music report in that article. I'll just summarize, basically the entire karaoke industry is making less money now than it was 10 years ago in 1997.
Myself, i've seen our business hurt by piracy. Before 2002, we were some quirky little Japanese karaoke bar, pretty much one of maybe 4 karaoke venues in San Jose, but between 2002 and 2004 we saw a sharp decline in attendance, and a sharp growth in karaoke venues and it's been a constant uphill battle to keep customers coming back.
I made a choice to not pirate karaoke at our club. We have about 7000 songs in our collection. This in in contrast to the 10-15 venues that have popped up in our area with anywhere between 50,000-150,000 songs.
Karaoke is expensive. About $2 a track. So somebody please tell me, with a straight face how these new guys that just popped out of nowhere suddenly have a $300,000 karaoke collection. Fact is, they don't.
It's still competition for us. Everyone that works at 7bamboo makes less money because of it. Less tips, less sales, less everything, but more work.
Look at the face of that old man and tell me that usenet.com is in the right by enabling these people to screw his business over with competition running on pirated songs. The business he and his wife built was in jeopardy until I came along and gave it a hot beef injection of technology.
Fortunately for them, and the rest of the 7b's employees, I can keep the place on the bleeding edge of karaoke technology without resorting to piracy. Still though, I think my time would have been better spent doing more worldly things.
Personally, I hope the RIAA wins this one. Don't mod me a troll for voicing this opinion either, because since when has someone voicing a legitimate, validated opinion considered trolling.
It's just not fair. Karaoke CD's have to be ripped carefully at 1x, so i've put over 400 manhours into ripping our 300 original CDG's. A pirate can suck off a newsgroup and have 7000 songs in a few hours. Given a few days, they'll have a 40-50k+ collection.
BTW RIAA if you're reading this, look into alt.binaries.sounds.karaoke. Shut that one down first, plzktnx.
--toq
http://www.infobunker.com/. Ask for Chaz and tell him toqer sent ya.
From your good pal toqer :)
Quick summary...
Karaoke is about 10 years behind the music industry, we *just* started getting PC based karaoke systems rolling.
2 karaoke companies have decided that copying a karaoke disc to your PC isn't covered under fair use laws. Below are their press statements.
ANTI-PIRACY CAMPAIGN STATEMENT 12/28/06
Stellar Records in a collaborative effort with some of its clients,
customers, law enforcement agencies, and in some cases even its competitors has
stepped up its campaign against piracy. As part of this campaign, Stellar will be
directing much of its attention at the venue level and soon will be taking
steps to notify suspected venues as to the potential risks and hazards
involved when using unauthorized copies of Stellar Records products.
Stellar Records, its customers, clients as well as several of its legitimate
competitors have been damaged considerably through the illegal copying and
distribution of their products, as well as other acts of piracy, some of which
pertain to the violation of trademarks that are also the property of
Stellar Records.
Prior to pursuing any further action, we do recognize the possibility that
at least some venues may not be aware of these violations and may be engaging
in these activities unknowingly. Hopefully this communication will provide
the information necessary in helping to determine if the use of a Stellar
Records product is authorized, or in any way infringes on its copyrights and/or
trademarks. At the very least, we hope this will provide the impetus to seek
legal advice on these matters before continuing to engage in these practices.
To be more specific, it has been brought to our attention that there are
several venues in the Phoenix and Scottsdale area that have been promoting
karaoke shows which are using unauthorized copies of karaoke products either
directly through the use of in-house systems or vicariously through the
contracting or employment of KJ/DJ hosts and/or hosting companies. Some of these
products have been identified as karaoke products containing the copyrights and/or
trademarks of Stellar Records including products bearing the trademarks "
Pop Hits Monthly", "Top Hits Monthly", or "Stellar Records". In addition it
has been suggested that there could be other products containing Stellar
Records' copyrights and/or trademarks being illegally distributed, and an
investigation is currently under way in an effort to identify those products as well.
In order to assist those in determining what constitutes an unauthorized use
of Stellar Records' products, please be advised that Stellar does not
support nor does it have the authority to support (due to contractual limitations
in its licensing agreements with various publishers) any device which stores,
and/or plays karaoke products from a hard drive or any device other than a
device that plays directly from a CD+G disc. For example products include but
are not limited to the CAVS JB199 as well as the RSQ-500 when play back is
not directly from a CD+G disc. There are a number of software based products as
well like MTU's Hoster, PCDJ, CompuHost, TriceraSoft, Sax N Dotty Show
Hoster, and Dart just to mention a few, when play back is not directly from a
CD+G disc.
Stellar Records does empathize with the concerns of some of its customers
who may want to make copies of their legally purchased products for the
purposes of making back-ups or to rip them onto a hard drive in a more convenient
format. However we do not have the authority to grant anyone the right to do
so. Most if not all of our karaoke products contain the copyrights owned by
parties other than Stellar, namely the writers, authors and/or publishers of
the work (song) itself to which we must seek prior approval for use in
producing our final karaoke products. The licenses and/or approvals that we secure
from these publishers do not include the right to distribute t
I thought for a long time how great geothermal must be, then I thought about the possible drawbacks and long term effects.
For instance, ever heat glass up and shove it in a tub of water? It shatters. Rock 3 miles under the earth, under pressure from all the rock above it, and heated from the core is probably just as brittle as glass. The article did mention earthquakes.
Also what effect would this have on the magma flows below the rocks? I would imagine a geothermal cooled area might create stalagtites around the cooled area, much like the lava vents on the bottom of the sea floor, but in reverse. These cool stalagtites spread all over the earth would certainly have an effect on the magma flow.
With the magma flow change, what effect would that have on the Earths magnetosphere? What about other volcanic areas? Would they suddenly dry up because we're sucking the heat out from somewhere else?
On the surface geothermal looks great, but what about underneath the surface? We don't even know if there is long term effects at this point.