So, as to #1... did you miss what I said about burning the CD? Yeah.
And as to #2, I do it quite often, and I would readily beg to differ. I know there are quite a few professional studies about the quality of mp3 conversion, which gives much evidence to the quality of normal encoding. I have a very nice stereo with some expensive digital monitor headphones hooked up, and I have tested switching inputs from the mp3 to the burned cd to the legit cd... and the difference in quality is very small even at 128kbit, A bad encode can kill anything though. Once you flip to speakers it's barely noticeable, unless you're intent on looking for small differences in direct comparisions. Sure they are different, but to qualify one as "bad"? I don't think so.
I understand your position on this, and it makes a lot of sense, but as a whole, I think actions like this don't represent the majority of the users using napster. The greater majority of the people use napster for the sole purpose of getting free music and have come to the realization that they will never have to pay for music again. I am sure that the music they find on napster once in a while does spawn a CD purchase. But what inspiration does a person have to go and buy a cd when they could download and burn the cd in much less time than they could go to a store and buy it? I am sure many people do take the moral high ground on this and support the artist - and you're going to hear a lot more from these people because they are proud of themselves for these just actions and how the internet has facilitated their discovery of new music. But the reality is that most of the users of napster are college students who have no intention whatsoever of paying for music ever again. I know it's easy to argue the counterpoint towards this, but the "most of the users" that I speak of aren't about to come out and defend their less than honorable actions - so you're not going to hear from them. Oh well, this is just my two cents. I think sooner rather than later there will be a fundamental change in the music business, as well as any other industry that peddles copyrighted material. Legislation won't work, nobody wants to empower others to police the internet - and it's obvious that such actions wouldn't work anyways. Something will need to be set up. It should be interesting. The only type of situation that comes to mind is that napster charges for access to their service. Like an unlimited $20/month fee. I can see that working, you know, keep track of who downloads what and have the money distributed to artist proportionally. Sure Gnutella is free, but napster is better in so many ways (right now at least). Who knows.
well, the car won't start out at 0 mph, it will be moving forward along the track, while will be translated into downward velocity since the cars are bound to the track
I love my Road Runner connection, I get the full 10mbs downstream, which is effectively about 6mbs from a REALLY fast site (like 500-600k/sec) that has a good connection to roadrunners network, and I can usually send at about 50k/sec, sometimes 60. I really fear such a great service being hurt by expansion like this, I am very impressed with the quality of service road runner has given, does anyone know if roadrunner has any plans like this for the future?
There are too many video modes for this to ever work correctly. You can setup a video card many many different ways, vga opposed to text mode etc etc..
Slashdot Mirror
www.whitepages.com does it for free, and provides addresses, FYI
I thought AOL did own icq?
So, as to #1... did you miss what I said about burning the CD? Yeah.
And as to #2, I do it quite often, and I would readily beg to differ. I know there are quite a few professional studies about the quality of mp3 conversion, which gives much evidence to the quality of normal encoding. I have a very nice stereo with some expensive digital monitor headphones hooked up, and I have tested switching inputs from the mp3 to the burned cd to the legit cd... and the difference in quality is very small even at 128kbit, A bad encode can kill anything though. Once you flip to speakers it's barely noticeable, unless you're intent on looking for small differences in direct comparisions. Sure they are different, but to qualify one as "bad"? I don't think so.
I understand your position on this, and it makes a lot of sense, but as a whole, I think actions like this don't represent the majority of the users using napster. The greater majority of the people use napster for the sole purpose of getting free music and have come to the realization that they will never have to pay for music again. I am sure that the music they find on napster once in a while does spawn a CD purchase. But what inspiration does a person have to go and buy a cd when they could download and burn the cd in much less time than they could go to a store and buy it? I am sure many people do take the moral high ground on this and support the artist - and you're going to hear a lot more from these people because they are proud of themselves for these just actions and how the internet has facilitated their discovery of new music. But the reality is that most of the users of napster are college students who have no intention whatsoever of paying for music ever again. I know it's easy to argue the counterpoint towards this, but the "most of the users" that I speak of aren't about to come out and defend their less than honorable actions - so you're not going to hear from them. Oh well, this is just my two cents. I think sooner rather than later there will be a fundamental change in the music business, as well as any other industry that peddles copyrighted material. Legislation won't work, nobody wants to empower others to police the internet - and it's obvious that such actions wouldn't work anyways. Something will need to be set up. It should be interesting. The only type of situation that comes to mind is that napster charges for access to their service. Like an unlimited $20/month fee. I can see that working, you know, keep track of who downloads what and have the money distributed to artist proportionally. Sure Gnutella is free, but napster is better in so many ways (right now at least). Who knows.
well, the car won't start out at 0 mph, it will be moving forward along the track, while will be translated into downward velocity since the cars are bound to the track
I love my Road Runner connection, I get the full 10mbs downstream, which is effectively about 6mbs from a REALLY fast site (like 500-600k/sec) that has a good connection to roadrunners network, and I can usually send at about 50k/sec, sometimes 60. I really fear such a great service being hurt by expansion like this, I am very impressed with the quality of service road runner has given, does anyone know if roadrunner has any plans like this for the future?
Sooner or later MS will be history, when IA-64 comes along, linux should be in a position to take over
There are too many video modes for this to ever work correctly. You can setup a video card many many different ways, vga opposed to text mode etc etc..
We cannot win!