You take the average gain of the last 30 seconds of a program before it goes to commercial, and don't allow the commercials to be any louder than that.
If I can make karaoke and techno music automatically crossfade with my meager skills(link below)
Then surely a TV station or broadcast network could make commercials stay at the same gain as the programming.
I think you have a point, but I keep hearing a lot of "The broadcaster can never make it work. The advertiser screws the whole thing up with audio compression!"...Well, if there is no legal way for the broadcaster to air the ultra compressed unholy demon ad, then they will have to call the advertiser and say "I'm sorry, we cannot legally air your ad". I suspect that the advertiser would respond by creating a version that the network CAN legally air.
The problem is that we are not the customers in this situation. To a network's ad department, advertisers are the customers, and viewers are the product being sold.
If we all grab the remotes and change the channel, then advertisers may realize that they didn't get the results they paid for, but will the advertiser ever realize and report to his boss that people aren't watching the commercials because they are annoying, when there are other possible explanations, such as piracy, bathroom breaks, and short attention span?
That is interesting, but how about if you have freedom, but your acts are inconsequential. For example, in the US we have less social mobility than many of the nations in Europe. We all believe that we are free to choose our destiny, to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and do substantially* better than our parents, but it rarely happens.
So, the question is, if you think you have the potential to start a big business, only to find that you cannot get the loans, or if you think you may become a lawyer someday, but cannot afford law school, or if you think you can retire, but will eventually find yourself working as a Walmart greeter, just to pay for your prescriptions, then are you free?
Were you free until you found out otherwise? That sounds a little Orwellian to me.
*better than our parents - "Better" meaning rising above the social class they were born into.
Nature just came out and said that the emails show nothing wrong and the ends justify the means. Does that sound like the scientific method to you?
No, actually, nature said the emails showed nothing wrong, and that the discussion about whether two studies should be included in their report, was overshadowed because, in the end, they included those studies. The article never said "the ends justify the means", although they could have said "actions speak louder than words". And considering how poorly you remember an article that you read last week, I am very curious what the truth is about this:
The journal, Science? (Nature?-- it's one of them) declared several years ago, after global warming was only a few years old and before many of the initial predictions failed, that the global warming debate was over and it was time for political action. Does that sound like the scientific method to you?
We're talking about public opinion. Sure, you can buy a super collider and perform the experiments yourself, but it is much cheaper to just turn on the tv, take the word of whoever tells the best jokes, and wonder why scientists can be all good at critical thinking and educated smartness like you are.
Exactly. There has never been, nor ought their be, an automatic trust of anything, including science. By definition of "layperson", we do not know and are not read-up on, the exact arguments for an against any particular theory.
And that is the problem. the people who do not understand the subject are beginning to second-guess those who have devoted their lives to it. But, there is no motivation among the lay-person to become an environmental scientist, or an evolutionary biologist, or a doctor. Instead, we will continue to listen to whomever makes the best-sounding argument.
It has long been the case that unscrupulous individuals will try to sell a product or an idea "because science says so".
It is depressing in a way. People listen to snake oil salesmen say "this isn't snake oil, it's science", fall for it, and, over time, begin to turn against science, instead preferring arguments that have no more credibility or substance than the sales pitches they have been falling for their entire lives...
But it's not the snake oil salesman's fault for taking advantage of logical fallacies...It's not the public's fault for falling for them, again and again...It's science's fault for having credibility to steal? This is like blaming an identity theft victim for having credit worth taking.
Much, if not all, of the supposed increase in autism rates was caused by a broadening of the definition, to include people with asperger's syndrome, and people who, in the early 90s, would have been classified as having a developmental language disorder, along with an increased emphasis on diagnosing autism, and a reduced social stigma.
Of course, there is no evidence against your claim, but you may want to know that the increase in diagnoses could be just semantics.
I'm just having a go at all those "we're all the same" tyrants who ought to be attacking anyone who considers Down Syndrome or any other genetic difference as something politically incorrect to notice or talk about in an adult manner!
Yes ago we were doing a data warehousing project. This involved getting other departments to build extract feeds from their system so that we could pull all the data together. Some one had to chase down progress from all these third parties. It was no fun at at all. Spending hours hassling people who were tee'd off with you 'wasting' their time.
Dave had mild Aspergers. We got him to do the hassling as he couldn't sense the irritation of the people he was calling.
If that were found to be valid precedent, then that would mean that it was legal to download a copy of a DVD that you currently own from a foreign torrent site? I assume that you wouldn't be violating the DMCA's circumvention clause...
So is this to reduce global warming by capping hot air?
If so, then it won't work too well, because it's cap and trade. FoxNews can buy their bullshit subsidies from CNN, who will use the money to buy 12 new monitors, so their anchors can read viewers twitter and emails on the air, which contributes even more...
- Political journalists, who help their sources insult people and ruin careers anonymously? Or do what Stephen Colbert pointed out was "the White House tells you what to write, you write it down, and print it." - Sports journalists, who basically are professional sports fans, desperately clinging to rumor, conjecture, and hearsay? - Business journalists, who often act as cheerleaders for a company's stock more than anything else? - Slashdot editors? (enough said)
These are not the days of Bernstein, Woodward, Hersch, etc.
Of course the journalists you mention are the only ones surviving in todays market. The Bernsteins, Woodwards, and Herchs of today cannot make money, unless they're yelling at the camera, getting tazered for the benefit of thoese of us who don't know what it does, or sucking up to important figures in hopes of getting the big interview.
I am trying to wrap my brain around the idea of how a small, local newspaper can make money off the internet in the days of low CPM banner ads and customers who demand free content, but as I read this forum, I see so many comments lamenting why they can't be the bastions of democracy that they used to be, while at the same time lambasting them for failing to adapt to the economic realities. It seems contradictory.
Well I've been using Linux since 1979, and the documentation has never been that great. I remember asking Linus and some of the other developers about it when I ran into them at Studio 54, but they were too stoned to answer. Man, it was crazy back then, you'd get high and write a program and you wouldn't even care about the documentation. You'd just copy over someone else's man pages, or paste in Beegees lyrics, or whatever you're drug-addled brain came up with at the time.
I would add that, it is sometimes a hassle determining where the config file is. Much of the documentation is silent about that, because they can't be sure. It may be in/etc/myapp/conf.conf for 90% of the people, but there's always that one distro or package that put it in/var/upmy.ss/nevergonnafindthissh_t.conf , and the documentation prefers to remain silent, instead focusing on how the config file will be laid out when you figure out where it is located.
And you know who runs GE, a white guy. As for Obama, GE's big guy, whom I will refer to as cracker-man, spoke to some birthers who convinced them that Obama's half-white, which made him an improvement over Hillary Clinton whom Larry King once described as "all woman". Larry King got ripped off by Bernie Madoff, who did business with Kevin Bacon.
Did I win? Free associating can be fun, but it isn't always the best of evidence.
If I were to perform a study, however, I would like to grade the students on writing ability (grammar errors, spelling errors, etc), and then compare those grades to their self-assessments. Is it possible that technology causes us to overestimate our literacy skills?
No. Simony is bribery. Now, if Simon had paid preachers to go out and preach against what he was doing, while also paying to fix anything that was in any way damaged as a result of his actions, then it would be analogous.
Another example would be shoplifting from a 711, and then writing a check to 711's corporate office to reimburse them for the money they lost. Kind of like saying "Sorry I stole, but I was in a hurry, the lines were long, and so I thought I would pay you this way".
I'm not saying it's perfect, but it is better than doing nothing at all.
I once worked with a guy in a software engineering class. The professor gave us a project with a few requirements:
A). Because half the students were CS majors who knew C++ and the other half were IT majors who knew VB, the professor reasoned that it would be best if the C++ people learned VB.net. B). Because Access databases are part of the standard VB course (and because this was more about methodology than programming), we would use an Access database.
We had one student who worked in the field and was reasonably intelligent, but he was also the geek equivalent of a diva. He insisted that we do this in Java, because "it's just cleaner", and that we use XML instead of access, despite the requirement that the data files be encrypted and password protected, again, because XML is better than access. After every meeting deteriorated into an argument about why we can't do the project his way, we eventually decided to split it into three different subprojects, with him working on some back-end dll. When we were done, we noticed that for every bit of data storage performed on his end, he used XML, even after the professor explicitly stated no Java and no XML. (He wasn't anti-Java or Anti-Xml. It just wasn't the focus of the class).
I'm sure some of you will have some choice words about why he couldn't follow requirements (and why we couldn't learn java), but the point was that geeks sometimes get this attitude that their way is the best, and only way anything should ever be done. I have heard some reasonably intelligent people make the argument that it's best to have only one geek on a project. Surround the one guy who's always right with five other guys who just want to get the job done and go home.
Slashdot Mirror
So, under your definition, anybody who is not literally in shackles has complete freedom?
You take the average gain of the last 30 seconds of a program before it goes to commercial, and don't allow the commercials to be any louder than that.
If I can make karaoke and techno music automatically crossfade with my meager skills(link below)
http://www.facebook.com/v/203775860215
Then surely a TV station or broadcast network could make commercials stay at the same gain as the programming.
I think you have a point, but I keep hearing a lot of "The broadcaster can never make it work. The advertiser screws the whole thing up with audio compression!"...Well, if there is no legal way for the broadcaster to air the ultra compressed unholy demon ad, then they will have to call the advertiser and say "I'm sorry, we cannot legally air your ad". I suspect that the advertiser would respond by creating a version that the network CAN legally air.
By your definition, everybody is free. I can try to kill my neighbor. The fact that big government prevents me is not an infringement on my freedom.
The problem is that we are not the customers in this situation. To a network's ad department, advertisers are the customers, and viewers are the product being sold.
If we all grab the remotes and change the channel, then advertisers may realize that they didn't get the results they paid for, but will the advertiser ever realize and report to his boss that people aren't watching the commercials because they are annoying, when there are other possible explanations, such as piracy, bathroom breaks, and short attention span?
The invisible hand is flipping us off, this time.
That is interesting, but how about if you have freedom, but your acts are inconsequential. For example, in the US we have less social mobility than many of the nations in Europe. We all believe that we are free to choose our destiny, to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and do substantially* better than our parents, but it rarely happens.
So, the question is, if you think you have the potential to start a big business, only to find that you cannot get the loans, or if you think you may become a lawyer someday, but cannot afford law school, or if you think you can retire, but will eventually find yourself working as a Walmart greeter, just to pay for your prescriptions, then are you free?
Were you free until you found out otherwise? That sounds a little Orwellian to me.
*better than our parents - "Better" meaning rising above the social class they were born into.
Sorry for the typos - I'm typing on a mac.
I'm not usd to this keyboard'
There goes any chance you have of ever working for Apple.
Nature just came out and said that the emails show nothing wrong and the ends justify the means. Does that sound like the scientific method to you?
No, actually, nature said the emails showed nothing wrong, and that the discussion about whether two studies should be included in their report, was overshadowed because, in the end, they included those studies. The article never said "the ends justify the means", although they could have said "actions speak louder than words". And considering how poorly you remember an article that you read last week, I am very curious what the truth is about this:
The journal, Science? (Nature?-- it's one of them) declared several years ago, after global warming was only a few years old and before many of the initial predictions failed, that the global warming debate was over and it was time for political action. Does that sound like the scientific method to you?
We're talking about public opinion. Sure, you can buy a super collider and perform the experiments yourself, but it is much cheaper to just turn on the tv, take the word of whoever tells the best jokes, and wonder why scientists can be all good at critical thinking and educated smartness like you are.
Exactly. There has never been, nor ought their be, an automatic trust of anything, including science. By definition of "layperson", we do not know and are not read-up on, the exact arguments for an against any particular theory.
And that is the problem. the people who do not understand the subject are beginning to second-guess those who have devoted their lives to it. But, there is no motivation among the lay-person to become an environmental scientist, or an evolutionary biologist, or a doctor. Instead, we will continue to listen to whomever makes the best-sounding argument.
It has long been the case that unscrupulous individuals will try to sell a product or an idea "because science says so".
It is depressing in a way. People listen to snake oil salesmen say "this isn't snake oil, it's science", fall for it, and, over time, begin to turn against science, instead preferring arguments that have no more credibility or substance than the sales pitches they have been falling for their entire lives...
But it's not the snake oil salesman's fault for taking advantage of logical fallacies...It's not the public's fault for falling for them, again and again...It's science's fault for having credibility to steal? This is like blaming an identity theft victim for having credit worth taking.
RickAstley@Home
That describes his career to a tee, right now.
Much, if not all, of the supposed increase in autism rates was caused by a broadening of the definition, to include people with asperger's syndrome, and people who, in the early 90s, would have been classified as having a developmental language disorder, along with an increased emphasis on diagnosing autism, and a reduced social stigma.
Of course, there is no evidence against your claim, but you may want to know that the increase in diagnoses could be just semantics.
I'm just having a go at all those "we're all the same" tyrants who ought to be attacking anyone who considers Down Syndrome or any other genetic difference as something politically incorrect to notice or talk about in an adult manner!
So you're trolling, then?
Yes ago we were doing a data warehousing project. This involved getting other departments to build extract feeds from their system so that we could pull all the data together. Some one had to chase down progress from all these third parties. It was no fun at at all. Spending hours hassling people who were tee'd off with you 'wasting' their time.
Dave had mild Aspergers. We got him to do the hassling as he couldn't sense the irritation of the people he was calling.
Ahhh...Good old Dave...He will be missed.
If that were found to be valid precedent, then that would mean that it was legal to download a copy of a DVD that you currently own from a foreign torrent site? I assume that you wouldn't be violating the DMCA's circumvention clause...
So is this to reduce global warming by capping hot air?
If so, then it won't work too well, because it's cap and trade. FoxNews can buy their bullshit subsidies from CNN, who will use the money to buy 12 new monitors, so their anchors can read viewers twitter and emails on the air, which contributes even more...
Oh, well..It was worth a try.
I would have enjoyed that TV show a lot more if all the actors went topless
Ugghh...CBS Tried that with the Golden Girls once, and that episode sucked!
So are you posting this from your mobile phone?
Who exactly are they referring to?
- Political journalists, who help their sources insult people and ruin careers anonymously? Or do what Stephen Colbert pointed out was "the White House tells you what to write, you write it down, and print it."
- Sports journalists, who basically are professional sports fans, desperately clinging to rumor, conjecture, and hearsay?
- Business journalists, who often act as cheerleaders for a company's stock more than anything else?
- Slashdot editors? (enough said)
These are not the days of Bernstein, Woodward, Hersch, etc.
Of course the journalists you mention are the only ones surviving in todays market. The Bernsteins, Woodwards, and Herchs of today cannot make money, unless they're yelling at the camera, getting tazered for the benefit of thoese of us who don't know what it does, or sucking up to important figures in hopes of getting the big interview.
I am trying to wrap my brain around the idea of how a small, local newspaper can make money off the internet in the days of low CPM banner ads and customers who demand free content, but as I read this forum, I see so many comments lamenting why they can't be the bastions of democracy that they used to be, while at the same time lambasting them for failing to adapt to the economic realities. It seems contradictory.
Well I've been using Linux since 1979, and the documentation has never been that great. I remember asking Linus and some of the other developers about it when I ran into them at Studio 54, but they were too stoned to answer. Man, it was crazy back then, you'd get high and write a program and you wouldn't even care about the documentation. You'd just copy over someone else's man pages, or paste in Beegees lyrics, or whatever you're drug-addled brain came up with at the time.
And that, kids, is how Emacs came about <ducks>
I would add that, it is sometimes a hassle determining where the config file is. Much of the documentation is silent about that, because they can't be sure. It may be in /etc/myapp/conf.conf for 90% of the people, but there's always that one distro or package that put it in /var/upmy.ss/nevergonnafindthissh_t.conf , and the documentation prefers to remain silent, instead focusing on how the config file will be laid out when you figure out where it is located.
And you know who runs GE, a white guy. As for Obama, GE's big guy, whom I will refer to as cracker-man, spoke to some birthers who convinced them that Obama's half-white, which made him an improvement over Hillary Clinton whom Larry King once described as "all woman". Larry King got ripped off by Bernie Madoff, who did business with Kevin Bacon.
Did I win? Free associating can be fun, but it isn't always the best of evidence.
If I were to perform a study, however, I would like to grade the students on writing ability (grammar errors, spelling errors, etc), and then compare those grades to their self-assessments. Is it possible that technology causes us to overestimate our literacy skills?
Unfortunately, they found that the simplest solution is to pawn the task off on the one guy who can do it.
No. Simony is bribery. Now, if Simon had paid preachers to go out and preach against what he was doing, while also paying to fix anything that was in any way damaged as a result of his actions, then it would be analogous.
Another example would be shoplifting from a 711, and then writing a check to 711's corporate office to reimburse them for the money they lost. Kind of like saying "Sorry I stole, but I was in a hurry, the lines were long, and so I thought I would pay you this way".
I'm not saying it's perfect, but it is better than doing nothing at all.
I once worked with a guy in a software engineering class. The professor gave us a project with a few requirements:
A). Because half the students were CS majors who knew C++ and the other half were IT majors who knew VB, the professor reasoned that it would be best if the C++ people learned VB.net.
B). Because Access databases are part of the standard VB course (and because this was more about methodology than programming), we would use an Access database.
We had one student who worked in the field and was reasonably intelligent, but he was also the geek equivalent of a diva. He insisted that we do this in Java, because "it's just cleaner", and that we use XML instead of access, despite the requirement that the data files be encrypted and password protected, again, because XML is better than access. After every meeting deteriorated into an argument about why we can't do the project his way, we eventually decided to split it into three different subprojects, with him working on some back-end dll. When we were done, we noticed that for every bit of data storage performed on his end, he used XML, even after the professor explicitly stated no Java and no XML. (He wasn't anti-Java or Anti-Xml. It just wasn't the focus of the class).
I'm sure some of you will have some choice words about why he couldn't follow requirements (and why we couldn't learn java), but the point was that geeks sometimes get this attitude that their way is the best, and only way anything should ever be done. I have heard some reasonably intelligent people make the argument that it's best to have only one geek on a project. Surround the one guy who's always right with five other guys who just want to get the job done and go home.