Just provide a standard switch that means "don't do that GUI shit". That may be a problem for our current set of Unix tools, since it is probably impossible to find a switch that is unused in all Unix tools.
Possible solution:
As far as I know -dontdothatguishit is unused in any current unix tools.Bit long, but you'd have no trouble remembering it.
For the specific examples you give, I think it's unlikely - wouldn't making a cheap mic with a predictable enough distortion for software to remove it transparently sort of mean making the mic with it's distortion engineered to high tolerances (with the corresponding high costs)?
The problem is that the 'feel' of a sound is an extremely subtle thing and once you've lost information from the signal, how can you put it back? As to active soundproofing...um. Maybe, but it sounds expensive (both for extra mics, and the processing power required), and time-consuming and difficult to set up. It's only useful if the ordinary 'only as technical as I need to be' musician can understand how to do it.
There is however, some hope for software improving the sound from microphones. The effects board in Roland's VS-series hard disk recorders, for example, have a 'mic simulator' effect - it uses a physical modelling algorithm to attempt to simulate the sound of more expensive mics, from a cheaper mic or line input. It does, to my ears, make a noticeable improvement to the sound - but I don't think it would fool an experienced recording engineer. Software can and will be used to improve the quality of home recordings, but it's always a case of fixing badly recorded signals, which is usually a poor substitute for using high-end equipment in the first place. I certainly wouldn't rule out software becoming advanced enough to make this difference neglible in the future, but I think it's some way off yet.
Already have done more or less this... but then, for even this you're talking about a few hundred pounds total... it's good enough for my needs, but if you want to record more than one person at at a time/use different mic setups to improve the sound etc. the costs become much higher - at which point it starts to become more economical to rent time in a studio. My original point was that home recording suited some musicians, but isn't suitable for all.
Using a microphone. Which converts an audio signal into an analogue electrical signal, which is then converted by A-D converters in your soundcard to a digital signal. The quality of the results is dependant both on the quality of the microphone, and the quality of the A-D converters (which are usually poor quality in consumer soundcards).
Sounds like producing anything of real quality at home is still in the future.
At the moment, it depends what style of music you're interested in. Primarily synth/sample based music (particularly dance music) can, and often is, created to commercial quality at home - although not quite a normal home PC... it usually requires more than the normal consumer-market soundcard, and a well-specified PC... music software is one of the few fields which genuinely requires fast processors. The reason, of course, is that samplers and synths (excluding analogue) are themselves dedicated digital computers - reproducing the same work in software on a PC is not much different, provided your PC can handle it. If you listen to techno/house music, it's often not possible to tell wether a tune was recorded in a home or professional studio.
The situation is diferent for recording live instruments though, for two reasons:
1.Since the sound depends on the accoustic qualities of the recording environment professional studios still have a significant advantage, in being able to afford properly accoustically designed and treated rooms.
2.Recording live instruments requires analogue equipment - in this case there is usually a clear relationship between the cost of the equipment and the quality of the sound (the article mentioned using cheap microphones - complete nonsense, at least for the present - cheap mics sound very cheap)
Neither of these factors can easily be fixed in software (although a skilled producer can certainly work around them to a certain extent).
Although interesting accoustic/live band music has been made in home studios, it is extremely difficult to get the polished sound of a professional studio, and unfortunately this is often required by radio stations, without which it's extremely difficult to reach a wider audience.
But remember, one of Motorola's main markets is embedded systems - they're looking at memory for mobile phones etc initially, so the 2004 date is perhaps not so unrealistic.
The article describes a system that the German phonographic industry would like to see implemented... no government enforcement of this is mentioned, just that they want to open a dialogue with ISPs, none of whom, according to the CCC's spokesman, want to install it.
Bit early to start panicking, yet.
Re:Unions were needed because of the work monopoly
on
The Jungle
·
· Score: 1
Now, however, the situation is completely different - in workforce market there is free trade; You don't like one company, there are hundreds of others you can go to. This way people can NOT be oppressed by their employer; Abuse can only happen if it is hard to leave
Only if other employers in the same industry are better - if, for want of a better term, 'employer oppression' is endemic throughout an industry, the ability to move between jobs conveys no advantage. Employers will only offer better terms than their competitiors if there are not enough employees with the required skills to meet the demand - if labour is easily obtainable, employers will offer as poor terms as they can get away with (in this situation, employers behave as a cartel, with an effective monopoly) Currently, skilled computer professionals are in demand, so those with the skills can, to a large extent, dictate terms to their employers... but then, the position of the skilled in the nineteenth century was much the same. The unions were created to protect the rights and improve conditions for the workers who are not able to do this - the less skilled, the less educated, or those in a declining industry where the demand for jobs is greater than the supply. In the 21st century, this situation is still with us, and the computer industry, like any other has a large number of unskilled or semi-skilled drudge workers - these people still need unions.
Sega almost reached the levels of monopolist in the console industry, but fell short. If they work with Nvidia, it's conceivable the console market would fall to this conglomeration.
Hey, you needn't worry about a Sega/Nvidia monopoly in the console market! Remember, competition will be provided by Microsoft's X-Box!
uh... that probably doesn't make you feel much better, does it?
I can see your point, but the difference is that nobody died in Apollo 13 - while the failures would be considered disastrous to the engineers working at NASA, perhaps the public percieve Apollo 13 more in terms of NASA's success in returning the astronauts alive than the disaster of the accident occuring in the first place... probably even more so since the release of the film.
Hm. I agree entirely that the more extreme utopian hopes for fusion power are naive, but I'm not sure that fusion is in a different class than the other power sources you mention...with wind, solar etc, the fuel source is a natural sustainable resource, but the means of converting it to usable energy is entirely technological - technology which has to be given, or more realistically sold, to third world countries by the first world countries who have the resources to develop them. Countries utilising these power sources will be no more independent of the first world than they would be if they used fusion.
There is perhaps hope though - remember that "economic oppresion" is generally not a deliberate evil plot by capitalist westerners, or a means of political control over third world countries, but merely a common byproduct of government and business acting in their own interest. It can be argued that industrialization/economic development of the third world is in the interests of business, because it creates new wealth and new markets (look at how many western businesses are investing in China - this is because they do not expect, or desire, China to remain a poor, rural economy for much longer). The poor are not a source of profit. Furthermore, as you say, the reasons for poverty are largely political, but the flipside of this is that it is as often politically advantageous to encourage development in poor nations as it is to hinder it (i.e. to strengthen allies/client states). Both governments and businesses *will* "give away" technology if they believe it is in their advantage to do so. Admittedly, this requires the right circumstances, which is why I agree that the simplistic "all the world's problems solved" stories are unrealistic.
Can't remember where I read this now, but Clarke was asked about this many times and went to great lengths to argue that it *was* possible, at least for short intervals... as i recall he also stated he was aware of the need *not* to hold your breath (Clarke was an experienced amateur SCUBA diver), but forgot to tell Keir Dullea, and only noticed this small error when the film was completed.
Slashdot Mirror
Possible solution:
As far as I know -dontdothatguishit is unused in any current unix tools.Bit long, but you'd have no trouble remembering it.
For the specific examples you give, I think it's unlikely - wouldn't making a cheap mic with a predictable enough distortion for software to remove it transparently sort of mean making the mic with it's distortion engineered to high tolerances (with the corresponding high costs)? The problem is that the 'feel' of a sound is an extremely subtle thing and once you've lost information from the signal, how can you put it back? As to active soundproofing ...um. Maybe, but it sounds expensive (both for extra mics, and the processing power required), and time-consuming and difficult to set up. It's only useful if the ordinary 'only as technical as I need to be' musician can understand how to do it.
There is however, some hope for software improving the sound from microphones. The effects board in Roland's VS-series hard disk recorders, for example, have a 'mic simulator' effect - it uses a physical modelling algorithm to attempt to simulate the sound of more expensive mics, from a cheaper mic or line input. It does, to my ears, make a noticeable improvement to the sound - but I don't think it would fool an experienced recording engineer. Software can and will be used to improve the quality of home recordings, but it's always a case of fixing badly recorded signals, which is usually a poor substitute for using high-end equipment in the first place. I certainly wouldn't rule out software becoming advanced enough to make this difference neglible in the future, but I think it's some way off yet.
Excuse me, but do you mean you associate trolls with Valentine's day? Hey, I'm as open-minded as anyone... but that's pretty disturbing.
Already have done more or less this... but then, for even this you're talking about a few hundred pounds total ... it's good enough for my needs, but if you want to record more than one person at at a time/use different mic setups to improve the sound etc. the costs become much higher - at which point it starts to become more economical to rent time in a studio. My original point was that home recording suited some musicians, but isn't suitable for all.
Peer to peer. The O'Reilly site linked to above has an explanatory article here
Using a microphone. Which converts an audio signal into an analogue electrical signal, which is then converted by A-D converters in your soundcard to a digital signal. The quality of the results is dependant both on the quality of the microphone, and the quality of the A-D converters (which are usually poor quality in consumer soundcards).
At the moment, it depends what style of music you're interested in. Primarily synth/sample based music (particularly dance music) can, and often is, created to commercial quality at home - although not quite a normal home PC ... it usually requires more than the normal consumer-market soundcard, and a well-specified PC... music software is one of the few fields which genuinely requires fast processors. The reason, of course, is that samplers and synths (excluding analogue) are themselves dedicated digital computers - reproducing the same work in software on a PC is not much different, provided your PC can handle it. If you listen to techno/house music, it's often not possible to tell wether a tune was recorded in a home or professional studio.
The situation is diferent for recording live instruments though, for two reasons:
1.Since the sound depends on the accoustic qualities of the recording environment professional studios still have a significant advantage, in being able to afford properly accoustically designed and treated rooms.
2.Recording live instruments requires analogue equipment - in this case there is usually a clear relationship between the cost of the equipment and the quality of the sound (the article mentioned using cheap microphones - complete nonsense, at least for the present - cheap mics sound very cheap)
Neither of these factors can easily be fixed in software (although a skilled producer can certainly work around them to a certain extent). Although interesting accoustic/live band music has been made in home studios, it is extremely difficult to get the polished sound of a professional studio, and unfortunately this is often required by radio stations, without which it's extremely difficult to reach a wider audience.
But remember, one of Motorola's main markets is embedded systems - they're looking at memory for mobile phones etc initially, so the 2004 date is perhaps not so unrealistic.
Mind, whoever moderated it as 'informative' is much funnier.
The article describes a system that the German phonographic industry would like to see implemented... no government enforcement of this is mentioned, just that they want to open a dialogue with ISPs, none of whom, according to the CCC's spokesman, want to install it.
Bit early to start panicking, yet.
Only if other employers in the same industry are better - if, for want of a better term, 'employer oppression' is endemic throughout an industry, the ability to move between jobs conveys no advantage. Employers will only offer better terms than their competitiors if there are not enough employees with the required skills to meet the demand - if labour is easily obtainable, employers will offer as poor terms as they can get away with (in this situation, employers behave as a cartel, with an effective monopoly) Currently, skilled computer professionals are in demand, so those with the skills can, to a large extent, dictate terms to their employers ... but then, the position of the skilled in the nineteenth century was much the same. The unions were created to protect the rights and improve conditions for the workers who are not able to do this - the less skilled, the less educated, or those in a declining industry where the demand for jobs is greater than the supply. In the 21st century, this situation is still with us, and the computer industry, like any other has a large number of unskilled or semi-skilled drudge workers - these people still need unions.
Hey, you needn't worry about a Sega/Nvidia monopoly in the console market! Remember, competition will be provided by Microsoft's X-Box!
uh... that probably doesn't make you feel much better, does it?
www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/16377.html
Interestingly, DirecTV's method of defeating the hackers seems at least as ingenious as the hacker's methods of circumvention.
On the subject of which, seen todays Onion? -'Special 'Framers' Cut' Of Constitution To Feature Five Deleted Amendments'
I can see your point, but the difference is that nobody died in Apollo 13 - while the failures would be considered disastrous to the engineers working at NASA, perhaps the public percieve Apollo 13 more in terms of NASA's success in returning the astronauts alive than the disaster of the accident occuring in the first place ... probably even more so since the release of the film.
There is perhaps hope though - remember that "economic oppresion" is generally not a deliberate evil plot by capitalist westerners, or a means of political control over third world countries, but merely a common byproduct of government and business acting in their own interest. It can be argued that industrialization/economic development of the third world is in the interests of business, because it creates new wealth and new markets (look at how many western businesses are investing in China - this is because they do not expect, or desire, China to remain a poor, rural economy for much longer). The poor are not a source of profit. Furthermore, as you say, the reasons for poverty are largely political, but the flipside of this is that it is as often politically advantageous to encourage development in poor nations as it is to hinder it (i.e. to strengthen allies/client states). Both governments and businesses *will* "give away" technology if they believe it is in their advantage to do so. Admittedly, this requires the right circumstances, which is why I agree that the simplistic "all the world's problems solved" stories are unrealistic.
Can't remember where I read this now, but Clarke was asked about this many times and went to great lengths to argue that it *was* possible, at least for short intervals... as i recall he also stated he was aware of the need *not* to hold your breath (Clarke was an experienced amateur SCUBA diver), but forgot to tell Keir Dullea, and only noticed this small error when the film was completed.