Come to think of it, you can draw on anything. We better ban paper. Wait, You can still draw on your skin. We need to ban pens and pencils. No. We need to ban skin. Terrorist will just be placing chemical and biological weapons INSIDE of themselves if we don't.
1. I don't know if it will tether. If it won't, dealbreaker. ehh.
2. EDGE - I have an EDGE phone now. It's too slow. If 802.11 worked where I needed my phone to access the internet, I wouldn't need my phone to access the internet. Welcome to the United States. Our cell system sucks, and has ever since the switch from analog to digital. Of course what would really be cool would be if it used voip when there was a wifi connection, but of course there will never be a phone that does that.
3. Javascript is not an SDK. Perhaps, but let's face it. You weren't going to be doing anything with it anyway.
4. Not enough storage capacity to be useful as an iPod. I wouldn't mind at all having a hard drive in my phone, I want 80GB, not 8. Yup.
5. I don't do 2 year contracts. Like you're really going to be change your cell provider every year.
6. This thing is useless without activation. If I decide I don't want Cingular, it's not even an ipod, it's a doorstop. Welcome to the United States. We only sell locked cell phones. You knew this going in. If you weren't willing to use Big Brother's Ma Bell cell system, then you wouldn't have bought an iPhone.
People are buying the iphone because they want the interface, and it is a slick interface.
What happened ? It worked. It broke the economy of the Soviet Union. My god! That's some Cold War Reagan is Genius bullshit.
SDI was laughable at the time, because the fundamental problems of Rods for God, Brilliant Pebbles, space and ground based lasers, and kinetic kill vehicles were unsolvable at the time, and easily defeated by incredibly inexpesive counter-measures (everything from mylar baloon decoys, to liquid nitrogen jackets, to -- my personal favorite -- simply detonating one warhead in space, and then sending the rest through. Most importantly to this conversation, is that the Soviet Union realized this, and so did NOTHING!
So, what caused the collapse of the Soviet Union? Simple. The economy collapsed -- completely unexpected by the West mind you -- due to structural deficencies in the command economy of the Soviet Union. The American Enterprise Institute (hardly a "leftist" organization) recently outlined the economic collapse of the USSR. Far from being the imminent threat and the power hourse conservatives were saying the Soviet Union was, the Soviet Union was falling apart as early as the 1970s. They produced no finished goods, save for weapons, that could be sold on the world market. Instead they relied on selling raw materials, most importantly oil. The Soviet economy was on the virge of collapse since the 1970s, however whenever the situation looked the most dire, the oil market managed pickup just in time, and bail them out. Eventually, their luck ran out.
If you want to thank anyone for the West winning the Cold War without firing a shot, thank Josef Stalin. His nationalization of the agricultural sector of the Soviet economy set the country on the course to ruin.
Personally, I don't see any conflict between the world being created by some God, even in 7 days, and its being formed over billions of years by natural processes. One is a faith based way of experiencing the world, the other is a sensory based, practical, and logical way. They are both useful.
I know you you're not a creationist, and that you're trying to find some reasonable common ground between religion and science, and say that "it's all good in the 'hood baby," but I'm sorry. Your statement doesn't make any sense.
You can say that the codification of a moral structure provided by a religion is useful, but to say that there isn't a conflict between "7 days" and "billions of years" is simply nonsense. Both are making a statement about physics (as opposed to metaphysics) and they simply can not both be true. To argue otherwise is simply to use "faith" as an excuse to ignore evidence.
That is the central problem with creationists. They want to have it both ways. They want to muddle the issue and try and say that settled physical processes are open to wild ass interpretation and try and say that there are multiple equally valid ways to explain the physical world. You might as well be saying that it's okay to think that the Earth is flat, or that the sky is plaid. No. It's not true, it never was, and no matter amount of "faith" will make it so.
Religion can talk all it wants about metaphysics, but when it tries to explain the physical world, it has to live up to the physical evidence. Otherwise it's crap. You can argue Genesis has something to say about man's prompensity for sin, and I'll agree, but when you start trying to say that universe was created in a week, and the world was covered in a flood, but for some reason Noah didn't think God meant dinosaurs and unicorns when he said, "two of every animal," then you're a fool, because you're willfulling ignoring the truth.
To say that a creation myth has anything to say about the creation of the physical world is utter bullshit.
Your definition of "class" is true. Its 100% true as Karl Marx described it. The only problem is he was wrong. There aren't just two classes. There are 3. His and your refusal to acknowledge that does not make you right. Yes those who own the means of production are the truly wealthy and everyone else works for them. But a "worker" who makes $250,000 a year has very little in common with someone who makes $19,000 a year. Their concerns are as different from each other as a middle class person's is from a deca millionaires. This is why Marx's foretold economic revolutions never took place. There's plenty for the poor to gain by revolting, but the middle class would have a lot to lose and so they declined to join in. Without the middle class participating the revolutions could not take place.
You hit the nail on the head. I was in a coffee shop recently and in Marx's class structure came up in conversation. Marx stated the the middle class didn't actually exist, and that it was just a self-delusion of some in the proletariat. Of course in Prussia, that was the case, but not necessarily the case in other places.
You've never looked at the story submission form have you? The submitter writes the headline. Editors tend to just click the button to accept the article.
I suspect that submitter picked a stupid headline so he'd get a "story accepted" on his page. That or frankShook is some crazy ass gpl fanboy that wants to get super pendanic.
Given that it's slashdot, I put the odds at 50-50.
You've never looked at the storry submission form have you? The submitter writes the headline. I suspect that submitter picked a stupid headline so he'd get a "story accepted" on his page.
Editors tend to just click the button to accept the article.
While there was undoubtedly a chilling effect, it actually doesn't matter. In fact most of the time, grand juries don't even see physical evidence, since they have less stringent standards of evidence. Most notably hearsay is permitted. The vast majoriity of the time, the only evidence you hear is from a single law enforcement officer. In rare instances, that officer wasn't even a part of the investigation, but rather is simply testifying to what was in the investigation report.
None of this is a problem, since a grand jury is only determining whether or not there's enough evidence for a trial to go forward (i.e. is it more likely than not that a crime was commited by the individual(s) under investigation), not whether the individual(s) are actually guilty of any crime.
A typical case was "Consipriacy to Manufacture and Distribute Methamphetime, a Schedule II Controlled Substance." A member of law enforcement would then be brought in, and the AUSA would then basically walk the the officer through the investigation report.
Law enforcement learned that the individuals were manufacturing and distributed meth from a confidential source (a "CS" in law enforcement parlance)
Law enforcement conducted a control buyh
The substance was either tested by the state police or the DEA and tested positive for methamphetamine
An arrest warrent was issued and executed
During the questioning, the individuals confessed that they would purchase pseudoephedrine from discount department stores and drug stores across a multistate region
The AUSA reads the proposed indictment and then leaves the room. A vote is taken, and the individuals are indicted by a unanimous vote. (Only 12 out of 20, with a quarum of 16 are required for indictment.)
Hell. That the AUSA that prosecuted all the child porn cases we saw had a penchant for bringing in physical evidence and pass it around to the jury. (e.g. shivs confiscated from federal prison) He would bring in child porn as well, but leave it facedown on the table at the front of the room for anyone to examine if they felt like they needed to.
No one ever looked. I suspect because they didn't want to walk back to their seat and see the entire room's accusing eyes upon them. Of course it would be really awesome if someone had examined the photos and just stared muttering, "Mmm. Mmmm. That's nasty. Mmmm. That's a shame." and licking their lips.
I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live. It's ugly, it's inhospitable and there's no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it's so hard to reach.
Actually the age criteria for nude photography is a bit more complicated than a simple inequality. You can photograph anyone regardless of age (assuming of course you have his/her and/or his/her parrent/guardian's informed consent), as long as it's not in a "sexually explicit or lude and lascivious manner." This why you can have pictures of naked babies, children's genetalia in medical or sex-ed books, even in art. If the photographs or video are in sexual manner, then you have to 18.
How do you know where to draw the line when prosecuting child porn cases? In practice you don't have to define the exactly where the line is. A video of a grown man ejaculating on a nude 5 year old's face is pretty good indication, of that video being on the wrong side of the law. Same for a photo of 10 year old spreading her labia for the camera.
So how do investigators know that the individidual in the photograph or video is a real person that is under 18 years of age at the time of recording? Easy. The FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have an incredibly large collection of child porn. Like all porn, child porn is shared widely and has a very long life time. Investigators look for previously identified bonafied child porn, and prosecute on those instances. New suspected child porn is identified by medical doctors, who examine the material an give an expert opinion of whether the individual is underage. (Yes, they also maintain a database of false positives.)
When it comes to possession, posession is illegal. While it may be a dubious comfort, the US Attorney probably won't prosecute you for each individual photo or video in your 100 GB pr0n collection, but rather for just a two or three photos or videos. I say it's dubious, because you'll still be going to jail for a long long time.
And before anyone gets the wrong idea. I recently served on a federal grand jury. The Assistant US Attorney explained the law to us.
In an unrelated case, he ran a DEA video explaining -- in detail -- three methods used to manufacture methamphetamines. Yes. You could take notes.;)
I think in your hatred of Microsoft, you've completely missed my point, because far from correcting me, you've actually reinforced what I said in my post.
All said was that MS wanted to make WMA the standard because they owned it, and that they heavily promoted it as The Standard for digital audio at the time. They did this because they wanted a piece of the action off of every player and audiofile sold.
The technical details of WMA, which you've seemed to focus on, are completely irrelevant. What is relevant is:
Microsoft own WMA, and thus gets a licensing fee everytime it's used.
WMA has DRM capability, and MP3 doesn't, thus making it an attractive option for the RIAA.
The main thesis of my post was the iPod and iTMS didn't kill WMA/ensure MP3 as the standard, as WMA was a stillborn technology. Unless, you want to argue that WMA was a popular format in the market place among users, as opposed to buisnesses trying to sell audiofiles, then I fail to see how that arguement was refuted as well.
You're right to say that WMA was pushed hard, but to say that ipod and itms killed it is a bit simplistic, especially considering that WMA was DOA, and *obviously* DOA.
Mr. Peabody. Please set the Wayback Machine for the year 1999 -- the year digital music players took off.
WMA didn't take off because, people already had a huge library of mp3z. (That is the proper pluralization, correct?;) ) People never used WMA, because they *didn't have* any WMA files. Microsoft heavily promoted WMA as an alternate audio format, mostly because they owned it. The fact that it was DRM capable, and so the RIAA would like it was just icing. The combination of WMA install base (i.e. every windows machine on the planet), and the MS-RIAA tag team, caused every "legitimate" music store, with the notable exception of Real's Rhaposdy, to use WMA.
However, 1999 was also when Napster in it's hayday. *Nobody* used these services when Napster was providing everything you wanted quickly, easily, and at an affordable price. Two years later, in 2001, Apple released the iPod. It didn't support WMA, and no one cared, since no one was using WMA. Even the people that owned WMA capable players,never used that functionality. iTMS didn't get launched until 2003, after the iPod had already become a surprisingly resounding success, and Napster had been sued into oblivion, and the other P2Ps (most notably gnutella) were rendered unusable due to spam.
iTMS works because it has a huge collection (albeit not nearly as big as the "pirate" internet), and because it is incredibly easy to get tracks. Conversely, if you're trying to use a torrent site, it's pretty much impossible to download just a single track. You're stuck downloading the entire discography.
So you see, WMA wasn't so much killed by the iPod and iTMS, as it was stillborn.
And what's with this wiretapping nonsense? That doesn't even make sense, how do you wiretap the air? Last I checked it wasn't a series of wires...
You're either an idiot, or you're being deliberterly obtuse.
The crime is recording someone without their consent. Not the minutae of how it's done. That's how good laws are written. Otherwise you're stuck with, "Well I'm sorry ma'am. Walking up to someone and hitting them in the head with a rock just isn't against the law. Now if he had used a stick..."
I mean, I'm sure this law is great for privacy freaks, but it just seems off. If you're going to say something to me why don't I have the right to record it? My brain's already doing that, what's wrong with having a more accurate representation of it? You'd prefer I improperly remember you saying "I'm gonna blow them up!" and not have the recording that actually says "He's gonna blow them up?" I wouldn't mind people recording my conversations,why would you ever say anything you wouldn't want recorded to another human being with a memory?
There's a fundamental difference between remembering something and recording it. Recordings can be directly shared. Memories can't be.
Society is based on being able to do things and not being called on it later. It's not just what you see, but what you choose not to see that holds society together. We all do things we don't want others to know about,even in public We share somethings with some people, somethings with others. Those walls are what makes polite society possible. Recording everything shows you don't trust me, or worse yet, you plan to injure me in the future. It indicates that the recorder is untrustworthy.
Let's say I record you continously for a week, and then edit video down to every time you pick your nose, scratch your ass, blow your nose and then look at your snot, and pick your ear. Nice slowmo shots too. Then I'll upload it to youtube and share it with all your friends. It would be kind of emberassing wouldn't it? But HEY! I recorded it and you were in public so who cares? Oh well.
Up and down arrows still activate the dropdown in the location bar instead of move to the front and end of the typed text like on every other mac application in existence. Won't use it until it's fixed. Can't use it until it's fixed.
And fan boys, don't try and say that it up and down arrows are stupid, that's irrelevant. It's platform convention. Don't say that it's impossible to use a drop down without binding activation to the down arrow. Safari does it just fine.
And another thing. For less than we've spent on the Iraq war, we *could have had* a constellation of space solar power satellites, and the lifting infrastructure to ensure access to space.
In what world? Sim City?
I'm sorry. But the technology simply doesn't exist, let alone advanced enough for wide scale commercial deployment.
Get thee back to thou Heinlein novels of mining asteroids for common materials that are easily and much more economically exploited terrestrially.
LaTeX generates both Postscript and PDF. I don't know anyone who would submit or accept raw LaTeX source. All the journals I've looked at took either.doc or PDF, with the expressed requirement that it be "a single, self-contained file." You don't get that with LaTeX. Unless you're a masochist, all your references are in BibTeX, and all your graphs are in either PDF or EPS format, not that weird line-draw TeX command thing.
As someone that works for a satellite TV company in tech support (ExpressVu, specifically) I can assure you they are telling you the truth. They cannot unlock the station (assuming they want their job). The blackout string is set by the highest level technicians (the ones that don't work tech support but actually set up all the cool engineering-type stuff they never let the techs know about). This blackout string is set by postal code (for you probably zip code).
I didn't make myself clear. They told me it was technically impossible to do it. It is possible to do this, but they are legally forced to provide substandard service.
Now, you could fix all this by calling up DishNetwork and asking them for service, and giving them a friends address that lives far enough away from ALL sporting centres that he never gets blackouts. But that would be "illegal" on your part. But if they never knew about it... what they don't know won't kill them.
BTW: The fact the guy bothered to look up that you could get it off the air was a bonus. I wouldn't have bothered. It's certainly not required of us to find that information for you. So you got better tech support than I would have given you.
But I CAN'T GET IT OVER THE AIR It is a physical impossiblity. MLB has designated the DMA has "chicago white sox terrority" simply because it's Illinois. It is absolutely impossible to receive that channel. The only reason I know what the call letters for the channel are, is that I looked it up on the web.
I hear your pain man. When I lived in Southern Illinois, I had MLB Extra Innings on DirecTV. I'd watch The Cardinals and the Mariners (Ichiro is fun to watch.) Whenever the Seattle plays in Chicago, which is over 300 miles away, and the game is broadcast on the over the air in Chicago (WCIU?) I WAS BLOCKED OUT. I called DirecTV and complained everytime.
"That game is broadcast on the over the air channel." "No. It's broadcasted on a channel 300 miles away. It is physically impossible for me to receive it." "MLB thinks otherwise." "Could you unloick FSN Seattle, since I get right up until the game showed up." "It's impossible for us to unblock a single channel." "Bullshit."
Slashdot Mirror
People are buying the iphone because they want the interface, and it is a slick interface.
SDI was laughable at the time, because the fundamental problems of Rods for God, Brilliant Pebbles, space and ground based lasers, and kinetic kill vehicles were unsolvable at the time, and easily defeated by incredibly inexpesive counter-measures (everything from mylar baloon decoys, to liquid nitrogen jackets, to -- my personal favorite -- simply detonating one warhead in space, and then sending the rest through. Most importantly to this conversation, is that the Soviet Union realized this, and so did NOTHING!
The idea that Gorbechev ramped up military spending to counter the perceived threat from SDI is simply untrue. The Soviet Union's military spending growth held steady at 1.3% per year since 1975. In 1985, spending increased to 4.3% per year for two years. During the growth, offsenive strategic weapon spending only grew at 1.4%. By 1988, the Soviet defense budget had dropped to 1980 levels. Meanwhile, the Reagan instituted the largest peastime military spending in history, growing the DOD at 8% per year, leading to the largest budget deficits and national debt in the history of the United States. In the words of Rush Limbaugh, "Reagan left us a debt we can never repay."
So, what caused the collapse of the Soviet Union? Simple. The economy collapsed -- completely unexpected by the West mind you -- due to structural deficencies in the command economy of the Soviet Union. The American Enterprise Institute (hardly a "leftist" organization) recently outlined the economic collapse of the USSR. Far from being the imminent threat and the power hourse conservatives were saying the Soviet Union was, the Soviet Union was falling apart as early as the 1970s. They produced no finished goods, save for weapons, that could be sold on the world market. Instead they relied on selling raw materials, most importantly oil. The Soviet economy was on the virge of collapse since the 1970s, however whenever the situation looked the most dire, the oil market managed pickup just in time, and bail them out. Eventually, their luck ran out.
If you want to thank anyone for the West winning the Cold War without firing a shot, thank Josef Stalin. His nationalization of the agricultural sector of the Soviet economy set the country on the course to ruin.
Personally, I don't see any conflict between the world being created by some God, even in 7 days, and its being formed over billions of years by natural processes. One is a faith based way of experiencing the world, the other is a sensory based, practical, and logical way. They are both useful.
I know you you're not a creationist, and that you're trying to find some reasonable common ground between religion and science, and say that "it's all good in the 'hood baby," but I'm sorry. Your statement doesn't make any sense.
You can say that the codification of a moral structure provided by a religion is useful, but to say that there isn't a conflict between "7 days" and "billions of years" is simply nonsense. Both are making a statement about physics (as opposed to metaphysics) and they simply can not both be true. To argue otherwise is simply to use "faith" as an excuse to ignore evidence.
That is the central problem with creationists. They want to have it both ways. They want to muddle the issue and try and say that settled physical processes are open to wild ass interpretation and try and say that there are multiple equally valid ways to explain the physical world. You might as well be saying that it's okay to think that the Earth is flat, or that the sky is plaid. No. It's not true, it never was, and no matter amount of "faith" will make it so.
Religion can talk all it wants about metaphysics, but when it tries to explain the physical world, it has to live up to the physical evidence. Otherwise it's crap. You can argue Genesis has something to say about man's prompensity for sin, and I'll agree, but when you start trying to say that universe was created in a week, and the world was covered in a flood, but for some reason Noah didn't think God meant dinosaurs and unicorns when he said, "two of every animal," then you're a fool, because you're willfulling ignoring the truth.
To say that a creation myth has anything to say about the creation of the physical world is utter bullshit.
Your definition of "class" is true. Its 100% true as Karl Marx described it. The only problem is he was wrong. There aren't just two classes. There are 3. His and your refusal to acknowledge that does not make you right. Yes those who own the means of production are the truly wealthy and everyone else works for them. But a "worker" who makes $250,000 a year has very little in common with someone who makes $19,000 a year. Their concerns are as different from each other as a middle class person's is from a deca millionaires. This is why Marx's foretold economic revolutions never took place. There's plenty for the poor to gain by revolting, but the middle class would have a lot to lose and so they declined to join in. Without the middle class participating the revolutions could not take place.
You hit the nail on the head. I was in a coffee shop recently and in Marx's class structure came up in conversation. Marx stated the the middle class didn't actually exist, and that it was just a self-delusion of some in the proletariat. Of course in Prussia, that was the case, but not necessarily the case in other places.
You've never looked at the story submission form have you? The submitter writes the headline. Editors tend to just click the button to accept the article.
I suspect that submitter picked a stupid headline so he'd get a "story accepted" on his page. That or frankShook is some crazy ass gpl fanboy that wants to get super pendanic.
Given that it's slashdot, I put the odds at 50-50.
You've never looked at the storry submission form have you? The submitter writes the headline. I suspect that submitter picked a stupid headline so he'd get a "story accepted" on his page.
Editors tend to just click the button to accept the article.
None of this is a problem, since a grand jury is only determining whether or not there's enough evidence for a trial to go forward (i.e. is it more likely than not that a crime was commited by the individual(s) under investigation), not whether the individual(s) are actually guilty of any crime.
A typical case was "Consipriacy to Manufacture and Distribute Methamphetime, a Schedule II Controlled Substance." A member of law enforcement would then be brought in, and the AUSA would then basically walk the the officer through the investigation report.
The AUSA reads the proposed indictment and then leaves the room. A vote is taken, and the individuals are indicted by a unanimous vote. (Only 12 out of 20, with a quarum of 16 are required for indictment.)
Hell. That the AUSA that prosecuted all the child porn cases we saw had a penchant for bringing in physical evidence and pass it around to the jury. (e.g. shivs confiscated from federal prison) He would bring in child porn as well, but leave it facedown on the table at the front of the room for anyone to examine if they felt like they needed to.
No one ever looked. I suspect because they didn't want to walk back to their seat and see the entire room's accusing eyes upon them. Of course it would be really awesome if someone had examined the photos and just stared muttering, "Mmm. Mmmm. That's nasty. Mmmm. That's a shame." and licking their lips.
I believe Bruce Sterling put best when he said:
Seriously, you should read this.
[Ed. Note. For full effect, you should imagine this being read by the always helpful June Thomas]
;)
Actually the age criteria for nude photography is a bit more complicated than a simple inequality. You can photograph anyone regardless of age (assuming of course you have his/her and/or his/her parrent/guardian's informed consent), as long as it's not in a "sexually explicit or lude and lascivious manner." This why you can have pictures of naked babies, children's genetalia in medical or sex-ed books, even in art. If the photographs or video are in sexual manner, then you have to 18.
How do you know where to draw the line when prosecuting child porn cases? In practice you don't have to define the exactly where the line is. A video of a grown man ejaculating on a nude 5 year old's face is pretty good indication, of that video being on the wrong side of the law. Same for a photo of 10 year old spreading her labia for the camera.
So how do investigators know that the individidual in the photograph or video is a real person that is under 18 years of age at the time of recording? Easy. The FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have an incredibly large collection of child porn. Like all porn, child porn is shared widely and has a very long life time. Investigators look for previously identified bonafied child porn, and prosecute on those instances. New suspected child porn is identified by medical doctors, who examine the material an give an expert opinion of whether the individual is underage. (Yes, they also maintain a database of false positives.)
When it comes to possession, posession is illegal. While it may be a dubious comfort, the US Attorney probably won't prosecute you for each individual photo or video in your 100 GB pr0n collection, but rather for just a two or three photos or videos. I say it's dubious, because you'll still be going to jail for a long long time.
And before anyone gets the wrong idea. I recently served on a federal grand jury. The Assistant US Attorney explained the law to us.
In an unrelated case, he ran a DEA video explaining -- in detail -- three methods used to manufacture methamphetamines. Yes. You could take notes.
I think in your hatred of Microsoft, you've completely missed my point, because far from correcting me, you've actually reinforced what I said in my post.
All said was that MS wanted to make WMA the standard because they owned it, and that they heavily promoted it as The Standard for digital audio at the time. They did this because they wanted a piece of the action off of every player and audiofile sold.
The technical details of WMA, which you've seemed to focus on, are completely irrelevant. What is relevant is:
The main thesis of my post was the iPod and iTMS didn't kill WMA/ensure MP3 as the standard, as WMA was a stillborn technology. Unless, you want to argue that WMA was a popular format in the market place among users, as opposed to buisnesses trying to sell audiofiles, then I fail to see how that arguement was refuted as well.
You're right to say that WMA was pushed hard, but to say that ipod and itms killed it is a bit simplistic, especially considering that WMA was DOA, and *obviously* DOA.
;) ) People never used WMA, because they *didn't have* any WMA files. Microsoft heavily promoted WMA as an alternate audio format, mostly because they owned it. The fact that it was DRM capable, and so the RIAA would like it was just icing. The combination of WMA install base (i.e. every windows machine on the planet), and the MS-RIAA tag team, caused every "legitimate" music store, with the notable exception of Real's Rhaposdy, to use WMA.
Mr. Peabody. Please set the Wayback Machine for the year 1999 -- the year digital music players took off.
WMA didn't take off because, people already had a huge library of mp3z. (That is the proper pluralization, correct?
However, 1999 was also when Napster in it's hayday. *Nobody* used these services when Napster was providing everything you wanted quickly, easily, and at an affordable price. Two years later, in 2001, Apple released the iPod. It didn't support WMA, and no one cared, since no one was using WMA. Even the people that owned WMA capable players,never used that functionality. iTMS didn't get launched until 2003, after the iPod had already become a surprisingly resounding success, and Napster had been sued into oblivion, and the other P2Ps (most notably gnutella) were rendered unusable due to spam.
iTMS works because it has a huge collection (albeit not nearly as big as the "pirate" internet), and because it is incredibly easy to get tracks. Conversely, if you're trying to use a torrent site, it's pretty much impossible to download just a single track. You're stuck downloading the entire discography.
So you see, WMA wasn't so much killed by the iPod and iTMS, as it was stillborn.
And what's with this wiretapping nonsense? That doesn't even make sense, how do you wiretap the air? Last I checked it wasn't a series of wires...
You're either an idiot, or you're being deliberterly obtuse.
The crime is recording someone without their consent. Not the minutae of how it's done. That's how good laws are written. Otherwise you're stuck with, "Well I'm sorry ma'am. Walking up to someone and hitting them in the head with a rock just isn't against the law. Now if he had used a stick..."
I mean, I'm sure this law is great for privacy freaks, but it just seems off. If you're going to say something to me why don't I have the right to record it? My brain's already doing that, what's wrong with having a more accurate representation of it? You'd prefer I improperly remember you saying "I'm gonna blow them up!" and not have the recording that actually says "He's gonna blow them up?" I wouldn't mind people recording my conversations,why would you ever say anything you wouldn't want recorded to another human being with a memory?
There's a fundamental difference between remembering something and recording it. Recordings can be directly shared. Memories can't be.
Society is based on being able to do things and not being called on it later. It's not just what you see, but what you choose not to see that holds society together. We all do things we don't want others to know about,even in public We share somethings with some people, somethings with others. Those walls are what makes polite society possible. Recording everything shows you don't trust me, or worse yet, you plan to injure me in the future. It indicates that the recorder is untrustworthy.
Let's say I record you continously for a week, and then edit video down to every time you pick your nose, scratch your ass, blow your nose and then look at your snot, and pick your ear. Nice slowmo shots too. Then I'll upload it to youtube and share it with all your friends. It would be kind of emberassing wouldn't it? But HEY! I recorded it and you were in public so who cares? Oh well.
No point. I have safari.
Up and down arrows still activate the dropdown in the location bar instead of move to the front and end of the typed text like on every other mac application in existence. Won't use it until it's fixed. Can't use it until it's fixed.
And fan boys, don't try and say that it up and down arrows are stupid, that's irrelevant. It's platform convention. Don't say that it's impossible to use a drop down without binding activation to the down arrow. Safari does it just fine.
And another thing. For less than we've spent on the Iraq war, we *could have had* a constellation of space solar power satellites, and the lifting infrastructure to ensure access to space.
In what world? Sim City?
I'm sorry. But the technology simply doesn't exist, let alone advanced enough for wide scale commercial deployment.
Get thee back to thou Heinlein novels of mining asteroids for common materials that are easily and much more economically exploited terrestrially.
:)
something for the lameness
This place has really gone downhill. I thought Firehose was supposed to stop stuff like this, not increase it!
You mean like digg? Nah. The there's no wisdom in crowds. Just lowest common denominator.
LaTeX generates both Postscript and PDF. I don't know anyone who would submit or accept raw LaTeX source. All the journals I've looked at took either .doc or PDF, with the expressed requirement that it be "a single, self-contained file." You don't get that with LaTeX. Unless you're a masochist, all your references are in BibTeX, and all your graphs are in either PDF or EPS format, not that weird line-draw TeX command thing.
Your ignorance of how TeX is actually used, and of the research community is remarkable.
As someone that works for a satellite TV company in tech support (ExpressVu, specifically) I can assure you they are telling you the truth. They cannot unlock the station (assuming they want their job). The blackout string is set by the highest level technicians (the ones that don't work tech support but actually set up all the cool engineering-type stuff they never let the techs know about). This blackout string is set by postal code (for you probably zip code).
I didn't make myself clear. They told me it was technically impossible to do it. It is possible to do this, but they are legally forced to provide substandard service.
Now, you could fix all this by calling up DishNetwork and asking them for service, and giving them a friends address that lives far enough away from ALL sporting centres that he never gets blackouts. But that would be "illegal" on your part. But if they never knew about it... what they don't know won't kill them.
BTW: The fact the guy bothered to look up that you could get it off the air was a bonus. I wouldn't have bothered. It's certainly not required of us to find that information for you. So you got better tech support than I would have given you.
But I CAN'T GET IT OVER THE AIR It is a physical impossiblity. MLB has designated the DMA has "chicago white sox terrority" simply because it's Illinois. It is absolutely impossible to receive that channel. The only reason I know what the call letters for the channel are, is that I looked it up on the web.
I hear your pain man. When I lived in Southern Illinois, I had MLB Extra Innings on DirecTV. I'd watch The Cardinals and the Mariners (Ichiro is fun to watch.) Whenever the Seattle plays in Chicago, which is over 300 miles away, and the game is broadcast on the over the air in Chicago (WCIU?) I WAS BLOCKED OUT. I called DirecTV and complained everytime.
"That game is broadcast on the over the air channel."
"No. It's broadcasted on a channel 300 miles away. It is physically impossible for me to receive it."
"MLB thinks otherwise."
"Could you unloick FSN Seattle, since I get right up until the game showed up."
"It's impossible for us to unblock a single channel."
"Bullshit."
Fuck Bud Selig. Fuck him to hell.