You obviously have a clue. Public software is a win-win. Just like public (openly published) basic science. The idea is that we create and share building blocks, but we do not stop building! On the contrary, with abundant public software we can concentrate on building bigger and better things. Better to stand on the shoulders of giants than to be kept under foot of a giant.
Corporations are run by humans and do as much good or evil as those humans would
I tend to beleive that coporations can greatly facilitate and amplify the evil tendencies of the individual humans that run them. First off, greed is a much higher priority for the average corporation than for the average human. And greed is the primary interest of the shareholders (other altruistic interests of individual shareholders are pursued in other areas of their lives). The corps make a science of greed.
Secondly, corporations foster a "mob mentality" whereby the group engages in ugly behavior that few of the individuals would be comfortable with if they were held directly responsible. This mob mentality insulates the actions of the corporation from the conscience of its individual stock holders. And the corporation insulates the shareholders legally and financially, so there are fewer personal ramifications to unethical behavior. If the corporation is attacked legally and possibly dissolved, then so what - it's just paper money. But if the shareholders were held more responsible and had to worry more about personal financial ruin or imprisonment, then you could bet that the corporation would be on better behavior. Corporations can greatly amplify the power of unethical people as long as they are bringing in money.
The lack of a human face is precisely the problem with corporations. Not saying they are all bad or there is no place for them - only that they are not very similar to natural persons. They're more like mobs of people.
You are right to put some of the blame on the legislature. But corporations are so much more powerful than natural persons, it is easy for them to leverage the goverment to further their own interests. I would be interested in knowing what proportion of new laws are motivated by corportate interests and how many are designed to protect the liberties of natural persons. Does anyone have rough figures on this?
Your statement: Napster users are giving something away which the owner does not want given away; free rights to listen to their music. - that statement only reinforces my basic point above.
In your own words, it is the Napster users that are responsible for their actions, not a technology company which may or may not be used for illegal purposes. The analogy with drunk driving still holds. Napster can lower the energy of activation for an illegal process, but it does not initiate the illegal process any more than liquor stores initiate drunk driving (they only facilitate those who wish to engage in the illegal activity of drunk driving). Napster can be no more culpable than liquor store owners.
You are wrong when you say that music swapping is inherently illegal. If you are paying attention to what's going on, then you would know that certain instances may be, but others are definitely not. Some people will get drunk and kill on the road because of the alcohol they bought from a liquor store, others will not. (And if liquor is just a product, then where is the product liability suit?)
If Napster has to guarantee their service can't be used to trade illegal files, then liquor stores should have to guarantee that their products can't result in public intoxication or drunk driving. And Fed Ex will have to shut down until they can guarantee that there are no drugs being shipped in their boxes. Apples and apples. Understand?
You're so right. The legal world is twisted indeed. We need less doublespeak and more common sense in the law. But then we wouldn't need so many lawyers to "interpret" the leagal spaghetti code! By making things so damned convoluted, they buy some job security.
Liquor stores are known to contribute significantly to drunk driving. Drunk driving is a widespread practice, yet it is illegal. And the liquor stores profit from this. It isn't feasible for them to determine which customers will go on to break the law. I guess you would be in favor of shutting them all down, eh? After all, it is almost a certainty that it would reduce the amount of drunk driving (moreso than shutting down napster would reduce online trading of copyrighted music). So what do you say? Shut down the liquor stores? If not, then please explain the difference here.
The list of technologies which can substantially assist people in breaking the law is loooooonnnnngg. Computers, guns, phone books, cameras, cars, phones, rolodexes, pens & pencils, hammers, etc.
There aren't many things in this world that couldn't be used to substantaially assist me in breaking some law. Should we outlaw them all? I'm sure I could think of a way that a carrot could substantially assist me in breaking some law. Outlawing technologies isn't the answer!
I fail to see the true distinction between the mental construct of natural numbers and other mental constructs. They are all mental constructs that may or may not reflect the true nature of the physical world.
While it is true that our proof the existence of infinity is no better than our proof of God's existence, it also the case that we have absolutely no proof of our own existence or anything else in the physical world for that matter. We can prove nothing about the physical world. The best we have is "I think therefore I am" - and that is still somewhat faith based. That our perception of the passage of time reflects the true nature of the physical world is also a faith based belief. Time may very well be an illusion for all we know. We would be foolish to limit our models of the real world to only those things that are intuitive. It just might be the case that there are counterintuitive things out there. And then once you recognize these things, your "intuition" can be retrained so that what was once paradoxical is now intuitive. I don't believe that our intuitions are fixed in stone, nor do I believe that everyone has the same intuition. Intuition is plastic, like all of our other mental processes, and can be altered to suit external conditions. The "undeniable" messages we receive from our intuition are often completely wrong! The only thing my intuition tells my that I must always believe is "I think therefore I am".
Infinity", while defined better than, say, a "tooth fairy", is still more phantasy than mathematics. But if it has definable characteristics within a mathematical system, then it is part of mathematics! Besides, all of mathematics could be called a fantasy anyway. There is no such thing as mathematics which is "true" - only various mental constructs which varying degrees of usefullness and aesthetic appeal.
This is a very naive, yet elitist point of view. Do you really think that the success of a song hinges upon the subtle differences between "professional" mixes & mastering and what can be accomplished by a self producing musician with good ears? Do you think people are going to be singing along with a catchy tune and then stop to ponder whether the snare needs a narrow band cut at 5K? Or if a second pass of compression on the bass would have made it sturdier?
And your point about having to do some sort of apprenticeship is just plain wrong too. It is no different than any other aspect of creating music. You can learn it (and invent it) on your own. Just like they way you learn to play guitar - in your bedroom with a bunch of reference recordings. Do you think that audio engineers are the only people who have good ears? Do you think it isn't possible for people to change mic placements and tweak knobs until they like the sounds? And if someone is bent on having instruction, there are plenty of resources on the net with people like you dispensing valuable advice based on experience.
Amatuer production is easily good enough if you are serious about working. And besides, it's the songs that really matter, not the glitter and gloss of production. That's one thing that we should have learned from the 80's. No amount of mixing and tweaking will save a crappy song. And on the other hand, a great song will shine through no matter what the level of production.
How does the sound of something recorded on a portastudio compare to something recorded on a professional 2" tape machine?
It can sound damned close - and good enough anyway. Definitely comparable. Check out this guy's stuff if you realy want to know. It was recorded on a four track cassette with SM57's. Springsteen cut his album "Nebraska" on a four track cassette and he was already an established star. The quality was good enough.
The revolution did begin with 4 track cassettes. Is it the sonic equal of 2" tape? No, but close enough. Quality vs price in audio gear approaches an asymptote - once you spend a modest amount of $$$, additional money spent results in only a relatively small increase in quality.
Tech is not the limiting factor anymore. Not by a long shot. For less than the price of a decent used car, you can make excellent sounding music in your bedroom! The cheap semi-pro stuff became "good enough" several years ago. The only real limitation now is your musical vision and performance.
Need proof? It's all over mp3.com. For example, this guy (no relation to myself) blows my mind with the sound he gets from semi-pro gear. That song "Lie" sounds like it might have been one that Lennon cut in the studio. And you know what? All his stuff was recorded in his bedroom with an AT4033 condensor mic (~$500), Alesis SR-16 drum machine (~$250), Roland V Drums ($2-3000), Roland VS1680 ($2500 with effects cards), ART Tube PAC (couple hundred $) and his guitars. The guitar sounds were all done with the VS1680 amp sims! No live amps. No fancy preamps. No acoustically treated room necessary. And it is pro quality. I know of many other examples like this on mp3.com
Nothing's holding you back if you have the musical talent and you're willing to put in the time necessary to learn how to engineer a good sound. The semi-pro stuff is now about 85-90% as good sounding as the most expensive stuff. A $500 condensor mic is good enough to get your point across in hi fidelity - you really don't need a U87 to make music that is enjoyable.
Well you're absolutely right. Most people are content to eat their Big Macs and not interested in exotic cuisine. Same in music. Truely creative or soulful music is often relegated to the fringe. That won't change. But now these fringe artists are able to connect with those who are interested in something more. By fringe, I am referring to music not targeted and manufactured for 14 year old girls. Of course, it goes without saying that not everyone making music in their living room is making good music.
The best music is born out of passion, not money. Music created with the primary purpose of making money (eg Backstreet Boys, N Sync, Spice Girls..) is vacuous. This kind of music is made by formula, to the specifications of marketing departments. It has no soul, I'm afraid.
If the corporate music industry disappeared I would not miss it at all. Music was a thriving part of the human spirit long before the labels arrived on the scene. Did those poor sharecroppers need the labels to create the blues? Hell no. It was pure expression from the soul - something that was an end in itself, not a means to an end. The labels had their place in history, but will no longer be necessary or desireable IMHO. Then again, the same could be said about McDonald's - and they're not going away, but I have no further need for them. It's not hard for a talented local musician to hook up with some guy with a home studio equipped with Neumann mics, Manley preamps and Pro Tools who won't try to reshape the artist's music for to match corporate goals.
There will probably be less artists who make a living from selling recordings (precious few sell enough to do that anyway). The live music industry (where the vast majority of musicians make most of their money) won't be harmed in the least. And it might even be bolstered. I know I've gone to checkout local acts I previewed on mp3.com that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.
I agree with the poster who said music should be more of a social activity than a commercial product.
If your mathematics is so pure, so great, then why does it contain paradoxes, contradictions, undecidability and incompleteness?
Sheesh! You can't have everything! As demonstrated by Godel, all formal systems will necessarily be incomplete in some way. This is not a bad thing - it's just a property of formal systems. Formal systems are not like a religion. They are simply a game with rules that we invent and follow. Nothing at all to do with the "real" world. Math is just something in your head. It has nothing to do with what is "just" or "good", and nothing to do with religion. BTW, Cantor's infinities have well defined properties and are not inconceivable at all. It doesn't matter if infinity exists in nature - we can imagine it. We can also imagine tooth fairies or anything else we want to think about.
Now if we build mathematical models of reality (eg, Quantum Chromodynamics, Superstring Theory, General Relativity), then there can be "religious" or "faith based" aspects, namely that you have faith that your model conforms to reality. Yet we have no assurances that "reality" can be mapped into a formal system.
Heizenberg showed us that, to the best of our knowledge, we can't simultaneously know both position and momentum to arbitrary accuracy. Are you going to complain about that too? How about Schrodenger's cat, which is both alive and dead? And those photons, which are both waves and particles? If nature was so great would it have all that indeterminate stuff built in? These things are just a property of nature, to the best of our ability to measure.
Medical Information doubles every 8 years, *and* in that 8 years, 1/2 of what you knew 8 years ago was proven wrong.
That's a bit overstated. Most aspects of practice are no different today than they were 8 years ago. Real medical progress that is applicable to patient care actually advances quite slowly. I agree wholeheartedly with all of your other points.
For example, if the neural net predicts that someone is going to make a full recovery in 5 days, send them home now with a living assistant.
It just isn't that simple in a vast number of cases. You aren't admitted to the hospital these days unless there is some very real concern for your health, or you are being admitted for a procedure. The optimizations you are talking about have already been made inside the neural networks we carry in our heads. The extra time in the hospital has been squeezed out already. If a procedure can be done outpatient, it is already being done that way. Now we are in a position where we know many patients are being sent home too early because the system has become so obsessed with efficiency.
If you are actually dealing with a sick patient, your neural network is about as effective at predicting 5 days into that patient's future as it would be predicting the weather 5 days out. The consequences of an incorrect weather prediction are that you get a little wet. The consequences of sending someone home who was too sick to go home (but the neural net said it was 'OK') are not so good. There are way too many intangibles that these neural nets do not take into account. Just the very 'look' of a patient conveys very important information that current neural net implementations are completely oblivious to.
On time is a worthy goal. But there are so many unforseen events - somebody is sicker than expected and requires more time - a couple trips to the emergency room - incessant phone calls from "utilization review" people wanting you to explain in excruciating detail what you did or plan to do and why - etc. There really are a lot more unforseen and pressing events coming from all directions that can put you behind schedule. More so than in any profession I can think of. And if we are only 2/3 the way through your history and examination when your allotted time expires, should we say "time's up, I'm off to the next patient"? That being said, I agree that we should try our best to minimize the wait since because it is the considerate thing to do.
Oh, btw, after 4 years of medical school, doctors know *less* about their *profession* than an Master in Public Health student.
Gimme a break! MD, MPH, AOA, credential, credential, blah blah blah. Most docs view the MPH as a joke. A throw-away degree for people who still can't decide what they want to do in medicine, or for those self righteous types. But it's only partially true. You've got a jaundiced eye on this subject and a little humility would serve you well. Your inexperience in the real world of medicine shows.
All the freakin irq channels on sickle cell anemia isn't going to cure it, and the money that went into the hospital chat rooms are sure as hell better served ELSEHWERE.
Lesson two, from someome who's been in your shoes. Our goal is to treat the patients, not the disease. The whole patient, body and mind. Support groups, irq or otherwise, further that goal. And an irq server can be assembled for less money than it takes to perform a single MRI scan. Lose the tunnel vision.
Reality check for you--health care is already a significant portion of the US's national expenditure (steadily well over 10%, I think approaching 20% as of 2 years ago). The money could well be used elsewhere.
Tautological thinking like that doesn't advance your argument. Defense money could be spent on the arts. Money for the arts could be spent on roads. Ad infinitum.
For example, computerized patient records (CPRs) have been shown to *reduce* cost of care--they save on cost of paper, time to search records, and lower the chances of film and patient records being lost (which resulted in lab work and imagery (xrays) to be redone)).
I agree. Several of the hospitals I practice in are completely computerized - charts & xrays included. They are very convenient and can save time when properly implemented. And time is our most precious resource. But I don't think they should ever be placed online. It's just not necessary. Secure transmission of medical data between offices and hospitals - yes. Open to the general public with passwords - no. If a patient wants to read their chart, it's worth the effort to stop by the office and not have to worry about millions of people inadvertantly learning the intimate details of their health.
And another misconception that must be put to rest is that all docs are technically clueless. The fact is that docs are perfectly capable of programming computers as much as anyone else. I started programming my vic-20 about 20 years ago and haven't stopped. C,C++, Pascal, FORTRAN, lisp, tcl, perl, Java, etc. I moved from TRS-80 -> VAX -> Mac -> Sparc -> Linux, like a lot of other./ers did. One doc friend of mine does custom dsp programming and is starting a medical device business based on this. Another employs about a hundred people in a software company he founded with his own code he hacked together while burning the midnight oil for a year. Many come from engineering and other technical degrees. I hate to see people painting the profession with such broad strokes.
Agreed. People using Linux are typically computer enthusiasts who want to work under the hood, or they are using it for business purposes. Or it's embedded in their VCR and they don't even know they're using it. OS X is targeted to the general computer user.
That being said, I do think some of the computer hobbyist types are going to be attracted to OS X. I remember drooling over the Next Cube (objective C, nextstep, display postscript) way back then, but couldn't afford one as a poor college student. Now OS X envy has me in firmly its clutches. Quartz looks very cool (though I admit I haven't seen the API) and it's a major factor for me, as much as I hate programming X. On the other hand, I loved using Interviews and hope Berlin gets some momentum and eventually replaces X Windows.
Re:Real potential lies with Decion Making
on
Digital Doctoring
·
· Score: 2
As a busy doc who has thought a lot about these things, I would have to respectfully disagree. The vast majority of docs do not refer to "practice guidelines" in their daily routines. No more than the average programmer refers to Dijkstra in his daily activities. And it is all too easy to forget that medicine is still much more of an art than a science - and as such, it is not easily encapsulated in a set of rules or guidelines. Science has its place and is desireable in many ways, but there are precious few prospective randomized clinical trials. And there are serious flaws in treating specific patients as if they were the average case.
Experience and intuition (together with a basic medical fund of knowledge) are still much more effective in diagnosis and treatment than automated systems. There are so many important visual and nonverbal clues that come into play - and this is where "automated decision making" falls flat. This kind of problem requires serious AI that is nowhere near fruition. Perhaps one day we will have a medical "Deep Blue", but not any time soon. The heuristics are much more complicated in medicine than in chess.
The real potential lies not in aids to decision making. After all, it is only the rare & unusual case that forces a trained doc to hit the journals & books anyway. But there is big potential in saving time, since docs are incredibly busy and time pressured. Palms are very helpful in this respect.
The other areas where software and computers are going to be helpful is in pattern recognizion. Reading EKG's is commonplace (though still pretty bad). Automated reading of EEGs, XRAYs, and pathology slides will be common soon enough. Docs are also very interested in robots since they are potentially more precise and do not fatigue during surgery.
But I must agree wholeheartedly with you about the darker side of your type of software - it will be used as a tool for insurance companies to cut as many corners as possible and exert more control over medical decisions for their shareholders under the pretense of the computer software "knowing what's best for the patient". Like it or not, the vast majority of important advances in medicine are not based on quantitative scientific studies, but are instead the result of a experience-based darwinian process resulting from reasonable practice variability. Once the insurance companies (armed with your software) impose widespread mediocre (but cost effective) "practice guidelines", then I fear that medical progress will be slowed and medicine will lose its heart and soul.
I'm a doc and can attest that our handwriting is indeed bad, but curiously enough most do grafitti just fine - even the old farts are catching on.
I thought the Newton had a lot of potential and even hacked up a few things in Newton script to help with rounds, but the thing was too slow until the 2000 came along. A doc acquaintence started a successful software company with it though.
I guess we're cheap if you're talking about charging me $20,000 for software that I can put together for free with existing GNU/open source/free tools such as Linux/BSD/Apache/gcc/perl/interbase/postgres.... Free software is a great idea for medical applications that will catch on. You're right about the antique software that's still used by a lot of hospitals and clinics.
But questioning the need for patents at all is MUCH different than complaining about the implementation of the system
Yes, I agree. I personally do not believe it makes moral or economic sense to allow anyone to "own" ideas or patterns (ie, control what others are allowed to do with ideas and patterns), but I have to be realistic about what can be achieved. And reforming the patent system would be a good first step.
I would rather have knowledge hidden from me than have it put on display in a glass case and not be able to use it. Yes, we do stand on the shoulders of those that came before. But I do not think that the absence of IP would seriously hinder the advancement of public domain knowledge in this age. And if there are occasions where we are forced to reinvent, at least the freedom to do so and the possible insights gained through alternate routes of discovery would outweigh any inconvenience incurred. And it could not be more inconvenient than the burdens imposed by IP, which grants unnatural & anticompetitive monopoly power to first filers (to the exclusion of concurrent investigators), and curbs or own freedoms and privacy in increasingly alarming ways. Intellectual freedom is perhaps more important than physical freedom, yet we seem to be going in the wrong direction in this regard here in the land of the free.
The problem is that hard drives missing these new "features" will become unusable with all of Hollywood's products since these drives will not authenticate the files to the players/recorders. So consumers might actually go out of their way to make sure their computer has Hollywood Inside(TM) if they want to consume Hollywood's products. Regular hard drives won't need to be illegal - they just won't be in high demand since they are "missing" the Hollywood Inside feature. The rest of us can continue to use regular hard drives and mp3's to our heart's content, but we won't be able to use them for applications that require authentication. But then again, manufacturers may not want to produce two different versions of every drive. There will be market demand for the protected drives (so that John Doe can consume Hollywood), so the manufacturers might just build it into every drive (to remain competitive) - especially if there is no palpable opposition. And once they have their tentacles around our hardware, they'll start adding new features, like pay per read and central reporting.
The only way this will fail is if the market demand for Hollywood's products doesn't support Hollywood's terms. But Hollywood will try to make it all as palatable as possible for ordinary consumers who aren't conciously afraid of the limitations this puts on thier privacy and freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
You obviously have a clue. Public software is a win-win. Just like public (openly published) basic science. The idea is that we create and share building blocks, but we do not stop building! On the contrary, with abundant public software we can concentrate on building bigger and better things. Better to stand on the shoulders of giants than to be kept under foot of a giant.
The web (browsers, servers) is considered fairly innovative by some.
Corporations are run by humans and do as much good or evil as those humans would
I tend to beleive that coporations can greatly facilitate and amplify the evil tendencies of the individual humans that run them. First off, greed is a much higher priority for the average corporation than for the average human. And greed is the primary interest of the shareholders (other altruistic interests of individual shareholders are pursued in other areas of their lives). The corps make a science of greed.
Secondly, corporations foster a "mob mentality" whereby the group engages in ugly behavior that few of the individuals would be comfortable with if they were held directly responsible. This mob mentality insulates the actions of the corporation from the conscience of its individual stock holders. And the corporation insulates the shareholders legally and financially, so there are fewer personal ramifications to unethical behavior. If the corporation is attacked legally and possibly dissolved, then so what - it's just paper money. But if the shareholders were held more responsible and had to worry more about personal financial ruin or imprisonment, then you could bet that the corporation would be on better behavior. Corporations can greatly amplify the power of unethical people as long as they are bringing in money.
The lack of a human face is precisely the problem with corporations. Not saying they are all bad or there is no place for them - only that they are not very similar to natural persons. They're more like mobs of people.
You are right to put some of the blame on the legislature. But corporations are so much more powerful than natural persons, it is easy for them to leverage the goverment to further their own interests. I would be interested in knowing what proportion of new laws are motivated by corportate interests and how many are designed to protect the liberties of natural persons. Does anyone have rough figures on this?
Your statement: Napster users are giving something away which the owner does not want given away; free rights to listen to their music. - that statement only reinforces my basic point above.
In your own words, it is the Napster users that are responsible for their actions, not a technology company which may or may not be used for illegal purposes. The analogy with drunk driving still holds. Napster can lower the energy of activation for an illegal process, but it does not initiate the illegal process any more than liquor stores initiate drunk driving (they only facilitate those who wish to engage in the illegal activity of drunk driving). Napster can be no more culpable than liquor store owners.
You are wrong when you say that music swapping is inherently illegal. If you are paying attention to what's going on, then you would know that certain instances may be, but others are definitely not. Some people will get drunk and kill on the road because of the alcohol they bought from a liquor store, others will not. (And if liquor is just a product, then where is the product liability suit?)
If Napster has to guarantee their service can't be used to trade illegal files, then liquor stores should have to guarantee that their products can't result in public intoxication or drunk driving. And Fed Ex will have to shut down until they can guarantee that there are no drugs being shipped in their boxes. Apples and apples. Understand?
You're so right. The legal world is twisted indeed. We need less doublespeak and more common sense in the law. But then we wouldn't need so many lawyers to "interpret" the leagal spaghetti code! By making things so damned convoluted, they buy some job security.
Liquor stores are known to contribute significantly to drunk driving. Drunk driving is a widespread practice, yet it is illegal. And the liquor stores profit from this. It isn't feasible for them to determine which customers will go on to break the law. I guess you would be in favor of shutting them all down, eh? After all, it is almost a certainty that it would reduce the amount of drunk driving (moreso than shutting down napster would reduce online trading of copyrighted music). So what do you say? Shut down the liquor stores? If not, then please explain the difference here.
The list of technologies which can substantially assist people in breaking the law is loooooonnnnngg. Computers, guns, phone books, cameras, cars, phones, rolodexes, pens & pencils, hammers, etc.
There aren't many things in this world that couldn't be used to substantaially assist me in breaking some law. Should we outlaw them all? I'm sure I could think of a way that a carrot could substantially assist me in breaking some law. Outlawing technologies isn't the answer!
Well then, I guess we'd better shut down Fed and UPS, since it is widely known that they facilitate illegal activities such as mailing drugs around.
Hey, sorry if I put your post in the wrong light - it just happened to trigger a pent up rant.
I fail to see the true distinction between the mental construct of natural numbers and other mental constructs. They are all mental constructs that may or may not reflect the true nature of the physical world.
While it is true that our proof the existence of infinity is no better than our proof of God's existence, it also the case that we have absolutely no proof of our own existence or anything else in the physical world for that matter. We can prove nothing about the physical world. The best we have is "I think therefore I am" - and that is still somewhat faith based. That our perception of the passage of time reflects the true nature of the physical world is also a faith based belief. Time may very well be an illusion for all we know. We would be foolish to limit our models of the real world to only those things that are intuitive. It just might be the case that there are counterintuitive things out there. And then once you recognize these things, your "intuition" can be retrained so that what was once paradoxical is now intuitive. I don't believe that our intuitions are fixed in stone, nor do I believe that everyone has the same intuition. Intuition is plastic, like all of our other mental processes, and can be altered to suit external conditions. The "undeniable" messages we receive from our intuition are often completely wrong! The only thing my intuition tells my that I must always believe is "I think therefore I am".
Infinity", while defined better than, say, a "tooth fairy", is still more phantasy than mathematics.
But if it has definable characteristics within a mathematical system, then it is part of mathematics! Besides, all of mathematics could be called a fantasy anyway. There is no such thing as mathematics which is "true" - only various mental constructs which varying degrees of usefullness and aesthetic appeal.
This is a very naive, yet elitist point of view. Do you really think that the success of a song hinges upon the subtle differences between "professional" mixes & mastering and what can be accomplished by a self producing musician with good ears? Do you think people are going to be singing along with a catchy tune and then stop to ponder whether the snare needs a narrow band cut at 5K? Or if a second pass of compression on the bass would have made it sturdier?
And your point about having to do some sort of apprenticeship is just plain wrong too. It is no different than any other aspect of creating music. You can learn it (and invent it) on your own. Just like they way you learn to play guitar - in your bedroom with a bunch of reference recordings. Do you think that audio engineers are the only people who have good ears? Do you think it isn't possible for people to change mic placements and tweak knobs until they like the sounds? And if someone is bent on having instruction, there are plenty of resources on the net with people like you dispensing valuable advice based on experience.
Amatuer production is easily good enough if you are serious about working. And besides, it's the songs that really matter, not the glitter and gloss of production. That's one thing that we should have learned from the 80's. No amount of mixing and tweaking will save a crappy song. And on the other hand, a great song will shine through no matter what the level of production.
How does the sound of something recorded on a portastudio compare to something recorded on a professional 2" tape machine?
It can sound damned close - and good enough anyway. Definitely comparable. Check out this guy's stuff if you realy want to know. It was recorded on a four track cassette with SM57's. Springsteen cut his album "Nebraska" on a four track cassette and he was already an established star. The quality was good enough.
The revolution did begin with 4 track cassettes. Is it the sonic equal of 2" tape? No, but close enough. Quality vs price in audio gear approaches an asymptote - once you spend a modest amount of $$$, additional money spent results in only a relatively small increase in quality.
Tech is not the limiting factor anymore. Not by a long shot. For less than the price of a decent used car, you can make excellent sounding music in your bedroom! The cheap semi-pro stuff became "good enough" several years ago. The only real limitation now is your musical vision and performance.
Need proof? It's all over mp3.com. For example, this guy (no relation to myself) blows my mind with the sound he gets from semi-pro gear. That song "Lie" sounds like it might have been one that Lennon cut in the studio. And you know what? All his stuff was recorded in his bedroom with an AT4033 condensor mic (~$500), Alesis SR-16 drum machine (~$250), Roland V Drums ($2-3000), Roland VS1680 ($2500 with effects cards), ART Tube PAC (couple hundred $) and his guitars. The guitar sounds were all done with the VS1680 amp sims! No live amps. No fancy preamps. No acoustically treated room necessary. And it is pro quality. I know of many other examples like this on mp3.com
Nothing's holding you back if you have the musical talent and you're willing to put in the time necessary to learn how to engineer a good sound. The semi-pro stuff is now about 85-90% as good sounding as the most expensive stuff. A $500 condensor mic is good enough to get your point across in hi fidelity - you really don't need a U87 to make music that is enjoyable.
Well you're absolutely right. Most people are content to eat their Big Macs and not interested in exotic cuisine. Same in music. Truely creative or soulful music is often relegated to the fringe. That won't change. But now these fringe artists are able to connect with those who are interested in something more. By fringe, I am referring to music not targeted and manufactured for 14 year old girls. Of course, it goes without saying that not everyone making music in their living room is making good music.
The best music is born out of passion, not money. Music created with the primary purpose of making money (eg Backstreet Boys, N Sync, Spice Girls..) is vacuous. This kind of music is made by formula, to the specifications of marketing departments. It has no soul, I'm afraid.
If the corporate music industry disappeared I would not miss it at all. Music was a thriving part of the human spirit long before the labels arrived on the scene. Did those poor sharecroppers need the labels to create the blues? Hell no. It was pure expression from the soul - something that was an end in itself, not a means to an end. The labels had their place in history, but will no longer be necessary or desireable IMHO. Then again, the same could be said about McDonald's - and they're not going away, but I have no further need for them. It's not hard for a talented local musician to hook up with some guy with a home studio equipped with Neumann mics, Manley preamps and Pro Tools who won't try to reshape the artist's music for to match corporate goals.
There will probably be less artists who make a living from selling recordings (precious few sell enough to do that anyway). The live music industry (where the vast majority of musicians make most of their money) won't be harmed in the least. And it might even be bolstered. I know I've gone to checkout local acts I previewed on mp3.com that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.
I agree with the poster who said music should be more of a social activity than a commercial product.
If your mathematics is so pure, so great, then why does it contain paradoxes, contradictions, undecidability and incompleteness?
Sheesh! You can't have everything! As demonstrated by Godel, all formal systems will necessarily be incomplete in some way. This is not a bad thing - it's just a property of formal systems. Formal systems are not like a religion. They are simply a game with rules that we invent and follow. Nothing at all to do with the "real" world. Math is just something in your head. It has nothing to do with what is "just" or "good", and nothing to do with religion. BTW, Cantor's infinities have well defined properties and are not inconceivable at all. It doesn't matter if infinity exists in nature - we can imagine it. We can also imagine tooth fairies or anything else we want to think about.
Now if we build mathematical models of reality (eg, Quantum Chromodynamics, Superstring Theory, General Relativity), then there can be "religious" or "faith based" aspects, namely that you have faith that your model conforms to reality. Yet we have no assurances that "reality" can be mapped into a formal system.
Heizenberg showed us that, to the best of our knowledge, we can't simultaneously know both position and momentum to arbitrary accuracy. Are you going to complain about that too? How about Schrodenger's cat, which is both alive and dead? And those photons, which are both waves and particles? If nature was so great would it have all that indeterminate stuff built in? These things are just a property of nature, to the best of our ability to measure.
Medical Information doubles every 8 years, *and* in that 8 years, 1/2 of what you knew 8 years ago was proven wrong.
That's a bit overstated. Most aspects of practice are no different today than they were 8 years ago. Real medical progress that is applicable to patient care actually advances quite slowly. I agree wholeheartedly with all of your other points.
For example, if the neural net predicts that someone is going to make a full recovery in 5 days, send them home now with a living assistant.
It just isn't that simple in a vast number of cases. You aren't admitted to the hospital these days unless there is some very real concern for your health, or you are being admitted for a procedure. The optimizations you are talking about have already been made inside the neural networks we carry in our heads. The extra time in the hospital has been squeezed out already. If a procedure can be done outpatient, it is already being done that way. Now we are in a position where we know many patients are being sent home too early because the system has become so obsessed with efficiency.
If you are actually dealing with a sick patient, your neural network is about as effective at predicting 5 days into that patient's future as it would be predicting the weather 5 days out. The consequences of an incorrect weather prediction are that you get a little wet. The consequences of sending someone home who was too sick to go home (but the neural net said it was 'OK') are not so good. There are way too many intangibles that these neural nets do not take into account. Just the very 'look' of a patient conveys very important information that current neural net implementations are completely oblivious to.
On time is a worthy goal. But there are so many unforseen events - somebody is sicker than expected and requires more time - a couple trips to the emergency room - incessant phone calls from "utilization review" people wanting you to explain in excruciating detail what you did or plan to do and why - etc. There really are a lot more unforseen and pressing events coming from all directions that can put you behind schedule. More so than in any profession I can think of. And if we are only 2/3 the way through your history and examination when your allotted time expires, should we say "time's up, I'm off to the next patient"? That being said, I agree that we should try our best to minimize the wait since because it is the considerate thing to do.
Gimme a break! MD, MPH, AOA, credential, credential, blah blah blah. Most docs view the MPH as a joke. A throw-away degree for people who still can't decide what they want to do in medicine, or for those self righteous types. But it's only partially true. You've got a jaundiced eye on this subject and a little humility would serve you well. Your inexperience in the real world of medicine shows.
All the freakin irq channels on sickle cell anemia isn't going to cure it, and the money that went into the hospital chat rooms are sure as hell better served ELSEHWERE.
Lesson two, from someome who's been in your shoes. Our goal is to treat the patients, not the disease. The whole patient, body and mind. Support groups, irq or otherwise, further that goal. And an irq server can be assembled for less money than it takes to perform a single MRI scan. Lose the tunnel vision.
Reality check for you--health care is already a significant portion of the US's national expenditure (steadily well over 10%, I think approaching 20% as of 2 years ago). The money could well be used elsewhere.
Tautological thinking like that doesn't advance your argument. Defense money could be spent on the arts. Money for the arts could be spent on roads. Ad infinitum.
For example, computerized patient records (CPRs) have been shown to *reduce* cost of care--they save on cost of paper, time to search records, and lower the chances of film and patient records being lost (which resulted in lab work and imagery (xrays) to be redone)).
./ers did. One doc friend of mine does custom dsp programming and is starting a medical device business based on this. Another employs about a hundred people in a software company he founded with his own code he hacked together while burning the midnight oil for a year. Many come from engineering and other technical degrees. I hate to see people painting the profession with such broad strokes.
I agree. Several of the hospitals I practice in are completely computerized - charts & xrays included. They are very convenient and can save time when properly implemented. And time is our most precious resource. But I don't think they should ever be placed online. It's just not necessary. Secure transmission of medical data between offices and hospitals - yes. Open to the general public with passwords - no. If a patient wants to read their chart, it's worth the effort to stop by the office and not have to worry about millions of people inadvertantly learning the intimate details of their health.
And another misconception that must be put to rest is that all docs are technically clueless. The fact is that docs are perfectly capable of programming computers as much as anyone else. I started programming my vic-20 about 20 years ago and haven't stopped. C,C++, Pascal, FORTRAN, lisp, tcl, perl, Java, etc. I moved from TRS-80 -> VAX -> Mac -> Sparc -> Linux, like a lot of other
When it comes time to strike, what's that going to do to your stock & options?
If you have a vested interest in the well being of your dot-com, are you going to organize an antagonistic force within it?
Agreed. People using Linux are typically computer enthusiasts who want to work under the hood, or they are using it for business purposes. Or it's embedded in their VCR and they don't even know they're using it. OS X is targeted to the general computer user.
That being said, I do think some of the computer hobbyist types are going to be attracted to OS X. I remember drooling over the Next Cube (objective C, nextstep, display postscript) way back then, but couldn't afford one as a poor college student. Now OS X envy has me in firmly its clutches. Quartz looks very cool (though I admit I haven't seen the API) and it's a major factor for me, as much as I hate programming X. On the other hand, I loved using Interviews and hope Berlin gets some momentum and eventually replaces X Windows.
As a busy doc who has thought a lot about these things, I would have to respectfully disagree. The vast majority of docs do not refer to "practice guidelines" in their daily routines. No more than the average programmer refers to Dijkstra in his daily activities. And it is all too easy to forget that medicine is still much more of an art than a science - and as such, it is not easily encapsulated in a set of rules or guidelines. Science has its place and is desireable in many ways, but there are precious few prospective randomized clinical trials. And there are serious flaws in treating specific patients as if they were the average case.
Experience and intuition (together with a basic medical fund of knowledge) are still much more effective in diagnosis and treatment than automated systems. There are so many important visual and nonverbal clues that come into play - and this is where "automated decision making" falls flat. This kind of problem requires serious AI that is nowhere near fruition. Perhaps one day we will have a medical "Deep Blue", but not any time soon. The heuristics are much more complicated in medicine than in chess.
The real potential lies not in aids to decision making. After all, it is only the rare & unusual case that forces a trained doc to hit the journals & books anyway. But there is big potential in saving time, since docs are incredibly busy and time pressured. Palms are very helpful in this respect.
The other areas where software and computers are going to be helpful is in pattern recognizion. Reading EKG's is commonplace (though still pretty bad). Automated reading of EEGs, XRAYs, and pathology slides will be common soon enough. Docs are also very interested in robots since they are potentially more precise and do not fatigue during surgery.
But I must agree wholeheartedly with you about the darker side of your type of software - it will be used as a tool for insurance companies to cut as many corners as possible and exert more control over medical decisions for their shareholders under the pretense of the computer software "knowing what's best for the patient". Like it or not, the vast majority of important advances in medicine are not based on quantitative scientific studies, but are instead the result of a experience-based darwinian process resulting from reasonable practice variability. Once the insurance companies (armed with your software) impose widespread mediocre (but cost effective) "practice guidelines", then I fear that medical progress will be slowed and medicine will lose its heart and soul.
I'm a doc and can attest that our handwriting is indeed bad, but curiously enough most do grafitti just fine - even the old farts are catching on.
I thought the Newton had a lot of potential and even hacked up a few things in Newton script to help with rounds, but the thing was too slow until the 2000 came along. A doc acquaintence started a successful software company with it though.
I guess we're cheap if you're talking about charging me $20,000 for software that I can put together for free with existing GNU/open source/free tools such as Linux/BSD/Apache/gcc/perl/interbase/postgres.... Free software is a great idea for medical applications that will catch on. You're right about the antique software that's still used by a lot of hospitals and clinics.
But questioning the need for patents at all is MUCH different than complaining about the implementation of the system
Yes, I agree. I personally do not believe it makes moral or economic sense to allow anyone to "own" ideas or patterns (ie, control what others are allowed to do with ideas and patterns), but I have to be realistic about what can be achieved. And reforming the patent system would be a good first step.
I would rather have knowledge hidden from me than have it put on display in a glass case and not be able to use it. Yes, we do stand on the shoulders of those that came before. But I do not think that the absence of IP would seriously hinder the advancement of public domain knowledge in this age. And if there are occasions where we are forced to reinvent, at least the freedom to do so and the possible insights gained through alternate routes of discovery would outweigh any inconvenience incurred. And it could not be more inconvenient than the burdens imposed by IP, which grants unnatural & anticompetitive monopoly power to first filers (to the exclusion of concurrent investigators), and curbs or own freedoms and privacy in increasingly alarming ways. Intellectual freedom is perhaps more important than physical freedom, yet we seem to be going in the wrong direction in this regard here in the land of the free.
The problem is that hard drives missing these new "features" will become unusable with all of Hollywood's products since these drives will not authenticate the files to the players/recorders. So consumers might actually go out of their way to make sure their computer has Hollywood Inside(TM) if they want to consume Hollywood's products. Regular hard drives won't need to be illegal - they just won't be in high demand since they are "missing" the Hollywood Inside feature. The rest of us can continue to use regular hard drives and mp3's to our heart's content, but we won't be able to use them for applications that require authentication. But then again, manufacturers may not want to produce two different versions of every drive. There will be market demand for the protected drives (so that John Doe can consume Hollywood), so the manufacturers might just build it into every drive (to remain competitive) - especially if there is no palpable opposition. And once they have their tentacles around our hardware, they'll start adding new features, like pay per read and central reporting.
The only way this will fail is if the market demand for Hollywood's products doesn't support Hollywood's terms. But Hollywood will try to make it all as palatable as possible for ordinary consumers who aren't conciously afraid of the limitations this puts on thier privacy and freedom.