Now you're just being obtuse, but I'll play along.
Please point me to the google.org page where it states that the $33M donation is the sum total of Brin & Page's charitable donations, and that neither of them have donated anonymously (or without fanfare) to other charitable causes.
Again, just because they haven't publicized other charitable donations doesn't mean that they haven't donated more money to this or other causes.
Brin & Page have almost half as much money as gates (they're the 26 & 27th richest people in the world), yet they give 1/50th of what gates gives.
sigh... once again, that is only speculation! Maybe they only give 1/50th (which would be sad), maybe they give substantially more (and haven't publicly revealed it). Unless you have access to their personal financial data, you don't know one way or the other.
Just because Brin & Page haven't announced that they're giving more doesn't mean that they aren't giving more. It would be sad if they aren't contributing more, but unless you're their accountant, you don't know one way or the other.
I don't see the other multibillionares (Google guys, Redhat guys, Ellison, Jobs, etc) stepping up to the plate and making any commitment EVEN CLOSE to the level he has.
Several other posters have already pointed out Google.org.
Not to take away from the goals and achievements of the Gates Foundation, but unless you have access to the personal financial data of Ellison, Jobs et al, you're only speculating that they aren't "stepping up to the plate." Also keep in mind that they can't make a commitment "EVEN CLOSE" to Gates' commitment in absolute terms simply because they don't have as much money.
I would like to hope that these guys are giving back to society, but just because they don't shout it from the rooftops doesn't mean that they aren't doing anything. Heck, are you gonna assume that I'm not making any charitable donations because I haven't announced it in a press release?
I'm only 25, but I can't recall any mission in the last 10 years (well a really public one any way) that didn't have some kind of hiccup.
Ah, the follies of youth...
I think as you gain more experience, you'll find that all projects have hiccups. It's a matter of whatever your project design, teamwork, and/or management is strong (or competent) enough to overcome these hiccups..
As other posters have pointed out, although the Mars rover program had issues, overall the project was a success. If you're looking for perfection, you'll have to find some society made up of creatures incapable of making mistakes.
It could be great for engineers like me that deploy a lot of short-term and long-term measurement systems (noise/vibration/temperature/wind speed/etc) and want to make the data available in real-time to interested parties (e.g. a local community).
Currently, the only way to disseminate this info is:
manually download the info every X days and stick it on a "real" webserver (time consuming, possibly impractical depending on location, weather, etc)
hook up a laptop with a cellmodem to the unit (expensive, power hungry), and
hook up a land line (very expensive).
I would love to just be able to hook up a cellphone to the data logging unit, and just point people to www.city-noise-monitoring.org/site1. Yeah I know, niche application.
The only issues I see:
can I interface my unit to the phone using serial or bluetooth? and
will the cell phone companies have a reasonable data-rate plan?
Your link talks about under-spec'd project requirements and the customer's inflated expectations. That happens in civil/electrical/mechanical engineering as well.
Remember Boston's Big Dig? Remember how everyone was outraged that this $2.5 billion dollar project became a $15 billion dollar project? Most of that cost increase wasn't because of impropriety or incompetence - it was because the project started out with a poorly described set of requirements, that resulted in bunch on new project components (a single tunnel became a complex set of tunnels). The new components, together with inflation (because of the increased time requirements) drove the cost way up.
I think the difference with software is that when a customer says "build me the sky for $5" the managers say "yes, we can do that." In physical engineering, when the customer says "build me the sky for $5", the engineering manager says "we can do that, but it's going to cost you $1 million. For $5, you can get this, this, and that. Tell us how you want to proceed."
Sorry, but as a mechanical engineering (who works with a lot of civil engineers), I can't let this one pass. You wrote:
I lie awake at night dreaming of only having to solve a problem as simple a bridge. It has only one use case: vehicles of a known weight with a known wheel surface traveling in predetermined paths at a predetermined rate of speed.
and then you wrote:
people would be in an uproar about all the deaths that are only possible because of the bridges: people jump off of them, cars crash over the guard rails, tornadoes and hurricanes wipe them out, and if they are not maintained properly they eventually fall to the ground under their own weight.
All of those factors do need to be accounted for in bridge design, along with many others (including wind loading, vibration, earthquake stability, pedestrian 'missiles', grade, water control, surface icing, freeze/thaw cycles, underbridge clearance, sewage & water/hazmat runoff, traffic flow, sight lines, and so on). Go read up on your state building codes. Or better yet, go down to your local college engineering library and have a look at SAE/ASTM/ANSI engineering standards for bridge design.
As for:
Books could be filled with the death stories of people killed by bridges
Amazon gives quite a few hits when searching "bridge disasters" books. Also, check around the NHTSA site some time.
And lets not forget that if a faulty bridge does fail (even in a non-fatal incident), the engineer that stamped the design may very well go the jail.
Is bridge design harder/simpler than software design? I don't know, but I do know that it's far from "simple."
[As an aside, you wrote:
Also, if you dig down deep enough on the Earth, there is always something solid to anchor the bridge.
While it's true that you can always reach bedrock if you dig deep enough, a lot of times it's not practical to dig deep enough to bedrock. For example, the Big Dig slurry walls go down more than 100 ft in some places and don't hit bedrock. In those cases, you have to different techniques (tiebacks, heavy masses, soil mixing/grouting etc) to anchor your structure. Not every location is like Manhattan]
What's needed are acoustical communicators that can ping through the rock with a coded signal telling the miner's location.
I'm not sure that acoustics is the answer here, especially if you're talking about an 8000-ft depth. Acoustical waves travel well through rock, but exciting the rock in the first place takes a lot of force. As a comparison, ground-borne vibration propagation test equipment (used for train vibration assessments) typically put out peak forces in the 6,000 to 10,000 lbs range, and the signal is barely detectable using averaging methods at 200 ft.
You could try signal processing tricks (MLS for example, self-link to a PDF paper I wrote), but then you're trading in the peak force for massive computing power at long distances- I'm guessing several hours of number crunching for a top-of-the-line PC for several thousands of feet of depth, maybe less for multiprocessing workstations if you can vectorize the calculations.
I suspect that an EM solution would be much easier to develop.
Well, we're getting to the point where we're talking past each other, so I suppose it's time to bring this dialog to an end.
(and just so you know, I'm not a non-techie)
Yeah, I got that based on the Georgia Tech email address and the HCI degree - I wasn't trying to imply that you were a non-techie, I was referring to people like my mother, my sister, my clients, etc
Well, turns out that it still can do a lot of things I thought it could not,
And that was the point that I was trying to address! You think iTunes sucks because it doesn't work for you because it lacks certain features (network reliability, etc) or you think the interface is bad - fine, I can (and do) respect that. I'm just pointing out that iTunes can let you sort within playlists and download ID3 info from CDDB - both for your edification and for others who might otherwise read your posts and think "oh, I didn't know iTunes can't use CDDB."
I don't care that you don't like it, I'm just pointing out that it does have certain capabilities that you didn't think it had.
you effectively said that MS Viewer sucked, just not in as many words
I know I didn't say that because I don't believe that MS Viewer sucks, I just said I was having problems with it - there's a difference. With the one exception, it does everything I expect it to do.
Now I *do* believe that MS Word sucks, but that's a different topic altogether.
You do realize that your logic sounds absolutely convoluted and made up, right?
Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. FWIW, I just checked with WMP9, and it allows you do drag around tracks even with a sorted column - of course, the column header still indicates that it's sorted, even though it's not. That's usable? Most non-techies I know would say otherwise.
Well, does it matter which are valid and which are not?
Well yes, it does - if you don't like iTunes because of it's interface, or Apple's copy-protection decisions, that's one thing. If you're going to make public postings that iTunes doesn't do something, when in fact it *does*, that's different.
Hey, I never said iTunes sucks, either, so we're even.;)
So, it was a different metlin (258108) who wrote this?
Well, apparently it's not that simple. That's plenty usable, right there. Of course, it did work - but what are the chances of me figuring that out on my own?
Hmmm, I've never come across that, interesting. At the risk of sounding like a fanboi however, I'll say that the behavior *does* make sense: if I click the column heading to sort it by "Name" (for example), then presumably I don't want to sort it in some random order since I already told it to sort by "Name." The danger is if I tell it to sort by Name, then I accidentally drag-and-drop a track to a new position, then it's no longer sorted the way I told it do. Of course this logic could fall apart for sorting by "Album" but presumably iTunes would use the ID3 tags to determine the track order within the album listings.
So, you'll forgive me if I don't try going in for the "bleeding edge".
Again, I feel your pain, but then again, we all have stories with installing software on all platforms (for example MS Word Viewer on my Tablet PC refuses to print, even though other programs have no problems).
Bad software is still bad software
And I never said different, just trying to get the facts straight: some of your criticisms are valid (autosync with only one computer, issues with libraries on remote volumes) and some are not (iTunes does use CDDB, you can reorder tracks).
No matter how much I try, it just does not seem to drag & drop. Any keyboard keys you need to press while you're doing that?
Nope.
do you know if there is any way for me to set another proxy to access the Internet on iTunes?
The iTunes help says that iTunes uses the IE web proxy settings. But if you're seeing the iTMS store, it's probably not a proxy setting.
As opposed to coming up with solutions that work and are usable?
[...]
I'm on iTunes 4.0
Well, the drag-and-drop issues you're having aren't version specific, but (IIRC) Apple revised their dialogs to help prevent unwanted deletions in more recent iTunes versions (I don't have an iPod, so I'm not sure). Not to sound (too) snippy, but you might try using one of the more recent iTunes versions before saying "iTunes sucks." The early Winamp versions sucked too (I remember jumping ship to WindowsMedia as soon as it became viable).
(if you're worried about the removal of the network sharing features, there are workarounds for the 4.X and 5.X versions)
My music is already categorized into the folders over the years, why should I put in extra effort to let iTunes categorize it even more?
I can feel your pain, but if your files aren't tagged, it's going to make it hard to use most mp3 software, nevermind most DAPs
Get on the network drives, and iTunes barfs.
Yup, I've found that on Windows, iTunes doesn't handle files on removable files that well (but it's not a problem on a Mac). It could be a Windows issue, but if Winamp doesn't have a problem doing it, it very well could be Apple incompetence.
There is no way for me to move Track Foo on top of Track Bar.
In the file system. If I add a song to a folder, I have to delete the playlist and update it.
Why not just drag the new file into the playlist? Or delete all the files into the playlist, and drag the folder into the playlist.
No it does not.
Yes it does - and on my Mac and Windows machines, it does it automatically upon inserting a CD if iTunes is open and you have an internet connection. If it's not doing that for you, there's something wrong with your install (or maybe a firewall is blocking the connection?).
I've the habit of putting music from various artists in folders, and iTunes does not even have the option of sorting it by the path. And of course, sorting by file names does not work very well, either.
I'm not sure that I follow you - when you say "putting music from various artists in folders" are you talking about the file system (e.g./Myfolder/Music/Beatnuts/watch_out_now.mp3)? iTunes does that, provided the files are properly tagged, and you can select the location of the library. Or are you talking about making folders (or playlists) in iTunes? There is no good way to do that, but you can sort by artist (or any one of many items) and/or create smart playlists.
If I move files around manually, iTunes barfs.
Are you using a Mac or Windows? One the Mac, you can move the files anywhere on the same volume and iTunes won't care. I'm too lazy to boot up my Tablet PC, but I don't recall having issues moving files on Windows machines. Can you be specific about your problem
Heck, I cannot even move files around in the playlists.
You can rearrange files within a playlist and copy files between playlists. Do you want to copy a file from playlist 1 to playlist 2 and have it delete the file from playlist 1? IMO, that would be a bad thing.
And I have to reload my library everytime there is a change.
? Are you talking about a change inside iTunes or on the file system?
The damn thing does not even fetch data from a CDDB to get names of CDs, sheesh.
For ripped CD's, it most certainly does. For imported files, it doesn't, but there are plugins you can use to do that.
And oh, if I took my iPod to another machine, it automatically wipes out all the content - WTF?!
Valid criticism, but as long as the RIAA is calling the shots, that behavior won't change.
It would be nice (and probably profitable) if somebody came out with an inexpensive SPL meter which could be used to test individual earphones in order to determine a safe maximum setting.
It's actually pretty difficult to accurately test headphone sound levels because the sound level will depend on the volume of air in the ear canal (for ear buds) or under the cup (for over-ear headphones) as well as the leakage around the head phone. This is dependant on the size of the ear and the pressure of the head band on the head (for over-ear headphones). There's a reason why artificial ears and dummy heads cost thousands of dollars.
Mead Killion (founder of Etymotic Research) gave a talk in Boston recently, and he announced a product similar to what you are proposing, and it should go to market soon. Basically, it's a box that goes between the audio player and the headphones, it measures the voltage of the headphone output, and determines safe and unsafe levels. Rather than measuring SPL levels from the headphones directly, the unit will be factory programed with the output levels from various DAP/headphone combinations (determined using lab measurements) so it can map the voltage to the appropriate level.
[Dr. Killion also gave everyone at the talk a free pair of ER-6's, but that was just icing on the cake:) ]
I work in a lab full of computers, and the volume level here is ridiculous, just because of all these stupid cooling fans. Which government agency do we complain to about Intel's power-guzzling CPUs?
Who do you complain to about Intel's "power-guzzling CPUs"? None.
Who do you complain to about your employer's loud working conditions? OSHA.
It's not a "new" technology that is causing the problem, iPods didn't invent loud music.
It's kids not knowing about the volume control until it's too late.
Part of the problem is that the environmental noise has gotten so bad, headphone wearers have to crank their portable devices to be able to hear their tunes over the noise of traffic, trains, construction, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Both cases Microsoft bought something like 25%.
In Apple's case, it was more like 6%:
$150,000,000 / (127,949,220 * $19) = 6.1%
Now you're just being obtuse, but I'll play along.
Please point me to the google.org page where it states that the $33M donation is the sum total of Brin & Page's charitable donations, and that neither of them have donated anonymously (or without fanfare) to other charitable causes.
Again, just because they haven't publicized other charitable donations doesn't mean that they haven't donated more money to this or other causes.
Brin & Page have almost half as much money as gates (they're the 26 & 27th richest people in the world), yet they give 1/50th of what gates gives.
sigh... once again, that is only speculation! Maybe they only give 1/50th (which would be sad), maybe they give substantially more (and haven't publicly revealed it). Unless you have access to their personal financial data, you don't know one way or the other.
You missed my point.
Just because Brin & Page haven't announced that they're giving more doesn't mean that they aren't giving more. It would be sad if they aren't contributing more, but unless you're their accountant, you don't know one way or the other.
I don't see the other multibillionares (Google guys, Redhat guys, Ellison, Jobs, etc) stepping up to the plate and making any commitment EVEN CLOSE to the level he has.
Several other posters have already pointed out Google.org.
Not to take away from the goals and achievements of the Gates Foundation, but unless you have access to the personal financial data of Ellison, Jobs et al, you're only speculating that they aren't "stepping up to the plate." Also keep in mind that they can't make a commitment "EVEN CLOSE" to Gates' commitment in absolute terms simply because they don't have as much money.
I would like to hope that these guys are giving back to society, but just because they don't shout it from the rooftops doesn't mean that they aren't doing anything. Heck, are you gonna assume that I'm not making any charitable donations because I haven't announced it in a press release?
Umm, yeah, they do.
I have 200 hundred custom-designed yo-yo's to show for it.
Ah, the follies of youth...
I think as you gain more experience, you'll find that all projects have hiccups. It's a matter of whatever your project design, teamwork, and/or management is strong (or competent) enough to overcome these hiccups..
As other posters have pointed out, although the Mars rover program had issues, overall the project was a success. If you're looking for perfection, you'll have to find some society made up of creatures incapable of making mistakes.
It could be great for engineers like me that deploy a lot of short-term and long-term measurement systems (noise/vibration/temperature/wind speed/etc) and want to make the data available in real-time to interested parties (e.g. a local community).
Currently, the only way to disseminate this info is:
I would love to just be able to hook up a cellphone to the data logging unit, and just point people to www.city-noise-monitoring.org/site1. Yeah I know, niche application.
The only issues I see:
I for one will be watching out for this.
...and when the authorities police us with no oversight, you face a lack of accountability. There has to be middle ground somewhere.
...but I thought "Bridges Are Easy"....
Your link talks about under-spec'd project requirements and the customer's inflated expectations. That happens in civil/electrical/mechanical engineering as well.
Remember Boston's Big Dig? Remember how everyone was outraged that this $2.5 billion dollar project became a $15 billion dollar project? Most of that cost increase wasn't because of impropriety or incompetence - it was because the project started out with a poorly described set of requirements, that resulted in bunch on new project components (a single tunnel became a complex set of tunnels). The new components, together with inflation (because of the increased time requirements) drove the cost way up.
I think the difference with software is that when a customer says "build me the sky for $5" the managers say "yes, we can do that." In physical engineering, when the customer says "build me the sky for $5", the engineering manager says "we can do that, but it's going to cost you $1 million. For $5, you can get this, this, and that. Tell us how you want to proceed."
Um, not quite.
There are lots of other examples (this or this for instance)
Sorry, but as a mechanical engineering (who works with a lot of civil engineers), I can't let this one pass. You wrote:
and then you wrote:
All of those factors do need to be accounted for in bridge design, along with many others (including wind loading, vibration, earthquake stability, pedestrian 'missiles', grade, water control, surface icing, freeze/thaw cycles, underbridge clearance, sewage & water/hazmat runoff, traffic flow, sight lines, and so on). Go read up on your state building codes. Or better yet, go down to your local college engineering library and have a look at SAE/ASTM/ANSI engineering standards for bridge design.
As for:
Amazon gives quite a few hits when searching "bridge disasters" books. Also, check around the NHTSA site some time.
And lets not forget that if a faulty bridge does fail (even in a non-fatal incident), the engineer that stamped the design may very well go the jail.
Is bridge design harder/simpler than software design? I don't know, but I do know that it's far from "simple."
[As an aside, you wrote:
While it's true that you can always reach bedrock if you dig deep enough, a lot of times it's not practical to dig deep enough to bedrock. For example, the Big Dig slurry walls go down more than 100 ft in some places and don't hit bedrock. In those cases, you have to different techniques (tiebacks, heavy masses, soil mixing/grouting etc) to anchor your structure. Not every location is like Manhattan]
I'm not sure that acoustics is the answer here, especially if you're talking about an 8000-ft depth. Acoustical waves travel well through rock, but exciting the rock in the first place takes a lot of force. As a comparison, ground-borne vibration propagation test equipment (used for train vibration assessments) typically put out peak forces in the 6,000 to 10,000 lbs range, and the signal is barely detectable using averaging methods at 200 ft.
You could try signal processing tricks (MLS for example, self-link to a PDF paper I wrote), but then you're trading in the peak force for massive computing power at long distances- I'm guessing several hours of number crunching for a top-of-the-line PC for several thousands of feet of depth, maybe less for multiprocessing workstations if you can vectorize the calculations.
I suspect that an EM solution would be much easier to develop.
Very original - as in no "Episode IV" in the Star Wars opening crawl.
Well, we're getting to the point where we're talking past each other, so I suppose it's time to bring this dialog to an end.
(and just so you know, I'm not a non-techie)Yeah, I got that based on the Georgia Tech email address and the HCI degree - I wasn't trying to imply that you were a non-techie, I was referring to people like my mother, my sister, my clients, etc
Well, turns out that it still can do a lot of things I thought it could not,And that was the point that I was trying to address! You think iTunes sucks because it doesn't work for you because it lacks certain features (network reliability, etc) or you think the interface is bad - fine, I can (and do) respect that. I'm just pointing out that iTunes can let you sort within playlists and download ID3 info from CDDB - both for your edification and for others who might otherwise read your posts and think "oh, I didn't know iTunes can't use CDDB."
I don't care that you don't like it, I'm just pointing out that it does have certain capabilities that you didn't think it had.
you effectively said that MS Viewer sucked, just not in as many wordsI know I didn't say that because I don't believe that MS Viewer sucks, I just said I was having problems with it - there's a difference. With the one exception, it does everything I expect it to do.
Now I *do* believe that MS Word sucks, but that's a different topic altogether.
Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. FWIW, I just checked with WMP9, and it allows you do drag around tracks even with a sorted column - of course, the column header still indicates that it's sorted, even though it's not. That's usable? Most non-techies I know would say otherwise.
Well, does it matter which are valid and which are not?Well yes, it does - if you don't like iTunes because of it's interface, or Apple's copy-protection decisions, that's one thing. If you're going to make public postings that iTunes doesn't do something, when in fact it *does*, that's different.
Hey, I never said iTunes sucks, either, so we're even.So, it was a different metlin (258108) who wrote this?
Hmmm, I've never come across that, interesting. At the risk of sounding like a fanboi however, I'll say that the behavior *does* make sense: if I click the column heading to sort it by "Name" (for example), then presumably I don't want to sort it in some random order since I already told it to sort by "Name." The danger is if I tell it to sort by Name, then I accidentally drag-and-drop a track to a new position, then it's no longer sorted the way I told it do. Of course this logic could fall apart for sorting by "Album" but presumably iTunes would use the ID3 tags to determine the track order within the album listings.
So, you'll forgive me if I don't try going in for the "bleeding edge".Again, I feel your pain, but then again, we all have stories with installing software on all platforms (for example MS Word Viewer on my Tablet PC refuses to print, even though other programs have no problems).
Bad software is still bad softwareAnd I never said different, just trying to get the facts straight: some of your criticisms are valid (autosync with only one computer, issues with libraries on remote volumes) and some are not (iTunes does use CDDB, you can reorder tracks).
Winamp was started by one developer,As was iTunes (ok, 3 developers :)
Of course, if the same was true of a Microsoft software, people would be up in arms.Well, you'll note that I haven't posted anywhere that "MS Word Viewer 2003 sucks" ;)
Nope.
do you know if there is any way for me to set another proxy to access the Internet on iTunes?The iTunes help says that iTunes uses the IE web proxy settings. But if you're seeing the iTMS store, it's probably not a proxy setting.
As opposed to coming up with solutions that work and are usable? [...] I'm on iTunes 4.0Well, the drag-and-drop issues you're having aren't version specific, but (IIRC) Apple revised their dialogs to help prevent unwanted deletions in more recent iTunes versions (I don't have an iPod, so I'm not sure). Not to sound (too) snippy, but you might try using one of the more recent iTunes versions before saying "iTunes sucks." The early Winamp versions sucked too (I remember jumping ship to WindowsMedia as soon as it became viable).
(if you're worried about the removal of the network sharing features, there are workarounds for the 4.X and 5.X versions)
I can feel your pain, but if your files aren't tagged, it's going to make it hard to use most mp3 software, nevermind most DAPs
Get on the network drives, and iTunes barfs.Yup, I've found that on Windows, iTunes doesn't handle files on removable files that well (but it's not a problem on a Mac). It could be a Windows issue, but if Winamp doesn't have a problem doing it, it very well could be Apple incompetence.
There is no way for me to move Track Foo on top of Track Bar.Sure there is: drag and drop.
In the file system. If I add a song to a folder, I have to delete the playlist and update it.Why not just drag the new file into the playlist? Or delete all the files into the playlist, and drag the folder into the playlist.
No it does not.Yes it does - and on my Mac and Windows machines, it does it automatically upon inserting a CD if iTunes is open and you have an internet connection. If it's not doing that for you, there's something wrong with your install (or maybe a firewall is blocking the connection?).
Easy to blame someone else, isn't it?As opposed to...
I'm not sure that I follow you - when you say "putting music from various artists in folders" are you talking about the file system (e.g. /Myfolder/Music/Beatnuts/watch_out_now.mp3)? iTunes does that, provided the files are properly tagged, and you can select the location of the library. Or are you talking about making folders (or playlists) in iTunes? There is no good way to do that, but you can sort by artist (or any one of many items) and/or create smart playlists.
If I move files around manually, iTunes barfs.Are you using a Mac or Windows? One the Mac, you can move the files anywhere on the same volume and iTunes won't care. I'm too lazy to boot up my Tablet PC, but I don't recall having issues moving files on Windows machines. Can you be specific about your problem
Heck, I cannot even move files around in the playlists.You can rearrange files within a playlist and copy files between playlists. Do you want to copy a file from playlist 1 to playlist 2 and have it delete the file from playlist 1? IMO, that would be a bad thing.
And I have to reload my library everytime there is a change.? Are you talking about a change inside iTunes or on the file system?
The damn thing does not even fetch data from a CDDB to get names of CDs, sheesh.For ripped CD's, it most certainly does. For imported files, it doesn't, but there are plugins you can use to do that.
And oh, if I took my iPod to another machine, it automatically wipes out all the content - WTF?!Valid criticism, but as long as the RIAA is calling the shots, that behavior won't change.
It's actually pretty difficult to accurately test headphone sound levels because the sound level will depend on the volume of air in the ear canal (for ear buds) or under the cup (for over-ear headphones) as well as the leakage around the head phone. This is dependant on the size of the ear and the pressure of the head band on the head (for over-ear headphones). There's a reason why artificial ears and dummy heads cost thousands of dollars.
Mead Killion (founder of Etymotic Research) gave a talk in Boston recently, and he announced a product similar to what you are proposing, and it should go to market soon. Basically, it's a box that goes between the audio player and the headphones, it measures the voltage of the headphone output, and determines safe and unsafe levels. Rather than measuring SPL levels from the headphones directly, the unit will be factory programed with the output levels from various DAP/headphone combinations (determined using lab measurements) so it can map the voltage to the appropriate level.
[Dr. Killion also gave everyone at the talk a free pair of ER-6's, but that was just icing on the cake :) ]
Who do you complain to about Intel's "power-guzzling CPUs"? None.
Who do you complain to about your employer's loud working conditions? OSHA.
Part of the problem is that the environmental noise has gotten so bad, headphone wearers have to crank their portable devices to be able to hear their tunes over the noise of traffic, trains, construction, etc.
It's kinda sad that Congress wants to talk about iPod volume levels when in fact the government has the power to directly affect some of the underlying causes.
[disclaimer: I worked on some of the documents linked above]