your post really comes across as a snotty "audiophile"
I'm sorry, didn't mean to come off that way. Actually, I had interpreted your post that way.
Here's where I'm coming from:
I have grown tired of the elitists who say "well if you don't have this certain speaker or that brand of amplifier, then you're shit."
Listen, there is so much stuff produced out there that is mastered on all kinds of different equipment, there is no way to get a guaranteed "this is how the artist meant it to sound" kind of sound from one set of sound equipment. Everything will add coloration of its own.
Even on the things I listed above, it's really a gross over-simplification. For example, on my #7 above:
7) Your speakers are not perfect, and you most likely haven't calibrated them with an RTA for the room they sit in or for where people are actually positioned.
Well, I did calibrate my speakers with an RTA for my environment. Still, that entire process is so subjective, and after you're done, moving just a few inches in any direction often causes different sounds to cancel/amplify; I'm not sure it's possible to get a 100% objective sound from anything.
I guess my message to the world is, there are so many factors in reproducing sound, just don't worry about them too much. Just buy and use what sounds good to you. So if you're happy with 128Khz MP3s, then that's great. If you feel like you need analog and vinyl records to make you happy, then so be it.
As long as you understand there's so much more to a good sound than just the medium itself.
(And I know you do, I don't mean any of that toward you specifically.)
I don't think there will really ever be lossless compression for audio (at least for streamable media). I may be wrong, but the interest is always in saving bandwidth, not necessarily perfect fidelity reproduction.
There are (truly) lossless audio compressors that can gain better than 52% compression rates, which is far better than using ZIP or LZW.
But at some point, to get data at manageable sizes, you MUST go with lossy compression.
Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. JPG, MPG (almost all streaming video formats for that matter), use lossy compression.
Generally, you're correct, it does. But I've found that it also largely depends on the encoder you've chosen, and the Quality Setting that you're encoding with (different from bit rate). Some encoders actually work really well at 32kbs (for speech), others make it sound like it's played under water. Some encoders sound trash at 32kbs with low quality, and sound good at 32kbs with high quality.
And also the content you're encoding can make a difference.
A simple example would be "I think he is unattractive because he is ugly." The adjective "ugly" does not explain why the subject is "unattractive" -- they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question.
I produce MP3's for mass distribution, and also support them when they don't function correctly (encoding/corruption issues).
In my opinion, VBR is not supported well-enough for mass consumption. Too many players out there still dork up when VBR is used. Granted, it's typically older players, but they are still out there.
The majority of people cannot tell the difference between (get this) 32kbps and 128kbps. I'm talking about the general population, not music enthusiasts. Most engineers cannot tell the difference between 162kbps and 192kbs, and certainly less of them can distinguish 192kbps and 256kbps -- and even I have doubts that most of those can in a true blind test.
But consider this: I put forth that the reason the you don't need full 44khz 16-bit audio is that you'll never hear the music as originally intended, and that is because of the following factors:
1) You usually listen in your car, and road-noise alone will destroy your ability to discern slight volume changes and perception of frequencies anywhere near 12khz and above
2) If you don't listen in a car, you often use your cheap speakers on your laptop
3) Most headphones people use are either cheap (under $50), or they are biased on the lower-end, and most are not equalized correctly, or not equalized to your ear physiology (different sizes ear canals can cause resonance/standing waves that cause a different perception in frequency for different people -- each set must be tuned individually if you are a true audiophile).
4) If you're older than 21, you probably can't hear above 16Khz at all
5) Your ears are not perfect (many people's frequency response is different from one ear to the other)
6) Your player is not perfect
7) Your speakers are not perfect, and you most likely haven't calibrated them with an RTA for the room they sit in or for where people are actually positioned.
8) The humidity, temperature, air pressure, and even the air pressure on the other side of your ear-drum changes frequently causing a difference in frequency response.
And if I'm completely wrong on points 1-8, then you are now in the.01% of all listeners, and you are not the target audience for mass-produced and distributed MP3s anyway.
Question though. (Just for fun, let me play Devil's Advocate for a minute, I know it's just an example, and I see what you're trying to educate here.)
If the question is "Provide evidence that the Christian God exists", and one definition the dictionary provided for "proof" is "anything serving as such evidence", and then if I provide the Bible as evidence, have I not offered proof?
Let me only slightly change the answer though: "The Bible helps prove God exists. The Bible is a reliable source because it is evidence of the word of God."
Now you may argue that it is not sufficient enough to convince on its own, and I agree... but we're talking purely semantics.
(Why is it important? Because by the dictionary definition, I would then assert that I had not "begged the question.")
Yes, there are people and churches who did that. There are probably people and churches who ARE doing that right now.
But you're throwing everything together and giving it a disgusting label.
MY church is a large church in Texas. No one is extorting anything. Our budget is open and members can critique, meet, and change it. In our budget, (other than the salaries), our music/worship team gets exactly $0. We rely solely on specific donations from individuals for equipment and music. Those donations have a distinct purpose, and that purpose only. None of the instrumentalists or singers are paid. And as I said, we are a large church.
My church has never told anyone how to vote nor does it get involved in any politics whatsoever. In fact, we're forbidden by law to do it and you could lose your non-profit status if you do. The only thing I have ever seen was a 3rd party newspaper in the lobby that listed all the candidates for a governor race, and an objective list for how they were voting on an array of issues (some religiously controversial, some not at all). And even I think that is pushing it.
So what does my church do with the money? First, salaries of church employees (which is published). Second, pay the light bill. And the rest goes to missions.
We fund people in all sorts of capacities to help out humanity, whether it be our homeless ministry, or foreign country ministries. When we send people to go downtown and distribute coats and blankets to the homeless people under the bridge, or when our youth go to Mexico to paint a church, or send a family to Africa to help build water wells, well I'm sorry but those actions ARE making a real and tangible difference. And it simply would not get done if we didn't have a corporate church body to collectively fund from.
I'm not telling you we send our money to another group that then does those things. I'm saying that we have people in our congregation that individually do all of those things with the money we fund them with, and these are good people I know personally.
You can dislike those that have done wrong as you stated, if you wish; I'm with you on that. And I understand how that stuff leaves a rotten taste in your mouth. But don't associate us with them, simply because they were called Christians also.
I don't understand your thinking. If I wanted to know the answer to a database question, would I ask a teacher or would I ask someone who builds and supports databases as their career? Then why would you think that a "trained teacher" is the best to ask on any other subject?
My father, mother, wife, two cousins, and several friends are all teachers and I can tell you from observation and from their stories that the vast majority of teachers are barely competent enough to recognize the best methodologies to use when teaching, let alone have any mastery of the content they teach on.
And it really isn't all their fault. The problem is that you have such a large and diverse level of competency in your students --- in just one classroom -- and then are told you have to make everyone pass by some criteria. You have kids that don't really want to be there, and refuse to learn, as well as kids who do. So it often de-evolves into baby-sitting more than education. And that robs the kids of their getting a good education.
Obviously not all the time. I'm making a generalization, which has many exceptions.
Hm. Fire Department? Not really a model for socialism any more than road systems are. There are basic services that even the most hardy of capitalists agree should be done by your "socialist" method.
Public Library? No, because it's just a way to short-change authors by skirting around IP laws.
Public education? Well if you intend to use that to further an idea for socialism, I won't stop you. Public education is a failure by just about all accounts. I say they should commercialize education -- and you could start by using vouchers for paying for education. Let the market decide who the best educators are.
The problem is that when government runs things, they do not do so efficiently or even the best way, and are fraught with corruption every single time. If socialism were always the best way, then even in the road systems you wouldn't have bids proposed by local contractors to build them. It would just all be built by the government. And it would be slower, more regulated, of less quality, and cost 10x as much.
Ugh. I get so tired of this Elitist "holier-than-thou" crap. Define bad program. Program with lots of bugs? If a program works as intended and it requires no updates, users are happy with it, it's secure, and it is useful, then what difference does it make if it was made entirely using GOTOs ?
There's this "Well if it isn't made with C++ it's shit" mentality again.
Look, you can make really great programs without typing and scoping. And very quickly, too, without bugs. You just have to be good at making and keeping your own conventions, keeping things modular, and doing things in the most efficient manner.
Beyond that, a judge of poor programming? Bite me.
But they do offer a service: If everyone can afford the ticket, and there is only a limited supply of tickets, then there is a high probability that I may not get a ticket (because the line is too long, or the web site goes down.)
Now, if I am willing to pay more for a ticket than everyone else, just to even get one, then what the scalpers have done is made it at least possible for me to get a ticket by creating the scarcity; making the line shorter for me.
I love to play Devil's Advocate, but there is one thing I cannot quite rectify: If the goal of the show is to promote an event, and not necessarily to generate cash, then the scalpers are doing a disservice to the show hosts. If $rockstar wants to sell his tickets for $5 (that normally would sell for $75), just to encourage people to actually show up, and the scalper buys all the tickets and only sells a few for very high profit, then $rockstar is actually damaged and scalper still made money.
When I took CS101 I was well beyond the level of the class, so, in order to make the programming assignments interesting, I added extra functionality on top of what was requested. Little stupid stuff mostly, but I tried to make it clever, and since the testing was automated, it didn't matter as long as it was to spec.
The last project was to write a program to simulate one of those stupid "digital pets"; it had to have a pet object, and various, feed, cuddle, punish, methods, etc.
One of the boundary conditions was that the pet had to starve if you didn't feed it, but the program was set so that you could have as many pets as you wanted at the same time...Well, I decided to put a little rock 'n roll in there, and if one pet hadn't been fed for a certain amount of time, he had a chance to start a "pet deathmatch", and try to eat another pet.
The code for the combat and the actual fight was massive. Most peoples code was a couple of pages...mine was closer to 30.
I printed it out at one point, so I could take it to dinner and work on some bug, and someone swiped it off the printer, and subsequently copied the WHOLE THING and turned it in for the assignment.
I happen to believe they really did have WMDs. "Well where were they then?" Syria. They moved to Syria. "Well how come we never found them?" Because you're taking a population of a small town and trying to search an area the size of Texas, when the object in question isn't where you're looking.
Yes, but wait a minute! Now we know a very good piece of information: we know that Joe Idiot's computer is compromised. And if he is my friend, I can go fix his computer, or I can at least block him or his domain name for future submissions.
It still works!
But the situation you describe is not how most SPAM gets to my client anyway. Most of it comes from a completely bogus and un-verifiable address. Or it comes from my own address! This essentially says I can disregard those because there is no verifiable serial number along with it.
Once the "verify server" has been asked, it removes that serial number for that email address from its database. That way, a SPAMmer can't simply copy a valid message's serial number and spoof the email address.
Also, if you have multiple recipients, the "verify server" gets that many records in the database, so that each recipient can verify the message separately.
Essentially the "verify server" has a table with 3 columns in it: Sender address, Recipient address, and Serial number. Once a query matches all 3 one time, it is removed from the table.
OK, I've been waiting for the opportunity to suggest my idea. It's completely back-ward compatible with existing technology, and it will only help filter spam:
The biggest problem I have with SPAM is unverifiable email addresses. Try replying to a SPAM message... most of the time it's a bad address. So, fix that, and you have solved 99% of the SPAM problem. (BTW, I don't consider email from verified email addresses to be SPAM. Why? Because they can be held accountable if they shouldn't be sending to you in the first place.)
The other big problem I have is that when I send email to friends and I have a link inside, it gets marked as SPAM. So, having a way to trust my messages would be good.
So here's how my idea works: Every mail server also hosts a "verify server." Every email client can connect to a domain's "verify server." (Compliance is completely voluntary for either the client or domains. And if you don't comply, you just don't get the benefit of trust.)
1. You write an email message with your email client (Outlook) and hit 'Send'.
2. Your email client generates a 50-digit, randomized alpha-numeric psuedo-unique serial number.
3. The email client includes this serial number in the message as a header or some other tag.
4. The email client then connects to it's own "verify server", logs in and gives the server this serial number and its email address.
5. The receiving email client then receives the message. It sees the serial number in the tag, and contacts that domain's "verify server."
6. The receiving client asks the "verify server": "Was there a message with serial number '5sd56123515baCesieoo25il2oigloowldogi255i289602d0d0g' and from 'bobb_sledd@gmail.com' ?
7. If the "verify server" says yes, then we verified that the message at least originated from that email address.
You know, there's a real easy way to tell: If when the source is raising the dead, if you hear beautiful and calming and serene music in a major chord mode, then it is good. If you hear banging on a piano or dissonant violins, then evil.
Really! With PHP you can kill two birds with one stone: You can teach HTML so you can be productive right away, and you can just embed some small PHP in the page wherever you feel like it... rather than programming a page to spit out HTML.
Now you want to make it do more complex stuff? Just add more tags into a working project. Now you have a powerful language that you can branch out and learn how to connect to a database, for example -- way beyond simple scripting stuff. Database is where its at!
But take heart, there is job nirvana. I have it. I have a job where I get to find problems to solve, and there are no deadlines, and very few scopes to cover. Things are laid out very generally and give me a lot of artistic license to implement how I see fit. And I'm paid more than anyone I know doing my kind of job. (I'm actually probably overpaid, but don't tell anyone.)
But also, the person who supports the product on the telephone will be the same guy who built it. So I guess it's in my best interest to make it work right the first time, isn't it!
I've often thought maybe more software shops should use this idea. Let your engineers support the product they make, and allow them to make live changes to it immediately... your calls will literally go to zero.
I have built several web-based database engines that are used on a daily basis by several hundred users. My phone rang maybe 4 or 5 times last week. Most of the time, it isn't even my problem.
Slashdot Mirror
your post really comes across as a snotty "audiophile"
I'm sorry, didn't mean to come off that way. Actually, I had interpreted your post that way.
Here's where I'm coming from:
I have grown tired of the elitists who say "well if you don't have this certain speaker or that brand of amplifier, then you're shit."
Listen, there is so much stuff produced out there that is mastered on all kinds of different equipment, there is no way to get a guaranteed "this is how the artist meant it to sound" kind of sound from one set of sound equipment. Everything will add coloration of its own.
Even on the things I listed above, it's really a gross over-simplification. For example, on my #7 above:
7) Your speakers are not perfect, and you most likely haven't calibrated them with an RTA for the room they sit in or for where people are actually positioned.
Well, I did calibrate my speakers with an RTA for my environment. Still, that entire process is so subjective, and after you're done, moving just a few inches in any direction often causes different sounds to cancel/amplify; I'm not sure it's possible to get a 100% objective sound from anything.
I guess my message to the world is, there are so many factors in reproducing sound, just don't worry about them too much. Just buy and use what sounds good to you. So if you're happy with 128Khz MP3s, then that's great. If you feel like you need analog and vinyl records to make you happy, then so be it.
As long as you understand there's so much more to a good sound than just the medium itself.
(And I know you do, I don't mean any of that toward you specifically.)
I don't think there will really ever be lossless compression for audio (at least for streamable media). I may be wrong, but the interest is always in saving bandwidth, not necessarily perfect fidelity reproduction.
There are (truly) lossless audio compressors that can gain better than 52% compression rates, which is far better than using ZIP or LZW.
But at some point, to get data at manageable sizes, you MUST go with lossy compression.
Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. JPG, MPG (almost all streaming video formats for that matter), use lossy compression.
Generally, you're correct, it does. But I've found that it also largely depends on the encoder you've chosen, and the Quality Setting that you're encoding with (different from bit rate). Some encoders actually work really well at 32kbs (for speech), others make it sound like it's played under water. Some encoders sound trash at 32kbs with low quality, and sound good at 32kbs with high quality.
And also the content you're encoding can make a difference.
The example given on the web site is better:
To quote:
A simple example would be "I think he is unattractive because he is ugly." The adjective "ugly" does not explain why the subject is "unattractive" -- they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question.
http://begthequestion.info/
I produce MP3's for mass distribution, and also support them when they don't function correctly (encoding/corruption issues).
In my opinion, VBR is not supported well-enough for mass consumption. Too many players out there still dork up when VBR is used. Granted, it's typically older players, but they are still out there.
The majority of people cannot tell the difference between (get this) 32kbps and 128kbps. I'm talking about the general population, not music enthusiasts. Most engineers cannot tell the difference between 162kbps and 192kbs, and certainly less of them can distinguish 192kbps and 256kbps -- and even I have doubts that most of those can in a true blind test.
But consider this: I put forth that the reason the you don't need full 44khz 16-bit audio is that you'll never hear the music as originally intended, and that is because of the following factors:
1) You usually listen in your car, and road-noise alone will destroy your ability to discern slight volume changes and perception of frequencies anywhere near 12khz and above
2) If you don't listen in a car, you often use your cheap speakers on your laptop
3) Most headphones people use are either cheap (under $50), or they are biased on the lower-end, and most are not equalized correctly, or not equalized to your ear physiology (different sizes ear canals can cause resonance/standing waves that cause a different perception in frequency for different people -- each set must be tuned individually if you are a true audiophile).
4) If you're older than 21, you probably can't hear above 16Khz at all
5) Your ears are not perfect (many people's frequency response is different from one ear to the other)
6) Your player is not perfect
7) Your speakers are not perfect, and you most likely haven't calibrated them with an RTA for the room they sit in or for where people are actually positioned.
8) The humidity, temperature, air pressure, and even the air pressure on the other side of your ear-drum changes frequently causing a difference in frequency response.
And if I'm completely wrong on points 1-8, then you are now in the .01% of all listeners, and you are not the target audience for mass-produced and distributed MP3s anyway.
Great example. I like it.
Question though. (Just for fun, let me play Devil's Advocate for a minute, I know it's just an example, and I see what you're trying to educate here.)
If the question is "Provide evidence that the Christian God exists", and one definition the dictionary provided for "proof" is "anything serving as such evidence", and then if I provide the Bible as evidence, have I not offered proof?
Let me only slightly change the answer though: "The Bible helps prove God exists. The Bible is a reliable source because it is evidence of the word of God."
Now you may argue that it is not sufficient enough to convince on its own, and I agree... but we're talking purely semantics.
(Why is it important? Because by the dictionary definition, I would then assert that I had not "begged the question.")
Ok, that isn't fair.
Yes, there are people and churches who did that. There are probably people and churches who ARE doing that right now.
But you're throwing everything together and giving it a disgusting label.
MY church is a large church in Texas. No one is extorting anything. Our budget is open and members can critique, meet, and change it. In our budget, (other than the salaries), our music/worship team gets exactly $0. We rely solely on specific donations from individuals for equipment and music. Those donations have a distinct purpose, and that purpose only. None of the instrumentalists or singers are paid. And as I said, we are a large church.
My church has never told anyone how to vote nor does it get involved in any politics whatsoever. In fact, we're forbidden by law to do it and you could lose your non-profit status if you do. The only thing I have ever seen was a 3rd party newspaper in the lobby that listed all the candidates for a governor race, and an objective list for how they were voting on an array of issues (some religiously controversial, some not at all). And even I think that is pushing it.
So what does my church do with the money? First, salaries of church employees (which is published). Second, pay the light bill. And the rest goes to missions.
We fund people in all sorts of capacities to help out humanity, whether it be our homeless ministry, or foreign country ministries. When we send people to go downtown and distribute coats and blankets to the homeless people under the bridge, or when our youth go to Mexico to paint a church, or send a family to Africa to help build water wells, well I'm sorry but those actions ARE making a real and tangible difference. And it simply would not get done if we didn't have a corporate church body to collectively fund from.
I'm not telling you we send our money to another group that then does those things. I'm saying that we have people in our congregation that individually do all of those things with the money we fund them with, and these are good people I know personally.
You can dislike those that have done wrong as you stated, if you wish; I'm with you on that. And I understand how that stuff leaves a rotten taste in your mouth. But don't associate us with them, simply because they were called Christians also.
...kind of like Slashdot?
I don't understand your thinking. If I wanted to know the answer to a database question, would I ask a teacher or would I ask someone who builds and supports databases as their career? Then why would you think that a "trained teacher" is the best to ask on any other subject?
My father, mother, wife, two cousins, and several friends are all teachers and I can tell you from observation and from their stories that the vast majority of teachers are barely competent enough to recognize the best methodologies to use when teaching, let alone have any mastery of the content they teach on.
And it really isn't all their fault. The problem is that you have such a large and diverse level of competency in your students --- in just one classroom -- and then are told you have to make everyone pass by some criteria. You have kids that don't really want to be there, and refuse to learn, as well as kids who do. So it often de-evolves into baby-sitting more than education. And that robs the kids of their getting a good education.
Obviously not all the time. I'm making a generalization, which has many exceptions.
Hm. Fire Department? Not really a model for socialism any more than road systems are. There are basic services that even the most hardy of capitalists agree should be done by your "socialist" method.
Public Library? No, because it's just a way to short-change authors by skirting around IP laws.
Public education? Well if you intend to use that to further an idea for socialism, I won't stop you. Public education is a failure by just about all accounts. I say they should commercialize education -- and you could start by using vouchers for paying for education. Let the market decide who the best educators are.
The problem is that when government runs things, they do not do so efficiently or even the best way, and are fraught with corruption every single time. If socialism were always the best way, then even in the road systems you wouldn't have bids proposed by local contractors to build them. It would just all be built by the government. And it would be slower, more regulated, of less quality, and cost 10x as much.
If you search Google Maps for 'Omeonga Democratic Republic of the Congo,' you will be right in the middle of the suspected crater.
I did a google search, but I'm still here in this chair in my cubicle.
Ugh. I get so tired of this Elitist "holier-than-thou" crap. Define bad program. Program with lots of bugs? If a program works as intended and it requires no updates, users are happy with it, it's secure, and it is useful, then what difference does it make if it was made entirely using GOTOs ?
There's this "Well if it isn't made with C++ it's shit" mentality again.
Look, you can make really great programs without typing and scoping. And very quickly, too, without bugs. You just have to be good at making and keeping your own conventions, keeping things modular, and doing things in the most efficient manner.
Beyond that, a judge of poor programming? Bite me.
But they do offer a service: If everyone can afford the ticket, and there is only a limited supply of tickets, then there is a high probability that I may not get a ticket (because the line is too long, or the web site goes down.)
Now, if I am willing to pay more for a ticket than everyone else, just to even get one, then what the scalpers have done is made it at least possible for me to get a ticket by creating the scarcity; making the line shorter for me.
I love to play Devil's Advocate, but there is one thing I cannot quite rectify: If the goal of the show is to promote an event, and not necessarily to generate cash, then the scalpers are doing a disservice to the show hosts. If $rockstar wants to sell his tickets for $5 (that normally would sell for $75), just to encourage people to actually show up, and the scalper buys all the tickets and only sells a few for very high profit, then $rockstar is actually damaged and scalper still made money.
When I took CS101 I was well beyond the level of the class, so, in order to make the programming assignments interesting, I added extra functionality on top of what was requested. Little stupid stuff mostly, but I tried to make it clever, and since the testing was automated, it didn't matter as long as it was to spec.
The last project was to write a program to simulate one of those stupid "digital pets"; it had to have a pet object, and various, feed, cuddle, punish, methods, etc.
One of the boundary conditions was that the pet had to starve if you didn't feed it, but the program was set so that you could have as many pets as you wanted at the same time...Well, I decided to put a little rock 'n roll in there, and if one pet hadn't been fed for a certain amount of time, he had a chance to start a "pet deathmatch", and try to eat another pet.
The code for the combat and the actual fight was massive. Most peoples code was a couple of pages...mine was closer to 30.
I printed it out at one point, so I could take it to dinner and work on some bug, and someone swiped it off the printer, and subsequently copied the WHOLE THING and turned it in for the assignment.
I use Adobe DreamWeaver and like it, and I am one of the best paid in my field so suck my balls.
I happen to believe they really did have WMDs. "Well where were they then?" Syria. They moved to Syria. "Well how come we never found them?" Because you're taking a population of a small town and trying to search an area the size of Texas, when the object in question isn't where you're looking.
But that's just my belief.
Ha ha.. you guys are dumb. Everyone knows ROT-26 is insecure. It leaves out the number characters! So I do a ROT-36 and include numbers too.
Yes, but wait a minute! Now we know a very good piece of information: we know that Joe Idiot's computer is compromised. And if he is my friend, I can go fix his computer, or I can at least block him or his domain name for future submissions.
It still works!
But the situation you describe is not how most SPAM gets to my client anyway. Most of it comes from a completely bogus and un-verifiable address. Or it comes from my own address! This essentially says I can disregard those because there is no verifiable serial number along with it.
...and I left out a very important part:
Once the "verify server" has been asked, it removes that serial number for that email address from its database. That way, a SPAMmer can't simply copy a valid message's serial number and spoof the email address.
Also, if you have multiple recipients, the "verify server" gets that many records in the database, so that each recipient can verify the message separately.
Essentially the "verify server" has a table with 3 columns in it: Sender address, Recipient address, and Serial number. Once a query matches all 3 one time, it is removed from the table.
OK, I've been waiting for the opportunity to suggest my idea. It's completely back-ward compatible with existing technology, and it will only help filter spam:
The biggest problem I have with SPAM is unverifiable email addresses. Try replying to a SPAM message... most of the time it's a bad address. So, fix that, and you have solved 99% of the SPAM problem. (BTW, I don't consider email from verified email addresses to be SPAM. Why? Because they can be held accountable if they shouldn't be sending to you in the first place.)
The other big problem I have is that when I send email to friends and I have a link inside, it gets marked as SPAM. So, having a way to trust my messages would be good.
So here's how my idea works: Every mail server also hosts a "verify server." Every email client can connect to a domain's "verify server." (Compliance is completely voluntary for either the client or domains. And if you don't comply, you just don't get the benefit of trust.)
1. You write an email message with your email client (Outlook) and hit 'Send'.
2. Your email client generates a 50-digit, randomized alpha-numeric psuedo-unique serial number.
3. The email client includes this serial number in the message as a header or some other tag.
4. The email client then connects to it's own "verify server", logs in and gives the server this serial number and its email address.
5. The receiving email client then receives the message. It sees the serial number in the tag, and contacts that domain's "verify server."
6. The receiving client asks the "verify server": "Was there a message with serial number '5sd56123515baCesieoo25il2oigloowldogi255i289602d0d0g' and from 'bobb_sledd@gmail.com' ?
7. If the "verify server" says yes, then we verified that the message at least originated from that email address.
What do you think?
Yes, but that means aliens.
You know, there's a real easy way to tell: If when the source is raising the dead, if you hear beautiful and calming and serene music in a major chord mode, then it is good. If you hear banging on a piano or dissonant violins, then evil.
Duh.
Well that explains why I can't remember where I put my Gingko.
Seriously though, I had a suspicion 10 years ago when I took it, I couldn't see any difference either.
Why doesn't anyone mention PHP?
OK, now that you've stopped laughing...
Really! With PHP you can kill two birds with one stone: You can teach HTML so you can be productive right away, and you can just embed some small PHP in the page wherever you feel like it... rather than programming a page to spit out HTML.
Now you want to make it do more complex stuff? Just add more tags into a working project. Now you have a powerful language that you can branch out and learn how to connect to a database, for example -- way beyond simple scripting stuff. Database is where its at!
Well, I've been there so I know your pain.
But take heart, there is job nirvana. I have it. I have a job where I get to find problems to solve, and there are no deadlines, and very few scopes to cover. Things are laid out very generally and give me a lot of artistic license to implement how I see fit. And I'm paid more than anyone I know doing my kind of job. (I'm actually probably overpaid, but don't tell anyone.)
But also, the person who supports the product on the telephone will be the same guy who built it. So I guess it's in my best interest to make it work right the first time, isn't it!
I've often thought maybe more software shops should use this idea. Let your engineers support the product they make, and allow them to make live changes to it immediately... your calls will literally go to zero.
I have built several web-based database engines that are used on a daily basis by several hundred users. My phone rang maybe 4 or 5 times last week. Most of the time, it isn't even my problem.