Instrumental -- mostly guitar. I usually layer and sequence any keyboard stuff to make it sound less pathetic. Same for drums.
I pretty much record whatever I'm in the mood for, so I've got soft nylon-string pieces and aggressive slash-and-burn stuff on my hard drive and DATs. I pretty much give away CDs to anyone who's interested -- I'm happy just to have someone say, "I like it."
No recording lately, though. I miss it, but writing software has been taking up ALL of my time.
Agreed, this might be a good thread or slashdot poll in the future.
Agreed, a Mackie might be more than what he needs or can afford. Mostly, I was suggesting that a music store was a better place to look. I'm pretty sure he will find a small, affordable line mixer from Roland, Midiman, or someone else there.
One thing I've noticed on this thread is that Mackie advocates make Mac/Linux/BSD advocates look downright PASSIVE.;) Sorry for my rabid pro-Mackie stance.
Wow! I had just submitted my post singing the virtues of Mackies and found yours right there with it. This guy's gonna think we're being paid off by Mackie.:)
Since more and more musicians are doing recording at home these days, high-quality compact mixers have become more affordable. Mackie, Yamaha, and Behringer(sp?) are all making good, small mixers that beat the pants off anything you'll find at Radio Shack (just my opinion, there).
12-channel (and smaller) mixers are not that expensive -- should be only a few hundred bucks. The footprint of them is relatively small and some can be mounted in a 19" rack. There are also rack-mountable line mixers which are basically a bunch of inputs with volume controls -- these are small and pretty cheap.
Most of these use standard 1/4" unbalanced analog inputs but have a few additional RCA jacks for CD and tape input. You can buy RCA-to-1/4" converters at Radio Shack that work just fine.
Guitar Center sells tons of these (though I try to avoid GC due to an ugly customer service incident last year:) ). If you have a Mars in your neighborhood, they have a good recording equipment department.
Personal recommendation? I've been using a Mackie 12-channel (1202, I think) for several years now. I had to have the pots cleaned once but, other than that, it's been great. It's built like a tank.
I've written a lot of code for Windows, though, and I think you make a good point with regard to fragmentation. Generally, the APIs are the same and 9 times out of 10, you can just call the Win32 function without worrying about it.
The bite comes on that 10th time. For example, the Windows Remote Authentication Server API (RAS) has significant differences between:
Windows 95 Windows 98 (and Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2) Windows NT
It's a little tense when you have to explain to a executive why your nifty RAS program does stuff on your NT workstation that it can't do on your customers' Win95 machines. "It's all Windows, isn't it?" No, it's not.
FWIW, I also recall one case where I used some Microsoft example code that obtained a handle to a device context. The example declared the value as an int and everything ran fine on the Win95 machines. It crashed horribly on WinNT, though. A little debugging revealed that the value on WinNT was greater than an int could hold. I declared it long and everything worked ok. What peeved me was that this little quirk was not mentioned anywhere in the documentation. As far as the documentation was concerned, the function calls were the same between Win95 and WinNT.
Other people who program Windows will justifiably call me a wimp for whining about having to get the OS version sometimes. That's fair. I also shouldn't be too hard on MS for errors in documentation that is, most of the time, pretty helpful. Finally, a couple of bad experiences from one developer is not grounds for condemning an entire operating system.
But I think it's also important to point out that the Win32 API is not the same everywhere. If having to check my OS version before a function call is not "fragmentation", then what is?
I'm seeing a lot of posts saying that chips designed for a specific language are a Bad Thing. I tend to agree.
BUT I think this argument overlooks something important. A Java chip would not interpret Java at the brace-and-semicolon level, it would read Java bytecodes. Java bytecodes are basically machine language for a microprocessor that exists only in software. It is only logical to make such a chip in hardware eventually.
Furthermore, if the specs for a "Java chip" are open, what is to keep compiler writers from implementing back-ends which write Java bytecodes? I'm not a compiler writer, but it seems like it would be quite possible to implement, for example, a C or C++ compiler which writes Java bytecodes instead of x86/68000/Alpha/Sparc/whatever machine code. Such a compiler would make the "Java chip" usable by people who don't like writing Java.
I seem to recall seeing at least one compiler that takes a non-Java language (Perl, I think) and compiles it to Java bytecodes. Also, I know there is one regular slashdot reader who is doing Java programming at the assembly level -- any comments? If a Java chip sees widespread use, anything-to-bytecode compilers would seem inevitable.
Ok, I'm lame for posting a reply on my own post. After seeing a mix of "big deal" and "Python rules" posts, though, I thought I would chime in again.
I think you're right about Python being generational. I'm not quite 30 and I caught the Python reruns on PBS starting in my early teens. It was very fresh to me.
I also eventually saw the Python films. At the time, only "geeks" (bad thing to be at my school) were into that stuff. I kept quiet about it, except when I was around my friends who were part of the Drama club. There, it was an inside joke to us.
I think the appeal is their creativity and their willingness to take a simple premise and push it to the farthest extremes. Sometimes, the original premise might not be hysterical, but they would push it until it was (remember the "organ collectors" in "The Meaning of Life"?)
Python didn't make me roll on the floor often, but I DID smile a lot. It was witty, creative, and fun to watch. Certainly, part of my affection is nostalgia now. The fact that I can openly drop a Python reference around people today and have them "get it" is also cool.
Anyway, that's about enough of my "What Monty Python Means to Me" essay.:)
It seems to be a common misconception that the Constitutional protection of speech extends to relationships between private individuals. It doesn't.
Example -- A few years ago, Sheryl Crow released an album with a song about someone committing a crime with a gun bought from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart refused to sell the album. In an interview, Sheryl Crow said that they couldn't do that because, "...it's in the Constitution."
This assumption is wrong. The Bill of Rights does not apply to businesses and individuals. It only protects citizens from government.
While the government would (in theory) not be able to stop you from criticizing your employer publicly, that doesn't prevent the employer from taking action. This action may be dismissal (especially if you've violated a Non-Disclosure). If your speech wrongfully cost the employer money, they may file a civil suit to recover the damages.
My understanding is that students in school do not enjoy the same degree of Constitutional protection that adults do. Minors (under 18) simply do not have the same rights as adults. They don't have the same responsiblities, either. (I am not saying I agree or disagree with this.)
While the Supreme Court stated in one opinion that Constitutional rights do not end at the schoolhouse gate (sorry, I forget the case), they also have held that the need to maintain order in the school will often override a student's freedom of expression. This is the basic justification for dress codes and prohibited clothing such as Nazi armbands, gang colors, etc.
The whole issue of Constitutionally-protected speech gets a lot more complicated when dealing with minor students. It's a fascinating area, but get ready to be shocked and angered every once in a while if you decide to research it.
Hey, if you're a reasonably mature teen-ager in the Dallas area, send me a note. I've been wanting to see South Park anyway. You don't have to wait until Labor Day. Heck, you don't even have to be a "geek" (is that ok Katz?).
A few stipulations:
My spouse wants to go, too.
I've already suffered through Eyes Wide Shut and I have no desire to see it again. Don't even _think_ about it. Sometimes, being underage keeps you from wasting 7 bucks.
Your parent(s) or guardian(s) must approve.
You're paying for your ticket.
/* Whew! That's enough anarchic pseudo-rebellion for today. Tune in tomorrow and watch me burn my library card to protest the "man". After that, we'll all go to Sam Goody and pay $13.95 for a Rage Against The Machine CD. */
It has been mentioned already by two other posters, but I have to chime in.
Yes, I also have a problem with the "rights given to us by our government" phrase in your post. It seems like a pretty small thing, but I find it indicative of an attitude in the U.S. which is starting to bother me.
I don't believe that the current seperation of government from "the people" is what was originally intended for the United States. The Constitution starts with, "We, the people", not "We, the Government of the United States of America". The original goal was for government to be controlled by the people, not the other way around.
The Constitution enumerates what the branches of government may/should do. In effect, it is a document in which the people grant rights to the government, NOT the other way around. IMO, American citizens have forgotten this fact.
There were members of the constitutional convention who were against adding the Bill of Rights. Their argument was that enumeration of specific rights would lead to the government infringing on any rights which were NOT specifically mentioned. 200+ years later, I think they had a good point.
The assumption that anything not mentioned is, by default, outside the domain of federal government is long lost. Today, when something happens, we ask, "What will the [federal] government do about it?"
/* Not a lawyer. Just a guy with a deep interest in the U.S. Constitution. */
First, I'm taking the article with a grain of salt. I downloaded M7 a few weeks ago and was very impressed how far it has come. I know M8 has been released recently. Therefore, I am filing all comments about "Mozilla disappointment" under "Clueless/Myopic Industry Pundits Who Give Sound Bites Between Rounds of Solitaire".
Since the alliance, though, I'm hearing more statements from the Sun side of the alliance than AOL. Who's driving this bus? If AOL purchased Netscape, why is Sun making statements which suggest that they are distancing from Netscape? Why is AOL allowing this? Are they simply the lapdog for Sun now?
Sun is starting to make me a little nervous. Overall, they seem preoccupied with beating Microsoft. Is this because they actually want to BE Microsoft? I have no desire to see one marketshare-abusing entity replaced by another.
Red Hat announced the acquisition of the popular slashdot site from Andover.net.
A spokesperson could not say whether the new site would be called "RedDot", "SlashHat", or even "RedSlashHatDot".
One regular slashdot reader named Anonymous Coward reportedly said, "Oh. So that's why I was seeing two or more Red Hat stories in the same afternoon."
The reader was immediately subdued, gagged, and called a troll.
You know, I get nervous when the kid next door plays with firecrackers. How do you suppose our interstellar neighbors feel?
"Look George, those crazy earthlings just turned their planet into a black hole."
I wonder if the black holes already in the universe were caused by other civilizations trying the exact same thing once upon a time. It could be just another milestone in the evolution of a culture -- language, machinary, heavy-ion smashing....
"Word is that earthlings have finally reached the heavy-ion smashing stage. I wonder if they'll be able to control it?" " "Whoops, guess not. Better put some orange cones around what used to be their solar system."
It's not funny to you, but somewhere there's a hyper-intelligent lifeform that thinks it's hysterical.
Re:just one thing, if something goes wrong
on
NASA's X-37
·
· Score: 2
"what if the blades stopped rotating?"
Then your glide angle resembles that of a set of car keys.
(One of my dad's favorite sayings. I couldn't resist:)
Slashdot Mirror
Instrumental -- mostly guitar. I usually layer and sequence any keyboard stuff to make it sound less pathetic. Same for drums.
I pretty much record whatever I'm in the mood for, so I've got soft nylon-string pieces and aggressive slash-and-burn stuff on my hard drive and DATs. I pretty much give away CDs to anyone who's interested -- I'm happy just to have someone say, "I like it."
No recording lately, though. I miss it, but writing software has been taking up ALL of my time.
Agreed, this might be a good thread or slashdot poll in the future.
http://www.mackie.com
Heh, didn't even need google to find it.
Agreed, a Mackie might be more than what he needs or can afford. Mostly, I was suggesting that a music store was a better place to look. I'm pretty sure he will find a small, affordable line mixer from Roland, Midiman, or someone else there.
;) Sorry for my rabid pro-Mackie stance.
One thing I've noticed on this thread is that Mackie advocates make Mac/Linux/BSD advocates look downright PASSIVE.
Wow! I had just submitted my post singing the virtues of Mackies and found yours right there with it. This guy's gonna think we're being paid off by Mackie. :)
Since more and more musicians are doing recording at home these days, high-quality compact mixers have become more affordable. Mackie, Yamaha, and Behringer(sp?) are all making good, small mixers that beat the pants off anything you'll find at Radio Shack (just my opinion, there).
:) ). If you have a Mars in your neighborhood, they have a good recording equipment department.
12-channel (and smaller) mixers are not that expensive -- should be only a few hundred bucks. The footprint of them is relatively small and some can be mounted in a 19" rack. There are also rack-mountable line mixers which are basically a bunch of inputs with volume controls -- these are small and pretty cheap.
Most of these use standard 1/4" unbalanced analog inputs but have a few additional RCA jacks for CD and tape input. You can buy RCA-to-1/4" converters at Radio Shack that work just fine.
Guitar Center sells tons of these (though I try to avoid GC due to an ugly customer service incident last year
Personal recommendation? I've been using a Mackie 12-channel (1202, I think) for several years now. I had to have the pots cleaned once but, other than that, it's been great. It's built like a tank.
You left out WinCE :)
I've written a lot of code for Windows, though, and I think you make a good point with regard to fragmentation. Generally, the APIs are the same and 9 times out of 10, you can just call the Win32 function without worrying about it.
The bite comes on that 10th time. For example, the Windows Remote Authentication Server API (RAS) has significant differences between:
Windows 95
Windows 98 (and Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2)
Windows NT
It's a little tense when you have to explain to a executive why your nifty RAS program does stuff on your NT workstation that it can't do on your customers' Win95 machines. "It's all Windows, isn't it?" No, it's not.
FWIW, I also recall one case where I used some Microsoft example code that obtained a handle to a device context. The example declared the value as an int and everything ran fine on the Win95 machines. It crashed horribly on WinNT, though. A little debugging revealed that the value on WinNT was greater than an int could hold. I declared it long and everything worked ok. What peeved me was that this little quirk was not mentioned anywhere in the documentation. As far as the documentation was concerned, the function calls were the same between Win95 and WinNT.
Other people who program Windows will justifiably call me a wimp for whining about having to get the OS version sometimes. That's fair. I also shouldn't be too hard on MS for errors in documentation that is, most of the time, pretty helpful. Finally, a couple of bad experiences from one developer is not grounds for condemning an entire operating system.
But I think it's also important to point out that the Win32 API is not the same everywhere. If having to check my OS version before a function call is not "fragmentation", then what is?
(Sorry for the length of this post)
I guess we'll need make a proposal for that. :)
I feel a song coming on....
Pragmatic Man, Pragmatic Man
Doing the things a pragmatist can
What's he like? It's not important.
Pragmatic Man
Is he a suit or is he a geek?
Does he reboot NT every week?
Or does his server run at its peak?
Nobody knows. Pragmatic Man.
With apologies to They Might Be Giants.
JPython -- Python to Java bytecodes. Not Perl. Many apologies.
It will become the recruiting slogan for some Silicon Valley company:
Got Milk? Come work for us!
(Sorry. Had to do it. I'll put the keyboard down and slowly step away now.)
I'm seeing a lot of posts saying that chips designed for a specific language are a Bad Thing. I tend to agree.
BUT I think this argument overlooks something important. A Java chip would not interpret Java at the brace-and-semicolon level, it would read Java bytecodes. Java bytecodes are basically machine language for a microprocessor that exists only in software. It is only logical to make such a chip in hardware eventually.
Furthermore, if the specs for a "Java chip" are open, what is to keep compiler writers from implementing back-ends which write Java bytecodes? I'm not a compiler writer, but it seems like it would be quite possible to implement, for example, a C or C++ compiler which writes Java bytecodes instead of x86/68000/Alpha/Sparc/whatever machine code. Such a compiler would make the "Java chip" usable by people who don't like writing Java.
I seem to recall seeing at least one compiler that takes a non-Java language (Perl, I think) and compiles it to Java bytecodes. Also, I know there is one regular slashdot reader who is doing Java programming at the assembly level -- any comments? If a Java chip sees widespread use, anything-to-bytecode compilers would seem inevitable.
Ok, I'm lame for posting a reply on my own post. After seeing a mix of "big deal" and "Python rules" posts, though, I thought I would chime in again.
:)
I think you're right about Python being generational. I'm not quite 30 and I caught the Python reruns on PBS starting in my early teens. It was very fresh to me.
I also eventually saw the Python films. At the time, only "geeks" (bad thing to be at my school) were into that stuff. I kept quiet about it, except when I was around my friends who were part of the Drama club. There, it was an inside joke to us.
I think the appeal is their creativity and their willingness to take a simple premise and push it to the farthest extremes. Sometimes, the original premise might not be hysterical, but they would push it until it was (remember the "organ collectors" in "The Meaning of Life"?)
Python didn't make me roll on the floor often, but I DID smile a lot. It was witty, creative, and fun to watch. Certainly, part of my affection is nostalgia now. The fact that I can openly drop a Python reference around people today and have them "get it" is also cool.
Anyway, that's about enough of my "What Monty Python Means to Me" essay.
But then NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition! :)
LOL!
:) )
(I was looking for a MEEPT!!!!!
It seems to be a common misconception that the Constitutional protection of speech extends to relationships between private individuals. It doesn't.
Example -- A few years ago, Sheryl Crow released an album with a song about someone committing a crime with a gun bought from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart refused to sell the album. In an interview, Sheryl Crow said that they couldn't do that because, "...it's in the Constitution."
This assumption is wrong. The Bill of Rights does not apply to businesses and individuals. It only protects citizens from government.
While the government would (in theory) not be able to stop you from criticizing your employer publicly, that doesn't prevent the employer from taking action. This action may be dismissal (especially if you've violated a Non-Disclosure). If your speech wrongfully cost the employer money, they may file a civil suit to recover the damages.
(Not a lawyer)
My understanding is that students in school do not enjoy the same degree of Constitutional protection that adults do. Minors (under 18) simply do not have the same rights as adults. They don't have the same responsiblities, either. (I am not saying I agree or disagree with this.)
While the Supreme Court stated in one opinion that Constitutional rights do not end at the schoolhouse gate (sorry, I forget the case), they also have held that the need to maintain order in the school will often override a student's freedom of expression. This is the basic justification for dress codes and prohibited clothing such as Nazi armbands, gang colors, etc.
The whole issue of Constitutionally-protected speech gets a lot more complicated when dealing with minor students. It's a fascinating area, but get ready to be shocked and angered every once in a while if you decide to research it.
Hey, if you're a reasonably mature teen-ager in the Dallas area, send me a note. I've been wanting to see South Park anyway. You don't have to wait until Labor Day. Heck, you don't even have to be a "geek" (is that ok Katz?).
/* Whew! That's enough anarchic pseudo-rebellion for today. Tune in tomorrow and watch me burn my library card to protest the "man". After that, we'll all go to Sam Goody and pay $13.95 for a Rage Against The Machine CD. */
A few stipulations:
My spouse wants to go, too.
I've already suffered through Eyes Wide Shut and I have no desire to see it again. Don't even _think_ about it. Sometimes, being underage keeps you from wasting 7 bucks.
Your parent(s) or guardian(s) must approve.
You're paying for your ticket.
It has been mentioned already by two other posters, but I have to chime in.
Yes, I also have a problem with the "rights given to us by our government" phrase in your post. It seems like a pretty small thing, but I find it indicative of an attitude in the U.S. which is starting to bother me.
I don't believe that the current seperation of government from "the people" is what was originally intended for the United States. The Constitution starts with, "We, the people", not "We, the Government of the United States of America". The original goal was for government to be controlled by the people, not the other way around.
The Constitution enumerates what the branches of government may/should do. In effect, it is a document in which the people grant rights to the government, NOT the other way around. IMO, American citizens have forgotten this fact.
There were members of the constitutional convention who were against adding the Bill of Rights. Their argument was that enumeration of specific rights would lead to the government infringing on any rights which were NOT specifically mentioned. 200+ years later, I think they had a good point.
The assumption that anything not mentioned is, by default, outside the domain of federal government is long lost. Today, when something happens, we ask, "What will the [federal] government do about it?"
/* Not a lawyer. Just a guy with a deep interest in the U.S. Constitution. */
First, I'm taking the article with a grain of salt. I downloaded M7 a few weeks ago and was very impressed how far it has come. I know M8 has been released recently. Therefore, I am filing all comments about "Mozilla disappointment" under "Clueless/Myopic Industry Pundits Who Give Sound Bites Between Rounds of Solitaire".
Since the alliance, though, I'm hearing more statements from the Sun side of the alliance than AOL. Who's driving this bus? If AOL purchased Netscape, why is Sun making statements which suggest that they are distancing from Netscape? Why is AOL allowing this? Are they simply the lapdog for Sun now?
Sun is starting to make me a little nervous. Overall, they seem preoccupied with beating Microsoft. Is this because they actually want to BE Microsoft? I have no desire to see one marketshare-abusing entity replaced by another.
Mercury Capsule World Tour coming soon. The last one was 38 years ago. :)
I forgot to mention that, as he was dragged off, Anonymous Coward was overheard shouting, "First Post!"
Red Hat announced the acquisition of the popular slashdot site from Andover.net.
A spokesperson could not say whether the new site would be called "RedDot", "SlashHat", or even "RedSlashHatDot".
One regular slashdot reader named Anonymous Coward reportedly said, "Oh. So that's why I was seeing two or more Red Hat stories in the same afternoon."
The reader was immediately subdued, gagged, and called a troll.
You know, I get nervous when the kid next door plays with firecrackers. How do you suppose our interstellar neighbors feel?
"Look George, those crazy earthlings just turned their planet into a black hole."
I wonder if the black holes already in the universe were caused by other civilizations trying the exact same thing once upon a time. It could be just another milestone in the evolution of a culture -- language, machinary, heavy-ion smashing....
"Word is that earthlings have finally reached the heavy-ion smashing stage. I wonder if they'll be able to control it?"
"
"Whoops, guess not. Better put some orange cones around what used to be their solar system."
It's not funny to you, but somewhere there's a hyper-intelligent lifeform that thinks it's hysterical.
"what if the blades stopped rotating?"
:)
Then your glide angle resembles that of a set of car keys.
(One of my dad's favorite sayings. I couldn't resist
Hee, hee -- nothing backs up an argument better than suggesting that people who disagree with you have small genitalia. :)