Runs in windows natively, highly scriptable, can do eight types of frequency analysis and sample stats as part of the batch (all exportable as clear text)... and you didn't google this first because?
Re:Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy
on
Are You Annoying?
·
· Score: 1
No, I get paid to write code. That's it. I'm a code jockey. My boss gives me assignments, I do said assignments. My boss asks me questions, I answer them in straight forward terms that she can "dumb down for the MBA's above her" (her phrase, not mine).
That doesn't stop everyone and their mother (literally) from asking me everything from what video card they should buy to support game 'x' to how download the internet through their AOL. Annoying users keep me from being able to do my job at peek efficiency.
These are of course the same f$!kers who will be at the next planning session complaining to my boss that our latest release isn't purple enough (or some such shit).
So now I request browser type and IP address as hidden form inputs for my blog (i.e. - gather user information without their consent) and they can throw my happy ass in jail... great...
Realistically speaking, the only big problem with FM radio quality is that it attenuates above 16kHz . . . a range that you more or less can't hear in the poor listening environments where FM is typically used (vast majority of the time being, of course, in moving vehicles).
Not that the audible dynamic range is much better in a car (relatively speaking), but I wonder if the digital channels bypass the broadcast compressor...
What you call annoying, I call job security. At $15.50 an hour I'll fix all the bleeding driver problems you want. I'm all for better software and more educated users, but since we already know neither of these is going to happen I'm all to willing to profit from it.
I agree that it's pretty useless in it's current form, but I'm not with you on writing of the entire concept. They may be totally useless for a dozen reasons, but they only need to be useful for the right one or two reasons to make someone a ton of money. With some minor modifications and a cheap wearable display and input device, I could see outfitting survey teams (or other field data collectors) with these. Having an orange sized PC in my pocket would beat the hell out of schlepping around a laptop or fragile PDA.
And as to your comment about carrying around your data so that you can drop it into whatever device happens to be handy, it may be worth noting that there is insufficient infrastructure (to say nothing of commercial opportunity) in this sector to make this viable for most of the country (and perhaps for most of the World, though I'm not well traveled enough to speak to that).
Probably this will lead to the death penalty becoming the standard punishmnent for every minor crime, so as to keep the organ banks full of fresh organs, allowing rich people to live forever at the expense of everybody else. I hope this happens within my lifetime, as it is a Utopian scenario indeed.
I don't think that my getting the chair over a speeding ticket so that you can have a new spleen is very damned Utopian (but maybe it's just me).;->
I work for a company which has started recording precisely this sort of thing for various applications to be used as give-aways when we launch our new web site in the fall. What I discovered in preparing the script for one of these things as a general "Windows" set is that the way Windows assigns sounds is completely useless!
What, exactly, is an "Asterisk" supposed to sound like? Is "Asterisk" a specific type of GPF I haven't discovered yet? (just when I though I'd seen every BSOD imaginable....)
...that [insert certification here] doesn't qualify you to deal with every computer problem ever imaginable? *sarcasm off*
Seriously, it's little wonder that this is being codified into a syndrome since it seems that Joe Q. Public has it into his head that just because someone knows how to stick a card into a PCI slot, they must be a certifiable computer genius. I know as the most up-to-speed user in my small company, I get a daily barrage of questions about every computer related topic imaginable. While I have no hesitation in letting my coworkers know that I haven't a clue as to what it is they are talking about (which they read off reuters this morning and can never keep the details of straight), they still persist in thinking that the most computer saavy person in the room must be a network-sysadmin-31337-haxor-d00d-MCSE-Ph.d-in-com puter-science.
Little wonder the suits are cashing in on such naivte in order to move product.
By the way, can anyone confirm the "60 samples" number? One of the guys giving commentary on NPR said it was more like 6.
Those 60 lines are distributed worldwide. According to this
article there are less than 10 lines in the US (which if I understand the funding procedures correctly means that THOSE are the ones which will be up for federal funding).
I'm up for liscensing a turkey sandwich... anyone else in?;)
(just wait.... it's coming...)
more to the point above, I can't see socialism being the answer... way I see it, this is more like socialism than pure capitalism.
I hope this example makes you realize that copyrights shouldn't be for sale
While I agree that the this is a horrible scenerio you paint I'm not sure it is entirely possible as per 984 F.2d 1524.
Regardless of case law, though, I have another more basic question. Less the substantial money to be gained through the sale of copyrights, how exactly is an artist to make money? While I realize that the system is broken, I don't think that the idea of copyrights and the sale there of is fundamentally flawed.
It has only been in the last few years that the internet has become a viable means for music distibution. Until such time as broadband is ubiquitous and publically controlled, I think that the "music label" model for access to distribution is still a valid one. Even now so few people have broadband access (to say nothing of any access) that it is still not a wholy viable channel to use as your ONLY method of distribution. Given the centurys of precedent for the current system (which can be traced to the artist/patron system in place since the Baroque period) we rationally expect the model or the law to change overnight.
Not surprisingly, the RIAA bashed the bill, saying it favors government regulation over market forces.
I dare say that the market forces have done their work. It should be clear to the RIAA now that the market has said it's tired of getting horked for $18-$20USD every time we want to pick up a disc by our favorite artist (even if the artist has been dead for 50 years)!
More on the point, I think this sort of legislation is overdue. I'd come much closer, however, to favoring a modification of copyright law which establishes a true compulsory liscensing scheme for online music (as per US title 17 sec 115, which also covered in the Berne Convention). Not so much because I want to drive up costs, which I fear it would in the end, but because it lends more legal credibility to the the idea of online file sharing in general (and sharing of music in particular). I'll pay an extra cent per download if it keeps the damned lawyers off my back. As it stands now this bill reeks of the Audio Home Recording Act.
There are other interests that would support the internet, but it wouldn't be a mass media. Would you like it if only educational, government, and military sites existed?
YES! I can say with relative certainty that few things would make me happier. Maybe I'm just desperately behind the times, but I miss the days when with a fair amount of speed and accuracy I could do all of my browsing in Lynx (or at least with images off in netscape). As it stands, the commercialization of the web is a mixed blessing... sure it has brought us useful information (in some cases) but at what cost (literally and metaphorically)?
More related to the parent post, there is a school of thought in Culture Studies which draws an arc for any given fad which traces it's origins from underground movement to mass media frenzy and back again (witness "grrrl power" in the late 90's to today). I hope we will find that this is for the internet the final slope of that arc. Let the suits have their "business friendly internet." Maybe then they'll leave the rest of us alone.
A friend of mine just turned me onto a program at http://www.webwasher.com/ (no, I don't work for them). Though I've yet to install it, it claims to filter this sort of thing out (also banner ads and more from the looks of it). Haven't read the liscense in any detail, but the site claims that the software is "free for home and educational use". Linux, Windows, and Mac OS versions available (w/english and german versions). I was waiting on said friend to use it a few days and give me some feedback, but I'll gladly let you guys be the guinea pigs;)
From the Harry Fox Agency Website ( http://www.nmpa.org/hfa/faq_mechanical.html):
For phonorecords made and distributed after January 1, 2000, the current statutory mechanical royalty rate is 7.55 cents per use for compositions that are 5 minutes or less. For songs over 5 minutes, the rate is 1.45 cents per minute or fraction thereof of playing time, whichever is greater.
For those unfamiliar with mechanical royalties, this is the rate paid by broadcasters for use of a song. I'd imagine that if the trial court were to establish a system of compulsary liscensing for online music, it'd wind up looking a lot like this.
When I pick up the Brittanica I know that experts have written the articles, and I trust their facts. I know there has been rigorous fact-checking and editing, and this is key to Brittanica's authority. What's the nupedia equivalent ? Am I going to trust an article I essentially pick up off the web ?
The problem I have with this argument and arguments like it is that it makes the tacit assumption that the people who are using these "open" sources of information are idiots (not much of a stretch mind you, but hear me out). I don't know about you, but when I'm doing research I rarely (if ever) rely on just one source. Should I find discrepancies between sources it usually just makes for more thorough research on my part. Not to encourage inaccuracy, mind you, but I don't find Britannica's distillation of fact to an authoritative standard to the extent that it would be my sole point of reference. An encyclopedia should be the starting point for research, not the end all and be all of knowledge. Granted John/Jane Doe may not be particularly diligent, but does that necessarily speak to the validity, or longevity, of any "open information" project?
I question the demand for this sort of thing at least 60 times a day. My main source of income is producing voice promts for IVR systems and I can tell you that there are a LOT of these services and for every one that has gone live, there are 5 more in various stages of development.
From what I've been able to gather, these services are not things that Joe consumer wants or needs but rather they are things being shoved down the throats of mid-level managers by their CEO's who have been convinced by some sales-weasle that everybody in their organization needs to be connected to everything on earth in at least 20 different ways.
>So my point, in effect, is that you are an idiot to think that fancy, overpriced electronic equipment has
>anything to do with the enjoyment of music. Or that you are somehow wise, clever or smart for believing
>the purity you seek through this misplaced snobbery somehow makes your music better. don't be a tool.
While I realize that this is probably flame bait and not really worth the time I will take to respond, here goes:
If you will make it a point to read the thread to which I have replied, you will notice that it has taken on the issue of audio quality, not enjoyment of music. I'm fully aware of the asthetic theory and practical reality of enjoying music both as a casual listener/consumer and as a professional musician/engineer working in music production. In short, I like my Thelonious Monk Best of Blue Note regardless of the quality of the play back system, but I prefer to listen to it in the best possible listening environment...
My personaly favorite audio gem to come out of this thread is the idea of people running stereo CD's through an AC-3 decoder.... (read: all out of phase audio information gets thrown to the surrounds)
Slashdot Mirror
Runs in windows natively, highly scriptable, can do eight types of frequency analysis and sample stats as part of the batch (all exportable as clear text)... and you didn't google this first because?
No, I get paid to write code. That's it. I'm a code jockey. My boss gives me assignments, I do said assignments. My boss asks me questions, I answer them in straight forward terms that she can "dumb down for the MBA's above her" (her phrase, not mine).
That doesn't stop everyone and their mother (literally) from asking me everything from what video card they should buy to support game 'x' to how download the internet through their AOL. Annoying users keep me from being able to do my job at peek efficiency.
These are of course the same f$!kers who will be at the next planning session complaining to my boss that our latest release isn't purple enough (or some such shit).
I could have the plants "yell" at unwanted visitors at my house.
I though the same thing, but my inlaws are easily offended.
So now I request browser type and IP address as hidden form inputs for my blog (i.e. - gather user information without their consent) and they can throw my happy ass in jail... great...
Realistically speaking, the only big problem with FM radio quality is that it attenuates above 16kHz . . . a range that you more or less can't hear in the poor listening environments where FM is typically used (vast majority of the time being, of course, in moving vehicles).
Not that the audible dynamic range is much better in a car (relatively speaking), but I wonder if the digital channels bypass the broadcast compressor...
What you call annoying, I call job security. At $15.50 an hour I'll fix all the bleeding driver problems you want. I'm all for better software and more educated users, but since we already know neither of these is going to happen I'm all to willing to profit from it.
I agree that it's pretty useless in it's current form, but I'm not with you on writing of the entire concept. They may be totally useless for a dozen reasons, but they only need to be useful for the right one or two reasons to make someone a ton of money. With some minor modifications and a cheap wearable display and input device, I could see outfitting survey teams (or other field data collectors) with these. Having an orange sized PC in my pocket would beat the hell out of schlepping around a laptop or fragile PDA.
And as to your comment about carrying around your data so that you can drop it into whatever device happens to be handy, it may be worth noting that there is insufficient infrastructure (to say nothing of commercial opportunity) in this sector to make this viable for most of the country (and perhaps for most of the World, though I'm not well traveled enough to speak to that).
Probably this will lead to the death penalty becoming the standard punishmnent for every minor crime, so as to keep the organ banks full of fresh organs, allowing rich people to live forever at the expense of everybody else. I hope this happens within my lifetime, as it is a Utopian scenario indeed.
;->
I don't think that my getting the chair over a speeding ticket so that you can have a new spleen is very damned Utopian (but maybe it's just me).
...giving pointers in the fine arts of opening e-mail attachments
Oh great. I've finally trained my PHB's to NOT open the damned things!
Thanks Lady!
I work for a company which has started recording precisely this sort of thing for various applications to be used as give-aways when we launch our new web site in the fall. What I discovered in preparing the script for one of these things as a general "Windows" set is that the way Windows assigns sounds is completely useless!
What, exactly, is an "Asterisk" supposed to sound like? Is "Asterisk" a specific type of GPF I haven't discovered yet? (just when I though I'd seen every BSOD imaginable....)
...that [insert certification here] doesn't qualify you to deal with every computer problem ever imaginable? *sarcasm off*
m puter-science.
Little wonder the suits are cashing in on such naivte in order to move product.
Seriously, it's little wonder that this is being codified into a syndrome since it seems that Joe Q. Public has it into his head that just because someone knows how to stick a card into a PCI slot, they must be a certifiable computer genius. I know as the most up-to-speed user in my small company, I get a daily barrage of questions about every computer related topic imaginable. While I have no hesitation in letting my coworkers know that I haven't a clue as to what it is they are talking about (which they read off reuters this morning and can never keep the details of straight), they still persist in thinking that the most computer saavy person in the room must be a network-sysadmin-31337-haxor-d00d-MCSE-Ph.d-in-co
By the way, can anyone confirm the "60 samples" number? One of the guys giving commentary on NPR said it was more like 6.
Those 60 lines are distributed worldwide. According to this article there are less than 10 lines in the US (which if I understand the funding procedures correctly means that THOSE are the ones which will be up for federal funding).
I'm up for liscensing a turkey sandwich... anyone else in? ;)
(just wait.... it's coming...)
more to the point above, I can't see socialism being the answer... way I see it, this is more like socialism than pure capitalism.
Take a look here:0 6&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/03/20532
I hope this example makes you realize that copyrights shouldn't be for sale
While I agree that the this is a horrible scenerio you paint I'm not sure it is entirely possible as per 984 F.2d 1524.
Regardless of case law, though, I have another more basic question. Less the substantial money to be gained through the sale of copyrights, how exactly is an artist to make money? While I realize that the system is broken, I don't think that the idea of copyrights and the sale there of is fundamentally flawed.
It has only been in the last few years that the internet has become a viable means for music distibution. Until such time as broadband is ubiquitous and publically controlled, I think that the "music label" model for access to distribution is still a valid one. Even now so few people have broadband access (to say nothing of any access) that it is still not a wholy viable channel to use as your ONLY method of distribution. Given the centurys of precedent for the current system (which can be traced to the artist/patron system in place since the Baroque period) we rationally expect the model or the law to change overnight.
Not surprisingly, the RIAA bashed the bill, saying it favors government regulation over market forces.
I dare say that the market forces have done their work. It should be clear to the RIAA now that the market has said it's tired of getting horked for $18-$20USD every time we want to pick up a disc by our favorite artist (even if the artist has been dead for 50 years)!
More on the point, I think this sort of legislation is overdue. I'd come much closer, however, to favoring a modification of copyright law which establishes a true compulsory liscensing scheme for online music (as per US title 17 sec 115, which also covered in the Berne Convention). Not so much because I want to drive up costs, which I fear it would in the end, but because it lends more legal credibility to the the idea of online file sharing in general (and sharing of music in particular). I'll pay an extra cent per download if it keeps the damned lawyers off my back. As it stands now this bill reeks of the Audio Home Recording Act.
There are other interests that would support the internet, but it wouldn't be a mass media. Would you like it if only educational, government, and military sites existed?
YES! I can say with relative certainty that few things would make me happier. Maybe I'm just desperately behind the times, but I miss the days when with a fair amount of speed and accuracy I could do all of my browsing in Lynx (or at least with images off in netscape). As it stands, the commercialization of the web is a mixed blessing... sure it has brought us useful information (in some cases) but at what cost (literally and metaphorically)?
More related to the parent post, there is a school of thought in Culture Studies which draws an arc for any given fad which traces it's origins from underground movement to mass media frenzy and back again (witness "grrrl power" in the late 90's to today). I hope we will find that this is for the internet the final slope of that arc. Let the suits have their "business friendly internet." Maybe then they'll leave the rest of us alone.
A friend of mine just turned me onto a program at http://www.webwasher.com/ (no, I don't work for them). Though I've yet to install it, it claims to filter this sort of thing out (also banner ads and more from the looks of it). Haven't read the liscense in any detail, but the site claims that the software is "free for home and educational use". Linux, Windows, and Mac OS versions available (w/english and german versions). I was waiting on said friend to use it a few days and give me some feedback, but I'll gladly let you guys be the guinea pigs ;)
Even visiting the story triggered a @!#$ing pop-up....
From the Harry Fox Agency Website ( http://www.nmpa.org/hfa/faq_mechanical.html):
For phonorecords made and distributed after January 1, 2000, the current statutory mechanical royalty rate is 7.55 cents per use for compositions that are 5 minutes or less. For songs over 5 minutes, the rate is 1.45 cents per minute or fraction thereof of playing time, whichever is greater.
For those unfamiliar with mechanical royalties, this is the rate paid by broadcasters for use of a song. I'd imagine that if the trial court were to establish a system of compulsary liscensing for online music, it'd wind up looking a lot like this.
The problem I have with this argument and arguments like it is that it makes the tacit assumption that the people who are using these "open" sources of information are idiots (not much of a stretch mind you, but hear me out). I don't know about you, but when I'm doing research I rarely (if ever) rely on just one source. Should I find discrepancies between sources it usually just makes for more thorough research on my part. Not to encourage inaccuracy, mind you, but I don't find Britannica's distillation of fact to an authoritative standard to the extent that it would be my sole point of reference. An encyclopedia should be the starting point for research, not the end all and be all of knowledge. Granted John/Jane Doe may not be particularly diligent, but does that necessarily speak to the validity, or longevity, of any "open information" project?
I question the demand for this sort of thing at least 60 times a day. My main source of income is producing voice promts for IVR systems and I can tell you that there are a LOT of these services and for every one that has gone live, there are 5 more in various stages of development.
From what I've been able to gather, these services are not things that Joe consumer wants or needs but rather they are things being shoved down the throats of mid-level managers by their CEO's who have been convinced by some sales-weasle that everybody in their organization needs to be connected to everything on earth in at least 20 different ways.
Dude actually said Dolby Digital (ac-3), but in my experience most consumer systems, in the absence of a 5.1 signal revert to Pro-Logic...
>So my point, in effect, is that you are an idiot to think that fancy, overpriced electronic equipment has >anything to do with the enjoyment of music. Or that you are somehow wise, clever or smart for believing >the purity you seek through this misplaced snobbery somehow makes your music better. don't be a tool.
While I realize that this is probably flame bait and not really worth the time I will take to respond, here goes:
If you will make it a point to read the thread to which I have replied, you will notice that it has taken on the issue of audio quality, not enjoyment of music. I'm fully aware of the asthetic theory and practical reality of enjoying music both as a casual listener/consumer and as a professional musician/engineer working in music production. In short, I like my Thelonious Monk Best of Blue Note regardless of the quality of the play back system, but I prefer to listen to it in the best possible listening environment...
My personaly favorite audio gem to come out of this thread is the idea of people running stereo CD's through an AC-3 decoder.... (read: all out of phase audio information gets thrown to the surrounds)