If I remember correctly its illegal for prople to own guns in Australia.
You poor people got suckered into giving up your guns and now you'll be suckered into giving up your other rights that depended on your being able to keep and bear arms. How are you supposed to be able to defend your rights against this kind of BS if you've been rendered powerless?
Democracy is not possible if the people have no authority. Authority is simply another word for the ability to exert a certain ammount of force without being penalized for it. You aussies have given up your authority, I hope you're pleased with the result.
Simply saying "bullshit" to something you don't agree with does nothing to prove it wrong. Instead why don't you try responding with why you think what I said is incorrect along with the truth of the matter as you see it.
I don't know everything and your understanding of the educational process may in fact be better than mine. You could also be a complete crackpot. Neither I nor anyone else has any way of knowing which one you are if you're not willing to any better than you have.
Come to mention it we're ahead on the average quality of our universities as well.
I mean really, where on earth is there a place that has better universities or better universities on average than here? We've got more of them per capita than any other country our size, and in general they are very good.
I hear lots of critism of our public schools and our primary and secondary education systems in general. Never have I ever heard so much as a whisper of criticism of our colleges and universities. Except of course from corporations who want them to be glorified vocational schools and I don't think thier take on them is motivated by a love of learning and knowledge.
Why is IP such a dirty word to everyone here? IP is what protects products such as Linux. If IP didn't exist the GPL would be unenforceable. The GPL depends on copyright law, which is the cornerstone of IP legislature in the united states.
IP is a good thing because it provides incentive for people and companies to produce and develop new things. Why should I spend a bunch of time and energy creating something that isn't going to put money in my pocket or otherwise benefit me? You may be thinking that open source developers do just that, but the vast majority of them do not.
Linux is here because it benefits its creators. A powerful operating system and development tools are exactly the kinds of things that hackers are going to want to have around. So they created Linux and GCC and Apache and (insert open source product here) because they wanted them for their own use. An open source version of something like quicken on the other hand is not something that programmers are going to have much use for, which is why we don't see such a product. I'm sure there may be some piddly little semi-complete program that someone somewhere can almost use in place of quicken, but I hardly think that qualifies as a solution for the average end user. For programmers to develop a serious version of something like that there has to be money involved. Why? Because it is a hell of a lot of work and we all have bills to pay. High quality end user applications are not what the open source model is good at. It is however what the commercial model is good at. Without these end user applications linux is never going to become an end-user operating system. Being a server OS and a hacker OS is one thing. Being the OS your grandmother uses to check her email with is quite another. As long as M$ controls the desktop they control the developers. As long as they control the developers they've got the industry by the balls. So don't attack IP, because commercial apps are the only way that Linux is going to make it out of the server room.
The problem with IP is when companies decide they want to be greedy. When they want to extend it into a form of content control, which is not what it has ever been up to this point. IP when applied correctly is a benefit to society. When companies and individuals attempt to abuse the principle of IP is when society is hurt.
Blaming IP for all the crap that's been going on with the DMCA, Napster, etc. etc. is exactly like blaming a gun when someone is killed. Blame the person firing the gun, not the gun itself. Blame Microsoft and the RIAA and the MPA and the publishers association that's going after libraries, not the principle of IP. If it weren't for it, there would be no GPL.
Worst education? Americans are among the most highly educated people in the world. Our colleges and universities ARE the best in the world. Ever hear of Harvard, MIT, Yale, Cal-Tech, Stanford, or University of Chicago, just to name a few? There are good schools in other countries of course, such as Oxford and Cambridge in England, but the majority of the world's best universities are right here in the USA.
I'm assuming you're talking about our primary and secondary schools when you say we have the worst education though. Education is 90% the student and 10% the teacher/institution. Good students are going to learn, bad students are not without outside intervention. If someone is a good student then very little needs to be done other than present the information to them. If someone is a bad student on the other hand, then the teacher charged with their education must work harder to encourage/convince them to learn the material. The problems we have with our schools are not because we have good students who aren't being allowed to learn, its because schools are under-funded and unders-staffed and therefore don't have the resources to deal with the bad students.
There are other issues of course and I'm sure there is much room for improvement in our public schools. Even so I think you should go take a look at the educational system of a place like Zimbabwe or Cambodia before you declare the US system the worst.
Tape decks don't normally come with microphones, you've got to buy those seperately. They do however come with line level inputs. All one needs to do is use these to tie into the signal going to the actual speakers themselves in order to record the music. By speakers I'm refering to the analog voice coil based components themselves, not the case that is used to house them.
In a way what you're saying about the microphone is pretty much what you'd be doing, only without the distortion and loss of clarity. Instead you'd be doing essentially the same thing as when you record a song from a CD onto tape. Like I said, use a high quality deck and a good tape and any loss of fidelity will be very very difficult to detect.
Where's the unabomber and the trench coat mafia when you really need them?
I am joking of course, I don't advocate anyone bombing Pat Schroeder or gunning down publishing execs while wearing stylish black trenchcoats. It is awfully fun to imagine though.
Are you trying to be sarcastic or just disturbing? "Po folks?" Being poor isn't a crime. Human rights aren't doled out based on how much money we have. Most poor people are working and trying as hard as they can to make ends meet. Very, very few are living off welfare and having as many kids as they can to get more money from the state. There are people like that but to use them as some kind of stereotype is terribly inaccurate. This kind of perception is created by politicians for their own gain, not because its true.
As for selective breeding my whole point is that genetic engineering makes that irrelevant. Take cystic fibrosis for example. The gene responsible for it has been known for some time now. There are genetic tests for the defective gene. I would recommend genetic tests for people who want to have children, but I would not agree with the idea that these tests should be used to prohibit anyone from having children, or that they be viewable by employers/insurance companies. It won't be too much longer before gene therapy will be used on conditions such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, etc. The step after that is detecting and correcting these genetic problems in unborn children.
I still think human stupidity should be eliminated because stupid people vote if for no other reason. Politicians do stupid things because they're trying to keep stupid people happy. But imagine if the people they had to keep happy were brighter and more aware of the implications of the issues at hand. Wouldn't that be better? Your comment about someone working at 7-11 is valid though. I don't know what to do about that. Actually come to think of it that problem doesn't really exist? Why? because the number of jobs which a person who isn't too bright can do are dwindling. Once upon a time manual labor was the backbone of the US economy whether you were talking about manufacturing or agriculture or mining or what have you. That isn't true today. Now we've got huge tractors and combines and robotic assembly lines and continuous miners. Jobs at which someone can earn a good living are becoming more and more technical and skilled all the time. For the most part our society has been able to keep up with this because of improvements in education, but that won't go on forever. How many people understand how modern technology works? For most people a computer is a genie, a magic box that is as mysterious as it is powerful. They're smart enough to use for word processing and web browsing, but few of us are smart enough to understand them well enough to program and design them.
If we don't do something to improve the average IQ of humanity then you'll simply have an aristocracy based upon intelligence. The beginnings of that are already appearent in our culture right now. Once upon a time ability was more or less evenly distributed. If you were poor and living on a farm someplace then how smart or determined you were usually didn't matter that much because your situation didn't provide you with any opportunities to utilize that intelligence or ability. This began to change after WW-II with the GI bill. Men who would otherwise never see the inside of a college classroom were going to college. It's continued from there with programs and grants and you name it to the point that just about anyone with the desire and ability to make something of themselves can do so. The end result of this is that our society is becoming something of a meritocracy. Not completely of course but close enough that it has an effect upon the types of people you're likely to find at different socio-economic strata. Throw in women's lib and you've got a pretty good formula for smart/able people meeting, marrying, and having smart/able children.
Jump forward a few generations and what do you have? A society where those born into high income families are also almost always born into high ability/intelligence families. The problem with this is that this class of people would have rights and freedoms that would be denied to others. They would control everything and the rest of the people would essentially be serfs.
I hate to think we've come all this way only to return to a world reminiscent of a dickens tale. I'd like to think that our future is a bright one.
Macrovision huh? I'd just use my scope on the signal, find the funky frequencies, and come up with a little filter or choke to get rid of them. This is the same thing that many companies sell to get around macrovision.
You are right though, copy protection isn't about making it impossible. However with P2P around now all it takes is that one person in a thousand with the technical skills to get around that protection before everyone has a cracked version of whatever you're talking about.
"anything that's coming out of the sound card itself is not going to be scrambled if you want anyone to be able to hear it through speakers.
Not true. If the audio isnt being streamed, the secure audio path can simply refuse to play it."
What on earth does your response mean? The sounds a computer generates come from two source, the internal speaker and the sound card. The internal speaker is good for beeps and such and not much more. Modern sound cards on the other hand are capable of CD quality sound. Speakers are connected to sound cards. The signals used to drive these speakers are analog and cannot be scrambled if you expect normal speakers to be able to play the sound. You might be thinking that USB speakers are different, well they're not. The simply move the digital to analog conversion phase from the computer to circuitry inside the speaker cases, the speakers themselves are still analog.
At the end of the day anyone with a screwdriver, some RCA cables, a soldering iron, and a couple of 7 ohm resistors can record the content onto a tape deck regardless of any fancy encryption schemes used.
In fact you don't even need a tape deck at all. A second sound card or at worst a second computer is all you'd need to recapture the sound back into a wav file and from there to an MP3.
Now I'm not advocating piracy, I'm just pointing out a mistake on the part of the person who said that there was a way to encrypt the signal going to the speakers themselves.
I wasn't talking about using a digital output to begin with. Why is everyone so hung up on digital for? Ever hear what a good tape deck with a high quality cassette can do? Besides, compressed sound formats aren't going to give you 44khz CD quality sound to begin with, meaning that you're already recording a degraded signal.
As for USB digital speaker systems, they still rely on an analog speaker. If need be you can get one of these, open it up, and tie into the signal going to the speakers themselves. A couple of 7 ohm resistors (or whatever the impedance the speakers are) is all you'd need besides some wire cutters, cabling, and a screwdriver.
Digital does give better sound, but with a good analog setup its very difficult to impossible to tell the difference.
"Secure Audio Path, which scrambles output from a computer sound card so that music streams can't be tapped and copied at that point."
I think this must be some kind of misunderstanding. I can see how the internal software level stream might be scrambled, but anything that's coming out of the sound card itself is not going to be scrambled if you want anyone to be able to hear it through speakers.
Got tape deck? Then you too can record your favorite super-duper-crackproof-secure-hollywood-RIAA-appro ved-media-format based music onto a TDK D cassette tape and there isn't a damned thing anyone can do about it. Want better quality sound? Use a metal formula tape and it'll be near-digital.
This is just another example of how society fears new things. Every time a new groundbreaking technology has been developed there have been double digit IQ types who have been afraid of it. Why? Because they don't understand it and it isn't something they have been exposed to.
Imagine if someone offered you a way of heating your home, cooking your food, and running your hot water heater. This method was cheap and easy to use however it had the nasty side effect of being based upon a highly explosive gas. Most people if asked this question would say "no way!" The problem is many of them are already using it, its called natural gas. You don't hear people complaining about it even though it is quite dangerous potentially. Why? Because they've grown up in a world that already uses natural gas and has learned to handle the risks involved.
Cloning, genetic engineering, gene therapy, etc, etc are new technologies. Their ultimate impact upon our world is not yet known. But this is true of any technology. Most of the people who are so scared of them are simply fearful for lack of knowing and lack of brain power, not because they posess some insight into what these technologies will mean to the world.
Human knowledge and human technology is increasing at an exponential rate. Genetic engineering provides us with a means to ensure that human intelligence can keep pace. This world is chock full of idiots. Anything we can do to raise the average IQ is a good thing. Of course these technologies can be misused, or used unwisely. That is the danger but it is a threat which must be faced because the potential gains are too great to ignore. If this technology can be used to make us all smarter then it seems to me that the potential misuse problem will be a self-correcting issue.
Maybe it will send a message that acting like a crazed zealot doesn't pay.
But then again maybe I'm hoping for too much. Anyone who needs to be told not to act like a culty religious freak has almost no chance of heeding the message.
Everyone's heard of the Darwin awards. I think we need another award to acknowledge those whose religous convictions have led them to the edge of the cliff, and then beyond it. It shall be called the Waco award in memorial to those brainwashed idiots who pissed the government off so much that it barbequed them.
Gun control is people control. If someone wants to do harm to others simply taking away a convenient weapon will not stop them from finding another. Firearms and the ability they provide for the common citizen to directly defend their own rights is the foundation of our democracy. The constitution is a piece of paper. Brute force trumps legal nicities any day of the week. The right to own guns gives each of us the power to use brute force should our government ever become an enemy of the people.
In case all this sounds familiar to you, it might be because its one of the philosophies the country was founded on. You don't have to agree with these principles. There are other places where these ideas are strongly disagreed with. You can move there if you'd like. Visit the chinese or north korean embassy for more information on how.
I do. I wish I could say that I feel sorry for the people who get picked on and that I understand how they must feel. But I can't because I don't. I too was a "geek" in high school, but I was not tortured for it. Why? Because I have good social skills. The people I saw being picked on uniformly had poor or non-existant social skills. They were also cowards in that they didn't stand up for themselves or fight back when someone started getting push with them. It is far better to fight like rabid dog and lose than let someone walk all over you. Few fights are won without cost. Get in some good punches on someone and even if they do come out on top they're unlikely to mess with you again. Anyone else who might have thought about messing with you will think twice. Don't fight and anyone and everyone looking for a punching bag will get in line to attack you.
Now some will say naive things like "violence isn't the answer." Well that depends on the question now doesn't it? Violence used defensively in response to violence used against you is almost always the right answer. Refusing to fight out of fear or because of some immature philosophy that it isn't right to fight is almost always the wrong answer. Wrong because it will only make the situation worse. If I ever have children they're going to be enrolled in martial arts classes as young as I can get them in the door.
As for social skills, the lack of them is why people get targeted for abuse more than anything else. The outcasts I've known have been downright annoying. Its almost like they've worked to learn the mannerisms and vocal tenors that will drive others up the wall.
So if people are picking on you, you might want to look a little closer to home for the reason why. You are the one who decides how people treat you. Remember that.
Lee Reynolds
I don't see how this is in Apple's best interest since Freetype doesn't threaten them. But it is in Microsoft's. How much you wanna bet this is due to some deal between them made behind closed doors? If Microsoft sues then that's bad PR. But since Apple is about as sue-happy as the "church" of $cientology, this is par for the course for them. It will be interesting to see what happens. I've always thought an interesting way to avoid these kinds of problems is to develop in secret, even though that might not be possible for something of this scale.
Once upon a time man lived a harsh life dictated by harsh conditions. Along the way some particularly bright people found ways to create artificial light, refrigerate food, prevent polio, etc etc. The phenomenally high standard of living which we enjoy today is the result.
I think it is unfair to say that the pace of innovation is slowing down. It is more accurate to say that the areas where innovation is occuring are not ones which have the kind of impact upon everyday life that the light bulb did.
Then of course there is the factor of diminishing marginal returns. The invention of the light bulb was groundbreaking, refinements in its design are much less so.
Also there is the of how many people really understand the innovation which is currently happening. If the discovery of the structure of DNA can be compared to the discovery of fire, the mapping of the human genome is equivalent to the splitting of the atom. Within a few generations genetic diseases will be a thing of the past. Imagine if the average person had an IQ of 150 instead of 100. Imagine if there were no stupid people. There is no technical reason why this cannot be achieved through genetic engineering. The elimination of stupidity would do more to make the world a better place than just about any other single thing I can imagine.
But I'm getting off track here. If anything the pace of innovation and its breadth have increased, not declined.
Lee Reynolds
Re:School isn't just to get a job
on
CS vs CIS
·
· Score: 2
It is this exact attitude which is destroying our educational standards and our educational institutions.
A school is only as good a its students and when the students are not there to learn then that school becomes little more than a diploma mill.
Why it is that so many people seem content to pay money to a school and get nothing more out of it than a piece of paper is something I'll never truly understand. I think the reason is that knowledge is not prestigeous in our culture, whereas possessions and money are. So instead of having an educated populace, we have a nation of ignoramuses. People who know nothing more than the absolute minimun necessary to sucker an employer into giving them a job that will allow them to buy the consumer items their self esteem is so dependent on.
But guess what, the leaders and visionaries of this world will not be found among those who don't know and don't care. Putting appearence before substance where a person's education is concerned is a guarantee of mediocrity at best and utter incompetence at worst.
Some people are here to learn and to know and their lives are a testament to this. When they study something it is so that they may understand it and be able to make use of it in achieving their goals, which are not small. Some have had a huge impact upon this world. They are the ones who shed new light upon things and create new ways of doing things that improve the lives of us all. The impact of their lives upon the world is difficult to calculate, whereas the impact of the typical know-nothing's life can be found in the nearest landfill.
So I ask you, which would you rather be in life: A winner or a well paid loser?
If you can get enough students and parents to complain about the things he is doing, he'll be out on his ass in no time. The last thing the school board wants is community involvement and if he is seen as the source of that involvement he will be eliminated ASAP.
A college degree on the other hand is not. Why finish high school when you can go on to college?
Now I know what you might be thinking, that someone can't go to college without a high school diploma, well that simply isn't true. You probably won't get into Harvard or MIT, but there are scores of well respected universities that will be more than happy to accept a "high school dropout" with high SAT scores and good scores on their GED test. Believe it or not your grades in school are less important to a college or university than your SAT scores. Do well on it and you can go to lots and lots of places with or without a HS diploma.
If you decided you wanted to go to some place like MIT, and you had the money, then a year or two at a university or even junior college will go a long way if your grades are impeccable and you can get reccomendations from your instructors.
So any way you look at it high school is a waste of time and energy, unless you're in honors/AP classes and actually maybe learning something. But if you've already left then just move on to college, even if you have to start out at a community college. If you're a hacker/geek type then chances are your test scores will be such that you'll be able to start wherever you want.
But you are right that he should not think he is going to keep making the same ammount of money he is making now forever. I was thinking the same exact thing and would have said so myself if you had not beaten me to it and done a better job of explaining the reasons why.
He should save up as much money as he can right now from that big paying job and use it to pay his tuition through school. Then when he's got a degree he can take a trip back to his old high school and put a copy of it on the principal's desk and greet him with a hearty "fuck you!"
"Zdnet and CNN report that Napster's new business partner BMG has been requested to stop all trading of music with lyrics that some find offensive"
That was from the original post on slashdot. You say that they've taken the next step of declaring this stuff harmful. Guess what, its the same thing. Attacks on porn are also often made using the excuse that it too is "harmful." It all boils down to the same thing, a person or group attempting to decide for the rest of us what we should see or hear. Sometimes I'm utterly amazed that people as a whole put up with it, but then I remember that most people are sheep.
I'm not a nazi and most porn frankly bores me. But I'll be damned if I'm going to put up with someone else trying to prevent me from viewing either kind of material. A free society depends on freedom of information, regardless of how offensive it is or how uncomfortable it might make some segments of the society.
I'm not sure where the idea came from that something should be banned or prohibited because someone somewhere finds it offensive, but its pure bunk. If someone finds something offensive, they're free ignore it.
Ultimately this "I'm offended" excuse is nothing more than another attempt at censorship. The truth is that whether something is offensive or not isn't the real reason anyone complains, they complain because they're afraid you or I might see it. I'm sorry but I'll decide for myself whether I want to listen to a song, read a book, watch a movie etc. etc. Whether or not you approve of the content or want me to experience it is irrelevant.
Censorship is evil any way you look at it. It doesn't much matter what you are censoring. In fact I would argue that content such as Nazi propaganda is the last thing we want to censor because if people are not familiar with it, they will not recognize similar current day propaganda, of which there is much around.
I think napster should simply tell them to go to hell.
Lee Reynolds
Your post is one of the best one's I've read in some time. It's reassuring to read posts from someone capable of rational thought and who possesses a good perspective on history.
What really disappoints me about modern america is how many people are rushing towards tyrrany with open arms. Kind of ironic and all too tragic. I guess this is what happens when a people become too fat, too soft, and too full of themselves. Out of touch with reality and devoid of any understanding of their place within it.
Then again maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe I should trust the government because after all its supposed to have my best interests at heart right? It wouldn't do anything to hurt me or disenfranchise me or anyone I know. Its here to help make the world a better and safter place and if everyone would just stop thinking for themselves Uncle Sam would be able to solve all our problems for us.
My grandparent's generation fought a world war over just that sort of mentality. Three generations of our people fought a cold war over it as well. I hope it wasn't for nothing.
I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said something like those who would trade freedom for security will have neither. It was true then and its even more true now.
Take care and don't let the double digit IQ types get you down..
Slashdot Mirror
If I remember correctly its illegal for prople to own guns in Australia.
You poor people got suckered into giving up your guns and now you'll be suckered into giving up your other rights that depended on your being able to keep and bear arms. How are you supposed to be able to defend your rights against this kind of BS if you've been rendered powerless?
Democracy is not possible if the people have no authority. Authority is simply another word for the ability to exert a certain ammount of force without being penalized for it. You aussies have given up your authority, I hope you're pleased with the result.
Lee Reynolds
With the greatest of respect: Prove me wrong.
Simply saying "bullshit" to something you don't agree with does nothing to prove it wrong. Instead why don't you try responding with why you think what I said is incorrect along with the truth of the matter as you see it.
I don't know everything and your understanding of the educational process may in fact be better than mine. You could also be a complete crackpot. Neither I nor anyone else has any way of knowing which one you are if you're not willing to any better than you have.
Lee Reynolds
Come to mention it we're ahead on the average quality of our universities as well.
I mean really, where on earth is there a place that has better universities or better universities on average than here? We've got more of them per capita than any other country our size, and in general they are very good.
I hear lots of critism of our public schools and our primary and secondary education systems in general. Never have I ever heard so much as a whisper of criticism of our colleges and universities. Except of course from corporations who want them to be glorified vocational schools and I don't think thier take on them is motivated by a love of learning and knowledge.
Lee Reynolds
Why is IP such a dirty word to everyone here? IP is what protects products such as Linux. If IP didn't exist the GPL would be unenforceable. The GPL depends on copyright law, which is the cornerstone of IP legislature in the united states.
IP is a good thing because it provides incentive for people and companies to produce and develop new things. Why should I spend a bunch of time and energy creating something that isn't going to put money in my pocket or otherwise benefit me? You may be thinking that open source developers do just that, but the vast majority of them do not.
Linux is here because it benefits its creators. A powerful operating system and development tools are exactly the kinds of things that hackers are going to want to have around. So they created Linux and GCC and Apache and (insert open source product here) because they wanted them for their own use. An open source version of something like quicken on the other hand is not something that programmers are going to have much use for, which is why we don't see such a product. I'm sure there may be some piddly little semi-complete program that someone somewhere can almost use in place of quicken, but I hardly think that qualifies as a solution for the average end user. For programmers to develop a serious version of something like that there has to be money involved. Why? Because it is a hell of a lot of work and we all have bills to pay. High quality end user applications are not what the open source model is good at. It is however what the commercial model is good at. Without these end user applications linux is never going to become an end-user operating system. Being a server OS and a hacker OS is one thing. Being the OS your grandmother uses to check her email with is quite another. As long as M$ controls the desktop they control the developers. As long as they control the developers they've got the industry by the balls. So don't attack IP, because commercial apps are the only way that Linux is going to make it out of the server room.
The problem with IP is when companies decide they want to be greedy. When they want to extend it into a form of content control, which is not what it has ever been up to this point. IP when applied correctly is a benefit to society. When companies and individuals attempt to abuse the principle of IP is when society is hurt.
Blaming IP for all the crap that's been going on with the DMCA, Napster, etc. etc. is exactly like blaming a gun when someone is killed. Blame the person firing the gun, not the gun itself. Blame Microsoft and the RIAA and the MPA and the publishers association that's going after libraries, not the principle of IP. If it weren't for it, there would be no GPL.
Lee Reynolds
Worst education? Americans are among the most highly educated people in the world. Our colleges and universities ARE the best in the world. Ever hear of Harvard, MIT, Yale, Cal-Tech, Stanford, or University of Chicago, just to name a few? There are good schools in other countries of course, such as Oxford and Cambridge in England, but the majority of the world's best universities are right here in the USA.
I'm assuming you're talking about our primary and secondary schools when you say we have the worst education though. Education is 90% the student and 10% the teacher/institution. Good students are going to learn, bad students are not without outside intervention. If someone is a good student then very little needs to be done other than present the information to them. If someone is a bad student on the other hand, then the teacher charged with their education must work harder to encourage/convince them to learn the material. The problems we have with our schools are not because we have good students who aren't being allowed to learn, its because schools are under-funded and unders-staffed and therefore don't have the resources to deal with the bad students.
There are other issues of course and I'm sure there is much room for improvement in our public schools. Even so I think you should go take a look at the educational system of a place like Zimbabwe or Cambodia before you declare the US system the worst.
Tape decks don't normally come with microphones, you've got to buy those seperately. They do however come with line level inputs. All one needs to do is use these to tie into the signal going to the actual speakers themselves in order to record the music. By speakers I'm refering to the analog voice coil based components themselves, not the case that is used to house them.
In a way what you're saying about the microphone is pretty much what you'd be doing, only without the distortion and loss of clarity. Instead you'd be doing essentially the same thing as when you record a song from a CD onto tape. Like I said, use a high quality deck and a good tape and any loss of fidelity will be very very difficult to detect.
Lee Reynolds
Where's the unabomber and the trench coat mafia when you really need them?
I am joking of course, I don't advocate anyone bombing Pat Schroeder or gunning down publishing execs while wearing stylish black trenchcoats. It is awfully fun to imagine though.
Are you trying to be sarcastic or just disturbing? "Po folks?" Being poor isn't a crime. Human rights aren't doled out based on how much money we have. Most poor people are working and trying as hard as they can to make ends meet. Very, very few are living off welfare and having as many kids as they can to get more money from the state. There are people like that but to use them as some kind of stereotype is terribly inaccurate. This kind of perception is created by politicians for their own gain, not because its true.
As for selective breeding my whole point is that genetic engineering makes that irrelevant. Take cystic fibrosis for example. The gene responsible for it has been known for some time now. There are genetic tests for the defective gene. I would recommend genetic tests for people who want to have children, but I would not agree with the idea that these tests should be used to prohibit anyone from having children, or that they be viewable by employers/insurance companies. It won't be too much longer before gene therapy will be used on conditions such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, etc. The step after that is detecting and correcting these genetic problems in unborn children.
I still think human stupidity should be eliminated because stupid people vote if for no other reason. Politicians do stupid things because they're trying to keep stupid people happy. But imagine if the people they had to keep happy were brighter and more aware of the implications of the issues at hand. Wouldn't that be better? Your comment about someone working at 7-11 is valid though. I don't know what to do about that. Actually come to think of it that problem doesn't really exist? Why? because the number of jobs which a person who isn't too bright can do are dwindling. Once upon a time manual labor was the backbone of the US economy whether you were talking about manufacturing or agriculture or mining or what have you. That isn't true today. Now we've got huge tractors and combines and robotic assembly lines and continuous miners. Jobs at which someone can earn a good living are becoming more and more technical and skilled all the time. For the most part our society has been able to keep up with this because of improvements in education, but that won't go on forever. How many people understand how modern technology works? For most people a computer is a genie, a magic box that is as mysterious as it is powerful. They're smart enough to use for word processing and web browsing, but few of us are smart enough to understand them well enough to program and design them.
If we don't do something to improve the average IQ of humanity then you'll simply have an aristocracy based upon intelligence. The beginnings of that are already appearent in our culture right now. Once upon a time ability was more or less evenly distributed. If you were poor and living on a farm someplace then how smart or determined you were usually didn't matter that much because your situation didn't provide you with any opportunities to utilize that intelligence or ability. This began to change after WW-II with the GI bill. Men who would otherwise never see the inside of a college classroom were going to college. It's continued from there with programs and grants and you name it to the point that just about anyone with the desire and ability to make something of themselves can do so. The end result of this is that our society is becoming something of a meritocracy. Not completely of course but close enough that it has an effect upon the types of people you're likely to find at different socio-economic strata. Throw in women's lib and you've got a pretty good formula for smart/able people meeting, marrying, and having smart/able children.
Jump forward a few generations and what do you have? A society where those born into high income families are also almost always born into high ability/intelligence families. The problem with this is that this class of people would have rights and freedoms that would be denied to others. They would control everything and the rest of the people would essentially be serfs.
I hate to think we've come all this way only to return to a world reminiscent of a dickens tale. I'd like to think that our future is a bright one.
Macrovision huh? I'd just use my scope on the signal, find the funky frequencies, and come up with a little filter or choke to get rid of them. This is the same thing that many companies sell to get around macrovision.
You are right though, copy protection isn't about making it impossible. However with P2P around now all it takes is that one person in a thousand with the technical skills to get around that protection before everyone has a cracked version of whatever you're talking about.
Lee
"anything that's coming out of the sound card itself is not going to be scrambled if you want anyone to be able to hear it through speakers.
Not true. If the audio isnt being streamed, the secure audio path can simply refuse to play it."
What on earth does your response mean? The sounds a computer generates come from two source, the internal speaker and the sound card. The internal speaker is good for beeps and such and not much more. Modern sound cards on the other hand are capable of CD quality sound. Speakers are connected to sound cards. The signals used to drive these speakers are analog and cannot be scrambled if you expect normal speakers to be able to play the sound. You might be thinking that USB speakers are different, well they're not. The simply move the digital to analog conversion phase from the computer to circuitry inside the speaker cases, the speakers themselves are still analog.
At the end of the day anyone with a screwdriver, some RCA cables, a soldering iron, and a couple of 7 ohm resistors can record the content onto a tape deck regardless of any fancy encryption schemes used.
In fact you don't even need a tape deck at all. A second sound card or at worst a second computer is all you'd need to recapture the sound back into a wav file and from there to an MP3.
Now I'm not advocating piracy, I'm just pointing out a mistake on the part of the person who said that there was a way to encrypt the signal going to the speakers themselves.
Lee
I wasn't talking about using a digital output to begin with. Why is everyone so hung up on digital for? Ever hear what a good tape deck with a high quality cassette can do? Besides, compressed sound formats aren't going to give you 44khz CD quality sound to begin with, meaning that you're already recording a degraded signal.
As for USB digital speaker systems, they still rely on an analog speaker. If need be you can get one of these, open it up, and tie into the signal going to the speakers themselves. A couple of 7 ohm resistors (or whatever the impedance the speakers are) is all you'd need besides some wire cutters, cabling, and a screwdriver.
Digital does give better sound, but with a good analog setup its very difficult to impossible to tell the difference.
Lee
"Secure Audio Path, which scrambles output from a computer sound card so that music streams can't be tapped and copied at that point."
o ved-media-format based music onto a TDK D cassette tape and there isn't a damned thing anyone can do about it. Want better quality sound? Use a metal formula tape and it'll be near-digital.
I think this must be some kind of misunderstanding. I can see how the internal software level stream might be scrambled, but anything that's coming out of the sound card itself is not going to be scrambled if you want anyone to be able to hear it through speakers.
Got tape deck? Then you too can record your favorite super-duper-crackproof-secure-hollywood-RIAA-appr
Lee Reynolds
This is just another example of how society fears new things. Every time a new groundbreaking technology has been developed there have been double digit IQ types who have been afraid of it. Why? Because they don't understand it and it isn't something they have been exposed to.
Imagine if someone offered you a way of heating your home, cooking your food, and running your hot water heater. This method was cheap and easy to use however it had the nasty side effect of being based upon a highly explosive gas. Most people if asked this question would say "no way!" The problem is many of them are already using it, its called natural gas. You don't hear people complaining about it even though it is quite dangerous potentially. Why? Because they've grown up in a world that already uses natural gas and has learned to handle the risks involved.
Cloning, genetic engineering, gene therapy, etc, etc are new technologies. Their ultimate impact upon our world is not yet known. But this is true of any technology. Most of the people who are so scared of them are simply fearful for lack of knowing and lack of brain power, not because they posess some insight into what these technologies will mean to the world.
Human knowledge and human technology is increasing at an exponential rate. Genetic engineering provides us with a means to ensure that human intelligence can keep pace. This world is chock full of idiots. Anything we can do to raise the average IQ is a good thing. Of course these technologies can be misused, or used unwisely. That is the danger but it is a threat which must be faced because the potential gains are too great to ignore. If this technology can be used to make us all smarter then it seems to me that the potential misuse problem will be a self-correcting issue.
Lee Reynolds
There's an even chance it would produce a democrat as well.
Maybe it will send a message that acting like a crazed zealot doesn't pay.
But then again maybe I'm hoping for too much. Anyone who needs to be told not to act like a culty religious freak has almost no chance of heeding the message.
Everyone's heard of the Darwin awards. I think we need another award to acknowledge those whose religous convictions have led them to the edge of the cliff, and then beyond it. It shall be called the Waco award in memorial to those brainwashed idiots who pissed the government off so much that it barbequed them.
Lee Reynolds
Gun control is people control. If someone wants to do harm to others simply taking away a convenient weapon will not stop them from finding another. Firearms and the ability they provide for the common citizen to directly defend their own rights is the foundation of our democracy. The constitution is a piece of paper. Brute force trumps legal nicities any day of the week. The right to own guns gives each of us the power to use brute force should our government ever become an enemy of the people.
In case all this sounds familiar to you, it might be because its one of the philosophies the country was founded on. You don't have to agree with these principles. There are other places where these ideas are strongly disagreed with. You can move there if you'd like. Visit the chinese or north korean embassy for more information on how.
Lee Reynolds
I do. I wish I could say that I feel sorry for the people who get picked on and that I understand how they must feel. But I can't because I don't. I too was a "geek" in high school, but I was not tortured for it. Why? Because I have good social skills. The people I saw being picked on uniformly had poor or non-existant social skills. They were also cowards in that they didn't stand up for themselves or fight back when someone started getting push with them. It is far better to fight like rabid dog and lose than let someone walk all over you. Few fights are won without cost. Get in some good punches on someone and even if they do come out on top they're unlikely to mess with you again. Anyone else who might have thought about messing with you will think twice. Don't fight and anyone and everyone looking for a punching bag will get in line to attack you. Now some will say naive things like "violence isn't the answer." Well that depends on the question now doesn't it? Violence used defensively in response to violence used against you is almost always the right answer. Refusing to fight out of fear or because of some immature philosophy that it isn't right to fight is almost always the wrong answer. Wrong because it will only make the situation worse. If I ever have children they're going to be enrolled in martial arts classes as young as I can get them in the door. As for social skills, the lack of them is why people get targeted for abuse more than anything else. The outcasts I've known have been downright annoying. Its almost like they've worked to learn the mannerisms and vocal tenors that will drive others up the wall. So if people are picking on you, you might want to look a little closer to home for the reason why. You are the one who decides how people treat you. Remember that. Lee Reynolds
I don't see how this is in Apple's best interest since Freetype doesn't threaten them. But it is in Microsoft's. How much you wanna bet this is due to some deal between them made behind closed doors? If Microsoft sues then that's bad PR. But since Apple is about as sue-happy as the "church" of $cientology, this is par for the course for them. It will be interesting to see what happens. I've always thought an interesting way to avoid these kinds of problems is to develop in secret, even though that might not be possible for something of this scale.
Lee Reynolds
Once upon a time man lived a harsh life dictated by harsh conditions. Along the way some particularly bright people found ways to create artificial light, refrigerate food, prevent polio, etc etc. The phenomenally high standard of living which we enjoy today is the result.
I think it is unfair to say that the pace of innovation is slowing down. It is more accurate to say that the areas where innovation is occuring are not ones which have the kind of impact upon everyday life that the light bulb did.
Then of course there is the factor of diminishing marginal returns. The invention of the light bulb was groundbreaking, refinements in its design are much less so.
Also there is the of how many people really understand the innovation which is currently happening. If the discovery of the structure of DNA can be compared to the discovery of fire, the mapping of the human genome is equivalent to the splitting of the atom. Within a few generations genetic diseases will be a thing of the past. Imagine if the average person had an IQ of 150 instead of 100. Imagine if there were no stupid people. There is no technical reason why this cannot be achieved through genetic engineering. The elimination of stupidity would do more to make the world a better place than just about any other single thing I can imagine.
But I'm getting off track here. If anything the pace of innovation and its breadth have increased, not declined.
Lee Reynolds
It is this exact attitude which is destroying our educational standards and our educational institutions.
A school is only as good a its students and when the students are not there to learn then that school becomes little more than a diploma mill.
Why it is that so many people seem content to pay money to a school and get nothing more out of it than a piece of paper is something I'll never truly understand. I think the reason is that knowledge is not prestigeous in our culture, whereas possessions and money are. So instead of having an educated populace, we have a nation of ignoramuses. People who know nothing more than the absolute minimun necessary to sucker an employer into giving them a job that will allow them to buy the consumer items their self esteem is so dependent on.
But guess what, the leaders and visionaries of this world will not be found among those who don't know and don't care. Putting appearence before substance where a person's education is concerned is a guarantee of mediocrity at best and utter incompetence at worst.
Some people are here to learn and to know and their lives are a testament to this. When they study something it is so that they may understand it and be able to make use of it in achieving their goals, which are not small. Some have had a huge impact upon this world. They are the ones who shed new light upon things and create new ways of doing things that improve the lives of us all. The impact of their lives upon the world is difficult to calculate, whereas the impact of the typical know-nothing's life can be found in the nearest landfill.
So I ask you, which would you rather be in life: A winner or a well paid loser?
Lee Reynolds
If you can get enough students and parents to complain about the things he is doing, he'll be out on his ass in no time. The last thing the school board wants is community involvement and if he is seen as the source of that involvement he will be eliminated ASAP.
Lee Reynolds
A college degree on the other hand is not. Why finish high school when you can go on to college?
Now I know what you might be thinking, that someone can't go to college without a high school diploma, well that simply isn't true. You probably won't get into Harvard or MIT, but there are scores of well respected universities that will be more than happy to accept a "high school dropout" with high SAT scores and good scores on their GED test. Believe it or not your grades in school are less important to a college or university than your SAT scores. Do well on it and you can go to lots and lots of places with or without a HS diploma.
If you decided you wanted to go to some place like MIT, and you had the money, then a year or two at a university or even junior college will go a long way if your grades are impeccable and you can get reccomendations from your instructors.
So any way you look at it high school is a waste of time and energy, unless you're in honors/AP classes and actually maybe learning something. But if you've already left then just move on to college, even if you have to start out at a community college. If you're a hacker/geek type then chances are your test scores will be such that you'll be able to start wherever you want.
But you are right that he should not think he is going to keep making the same ammount of money he is making now forever. I was thinking the same exact thing and would have said so myself if you had not beaten me to it and done a better job of explaining the reasons why.
He should save up as much money as he can right now from that big paying job and use it to pay his tuition through school. Then when he's got a degree he can take a trip back to his old high school and put a copy of it on the principal's desk and greet him with a hearty "fuck you!"
Lee Reynolds
"Zdnet and CNN report that Napster's new business partner BMG has been requested to stop all trading of music with lyrics that some find offensive"
That was from the original post on slashdot. You say that they've taken the next step of declaring this stuff harmful. Guess what, its the same thing. Attacks on porn are also often made using the excuse that it too is "harmful." It all boils down to the same thing, a person or group attempting to decide for the rest of us what we should see or hear. Sometimes I'm utterly amazed that people as a whole put up with it, but then I remember that most people are sheep.
I'm not a nazi and most porn frankly bores me. But I'll be damned if I'm going to put up with someone else trying to prevent me from viewing either kind of material. A free society depends on freedom of information, regardless of how offensive it is or how uncomfortable it might make some segments of the society.
Lee Reynolds
I'm not sure where the idea came from that something should be banned or prohibited because someone somewhere finds it offensive, but its pure bunk. If someone finds something offensive, they're free ignore it. Ultimately this "I'm offended" excuse is nothing more than another attempt at censorship. The truth is that whether something is offensive or not isn't the real reason anyone complains, they complain because they're afraid you or I might see it. I'm sorry but I'll decide for myself whether I want to listen to a song, read a book, watch a movie etc. etc. Whether or not you approve of the content or want me to experience it is irrelevant. Censorship is evil any way you look at it. It doesn't much matter what you are censoring. In fact I would argue that content such as Nazi propaganda is the last thing we want to censor because if people are not familiar with it, they will not recognize similar current day propaganda, of which there is much around. I think napster should simply tell them to go to hell. Lee Reynolds
Your post is one of the best one's I've read in some time. It's reassuring to read posts from someone capable of rational thought and who possesses a good perspective on history.
What really disappoints me about modern america is how many people are rushing towards tyrrany with open arms. Kind of ironic and all too tragic. I guess this is what happens when a people become too fat, too soft, and too full of themselves. Out of touch with reality and devoid of any understanding of their place within it.
Then again maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe I should trust the government because after all its supposed to have my best interests at heart right? It wouldn't do anything to hurt me or disenfranchise me or anyone I know. Its here to help make the world a better and safter place and if everyone would just stop thinking for themselves Uncle Sam would be able to solve all our problems for us.
My grandparent's generation fought a world war over just that sort of mentality. Three generations of our people fought a cold war over it as well. I hope it wasn't for nothing.
I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said something like those who would trade freedom for security will have neither. It was true then and its even more true now.
Take care and don't let the double digit IQ types get you down..
Lee Reynolds