At least with VCR's the Macrovision signal is supposed to be out of range of the TV's display circuitry, but in range of the VCR's recording circuitry, so, in theory, you don't get signal degredation.
In theory.
In practice, I've heard of TVs being made with the same AGC's as VCRs - and thus they react the same way as a VCR when fed a macroed signal. And I don't just mean light-dark and slight picture distortion.
The price of CDs will continue to go up until you need a damn financing plan.
Oughta make visits to the bank more interesting: "I'm interested in a CD."
"A certificate of deposit?"
"No. The new Sarah McLachlan album."
"OK, well, we can get you financing at 0.9%APR, $200 down and $90 per week after that..."
Actually, now that I think about it, the music biz probably wouldn't want to pay Macrovision for this technology if they can raise the price of CDs 15% and pocket it all themselves and CLAIM it's copy protected (since under the DMCA the verbiage "this is copy protected" alone probably constitutes a protection system that's illegal to circumvent).
Way to go, guys. Combat piracy by raising prices. That never fails! Oh, and while you're at it, make up the difference by buying laws, because history has shown so clearly that making things illegal actually deters people.
then came mp3. it taught us that content was usually more important than raw audiophile quality. at least as long as the audio was listenable; which with good mp3 encoders, it is.
Blasphemy! I WANT my huge expensive stereo system so I can listen to Celine Dion!
Or not.
there is no standard on earth, imaginable or real that can prevent an analog copy (since you have to be able to LISTEN to it at some point) from working.
Quit saying that! They'll only take it as a challenge. Surgical implants, anyone?
Then again, they'll do surgical implants just as well as every other technological solution they've proposed. It'll sound odd, cause headaches, and run on Windows CE. You'll spend hours trying to update the firmware on your cochlear implants so you can hear the latest Alanis song on the radio (without the implants it sounds like modem noise - wait, this is Alanis we're talking about, how would you know if the implants were working?), to no avail, before you finally give up and go to the Ani DiFranco concert instead.
That's true - I forgot the DMCA. Under the DMCA they could "encrypt" the CD with XOR and you'd be up for fines/jailtime just for noticing it. Never mind 9 times in 10 you'd be doing this for reasons of interoperability - i.e. trying to legally play media you bought in a system you own - since 'interoperability' is ignored just like 'fair use' and 'due process'.
The RIAA, MPAA, lawyers and government are all undead zombie demons from the Dimension of Pain. As though you needed more proof of this.
Actually something dawned on me. The war on MP3 trading, that's pretty obviously because they're scared people might decide on their own what music they want to hear, so manufactured acts like Britney Spears would no longer be an automatic sales draw. But this - there's NOTHING to be gained here, usually when the RIAA wants to take away people's freedoms there's a bigger issue. What are they afraid of? People didn't buy one CD for home, one for work and one for car BEFORE CD-Rs, and certainly won't now that a CD of a movie soundtrack often costs more than the DVD of the movie.
Answer: this one came from the lawyers and/or the company that developed the technology, and the RIAA would simply say "sure, why not."
Sheesh. At least Microsoft PRETENDS to be on the customer's side.
but this isn't really targeting the tech-heads, they are going after the casual user with this, and it might just work for that.
I imagine there's a lot of casual users who basically use their iMac or cheap Circuit City consumer PC as a glorified CD player. But then, they have to make the connection between the copy protection and the fact that they can't even play it legally.
but you'll never hear a complaint by anyone about how macrovision has degraded their signal -- it hasn't.
That's because most people haven't figured out WHY the picture curls at the top, or why it keeps getting lighter and darker on a cycle. Until I researched Macrovision I thought all my storebought tapes were being damaged at the checkout line when they demagnetize the anti-shoplift tags!
The only meaningful way to split up Microsoft is to put their marketing in one company, engineering in another, and forbid all contact between them.
It would work! Engineering would be forced to make products with MERIT, and marketing would be forced to hire a new round of engineers (and probably destroy themselves by being a well-funded dotcom with all hot air and no product). And in both cases, we get what we want - an opportunity for third parties to move in and reclaim market segments that were lost to questionable MS tactics years ago.
Obviously this will never happen - it's too likely to work, so no one will have the nads to attempt it.
The effect of computers has been to break up society in a profoundly negative way. People are spending more and more time on their own, on computers and on the internet. This has reduced social contact. This means there is now less conversation between people, and people are less friendly. Compared with forty years ago, there is less of a sense of neighborliness and of community.
On the contrary, I think I feel a greater sense of neighborliness and community online with people who share a few of my interests, than with those nitwits, rednecks, and assholes I keep having to encounter in real life.
OK, I'm just a hobbyist and my brain is on order from Neptune while I battle a nasty cold, but here's my shot at them. Someone else could probably do better.
Where has macro evolution ever been observed? What's the mechanism for getting new complexity such as new vital organs? How, for example, could a caterpillar evolve into a butterfly?
Some guesses regarding vital organs:
- Simpler animals don't need nearly as many moving parts as humans have. Hearts, etc. aren't needed in a tiny seagoing animal that can absorb nutrients directly into every cell without needing a bloodstream.
- Organs wouldn't just spring fully formed into existence - they would evolve from simpler structures, or from each other.
- The heart is just a muscle. Imagine a tiny heartless animal - but one with musculature (someone help me out and name an example, I'm sure there are examples in the deep ocean - a jellyfish maybe?) - due to a genetic accident a muscle ends up wrapped around a tube where oxygenated blood travels from one end of the animal to the other. Voila - a heart.
- The brain is even simpler - a bunch of nerve cells accumulated at one end of the body, and it would simply get more complex over time.
- Lungs: cells that transcribe O2 and CO2 all end up in the same place, and over generations get optimized into a more efficient shape. Also see above about muscles.
- 'Filter' organs like kidneys: again, cells in the right place. A cell that can produce an enzyme to do something useful might well be useful if not connected to the right places - but once it mutates to be connected, it'll stay there through successive generations.
- Eyes - a single light-sensitive cell. Another cell appears next to it and you have resolution. A blob of gelatin forms on top of it and you have a lens. LIVING examples of just about all stages of this lineage are known.
Simple organs become more complex ones. The trick is getting the simple organ started.
Where are the billions of transitional fossils that should be there if your theory is right? Billions! Not a handful of questionable transitions. Why don't we see a reasonably smooth continuum among all living creatures, or in the fossil record, or both?
Everything that dies doesn't automatically fossilize. There WILL be gaps - huge ones - because only some tiny fraction of all SPECIES that have ever lived would be represented by individuals that happened to die in a spot conducive to fossilization.
Who are the evolutionary ancestors of the insects? The evolutionary tree that's in the textbook: where's its trunk and where are its branches?
Insects don't fossilize all that well. See above.
What evidence is there that information, such as that in DNA, could ever assemble itself? What about the 4000 books of coded information that are in a tiny part of each of your 100 trillion cells? If astronomers received an intelligent radio signal from some distant galaxy, most people would conclude that it came from an intelligent source. Why then doesn't the vast information sequence in the DNA molecule of just a bacteria also imply an intelligent source?
Most of that DNA sequence is junk - which implies a random source, or an intelligent source that leaves scrap materials in the finished product.
How could organs as complicated as the eye or the ear or the brain of even a tiny bird ever come about by chance or natural processes? How could a bacterial motor evolve?
From simple to complex. For an eye all you need is one light-sensing cell - anything that happens to mutate near it later will probably help it. Same with the ear - probably started with the same touch-sensitive cells that currently allow deaf people to feel low frequencies.
The brain of a tiny bird? Made of the same stuff as the brain of an earthworm. Only its size is different - and the complexity therein is a consequence of its size. Study how the brain works and this will make more sense than my ramblings.
If the solar system evolved, why do three planets spin backwards? Why do at least 6 moons revolve backwards?
Um... I wasn't aware the allele frequency of planetary populations changed over time, or that any reputable scientist ever said they did. Planets don't evolve.
The planets and moons that spin and revolve backwards were probably struck by large objects - stray moons, asteroids, or some such.
Why do we have comets if the solar system is billions of years old?
Because the processes that make a solar system didn't stop billions of years ago?
Where did all the helium go?
Since I don't know what this refers to, I'll guess: into the sun?
How did sexual reproduction evolve?
I don't know.
If the big bang occurred, where did all the information around us and in us come from? Has an explosion ever produced order? Or as Sir Isaac Newton said, "Who wound up the clock?"
Tunguska, 1908, made a random forest into a nice neat radial array of logs. Or is that not the kind of order you're looking for?
Creation science has yet to explain where God came from, so I suppose if we can't accept any theory that hasn't been explained ALL the way back, then no belief system will ever be valid. At any rate, evolutionary biology doesn't deal with the Big Bang - you want Quantum Physics 101, next door.
Why do so many of the earth's ancient cultures have flood legends?
Because floods are a natural occurrence? And this is a silly question anyway - wouldn't all the earth's ancient cultures be descendants of Noah and his family, and thus have a nearly complete version of the Biblical flood in their legends instead of just 'there was a great flood the year that so-and-so was king'?
Why don't the Chinese, with an 8000 year recorded history, mention having done time on the Ark?
Where did matter come from? What about space, time, energy, and even the laws of physics?
Dunno. You want Quantum Physics 101, next door.
How did the first living cell begin? That's a greater miracle than for a bacteria to evolve to a man. How did that first cell reproduce?
Maybe life isn't the miracle you think it is. What's a virus, after all, but the halfway point between living and dead. Not that bacteria would have evolved from virii (at least not as we know them today, since a virus can't reproduce on its own), but the concept is still there - a primitive thing made of DNA and RNA and simple proteins, that in the presence of enough of the compounds it's made out of, makes two of itself through a chemical process.
Just before life appeared, did the atmosphere have oxygen or did it not have oxygen?
Life doesn't depend on an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Before life appeared - and probably for a long time after - the atmosphere would probably have been something like ammonia.
Why aren't meteorites found in supposedly old rocks?
They'd have been destroyed or reshapen by the forces that laid down the old rocks, perhaps?
If it takes intelligence to make an arrowhead, why doesn't it take vastly more intelligence to create a human? Do you really believe that hydrogen will turn into people if you wait long enough?
It doesn't take intelligence to make a snowflake, a much more complex device than an arrowhead.
Which came first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA--which can only be produced by DNA?
Ain't nothing magical about those proteins.
Can you name one reasonable hypothesis on how the moon got there--any hypothesis that is consistent with all the data? Why aren't students told the scientific reasons for rejecting all the evolutionary theories for the moon's origin?
I see we're back to analyzing the genetic properties of planetary bodies again. I dunno - the moon could be left over from the formation of the solar system, like most moons, or it could be accumulated from debris from a massive impact into Earth early in its existence. It could be a captured moon from elsewhere in the solar system. The processes that made the planets of the solar system - namely, GRAVITY - also made littler planets too, planets that by being just far enough out from the sun, would have found themselves pulled into orbit around planets.
That the moon orbits with one side always facing Earth sorta hints that it wasn't captured, but formed in place from debris already orbiting Earth. Something like an early impact on Earth throwing up a huge amount of debris into orbit, maybe looking something like Saturn's rings but even larger - and over time, this spinning ring would have accumulated into a solid body.
Why won't qualified evolutionists enter into a written, scientific debate ?
It's been tried. Why won't qualified creationists participate in such a debate without eventually resorting to "God works in mysterious ways" when cornered?
Left out the bit about all of Earth's geologic features being explainable by the Flood, because their 77 pages of well-written refutations can be sent running home with one silly heretical question: Where did all the water GO?
Ordinarily I wouldn't waste the bandwidth, since my karma's already at 50, but what the heck.:-)
Macroevolution (development of more complex organisms from simpler ones): sorry, not proven. First, there are no 'intermediate' forms found. Every single one is complete and functional. Darwinism states that evolution is a gradual process, taking millions of years. Hence, almost 100% of fossils should be intermediate forms, with clear links. The links are missing.
Why can't an intermediate form be complete and functional? I thought one of the tenets of evolutionary biology was that EVERY intermediate form had to be complete and functional - it has to function as an animal just well enough to reproduce and make another one just like itself.
Indeed I think a case can be made that ALL lifeforms are 'transitional' - those that have hit the plateau simply haven't had any pressure put on them that might make mutational changes come in handy, yet. Look at something like the coelacanth, with what look like primitive transitional legs - to the coelacanth they aren't transitional, it makes excellent use of them so they're "complete". What happens is that that coelacanth's grandson might have longer 'fins' that give it some sort of edge - so its children have an easier time finding food than the ones with shorter fins, who must either move away (and find a niche) or die off. Which is exactly what happened: some of them got better and moved away, others found a spot in Madagascar where they could survive without needing to evolve much.
We call lifeforms 'transitional' only because of our perspective - we've already seen things that evolved from them.
Science just has the annoying habit of being based on observation. Religions could probably make more headway if they followed suit and reflected the observable world, instead of asking us to ignore what we see and take someone's word for it from a few thousand years ago.
Regarding evolution not falsifiable: I'm an armchair scientist, as opposed to a real scientist who knows what the fuck he's talking about, but it'd seem to me that to make something falsifiable, you have to come up with a list of things someone can look for, that if found, make the hypothesis (evolution) false.
Two problems I see right away with this. First, we're always learning more about evolution - so what looks like a showstopping discovery today (punctuated equilibrium) may be part of the theory tomorrow. Which to anyone seeking to falsify evolution, probably looks like "those darn sneaky evolutionists will just explain away anything that looks like it might sink their boat."
The other problem is that I suspect it IS kinda hard to write falsification statements for something so deeply rooted in observation. What can you do? You'd end up saying stuff like, if evolution isn't true, then we wouldn't expect to find animals appearing to be related in a treelike structure to each other. We DO find animals appearing to be related in such a way that they can be drawn on a family tree. Therefore the falsification statement sounds... flippant, like circular reasoning. But how else do you approach it? The 'proof' of evolution is in the observation - that's what started the theory after all. So to falsify evolution ENTIRELY you'd have to falsify the observation - you'd have to say animals that look similar, really aren't, you'd have to say the fossil record does not reflect age, etc.
But imagine for a moment that they caught an animal that looks exactly like the fish-crab hybrid from Phantom Menace. Such a thing WOULD falsify evolution - assuming it wasn't a) mimicry, it only LOOKS half crustacean, b) a hoax, or c) a genetic experiment by humans, this creature would represent the undoing of the 'family tree' concept by combining the fully formed features of two ORDERS of animal in a way that could only be explained by throwing out the rules of genetics as we know them. I use this fictitious animal because our current knowledge says that crabs and fish are not closely related and with literal mountains of proof to back this up - scientists would be unable to make this creature work as a "common ancestor", unlike such missing links as Archaeopteryx. Were such an animal found, it would cast serious doubts on the mechanism of evolution - it would be about as close as you can get to falsification.
You can screw up making a sculpture so that it falls apart, or botch up a painting such that it's not recognizable. And you can have code that compiles perfectly and still doesn't do anything right. In both cases, the actual "rightness" or "wrongness" of the work is determined by the audience - neither the clay nor the computer particularly care.
Define "audience" carefully enough and ANYTHING is art.
Actually maybe that's not a bad thing - the alternative would be to define art by majority opinion. The music industry has shown us what horrors this could bring - imagine whole museums full of velvet Elvis paintings, covered bridges, and flower still-lifes.
So you're saying something qualifies as art only if it's sufficiently accessible. I guess modern dance isn't art, as many people don't "get it". I guess music isn't art, since some people are deaf.
OK, that didn't come out quite lucid - I can't help it, I've got the flu and my brain has gone home for the day.
So let's try that again: sometimes the most meaningful art is the stuff that the average person just won't appreciate. I don't mean abstract splatters either - I mean stuff like Max Ernst, real sick surrealism with depth, the closer you look the more you find. And you're not likely to find his stuff hanging over someone's sofa. No denying it's art, but also no denying it's just a bit inaccessible.
Programming is akin to literature. Yes, it's 9/10ths mathematics, but well-done code will have an artistic quality - elegant structure will be visible to those with eyes to see it. So not everyone knows how to read source code, not everyone can "read" subtle nuances in a painting either.
I don't think most code counts as art - but I do think if programmers thought of their code as art, we might see more pride taken in the work, and that would lead to better, cleaner code. It's something I know I try to work toward in my code.
Why would I be issued a speeding ticket if I wasn't speeding?
'Cause you're a minority and you live in a town like Indianapolis where the cops are so fucking racist even their cars have white hoods?
'Cause the cop pulled you over 'cause he didn't like your "DARE to Keep Cops Off Donuts" bumper sticker, and since THAT isn't illegal, wrote you a ticket for speeding instead?
'Cause he's in a hurry to fill quota and KNOWS you can't prove you weren't speeding?
someone's already mentioned Jetfire/Skyfire is from Robotech with a different head. The Jumpstarters, Twintwist and the other guy whoze name I don't remember, are from some little novelty company.
The little novelty company would be Bandai, I think. They made things like GoBots, Power Rangers, Digimon, etc. Oh wait - the Jumpstarters were Takara. Hasbro bought MOST of the Transformer toys from Takara. That's why Soundwave, Cliffjumper and Bumblebee, and a few others say "copyright 1974 Takara" (and why Soundwave looked so retro, even in 1984).
As to Jetfire: trivia time. Hasbro decided sometime in 1985 that the Autobots needed air power, and Takara didn't have anything sufficiently different from the Decepticon jets, so they licensed the Veritech design from... Bandai.
Takara didn't really like this. I guess they couldn't stop Hasbro from doing this, but they COULD prevent Hasbro from using the Bandai-designed Jetfire on the TV show. So they came up with a decidedly different design and character - and thus was born Skyfire. And the kids knew who they meant.:-)
Look closely at the old catalogs if you can find any. Jetfire, the Deluxe Autobots and Deluxe Insecticons, and I think there were a couple others, were designed by Bandai (which is why you never saw them in the TV series) - and there's clearly a family resemblance, particularly in the heads. Now look again at the GoBots: made by Tonka, designed by... Bandai.
The Transformer family tree grew in Chernobyl potting soil.:-)
My toys from childhood are in DREADFUL condition. Star Wars figs with heads missing and paint jobs done on them. Transformers that have been kitbashed no end - or else literally destroyed through heavy playing. G.I. Joes (some so old they don't have Swivel-Arm Battle Grip) that have been kitbashed, repainted, and had their crotches broken off. An original Kenner Millennium Falcon which I: dismantled the cockpit and removed the cardboard wall so there's an actual hallway from the cockpit to the back compartment, repainted parts of the upper hull for battle damage, and DRILLED holes throughout in hopes of wiring it for lights.
I still have all these sad relics. The busted Transformers still get played with. But I figure they're near-worthless in their current condition; they'd probably be worth tens of thousands of dollars if they were all in mint condition.
But you know what? I think back and wonder what I'd be like if I kept 'em all on shelves or, heaven forbid, in the original boxes. It was fucking WORTH it. Even the Falcon - I got more enjoyment out of tearing it up than I would get today out of selling it in mint condition.
What's with the ghetto blaster guy who is the size of a two storey building but when he transforms, he is reduced to a regular size ghetto blaster?
Several of your Qs are related to this - the way Transformers sometimes grow and shrink. Fanfic and MUSHes explain this as, each Transformer has the ability to put some of its mass into a little corner of subspace, sorta like turning oneself four-dimensionally sideways so you look smaller. (note the same explanation is given in Doctor Who for why the Doctor's time machine is larger inside than outside)
This also explains why Soundwave has room for SEVERAL tape-bots - enough that, if stacked, would be much thicker than his chest.
In the movie there is a triple changer Transformer (train - space shuttle - robot, I had'im) who was to carry a whole bunch of other Transformers to some planet (while he was transformed into a space shuttle). Around 10 of them jump aboard INSIDE him, including the constroctabots(sp?). I remember they had a fight in mid flight, and the constroctabots transformed into devastator (who has to be the size of a building).. while still inside the space shuttle guy, what's up with that?
See above, but as always they NEVER make it simple. We see them WALK up the ramp if I remember, which means we can't simply say Astrotrain is bigger inside than out - he actually GROWS.
I think the writers knew they were messing with our heads.:-)
Energy cubes. How the hell do they get the energy to be self contained in the shape of a cube?
Early on in the series, there are EMPTY cubes shown. They aren't self-contained.
Just don't ask me what the cubes are actually made of. Probably the same mystery material as the Transformers themselves - a super-deformable material that, for instance, you can make flexible faces out of, such that a lifetime of talking doesn't cause metal fatigue.
Flying. Most of the Transformers could fly as robots as if they were Superman. Starscream was a jet fighter, sometimes he transformed to fly, other times he didn't.. what's up with that?
Sometimes you walk to the corner store, sometimes you ride a bike, what's up with that?
The planet where they are from. It's not a "human" planet! where did the VW beetles, ambulances and fire trucks come from??
Again it seems you missed the pilot three-parter. They all had the ability to transform into "Cybertronian" vehicles in the beginning - pyramid-shaped jets, high-tech cars, etc. When they crash-landed on Earth, the computer aboard their ship decided it'd be in their best interests to modify them to transform into forms resembling the indigenous lifeforms of the planet - and since they came from a machine planet, the computer's probe misidentified Earth vehicles as "lifeforms".
Optimus Primes' fuck!ng TRAILER.. where the hell did it come from?
Somewhere offscreen.:-) See above about how the writers knew they were messing with our heads - in some episodes, Prime transforms, and we SEE the trailer roll away offscreen. Later he transforms back into a semi, and the trailer rolls back into frame from offscreen - and in between we did NOT see the trailer parked somewhere near the battle area.:-)
Similar problems abound. Shockwave's muzzle, everybody's guns, and so on - basically any "accessory" that would have been loose in the toy's package, appears and disappears as needed in the show. In one episode we actually SEE a gun appear in someone's hand. As I said before, I'm convinced Transformers are built with dimensionally transcendent Time Lord technology.:-)
and finally... WHAT'S WITH THE TWO HUMAN FRIENDS!!! (you know, the dad and the kid with the hard hats and lab coats)
The planet on which the bulk of the original TV series takes place is... Earth. There are humans there, I'm told - and you can't very well have a species of 20-foot-tall living robots walking around having pitched battles in the streets without SOMEONE stumbling onto it. In the show, the kid (Spike) and his dad (Sparkplug) worked on an oil platform the Decepticons attacked, and after the Autobots rescued them, they just sorta stuck around. In the movie, it's 20 years later, Spike has a kid, Daniel, and for whatever irresponsible reason, the Autobots keep the kid not more than 3 inches from any firefight that happens.:-)
though I believe you shouldn't comment every single function you create, if they are obvious, because it dilutes the value of the REAL valuable comments that explain difficult-to-understand sections.
Agreed. I've seen comments so brain-dead it made the code HARDER to understand than if it weren't commented at all. But maybe one should still include comments of the form "I didn't comment this, it's obvious" so whoever reads the code doesn't think you got lazy?
I seem to recall a case in the 1800s involving counterfeit music rolls for player pianos. Judgement was something to the effect that, machine-read documents could be protected under copyright law the same as human-read ones.
That judgement, I also seem to remember, WAS the standard by which computer software was allowed to be copyrighted up until the next major reform in copyright law sometime in the 1980s.
Now I want to go a step further. Machine language and people language are equivalent for copyright purposes - otherwise software, and for that matter, the MPEG streams contained on a DVD, can't be protected by copyright! But the MPAA, which THRIVES on the fact that machine and human languages are equivalent under copyright law, wants to separate the two under the First Amendment - and it's gonna be damn hard for them to demonstrate LEGALLY (not financially) why they should be allowed to have it both ways.
They aren't being asked to turn in geeks, with the point being that geeks have a high(er) tendancy towards these things. They are being asked to turn in people who _are_ depressed, dangerous, or potentially violent.
And they're supposed to identify these traits how?
Sure, let's let high school kids and untrained adults "diagnose" people as dangerous. What do you suppose they'll do? Answer: probably pick out anyone who looks or acts "weird".
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At least with VCR's the Macrovision signal is supposed to be out of range of the TV's display circuitry, but in range of the VCR's recording circuitry, so, in theory, you don't get signal degredation.
In theory.
In practice, I've heard of TVs being made with the same AGC's as VCRs - and thus they react the same way as a VCR when fed a macroed signal. And I don't just mean light-dark and slight picture distortion.
It's possible to create CDs that use polymers that degrade after they are exposed to laser light.
:-)
I seem to recall some company was accidentally making CDs this way after an accident at the plant several years back.
The price of CDs will continue to go up until you need a damn financing plan.
Oughta make visits to the bank more interesting: "I'm interested in a CD."
"A certificate of deposit?"
"No. The new Sarah McLachlan album."
"OK, well, we can get you financing at 0.9%APR, $200 down and $90 per week after that..."
Actually, now that I think about it, the music biz probably wouldn't want to pay Macrovision for this technology if they can raise the price of CDs 15% and pocket it all themselves and CLAIM it's copy protected (since under the DMCA the verbiage "this is copy protected" alone probably constitutes a protection system that's illegal to circumvent).
Way to go, guys. Combat piracy by raising prices. That never fails! Oh, and while you're at it, make up the difference by buying laws, because history has shown so clearly that making things illegal actually deters people.
then came mp3. it taught us that content was usually more important than raw audiophile quality. at least as long as the audio was listenable; which with good mp3 encoders, it is.
Blasphemy! I WANT my huge expensive stereo system so I can listen to Celine Dion!
Or not.
there is no standard on earth, imaginable or real that can prevent an analog copy (since you have to be able to LISTEN to it at some point) from working.
Quit saying that! They'll only take it as a challenge. Surgical implants, anyone?
Then again, they'll do surgical implants just as well as every other technological solution they've proposed. It'll sound odd, cause headaches, and run on Windows CE. You'll spend hours trying to update the firmware on your cochlear implants so you can hear the latest Alanis song on the radio (without the implants it sounds like modem noise - wait, this is Alanis we're talking about, how would you know if the implants were working?), to no avail, before you finally give up and go to the Ani DiFranco concert instead.
That's true - I forgot the DMCA. Under the DMCA they could "encrypt" the CD with XOR and you'd be up for fines/jailtime just for noticing it. Never mind 9 times in 10 you'd be doing this for reasons of interoperability - i.e. trying to legally play media you bought in a system you own - since 'interoperability' is ignored just like 'fair use' and 'due process'.
The RIAA, MPAA, lawyers and government are all undead zombie demons from the Dimension of Pain. As though you needed more proof of this.
Only $43.45? CDs will be that price in two years anyway.
They must destroy what they don't understand.
Actually something dawned on me. The war on MP3 trading, that's pretty obviously because they're scared people might decide on their own what music they want to hear, so manufactured acts like Britney Spears would no longer be an automatic sales draw. But this - there's NOTHING to be gained here, usually when the RIAA wants to take away people's freedoms there's a bigger issue. What are they afraid of? People didn't buy one CD for home, one for work and one for car BEFORE CD-Rs, and certainly won't now that a CD of a movie soundtrack often costs more than the DVD of the movie.
Answer: this one came from the lawyers and/or the company that developed the technology, and the RIAA would simply say "sure, why not."
Sheesh. At least Microsoft PRETENDS to be on the customer's side.
but this isn't really targeting the tech-heads, they are going after the casual user with this, and it might just work for that.
I imagine there's a lot of casual users who basically use their iMac or cheap Circuit City consumer PC as a glorified CD player. But then, they have to make the connection between the copy protection and the fact that they can't even play it legally.
but you'll never hear a complaint by anyone about how macrovision has degraded their signal -- it hasn't.
That's because most people haven't figured out WHY the picture curls at the top, or why it keeps getting lighter and darker on a cycle. Until I researched Macrovision I thought all my storebought tapes were being damaged at the checkout line when they demagnetize the anti-shoplift tags!
The only meaningful way to split up Microsoft is to put their marketing in one company, engineering in another, and forbid all contact between them.
It would work! Engineering would be forced to make products with MERIT, and marketing would be forced to hire a new round of engineers (and probably destroy themselves by being a well-funded dotcom with all hot air and no product). And in both cases, we get what we want - an opportunity for third parties to move in and reclaim market segments that were lost to questionable MS tactics years ago.
Obviously this will never happen - it's too likely to work, so no one will have the nads to attempt it.
The effect of computers has been to break up society in a profoundly negative way. People are spending more and more time on their own, on computers and on the internet. This has reduced social contact. This means there is now less conversation between people, and people are less friendly. Compared with forty years ago, there is less of a sense of neighborliness and of community.
On the contrary, I think I feel a greater sense of neighborliness and community online with people who share a few of my interests, than with those nitwits, rednecks, and assholes I keep having to encounter in real life.
OK, I'm just a hobbyist and my brain is on order from Neptune while I battle a nasty cold, but here's my shot at them. Someone else could probably do better.
:-)
Where has macro evolution ever been observed? What's the mechanism for getting new complexity such as new vital organs? How, for example, could a caterpillar evolve into a butterfly?
Some guesses regarding vital organs:
- Simpler animals don't need nearly as many moving parts as humans have. Hearts, etc. aren't needed in a tiny seagoing animal that can absorb nutrients directly into every cell without needing a bloodstream.
- Organs wouldn't just spring fully formed into existence - they would evolve from simpler structures, or from each other.
- The heart is just a muscle. Imagine a tiny heartless animal - but one with musculature (someone help me out and name an example, I'm sure there are examples in the deep ocean - a jellyfish maybe?) - due to a genetic accident a muscle ends up wrapped around a tube where oxygenated blood travels from one end of the animal to the other. Voila - a heart.
- The brain is even simpler - a bunch of nerve cells accumulated at one end of the body, and it would simply get more complex over time.
- Lungs: cells that transcribe O2 and CO2 all end up in the same place, and over generations get optimized into a more efficient shape. Also see above about muscles.
- 'Filter' organs like kidneys: again, cells in the right place. A cell that can produce an enzyme to do something useful might well be useful if not connected to the right places - but once it mutates to be connected, it'll stay there through successive generations.
- Eyes - a single light-sensitive cell. Another cell appears next to it and you have resolution. A blob of gelatin forms on top of it and you have a lens. LIVING examples of just about all stages of this lineage are known.
Simple organs become more complex ones. The trick is getting the simple organ started.
Where are the billions of transitional fossils that should be there if your theory is right? Billions! Not a handful of questionable transitions. Why don't we see a reasonably smooth continuum among all living creatures, or in the fossil record, or both?
Everything that dies doesn't automatically fossilize. There WILL be gaps - huge ones - because only some tiny fraction of all SPECIES that have ever lived would be represented by individuals that happened to die in a spot conducive to fossilization.
Who are the evolutionary ancestors of the insects? The evolutionary tree that's in the textbook: where's its trunk and where are its branches?
Insects don't fossilize all that well. See above.
What evidence is there that information, such as that in DNA, could ever assemble itself? What about the 4000 books of coded information that are in a tiny part of each of your 100 trillion cells? If astronomers received an intelligent radio signal from some distant galaxy, most people would conclude that it came from an intelligent source. Why then doesn't the vast information sequence in the DNA molecule of just a bacteria also imply an intelligent source?
Most of that DNA sequence is junk - which implies a random source, or an intelligent source that leaves scrap materials in the finished product.
How could organs as complicated as the eye or the ear or the brain of even a tiny bird ever come about by chance or natural processes? How could a bacterial motor evolve?
From simple to complex. For an eye all you need is one light-sensing cell - anything that happens to mutate near it later will probably help it. Same with the ear - probably started with the same touch-sensitive cells that currently allow deaf people to feel low frequencies.
The brain of a tiny bird? Made of the same stuff as the brain of an earthworm. Only its size is different - and the complexity therein is a consequence of its size. Study how the brain works and this will make more sense than my ramblings.
If the solar system evolved, why do three planets spin backwards? Why do at least 6 moons revolve backwards?
Um... I wasn't aware the allele frequency of planetary populations changed over time, or that any reputable scientist ever said they did. Planets don't evolve.
The planets and moons that spin and revolve backwards were probably struck by large objects - stray moons, asteroids, or some such.
Why do we have comets if the solar system is billions of years old?
Because the processes that make a solar system didn't stop billions of years ago?
Where did all the helium go?
Since I don't know what this refers to, I'll guess: into the sun?
How did sexual reproduction evolve?
I don't know.
If the big bang occurred, where did all the information around us and in us come from? Has an explosion ever produced order? Or as Sir Isaac Newton said, "Who wound up the clock?"
Tunguska, 1908, made a random forest into a nice neat radial array of logs. Or is that not the kind of order you're looking for?
Creation science has yet to explain where God came from, so I suppose if we can't accept any theory that hasn't been explained ALL the way back, then no belief system will ever be valid. At any rate, evolutionary biology doesn't deal with the Big Bang - you want Quantum Physics 101, next door.
Why do so many of the earth's ancient cultures have flood legends?
Because floods are a natural occurrence? And this is a silly question anyway - wouldn't all the earth's ancient cultures be descendants of Noah and his family, and thus have a nearly complete version of the Biblical flood in their legends instead of just 'there was a great flood the year that so-and-so was king'?
Why don't the Chinese, with an 8000 year recorded history, mention having done time on the Ark?
Where did matter come from? What about space, time, energy, and even the laws of physics?
Dunno. You want Quantum Physics 101, next door.
How did the first living cell begin? That's a greater miracle than for a bacteria to evolve to a man. How did that first cell reproduce?
Maybe life isn't the miracle you think it is. What's a virus, after all, but the halfway point between living and dead. Not that bacteria would have evolved from virii (at least not as we know them today, since a virus can't reproduce on its own), but the concept is still there - a primitive thing made of DNA and RNA and simple proteins, that in the presence of enough of the compounds it's made out of, makes two of itself through a chemical process.
Just before life appeared, did the atmosphere have oxygen or did it not have oxygen?
Life doesn't depend on an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Before life appeared - and probably for a long time after - the atmosphere would probably have been something like ammonia.
Why aren't meteorites found in supposedly old rocks?
They'd have been destroyed or reshapen by the forces that laid down the old rocks, perhaps?
If it takes intelligence to make an arrowhead, why doesn't it take vastly more intelligence to create a human? Do you really believe that hydrogen will turn into people if you wait long enough?
It doesn't take intelligence to make a snowflake, a much more complex device than an arrowhead.
Which came first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA--which can only be produced by DNA?
Ain't nothing magical about those proteins.
Can you name one reasonable hypothesis on how the moon got there--any hypothesis that is consistent with all the data? Why aren't students told the scientific reasons for rejecting all the evolutionary theories for the moon's origin?
I see we're back to analyzing the genetic properties of planetary bodies again. I dunno - the moon could be left over from the formation of the solar system, like most moons, or it could be accumulated from debris from a massive impact into Earth early in its existence. It could be a captured moon from elsewhere in the solar system. The processes that made the planets of the solar system - namely, GRAVITY - also made littler planets too, planets that by being just far enough out from the sun, would have found themselves pulled into orbit around planets.
That the moon orbits with one side always facing Earth sorta hints that it wasn't captured, but formed in place from debris already orbiting Earth. Something like an early impact on Earth throwing up a huge amount of debris into orbit, maybe looking something like Saturn's rings but even larger - and over time, this spinning ring would have accumulated into a solid body.
Why won't qualified evolutionists enter into a written, scientific debate ?
It's been tried. Why won't qualified creationists participate in such a debate without eventually resorting to "God works in mysterious ways" when cornered?
Left out the bit about all of Earth's geologic features being explainable by the Flood, because their 77 pages of well-written refutations can be sent running home with one silly heretical question: Where did all the water GO?
Ordinarily I wouldn't waste the bandwidth, since my karma's already at 50, but what the heck.
Macroevolution (development of more complex organisms from simpler ones): sorry, not proven. First, there are no 'intermediate' forms found. Every single one is complete and functional. Darwinism states that evolution is a gradual process, taking millions of years. Hence, almost 100% of fossils should be intermediate forms, with clear links. The links are missing.
Why can't an intermediate form be complete and functional? I thought one of the tenets of evolutionary biology was that EVERY intermediate form had to be complete and functional - it has to function as an animal just well enough to reproduce and make another one just like itself.
Indeed I think a case can be made that ALL lifeforms are 'transitional' - those that have hit the plateau simply haven't had any pressure put on them that might make mutational changes come in handy, yet. Look at something like the coelacanth, with what look like primitive transitional legs - to the coelacanth they aren't transitional, it makes excellent use of them so they're "complete". What happens is that that coelacanth's grandson might have longer 'fins' that give it some sort of edge - so its children have an easier time finding food than the ones with shorter fins, who must either move away (and find a niche) or die off. Which is exactly what happened: some of them got better and moved away, others found a spot in Madagascar where they could survive without needing to evolve much.
We call lifeforms 'transitional' only because of our perspective - we've already seen things that evolved from them.
Science just has the annoying habit of being based on observation. Religions could probably make more headway if they followed suit and reflected the observable world, instead of asking us to ignore what we see and take someone's word for it from a few thousand years ago.
Regarding evolution not falsifiable: I'm an armchair scientist, as opposed to a real scientist who knows what the fuck he's talking about, but it'd seem to me that to make something falsifiable, you have to come up with a list of things someone can look for, that if found, make the hypothesis (evolution) false.
Two problems I see right away with this. First, we're always learning more about evolution - so what looks like a showstopping discovery today (punctuated equilibrium) may be part of the theory tomorrow. Which to anyone seeking to falsify evolution, probably looks like "those darn sneaky evolutionists will just explain away anything that looks like it might sink their boat."
The other problem is that I suspect it IS kinda hard to write falsification statements for something so deeply rooted in observation. What can you do? You'd end up saying stuff like, if evolution isn't true, then we wouldn't expect to find animals appearing to be related in a treelike structure to each other. We DO find animals appearing to be related in such a way that they can be drawn on a family tree. Therefore the falsification statement sounds... flippant, like circular reasoning. But how else do you approach it? The 'proof' of evolution is in the observation - that's what started the theory after all. So to falsify evolution ENTIRELY you'd have to falsify the observation - you'd have to say animals that look similar, really aren't, you'd have to say the fossil record does not reflect age, etc.
But imagine for a moment that they caught an animal that looks exactly like the fish-crab hybrid from Phantom Menace. Such a thing WOULD falsify evolution - assuming it wasn't a) mimicry, it only LOOKS half crustacean, b) a hoax, or c) a genetic experiment by humans, this creature would represent the undoing of the 'family tree' concept by combining the fully formed features of two ORDERS of animal in a way that could only be explained by throwing out the rules of genetics as we know them. I use this fictitious animal because our current knowledge says that crabs and fish are not closely related and with literal mountains of proof to back this up - scientists would be unable to make this creature work as a "common ancestor", unlike such missing links as Archaeopteryx. Were such an animal found, it would cast serious doubts on the mechanism of evolution - it would be about as close as you can get to falsification.
You can screw up making a sculpture so that it falls apart, or botch up a painting such that it's not recognizable. And you can have code that compiles perfectly and still doesn't do anything right. In both cases, the actual "rightness" or "wrongness" of the work is determined by the audience - neither the clay nor the computer particularly care.
Define "audience" carefully enough and ANYTHING is art.
Actually maybe that's not a bad thing - the alternative would be to define art by majority opinion. The music industry has shown us what horrors this could bring - imagine whole museums full of velvet Elvis paintings, covered bridges, and flower still-lifes.
So you're saying something qualifies as art only if it's sufficiently accessible. I guess modern dance isn't art, as many people don't "get it". I guess music isn't art, since some people are deaf.
OK, that didn't come out quite lucid - I can't help it, I've got the flu and my brain has gone home for the day.
So let's try that again: sometimes the most meaningful art is the stuff that the average person just won't appreciate. I don't mean abstract splatters either - I mean stuff like Max Ernst, real sick surrealism with depth, the closer you look the more you find. And you're not likely to find his stuff hanging over someone's sofa. No denying it's art, but also no denying it's just a bit inaccessible.
Programming is akin to literature. Yes, it's 9/10ths mathematics, but well-done code will have an artistic quality - elegant structure will be visible to those with eyes to see it. So not everyone knows how to read source code, not everyone can "read" subtle nuances in a painting either.
I don't think most code counts as art - but I do think if programmers thought of their code as art, we might see more pride taken in the work, and that would lead to better, cleaner code. It's something I know I try to work toward in my code.
Why would I be issued a speeding ticket if I wasn't speeding?
'Cause you're a minority and you live in a town like Indianapolis where the cops are so fucking racist even their cars have white hoods?
'Cause the cop pulled you over 'cause he didn't like your "DARE to Keep Cops Off Donuts" bumper sticker, and since THAT isn't illegal, wrote you a ticket for speeding instead?
'Cause he's in a hurry to fill quota and KNOWS you can't prove you weren't speeding?
someone's already mentioned Jetfire/Skyfire is from Robotech with a different head. The Jumpstarters, Twintwist and the other guy whoze name I don't remember, are from some little novelty company.
:-)
:-)
The little novelty company would be Bandai, I think. They made things like GoBots, Power Rangers, Digimon, etc. Oh wait - the Jumpstarters were Takara. Hasbro bought MOST of the Transformer toys from Takara. That's why Soundwave, Cliffjumper and Bumblebee, and a few others say "copyright 1974 Takara" (and why Soundwave looked so retro, even in 1984).
As to Jetfire: trivia time. Hasbro decided sometime in 1985 that the Autobots needed air power, and Takara didn't have anything sufficiently different from the Decepticon jets, so they licensed the Veritech design from... Bandai.
Takara didn't really like this. I guess they couldn't stop Hasbro from doing this, but they COULD prevent Hasbro from using the Bandai-designed Jetfire on the TV show. So they came up with a decidedly different design and character - and thus was born Skyfire. And the kids knew who they meant.
Look closely at the old catalogs if you can find any. Jetfire, the Deluxe Autobots and Deluxe Insecticons, and I think there were a couple others, were designed by Bandai (which is why you never saw them in the TV series) - and there's clearly a family resemblance, particularly in the heads. Now look again at the GoBots: made by Tonka, designed by... Bandai.
The Transformer family tree grew in Chernobyl potting soil.
Yeah, that's something that dawned on me too.
My toys from childhood are in DREADFUL condition. Star Wars figs with heads missing and paint jobs done on them. Transformers that have been kitbashed no end - or else literally destroyed through heavy playing. G.I. Joes (some so old they don't have Swivel-Arm Battle Grip) that have been kitbashed, repainted, and had their crotches broken off. An original Kenner Millennium Falcon which I: dismantled the cockpit and removed the cardboard wall so there's an actual hallway from the cockpit to the back compartment, repainted parts of the upper hull for battle damage, and DRILLED holes throughout in hopes of wiring it for lights.
I still have all these sad relics. The busted Transformers still get played with. But I figure they're near-worthless in their current condition; they'd probably be worth tens of thousands of dollars if they were all in mint condition.
But you know what? I think back and wonder what I'd be like if I kept 'em all on shelves or, heaven forbid, in the original boxes. It was fucking WORTH it. Even the Falcon - I got more enjoyment out of tearing it up than I would get today out of selling it in mint condition.
What's with the ghetto blaster guy who is the size of a two storey building but when he transforms, he is reduced to a regular size ghetto blaster?
:-)
:-) See above about how the writers knew they were messing with our heads - in some episodes, Prime transforms, and we SEE the trailer roll away offscreen. Later he transforms back into a semi, and the trailer rolls back into frame from offscreen - and in between we did NOT see the trailer parked somewhere near the battle area. :-)
:-)
:-)
Several of your Qs are related to this - the way Transformers sometimes grow and shrink. Fanfic and MUSHes explain this as, each Transformer has the ability to put some of its mass into a little corner of subspace, sorta like turning oneself four-dimensionally sideways so you look smaller. (note the same explanation is given in Doctor Who for why the Doctor's time machine is larger inside than outside)
This also explains why Soundwave has room for SEVERAL tape-bots - enough that, if stacked, would be much thicker than his chest.
In the movie there is a triple changer Transformer (train - space shuttle - robot, I had'im) who was to carry a whole bunch of other Transformers to some planet (while he was transformed into a space shuttle). Around 10 of them jump aboard INSIDE him, including the constroctabots(sp?). I remember they had a fight in mid flight, and the constroctabots transformed into devastator (who has to be the size of a building).. while still inside the space shuttle guy, what's up with that?
See above, but as always they NEVER make it simple. We see them WALK up the ramp if I remember, which means we can't simply say Astrotrain is bigger inside than out - he actually GROWS.
I think the writers knew they were messing with our heads.
Energy cubes. How the hell do they get the energy to be self contained in the shape of a cube?
Early on in the series, there are EMPTY cubes shown. They aren't self-contained.
Just don't ask me what the cubes are actually made of. Probably the same mystery material as the Transformers themselves - a super-deformable material that, for instance, you can make flexible faces out of, such that a lifetime of talking doesn't cause metal fatigue.
Flying. Most of the Transformers could fly as robots as if they were Superman. Starscream was a jet fighter, sometimes he transformed to fly, other times he didn't.. what's up with that?
Sometimes you walk to the corner store, sometimes you ride a bike, what's up with that?
The planet where they are from. It's not a "human" planet! where did the VW beetles, ambulances and fire trucks come from??
Again it seems you missed the pilot three-parter. They all had the ability to transform into "Cybertronian" vehicles in the beginning - pyramid-shaped jets, high-tech cars, etc. When they crash-landed on Earth, the computer aboard their ship decided it'd be in their best interests to modify them to transform into forms resembling the indigenous lifeforms of the planet - and since they came from a machine planet, the computer's probe misidentified Earth vehicles as "lifeforms".
Optimus Primes' fuck!ng TRAILER.. where the hell did it come from?
Somewhere offscreen.
Similar problems abound. Shockwave's muzzle, everybody's guns, and so on - basically any "accessory" that would have been loose in the toy's package, appears and disappears as needed in the show. In one episode we actually SEE a gun appear in someone's hand. As I said before, I'm convinced Transformers are built with dimensionally transcendent Time Lord technology.
and finally... WHAT'S WITH THE TWO HUMAN FRIENDS!!! (you know, the dad and the kid with the hard hats and lab coats)
The planet on which the bulk of the original TV series takes place is... Earth. There are humans there, I'm told - and you can't very well have a species of 20-foot-tall living robots walking around having pitched battles in the streets without SOMEONE stumbling onto it. In the show, the kid (Spike) and his dad (Sparkplug) worked on an oil platform the Decepticons attacked, and after the Autobots rescued them, they just sorta stuck around. In the movie, it's 20 years later, Spike has a kid, Daniel, and for whatever irresponsible reason, the Autobots keep the kid not more than 3 inches from any firefight that happens.
You seem to think that there's some nessecary relation to programming and graphic design because they're both expressed on computers...
:-)
Well, we are talking about beauty, no?
though I believe you shouldn't comment every single function you create, if they are obvious, because it dilutes the value of the REAL valuable comments that explain difficult-to-understand sections.
Agreed. I've seen comments so brain-dead it made the code HARDER to understand than if it weren't commented at all. But maybe one should still include comments of the form "I didn't comment this, it's obvious" so whoever reads the code doesn't think you got lazy?
I seem to recall a case in the 1800s involving counterfeit music rolls for player pianos. Judgement was something to the effect that, machine-read documents could be protected under copyright law the same as human-read ones.
That judgement, I also seem to remember, WAS the standard by which computer software was allowed to be copyrighted up until the next major reform in copyright law sometime in the 1980s.
Now I want to go a step further. Machine language and people language are equivalent for copyright purposes - otherwise software, and for that matter, the MPEG streams contained on a DVD, can't be protected by copyright! But the MPAA, which THRIVES on the fact that machine and human languages are equivalent under copyright law, wants to separate the two under the First Amendment - and it's gonna be damn hard for them to demonstrate LEGALLY (not financially) why they should be allowed to have it both ways.
They aren't being asked to turn in geeks, with the point being that geeks have a high(er) tendancy towards these things. They are being asked to turn in people who _are_ depressed, dangerous, or potentially violent.
And they're supposed to identify these traits how?
Sure, let's let high school kids and untrained adults "diagnose" people as dangerous. What do you suppose they'll do? Answer: probably pick out anyone who looks or acts "weird".