Don't put too much stock in CNN here. They're looking for a scandal to boost their numbers. Google is run by ethical managers and who employees many smart people. They've managed to make search profitable and been innovative along the way, building up a user base *and* income. So no, they're aren't a remannt of the dot-com era; they are, in fact, the opposite of much of that.
My point is that I was marginally inconvenienced, but it was not the end of the world. It cost me maybe 10 minutes of my life. How much of this is that Ted Kennedy doesn't like being treated like the masses?
Perhaps some. But perhaps some of it is that he has been made aware of how people are being treated, and doesn't like it. I don't either. Are you old enough to remember the Cold War at its height? It was the same kind of crap: band-aid measures typically undertaken out of a knee-jerk reaction to some scare, real or imagined, and it winds up doing little if any good. "Duck and cover", anyone?
Same thing here. America has gone batshit crazy over terrorism, and needs to settle down. Bringing attention to crap like this is good for us all.
Is that you? Nixon used every power at his disposal, from the FBI to the IRS to the CIA, in order to intimidate and even imprison his enemies. Look at what he did to Tim Leary: got him sentence to over 10 years in a federal prison for having, IIRC, less than two grams of marijuana in his car.
There were plenty of *allegations* made about Clinton and the IRS, but like 99.9% of the allegations made about him they turned out to be Dudge fodder and usually outright lies.
It's just you. Seriously, one guy has problems because he ends up on the watch list on a prank or a fuck up and everyone starts whining that America is a police state and how their civil liberties have been taken away.
You really think it's just one guy, or even just a few? You are willfully ignorant then. This kind of shit has been going on since 9/11, and it has only gotten worse.
Screw justice, though, right? We have terrrists to catch!
Because you, being a liberal, like the decision, you automatically assume that conservatives will not.
Not at all. I think that the right wing propagandists -- what most people think of when they think of "conservative", and are whose allies are currently in control of the reigns of power -- will remain silent on this issue because they fundamentally disagree with it, but can't say anything about it.
In fact, they will not mention it BECAUSE so many conservatives will agree with the decision. They want their listeners/viewers to hate the 9th Circuit, unthinkingly and immediately, and will report nothing that might lessen that hate.
So, nice try, but there is nothing anti-conservative about this ruling. In fact, being such a conservative, I applaud the decision.
Good, and so do I. You and your ideological allies aren't in control of the GOP, however. Rupert Murdoch and Sun Yung Moon, unfortunately, are.
-they (conservatives) would love to jump on this decision as more proof of how 'out of touch' the 9th circuit is: disagree I've yet to hear a conservative pundit blast the 9th circuit just randomly... the criticism is usually associated with a specific (or collection of) rulings
Of course you haven't heard random attacks. They're not dumb. They pick and choose their attacks carefully to build up the 9th Circuit boogeyman. The 9th is another in a long line of conservative enemies, such as Hillary Clinton and Jesse Jackson, who they use as foils to get their listeners excited and pumped up. They don't randomly attack, they carefully choose what they report to increase the apparent differences.
but somehow they must restrain from criticising the 9th, because "upset their faux populist image to come out so loudly in favor of the corporations that support them": strongly disagree You think that the movie/music/entertainment industry supports the conservatives in this country?
No, I do not, not for a second, and if I implied as much then I apologize for not communicating my point well. I think the corporate interests that prop up Limbaugh, "Cock" Hannity, et. al., and who would outlaw, destroy, or kill much of the Hollywood community given the chance are fascist media billionaires such as Rupert Murdoch, Sun Yung Moon, and Richard Mellon Scaife.
Seeing as how Limbaugh and the other conservatives tend to go rabid at just about every decision the 9th hands down, and in fact seem to thrive on those decisions, I imagine that this will go largely uncommented upon by the conservative community. It'd upset their faux populist image to come out so loudly in favor of the corporations that support them. They won't like it, but they won't be able to say anything about it.
This case is fairly obscure anyway from a mainstream media perspective, but Limbaugh, et. al. tend to take special pains to notice anything the 9th does, what with them thar fedruhl judges legislatin from da bench and attackin our Christian heritage and whatnot.
In any event, good for Grokster and good for the EFF. Nice for them to come out on the winning side of a case every great once in a while. Makes me feel like my money isn't going completely to waste. Cripes, when was the last time the EFF won a case? Reno v. ACLU?
And before we start talking about insensitive PMs, the only example from the article that seemed in any way insensitive was the Arabic chanting from the Koran. And even that didn't sound too terrible, but I'm not religious so I have a hard time really understanding what's important and what isn't regarding that subject
If you're Muslim then I think you are pretty much required to take offense at everything you can related to the Koran. Sounds like the original developers made an honest mistake, but of course people freak their shit when their holy works are used "inappropriately."
Whatever. It's a book. I'm sure that much like the Bible its pages make for excellent rolling papers.
Because, given their reaction to Real, it's a logical deduction that Apple is LYING OUT THEIR ASS about "not making any money from iTunes music sales". If you think about it, it makes sense. Apple pockets about $0.35 out of every $0.99 track.
If you can prove $0.35 number then you should really call a securities attorney or the SEC, because that means that Apple has been lying to their shareholders, that their auditors are lying, and that in fact they are vastly more profitable on their music store than any of their competitors. Anyone who had evidence of this could make a ton of money. Makes me wonder why it hasn't happened already, actually.
Oh wait. It hasn't happened because you're wrong. That's a much simpler explanation. Occam wins again!
Not just Real, anyone should be able to market tunes for the iPod if they want. Just like anyone should be able to make 3rd party ink cartridges, and publish their own PS2 games.
Sure, but with some caveats. If the original creators of any of those products weren't assured that they would have a way to legally collect royalties from their R&D efforts, then they probably wouldn't spend as much time developing new products. But if, say, Sony knows that for each game sold they will be receiving a certain percentage of the profits, then they will be more likely to work on a game console. This is as it should be: they put the effort into development, having someone else freeload off of their efforts is neither fair nor beneficial for the market.
Ditto Apple here. They paid for the iPod's development, so it is their toy. They can license out it's underlying technologies should they choose to, but they by no means are obligated to allow a competitor access to their device for free (or pay, really, if they think it is in their best interests.
Besides, it's not like there aren't a gajillion different open source projects out there for the iPod. If Real were serious about this they'd just GPL their entire effort.
Do the Apple zealots think that this is the best way to approach this?
Just out of curiosity: what makes someone an Apple zealot? I use and enjoy Apple products. Am I a zealot?
Perhaps these Apple lovers have become so accustomed to vendor lock-in that they don't want any competition in the codecs available for this device?
If Apple were taking active steps to block and open codec such as MP3 (not really open, I know) or Ogg then I think more people would be up in arms and with good reason. But Real is a for-profit company attempting to put it's own closed and proprietary codec on another company's product. They haven't achieved marketplace success with their own hardware efforts, so they are attempting a backdoor means of getting a piece of the pie.
No one is fooled. Real is doing this for their bottom line and no other reason. This is not in and of itself a bad thing, but they are trying to convince people that this is a matter of civil rights. This "Power to the People" stuff is complete bullshit, and everyone knows it. There are plenty of open source add-ons available for the iPod; Apple has done nothing to discourage such developement. But there is no market pressure for the iPod to open up to more formats, especially not to proprietary ones like Real's.
Simply put: Real's disingenuousness is costing them.
Before they will get much sympathy in this battle they will need to either (a) open up.rm or (b) open up their music store to Mac users.
Of course I am stereotyping but Apple's success is based in their loyal, vocal, energetic community.
It has been my experience that rarely do product lines develop consumer loyalty unless they are of high quality. After using MS Windows for almost 20 years I finally broke down and bought a Mac, and I have to say that I can see good reasons that some people get excited about this machine. It's a a pleasure to work with.
Is Apple's success due to their loyal user base? Partially. But they also make well-engineered products that have succeeded in the marketplace on their own merits.
Apple is banking that proprietary is profitable. I'll guess we'll see if they are right.
They have been so far. Perhaps it is more accurate to say "we will see if they continue to be right."
"And since the eventual goal is to get laid the physical verbal interactions are kind of important."
I think that pretty much says everything we needed to know about you.
Which is what, exactly?
You're right that the social dynamics online are different, but you can't completely dismiss a manner of human interaction because it's different than what you're used to.
I don't. But I do think that some are better than others. When comparing Friendster to the real world, the real world wins hands down. Is this a 100% rule, applicable to all of humanity for all time? No. It's a generalization, and as such falls flat in the face of specific instances. But it is true, I believe, for the majority of the cases.
Of course, there's a certain irony in your comment coming from a Slashdot subscriber.
I don't pay for Slashdot in order to make friends, I pay because I would otherwise feel like a big leech.
Ok, I've had it with Friendster, Tribe, and all this social networking crap. Go to a bar, go to a park, hell go to a freaking CHURCH or something but if you want to make friends then for the love of Augusta Jane Chapin STEP AWAY FROM THE BLOODY COMPUTER. People are better grokked in person, and this virtual hooey is way overrated and ultimately unsatisfactory. If you're fat and ugly, go hang out with other fat and ugly people. Whatever you are comfortable with. But you just can NOT get the same social dynamics online as you do in the real world.
Why do you think people are such assholes online? You know, like me. Because the social dynamics are different and don't match reality. People don't have to be polite online, and you don't get to practice communications skills that make you successful in the real world.
And since the eventual goal is to get laid the physical verbal interactions are kind of important.
Having said that, this seems like an interesting technology, and doesn't seem as inherently annoying as Friendster. When the FAQ has stuff like this in it:
The false positive rate for Bloom filters is determined by the number of hashing functions, the size of the filter, and the number of entries in the filter, given by the approximate formula:
Because with your method you could miss everything at the beginning. If your initial random value is high, and you only increment it from there, you will miss a lot of data. And making the random value potentially negative for your example won't work either, because then you run the risk of overlapping clips.
Does anybody know of an existing program that can randomly (or pseudo-randomly; e.g., 30 sec every 10 min) and automatically sample short sequences from a day-long (18 hours) mp3 recording? What would it entail to develop such a program (for Windows)
10 a = rand number
20 b = a + 30 seconds
30 open MP3 with appropriate sound API, get sound between a and b
40 save a and b to a table so you don't use those values again
50 goto 10
Why does this seem absurdly simple to me? I think just about any modern language with a decent set of libraries will be able to handle this, if there isn't a shareware app out there already. In any case I couldn't imagine that it'd take more than half a day or so to do this in Java or Python.
People on COPS sign a waiver
on
Judges Junk Jailcam
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'm all for freedom of privacy and not humiliating people... but c'mon, what about COPS?
Believe it or not, everyone you have ever seen on COPS has signed a waiver giving the show the right to show their faces on TV. The producers give people $500 to entice them to do so, but ultimately it's their choice. So every drunken crack whore you've seen on that show has signed away their rights, which means COPS says nothing about the case in discussion here.
I think it was a perfectly ACCEPTABLE level of humiliation for prisoners.
RTFA. I know the conservatives hear "9th Circuit" and freak their shit like a rabid Pavlovian dog, but this wasn't about convicted felons, this was about people who were being booked and held. On top of that, this sherrif is widely known for his bullshit publicity-gaining antics.
But by all means, let's give the prisoners better accomidations that US army troops,
Blah blah blah blah blah. What year are you in? 1986? Christ, you sound like a commercial for the Reagan reelect campaign. Go watch Hill Street Blues and STFU.
I have been wondering lately if phsyically damaging these machines is not justified in a system that is supposed to cherish democracy to such a high degree. Civil disobedience is justified in some cases, and I believe that the use of unverifiable electronic voting machines with known vulnerabilities is just such a case.
Remember, Americans: Bring your voter registration card, and a sledgehammer for Diebold. They are stealing our freedom to vote, the very democracy over which so much blood has been spilled, and the corrupted political process is encouraging it via awarded contracts and almost silent acquiescence.
This crosses political affiliations and affects all Americans. I strongly believe that this must be stopped it by all means necessary or we will lose the ability to collectively affect the policies of our country, no matter how small your individual voice might be. This is zealous, without a doubt, but not all zealotry is bad. "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." And some things are too important to wait upon the justice system to work, even when it does. Sometimes men must take justice into their own hands.
I have an iPod, and have over a week's worth of music on it, all in MP3 format. Any device or program that can spit out MP3s is compatible with the iPod. There is no lock in.
This would be very handy to have on my Powerbook, but alas it seems no such beast exists. If it compiles under Linux, it shouldn't be too hard to do a straight port, even if it has to run under an X client instead of being a pretty Quartz app.
Course, if they had used SWT this wouldn't be an issue.
Sweet merciful crap I am sick and tired of people complaining about Ogg support. Nobody cares! It will not change the world! Quit your incessant whining you freaky person, get out, and find something more worthy of your time! Christ! It's not like there aren't millions of people being slaughtered in Sudan or something. But oh no, some cell phone doesn't support Ogg! Boo hoo it's criminal it's a tragedy why oh why can't they do things the right way woe is me woe is me.
Cuz nobody cares you ijit!
With the friends Ogg has it's going to suffer the same fate as the Amiga, and for similar reasons: their proponents are really irritating.
I think you are conflating two separate things. If we are talking about Earth going around the sun in an everyday manner, then yes, you can certainly (!) say that "It is truth that Earth goes around the sun." When you move into the context of a scientific conversation, though, you remove certanties from the conversation simply because of the nature of the beast.
True. My problem isn't with this specific instance, where the information really is new and sparse.
Then why did you indicate as much in your original post?
I have a problem with your philosophy that we can just never know. If you can't know, why try? Really, explain it to me.
Because you can reach a point of certainty that is useful in decision making. If I am reading you right you are saying that "Since we can't know with 100% certainty, what's the point?" Well, 99.9% certainty is a very useful thing, however rarely it is achieved.
The difference between 99.9% and 100% is frequently just a state of mind.
As an aside: there ARE some things we will never know, simply because of the physical makeup of the universe. We will never know what happens inside of a black hole, for instance, or how many steps great-great-great-great-grandfather Walking Tall took when he migrated from Alabama to Oklahoma. We can guess, but we will never know with certainty.
The statement "We can never really *know* anything" is more philosophical than practical, and while it may in fact be true it is not very useful.
Riddle me this, how can you be certain that nothing is certain? Or is there just a 99.9% chance that nothing is certain?
Again, you are conflating two separate contexts. On a practical level, I am certain that Earth revolves around the sun. In my daily speech I would not say things such as "tomorrow morning when the sun will probably rise." On a scientific level, however, I am only 99.9% certain. But were some advanced alien race to descend upon us and give us detailed and plausible reasons why Copernicus was, in fact, quite mistaken about the whole Earth going around the sun thing, I hope I would at least try and listen to them, skeptically to be sure, however much it might contradict my existing beliefs.
Does the Earth "probably" go around the sun? Is earthly matter "probably" composed of atoms?
Yup. Probably. 99.9% probably, but probably nonetheless.
So bullshit back at you AND you're a fucking idiot. You can't make assertions in science, or real life, really. Lessons learned from religion. Science is about probability. We can only make educated guesses what that probability is, whether it approaches certainty, impossibility, or somewhere in between.
he should say so clearly, and list his evidence.
Can't. Facts are rarely so clear that you can make assertions that are unchallengable, unassailable. Especially when you are dealing with geologic events that happened billions of years ago. "Based upon what we know now..." What we know tomorrow could change everything.
It appears that your ego can't handle the fact that your pathetic, temporary self won't KNOW things, and know them for certain, but thems the breaks. You might be too weak to admit your own infallibility, but good scientists aren't.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't put too much stock in CNN here. They're looking for a scandal to boost their numbers. Google is run by ethical managers and who employees many smart people. They've managed to make search profitable and been innovative along the way, building up a user base *and* income. So no, they're aren't a remannt of the dot-com era; they are, in fact, the opposite of much of that.
My point is that I was marginally inconvenienced, but it was not the end of the world. It cost me maybe 10 minutes of my life. How much of this is that Ted Kennedy doesn't like being treated like the masses?
Perhaps some. But perhaps some of it is that he has been made aware of how people are being treated, and doesn't like it. I don't either. Are you old enough to remember the Cold War at its height? It was the same kind of crap: band-aid measures typically undertaken out of a knee-jerk reaction to some scare, real or imagined, and it winds up doing little if any good. "Duck and cover", anyone?
Same thing here. America has gone batshit crazy over terrorism, and needs to settle down. Bringing attention to crap like this is good for us all.
Is that you? Nixon used every power at his disposal, from the FBI to the IRS to the CIA, in order to intimidate and even imprison his enemies. Look at what he did to Tim Leary: got him sentence to over 10 years in a federal prison for having, IIRC, less than two grams of marijuana in his car.
There were plenty of *allegations* made about Clinton and the IRS, but like 99.9% of the allegations made about him they turned out to be Dudge fodder and usually outright lies.
It's just you. Seriously, one guy has problems because he ends up on the watch list on a prank or a fuck up and everyone starts whining that America is a police state and how their civil liberties have been taken away.
You really think it's just one guy, or even just a few? You are willfully ignorant then. This kind of shit has been going on since 9/11, and it has only gotten worse.
Screw justice, though, right? We have terrrists to catch!
Because you, being a liberal, like the decision, you automatically assume that conservatives will not.
Not at all. I think that the right wing propagandists -- what most people think of when they think of "conservative", and are whose allies are currently in control of the reigns of power -- will remain silent on this issue because they fundamentally disagree with it, but can't say anything about it.
In fact, they will not mention it BECAUSE so many conservatives will agree with the decision. They want their listeners/viewers to hate the 9th Circuit, unthinkingly and immediately, and will report nothing that might lessen that hate.
So, nice try, but there is nothing anti-conservative about this ruling. In fact, being such a conservative, I applaud the decision.
Good, and so do I. You and your ideological allies aren't in control of the GOP, however. Rupert Murdoch and Sun Yung Moon, unfortunately, are.
-they (conservatives) would love to jump on this decision as more proof of how 'out of touch' the 9th circuit is: disagree I've yet to hear a conservative pundit blast the 9th circuit just randomly... the criticism is usually associated with a specific (or collection of) rulings
Of course you haven't heard random attacks. They're not dumb. They pick and choose their attacks carefully to build up the 9th Circuit boogeyman. The 9th is another in a long line of conservative enemies, such as Hillary Clinton and Jesse Jackson, who they use as foils to get their listeners excited and pumped up. They don't randomly attack, they carefully choose what they report to increase the apparent differences.
but somehow they must restrain from criticising the 9th, because "upset their faux populist image to come out so loudly in favor of the corporations that support them": strongly disagree You think that the movie/music/entertainment industry supports the conservatives in this country?
No, I do not, not for a second, and if I implied as much then I apologize for not communicating my point well. I think the corporate interests that prop up Limbaugh, "Cock" Hannity, et. al., and who would outlaw, destroy, or kill much of the Hollywood community given the chance are fascist media billionaires such as Rupert Murdoch, Sun Yung Moon, and Richard Mellon Scaife.
This case is fairly obscure anyway from a mainstream media perspective, but Limbaugh, et. al. tend to take special pains to notice anything the 9th does, what with them thar fedruhl judges legislatin from da bench and attackin our Christian heritage and whatnot.
In any event, good for Grokster and good for the EFF. Nice for them to come out on the winning side of a case every great once in a while. Makes me feel like my money isn't going completely to waste. Cripes, when was the last time the EFF won a case? Reno v. ACLU?
And before we start talking about insensitive PMs, the only example from the article that seemed in any way insensitive was the Arabic chanting from the Koran. And even that didn't sound too terrible, but I'm not religious so I have a hard time really understanding what's important and what isn't regarding that subject
If you're Muslim then I think you are pretty much required to take offense at everything you can related to the Koran. Sounds like the original developers made an honest mistake, but of course people freak their shit when their holy works are used "inappropriately."
Whatever. It's a book. I'm sure that much like the Bible its pages make for excellent rolling papers.
Because, given their reaction to Real, it's a logical deduction that Apple is LYING OUT THEIR ASS about "not making any money from iTunes music sales". If you think about it, it makes sense. Apple pockets about $0.35 out of every $0.99 track.
If you can prove $0.35 number then you should really call a securities attorney or the SEC, because that means that Apple has been lying to their shareholders, that their auditors are lying, and that in fact they are vastly more profitable on their music store than any of their competitors. Anyone who had evidence of this could make a ton of money. Makes me wonder why it hasn't happened already, actually.
Oh wait. It hasn't happened because you're wrong. That's a much simpler explanation. Occam wins again!
Not just Real, anyone should be able to market tunes for the iPod if they want. Just like anyone should be able to make 3rd party ink cartridges, and publish their own PS2 games.
Sure, but with some caveats. If the original creators of any of those products weren't assured that they would have a way to legally collect royalties from their R&D efforts, then they probably wouldn't spend as much time developing new products. But if, say, Sony knows that for each game sold they will be receiving a certain percentage of the profits, then they will be more likely to work on a game console. This is as it should be: they put the effort into development, having someone else freeload off of their efforts is neither fair nor beneficial for the market.
Ditto Apple here. They paid for the iPod's development, so it is their toy. They can license out it's underlying technologies should they choose to, but they by no means are obligated to allow a competitor access to their device for free (or pay, really, if they think it is in their best interests.
Besides, it's not like there aren't a gajillion different open source projects out there for the iPod. If Real were serious about this they'd just GPL their entire effort.
Do the Apple zealots think that this is the best way to approach this?
Just out of curiosity: what makes someone an Apple zealot? I use and enjoy Apple products. Am I a zealot?
Perhaps these Apple lovers have become so accustomed to vendor lock-in that they don't want any competition in the codecs available for this device?
If Apple were taking active steps to block and open codec such as MP3 (not really open, I know) or Ogg then I think more people would be up in arms and with good reason. But Real is a for-profit company attempting to put it's own closed and proprietary codec on another company's product. They haven't achieved marketplace success with their own hardware efforts, so they are attempting a backdoor means of getting a piece of the pie.
No one is fooled. Real is doing this for their bottom line and no other reason. This is not in and of itself a bad thing, but they are trying to convince people that this is a matter of civil rights. This "Power to the People" stuff is complete bullshit, and everyone knows it. There are plenty of open source add-ons available for the iPod; Apple has done nothing to discourage such developement. But there is no market pressure for the iPod to open up to more formats, especially not to proprietary ones like Real's.
Simply put: Real's disingenuousness is costing them.
Before they will get much sympathy in this battle they will need to either (a) open up .rm or (b) open up their music store to Mac users.
Of course I am stereotyping but Apple's success is based in their loyal, vocal, energetic community.
It has been my experience that rarely do product lines develop consumer loyalty unless they are of high quality. After using MS Windows for almost 20 years I finally broke down and bought a Mac, and I have to say that I can see good reasons that some people get excited about this machine. It's a a pleasure to work with.
Is Apple's success due to their loyal user base? Partially. But they also make well-engineered products that have succeeded in the marketplace on their own merits.
Apple is banking that proprietary is profitable. I'll guess we'll see if they are right.
They have been so far. Perhaps it is more accurate to say "we will see if they continue to be right."
"And since the eventual goal is to get laid the physical verbal interactions are kind of important."
I think that pretty much says everything we needed to know about you.
Which is what, exactly?
You're right that the social dynamics online are different, but you can't completely dismiss a manner of human interaction because it's different than what you're used to.
I don't. But I do think that some are better than others. When comparing Friendster to the real world, the real world wins hands down. Is this a 100% rule, applicable to all of humanity for all time? No. It's a generalization, and as such falls flat in the face of specific instances. But it is true, I believe, for the majority of the cases.
Of course, there's a certain irony in your comment coming from a Slashdot subscriber.
I don't pay for Slashdot in order to make friends, I pay because I would otherwise feel like a big leech.
Ok, I've had it with Friendster, Tribe, and all this social networking crap. Go to a bar, go to a park, hell go to a freaking CHURCH or something but if you want to make friends then for the love of Augusta Jane Chapin STEP AWAY FROM THE BLOODY COMPUTER. People are better grokked in person, and this virtual hooey is way overrated and ultimately unsatisfactory. If you're fat and ugly, go hang out with other fat and ugly people. Whatever you are comfortable with. But you just can NOT get the same social dynamics online as you do in the real world.
Why do you think people are such assholes online? You know, like me. Because the social dynamics are different and don't match reality. People don't have to be polite online, and you don't get to practice communications skills that make you successful in the real world.
And since the eventual goal is to get laid the physical verbal interactions are kind of important.
Having said that, this seems like an interesting technology, and doesn't seem as inherently annoying as Friendster. When the FAQ has stuff like this in it:
The false positive rate for Bloom filters is determined by the number of hashing functions, the size of the filter, and the number of entries in the filter, given by the approximate formula:
( 1 - e^(kn/m) )^k
It makes me go all warm and fuzzy.Me: In any case I couldn't imagine that it'd take more than half a day or so to do this in Java or Python.
You: perl -MMP3::Splitter -e 'mp3_split($_,{},[ rand(64800), 30 ], ...) for @ARGV' filename.mp3
I would like to take this opportunity to say that Perl guys are smartasses.
Because with your method you could miss everything at the beginning. If your initial random value is high, and you only increment it from there, you will miss a lot of data. And making the random value potentially negative for your example won't work either, because then you run the risk of overlapping clips.
Does anybody know of an existing program that can randomly (or pseudo-randomly; e.g., 30 sec every 10 min) and automatically sample short sequences from a day-long (18 hours) mp3 recording? What would it entail to develop such a program (for Windows)
10 a = rand number
20 b = a + 30 seconds
30 open MP3 with appropriate sound API, get sound between a and b
40 save a and b to a table so you don't use those values again
50 goto 10
Why does this seem absurdly simple to me? I think just about any modern language with a decent set of libraries will be able to handle this, if there isn't a shareware app out there already. In any case I couldn't imagine that it'd take more than half a day or so to do this in Java or Python.
I'm all for freedom of privacy and not humiliating people... but c'mon, what about COPS?
Believe it or not, everyone you have ever seen on COPS has signed a waiver giving the show the right to show their faces on TV. The producers give people $500 to entice them to do so, but ultimately it's their choice. So every drunken crack whore you've seen on that show has signed away their rights, which means COPS says nothing about the case in discussion here.
I think it was a perfectly ACCEPTABLE level of humiliation for prisoners.
RTFA. I know the conservatives hear "9th Circuit" and freak their shit like a rabid Pavlovian dog, but this wasn't about convicted felons, this was about people who were being booked and held. On top of that, this sherrif is widely known for his bullshit publicity-gaining antics.
But by all means, let's give the prisoners better accomidations that US army troops,
Blah blah blah blah blah. What year are you in? 1986? Christ, you sound like a commercial for the Reagan reelect campaign. Go watch Hill Street Blues and STFU.
I have been wondering lately if phsyically damaging these machines is not justified in a system that is supposed to cherish democracy to such a high degree. Civil disobedience is justified in some cases, and I believe that the use of unverifiable electronic voting machines with known vulnerabilities is just such a case.
Remember, Americans: Bring your voter registration card, and a sledgehammer for Diebold. They are stealing our freedom to vote, the very democracy over which so much blood has been spilled, and the corrupted political process is encouraging it via awarded contracts and almost silent acquiescence.
This crosses political affiliations and affects all Americans. I strongly believe that this must be stopped it by all means necessary or we will lose the ability to collectively affect the policies of our country, no matter how small your individual voice might be. This is zealous, without a doubt, but not all zealotry is bad. "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." And some things are too important to wait upon the justice system to work, even when it does. Sometimes men must take justice into their own hands.
Live free or die.
I have an iPod, and have over a week's worth of music on it, all in MP3 format. Any device or program that can spit out MP3s is compatible with the iPod. There is no lock in.
This would be very handy to have on my Powerbook, but alas it seems no such beast exists. If it compiles under Linux, it shouldn't be too hard to do a straight port, even if it has to run under an X client instead of being a pretty Quartz app.
Course, if they had used SWT this wouldn't be an issue.
Sweet merciful crap I am sick and tired of people complaining about Ogg support. Nobody cares! It will not change the world! Quit your incessant whining you freaky person, get out, and find something more worthy of your time! Christ! It's not like there aren't millions of people being slaughtered in Sudan or something. But oh no, some cell phone doesn't support Ogg! Boo hoo it's criminal it's a tragedy why oh why can't they do things the right way woe is me woe is me.
Cuz nobody cares you ijit!
With the friends Ogg has it's going to suffer the same fate as the Amiga, and for similar reasons: their proponents are really irritating.
I think you are conflating two separate things. If we are talking about Earth going around the sun in an everyday manner, then yes, you can certainly (!) say that "It is truth that Earth goes around the sun." When you move into the context of a scientific conversation, though, you remove certanties from the conversation simply because of the nature of the beast.
True. My problem isn't with this specific instance, where the information really is new and sparse.
Then why did you indicate as much in your original post?
I have a problem with your philosophy that we can just never know. If you can't know, why try? Really, explain it to me.
Because you can reach a point of certainty that is useful in decision making. If I am reading you right you are saying that "Since we can't know with 100% certainty, what's the point?" Well, 99.9% certainty is a very useful thing, however rarely it is achieved.
The difference between 99.9% and 100% is frequently just a state of mind.
As an aside: there ARE some things we will never know, simply because of the physical makeup of the universe. We will never know what happens inside of a black hole, for instance, or how many steps great-great-great-great-grandfather Walking Tall took when he migrated from Alabama to Oklahoma. We can guess, but we will never know with certainty.
The statement "We can never really *know* anything" is more philosophical than practical, and while it may in fact be true it is not very useful.
Riddle me this, how can you be certain that nothing is certain? Or is there just a 99.9% chance that nothing is certain?
Again, you are conflating two separate contexts. On a practical level, I am certain that Earth revolves around the sun. In my daily speech I would not say things such as "tomorrow morning when the sun will probably rise." On a scientific level, however, I am only 99.9% certain. But were some advanced alien race to descend upon us and give us detailed and plausible reasons why Copernicus was, in fact, quite mistaken about the whole Earth going around the sun thing, I hope I would at least try and listen to them, skeptically to be sure, however much it might contradict my existing beliefs.
Does the Earth "probably" go around the sun? Is earthly matter "probably" composed of atoms?
Yup. Probably. 99.9% probably, but probably nonetheless.
So bullshit back at you AND you're a fucking idiot. You can't make assertions in science, or real life, really. Lessons learned from religion. Science is about probability. We can only make educated guesses what that probability is, whether it approaches certainty, impossibility, or somewhere in between.
he should say so clearly, and list his evidence.
Can't. Facts are rarely so clear that you can make assertions that are unchallengable, unassailable. Especially when you are dealing with geologic events that happened billions of years ago. "Based upon what we know now..." What we know tomorrow could change everything.
It appears that your ego can't handle the fact that your pathetic, temporary self won't KNOW things, and know them for certain, but thems the breaks. You might be too weak to admit your own infallibility, but good scientists aren't.