I believe all of this. I've owned many cats in my life. (We have three now.) The story about the cat celebrating is particularly resounding. What amazes me is when "scientists" observe animals behaving in sophisticated ways and wonder what's going on.
> I did about 100 VHS tapes a year or two ago. I still have a bunch more to do in the coming year.
May I ask, what are you using to do the conversion, hardware & software-wise? I've been planning for a couple years to start archiving my own collection of VHS and cassette tapes. But other things keep delaying me, so I'm now in the enviable position of being able to learn from everyone else. The idea of using PAR2, for example, never occurred to me. Good one. Thanks.
I was going to amplify what you said... but you said it perfectly. Indeed, it's dismaying that so many "pro-freedom" (or maybe "pro-Democrat") commentators are seeing this as a good thing.
People! When someone with A LOT of money (like incumbents) says, "Sure - this great tool should be used by EVERYONE!," how can you not think they're setting it up so they _themselves_ can take advantage of it?
I'm beginning to think the only people that can write and get jokes like this are the stereotypical, jaded, cynical, Daily Show watching, The Onion reading, Simpsons quoting Gen X'ers like myself. And I base this conclusion on absolutely nothing.:)
I agree, and for no particular reason except that I can.
But really, in just the first 30 seconds scanning down the page I saw that graphic: "Difficulty of owning Windows vs. Difficulty to make this graph." I guess some people can't even take the time to LATPP (Look at the Pretty Pictures) and RTFC (Read the Funny Captions).
Say... I bet those are the same people who stand up and start to leave the movie theater as soon as the credits start....
You fool! Hoisting your lawnmower on your back?!? I invented a wheeled device that you put your lawnmower on to help you move it from one side of your lawn back to the other. Unfortunately, I can not describe it further until the patent is issued....
Absolutely not. This is a common sentiment, but these are two totally different problems. The major - and critical - difference is that voting is supposed to be anonymous. With online banking, commerce, etc., you have an audit trail (a monthly statement) and procedures to follow when there's a screw-up. Not so with voting.
ITunes let's you listen to 30 seconds of each song. Generally speaking I think that give you enough of the song to get a feeling if you're going to like it.
While I don't disagree with you, I'd like to point out that this attitude creates a "sound bite" mentality about music (and perhaps art in general). This puts artists who might develop an emotion or idea cleverly over the course of a 3-4 minute (or longer) song at a great disadvantage. (If it came out new today, would you buy Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" based on a 30-second clip?)
For another thing, the sound-bite mentality brings the "filler" concept down to the song level and helps grease the corporate wheels to keep putting out more crap. "If the chorus sounds really cool, just throw some filler in for the verses to pad it out." Doesn't this remind you of modern pop radio? I personally have several albums in my collection that I didn't like at all until I heard them in their entirety multiple times. Of course, it's been a long time since there have been many albums like that....
It reminds me of a museum charging for access to see a painting by letting you view 1/12 of the canvas "to let you see if you'd like it."
Not sure of the "reputation" of this site, but I found this article pretty interesting when I was psyching up to purchase a DVD burner.
Also, I found this article absolutely fascinating.
Trademarks are only valid for a limited set of things - you can't TM a word and claim domain over all uses of it.
That's right. Surely, anyone who successfully gained Access to trademark rights on common terms would have quite a Project ahead of them! They would need lawyers that Excel at trademark law to defend them. I doubt that any litigator could ever have the last Word on this issue; the Outlook would not be good. But a savvy legal Explorer could open a lot of Windows into to what goes on behind such strategies.
I wondered why Apple (Computer) didn't spin off another company with a different name to handle their music-related distribution. Seems that would have solved the problem.
Like it says in the article, "What were they [Apple computer] thinking?" Did their lawyers just forget???
Yes - let's not forget about the creators of legitimate content. Audio/video prep uses LOTS lots of space on digital workstations.
Kind of cool when you think that further lowering the price curve might encourage even more people to create their own content. (For better or worse...)
Even given that Slashdot may not be the best or most appropriate place to seek Windows configuration advice, do you really think the sarcastic and insulting posts here would convince anyone of the professionalism and helpfulness of the Linux community?
Just assume for argument's sake that the original poster is a relative newbie (certainly to Slashdot), a number of you may have just given him his first taste of Open Source support. Nice job!
To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, if you can't say something nice, then the least you can do is to shut up!
I didn't see this mentioned in the article or in the comments here, but I'd bet one of Munich's "strategic" considerations was the overhead in managing license compliance. Particularly with MS's concession to unbundle MS Word for some machines. Watch those savings go down the tubes when the MS lawyers come by and say, "So, can you prove you have installed only MS Word on X thousand machines?"
Assuring license compliance on desktops is a frickin' nightmare, and the lack of that overhead is a major advantage of open source software.
(And that's not even considering the ridiculousness of the Microsoft position that basically says, "We want your business so much we're going to let you NOT buy some of our software that you don't need! Yes, normally, we make everyone buy this whether they need it or not, but because we pride ourselves on being customer-driven, we will actually break our own rules and not sell you something you don't want!") Sheez. GMAB. (Give Me A Break)
I recall reading that in (South) Korea, SPAM is so highly prized that it's not uncommon for a guy to present a 12-can gift-pack to the parents of a girl he's courting.
No, you are confusing recording engineers with Producers. Recording engineers work closely with the equipment, not the talent. The producer is the one with his fat finger on the talkback. Yes, sometimes the roles combine, but not always.
Well - I won't disagree with you. We could debate a while where producer ends and engineer begins, but, as you said, the roles combine. There doesn't seem any sense trying to etch out such a fuzzy line. I just meant to clarify that an engineer is generally much more than a button-pusher. The producer may know the talent and the kind of sound s/he wants, but it's the engineer's job to translate that into reality. There's a lot of technology to understand now, and that's generally the engineers' role.
And yes, Dark Side was a confluence of many fortuitous happenings, from the moods of the band members and the writing/compositions it inspired, to advancements in technology.
Well, I think I've taken this thread far enough off topic now. What's next...????
All the engineer does is place mics, thread machines, and push buttons.
Hah! That is a troll, right? Or sarcasm? Recording engineers will tell you that the art of placing mics, and knowing which mics to pick in the first place is the most important thing they do to get a particular sound on tape (or disk).
Many might concede that their knowlege of what processing to use (preamps, EQ, reverb, delay, even knowing how loud to record something to get tape distortion) is equally important.
And almost all good engineers will tell you that *the* most important thing they do is work with the artist to capture their best performances -- even if that means knowing to roll tape when the artist thinks that no tape is rolling.
And that's just the recording engineers; the mixing engineers (who may be the same people) have to have a whole bunch of other talents and tricks up their sleeves.
My whole point here is that being a great (not just good, but great) audio engineer requires either a lot of talent, or a lot of experience, or some combination of both.
And my point in making that point is that a lot of the benefit to listeners of this talent and experience - namely, superb sound - gets lost in ACC/MP3/OGG/ATRAC compressed formats. Hell, a lot of it gets lost in CD-quality 44KHz/16-bit digital. That's why pros are moving to higher bitrate formats.
As much I want to see digital distribution of music succeed, I really don't want it to blast us back to the days of cassette tape as far as audio fidelity goes.
And finally, my mention of Alan Parsons and DSotM was partially flippant, and partially a reminder that for at least 20 years, people considered that album a landmark in recording techniques. Some Pink Floyd biographers think it stayed on the charts as long as it did because people bought new (vinyl) copies every time they bought an upgraded stereo system, to demo it without pops and ticks. (Sales of the album declined as CDs became more established.) I doubt that DSotM, or Michael Jackson's Thriller, for that matter, would have had the impact they did if they had been reduced to a lossy-compressed digital bitstream before distribution. OTOH, I own many remarkably well-recorded (and musically good) albums that didn't sell well at all, so I think you're probably right on that a very small percentage of people even care.
OK - I stand corrected. I misread the heart of the earlier criticism which was of the *linear* metering. And I compounded the issue by implying that I was struggling with this as a PT user when in fact I am using MOTU's DP and AudioWave, and Bias Peak LE. (And the metering on those products gives me fits.)
Thanks for your explanation. I learned something from it.
I haven't tried the service. Can you download full CD-quality files or are all the downloads MP3's?
MP3's are good for many things, but many audiophiles will want CD-quality (or better). Granted, that's probably less than 10% of the population, so Apple's business plan may prove to be quite sound. (Pun unintended.) I hope so.
But - One of my persistent worries is that while technology makes higher and higher recording quality available, the distribution medium will be predominently lossy-compressed files. Great for independent artists working on a tight budget, trying to get their names out there. It's not good for the professional recording engineers or the pro equipment manufacturers who really push the state of the art in quality.
-- Alan Parsons got paid scale for his engineering work on "Dark Side of the Moon."
Nope, I don't buy that either. That's not the fault of Pro Tools per se. The user/engineer has to learn how to read their meters. Digital meters don't work like VU meters. I say this as someone who is still trying to get the hang of this myself. I've never heard a recording engineer being praised for their great eyes. It's their ears that make the music. That - and mastering the tools of their trade.
Ribbon mics don't work like contact mics. They're both useful, though, and both can be used to make great sounds in the right circumstance. Ditto for PT vs. any other recording technology.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe all of this. I've owned many cats in my life. (We have three now.) The story about the cat celebrating is particularly resounding. What amazes me is when "scientists" observe animals behaving in sophisticated ways and wonder what's going on.
Enjoy your family... and the cats.
Bravo! This was great!
> I did about 100 VHS tapes a year or two ago. I still have a bunch more to do in the coming year.
May I ask, what are you using to do the conversion, hardware & software-wise? I've been planning for a couple years to start archiving my own collection of VHS and cassette tapes. But other things keep delaying me, so I'm now in the enviable position of being able to learn from everyone else. The idea of using PAR2, for example, never occurred to me. Good one. Thanks.
Never. The HD DVD format won't support Blu movies. (Cymbal crash.)
I was going to amplify what you said... but you said it perfectly. Indeed, it's dismaying that so many "pro-freedom" (or maybe "pro-Democrat") commentators are seeing this as a good thing.
People! When someone with A LOT of money (like incumbents) says, "Sure - this great tool should be used by EVERYONE!," how can you not think they're setting it up so they _themselves_ can take advantage of it?
I'm beginning to think the only people that can write and get jokes like this are the stereotypical, jaded, cynical, Daily Show watching, The Onion reading, Simpsons quoting Gen X'ers like myself. And I base this conclusion on absolutely nothing. :)
I agree, and for no particular reason except that I can.
But really, in just the first 30 seconds scanning down the page I saw that graphic: "Difficulty of owning Windows vs. Difficulty to make this graph." I guess some people can't even take the time to LATPP (Look at the Pretty Pictures) and RTFC (Read the Funny Captions).
Say... I bet those are the same people who stand up and start to leave the movie theater as soon as the credits start....
You fool! Hoisting your lawnmower on your back?!? I invented a wheeled device that you put your lawnmower on to help you move it from one side of your lawn back to the other. Unfortunately, I can not describe it further until the patent is issued....
Which is why Longhorn PCs will also double as the Easy-Bake Ovens (TM) of the 21st Century. Educational fun for the whole family!
Yes... I'm patenting this idea. (Does anyone know a good patent lawyer? TIA.)
Absolutely not. This is a common sentiment, but these are two totally different problems. The major - and critical - difference is that voting is supposed to be anonymous. With online banking, commerce, etc., you have an audit trail (a monthly statement) and procedures to follow when there's a screw-up. Not so with voting.
ITunes let's you listen to 30 seconds of each song. Generally speaking I think that give you enough of the song to get a feeling if you're going to like it.
While I don't disagree with you, I'd like to point out that this attitude creates a "sound bite" mentality about music (and perhaps art in general). This puts artists who might develop an emotion or idea cleverly over the course of a 3-4 minute (or longer) song at a great disadvantage. (If it came out new today, would you buy Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" based on a 30-second clip?)
For another thing, the sound-bite mentality brings the "filler" concept down to the song level and helps grease the corporate wheels to keep putting out more crap. "If the chorus sounds really cool, just throw some filler in for the verses to pad it out." Doesn't this remind you of modern pop radio? I personally have several albums in my collection that I didn't like at all until I heard them in their entirety multiple times. Of course, it's been a long time since there have been many albums like that....
It reminds me of a museum charging for access to see a painting by letting you view 1/12 of the canvas "to let you see if you'd like it."
>> "This stereo record can not be played on old tin boxes no matter what they are fitted with."
Hey! This sounds familiar. I've seen this on the back of one of the old LPs in my collection. Now which one is it??? TIA!
Getting a sustainable revenue channel by scamming the soft-of-the-brain is harder than it looks.
Yes, but if you find a method to do so, you must patent it immediately!
See? It looks like common business sense now, doesn't it!!
Not sure of the "reputation" of this site, but I found this article pretty interesting when I was psyching up to purchase a DVD burner. Also, I found this article absolutely fascinating.
Trademarks are only valid for a limited set of things - you can't TM a word and claim domain over all uses of it.
That's right. Surely, anyone who successfully gained Access to trademark rights on common terms would have quite a Project ahead of them! They would need lawyers that Excel at trademark law to defend them. I doubt that any litigator could ever have the last Word on this issue; the Outlook would not be good. But a savvy legal Explorer could open a lot of Windows into to what goes on behind such strategies.
I wondered why Apple (Computer) didn't spin off another company with a different name to handle their music-related distribution. Seems that would have solved the problem.
Like it says in the article, "What were they [Apple computer] thinking?" Did their lawyers just forget???
Yes - let's not forget about the creators of legitimate content. Audio/video prep uses LOTS lots of space on digital workstations.
Kind of cool when you think that further lowering the price curve might encourage even more people to create their own content. (For better or worse...)
Even given that Slashdot may not be the best or most appropriate place to seek Windows configuration advice, do you really think the sarcastic and insulting posts here would convince anyone of the professionalism and helpfulness of the Linux community?
Just assume for argument's sake that the original poster is a relative newbie (certainly to Slashdot), a number of you may have just given him his first taste of Open Source support. Nice job!
To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, if you can't say something nice, then the least you can do is to shut up!
I didn't see this mentioned in the article or in the comments here, but I'd bet one of Munich's "strategic" considerations was the overhead in managing license compliance. Particularly with MS's concession to unbundle MS Word for some machines. Watch those savings go down the tubes when the MS lawyers come by and say, "So, can you prove you have installed only MS Word on X thousand machines?"
Assuring license compliance on desktops is a frickin' nightmare, and the lack of that overhead is a major advantage of open source software.
(And that's not even considering the ridiculousness of the Microsoft position that basically says, "We want your business so much we're going to let you NOT buy some of our software that you don't need! Yes, normally, we make everyone buy this whether they need it or not, but because we pride ourselves on being customer-driven, we will actually break our own rules and not sell you something you don't want!") Sheez. GMAB. (Give Me A Break)
I recall reading that in (South) Korea, SPAM is so highly prized that it's not uncommon for a guy to present a 12-can gift-pack to the parents of a girl he's courting.
Well spoken.
Really.
No sarcasm intended.
-jmk
No, you are confusing recording engineers with Producers. Recording engineers work closely with the equipment, not the talent. The producer is the one with his fat finger on the talkback. Yes, sometimes the roles combine, but not always.
Well - I won't disagree with you. We could debate a while where producer ends and engineer begins, but, as you said, the roles combine. There doesn't seem any sense trying to etch out such a fuzzy line. I just meant to clarify that an engineer is generally much more than a button-pusher. The producer may know the talent and the kind of sound s/he wants, but it's the engineer's job to translate that into reality. There's a lot of technology to understand now, and that's generally the engineers' role.
And yes, Dark Side was a confluence of many fortuitous happenings, from the moods of the band members and the writing/compositions it inspired, to advancements in technology.
Well, I think I've taken this thread far enough off topic now. What's next...????
All the engineer does is place mics, thread machines, and push buttons.
Hah! That is a troll, right? Or sarcasm? Recording engineers will tell you that the art of placing mics, and knowing which mics to pick in the first place is the most important thing they do to get a particular sound on tape (or disk).
Many might concede that their knowlege of what processing to use (preamps, EQ, reverb, delay, even knowing how loud to record something to get tape distortion) is equally important. And almost all good engineers will tell you that *the* most important thing they do is work with the artist to capture their best performances -- even if that means knowing to roll tape when the artist thinks that no tape is rolling.
And that's just the recording engineers; the mixing engineers (who may be the same people) have to have a whole bunch of other talents and tricks up their sleeves.
My whole point here is that being a great (not just good, but great) audio engineer requires either a lot of talent, or a lot of experience, or some combination of both.
And my point in making that point is that a lot of the benefit to listeners of this talent and experience - namely, superb sound - gets lost in ACC/MP3/OGG/ATRAC compressed formats. Hell, a lot of it gets lost in CD-quality 44KHz/16-bit digital. That's why pros are moving to higher bitrate formats. As much I want to see digital distribution of music succeed, I really don't want it to blast us back to the days of cassette tape as far as audio fidelity goes.
And finally, my mention of Alan Parsons and DSotM was partially flippant, and partially a reminder that for at least 20 years, people considered that album a landmark in recording techniques. Some Pink Floyd biographers think it stayed on the charts as long as it did because people bought new (vinyl) copies every time they bought an upgraded stereo system, to demo it without pops and ticks. (Sales of the album declined as CDs became more established.) I doubt that DSotM, or Michael Jackson's Thriller, for that matter, would have had the impact they did if they had been reduced to a lossy-compressed digital bitstream before distribution. OTOH, I own many remarkably well-recorded (and musically good) albums that didn't sell well at all, so I think you're probably right on that a very small percentage of people even care.
But I'm one of them so, hey, I gotta speak up.
Sorry, but I'm outta sigs.
OK - I stand corrected. I misread the heart of the earlier criticism which was of the *linear* metering. And I compounded the issue by implying that I was struggling with this as a PT user when in fact I am using MOTU's DP and AudioWave, and Bias Peak LE. (And the metering on those products gives me fits.)
Thanks for your explanation. I learned something from it.
So - can I mod down my own original post?
A question for the Judge -
I haven't tried the service. Can you download full CD-quality files or are all the downloads MP3's?
MP3's are good for many things, but many audiophiles will want CD-quality (or better). Granted, that's probably less than 10% of the population, so Apple's business plan may prove to be quite sound. (Pun unintended.) I hope so.
But - One of my persistent worries is that while technology makes higher and higher recording quality available, the distribution medium will be predominently lossy-compressed files. Great for independent artists working on a tight budget, trying to get their names out there. It's not good for the professional recording engineers or the pro equipment manufacturers who really push the state of the art in quality.
--
Alan Parsons got paid scale for his engineering work on "Dark Side of the Moon."
Nope, I don't buy that either. That's not the fault of Pro Tools per se. The user/engineer has to learn how to read their meters. Digital meters don't work like VU meters. I say this as someone who is still trying to get the hang of this myself. I've never heard a recording engineer being praised for their great eyes. It's their ears that make the music. That - and mastering the tools of their trade.
Ribbon mics don't work like contact mics. They're both useful, though, and both can be used to make great sounds in the right circumstance. Ditto for PT vs. any other recording technology.