To demonstrate the difference between a deflagration (the slow combustion you get in your auto engine or a pulsejet) and detonation (the rapid combusiton that occurs in a PDE) I like to draw the following comparison.
1. Take a can of gasoline and pour a trail on the ground as you walk along. That trail might end up being 20-30 yards long.
Above that trail there is a stoichiometric mixture (ie: a mixture capable of burning) of gasoline vapor and air -- just as you'd find inside an engine.
Now light one end of the trail and watch how long it takes for the flame to travel along to the far end.
It actually takes several seconds. That's the speed of a flame-front during deflagration.
2. Now take a very long piece of cordite or some other "high explosive" and lay it along the ground for some distance.
Then place a detonator at one end, stand well back and energize it.
The entire length of the explosive will appear to explode at once. The shockwave that propogates the explosion down the length of explosive material will travel far to quickly for you to see. Instead of taking several seconds to travel just 20-30 yards, the detonation will travel over a mile per SECOND or faster.
That's the difference in speed between deflagration and detonation.
But there's one other very important difference:
If you pour a gallon of gasoline out onto the ground and light it it will go "woof" (just like a dog:-).
You can safely stand within just a few yards of such a deflagration without fear of being harmed.
However, if you were to *detonate* (rather than deflagrate) that same amount of gasoline it would blow you right into the middle of next week and further.
With a detonation, all the available energy is released in a very tiny fraction of a second and this generates huge pressures (thus huge thrust).
With deflagration, the energy is released far more gradually so the pressures are lower.
What's more, because deflagration is such a slow process, when the fuel is burnt inside an engine, there's far more time for the heat of combustion to be transfered to the engine itself. That means the engine will require more cooling and a greater percentage of the fuel's energy will be wasted as radiated heat rather than in producing work.
I hope that clarifies the key differences between deflagration and detonation -- and goes some way to explaining why a PDE could provide greater efficiencies than an engine that simply "burns" its fuel through deflagration.
I don't think you'll *ever* see a PDE in use on a passenger jet -- mainly because of the noise and vibration problem.
When a PDE fires it doesn't just make a loud noise, it produces a train of supersonic shock waves that transfer vastly more energy than a regular acoustic (sound) wave.
Standing in reasonable proximity (10 yards or so) of a large (but conventional) pulsejet will give you a really bad headache even if you're wearing hearing protection -- because the amplitude of the acoustic wave generated is so great that it hammers your skull and your body.
It really surprises a lot of people when I demonstrate a very large pulsejet to them. They say that they feel it right to the core of their body and, despite using grade 5 hearing protection, their ears ring afterwards.
Now multiply that by an order of magnitude (as is the case with a PDE) and you find that anyone within spitting distance will suffer actual physical harm consisting (at worst) damage to internal organs and (at best) concussion and damage to the inner ear as the shockwaves bash on your skull like a ball-peen hammer.
I seem to recall the article mentioning that the shockwaves from the demo engine were still causing discomfort after passing through a concrete barrier?
And, to be quite honest, I have to say that I don't think the engine attached to the Long-EZ and shown running in the video was actually producing true detonations at all.
Now tell me how many airline passengers will pay good money to ride on a jackhammer, even if it is a supersonic jackhammer.
I believe the real market for PDEs is unmanned aerial vehicles (including missiles) and as the airbreathing stage of LEO vehicles used for scientific or military purposes.
Bruce's pulse jets are very low-tech, deflagration engines
Not strictly true. Although simple, the X-Jet design is not really "very low-tech" -- a lot of time and money has been invested in analysing a phenomenon called "high magnitude combustion" which, while not "detonation" still provides combustion efficiencies almost three times higher than the deflagration that occurs in a conventional pulsejet.
Whereas the flame-front in a normal pulsejet travels at just a few tens of meters per second, HMC occurs with a flame-front that travels at the speed of sound in the air/fuel mixture.
While this is still well short of the Mach 5-6 flamefront that is produced in a PDE, the X-Jet using HMC is an engine that can be produced now in commercial quantities and with power to weight ratios that make it an extremely viable source of propulsion for a wide range of flying craft.
The other advantage is that it can be manufactured at a much lower cost than a PDE and without many of the other problems.
When I was in the USA last month, a surprising number of people admitted to me that they were very concerned about the way their civil rights and liberties were being eroded in the name of the war against terrorism.
The same people also told me however, that they would not go on the record with their comments because they feared being labeled unpatriotic.
It seems that issue of patriotism has been raised to such importance in the USA that the government is now able to use it as an effective tool to silence any anti-government (pro constitution) sentiment by the people.
It's about time US citizens woke up and realised that they've been suffering the "thin end of the wedge" for some time now and if they don't remind the government (in a non violent manner) that they are elected to SERVE and not to rule then a powderkeg situation will result.
Surely the USA can learn from its own history -- doesn't anyone remember (or care to remember) the McCarthy years? Replace "communists" with "terrorists" and you'll find that, 50 years on, there's very little difference.
My money is still on the Rutan boys and their Scaled Composites entry.
They're the only ones who have shown credible progress in respect to actually getting a craft flying towards the heavens. Most of the other X-Prize entrants are either playing with models or dreaming:-)
And not only will such a cannon hurl its projectile a long distance to the target -- it will also hurl your metal fillings, belt-buckle, wrist-watch (probably with hand still attached) and any other nearby electrical conductors as well;-)
It turns out that the real reason for the White House no longer accepting email to president@whitehouse.gov is that Bush's aides began noticing some worrying things about their charge.
It seems he'd been spending quite a bit of time reading all his email and had been receiving a large number of packages delivered in plain brown wrapping.
Turns out that the Prez now has a 32-foot-long penis, breasts the size of Dolly Parton's, has lost 399lbs of weight without exercising or dieting and is now awaiting the delivery of TWENTY FIVE MILLION US DOLLARS in unclaimed bullion from a secret fund in Nigeria.
Not only that, but he's also talking about quitting the presidency because he's been told that you can make more money stuffing envelopes just a few hours a day from home.
A year or so ago we got a new clothes dryer and my wife gave me the job of connecting it to the existing ducting that exhausts the dryer air from the laundry to the outside world.
I sat down for a while and contemplated how I might make up an adapter flange to join the old ducting (4 inch diameter) to the new dryer (3.5" diameter).
After several hours walking around the workshop checking to see if I had enough metal and gas to weld up a flange, I spied the obvious -- my roll of duct tape.
Suffice to say that's the first (and it'll probably be the last) time I've ever used duct tape for taping up ducting.
Most of the time I use it to hold the gaping wounds together so they don't bleed to bad after a day in teh workshop. (Why are so many tools so sharp?:-)
For example, I uncovered a very significant security flaw in the online banking system of a local bank.
It took me some time to determine the scope, cause and effect of the problem -- and my time is money.
I then contacted the bank I advised them that they had a problem which, if not fixed, would almost certainly be picked up by others -- some of who might not be so benign.
I offered to hand over the results of all my work in return for payment for the time I'd spent (at my normal hourly rate).
They agreed and were most satisfied with the transaction -- since it most likely saved them a small (or large) fortune.
Was I blackmailing the bank?
After all, I wasn't about to hand over the results of my investigation without payment.
No, of course it wasn't blackmail. It was just the same as a plumber saying "I won't fix your toilet unless you pay me."
Of course there was no "threat" involved in my offer -- although if they'd chosen not to pay and fix the problem I may have informed the media that there was *a* problem (customers surely had a right to know if it wasn't going to be fixed)
In the Xbox case, Microsoft were offered a business transaction. The price would have been a signed version of Linux for the Xbox in return for the chance to close off the vulnerability and delay public awareness that it existed.
Clearly Microsoft decided that the price was too high -- after all, they've got to pay that building full of lawyers whether they're actually suing people or not so why not just resort to legal action instead?
This shouldn't be aloud
on
dB Drag Racing
·
· Score: 0, Troll
(no the subject isn't a spelling error -- it's a pun!).
I have no idea why anyone would want to turn their vehicle into the equivalent of an acousticaly driven blender.
"take one nerdy noise-fanatic with half a brain but a fully loaded credit card. Add a 5 GW audio system and mix well in the confined space of an autombile. Now pour the gelatinous mass this produces into molds and allow to set for 4 hours. Yes folks, you to can make your own geek mousse."
Oh that's smart (NOT)... encourage the lunatic fringe to send the guy offensive emails so that the stories Microsoft told him about Linux users being a bunch of childish fools gains credibility.
Let's act like grown-ups here and realise that although the company's attitude may be somewhat lacking, they are within their legal right to do what they're doing whether others like it or not.
Remember, they're not the only supplier in town and if they won't do the job, there will be others who will.
Mind you, as has been stated, it's rather nice of them to turn an otherwise unnoteworthy transaction into an item of important news. Sure beats paying for advertising and you've got to admire those who use smart (spam-free) marketing tactics!
You bet SMS has a very high profit margin. However, it seems that Vodafone in Australia are about to change their voice-calling plans because they want to bump up their SMS profits even more!
Unless a guarantee was made that these CDs would work in his car CD player (which there may have been, I don't know), this guy really has no room to complain. Companies don't have an obligation to make products that suit you perfectly, you know
I disagree.
Consumers buying a disk that looks like a CD, smells like a CD and might reasonably be expected to perform like a CD, have the right to also expect that that disk will play in any machine that carries the official Compact Disc logo -- that's what standards are all about.
The fact that the music industry has deviated from the standard, yet hardly go out of their way to explain that customers are no longer buying a Compact Disc, is deceptive business practice -- something most countries' consumer laws consider to be an illegal act.
If it's good enough for a pack of cigarettes to carry a large, obvious warning, why can't music disks be tagged in the same way by law. The current fine print that says "Enhanced Audio Disk" or whatever just doesn't cut it.
Re:Obligatory Blackadder reference
on
Isn't It Ironic?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
How ironic that this is definition is actually valid and in the dictionary.
Check the Websters Unabridged Dictionary definition here.
But ice = spent rocket fuel, where are you going to get the energy to:
a) melt the ice into water b) split the water into H2 + O ??
Don't get too excited about solar power, Mars is a long way from the sun and existing solar panel technology is heavy, bulky and relatively low-powered. You'd need to take tons of them to Mars to make any reasonable amount of water into rocketfuel by the time you were ready to go home.
Come on, let's be honest about who's to blame for high CD prices -- and spam for that matter...
It's the hundreds of millions of people who are stupid enough to pay the asking price or (in the case of spam) buy the products being advertised.
CDs are priced on a "what the market will bear" basis rather than a cost-plus one.
So long as enough people continue to pay the outrageous prices demanded by the RIAA's members, they'll keep charging those prices.
So long as people keep buying stuff advertised by spammers, those spammers will keep filling our mailboxes with their crap.
No amount of legislation, bitching, moaning or other tactics will help very much.
What's needed is public education that will show those dorks who fork out money for overpriced CDs or who buy from spammers that they are the sole cause of these problems.
As has been pointed out by others -- if everyone walked out of their local music store empty handed after telling the sales-clerk that the prices were too high, the RIAA's members would have no option but to drop the price of their products.
Likewise, if nobody spent one red cent on the products, services and scams touted by spammers, the flood of bulk email would soon dry up.
Unfortunately, it seems that stupid people are breeding a lot more quickly than smart people -- and the low-IQ gene seems to be a dominant one.
As a result, people continue to buy over-priced CDs filled with crappy formulaic "manufactured" music -- and they keep trying new ways of enlarging their penises, breasts or bank accounts.
Last month I forked out hard cash to buy two genuine, factory-labeled DVDs:
A Clockwork Orange
Harold and Maude
I paid money for these movies because they're worth it -- both are classics and far from the current formulaic run of the mill dross that Hollywood is churning out these days.
Would I pay good money to buy a legal (or even bootleg) copy of a Madona or J'Lo movie? Hell no!
The same goes with music. Offer me good quality content at a reasonable price and I'll gladly part with my money.
Offer me crappy content at a rip-off price, bolstered by "in your face" marketing and my wallet will stay firmly in my pocket.
So why can't other people spot the reason that sales are falling???
You've got to wonder what all these Federal Justice employees do with their days.
Before I started my low-cost cruise missile project, I emailed the FBI and the relevant defense program, letting them know what I planned to do, offering to take on board any suggestions they might have and making my objectives quite clear.
I got no response at all, save an automated acknowedgement from the FBI.
After the project captured the media's attention and got broadcast around the world, the authorities stated that they weren't happy and that my actions were "unhelpful."
Well excuse me! Don't these people read their damned email? If they have a problem with what I'm doing why didn't they simply contact me in the several weeks between when I notified them and when the media picked up the story?
However, in the wake of the media-coverage and the authorities' apparent dissatisfaction with what I was doing, I sent a follow-up email to the FBI (using the contact form on their website) and the relevant defense agency.
Guess what -- still no response.
Has a stack of Federal donuts fallen over and crushed everyone responsible for dealing with incoming email or something???? Or maybe it's just easier to moan about things than actually do something about them.
For several years now, I've been pushing for an international treaty to provide a unified legal front to fight spam. Such a treaty could simply be modelled along the same lines as the the Berne Convention, providing a basic, consistent legislative platform common to all member nations.
If the Berne Convention can work for copyright issues, why can't a similar vehicle work for spam?
The biggest problem spamfighters have right now is that there is no inter-jurisdictional authority to chase and prosecute spammers. A convention would provide this much-needed ability to enforce anti-spam laws across borders.
The recording industry claims that CD sales have plummeted in recent times...
Of course they have -- but it's not because people are pirating CDs.
It's because the recording industry no longer makes CDs -- only these "enhanced" disks which no longer qualify for the name CD nor the Compact Disk logo.
So you see -- they're not lying, just being very deceptive!
Slashdot Mirror
To demonstrate the difference between a deflagration (the slow combustion you get in your auto engine or a pulsejet) and detonation (the rapid combusiton that occurs in a PDE) I like to draw the following comparison.
:-).
1. Take a can of gasoline and pour a trail on the ground as you walk along. That trail might end up being 20-30 yards long.
Above that trail there is a stoichiometric mixture (ie: a mixture capable of burning) of gasoline vapor and air -- just as you'd find inside an engine.
Now light one end of the trail and watch how long it takes for the flame to travel along to the far end.
It actually takes several seconds. That's the speed of a flame-front during deflagration.
2. Now take a very long piece of cordite or some other "high explosive" and lay it along the ground for some distance.
Then place a detonator at one end, stand well back and energize it.
The entire length of the explosive will appear to explode at once. The shockwave that propogates the explosion down the length of explosive material will travel far to quickly for you to see. Instead of taking several seconds to travel just 20-30 yards, the detonation will travel over a mile per SECOND or faster.
That's the difference in speed between deflagration and detonation.
But there's one other very important difference:
If you pour a gallon of gasoline out onto the ground and light it it will go "woof" (just like a dog
You can safely stand within just a few yards of such a deflagration without fear of being harmed.
However, if you were to *detonate* (rather than deflagrate) that same amount of gasoline it would blow you right into the middle of next week and further.
With a detonation, all the available energy is released in a very tiny fraction of a second and this generates huge pressures (thus huge thrust).
With deflagration, the energy is released far more gradually so the pressures are lower.
What's more, because deflagration is such a slow process, when the fuel is burnt inside an engine, there's far more time for the heat of combustion to be transfered to the engine itself. That means the engine will require more cooling and a greater percentage of the fuel's energy will be wasted as radiated heat rather than in producing work.
I hope that clarifies the key differences between deflagration and detonation -- and goes some way to explaining why a PDE could provide greater efficiencies than an engine that simply "burns" its fuel through deflagration.
I don't think you'll *ever* see a PDE in use on a passenger jet -- mainly because of the noise and vibration problem.
When a PDE fires it doesn't just make a loud noise, it produces a train of supersonic shock waves that transfer vastly more energy than a regular acoustic (sound) wave.
Standing in reasonable proximity (10 yards or so) of a large (but conventional) pulsejet will give you a really bad headache even if you're wearing hearing protection -- because the amplitude of the acoustic wave generated is so great that it hammers your skull and your body.
It really surprises a lot of people when I demonstrate a very large pulsejet to them. They say that they feel it right to the core of their body and, despite using grade 5 hearing protection, their ears ring afterwards.
Now multiply that by an order of magnitude (as is the case with a PDE) and you find that anyone within spitting distance will suffer actual physical harm consisting (at worst) damage to internal organs and (at best) concussion and damage to the inner ear as the shockwaves bash on your skull like a ball-peen hammer.
I seem to recall the article mentioning that the shockwaves from the demo engine were still causing discomfort after passing through a concrete barrier?
And, to be quite honest, I have to say that I don't think the engine attached to the Long-EZ and shown running in the video was actually producing true detonations at all.
Now tell me how many airline passengers will pay good money to ride on a jackhammer, even if it is a supersonic jackhammer.
I believe the real market for PDEs is unmanned aerial vehicles (including missiles) and as the airbreathing stage of LEO vehicles used for scientific or military purposes.
Actually, the spark plug is only used to start the engine. Once it has begun running there is no need for any external ignition system.
Check out this page for more information about the operating cycle of a pulsejet engine.
No, we're not talking about the simple tube jets, we're talking about the XJet engine which is a somewhat more sophisticated design.
Bruce's pulse jets are very low-tech, deflagration engines
Not strictly true. Although simple, the X-Jet design is not really "very low-tech" -- a lot of time and money has been invested in analysing a phenomenon called "high magnitude combustion" which, while not "detonation" still provides combustion efficiencies almost three times higher than the deflagration that occurs in a conventional pulsejet.
Whereas the flame-front in a normal pulsejet travels at just a few tens of meters per second, HMC occurs with a flame-front that travels at the speed of sound in the air/fuel mixture.
While this is still well short of the Mach 5-6 flamefront that is produced in a PDE, the X-Jet using HMC is an engine that can be produced now in commercial quantities and with power to weight ratios that make it an extremely viable source of propulsion for a wide range of flying craft.
The other advantage is that it can be manufactured at a much lower cost than a PDE and without many of the other problems.
When I was in the USA last month, a surprising number of people admitted to me that they were very concerned about the way their civil rights and liberties were being eroded in the name of the war against terrorism.
The same people also told me however, that they would not go on the record with their comments because they feared being labeled unpatriotic.
It seems that issue of patriotism has been raised to such importance in the USA that the government is now able to use it as an effective tool to silence any anti-government (pro constitution) sentiment by the people.
It's about time US citizens woke up and realised that they've been suffering the "thin end of the wedge" for some time now and if they don't remind the government (in a non violent manner) that they are elected to SERVE and not to rule then a powderkeg situation will result.
Surely the USA can learn from its own history -- doesn't anyone remember (or care to remember) the McCarthy years? Replace "communists" with "terrorists" and you'll find that, 50 years on, there's very little difference.
My money is still on the Rutan boys and their Scaled Composites entry.
:-)
They're the only ones who have shown credible progress in respect to actually getting a craft flying towards the heavens. Most of the other X-Prize entrants are either playing with models or dreaming
Actually, what happened to my friend is he tried that and it got him into some trouble with the police
Well maybe he should have aimed it the other way - duh!
Did they return "frier"?
And not only will such a cannon hurl its projectile a long distance to the target -- it will also hurl your metal fillings, belt-buckle, wrist-watch (probably with hand still attached) and any other nearby electrical conductors as well ;-)
It turns out that the real reason for the White House no longer accepting email to president@whitehouse.gov is that Bush's aides began noticing some worrying things about their charge.
It seems he'd been spending quite a bit of time reading all his email and had been receiving a large number of packages delivered in plain brown wrapping.
Turns out that the Prez now has a 32-foot-long penis, breasts the size of Dolly Parton's, has lost 399lbs of weight without exercising or dieting and is now awaiting the delivery of TWENTY FIVE MILLION US DOLLARS in unclaimed bullion from a secret fund in Nigeria.
Not only that, but he's also talking about quitting the presidency because he's been told that you can make more money stuffing envelopes just a few hours a day from home.
A year or so ago we got a new clothes dryer and my wife gave me the job of connecting it to the existing ducting that exhausts the dryer air from the laundry to the outside world.
:-)
I sat down for a while and contemplated how I might make up an adapter flange to join the old ducting (4 inch diameter) to the new dryer (3.5" diameter).
After several hours walking around the workshop checking to see if I had enough metal and gas to weld up a flange, I spied the obvious -- my roll of duct tape.
Suffice to say that's the first (and it'll probably be the last) time I've ever used duct tape for taping up ducting.
Most of the time I use it to hold the gaping wounds together so they don't bleed to bad after a day in teh workshop. (Why are so many tools so sharp?
It's not necessarily blackmail.
For example, I uncovered a very significant security flaw in the online banking system of a local bank.
It took me some time to determine the scope, cause and effect of the problem -- and my time is money.
I then contacted the bank I advised them that they had a problem which, if not fixed, would almost certainly be picked up by others -- some of who might not be so benign.
I offered to hand over the results of all my work in return for payment for the time I'd spent (at my normal hourly rate).
They agreed and were most satisfied with the transaction -- since it most likely saved them a small (or large) fortune.
Was I blackmailing the bank?
After all, I wasn't about to hand over the results of my investigation without payment.
No, of course it wasn't blackmail. It was just the same as a plumber saying "I won't fix your toilet unless you pay me."
Of course there was no "threat" involved in my offer -- although if they'd chosen not to pay and fix the problem I may have informed the media that there was *a* problem (customers surely had a right to know if it wasn't going to be fixed)
In the Xbox case, Microsoft were offered a business transaction. The price would have been a signed version of Linux for the Xbox in return for the chance to close off the vulnerability and delay public awareness that it existed.
Clearly Microsoft decided that the price was too high -- after all, they've got to pay that building full of lawyers whether they're actually suing people or not so why not just resort to legal action instead?
You'd think something else would do a better job like a bunch of explosions in a row or something
You mean something like this?.
(no the subject isn't a spelling error -- it's a pun!).
I have no idea why anyone would want to turn their vehicle into the equivalent of an acousticaly driven blender.
"take one nerdy noise-fanatic with half a brain but a fully loaded credit card. Add a 5 GW audio system and mix well in the confined space of an autombile. Now pour the gelatinous mass this produces into molds and allow to set for 4 hours. Yes folks, you to can make your own geek mousse."
Oh that's smart (NOT)... encourage the lunatic fringe to send the guy offensive emails so that the stories Microsoft told him about Linux users being a bunch of childish fools gains credibility.
Let's act like grown-ups here and realise that although the company's attitude may be somewhat lacking, they are within their legal right to do what they're doing whether others like it or not.
Remember, they're not the only supplier in town and if they won't do the job, there will be others who will.
Mind you, as has been stated, it's rather nice of them to turn an otherwise unnoteworthy transaction into an item of important news. Sure beats paying for advertising and you've got to admire those who use smart (spam-free) marketing tactics!
You bet SMS has a very high profit margin. However, it seems that Vodafone in Australia are about to change their voice-calling plans because they want to bump up their SMS profits even more!
Here's the story from ZDNet.
Unless a guarantee was made that these CDs would work in his car CD player (which there may have been, I don't know), this guy really has no room to complain. Companies don't have an obligation to make products that suit you
perfectly, you know
I disagree.
Consumers buying a disk that looks like a CD, smells like a CD and might reasonably be expected to perform like a CD, have the right to also expect that that disk will play in any machine that carries the official Compact Disc logo -- that's what standards are all about.
The fact that the music industry has deviated from the standard, yet hardly go out of their way to explain that customers are no longer buying a Compact Disc, is deceptive business practice -- something most countries' consumer laws consider to be an illegal act.
If it's good enough for a pack of cigarettes to carry a large, obvious warning, why can't music disks be tagged in the same way by law. The current fine print that says "Enhanced Audio Disk" or whatever just doesn't cut it.
How ironic that this is definition is actually valid and in the dictionary.
Check the Websters Unabridged Dictionary definition here.
Go figure.
Ice = Oxygen/Hydrogen
Oxygen/Hydrogen = rocket fuel
But ice = spent rocket fuel, where are you going to get the energy to:
a) melt the ice into water
b) split the water into H2 + O ??
Don't get too excited about solar power, Mars is a long way from the sun and existing solar panel technology is heavy, bulky and relatively low-powered. You'd need to take tons of them to Mars to make any reasonable amount of water into rocketfuel by the time you were ready to go home.
Come on, let's be honest about who's to blame for high CD prices -- and spam for that matter...
:-)
It's the hundreds of millions of people who are stupid enough to pay the asking price or (in the case of spam) buy the products being advertised.
CDs are priced on a "what the market will bear" basis rather than a cost-plus one.
So long as enough people continue to pay the outrageous prices demanded by the RIAA's members, they'll keep charging those prices.
So long as people keep buying stuff advertised by spammers, those spammers will keep filling our mailboxes with their crap.
No amount of legislation, bitching, moaning or other tactics will help very much.
What's needed is public education that will show those dorks who fork out money for overpriced CDs or who buy from spammers that they are the sole cause of these problems.
As has been pointed out by others -- if everyone walked out of their local music store empty handed after telling the sales-clerk that the prices were too high, the RIAA's members would have no option but to drop the price of their products.
Likewise, if nobody spent one red cent on the products, services and scams touted by spammers, the flood of bulk email would soon dry up.
Unfortunately, it seems that stupid people are breeding a lot more quickly than smart people -- and the low-IQ gene seems to be a dominant one.
As a result, people continue to buy over-priced CDs filled with crappy formulaic "manufactured" music -- and they keep trying new ways of enlarging their penises, breasts or bank accounts.
Is there no hope for mankind?
Why bother with honeypots when a Payback Page is far more satisfying :-)
Last month I forked out hard cash to buy two genuine, factory-labeled DVDs:
A Clockwork Orange
Harold and Maude
I paid money for these movies because they're worth it -- both are classics and far from the current formulaic run of the mill dross that Hollywood is churning out these days.
Would I pay good money to buy a legal (or even bootleg) copy of a Madona or J'Lo movie? Hell no!
The same goes with music. Offer me good quality content at a reasonable price and I'll gladly part with my money.
Offer me crappy content at a rip-off price, bolstered by "in your face" marketing and my wallet will stay firmly in my pocket.
So why can't other people spot the reason that sales are falling???
Duh
You've got to wonder what all these Federal Justice employees do with their days.
Before I started my low-cost cruise missile project, I emailed the FBI and the relevant defense program, letting them know what I planned to do, offering to take on board any suggestions they might have and making my objectives quite clear.
I got no response at all, save an automated acknowedgement from the FBI.
After the project captured the media's attention and got broadcast around the world, the authorities stated that they weren't happy and that my actions were "unhelpful."
Well excuse me! Don't these people read their damned email? If they have a problem with what I'm doing why didn't they simply contact me in the several weeks between when I notified them and when the media picked up the story?
However, in the wake of the media-coverage and the authorities' apparent dissatisfaction with what I was doing, I sent a follow-up email to the FBI (using the contact form on their website) and the relevant defense agency.
Guess what -- still no response.
Has a stack of Federal donuts fallen over and crushed everyone responsible for dealing with incoming email or something???? Or maybe it's just easier to moan about things than actually do something about them.
Sigh!
For several years now, I've been pushing for an international treaty to provide a unified legal front to fight spam. Such a treaty could simply be modelled along the same lines as the the Berne Convention, providing a basic, consistent legislative platform common to all member nations.
If the Berne Convention can work for copyright issues, why can't a similar vehicle work for spam?
The biggest problem spamfighters have right now is that there is no inter-jurisdictional authority to chase and prosecute spammers. A convention would provide this much-needed ability to enforce anti-spam laws across borders.
The recording industry claims that CD sales have plummeted in recent times...
Of course they have -- but it's not because people are pirating CDs.
It's because the recording industry no longer makes CDs -- only these "enhanced" disks which no longer qualify for the name CD nor the Compact Disk logo.
So you see -- they're not lying, just being very deceptive!
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News: Computer crash traps politician in BMW.