It seems to me that iTunes 4 imposes a new peak volume level (I can actually hear the volume go up and down slightly in some songs, and, no, I don't have Sound Check turned on). It seems that disabling the Sound Enhancer fixes the problem, at least somewhat, but it's still disappointing that Apple would play volume-Nazi. All affected parties should file a bug report with Apple (go to iTunes, and choose "Provide iTunes Feedback" from the application menu).
This just helps to show how software piracy/"leaking" trickles down and hurts everyone -- from the company, to the developers, to the beta testers, to Joe Average.
...but the company has also said that it will be doing the same thing again soon.
It really makes you wonder, if part of TiVo's pitch is being able to record what you want, when you want, why they're suddenly "taking bribes" to force you to record what someone else wants you to watch, when they want.
Yet another corporation trying to rake in money for informational exchange -- truly a bizarre idea if you think about it, right? Money for information...
"And now, today on BattleBlobs! We have a fierce fight to the death! Let's meet the competitors. In the green square we have our opposer, Jason. Jason has fierce hair all over his body, and an orange hat! Jason is 5ft tall and weighs a whopping 400 pounds! Let's meet Jason's maker! *old lady walks in: "Well, I just loved to know my husband, and there he was!" old lady walks out*. And now, in the purple square, our current leader in the heavyweight class! RobotoSLAUGHTER! RobotoS. is 25 feet tall, 4.7 tons, and covered in electrified steel spikes! Let's meet its maker! *big tough guy walks in: "Well, you know, blood is funny" tough guy walks out*. That's certainly enlightening! Competitors on! *Jason adjusts his hat, RobotoS. revs his motor* Let the match begin! *dinding, green lights*"
Yes, I'll admit: for some of the more mediocre bands, I will (occasionally) burn a CD of their music. However, I generally try to hold myself to stricter moral guidelines than that; namely: if I like an artist's views, I like their music, and I can afford it, then I'll buy their CD. Artist's views on the MP3 deal is especially important to me; I would own several Metallica and Limp Bizkit CDs, because I personally enjoy their music, but I don't because of the work they put in to ruining Napster. Had Metallica/LB/et al been as - say, Moby, who is a supporter of Napster and free music, then I would have probably paid for their CDs, instead of paying $0.20 for a blank CD-R. An interesting tidbit: in one liberal magazine I read a little while back, it stated that (when Metallica was an unheard of garage band) Metallica was a huge supporter of free music; that they actually encouraged their fans to tape their stuff and redistribute to friends. I call that "irony".
One would wonder if the record industries/other persons responsible for greater "security" on CDs/DVDs had thought of this:
With the current system, the following can be done:
Person A buys CD1. Person A rips CD1 to disk, and distributes MP3s to Person B. Person B likes said MP3s, and buys CD1 for his/herself.
With "rip proof" technology (at least, until its cracked), however:
Person A buys CD1. Person A tries to rip CD1, and fails. Person A tells Person B that CD1 sucks because you can't rip it. OR: Person B can't hear MP3s from CD1, so Person B doesn't know whether or not (s)he should buy it, and possibly decides not to.
With the current system, yes, the industries stand a greater chance of losing money: but they also stand a greater chance (and, as some statistics have shown, this is the case) of gaining more money; given that the majority of Napster users (apparently, and as I did) used Napster to download a few random MP3s to decide whether (s)he should/should not buy CD1. With rip-proof CDs, however, Person A, B, C... won't be able to listen to MP3s from CD1, and thusly won't know whether or not they want to buy it.
Synopsis:
It would not seem wise, at least to me, for the industries to err on the side of greater control, and away from the potential for greater sales. Penny wise and dollar foolish, they say...
Yeah, sounds great. You think standing in an elevator to go up 10 floors to your job is bad..just picture this:
You're in the space elevator. Along with Sir Flatulent, Miz CoughsALot, Mr. IForgotToPutOnDeoderant, and Ms IHaveTheFlu. Sounds great. For 22,000 miles.:P
Guys: just think of the possibilities! Browsing your favorite porn site, navigating through it with your mind, both hands off the keyboard... ^_~;
alternative OSX client - not blocked
on
AOL vs. Trillian
·
· Score: 1
For those who do not know, there is an alternative AIM client for MacOSX which has a nice standard set of features, some cool stuff all its own, friendly support, and so on. It's called "Adium" and it can be found at this address. One of the major upsides? AOL doesn't block it.
What a brilliant idea. AppleScript - although simplistic and arcane - obviously has some uses. Forget getting the iTunes song or FTPing files, here comes the Timbuktu/AppleScript remote-disk-erase squad! ^_^
Hopefully - provided KaZaA really did sell out - the new company will put more effort into developing a MacOSX version of KaZaA--LimeWire is good, but KaZaA is great.
Perhaps AOL will ruin Red Hat, perhaps there will be no change, perhaps AOL will better Red Hat.
I have certainly seen AOL do all three to different pieces of software/companies that they have "acquired".
Let us not be too hasty to judge: AOL has ruined some, left some alone, and bettered some. Only time will tell (should they be "looking at" Red Hat at all).
Right, this is exactly what we need. Picture this:
You're browsing the internet (you know, going to your favorite porn sites), and you get a popup ad. This is no ordinary popup ad, this one not only blinks, flashes, moves, won't close, and spans more of itself - it's talking to you - nonstop - about the product while playing some cheesy muzak. Right, that's exactly what I'm looking forward to. Not.
This disappoints me somewhat. Although I no longer use MediaOne/ATT, I used to - up to six months ago. MediaOne actually used to be fairly decent - outages were rare, tech support was good, service was (relatively) cheap, and downloads/uploads were FAST. Unfortunately, the fateful day came when ATT bought them out. After that day, outages were weekly to bi-weekly, you spent an hour to get on the phone with tech support only to get an ingrate who didn't know a mouse from a monitor, the service cost went up, and the download/upload speeds went down. Oh, but they sent us a cute little "AT&T" sticker to put on our TV Remote.
Well, that's both true and false. In some of Apple's print ads, it was shown with the [outrageously overpriced] 22" flatscreen LCD. However, on the web (and in other print ads), it was shown with the CRT. I distinctly remember the catchphrase on their site: "The Apple PowerMacintosh G4 Cube looks great with our award-winning Apple CRT Display". Or something to that effect.
"We have an equivalent amount of energy in just one gram or about a raisin-size worth of antimatter,". Whenever I read an article about a new/improved form of power, the first question that lends itself to mind is always: "what devastating weapon could the government create from this?". Proportionally, if you consider the possibilities:
With current technology, we are able to wipe out massive amounts of land with, say, a hydrogen bomb. The weight of a hydrogen bomb is, however, massive. But, with our current fighter-bomber jets, this is no issue.
However, (provided antimatter could be used for weapons of mass destruction), a anti/matter-bomb of the _same weight_ would have a massively greater impact. To such a degree, that it would probably be unthinkable for us to use one of that size/weight. So, most likely, we would compress them into a smaller size, but of equal power. The reasoning for this? Consider: if one fighter-bomber can carry 2 hydrogen bombs being a total of 50 tons, then - similarly - you could carry a greater number of anti/matter-bombs (total of 50 tons), each being as powerful as one hydrogen bomb. The result? Blanket bombing just got a lot more devastating. I'm not looking forward to that day.
Personally, I prefer the iMac. Not only is its design somewhat useful (use it like a lamp? door stop? modern art?), but the case is gorgeous in comparison. It would almost make one wonder if the Cube (which was discontinued by Apple some time ago) was a beta, if you will, for the current iMac. Just look at the shapes. A square (okay, rectangle), to a half-sphere..I must admit, though, that the iMac's new screen is awesome in comparison to the now-ancient-history-to-Apple CRT that was advertised for use with the Cube.
I know a guy who was one of the main designers of the "Smart Card" from visa (as recently advertised tirelessly on daytime TV). According to him, one of the primary audiences of the Smart Card would be college students. The use of the card, they hope, would be to "make deals" with vendors on or near the college campus, allowing the students to utilize the Smart Card like cash at the vendors stores even if the vendor didn't have credit card machines. Hence, easier buying for students, more money for Visa. Additionally, to the average user, the card could, or would, be used just like cash instead of a traditional credit card. Whether or not this information is completely true is up to your discretion, but I thought it might make a valuable speculation, at least, to the discussion.
news like this makes one wonder: why do we bother? through my hate for microsoft, this doesnt seen a valuable spending of the US budget. if things continue the way they have been, and i feel sure that micro$osft's insane legal defense will make sure it does, then every time a negative ruling is passed onto microsoft, it'll get pushed into the appeals court again. my question for micro$oft would be, however, is this really better for the company (or hopefully companies)? constantly screwing up, denying, appeals, screwing up, and around and around again isnt exactly good press. wouldnt, or might it not be better for the company if you were to say "you know what? we screwed up, and we're sorry. go ahead and break us up." who knows, if M$ is broken up, it might even make more profits then it will be with the bad press.
yeah, but who would WANT to do that? its practically sacrilege to strip the perfect system from its gorgeous box and replace it with a x86 system. it'd be like stripping everything from a Viper (racing car) but the chassy and outside, and replacing the guts with that of a Ford Pinto!
to paraphrase from the article, and quote a bit "There is a known issue where an iBook does not wake up after it goes to sleep, so the workaround is to simply to turn off the sleep feature. Eventually there should be a fix.". i can just see the headlines now! "apple's secret plans to murder helpless ibooks in their sleep! authorities baffled, criminal on the loose! WILL HE BE CAUGHT?" =D
Slashdot Mirror
Didn't crash my browser. Oh wait, I'm using Safari. Good for me.
It seems to me that iTunes 4 imposes a new peak volume level (I can actually hear the volume go up and down slightly in some songs, and, no, I don't have Sound Check turned on). It seems that disabling the Sound Enhancer fixes the problem, at least somewhat, but it's still disappointing that Apple would play volume-Nazi. All affected parties should file a bug report with Apple (go to iTunes, and choose "Provide iTunes Feedback" from the application menu).
This just helps to show how software piracy/"leaking" trickles down and hurts everyone -- from the company, to the developers, to the beta testers, to Joe Average.
...but the company has also said that it will be doing the same thing again soon.
It really makes you wonder, if part of TiVo's pitch is being able to record what you want, when you want, why they're suddenly "taking bribes" to force you to record what someone else wants you to watch, when they want.
Yet another corporation trying to rake in money for informational exchange -- truly a bizarre idea if you think about it, right? Money for information...
"And now, today on BattleBlobs! We have a fierce fight to the death! Let's meet the competitors. In the green square we have our opposer, Jason. Jason has fierce hair all over his body, and an orange hat! Jason is 5ft tall and weighs a whopping 400 pounds! Let's meet Jason's maker! *old lady walks in: "Well, I just loved to know my husband, and there he was!" old lady walks out*. And now, in the purple square, our current leader in the heavyweight class! RobotoSLAUGHTER! RobotoS. is 25 feet tall, 4.7 tons, and covered in electrified steel spikes! Let's meet its maker! *big tough guy walks in: "Well, you know, blood is funny" tough guy walks out*. That's certainly enlightening! Competitors on! *Jason adjusts his hat, RobotoS. revs his motor* Let the match begin! *dinding, green lights*"
Yes, I'll admit: for some of the more mediocre bands, I will (occasionally) burn a CD of their music. However, I generally try to hold myself to stricter moral guidelines than that; namely: if I like an artist's views, I like their music, and I can afford it, then I'll buy their CD. Artist's views on the MP3 deal is especially important to me; I would own several Metallica and Limp Bizkit CDs, because I personally enjoy their music, but I don't because of the work they put in to ruining Napster. Had Metallica/LB/et al been as - say, Moby, who is a supporter of Napster and free music, then I would have probably paid for their CDs, instead of paying $0.20 for a blank CD-R. An interesting tidbit: in one liberal magazine I read a little while back, it stated that (when Metallica was an unheard of garage band) Metallica was a huge supporter of free music; that they actually encouraged their fans to tape their stuff and redistribute to friends. I call that "irony".
One would wonder if the record industries/other persons responsible for greater "security" on CDs/DVDs had thought of this:
With the current system, the following can be done:
Person A buys CD1. Person A rips CD1 to disk, and distributes MP3s to Person B. Person B likes said MP3s, and buys CD1 for his/herself.
With "rip proof" technology (at least, until its cracked), however:
Person A buys CD1. Person A tries to rip CD1, and fails. Person A tells Person B that CD1 sucks because you can't rip it. OR: Person B can't hear MP3s from CD1, so Person B doesn't know whether or not (s)he should buy it, and possibly decides not to.
With the current system, yes, the industries stand a greater chance of losing money: but they also stand a greater chance (and, as some statistics have shown, this is the case) of gaining more money; given that the majority of Napster users (apparently, and as I did) used Napster to download a few random MP3s to decide whether (s)he should/should not buy CD1. With rip-proof CDs, however, Person A, B, C... won't be able to listen to MP3s from CD1, and thusly won't know whether or not they want to buy it.
Synopsis:
It would not seem wise, at least to me, for the industries to err on the side of greater control, and away from the potential for greater sales. Penny wise and dollar foolish, they say...
Yeah, sounds great. You think standing in an elevator to go up 10 floors to your job is bad..just picture this:
:P
You're in the space elevator. Along with Sir Flatulent, Miz CoughsALot, Mr. IForgotToPutOnDeoderant, and Ms IHaveTheFlu. Sounds great. For 22,000 miles.
Guys: just think of the possibilities! Browsing your favorite porn site, navigating through it with your mind, both hands off the keyboard... ^_~;
For those who do not know, there is an alternative AIM client for MacOSX which has a nice standard set of features, some cool stuff all its own, friendly support, and so on. It's called "Adium" and it can be found at this address. One of the major upsides? AOL doesn't block it.
What a brilliant idea. AppleScript - although simplistic and arcane - obviously has some uses. Forget getting the iTunes song or FTPing files, here comes the Timbuktu/AppleScript remote-disk-erase squad! ^_^
Hopefully - provided KaZaA really did sell out - the new company will put more effort into developing a MacOSX version of KaZaA--LimeWire is good, but KaZaA is great.
Perhaps AOL will ruin Red Hat, perhaps there will be no change, perhaps AOL will better Red Hat.
I have certainly seen AOL do all three to different pieces of software/companies that they have "acquired".
Let us not be too hasty to judge: AOL has ruined some, left some alone, and bettered some. Only time will tell (should they be "looking at" Red Hat at all).
Right, this is exactly what we need. Picture this:
You're browsing the internet (you know, going to your favorite porn sites), and you get a popup ad. This is no ordinary popup ad, this one not only blinks, flashes, moves, won't close, and spans more of itself - it's talking to you - nonstop - about the product while playing some cheesy muzak. Right, that's exactly what I'm looking forward to. Not.
This disappoints me somewhat. Although I no longer use MediaOne/ATT, I used to - up to six months ago. MediaOne actually used to be fairly decent - outages were rare, tech support was good, service was (relatively) cheap, and downloads/uploads were FAST. Unfortunately, the fateful day came when ATT bought them out. After that day, outages were weekly to bi-weekly, you spent an hour to get on the phone with tech support only to get an ingrate who didn't know a mouse from a monitor, the service cost went up, and the download/upload speeds went down. Oh, but they sent us a cute little "AT&T" sticker to put on our TV Remote.
Well, that's both true and false. In some of Apple's print ads, it was shown with the [outrageously overpriced] 22" flatscreen LCD. However, on the web (and in other print ads), it was shown with the CRT. I distinctly remember the catchphrase on their site: "The Apple PowerMacintosh G4 Cube looks great with our award-winning Apple CRT Display". Or something to that effect.
"We have an equivalent amount of energy in just one gram or about a raisin-size worth of antimatter,". Whenever I read an article about a new/improved form of power, the first question that lends itself to mind is always: "what devastating weapon could the government create from this?". Proportionally, if you consider the possibilities:
With current technology, we are able to wipe out massive amounts of land with, say, a hydrogen bomb. The weight of a hydrogen bomb is, however, massive. But, with our current fighter-bomber jets, this is no issue.
However, (provided antimatter could be used for weapons of mass destruction), a anti/matter-bomb of the _same weight_ would have a massively greater impact. To such a degree, that it would probably be unthinkable for us to use one of that size/weight. So, most likely, we would compress them into a smaller size, but of equal power. The reasoning for this? Consider: if one fighter-bomber can carry 2 hydrogen bombs being a total of 50 tons, then - similarly - you could carry a greater number of anti/matter-bombs (total of 50 tons), each being as powerful as one hydrogen bomb. The result? Blanket bombing just got a lot more devastating. I'm not looking forward to that day.
Personally, I prefer the iMac. Not only is its design somewhat useful (use it like a lamp? door stop? modern art?), but the case is gorgeous in comparison. It would almost make one wonder if the Cube (which was discontinued by Apple some time ago) was a beta, if you will, for the current iMac. Just look at the shapes. A square (okay, rectangle), to a half-sphere..I must admit, though, that the iMac's new screen is awesome in comparison to the now-ancient-history-to-Apple CRT that was advertised for use with the Cube.
I know a guy who was one of the main designers of the "Smart Card" from visa (as recently advertised tirelessly on daytime TV). According to him, one of the primary audiences of the Smart Card would be college students. The use of the card, they hope, would be to "make deals" with vendors on or near the college campus, allowing the students to utilize the Smart Card like cash at the vendors stores even if the vendor didn't have credit card machines. Hence, easier buying for students, more money for Visa. Additionally, to the average user, the card could, or would, be used just like cash instead of a traditional credit card. Whether or not this information is completely true is up to your discretion, but I thought it might make a valuable speculation, at least, to the discussion.
news like this makes one wonder: why do we bother? through my hate for microsoft, this doesnt seen a valuable spending of the US budget. if things continue the way they have been, and i feel sure that micro$osft's insane legal defense will make sure it does, then every time a negative ruling is passed onto microsoft, it'll get pushed into the appeals court again. my question for micro$oft would be, however, is this really better for the company (or hopefully companies)? constantly screwing up, denying, appeals, screwing up, and around and around again isnt exactly good press. wouldnt, or might it not be better for the company if you were to say "you know what? we screwed up, and we're sorry. go ahead and break us up." who knows, if M$ is broken up, it might even make more profits then it will be with the bad press.
make-your-own DSL? pfft. when do we get the Big Boys? you know, "make-your-own Fiber Optics line"? =D now THAT i would do!
it would make one wonder..why would it be so hard to burn? shouldnt covering it in gasoline and lighting a match work? =D
yeah, but who would WANT to do that? its practically sacrilege to strip the perfect system from its gorgeous box and replace it with a x86 system. it'd be like stripping everything from a Viper (racing car) but the chassy and outside, and replacing the guts with that of a Ford Pinto!
to paraphrase from the article, and quote a bit "There is a known issue where an iBook does not wake up after it goes to sleep, so the workaround is to simply to turn off the sleep feature. Eventually there should be a fix.". i can just see the headlines now! "apple's secret plans to murder helpless ibooks in their sleep! authorities baffled, criminal on the loose! WILL HE BE CAUGHT?" =D