I understand the intent of the comment but have to disagree. Many audiophiles use data to make observations and combine them with their subjective impressions. Saying "audiophiles are..." is somewhat akin to saying "Slashdot users are..." There are many different types. That said, there are many reasons why audiophiles CANNOT measure sound in the same way that we measure computer performance.
To illustrate a point, you have used the most extreme example possible and let me tell you, I've seen similar reviews by well respected magazines suggest that the difference between cables in certain applications are minimal. In the "gold-plated" fad, I've even read that they are detrimental unless the connector is gold-plated as well or else you encourage corrosion. Now stuff that into the non-scientific fact hat.:)
But why are audiophiles less relucant to use specific measurements? I think the reason has to do a lot with measuring equipment. Because sound is time-based (i.e. temporal), it is much more difficult. For example, videophiles are much more friendly with using measuring devices for absolute review purposes because you can pause a screen and do measurements. You, for the most part, do not need to look at time to see if the picture quality of a paused picture looks good. Then you do measurements on contrast, white balance, black-level, etc. and you get a good result. But, oh oh, welcome to the world of DLP projectors with color wheels where some people see rainbows and get headaches. These color wheels and their "2x" style ratings and then specific technologies to overcome rainbow effects are often subjectively rated. This one seems worse than the other, etc.
Sound, is also temporal and very hard to measure. Many audiophiles are familiar with the frequency response curves and they are a great entry into seeing the response of a speaker. But this doesn't say everything like we would like to because sound, apart from being temporal, also interacts with the environment. So, for example, let's assume you had a perfect speaker in an anechoic chamber (i.e. no reflections). Then, in the perfect position, you get a perfectly flat frequency response. A perfect speaker right? Unfortunately no. What about off-axis response now? The reflections might be wrong. And how about the direction of sound overall? How much goes backwards? And even if the frequency was perfect, what about reverberations left in the cabinet or on the cone? Some speakers, when the sound stops, will stop. Others will vibrate for a while causing the "flabby" sound. That's an audiophiley word that is better described that way then the technical word when talking to audiphiles.
Speakers are easy but what about amplifiers? Well, even there it's hard to measure. Because speakers interact with amplifiers. The resistance a speaker provides on an amp affects the amplifier's ability to drive the speaker. So test with different loads? Sorry, speakers don't have flat resistence loads. They vary with frequency. Amplifiers can work well with one speaker and badly with another.
But here there are still technical underpinnings and an audiphile store owner, who was very practical and explained things to me in more technical terms said this: An amplifier has only one job. To control the speaker. The better an amplifier can control that speaker, the better the system sounds.
And there you have the technical definition of the amplifier.
Interestingly, a lot of science is getting introduced into audio as well. Most notably, sterophile (I believe it was them), chose a signal processor as a product of the year. Basically it undid the distortion that went through the system. That is purely the opposite of the traditional view of an audiophile.
And by the way, you'll get lousy A-B comparisons at your typical electronics store. You need to find a good store that will let you sit in the sweet spot with good material, including some of your own. You WILL hear the difference. Not in everything and those things don't matter if you can't hear them. But I'll be damned if you can't tell the difference between a high-end amp and a low-end amp. Same goes with sources and speakers.
Elliott Wave theories have been around for a long time. He never claims to have invented them. That's why they are called "Elliott" waves and not "Prechter" waves.
He did refine them though.
Again, all these predictions seem meaningless now that they've happened. Now it seems obvious. When he made they predictions, they were anything but.
Not saying he has found the cure to knowing exactly when things will happen and how but it's an interesting area of study.
I wouldn't doubt if Robert Prechter is rich but I can't find his personal finances online. But I doubt there is much proof to show his poor either. You'd be surprised at who is rich and doesn't show it.
I would not put his predictions as "a bunch of obvious things." It seems obvious now that it has happened. But when he made those predictions, you should have heard the commentary on how stupid the general community thought he was. Imagine being in the best part of the dot-com rush and saying: "this is all going to end and it's going to go fantastically." You would have thought he was crazy. Most people did. In fact, most people were saying how this time it is different than any other time in history and it won't happen again because of a, b and c. I'm sure you must have read this commentary during the rush.
And if it was so obvious, then why did the dot-com bomb take practically everybody by surprise?
And gold is obvious now but you should have heard the protests on this theory at the time. Most people were saying the market just wasn't predictable anymore. You don't know this because you are in the aftermath. You know what happens and can draw the conclusions. And if it was so obvious, why didn't YOU get rich out of it?
When I read some of his theories originally and the extreme negativity to his comments then slowly, day by day, seeing the comments change, that's when it was fun to watch.
Yeah, now you can sit back and say it was all obvious. The fact that he said that back when everybody was saying he was a fool and then sticking to his guns is what makes it credible (though not necessarily 100% accurate).
This sentence clearly reeks of the "make the statement fit my argument even when it contradicts itself" mentality of SCO. They say that because HP is indemnifying that this is true:
"SCO claims HP is validating its claim that it owns at least some Linux code by doing this."
Which follows the recent, If (insert company name here) doesn't indemnify you, it validates that there is SCO code in Linux. Since if there wasn't, you would indemnify SCO. But if you do indemnify, then you are proving the same.
I realize this was meant to be funny but Prechter made a lot of predictions before they happen including:
A terrorist attack on American soil a few days before 9/11
The dot-com bust before anybody was talking about it (a few years before it happened)
The gold market taking off well before it took off
He predicts deflation, common theory now, but he said this before anybody else was saying it.
His book is about prediction. But a certain part of the prediction depends on the theory of herding. The above (self-admitted and yes, humorous) knee-jerk response is only in response to the herding portion of the argument. It is not what the book is about though. It only serves the foundation for the actual prediction component which is the wave principle.
Prechter's most interesting stances have been these:
(1) He predicted the dot-com burst and was calling for it when the dot-com's were strong. He was seen as extremely controversial in this respect and anybody who said this was considered an idiot who obviously did not understand the market. His predictions were based on the wave principle and also worked within other predictors in the market. Having read his theories, it is actually very impressive. To find more about his actual predictions on the market, you can find them here: www.elliottwave.com
(2) A few days or a week before the 9/11 attacks, he made the prediction that a terrorist attack would occur on American soil. At the time, this just sounded ridiculous. It sounded a lot less ridiculous when it happened almost immediately. Note: By his own admission he did not expect it to happen so quickly. This, by his theory, was because of the global downturn in social mood.
(3) Prechter also predicts deflation. Note that he talked about this when nobody else was talking about it. I remember because I mentioned this possibility to some financial people and they basically said this was nuts. And of course, it seems like not such a bad theory now and other books are publishing it. But if you made this theory a year or two ago, nobody was backing it. You would have been thought stupid.
Prechter makes a lot of assertions like these while simultaneously debunking the false logic in other financial predictors. He does look at history but he looks WAY back including all the depressions to find patterns. He finds and shows these patterns. I haven't done enough research to know definitively what I like and don't like but I have read enough to take it seriously.
I am extremely technical and creative. I am what one might call a duallist in many factors of my life. I like programming and creative (script) writing. I love cars, computers, programming. I develop, I'm a graphic designer, I'm a CEO and I am on my way to being a movie director. Techies might call me artistic and artists might call me techie. I completely agree with this fellow.
The problem and strength with the word processor is that it supports a specific environment and a certain flow that targets office style writing. It is the right tool for this job.
In fact, I do all my office writing in Word and I love it. Proposals, letters, technical drafts (though I hate having to always turn spell-checking off for code), and manuals.
But somehow I hate it for creative writing. It just doesn't support the flow of it. For one, I would love to be able to use a simple blank screen with green text on a black background. That gets me in the mood more (I know they're out there). Somehow, the window with all its gadgetry makes me feel like office/technical work, not creative flow.
I believe colors schemes can effect creativity. Not bright colors but maybe something more muted. Also, adding certain themes to the look like clean textures (that you can read text on easily) in the background. This may sound funny and somewhat pop-ish but think about how many writers will listen to music while writing. When looking at some creatively designed web pages with text(creatively speaking) will put me more in the mood of that writing. Especially some of the darker layouts.
Let's say your writing about darkness and death and the background is dark and muddy and maybe there is some hint of fire or in it. Would this maybe help you get in the mood? It would me.
Or how about white text on a sky like texture. Would this change your creativity? It would me again. I think if you thought about this, it would affect you too. Well, maybe not everyone but I think this has enough of an effect that it would be, at the least, a useful experiment.
Just some relevant data that doesn't appear on the front page is that the test is blind and they do compare the audio to an uncompressed reference. You have to click through to "Return to Roberto's Listening Tests page" to find this information though. Just thought I'd mention this because my first thought was what they are comparing the sound to.
Comparing without a reference reflects how much you like the encoding of the codec, not how accurate it is to the original. For example, if a codec boosts the bass or encodes slightly louder, you may interpret this as better sound. For example, when auditioning speakers, you must always balance the output of the speakers as most people will psychologically prefer the louder (most sensitive) speaker. This does not mean the speakers are accurate however.
At any rate, here is the relevant quote on that page:
One of the most acclaimed methods of comparing codec quality is by performing so-called "Double Blind Listening Tests". In this sort of test, the participant compares various encoded samples against each other and against an uncompressed reference sample. The blind part means that the participant doesn't know which sample was encoded by which encoder. That guarantees there'll be no psychological bias towards his/her favorite codec, or against the codec he/she dislikes.
Note that the quote (and here's the nitpick) suggests that double-blind means that the participant doesn't know which encoder is used. Double-blind means that both the participant and the person running the test don't know. By the way, this is, indeed as accurate as double-blind (since, well, the computer might know but surely doesn't care to influence the results). And I realize he doesn't say "double-blind means" but seems to suggest the definition of double-blind. Anyways, that's just the nitpick. Please don't mod me down for it. It's just an observation and I'm trying to build some Karma!
I have to respectfully disagree with this. While I agree handwriting has its place and can be quite fast, especially in PDAs, it is not a be all end all solution. Like anything else in technology, it has benefits and pitfalls. Here's where I see handwriting fitting in compared with pushbuttons:
Handwriting requires space: In objects with enough space, this is fine but on my mobile phone, I like things as small as possible. The exception to this might be phones with built in PDAs which might necessitate a larger size.
Handwriting requires time to start: With a keypad, especially one like that in the article, you can begin typing immediately. With a pen, you need to take it out, hold it properly in your writing hand, and have the object in a position that is easy to write in (probably the palm of your other hand with an appropriate grip) before you can start input. Note that this is not saying handwirting is bad, only that it has a higher startup time. If you are doing mostly short entries, this startup time can negate any benefits some people might have from faster handwriting input.
Losing the Stylus: I hate this and don't think I would tolerate it in a mobile phone. In a PDA, I feel a little differently to the cost/benefit ratio.
That said, a stylus does have benefits like a tap based user interface. For some, stylus input might be faster than a keypad.
Just because buttons have been around for a while, however, does not negate their usefulness.
And finally, can you imagine trying to input a guys name at a stop light?
The point of my original post and the reply was not that rich people shouldn't or couldn't save under this proposed plan. In fact, it fully supports savings. This only affects people who save "more than 50% of their earnings" in a given month in my theoretical numbers.
In other words, a person making $100,000 a month can save up to $50,000 and still retain 100% of the tax savings.
Since this is a tax savings to encourage movement in the economy, if you wanted to save 75% of the money you earned, you can do this. You just wouldn't get the extra tax savings you'd get if you spent 50% in the same month. Instead, you would be subject to the tax you'd usually have to pay anyway.
I think this is the slippery slope defined. Even if it were a good idea to keep these tools away from easy access (I won't reiterate the many arguments why it isn't), it is extremely difficult to know exactly where the line from "general purpose networking tool" to "hacking tool" is drawn.
Considering that virtually any tool can be used to hack, when does something get legislated as illegal? Somebody uses a web browser to hack. Is the web browser now an illegal hacking tool?
Okay, maybe that was too easy. But a packet sniffer?
I think one could easily make an argument that that is a hacking tool. Ultimately, the legal definitions may center around "public perception" as often seems to be the case in technical legalities instead of technical accuracy. This is, unfortunately, because the general public typically doesn't understand technically how things work. Notice most bad press is based around technologies that the average guy doesn't understand.
I've had some critical arguments against myself for this idea but have, so far, overcome any arguments. I think I have one legitimate argument but where the benefits seem to outweigh the cons still. That is not to say that I don't anticipate any coming up; however, I don't believe this is a valid argument (notwithstanding that it is a good one and a start to critical analysis).
Anyways, I have thought about the savings aspect but my original post mentions (though not necessarily recommends) 50% of income to be tax free if spent within the same month. I would suggest that those that need to save money save much less than 50% of income anyway and hence the tax savings would not negatively affect their savings. In fact, since the money they are spending is worth more (since it is taxed less), the actual amount of savings would rise for lower income people.
On the other hand, if you are, say making $100,000 per month, you have much less need to save. This tax savings would urge you to spend up to 50% of it in the given month. What is the use of this? Well, it means that you are spending more and therefore money is "moving" more. Ultimately this means economic activity.
Note: this is an argument to support a model that may encourage economic growth.
One natural negative argument for this is that it might promote wasteful spending despite causing economic growth. In fact, this may be the case. But on the other hand, buying things that you don't use would ultimately be unbeneficial and it seems the law of demand would dictate people might not do too much of this or at least along the law of diminishing returns cruve. What this might create, in the long run, is a growth in the "services" industry.
Perhaps the solution to the tax is to incorporate some form of manufacture, sales and profit. One would have to limit or provide cost to the manufacturing/labor to make this work. The primary problem with the inflation, it seems, in all these games is that the money supply is virtually limitless once you know how to get it. Instead, stop the money supply (for the most part) and rely on commerce to take over.
In a game like Ultima or other combat based games, this might have to be revised but it seems like Second Life is more about life. So anyways, your stadium is taxed more but people come and visit it and you charge for it. This makes you a net profit.
Okay, I realize I may be missing some of the boat since I don't play MMORPGs but I think it would be vastly interesting to model these RPGs in a manner similar to real life. This would make it even more interesting if/when "twists" are thrown in as they might reflect interesting revelations about what might happen in real life. Or even "playing" with economics a little.:)
By the way, in the Ultima or combat style MMORPGs, you could still limit the money supply but one would need to realistically have the villages sacked every once in a while by a band of orcs, dragons or whatever. Then the good warriors have to go and get it back.
Finally, I've always had an interesting theory about economics. The old line is that nothing happens until something gets sold. Yet in many ways, government focuses on "taxing" things which of course reduces the amount of items sold. I propose an interesting experiment to be to reduce taxes for spending a certain portion of your income within a month. For example, let's say 50% of your income within a month. This means that the poor would likely be spending this amount anyways (and be subject to those savings) and the rich would be encouraged to spend more to help vitalize the economy. I'm sure I haven't thought this entirely through yet but I'd be interested in hearing some responses to this. I get this feeling, however, that the criticisms can be worked through.
By the way, this would have to be matched through some accounting system that matches bills to taxes and of course would require automation to make it viable. This may involve privacy concerns but, of course, you could opt out if you wanted to keep something private or come to some other solution.
At any rate, ideas like this could be interesting to test in a real economically based, paper-money limited, MMORPG.
The good news is that all you have to do is reboot. EVERYTHING you need is in ROM. If you eject your floppy disk, hackers can't leave any permanent trace. They are going to have to rely on the overload the printer hack as the worst offense.
I hate this line of logic on how poor people's money is used to pay for the eccentricities of the rich.
Let me tell you how this works: "RICH PEOPLE SUBSIDIZE POOR PEOPLE MORE THAN POOR PEOPLE SUBSIDIZE RICH PEOPLE."
That you have something against Bill Gates is one thing but to suggest that you are somehow subsidizing this is ridiculous. With a net worth of $34 billion, I think Bill has paid more in taxes than the net value of your neighborhood.
I have to say, I love this article selection for SlashDot. In a sea of articles that complain but offer no solutions, this article clearly shows a path to financial success. In other words, instead of poo-pooing the music industry for all their mistakes, this gives some pretty interesting evidence that taking another route leads to profit.
Believe me, as a business owner (and a techie who feels both sides of the equation), complaining alone gets a lot less of my attention than something with a solution.
Dude, the guy above is completely right about other types of bandwidth but think about REGULAR bandwidth. Regular network bandwidth costs will FAR EXCEED whatever the hardware costs unless you are using VERY expensive hardware, especially with ASP.net which compiles all of the code. In other words, when scaling becomes a cost problem, the bandwidth cost will be an even bigger problem.
Yes, I think special effects are getting worse in many ways but this seems to be a side effect of CG becoming more accessible. It's like graphic designers and dare I say web designers when the technology first became available. Heck, even now.
And I honestly believed this was due to CG too until I saw the making of Black Hawk Down. You wouldn't guess how many scenes were done with or augmented by CG because you simple couldn't tell! All the dust storms kicked up by the helicopters were done in CG. Many of the helicopters themselves were CG.
They also talked about how movement caused a problem. First they figured they're helicopters so they moved them any way they wanted but then realized it looked fake. Then they noticed that helicopters tilt around the base of the rotors and that's what added realism. I've noticed that most CG problems have to do with motion, not so much with the individual frame itself.
Yes it is not a good idea considering there is a much easier, cheaper and better solution. There are called big and intuitive controls. Let me say again:
BEEEEEEEEEG. INTUITIIIIIIIIIVE.
For example a larger round dial for the volume control and large and uniquely located and shaped buttons for track selection and station selection.
I personally will only buy after market stereos that feature a volume knob. It is such a great interface. I can:
Find it immediately with very little or no looking
Know how it operates intuitively
Can crank it quickly or slowly depending on my need (this is useful in cop situations)
But the interface with the two little volume button for up and down that are placed SIDE-BY-SITE and will do something else depending on the mode it is in? Please no.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand the intent of the comment but have to disagree. Many audiophiles use data to make observations and combine them with their subjective impressions. Saying "audiophiles are..." is somewhat akin to saying "Slashdot users are..." There are many different types. That said, there are many reasons why audiophiles CANNOT measure sound in the same way that we measure computer performance.
:)
To illustrate a point, you have used the most extreme example possible and let me tell you, I've seen similar reviews by well respected magazines suggest that the difference between cables in certain applications are minimal. In the "gold-plated" fad, I've even read that they are detrimental unless the connector is gold-plated as well or else you encourage corrosion. Now stuff that into the non-scientific fact hat.
But why are audiophiles less relucant to use specific measurements? I think the reason has to do a lot with measuring equipment. Because sound is time-based (i.e. temporal), it is much more difficult. For example, videophiles are much more friendly with using measuring devices for absolute review purposes because you can pause a screen and do measurements. You, for the most part, do not need to look at time to see if the picture quality of a paused picture looks good. Then you do measurements on contrast, white balance, black-level, etc. and you get a good result. But, oh oh, welcome to the world of DLP projectors with color wheels where some people see rainbows and get headaches. These color wheels and their "2x" style ratings and then specific technologies to overcome rainbow effects are often subjectively rated. This one seems worse than the other, etc.
Sound, is also temporal and very hard to measure. Many audiophiles are familiar with the frequency response curves and they are a great entry into seeing the response of a speaker. But this doesn't say everything like we would like to because sound, apart from being temporal, also interacts with the environment. So, for example, let's assume you had a perfect speaker in an anechoic chamber (i.e. no reflections). Then, in the perfect position, you get a perfectly flat frequency response. A perfect speaker right? Unfortunately no. What about off-axis response now? The reflections might be wrong. And how about the direction of sound overall? How much goes backwards? And even if the frequency was perfect, what about reverberations left in the cabinet or on the cone? Some speakers, when the sound stops, will stop. Others will vibrate for a while causing the "flabby" sound. That's an audiophiley word that is better described that way then the technical word when talking to audiphiles.
Speakers are easy but what about amplifiers? Well, even there it's hard to measure. Because speakers interact with amplifiers. The resistance a speaker provides on an amp affects the amplifier's ability to drive the speaker. So test with different loads? Sorry, speakers don't have flat resistence loads. They vary with frequency. Amplifiers can work well with one speaker and badly with another.
But here there are still technical underpinnings and an audiphile store owner, who was very practical and explained things to me in more technical terms said this: An amplifier has only one job. To control the speaker. The better an amplifier can control that speaker, the better the system sounds.
And there you have the technical definition of the amplifier.
Interestingly, a lot of science is getting introduced into audio as well. Most notably, sterophile (I believe it was them), chose a signal processor as a product of the year. Basically it undid the distortion that went through the system. That is purely the opposite of the traditional view of an audiophile.
And by the way, you'll get lousy A-B comparisons at your typical electronics store. You need to find a good store that will let you sit in the sweet spot with good material, including some of your own. You WILL hear the difference. Not in everything and those things don't matter if you can't hear them. But I'll be damned if you can't tell the difference between a high-end amp and a low-end amp. Same goes with sources and speakers.
Elliott Wave theories have been around for a long time. He never claims to have invented them. That's why they are called "Elliott" waves and not "Prechter" waves.
He did refine them though.
Again, all these predictions seem meaningless now that they've happened. Now it seems obvious. When he made they predictions, they were anything but.
Not saying he has found the cure to knowing exactly when things will happen and how but it's an interesting area of study.
I wouldn't doubt if Robert Prechter is rich but I can't find his personal finances online. But I doubt there is much proof to show his poor either. You'd be surprised at who is rich and doesn't show it.
I would not put his predictions as "a bunch of obvious things." It seems obvious now that it has happened. But when he made those predictions, you should have heard the commentary on how stupid the general community thought he was. Imagine being in the best part of the dot-com rush and saying: "this is all going to end and it's going to go fantastically." You would have thought he was crazy. Most people did. In fact, most people were saying how this time it is different than any other time in history and it won't happen again because of a, b and c. I'm sure you must have read this commentary during the rush.
And if it was so obvious, then why did the dot-com bomb take practically everybody by surprise?
And gold is obvious now but you should have heard the protests on this theory at the time. Most people were saying the market just wasn't predictable anymore. You don't know this because you are in the aftermath. You know what happens and can draw the conclusions. And if it was so obvious, why didn't YOU get rich out of it?
When I read some of his theories originally and the extreme negativity to his comments then slowly, day by day, seeing the comments change, that's when it was fun to watch.
Yeah, now you can sit back and say it was all obvious. The fact that he said that back when everybody was saying he was a fool and then sticking to his guns is what makes it credible (though not necessarily 100% accurate).
This sentence clearly reeks of the "make the statement fit my argument even when it contradicts itself" mentality of SCO. They say that because HP is indemnifying that this is true:
"SCO claims HP is validating its claim that it owns at least some Linux code by doing this."
Which follows the recent, If (insert company name here) doesn't indemnify you, it validates that there is SCO code in Linux. Since if there wasn't, you would indemnify SCO. But if you do indemnify, then you are proving the same.
A terrorist attack on American soil a few days before 9/11
The dot-com bust before anybody was talking about it (a few years before it happened)
The gold market taking off well before it took off
He predicts deflation, common theory now, but he said this before anybody else was saying it.
His book is about prediction. But a certain part of the prediction depends on the theory of herding. The above (self-admitted and yes, humorous) knee-jerk response is only in response to the herding portion of the argument. It is not what the book is about though. It only serves the foundation for the actual prediction component which is the wave principle.
Prechter's most interesting stances have been these:
(1) He predicted the dot-com burst and was calling for it when the dot-com's were strong. He was seen as extremely controversial in this respect and anybody who said this was considered an idiot who obviously did not understand the market. His predictions were based on the wave principle and also worked within other predictors in the market. Having read his theories, it is actually very impressive. To find more about his actual predictions on the market, you can find them here: www.elliottwave.com
(2) A few days or a week before the 9/11 attacks, he made the prediction that a terrorist attack would occur on American soil. At the time, this just sounded ridiculous. It sounded a lot less ridiculous when it happened almost immediately. Note: By his own admission he did not expect it to happen so quickly. This, by his theory, was because of the global downturn in social mood.
(3) Prechter also predicts deflation. Note that he talked about this when nobody else was talking about it. I remember because I mentioned this possibility to some financial people and they basically said this was nuts. And of course, it seems like not such a bad theory now and other books are publishing it. But if you made this theory a year or two ago, nobody was backing it. You would have been thought stupid.
Prechter makes a lot of assertions like these while simultaneously debunking the false logic in other financial predictors. He does look at history but he looks WAY back including all the depressions to find patterns. He finds and shows these patterns. I haven't done enough research to know definitively what I like and don't like but I have read enough to take it seriously.
I am extremely technical and creative. I am what one might call a duallist in many factors of my life. I like programming and creative (script) writing. I love cars, computers, programming. I develop, I'm a graphic designer, I'm a CEO and I am on my way to being a movie director. Techies might call me artistic and artists might call me techie. I completely agree with this fellow.
The problem and strength with the word processor is that it supports a specific environment and a certain flow that targets office style writing. It is the right tool for this job.
In fact, I do all my office writing in Word and I love it. Proposals, letters, technical drafts (though I hate having to always turn spell-checking off for code), and manuals.
But somehow I hate it for creative writing. It just doesn't support the flow of it. For one, I would love to be able to use a simple blank screen with green text on a black background. That gets me in the mood more (I know they're out there). Somehow, the window with all its gadgetry makes me feel like office/technical work, not creative flow.
I believe colors schemes can effect creativity. Not bright colors but maybe something more muted. Also, adding certain themes to the look like clean textures (that you can read text on easily) in the background. This may sound funny and somewhat pop-ish but think about how many writers will listen to music while writing. When looking at some creatively designed web pages with text(creatively speaking) will put me more in the mood of that writing. Especially some of the darker layouts.
Let's say your writing about darkness and death and the background is dark and muddy and maybe there is some hint of fire or in it. Would this maybe help you get in the mood? It would me.
Or how about white text on a sky like texture. Would this change your creativity? It would me again. I think if you thought about this, it would affect you too. Well, maybe not everyone but I think this has enough of an effect that it would be, at the least, a useful experiment.
Comparing without a reference reflects how much you like the encoding of the codec, not how accurate it is to the original. For example, if a codec boosts the bass or encodes slightly louder, you may interpret this as better sound. For example, when auditioning speakers, you must always balance the output of the speakers as most people will psychologically prefer the louder (most sensitive) speaker. This does not mean the speakers are accurate however.
At any rate, here is the relevant quote on that page:
Note that the quote (and here's the nitpick) suggests that double-blind means that the participant doesn't know which encoder is used. Double-blind means that both the participant and the person running the test don't know. By the way, this is, indeed as accurate as double-blind (since, well, the computer might know but surely doesn't care to influence the results). And I realize he doesn't say "double-blind means" but seems to suggest the definition of double-blind. Anyways, that's just the nitpick. Please don't mod me down for it. It's just an observation and I'm trying to build some Karma!
That said, a stylus does have benefits like a tap based user interface. For some, stylus input might be faster than a keypad.
Just because buttons have been around for a while, however, does not negate their usefulness.
And finally, can you imagine trying to input a guys name at a stop light?
The point of my original post and the reply was not that rich people shouldn't or couldn't save under this proposed plan. In fact, it fully supports savings. This only affects people who save "more than 50% of their earnings" in a given month in my theoretical numbers.
In other words, a person making $100,000 a month can save up to $50,000 and still retain 100% of the tax savings.
Since this is a tax savings to encourage movement in the economy, if you wanted to save 75% of the money you earned, you can do this. You just wouldn't get the extra tax savings you'd get if you spent 50% in the same month. Instead, you would be subject to the tax you'd usually have to pay anyway.
I think this is the slippery slope defined. Even if it were a good idea to keep these tools away from easy access (I won't reiterate the many arguments why it isn't), it is extremely difficult to know exactly where the line from "general purpose networking tool" to "hacking tool" is drawn.
Considering that virtually any tool can be used to hack, when does something get legislated as illegal? Somebody uses a web browser to hack. Is the web browser now an illegal hacking tool?
Okay, maybe that was too easy. But a packet sniffer?
I think one could easily make an argument that that is a hacking tool. Ultimately, the legal definitions may center around "public perception" as often seems to be the case in technical legalities instead of technical accuracy. This is, unfortunately, because the general public typically doesn't understand technically how things work. Notice most bad press is based around technologies that the average guy doesn't understand.
We're treading on dangerous grounds Symantec...
Slippery Slope...
I've had some critical arguments against myself for this idea but have, so far, overcome any arguments. I think I have one legitimate argument but where the benefits seem to outweigh the cons still. That is not to say that I don't anticipate any coming up; however, I don't believe this is a valid argument (notwithstanding that it is a good one and a start to critical analysis).
Anyways, I have thought about the savings aspect but my original post mentions (though not necessarily recommends) 50% of income to be tax free if spent within the same month. I would suggest that those that need to save money save much less than 50% of income anyway and hence the tax savings would not negatively affect their savings. In fact, since the money they are spending is worth more (since it is taxed less), the actual amount of savings would rise for lower income people.
On the other hand, if you are, say making $100,000 per month, you have much less need to save. This tax savings would urge you to spend up to 50% of it in the given month. What is the use of this? Well, it means that you are spending more and therefore money is "moving" more. Ultimately this means economic activity.
Note: this is an argument to support a model that may encourage economic growth.
One natural negative argument for this is that it might promote wasteful spending despite causing economic growth. In fact, this may be the case. But on the other hand, buying things that you don't use would ultimately be unbeneficial and it seems the law of demand would dictate people might not do too much of this or at least along the law of diminishing returns cruve. What this might create, in the long run, is a growth in the "services" industry.
Perhaps the solution to the tax is to incorporate some form of manufacture, sales and profit. One would have to limit or provide cost to the manufacturing/labor to make this work. The primary problem with the inflation, it seems, in all these games is that the money supply is virtually limitless once you know how to get it. Instead, stop the money supply (for the most part) and rely on commerce to take over.
:)
In a game like Ultima or other combat based games, this might have to be revised but it seems like Second Life is more about life. So anyways, your stadium is taxed more but people come and visit it and you charge for it. This makes you a net profit.
Okay, I realize I may be missing some of the boat since I don't play MMORPGs but I think it would be vastly interesting to model these RPGs in a manner similar to real life. This would make it even more interesting if/when "twists" are thrown in as they might reflect interesting revelations about what might happen in real life. Or even "playing" with economics a little.
By the way, in the Ultima or combat style MMORPGs, you could still limit the money supply but one would need to realistically have the villages sacked every once in a while by a band of orcs, dragons or whatever. Then the good warriors have to go and get it back.
Finally, I've always had an interesting theory about economics. The old line is that nothing happens until something gets sold. Yet in many ways, government focuses on "taxing" things which of course reduces the amount of items sold. I propose an interesting experiment to be to reduce taxes for spending a certain portion of your income within a month. For example, let's say 50% of your income within a month. This means that the poor would likely be spending this amount anyways (and be subject to those savings) and the rich would be encouraged to spend more to help vitalize the economy. I'm sure I haven't thought this entirely through yet but I'd be interested in hearing some responses to this. I get this feeling, however, that the criticisms can be worked through.
By the way, this would have to be matched through some accounting system that matches bills to taxes and of course would require automation to make it viable. This may involve privacy concerns but, of course, you could opt out if you wanted to keep something private or come to some other solution.
At any rate, ideas like this could be interesting to test in a real economically based, paper-money limited, MMORPG.
They invented this ideal system. They call it Amazon.com. :)
Seriously, when I need to find a book, I may or may not buy it at Amazon, but you sure can bet that that's where I start looking for it.
Admittedly, it may not work for really old books but I'm not in the market for too many of those.
I love that. They have the power to control our satellites, destroy all the major capitals of the world, and they haven't invented the clock yet.
That's why they came. To steal our watch technology.
The good news is that all you have to do is reboot. EVERYTHING you need is in ROM. If you eject your floppy disk, hackers can't leave any permanent trace. They are going to have to rely on the overload the printer hack as the worst offense.
The JetBlue Security Rating System
1. Make the dot Dot the same approximate color as the skin of the passenger
2. Correspond the dor colors to reflect the following threat assessments...
White: Safe
Female White: Very Safe
Yellow: Pretty Safe
Black: Mostly harmless but hide your wallet
Beige: DANGER! HIGH THREAT ASSESMENT LEVEL
"If 1% of the market buys the game..."
Sounds like Amway or business plans that say if only 0.001% of China buys your product...
I was surprised that he never mentioned that the entire economy is down as a reason that their sales are down.
I hate this line of logic on how poor people's money is used to pay for the eccentricities of the rich.
Let me tell you how this works: "RICH PEOPLE SUBSIDIZE POOR PEOPLE MORE THAN POOR PEOPLE SUBSIDIZE RICH PEOPLE."
That you have something against Bill Gates is one thing but to suggest that you are somehow subsidizing this is ridiculous. With a net worth of $34 billion, I think Bill has paid more in taxes than the net value of your neighborhood.
I have to say, I love this article selection for SlashDot. In a sea of articles that complain but offer no solutions, this article clearly shows a path to financial success. In other words, instead of poo-pooing the music industry for all their mistakes, this gives some pretty interesting evidence that taking another route leads to profit.
Believe me, as a business owner (and a techie who feels both sides of the equation), complaining alone gets a lot less of my attention than something with a solution.
Dude, the guy above is completely right about other types of bandwidth but think about REGULAR bandwidth. Regular network bandwidth costs will FAR EXCEED whatever the hardware costs unless you are using VERY expensive hardware, especially with ASP.net which compiles all of the code. In other words, when scaling becomes a cost problem, the bandwidth cost will be an even bigger problem.
Yes, I think special effects are getting worse in many ways but this seems to be a side effect of CG becoming more accessible. It's like graphic designers and dare I say web designers when the technology first became available. Heck, even now.
And I honestly believed this was due to CG too until I saw the making of Black Hawk Down. You wouldn't guess how many scenes were done with or augmented by CG because you simple couldn't tell! All the dust storms kicked up by the helicopters were done in CG. Many of the helicopters themselves were CG.
They also talked about how movement caused a problem. First they figured they're helicopters so they moved them any way they wanted but then realized it looked fake. Then they noticed that helicopters tilt around the base of the rotors and that's what added realism. I've noticed that most CG problems have to do with motion, not so much with the individual frame itself.
Free will?
But is it free as in beer or free as in speech?
BEEEEEEEEEG. INTUITIIIIIIIIIVE.
For example a larger round dial for the volume control and large and uniquely located and shaped buttons for track selection and station selection.
I personally will only buy after market stereos that feature a volume knob. It is such a great interface. I can:
But the interface with the two little volume button for up and down that are placed SIDE-BY-SITE and will do something else depending on the mode it is in? Please no.