This has to be one of the worst articles I've read on Google in a while. Summary:
- Larry and Sergey are passionate about tech (duh) - People working at Google verge on the fanatical (duh) - People erroneously predicted that Google would launch a product massively different from it's core search business (the $200 computer) - Hey, now we're going to make a prediction that is even MORE far-fetched: Google will develop AI
This strikes me as a publicity-driven piece designed to continue the popular enthusiasm in Google and the perception that they can do no wrong. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but there is very little here other than the continuation of "Google as Media Darling" phenonemon.
I'm an architect at a software company, and I do a lot of interviewing of candidates, and I have to say that I completely agree that certifications are no substitute for actual experience. When I see a resume for a job candidate, I rarely place any weight at all on any certifications they might have on their resume. Why? Because whether or not they have J2EE certification, Java Programmer certification, blah blah, I am still going to ask them the same technical questions and/or probe for the same skillset. Just because they have a certification doesn't mean I am not going to do my job, which is to certify a potential candidate for US.
HOWEVER, those who tell you that getting a certification is a waste of time are probably giving you BAD ADVICE. Am I contradicting myself? No, and here's why.
On an average week, I might phone screen 1 or 2 candidates, and actually have a face to face interview with one. And let me tell you - I don't really enjoy doing this. Most people in my position don't either. If I wanted to spend my time interviewing people for jobs, I would have chosen a different career path. It takes away time from the job that I enjoy doing. Most of the time the candidates don't even pan out. Think about it -- how many candidates are turned down for every candidate that is given an offer? A LOT. Given such low percentages and the fact that I and people like me are quite busy and usually want as little to do with the hiring process as possible, who do you think we have as the first line of filtering for the stack of 1000+ resumes we receive every week?
It sure as hell isn't us.
Fine, you may have designed some super-cool distributed computing system using, or you may have written your own bytecode compiler, or you may have written large portions of app server code, etc. And you might put it on your resume, and it'll look really cool to us, the people who know what the hell you're talking about.
But to the HR person or corporate recruiter who is acting as the first person to sort through the resumes, you may as well be speaking in Klingon. They have no authority derived from knowledge to make any assessments about your skills. So they are going to look for EXTERNAL authoritative validations of your skills, like education and certifications. Sure, they will pick out resumes listing critical skillsets that we the engineers deem to be necessary for the job, and they are good at doing that as well. But they will likely prefer candidates with more external validators.
It is just human nature for us to look for experts when we are lost.
In short -- it may help you get your foot in the door first, so it's not a waste of time. But once you're in, don't expect it to mean anything.
i think you're conflating the motivations of the author with the interpretations that people derive from his works. any statements regarding the provability of "deeper meanings" in literary works is inherently a meaningless statement, because by definition, the interpretive act is something that cannot be held to a verification scheme of "proof".
the question isn't "IS there a deeper meaning?" it's simply, "CAN THERE BE a deeper meaning?". it's a claim of potentiality, not actuality, and the mere presence of one particular actualization is enough to "prove" the singular potential. so, to revise your statement, the proof that his texts CAN have deeper meanings is because for some people, they do.
in the case of tolkien, the real question that "proof" intersects with is whether or not the author would consider an interpretation of his works beyond face value, but not resorting to allegory, as legitimate. despite his distate for allegory, he was certainly a fan of myth, and looking for "deeper meanings" in myths is something that we've done through the ages. i'd say the balance of "proof" rests in favor of legitimizing thematic interpretations of the LOTR, such as the corrupting influence of power, the destructive side of industrialization, man's responsibility to himself, etc., but NOT legitimizing specific allegories, like the Ring War being analogous to World War II.
Any disciplined card counter worth his salt follows two important rules (among others) to avoid detection:
1) Never stay at a table longer than 45 minutes to an hour (or even at a casino, for that matter) 2) Play cover
The average dealer will deal out about 60-70 hands in an hour. The Wired article says that 20-30 hands is the minimum requirement for picking up correlation. Add the fact that a counter will generally play cover, which means sometimes NOT increasing your bet when the count goes in your favor a little bit, or not increasing the bet in proportion to the count but rather by increasing it to look like a betting progression strategy, my guess is that so long as a good counter sticks to these two rules, even this optical detection system shouldn't pick him up.
The whole thing is silly as a strategy for catching counters. The ones that really hurt the casino are very, very good at avoiding detection (because if they weren't they'd get tossed immediately). The vast majority of counters are either not good enough at it, or aren't disciplined enough (they'll have a drink, sometimes fall to their emotions and chase a loss, etc.), and casinos actually MAKE money off them. A counter's edge, though an edge, is still not that big (anywhere from.5 to 2%), and that's assuming PERFECT basic strategy play along with PERFECT counting play (and realistically, if you're playing to the 2% advantage, you're going to get caught, so it's more like.5% advantage). No one plays perfectly, people make mistakes, so it's probably not even.5%. Toss in even slightly inaccurate counting, or bad discipline, and a counter can really lose his shirt.
The most sophisticated counters also base their counts on shuffle tracking, so it's not even a sure bet that their bet sizing will necessarily match up with what the running count is.
As far as counters go, the net effect of this system will probably be only the detection of counters that are good enough to consistently not lose, but not good enough to have avoided detection the old-fashioned way. In other words, minimal.
Re:I don't understand... why would loud be better?
on
Is Louder Better?
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· Score: 1
the brain/ear will generally perceive louder sounds to be better quality (not just in terms of audibility, but actual quality), even if that's not the case (psychoacoustics).
compression raises *average* loudness of a track (which is also why it destroys dynamic range).
take two identical recordings, adjust the volume levels on each so that they both peak at the same dB. the one that has some compression (not overdone) will generally sound better.
also, it's about contrast/comparison. if you're using a CD changer, when a softer CD comes on, all else being equal, the audio quality won't seem as good as the one preceding it.
i'm convinced that racists have a lot of shortcomings they feel they need to overcompensate for if they need to tear on an entire race rather than specific individuals
insofar as the trend towards more and more compression continues, it's news. of course the fact that over-compression kills dynamics and causes distortion is not.
also, yes, tape (and tube) compression does result in distortion, but all other things being equal, the distortion caused by signal attenuation is less likely to sound harsh and clipped when compared to digital compression. this has been my experience, and i've also seen the same conclusion repeated quite a few times.
basically, his point was never that compression = bad. it's the trend of excessive compression that he dislikes (i suppose you could go even further and pinpoint it as compressed to average of -9 db, since that's what he pegged Rush's latest album as). understandable that you'd gripe -- the point is there in the article, but it's not made totally clear.
doesn't matter. the point is that the excessive compression has destroyed the dynamic ranges of the tracks, and also actually changed the actual character of instrument sounds (like the drums, for example) by attenuating the signal into a different waveform. it sounds like shit (to him at least) no matter what volume it's played at.
i agree. you can get equally far on your social skills as you can on your degree. however, to be fair, i think the original poster was making a point about the educational/professional demographic that the US is moving towards, and not so much disputing the notion that academic achievement should always trump social skills at the individual level. sure, we could become a country of managers telling all those bright asian scientists what to do, but if such a situation persists over the long-term, you may end up with a geo-economic scenario analogous to that of a group of engineers saying, "Fuck this. Why do we need these dumbasses telling us what to do? Let's start our own company."
cereal, major label promotional exposure isn't necessarily required for artists to be successful. sure, it may be necessary for someone to break through on the scale of say, britney spears, but quite a few artists get by fine on independent labels. additionally, there's also quite a few artists that actually end up in DEBT after signing a major label deal.
this article is particularly instructive, and actually comes from someone in the industry (no bit player either):
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
people find out about good acts and good acts can get exposure without Sony-style promotions and marketing. um, Interpol? White Stripes? Mos Def and Talieb Kweli? yes, perhaps it's true that you can't get by in terms of exposure without a label's backing, but it's simply untrue to think that you can't get by (or even explode) without a major label's backing.
the only people that mass marketing and exposure strategies are designed to attract are people that want their musical choices spoonfed to them. music fans (real fans, not clear channel-fed trend-followers), of any genre, inherently find out about new acts, simply because they do their own research and discover for themselves.
That's too simplistic to be true... The best artists are certainly not always signed to a record deal, as numerous examples above have already shown. The logic you're using is simply the application of capitalist theory divorced from the actual reality of the kind of capitalism we live in. To illustrate this point in concrete terms, your theory would have us believe that since 'N Sync makes the most profits, they must be the *best* of the best artists... And I think the vast majority of the over 18, non female population would disagree vehemently.
There is this misperception that a major record deal translates into oodles of cash for the artist that signs that deal, when in fact this is rarely the case in the end. Read this article:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
Because of this, and the fact that it's actually economically feasible to be a moderately successful independent artist, or at least be moderately successful (if not hugely successful) being attached to an independent label, more and more artists are actually *forgoing* major record label deals. Consequently, you're likely to find more and more good artists in the stack of independent music...
However if you look at it like the record companies and some artists do then in the first example where I downloaded the song and hated it, was sorry my consciousness was ever touched by it's terrible sound, and didn't buy the record then I have still stolen it because they missed a chance to stick me with a lousy CD at a premium price and niether one gives a damn that I got the shitty end of the stick in the deal. Yes, and I think that this definition of stealing is ludicrous. Which is why I said the following in my initial post:
You might say that you've reduced the artist's potential profit by not accidentally buying something that you would've never bought if you had heard it beforehand, and thus have stolen from the artist. Personally, I think as soon as you begin to vocalize that argument you realize how silly it is.
Well, the resolution of this matter really doesn't depend on the definition of "theft" then. It depends on the definitions of "taking", and the identification of the object being taken. Your application of the definition of theft is so decontextualized from the social usage of music that it doesn't accurately depict the issue here.
Music as product is afforded profit value not because of the media it is represented on, but because of the experience it provides, and repeatable nature of it. Your defense of any act of duplication as non-theft assumes a conflation of music and the medium that it's stored on. Simply because the media is left where it is after duplication doesn't imply a lack of theft. To get at the root of what's being "taken", you have to ask the question what quantifiable value is being taken? The experience is not quantifiable, but the potential profit from *selling* the music is. Hence, what's being taken *away* from the artist is the potential profit of the consumer buying the music instead of not buying it. The question of whether or not it was downloaded, burned from a copy, or shoplifted out of a store is actually not even relevant here. The litmus test is simply this: if there wasn't the opportunity to have it for free WITHOUT PERMISSION, would you still pay for it? If the answer is yes, you're stealing, because the artist has lost potential profit.
Your car analogy is a false analogy because it doesn't completely mirror the situation. It would be a correct analogy (but with a different outcome) if it was phrased and qualified like this:
Ok, say your car is sitting in the driveway. *You make profits from selling rides in this car that you made, and I would normally pay for these rides.* Instead, now I'm going to go by, stop in the street, make a complete duplicate of your car, and drive away in the duplicate. Now I don't have to pay you for those rides, and you've lost all potential profit from me.
Notice: the object being taken is not the media, but what the media provides. What matters is not what's physically taken, but instead what *value* has been taken.
It might be unfair, but it's more or less accurate. It's not like presented another way to solve the problem of corrupt corporate management.
True enough, an alternative solution wasn't presented... at least not yet. But my point was that a lack of an immediately proposed alternative doesn't necessarily imply that the person noting an objection is simply a naysayer. Rather, such conclusions should be reserved until the end of the discussion, not the beginning. Maybe I'm being a little pedantic, and in any other context I'd agree with that, but when discussing proposals for social change.... best to be thorough.
And while "changing the rules" always sounds nice, it's also a dangerous game. Communist systems always fail because they expect human nature to change eventually, and in the meantime, we'll keep a gun pointed at your head to force you to change.
Where did I ever mention communism? Actually, this is demonstrative of the current problematic when critiquing the current state of capitalism -- criticisms have a tendency to be mischaracterized as favoring communism (or socialism) as an alternative simply because of argumentative inertia (i.e. this was how the debate was framed for 100+ years, so it's easier to think of it like that). That's another kind of thinking we need to get away from. There are many variants of capitalist systems, as any debate between laissez-faire and regulatory economists will reveal -- to level a critique against its current incarnation is not always suggestive of a desire to do without the idea completely. This is the case with me.
For all the awful things about the capitalist system, it is designed to model how humans actually act, which makes it a heck of a lot more likely to succeed than systems that rely on human nature to be different or that rely on a central body of "experts" to dictacte how things should be.
Agreed. Never said otherwise. Although the latter half of your statement seems to be reflective of our current reality in the U.S., lack of communism notwithstanding.
As for changing corporate policies, vote as a consumer; let these companies know that if they support building DRM into everything, you won't buy their products. Buy up their stock and get your guys on the board of directors. There are ways to do this, all within the system.
This is why I used qualifiers such as "sometimes" and "possible" and "perhaps" in my last post. Sometimes change can be effectuated using the mechanisms that already exist. Sometimes new approaches need to be created. Oftentimes, a combination is the most successful. Boycots can be effective (as can selective investments, such as Green Funds), but it's harder selectively target a company that doesn't depend on end-consumer products for profits, but rather profits by selling materials to other companies... like Enron and Andersen Consulting..
Let your elected officials know that if they pass laws requiring DRM in everything with a D/A converter, you're going to campaign to get them out of office. If it REALLY matters to you, you can do something about it within the system.
Or you can do something to add *to* the system, or something to remove something *from* the system, or pursue activities *outside* the system. What's dangerous is drawing a false dichotomy between acting through what may be inadequate means, and not acting at all, because not only does it tend to constrict creative thinking/approaches, it's underlying assumption -- that the system works AS IS -- only reinforces the status quo.
Think of this all as a qualifier to your argument, and not necessarily an objection to it.
I'm not sure if you're responding to my post or an earlier one, but if it's my post, then I'd be interested in what your definition of theft or stealing is, since your entire argument/objection depends on what that is.
Granted, if you download a song off a filesharing service that the artist doesn't want shared, and then burn it onto a CD and listen to it (or play it on your computer) fairly regularly, enjoy the experience, like it, yet never go out and actually buy the product in it's commercial form... yes, that definitely seems like stealing to me.
However, let's say you download a song, and you don't like it. Frankly, you think a series of farts you let out after eating a can of beans is more musical than the crap that this artist put out, and if you had actually paid for it, you would've felt ripped off. You never listen to the song again (or delete it from your computer), or only listen to it when you want to demonstrate to someone just how much this particular artist lacks in talent (in your estimation). Did you steal? Some people may still say yes, but I don't think so. You never use it, you don't listen to this song. Perhaps it physically exists on your hard drive or on some other media like a CD. But even then, the word physically is a bit of a misnomer, since music is pretty intangible -- the only physicality we speak of here is the recording format. It's not like taking someone's car and then never using it (which would still qualify as stealing since the original owner no longer has access to it, and has lost actual value). It's more like eavesdropping on someone explaining a new idea, but never using it. How have you stolen it?
You might say that you've reduced the artist's potential profit by not accidentally buying something that you would've never bought if you had heard it beforehand, and thus have stolen from the artist. Personally, I think as soon as you begin to vocalize that argument you realize how silly it is.
This is even more relevant when you consider one of the arguments in the original article -- filesharing is a boon because it gives immediate, unfettered, and near-universal access to *preview* songs and artistic material. If you preview something, decide you like it, keep it, but don't buy it, you're stealing. Anything less than that, I'd have to disagree.
>As long as people like you are going to sit on >the sidelines, pissing and moaning about how >little they can do, nothing is going to happen. >Welcome to self-fufilling prophesy land...
That's an unfair characterization of Aceticon argument. I think it was meant to illustrate the problematic nature of your suggestion when taken out of the realm of pure theory and into the field of pragmatic action. To interpret this specific criticism of an equally specific solution as a general proclivity towards "sitting on the sidelines, pissing and moaning" is an accidental lapse in understanding at best, a strawman at worst. Granted, if you don't like the current state of things, it's better to seek out avenues of change that exist within the current socio-economic structure, which is what your money pooling to voting bloc idea embodies. However, the criticism leveled against it also demonstrates that sometimes, that very same criticism reveals the inadequacies of current mechanisms of power and representation, and the need to think of changing or adding to those mechanisms in the search for a viable solution. In other words, the answer is not always found by working with the rules of the game as they exist today, but by changing those rules (or by changing the game itself). Unconstructive negativity has no use when pursuing goals of social progressivism, but that doesn't mean criticisms of proposed emancipatory solutions represent mere naysaying. It has to be a rigorous process.
Couple of notes...
- The anarchic society you describe actually sounds quite a bit like our current society.
- Minimalist states being the result of anarchic rule is probably not entirely accurate, but I'd agree with the basic premise of your point. Actually, something like this has happened in the 20th century, in Spain. Mainly based in the regions of Catalonia and Andulucia, an anarchist movement took shape -- without the attendant proclivities towards chaos, unchecked violence, etc. that opponents of anarchy regularly cite as problems with this form of (non) governance. These days, the type of social organization that the CNT (the anarchist collective) embodies has been described as "anarcho-syndicalism".. It is definitely a type of social organization, but a much looser form of organization than statehood. And there lies the flaw in most of arguments against anarchy -- the construct a false dichotomy between state governance and the complete absence of social organization. The core of the anarchic argument is the construction of an alternative form of social organizing, more in lines with the original ideals of direct democracy (as opposed to representative democracy, which is what we supposedly have now), not the complete banishment of it. This is something you can look to history for support, i.e. the spanish anarchist movement... unfortunately, the long-term success of this type of social thinking is hard to gauge, because they were pretty much wiped out by the fascict takeover during the Spanish Civil War.
As technology advances, we increase our ability to kill more people, at a faster rate.
Ummm... the link that's used to support that claim seems to say the opposite. Directly from the site:
It is the thesis of this paper that technology accounts for the declining death rate from war over the last fifty years
Re:What can be done about terrorism?
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More On Tragedy
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· Score: 1, Interesting
If a more reasonable understanding of the topic is to be gained, then some inaccuracies in your presentation should be corrected... To the meat:
the fundamental problem in that area is that since the founding of Israel, the Arab countries have continuously devoted themselves to its destruction. I think you also have some major misconceptions regarding the nature of a "Palestinian homeland" which could be more accurately described as "whatever area happens to be under Israeli control at the moment".
Incorrect. The Oslo declarations and repeated statements by the PNA, amongst other organizations involved in the (now defunct, I suppose) peace process have strictly defined the legal boundaries of a proposed Palestinian state as the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the portions of Israel that are beyond the "Red Line" crossed and occupied since the war of 1967. Prior to that war, that land was wholly occupied by the Palestinians and Jordanians. Of further note, though Palestinians make no claims to Western Lebanon and the Golan Heights, these are additional territories that were occupied by the IDF in the aftermath of the 1967 war. As for the statement that Arab nations are committed to its destruction, this is also inaccurate insofar as it overgeneralizes the nature of the conflict. Egypt and Jordan have signed official peace treaties explicitly accepting the premise of a Jewish state, while the sole sticking point for Syria is the unjustified and continued occupration of the Golan Heights. In terms of nation-states explicitly opposed to the very idea of a Jewish state, Iraq, Iran, and Libya are pretty much it.
If it makes you feel better, think about how much we spend on defense each year. Now think about the dollar value of the fact that Iraq didn't have nukes in 1991. Was aid to Israel cost effective?
This mischaracterizes cause and effect. To break it down:
1) Israel has nuclear weapons. Arab nations don't. As the first entrant in an arms race of weapons of mass destruction, it can appropriately be assigned causal (though not necessarily moral or ethical) blame for such an arms race. THINK: would Arab nations be in such hot pursuit of nuclear weapons if Israel did not have them???
2) How in the world does military aid to Israel prevent the acquisition of a nuclear arsenal by Iraq? If anything, UN inspections and Allied bombings contribute (however poorly) to the nuclear-free status of Iraq. Furthermore, it's likely that aiding in the overwhelming superiority of Israel's conventional forces only further contributes to Iraq's perceived need for a nuclear arsenal.
Think again.
But it's worth keeping in mind that the only country in that region in which Arabs can vote is Israel. In the rest of the area, the best they can hope for is a reasonably benign king (Morocco, Jordan) or despot (Egypt).
While it may be true that Israel is the one country where Arabs can vote, it is also the one country in the region where Arabs are categorically disenfranchised (as in disenfranchised *because* they are Arab, or maybe more accurately, disenfranchised because they are not Jewish). One need look no further than the unrelenting pace of Israeli settlements that push out Palestinians further into the hell-on-earth conditions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Not to mention, they are *branded* as different level citizens - persons of Arab descent are required to have license plates are on their vehicles designating them as Arabs. Though they may be afforded a political right that we assign some abstract worth to, the efficacy of that right appears to be pretty much worthless on the ground.
And also that the current hostility isn't because Israel denied the Palestinians a homeland but because it offered them one.
This last statement is so lacking in historical context that it makes any claim to "knowing what you're talking about" immediately suspect. As stated above, there are clear definitions as to what constitutes an official Palestinian state, and there is no denying that the territories that Israel occupies are ones that were captured, and not returned, during a war. This conflict has been going on for decades, and it has nothing to do with Israel offering a homeland - it has everything to do with Israel refusing to provide an acceptable homeland. Discussions of such only gained serious consideration in the aftermath of the 1987 intifada uprisings. The final sticking point to these negotiations was the status of East Jerusalem, the home of numerous Islamic holy sites, and occupied by the Palestinians before the founding of Israel. The negotiations collapsed when Israel could not agree to the reasonable request that East Jerusalem (not even all of Jerusalem) be run as an international city.
In sum, when it comes to the question of a Palestinian state, at every stage, Israel has been the recalcitrant party.
If there is any further doubt to the completely backwards claim that you're making, think about how things would be if Israel had never offered the prospect of a Palestinian state. I guarantee you, more than the world trade centers would rubble by now.
Slashdot Mirror
This has to be one of the worst articles I've read on Google in a while. Summary:
- Larry and Sergey are passionate about tech (duh)
- People working at Google verge on the fanatical (duh)
- People erroneously predicted that Google would launch a product massively different from it's core search business (the $200 computer)
- Hey, now we're going to make a prediction that is even MORE far-fetched: Google will develop AI
This strikes me as a publicity-driven piece designed to continue the popular enthusiasm in Google and the perception that they can do no wrong. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but there is very little here other than the continuation of "Google as Media Darling" phenonemon.
Hot coworkers?
Sorry, I think the original poster was talking about contracting for TECH companies...
I'm an architect at a software company, and I do a lot of interviewing of candidates, and I have to say that I completely agree that certifications are no substitute for actual experience. When I see a resume for a job candidate, I rarely place any weight at all on any certifications they might have on their resume. Why? Because whether or not they have J2EE certification, Java Programmer certification, blah blah, I am still going to ask them the same technical questions and/or probe for the same skillset. Just because they have a certification doesn't mean I am not going to do my job, which is to certify a potential candidate for US.
HOWEVER, those who tell you that getting a certification is a waste of time are probably giving you BAD ADVICE. Am I contradicting myself? No, and here's why.
On an average week, I might phone screen 1 or 2 candidates, and actually have a face to face interview with one. And let me tell you - I don't really enjoy doing this. Most people in my position don't either. If I wanted to spend my time interviewing people for jobs, I would have chosen a different career path. It takes away time from the job that I enjoy doing. Most of the time the candidates don't even pan out. Think about it -- how many candidates are turned down for every candidate that is given an offer? A LOT. Given such low percentages and the fact that I and people like me are quite busy and usually want as little to do with the hiring process as possible, who do you think we have as the first line of filtering for the stack of 1000+ resumes we receive every week?
It sure as hell isn't us.
Fine, you may have designed some super-cool distributed computing system using, or you may have written your own bytecode compiler, or you may have written large portions of app server code, etc. And you might put it on your resume, and it'll look really cool to us, the people who know what the hell you're talking about.
But to the HR person or corporate recruiter who is acting as the first person to sort through the resumes, you may as well be speaking in Klingon. They have no authority derived from knowledge to make any assessments about your skills. So they are going to look for EXTERNAL authoritative validations of your skills, like education and certifications. Sure, they will pick out resumes listing critical skillsets that we the engineers deem to be necessary for the job, and they are good at doing that as well. But they will likely prefer candidates with more external validators.
It is just human nature for us to look for experts when we are lost.
In short -- it may help you get your foot in the door first, so it's not a waste of time. But once you're in, don't expect it to mean anything.
i think you're conflating the motivations of the author with the interpretations that people derive from his works. any statements regarding the provability of "deeper meanings" in literary works is inherently a meaningless statement, because by definition, the interpretive act is something that cannot be held to a verification scheme of "proof".
the question isn't "IS there a deeper meaning?" it's simply, "CAN THERE BE a deeper meaning?". it's a claim of potentiality, not actuality, and the mere presence of one particular actualization is enough to "prove" the singular potential. so, to revise your statement, the proof that his texts CAN have deeper meanings is because for some people, they do.
in the case of tolkien, the real question that "proof" intersects with is whether or not the author would consider an interpretation of his works beyond face value, but not resorting to allegory, as legitimate. despite his distate for allegory, he was certainly a fan of myth, and looking for "deeper meanings" in myths is something that we've done through the ages. i'd say the balance of "proof" rests in favor of legitimizing thematic interpretations of the LOTR, such as the corrupting influence of power, the destructive side of industrialization, man's responsibility to himself, etc., but NOT legitimizing specific allegories, like the Ring War being analogous to World War II.
He said he witnessed this all in Palm Springs, CA. Maybe there are some problems with his story, but the disneyland connection isn't one of them.
Any disciplined card counter worth his salt follows two important rules (among others) to avoid detection:
.5 to 2%), and that's assuming PERFECT basic strategy play along with PERFECT counting play (and realistically, if you're playing to the 2% advantage, you're going to get caught, so it's more like .5% advantage). No one plays perfectly, people make mistakes, so it's probably not even .5%. Toss in even slightly inaccurate counting, or bad discipline, and a counter can really lose his shirt.
1) Never stay at a table longer than 45 minutes to an hour (or even at a casino, for that matter)
2) Play cover
The average dealer will deal out about 60-70 hands in an hour. The Wired article says that 20-30 hands is the minimum requirement for picking up correlation. Add the fact that a counter will generally play cover, which means sometimes NOT increasing your bet when the count goes in your favor a little bit, or not increasing the bet in proportion to the count but rather by increasing it to look like a betting progression strategy, my guess is that so long as a good counter sticks to these two rules, even this optical detection system shouldn't pick him up.
The whole thing is silly as a strategy for catching counters. The ones that really hurt the casino are very, very good at avoiding detection (because if they weren't they'd get tossed immediately). The vast majority of counters are either not good enough at it, or aren't disciplined enough (they'll have a drink, sometimes fall to their emotions and chase a loss, etc.), and casinos actually MAKE money off them. A counter's edge, though an edge, is still not that big (anywhere from
The most sophisticated counters also base their counts on shuffle tracking, so it's not even a sure bet that their bet sizing will necessarily match up with what the running count is.
As far as counters go, the net effect of this system will probably be only the detection of counters that are good enough to consistently not lose, but not good enough to have avoided detection the old-fashioned way. In other words, minimal.
the brain/ear will generally perceive louder sounds to be better quality (not just in terms of audibility, but actual quality), even if that's not the case (psychoacoustics).
compression raises *average* loudness of a track (which is also why it destroys dynamic range).
take two identical recordings, adjust the volume levels on each so that they both peak at the same dB. the one that has some compression (not overdone) will generally sound better.
also, it's about contrast/comparison. if you're using a CD changer, when a softer CD comes on, all else being equal, the audio quality won't seem as good as the one preceding it.
i'm convinced that racists have a lot of shortcomings they feel they need to overcompensate for if they need to tear on an entire race rather than specific individuals
insofar as the trend towards more and more compression continues, it's news. of course the fact that over-compression kills dynamics and causes distortion is not.
also, yes, tape (and tube) compression does result in distortion, but all other things being equal, the distortion caused by signal attenuation is less likely to sound harsh and clipped when compared to digital compression. this has been my experience, and i've also seen the same conclusion repeated quite a few times.
basically, his point was never that compression = bad. it's the trend of excessive compression that he dislikes (i suppose you could go even further and pinpoint it as compressed to average of -9 db, since that's what he pegged Rush's latest album as). understandable that you'd gripe -- the point is there in the article, but it's not made totally clear.
doesn't matter. the point is that the excessive compression has destroyed the dynamic ranges of the tracks, and also actually changed the actual character of instrument sounds (like the drums, for example) by attenuating the signal into a different waveform. it sounds like shit (to him at least) no matter what volume it's played at.
apparently, the people in "flyover territory" are irony-impaired also. yeesh.
i agree. you can get equally far on your social skills as you can on your degree. however, to be fair, i think the original poster was making a point about the educational/professional demographic that the US is moving towards, and not so much disputing the notion that academic achievement should always trump social skills at the individual level. sure, we could become a country of managers telling all those bright asian scientists what to do, but if such a situation persists over the long-term, you may end up with a geo-economic scenario analogous to that of a group of engineers saying, "Fuck this. Why do we need these dumbasses telling us what to do? Let's start our own company."
cereal, major label promotional exposure isn't necessarily required for artists to be successful. sure, it may be necessary for someone to break through on the scale of say, britney spears, but quite a few artists get by fine on independent labels. additionally, there's also quite a few artists that actually end up in DEBT after signing a major label deal.
this article is particularly instructive, and actually comes from someone in the industry (no bit player either):
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
people find out about good acts and good acts can get exposure without Sony-style promotions and marketing. um, Interpol? White Stripes? Mos Def and Talieb Kweli? yes, perhaps it's true that you can't get by in terms of exposure without a label's backing, but it's simply untrue to think that you can't get by (or even explode) without a major label's backing.
the only people that mass marketing and exposure strategies are designed to attract are people that want their musical choices spoonfed to them. music fans (real fans, not clear channel-fed trend-followers), of any genre, inherently find out about new acts, simply because they do their own research and discover for themselves.
That's too simplistic to be true... The best artists are certainly not always signed to a record deal, as numerous examples above have already shown. The logic you're using is simply the application of capitalist theory divorced from the actual reality of the kind of capitalism we live in. To illustrate this point in concrete terms, your theory would have us believe that since 'N Sync makes the most profits, they must be the *best* of the best artists... And I think the vast majority of the over 18, non female population would disagree vehemently.
There is this misperception that a major record deal translates into oodles of cash for the artist that signs that deal, when in fact this is rarely the case in the end. Read this article:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
Because of this, and the fact that it's actually economically feasible to be a moderately successful independent artist, or at least be moderately successful (if not hugely successful) being attached to an independent label, more and more artists are actually *forgoing* major record label deals. Consequently, you're likely to find more and more good artists in the stack of independent music...
Yay! Will Ben Affleck then get to play the other superhero?
Christ.
However if you look at it like the record companies and some artists do then in the first example where I downloaded the song and hated it, was sorry my consciousness was ever touched by it's terrible sound, and didn't buy the record then I have still stolen it because they missed a chance to stick me with a lousy CD at a premium price and niether one gives a damn that I got the shitty end of the stick in the deal.
Yes, and I think that this definition of stealing is ludicrous. Which is why I said the following in my initial post: You might say that you've reduced the artist's potential profit by not accidentally buying something that you would've never bought if you had heard it beforehand, and thus have stolen from the artist. Personally, I think as soon as you begin to vocalize that argument you realize how silly it is.
Well, the resolution of this matter really doesn't depend on the definition of "theft" then. It depends on the definitions of "taking", and the identification of the object being taken. Your application of the definition of theft is so decontextualized from the social usage of music that it doesn't accurately depict the issue here.
Music as product is afforded profit value not because of the media it is represented on, but because of the experience it provides, and repeatable nature of it. Your defense of any act of duplication as non-theft assumes a conflation of music and the medium that it's stored on. Simply because the media is left where it is after duplication doesn't imply a lack of theft. To get at the root of what's being "taken", you have to ask the question what quantifiable value is being taken? The experience is not quantifiable, but the potential profit from *selling* the music is. Hence, what's being taken *away* from the artist is the potential profit of the consumer buying the music instead of not buying it. The question of whether or not it was downloaded, burned from a copy, or shoplifted out of a store is actually not even relevant here. The litmus test is simply this: if there wasn't the opportunity to have it for free WITHOUT PERMISSION, would you still pay for it? If the answer is yes, you're stealing, because the artist has lost potential profit.
Your car analogy is a false analogy because it doesn't completely mirror the situation. It would be a correct analogy (but with a different outcome) if it was phrased and qualified like this:
Ok, say your car is sitting in the driveway. *You make profits from selling rides in this car that you made, and I would normally pay for these rides.* Instead, now I'm going to go by, stop in the street, make a complete duplicate of your car, and drive away in the duplicate. Now I don't have to pay you for those rides, and you've lost all potential profit from me.
Notice: the object being taken is not the media, but what the media provides. What matters is not what's physically taken, but instead what *value* has been taken.
It might be unfair, but it's more or less accurate. It's not like presented another way to solve the problem of corrupt corporate management.
True enough, an alternative solution wasn't presented... at least not yet. But my point was that a lack of an immediately proposed alternative doesn't necessarily imply that the person noting an objection is simply a naysayer. Rather, such conclusions should be reserved until the end of the discussion, not the beginning. Maybe I'm being a little pedantic, and in any other context I'd agree with that, but when discussing proposals for social change.... best to be thorough.
And while "changing the rules" always sounds nice, it's also a dangerous game. Communist systems always fail because they expect human nature to change eventually, and in the meantime, we'll keep a gun pointed at your head to force you to change.
Where did I ever mention communism? Actually, this is demonstrative of the current problematic when critiquing the current state of capitalism -- criticisms have a tendency to be mischaracterized as favoring communism (or socialism) as an alternative simply because of argumentative inertia (i.e. this was how the debate was framed for 100+ years, so it's easier to think of it like that). That's another kind of thinking we need to get away from. There are many variants of capitalist systems, as any debate between laissez-faire and regulatory economists will reveal -- to level a critique against its current incarnation is not always suggestive of a desire to do without the idea completely. This is the case with me.
For all the awful things about the capitalist system, it is designed to model how humans actually act, which makes it a heck of a lot more likely to succeed than systems that rely on human nature to be different or that rely on a central body of "experts" to dictacte how things should be.
Agreed. Never said otherwise. Although the latter half of your statement seems to be reflective of our current reality in the U.S., lack of communism notwithstanding.
As for changing corporate policies, vote as a consumer; let these companies know that if they support building DRM into everything, you won't buy their products. Buy up their stock and get your guys on the board of directors. There are ways to do this, all within the system.
This is why I used qualifiers such as "sometimes" and "possible" and "perhaps" in my last post. Sometimes change can be effectuated using the mechanisms that already exist. Sometimes new approaches need to be created. Oftentimes, a combination is the most successful. Boycots can be effective (as can selective investments, such as Green Funds), but it's harder selectively target a company that doesn't depend on end-consumer products for profits, but rather profits by selling materials to other companies... like Enron and Andersen Consulting..
Let your elected officials know that if they pass laws requiring DRM in everything with a D/A converter, you're going to campaign to get them out of office. If it REALLY matters to you, you can do something about it within the system.
Or you can do something to add *to* the system, or something to remove something *from* the system, or pursue activities *outside* the system. What's dangerous is drawing a false dichotomy between acting through what may be inadequate means, and not acting at all, because not only does it tend to constrict creative thinking/approaches, it's underlying assumption -- that the system works AS IS -- only reinforces the status quo.
Think of this all as a qualifier to your argument, and not necessarily an objection to it.
I'm not sure if you're responding to my post or an earlier one, but if it's my post, then I'd be interested in what your definition of theft or stealing is, since your entire argument/objection depends on what that is.
Here are some more grey edges...
Granted, if you download a song off a filesharing service that the artist doesn't want shared, and then burn it onto a CD and listen to it (or play it on your computer) fairly regularly, enjoy the experience, like it, yet never go out and actually buy the product in it's commercial form... yes, that definitely seems like stealing to me.
However, let's say you download a song, and you don't like it. Frankly, you think a series of farts you let out after eating a can of beans is more musical than the crap that this artist put out, and if you had actually paid for it, you would've felt ripped off. You never listen to the song again (or delete it from your computer), or only listen to it when you want to demonstrate to someone just how much this particular artist lacks in talent (in your estimation). Did you steal? Some people may still say yes, but I don't think so. You never use it, you don't listen to this song. Perhaps it physically exists on your hard drive or on some other media like a CD. But even then, the word physically is a bit of a misnomer, since music is pretty intangible -- the only physicality we speak of here is the recording format. It's not like taking someone's car and then never using it (which would still qualify as stealing since the original owner no longer has access to it, and has lost actual value). It's more like eavesdropping on someone explaining a new idea, but never using it. How have you stolen it?
You might say that you've reduced the artist's potential profit by not accidentally buying something that you would've never bought if you had heard it beforehand, and thus have stolen from the artist. Personally, I think as soon as you begin to vocalize that argument you realize how silly it is.
This is even more relevant when you consider one of the arguments in the original article -- filesharing is a boon because it gives immediate, unfettered, and near-universal access to *preview* songs and artistic material. If you preview something, decide you like it, keep it, but don't buy it, you're stealing. Anything less than that, I'd have to disagree.
>As long as people like you are going to sit on
>the sidelines, pissing and moaning about how
>little they can do, nothing is going to happen.
>Welcome to self-fufilling prophesy land...
That's an unfair characterization of Aceticon argument. I think it was meant to illustrate the problematic nature of your suggestion when taken out of the realm of pure theory and into the field of pragmatic action. To interpret this specific criticism of an equally specific solution as a general proclivity towards "sitting on the sidelines, pissing and moaning" is an accidental lapse in understanding at best, a strawman at worst. Granted, if you don't like the current state of things, it's better to seek out avenues of change that exist within the current socio-economic structure, which is what your money pooling to voting bloc idea embodies. However, the criticism leveled against it also demonstrates that sometimes, that very same criticism reveals the inadequacies of current mechanisms of power and representation, and the need to think of changing or adding to those mechanisms in the search for a viable solution. In other words, the answer is not always found by working with the rules of the game as they exist today, but by changing those rules (or by changing the game itself). Unconstructive negativity has no use when pursuing goals of social progressivism, but that doesn't mean criticisms of proposed emancipatory solutions represent mere naysaying. It has to be a rigorous process.
which leftist and anti-capitalist causes?
Couple of notes... - The anarchic society you describe actually sounds quite a bit like our current society. - Minimalist states being the result of anarchic rule is probably not entirely accurate, but I'd agree with the basic premise of your point. Actually, something like this has happened in the 20th century, in Spain. Mainly based in the regions of Catalonia and Andulucia, an anarchist movement took shape -- without the attendant proclivities towards chaos, unchecked violence, etc. that opponents of anarchy regularly cite as problems with this form of (non) governance. These days, the type of social organization that the CNT (the anarchist collective) embodies has been described as "anarcho-syndicalism".. It is definitely a type of social organization, but a much looser form of organization than statehood. And there lies the flaw in most of arguments against anarchy -- the construct a false dichotomy between state governance and the complete absence of social organization. The core of the anarchic argument is the construction of an alternative form of social organizing, more in lines with the original ideals of direct democracy (as opposed to representative democracy, which is what we supposedly have now), not the complete banishment of it. This is something you can look to history for support, i.e. the spanish anarchist movement... unfortunately, the long-term success of this type of social thinking is hard to gauge, because they were pretty much wiped out by the fascict takeover during the Spanish Civil War.
As technology advances, we increase our ability to kill more people, at a faster rate.
Ummm... the link that's used to support that claim seems to say the opposite. Directly from the site:
It is the thesis of this paper that technology accounts for the declining death rate from war over the last fifty years
If a more reasonable understanding of the topic is to be gained, then some inaccuracies in your presentation should be corrected... To the meat:
the fundamental problem in that area is that since the founding of Israel, the Arab countries have continuously devoted themselves to its destruction. I think you also have some major misconceptions regarding the nature of a "Palestinian homeland" which could be more accurately described as "whatever area happens to be under Israeli control at the moment".
Incorrect. The Oslo declarations and repeated statements by the PNA, amongst other organizations involved in the (now defunct, I suppose) peace process have strictly defined the legal boundaries of a proposed Palestinian state as the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the portions of Israel that are beyond the "Red Line" crossed and occupied since the war of 1967. Prior to that war, that land was wholly occupied by the Palestinians and Jordanians. Of further note, though Palestinians make no claims to Western Lebanon and the Golan Heights, these are additional territories that were occupied by the IDF in the aftermath of the 1967 war. As for the statement that Arab nations are committed to its destruction, this is also inaccurate insofar as it overgeneralizes the nature of the conflict. Egypt and Jordan have signed official peace treaties explicitly accepting the premise of a Jewish state, while the sole sticking point for Syria is the unjustified and continued occupration of the Golan Heights. In terms of nation-states explicitly opposed to the very idea of a Jewish state, Iraq, Iran, and Libya are pretty much it.
If it makes you feel better, think about how much we spend on defense each year. Now think about the dollar value of the fact that Iraq didn't have nukes in 1991. Was aid to Israel cost effective?
This mischaracterizes cause and effect. To break it down: 1) Israel has nuclear weapons. Arab nations don't. As the first entrant in an arms race of weapons of mass destruction, it can appropriately be assigned causal (though not necessarily moral or ethical) blame for such an arms race. THINK: would Arab nations be in such hot pursuit of nuclear weapons if Israel did not have them??? 2) How in the world does military aid to Israel prevent the acquisition of a nuclear arsenal by Iraq? If anything, UN inspections and Allied bombings contribute (however poorly) to the nuclear-free status of Iraq. Furthermore, it's likely that aiding in the overwhelming superiority of Israel's conventional forces only further contributes to Iraq's perceived need for a nuclear arsenal. Think again.
But it's worth keeping in mind that the only country in that region in which Arabs can vote is Israel. In the rest of the area, the best they can hope for is a reasonably benign king (Morocco, Jordan) or despot (Egypt).
While it may be true that Israel is the one country where Arabs can vote, it is also the one country in the region where Arabs are categorically disenfranchised (as in disenfranchised *because* they are Arab, or maybe more accurately, disenfranchised because they are not Jewish). One need look no further than the unrelenting pace of Israeli settlements that push out Palestinians further into the hell-on-earth conditions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Not to mention, they are *branded* as different level citizens - persons of Arab descent are required to have license plates are on their vehicles designating them as Arabs. Though they may be afforded a political right that we assign some abstract worth to, the efficacy of that right appears to be pretty much worthless on the ground.
And also that the current hostility isn't because Israel denied the Palestinians a homeland but because it offered them one.
This last statement is so lacking in historical context that it makes any claim to "knowing what you're talking about" immediately suspect. As stated above, there are clear definitions as to what constitutes an official Palestinian state, and there is no denying that the territories that Israel occupies are ones that were captured, and not returned, during a war. This conflict has been going on for decades, and it has nothing to do with Israel offering a homeland - it has everything to do with Israel refusing to provide an acceptable homeland. Discussions of such only gained serious consideration in the aftermath of the 1987 intifada uprisings. The final sticking point to these negotiations was the status of East Jerusalem, the home of numerous Islamic holy sites, and occupied by the Palestinians before the founding of Israel. The negotiations collapsed when Israel could not agree to the reasonable request that East Jerusalem (not even all of Jerusalem) be run as an international city. In sum, when it comes to the question of a Palestinian state, at every stage, Israel has been the recalcitrant party. If there is any further doubt to the completely backwards claim that you're making, think about how things would be if Israel had never offered the prospect of a Palestinian state. I guarantee you, more than the world trade centers would rubble by now.