I've been "into" home audio as a hobby since I fixed my uncle's broken Magnavox turntable when I was 5. That same uncle had a friend when I was in high school who was a big audiophile - he was invited by Rockford Fosgate to go to the 1985 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and I got to tag along. It was like being a kid in a candy store (literally, I suppose!). I used to look at catalogs and visit the local audiophile shops whenever I got a chance. I even subscribed to the late, lamented Stereo Review for over half a decade - longer than I've ever subscribed to any other magazine - and graduated from college with a degree in broadcasting (though I now perform business intelligence work - no oxymoron jokes, please).
My own stereo system is very modest, though. I'm far more interested in bang for the buck, and am far too cheap to blow more than $500 on any single piece of equipment (I'd have to win the lottery first). I've seen so-called audiophiles spend thousands on crap I wouldn't donate to the Salvation Army. Ultimately, it's about the music for me - not the technology. And I have no need to show off with my money, unlike a lot of rich idiots out there who must have 2" peckers.
My knowledge isn't so impressive - I know just enough to find more detailed information on the Internet (a legacy of my business intelligence background I suppose - dig through the database for more relevant information). For example, I knew the microphone the Beatles used is still in heavy use today for vocal recording, but couldn't remember its name. Once I tracked its name down, it was easy to get the specs on it, and confirm a couple of hunches I had, based on my past experience shopping for a microphone - namely, that mics with anything like a usable frequency response out to 20kHz are rare as hen's teeth and hellishly expensive, and that the most commonly-used studio mics are physically incapable of recording the vinyl-fanatics' much-cited "ultrasonic information".
The Internet can be a great tool for debunking junk science, marketing spin and urban myths, if you're willing to expend a little effort. Unfortunately, it can also be a great tool for spreading them, with little effort . . .
>The timbre of the musical instruments in vinyl is subjectively superior (to my ears and many other peoples) to that of CDs.
Yes, I have no doubt it is - for reasons I cited in my posts. This has nothing to do with the fidelity offered by the vinyl LP format however, which is absolute rubbish compared to the Compact Disc's. The LP is 1940's technology, so this is hardly surprising.
>This is due to digital nature of CDs. The waveform produced from a CD >is interpolated from data per unit of time. This is not as precise as the >waveform produced from a vinyl record which doesn't require D/A interpolation.
What you've just said makes absolutely no sense. CDs record samples of sound over 44 thousand times *per-second*. The human ear has no way to discern the difference between audio sampled at such a high rate and a "continuous" analog waveform. Numerous A/B tests have been conducted, and participants have been consistently shown to be unable to tell the difference between an analog master tape and a well-made digital copy. Many of the earliest A/D and D/A converters were plagued with conversion issues and other performance limitations twenty years ago, but those have all been resolved now for well over a decade.
Arguing that the resulting analog waveform produced by a CD player's D/A converters is not as "precise" as the analog waveform produced from a vinyl record is laughable. The signal being recorded on the vinyl has already been subjected to processing not required for transcription onto CD, including at least two equalization passes (one to compensate for vinyl's physical limitations regarding low bass and other frequency response issues, and another to make it conform to the standardized RIAA equalization curve) and dynamic range compression (in order to compensate for vinyl's limited dynamic range relative to the studio master tapes and CD, not to mention all the noise discs typically accumulate as they're used, plus the noise generated by the turntable and stylus). The equalization and compression alone cause all sorts of phase issues, plus harmonic distortion, and they compromise the flatness of the overall frequency response. On top of that, throw in the physical imperfection of the disc itself, wow and flutter and speed irregularities both for the cutter and for your turntable, plus turntable, platter and disc resonance effects and any electrical hum being picked up by your cartridge and phono preamp . . . well, it's plain to see the waveform coming off even the best turntable is going to be a heck of a lot less precise than the waveform coming off a well-made CD. You may prefer the sound of the LP for whatever reason, but there's no way on earth you can back up the assertion that it's more "precise".
>Also, while the ear hears pitch from roughly 20Hz to 20kHz, the ear perceives >sound of much higher frequencies, not as pitch, but as directional encoding.
Again, this simply isn't true. Young children can hear out to 20kHz, and occasionally even beyond (I think the observed limit is around 22-24kHz - CDs top out at a theoretical maximum of 22kHz, but due to the nature of PCM encoding at 44.1kHz, filters have to be put into place to limit high-frequency sound much beyond 20kHz), but it's vital to note that even then, the sensitivity of our ears to sound at 20kHz is extraordinarily low. In other words, a sound at 20kHz would have to be phenomenally loud for us to hear it compared to a sound at, say, 5,000Hz, where our hearing is much, much more sensitive. Few musical instruments produce loud sounds at or above 20kHz as a result - at least, not intentionally. There could be harmonics at frequencies in excess of 20kHz (for example, perhaps cymbals produce such harmonics), but by their very nature, those harmonics are going to be soft in relation to the rest of the signal - and again, most adults don't stand a snowball's chance of hearing them anyhow, even if they were deafeningly loud, which they're not.
Worse, vinyl doesn't stand a snowball's chance of reproducing such ultrasonic information with any kind of accuracy. The format was never designed to record high frequency signals - engineers have enough trouble squeezing 60Hz - 15,000Hz out of them reliably, let alone with any kind of fidelity when compared to CDs. I have no doubt that LPs produce a fair amount of ultrasonic signal, but again, most of that is going to be unintentional - clicks and pops, surface noise, electrical noise, and harmonic distortion generated by the stylus and cartridge as they vibrate. Any "real" ultrasonic information on the record would be swamped by all the fake ultrasonic garbage. You also seem to be assuming that the master tapes contain such ultrasonic information. They don't. The usable frequency response of even the best analog tape decks used historically for studio recording typically topped out at around 25kHz. Beyond that the levels fall off so rapidly as to be useless, and even there, the levels are going to be pretty low (assuming the deck doesn't employ filtering beyond around 22kHz to eliminate unwanted ultrasonic noise that can impinge on the bias signal).
Of course, this assumes the microphones could even pick up such ultrasonics to begin with, which of course they can't. 99.9% of the microphones used over the past 60 years to record audio in the studio or concert hall are lucky to have a usable frequency response out to as far as 20kHz - most begin a pretty severe rolloff at 15kHz, and by 20kHz only a handful manage to maintain a flat response, with performance dropping off rapidly thereafter. Anything they're picking up beyond 20kHz is going to be so faint as to be inaudible once it passes through the gauntlet of noise and distortion inherent in the vinyl format. Here's a sales listing for the legendary Neumann U87, a mic that's been the studio standard for vocal recording since the '60s - the Beatles used this mic, and singers & engineers continue to choose this mic over all others even to this day. Its frequency response tops out at 20kHz. So much for recording ultrasonics. And the instrument probably most likely to produce ultrasonics - the cymbal - is typically recorded using a mic like the Shure SM57, which has been a standard for recording percussion since its introduction over thirty years ago. Its frequency response tops out at a measly 15kHz. What ultrasonics?
Of course, it's all utterly inconsequential compared to the trashing of the original waveform caused by all of vinyl's other numerous limitations, including the damage done in the crucial 50Hz-5,000Hz range where human hearing and perception is so much more sensitive, and accuracy therefore so much more important.
>In summation, the superior S/N ratio, channel separation, and decreased >vulnerablity to reproduction errors of CD's are not as important as the >superior timbre and staging provided by vinyl.
In summation, you're clearly uninformed from a technical standpoint. If you prefer the "sound" of vinyl, that's your business. But don't try to cloak your preference in technobabble you clearly don't begin to understand.
I remain unconvinced. These SACDs are all recently remastered. CD mastering technology has improved greatly just over the past 5 years, thanks largely to the widespread introduction of 24-bit A/D converters, superior digital mixing consoles, improved computer-based sound processing programs, and greatly enhanced studio interest in production standards - the latter is the only real selling point for the scores of re-releases we've seen over the past few years. I don't know how effective it is to compare CDs that were mastered 10 years ago from an older analog source to SACDs mastered this year from that same source. Sony's SACD mastering equipment is all top-notch stuff, and they appear to be exerting quite a bit of quality control when it comes to these remasters. Compare that to the situation 10 or, heaven forbid, 20 years ago, when studios were shoveling stuff onto CDs with little regard for quality, as fast as their ovens could bake the tapes. (Yes, bake! The binder used on a lot of the original analog master tapes was hydrophilic. It absorbed water from the air, and got gummy over time, sticking to everything - itself, dirt, pinch rollers and worst of all playback heads. Many tapes had to be baked in an oven at low temperatures to drive off the water before they could safely be replayed. So, now rock stars aren't the only ones getting baked in the studios . ..)
As I see it, the only way to effectively compare SACD with CD (let alone DVD Audio) is to take an analog master and convert it to digital for the three formats using today's latest technology, all from the same analog source deck, preferably without any subsequent equalization or other processing tricks. For all we know, some of these SACDs sound so great because somebody in the studio is twiddling a lot of knobs to sweeten their sound . ..
Oh, and for the record, apparently not all SACD's sound so sweet, either. Just briefly checking Amazon.com for example, I found a couple of reviews of the SACD of Kind of Blue, the famous Miles Davis record, which suggested that the 1992 Sony remaster on plain vanilla CD sounded better (or at least as good). I'm sure there are probably other examples.
>Thank you for the very informative post. I'd give it a +5 if I could. >EVERY "vinyl is better" fanatic should read this.
Thanks! Glad you found it to be of some use.
Actually, I can think of several reasons for preferring the "sound" of vinyl, but none of them have to do with its superior *fidelity*:
* The dynamic range is compressed, sometimes pretty severely at certain frequencies. This can make it easier to hear certain soft details that might be obscure on a CD, particularly if your hearing isn't perfect (and most Americans have pretty poor hearing, due to all the loud noises we're exposed to during our lifetimes, particularly amplified music). For example, I've heard vinyl lovers say they've been able to hear the air conditioning in a concert hall from a quality, virgin vinyl pressing on a high-end turntable. While such feats are possible with CDs (if you crank the volume during a quiet passage - CD's 90dB dynamic range makes it possible to hear all sorts of otherwise inaudible background noise if you crank the volume high enough), it's simply impossible with vinyl's 60dB of dynamic range (max) unless the material was compressed before being mastered. (Well, I suppose if the concert hall had an amazingly noisy air conditioning system . . ..) * The music is typically heavily equalized by the mastering engineer. Not only do these guys compensate for the limits of the vinyl format (for example, eliminating any loud low bass that could pop the mastering cutter right out of its groove - not to mention your poor stylus), they frequently "sweeten" the sound to suit their own tastes. * The high end hiss, high-frequency clicks and pops and high-frequency harmonics generated by the stylus and pickup as they vibrate enhance the perceived high-midrange and treble response. While the hiss and clicks can be annoying when the music is soft, when it's loud the music pretty well drowns them out as distinct entities, and your ear perceives them as part of the high-end of the music. Harmonics also increase as the music grows louder, further enhancing the apparent high-end. I suspect this accounts for why many vinyl enthusiasts say CDs sound "flat" to them. They do!
You can demonstrate this effect for yourself - generate or record some white noise extending out to at least 20kHz, then filter everything below about 5000 Hz by around 20dB. Finally, mix this in with some audio recorded off of CD (make it a CD that you own, in order to avoid the wrath of the RIAA!). Experiment with the levels until you find you can no longer hear the hiss as a distinct component of the overall sound during the louder passages of the song. Finally, compare the original to the "hissy" version. You'll find that the original sounds dull in comparison, with a flat high end. This is one of the reasons why audio cassettes sounded so flat when you used Dolby noise reduction. People thought the Dolby killed the high frequency response of the tapes. While Dolby did dull the high end a little bit, that wasn't responsible for most of the perceived reduction. All that hiss on cassettes made it sound like there was more high frequency signal recorded on the tape than was actually present, and when that noise was squashed, the sound was very dull compared to a cassette without noise reduction. Of course, the loud hiss was so annoying in the softer passages, most people were willing to put up with the perceived high frequency reduction in trade for effective hiss mitigation.
Unfortunately for certain overly-enthusiastic vinyl lovers, CDs sound more like the original master tapes than vinyl, and that's the true meaning of fidelity. Folks may prefer the sound of a low-fidelity medium for any number of reasons, and that's their business. But trying to pass off a medium with inherently poor fidelity as somehow superior to a higher-fidelity medium is just wrong.
>Everyone with any knowledge of audio will agree that CDs are >a poor format. Crappy error-correction, only 16-bit precision >(20 is optimal), and a relatively low sampling rate are all >problems. Guess why audiophiles mostly listen to vinyl.
Amazing how much you can get wrong in three little sentences. CDs are a fantastic audio delivery format when compared to their predecessors. CD error protection is fairly bulletproof - witness the ability of most quality (and many cheap) players to track even severely scratched discs, while inaudibly correcting for any read errors the optics can't get past. Try doing that with a scratched analog LP or jammed tape. CD's 44.1 kHz sampling rate meanwhile is adequate to reproduce the full 20 Hz - 20 kHz range of human hearing, and then some (this article explains how the oddball 44.1 kHz became the standard).
As for "audiophiles", I don't know how you'd possibly go about defining an audiophile these days, now that many low end consumer multichannel receivers and surround speaker systems boast specs that demolish those possessed by high-end, $1000+ pieces of equipment just a decade ago. I do know there are plenty of self-identified audiophiles out there who won't touch vinyl with a 10 foot pole. Given the format's numerous limitations, I can't say I blame them:
* Loud tics and pops caused by stray dust and wear, resulting in a *negative* signal to noise ratio - i.e. the noise can become louder than the music! (with N'Stynk, I suppose this would be a blessing in disguise . . . or simply redundant.) * Rumbling caused by the turntable's motor and the friction of the stylus as it passes through the groove * Wow and flutter, caused by speed irregularities in the turntable's drive system and by any imperfections in the geometry of the disc * Phase irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization and the subsequent need for the preamp to de-equalize the signal * Frequency response irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization / de-equalization process * The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly) * The tendency for the turntable, platter and even the disc to function as microphones, picking up room reverberations and - particularly - the sound being produced by the speakers, smearing and distorting the audio in numerous ways * Cartridge / tonearm misalignments, causing inaccurate stylus pickup, accelerated record wear, or both. 30dB of stereo separation, vs. CD's 70+dB of separation * A theoretical maximum of 60dB of dynamic range for virgin vinyl of the highest quality (and only at certain frequencies - obviously, not in the low bass) vs. around 90dB of dynamic range from even the cheapest CD players, across the entire spectrum * In practice, roughly 40dB of usable dynamic range across the majority of the spectrum * A relatively flat frequency response from only around 60 Hz to 15 kHz, with severe rolloffs beyond those limits * The need for mastering engineers to severely compress and re-equalize the signal in order to steer clear of the format's limitations relative to CD, which requires no such distortion-educing compensation * Pitch and frequency errors caused by the speed difference between the cutter used to produce the wax master and your turntable * The tendency of the media itself to wear out as its played, and to be damaged during routine handling with audible results
CDs are based on 25 year old technology now. Newer formats - such as DVD Audio - offer even more impressive specifications (and multichannel audio capabilities), but the difference between them and the Compact Disc is nothing like the quantum leap in fidelity the CD represents vs. the vinyl LP. Vinyl was obsolete for at least a decade before the CD rolled along, and it was probably only confusion in the marketplace regarding the various tape formats (the 8-track, Philips' compact cassette, open reel) that allowed it to survive as long as it did.
Is the entire probe sterilized after construction? Also, wouldn't the hard radiation in space do a pretty good job of killing any bugs that might have hitched a ride aboard the ashes?
The author also says he omitted a few things from his story. It's possible one of the things he omitted was the sterilization of the ashes.
I have slowed down my participation in the SETI@home project because I have become increasingly skeptical that other life forms would happen to care enough about radio frequency communications to build a transmitter.
Just because they might not be transmitting the alien equivalent of American Top 40 every Saturday morning doesn't mean they aren't generating radio waves. Even if they don't use radio for any form of communication (which I suppose is possible - perhaps they use some quantum trick for FTL communication that we can't even detect), other elements of their technology may give off incidental radio noise that could be detected by a sufficiently-sensitive SETI listening device.
The question, then, is why hasn't anyone found Earth yet, if the probability for life is so high? Either every civilization gets wiped out long before they can begin galactic exploration (without exception--a pretty difficult thing to imagine, unless you're an apocalyptic environmentalist), or, perhaps more frightening in an indirect sense, there simply aren't any other intelligent civilizations in the galaxy.
Maybe. Or maybe advanced civilizations send out tiny probes, too small for us to detect, or use some other form of technology to observe the universe that we are unaware of. They might travel the universe, but only virtually, never actually leaving home themselves.
I mean, if you could go on safari in your own living room for $10, would you go through the hassle and expense of traveling all the way to Africa? Their "virtual reality" technologies may be so advanced, the user would be unable to tell the difference between a "virtual" trip and the real thing. So why bother with the real thing, when the virtual option is so much less troublesome?
Other advantages would include the preservation of native cultures and environments (since you wouldn't be interacting with them), the elimination of disease risks, and the ability to keep your civilization a secret from other, potentially hostile advanced civilizations.
So all of a sudden mass-production is back to the level of the late Industrial age with absolutely no automation at all. How nice.
Your words, not mine. And your bile. There was automation in Metropolis - what do you think the workers were doing? That's right - running machines in factories.
Ignoring the fact that most 'industrial' jobs bear little resemblence to what was being done in the 19th and early 20th centuries because most of the tedium has been mechanized is simple ignorance.
Ha! You've obviously never worked a day in a factory in your life, let alone a factory in the Third World. Kathy Lee Gifford and Nike have to lock 'em in their sweatshops for a reason. And those sweatshops are a paradise compared to places like mines & smelters. Just because horrible working conditions have been (pretty much) eliminated from your immediate vision (as they had been for the elites in Metropolis) doesn't mean they don't exist elsewhere in the world. Of course we've been able to eliminate most of that from our little corner of the world - we're now largely the management class overseeing the labors of around two BILLION people. It takes a hundred million people to manage that pool of labor, and another hundred million to support those managers. But nothing that we do is "magic", and it's certainly nothing some of the workers couldn't do for themselves. Lang's film serves as a stark warning of what's going to happen someday when, en masse, they figure that last bit out.
'Things,' physical artifacts, have gotten so cheap that they don't drive economies anymore. They have gotten this cheap because production methods have changed radically, removing the need for people to stand in front of machines of steam and steel just to produce the most basic items of commerce.
Ha!!! You have two billion people working at slave wages to produce goods for you, troops stationed all over the world to keep the cost of energy down, and then crow about how cheap things have gotten thanks to the "Information Age"? Please! Things have gotten cheap because the pool of labor is ten times what it was in 1927, and the relative cost of energy has plunged. Things have gotten cheap because 100 years of industrial might have produced a military machine nobody can resist. Sure, "Information Age" technologies have helped to facilitate these changes - you couldn't manage two billion people spread all over the globe or fight a modern war without them - but please. A stealth fighter may be a marvel of modern information technology, but without the materials to build it and the fuel to run it, it's just a CAD drawing. And nobody's going to be intimidated - let alone killed - by something out of a videogame.
You don't eat ideas. You don't drive around town in information. We live in a material world, and all the information you shuffle about on the Internet won't ever change that fact.
And as for automation, it only makes sense to build hugely expensive and complicated robots to perform industrial tasks when the cost of labor is extremely high, as it became in the West and Japan during the 1970's, and the government doesn't allow you to move those jobs to Third World nations (as is the case with the heavily-regulated automobile industry). The per-capita GDP of China in 1990 was $798 US dollars. For America, it was around $32,000 dollars. So long as labor remains cheap in the Third World, they aren't going to be automating those jobs.
No, I didn't ignore the "point" of his post - his "point" just demonstrates his (and apparently your) complete lack of understanding regarding what Metropolis is all about.
He said, "We don't labor in front of huge steam engines; our machines are based on information." That's a load of hooey. The upper classes in Metropolis didn't labor in front of huge steam engines, either - they had their subterranean worker classes to do that, just as we here in the West have the Third World to do our steamy industrial dirty work. And the upper classes in Metropolis were already portrayed as Information Age workers, adding up the receipts of the labor of others, which is all we ultimately use our vaunted "Information Age" technology for - to maximize industrial efficiency. And if you think the world isn't still fundamentally industrial, you're living in a corporate propaganda dot com bubbleland, the same kind of rarified, disconnected atmosphere inhabited by the elites in Metropolis. In fact, you're the living proof of just how visionary Fritz Lang really was.
Without the industry of around two billion people toiling under generally pretty shitty, steamy, industrial-age conditions all across the globe (particularly in the Third World), this cozy little anal retentive so-called Information Economy we have here in the West would curl up and die in about a week. You'd starve shortly thereafter.
As usual, the fleas end up believing the dog exists solely for their benefit.
*Somebody* has to be working with heavy machines in order to produce the manufactured goods you use and enjoy. In Lang's vision of the future, employees in a subterranean world beneath the city fulfilled that function. In reality, those of us in the West have just exported our heavy, exploitive, polluting drudgery to the Third World, where despots are more than willing to whip our servants into submission for us. I'd say Lang's vision of the future was fundamentally correct - he just got a few irrelevant details wrong.
I find it highly ironic that a well-organized child molestation ring would be concerned about "blasphemy" on the Internet. Perhaps if the leadership of the Catholic Church hadn't spent the last umpteen years facilitating, aiding and abetting child rape, I wouldn't find these actions so hypocritically offensive.
They had to have a gun pointed to their heads before they agreed to start ousting their child-raping priests, but they're able to take swift, decisive action against offensive websites run by third parties? And these guys claim moral authority? Satan himself couldn't run a more twisted operation . . .
I'm glad you brought up the Consumer Reports article. Here's a short quote from it, detailing the results of an interesting study that was recently performed, concerning high-glycemic carbohydrates (those are carbohydrates that are able to rapidly raise your blood sugar levels shortly after you eat them - potatoes are probably the best example, besides raw sugar itself).
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[Dr. David] Ludwig, of Children's Hospital Boston, demonstrated the hunger-curbing power of a higher-protein diet with an ingenious experiment involving a dozen overweight teenage boys. On one test day, they ate a high-glycemic breakfast and lunch containing lots of easily digested carbohydrates but very little fat and protein. On another day, they ate a low-glycemic breakfast and lunch that contained about twice as much protein and 50 percent more fat but only two-thirds as much carbohydrates as the high-glycemic meals. The calorie content of both meals was identical. After consuming their test breakfasts and lunches, the boys were allowed to eat as much dinner as they wanted from platters laden with bagels, cold cuts, cream cheese, cookies, and fruit. On the days when they'd previously eaten high-glycemic meals, the boys scarfed down 81 percent more calories at dinner than on the days when they'd eaten the high-protein, low-glycemic meals.
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Clearly, this kind of research indicates there might be something seriously wrong with the carb-rich, high-glycemic diet many so-called government "experts" have been advocating for the past decade. I doubt we'll ever see any in-depth research into the issue, though. The potato lobby probably doesn't want the government funding it, and private-sector pharmaceutical corporations certainly aren't going to spend the billions they get in government and university research dollars investigating something that won't result in a patented pill they can sell to the taxpayers for $40 a pop. There's just no easy money to be made off of telling people to avoid high-glycemic carbs, which is what all the preliminary research indicates we should do.
Maybe we could get Oprah to fund more extensive research. Then again, after that tussle with Texas cattlemen, she'd probably be hesitant to take on both Idaho spud farmers *and* Swiss drugmakers.
Um, no. The Social Security trust fund actually owns bonds, whose rate of return has outstripped that of the stock market over certain extended periods of time (for example, during most of the 1970's), especially when you account for inflation, brokerage fees, etc. If the system is in danger of being overwhelmed by a wave of boomer retirees - which is doubtful, as those retirees will need to be replaced in the workforce by either imported or domestic labor which will therefore be paying increased premiums into the trust fund - the government could either borrow the money it needs to cover the shortfall, cut discretionary spending to cover the shortfall, increase the retirement age by 2 - 5 years (practical, given the increase in lifespan, but possibly politically loaded), institute means testing, or some combination of the above.
You're also assuming the boomers will be able to retire. Given the level of savings in this country, and the destruction of corporate pension funds over the past decade and a half, I suspect many of them will never be able to completely retire, and will spend their advanced years continuing to work until they are completely physically disabled, paying into the tax system without withdrawing anything from Social Security until they reach 70 and max out their benefits (assuming the government continues to offer a bonus for delaying benefits, which they probably will - in fact, they'll probably increase it to help spread out the wave of retirees).
And middle income workers would only benefit later in their careers if the markets are doing reasonably well at that time. If their late careers are spent during a period like the 1970's or - heaven forbid - the great depression, they could be wiped out. The whole point of Social Security is to have a social safety net in place for the disabled and the retired that can't be obliterated by a market crash or made worthless by a prolonged market downturn.
But please don't confuse the 12-year-old libertarian geniuses with any facts. You might cramp their dogma.
Let's put all of our Social Security money into the stock market. The private sector could make much better use of that money than the nasty old government . ..
Better yet, let's just go to Reno and gamble it all away. Yeah!
Re:that doesn't solve any problems
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Netrek
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· Score: 1
If letting people talk is turning people off from Netrek - and apparently it is, according to several posts just here on/. - pretty soon you're going to find yourselves without a userbase. Who cares if removing the chat functionality makes it take longer for people to learn the game? If nobody's playing, it follows nobody will *ever* learn the game.
Excellent message. I played Netrek for several years off and on in the late '90s, but never got very good at it, and grew tired with the hunt for a full server.
One idea that just came to mind to prevent such abuses - don't allow players to send freeform messages. Give them a set of canned messages they can execute - escort me, carrying "x" armies, help me, everybody go here now, ogg "x" player, ogg the base - and no more.
Since the new players don't read anyhow, they won't be missing anything. Experienced players don't need to be told what's going on. So, kill the chat features and get rid of a lot of the abusive behavior.
To compensate though one might need to reintroduce eject. I'd propose a "silent" eject. Since chat functions would be gone, players already wouldn't be able to solicit requests for ejects. In addition, they probably shouldn't be allowed to know when votes were cast to eject another player, although the player receiving the eject votes would see a warning with each vote against, and after "x" number of votes would be given the boot. That seems like a much fairer system that would still allow obvious Hitlers to be removed from a game.
Mod this one up. I agree completely - way too much fluff here at/. these days. This Cringely article is exactly the kind of stuff that/. needs to be making us aware of - not the non-coma that Scotty isn't in.
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I've been "into" home audio as a hobby since I fixed my uncle's broken Magnavox turntable when I was 5. That same uncle had a friend when I was in high school who was a big audiophile - he was invited by Rockford Fosgate to go to the 1985 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and I got to tag along. It was like being a kid in a candy store (literally, I suppose!). I used to look at catalogs and visit the local audiophile shops whenever I got a chance. I even subscribed to the late, lamented Stereo Review for over half a decade - longer than I've ever subscribed to any other magazine - and graduated from college with a degree in broadcasting (though I now perform business intelligence work - no oxymoron jokes, please).
My own stereo system is very modest, though. I'm far more interested in bang for the buck, and am far too cheap to blow more than $500 on any single piece of equipment (I'd have to win the lottery first). I've seen so-called audiophiles spend thousands on crap I wouldn't donate to the Salvation Army. Ultimately, it's about the music for me - not the technology. And I have no need to show off with my money, unlike a lot of rich idiots out there who must have 2" peckers.
My knowledge isn't so impressive - I know just enough to find more detailed information on the Internet (a legacy of my business intelligence background I suppose - dig through the database for more relevant information). For example, I knew the microphone the Beatles used is still in heavy use today for vocal recording, but couldn't remember its name. Once I tracked its name down, it was easy to get the specs on it, and confirm a couple of hunches I had, based on my past experience shopping for a microphone - namely, that mics with anything like a usable frequency response out to 20kHz are rare as hen's teeth and hellishly expensive, and that the most commonly-used studio mics are physically incapable of recording the vinyl-fanatics' much-cited "ultrasonic information".
The Internet can be a great tool for debunking junk science, marketing spin and urban myths, if you're willing to expend a little effort. Unfortunately, it can also be a great tool for spreading them, with little effort . . .
The statement:
This next generation heavy lifter can out-lift any rocket built since the Saturn V 'Moon rocket', including the shuttle.
can't be true, can it? Surely the Russians have built more powerful rockets than this new Atlas in the years since the Apollo program.
>The timbre of the musical instruments in vinyl is subjectively superior (to my ears and many other peoples) to that of CDs.
Yes, I have no doubt it is - for reasons I cited in my posts. This has nothing to do with the fidelity offered by the vinyl LP format however, which is absolute rubbish compared to the Compact Disc's. The LP is 1940's technology, so this is hardly surprising.
>This is due to digital nature of CDs. The waveform produced from a CD
>is interpolated from data per unit of time. This is not as precise as the
>waveform produced from a vinyl record which doesn't require D/A interpolation.
What you've just said makes absolutely no sense. CDs record samples of sound over 44 thousand times *per-second*. The human ear has no way to discern the difference between audio sampled at such a high rate and a "continuous" analog waveform. Numerous A/B tests have been conducted, and participants have been consistently shown to be unable to tell the difference between an analog master tape and a well-made digital copy. Many of the earliest A/D and D/A converters were plagued with conversion issues and other performance limitations twenty years ago, but those have all been resolved now for well over a decade.
Arguing that the resulting analog waveform produced by a CD player's D/A converters is not as "precise" as the analog waveform produced from a vinyl record is laughable. The signal being recorded on the vinyl has already been subjected to processing not required for transcription onto CD, including at least two equalization passes (one to compensate for vinyl's physical limitations regarding low bass and other frequency response issues, and another to make it conform to the standardized RIAA equalization curve) and dynamic range compression (in order to compensate for vinyl's limited dynamic range relative to the studio master tapes and CD, not to mention all the noise discs typically accumulate as they're used, plus the noise generated by the turntable and stylus). The equalization and compression alone cause all sorts of phase issues, plus harmonic distortion, and they compromise the flatness of the overall frequency response. On top of that, throw in the physical imperfection of the disc itself, wow and flutter and speed irregularities both for the cutter and for your turntable, plus turntable, platter and disc resonance effects and any electrical hum being picked up by your cartridge and phono preamp . . . well, it's plain to see the waveform coming off even the best turntable is going to be a heck of a lot less precise than the waveform coming off a well-made CD. You may prefer the sound of the LP for whatever reason, but there's no way on earth you can back up the assertion that it's more "precise".
>Also, while the ear hears pitch from roughly 20Hz to 20kHz, the ear perceives
>sound of much higher frequencies, not as pitch, but as directional encoding.
Again, this simply isn't true. Young children can hear out to 20kHz, and occasionally even beyond (I think the observed limit is around 22-24kHz - CDs top out at a theoretical maximum of 22kHz, but due to the nature of PCM encoding at 44.1kHz, filters have to be put into place to limit high-frequency sound much beyond 20kHz), but it's vital to note that even then, the sensitivity of our ears to sound at 20kHz is extraordinarily low. In other words, a sound at 20kHz would have to be phenomenally loud for us to hear it compared to a sound at, say, 5,000Hz, where our hearing is much, much more sensitive. Few musical instruments produce loud sounds at or above 20kHz as a result - at least, not intentionally. There could be harmonics at frequencies in excess of 20kHz (for example, perhaps cymbals produce such harmonics), but by their very nature, those harmonics are going to be soft in relation to the rest of the signal - and again, most adults don't stand a snowball's chance of hearing them anyhow, even if they were deafeningly loud, which they're not.
Worse, vinyl doesn't stand a snowball's chance of reproducing such ultrasonic information with any kind of accuracy. The format was never designed to record high frequency signals - engineers have enough trouble squeezing 60Hz - 15,000Hz out of them reliably, let alone with any kind of fidelity when compared to CDs. I have no doubt that LPs produce a fair amount of ultrasonic signal, but again, most of that is going to be unintentional - clicks and pops, surface noise, electrical noise, and harmonic distortion generated by the stylus and cartridge as they vibrate. Any "real" ultrasonic information on the record would be swamped by all the fake ultrasonic garbage. You also seem to be assuming that the master tapes contain such ultrasonic information. They don't. The usable frequency response of even the best analog tape decks used historically for studio recording typically topped out at around 25kHz. Beyond that the levels fall off so rapidly as to be useless, and even there, the levels are going to be pretty low (assuming the deck doesn't employ filtering beyond around 22kHz to eliminate unwanted ultrasonic noise that can impinge on the bias signal).
Of course, this assumes the microphones could even pick up such ultrasonics to begin with, which of course they can't. 99.9% of the microphones used over the past 60 years to record audio in the studio or concert hall are lucky to have a usable frequency response out to as far as 20kHz - most begin a pretty severe rolloff at 15kHz, and by 20kHz only a handful manage to maintain a flat response, with performance dropping off rapidly thereafter. Anything they're picking up beyond 20kHz is going to be so faint as to be inaudible once it passes through the gauntlet of noise and distortion inherent in the vinyl format. Here's a sales listing for the legendary Neumann U87, a mic that's been the studio standard for vocal recording since the '60s - the Beatles used this mic, and singers & engineers continue to choose this mic over all others even to this day. Its frequency response tops out at 20kHz. So much for recording ultrasonics. And the instrument probably most likely to produce ultrasonics - the cymbal - is typically recorded using a mic like the Shure SM57, which has been a standard for recording percussion since its introduction over thirty years ago. Its frequency response tops out at a measly 15kHz. What ultrasonics?
Of course, it's all utterly inconsequential compared to the trashing of the original waveform caused by all of vinyl's other numerous limitations, including the damage done in the crucial 50Hz-5,000Hz range where human hearing and perception is so much more sensitive, and accuracy therefore so much more important.
>In summation, the superior S/N ratio, channel separation, and decreased
>vulnerablity to reproduction errors of CD's are not as important as the
>superior timbre and staging provided by vinyl.
In summation, you're clearly uninformed from a technical standpoint. If you prefer the "sound" of vinyl, that's your business. But don't try to cloak your preference in technobabble you clearly don't begin to understand.
I remain unconvinced. These SACDs are all recently remastered. CD mastering technology has improved greatly just over the past 5 years, thanks largely to the widespread introduction of 24-bit A/D converters, superior digital mixing consoles, improved computer-based sound processing programs, and greatly enhanced studio interest in production standards - the latter is the only real selling point for the scores of re-releases we've seen over the past few years. I don't know how effective it is to compare CDs that were mastered 10 years ago from an older analog source to SACDs mastered this year from that same source. Sony's SACD mastering equipment is all top-notch stuff, and they appear to be exerting quite a bit of quality control when it comes to these remasters. Compare that to the situation 10 or, heaven forbid, 20 years ago, when studios were shoveling stuff onto CDs with little regard for quality, as fast as their ovens could bake the tapes. (Yes, bake! The binder used on a lot of the original analog master tapes was hydrophilic. It absorbed water from the air, and got gummy over time, sticking to everything - itself, dirt, pinch rollers and worst of all playback heads. Many tapes had to be baked in an oven at low temperatures to drive off the water before they could safely be replayed. So, now rock stars aren't the only ones getting baked in the studios . . .)
.
As I see it, the only way to effectively compare SACD with CD (let alone DVD Audio) is to take an analog master and convert it to digital for the three formats using today's latest technology, all from the same analog source deck, preferably without any subsequent equalization or other processing tricks. For all we know, some of these SACDs sound so great because somebody in the studio is twiddling a lot of knobs to sweeten their sound . .
Oh, and for the record, apparently not all SACD's sound so sweet, either. Just briefly checking Amazon.com for example, I found a couple of reviews of the SACD of Kind of Blue, the famous Miles Davis record, which suggested that the 1992 Sony remaster on plain vanilla CD sounded better (or at least as good). I'm sure there are probably other examples.
>Thank you for the very informative post. I'd give it a +5 if I could.
.)
>EVERY "vinyl is better" fanatic should read this.
Thanks! Glad you found it to be of some use.
Actually, I can think of several reasons for preferring the "sound" of vinyl, but none of them have to do with its superior *fidelity*:
* The dynamic range is compressed, sometimes pretty severely at certain frequencies. This can make it easier to hear certain soft details that might be obscure on a CD, particularly if your hearing isn't perfect (and most Americans have pretty poor hearing, due to all the loud noises we're exposed to during our lifetimes, particularly amplified music). For example, I've heard vinyl lovers say they've been able to hear the air conditioning in a concert hall from a quality, virgin vinyl pressing on a high-end turntable. While such feats are possible with CDs (if you crank the volume during a quiet passage - CD's 90dB dynamic range makes it possible to hear all sorts of otherwise inaudible background noise if you crank the volume high enough), it's simply impossible with vinyl's 60dB of dynamic range (max) unless the material was compressed before being mastered. (Well, I suppose if the concert hall had an amazingly noisy air conditioning system . . .
* The music is typically heavily equalized by the mastering engineer. Not only do these guys compensate for the limits of the vinyl format (for example, eliminating any loud low bass that could pop the mastering cutter right out of its groove - not to mention your poor stylus), they frequently "sweeten" the sound to suit their own tastes.
* The high end hiss, high-frequency clicks and pops and high-frequency harmonics generated by the stylus and pickup as they vibrate enhance the perceived high-midrange and treble response. While the hiss and clicks can be annoying when the music is soft, when it's loud the music pretty well drowns them out as distinct entities, and your ear perceives them as part of the high-end of the music. Harmonics also increase as the music grows louder, further enhancing the apparent high-end. I suspect this accounts for why many vinyl enthusiasts say CDs sound "flat" to them. They do!
You can demonstrate this effect for yourself - generate or record some white noise extending out to at least 20kHz, then filter everything below about 5000 Hz by around 20dB. Finally, mix this in with some audio recorded off of CD (make it a CD that you own, in order to avoid the wrath of the RIAA!). Experiment with the levels until you find you can no longer hear the hiss as a distinct component of the overall sound during the louder passages of the song. Finally, compare the original to the "hissy" version. You'll find that the original sounds dull in comparison, with a flat high end. This is one of the reasons why audio cassettes sounded so flat when you used Dolby noise reduction. People thought the Dolby killed the high frequency response of the tapes. While Dolby did dull the high end a little bit, that wasn't responsible for most of the perceived reduction. All that hiss on cassettes made it sound like there was more high frequency signal recorded on the tape than was actually present, and when that noise was squashed, the sound was very dull compared to a cassette without noise reduction. Of course, the loud hiss was so annoying in the softer passages, most people were willing to put up with the perceived high frequency reduction in trade for effective hiss mitigation.
Unfortunately for certain overly-enthusiastic vinyl lovers, CDs sound more like the original master tapes than vinyl, and that's the true meaning of fidelity. Folks may prefer the sound of a low-fidelity medium for any number of reasons, and that's their business. But trying to pass off a medium with inherently poor fidelity as somehow superior to a higher-fidelity medium is just wrong.
>Everyone with any knowledge of audio will agree that CDs are
>a poor format. Crappy error-correction, only 16-bit precision
>(20 is optimal), and a relatively low sampling rate are all
>problems. Guess why audiophiles mostly listen to vinyl.
Amazing how much you can get wrong in three little sentences. CDs are a fantastic audio delivery format when compared to their predecessors. CD error protection is fairly bulletproof - witness the ability of most quality (and many cheap) players to track even severely scratched discs, while inaudibly correcting for any read errors the optics can't get past. Try doing that with a scratched analog LP or jammed tape. CD's 44.1 kHz sampling rate meanwhile is adequate to reproduce the full 20 Hz - 20 kHz range of human hearing, and then some (this article explains how the oddball 44.1 kHz became the standard).
As for "audiophiles", I don't know how you'd possibly go about defining an audiophile these days, now that many low end consumer multichannel receivers and surround speaker systems boast specs that demolish those possessed by high-end, $1000+ pieces of equipment just a decade ago. I do know there are plenty of self-identified audiophiles out there who won't touch vinyl with a 10 foot pole. Given the format's numerous limitations, I can't say I blame them:
* Loud tics and pops caused by stray dust and wear, resulting in a *negative* signal to noise ratio - i.e. the noise can become louder than the music! (with N'Stynk, I suppose this would be a blessing in disguise . . . or simply redundant.)
* Rumbling caused by the turntable's motor and the friction of the stylus as it passes through the groove
* Wow and flutter, caused by speed irregularities in the turntable's drive system and by any imperfections in the geometry of the disc
* Phase irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization and the subsequent need for the preamp to de-equalize the signal
* Frequency response irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization / de-equalization process
* The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly)
* The tendency for the turntable, platter and even the disc to function as microphones, picking up room reverberations and - particularly - the sound being produced by the speakers, smearing and distorting the audio in numerous ways
* Cartridge / tonearm misalignments, causing inaccurate stylus pickup, accelerated record wear, or both.
30dB of stereo separation, vs. CD's 70+dB of separation
* A theoretical maximum of 60dB of dynamic range for virgin vinyl of the highest quality (and only at certain frequencies - obviously, not in the low bass) vs. around 90dB of dynamic range from even the cheapest CD players, across the entire spectrum
* In practice, roughly 40dB of usable dynamic range across the majority of the spectrum
* A relatively flat frequency response from only around 60 Hz to 15 kHz, with severe rolloffs beyond those limits
* The need for mastering engineers to severely compress and re-equalize the signal in order to steer clear of the format's limitations relative to CD, which requires no such distortion-educing compensation
* Pitch and frequency errors caused by the speed difference between the cutter used to produce the wax master and your turntable
* The tendency of the media itself to wear out as its played, and to be damaged during routine handling with audible results
CDs are based on 25 year old technology now. Newer formats - such as DVD Audio - offer even more impressive specifications (and multichannel audio capabilities), but the difference between them and the Compact Disc is nothing like the quantum leap in fidelity the CD represents vs. the vinyl LP. Vinyl was obsolete for at least a decade before the CD rolled along, and it was probably only confusion in the marketplace regarding the various tape formats (the 8-track, Philips' compact cassette, open reel) that allowed it to survive as long as it did.
Is the entire probe sterilized after construction? Also, wouldn't the hard radiation in space do a pretty good job of killing any bugs that might have hitched a ride aboard the ashes?
The author also says he omitted a few things from his story. It's possible one of the things he omitted was the sterilization of the ashes.
In the early 1990's, they built a massive Tesla coil for shipment to a "customer in Japan"? Wouldn't have anything to do with these guys, would it?
I have slowed down my participation in the SETI@home project because I have become increasingly skeptical that other life forms would happen to care enough about radio frequency communications to build a transmitter.
Just because they might not be transmitting the alien equivalent of American Top 40 every Saturday morning doesn't mean they aren't generating radio waves. Even if they don't use radio for any form of communication (which I suppose is possible - perhaps they use some quantum trick for FTL communication that we can't even detect), other elements of their technology may give off incidental radio noise that could be detected by a sufficiently-sensitive SETI listening device.
The question, then, is why hasn't anyone found Earth yet, if the probability for life is so high? Either every civilization gets wiped out long before they can begin galactic exploration (without exception--a pretty difficult thing to imagine, unless you're an apocalyptic environmentalist), or, perhaps more frightening in an indirect sense, there simply aren't any other intelligent civilizations in the galaxy.
Maybe. Or maybe advanced civilizations send out tiny probes, too small for us to detect, or use some other form of technology to observe the universe that we are unaware of. They might travel the universe, but only virtually, never actually leaving home themselves.
I mean, if you could go on safari in your own living room for $10, would you go through the hassle and expense of traveling all the way to Africa? Their "virtual reality" technologies may be so advanced, the user would be unable to tell the difference between a "virtual" trip and the real thing. So why bother with the real thing, when the virtual option is so much less troublesome?
Other advantages would include the preservation of native cultures and environments (since you wouldn't be interacting with them), the elimination of disease risks, and the ability to keep your civilization a secret from other, potentially hostile advanced civilizations.
So all of a sudden mass-production is back to the level of the late Industrial age with absolutely no automation at all. How nice.
Your words, not mine. And your bile. There was automation in Metropolis - what do you think the workers were doing? That's right - running machines in factories.
Ignoring the fact that most 'industrial' jobs bear little resemblence to what was being done in the 19th and early 20th centuries because most of the tedium has been mechanized is simple ignorance.
Ha! You've obviously never worked a day in a factory in your life, let alone a factory in the Third World. Kathy Lee Gifford and Nike have to lock 'em in their sweatshops for a reason. And those sweatshops are a paradise compared to places like mines & smelters. Just because horrible working conditions have been (pretty much) eliminated from your immediate vision (as they had been for the elites in Metropolis) doesn't mean they don't exist elsewhere in the world. Of course we've been able to eliminate most of that from our little corner of the world - we're now largely the management class overseeing the labors of around two BILLION people. It takes a hundred million people to manage that pool of labor, and another hundred million to support those managers. But nothing that we do is "magic", and it's certainly nothing some of the workers couldn't do for themselves. Lang's film serves as a stark warning of what's going to happen someday when, en masse, they figure that last bit out.
'Things,' physical artifacts, have gotten so cheap that they don't drive economies anymore. They have gotten this cheap because production methods have changed radically, removing the need for people to stand in front of machines of steam and steel just to produce the most basic items of commerce.
Ha!!! You have two billion people working at slave wages to produce goods for you, troops stationed all over the world to keep the cost of energy down, and then crow about how cheap things have gotten thanks to the "Information Age"? Please! Things have gotten cheap because the pool of labor is ten times what it was in 1927, and the relative cost of energy has plunged. Things have gotten cheap because 100 years of industrial might have produced a military machine nobody can resist. Sure, "Information Age" technologies have helped to facilitate these changes - you couldn't manage two billion people spread all over the globe or fight a modern war without them - but please. A stealth fighter may be a marvel of modern information technology, but without the materials to build it and the fuel to run it, it's just a CAD drawing. And nobody's going to be intimidated - let alone killed - by something out of a videogame.
You don't eat ideas. You don't drive around town in information. We live in a material world, and all the information you shuffle about on the Internet won't ever change that fact.
And as for automation, it only makes sense to build hugely expensive and complicated robots to perform industrial tasks when the cost of labor is extremely high, as it became in the West and Japan during the 1970's, and the government doesn't allow you to move those jobs to Third World nations (as is the case with the heavily-regulated automobile industry). The per-capita GDP of China in 1990 was $798 US dollars. For America, it was around $32,000 dollars. So long as labor remains cheap in the Third World, they aren't going to be automating those jobs.
No, I didn't ignore the "point" of his post - his "point" just demonstrates his (and apparently your) complete lack of understanding regarding what Metropolis is all about.
He said, "We don't labor in front of huge steam engines; our machines are based on information." That's a load of hooey. The upper classes in Metropolis didn't labor in front of huge steam engines, either - they had their subterranean worker classes to do that, just as we here in the West have the Third World to do our steamy industrial dirty work. And the upper classes in Metropolis were already portrayed as Information Age workers, adding up the receipts of the labor of others, which is all we ultimately use our vaunted "Information Age" technology for - to maximize industrial efficiency. And if you think the world isn't still fundamentally industrial, you're living in a corporate propaganda dot com bubbleland, the same kind of rarified, disconnected atmosphere inhabited by the elites in Metropolis. In fact, you're the living proof of just how visionary Fritz Lang really was.
Without the industry of around two billion people toiling under generally pretty shitty, steamy, industrial-age conditions all across the globe (particularly in the Third World), this cozy little anal retentive so-called Information Economy we have here in the West would curl up and die in about a week. You'd starve shortly thereafter.
As usual, the fleas end up believing the dog exists solely for their benefit.
*Somebody* has to be working with heavy machines in order to produce the manufactured goods you use and enjoy. In Lang's vision of the future, employees in a subterranean world beneath the city fulfilled that function. In reality, those of us in the West have just exported our heavy, exploitive, polluting drudgery to the Third World, where despots are more than willing to whip our servants into submission for us. I'd say Lang's vision of the future was fundamentally correct - he just got a few irrelevant details wrong.
No need for research. All we need is a pair of clones, a plant man, and transmute named Gene/Jean.
See the IMDB for the details
I find it highly ironic that a well-organized child molestation ring would be concerned about "blasphemy" on the Internet. Perhaps if the leadership of the Catholic Church hadn't spent the last umpteen years facilitating, aiding and abetting child rape, I wouldn't find these actions so hypocritically offensive.
They had to have a gun pointed to their heads before they agreed to start ousting their child-raping priests, but they're able to take swift, decisive action against offensive websites run by third parties? And these guys claim moral authority? Satan himself couldn't run a more twisted operation . . .
I'm glad you brought up the Consumer Reports article. Here's a short quote from it, detailing the results of an interesting study that was recently performed, concerning high-glycemic carbohydrates (those are carbohydrates that are able to rapidly raise your blood sugar levels shortly after you eat them - potatoes are probably the best example, besides raw sugar itself).
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[Dr. David] Ludwig, of Children's Hospital Boston, demonstrated the hunger-curbing power of a higher-protein diet with an ingenious experiment involving a dozen overweight teenage boys. On one test day, they ate a high-glycemic breakfast and lunch containing lots of easily digested carbohydrates but very little fat and protein. On another day, they ate a low-glycemic breakfast and lunch that contained about twice as much protein and 50 percent more fat but only two-thirds as much carbohydrates as the high-glycemic meals. The calorie content of both meals was identical. After consuming their test breakfasts and lunches, the boys were allowed to eat as much dinner as they wanted from platters laden with bagels, cold cuts, cream cheese, cookies, and fruit. On the days when they'd previously eaten high-glycemic meals, the boys scarfed down 81 percent more calories at dinner than on the days when they'd eaten the high-protein, low-glycemic meals.
-----
Clearly, this kind of research indicates there might be something seriously wrong with the carb-rich, high-glycemic diet many so-called government "experts" have been advocating for the past decade. I doubt we'll ever see any in-depth research into the issue, though. The potato lobby probably doesn't want the government funding it, and private-sector pharmaceutical corporations certainly aren't going to spend the billions they get in government and university research dollars investigating something that won't result in a patented pill they can sell to the taxpayers for $40 a pop. There's just no easy money to be made off of telling people to avoid high-glycemic carbs, which is what all the preliminary research indicates we should do.
Maybe we could get Oprah to fund more extensive research. Then again, after that tussle with Texas cattlemen, she'd probably be hesitant to take on both Idaho spud farmers *and* Swiss drugmakers.
Um, no. The Social Security trust fund actually owns bonds, whose rate of return has outstripped that of the stock market over certain extended periods of time (for example, during most of the 1970's), especially when you account for inflation, brokerage fees, etc. If the system is in danger of being overwhelmed by a wave of boomer retirees - which is doubtful, as those retirees will need to be replaced in the workforce by either imported or domestic labor which will therefore be paying increased premiums into the trust fund - the government could either borrow the money it needs to cover the shortfall, cut discretionary spending to cover the shortfall, increase the retirement age by 2 - 5 years (practical, given the increase in lifespan, but possibly politically loaded), institute means testing, or some combination of the above.
You're also assuming the boomers will be able to retire. Given the level of savings in this country, and the destruction of corporate pension funds over the past decade and a half, I suspect many of them will never be able to completely retire, and will spend their advanced years continuing to work until they are completely physically disabled, paying into the tax system without withdrawing anything from Social Security until they reach 70 and max out their benefits (assuming the government continues to offer a bonus for delaying benefits, which they probably will - in fact, they'll probably increase it to help spread out the wave of retirees).
And middle income workers would only benefit later in their careers if the markets are doing reasonably well at that time. If their late careers are spent during a period like the 1970's or - heaven forbid - the great depression, they could be wiped out. The whole point of Social Security is to have a social safety net in place for the disabled and the retired that can't be obliterated by a market crash or made worthless by a prolonged market downturn.
But please don't confuse the 12-year-old libertarian geniuses with any facts. You might cramp their dogma.
Let's put all of our Social Security money into the stock market. The private sector could make much better use of that money than the nasty old government . . .
Better yet, let's just go to Reno and gamble it all away. Yeah!
If letting people talk is turning people off from Netrek - and apparently it is, according to several posts just here on /. - pretty soon you're going to find yourselves without a userbase. Who cares if removing the chat functionality makes it take longer for people to learn the game? If nobody's playing, it follows nobody will *ever* learn the game.
Sure. Why don't we just bury it on the far side of the moon? That worked really well on . . . er, nevermind.
http://www.space1999.net/~online/
Excellent message. I played Netrek for several years off and on in the late '90s, but never got very good at it, and grew tired with the hunt for a full server.
One idea that just came to mind to prevent such abuses - don't allow players to send freeform messages. Give them a set of canned messages they can execute - escort me, carrying "x" armies, help me, everybody go here now, ogg "x" player, ogg the base - and no more.
Since the new players don't read anyhow, they won't be missing anything. Experienced players don't need to be told what's going on. So, kill the chat features and get rid of a lot of the abusive behavior.
To compensate though one might need to reintroduce eject. I'd propose a "silent" eject. Since chat functions would be gone, players already wouldn't be able to solicit requests for ejects. In addition, they probably shouldn't be allowed to know when votes were cast to eject another player, although the player receiving the eject votes would see a warning with each vote against, and after "x" number of votes would be given the boot. That seems like a much fairer system that would still allow obvious Hitlers to be removed from a game.
Mod this one up. I agree completely - way too much fluff here at /. these days. This Cringely article is exactly the kind of stuff that /. needs to be making us aware of - not the non-coma that Scotty isn't in.
Insert Monica Lewinsky joke here.
http://www.dropclaw.com/jarballs/
http://www.peoplegraphic.com/jarjar/
http://members.tripod.com/jsyphilis/