Spent 9 hours last night getting 2 of the CD's copied.
Care to elaborate on this? I haven't bought a physical disk in some time (around 3 years), but I don't remember them taking nearly that much time, unless your ripping them to Flac at the lowest possible speed, and even then this is a BIT* long... Ripping to 300-200bps, though, should only take 30 minutes top, depending on the length of the CD.
I don't think I've ever ripped a CD that took longer than 20 minutes.
Sorta. If you want to play music licensed through ASCAP or BMI then you purchase a license. It's not mandatory. If you have, say, a bar or club and you don't thik you'll get any financial gain out of playing music at your establishment, then you can skip the license.
This is almost, but not quite, true. Its the "not quite" that is bothersome, since ASCAP will try to leverage money out of you WHETHER OR WEATHER NOT you actually plan on playing ASCAP music, on the off chance that you might accidentally do so. If I own a bar or coffee shop that has live music, ASCAP still wants money on the off chance that someone MAY play a cover of a song covered by them, even if no one ever does. I've talked to several smaller touring artists who are not ASCAP members who complain non-stop about ASCAP.
IF, ASCAP actually only charged per-play I would have no problem with them, but they try to leverage fees... JUST IN CASE. This is extortion.
They also try to block small, nonprofit, venues (like weddings and larger parties) from playing music that may or may not be licensed to them. There is a line here, if I choose to play music at my (nonprofit) wedding with a 10s of guests, then they really have no moral (if not legal) right to try to grab money from me. And most of the money they grab goes to the BIG people, and probably not the people I will play at my wedding/bar/coffee house, thus the artists I may possible theoretically infringe upon see minimal benefit.
This iTunes thing is another reason to question their legitimacy. They are making money from those 30sec samples, but appearently would rather secure a short-term revenue stream over actually making money for their members.
You're correct that fees are distributed roughly in proportion to popularity. The song and lyric writing biz is a bit unfair this way; popularity often doesn't scale to talent. They used to measure only by radio airplay sampling, but in recent years they've made it more equitable, by getting playlists from satellite and Internet radio stations, for instance -- which play a lot more eclectic and lesser-known music.
Nor does it scale to who I actually play. It is rather odd that if I, as an owner of an establishment, never play Birtney Spears, she still gets money from me just by essence of her being more popular.
The problem is dictating beliefs to children. I am a rather rabid atheist, and have a big problem with teaching clap-trap in schools (creationism, pure abstinence, etc...), but I have to admit, for the sake of fairness, that us atheists also shouldn't be dictating our values to the religious, no matter how much I think they're a bunch of silly loons. I personally think its fine to flog your knob to your heart's content, but I don't think our schools should say so. Shouldn't our schools focus on... you know... reading and math skills, instead? If I, as a parent, have a serious... pardon the expression... hard on against masturbation, then I have a reasonable objection.
Of course beleifs are a protected right, you (in general, not referring to anyone specific here) are free to beleive that anything is a sin and I am free to beleive that your beleifs are laughable. I'm free to mock them too.
Mocking is fine, dictating how our children learn is a different thing.
But then again, I think the Christian idea of teaching only "abstinence" is silly, and oddly science agrees with me.
We're talking about TASTE here, which, last I checked, was largely a subjective measure that varies greatly from individual to individual. I also agree with him, somehow they managed to kill tomatoes, sweet corn, and apples. Tomatoes are not supposed to be sickeningly sweat, sweet corn isn't suppose to taste like candy, neither should apples. Modern produce is also less nutritious than it used to be.
To me it isn't even nostalgia, I just can't stand overly sweet, or tasteless food. If they made tomatoes MORE acidic (as opposed to sugary) than they used to be, I probably would like them even more.
I love the commercials telling me not to buy products with "chemicals" in them, or claiming that their product is completely free from "chemicals". Instead of buying shampoo I buy vacuum cylinders, to avoid the terror and health effects of putting "chemicals" on my hair.
you question their knowledge of the subject because they used its instead of it's?
Not just for that, the most common of typos (its/it's, too/two/to, there/their/they're) are often just simple mistakes, and don't really reflect negatively on the author. They probably just typed something faster than they could think, and didn't take the extra second or so to proof it (our mind generally skims over these typos). When the typos and misspellings become ubiquitous though, you start to question the authors authority because of the laziness evident in the writing. If they don't have the intellectual investment to type out a coherent thought, how much diligence did they apply to the thought behind the text?
Its like having a conversation with someone claiming to be a physicist, but they keep going "uhhhhhh..." and calling you "dawg."
This is even worse with "text speak", how much credibility does someone have if they can't take the extra millisecond to type the "y" and "o" in "you" ("u")? Obviously they don't value their communications enough (enuff) to actually bother making it understandable. Dawg.
First, I am not saying that there isn't ANY intelligent opposition to it, just that they are either a minority, and/or completely drowned out by the lunatic fringe. You seem seem to have coherent opposition, for example. I may not agree with you on all points, but that is natural and healthy, since at least there are coherent points on which to agree or disagree. My point was mainly (with a bit of hyperbole) that most of the apparent opposition isn't really opposed to to the bill, or anything that matters. Hell, I am opposed to the bill, but still think calling our elected president (I even voted for him) Hitler is bad for civil discourse, and for having any of my arguments taken seriously.
I have. Although it says non-citizens are excluded, there's no requirement for verification, so any illegal person can walk into a hospital, lie, and get free service as a U.S. citizen even though they aren't.
This is already true. And for a person living in the Southwest it is a major problem, though a very tricky one thanks to medical ethics (can't deny service to those in need). AFAIK it is illegal for hospitals to deny care.
You'll probably reject it as "nonsense" but I consider it valid: A monopoly is never a good idea... And yes it is in the bill. Effective "year one" of the legislation, which is 2013 in normal language, people will no longer be able to choose private options. Yes if you are a grandparent who has had the same ABC Insurance for twnety years, you'll be able to keep it, but for the rest of us who don't currently have coverage we will HAVE to choose the government option. We won't be able to elect a private company.
I don't dismiss it as nonsense, the core idea there, though I do have some disagreement with the application. This is normal, and healthy disagreement mind. Also, mind citing where in the bill it says this? If you are correct, I agree that this is not a desirable aspect to the bill.
Maybe it's time to stop watching MSNBC's or CNN's censored reports that conveniently don't cover what "the opposition" is discussing, because those channels are not telling you the whole story. *I* heard about the $1500 fine ($3500 for married people) from the opposition, else I wouldn't even know about it. So yes it's being talked about even if you're not hearing it.
I try grabbing my news from more sources than that, and I still haven't came across this. This is partly because, as stated, all rational argument is being completely drowned out by lunatics frothing at the mouth and screaming inchoate rants. This is partly, admittedly, because I already think this is a stupid bill, so am not as diligent at it as I could be.
No not really. A few still like Bush, but not anyone I've ever met. The $700 billion bailout was the final straw for nearly everyone who used to like Bush. They consider him a traitor to small government principles and the Republican party.
Didn't the conservative wing of the Republican party die off long before Bush? I jest.:)
Strawman argument. I never said that
It was a strawman, I admit it, and apologize. It wasn't intentional though. I wasn't that I wasn't trying to understand what you were saying, its more that I misread a simple clause in your original closing paragraph, honest mistake. Someone else even pointing it out to me, and I admitted my misunderstanding. These things happen.
This isn't an issue about me finding everyone I don't agree with as morons, especially since I agree with you on the broad stroke that this bill is bad. I'm not arguing that you, personally, are stupid or inchoate, or that your positions are. Just that the signal to noise ratio has gotten a bit wonky here, especially with the lunatic fringe of the Republican party already riled up into conniptions and paroxysms of mouth frothing.
Not that the democrats are doing much better, with many of them falling into the blind "we agree with whatever our fearless leader says" mode, but generally they at least attempt to hide this in the guise of civil discourse.
Sadly, I fear, all of this is for naught since the bill will probably pass.
I wasn't disagreeing with you, but I can see how selection based on lifestyle could be dwarfed by more "monkey see money do" factors over large enough scales. Looking at your examples, marriage and child birth, these are relatively rare events, so probably wouldn't exert a huge amount of force over larger populations. Though there has been some studies showing that marriage and pregnancy do follow in clusters too, meaning that there still is some contagious value to them. There might be a little of both there, of course.
I mostly just got washed away into the land of conceptual hand waving.
I don't blame the last remaining HAM folk, though. Its a small badwidth, and its a community. Why allow a single moron use it for illegal reasons, you only open the door for more morons.
I am not a HAM person either, nor do I have any desire to be one.
When you're within range of a cell tower (which is almost everywhere, these days) you get the high speeds you want.
Your idea of almost everywhere is severely limited. There is vast tracks of America with spotty or non-existent access to even basic cell usage. This is true in vast swaths of the southwest, thanks to LOS problems, and from my experience other parts of the west and midwest thanks to density issues. The East coast, and southern/central California might not suffer this, but the US is a HUGE place.
No offense... but shouldn't selection play a roll? Just because you take 8000 pictures, doesn't mean you need to upload 8000 pictures, or that anyone really cares about 95% of them (if that isn't the point then why upload them?). Granted, my life isn't quite as exciting as yours, I spend tons of time deep in the wilderness of the southwest (without much cell coverage), I also am a technophile and photo buff (not very good, but I try), but also don't mind the lack of connectivity, I actually find it somewhat refreshing. I am also sure that most of my friends like it as well, since it gives me time to select only the pictures that I like.
I'm not insulting your preferences, I'm just questioning the universality of them. Pictures (and blogs, surprisingly enough) benefit then most from not being able to harbor your "post it" influences.
I am a rarity though, since I don't mind escaping the internet for long periods, and often find it refreshing. I lately came back from a week or so vacation to Washington, where I purposely chose not to bring my laptop, or access the internet in any serious way. Obviously this was for pleasure, so your business needs might trump this. When I go prospecting in the deep desert of AZ, the lack of internet and cell access is mostly a plus, as well. Though some emergency service would be nice, especially since CD emergency channels are largely abandoned.
Shhhh... Your insulting the American ideal of "productivity", science has shown that the more you enjoy your life, the more likely you are to be a hell bound sinner. Oh wait... that was Calvin, not science.
Though your personal, anecdotal experience does not support such a conclusion, social science (and social engineering), advertising, marketing, etc. seem very much to be based on at least an acceptance of this notion.
Agreed, I didn't mean to sound like my personal anecdote was trumping science. I was more bringing it up to illustrate that this is a somewhat soft rule, and not a hard invariant one. Basically the self-selection happens in a very subtle manner, which might be amplified when one studies larger interactions. This lends a bit of credence to the study, where the communicable effects of peer choice is a bit higher than mere self-selection of peers.
I think we do agree that, even if the outcomes in the study presented in TFA are styled as "positive", the same principle lends itself to the much more negative outcome of coercion.
On a bit of off-the-cuff analysis, I doubt that negative trends would be as strong as positive ones, though they would still exert some force. If you start with a peer group at some base level of behavior (to be judged as either positive or negative), and allow members to select positive or negative behaviors (smoking or not, education or not, healthful or not). Generally the positive behaviors will have positive results for those people, which is observable by their peers, and as such would be more likely to be emulated than behaviors with noticeably harmful consequences.
Of course many harmful behaviors appear positive over short periods of time, which would allow negative behaviors to also have some influence over any peer network, though I would expect this to be shorter lasting, and of less influence than positive ones.
We emulate our peers, especially when their behavior has noticeable positive benefit to them individually. Obviously, the more peers in the network emulate positive behavior with evident benefit, the more likely more peers will follow the example.
If someone in your circle of friends started doing something new, which benefited them greatly, you'd probably be more likely to do it. Right? Compared to if someone in your group started an obviously self-harmful behavior (drug use, dropping out of school, smoking, watching NASCAR and eating bon bons all day). You might not excise the person from your network, but you probably wouldn't do what they do.
Actually this study is much more fun to think about than it seemed on the surface. It makes me realize why I gravitated towards social psychology in school, even if I was deeply suspicious of the social sciences.
I've been mugged twice, seen both of the attackers faces, and wasn't murdered for it. Both times it was easier to give them what they want, than to try to pry a weapon out of their hands. And both times, as stated, I got a VERY good description of the assailant, which was useful to the cops. And both times I had a weapon of my own, which I didn't use, even if I had the opportunity (a knife versus a gun at your throat isn't a good deal, and someones life, even a young punk, isn't worth the laundry money they were trying to steal).
Most criminals are not super-genius types. Most of them are poor slobs with no education trying to take the easy way out.
Actually most of the other networks DO criticize Obama's health care plan, it just isn't there constant agenda to oppose the president on everything he does because he is a "foreign born, socialist, Muslim who looks different than us!". Even the bastion of unflinching liberalism that is MSNBC lobs the occasional flame at Obama for being a pandering weakling, and gutting the actual good parts of the bill for a sense of fake bipartisanship with the current Republican circus.
Part of the problem is that THERE IS NO OPPOSITION to the bill currently, at least not that I've heard on Fox, or from the various "tea bag" type people. Opposition requires having a sound argument, and the ability to at least discuss the same topic with some common ground, and the will to have civil discourse. Instead of opposition we see a bunch of unwashed morons screaming "SOCIALISM!", without any clue as to what the word actually means, and people comparing him to Hitler. And then you have people like that Joe Wilson moron (go go civil discourse) who screams about lies, about things that are objectively NOT lies (read the bill, okay?).
I'm sure there is some valid opposition out there, but it has been drowned out by the lunatic fringe, and the fact that for some reason NO ONE wants to discredit them as the uneducated, morons that they are. This hurts the ability of those with real problems with the bill to air their opinion in a civil, adult, manner.
Clearly it does have flaws, like the idea I'm going to be fined $1500 if I don't buy health insurance. (scours Constitution).
This is a flaw. Sadly I haven't seen any of the "opposition" bring this fact up. If they did they were probably drowned out by someone screaming "he's a muslim socialist who wants to turn us into Nazi Iran!". I'm a lefty, mind, and I have a serious problem with being forced to give money to a giant corporation who already proved themselves to be part of the problem (which is being addressed by giving them more money).
Other flaws include the idea that an Uncle Sam monopoly will be better. Monopolies are almost-never a good idea.
This isn't in the actual bill. Actually the closest it got to having a government monopoly was having a "public option", and if you haven't noticed, this has disappeared completely. And even if Obama has enough spine to insist that it was there, it still wouldn't be a monopoly.
Hitler, Mussolini, Napoleon, Nero, Julius Caesar... we have a long history of men using governments to steal-away liberty. It's only a matter of time until the United States gets a similar tyrant - some argue we already had one (Nixon or Lincoln). I don't agree with that but I do think the time will come eventually. Better to guard against that possibility Now rather than wait until it's too late.
One man's tyrant is another mans savior and champion. Our last president was much closer to a tyrant than Obama will ever be, but he's a-okay in many people's books. Obama is a tyrant in your eyes, but to me is nothing but a mediocre person willing to sacrifice principle for mob appeal, while wearing the guise of a liberal populist (he isn't). We must always realize that we are no right (no matter who you are), being that there is no right and wrong in politics, only shades of gray shaped by our individual values. Sure, some people think universal health care is a terrible socialist plot to destroy truth, justice, and the American way of life, but there is an equal number of people who think its a terrible shame that we don't recognize health as an important metric of the worth of our country. Whose right? Both and neither.
I think that this is certainly backed up, as you say, by common, human experience; in the example of the smoker whose friends all quit, she had two choices: quit herself, or quit her friends.
I don't see this, at least anecdotally. My circle of friends is very diverse, we have people of all weights, careers, levels of education, smokers and non smokers, etc... For example, I smoke, and my best-friend doesn't, this has never hindered our relationship.
I would hate it if my whole social circle was replaced by clones of me.
Good, now define what happiness is, and why people can be happy in adverse situations. Last time I played a game (not a sport per se) I was even happy in losing it, since it was with friends. When I'm at the electronics store I generally snicker at people buying big expensive status symbols, because I think its dumb, I don't, though, get upset. Some people don't laugh at other people's misfortune, most people don't care. Kids do tease each other, but often it isn't a bully-type relationship but a mutual game. You might be annoyed by not winning employee of the year, I don't see why it matters, thus no net loss of happiness here. A lot of people don't own, or want, SUVs, and are just as happy (or happier, since the edge of desperation is missing) as those who do. A lot of people, also, are very happy in the developing world, some much happier than the over worked, over stressed, westerner.
Movies are not reality, and often are only made for entertainment value. Most people who buy a lottery ticket but don't win, don't get any less happy for it. Some people have been buying lottery tickets out of habit for 60 years, and have no real expectation of winning.
Actually the idea of hell is rarer in religions than one might think. Most flavors of the largest religion in the world has no conception of hell.
On top of this, there is no empirical reason that happiness would be a measurable, and limited, quantity.
the atomic number for gold appears to be 79 in almost all currently accepted measuring abilities, and theories.
I accept your "appears to be caveat", though I think in many cases I think adding it doesn't really mean much. If a measure has been repeated enough, by enough people, by enough methods, the value "appears to be" adds to this observation is practically nothing. This is the joy of inductive reasoning, there always will be doubt, but we can lower that level of doubt to near infinitesimal values.
When I say gold has an atomic number of 79, this is as close to a fact as one can get (outside of math).
Right now, with just checked music, I'm standing at 20+ days. But this isn't really the point. The point is that they are making things a bit less convenient to me, and moving back from the only reason I bought an iPod in the first place.
I can't stand "shuffling" my music in, this "feature" is the only reason I switched to an iPod from CDs. I don't really know what I'm going to want to listen to a couple days in advance, perhaps I will want to listen to the full Led Zeppelin box set next Saturday, perhaps not, but with shuffle I might get half of it (or less with a 16GB device, since that is less than half of my total library), and if I decide to stick it on there anyway, then it is useless if I decide I don't want to listen to it. This gets worse when you have lossless formats involved, as it uses even more storage space.
I like being able to carry my huge library with me wherever I go, since it allows me to listen to whatever I want whenever I want. I hated having to plan these things out in advance. But then again, different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
The complete combination of iTunes software [which is better than ever with version 9], the Apple one stop store, and an incredible device itself which is so easy to use makes the Apple Touch and iPhone a runaway leader in their respective classes. Zune is so far back it can't be even seen by normal people. I would never recommend someone waste a few dollars on a Zune just to 'be different'. It just marks them as being dumb!
Don't get me wrong, right now iTunes is the best media software out there (at least as far as my use is concerned), and iTunes 9 is very nice, especially on a network. Its just the hardware is moving backwards, at least as far as my needs go. I don't give jack-all about apps, or having MORE integrated cameras, or having wifi, or GPS, or tilt sensors, I just want something that plays music, and can hold my entire library. I'd prefer if all it does is play music, too, since then there is less cruft competing for battery life. The original iPod (and now Classic) was perfect, but it seems that Apple decided that they are too low-tech and functional to continue to support. Though, if they came out with a Nano with decent storage, I would grab one in a second, even if it has a completely superfluous and redundant camera.
Though I find it odd that they replaced the iPod Classic's 3 models with one at the high end, and replaced the other two models with vastly inferior hardware.
Also, while I'm being snarky, who the hell sees a camera as an added value anymore? Doesn't every have a phone with a crappy camera already?
I agree with you and I'm not a Libertarian* or free marketeer. I HATED the idea of bailing out the banks and financial institutions, especially without the added benefit of accountability, but I grudgingly stand by the idea of bailing out the auto industry. Not for the industries sake though, but for the sake of keeping SOME manufacturing base in the US. The auto industry was the main reason we won two world wars, thanks to the ability to rapidly convert them to making useful arms. Also I can see a problem with 2 out of 3 of the big three dying, and dumping the left over work force into unemployment lines (at least the handful that weren't already outsourced to Mexico), especially in a time where our financial market already took a large crap on most average Americans.
Its a lesser of two evils problem. There was no good solution that was beneficial to normal people.
(* Not in the political sense, or the Slashdot sense... I am, though, a social libertarian, I like the libertarian social aspects, but think the idea of a free market is fatally flawed on its own. All political ideology should benefit individuals, not big corporations)
If "we" had any measure of control whatsoever, the government would not have bailed out the car companies.
Er.. we voted for the people who voted to bail out the car companies... Thus we voted to bail out the car companies. Sure, you personally didn't vote for these people (perhaps), and thats okay too. The system is working as intended. I also didn't vote for two silly wars, umpteen instances of bad, antagonistic, foreign policy, tax cuts for the very rich, etc... But that also doesn't really matter in a Democracy (or a Democratic republic, as the case may be).
Personally I'm okay with bailing out the car companies (well, "okay" might be putting it a bit strong, I hate the idea but see the necissity), I'd rather we do that than give trillions of dollars to bankers and badly managed financial institutions.
There used to be at least 3 flavors of iPod (now Classic), but they removed two of them, pruning off the low and middle selections. They killed the old 160, and replaced it with a 120, and just now did they decide it was newsworthy to "expand" back to the old size.
But the selection was pruined back to nothing, with the emphasis being on inferior flash based ones (though I'd jump on a 100GB Nano), and overpriced smart phones, minus the actual phone bit, which are only around for obnoxious "micro transactions" for crap I don't really want/need in a music player.
To me, yes. I know my way around my city, so it is a waste of money. When I travel I mainly stick with an old piece of software called a map, and when it really gets bad it comes on my cell plan for free.
The Epocrates medication identification tool?
Can't think of a use for that one. Personally.
IM on the go?
Have free unlimited text, and stopped using IM pretty much after college. Again, personally, no.
Cookbooks?
Unlimited data plan + cooks.com. Or, even better, I have a large collection of cook books within seconds of my stove.
Dictionaries?
Unlimited data on my phone + dictionary.com (or such). Though most of the time I need them I'm at home, where I have a large collection of specialty dictionaries (unless there is a Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy app)
Can Google provide portable games where there's no Internet?
Haven't actually had the need to play portable games in a long time.
You might find this stuff useful, and it is nice that there is a solution for you. I personally don't. The only app I've seen so far that made me want to buy an iPhone is the restaurant shaker one, and thats just because me and the girlfriend have a terminal case of culinary indecision. I, personally, want something that just plays music, without all the hassle of extraneous features. This isn't saying that there shouldn't be options for people like you, but there also shouldn't be an exclusive focus on your preferences either.
80GB+ players still exist, and not just from Apple.
Which makes me sad. I still haven't found a better solution than my old iPod classic, and iTunes. Songbird comes close, but it has a hard time not crashing, and occasionally corrupting data. I like iTunes, as well, for the same reason most people hate it, it manages my myriad of music for me, so I don't have to..it's still a hard drive-based unit, not flash, so you can't take it for a run (go on - try that with any such player and see how long it lasts).
I generally prefer to exercise without music (more of a hiker myself, and I feel earphones ruin the experience), but I haven't managed to kill a HDD music player yet, even while throwing a couple from a moving bicycle. I might just be lucky though.
We're almost there with flash-based players;)
That will be nice, if they manage the same price point as HDD based ones, and offer some that have good old fashioned boring interfaces.
Why is there so much ignorance of design on Slashdot?
I know that is a rhetorical question, but... Slashdot is full of nerds who think that pure functionality is much more important than form or design, which ironically is one of the things holding back open source from ever being relevant in the market at large. Most of the geeks here have nothing but absolute scorn that computers moved past CLI, ignoring the fact that this was probably one of the largest contributors to PCs spreading in influence and popularity, and thus one of the key points of advancement and innovation in the industry as a whole.
Basically: functionality > usability, ignoring the fact that they amount to about the same when done right.
Slashdot Mirror
Spent 9 hours last night getting 2 of the CD's copied.
Care to elaborate on this? I haven't bought a physical disk in some time (around 3 years), but I don't remember them taking nearly that much time, unless your ripping them to Flac at the lowest possible speed, and even then this is a BIT* long... Ripping to 300-200bps, though, should only take 30 minutes top, depending on the length of the CD.
I don't think I've ever ripped a CD that took longer than 20 minutes.
*by "bit", I of course mean very long.
Sorta. If you want to play music licensed through ASCAP or BMI then you purchase a license. It's not mandatory. If you have, say, a bar or club and you don't thik you'll get any financial gain out of playing music at your establishment, then you can skip the license.
This is almost, but not quite, true. Its the "not quite" that is bothersome, since ASCAP will try to leverage money out of you WHETHER OR WEATHER NOT you actually plan on playing ASCAP music, on the off chance that you might accidentally do so. If I own a bar or coffee shop that has live music, ASCAP still wants money on the off chance that someone MAY play a cover of a song covered by them, even if no one ever does. I've talked to several smaller touring artists who are not ASCAP members who complain non-stop about ASCAP.
IF, ASCAP actually only charged per-play I would have no problem with them, but they try to leverage fees... JUST IN CASE. This is extortion.
They also try to block small, nonprofit, venues (like weddings and larger parties) from playing music that may or may not be licensed to them. There is a line here, if I choose to play music at my (nonprofit) wedding with a 10s of guests, then they really have no moral (if not legal) right to try to grab money from me. And most of the money they grab goes to the BIG people, and probably not the people I will play at my wedding/bar/coffee house, thus the artists I may possible theoretically infringe upon see minimal benefit.
This iTunes thing is another reason to question their legitimacy. They are making money from those 30sec samples, but appearently would rather secure a short-term revenue stream over actually making money for their members.
You're correct that fees are distributed roughly in proportion to popularity. The song and lyric writing biz is a bit unfair this way; popularity often doesn't scale to talent. They used to measure only by radio airplay sampling, but in recent years they've made it more equitable, by getting playlists from satellite and Internet radio stations, for instance -- which play a lot more eclectic and lesser-known music.
Nor does it scale to who I actually play. It is rather odd that if I, as an owner of an establishment, never play Birtney Spears, she still gets money from me just by essence of her being more popular.
The problem is dictating beliefs to children. I am a rather rabid atheist, and have a big problem with teaching clap-trap in schools (creationism, pure abstinence, etc...), but I have to admit, for the sake of fairness, that us atheists also shouldn't be dictating our values to the religious, no matter how much I think they're a bunch of silly loons. I personally think its fine to flog your knob to your heart's content, but I don't think our schools should say so. Shouldn't our schools focus on... you know... reading and math skills, instead? If I, as a parent, have a serious... pardon the expression... hard on against masturbation, then I have a reasonable objection.
Of course beleifs are a protected right, you (in general, not referring to anyone specific here) are free to beleive that anything is a sin and I am free to beleive that your beleifs are laughable. I'm free to mock them too.
Mocking is fine, dictating how our children learn is a different thing.
But then again, I think the Christian idea of teaching only "abstinence" is silly, and oddly science agrees with me.
Nostalgia kills rational thought
We're talking about TASTE here, which, last I checked, was largely a subjective measure that varies greatly from individual to individual. I also agree with him, somehow they managed to kill tomatoes, sweet corn, and apples. Tomatoes are not supposed to be sickeningly sweat, sweet corn isn't suppose to taste like candy, neither should apples. Modern produce is also less nutritious than it used to be.
To me it isn't even nostalgia, I just can't stand overly sweet, or tasteless food. If they made tomatoes MORE acidic (as opposed to sugary) than they used to be, I probably would like them even more.
I love the commercials telling me not to buy products with "chemicals" in them, or claiming that their product is completely free from "chemicals". Instead of buying shampoo I buy vacuum cylinders, to avoid the terror and health effects of putting "chemicals" on my hair.
you question their knowledge of the subject because they used its instead of it's?
Not just for that, the most common of typos (its/it's, too/two/to, there/their/they're) are often just simple mistakes, and don't really reflect negatively on the author. They probably just typed something faster than they could think, and didn't take the extra second or so to proof it (our mind generally skims over these typos). When the typos and misspellings become ubiquitous though, you start to question the authors authority because of the laziness evident in the writing. If they don't have the intellectual investment to type out a coherent thought, how much diligence did they apply to the thought behind the text?
Its like having a conversation with someone claiming to be a physicist, but they keep going "uhhhhhh..." and calling you "dawg."
This is even worse with "text speak", how much credibility does someone have if they can't take the extra millisecond to type the "y" and "o" in "you" ("u")? Obviously they don't value their communications enough (enuff) to actually bother making it understandable. Dawg.
First, I am not saying that there isn't ANY intelligent opposition to it, just that they are either a minority, and/or completely drowned out by the lunatic fringe. You seem seem to have coherent opposition, for example. I may not agree with you on all points, but that is natural and healthy, since at least there are coherent points on which to agree or disagree. My point was mainly (with a bit of hyperbole) that most of the apparent opposition isn't really opposed to to the bill, or anything that matters. Hell, I am opposed to the bill, but still think calling our elected president (I even voted for him) Hitler is bad for civil discourse, and for having any of my arguments taken seriously.
I have. Although it says non-citizens are excluded, there's no requirement for verification, so any illegal person can walk into a hospital, lie, and get free service as a U.S. citizen even though they aren't.
This is already true. And for a person living in the Southwest it is a major problem, though a very tricky one thanks to medical ethics (can't deny service to those in need). AFAIK it is illegal for hospitals to deny care.
You'll probably reject it as "nonsense" but I consider it valid: A monopoly is never a good idea... And yes it is in the bill. Effective "year one" of the legislation, which is 2013 in normal language, people will no longer be able to choose private options. Yes if you are a grandparent who has had the same ABC Insurance for twnety years, you'll be able to keep it, but for the rest of us who don't currently have coverage we will HAVE to choose the government option. We won't be able to elect a private company.
I don't dismiss it as nonsense, the core idea there, though I do have some disagreement with the application. This is normal, and healthy disagreement mind. Also, mind citing where in the bill it says this? If you are correct, I agree that this is not a desirable aspect to the bill.
Maybe it's time to stop watching MSNBC's or CNN's censored reports that conveniently don't cover what "the opposition" is discussing, because those channels are not telling you the whole story. *I* heard about the $1500 fine ($3500 for married people) from the opposition, else I wouldn't even know about it. So yes it's being talked about even if you're not hearing it.
I try grabbing my news from more sources than that, and I still haven't came across this. This is partly because, as stated, all rational argument is being completely drowned out by lunatics frothing at the mouth and screaming inchoate rants. This is partly, admittedly, because I already think this is a stupid bill, so am not as diligent at it as I could be.
No not really. A few still like Bush, but not anyone I've ever met. The $700 billion bailout was the final straw for nearly everyone who used to like Bush. They consider him a traitor to small government principles and the Republican party.
Didn't the conservative wing of the Republican party die off long before Bush? I jest. :)
Strawman argument. I never said that
It was a strawman, I admit it, and apologize. It wasn't intentional though. I wasn't that I wasn't trying to understand what you were saying, its more that I misread a simple clause in your original closing paragraph, honest mistake. Someone else even pointing it out to me, and I admitted my misunderstanding. These things happen.
This isn't an issue about me finding everyone I don't agree with as morons, especially since I agree with you on the broad stroke that this bill is bad. I'm not arguing that you, personally, are stupid or inchoate, or that your positions are. Just that the signal to noise ratio has gotten a bit wonky here, especially with the lunatic fringe of the Republican party already riled up into conniptions and paroxysms of mouth frothing.
Not that the democrats are doing much better, with many of them falling into the blind "we agree with whatever our fearless leader says" mode, but generally they at least attempt to hide this in the guise of civil discourse.
Sadly, I fear, all of this is for naught since the bill will probably pass.
I wasn't disagreeing with you, but I can see how selection based on lifestyle could be dwarfed by more "monkey see money do" factors over large enough scales. Looking at your examples, marriage and child birth, these are relatively rare events, so probably wouldn't exert a huge amount of force over larger populations. Though there has been some studies showing that marriage and pregnancy do follow in clusters too, meaning that there still is some contagious value to them. There might be a little of both there, of course.
I mostly just got washed away into the land of conceptual hand waving.
I don't blame the last remaining HAM folk, though. Its a small badwidth, and its a community. Why allow a single moron use it for illegal reasons, you only open the door for more morons.
I am not a HAM person either, nor do I have any desire to be one.
When you're within range of a cell tower (which is almost everywhere, these days) you get the high speeds you want.
Your idea of almost everywhere is severely limited. There is vast tracks of America with spotty or non-existent access to even basic cell usage. This is true in vast swaths of the southwest, thanks to LOS problems, and from my experience other parts of the west and midwest thanks to density issues. The East coast, and southern/central California might not suffer this, but the US is a HUGE place.
No offense... but shouldn't selection play a roll? Just because you take 8000 pictures, doesn't mean you need to upload 8000 pictures, or that anyone really cares about 95% of them (if that isn't the point then why upload them?). Granted, my life isn't quite as exciting as yours, I spend tons of time deep in the wilderness of the southwest (without much cell coverage), I also am a technophile and photo buff (not very good, but I try), but also don't mind the lack of connectivity, I actually find it somewhat refreshing. I am also sure that most of my friends like it as well, since it gives me time to select only the pictures that I like.
I'm not insulting your preferences, I'm just questioning the universality of them. Pictures (and blogs, surprisingly enough) benefit then most from not being able to harbor your "post it" influences.
I am a rarity though, since I don't mind escaping the internet for long periods, and often find it refreshing. I lately came back from a week or so vacation to Washington, where I purposely chose not to bring my laptop, or access the internet in any serious way. Obviously this was for pleasure, so your business needs might trump this. When I go prospecting in the deep desert of AZ, the lack of internet and cell access is mostly a plus, as well. Though some emergency service would be nice, especially since CD emergency channels are largely abandoned.
Shhhh... Your insulting the American ideal of "productivity", science has shown that the more you enjoy your life, the more likely you are to be a hell bound sinner. Oh wait... that was Calvin, not science.
Why do you have owls in your pocket?
Though your personal, anecdotal experience does not support such a conclusion, social science (and social engineering), advertising, marketing, etc. seem very much to be based on at least an acceptance of this notion.
Agreed, I didn't mean to sound like my personal anecdote was trumping science. I was more bringing it up to illustrate that this is a somewhat soft rule, and not a hard invariant one. Basically the self-selection happens in a very subtle manner, which might be amplified when one studies larger interactions. This lends a bit of credence to the study, where the communicable effects of peer choice is a bit higher than mere self-selection of peers.
I think we do agree that, even if the outcomes in the study presented in TFA are styled as "positive", the same principle lends itself to the much more negative outcome of coercion.
On a bit of off-the-cuff analysis, I doubt that negative trends would be as strong as positive ones, though they would still exert some force. If you start with a peer group at some base level of behavior (to be judged as either positive or negative), and allow members to select positive or negative behaviors (smoking or not, education or not, healthful or not). Generally the positive behaviors will have positive results for those people, which is observable by their peers, and as such would be more likely to be emulated than behaviors with noticeably harmful consequences.
Of course many harmful behaviors appear positive over short periods of time, which would allow negative behaviors to also have some influence over any peer network, though I would expect this to be shorter lasting, and of less influence than positive ones.
We emulate our peers, especially when their behavior has noticeable positive benefit to them individually. Obviously, the more peers in the network emulate positive behavior with evident benefit, the more likely more peers will follow the example.
If someone in your circle of friends started doing something new, which benefited them greatly, you'd probably be more likely to do it. Right? Compared to if someone in your group started an obviously self-harmful behavior (drug use, dropping out of school, smoking, watching NASCAR and eating bon bons all day). You might not excise the person from your network, but you probably wouldn't do what they do.
Actually this study is much more fun to think about than it seemed on the surface. It makes me realize why I gravitated towards social psychology in school, even if I was deeply suspicious of the social sciences.
Huh?
I've been mugged twice, seen both of the attackers faces, and wasn't murdered for it. Both times it was easier to give them what they want, than to try to pry a weapon out of their hands. And both times, as stated, I got a VERY good description of the assailant, which was useful to the cops. And both times I had a weapon of my own, which I didn't use, even if I had the opportunity (a knife versus a gun at your throat isn't a good deal, and someones life, even a young punk, isn't worth the laundry money they were trying to steal).
Most criminals are not super-genius types. Most of them are poor slobs with no education trying to take the easy way out.
Actually most of the other networks DO criticize Obama's health care plan, it just isn't there constant agenda to oppose the president on everything he does because he is a "foreign born, socialist, Muslim who looks different than us!". Even the bastion of unflinching liberalism that is MSNBC lobs the occasional flame at Obama for being a pandering weakling, and gutting the actual good parts of the bill for a sense of fake bipartisanship with the current Republican circus.
Part of the problem is that THERE IS NO OPPOSITION to the bill currently, at least not that I've heard on Fox, or from the various "tea bag" type people. Opposition requires having a sound argument, and the ability to at least discuss the same topic with some common ground, and the will to have civil discourse. Instead of opposition we see a bunch of unwashed morons screaming "SOCIALISM!", without any clue as to what the word actually means, and people comparing him to Hitler. And then you have people like that Joe Wilson moron (go go civil discourse) who screams about lies, about things that are objectively NOT lies (read the bill, okay?).
I'm sure there is some valid opposition out there, but it has been drowned out by the lunatic fringe, and the fact that for some reason NO ONE wants to discredit them as the uneducated, morons that they are. This hurts the ability of those with real problems with the bill to air their opinion in a civil, adult, manner.
Clearly it does have flaws, like the idea I'm going to be fined $1500 if I don't buy health insurance. (scours Constitution).
This is a flaw. Sadly I haven't seen any of the "opposition" bring this fact up. If they did they were probably drowned out by someone screaming "he's a muslim socialist who wants to turn us into Nazi Iran!". I'm a lefty, mind, and I have a serious problem with being forced to give money to a giant corporation who already proved themselves to be part of the problem (which is being addressed by giving them more money).
Other flaws include the idea that an Uncle Sam monopoly will be better. Monopolies are almost-never a good idea.
This isn't in the actual bill. Actually the closest it got to having a government monopoly was having a "public option", and if you haven't noticed, this has disappeared completely. And even if Obama has enough spine to insist that it was there, it still wouldn't be a monopoly.
Hitler, Mussolini, Napoleon, Nero, Julius Caesar... we have a long history of men using governments to steal-away liberty. It's only a matter of time until the United States gets a similar tyrant - some argue we already had one (Nixon or Lincoln). I don't agree with that but I do think the time will come eventually. Better to guard against that possibility Now rather than wait until it's too late.
One man's tyrant is another mans savior and champion. Our last president was much closer to a tyrant than Obama will ever be, but he's a-okay in many people's books. Obama is a tyrant in your eyes, but to me is nothing but a mediocre person willing to sacrifice principle for mob appeal, while wearing the guise of a liberal populist (he isn't). We must always realize that we are no right (no matter who you are), being that there is no right and wrong in politics, only shades of gray shaped by our individual values. Sure, some people think universal health care is a terrible socialist plot to destroy truth, justice, and the American way of life, but there is an equal number of people who think its a terrible shame that we don't recognize health as an important metric of the worth of our country. Whose right? Both and neither.
I think that this is certainly backed up, as you say, by common, human experience; in the example of the smoker whose friends all quit, she had two choices: quit herself, or quit her friends.
I don't see this, at least anecdotally. My circle of friends is very diverse, we have people of all weights, careers, levels of education, smokers and non smokers, etc... For example, I smoke, and my best-friend doesn't, this has never hindered our relationship.
I would hate it if my whole social circle was replaced by clones of me.
Good, now define what happiness is, and why people can be happy in adverse situations. Last time I played a game (not a sport per se) I was even happy in losing it, since it was with friends. When I'm at the electronics store I generally snicker at people buying big expensive status symbols, because I think its dumb, I don't, though, get upset. Some people don't laugh at other people's misfortune, most people don't care. Kids do tease each other, but often it isn't a bully-type relationship but a mutual game. You might be annoyed by not winning employee of the year, I don't see why it matters, thus no net loss of happiness here. A lot of people don't own, or want, SUVs, and are just as happy (or happier, since the edge of desperation is missing) as those who do. A lot of people, also, are very happy in the developing world, some much happier than the over worked, over stressed, westerner.
Movies are not reality, and often are only made for entertainment value. Most people who buy a lottery ticket but don't win, don't get any less happy for it. Some people have been buying lottery tickets out of habit for 60 years, and have no real expectation of winning.
Actually the idea of hell is rarer in religions than one might think. Most flavors of the largest religion in the world has no conception of hell.
On top of this, there is no empirical reason that happiness would be a measurable, and limited, quantity.
the atomic number for gold appears to be 79 in almost all currently accepted measuring abilities, and theories.
I accept your "appears to be caveat", though I think in many cases I think adding it doesn't really mean much. If a measure has been repeated enough, by enough people, by enough methods, the value "appears to be" adds to this observation is practically nothing. This is the joy of inductive reasoning, there always will be doubt, but we can lower that level of doubt to near infinitesimal values.
When I say gold has an atomic number of 79, this is as close to a fact as one can get (outside of math).
Right now, with just checked music, I'm standing at 20+ days. But this isn't really the point. The point is that they are making things a bit less convenient to me, and moving back from the only reason I bought an iPod in the first place.
I can't stand "shuffling" my music in, this "feature" is the only reason I switched to an iPod from CDs. I don't really know what I'm going to want to listen to a couple days in advance, perhaps I will want to listen to the full Led Zeppelin box set next Saturday, perhaps not, but with shuffle I might get half of it (or less with a 16GB device, since that is less than half of my total library), and if I decide to stick it on there anyway, then it is useless if I decide I don't want to listen to it. This gets worse when you have lossless formats involved, as it uses even more storage space.
I like being able to carry my huge library with me wherever I go, since it allows me to listen to whatever I want whenever I want. I hated having to plan these things out in advance. But then again, different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
The complete combination of iTunes software [which is better than ever with version 9], the Apple one stop store, and an incredible device itself which is so easy to use makes the Apple Touch and iPhone a runaway leader in their respective classes. Zune is so far back it can't be even seen by normal people. I would never recommend someone waste a few dollars on a Zune just to 'be different'. It just marks them as being dumb!
Don't get me wrong, right now iTunes is the best media software out there (at least as far as my use is concerned), and iTunes 9 is very nice, especially on a network. Its just the hardware is moving backwards, at least as far as my needs go. I don't give jack-all about apps, or having MORE integrated cameras, or having wifi, or GPS, or tilt sensors, I just want something that plays music, and can hold my entire library. I'd prefer if all it does is play music, too, since then there is less cruft competing for battery life. The original iPod (and now Classic) was perfect, but it seems that Apple decided that they are too low-tech and functional to continue to support. Though, if they came out with a Nano with decent storage, I would grab one in a second, even if it has a completely superfluous and redundant camera.
Though I find it odd that they replaced the iPod Classic's 3 models with one at the high end, and replaced the other two models with vastly inferior hardware.
Also, while I'm being snarky, who the hell sees a camera as an added value anymore? Doesn't every have a phone with a crappy camera already?
I agree with you and I'm not a Libertarian* or free marketeer. I HATED the idea of bailing out the banks and financial institutions, especially without the added benefit of accountability, but I grudgingly stand by the idea of bailing out the auto industry. Not for the industries sake though, but for the sake of keeping SOME manufacturing base in the US. The auto industry was the main reason we won two world wars, thanks to the ability to rapidly convert them to making useful arms. Also I can see a problem with 2 out of 3 of the big three dying, and dumping the left over work force into unemployment lines (at least the handful that weren't already outsourced to Mexico), especially in a time where our financial market already took a large crap on most average Americans.
Its a lesser of two evils problem. There was no good solution that was beneficial to normal people.
(* Not in the political sense, or the Slashdot sense... I am, though, a social libertarian, I like the libertarian social aspects, but think the idea of a free market is fatally flawed on its own. All political ideology should benefit individuals, not big corporations)
If "we" had any measure of control whatsoever, the government would not have bailed out the car companies.
Er.. we voted for the people who voted to bail out the car companies... Thus we voted to bail out the car companies. Sure, you personally didn't vote for these people (perhaps), and thats okay too. The system is working as intended. I also didn't vote for two silly wars, umpteen instances of bad, antagonistic, foreign policy, tax cuts for the very rich, etc... But that also doesn't really matter in a Democracy (or a Democratic republic, as the case may be).
Personally I'm okay with bailing out the car companies (well, "okay" might be putting it a bit strong, I hate the idea but see the necissity), I'd rather we do that than give trillions of dollars to bankers and badly managed financial institutions.
There used to be at least 3 flavors of iPod (now Classic), but they removed two of them, pruning off the low and middle selections. They killed the old 160, and replaced it with a 120, and just now did they decide it was newsworthy to "expand" back to the old size.
But the selection was pruined back to nothing, with the emphasis being on inferior flash based ones (though I'd jump on a 100GB Nano), and overpriced smart phones, minus the actual phone bit, which are only around for obnoxious "micro transactions" for crap I don't really want/need in a music player.
Is TomTom's navigation software silly?
To me, yes. I know my way around my city, so it is a waste of money. When I travel I mainly stick with an old piece of software called a map, and when it really gets bad it comes on my cell plan for free.
The Epocrates medication identification tool?
Can't think of a use for that one. Personally.
IM on the go?
Have free unlimited text, and stopped using IM pretty much after college. Again, personally, no.
Cookbooks?
Unlimited data plan + cooks.com. Or, even better, I have a large collection of cook books within seconds of my stove.
Dictionaries?
Unlimited data on my phone + dictionary.com (or such). Though most of the time I need them I'm at home, where I have a large collection of specialty dictionaries (unless there is a Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy app)
Can Google provide portable games where there's no Internet?
Haven't actually had the need to play portable games in a long time.
You might find this stuff useful, and it is nice that there is a solution for you. I personally don't. The only app I've seen so far that made me want to buy an iPhone is the restaurant shaker one, and thats just because me and the girlfriend have a terminal case of culinary indecision. I, personally, want something that just plays music, without all the hassle of extraneous features. This isn't saying that there shouldn't be options for people like you, but there also shouldn't be an exclusive focus on your preferences either.
80GB+ players still exist, and not just from Apple.
Which makes me sad. I still haven't found a better solution than my old iPod classic, and iTunes. Songbird comes close, but it has a hard time not crashing, and occasionally corrupting data. I like iTunes, as well, for the same reason most people hate it, it manages my myriad of music for me, so I don't have to. .it's still a hard drive-based unit, not flash, so you can't take it for a run (go on - try that with any such player and see how long it lasts).
I generally prefer to exercise without music (more of a hiker myself, and I feel earphones ruin the experience), but I haven't managed to kill a HDD music player yet, even while throwing a couple from a moving bicycle. I might just be lucky though.
We're almost there with flash-based players ;)
That will be nice, if they manage the same price point as HDD based ones, and offer some that have good old fashioned boring interfaces.
Why is there so much ignorance of design on Slashdot?
I know that is a rhetorical question, but... Slashdot is full of nerds who think that pure functionality is much more important than form or design, which ironically is one of the things holding back open source from ever being relevant in the market at large. Most of the geeks here have nothing but absolute scorn that computers moved past CLI, ignoring the fact that this was probably one of the largest contributors to PCs spreading in influence and popularity, and thus one of the key points of advancement and innovation in the industry as a whole.
Basically: functionality > usability, ignoring the fact that they amount to about the same when done right.