First off - there is no such thing as "zero probability". The great thing about science is, there aren't really any certainties.
Second off - even if such a thing DID exist, I'd still support exploration for the sake of knowledge. Learning about the Big Bang doesn't save anyone's life, but it sure makes us more enlightened. The fact that we, as a species, crave knowledge is what sets us apart from lower animals. I feel truly sad for you that you have no interest in funding things that won't return something tangible. You probably support cutting funding for the arts, too. I bet you'd love them to stop wasting taxpayer dollars to teach music in school.
Of course it's not stable at room temp. Nor will it ever be. I've found this article on a few other news sources, and it seems the goal of the researchers is to COMBINE CO2 with other compounds (like silica) to make a material harder than glass. I will confirm this on Monday when I can access the Nature article directly.
BBC makes it sound like they want to magically make CO2 form a stable amorphous solid at room temperature, even though the molecules would have WAY too much kinetic energy to stay together. BBS got it wrong.
I think you just gave me an idea for an initiation rite for new undergrads working in the lab:-D
Hmm... we could bury them up to their necks in a shear-thickening fluid. If they try to thrash around and rip themselves out, it will be very difficult. If they move slowly and deliberately, they will get out easily. Both a valuable lesson and entertaining to watch!
It's safe to say that most cosmology research will never have a practical application, yet I am glad my tax dollars support such research. Some taxpayers, especially those in the parts of the country where science is seen as a tool of the devil, don't support science for the sake of science. I'd like to think that the more enlightened ones do.
With my experience in scientific publications (especially physics!) there is usually a paragraph at the beginning of every paper trying to find some practical application. Probably 50% of these applications are pure horseshit thought up at the last minute. A lot of us do things for the sake of better understanding the world around us, and don't really know if there will be a practical application. And, if there DOES turn out to be an application, it's sometimes something we certainly didn't predict.
I haven't read the Nature article yet, but I have a feeling the "understand a planet and coat lenses" bit was thrown in as fluff to justify the research. It's pretty much accepted practice, and I know I'm not the only one who barely glances at the first paragraph in most papers.
I'm not on campus (it's saturday, wee!), so I can't access the original Nature article, but I have a feeling the "stable at room temp" bit was misinterpreted by the BBC writers. I really don't see any practical way to keep the molecules together at room temp and atmospheric pressure - there's a reason CO2 is a gas. Silicon glass is a sort of weird case - most materials that show a glassy transition do it at a much lower temperature, or are largely temperature independent. When people try to run simulations to describe glassy behavior, they generally assume zero-temperature and quenched disorder.
FWIW, I spent the last two years working on computational study of spin glasses, and am working on my PhD in soft condensed matter, of which glasses are a huge part.
Good point. I tend to get caught up in arguing with the Apple apologists and get away from the big picture. The RDF is a scary thing - the only people I've ever seen (sometimes violently) standing up for the legitimacy of DRM are Apple fanboys, and people who make money from DRM.
I wouldn't have a problem with DRM if - a.) the DMCA was repealed, and b.) a giant red sticker that says "WE WILL FUCK YOU OUT OF YOUR RIGHTS IF YOU BUY THIS" was on the cover of every product implementing DRM.
We don't live in a world of "if's", but the decision-makers at apple do. The GP insisted Apple was willing to license fairplay at a "fair" price, even though all evidence has shown the opposite, and I was trying to give an example of a scenario that might run through the heads of the Apple execs. Considering the miserable failure of the attempt to license Mac OS, I'd say there's a pretty good chance that some people at Apple are thinking the same way.
Seriously -- get a clue. The vast majority of songs on the vast majority of iPods in the world have been ripped from CDs (or downloaded illegally). The iTMS is a sideline, albeit a profitable one, but it's one that Apple would happily sacrifice in a particular market if the alternative in any way cut into their iPod hardware sales.
The point isn't to fill an ipod up with music from itunes. The point is the many many people out there who get some free itunes songs in a coke bottle, set up an account to download them, then say "oh it's only a buck" when that hot new Lil Jon song comes out. Keep that up for a year, and suddenly it's become a royal pain in the ass to buy anything other than an ipod, even if a good chunk of your music isn't from the ITMS.
Your definition of "fair market value" seems to be a lot different from normal licensing schemes.
And second, you've assumed that Apple always does exactly what will make them the most money - it's simply not true.
And lastly, who's to say Apple would make money by licensing fairplay? What if itunes went down the crapper because someone was able to sell fairplay-encoded music in an interface that was better than itunes? What if third party players exploded in popularity, because people could easily transfer all their already-purchased music to those players, and ipod popularity dwindled?
Apple's DRM is about a lot more than just protecting the music studios - it's about vendor lock-in. To be able to deny that, you have to be drinking some serious Kool-Aid
I should have been more clear - burning to CD then ripping back into itunes loses quality. For a given song it might be unnoticable, or it might ne noticable. Either way it sucks.
Even if you burn to CD and rip back to AAC, you're going DAT-AAC-WAV-AAC.
There are two compression steps there - the WAV isn't the same as the DAT original, and so your encoding is going to be different as well. When it's given an uncompressed WAV, AAC doesn't somehow magically know which bits were thrown away so it can rebuild the original AAC.
Well for one, the record labels are also adding DRM to CDs.
For two, unfortunately most normal computer users don't understand DRM and how it limits their rights until it's too late. Relying on consumer ignorance to lock them into a DMCA-protected proprietary DRM scheme is unethical and should be illegal.
I hate the "if you don't like it, don't buy it" argument - if you don't like windows, don't buy it. But definitely don't ask the government to step in and do something about their abuse of monopoly power. After all, if you don't like it, you don't HAVE to use it.
But if you then burn that AAC file to a CD, instead of the CD being recorded directly from a master, it's recorded from something where bits were already thrown away. Hence, you lose quality by using the "burn and re-rip" loophole that the fanboys like to tout as proof that Fairplay isn't evil. IF you want digital music without DRM, the best quality you're gonna get is either buying the CD and ripping it, or getting it from a pirate site.
If you want to BUY major label music in digital format (ie without the hassle of ripping a CD and hoping they haven't added some new CD DRM to prevent that), and play it on your ipod, you DO have to buy it from itunes, or one of the shady overseas operations.
If you DO purchase music from the ITMS, it will ONLY work on a computer on an ipod. So, if a really kickass Sandisk player comes out a month from now, you're fucked. If you have that fancy new PDA with a huge storage card - tough luck, you can't play your itunes songs.
And I am sick and tired of fanboys throwing out the "you can rip to CD" line. First off, apple has already decreased the number of burns you're allowed. Who's to say they won't keep doing so until you aren't allowed to burn at all? Second off, buring to CD loses quality. Third off, if you wanted to go through all the hassle of dealing with physical media, you'd be better off buying the fucking CD IN THE FIRST PLACE at a damn brick and mortar store.
The whole point of digital downloads is CONVENIENCE. Apple DRM does zero to prevent a motivated pirate (as you point out with the CD ripping), yet it provides great inconvenience and limitations for legit paying customers.
uh... ANY lossy re-encode degrades quality. When you go from lossy format A to lossy format B, B chooses different bits to lose, and A has already lost some. Encoding to the CD itself loses quality.
Nevermind that if you rip to a lossless format, you're wasting tons of HD space and certainly not improving over the quality of your much-smaller AAC.
The main difference is - Apple won't license FairPlay to anyone. They will build a little itunes app that can run on a phone, but it's heavily crippled. Let's see Creative or Sandisk get a license to use Apple's DRM - won't happen unless a government body forces them to.
However, with CSS, they will license the technology to just about anyone willing to spend the cash. That's why there are so many cheap no-name DVD players at Wal-Mart and such.
It's that whole leveraging a monopoly thing. Microsoft didn't hold a gun to your head and force you to use IE, either, but they got nailed for bundling it with windows. In a lot of ways, the Apple DRM is even more strong-arm than MS's inclusion of IE. But the Apple apologists always act like it's ok, because they are Apple.
I use exclusively Apple computers. I own three ipods. I bought a new macbook within a few days of launch. All my friends call me an Apple fanboy because I constantly try to convince people to switch. But I'm not so gullible to think that the ipod/itunes lockin isn't a blatant abuse of the customer. Apple has pretty much guaranteed I am going to keep downloading my music from bittorrent, by using an artificial extra layer to limit customer choice, and still have no effect on piracy.
Either of those options is gonna be some sort of elastic force - the sphere will bounce. Even a slight bounce in a normal projector screen is quite noticable. I can only imagine it would be a lot worse when you're worrying about the alignment of three projectors.
Slashdot Mirror
First off - there is no such thing as "zero probability". The great thing about science is, there aren't really any certainties.
Second off - even if such a thing DID exist, I'd still support exploration for the sake of knowledge. Learning about the Big Bang doesn't save anyone's life, but it sure makes us more enlightened. The fact that we, as a species, crave knowledge is what sets us apart from lower animals. I feel truly sad for you that you have no interest in funding things that won't return something tangible. You probably support cutting funding for the arts, too. I bet you'd love them to stop wasting taxpayer dollars to teach music in school.
Heh, you must go to some shitty pirate sites. The one I visit sometimes has lossless rips ;)
Of course it's not stable at room temp. Nor will it ever be. I've found this article on a few other news sources, and it seems the goal of the researchers is to COMBINE CO2 with other compounds (like silica) to make a material harder than glass. I will confirm this on Monday when I can access the Nature article directly.
BBC makes it sound like they want to magically make CO2 form a stable amorphous solid at room temperature, even though the molecules would have WAY too much kinetic energy to stay together. BBS got it wrong.
I think you just gave me an idea for an initiation rite for new undergrads working in the lab :-D
Hmm... we could bury them up to their necks in a shear-thickening fluid. If they try to thrash around and rip themselves out, it will be very difficult. If they move slowly and deliberately, they will get out easily. Both a valuable lesson and entertaining to watch!
No I would not agree.
It's safe to say that most cosmology research will never have a practical application, yet I am glad my tax dollars support such research. Some taxpayers, especially those in the parts of the country where science is seen as a tool of the devil, don't support science for the sake of science. I'd like to think that the more enlightened ones do.
sometimes something we certainly didn't predict.
Don't bother, grammar nazis... I realize this sentence is awful. Wow... I should really proofread my posts.
With my experience in scientific publications (especially physics!) there is usually a paragraph at the beginning of every paper trying to find some practical application. Probably 50% of these applications are pure horseshit thought up at the last minute. A lot of us do things for the sake of better understanding the world around us, and don't really know if there will be a practical application. And, if there DOES turn out to be an application, it's sometimes something we certainly didn't predict.
I haven't read the Nature article yet, but I have a feeling the "understand a planet and coat lenses" bit was thrown in as fluff to justify the research. It's pretty much accepted practice, and I know I'm not the only one who barely glances at the first paragraph in most papers.
I'm not on campus (it's saturday, wee!), so I can't access the original Nature article, but I have a feeling the "stable at room temp" bit was misinterpreted by the BBC writers. I really don't see any practical way to keep the molecules together at room temp and atmospheric pressure - there's a reason CO2 is a gas. Silicon glass is a sort of weird case - most materials that show a glassy transition do it at a much lower temperature, or are largely temperature independent. When people try to run simulations to describe glassy behavior, they generally assume zero-temperature and quenched disorder.
FWIW, I spent the last two years working on computational study of spin glasses, and am working on my PhD in soft condensed matter, of which glasses are a huge part.
Good point. I tend to get caught up in arguing with the Apple apologists and get away from the big picture. The RDF is a scary thing - the only people I've ever seen (sometimes violently) standing up for the legitimacy of DRM are Apple fanboys, and people who make money from DRM.
I wouldn't have a problem with DRM if - a.) the DMCA was repealed, and b.) a giant red sticker that says "WE WILL FUCK YOU OUT OF YOUR RIGHTS IF YOU BUY THIS" was on the cover of every product implementing DRM.
We don't live in a world of "if's", but the decision-makers at apple do. The GP insisted Apple was willing to license fairplay at a "fair" price, even though all evidence has shown the opposite, and I was trying to give an example of a scenario that might run through the heads of the Apple execs. Considering the miserable failure of the attempt to license Mac OS, I'd say there's a pretty good chance that some people at Apple are thinking the same way.
Seriously -- get a clue. The vast majority of songs on the vast majority of iPods in the world have been ripped from CDs (or downloaded illegally). The iTMS is a sideline, albeit a profitable one, but it's one that Apple would happily sacrifice in a particular market if the alternative in any way cut into their iPod hardware sales.
One billion songs is a sideline?
http://www.apple.com/itunes/1billion/
The point isn't to fill an ipod up with music from itunes. The point is the many many people out there who get some free itunes songs in a coke bottle, set up an account to download them, then say "oh it's only a buck" when that hot new Lil Jon song comes out. Keep that up for a year, and suddenly it's become a royal pain in the ass to buy anything other than an ipod, even if a good chunk of your music isn't from the ITMS.
That's called vendor lock-in.
Your definition of "fair market value" seems to be a lot different from normal licensing schemes.
And second, you've assumed that Apple always does exactly what will make them the most money - it's simply not true.
And lastly, who's to say Apple would make money by licensing fairplay? What if itunes went down the crapper because someone was able to sell fairplay-encoded music in an interface that was better than itunes? What if third party players exploded in popularity, because people could easily transfer all their already-purchased music to those players, and ipod popularity dwindled?
Apple's DRM is about a lot more than just protecting the music studios - it's about vendor lock-in. To be able to deny that, you have to be drinking some serious Kool-Aid
I should have been more clear - burning to CD then ripping back into itunes loses quality. For a given song it might be unnoticable, or it might ne noticable. Either way it sucks.
Even if you burn to CD and rip back to AAC, you're going DAT-AAC-WAV-AAC.
There are two compression steps there - the WAV isn't the same as the DAT original, and so your encoding is going to be different as well. When it's given an uncompressed WAV, AAC doesn't somehow magically know which bits were thrown away so it can rebuild the original AAC.
Well for one, the record labels are also adding DRM to CDs.
For two, unfortunately most normal computer users don't understand DRM and how it limits their rights until it's too late. Relying on consumer ignorance to lock them into a DMCA-protected proprietary DRM scheme is unethical and should be illegal.
I hate the "if you don't like it, don't buy it" argument - if you don't like windows, don't buy it. But definitely don't ask the government to step in and do something about their abuse of monopoly power. After all, if you don't like it, you don't HAVE to use it.
But if you then burn that AAC file to a CD, instead of the CD being recorded directly from a master, it's recorded from something where bits were already thrown away. Hence, you lose quality by using the "burn and re-rip" loophole that the fanboys like to tout as proof that Fairplay isn't evil. IF you want digital music without DRM, the best quality you're gonna get is either buying the CD and ripping it, or getting it from a pirate site.
If you want to BUY major label music in digital format (ie without the hassle of ripping a CD and hoping they haven't added some new CD DRM to prevent that), and play it on your ipod, you DO have to buy it from itunes, or one of the shady overseas operations.
If you DO purchase music from the ITMS, it will ONLY work on a computer on an ipod. So, if a really kickass Sandisk player comes out a month from now, you're fucked. If you have that fancy new PDA with a huge storage card - tough luck, you can't play your itunes songs.
And I am sick and tired of fanboys throwing out the "you can rip to CD" line. First off, apple has already decreased the number of burns you're allowed. Who's to say they won't keep doing so until you aren't allowed to burn at all? Second off, buring to CD loses quality. Third off, if you wanted to go through all the hassle of dealing with physical media, you'd be better off buying the fucking CD IN THE FIRST PLACE at a damn brick and mortar store.
The whole point of digital downloads is CONVENIENCE. Apple DRM does zero to prevent a motivated pirate (as you point out with the CD ripping), yet it provides great inconvenience and limitations for legit paying customers.
uh... ANY lossy re-encode degrades quality. When you go from lossy format A to lossy format B, B chooses different bits to lose, and A has already lost some. Encoding to the CD itself loses quality.
Nevermind that if you rip to a lossless format, you're wasting tons of HD space and certainly not improving over the quality of your much-smaller AAC.
The main difference is - Apple won't license FairPlay to anyone. They will build a little itunes app that can run on a phone, but it's heavily crippled. Let's see Creative or Sandisk get a license to use Apple's DRM - won't happen unless a government body forces them to.
However, with CSS, they will license the technology to just about anyone willing to spend the cash. That's why there are so many cheap no-name DVD players at Wal-Mart and such.
It's that whole leveraging a monopoly thing. Microsoft didn't hold a gun to your head and force you to use IE, either, but they got nailed for bundling it with windows. In a lot of ways, the Apple DRM is even more strong-arm than MS's inclusion of IE. But the Apple apologists always act like it's ok, because they are Apple.
I use exclusively Apple computers. I own three ipods. I bought a new macbook within a few days of launch. All my friends call me an Apple fanboy because I constantly try to convince people to switch. But I'm not so gullible to think that the ipod/itunes lockin isn't a blatant abuse of the customer. Apple has pretty much guaranteed I am going to keep downloading my music from bittorrent, by using an artificial extra layer to limit customer choice, and still have no effect on piracy.
4. lose quality and waste more time than you would have driving to the store to buy the fucking cd
5. ???
6. profit for everyone but you
Or maybe Sony? Are you kidding me??
For the price of a PS3, you could buy an Xbox 360 AND a refurb'ed xbox. You'd probably still have some beer money left over.
that is just the most brain-dead moderating I've ever seen.
you must be new here.
Either of those options is gonna be some sort of elastic force - the sphere will bounce. Even a slight bounce in a normal projector screen is quite noticable. I can only imagine it would be a lot worse when you're worrying about the alignment of three projectors.
Wow, if that wasn't the weakest attempt to post early in hopes of getting modded up, I don't know what is.
My cat sleeping on the keyboard has typed more insightful posts.
No, YOU'RE a towel!
I have no idea what's going on right now