I do the occasional concert recording. I used to use MD, but the restrictions (
I picked up an old Jukebox (Creative DAP Jukebox, aka NOMAD) for 50ukp; its 6GB HD is physically larger and lower capacity than more recent models, but it's fine for my purposes and a cheap investment. That's enough for almost 10 hours of CD-quality stereo.
It records as a WAV file, uncompressed (so no ATRAC compression artefacts); it has USB, so I just plug it into my Mac and it appears in iTunes &c, so getting the data off it is a doddle. No DRM or other restrictions.
A few minor downsides to be aware of. It takes 4 rechargeable batteries. (DON'T substitute alkalines if you're stuck; it ran through 4 fresh Duracells in half an hour! I guess the high current it draws means that only NiMHs or similar will cope properly.) The UI is a bit clunky. And it only records at line level; although there's a booster for lower levels, it introduces a whining noise, so avoid it. And there's no on-screen indication of level or anything.
I expect that many of these problems have been fixed in more recent versions; you can probably pick up something with larger capacity for a similar price now. And of course, it's a music player too!
Yes, MD isn't a bad solution. But you probably need convenience more than high sound quality &c. (Gosh, it was only a few years ago that I was recording my singing lessons!) And the ease and speed of getting data off an HD unit compared with MD is probably well worth considering.
I'm surprised no-one else seems to have picked up on this. Put this announcement together with their interest in acquiring the USL name, and all this means is that in future, SCO won't be suing people; USL will be suing them instead!
One thing I'd like to say (other than "Spellchecker!" I mean, you didn't misspell 'hypocrisy' just once, but three times, and that's after copying it correctly from the grandparent!) is that not only does the grandparent grossly oversimplify Slashdot, it also oversimplifies the issues.
Apple is a corporation that does a lot of things; some seem good (to me), some not so good. Characterising them as 'good' is naive and pretty meaningless. Ditto the other entities in the case. Real may have done lots of things that annoyed lots of folk here, but that doesn't necessarily extend to everything they've done, much less everything they might to in future. (For example, Real 10 being based on the AAC standard...)
It might make for nice cute shorthands and terse posts, but it doesn't help anyone understand the issues or make intelligent discussion.
Ah, but censorship is never about controlling what you can see. It's always about controlling what other people can see.
Just listen to people complaining about programmes. It's almost never "I was disturbed by this," or "I shouldn't have been allowed to see this," -- it's usually "What if someone with a nervous disposition was watching this?" or "Do you really think this is suitable for children to see?" That last one is the most common, of course. How easy it is to use children as an excuse for what offends us...
(Not that there aren't some things I think children shouldn't see, or that no-one should see. But I think that's used as an excuse just as often as a valid reason. And it's always interesting to see people project their offence onto others.)
Plus, it's easy to snigger now, in hindsight. But I wonder how many people would have agreed with him at the time. Probably quite a few. (Hard to tell, because it's almost impossible to undo a year or two of impressions and associations.)
Seems to me that you're attributing much more power to a vote that's one of millions than to one that's one of hundreds. And I can't see that's the case.
Okay, if candidate A and B both get exactly five hundred thousand votes, then your one will swing it either way. But what are the chances of that? Infinitesimal.
In practice, your single vote is extremely unlikely to change the 'result' of a large election -- if you see that result only as the person who gets elected. But that's not all to the result frof an election -- there's also the number of votes cast for each candidate, winner or loser; and that's something you can always affect.
As I said, with something other than first-past-the-post counting, this problem wouldn't exist. With STV, or instant-runoff, or Condorcet, or whatever, you'd be able to put a low-visibility candidate first without risking your ability to influence the high-visibility choices too. (And when everyone can do that, maybe they won't stay low-visibility for long?)
I'm wondering whether it would have been better to have researched the article, and delivered a pre-publication copy to the university authorities. That would have given them a chance to improve security without publicising the information -- and the article could then say "Here are some security issues we used to have", whilst praising the good work of the IT department in fixing them.
Or maybe that'd just allow the authorities to pull the article before the news got out, and avoid doing any work...
No. I'm saying that I'm smart enough to know that if I vote for someone who is unelectable, the fact that I voted for them will not change the fact that they will not be elected.
And if you vote for someone who's going to win anyway, then your vote for them won't change that fact either.
So why not vote in order to show what you want, rather than trying to second-guess the rest of the electorate? One more vote for your chosen candidate means one more reason why whoever gets in power should take notice of their policies; one more reason for everyone to hear about them next time; one less reason for the winner to become complacent.
An election isn't a lottery -- you're not trying to predict the winner, you're trying to make your voice heard!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you saying that you're only prepared to vote for someone if X million other people will also do so?
IMO, that sort of thinking is exactly what's wrong with democracy these days.
(And why we desperately need something other than first-past-the-post voting...)
Stealing is when you deprive someone of something they have;
To play Devil's Advocate here... Okay, the term 'stealing' doesn't apply in quite the same way when we're talking about copying.
But maybe it's still pretty accurate. You may not be depriving the original owner of the material in question, but you are depriving them of many things related to it. You're depriving them of control over its distribution. You're depriving them of its scarcity, and the chance to profit from that scarcity. You're depriving them of editorial control over what versions are released, and in what circumstances. You may also be depriving them of their moral rights to be identified as the creator -- or vice versa, identifying them as the creator of a 'work' they never wanted to release. And of course, the most contentious one: in some cases, you may be depriving them of a sale.
The question we have to ask ourselves is: Doesn't the forced removal of all of these count as 'stealing'?
If there is life on Mars, as so many people seem so desperate to prove despite the almost overwhelming lack of evidence, then what's the betting it arrived from Earth on one of our previous probes?
If people put as much effort as they use persuading themselves of extraterrestrial life into making sure we're not contaminating the rest of the solar system, it might be a good deal safer...
I hope you have better luck than I did. I mailed them politely about this a couple of years ago, and again last year. IIRC, they replied to the effect that they were hoping to allow access from other browsers in future.
If you spin your arm clockwise it will cause your body (and along with it the chair) to spin counter-clockwise
I was going to reply saying 'True but irrelevant', as I couldn't see how that could help you change orientation. But having thought about it, I'm not so sure...
If I do as you say, then we have my body spinning slowly one way, and my arm spinning faster the other. (Ignore the fact that my joints would probably complain!) Now, if I wait until my arm has completed a whole number of turns relative to my body, so that it's back in the usual position, and then stop, my body will stop rotating too. And, because of the different rates of rotation, I may not be facing the same way. Which is what we want!
I'm not convinced that that's what's happening in the swivel chair case, though. When I do it, I don't move my arms anywhere near a complete revolution, and yet I'm still able to change orientation. My gut feeling is that I'm making use of friction somehow. Unless you can explain it without?
No no no. With the swivel chair, you're using an external force - the friction of the chair. You're able (whether you realise it or not) to push against the chair, using the fact that the bearings aren't completely frictionless. (IIRC, the friction is relatively greater for slow rotation.) That's where you can pick up some angular momentum.
If the chair rotated completely frictionlessly, then you wouldn't be able to orient yourself; every time you twisted to put one part of your body one way, the rest of your body would rotate the other way to balance out.
OTOH, maybe in zero-g you're able to use friction with the air in a similar way...
the Windows version attempts to track the files across your disk (a difficult procedure) while the Mac version simply sucks everything into its library.
I dunno about the Windows version, but the Mac one can work either way. With the 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library' and 'Keep iTunes Music folder organized' options set, iTunes will do just that -- maintain its own library folder, copying files into it. With them both unset, it'll play files wherever they are, and keep a note of them for future reference.
(The difference is that with the Mac's HFS+ file system, it can keep track of files even if you rename them, or move them elsewhere on the same volume.)
What's this teaching the children? That adults are always checking up on them, that they they're always being monitors and hence can always be got out of any trouble. In short, that they don't need to take responsibility for themselves.
Mobile phones have already had some of this effect, and IDs will have more. Why bother learning how to make arrangement and stick to them? Why bother making the effort to be at the agreed place at the agreed time? After all, you can always call and explain...
Why bother to learn self-discipline, when you know it's always being enforced on you anyway?
If we raise a generation of children who know they don't need to look after themselves, we'll end up with a generation of adults who can't look after themselves.
And I find that just as scary as the civil liberties implications.
Come see us live, that's where we do make the money.
Good for you, that's a great way to look at it, and I'm glad you make money that way.
But not all music is suitable for live performance, and not all musicians work well that way. Mike Oldfield, to take a well-known example, created the famous 'Tubular Bells' (and many subsequent compositions) by playing tens of different instruments himself, one by one. When he finally got around to taking his music on tour, several years later, he had to put together a huge band of musicians, and a symphony orchestra, to recreate his music. The result: music which sounded vastly different from his albums, concerts that could only fit into a few huge venues, and a tour which lost massive amounts of money. And this was for a musician who was already hugely popular. If Mike hadn't been able to make money from his albums, there's no way he'd have been able to create anything like them -- nor, probably, make a living from music at all.
And the same goes for many of my favourite artists, in various genres and styles. The business model you're proposing would destroy their livelihood, and not allow them to make another one. In short, it simply wouldn't allow that sort of music to be made. And I think we'd all be the poorer for it.
I'm not suggesting we stick our heads in the sand, nor try to enforce an outdated business model with legislation. But I wish someone would propose a workable alternative for the sort of music and artists I love...
As goes indentation, you should use either tabs throughout (my preference), or spaced throughout. That way, the code looks good whatever font and tabsize is used.
But apart from that, I can't see why code should need spacing to correspond between lines (which is the only way you should be able to tell what font &c it was written with). Adding spaces so that the equals signs line up, or similar, is IMO a waste of time and highlights superficial structure at the expense of more important things.
Whatever language I code in, I space it pretty much how I'd space English: a single space after a comma or semicolon, none before; a single space outside a parenthesis, none inside; a single space around operators such as pluses and equals signs; and so on. It makes for code that's elegant, clear, and consistent, and looks great in a proportional font.
Yeah, but if new models are released every six months, and they expect a proportion of people to upgrade, then they won't be quite so concerned with building them to last. And then people will have to upgrade every half-year or two...
If you mean 'Elite', then that's a bad example. The original (Beeb) version hacked the display registers to create its own hybrid screen mode, with a highish-res black-and-white main view, and a lower-res 4-colour status panel beneath. (I guess they effectively switched between MODE 4 and MODE 5 using a timer interrupt that fired 2/3 the way down the screen, and switched back in the flyback.)
In short, they didn't use the default options!
Mind you, as someone else said, it's dead easy to create windows and stuff in Java, and the sorts of graphics primitives that micros used to have are also pretty easy.
Now, in general, we tend to think of choice as a Good Thing(tm). But it's not always so -- e.g. when choice means incompatibility, confusion, fragmentation, duplicated effort.
For example, here in the UK we have (basically) just one mobile phone system: GSM. That terrible restriction on our liberties means that mobile phones can work on all networks, and there's coverage almost everywhere. Result: mobiles are cheap, and just about everyone has one. In the US, so I gather, there's the wonderful free choice of GSM, CDMA, and goodness knows what else. Result: expensive phones, no coverage, lots of vendor lock-in, and mobiles are less popular. Lack of choice can be a good thing.
The computing world is surprisingly close in terms of interfaces, APIs, and protocols.
It's less so in terms of GUI features, admittedly, but some of the same economies of scale apply. However, I think Apple's principle here is that if a feature is done right, then people won't need alternatives.
Far better to have one option that works right, than ten competing alternatives, none of which does the job properly. Easier to learn, easier to document, easier to code to, easier to administer, easier to support.
Now, in this particular case, I do miss virtual desktops in OS X. (Codetek's is just too slow with the number of windows I have, and I can't use Desktop Manager in my 10.2...) I don't think Apple have come up with a better solution to the problem it solves. But I'm right behind most of Apple's other decisions. Simplicity and elegance are underrated virtues.
Slashdot Mirror
It records as a WAV file, uncompressed (so no ATRAC compression artefacts); it has USB, so I just plug it into my Mac and it appears in iTunes &c, so getting the data off it is a doddle. No DRM or other restrictions.
A few minor downsides to be aware of. It takes 4 rechargeable batteries. (DON'T substitute alkalines if you're stuck; it ran through 4 fresh Duracells in half an hour! I guess the high current it draws means that only NiMHs or similar will cope properly.) The UI is a bit clunky. And it only records at line level; although there's a booster for lower levels, it introduces a whining noise, so avoid it. And there's no on-screen indication of level or anything.
I expect that many of these problems have been fixed in more recent versions; you can probably pick up something with larger capacity for a similar price now. And of course, it's a music player too!
Yes, MD isn't a bad solution. But you probably need convenience more than high sound quality &c. (Gosh, it was only a few years ago that I was recording my singing lessons!) And the ease and speed of getting data off an HD unit compared with MD is probably well worth considering.
I'm surprised no-one else seems to have picked up on this. Put this announcement together with their interest in acquiring the USL name, and all this means is that in future, SCO won't be suing people; USL will be suing them instead!
One thing I'd like to say (other than "Spellchecker!" I mean, you didn't misspell 'hypocrisy' just once, but three times, and that's after copying it correctly from the grandparent!) is that not only does the grandparent grossly oversimplify Slashdot, it also oversimplifies the issues.
Apple is a corporation that does a lot of things; some seem good (to me), some not so good. Characterising them as 'good' is naive and pretty meaningless. Ditto the other entities in the case. Real may have done lots of things that annoyed lots of folk here, but that doesn't necessarily extend to everything they've done, much less everything they might to in future. (For example, Real 10 being based on the AAC standard...)
It might make for nice cute shorthands and terse posts, but it doesn't help anyone understand the issues or make intelligent discussion.
Just listen to people complaining about programmes. It's almost never "I was disturbed by this," or "I shouldn't have been allowed to see this," -- it's usually "What if someone with a nervous disposition was watching this?" or "Do you really think this is suitable for children to see?" That last one is the most common, of course. How easy it is to use children as an excuse for what offends us...
(Not that there aren't some things I think children shouldn't see, or that no-one should see. But I think that's used as an excuse just as often as a valid reason. And it's always interesting to see people project their offence onto others.)
It still is. Depending where you live, of course...
Plus, it's easy to snigger now, in hindsight. But I wonder how many people would have agreed with him at the time. Probably quite a few. (Hard to tell, because it's almost impossible to undo a year or two of impressions and associations.)
Okay, if candidate A and B both get exactly five hundred thousand votes, then your one will swing it either way. But what are the chances of that? Infinitesimal.
In practice, your single vote is extremely unlikely to change the 'result' of a large election -- if you see that result only as the person who gets elected. But that's not all to the result frof an election -- there's also the number of votes cast for each candidate, winner or loser; and that's something you can always affect.
As I said, with something other than first-past-the-post counting, this problem wouldn't exist. With STV, or instant-runoff, or Condorcet, or whatever, you'd be able to put a low-visibility candidate first without risking your ability to influence the high-visibility choices too. (And when everyone can do that, maybe they won't stay low-visibility for long?)
Or maybe that'd just allow the authorities to pull the article before the news got out, and avoid doing any work...
And if you vote for someone who's going to win anyway, then your vote for them won't change that fact either.
So why not vote in order to show what you want, rather than trying to second-guess the rest of the electorate? One more vote for your chosen candidate means one more reason why whoever gets in power should take notice of their policies; one more reason for everyone to hear about them next time; one less reason for the winner to become complacent.
An election isn't a lottery -- you're not trying to predict the winner, you're trying to make your voice heard!
IMO, that sort of thinking is exactly what's wrong with democracy these days. (And why we desperately need something other than first-past-the-post voting...)
To play Devil's Advocate here... Okay, the term 'stealing' doesn't apply in quite the same way when we're talking about copying.
But maybe it's still pretty accurate. You may not be depriving the original owner of the material in question, but you are depriving them of many things related to it. You're depriving them of control over its distribution. You're depriving them of its scarcity, and the chance to profit from that scarcity. You're depriving them of editorial control over what versions are released, and in what circumstances. You may also be depriving them of their moral rights to be identified as the creator -- or vice versa, identifying them as the creator of a 'work' they never wanted to release. And of course, the most contentious one: in some cases, you may be depriving them of a sale.
The question we have to ask ourselves is: Doesn't the forced removal of all of these count as 'stealing'?
If people put as much effort as they use persuading themselves of extraterrestrial life into making sure we're not contaminating the rest of the solar system, it might be a good deal safer...
(And, like a fool, I believed them...)
So this shouldn't be news to them.
('Like'. I said 'like'!)
I was going to reply saying 'True but irrelevant', as I couldn't see how that could help you change orientation. But having thought about it, I'm not so sure...
If I do as you say, then we have my body spinning slowly one way, and my arm spinning faster the other. (Ignore the fact that my joints would probably complain!) Now, if I wait until my arm has completed a whole number of turns relative to my body, so that it's back in the usual position, and then stop, my body will stop rotating too. And, because of the different rates of rotation, I may not be facing the same way. Which is what we want!
I'm not convinced that that's what's happening in the swivel chair case, though. When I do it, I don't move my arms anywhere near a complete revolution, and yet I'm still able to change orientation. My gut feeling is that I'm making use of friction somehow. Unless you can explain it without?
If the chair rotated completely frictionlessly, then you wouldn't be able to orient yourself; every time you twisted to put one part of your body one way, the rest of your body would rotate the other way to balance out.
OTOH, maybe in zero-g you're able to use friction with the air in a similar way...
I dunno about the Windows version, but the Mac one can work either way. With the 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library' and 'Keep iTunes Music folder organized' options set, iTunes will do just that -- maintain its own library folder, copying files into it. With them both unset, it'll play files wherever they are, and keep a note of them for future reference.
(The difference is that with the Mac's HFS+ file system, it can keep track of files even if you rename them, or move them elsewhere on the same volume.)
What's this teaching the children? That adults are always checking up on them, that they they're always being monitors and hence can always be got out of any trouble. In short, that they don't need to take responsibility for themselves.
Mobile phones have already had some of this effect, and IDs will have more. Why bother learning how to make arrangement and stick to them? Why bother making the effort to be at the agreed place at the agreed time? After all, you can always call and explain...
Why bother to learn self-discipline, when you know it's always being enforced on you anyway?
If we raise a generation of children who know they don't need to look after themselves, we'll end up with a generation of adults who can't look after themselves.
And I find that just as scary as the civil liberties implications.
Even then, I suspect that it doesn't mean what the poster intended, which probably has an 'It's a' in there, and no second 'who'...
[fx: shiver of horror and disgust]
Good for you, that's a great way to look at it, and I'm glad you make money that way.
But not all music is suitable for live performance, and not all musicians work well that way. Mike Oldfield, to take a well-known example, created the famous 'Tubular Bells' (and many subsequent compositions) by playing tens of different instruments himself, one by one. When he finally got around to taking his music on tour, several years later, he had to put together a huge band of musicians, and a symphony orchestra, to recreate his music. The result: music which sounded vastly different from his albums, concerts that could only fit into a few huge venues, and a tour which lost massive amounts of money. And this was for a musician who was already hugely popular. If Mike hadn't been able to make money from his albums, there's no way he'd have been able to create anything like them -- nor, probably, make a living from music at all.
And the same goes for many of my favourite artists, in various genres and styles. The business model you're proposing would destroy their livelihood, and not allow them to make another one. In short, it simply wouldn't allow that sort of music to be made. And I think we'd all be the poorer for it.
I'm not suggesting we stick our heads in the sand, nor try to enforce an outdated business model with legislation. But I wish someone would propose a workable alternative for the sort of music and artists I love...
As goes indentation, you should use either tabs throughout (my preference), or spaced throughout. That way, the code looks good whatever font and tabsize is used.
But apart from that, I can't see why code should need spacing to correspond between lines (which is the only way you should be able to tell what font &c it was written with). Adding spaces so that the equals signs line up, or similar, is IMO a waste of time and highlights superficial structure at the expense of more important things.
Whatever language I code in, I space it pretty much how I'd space English: a single space after a comma or semicolon, none before; a single space outside a parenthesis, none inside; a single space around operators such as pluses and equals signs; and so on. It makes for code that's elegant, clear, and consistent, and looks great in a proportional font.
And secondly, are you implying that your comment was in code? Or just that you're incapable of changing fonts?
(Look in the Guide, under 'Shoe Event Horizon'.)
If you mean 'Elite', then that's a bad example. The original (Beeb) version hacked the display registers to create its own hybrid screen mode, with a highish-res black-and-white main view, and a lower-res 4-colour status panel beneath. (I guess they effectively switched between MODE 4 and MODE 5 using a timer interrupt that fired 2/3 the way down the screen, and switched back in the flyback.)
In short, they didn't use the default options!
Mind you, as someone else said, it's dead easy to create windows and stuff in Java, and the sorts of graphics primitives that micros used to have are also pretty easy.
Now, in general, we tend to think of choice as a Good Thing(tm). But it's not always so -- e.g. when choice means incompatibility, confusion, fragmentation, duplicated effort.
For example, here in the UK we have (basically) just one mobile phone system: GSM. That terrible restriction on our liberties means that mobile phones can work on all networks, and there's coverage almost everywhere. Result: mobiles are cheap, and just about everyone has one. In the US, so I gather, there's the wonderful free choice of GSM, CDMA, and goodness knows what else. Result: expensive phones, no coverage, lots of vendor lock-in, and mobiles are less popular. Lack of choice can be a good thing.
The computing world is surprisingly close in terms of interfaces, APIs, and protocols.
It's less so in terms of GUI features, admittedly, but some of the same economies of scale apply. However, I think Apple's principle here is that if a feature is done right, then people won't need alternatives.
Far better to have one option that works right, than ten competing alternatives, none of which does the job properly. Easier to learn, easier to document, easier to code to, easier to administer, easier to support.
Now, in this particular case, I do miss virtual desktops in OS X. (Codetek's is just too slow with the number of windows I have, and I can't use Desktop Manager in my 10.2...) I don't think Apple have come up with a better solution to the problem it solves. But I'm right behind most of Apple's other decisions. Simplicity and elegance are underrated virtues.