The West certainly hasn't lost any of it's skills or expertise. It's developing countries that have, well, developed! The West may have blazed the trail for our current world economy, for good or for bad, but it was only a matter of time before other countries started catching up. Unless artificial market restrictions are employed this trend will see the wealth of the world spread out over more and more nations rather than concentrated in just a few. While it may suck for the West, it's good for the majority of people in the world.
The only question is, how do we deal with this? Do we throw our hands up in the air, say we had a good run, and walk quietly off into the sunset? Do we impose artificial trade restrictions that turn us into hypocrites? (Yes, this is the current tactic. It's already being done. Free trade is great so long as you're more free than the rest.) Our best bet is probably to try to compete better by improving our education system and finding new ways to encourage research. (Read: Overhaul the cumbersome copyright/patent system so you don't need a team of 20 lawyers and a fat bankroll for bribes in order to invent something remotely useful.) So long as we're ahead on the tech curve we'll get business. Unfortunately, other countries can do this too and they just happen to have a lot more people than we do.
Yep. It sucks to be the West right now, but it does give one hope for all the backwards shitholes on the planet. How you feel about all this depends entirely on how selfish you are I suppose. Ask not for whom the bell tolls and all that.
While $0.50 per track is approaching the right price point for this service, it still isn't quite cheap enough. Yes, it is much cheaper than an actual CD, but the quality is vastly inferior. Sure, you might not realize it if you listen to music through the crappy iPod stock buds or some nasty little Sony mini-stereo, but someday you might actually get some decent speakers or cans! On that day you'll realize all the lossy mp3's and AAC's you've accumulated over the years just don't hack it anymore.
High bitrate, well-encoded lossy files can be quite good, although never as good as losslessly compressed files. However, 128Kb AAC (iTunes) and whatever crap bitrate Real is using is just not good enough! (I'll eat my shorts if Real is using 256Kbps or higher, VBR or otherwise) While some small labels have lossless downloads available, all of the big online music stores so far all push the same crap. The amazing thing is, people are actually buying it! For some reason, people are paying 90% of what they pay for a real CD for a product that is inferior across the board. For most services, online music doesn't even win in the convenience category thanks to the headaches associated with DRM! (Although many won't realize it until their iPod dies and they have to use those DRM'd AAC files with some other company's portable music player or even Apple's future players. It's practically planned obsolescence!)
Why on Earth are consumers this stupid? The only thing I can think of is that most people simply don't appreciate the fact that the low bitrate lossy tracks offered by these online stores are grossly inferior to a CD. They probably just assume that because it's online and high-tech it must be better than the venerable old CD somehow. "Hey, it's e-cool baby!" (*GAG*) Well, listen up chumps. You've been had. They're pushing crap and you're licking it up like fine chocolate mousse!
I must admit, I'm ready to give up. Beatiful, luscious new high-res sound formats like SACD and DVD-A come out, but 128Kbps AAC is out-selling them by a huge margin. Ands it's the damned net-geeks who are the stupid ones! What is wrong with this world!?
I am willing to bet there will be theaters which offer screenings of all three extended editions, back to back. Let's do the math:
12 hours of LOTR + Pshychotic LOTR-crazed fans + several hundred litres of movie-theater pseudo-soda + no catheters ----- = one helluva carpet cleaning bill
and you can bet that those theaters will be full of psychotic LOTR-crazed fans... You can also bet that such a theater would be a great place to sell special movie-theater priced catheters to go with the special movie-theater priced colas...
>>IMHO the new Star Trek, as of late, has fallen >>into an old formula that is fast making me lose >>interest. Bringing back James Kirk could breathe >>new life back into the series:
The only problem with bringing back Kirk is that it will, by necessity, involve yet another freakin' time-warp episode. This is, by definition, more of the same ol' crap. There's an entire rich and diverse world of sci-fi literature out there that doesn't involve time travel that is just waiting to be ripped off! Why can't those hacks rip off something other than old star-trek for a change?
Then there's the obvious continuity errors that would arise if Kirk showed up on Enterprise. He's already been sucked into a TNG flick and even managed to die there at a much younger age than Shatner is now! Of course, it's not like Enterprise hasn't taken liberties with the time-line of the other series before...
As much as I'd like to believe the dynamic B&B duo are smart enough to realize this, they've done so many stupid things that I can't help but fear the worst. They must be getting pretty desperate now. Enterprise did get picked up for one more season, but given that it's being moved to Friday nights I wouldn't bet on it seeing another season after that unless it miraculously stops sucking gangrenous monkey balls.
IR may work with strategic receiver placement, but not particularily well. Bluetooth owns it in every aspect except for cost. Better battery life. Better range. Much better range actually. You can literally leave your home and you'll still be in range, while with IR if you move to the other side of the room or someone walks in front of you you're hooped!
Optical mice, believe it or not, work quite well on a wide range of surfaces. If I were the gent who started this thread I'd try an ordinary optical mouse out on his armchair. If you like it, buy a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Problem solved.
P.S. I'm writing this on an 8-foot wide screen with a mouse on my lap and an optical mouse on the arm of my chair.:D
The popularity of iTunes has been greatly aided by the popularity of the iPod. Does Sony even have a half-way decent, let along popular player to prop up their system? Their memory stick mp3 players are pure and utter crap. Sony's minidisc players and the upcomming HD minidisc players have and will continue to have their fans, but they're not going to be popular enough. They're victims of the consumer-perceived hierarchy of technologies.
Who here has heard of D-VHS, let alone actually owns a deck? It's got VHS in the name so it must suck right? Yes and no. The quality of D-VHS blows DVD out of the water. True high-def image with high quality sound. Unforunately, this gorgeous image and sound is stored on a tape. There is no random-access as with DVD's, and a consumer perceived inherent unreliability. (Truthfully, VHS tapes can actually last a *long* bloody time!) Worst of all, some twit decided to name it D-VHS, virtually guaranteeing it would die quickly. The format is virtually dead now, with next-gen HD DVD devices still in the pipes. Even Laserdiscs did far better!
Disc-players, even minidisc players, are going the way of VHS tapes in the personal music department. You can construct a new disc-based format with impressive technical merit but people will ignore it because mp3-players based on flash and HD's are perceived to be "higher tech". Memory stick technology is similar. The majority of people won't want to carry around a player and a bag full of sticks when they can get a player that will hold every song they own!
The only thing that might save this new service from a fast and well-deserved demise is Sony's brand name. Huge portions of the populus seem to think that Sony can do no wrong. Sony does make some nice gear, but plenty of crap too. Hopefully people are smart enough to recognize a turd without being blinded by the shiny Sony brand on it.
I'm sorry, but the anal retentive streak in me just wouldn't let this go. In order for a Star Destroyer to be built to the same scale as 4" action figures it would need to be over 75 meters long! Now *that* would be a freakin' lego project!
-Program the meters to play "We're into Money" in beep tones whenever somebody swipes their card. -Program the meter to prompt the user to find out what class of car they drive. If it's a SUV, the meter will refuse to let them park because the gargantuan heap blocks out the sun the meter needs to run. -Program the meter to randomly scramble PIN numbers that users input. -Program the meter to randomly pop up Microsoft error messages. We wouldn't want parking meters to give Linux a bad name now would we?
One can only presume that the use of a wireless network will allow users to swipe their bank card or Visa and then run off to do their thing. When they return and drive away the meter will notice the car is gone and their bill will be automatically paid. There will be no more leaving the stall with 40 minutes left on the meter because you didn't know how long you'd be! Likewise, you won't pay for 45 minutes and come back 47 minutes later only to find a ticket under your wiper.
Of course, you can bet that if these meters rely on wireless communication they're going to wind up being hacked by drunken geeks on a regular basis. Some might be dumb enough to hack a meter they personally park at. Some who are slightly smarter will infect the system with a virus that gives everyone free parking. However, sooner or later someone is going to hack the meter network to charge $20,000 per minute, and someone is going to have a heart attack when they get back from watching a two hour movie and see what their bank is about to be charged the moment they drive away!
Tesla originally worked for Edison, but they had a bit of a falling out. Eventually they were both competing in the power market, with Tesla selling AC current and Edison selling DC. AC has a lot of advantages for power transmision, but that didn't stop Edison from embarking on a campaign to discredit AC power. He electrocuted dogs and cats with AC current in public demonstrations intended to show how dangerous AC power was.
During the construction of Luna Park on Coney island, an elephant used as a beast of burden killed a couple of people. Topsy, as she was called, was condemned to death. However, there was a wee bit of a problem. Elephants aren't the easiest critters to kill. Edison, being the generous person he was, gladly volunteered to execute the elephant with AC current, and filmed the whole thing. He showed that film "Electrocuting an Elephant" (1903) publically on many occasions and I am sure more than a few stray cats and dogs escaped a crispy fate thanks to that film. It is still possible to track down copies of "Electrocuting an Elephant" today. Please be warned that it's a rather gruesome little piece of history, and is not for the faint of heart, or SPCA members.
It is Old, on www.hometheaterforum.com anyways.
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That page has been posted again and again on hometheater forum. It's been around for years, but gets occasional updates. It is a cool sub, I must admit, but I had to stifle a laugh when it showed up on Slashdot. It's definately for audio nerds, but it isn't news. Not by a long-shot!
If that dohickey can describe the contents of a playboy to a blind man in sufficient detail to give him a high quality woody then I say it's nobel prize time. Why? It's no big deal for a blind man to find someone to read literature to him. However, it is considerably more difficult for a blind man to find someone willing to describe naked women to him while he jerks his gerkin. Do you have any idea what kind of overtime the average aide would charge for that level of service?
They aren't just muggers. They're concerned audiophiles.
Anybody who would spend $400 bucks on an audio player and then use the $5 stock buds (and I don't care what apple sells them for) that came with the player needs to be separated from said expensive player *immediately*. Watching someone use those crappy stock buds is like watching a 16-year old getting driving lessons in a Lamborghini Murcielago.
If you're going to shell out for an iPod, get some real cans. It's the only way to defend yourself from the can-police, a.k.a. friendly neighborhood vigilante audiophile muggers.
P.S. Those of you saying, "Hey, wait a minute! Those white buds are actually pretty good!" should go listen to a real set of cans right bloody now. Try some Grado's or, if you must have the ear-bud form factor, Shure's or Etymotics. (The last two are canal-phones, but decent ones, unlike the crap Sony and Apple make. Sony does make some nice cans, but their canal-phones suck.)
Yes, there were some oversights, but this is still a remarkably thorough article. The influences section which included the Xerox Star system was a lot more than I was expecting. Most Mac zealots prefer to believe that Apple invented the GUI all by themselves so they can mock Microsoft for ripping it off. Star was far from the first GUI, but it was the first full-blown GUI designed to be used by the typical officer worker. It was a true innovation, whereas MacOS was more of a savvy repackaging, albeit a first rate one that brought GUI's to the home PC market.
Actually, when you read the article it sounds like a better idea than you make it out to be... People can watch TV in the morning while brushing their teeth or shaving! What a great idea! Now I can watch the news and slice half my face of at the same time! Just imagine how much longer it's going to take your SO to finish up in the bathroom now!
"Are you almost done dear?" "Shh. It's Oprah. I never floss during Oprah!"
Joking aside, I can see these being heartily adopted by the hotel industry. Now they can offer you PPV pornos while you're on the toilet! Just imagine the potential for comdom adds in public washrooms...
Sooner or later, people are going to whine about Garth Jennings, a complete film n00b, being entrusted with everybody's most beloved franchise: Hitchhikers's Guide to the Galaxy. This is inevitable.
Then the Garth Jennings Fan club will speak up about how he's really such a wonderful music video director and how ignorant slobs who would dare to diss him should shut up. This is also inevitable.
I'd like to say two things however...
First, to the Garth Jennings Fan club, when was the last time you heard the phrase: "That flick was like a two-hour MTV music video!" used in a complimentary fashion?
Second, to the anti-Garth Jennings camp, could it possibly be any worse than a low budget 1980's BBC TV production?
Personally, I don't expect a film that is going to come even close to the books. Not from Garth Jennings at least. (It'd be hit or miss with the best directors out there!) However, the material is so damned funny that Jennings have to be a total moron to render 2 hours of Douglas Adams goodness completely unwatchable! I actually sorta liked the BBC TV series, believe it or not.
I remember a long time ago, when I was in junior high, Coca-Cola had an under-the-cap contest going. The twist was that every bottle had tick-code on the cap. If there were 6 vertical lines, you were guaranteed to at least win a free soda. Needless to say, the employees at the gas-station down the road from my school (right in front of the bus stop) got very sick of junior-high kids going through every last bottle in the cooler looking for a six-tick bottle that had been miraculously missed by the 200 other kids that had already been through the place.
Leaving Disney hasn't changed the fact that Pixar still needs a distributor and, perhaps, investors. (Anyone know where I could sign up to invest in Pixar??:D ) The only difference is that, having proven themselves, they now have free reign and should be able to get much better deals. Still, that doesn't mean they're about to start making R-films.
The big bucks are usually with the G to PG-13 crowd... For a film of a given quality, the broader it's potential audience is the better it's earnings will be. As rare as they may seem, G rated films that are actually good are literal box-office gold. The folks at Pixar now has several such films under their belts.
Here's a question to ponder though... Everybody know's who directed Kill Bill. Everybody and their freaking dog knows who directed the LOTR trilogy. How many of you honestly know who directed "Finding Nemo" and don't have to look it up on IMDB? Be honest now!
It's a good, albeit quite obviously biased article. (That's okay by me. I agree with the bias.) However, they could have carried a few things a tad further with just a little more researge. For example,
From the article: "According to Fisher's plan, all works capable of being transmitted online would be registered with a central office (whether government or independent is unclear). The central office would then monitor how frequently a work is used and compensate the creators on that basis. The money would come from a tax on various content-related devices, like DVD burners, blank CD's or digital recorders."
The article then goes on to state that this model has little hope of catching on in America, and needs some second-world nations currently in copyright limbo to try this radical system out.
What the article failed to take note of is that Canada, and to a *far* lesser extent the U.S., already use systems very similar to this, except that the re-distribution of the tax is left entirely up to the music industry. In both nations we have a tax on blank media. (In Canada this includes Mp3 players and a few other devices as well.) This tax is then given to the appropriate recording association to recompense them for their "lost revenues". There is one minor difference between the U.S. and Canadian implementations however. As a legal consequence of this tax, in Canada, it is technically legal to borrow and copy CD's, download off the internet, etc.. (Although giving away copies of CD's and uploading is a much fuzzier area.) In the U.S., you pay the tax and still get screwed because everything is illegal.
Lessig's "radical" new system already exists in a nascent form in both the U.S., and to a greater extent, Canada. Canada's system needs only minor modifications to fit his idea's very closely. I would suggest that Lessig take a trip North of the border and start talking to politicians. The U.S. and Canada have a very close relationship, and laws that are implemented in one country often migrate to the other. If Lessig's system could be shown to work in Canada it may catch on South of the border too.
Wireless synching is a good idea, but you still have to plug the thing in to charge. In that sense, it hasn't gained any physical advantage over any other player.
The interface for the iPod, especially on windows, sucks ass. If plugging it in automatically synched it and it automatically un-docked itself when done it would be every bit as good as the Aerio.
Now... If someone could just figure out a way to charge these gizmo's wirelessly we'd be set!
Oh come one! They've got "Meat Beat Manifesto"!!! They were on the freakin original Matrix soundtrack! Have you been living under a rock? How about Nine Inch Nails? You've heard of them right? They've been on MTV and Much Music!!! (I admit, NiN isn't quite up to the same standards as some of the other artists here, but you must have heard of him!) They've got Philip Glass, who has written tonnes of music including an alternate operatic score for Jean Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast". (which owns Disney's version BTW) He also scored the Qatsi trilogy, but those are art films. Well out of your baliwick obviously.
Electronica isn't everyone's cup o' tea, but it is one of the few musical genres that is currently exploring new possibilities at an explosive rate. (Unlike Rock, Pop, Metal, Country, Rap, etc. which each have a little going on in the fringes, but have mostly stagnated.) Electronica is also one of the genre's that most music stores neglect to a shameless degree. Even when you can find the CD's you want, Electronica is often priced well above most other genre's. The prices on this site are simply fantastic by comparison!
Aphex Twin (Richard D. James) is... unique. Some of his stuff is simply amazing. He creates truly original music that's pushing out frontiers left right and center. Then, every once and a while, he gets the urge to actually sing some lyrics... Ye gods!
I wish the milkman would deliver my milk, in the morning. I wish the milkman would deliver my milk, when I'm yawning. I would like some milk from the milkman's wife's tits. I would like some milk from the milkman's wife's tits. I would like some milk from the milkman's wife's tits. . . .
(He goes on for a while. You get the picture.)
Let's just say it's a good thing that he usually keeps his yap shut and leave it at that. It just goes to show that musical and poetic genious don't always go hand and hand.
Auterche is another great electronica band that was, coincidentally on the Pi soundtrack with Aphex Twin and a few others. (Great movie despite the bad math.) There is a tonne of stuff here that I'd love to be able to buy legitimately. Frankly, if this service offered music in a lossless format I'd be blowing a wad on it. Perhaps in the future...
If you had your choice about who was going to direct this film would you choose:
a) Garth Jennings b) Tim Burton c) Terry Gilliam d) David Lynch e) Ridley Scott
The poster made a pretty valid point, IMHO. Garth Jennings, while perhaps a promising up and comer, is still an unproven quantity in the movie making buisiness. "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is the sort of property that proven world-class directors would line up and beat the snot outta each other for the chance to direct! It is an utter travesty that this fellow can get the budget for Hitchhiker (which should be at least 60 million) while directors like Terry Gilliam have so recently *failed* to raise the money to produce equally hilarious properties like "Good Omens". (equally funny, but less famous) Give Jennings the script for the sequel to Gigli, and if he can make it even moderately more tolerable than the original then start him on literary classics.
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The West certainly hasn't lost any of it's skills or expertise. It's developing countries that have, well, developed! The West may have blazed the trail for our current world economy, for good or for bad, but it was only a matter of time before other countries started catching up. Unless artificial market restrictions are employed this trend will see the wealth of the world spread out over more and more nations rather than concentrated in just a few. While it may suck for the West, it's good for the majority of people in the world.
The only question is, how do we deal with this? Do we throw our hands up in the air, say we had a good run, and walk quietly off into the sunset? Do we impose artificial trade restrictions that turn us into hypocrites? (Yes, this is the current tactic. It's already being done. Free trade is great so long as you're more free than the rest.) Our best bet is probably to try to compete better by improving our education system and finding new ways to encourage research. (Read: Overhaul the cumbersome copyright/patent system so you don't need a team of 20 lawyers and a fat bankroll for bribes in order to invent something remotely useful.) So long as we're ahead on the tech curve we'll get business. Unfortunately, other countries can do this too and they just happen to have a lot more people than we do.
Yep. It sucks to be the West right now, but it does give one hope for all the backwards shitholes on the planet. How you feel about all this depends entirely on how selfish you are I suppose. Ask not for whom the bell tolls and all that.
While $0.50 per track is approaching the right price point for this service, it still isn't quite cheap enough. Yes, it is much cheaper than an actual CD, but the quality is vastly inferior. Sure, you might not realize it if you listen to music through the crappy iPod stock buds or some nasty little Sony mini-stereo, but someday you might actually get some decent speakers or cans! On that day you'll realize all the lossy mp3's and AAC's you've accumulated over the years just don't hack it anymore.
High bitrate, well-encoded lossy files can be quite good, although never as good as losslessly compressed files. However, 128Kb AAC (iTunes) and whatever crap bitrate Real is using is just not good enough! (I'll eat my shorts if Real is using 256Kbps or higher, VBR or otherwise) While some small labels have lossless downloads available, all of the big online music stores so far all push the same crap. The amazing thing is, people are actually buying it! For some reason, people are paying 90% of what they pay for a real CD for a product that is inferior across the board. For most services, online music doesn't even win in the convenience category thanks to the headaches associated with DRM! (Although many won't realize it until their iPod dies and they have to use those DRM'd AAC files with some other company's portable music player or even Apple's future players. It's practically planned obsolescence!)
Why on Earth are consumers this stupid? The only thing I can think of is that most people simply don't appreciate the fact that the low bitrate lossy tracks offered by these online stores are grossly inferior to a CD. They probably just assume that because it's online and high-tech it must be better than the venerable old CD somehow.
"Hey, it's e-cool baby!" (*GAG*) Well, listen up chumps. You've been had. They're pushing crap and you're licking it up like fine chocolate mousse!
I must admit, I'm ready to give up. Beatiful, luscious new high-res sound formats like SACD and DVD-A come out, but 128Kbps AAC is out-selling them by a huge margin. Ands it's the damned net-geeks who are the stupid ones! What is wrong with this world!?
What are you, homicidal?
I am willing to bet there will be theaters which offer screenings of all three extended editions, back to back. Let's do the math:
12 hours of LOTR
+ Pshychotic LOTR-crazed fans
+ several hundred litres of movie-theater pseudo-soda
+ no catheters
-----
= one helluva carpet cleaning bill
and you can bet that those theaters will be full of psychotic LOTR-crazed fans... You can also bet that such a theater would be a great place to sell special movie-theater priced catheters to go with the special movie-theater priced colas...
>>IMHO the new Star Trek, as of late, has fallen
>>into an old formula that is fast making me lose
>>interest. Bringing back James Kirk could breathe
>>new life back into the series:
The only problem with bringing back Kirk is that it will, by necessity, involve yet another freakin' time-warp episode. This is, by definition, more of the same ol' crap. There's an entire rich and diverse world of sci-fi literature out there that doesn't involve time travel that is just waiting to be ripped off! Why can't those hacks rip off something other than old star-trek for a change?
Then there's the obvious continuity errors that would arise if Kirk showed up on Enterprise. He's already been sucked into a TNG flick and even managed to die there at a much younger age than Shatner is now! Of course, it's not like Enterprise hasn't taken liberties with the time-line of the other series before...
As much as I'd like to believe the dynamic B&B duo are smart enough to realize this, they've done so many stupid things that I can't help but fear the worst. They must be getting pretty desperate now. Enterprise did get picked up for one more season, but given that it's being moved to Friday nights I wouldn't bet on it seeing another season after that unless it miraculously stops sucking gangrenous monkey balls.
IR may work with strategic receiver placement, but not particularily well. Bluetooth owns it in every aspect except for cost. Better battery life. Better range. Much better range actually. You can literally leave your home and you'll still be in range, while with IR if you move to the other side of the room or someone walks in front of you you're hooped! Optical mice, believe it or not, work quite well on a wide range of surfaces. If I were the gent who started this thread I'd try an ordinary optical mouse out on his armchair. If you like it, buy a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Problem solved. P.S. I'm writing this on an 8-foot wide screen with a mouse on my lap and an optical mouse on the arm of my chair. :D
The popularity of iTunes has been greatly aided by the popularity of the iPod. Does Sony even have a half-way decent, let along popular player to prop up their system? Their memory stick mp3 players are pure and utter crap. Sony's minidisc players and the upcomming HD minidisc players have and will continue to have their fans, but they're not going to be popular enough. They're victims of the consumer-perceived hierarchy of technologies.
Who here has heard of D-VHS, let alone actually owns a deck? It's got VHS in the name so it must suck right? Yes and no. The quality of D-VHS blows DVD out of the water. True high-def image with high quality sound. Unforunately, this gorgeous image and sound is stored on a tape. There is no random-access as with DVD's, and a consumer perceived inherent unreliability. (Truthfully, VHS tapes can actually last a *long* bloody time!) Worst of all, some twit decided to name it D-VHS, virtually guaranteeing it would die quickly. The format is virtually dead now, with next-gen HD DVD devices still in the pipes. Even Laserdiscs did far better!
Disc-players, even minidisc players, are going the way of VHS tapes in the personal music department. You can construct a new disc-based format with impressive technical merit but people will ignore it because mp3-players based on flash and HD's are perceived to be "higher tech". Memory stick technology is similar. The majority of people won't want to carry around a player and a bag full of sticks when they can get a player that will hold every song they own!
The only thing that might save this new service from a fast and well-deserved demise is Sony's brand name. Huge portions of the populus seem to think that Sony can do no wrong. Sony does make some nice gear, but plenty of crap too. Hopefully people are smart enough to recognize a turd without being blinded by the shiny Sony brand on it.
I'm sorry, but the anal retentive streak in me just wouldn't let this go. In order for a Star Destroyer to be built to the same scale as 4" action figures it would need to be over 75 meters long! Now *that* would be a freakin' lego project!
Here are some more fun hacking ideas:
-Program the meters to play "We're into Money" in beep tones whenever somebody swipes their card.
-Program the meter to prompt the user to find out what class of car they drive. If it's a SUV, the meter will refuse to let them park because the gargantuan heap blocks out the sun the meter needs to run.
-Program the meter to randomly scramble PIN numbers that users input.
-Program the meter to randomly pop up Microsoft error messages. We wouldn't want parking meters to give Linux a bad name now would we?
One can only presume that the use of a wireless network will allow users to swipe their bank card or Visa and then run off to do their thing. When they return and drive away the meter will notice the car is gone and their bill will be automatically paid. There will be no more leaving the stall with 40 minutes left on the meter because you didn't know how long you'd be! Likewise, you won't pay for 45 minutes and come back 47 minutes later only to find a ticket under your wiper.
Of course, you can bet that if these meters rely on wireless communication they're going to wind up being hacked by drunken geeks on a regular basis. Some might be dumb enough to hack a meter they personally park at. Some who are slightly smarter will infect the system with a virus that gives everyone free parking. However, sooner or later someone is going to hack the meter network to charge $20,000 per minute, and someone is going to have a heart attack when they get back from watching a two hour movie and see what their bank is about to be charged the moment they drive away!
Tesla originally worked for Edison, but they had a bit of a falling out. Eventually they were both competing in the power market, with Tesla selling AC current and Edison selling DC. AC has a lot of advantages for power transmision, but that didn't stop Edison from embarking on a campaign to discredit AC power. He electrocuted dogs and cats with AC current in public demonstrations intended to show how dangerous AC power was.
During the construction of Luna Park on Coney island, an elephant used as a beast of burden killed a couple of people. Topsy, as she was called, was condemned to death. However, there was a wee bit of a problem. Elephants aren't the easiest critters to kill. Edison, being the generous person he was, gladly volunteered to execute the elephant with AC current, and filmed the whole thing. He showed that film "Electrocuting an Elephant" (1903) publically on many occasions and I am sure more than a few stray cats and dogs escaped a crispy fate thanks to that film. It is still possible to track down copies of "Electrocuting an Elephant" today. Please be warned that it's a rather gruesome little piece of history, and is not for the faint of heart, or SPCA members.
That page has been posted again and again on hometheater forum. It's been around for years, but gets occasional updates. It is a cool sub, I must admit, but I had to stifle a laugh when it showed up on Slashdot. It's definately for audio nerds, but it isn't news. Not by a long-shot!
If that dohickey can describe the contents of a playboy to a blind man in sufficient detail to give him a high quality woody then I say it's nobel prize time. Why? It's no big deal for a blind man to find someone to read literature to him. However, it is considerably more difficult for a blind man to find someone willing to describe naked women to him while he jerks his gerkin. Do you have any idea what kind of overtime the average aide would charge for that level of service?
They aren't just muggers. They're concerned audiophiles.
Anybody who would spend $400 bucks on an audio player and then use the $5 stock buds (and I don't care what apple sells them for) that came with the player needs to be separated from said expensive player *immediately*. Watching someone use those crappy stock buds is like watching a 16-year old getting driving lessons in a Lamborghini Murcielago.
If you're going to shell out for an iPod, get some real cans. It's the only way to defend yourself from the can-police, a.k.a. friendly neighborhood vigilante audiophile muggers.
P.S. Those of you saying, "Hey, wait a minute! Those white buds are actually pretty good!" should go listen to a real set of cans right bloody now. Try some Grado's or, if you must have the ear-bud form factor, Shure's or Etymotics. (The last two are canal-phones, but decent ones, unlike the crap Sony and Apple make. Sony does make some nice cans, but their canal-phones suck.)
Yes, there were some oversights, but this is still a remarkably thorough article. The influences section which included the Xerox Star system was a lot more than I was expecting. Most Mac zealots prefer to believe that Apple invented the GUI all by themselves so they can mock Microsoft for ripping it off. Star was far from the first GUI, but it was the first full-blown GUI designed to be used by the typical officer worker. It was a true innovation, whereas MacOS was more of a savvy repackaging, albeit a first rate one that brought GUI's to the home PC market.
Actually, when you read the article it sounds like a better idea than you make it out to be... People can watch TV in the morning while brushing their teeth or shaving! What a great idea! Now I can watch the news and slice half my face of at the same time! Just imagine how much longer it's going to take your SO to finish up in the bathroom now!
"Are you almost done dear?"
"Shh. It's Oprah. I never floss during Oprah!"
Joking aside, I can see these being heartily adopted by the hotel industry. Now they can offer you PPV pornos while you're on the toilet! Just imagine the potential for comdom adds in public washrooms...
Sooner or later, people are going to whine about Garth Jennings, a complete film n00b, being entrusted with everybody's most beloved franchise: Hitchhikers's Guide to the Galaxy. This is inevitable.
Then the Garth Jennings Fan club will speak up about how he's really such a wonderful music video director and how ignorant slobs who would dare to diss him should shut up. This is also inevitable.
I'd like to say two things however...
First, to the Garth Jennings Fan club, when was the last time you heard the phrase: "That flick was like a two-hour MTV music video!" used in a complimentary fashion?
Second, to the anti-Garth Jennings camp, could it possibly be any worse than a low budget 1980's BBC TV production?
Personally, I don't expect a film that is going to come even close to the books. Not from Garth Jennings at least. (It'd be hit or miss with the best directors out there!) However, the material is so damned funny that Jennings have to be a total moron to render 2 hours of Douglas Adams goodness completely unwatchable! I actually sorta liked the BBC TV series, believe it or not.
I remember a long time ago, when I was in junior high, Coca-Cola had an under-the-cap contest going. The twist was that every bottle had tick-code on the cap. If there were 6 vertical lines, you were guaranteed to at least win a free soda. Needless to say, the employees at the gas-station down the road from my school (right in front of the bus stop) got very sick of junior-high kids going through every last bottle in the cooler looking for a six-tick bottle that had been miraculously missed by the 200 other kids that had already been through the place.
Leaving Disney hasn't changed the fact that Pixar still needs a distributor and, perhaps, investors. (Anyone know where I could sign up to invest in Pixar?? :D ) The only difference is that, having proven themselves, they now have free reign and should be able to get much better deals. Still, that doesn't mean they're about to start making R-films.
The big bucks are usually with the G to PG-13 crowd... For a film of a given quality, the broader it's potential audience is the better it's earnings will be. As rare as they may seem, G rated films that are actually good are literal box-office gold. The folks at Pixar now has several such films under their belts.
Here's a question to ponder though... Everybody know's who directed Kill Bill. Everybody and their freaking dog knows who directed the LOTR trilogy. How many of you honestly know who directed "Finding Nemo" and don't have to look it up on IMDB? Be honest now!
Man, I really feel sorry for that guy.
It's a good, albeit quite obviously biased article. (That's okay by me. I agree with the bias.) However, they could have carried a few things a tad further with just a little more researge. For example,
From the article:
"According to Fisher's plan, all works capable of being transmitted online would be registered with a central office (whether government or independent is unclear). The central office would then monitor how frequently a work is used and compensate the creators on that basis. The money would come from a tax on various content-related devices, like DVD burners, blank CD's or digital recorders."
The article then goes on to state that this model has little hope of catching on in America, and needs some second-world nations currently in copyright limbo to try this radical system out.
What the article failed to take note of is that Canada, and to a *far* lesser extent the U.S., already use systems very similar to this, except that the re-distribution of the tax is left entirely up to the music industry. In both nations we have a tax on blank media. (In Canada this includes Mp3 players and a few other devices as well.) This tax is then given to the appropriate recording association to recompense them for their "lost revenues". There is one minor difference between the U.S. and Canadian implementations however. As a legal consequence of this tax, in Canada, it is technically legal to borrow and copy CD's, download off the internet, etc.. (Although giving away copies of CD's and uploading is a much fuzzier area.) In the U.S., you pay the tax and still get screwed because everything is illegal.
Lessig's "radical" new system already exists in a nascent form in both the U.S., and to a greater extent, Canada. Canada's system needs only minor modifications to fit his idea's very closely. I would suggest that Lessig take a trip North of the border and start talking to politicians. The U.S. and Canada have a very close relationship, and laws that are implemented in one country often migrate to the other. If Lessig's system could be shown to work in Canada it may catch on South of the border too.
Wireless synching is a good idea, but you still have to plug the thing in to charge. In that sense, it hasn't gained any physical advantage over any other player. The interface for the iPod, especially on windows, sucks ass. If plugging it in automatically synched it and it automatically un-docked itself when done it would be every bit as good as the Aerio. Now... If someone could just figure out a way to charge these gizmo's wirelessly we'd be set!
NiN might not be on the Warp label, but they are on Bleep. Check the site.
Oh come one! They've got "Meat Beat Manifesto"!!! They were on the freakin original Matrix soundtrack! Have you been living under a rock? How about Nine Inch Nails? You've heard of them right? They've been on MTV and Much Music!!! (I admit, NiN isn't quite up to the same standards as some of the other artists here, but you must have heard of him!) They've got Philip Glass, who has written tonnes of music including an alternate operatic score for Jean Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast". (which owns Disney's version BTW) He also scored the Qatsi trilogy, but those are art films. Well out of your baliwick obviously.
Electronica isn't everyone's cup o' tea, but it is one of the few musical genres that is currently exploring new possibilities at an explosive rate. (Unlike Rock, Pop, Metal, Country, Rap, etc. which each have a little going on in the fringes, but have mostly stagnated.) Electronica is also one of the genre's that most music stores neglect to a shameless degree. Even when you can find the CD's you want, Electronica is often priced well above most other genre's. The prices on this site are simply fantastic by comparison!
Aphex Twin (Richard D. James) is... unique. Some of his stuff is simply amazing. He creates truly original music that's pushing out frontiers left right and center. Then, every once and a while, he gets the urge to actually sing some lyrics... Ye gods!
I wish the milkman would deliver my milk, in the morning.
I wish the milkman would deliver my milk, when I'm yawning.
I would like some milk from the milkman's wife's tits.
I would like some milk from the milkman's wife's tits.
I would like some milk from the milkman's wife's tits.
.
.
.
(He goes on for a while. You get the picture.)
Let's just say it's a good thing that he usually keeps his yap shut and leave it at that. It just goes to show that musical and poetic genious don't always go hand and hand.
Auterche is another great electronica band that was, coincidentally on the Pi soundtrack with Aphex Twin and a few others. (Great movie despite the bad math.) There is a tonne of stuff here that I'd love to be able to buy legitimately. Frankly, if this service offered music in a lossless format I'd be blowing a wad on it. Perhaps in the future...
Let's be honest...
If you had your choice about who was going to direct this film would you choose:
a) Garth Jennings
b) Tim Burton
c) Terry Gilliam
d) David Lynch
e) Ridley Scott
The poster made a pretty valid point, IMHO. Garth Jennings, while perhaps a promising up and comer, is still an unproven quantity in the movie making buisiness. "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is the sort of property that proven world-class directors would line up and beat the snot outta each other for the chance to direct! It is an utter travesty that this fellow can get the budget for Hitchhiker (which should be at least 60 million) while directors like Terry Gilliam have so recently *failed* to raise the money to produce equally hilarious properties like "Good Omens". (equally funny, but less famous) Give Jennings the script for the sequel to Gigli, and if he can make it even moderately more tolerable than the original then start him on literary classics.
"Oh look honey! A local! I wonder what he wants. Use your iPaq to find out what he's saying!"
"Umm... He says 'Give me your iPaq or I will be forced to kill you and take your wife back to my yurt.'"