Audiobooks are not cheap to produce. In a decent quality production, you need...
Compaired to a text-to-speech system, the project could certainly get people to produce far better sounding books.
You simply can not get the kind of quality that makes for an enjoyable listening experience with a volunteer mom recording WAV files onto her PC with a Compaq built-in-the-monitor microphone.
If you want good-sounding audio, you're going to have to pay for it.
This strikes me as the same mentatlty that claims that to get good software you have to give Bill Gates money, and then you have to buy all the updates to get it fixed. Just as there is good serious software available (granted, along with some very poor stuff), there is no reason at all that a good quality audio book project couldn't take off. Overall I would think it would take less effort than this software intensive approach, particularly if the original texts have to be extensively "hinted" to support it. And there are certainly people out there with good voices who would be willing to contribute them to the project whitout that 3.2 days of pay (just as there are programmers who work but also contribute to open source projects). The incentives for the individual to do this are many; to support Project G, to support the blind who might take advantage of it, or maybe even for a little exposure so they might get other voice work. The incentive for Project G. is obvious: If they are going to download MP3 files of public domain books anyway, they might as well be human voiced books that people can enjoy, not Dr. Kula books that show how far text-to-speech software has to go.
zaphod4 says you can, but that really misses the point. If it's just software generated voice, then why in the world download the output for every book, rather than distribute the software and the source file? This would let the user play the audio when they wanted with a far smaller download, and only have to download the source file for the next book, and even let the user use the software on other (non Project G.) files.
I'm very unimpressed with this, and it seems a real waste of a resource like Project G. If they see that there is a need for public domain audio books (and I certainly expect there is), it would seem extremely straightforward for a group like this to get humans to volunteer to read a public domain audio book and digitize it for an archive. This would yield far better results than a project of such low quality audio and delivered in a bandwidth wasteful way that make it unlikely the current form will be well received.
that is unless Microsoft convinces id to sit on the game until an Xbox version is completed.
The X thing is basically a PC running a form of you-know-what OS, with a Nvidia graphics processor, that you likely have to program with a well know M$ API the code already works on. How long could it take to get it running on the X-box if it's ready for Windows? Sure, there are differences, but I wouldn't expect any significant changed for an x-box port. Just add some code to let it reload saved games and/or boot Linux and it will be a sure winner.
Cost isn't always a good indication. I bought an overpriced MAG monitor, only to have it start crapping out before the warranty ran out, then start working fine again. I figured it was a waste to spend a foutune to ship it to them only to have it returned saying that they could find no problem. Sure enough, a month after the warranty died, so did the monitor.
Since then I've run into several other people who have had early deaths of MAG monitors, one good friend lost three before he learned. He did send in two for rapairs, paid more than they were worth for shipping, and still ended up with dead monitors shortly after the end of the warranty period.
(or the same considering microsoft isnt going to make it cost MORE for the improved CE)
The facts beg to differ. Microsoft may release a new numbered version of the code, and charge people for it again, just like they did every time they fixed bugs in office or windows or other ms products and called it a new version. (or like when they added bugs and called it WindowsME.) Or they may even call it a new product like XP and claim that it is much more stable (which says a lot about the crap they took money for before) and because of this they are justified in actually rasing the price.
When they do the programmers who make it better get squat.
Not that I'm against them opening the source, but It's lame to demand that fixes be submitted to them rather than a more reasonable request that people do so.
But isn't this the same Microsoft that swore in court how important it was that they do not release source code? Isn't this the same company that bashes the O.S. community and tells governments and major industries how many things are wrong with softeware like Linux because it makes it's code openly available for inspection?
Since clearly few are bothering to read the article:
Those quarantined "will be called at random intervals daily and requested to turn on the camera and present themselves in front of the camera to show their presence," the ministry said.
Talk about pointless ways to use the technology. Clearly the wristband (or legband) would be better. Let me suggest one obvious flaw to this:
Hmm..., I feel like going out and infecting a few thousand people with this deadly disease. If I do they might catch me and fine me. What do I do? Oh yea, I can leave the phone off the hook and if they do call they will get a busy signal and think I'm home!.
It wouldn't even matter if this would work or not, as long as some one might think it would work and try it. And it likely would work.
here's another:
Hmm..., I feel like going out and infecting a few thousand people with this deadly disease. If I do they might catch me and fine me. What do I do? Oh yea, I have a deadly disease and don't really give a rats ass about a fine if they do catch me (only used if I feel really, really sick).
Then again, these are the same people who knew about the disease for six months before warning the rest of the world, and didn't do a thing to restrict it's spread then.
Sure. Lets take my tax dollars, or maybe even create a new Internet tax, so we can use the money to get high speed Internet to the mud huts in the nation with the world's second largest oil reserves. After all, there are plenty of looters there that want to be able to sell the stuff they snatched on e-bay.
Of course, we have yet to see how things will turn out there, and with the power vacuum it might well turn out that the people put in place a lunatic like they did in Iran, but that's certainly no reason for us to be cautious before we give them plenty of things that many U.S. communities don't even have yet. Lets take from our own people and give to the people that hate us, just look at how well that has served us throughout the world.
But don't just go by my opinion, ask our good friends the French.
The really stupid part of the music industry's approach is that it can only effectively prevent one digital copy. If one has a good soundcard, you can just put the output of the normal cd player into the input of the soundcard and digitize
the analog ouptut. After that copy and encode away. Sure some quality is lost, but all traces of the musics origin is destroyed.
Yes, that much is quite apparent. But the really stupid thing is that they blindly pretend that this small loss by going through an analog phase is enough to discourage copying, while at the same time they are agressively fighting mp3 users. Mp3's do vastly more harm to the audio quality,
even at high bit rates, than a pass through the analog world with good equipment will ever do. They are willing to fight mp3s, when an mp3 user just might go out and buy an album to get a good quality copy of the songs, but at the same time tick off buyers with legitimate uses of the product they bought, and some of those will turn to making analog rips that will be far higher quality than if someone was given an mp3 file to preview a music group!
Of course, their ultimate goal is to have DRM in every A to D converter in the world, so that no one can use them to re-encode audio. Not very likely, considering the legitimate uses of A to D converters that would not work well with this, and the huge number of existing A to D converters out there. So instead they just tick off the consumer and complain that sales are not growing fast enough to suit them.
Lets see how long it takes for a radio station to be knocked out of operation because they bought a computer with XP or are using a newer Media Player for some function, and Microsoft decided to exercise it's stated right to disable any other software on the system it feels like at any time. At some point the world beyond the slashdot geeks has to start waking up to what's going on around them and what's wrong with it. I think this is a great first step.
I firmly believe that someone could start a membership P2P service where people pay a fee necessary to license about anything they want to listen to for a year and then can download freely from anyone. The fees for small broadcast stations that don't make any money are very reasonable (like $200/yr)..
No, a P2P service like this would never work,
no one is going to waste their storage, bandwidth, time creating the original digital files, and the rest, just so that someone "in charge" of the P2P system can charge for the sevice and the RIAA can make more licensing money. In the days of Napster and free p2p systems there is some implicit incentive to do it, but a fee charging p2p system would never be able to get people willing to pay a fee and also put up the original content to start such a system off. One might (although I have doubts) be able to do it from a central server, but not on a p2p system.
The obvious message the recording industry is trying to get across to us is: If you want a CD that you can actually use and enjoy rather than one you have to fight with and that might destroy your equipment, you are expected to download the files and burn it yourself. I don't know what could be more clear than that.
Yea, you would have to be a dummy to get the unit wrong. And an even bigger one to call someone else a dummy and give the wrong information when you were correcting them and calling them names.
Billions or Trillions, it ain't millions. And the Trillions reference is certainly valid, even if Slashdot later checked their math and corrected it, it's still what they first posted.
The music industry and movie industry has left its old days of fire bombing theatres, strong arm tactics with independant distributors, and payola far behind.
Boy, I'm sure glad you straightened me out on that one. I was under the mistaken impression that the music industry was still deeply involved in payola, only now using "independ agents" to pass the money to the stations in an end-run against the FCC rules that forbid it. I was under the mistaken imperssion that the payola problem was so bad now that rather than a few bucks under the table, it's openly tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars and has the direct effect of keeping independent artists releases from being played, only the songs of the major recording companys being able to afford air time. Thanks for setting me straight, I was confused about this just like most of the news industry including ABC News and Salon, as well as the 1600+ other hits you get when you type clear channel and payola into google.
I'm glad to know that if a man is a public speaker and a golfer and has produced offspring then he must be an honest and good person, too. I didn't know that. I can now eat any price the industry demands, even if the stores would want to charge less but are stopped by the RIAA'a Minimum Advertised Price, and not be concerned that it's just a form of illegal price fixing. Some might think the whole industry is run by a bunch of crooks, but an Anonymous Coward telling us that the ringleader has white hair certainly dispells that thought.
Absolutely. Now Microsoft has a list of people who they can audit and definately find that they are using illegal unlicencesed software. A claim that someone at M$ told you that pirating was OK is hardly going to be a defense.
No, the $97.8 Trillion figure must be right. Otherwise it would mean that the music industry plays with numbers, making things artificially high when it suits them and artificially low when it suits the need to cheat the artists. Since it's an entire industry doing this as a collaborative effort, it would even rise to the levels of felony crimes including racketeering if it were shown that they have a long history of bogus math behind their accounting.
Get a clue. These are not cell phones, and the GPS is not in there because of a government mandate, it's there because of technical need - so that the satillite can get a proper fx on where the phone is.
It was never claimed that these were cell phones or that Uncle Sam had made the industry put the GPS receivers in these phones. I simply pointed out the irony that while they think it's great to impost this technology on a supposedly free society with basic privacy rights, they sure don't like it when the same technology might provide information on them.
I personally like GPS technology, have had a GPS receiver for about 8 years. I think it would be great to have GPS technology in a cell phone, and the information available to the other party. Makes the "Where are you?" question so simple. But the owner of the phone should have the ability to disable the GPS information from being sent (not just to the other party but to the government as well) without having to completely disable their phone. It's a basic privacy issue.
Perhaps the point isn't that they shouldn't, but that this is the same government that is mandating cell phone suppliers in this country to put GPS equipment in our cell phones. Supposedly this is for my own good, so when I get kidnapped and make a cell call from the trunk I have been stuffed in, my local police can track me down and release me. But there are those of us wearing our tin foil hats that suspect the technology might be used against us as well and don't like the idea of a mandated GPS system in our cell phones at all. Now here is the same government that is making us have GPS enabled phones suddenly deciding that it doesn't like the GPS technology in a reporter's phone because it might be used against them. Yes, they are right, and good move. But perhaps that should cause them to reconsider forcing U.S. cell makers from making all U.S. cell phone users from buying into the new technology in the future, even if the customer doesn't want it. I doubt that they will. That's a bit of hypocrisy.
By the way, a simple "fix" would have been to tell the reporters to turn off the GPS feature, but guess what: by mandate of the U.S. government the user can not disable it!
I've been taking note of when a system does something unexpected and putting it to "good use" since the 60's. It's a primary form of hacking. Many bugs, like this one, are useful, just not useful in a way the author intended or may have wanted.
but "security through obscurity and good coding" is probably better than "security though
good coding" alone.
Thoughts?
Just the opposite. Security through good open code, that can be reviewed by people who understand this and confirm that there is real security is much more secure that "I've written good code, trust me" type code. The bad guys who want your data, you bank accounts and your identity are not going to be stopped from reverse engineering the code by an EULA. If an EULA only stops honest people from checking the validity of the code, then one has to ask "why have it?".
First of all, we in the U.S. shouldn't be paying for reconstruction. The country has plenty of oil and is basically a very rich country, although may need some help in getting back on-line.
Second of all, this would be like trying to put Arkansas on a GMS system while the rest of the country was on CDMA. It just makes no sense. We picked a shitty standard, and most of the rest of the world gets to enjoy some nice features and utility we lack. No reason Iraq should suffer for that choice. Understand that Iraq isn't the size of the U.S., they need to be able to interact with other European states, and so they need GMS. If we force CDMA on them, we'll just be stealing that money for a couple of U.S. companies and then giving them something they will trash for it as soon as they get us out of there.
The CDMA receivers have GPS argument is pretty lame too. It wasn't part of the CDMA design, it was added in later because big brother here wanted to be able to better track us. It could be added into GNS phones too, but hasn't been mandated by the E.U. yet.
I'm using the BJC-3000, although there are other ink tank based printers that I like even better (and I'm not sure the 3000 is still available). But I can't give you Linux feedback, sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
Compaired to a text-to-speech system, the project could certainly get people to produce far better sounding books.
You simply can not get the kind of quality that makes for an enjoyable listening experience with a volunteer mom recording WAV files onto her PC with a Compaq built-in-the-monitor microphone.
If you want good-sounding audio, you're going to have to pay for it.
This strikes me as the same mentatlty that claims that to get good software you have to give Bill Gates money, and then you have to buy all the updates to get it fixed. Just as there is good serious software available (granted, along with some very poor stuff), there is no reason at all that a good quality audio book project couldn't take off. Overall I would think it would take less effort than this software intensive approach, particularly if the original texts have to be extensively "hinted" to support it. And there are certainly people out there with good voices who would be willing to contribute them to the project whitout that 3.2 days of pay (just as there are programmers who work but also contribute to open source projects). The incentives for the individual to do this are many; to support Project G, to support the blind who might take advantage of it, or maybe even for a little exposure so they might get other voice work. The incentive for Project G. is obvious: If they are going to download MP3 files of public domain books anyway, they might as well be human voiced books that people can enjoy, not Dr. Kula books that show how far text-to-speech software has to go.
I'm very unimpressed with this, and it seems a real waste of a resource like Project G. If they see that there is a need for public domain audio books (and I certainly expect there is), it would seem extremely straightforward for a group like this to get humans to volunteer to read a public domain audio book and digitize it for an archive. This would yield far better results than a project of such low quality audio and delivered in a bandwidth wasteful way that make it unlikely the current form will be well received.
OK, it's really neat, but how do I steal one of these great toys if it has GPS in it and all those ways it can snitch on me and tell UPS where it is?
The X thing is basically a PC running a form of you-know-what OS, with a Nvidia graphics processor, that you likely have to program with a well know M$ API the code already works on. How long could it take to get it running on the X-box if it's ready for Windows? Sure, there are differences, but I wouldn't expect any significant changed for an x-box port. Just add some code to let it reload saved games and/or boot Linux and it will be a sure winner.
Since then I've run into several other people who have had early deaths of MAG monitors, one good friend lost three before he learned. He did send in two for rapairs, paid more than they were worth for shipping, and still ended up with dead monitors shortly after the end of the warranty period.
I switched to Viewsonic and haven't regretted it.
You can't judge quality just by how much you pay.
The facts beg to differ. Microsoft may release a new numbered version of the code, and charge people for it again, just like they did every time they fixed bugs in office or windows or other ms products and called it a new version. (or like when they added bugs and called it WindowsME.) Or they may even call it a new product like XP and claim that it is much more stable (which says a lot about the crap they took money for before) and because of this they are justified in actually rasing the price.
When they do the programmers who make it better get squat.
Not that I'm against them opening the source, but It's lame to demand that fixes be submitted to them rather than a more reasonable request that people do so.
But isn't this the same Microsoft that swore in court how important it was that they do not release source code? Isn't this the same company that bashes the O.S. community and tells governments and major industries how many things are wrong with softeware like Linux because it makes it's code openly available for inspection?
Talk about pointless ways to use the technology. Clearly the wristband (or legband) would be better. Let me suggest one obvious flaw to this:
Hmm..., I feel like going out and infecting a few thousand people with this deadly disease. If I do they might catch me and fine me. What do I do? Oh yea, I can leave the phone off the hook and if they do call they will get a busy signal and think I'm home!.
It wouldn't even matter if this would work or not, as long as some one might think it would work and try it. And it likely would work.
here's another:
Hmm..., I feel like going out and infecting a few thousand people with this deadly disease. If I do they might catch me and fine me. What do I do? Oh yea, I have a deadly disease and don't really give a rats ass about a fine if they do catch me (only used if I feel really, really sick).
Then again, these are the same people who knew about the disease for six months before warning the rest of the world, and didn't do a thing to restrict it's spread then.
Of course, we have yet to see how things will turn out there, and with the power vacuum it might well turn out that the people put in place a lunatic like they did in Iran, but that's certainly no reason for us to be cautious before we give them plenty of things that many U.S. communities don't even have yet. Lets take from our own people and give to the people that hate us, just look at how well that has served us throughout the world.
But don't just go by my opinion, ask our good friends the French.
That's silly. My piracy isn't threatened by this leak. In fact, if I were to guess, I would think this leak will increase piracy, not threaten it.
Yes, that much is quite apparent. But the really stupid thing is that they blindly pretend that this small loss by going through an analog phase is enough to discourage copying, while at the same time they are agressively fighting mp3 users. Mp3's do vastly more harm to the audio quality, even at high bit rates, than a pass through the analog world with good equipment will ever do. They are willing to fight mp3s, when an mp3 user just might go out and buy an album to get a good quality copy of the songs, but at the same time tick off buyers with legitimate uses of the product they bought, and some of those will turn to making analog rips that will be far higher quality than if someone was given an mp3 file to preview a music group!
Of course, their ultimate goal is to have DRM in every A to D converter in the world, so that no one can use them to re-encode audio. Not very likely, considering the legitimate uses of A to D converters that would not work well with this, and the huge number of existing A to D converters out there. So instead they just tick off the consumer and complain that sales are not growing fast enough to suit them.
Lets see how long it takes for a radio station to be knocked out of operation because they bought a computer with XP or are using a newer Media Player for some function, and Microsoft decided to exercise it's stated right to disable any other software on the system it feels like at any time. At some point the world beyond the slashdot geeks has to start waking up to what's going on around them and what's wrong with it. I think this is a great first step.
No, a P2P service like this would never work, no one is going to waste their storage, bandwidth, time creating the original digital files, and the rest, just so that someone "in charge" of the P2P system can charge for the sevice and the RIAA can make more licensing money. In the days of Napster and free p2p systems there is some implicit incentive to do it, but a fee charging p2p system would never be able to get people willing to pay a fee and also put up the original content to start such a system off. One might (although I have doubts) be able to do it from a central server, but not on a p2p system.
The obvious message the recording industry is trying to get across to us is: If you want a CD that you can actually use and enjoy rather than one you have to fight with and that might destroy your equipment, you are expected to download the files and burn it yourself. I don't know what could be more clear than that.
Billions or Trillions, it ain't millions. And the Trillions reference is certainly valid, even if Slashdot later checked their math and corrected it, it's still what they first posted.
Yea, great idea. Except I would skip that last donate step.
Boy, I'm sure glad you straightened me out on that one. I was under the mistaken impression that the music industry was still deeply involved in payola, only now using "independ agents" to pass the money to the stations in an end-run against the FCC rules that forbid it. I was under the mistaken imperssion that the payola problem was so bad now that rather than a few bucks under the table, it's openly tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars and has the direct effect of keeping independent artists releases from being played, only the songs of the major recording companys being able to afford air time. Thanks for setting me straight, I was confused about this just like most of the news industry including ABC News and Salon, as well as the 1600+ other hits you get when you type clear channel and payola into google.
I'm glad to know that if a man is a public speaker and a golfer and has produced offspring then he must be an honest and good person, too. I didn't know that. I can now eat any price the industry demands, even if the stores would want to charge less but are stopped by the RIAA'a Minimum Advertised Price , and not be concerned that it's just a form of illegal price fixing . Some might think the whole industry is run by a bunch of crooks, but an Anonymous Coward telling us that the ringleader has white hair certainly dispells that thought.
Absolutely. Now Microsoft has a list of people who they can audit and definately find that they are using illegal unlicencesed software. A claim that someone at M$ told you that pirating was OK is hardly going to be a defense.
No, the $97.8 Trillion figure must be right. Otherwise it would mean that the music industry plays with numbers, making things artificially high when it suits them and artificially low when it suits the need to cheat the artists. Since it's an entire industry doing this as a collaborative effort, it would even rise to the levels of felony crimes including racketeering if it were shown that they have a long history of bogus math behind their accounting.
It was never claimed that these were cell phones or that Uncle Sam had made the industry put the GPS receivers in these phones. I simply pointed out the irony that while they think it's great to impost this technology on a supposedly free society with basic privacy rights, they sure don't like it when the same technology might provide information on them.
I personally like GPS technology, have had a GPS receiver for about 8 years. I think it would be great to have GPS technology in a cell phone, and the information available to the other party. Makes the "Where are you?" question so simple. But the owner of the phone should have the ability to disable the GPS information from being sent (not just to the other party but to the government as well) without having to completely disable their phone. It's a basic privacy issue.
By the way, a simple "fix" would have been to tell the reporters to turn off the GPS feature, but guess what: by mandate of the U.S. government the user can not disable it!
I've been taking note of when a system does something unexpected and putting it to "good use" since the 60's. It's a primary form of hacking. Many bugs, like this one, are useful, just not useful in a way the author intended or may have wanted.
Yes, many of us computer geeks like to think we have big equipment .....
Thoughts?
Just the opposite. Security through good open code, that can be reviewed by people who understand this and confirm that there is real security is much more secure that "I've written good code, trust me" type code. The bad guys who want your data, you bank accounts and your identity are not going to be stopped from reverse engineering the code by an EULA. If an EULA only stops honest people from checking the validity of the code, then one has to ask "why have it?".
Second of all, this would be like trying to put Arkansas on a GMS system while the rest of the country was on CDMA. It just makes no sense. We picked a shitty standard, and most of the rest of the world gets to enjoy some nice features and utility we lack. No reason Iraq should suffer for that choice. Understand that Iraq isn't the size of the U.S., they need to be able to interact with other European states, and so they need GMS. If we force CDMA on them, we'll just be stealing that money for a couple of U.S. companies and then giving them something they will trash for it as soon as they get us out of there.
The CDMA receivers have GPS argument is pretty lame too. It wasn't part of the CDMA design, it was added in later because big brother here wanted to be able to better track us. It could be added into GNS phones too, but hasn't been mandated by the E.U. yet.
I'm using the BJC-3000, although there are other ink tank based printers that I like even better (and I'm not sure the 3000 is still available). But I can't give you Linux feedback, sorry.