I had the opposite of a Eureka moment when I saw that three word puzzle; I groaned when I found yet another author who thinks it is cute to pose a supposedly simple question and not give the answer.
Thank goodness Slashdot is here to give me the answers. Although, I'll have to check back later since I am not convinced that either "fish" or "white" is the correct answer. I don't think many people have heard of Pine-fish or white crabs.
I also really missed filename completion when I went from UNIX to DOS in the early '90s (I also missed aliases to convert "ls" into "dir":-). I found a product called 4DOS, which is still available as 4NT (and other O/S). This is a very nice shell program; I can't say if it is the best choice, but it's good enough.
http://www.jpsoft.com/
Re:shame video didn't get the same attention
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Giant Sub-Woofer
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· Score: 1
I am not kidding, I heard differences between digital cables, and I was surprised. I didn't want to believe it because I'd much rather spend $350 on CDs than on a cable. I did everything I could to test the cables; this was not a rigged demonstration. I took my own CD transport and digital processor into the store, and used CDs I brought. I spent more than an hour comparing cables, and my wife listened too; we both agreed the cable was worth the cost.
As I explained in a different lengthy post, there is more to converting a digital signal to analogue than just the data values themselves. A digital decoder has to output the right value and also output it at the right time; incorrect timing causes distortion, just like incorrect data. Both digital values and timing information are transmitted through the wire; the data values are digitally encoded and so are not much affected by the wire, but the extracted timing information is analogue (i.e. the timing is derived from when the samples arrive), and therefore more sensitive to the cable than the data values.
You may be right that optical cable is better, but my CD transport only has an RCA connector. I have also read that the typical plastic fibre optic cable has less bandwidth than an RCA cable, and since the bandwidth affects the timing information, I believe the reviewers that said RCA can be better than optical.
I will agree that the differences between digital cables are subtle; the people who designed the interface did know what they were doing. Maybe the digital cable was just compensating for flaws in the design of my components, and different components would sound fine with $10 cables.
The difference between burned CDs was less subtle. Here's the link that convinced me to buy a special CD burner:
http://www.yamaha.ca/computer/cp_AudioMQR.asp
I did a blind test on the burned CDs to find out if I'd been ripped off. I had a friend switch disks while my wife and I listened. We both heard the difference between disks burned conventionally and those with the special Yamaha mode. We couldn't really tell the difference between the original and the special Yamaha disk (or say which was better), but the normally-burned disk was obviously worse than the others.
Re:shame video didn't get the same attention
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Giant Sub-Woofer
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· Score: 1
First I'll say the obvious, the "digital" cable is not passing a digital on/off signal, it is sending an analogue waveform which is decoded into a digital signal. The decoder tolerates a certain amount of analogue distortion; so I agree with you, the $10 cable is good enough that the correct digital values are sent through the wire.
The problem is that we don't listen directly to the digital data; we listen to a reconstructed analogue signal that requires the correct value at the correct time. If the digital samples are not played back at a steady rate of 44.1 kHz, there will be distortion; the values might be right, but if the timing is wrong, so is the output signal.
The timing issue is relevant to "digital" cables because the analogue signal in that cable is used for two purposes, sending the data and sending a clock for timing purposes. The CD protocol is very robust for sending the data, but the timing information can be significantly affected by bandwidth and other characteristics of the cable used.
Whether the correct data values are transmitted through the wire is only one measure of whether a cable is good, and two wires that transfer the same data values are not the same if they transfer different timing information.
Now, I don't claim that timing differences (jitter) are the reason that cables sound different, I was just trying to show that "It either works or it doesn't" is not necessarily true. There is no reason to think a more expensive cable is better than a cheaper one, but there are reasons to think that different cables are worth listening to.
I did try the "Pepsi challenge" between cables when I bought my digital processor. I took my own CD player in, picked my own CDs, and brought my wife along for a second opinion. We told the salesman when to change the cable or CD and spent at least an hour listening to the different cables. Before I started, I didn't think there would be any differences between cables, just like you. I'd rather have spent $350 on more CDs than on a cable, especially since it makes people think I am an idiot:-), but the difference I heard was worth paying for.
By the way, if you need more evidence that I am a flake, I can hear differences between CDs too! I bought a Yamaha CD burner that has a special audio burning mode. This special mode lengthens the "pits" on the CD so that you get less total capacity, but more accurate burning of the data. The special CDs sound better, and in a blind test performed by a friend on his CD player, my wife and I had no problem identifying which was recorded using the special mode. Note that the digital values on the normal disk are exactly the same as the special disk; yet for some reason, my wife and I can hear a difference.
Re:shame video didn't get the same attention
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Giant Sub-Woofer
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· Score: 1
What I meant to say is we can't directly measure sound quality. We can measure many different things, many of which have been found to affect sound quality; but there is no set of measurements (yet?) that will always tell you which device sounds better.
Jitter is a good case in point. I disagree that you can easily measure jitter; special devices had to be built because jitter in a good CD player is measured in picoseconds. I think everyone assumed that picosecond-level jitter was inaudible, and if you calculate the distortion caused by jitter that low, it was a reasonable assumption. There is also the problem that CD players with lower jitter do not always sound better than CD players with higher jitter. So while you can measure a difference in jitter, that difference alone is not going to tell you whether a CD player will sound good; and that is true of all audio measurements.
Re:shame video didn't get the same attention
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Giant Sub-Woofer
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· Score: 1
Why do you think $5000/ft cables are not worth buying? There are probably audio devices that will give you more bang for the buck; but believe me, audiophiles would be very happy to spend less. Many of them are even satisfied with Monster Cable.
Expensive speaker cables are not like expensive cars. You can impress most people with expensive cars; but people just think you're an idiot to buy expensive cables, as I know from direct experience:-). Question the sanity of the 50 year old guy in a Porsche hoping to pick up chicks; you can be sure that someone who buys $5000/ft cables got them because they improve the sound.
Re:shame video didn't get the same attention
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Giant Sub-Woofer
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· Score: 1
Have you actually listened rather than just make fun? I didn't think cables made any difference, but I sat down and listened in an audiophile store and decided that it was worth paying $350 for a 3 foot digital cable.
I have compared CDs burned in the "music master mode" on a Yamaha CD burner to the CDs burnt in a normal player. Both my wife and I could identify which disk was which 100% of the time, even using a friend's non-audiophile system. Explain to me how two CDs that contain identical digital information can sound different.
As far as the "little jags" on the data stream, that sounds like an attempt to explain jitter. Using digital means the right data will be transferred through the wire, but jitter means there will be variation in the timing between samples. Because digital players extract clock timing from the input signal, variations in jitter in the wire might affect the output waveform.
I get as big a laugh as you do out of the ridiculous claims for why some things improve the sound. But, just because someone can't explain why something works doesn't mean it doesn't work; and just because you can't measure a difference, doesn't mean there is no difference.
Fixed-line phone service has plenty of competition; mostly from cell phones, but also from various internet-based alternatives. Do you really think these alternatives would have been developed (or offered as cheaply) if AT&T still had a monopoly over phone services? Even when AT&T's monopoly was strongest, you could still use telegrams, short wave radios, or the postal system to communicate with people.
The situation is similar for Microsoft now. There is competition for Windows, but it is just as difficult to find a substitute for Windows as it was to refuse to have a home phone when AT&T had its monopoly. You needed a phone because people expected to be able to call you; you need Windows because people expect you to be able to run Windows programs or view Windows files. We saw what prices and practices AT&T could get away with when it owned all the wires used for the majority of communication; and we are seeing the same sort of things now that Microsoft controls the workings of the majority of computers.
You are correct that there is no reason to expect a company to do something that hurts itself; that is normally the job of a competitor. When a company notices that a competitor has an idea that earns them lots of extra money from customers, they are normally able to offer the same thing at a lower cost, leading to a situation that might benefit consumers. In a monopoly situation, a company is free to exploit its customers to a much greater extent than a company that has strong competition.
Since Microsoft is (essentially) a monopoly, there is little pressure from competitors to convince Microsoft to do anything but maximize profits. For example, open standards help companies to compete with one another, so Microsoft generally stands well clear of using standards it doesn't control. When we wish Microsoft would do something against its own interests, we are usually wishing that Microsoft would simply do something they would be forced to do by a competitor: consider the interests of consumers.
I don't know how to make a recorder out of parts from Radio Shack; someone would have to tell me. We know that the government is willing to pass legislation making it illegal to tell people how to copy, they passed the DMCA.
It will always be possible to record on a small, personal scale. It isn't possible to record on a larger scale if the government can arrest you for clearly explaining how to do it.
I disagree that there has to be significant effort to produce out-of-print CDs. With their current business model where they print up a few thousand copies and try to convince record stores to buy them, obscure music is expensive; but couldn't they try something new?
But why not just open a website with access to a database of CDs that have already been mastered? The cost of mastering the CD was high, but that money is already spent; loading a CD full of data onto a hard drive costs next to nothing. As I said, I'd pay $5 to be able to burn my own CD, and I'd live with online art for the CD booklet. If they don't offer the out-of-print CD for sale, they earn nothing, why not take me up on my generous offer?
I'm annoyed that we accept the convenient record company definition of volume. They'd like nothing more than to sell millions of copies of the same item; it is a lot less work for them. But what about the volume of obscure older music? It may not be possible to sell more than a few hundred copies of an obscure record, but multiply by the shear number of obscure bands, and that is significant volume.
Internet technology could be expanding the market for music; downloads of out-of-print CDs is just one possible way. Instead, the record companies are fighting tooth-and-nail to preserve their high-volume, low-variety model which is bad for both consumers and for artists (except those lucky few that are promoted by the record company).
Record companies want us to give them additional monopoly powers by strengthening the copyright act in order to stop file-sharing, a practice that doesn't cause them any easily measurable financial harm. File sharing is winning in the marketplace because it offers huge variety at low prices. Facing this competition, the record companies have raised their prices and reduced the variety of CDs they offer for sale. I think the record companies ought to try competing with file sharing first before just claiming it is impossible.
According to the Harvard Business School study released a few days ago, file sharing does not affect music sales. It follows that if file sharing doesn't cost anything, there won't be any benefit if it is stopped. If it costs anything to stop file sharing (i.e. if the record companies aren't able to pass all the costs onto consumers), it will not be worth the cost.
I want them to let me download music from their out-of-print CDs at a reasonable price, like $5 per disk; I'll pay for the production of the CD. I want the uncompressed CD image naturally; you can keep your crappy compressed music, actual CDs (state of the art 15 years ago!) are barely adequate.
The record companies are sitting on a goldmine that they don't even recognize. For example, I have spent 15 years looking for a CD of Camel's album, the Snow Goose. I had a cassette copy from a used record I borrowed from a friend; I finally found my used CD copy a few months ago. How on earth does it help the RIAA that I had to search for 15 years to get a legal copy of this album? And I was lucky I found it used for $9 (Canadian) rather than a new $40 import.
These record companies have already spent the money to record and master these CD; why should it ever go out of print? Surely making $5 is better than nothing; or do they really think I'll buy the latest American Idol CD they are expensively promoting instead?
It can be made illegal if there is no way to buy a recording device. All existing recording devices could be made obsolete by making the media illegal. Then only approved recorders would work. If you figure out how to spoof the recorder, simply repeat the whole illegal media thing.
Copyright holders have plenty of money and a huge financial stake in continually strengthening copyright laws. There is no money to be made in arguing for looser laws, so you can easily guess whether laws making analog recorders illegal would work.
I know someone could build their own recorder or horde existing recorders and media; but the record companies are only interested in making money from unsophisticated consumers. A credible threat of legal action is all they need to scare the herd into a corral, and that's enough for them.
People could reject this because there was a choice available. It was a close thing when DVDs were introduced, big names like Disney and Steven Spielberg swore they would never sell digital movies. If the copyright holders had decided to support only DIVX, history would be different.
Fortunately, customers had a choice at the time and could show the companies they liked DVDs better; and more importantly, that there was lots of money to be made selling DVDs.
Unfortunately, the copyright laws are being changed to give complete control to copyright holders; so the next time there is a decision about what format to use, consumers will get no voice in the matter.
I hope history does repeat itself in one way. I hope the copyright holders succeed despite themselves, like all the other times they tried to stop new technology (e.g. video tapes). I'm afraid the RIAA will get its way this time, and actually get a chance to ruin the music industry.
It is very hard to determine what messages are spam, but much easier to determine when messages are identical or nearly so. They only need to keep a single copy of a mass-mailed message; most mass-mailed messages are spam, but certainly not all of them.
This doesn't solve the problem that users don't want to see any spam; but it does eliminate the problem that spam messages require a huge amount of disk space to store. If and when someone comes up with the magical algorithm that recognizes spam, then they can avoid storing it at all; until then, they can at least reduce the amount of storage they devote to spam.
Actually, I thought the average user's mail is 75% spam. If Google cached the spam and simply stored a link to it, you could easily store gigabytes of spam for millions of users. And isn't spam the only reason you need lots of e-mail storage anyway?
Re:The Long Answer
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Death by Coffee?
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· Score: 3, Informative
In the case of coffee, you don't really have to drink anything else. The diuretic effect of coffee only eliminates about half the water. In other words a cup of coffee is about equivalent to half a cup of water.
I don't think it would be too hard to keep track of the paper; it just gets stuffed into a ballot box. The computer-counted results are assumed to be correct, but if there is a recount, the paper ballots would be considered correct. The paper ballots would only be read in a recount, which should be very infrequent as everyone learns to trust the system.
This is like the current system (or at least parts of it). You mark a card, a machine reads it, the machine results are assumed to be correct. If there is a recount, the marked cards are assumed to be the actual votes and those are recounted.
That gives me another idea. As I understand, with the current system, the first recount is sometimes done by running the cards through the machinery again. Why not make this part of the system all the time? You vote, you get a receipt that you feed into another machine that counts it via OCR. If two independent companies build and program the two sets of machines, you have two independent counts of the same votes and an automated way to detect fraud. Then you'd almost never have to resort to counting ballots by hand; although randomly doing it to a subset of the results couldn't hurt.
I agree with you about frequent votes, I think communications are good enough these days that more decisions can be made directly by the voter rather than indirectly through a representative. A paper-free system would be much better for this type of election, but we have to be able to trust the counting machines if there is no way to independently verify the results. If voting hardware and software are open, and we run a few error-free elections that have paper backup, then maybe we can trust a paperless system.
This is the thing that pisses me off too, that the media companies can get the laws changed to suit themselves, while the customers just have to take what is dished out. For example the supplier of a DVD decides when I may use the fast-forward button. I have no choice but to accept this decision; I have to deal with the product the way it is sold, and if I don't like it, too bad. Similarly, it doesn't matter if a CD is out of print, if I want a copy I'll have to search used CD stores. Why shouldn't copyright expire when a work is no longer available for sale?
Why should it be different for the media companies than for me? The internet was invented and now their cosy distribution model is being undermined. I say what's good for the goose is good for the gander; if I have to accept reality, then let them figure out how to deal with reality. If the RIAA is correct and the CD business is destroyed, it won't affect me, I am not willing to pay the current prices anyway (nor am I downloading), I just listen to the 1000+ CDs I already own.
The problem with all existing voting system is that the ballots are open to interpretation. We Canadians are rather smug about our manual voting system compared to the circus in the U.S., but close votes reveal the problems in all systems. For example, in an election about twenty years ago, ballots were rejected because they were marked in ink rather than using the supplied pencil; this changed the outcome of the election for that riding and is rather similar to the hanging-chad situation. Paper ballots have the advantage that the system is completely open, unlike a computerized system where the workings of the programs are hidden; but ballots are not necessarily counted the way voters intend with both types of systems.
What we need is a system where a voter knows that their ballot is counted correctly. I think a computerized system is the only one that can possibly give this feedback. If a voting machine prints out a receipt, the voter can use it to verify that the vote was counted correctly. If the receipts are collected, there is a paper trail that can be used for recounts. We can be confident that the paper ballots will be read accurately (either by a machine or a person) because they are machine-printed and not marked by hand.
A computerized system with a paper-trail is better than any current voting system. I wonder why the Americans don't see that, but instead are intent on creating a new system with exactly the same types of problems as the existing system.
I don't think the Canadian system would work as well in the United States. Americans vote for far more people on a given ballot. Our Provincial and Federal elections are simple - vote for one person. Our municipal elections are closer to the American style, I vote for about 10 people on a municipal ballot. Our city uses a machine to count the ballots (that doesn't print receipts!).
I think an automated system can be much better than a manual one. The problem with counting ballots is the person/machine doing the counting might not be able to figure out what you wanted (e.g. hanging chads). With a receipt, I know how my vote was counted and I can correct any mistakes then and there. The paper receipts are also better than paper ballots because they are machine prepared. If it is ever necessary to do a paper recount, it will be easier with uniform paper receipts than hand-marked ballots.
There is no reason we shouldn't trust an automated system to do the counting, as long as there is a way to detect bugs in the software or cheating. If there are paper receipts as a backup we'll be able to trust the machine results since no one will think they can get away with cheating.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if the "Eureka" moment I had when I read your answer is the same as if I'd figured it out myself?
I had the opposite of a Eureka moment when I saw that three word puzzle; I groaned when I found yet another author who thinks it is cute to pose a supposedly simple question and not give the answer.
Thank goodness Slashdot is here to give me the answers. Although, I'll have to check back later since I am not convinced that either "fish" or "white" is the correct answer. I don't think many people have heard of Pine-fish or white crabs.
I also really missed filename completion when I went from UNIX to DOS in the early '90s (I also missed aliases to convert "ls" into "dir" :-). I found a product called 4DOS, which is still available as 4NT (and other O/S). This is a very nice shell program; I can't say if it is the best choice, but it's good enough.
http://www.jpsoft.com/
I am not kidding, I heard differences between digital cables, and I was surprised. I didn't want to believe it because I'd much rather spend $350 on CDs than on a cable. I did everything I could to test the cables; this was not a rigged demonstration. I took my own CD transport and digital processor into the store, and used CDs I brought. I spent more than an hour comparing cables, and my wife listened too; we both agreed the cable was worth the cost.
As I explained in a different lengthy post, there is more to converting a digital signal to analogue than just the data values themselves. A digital decoder has to output the right value and also output it at the right time; incorrect timing causes distortion, just like incorrect data. Both digital values and timing information are transmitted through the wire; the data values are digitally encoded and so are not much affected by the wire, but the extracted timing information is analogue (i.e. the timing is derived from when the samples arrive), and therefore more sensitive to the cable than the data values.
You may be right that optical cable is better, but my CD transport only has an RCA connector. I have also read that the typical plastic fibre optic cable has less bandwidth than an RCA cable, and since the bandwidth affects the timing information, I believe the reviewers that said RCA can be better than optical.
I will agree that the differences between digital cables are subtle; the people who designed the interface did know what they were doing. Maybe the digital cable was just compensating for flaws in the design of my components, and different components would sound fine with $10 cables.
The difference between burned CDs was less subtle. Here's the link that convinced me to buy a special CD burner:
http://www.yamaha.ca/computer/cp_AudioMQR.asp
I did a blind test on the burned CDs to find out if I'd been ripped off. I had a friend switch disks while my wife and I listened. We both heard the difference between disks burned conventionally and those with the special Yamaha mode. We couldn't really tell the difference between the original and the special Yamaha disk (or say which was better), but the normally-burned disk was obviously worse than the others.
First I'll say the obvious, the "digital" cable is not passing a digital on/off signal, it is sending an analogue waveform which is decoded into a digital signal. The decoder tolerates a certain amount of analogue distortion; so I agree with you, the $10 cable is good enough that the correct digital values are sent through the wire.
:-), but the difference I heard was worth paying for.
The problem is that we don't listen directly to the digital data; we listen to a reconstructed analogue signal that requires the correct value at the correct time. If the digital samples are not played back at a steady rate of 44.1 kHz, there will be distortion; the values might be right, but if the timing is wrong, so is the output signal.
The timing issue is relevant to "digital" cables because the analogue signal in that cable is used for two purposes, sending the data and sending a clock for timing purposes. The CD protocol is very robust for sending the data, but the timing information can be significantly affected by bandwidth and other characteristics of the cable used.
Whether the correct data values are transmitted through the wire is only one measure of whether a cable is good, and two wires that transfer the same data values are not the same if they transfer different timing information.
Now, I don't claim that timing differences (jitter) are the reason that cables sound different, I was just trying to show that "It either works or it doesn't" is not necessarily true. There is no reason to think a more expensive cable is better than a cheaper one, but there are reasons to think that different cables are worth listening to.
I did try the "Pepsi challenge" between cables when I bought my digital processor. I took my own CD player in, picked my own CDs, and brought my wife along for a second opinion. We told the salesman when to change the cable or CD and spent at least an hour listening to the different cables. Before I started, I didn't think there would be any differences between cables, just like you. I'd rather have spent $350 on more CDs than on a cable, especially since it makes people think I am an idiot
By the way, if you need more evidence that I am a flake, I can hear differences between CDs too! I bought a Yamaha CD burner that has a special audio burning mode. This special mode lengthens the "pits" on the CD so that you get less total capacity, but more accurate burning of the data. The special CDs sound better, and in a blind test performed by a friend on his CD player, my wife and I had no problem identifying which was recorded using the special mode. Note that the digital values on the normal disk are exactly the same as the special disk; yet for some reason, my wife and I can hear a difference.
What I meant to say is we can't directly measure sound quality. We can measure many different things, many of which have been found to affect sound quality; but there is no set of measurements (yet?) that will always tell you which device sounds better.
Jitter is a good case in point. I disagree that you can easily measure jitter; special devices had to be built because jitter in a good CD player is measured in picoseconds. I think everyone assumed that picosecond-level jitter was inaudible, and if you calculate the distortion caused by jitter that low, it was a reasonable assumption. There is also the problem that CD players with lower jitter do not always sound better than CD players with higher jitter. So while you can measure a difference in jitter, that difference alone is not going to tell you whether a CD player will sound good; and that is true of all audio measurements.
Why do you think $5000/ft cables are not worth buying? There are probably audio devices that will give you more bang for the buck; but believe me, audiophiles would be very happy to spend less. Many of them are even satisfied with Monster Cable.
:-). Question the sanity of the 50 year old guy in a Porsche hoping to pick up chicks; you can be sure that someone who buys $5000/ft cables got them because they improve the sound.
Expensive speaker cables are not like expensive cars. You can impress most people with expensive cars; but people just think you're an idiot to buy expensive cables, as I know from direct experience
Have you actually listened rather than just make fun? I didn't think cables made any difference, but I sat down and listened in an audiophile store and decided that it was worth paying $350 for a 3 foot digital cable.
I have compared CDs burned in the "music master mode" on a Yamaha CD burner to the CDs burnt in a normal player. Both my wife and I could identify which disk was which 100% of the time, even using a friend's non-audiophile system. Explain to me how two CDs that contain identical digital information can sound different.
As far as the "little jags" on the data stream, that sounds like an attempt to explain jitter. Using digital means the right data will be transferred through the wire, but jitter means there will be variation in the timing between samples. Because digital players extract clock timing from the input signal, variations in jitter in the wire might affect the output waveform.
I get as big a laugh as you do out of the ridiculous claims for why some things improve the sound. But, just because someone can't explain why something works doesn't mean it doesn't work; and just because you can't measure a difference, doesn't mean there is no difference.
Fixed-line phone service has plenty of competition; mostly from cell phones, but also from various internet-based alternatives. Do you really think these alternatives would have been developed (or offered as cheaply) if AT&T still had a monopoly over phone services? Even when AT&T's monopoly was strongest, you could still use telegrams, short wave radios, or the postal system to communicate with people.
The situation is similar for Microsoft now. There is competition for Windows, but it is just as difficult to find a substitute for Windows as it was to refuse to have a home phone when AT&T had its monopoly. You needed a phone because people expected to be able to call you; you need Windows because people expect you to be able to run Windows programs or view Windows files. We saw what prices and practices AT&T could get away with when it owned all the wires used for the majority of communication; and we are seeing the same sort of things now that Microsoft controls the workings of the majority of computers.
You are correct that there is no reason to expect a company to do something that hurts itself; that is normally the job of a competitor. When a company notices that a competitor has an idea that earns them lots of extra money from customers, they are normally able to offer the same thing at a lower cost, leading to a situation that might benefit consumers. In a monopoly situation, a company is free to exploit its customers to a much greater extent than a company that has strong competition.
Since Microsoft is (essentially) a monopoly, there is little pressure from competitors to convince Microsoft to do anything but maximize profits. For example, open standards help companies to compete with one another, so Microsoft generally stands well clear of using standards it doesn't control. When we wish Microsoft would do something against its own interests, we are usually wishing that Microsoft would simply do something they would be forced to do by a competitor: consider the interests of consumers.
I don't know how to make a recorder out of parts from Radio Shack; someone would have to tell me. We know that the government is willing to pass legislation making it illegal to tell people how to copy, they passed the DMCA.
It will always be possible to record on a small, personal scale. It isn't possible to record on a larger scale if the government can arrest you for clearly explaining how to do it.
I disagree that there has to be significant effort to produce out-of-print CDs. With their current business model where they print up a few thousand copies and try to convince record stores to buy them, obscure music is expensive; but couldn't they try something new?
But why not just open a website with access to a database of CDs that have already been mastered? The cost of mastering the CD was high, but that money is already spent; loading a CD full of data onto a hard drive costs next to nothing. As I said, I'd pay $5 to be able to burn my own CD, and I'd live with online art for the CD booklet. If they don't offer the out-of-print CD for sale, they earn nothing, why not take me up on my generous offer?
I'm annoyed that we accept the convenient record company definition of volume. They'd like nothing more than to sell millions of copies of the same item; it is a lot less work for them. But what about the volume of obscure older music? It may not be possible to sell more than a few hundred copies of an obscure record, but multiply by the shear number of obscure bands, and that is significant volume.
Internet technology could be expanding the market for music; downloads of out-of-print CDs is just one possible way. Instead, the record companies are fighting tooth-and-nail to preserve their high-volume, low-variety model which is bad for both consumers and for artists (except those lucky few that are promoted by the record company).
Record companies want us to give them additional monopoly powers by strengthening the copyright act in order to stop file-sharing, a practice that doesn't cause them any easily measurable financial harm. File sharing is winning in the marketplace because it offers huge variety at low prices. Facing this competition, the record companies have raised their prices and reduced the variety of CDs they offer for sale. I think the record companies ought to try competing with file sharing first before just claiming it is impossible.
A judge recently ruled that file sharing is not illegal in Canada.
According to the Harvard Business School study released a few days ago, file sharing does not affect music sales. It follows that if file sharing doesn't cost anything, there won't be any benefit if it is stopped. If it costs anything to stop file sharing (i.e. if the record companies aren't able to pass all the costs onto consumers), it will not be worth the cost.
I want them to let me download music from their out-of-print CDs at a reasonable price, like $5 per disk; I'll pay for the production of the CD. I want the uncompressed CD image naturally; you can keep your crappy compressed music, actual CDs (state of the art 15 years ago!) are barely adequate.
The record companies are sitting on a goldmine that they don't even recognize. For example, I have spent 15 years looking for a CD of Camel's album, the Snow Goose. I had a cassette copy from a used record I borrowed from a friend; I finally found my used CD copy a few months ago. How on earth does it help the RIAA that I had to search for 15 years to get a legal copy of this album? And I was lucky I found it used for $9 (Canadian) rather than a new $40 import.
These record companies have already spent the money to record and master these CD; why should it ever go out of print? Surely making $5 is better than nothing; or do they really think I'll buy the latest American Idol CD they are expensively promoting instead?
And equally relevant, what happens 150 years from now when the copyright expires?
It can be made illegal if there is no way to buy a recording device. All existing recording devices could be made obsolete by making the media illegal. Then only approved recorders would work. If you figure out how to spoof the recorder, simply repeat the whole illegal media thing.
Copyright holders have plenty of money and a huge financial stake in continually strengthening copyright laws. There is no money to be made in arguing for looser laws, so you can easily guess whether laws making analog recorders illegal would work.
I know someone could build their own recorder or horde existing recorders and media; but the record companies are only interested in making money from unsophisticated consumers. A credible threat of legal action is all they need to scare the herd into a corral, and that's enough for them.
People could reject this because there was a choice available. It was a close thing when DVDs were introduced, big names like Disney and Steven Spielberg swore they would never sell digital movies. If the copyright holders had decided to support only DIVX, history would be different.
Fortunately, customers had a choice at the time and could show the companies they liked DVDs better; and more importantly, that there was lots of money to be made selling DVDs.
Unfortunately, the copyright laws are being changed to give complete control to copyright holders; so the next time there is a decision about what format to use, consumers will get no voice in the matter.
I hope history does repeat itself in one way. I hope the copyright holders succeed despite themselves, like all the other times they tried to stop new technology (e.g. video tapes). I'm afraid the RIAA will get its way this time, and actually get a chance to ruin the music industry.
It is very hard to determine what messages are spam, but much easier to determine when messages are identical or nearly so. They only need to keep a single copy of a mass-mailed message; most mass-mailed messages are spam, but certainly not all of them.
This doesn't solve the problem that users don't want to see any spam; but it does eliminate the problem that spam messages require a huge amount of disk space to store. If and when someone comes up with the magical algorithm that recognizes spam, then they can avoid storing it at all; until then, they can at least reduce the amount of storage they devote to spam.
Actually, I thought the average user's mail is 75% spam. If Google cached the spam and simply stored a link to it, you could easily store gigabytes of spam for millions of users. And isn't spam the only reason you need lots of e-mail storage anyway?
In the case of coffee, you don't really have to drink anything else. The diuretic effect of coffee only eliminates about half the water. In other words a cup of coffee is about equivalent to half a cup of water.
I don't think it would be too hard to keep track of the paper; it just gets stuffed into a ballot box. The computer-counted results are assumed to be correct, but if there is a recount, the paper ballots would be considered correct. The paper ballots would only be read in a recount, which should be very infrequent as everyone learns to trust the system.
This is like the current system (or at least parts of it). You mark a card, a machine reads it, the machine results are assumed to be correct. If there is a recount, the marked cards are assumed to be the actual votes and those are recounted.
That gives me another idea. As I understand, with the current system, the first recount is sometimes done by running the cards through the machinery again. Why not make this part of the system all the time? You vote, you get a receipt that you feed into another machine that counts it via OCR. If two independent companies build and program the two sets of machines, you have two independent counts of the same votes and an automated way to detect fraud. Then you'd almost never have to resort to counting ballots by hand; although randomly doing it to a subset of the results couldn't hurt.
I agree with you about frequent votes, I think communications are good enough these days that more decisions can be made directly by the voter rather than indirectly through a representative. A paper-free system would be much better for this type of election, but we have to be able to trust the counting machines if there is no way to independently verify the results. If voting hardware and software are open, and we run a few error-free elections that have paper backup, then maybe we can trust a paperless system.
This is the thing that pisses me off too, that the media companies can get the laws changed to suit themselves, while the customers just have to take what is dished out. For example the supplier of a DVD decides when I may use the fast-forward button. I have no choice but to accept this decision; I have to deal with the product the way it is sold, and if I don't like it, too bad. Similarly, it doesn't matter if a CD is out of print, if I want a copy I'll have to search used CD stores. Why shouldn't copyright expire when a work is no longer available for sale?
Why should it be different for the media companies than for me? The internet was invented and now their cosy distribution model is being undermined. I say what's good for the goose is good for the gander; if I have to accept reality, then let them figure out how to deal with reality. If the RIAA is correct and the CD business is destroyed, it won't affect me, I am not willing to pay the current prices anyway (nor am I downloading), I just listen to the 1000+ CDs I already own.
The problem with all existing voting system is that the ballots are open to interpretation. We Canadians are rather smug about our manual voting system compared to the circus in the U.S., but close votes reveal the problems in all systems. For example, in an election about twenty years ago, ballots were rejected because they were marked in ink rather than using the supplied pencil; this changed the outcome of the election for that riding and is rather similar to the hanging-chad situation. Paper ballots have the advantage that the system is completely open, unlike a computerized system where the workings of the programs are hidden; but ballots are not necessarily counted the way voters intend with both types of systems.
What we need is a system where a voter knows that their ballot is counted correctly. I think a computerized system is the only one that can possibly give this feedback. If a voting machine prints out a receipt, the voter can use it to verify that the vote was counted correctly. If the receipts are collected, there is a paper trail that can be used for recounts. We can be confident that the paper ballots will be read accurately (either by a machine or a person) because they are machine-printed and not marked by hand.
A computerized system with a paper-trail is better than any current voting system. I wonder why the Americans don't see that, but instead are intent on creating a new system with exactly the same types of problems as the existing system.
I don't think the Canadian system would work as well in the United States. Americans vote for far more people on a given ballot. Our Provincial and Federal elections are simple - vote for one person. Our municipal elections are closer to the American style, I vote for about 10 people on a municipal ballot. Our city uses a machine to count the ballots (that doesn't print receipts!).
I think an automated system can be much better than a manual one. The problem with counting ballots is the person/machine doing the counting might not be able to figure out what you wanted (e.g. hanging chads). With a receipt, I know how my vote was counted and I can correct any mistakes then and there. The paper receipts are also better than paper ballots because they are machine prepared. If it is ever necessary to do a paper recount, it will be easier with uniform paper receipts than hand-marked ballots.
There is no reason we shouldn't trust an automated system to do the counting, as long as there is a way to detect bugs in the software or cheating. If there are paper receipts as a backup we'll be able to trust the machine results since no one will think they can get away with cheating.