My point is that if you already have paid for the music once, why not just download the album off the internet and be done with it?
Yeah; I know. I meant to tie what I'd said in with what you'd said, but I lost sight of that.
What I basically meant was; the average Joe's most strenuous effort (within reason) is still unlikely to produce outstanding results from most LPs or cassettes. So, ignoring the fact that downloading is saving you a *lot* of effort, the end result isn't really equivalent. In fact, if the downloaded version is based on a digital remaster, you might be getting something that has (cough) "added value".
But I'm playing Devil's Advocate to some extent here; in truth, I mostly agree with you. After you bought your favourite LPs again on CD, you got another chance to buy them when they were digitally remastered, then possibly remastered *again* with better technology with bonus tracks (*), and now they are trying to sell DVD-A surround-sound mixes (note: unlike remastering, I don't consider surround-sound remixes to be "the originals", as this adds a new artistic interpretation; but I'm nitpicking).
Frankly, in most of these cases, it's just a cash cow for some band that hasn't done anything worthwhile for the past 30 years.
To be honest though, I find myself asking why I want to reacquire something I've listened or watched to death, and have to conclude that I'm sick of that stuff and want something new. I'm actually enjoying chucking stuff out these days. If nothing else, it's a healthy litmus test of how I've changed as a person, and a good excuse to let the past go.
Damn, I'm getting pretentious here; not to mention drifing from the point again...
(*) Bonus tracks... hmm. Sometimes a good opportunity to include stuff which was unfairly neglected, or never previously released as part of an album. But equally often, a load of B-sides and 'rarities' that, frankly, weren't that good in the first place. And why the hell don't they leave a decent gap between the end of the album "proper" and the bonus tracks?
In either case though the quickest way may be to go with an X10 setup (yes, THOSE guys).
Hmm... sounds like you do want to spy on the neighbor's teenage daughter? (Specifically, see exhibit F; sick, but funny. However, Exhibit E is also pretty incongruous, if not ropey; WTF is that girl doing in the kids' room?)
Good point here actually - if you have purchased a copy of music on tape, CD, or vinyl, are you entitled to download the same exact music so you have it on your PC? It seems to me there's no question that this would be OK, you're just saving the time of "ripping" it yourself.
I've come to the conclusion that it's not worth ripping an album from vinyl or cassette if you can buy it for less than US$18.00 or so.
You have to connect your audio system to your PC via a decent soundcard, make sure the balance/levels are correct (this is *not* easy if you want a decent transfer; especially since old cassettes may be muffled or have uneven balance on playback), record it, run it through some cleaning-up software (and this doesn't come for free; too much has a very noticeable effect on the sound-quality), split it correctly, write it to CD and label it correctly.
At best, you'll have something which can bear comparison with a CD on casual listening. At worst (if you do this with your ropey old cassettes) you'll have something which sounds pretty bad next to your CDs and CD-ripped MP3s. Although I've found it *is* possible to get good quality in theory, in practice, it's just not worth going that far, since you often have to readjust for each new LP/cassette.
For individual tracks, where you don't want to shell out on a whole CD-album to get a single song, it *is* worth it if you don't obsess about the quality, and do them all at one sitting. However, you could (legally) buy a DRM-crippled download, burn it to CD, rip it to MP3 (okay; not legally...), and even with the horrible re-encoding artifacts, I doubt the quality would be much poorer than doing it manually. In such circumstances, doing it manually just isn't worth the hassle.
Of course, if the album or song is rare or unavailable, that's something different altogether; just never assume that it's easy to do a good transfer- even a mediocre one is usually more hassle than it's worth for the ropey end-result.
For what it's worth, I've heard of them; my brother used to have a lot of their stuff. But I don't remember anything about them never having eaten since birth...
If you forget to close the lid before you sit down, you'll learn "something that will always be useful and which will never grow dim or doubtful". (Apologies to Mark Twain).
I also tried to get an "in Soviet Russia, cat neuters YOU" joke out of this, but I couldn't figure out a contrived reason for Soviet Russia being in there. To be fair, this hasn't stopped anyone in the past...
Cats need taurine, which tuna does not provide them. Taurine deficiency causes nasty diseases and eventually death.
My first thought on reading this was.... "Taurine; isn't that the stuff they put in Red Bull?"
However, anyone willing to feed Red Bull to a cat is obviously braver than me; I don't know about the effects of the taurine itself, but I doubt a hyper-caffeinated moggy would be pleasant to live with. YMMV.
Check out the amazon computer top sellers - 8 out of the top 10 are Macs.
The PC market is fragmented amongst countless sellers and models; the Mac is sold by *one* manufacturer, comes in a decent, but not massive, range of models. So I'd say a given Mac stands a far better chance of being a bestseller than any given PC model.
I just have to laugh when I see people walking around encrusted with the newest pagers, cell phones, I-pods, PDAs, etc etc-- like barnacles on their waistlines
Of course; the larger your waistline, the more gadgets you can wear round it- better get more pizzas and Coke in.
how many
custom-built single-patent companies start popping
up in order to cash in on a patent while shielding
the mother organisation from retaliation suits.
What do you mean by retaliation suits? Even if the company is legally separate from the parent, and no direct action can be taken, if it is clear that X Corp. are behind 'Baby x', and 'Baby x' takes action against Y Inc., then Y Inc. will use *its* patents against X Corp- directly or indirectly.
(Disclaimer: IANAL; I am an ignorant Slashdot reader, and not even American.)
When the resolution is set to 60Hz which is the lowest, the screen flickers. That is a fact.
I know. BTW, you think that's bad? The first computer I used was a ZX81 (Timex/Sinclair 1000 with 1K) attached to a PAL TV. Which has a 50Hz refresh rate... and black-on-white text.
If what you say is true, this explains why my eyes are fucked. OTOH, it could be that all the exercise makes your eye muscles stronger, like going down to the gym.
"Yeah, I *did* know that my display can go higher than 60Hz; I'm giving my eyes a workout. I'm doing a drop-set. When they can't take 60Hz any longer, I'll turn it up to 65Hz, then 72Hz... See that guy over there with the black-and-white TV with no vertical hold and bottleful of protein shake? He's the Mr.Universe of the eyeball world. I swear it's true."
And all those opticians and spectacle manufacturers worldwide feel lucky too.
I know this was meant to be funny; but are you implying that low refresh rates would make anyone rush out and buy a new pair of glasses?
There have been studies showing that reading too much when growing up *can* make you short-sighted, but this relates to reading anything- books, etc- not just monitors.
I've got a web-site that is beginning to show promise as a way to get a decent amount of residual income. The sections that bring in the most revenue are the sections I havn't touched in months. So it's not something I must do constantly.
Yeah, but are you sure running a porn website with photos of yourself naked in various poses is in your long term interest?
Anyway, I think it's bad that you're getting lazy like that, so I've ripped all the images from your website and posted them to Usenet.
Yep; I'm sorry, you're going to have to take another set of photos involving "Big" Steve and a tube of KY Jelly.
EEEEEEEP Noooooooooo.... please GOD NO! I remember the LAST time I went to "the countryside" -- that big blue room with those brown pillers with... GREEN on top... and the carpet was strange!
Last time in was in "the countryside" room, they hadn't even painted the ceiling blue; it was still undercoat-grey, and the sprinkler system kept coming on and soaking me (couldn't see where it was coming from, though).
Plus; the enemy AI is abysmal. There are these creatures called "sheep" and "cows", but they're mostly unthreatening, and run some lame herding algorithm.
Damn, you'd think that it would be easy to kill them, but it seems to be against the rules of the game to have a gun- at least in the UK release. I'm going to try to get a copy of the US version for that, but I'm not sure if Amazon.com will ship it to Scotland.
Remember when preppy was "cool"? Everyone was running around in Polo and Vuarnet shirts? Then "urban" became cool and everyone started wearing their pants around their knees with their underpants showing?
Irony of ironies; as far as hip-hop, the ultimate "urban" music is concerned, the current fashionable look *is* "preppy".
No, that's called "Tyrrany of the Majority", one of those things too few people learn while growing up.
Isn't that what you end up with if you have raw democracy, without any safeguards anyway?
Sure, the people can vote those safeguards into place. Or they can decide not to; generally speaking, most democracies include laws safeguarding the individual to some extent, but if you accept the definition that it is rule on behalf of the people then.... democracy does not come with 'batteries included'.
Personally, I always understood democracy to mean the process of rule on behalf of the people; some of these definitions seem to imply otherwise, but aren't these idealistic and misled distortions of the original meaning?
Bearing in mind it had colours and simple graphical blocks obviously designed for graphics, I think calling it ASCII art (since ASCII *wasn't* designed for that) is stretching it. But it was still impressive use of the facilities.
Well, up to a point...
30 years old, though? They must have been planning ahead in 1974; I mean, that was the year the Altair came out! Okay, so it was simple text decoding circuitry that would have been needed, not a full microcomputer, but bear in mind that the ZX81 (Timex/Sinclair 1000) with inferior graphics to this was still several years in the future.
Here's a guess; assuming that the main reason for the redesign is cost (which it probably is), I'd be interested to find out (in general) what the sales of a console are like as the price comes down.
This is only a guess, but it wouldn't surprise me if a large proportion (33% plus? *50%*?!) of a console's total sales (all versions) were made during its twilight years when it was being sold at a bargain basement price. Sure, most of those sales would be to kids (second systems?) and impulse-buying non-serious gamers, and would not merit attention from gamers and magazines focused on the latest generation systems.
But a sale's a sale; and when a console is being sold cheaply, you want to make savings in any area you can. I'd be willing to bet that there are enough PS2 sales in the pipeline to make a money-saving redesign worthwhile.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and guess that PS2 sales to date (by unit, not price) won't be anywhere near 50% of their eventual total. Okay, I make no claims to being an expert in the field of consoles; but it seems reasonable to assume that the great unwashed masses doing their afternoon shopping will keep the PS2 alive long after the 'serious' crowd have moved onto the PS3.
I doubt the same will apply to games, as the later PS2 buyers won't be willing to spend vast amounts of money when they can get older stuff cheap (making the market extremely hostile); however, as mentioned elsewhere, EA are still converting their key titles to the PS1. But, we're discussing new hardware here; not software.
To cut to what I'm trying to say: Yeah; redesign is almost certainly worthwhile. It might even be redesigned *again* in a few years time, as an ultra cheap-n'-nasty "I didn't know they still made that" category toy (probably *without* the ethernet and a lot of other stuff).
I agree; for a long time I thought that the 2010 movie only suffered in comparison with 2001; that it was quite well made, and if you could somehow know the plot of 2001 (the movie) without having seen it, you would be quite impressed with 2010.
Having seen it again, I was less impressed. You're right; it's too Hollywood- they try too hard to add human interest, and it comes across in a cliched manner. There is noise in space. When we see (IIRC) Chandra communicating with HAL through a keyboard, it looks like something from the early-80s, because it *is*. The cold-war aspects have been ramped up from part of the plot (in the book) to cheesy levels with an annoying voice-over. The latter two particularly date the film. They didn't *try* to do the future. They did the (1984) present with added flashiness.
I've seen this on DVD quite cheaply, and wasn't tempted to buy it... the price wasn't an issue; I'm just not interested in a DVD collection full of stuff which is "not bad".
Anyway; yeah, you are right. 2010 was a really good book. Shame the film sucked.
Slashdot Mirror
Think about it...
Caffeine + Alcohol + Lots of Liquid --> You'll be running to the toilets every five minutes.
My point is that if you already have paid for the music once, why not just download the album off the internet and be done with it?
Yeah; I know. I meant to tie what I'd said in with what you'd said, but I lost sight of that.
What I basically meant was; the average Joe's most strenuous effort (within reason) is still unlikely to produce outstanding results from most LPs or cassettes. So, ignoring the fact that downloading is saving you a *lot* of effort, the end result isn't really equivalent. In fact, if the downloaded version is based on a digital remaster, you might be getting something that has (cough) "added value".
But I'm playing Devil's Advocate to some extent here; in truth, I mostly agree with you. After you bought your favourite LPs again on CD, you got another chance to buy them when they were digitally remastered, then possibly remastered *again* with better technology with bonus tracks (*), and now they are trying to sell DVD-A surround-sound mixes (note: unlike remastering, I don't consider surround-sound remixes to be "the originals", as this adds a new artistic interpretation; but I'm nitpicking).
Frankly, in most of these cases, it's just a cash cow for some band that hasn't done anything worthwhile for the past 30 years.
To be honest though, I find myself asking why I want to reacquire something I've listened or watched to death, and have to conclude that I'm sick of that stuff and want something new. I'm actually enjoying chucking stuff out these days. If nothing else, it's a healthy litmus test of how I've changed as a person, and a good excuse to let the past go.
Damn, I'm getting pretentious here; not to mention drifing from the point again...
(*) Bonus tracks... hmm. Sometimes a good opportunity to include stuff which was unfairly neglected, or never previously released as part of an album. But equally often, a load of B-sides and 'rarities' that, frankly, weren't that good in the first place. And why the hell don't they leave a decent gap between the end of the album "proper" and the bonus tracks?
In either case though the quickest way may be to go with an X10 setup (yes, THOSE guys).
Hmm... sounds like you do want to spy on the neighbor's teenage daughter? (Specifically, see exhibit F; sick, but funny. However, Exhibit E is also pretty incongruous, if not ropey; WTF is that girl doing in the kids' room?)
Good point here actually - if you have purchased a copy of music on tape, CD, or vinyl, are you entitled to download the same exact music so you have it on your PC? It seems to me there's no question that this would be OK, you're just saving the time of "ripping" it yourself.
I've come to the conclusion that it's not worth ripping an album from vinyl or cassette if you can buy it for less than US$18.00 or so.
You have to connect your audio system to your PC via a decent soundcard, make sure the balance/levels are correct (this is *not* easy if you want a decent transfer; especially since old cassettes may be muffled or have uneven balance on playback), record it, run it through some cleaning-up software (and this doesn't come for free; too much has a very noticeable effect on the sound-quality), split it correctly, write it to CD and label it correctly.
At best, you'll have something which can bear comparison with a CD on casual listening. At worst (if you do this with your ropey old cassettes) you'll have something which sounds pretty bad next to your CDs and CD-ripped MP3s. Although I've found it *is* possible to get good quality in theory, in practice, it's just not worth going that far, since you often have to readjust for each new LP/cassette.
For individual tracks, where you don't want to shell out on a whole CD-album to get a single song, it *is* worth it if you don't obsess about the quality, and do them all at one sitting. However, you could (legally) buy a DRM-crippled download, burn it to CD, rip it to MP3 (okay; not legally...), and even with the horrible re-encoding artifacts, I doubt the quality would be much poorer than doing it manually. In such circumstances, doing it manually just isn't worth the hassle.
Of course, if the album or song is rare or unavailable, that's something different altogether; just never assume that it's easy to do a good transfer- even a mediocre one is usually more hassle than it's worth for the ropey end-result.
Pearl Jam? WTF have they got to do with it?!
For what it's worth, I've heard of them; my brother used to have a lot of their stuff. But I don't remember anything about them never having eaten since birth...
Yeah; but where's the control group?
They could combine the pets and jokes section and call it "Insensitive Clawed".
2. Close lid. Sit down.
If you forget to close the lid before you sit down, you'll learn "something that will always be useful and which will never grow dim or doubtful". (Apologies to Mark Twain).
I also tried to get an "in Soviet Russia, cat neuters YOU" joke out of this, but I couldn't figure out a contrived reason for Soviet Russia being in there. To be fair, this hasn't stopped anyone in the past...
Cats need taurine, which tuna does not provide them. Taurine deficiency causes nasty diseases and eventually death.
My first thought on reading this was.... "Taurine; isn't that the stuff they put in Red Bull?"
However, anyone willing to feed Red Bull to a cat is obviously braver than me; I don't know about the effects of the taurine itself, but I doubt a hyper-caffeinated moggy would be pleasant to live with. YMMV.
I for one look welcome our new soviet kitten masters.
Soviet Kitten Masters? Here they are!
(Don't actually know what this sounds like; I haven't got the soundcard set up, unfortunately).
Check out the amazon computer top sellers - 8 out of the top 10 are Macs.
The PC market is fragmented amongst countless sellers and models; the Mac is sold by *one* manufacturer, comes in a decent, but not massive, range of models. So I'd say a given Mac stands a far better chance of being a bestseller than any given PC model.
I just have to laugh when I see people walking around encrusted with the newest pagers, cell phones, I-pods, PDAs, etc etc-- like barnacles on their waistlines
Of course; the larger your waistline, the more gadgets you can wear round it- better get more pizzas and Coke in.
how many custom-built single-patent companies start popping up in order to cash in on a patent while shielding the mother organisation from retaliation suits.
What do you mean by retaliation suits? Even if the company is legally separate from the parent, and no direct action can be taken, if it is clear that X Corp. are behind 'Baby x', and 'Baby x' takes action against Y Inc., then Y Inc. will use *its* patents against X Corp- directly or indirectly.
(Disclaimer: IANAL; I am an ignorant Slashdot reader, and not even American.)
When the resolution is set to 60Hz which is the lowest, the screen flickers. That is a fact.
I know. BTW, you think that's bad? The first computer I used was a ZX81 (Timex/Sinclair 1000 with 1K) attached to a PAL TV. Which has a 50Hz refresh rate... and black-on-white text.
If what you say is true, this explains why my eyes are fucked. OTOH, it could be that all the exercise makes your eye muscles stronger, like going down to the gym.
"Yeah, I *did* know that my display can go higher than 60Hz; I'm giving my eyes a workout. I'm doing a drop-set. When they can't take 60Hz any longer, I'll turn it up to 65Hz, then 72Hz... See that guy over there with the black-and-white TV with no vertical hold and bottleful of protein shake? He's the Mr.Universe of the eyeball world. I swear it's true."
it would not print the letter K. No amount of testing was enough to convince him that this was simply not possible.
(lots of screeching noise; something is appearing on the printer):
mr fubar, your printer is working, now fucKKKKKKK off. thank you.
fucK off FUCk off fucK Fuck fuck.
goodbye. stupid fucKer.
And all those opticians and spectacle manufacturers worldwide feel lucky too.
I know this was meant to be funny; but are you implying that low refresh rates would make anyone rush out and buy a new pair of glasses?
There have been studies showing that reading too much when growing up *can* make you short-sighted, but this relates to reading anything- books, etc- not just monitors.
I've got a web-site that is beginning to show promise as a way to get a decent amount of residual income. The sections that bring in the most revenue are the sections I havn't touched in months. So it's not something I must do constantly.
Yeah, but are you sure running a porn website with photos of yourself naked in various poses is in your long term interest?
Anyway, I think it's bad that you're getting lazy like that, so I've ripped all the images from your website and posted them to Usenet.
Yep; I'm sorry, you're going to have to take another set of photos involving "Big" Steve and a tube of KY Jelly.
EEEEEEEP Noooooooooo.... please GOD NO! I remember the LAST time I went to "the countryside" -- that big blue room with those brown pillers with... GREEN on top... and the carpet was strange!
Last time in was in "the countryside" room, they hadn't even painted the ceiling blue; it was still undercoat-grey, and the sprinkler system kept coming on and soaking me (couldn't see where it was coming from, though).
Plus; the enemy AI is abysmal. There are these creatures called "sheep" and "cows", but they're mostly unthreatening, and run some lame herding algorithm.
Damn, you'd think that it would be easy to kill them, but it seems to be against the rules of the game to have a gun- at least in the UK release. I'm going to try to get a copy of the US version for that, but I'm not sure if Amazon.com will ship it to Scotland.
Remember when preppy was "cool"? Everyone was running around in Polo and Vuarnet shirts? Then "urban" became cool and everyone started wearing their pants around their knees with their underpants showing?
Irony of ironies; as far as hip-hop, the ultimate "urban" music is concerned, the current fashionable look *is* "preppy".
No, that's called "Tyrrany of the Majority", one of those things too few people learn while growing up.
Isn't that what you end up with if you have raw democracy, without any safeguards anyway?
Sure, the people can vote those safeguards into place. Or they can decide not to; generally speaking, most democracies include laws safeguarding the individual to some extent, but if you accept the definition that it is rule on behalf of the people then.... democracy does not come with 'batteries included'.
Personally, I always understood democracy to mean the process of rule on behalf of the people; some of these definitions seem to imply otherwise, but aren't these idealistic and misled distortions of the original meaning?
Undoubtably,ASCII art at it's finest.
Bearing in mind it had colours and simple graphical blocks obviously designed for graphics, I think calling it ASCII art (since ASCII *wasn't* designed for that) is stretching it. But it was still impressive use of the facilities.
Well, up to a point...
30 years old, though? They must have been planning ahead in 1974; I mean, that was the year the Altair came out! Okay, so it was simple text decoding circuitry that would have been needed, not a full microcomputer, but bear in mind that the ZX81 (Timex/Sinclair 1000) with inferior graphics to this was still several years in the future.
f you dont like the way the Chinese organize themselvs, dont spend your money on goods made there.
That's odd; I thought the Chinese government organised themselves without asking the people of the country what they wanted.
Here's a guess; assuming that the main reason for the redesign is cost (which it probably is), I'd be interested to find out (in general) what the sales of a console are like as the price comes down.
This is only a guess, but it wouldn't surprise me if a large proportion (33% plus? *50%*?!) of a console's total sales (all versions) were made during its twilight years when it was being sold at a bargain basement price. Sure, most of those sales would be to kids (second systems?) and impulse-buying non-serious gamers, and would not merit attention from gamers and magazines focused on the latest generation systems.
But a sale's a sale; and when a console is being sold cheaply, you want to make savings in any area you can. I'd be willing to bet that there are enough PS2 sales in the pipeline to make a money-saving redesign worthwhile.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and guess that PS2 sales to date (by unit, not price) won't be anywhere near 50% of their eventual total. Okay, I make no claims to being an expert in the field of consoles; but it seems reasonable to assume that the great unwashed masses doing their afternoon shopping will keep the PS2 alive long after the 'serious' crowd have moved onto the PS3.
I doubt the same will apply to games, as the later PS2 buyers won't be willing to spend vast amounts of money when they can get older stuff cheap (making the market extremely hostile); however, as mentioned elsewhere, EA are still converting their key titles to the PS1. But, we're discussing new hardware here; not software.
To cut to what I'm trying to say: Yeah; redesign is almost certainly worthwhile. It might even be redesigned *again* in a few years time, as an ultra cheap-n'-nasty "I didn't know they still made that" category toy (probably *without* the ethernet and a lot of other stuff).
2061 was a squel of 2010,
;-)
2061 was a sequel to the 2010 *movie*? No wonder it was so disappointing...
I agree; for a long time I thought that the 2010 movie only suffered in comparison with 2001; that it was quite well made, and if you could somehow know the plot of 2001 (the movie) without having seen it, you would be quite impressed with 2010.
Having seen it again, I was less impressed. You're right; it's too Hollywood- they try too hard to add human interest, and it comes across in a cliched manner. There is noise in space. When we see (IIRC) Chandra communicating with HAL through a keyboard, it looks like something from the early-80s, because it *is*. The cold-war aspects have been ramped up from part of the plot (in the book) to cheesy levels with an annoying voice-over. The latter two particularly date the film. They didn't *try* to do the future. They did the (1984) present with added flashiness.
I've seen this on DVD quite cheaply, and wasn't tempted to buy it... the price wasn't an issue; I'm just not interested in a DVD collection full of stuff which is "not bad".
Anyway; yeah, you are right. 2010 was a really good book. Shame the film sucked.