I have an IKEA Jerker as a stand-up desk and it works "OK". I use it for music production and it's not bad, but it's not great either. One of the big downsides was my difficulty in judging if the desk was the correct height for my optimal working conditions (LCD in the right place, head straight ahead, arms and wrists resting comfortably). Unfortunately, the desk not only is a little low for me, but my the best desk height is in some limbo area between the current setting and the next higher one. Now, this is all before I tell you that the IKEA Jerker is one of the biggest PITA desks to setup or adjust period. It's really difficult for me to do it by myself and even with an extra person it's no picnic. The Hydraulic thing is almost worth it to be honest, or maybe the treadmill idea would make this worth it more. An adjustable drafting stool will definitely help (and is something I need to get) to sit or stand as needed.
A quick internet search also turned up some possible ideas like using geekdesk.com (kinda out of the price range you mentioned) and maybe using Linak lifting columns (www.linak.com)
Am I the only person who is wants to know about how the new Intel iMacs and MacBookpros implement Trusted (Treacherous) Computing and other "security" measures? I really would like to know if I have the option to turn trusted computing features off in the BIOS (or EFI) and I was hoping Ars would be able to tell me. I'm really pretty surprised Ars didn't mention much about trusted computing when it seems as something of a hot-topic with the new Intel-based Macs.
Let me preface my comment by saying I haven't read the article (because I'm in a place that does not allow me access).
But a lot of people are mentioning the Oscars as if they're some sort of award that isn't affected by marketing and what have you. Truth be known, it's actually quite the opposite. The winners of each year's Oscars are very much advertising influenced. Advertising of nominated movies is increased around Oscar time so the voters' choice of winners can be influenced. Here is a link to an article that talks about the Oscar campaigns for two of the more popular movies of recent times, Shakespeare in Love and Saving Private Ryan. The story shows some of the lengths studios will go to in order to have an Oscar winner. It's rather ridiculous to think that in this day and age, anything in the public eye isn't influenced by advertising and marketing.
Now for something completely different:
I'm a big music hound. I love music. I love "good" music. I love music that gives is innovative and inventive sonically and in their meaning. Now, I'm 24, by no means am I "all grown up." But even at my relatively young age, I've had my musical taste and attitudes have changed numerous times. Individuals' opinions and likes/dislikes evolve and morph over time along with their maturity. I would argue that TRL and Top 40 music relates more to a certain level of maturity in our society. Personally, more than anything else, this level of maturity seems to be one of confused-adolescence, with lots of strutting for dominance and muddy emotions. But, could ONLY teens push a song into the Top40? I don't think so. I think it will take listeners of all ages to push a song to such a high level of popularity. Like a Jerry Bruckheimer film, maybe it's easier not to get emotionally involved in the art and quickly process the aural lard that is given to us by 50 cent, Hoobastank, Creed, Nickelback. However, I'm not saying that this type of emotionally-vacant music is bad. Hell I often listen to Freezepop which is great music but requires much less from my mind than say Led Zeppelin. I just think Top 40 is less emotionally involving music and while appealing on some level, like a Big Mac, it isn't something that you can sustain yourself with for very long.
Are you kidding? IP doesn't necessarily benefit the world population but people aren't trying to constantly better the world. I'd venture to say that a majority of the people on this earth have prioritized themselves before society. Consequently, people want to gain something for themselves (money, etc.) from what they make/do/come-up-with. If you want a clear cut example of this, just look at pharmaceutical companies and their products. Drug companies spend billions of dollars researching their products and various drugs, but do you see them helping society and giving away their aids, cancer, etc treatments to all those who need it in 3rd world countries? I haven't heard of any drug companies doing this recently. From what I've found, drug companies seem to generally be more concerned with how to get the most money out of these poor countires/people than to effectively heal them.
Now, mind you, I'm no fan of the MPAA or the RIAA, but I'm not about to say that (most) IP laws are to blame...I'll support artists and their IP but I won't support the ridicoulous legal intimidation tactics of the MPAA and RIAA.
Why not just use these wonderful Master Replicas lightsabers. These lightsabers glow, make sound FX and they are made of a durable plastic that allows for play-combat. I've seen them in person and the replica lightsabers are pretty cool. Although I'd be wary of too many battles with them as I have heard of them breaking from time to time. But it's still a hell of a lot cheaper and better than treatment at the burn unit.
I'm sorry for your experience but I disagree completely. When I first took apart my parents' Pentium 60 WAAAY back in the day, I definitely didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. However, after taking the thing apart, trying to find out how to put it back together, and then having to give up and admit defeat. I was motivated by my defeat to find out how the hell you DO put a computer back together properly. As a result, today I can definitely put a computer together with quite a bit of ease. Therefore, I suggest a different moral:
Try to make your own arcade machine, just be sure you're prepared for both the best and worst case scenarios.
What in the world is wrong with these people? I think that there is no need or reason for the MPAA to become a member of Internet2 at all. The Internet2 connects schools and learning institutions such that science and technology can be furthered using the wealth of bandwidth the Internet2 provides. The MPAA doesn't want to contribute as far as advancing technology and science they just want to snoop. Therefore, I feel they really shouldn't be members.
Isn't there a way that they can get some sort of search warrant to get temporary access to the Internet2? I really think that something/someone needs to force the MPAA and RIAA to better define their evidence for how much they say people are downloading. Furthermore, I feel that a long-term solution to piracy other than their constant "snoop and sue" technique. It's just like the stupid money in an air-booth carnival game; the more you try and grab and hold on to all the dollar-bills flying by, the more slip out of your fingers.
I feel nothing is really being accomplished through what the MPAA and RIAA are doing. I still don't understand how movie and recording studios use P2P download data for their marketing campaigns and then hypocritically sue everyone in sight afterwards.
MPAA & RIAA: Either be FOR it or AGAINST it, there is a conflict of interest in being both.
Not to mention the simple fact that the vast majority of people in the entertainment industry aren't paid very much at all. This leads to quite a bit of piracy occurring in the entertainment industry itself. I know I saw enough of it during my time in Hollywood.
This just does not seem like a good idea. So they're telling me that a Prius takes up as much space on the road as a freaking Hummer?! The Hummer is gargantuan compared to the Toyota (?) hybrid. If their argument is that the Hummer and the Prius both cause the same amount of wear on a road, I find that to be very thin. Are they considering vehicle weight a factor in regards to how much wear a vehicle induces on the roads? If weight is indeed important here (which I think it is) then I think they had the right idea by taxing the semi-trucking companies and other companies that use the roads. However I feel they should tax the companies using the roads first before the individual drivers.
By the way isn't there a way they could just work this into a toll or something. If you've been driving for X miles on the road you pay a couple of dollars or something at the toll. Because the way it sounds, every time I fill up I'll get taxed a certain percentage based on how much I've been driving. If my gas mileage isn't all that great I have to pay more than if my gas mileage was that of a hybrid.
I just feel too little thought went into this before it's proposed.
I am quite familiar with downloading mp3s and I've found that there are quite a few downsides to downloading vs. purchasing in today's market.
1) Quality: The quality of mp3s one is downloading are at times quite suspect. I don't know about anyone else, but I can certainly tell the difference between 128kbps, 192kbs and 256kbps without too much difficulty and I tend to want better quality (who doesn't?).
2) Organization: Organizing anything over like I'd say 1000 mp3s gets to be a monumental task if you let it go to hell. In addition it doesn't help that everyone under the sun has different naming conventions and what not for all of their mp3s. Sure there are utilities out there to help organize mp3s, but I haven't found anything that really comes close to doing a good job of finding exact song duplicates (I mean EXACT duplicates where I can choose the better quality song I have over the crappier quality one) as well as cleanly renaming huge batches of songs without problem. It also becomes a big pain to try and search through all of your songs to find what you're looking for when your songs have different naming conventions.
3) Translation to Different Media: I feel that the issue here is just a matter of data-loss. In the end when all is said and done 99% of compression algorithms lead to some element of data loss. When you go to burn mp3s to a cd or what have you, you're most likely play a song that has the cutoffs to its frequency spectrum within the audible range. Consequently the quality (once again) will suffer and you're going to hear things like an annoying low buzz on those awesome speakers you just got because the song's low end frequencies are cut short.
4) Taking it with you?: Transferring through upgrades and what have you, or even backing up this type of data is such a pain in the ass. I can't tell you how big of a pain it is when windows can't even classify how many freaking songs you have. How do you backup even 90,000 songs reliably and hopefully cheaply? Even DVDs you burn aren't going to last as long as your parents' vinyl records have, so in 10 years when you try to find that hit from 2001 you're going to be hit with disc rot anyway! So what's the point of amassing such an incredible collection only to have it vanish into nothingness as you get older? Also, purchased cd's have an extra layer of scratch protective coating that, while not as good as many would like, is worlds better than having burned CDRS that have no scratch protection.
5) Do you really listen to all of them?:
I've noticed recently I'm thinking more and more of just getting rid of 99% of my mp3s and almost starting over with iTunes and what have you. Because if I purchase music most likely it'll be music I really want to listen to. Frankly, I only really download music to check out a CD to see if I want to plop down money for ALL of the songs (not just the single). Therefore, those mp3s I download, that I like just enough to not delete immediately, start to take up tons of hard-drive space needlessly. I think it's just a waste to keep mp3s you aren't really listening to nor ever plan on really playing again. Now, you do have these people who are out to save the music history of the world given a catastrophe. These people are nuts. There is no way in God's green earth that any consumer will viably be able to download that magnitude of achievable quality music and store it reliably as well. It's just a stupid excuse to keep downloading mp3s when there's already projects well established projects for doing so!
In the end I feel that it's silly to fight music or movie pirating, because frankly the only music or movies that are genuinely hurt are the crappy ones. Just look at the numbers, Finding Nemo grossed $339,666,356, Alicia Keys' first album sold over 7 million copies world-wide. Granted these are only two examples but there are many more. I submit that peopl
I don't have a great deal of knowledge as to what "pro-audio" applications are already available for Linux. But if this package could be a comparable replacement to Pro-Tools (TM) (the standard program and hardware used by the majority of the audio community) then it could be an unbelievable boon to much of the music and audio community.
The availability of professional software programs, such as Wired, which level the financial playing field and grant all users the tools to create at a professional caliber is one of the reasons I love the open source community. I am overjoyed that one may not need thousands of dollars to be able to produce professional quality sound and I feel making the tools available to the broadest population allows for the most innovation and creativity.
Just my 2 pennies
My freshman year at my university I was one of a small group of people who got Half-Life and Counter-Strike started on campus. Let me tell you there was QUITE a bit of competitive play at the expense of school work. I have no doubt it my mind that more than a fair share of the hardcore players failed out and/or switched majors. We had a good number of players and clans just on campus. I happened to be running one of two main CS servers at the time and thought it might be cool to have statistics (I used AEStats) to see how good players' skills were and to keep people from talking so much garbage without backing anything up. Statistics totally changed how the game of CS was played from that point on. No longer were the hostages or what-have-you the main point but better stats were the overwhelming objective that players tried to achieve. I remember players using only one gun to try and get to the top with that weapon, players quitting servers after dying once because they didn't want to damage their stats, players using multiple different names (this was before keeping names associated by IP) so that their stats wouldn't be harmed, and there were some cheaters. People became manically obsessive over the statistics. Now that they had "evidence" people argued MORE and there was animocity within the community. Many of the original players who started playing CS and HL at the school thought stats started taking the fun out of the game. I certainly thought the game changed quite a bit and wasn't nearly as much fun with the statistics. Stats directly or indireclty didn't encourage new players to really join. Hell my roommate didn't even play on the servers because he constantly said he "wasn't good enough." I think stats would be good to be kept for the individual player but on a server-wide basis I think it takes a lot of the fun out of the game. By putting a definate number of everything it quantifies the game to a point where I think the experience gets sacrificed. It's no longer about going in with your team to defeat an enemy, it's about your own stats and how you could keep/better them at whatever costs.
Just my 2 pennies.
I remember watching a documentary or two about autism and something that was repeatedly found was that as an autistic individual tried to remedy their problems with autism (usually getting better with age) their savant like knowledge began to deteriorate. I have always thought that there is almost a finite amount of brain capacity any one individual is able to have. Meaning, while a savant is able to have incredible knowledge of some things, their brain is so devoted to that knowledge that things, like knowing where the silverwear drawer is, get sacrificed. Specifically, I think that the autistic savant's brain begins to lose the amount of speicfic knowledge in their savant areas as they are adapting to a more social lifestyle and expanding the functionality of their brain.
(Others have pointed out that Kim doesn't lack the social skills to be considered classically autistic. However I feel that this explaination may still be able to apply to some degree.)
Helping people is, I think, one of the best uses of the slashdot community. That being said...
Here are some (hopefully) helpful resources:
American Printing House for the Blind:
They're a great resource of learning materials for the blind. (You should try and see if the school can (or maybe should) pay for these materials)
If you have a legal copy of windows XP you can find out what the key on your machine is by using the "keyfinder" utility found at: http://www.magicaljellybean.com/
Spammers have often used an "unsubscribe" link or something similar only to verify your email address and send you more spam. While not the same as triggering an exploit, I've been under the impression that spammers have taken advantage of users with an "opt out" type of link in this way for quite a while now.
Well, as some others who have posted, I participated in Beta 3 also. I had been looking forward to Star Wars Galaxies for quite some time now and couldn't wait to get into it. After playing for about a day or two I found SWG to lack in overall depth and to be extremely similar to Everquest (another SCEA MMORPG for those of you who somehow don't know;) ). All I was able to do was run around and shoot small bunnies or flies only once did I see anyone shoot something bigger than a bug (or furry animal) and it was taken down somehow with one shot. The best thign about the game that I have found thus far is the ability to pick the skills a player would like to see their character have, rather than being confined to a specific set of skills if you picked a class in say EQ. Unfortuantely, any other novel things in the game held little interest after a day or two of playing. It'll be interesting to see how the implementation of Jedi affects the overall gameplay experience, but I don't see it being enough of an improvement to warrent buying SWG immediately. Essentially it seems that the game was made for the Star Wars fan and not the gamer in mind. For the fan you've got tons of beautiful graphics, and the Star Wars creatures, etc. (not to mention jedi), but for the gamer there really isn't all that much to do. Even the randomly generated quests (which is somewhat of a touted feature) seemed to give mostly mundane quests (it's possible I could be wrong here just because I haven't tried out TONS of the generated quests) . In the end I'll probably be waiting for a few months so they can iron out all the kinks before I purchase SWG, and I suggest people who want to really experience it to do the same.
On another note, I'm seriously starting to question the motives of SCEA at the moment. It would be dumb to think that Sony wasn't trying to make oodles of money, but at what cost? Do they really care so little about the users that their willing to put out a (very) buggy game while actually raising the staple MMORPG monthly price? I think at their current pricing, if I wasn't satisfied with the game (which I wouldn't if I bought it today) I would probably contact the Better Business Bureau and figure something out. A question I'd like to also ask my fellow Slashdotters would be, what are the more in depth and fun MMORPG's out there to play? I've played EQ and some Dark Ages of Camelot and the latter seems to have the most depth of any RPG right now. But, I don't know if I have unrealistic expectations but I just don't want to have to be sitting just pressing 1 button constantly like in EQ and I don't want to be killing small rodents forever. Essentially I guess I'm looking for something close to Dialbo II when it comes to MMORPG's, hence I guess I'll wait to see what World of Warcraft is like.
If it is true that Adobe is going to support the PC over the Mac in the future, does anyone else wonder if this is in relation to piracy issues that Adobe has had in past (they've had a lot of trouble with China)? Specifically, I wonder if they would be supporting the PC/Windows market because of the promised "increased security" of Palladium.
However, I'm not sure if there is a larger amount of software piracy done with Mac software compared to PC/Windows software. My intstincts tell me that there is more piracy done with respect to PC/Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
I have an IKEA Jerker as a stand-up desk and it works "OK". I use it for music production and it's not bad, but it's not great either. One of the big downsides was my difficulty in judging if the desk was the correct height for my optimal working conditions (LCD in the right place, head straight ahead, arms and wrists resting comfortably). Unfortunately, the desk not only is a little low for me, but my the best desk height is in some limbo area between the current setting and the next higher one. Now, this is all before I tell you that the IKEA Jerker is one of the biggest PITA desks to setup or adjust period. It's really difficult for me to do it by myself and even with an extra person it's no picnic. The Hydraulic thing is almost worth it to be honest, or maybe the treadmill idea would make this worth it more. An adjustable drafting stool will definitely help (and is something I need to get) to sit or stand as needed. A quick internet search also turned up some possible ideas like using geekdesk.com (kinda out of the price range you mentioned) and maybe using Linak lifting columns (www.linak.com)
Am I the only person who is wants to know about how the new Intel iMacs and MacBookpros implement Trusted (Treacherous) Computing and other "security" measures? I really would like to know if I have the option to turn trusted computing features off in the BIOS (or EFI) and I was hoping Ars would be able to tell me. I'm really pretty surprised Ars didn't mention much about trusted computing when it seems as something of a hot-topic with the new Intel-based Macs.
Good lord! Sorry about the writing mistakes, I swear I read this before I posted it!
Let me preface my comment by saying I haven't read the article (because I'm in a place that does not allow me access). But a lot of people are mentioning the Oscars as if they're some sort of award that isn't affected by marketing and what have you. Truth be known, it's actually quite the opposite. The winners of each year's Oscars are very much advertising influenced. Advertising of nominated movies is increased around Oscar time so the voters' choice of winners can be influenced. Here is a link to an article that talks about the Oscar campaigns for two of the more popular movies of recent times, Shakespeare in Love and Saving Private Ryan. The story shows some of the lengths studios will go to in order to have an Oscar winner. It's rather ridiculous to think that in this day and age, anything in the public eye isn't influenced by advertising and marketing.
Now for something completely different:
I'm a big music hound. I love music. I love "good" music. I love music that gives is innovative and inventive sonically and in their meaning. Now, I'm 24, by no means am I "all grown up." But even at my relatively young age, I've had my musical taste and attitudes have changed numerous times. Individuals' opinions and likes/dislikes evolve and morph over time along with their maturity. I would argue that TRL and Top 40 music relates more to a certain level of maturity in our society. Personally, more than anything else, this level of maturity seems to be one of confused-adolescence, with lots of strutting for dominance and muddy emotions. But, could ONLY teens push a song into the Top40? I don't think so. I think it will take listeners of all ages to push a song to such a high level of popularity. Like a Jerry Bruckheimer film, maybe it's easier not to get emotionally involved in the art and quickly process the aural lard that is given to us by 50 cent, Hoobastank, Creed, Nickelback. However, I'm not saying that this type of emotionally-vacant music is bad. Hell I often listen to Freezepop which is great music but requires much less from my mind than say Led Zeppelin. I just think Top 40 is less emotionally involving music and while appealing on some level, like a Big Mac, it isn't something that you can sustain yourself with for very long.
Now just for reference:
Some Music I like:
Juno Reactor
Hero Soundtrack
The Corrs
Coldplay
Outkast
Are you kidding? IP doesn't necessarily benefit the world population but people aren't trying to constantly better the world. I'd venture to say that a majority of the people on this earth have prioritized themselves before society. Consequently, people want to gain something for themselves (money, etc.) from what they make/do/come-up-with. If you want a clear cut example of this, just look at pharmaceutical companies and their products. Drug companies spend billions of dollars researching their products and various drugs, but do you see them helping society and giving away their aids, cancer, etc treatments to all those who need it in 3rd world countries? I haven't heard of any drug companies doing this recently. From what I've found, drug companies seem to generally be more concerned with how to get the most money out of these poor countires/people than to effectively heal them.
Now, mind you, I'm no fan of the MPAA or the RIAA, but I'm not about to say that (most) IP laws are to blame...I'll support artists and their IP but I won't support the ridicoulous legal intimidation tactics of the MPAA and RIAA.
Just my two pennies.
Why not just use these wonderful Master Replicas lightsabers. These lightsabers glow, make sound FX and they are made of a durable plastic that allows for play-combat. I've seen them in person and the replica lightsabers are pretty cool. Although I'd be wary of too many battles with them as I have heard of them breaking from time to time. But it's still a hell of a lot cheaper and better than treatment at the burn unit.
Yes, The Whale's Vagina has once again steered clear from any and all harm! Just as long as California doesn't split off from the U.S. anytime soon...
I'm sorry for your experience but I disagree completely. When I first took apart my parents' Pentium 60 WAAAY back in the day, I definitely didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. However, after taking the thing apart, trying to find out how to put it back together, and then having to give up and admit defeat. I was motivated by my defeat to find out how the hell you DO put a computer back together properly. As a result, today I can definitely put a computer together with quite a bit of ease. Therefore, I suggest a different moral:
Try to make your own arcade machine, just be sure you're prepared for both the best and worst case
scenarios.
What in the world is wrong with these people? I think that there is no need or reason for the MPAA to become a member of Internet2 at all. The Internet2 connects schools and learning institutions such that science and technology can be furthered using the wealth of bandwidth the Internet2 provides. The MPAA doesn't want to contribute as far as advancing technology and science they just want to snoop. Therefore, I feel they really shouldn't be members.
Isn't there a way that they can get some sort of search warrant to get temporary access to the Internet2? I really think that something/someone needs to force the MPAA and RIAA to better define their evidence for how much they say people are downloading. Furthermore, I feel that a long-term solution to piracy other than their constant "snoop and sue" technique. It's just like the stupid money in an air-booth carnival game; the more you try and grab and hold on to all the dollar-bills flying by, the more slip out of your fingers.
I feel nothing is really being accomplished through what the MPAA and RIAA are doing. I still don't understand how movie and recording studios use P2P download data for their marketing campaigns and then hypocritically sue everyone in sight afterwards.
MPAA & RIAA: Either be FOR it or AGAINST it, there is a conflict of interest in being both.
Not to mention the simple fact that the vast majority of people in the entertainment industry aren't paid very much at all. This leads to quite a bit of piracy occurring in the entertainment industry itself. I know I saw enough of it during my time in Hollywood.
This just does not seem like a good idea. So they're telling me that a Prius takes up as much space on the road as a freaking Hummer?! The Hummer is gargantuan compared to the Toyota (?) hybrid. If their argument is that the Hummer and the Prius both cause the same amount of wear on a road, I find that to be very thin. Are they considering vehicle weight a factor in regards to how much wear a vehicle induces on the roads? If weight is indeed important here (which I think it is) then I think they had the right idea by taxing the semi-trucking companies and other companies that use the roads. However I feel they should tax the companies using the roads first before the individual drivers.
By the way isn't there a way they could just work this into a toll or something. If you've been driving for X miles on the road you pay a couple of dollars or something at the toll. Because the way it sounds, every time I fill up I'll get taxed a certain percentage based on how much I've been driving. If my gas mileage isn't all that great I have to pay more than if my gas mileage was that of a hybrid.
I just feel too little thought went into this before it's proposed.
I am quite familiar with downloading mp3s and I've found that there are quite a few downsides to downloading vs. purchasing in today's market.
1) Quality:
The quality of mp3s one is downloading are at times quite suspect. I don't know about anyone else, but I can certainly tell the difference between 128kbps, 192kbs and 256kbps without too much difficulty and I tend to want better quality (who doesn't?).
2) Organization:
Organizing anything over like I'd say 1000 mp3s gets to be a monumental task if you let it go to hell. In addition it doesn't help that everyone under the sun has different naming conventions and what not for all of their mp3s. Sure there are utilities out there to help organize mp3s, but I haven't found anything that really comes close to doing a good job of finding exact song duplicates (I mean EXACT duplicates where I can choose the better quality song I have over the crappier quality one) as well as cleanly renaming huge batches of songs without problem. It also becomes a big pain to try and search through all of your songs to find what you're looking for when your songs have different naming conventions.
3) Translation to Different Media:
I feel that the issue here is just a matter of data-loss. In the end when all is said and done 99% of compression algorithms lead to some element of data loss. When you go to burn mp3s to a cd or what have you, you're most likely play a song that has the cutoffs to its frequency spectrum within the audible range. Consequently the quality (once again) will suffer and you're going to hear things like an annoying low buzz on those awesome speakers you just got because the song's low end frequencies are cut short.
4) Taking it with you?:
Transferring through upgrades and what have you, or even backing up this type of data is such a pain in the ass. I can't tell you how big of a pain it is when windows can't even classify how many freaking songs you have. How do you backup even 90,000 songs reliably and hopefully cheaply? Even DVDs you burn aren't going to last as long as your parents' vinyl records have, so in 10 years when you try to find that hit from 2001 you're going to be hit with disc rot anyway! So what's the point of amassing such an incredible collection only to have it vanish into nothingness as you get older? Also, purchased cd's have an extra layer of scratch protective coating that, while not as good as many would like, is worlds better than having burned CDRS that have no scratch protection.
5) Do you really listen to all of them?:
I've noticed recently I'm thinking more and more of just getting rid of 99% of my mp3s and almost starting over with iTunes and what have you. Because if I purchase music most likely it'll be music I really want to listen to. Frankly, I only really download music to check out a CD to see if I want to plop down money for ALL of the songs (not just the single). Therefore, those mp3s I download, that I like just enough to not delete immediately, start to take up tons of hard-drive space needlessly. I think it's just a waste to keep mp3s you aren't really listening to nor ever plan on really playing again. Now, you do have these people who are out to save the music history of the world given a catastrophe. These people are nuts. There is no way in God's green earth that any consumer will viably be able to download that magnitude of achievable quality music and store it reliably as well. It's just a stupid excuse to keep downloading mp3s when there's already projects well established projects for doing so!
In the end I feel that it's silly to fight music or movie pirating, because frankly the only music or movies that are genuinely hurt are the crappy ones. Just look at the numbers, Finding Nemo grossed $339,666,356, Alicia Keys' first album sold over 7 million copies world-wide. Granted these are only two examples but there are many more. I submit that peopl
I don't have a great deal of knowledge as to what "pro-audio" applications are already available for Linux. But if this package could be a comparable replacement to Pro-Tools (TM) (the standard program and hardware used by the majority of the audio community) then it could be an unbelievable boon to much of the music and audio community. The availability of professional software programs, such as Wired, which level the financial playing field and grant all users the tools to create at a professional caliber is one of the reasons I love the open source community. I am overjoyed that one may not need thousands of dollars to be able to produce professional quality sound and I feel making the tools available to the broadest population allows for the most innovation and creativity.
Just my 2 pennies
My freshman year at my university I was one of a small group of people who got Half-Life and Counter-Strike started on campus. Let me tell you there was QUITE a bit of competitive play at the expense of school work. I have no doubt it my mind that more than a fair share of the hardcore players failed out and/or switched majors. We had a good number of players and clans just on campus. I happened to be running one of two main CS servers at the time and thought it might be cool to have statistics (I used AEStats) to see how good players' skills were and to keep people from talking so much garbage without backing anything up. Statistics totally changed how the game of CS was played from that point on. No longer were the hostages or what-have-you the main point but better stats were the overwhelming objective that players tried to achieve. I remember players using only one gun to try and get to the top with that weapon, players quitting servers after dying once because they didn't want to damage their stats, players using multiple different names (this was before keeping names associated by IP) so that their stats wouldn't be harmed, and there were some cheaters. People became manically obsessive over the statistics. Now that they had "evidence" people argued MORE and there was animocity within the community. Many of the original players who started playing CS and HL at the school thought stats started taking the fun out of the game. I certainly thought the game changed quite a bit and wasn't nearly as much fun with the statistics. Stats directly or indireclty didn't encourage new players to really join. Hell my roommate didn't even play on the servers because he constantly said he "wasn't good enough." I think stats would be good to be kept for the individual player but on a server-wide basis I think it takes a lot of the fun out of the game. By putting a definate number of everything it quantifies the game to a point where I think the experience gets sacrificed. It's no longer about going in with your team to defeat an enemy, it's about your own stats and how you could keep/better them at whatever costs. Just my 2 pennies.
I remember watching a documentary or two about autism and something that was repeatedly found was that as an autistic individual tried to remedy their problems with autism (usually getting better with age) their savant like knowledge began to deteriorate. I have always thought that there is almost a finite amount of brain capacity any one individual is able to have. Meaning, while a savant is able to have incredible knowledge of some things, their brain is so devoted to that knowledge that things, like knowing where the silverwear drawer is, get sacrificed. Specifically, I think that the autistic savant's brain begins to lose the amount of speicfic knowledge in their savant areas as they are adapting to a more social lifestyle and expanding the functionality of their brain. (Others have pointed out that Kim doesn't lack the social skills to be considered classically autistic. However I feel that this explaination may still be able to apply to some degree.)
You're right....
;)
Only when someone starts to display incredible knowledge of potent potables will Mr. Jennings have to really worry.
Helping people is, I think, one of the best uses of the slashdot community. That being said...
Here are some (hopefully) helpful resources:
American Printing House for the Blind:
They're a great resource of learning materials for the blind. (You should try and see if the school can (or maybe should) pay for these materials)
APH geography learning materials
Royal National Institute for the Blind (UK)
The RNIB looks like a good resource and charity in the UK for the blind as well.
This article in the 4th issue of their Curriculum Close-Up magazine dealing with learning geography for the blind might help as well.
Article
I hope this helps and I wish you and them the best of luck!
Hey bud, I certainly feel for you....
If you have a legal copy of windows XP you can find out what the key on your machine is by using the "keyfinder" utility found at:
http://www.magicaljellybean.com/
Spammers have often used an "unsubscribe" link or something similar only to verify your email address and send you more spam. While not the same as triggering an exploit, I've been under the impression that spammers have taken advantage of users with an "opt out" type of link in this way for quite a while now.
Well, as some others who have posted, I participated in Beta 3 also. I had been looking forward to Star Wars Galaxies for quite some time now and couldn't wait to get into it. After playing for about a day or two I found SWG to lack in overall depth and to be extremely similar to Everquest (another SCEA MMORPG for those of you who somehow don't know ;) ). All I was able to do was run around and shoot small bunnies or flies only once did I see anyone shoot something bigger than a bug (or furry animal) and it was taken down somehow with one shot. The best thign about the game that I have found thus far is the ability to pick the skills a player would like to see their character have, rather than being confined to a specific set of skills if you picked a class in say EQ. Unfortuantely, any other novel things in the game held little interest after a day or two of playing. It'll be interesting to see how the implementation of Jedi affects the overall gameplay experience, but I don't see it being enough of an improvement to warrent buying SWG immediately. Essentially it seems that the game was made for the Star Wars fan and not the gamer in mind. For the fan you've got tons of beautiful graphics, and the Star Wars creatures, etc. (not to mention jedi), but for the gamer there really isn't all that much to do. Even the randomly generated quests (which is somewhat of a touted feature) seemed to give mostly mundane quests (it's possible I could be wrong here just because I haven't tried out TONS of the generated quests) . In the end I'll probably be waiting for a few months so they can iron out all the kinks before I purchase SWG, and I suggest people who want to really experience it to do the same.
On another note, I'm seriously starting to question the motives of SCEA at the moment. It would be dumb to think that Sony wasn't trying to make oodles of money, but at what cost? Do they really care so little about the users that their willing to put out a (very) buggy game while actually raising the staple MMORPG monthly price? I think at their current pricing, if I wasn't satisfied with the game (which I wouldn't if I bought it today) I would probably contact the Better Business Bureau and figure something out. A question I'd like to also ask my fellow Slashdotters would be, what are the more in depth and fun MMORPG's out there to play? I've played EQ and some Dark Ages of Camelot and the latter seems to have the most depth of any RPG right now. But, I don't know if I have unrealistic expectations but I just don't want to have to be sitting just pressing 1 button constantly like in EQ and I don't want to be killing small rodents forever. Essentially I guess I'm looking for something close to Dialbo II when it comes to MMORPG's, hence I guess I'll wait to see what World of Warcraft is like.
If it is true that Adobe is going to support the PC over the Mac in the future, does anyone else wonder if this is in relation to piracy issues that Adobe has had in past (they've had a lot of trouble with China)? Specifically, I wonder if they would be supporting the PC/Windows market because of the promised "increased security" of Palladium. However, I'm not sure if there is a larger amount of software piracy done with Mac software compared to PC/Windows software. My intstincts tell me that there is more piracy done with respect to PC/Windows.