I feel your pain when it comes to cheapo cards...anyone who's all that "creative" knows to pick a better brand. I myself do not own a 24/96 card at the moment, though I'm looking into getting an echo audio Mia MIDI as it's 24/96, has linux support, and a hardware mixer of sorts...
what comes to mind from this is that analog distortion is "better" than digital distortion. I'm reminded of the whole vinyl vs cd thing all over again....though that argument is slightly different, and I tend not to side with vinyls, even though they do sound nice, it's more like an effect. And in that aspect, it is similar to this, the analog effect of which you speak.
The difference between tape and digital is a lot different than say, comparing tape and vinyl. Tape doesn't have to go through equalization just to overcome the inability of the medium to reproduce certain frequencies. However, frequency response is an issue when comparing digital and analog, and I'm sure anything digital that is lacking in this aspect is probably going to be made up sooner or later, plus the fact that I doubt much audio equipment can even reproduce the frequencies which digital lacks...
The real problem is distortion to begin with, none of it would be optimal. And I'm sure something like digital emulation of analog distortion may exist, or could be created, but it's somewhat beating around the bush. As the other poster said, it seems it'd make more sense not to overdrive to begin with, then you could apply any effect you wanted to get the sound that is desired.
Another inherit problem of analog tape is that over time, it loses quality, while digital as I stated could most likely be converted to any number of formats, not limited to tape, thus eliminating this problem. I suppose it's a matter of weighing the pros and cons...
I have my doubts that digital tape will disappear, afterall vinyls are still around, and by current standards they're pretty dated. You can bet it'll stick if you've got rich audiophile studio owners who want the stuff...
There's also the matter of placebo. There's people who spend 3 grand on simple power cables, or $500 for a digital audio cable, all in the name of audiophilia.
I personally think digital is the way to go, but also has a long way to go. The audio workstation could very well be the recording studio of the future, but things like interference simply from other components in the case are problems which most current generation cards don't even deal with, so there's definitely a lot of room for improvement. Maybe with PCI express and all it's extra bandwidth we'll see some pretty impressive stuff...
one of my friends is a huge analog fan when it comes to his music making, all analog equipment, especially when it comes to sound processing and such, and he refuses to use computers in the process, but even he now uses a hard drive based 16-track recorder with a cd writer in it...previously he used a 4-track analog tape recorder.
analog can be of high quality, particularly when it comes to balanced signals and such for all your inputs...but analog reel to reel? I can definitely see why that's going.
First you got digital tape, of course DAT would be the most well known (at least it's the one I know) and while I doubt it can fill all the niches (particularly when it comes to multi-track recording) it can fill many.
That's not to mention a 24bit/96khz sound card can be had for mighty cheap these days...of course if you need one with 10 inputs it'll cost a bit more. This kind of technology can probably fill much of the demand for multi-track reel to reel recording...still change is never easy, especially when you're talking about hundreds of recording studios who probably use the stuff still...
I wouldn't be surprised if much of the cost of the upgrade would be negated by the fact you don't have to spend cash on tape all the time. Plus once it's in a digital format you can literally put it on anything, CD, DVD, tape, raid array, what not, and not have to worry about loss...of course this is assuming you're writing it on there uncompressed, or losslessly compressed.
"Sanford Wallace and his companies, SmartBot.net Inc. of Richboro, Pa."
WTF! That's where I used to live! I can't believe that. Now I'm sure it's possible there's another richboro in PA but I doubt it....damn that's messed up. I never heard of his company though.
Well I'd have to say I was probably 2 or 3, my dad used to just sit me down at the computer and let me play games and such. We had DOS and this little menu program which you could use to select programs so even for a little kid it wasn't too hard to understand. I got my first computer around 7 or 8 which was a 386 but soon after someone decided to stick a CD into the 5.25" drive and essentially rendered it useless and then I got a 486 33mhz. That was probably my first computer which got some real use, playing games of course.
After that I had a 200mhz MMX PPro, a 333mhz PII, a 700mhz (later upgraded to 800mhz after some overclocking-related-accidents) and then after a lightning strike I got a dual 733mhz. That is the computer which I first put linux on and learned the most, I was around 13 or 14 at the time.
I'm 18 now so this wasn't exactly decades ago or anything, but it was my start. I spent most of my earlier years on games, but always wanted to learn more, and so I did. Who knows what the future beholds...
Don't use windows media. If I search on a P2P program and the only result I get is a windows media file, it's probably the wrong thing anyway. I almost always download MP3s. I'm guessing this is talking about polluting WMA's in particular since putting 600mb faulty WMV files would probably be a bit easier to detect, especially if you're like me and check on things when they download. Plus, in my experience, I see WMV more than WMA. So just avoid windows media files and you're safe...for now.
being a regular viewer of candle power forums and such I've actually seen this before a while ago, as well as the laser's original manufacturer, which is here: http://www.cnilaser.com/_private/ep_pgl3.htm
remember while this laser is a lot more powerful than a regular laser pointer it's a far cry from what a laser that's truly powerful can do. 190mW compared to a 20W Co2 laser (which is on the low side for CO2 Laser power) and the difference is quite substantial. Sure you could blind someone, but you certainly aren't going to be using it like some kind of stun gun or what not. I don't even think a Co2 laser would work that well for that.
"Hey mister, stand still! I'm trying to burn you here!"
if you wanted to do some real damage with something you could actually carry around, check this site out:
I admit I was a tiny bit off topic with the advertising tactics comment. It really is something I dislike very much about apple, and it's specifically their tv commercials and exaggeration of their products, particularly in ways which promote some kind of elitist attitude. Those "Switch" commericals were full of that crap, the new iPod U2 commercials are just annoying. I can remember in the past they used to have these whacky photoshop benchmarks as proof that their G4 or whatever it was at the time was faster than a P4 or something, and it was just the biggest load of shit I'd ever seen.
I know there are many companies that make money off open source, like red hat, but they provide services more than anything, and aren't doing what apple is doing which is indirectly making more money with proprietary products by supporting it with open source ones. I'm sure you could say redhat and other large open-source-using-companies do the same but apple is really sticking out in this situation, particularly because they're basing it around closed, proprietary software. While companies like redhat sell their "enterprise" versions all they're really selling is linux, with commercial software packages bundled with it, and service plans. It's not even close to what apple is doing, in fact it's the opposite. Free bundled with commercial vs commercial bundled with free.
Indeed they have released much of what they gave, however as I said most of it is only useful to apple folks, I do believe much of the cups improvements they have made are specifically towards getting it to integrate into apple, but this is more of a guess, I haven't actually used it. Of course you COULD implement these things on other architectures but apple won't ever help with that. I'm sure much of it is so tied in with OS X that it'd be somehwat useless anyway.
The GPL prevents people from taking code withoug giving the full source back, it tries to even out the playing field, to stop proprietary software from reeking the benefits as long as it's proprietary. I understand that some of the software on Apple's list-o-shit-we-use-in-some-way is GPL'd but more than anything how much of that have they actually given back to? They have things like grep and less on there. I mean come on. I'm basically just saying without the GPL's requirement of giving back changes, we'd be pretty screwed, so I'm thankful in that aspect.
The apple fanboys are part of the marketing though, that's the whole thing. Create a userbase which worships you and promotes your ways, like some sort of whacky mini-religion. And while this is stretching it a little bit, it's not too far from what actually happens. I've not met many apple users who didn't, though I have to admit I have met a few. The majority outweighs the minority by far though.
I'd rather not spend the money on apple products, especially since I don't have much to be tossing around, and because I don't want any of my money going towards their products. I'm quite happy with my linux desktop at the moment anyway.
wow way to take what I said vastly out of proportion.
yes I stated I disagree with corporate bullshit however the ones I personally have something against is what I was clearly talking about. I don't like apple, disney, riaa, MS, etc, so I don't buy their products. Yes I don't like giant corporations in general but that does not mean I'm boycotting all of them. Don't be ridiculous. I can say I hate everything if I please, but you'd be a fool to assume I really mean everything.
I'm not a huge fan of food corps and shit genetically modifying food or oil companies screwing such and such over and yes I don't like it, however I don't have a personal dislike for any of them, and that's because they haven't pissed me off yet. And it'd be a bit hard to stop using all of them, like you say. However there IS stuff you could do, for example hybrids or diesels when it comes to oil companies, organic foods, realistic approaches to medicine instead of the "miracle cure" most americans expect. There's solutions to most of those problems which you list which an individidual could take to try and ward of the damage that corporations have done. So not only did you take what I said out of proportion, your solutions are also.
Funny you mention SUV's, I actually have covered this topic before in something I wrote previously...
"All SUV's not being used for off-road or cargo transport are now renamed to CTV's for "Child Transport Vehicle" and are taxed for you being so stupid. Mini-vans are banned, especially pt cruisers."
I can't even explain how much I agree with you. Every time I see something on here about apple, or disney/pixar(yes I know, they're no longer together and somewhat unrelated to this,) it angers me a bit. I've been modded down quite a few times for posting things highlighting apple in a negative manner.
see for example this comment of mine from 2002, where I'm saying something very similar to you. I don't get slashdot sometimes, so quick to bash on MS but as soon as any attack on apple is made it's like you get ambushed. As if apple is some perfect company which deserves such protection in the first place.
They're on my boycott list. I see them just as bad as microsoft at this point, but then again I see most large companies in this same way. What can I say, corporate america is not my fancy. Instead of embrace and extend they kind of leech onto you like a parasite and suck your brain out while flashing pretty colors at you and talking about their latest breakthroughs in iNology. The only thing that remains is an army of apple fanboys, iPod in hand, ready for action.
All jokes aside, any company with advertising tactics such as theirs is bound to piss me off, so this isn't saying much about their products as much as it is their strategies. And that's my real beef with apple anyway, strategies that is. They are using OSS stuff for the primary intent of making money, not really to give back to us. And even though some licenses like the GPL requires changes to be given back, assuming apple actually has modified something under them and returned such changes, would they have done so without those license requirements? That's the real question. And if so, how much? It just seems like apple's help has been bare minimum and not in areas that really count. Apple will keep the kind of stuff that makes a big difference to themselves, which is what I was saying in that old comment of mine.
While I have my doubts that apple will try to banish linux from the iPod's existence, it doesn't change the fact that they don't do all that much for open source, and so far simply use it to their advantage. Improve their products for less money, and make more. Sure, sure, it's given away for free by them or what not as per license requirements or attempts to seem Less Evil but the fact is apple comes first, open source second.
As such it means they can bundle it in free with the rest of their shit as long as they give a little back. What's not given back is the value it's adding to their proprietary product as a whole. Not to mention much of the "improvements" they give back will be apple-specific and useless to us non-apple folks to begin with. Basically they're making money from it indirectly and contributing back just enough as to not violate licenses, and to boot apple's loyal fanboys will stretch the whole thing to make it seem they're one of the good guys. It's quite the scheme.
That's why I like the GPL better than BSD and LGPL and such, it prevents that kind of stuff from happening. It's been called restrictive but as you can see it's really meant to stop this kind of thing. I have to give some credit to the GNU folks, for realizing that kind of thing would happen and preparing for it ahead of time...I'd have been caught with my pants down.
Well that was quite the rant...
And so I don't like apple. And if I don't like something, I refuse to use it in any way, shape, or form. I don't like disney, so I don't watch disney movies. No difference with apple. Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned but you won't catch me going back on my word. Karma be damned.
You know everytime I start to think this country is getting better regarding this type of stuff, it's like one step forward and 20 backwards.
At this point I don't really know what the hell would stop this kind of thinking. I blame it on the fact that this country is ran mostly by people who are two generations past, and stuck in it. Try living with a grandparent who never leaves the house, you'll understand what I mean quicker than you wanted to.
Even full frontal nudity is not the worst thing in the world, it's just that people in america have this whole virgin innocense thing rammed down their throats and treat their kids more like social toys than as human beings. People are naked under clothes, people die, people do terrible things, this is life. And while most kids aren't, and have no reason to be exposed, hiding it from them isn't really any more helpful.
And if a kid is choosing to expose themselves to it, then the genie has already been let out of the bottle, hiding them from it at this point is useless, as they already know about it.
I once met a kid whose parents didn't let him watch the simpsons until he was 16. I think that was my breaking point. I asked if he thought his parents were overprotective and he went off on me. Guess I hit a soft spot.
I'm tired of this censorship bullshit in america, just as much as I'm tired of copyright bullshit. When you think of it, they're very similar. You know, prohibiting thought.
pci express is nice and all but right now I don't think there's ANY amd boards with it, and you're basically stuck with an LGA 755 board, and I believe there's a few socket 478 boards with it, but still, it's not exactly super common. I'm surprised so many cards are being released in the pci-express format, unless I'm missing something here, agp is still what most of us have.
While I don't have a tivo I have a computer running linux with dual tv tuner cards and this was one of my main incentives for wanting a second tuner. This happens a lot.
Also a lot of the time shows start early. I usually record a 30 minute long show for 32 minutes from the minute before to the minute after and haven't had a problem in ages. My first tuner is a nicer one so the second one is only used when it has to be, sadly that's quite a bit nowadays.
I'm thinking of getting a card like the PVR-350 to fix that problem though. Another thing I do a lot is record for times like 29:55 instead of 30:00 so then I can record 2 shows right after one another without conflicts. If you only leave a second or so in between two recordings it ends up failing. My tv script will kill anything accessing the v4l device then sleep for a few seconds if something is accessing it, then kill -9 if it still hasn't died, but this is for worst case scenarios.
One thing that's nice though is that a lot of channels play a set of shows twice, usually after an interval of 3-4 hours. Discovery channel and adult swim do this. This means if you have a conflicting show you can grab it at the later time, if necessary. Of course this only works in some situations.
If you have a bunch of shows in a row on a single network you can just record them all as one big recording although this is a bad idea in my case because of the 2GB avi file size limit...I usually have to break things up around 2-3 hours.
thanks for the info. After reading the parent and your post I decided to switch, and I've successfully done so.
I had no idea this even existed, but indeed the switch was quite simple. The only problem I ran into was when mounting shares as a user but this was an easy fix (had to properly chown the mount dir, oops)
I actually check his page pretty frequently for his mods. You should check out his portable NES and the vagabond atari, they're some of his smallest ones and are quite impressive. That PS2 one is not exactly pocket-sized...but still impressive none the less.
I'm sure the other LED fanatics out there will agree with me when I say...where's the beam shots!?! How can they expect us to believe em without a side by side comparison against a regular incandecent flood?
That's something I always liked about adult swim, however the rest of cartoon network was once like that too, and now they've changed it. Which is kind of pathetic, considering this means most of the shows targeted towards younger audiences now have more commercials, but not for the ones which target older audiences.
I watch much of toonami and adult swim and I was quite angry when this happened, all the toonami shows now have 3 commercials during the show and none in between yet the shows that come on right afterwards on adult swim are untouched. I have no idea what gives, but I wouldn't doubt the adult swim guys had something to do with it... I wouldn't be too surprised if adult swim eventually changed over as well, it seems nothing stops corporate greed.
You should read my reply to the other poster above in which I cover the topic of how to deal with cases that include multiple creators. The proposal isn't that copyright can only be owned by one person, it's that copyright can only be owned by it's creator, unless it's a company which is creating it, in which it should be sold as a product or service from that company, not as intellectual property. Again, my other post covers this as well...
I actually had the same exact thought, indeed who is the copyright holder in something which multiple people participated.
Once you get into any kind of joint-ownership you're basically back where you started unless you add some strict provisions. In the case of book into movie, then most likely the book would already be copyrighted by it's author, and thus, the answer to that is simple.
The actor would not be the holder, they did not come up with the idea (well unless you're kevin smith,) they simply carried it out. Same goes with the director and producer. I'm not too familiar with how writing the actual script goes and the whole process of screenwriting, but if it was written as a movie script from the start, then the writer of that would be the person. If not, then whoever wrote whatever they formed it from would be the owner. This seems complex to figure out looking at it backwards like this, but the person who initially created it would obviously know they came up with it, and copyright it accordingly. Of course if there were disputes, it could be taken to court and someone could reverse analyze it like I just did. Disputes in copyright are certainly nothing new...
Of course if one of these third parties helped innovate upon it then credit should be given to them, but isn't this the point of ending credits and such? Then there's the whole royalties issue, much of which is simply eliminated because of the restrictions that'd be put on how you can use your copyright. You could still make a contract based upon sales figures for royalties, my proposals do not touch upon anything like that. It is irrelevant to the copyright in that case and is something which companies would still be allowed to do.
There's usually someone who came up with the idea. If two people or so came up with the idea together, then in this case a joint between the two may be the only valid method in which both creators are accurately credited. I think simply enforcing that the original creators are the copyright holder is the simplest method in that case.
Of course you could say a whole company created it but this is the exact kind of thing my proposal is meant to eliminate. A company should sell a product or service, not intellectual property. Companies should be applying ideas, not selling them. Treating companies as an individuals lets companies exploit this hole in intellectual property.
So if a whole company claims they came up with the idea of a movie together, the whole company can go ahead and apply it together as well. Not that an entire company just comes out writing a single book/movie script very often. And here is plain and simple proof of how copyright is supposed to be used, and how companies misuse it. I mean, look how ridiculous that sounds. An entire company writing a book. Don't see that one every day. I'm sure saying this now someone will point out something like this actually exists...well you can't please anyone. At least try to please the majority. Copyright now does not do that.
It seems like no matter what you have to add a million revisions to everything because people will try to find loop holes in it. I mean simply looking at what has happened to copyright is plain and simple proof to this. The sad thing is, most of the recent revisions are just making punishments worse, and benefits better, for those who are already benefitting. Seems like a trend in this country...
While my proposal is not perfect, any step in the right direction is better than nothing. Even if it can be exploited, it would stop a lot in the process. Things always have to be clarified, and this certainly isn't the only thing I could come up with, but it's a proposal which can be applied as an addition to copyright, instead of a complete rewrite. And you know how politicians love those additions (and hate people like me.)
I've got a new idea that's simple enough. Don't let companies own copyrights. Simple enough, if an artist writes a song, and wishes to be signed to a record label, the label can't own the copyright, only the artist. On top of this it shall be illegal to make a contract binding the individual to use the copyright in any way, shape or form, so companies can't just simulate owning it by saying "you must do what we want with it and we'll make you money." And there shall be punishment to any company who is trying to bribe or use any other type of manipulation to get someone to enforce their copyright in a certain way. This includes threatening to end contracts over it. Assume greed.
This will ensure that those who are using copyright's protections against people are the actual creators of the object, not some corporate giant who had it signed over to them, and is going to use it to "protect" it's investment even if the creator doesn't agree with it.
It also means we know who to buy from, and who to avoid like the plague. Who's evil and who's good. But oh no, this proposal would take away the god-given-right of companies to be treated as individuals. Tough shit.
This is getting ridiculous. Of course you know I'd proposal total elimination of copyright in favor of a system guaranteeing creator-recognition and listing works used, but not guaranteeing any type of profit, but this would get mr.right-wing's panties in a bunch, so I won't go there in this one.
This is just an addition onto an existing law, after all, most laws are. Radical changes never get made in this country because everyone is afraid of failure. Of course those who are really afraid of the change are those in control, those who lose, and those who don't know. When it's already failing, those three are one in the same.
"The five-year-old firm's plan is to create or buy new ideas, accumulate patents-exclusive rights to use the inventions-and rent those ideas to companies that need them to do the gritty work of producing real products."
Anyone else read this as, "The five year plan is to..."?
You could also just buy a HEPA filter for around $180, for a bedroom size model. Don't fall into all the infomercial scams, you want a filter that's certified to remove 99.97% of particles under over 0.03 microns or whatever it is. That's why those ionic ones aren't considered HEPA. They can't filter to the specification. For $1500 you could get a medical-quality purifier that could do a whole house, and also take out gases and other such nasties. I really do think this is a better solution and cheaper then modifying your kitty.
Of course factor the cost of filter replacements in over the years, I still say you'd probably spend less on the filter then you would on the genetically modified cat. Note that this might not work so well with everyone, but it's definitely an alternative...and it could help with other allergies as well..
Slashdot Mirror
I feel your pain when it comes to cheapo cards...anyone who's all that "creative" knows to pick a better brand. I myself do not own a 24/96 card at the moment, though I'm looking into getting an echo audio Mia MIDI as it's 24/96, has linux support, and a hardware mixer of sorts...
what comes to mind from this is that analog distortion is "better" than digital distortion. I'm reminded of the whole vinyl vs cd thing all over again....though that argument is slightly different, and I tend not to side with vinyls, even though they do sound nice, it's more like an effect. And in that aspect, it is similar to this, the analog effect of which you speak.
The difference between tape and digital is a lot different than say, comparing tape and vinyl. Tape doesn't have to go through equalization just to overcome the inability of the medium to reproduce certain frequencies. However, frequency response is an issue when comparing digital and analog, and I'm sure anything digital that is lacking in this aspect is probably going to be made up sooner or later, plus the fact that I doubt much audio equipment can even reproduce the frequencies which digital lacks...
The real problem is distortion to begin with, none of it would be optimal. And I'm sure something like digital emulation of analog distortion may exist, or could be created, but it's somewhat beating around the bush. As the other poster said, it seems it'd make more sense not to overdrive to begin with, then you could apply any effect you wanted to get the sound that is desired.
Another inherit problem of analog tape is that over time, it loses quality, while digital as I stated could most likely be converted to any number of formats, not limited to tape, thus eliminating this problem. I suppose it's a matter of weighing the pros and cons...
I have my doubts that digital tape will disappear, afterall vinyls are still around, and by current standards they're pretty dated. You can bet it'll stick if you've got rich audiophile studio owners who want the stuff...
There's also the matter of placebo. There's people who spend 3 grand on simple power cables, or $500 for a digital audio cable, all in the name of audiophilia.
I personally think digital is the way to go, but also has a long way to go. The audio workstation could very well be the recording studio of the future, but things like interference simply from other components in the case are problems which most current generation cards don't even deal with, so there's definitely a lot of room for improvement. Maybe with PCI express and all it's extra bandwidth we'll see some pretty impressive stuff...
one of my friends is a huge analog fan when it comes to his music making, all analog equipment, especially when it comes to sound processing and such, and he refuses to use computers in the process, but even he now uses a hard drive based 16-track recorder with a cd writer in it...previously he used a 4-track analog tape recorder.
analog can be of high quality, particularly when it comes to balanced signals and such for all your inputs...but analog reel to reel? I can definitely see why that's going.
First you got digital tape, of course DAT would be the most well known (at least it's the one I know) and while I doubt it can fill all the niches (particularly when it comes to multi-track recording) it can fill many.
That's not to mention a 24bit/96khz sound card can be had for mighty cheap these days...of course if you need one with 10 inputs it'll cost a bit more. This kind of technology can probably fill much of the demand for multi-track reel to reel recording...still change is never easy, especially when you're talking about hundreds of recording studios who probably use the stuff still...
I wouldn't be surprised if much of the cost of the upgrade would be negated by the fact you don't have to spend cash on tape all the time. Plus once it's in a digital format you can literally put it on anything, CD, DVD, tape, raid array, what not, and not have to worry about loss...of course this is assuming you're writing it on there uncompressed, or losslessly compressed.
farewell analog tape...
"Sanford Wallace and his companies, SmartBot.net Inc. of Richboro, Pa."
WTF! That's where I used to live! I can't believe that. Now I'm sure it's possible there's another richboro in PA but I doubt it....damn that's messed up. I never heard of his company though.
Well I'd have to say I was probably 2 or 3, my dad used to just sit me down at the computer and let me play games and such. We had DOS and this little menu program which you could use to select programs so even for a little kid it wasn't too hard to understand. I got my first computer around 7 or 8 which was a 386 but soon after someone decided to stick a CD into the 5.25" drive and essentially rendered it useless and then I got a 486 33mhz. That was probably my first computer which got some real use, playing games of course.
After that I had a 200mhz MMX PPro, a 333mhz PII, a 700mhz (later upgraded to 800mhz after some overclocking-related-accidents) and then after a lightning strike I got a dual 733mhz. That is the computer which I first put linux on and learned the most, I was around 13 or 14 at the time.
I'm 18 now so this wasn't exactly decades ago or anything, but it was my start. I spent most of my earlier years on games, but always wanted to learn more, and so I did. Who knows what the future beholds...
Don't use windows media. If I search on a P2P program and the only result I get is a windows media file, it's probably the wrong thing anyway. I almost always download MP3s. I'm guessing this is talking about polluting WMA's in particular since putting 600mb faulty WMV files would probably be a bit easier to detect, especially if you're like me and check on things when they download. Plus, in my experience, I see WMV more than WMA. So just avoid windows media files and you're safe...for now.
you're asking that on slashdot. why would I spend so much time on anything like this if I didn't have the time to waste?
my nick is somewhat of a joke on this
though it does have some seriousness to it as well, on the political compass I am positioned far bottom left, so maybe I really am a commie.
being a regular viewer of candle power forums and such I've actually seen this before a while ago, as well as the laser's original manufacturer, which is here:
http://www.cnilaser.com/_private/ep_pgl3.htm
you can find a review of it here:
http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/second/pgliii.htm
remember while this laser is a lot more powerful than a regular laser pointer it's a far cry from what a laser that's truly powerful can do. 190mW compared to a 20W Co2 laser (which is on the low side for CO2 Laser power) and the difference is quite substantial. Sure you could blind someone, but you certainly aren't going to be using it like some kind of stun gun or what not. I don't even think a Co2 laser would work that well for that.
"Hey mister, stand still! I'm trying to burn you here!"
if you wanted to do some real damage with something you could actually carry around, check this site out:
http://www.amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm
see my replies to the other two posters, I basically cover your questions in them, if I missed something let me know...
I admit I was a tiny bit off topic with the advertising tactics comment. It really is something I dislike very much about apple, and it's specifically their tv commercials and exaggeration of their products, particularly in ways which promote some kind of elitist attitude. Those "Switch" commericals were full of that crap, the new iPod U2 commercials are just annoying. I can remember in the past they used to have these whacky photoshop benchmarks as proof that their G4 or whatever it was at the time was faster than a P4 or something, and it was just the biggest load of shit I'd ever seen.
I know there are many companies that make money off open source, like red hat, but they provide services more than anything, and aren't doing what apple is doing which is indirectly making more money with proprietary products by supporting it with open source ones. I'm sure you could say redhat and other large open-source-using-companies do the same but apple is really sticking out in this situation, particularly because they're basing it around closed, proprietary software. While companies like redhat sell their "enterprise" versions all they're really selling is linux, with commercial software packages bundled with it, and service plans. It's not even close to what apple is doing, in fact it's the opposite. Free bundled with commercial vs commercial bundled with free.
Indeed they have released much of what they gave, however as I said most of it is only useful to apple folks, I do believe much of the cups improvements they have made are specifically towards getting it to integrate into apple, but this is more of a guess, I haven't actually used it. Of course you COULD implement these things on other architectures but apple won't ever help with that. I'm sure much of it is so tied in with OS X that it'd be somehwat useless anyway.
The GPL prevents people from taking code withoug giving the full source back, it tries to even out the playing field, to stop proprietary software from reeking the benefits as long as it's proprietary. I understand that some of the software on Apple's list-o-shit-we-use-in-some-way is GPL'd but more than anything how much of that have they actually given back to? They have things like grep and less on there. I mean come on. I'm basically just saying without the GPL's requirement of giving back changes, we'd be pretty screwed, so I'm thankful in that aspect.
The apple fanboys are part of the marketing though, that's the whole thing. Create a userbase which worships you and promotes your ways, like some sort of whacky mini-religion. And while this is stretching it a little bit, it's not too far from what actually happens. I've not met many apple users who didn't, though I have to admit I have met a few. The majority outweighs the minority by far though.
I'd rather not spend the money on apple products, especially since I don't have much to be tossing around, and because I don't want any of my money going towards their products. I'm quite happy with my linux desktop at the moment anyway.
wow way to take what I said vastly out of proportion.
yes I stated I disagree with corporate bullshit however the ones I personally have something against is what I was clearly talking about. I don't like apple, disney, riaa, MS, etc, so I don't buy their products. Yes I don't like giant corporations in general but that does not mean I'm boycotting all of them. Don't be ridiculous. I can say I hate everything if I please, but you'd be a fool to assume I really mean everything.
I'm not a huge fan of food corps and shit genetically modifying food or oil companies screwing such and such over and yes I don't like it, however I don't have a personal dislike for any of them, and that's because they haven't pissed me off yet. And it'd be a bit hard to stop using all of them, like you say. However there IS stuff you could do, for example hybrids or diesels when it comes to oil companies, organic foods, realistic approaches to medicine instead of the "miracle cure" most americans expect. There's solutions to most of those problems which you list which an individidual could take to try and ward of the damage that corporations have done. So not only did you take what I said out of proportion, your solutions are also.
Funny you mention SUV's, I actually have covered this topic before in something I wrote previously...
"All SUV's not being used for off-road or cargo transport are now renamed to CTV's for "Child Transport Vehicle" and are taxed for you being so stupid. Mini-vans are banned, especially pt cruisers."
I can't even explain how much I agree with you. Every time I see something on here about apple, or disney/pixar(yes I know, they're no longer together and somewhat unrelated to this,) it angers me a bit. I've been modded down quite a few times for posting things highlighting apple in a negative manner.
see for example this comment of mine from 2002, where I'm saying something very similar to you. I don't get slashdot sometimes, so quick to bash on MS but as soon as any attack on apple is made it's like you get ambushed. As if apple is some perfect company which deserves such protection in the first place.
They're on my boycott list. I see them just as bad as microsoft at this point, but then again I see most large companies in this same way. What can I say, corporate america is not my fancy. Instead of embrace and extend they kind of leech onto you like a parasite and suck your brain out while flashing pretty colors at you and talking about their latest breakthroughs in iNology. The only thing that remains is an army of apple fanboys, iPod in hand, ready for action.
All jokes aside, any company with advertising tactics such as theirs is bound to piss me off, so this isn't saying much about their products as much as it is their strategies. And that's my real beef with apple anyway, strategies that is. They are using OSS stuff for the primary intent of making money, not really to give back to us. And even though some licenses like the GPL requires changes to be given back, assuming apple actually has modified something under them and returned such changes, would they have done so without those license requirements? That's the real question. And if so, how much? It just seems like apple's help has been bare minimum and not in areas that really count. Apple will keep the kind of stuff that makes a big difference to themselves, which is what I was saying in that old comment of mine.
While I have my doubts that apple will try to banish linux from the iPod's existence, it doesn't change the fact that they don't do all that much for open source, and so far simply use it to their advantage. Improve their products for less money, and make more. Sure, sure, it's given away for free by them or what not as per license requirements or attempts to seem Less Evil but the fact is apple comes first, open source second.
As such it means they can bundle it in free with the rest of their shit as long as they give a little back. What's not given back is the value it's adding to their proprietary product as a whole. Not to mention much of the "improvements" they give back will be apple-specific and useless to us non-apple folks to begin with. Basically they're making money from it indirectly and contributing back just enough as to not violate licenses, and to boot apple's loyal fanboys will stretch the whole thing to make it seem they're one of the good guys. It's quite the scheme.
That's why I like the GPL better than BSD and LGPL and such, it prevents that kind of stuff from happening. It's been called restrictive but as you can see it's really meant to stop this kind of thing. I have to give some credit to the GNU folks, for realizing that kind of thing would happen and preparing for it ahead of time...I'd have been caught with my pants down.
Well that was quite the rant...
And so I don't like apple. And if I don't like something, I refuse to use it in any way, shape, or form. I don't like disney, so I don't watch disney movies. No difference with apple. Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned but you won't catch me going back on my word. Karma be damned.
You know everytime I start to think this country is getting better regarding this type of stuff, it's like one step forward and 20 backwards.
At this point I don't really know what the hell would stop this kind of thinking. I blame it on the fact that this country is ran mostly by people who are two generations past, and stuck in it. Try living with a grandparent who never leaves the house, you'll understand what I mean quicker than you wanted to.
Even full frontal nudity is not the worst thing in the world, it's just that people in america have this whole virgin innocense thing rammed down their throats and treat their kids more like social toys than as human beings. People are naked under clothes, people die, people do terrible things, this is life. And while most kids aren't, and have no reason to be exposed, hiding it from them isn't really any more helpful.
And if a kid is choosing to expose themselves to it, then the genie has already been let out of the bottle, hiding them from it at this point is useless, as they already know about it.
I once met a kid whose parents didn't let him watch the simpsons until he was 16. I think that was my breaking point. I asked if he thought his parents were overprotective and he went off on me. Guess I hit a soft spot.
I'm tired of this censorship bullshit in america, just as much as I'm tired of copyright bullshit. When you think of it, they're very similar. You know, prohibiting thought.
Good job america.
pci express is nice and all but right now I don't think there's ANY amd boards with it, and you're basically stuck with an LGA 755 board, and I believe there's a few socket 478 boards with it, but still, it's not exactly super common. I'm surprised so many cards are being released in the pci-express format, unless I'm missing something here, agp is still what most of us have.
title says it all
While I don't have a tivo I have a computer running linux with dual tv tuner cards and this was one of my main incentives for wanting a second tuner. This happens a lot.
Also a lot of the time shows start early. I usually record a 30 minute long show for 32 minutes from the minute before to the minute after and haven't had a problem in ages. My first tuner is a nicer one so the second one is only used when it has to be, sadly that's quite a bit nowadays.
I'm thinking of getting a card like the PVR-350 to fix that problem though. Another thing I do a lot is record for times like 29:55 instead of 30:00 so then I can record 2 shows right after one another without conflicts. If you only leave a second or so in between two recordings it ends up failing. My tv script will kill anything accessing the v4l device then sleep for a few seconds if something is accessing it, then kill -9 if it still hasn't died, but this is for worst case scenarios.
One thing that's nice though is that a lot of channels play a set of shows twice, usually after an interval of 3-4 hours. Discovery channel and adult swim do this. This means if you have a conflicting show you can grab it at the later time, if necessary. Of course this only works in some situations.
If you have a bunch of shows in a row on a single network you can just record them all as one big recording although this is a bad idea in my case because of the 2GB avi file size limit...I usually have to break things up around 2-3 hours.
thanks for the info. After reading the parent and your post I decided to switch, and I've successfully done so.
I had no idea this even existed, but indeed the switch was quite simple. The only problem I ran into was when mounting shares as a user but this was an easy fix (had to properly chown the mount dir, oops)
I actually check his page pretty frequently for his mods. You should check out his portable NES and the vagabond atari, they're some of his smallest ones and are quite impressive. That PS2 one is not exactly pocket-sized...but still impressive none the less.
I'm sure the other LED fanatics out there will agree with me when I say...where's the beam shots!?! How can they expect us to believe em without a side by side comparison against a regular incandecent flood?
That's something I always liked about adult swim, however the rest of cartoon network was once like that too, and now they've changed it. Which is kind of pathetic, considering this means most of the shows targeted towards younger audiences now have more commercials, but not for the ones which target older audiences.
I watch much of toonami and adult swim and I was quite angry when this happened, all the toonami shows now have 3 commercials during the show and none in between yet the shows that come on right afterwards on adult swim are untouched. I have no idea what gives, but I wouldn't doubt the adult swim guys had something to do with it... I wouldn't be too surprised if adult swim eventually changed over as well, it seems nothing stops corporate greed.
You should read my reply to the other poster above in which I cover the topic of how to deal with cases that include multiple creators. The proposal isn't that copyright can only be owned by one person, it's that copyright can only be owned by it's creator, unless it's a company which is creating it, in which it should be sold as a product or service from that company, not as intellectual property. Again, my other post covers this as well...
I actually had the same exact thought, indeed who is the copyright holder in something which multiple people participated.
Once you get into any kind of joint-ownership you're basically back where you started unless you add some strict provisions. In the case of book into movie, then most likely the book would already be copyrighted by it's author, and thus, the answer to that is simple.
The actor would not be the holder, they did not come up with the idea (well unless you're kevin smith,) they simply carried it out. Same goes with the director and producer. I'm not too familiar with how writing the actual script goes and the whole process of screenwriting, but if it was written as a movie script from the start, then the writer of that would be the person. If not, then whoever wrote whatever they formed it from would be the owner. This seems complex to figure out looking at it backwards like this, but the person who initially created it would obviously know they came up with it, and copyright it accordingly. Of course if there were disputes, it could be taken to court and someone could reverse analyze it like I just did. Disputes in copyright are certainly nothing new...
Of course if one of these third parties helped innovate upon it then credit should be given to them, but isn't this the point of ending credits and such? Then there's the whole royalties issue, much of which is simply eliminated because of the restrictions that'd be put on how you can use your copyright. You could still make a contract based upon sales figures for royalties, my proposals do not touch upon anything like that. It is irrelevant to the copyright in that case and is something which companies would still be allowed to do.
There's usually someone who came up with the idea. If two people or so came up with the idea together, then in this case a joint between the two may be the only valid method in which both creators are accurately credited. I think simply enforcing that the original creators are the copyright holder is the simplest method in that case.
Of course you could say a whole company created it but this is the exact kind of thing my proposal is meant to eliminate. A company should sell a product or service, not intellectual property. Companies should be applying ideas, not selling them. Treating companies as an individuals lets companies exploit this hole in intellectual property.
So if a whole company claims they came up with the idea of a movie together, the whole company can go ahead and apply it together as well. Not that an entire company just comes out writing a single book/movie script very often. And here is plain and simple proof of how copyright is supposed to be used, and how companies misuse it. I mean, look how ridiculous that sounds. An entire company writing a book. Don't see that one every day. I'm sure saying this now someone will point out something like this actually exists...well you can't please anyone. At least try to please the majority. Copyright now does not do that.
It seems like no matter what you have to add a million revisions to everything because people will try to find loop holes in it. I mean simply looking at what has happened to copyright is plain and simple proof to this. The sad thing is, most of the recent revisions are just making punishments worse, and benefits better, for those who are already benefitting. Seems like a trend in this country...
While my proposal is not perfect, any step in the right direction is better than nothing. Even if it can be exploited, it would stop a lot in the process. Things always have to be clarified, and this certainly isn't the only thing I could come up with, but it's a proposal which can be applied as an addition to copyright, instead of a complete rewrite. And you know how politicians love those additions (and hate people like me.)
I've got a new idea that's simple enough. Don't let companies own copyrights. Simple enough, if an artist writes a song, and wishes to be signed to a record label, the label can't own the copyright, only the artist. On top of this it shall be illegal to make a contract binding the individual to use the copyright in any way, shape or form, so companies can't just simulate owning it by saying "you must do what we want with it and we'll make you money." And there shall be punishment to any company who is trying to bribe or use any other type of manipulation to get someone to enforce their copyright in a certain way. This includes threatening to end contracts over it. Assume greed.
This will ensure that those who are using copyright's protections against people are the actual creators of the object, not some corporate giant who had it signed over to them, and is going to use it to "protect" it's investment even if the creator doesn't agree with it.
It also means we know who to buy from, and who to avoid like the plague. Who's evil and who's good. But oh no, this proposal would take away the god-given-right of companies to be treated as individuals. Tough shit.
This is getting ridiculous. Of course you know I'd proposal total elimination of copyright in favor of a system guaranteeing creator-recognition and listing works used, but not guaranteeing any type of profit, but this would get mr.right-wing's panties in a bunch, so I won't go there in this one.
This is just an addition onto an existing law, after all, most laws are. Radical changes never get made in this country because everyone is afraid of failure. Of course those who are really afraid of the change are those in control, those who lose, and those who don't know. When it's already failing, those three are one in the same.
Didn't like the first one, didn't like the second, won't see the third. I'm currently boycotting disney and viacom, how about you?
I'm kind of tired of these 3d-animated-child-movies. Maybe I'm just getting old. I haven't seen one I thought was any good...
"The five-year-old firm's plan is to create or buy new ideas, accumulate patents-exclusive rights to use the inventions-and rent those ideas to companies that need them to do the gritty work of producing real products."
Anyone else read this as, "The five year plan is to..."?
You could also just buy a HEPA filter for around $180, for a bedroom size model. Don't fall into all the infomercial scams, you want a filter that's certified to remove 99.97% of particles under over 0.03 microns or whatever it is. That's why those ionic ones aren't considered HEPA. They can't filter to the specification. For $1500 you could get a medical-quality purifier that could do a whole house, and also take out gases and other such nasties. I really do think this is a better solution and cheaper then modifying your kitty.
Of course factor the cost of filter replacements in over the years, I still say you'd probably spend less on the filter then you would on the genetically modified cat. Note that this might not work so well with everyone, but it's definitely an alternative...and it could help with other allergies as well..