I don't recall proposing any government programs to manage diet or exercise. However, as a society, we make certain choices which can impact our health.
Where do I think the government should fit in to this?
First nutrition: Just look at the joke that is the USDA. Their "four food groups" (only recently traded out for the "food pyramid") were based on marketing considerations rather than real nutritional science. That fiasco has resulted in Americans having one of the highest rates of heart disease in the world. I would be happy if they just stopped doing harm in the nutrition area.
On the exercise issue, city governments should continue to build and maintain nice parks so people have someplace to go to exercise. If anyone starts talking about forced exercise, I'd be pretty afraid of that, but everyone should have a park nearby so that if they want to walk, they can.
And finally, on the fresh air issue, it is an unfortunate fact that without clean air laws in the US, our air (and correspondingly, our health) would be much worse.
Heart disease, cancer, and stroke are better defined as diseases associated with lifestyle choices and environment. For example, heart disease and stroke are very strongly linked to smoking, a lack of exercise, and a high-cholesterol diet. And while it may take a while for these factors to catch up with you, they aren't exactly "caused" by old age.
These causes of death are risks which can be easily reduced by changing our everyday behavior. A healthy diet, fresh air, and exercise will dramatically reduce your chance of dying from these causes, while also improving your life in other ways.
I think that GP is right - as a society, we have often failed miserably in managing the factors which really cause death and suffering: diet, exercise, and environmental quality. People are scared of terrorists because they've been trained by the government and the media to be scared of terrorists. Meanwhile the real killers of most Americans, the multinational agribusiness industry, are highly subsidized by the USDA.
I think there is a misunderstanding between various slashdotters as to how exactly QWest was allegedly "punished." As far as I can tell, TFA is not stating that QWest was punished for not cooperating with the NSA by having an SEC investigation launched against it's former CEO. They are stating that QWest was punished for not cooperating with the NSA by losing potential contracts they had lined up with "The National Security Agency and other government agencies" - the SEC is never mentioned as an agency with which QWest might have had a contract which was lost due to their non-cooperation with the NSA.
The SEC did launch an investigation of alleged insider trading against former QWest CEO Joe Nacchio relating to some stock he sold, but I don't believe I've read anything indicating that anyone believes that this investigation is linked to any discussions he had with the NSA. If there is any such evidence that it was, I'd appreciate a hyperlink to it. As far as I can tell, the only way the SEC is involved here is that Nacchio brought up the conversations with the NSA and the alleged lost income from the allegedly scuttled deals as evidence that there were unforseen circumstances which caused QWest to perform worse than he had projected, while defending himself against charges of insider trading filed by the SEC.
If you pay them with off-the-books money (for example, having someone with money who wants to lend support to the candidate's cause beyond the legally allowable campaign contribution limit directly pay a third party to do the dirty work, leaving the campaign's record keeping out of the transaction) then it doesn't go on your FEC report. "Security researchers at a recent summit" are probably aware that this is how it has been done in the past with lower-tech shenanigans, and are assuming that the methods of indirect payment will be the same for future high-tech shenanigans.
Then, once that happens, the next thing we'll see is a moderately successful Internet email campaign that (1) purports to be from a candidate, and (2) includes a comment that can be construed as offensive and probably racist, and (3) is actually from a group that supports that candidate, and is sent with the intention that this dirty trick will be "unmasked" by the media resulting in the candidate's opponents getting blamed for it.
There's probably a rule somewhere that "any dirty trick you can think of will be tried at some point." We might as well think them all up now so that when they happen, we can say that we saw it coming:-).
If by "COUNTRY" you mean "those who make an appropriate level of political contribution" then perhaps the term you are defining is plutocracy rather than democracy?
The real problem is that both parties take contributions from the same interests, and neither represents the will of the populace. The majority of Americans are not campaign contributors, and therefore are second-class citizens. Their votes can be "bought" with advertising (which wouldn't sell if it didn't work.)
The 2000 Presidential election is an even better example of why the United States is not a democracy: Gore undoubtedly won a majority of the popular vote, but "lost" the election.
That doesn't sound hypocritical to me - it sounds perfectly normal. People complain about plumbers, yet call them when they need plumbing done. People complain about lawyers, yet call them when they need legal work done. The simple fact that police perform some useful services in exchange for some of our tax dollars, and we continue to call them when necessary, does not insulate them from criticism. Furthermore, unlike plumbers and lawyers, if we aren't satisfied with our local police department, we can't fire them and hire another one. We're pretty much stuck with the one we have. In addition, they are entrusted with weapons and are authorized to use force when necessary. That trust means they must be held to a higher standard than some other professions - if they screw up, someone could be injured or killed. here is an example of one such instance. The police choked this woman to death, then claimed she "choked herself to death." This is not possible; they are engaged in a cover-up. This happens far too often, and there is very little accountability for police officers.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the "sense of fairness" of cops is often very much related to how they perceive you - if you're clean cut, and of the appropriate race, you are treated well. If you aren't, you can be treated like dirt. Ask a homeless person how the police treat them sometime. Their experience is probably different from yours and mine. Cops tend to be very polite to me, because I look just like them. If I didn't, it might be a different story.
I've known some great cops and some terrible cops. That's similar to any profession. However, there is no reliable mechanism (in my city , at least) to remove the bad ones. I appreciate the fact that they're out there picking up violent drunks and wife-beaters, and I understand that that's a tough job which can be stressful, but if anyone can't deal with the stress of their job and takes it out on innocent people (or even the not-so-innocent) it's time for them to find a different job.
As for why so many of us don't want a police state... here's a quote from Ayn Rand:
There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers.
When this is the case, the police get to choose who they go after and who they don't, and the law is simply another tool of control. This worked great for Stalin, and it could work as well in the US if we let it. Before you say "it can't happen here" think about what happened with the COINTELPRO program.
In a perfect world, that would work. In reality, the police sometimes shoot pepper first and ask questions later, and sometimes they're mad at someone else and take it out on you. I'm sure some cities have cops that play by the rules. I'm also sure that some don't.
Good example - it brings up some interesting points: In the OJ case, it was pretty obvious that he did it, and on the other hand, it seemed like the prosecution was using falsified evidence to try to get a conviction (the glove that didn't fit.) The jury found him not guilty (i assume) because they were offended by this falsified evidence and wanted to punish the prosecution for using these tactics.
In the Thomas case, it seems pretty obvious that she had the files available for sharing. The plaintiff's lawyers were asking for an extremely high judgment, which offends the sense of fairness of many here on Slashdot, and were the jury comprised of information-wants-to-be-free Slashdotters, she probably would have won. I myself would have voted for the defendant, simply because the "remedy" proposed was completely out of whack with the alleged tort. I'm sure some of us who disagree with the jury's decision would have been willing to find for the plaintiff if the stakes were more of a slap on the wrist, but ruining someone's life for a couple of songs is outrageous.
Anyway, she didn't have a Slashdot jury, and her lawyers advanced some rather shaky (spoofing) defenses, which offended the Duluth jury. Because of this, they found for the plaintiff. In both cases, the facts weren't on trial as much as the actions of the lawyers involved, and the jury's findings were aimed more at punishing lawyers than at serving justice.
I don't think either side had a great "horse" here, but I do think the RIAA had the worse horse of the two.
OK, here is a video of three 200-pound officers from the Pittsburgh police department tasering a 100-pound female protester who is lying on the ground.
If the USA were a democracy, (1) the person who received the most votes would always become President, and (2) an unpopular occupation of a foreign land would not be carried out indefinitely. What we have here is a representative republic in which the interests of the majority are often disregarded by those in power.
While those in Myanmar have more to complain about than we do, that does not mean that our own government doesn't have its own problems. Any institution will try to extend the scope of its power, and that includes the US government. It's common sense, and requires no conspiracy. It's just how institutions operate.
That might be cool, but is it necessary for entertainment? Thornton Wilder made do with a bunch of benches for Our Town and I've often been enthralled by some guy with a $1000 guitar and a $1000 P.A. system.
Before the advent of mass media, people would go and listen to the best banjo player in the neighborhood, or the best storyteller, and they liked it just fine. Now with the Internet, we can watch the best banjo player or storyteller in some other neighborhood, as long as someone has a couple thousand bucks worth of hardware to put together a video or audio recording of the performance. We don't need corporate media. We can entertain ourselves, and entertain each other. There are many people on this planet, and a significant portion have excess talent they are willing to donate to the common good. It seems reasonable to think that there could be one listenable singer-songwriter for every 50,000 people in America... If so, there are a lot of them out there!
How about BuyOnlyIndependentCDs.com? Then the actual artists get the money, and the RIAA leeches get nothing, ever. There are plenty of great independent recordings out there, it just takes some looking around. It's the right thing to do.
It's asinine for someone to pay $60k on a crappy legal defense on a case where the facts were against her when she could have settled for $3500. My question is, why did she make this decision? When people do irrational things, I get suspicious. If someone on the street offers me a genuine-looking Rolex for $50, it makes me think something is up. When a housewife from Minnesota spends entirely too much money to get out of a little trouble, it makes me think something is up.
There are several possible rational explanations for this - she has deep pockets no one knows about, she has been bankrolled by the EFF under the table, she has been bankrolled by the RIAA under the table, she's very stubborn and likes to stand up for what she believes in even if it costs her big bucks she doesn't have, or maybe she's just as dumb as a box of rocks and didn't see the freight train coming. I would accept any of these explanations if there is evidence for it.
Aren't you the slightest bit curious as to what motivated her to reject a settlement when she had such a weak case? Or is her case only weak in hindsight?
This makes me wonder if they didn't pay her not to settle, so they'd have a nice example to show to everyone else. It's been pointed out many times in this forum that her case was weak from the start, and that she spent $60k defending herself (very badly.) Why would she do this if she weren't on the RIAA's payroll? I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but that's my best theory at this point.
Someone please correct me with some solid evidence that I'm wrong! I don't want to be right about this...
Good point. Of course, in order to do what's right, you need to pretend to be unaware of the concept of jury nullification long enough to get on a jury, so that you can then take action to keep injustice from being done by the court.
I have found that power supplies that look good to a multimeter may not look so good to a computer and may still cause problems. It might be putting out 5 volts, but how clean is that 5 volts? An oscilloscope could give you a better picture of how the power supply is working, or there's always my favorite method... swapping in a different power supply and seeing if the problem goes away.
I'm glad that Mom and Pop are out there doing a good job at a good price for people in your area, though. More power to them!
Interestingly enough, a couple weeks ago I was playing my bass (a 5-string Warwick through an Eden/SWR amp rig) through a Monster "guitar" cable and thought it sounded a little thin. So I plugged in an El Cheapo $15 cable and immediately the bass sounded fuller. So I'm thinking there are differences between the various models of Monster cable... however I'm not convinced that these differences necessarily make things better. I suspect that someone at Monster just has too much time on their hands, and likes making cables that cater to certain frequency ranges. I've never heard an improvement in a guitar A/B test between Monster and El Cheapo. This might just be a huge compliment to the El Cheapo cables I happen to have lying around, though.
Most tube Marshalls, and all Music Man heads (among others) use diode clipping, so a lot of the time when people think they're hearing tube distortion, part of what they are hearing is solid-state distortion. These amps do use tube power sections (and while the Marshalls also use preamp tubes, the Music Man preamp is all solid-state) so the other part of the sound comes from the smoothness of the power tubes. I personally believe it's more important to have power tubes then preamp tubes (compare a Music Man with SS preamp and tube power amp to a Marshall Valvestate with tube preamp and SS power amp, for example) and I find nothing wrong with solid-state components in a preamp.
For years, Steve Vai has used a Boss DS-1 solid-state distortion pedal in front of his tube amps; I've done this as well with good results. Jimi Hendrix used a solid-state Fuzz Face in front of his Marshalls, as another example. Part of the "tube mystique" is hype. Use your ears, try every piece of gear you can get your hands on, and use what sounds good with your guitar. In some cases, that might even mean a modeling processor.
The main problem with modelers is the crap you'll get from purists about using a "digital-sounding" device, even if in a blind listening test, they couldn't tell a modeled Marshall from a real Marshall (and if you're going through a good power amp and a good speaker cabinet, that is quite possible.) Also, keep in mind that there is a lot of variation among tube amps. A modeled Marshall might not sound just like your Marshall, but then someone else's Marshall might not, either. I leave decisions on what to use to my ears, and I've done a lot of shows with a Boss GT-6 where my guitar sounded great (and my back thanked me for leaving the big, heavy tube head at home.) I am also sure that a GT-6 run through a crappy amp and crappy speakers would be unbearable, so it's important to make sure your entire signal chain is good enough. If used properly, I'm convinced that modern modeling gear can be up to the task.
TFA says that the Gibson does it mechanically. My post proposed that a guitar could use the Gibson's interface (pulling the knob) but instead of mechanically tuning the guitar, applying a digital pitch shift to the output of each string (Line6-style) to make the guitar sound in tune, as suggested by GP. I apologize for any confusion.
A Floyd Rose works great if you don't need alternate tunings, and if you like having a whammy bar. Thanks to the Eddie Van Halen D-Tuna, at least drop-D with a locking tremolo is now quick and easy.
My main problem with the Floyd Rose is that if I play an open string and bend some other strings at the same time, the open string doesn't hold its pitch - the change in tension on the bent strings makes the open string go out of tune. For blues playing, that can be kind of a bummer, so I tend to use fixed bridges more often.
It's an useful advance in technology, but just for a different market. This guitar isn't for people who play at home and have ample time to tune between songs. It's for people who are currently bringing half a dozen guitars to a show, and when one goes out of tune, they hand one to the roadie and pick up another. It's quicker to strum and push a knob to have it tune itself then to swap guitars, and maybe you can get by on fewer guitars if you don't have to swap as often (though anyone who doesn't want their audience to have to wait a minute while they change a broken string is still going to have to bring more than one.) In my opinion, part of putting on a good show is not making people wait for you to tune. This guitar will make it easier to put on a good show.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't recall proposing any government programs to manage diet or exercise. However, as a society, we make certain choices which can impact our health.
Where do I think the government should fit in to this?
First nutrition: Just look at the joke that is the USDA. Their "four food groups" (only recently traded out for the "food pyramid") were based on marketing considerations rather than real nutritional science. That fiasco has resulted in Americans having one of the highest rates of heart disease in the world. I would be happy if they just stopped doing harm in the nutrition area.
On the exercise issue, city governments should continue to build and maintain nice parks so people have someplace to go to exercise. If anyone starts talking about forced exercise, I'd be pretty afraid of that, but everyone should have a park nearby so that if they want to walk, they can.
And finally, on the fresh air issue, it is an unfortunate fact that without clean air laws in the US, our air (and correspondingly, our health) would be much worse.
Heart disease, cancer, and stroke are better defined as diseases associated with lifestyle choices and environment. For example, heart disease and stroke are very strongly linked to smoking, a lack of exercise, and a high-cholesterol diet. And while it may take a while for these factors to catch up with you, they aren't exactly "caused" by old age.
These causes of death are risks which can be easily reduced by changing our everyday behavior. A healthy diet, fresh air, and exercise will dramatically reduce your chance of dying from these causes, while also improving your life in other ways.
I think that GP is right - as a society, we have often failed miserably in managing the factors which really cause death and suffering: diet, exercise, and environmental quality. People are scared of terrorists because they've been trained by the government and the media to be scared of terrorists. Meanwhile the real killers of most Americans, the multinational agribusiness industry, are highly subsidized by the USDA.
I think there is a misunderstanding between various slashdotters as to how exactly QWest was allegedly "punished." As far as I can tell, TFA is not stating that QWest was punished for not cooperating with the NSA by having an SEC investigation launched against it's former CEO. They are stating that QWest was punished for not cooperating with the NSA by losing potential contracts they had lined up with "The National Security Agency and other government agencies" - the SEC is never mentioned as an agency with which QWest might have had a contract which was lost due to their non-cooperation with the NSA.
The SEC did launch an investigation of alleged insider trading against former QWest CEO Joe Nacchio relating to some stock he sold, but I don't believe I've read anything indicating that anyone believes that this investigation is linked to any discussions he had with the NSA. If there is any such evidence that it was, I'd appreciate a hyperlink to it. As far as I can tell, the only way the SEC is involved here is that Nacchio brought up the conversations with the NSA and the alleged lost income from the allegedly scuttled deals as evidence that there were unforseen circumstances which caused QWest to perform worse than he had projected, while defending himself against charges of insider trading filed by the SEC.
If you pay them with off-the-books money (for example, having someone with money who wants to lend support to the candidate's cause beyond the legally allowable campaign contribution limit directly pay a third party to do the dirty work, leaving the campaign's record keeping out of the transaction) then it doesn't go on your FEC report. "Security researchers at a recent summit" are probably aware that this is how it has been done in the past with lower-tech shenanigans, and are assuming that the methods of indirect payment will be the same for future high-tech shenanigans.
Gonna happen.
Then, once that happens, the next thing we'll see is a moderately successful Internet email campaign that (1) purports to be from a candidate, and (2) includes a comment that can be construed as offensive and probably racist, and (3) is actually from a group that supports that candidate, and is sent with the intention that this dirty trick will be "unmasked" by the media resulting in the candidate's opponents getting blamed for it.
:-).
There's probably a rule somewhere that "any dirty trick you can think of will be tried at some point." We might as well think them all up now so that when they happen, we can say that we saw it coming
If by "COUNTRY" you mean "those who make an appropriate level of political contribution" then perhaps the term you are defining is plutocracy rather than democracy?
The real problem is that both parties take contributions from the same interests, and neither represents the will of the populace. The majority of Americans are not campaign contributors, and therefore are second-class citizens. Their votes can be "bought" with advertising (which wouldn't sell if it didn't work.)
The 2000 Presidential election is an even better example of why the United States is not a democracy: Gore undoubtedly won a majority of the popular vote, but "lost" the election.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the "sense of fairness" of cops is often very much related to how they perceive you - if you're clean cut, and of the appropriate race, you are treated well. If you aren't, you can be treated like dirt. Ask a homeless person how the police treat them sometime. Their experience is probably different from yours and mine. Cops tend to be very polite to me, because I look just like them. If I didn't, it might be a different story.
I've known some great cops and some terrible cops. That's similar to any profession. However, there is no reliable mechanism (in my city , at least) to remove the bad ones. I appreciate the fact that they're out there picking up violent drunks and wife-beaters, and I understand that that's a tough job which can be stressful, but if anyone can't deal with the stress of their job and takes it out on innocent people (or even the not-so-innocent) it's time for them to find a different job.
As for why so many of us don't want a police state... here's a quote from Ayn Rand:When this is the case, the police get to choose who they go after and who they don't, and the law is simply another tool of control. This worked great for Stalin, and it could work as well in the US if we let it. Before you say "it can't happen here" think about what happened with the COINTELPRO program.
In a perfect world, that would work. In reality, the police sometimes shoot pepper first and ask questions later, and sometimes they're mad at someone else and take it out on you. I'm sure some cities have cops that play by the rules. I'm also sure that some don't.
Good example - it brings up some interesting points: In the OJ case, it was pretty obvious that he did it, and on the other hand, it seemed like the prosecution was using falsified evidence to try to get a conviction (the glove that didn't fit.) The jury found him not guilty (i assume) because they were offended by this falsified evidence and wanted to punish the prosecution for using these tactics.
In the Thomas case, it seems pretty obvious that she had the files available for sharing. The plaintiff's lawyers were asking for an extremely high judgment, which offends the sense of fairness of many here on Slashdot, and were the jury comprised of information-wants-to-be-free Slashdotters, she probably would have won. I myself would have voted for the defendant, simply because the "remedy" proposed was completely out of whack with the alleged tort. I'm sure some of us who disagree with the jury's decision would have been willing to find for the plaintiff if the stakes were more of a slap on the wrist, but ruining someone's life for a couple of songs is outrageous.
Anyway, she didn't have a Slashdot jury, and her lawyers advanced some rather shaky (spoofing) defenses, which offended the Duluth jury. Because of this, they found for the plaintiff. In both cases, the facts weren't on trial as much as the actions of the lawyers involved, and the jury's findings were aimed more at punishing lawyers than at serving justice.
I don't think either side had a great "horse" here, but I do think the RIAA had the worse horse of the two.
Traditionally, juries have had the right to determine if the law makes sense, and, although the courts don't tell them so, they still do.
OK, here is a video of three 200-pound officers from the Pittsburgh police department tasering a 100-pound female protester who is lying on the ground.
If the USA were a democracy, (1) the person who received the most votes would always become President, and (2) an unpopular occupation of a foreign land would not be carried out indefinitely. What we have here is a representative republic in which the interests of the majority are often disregarded by those in power.
While those in Myanmar have more to complain about than we do, that does not mean that our own government doesn't have its own problems. Any institution will try to extend the scope of its power, and that includes the US government. It's common sense, and requires no conspiracy. It's just how institutions operate.
That might be cool, but is it necessary for entertainment? Thornton Wilder made do with a bunch of benches for Our Town and I've often been enthralled by some guy with a $1000 guitar and a $1000 P.A. system.
Before the advent of mass media, people would go and listen to the best banjo player in the neighborhood, or the best storyteller, and they liked it just fine. Now with the Internet, we can watch the best banjo player or storyteller in some other neighborhood, as long as someone has a couple thousand bucks worth of hardware to put together a video or audio recording of the performance. We don't need corporate media. We can entertain ourselves, and entertain each other. There are many people on this planet, and a significant portion have excess talent they are willing to donate to the common good. It seems reasonable to think that there could be one listenable singer-songwriter for every 50,000 people in America... If so, there are a lot of them out there!
How about BuyOnlyIndependentCDs.com? Then the actual artists get the money, and the RIAA leeches get nothing, ever. There are plenty of great independent recordings out there, it just takes some looking around. It's the right thing to do.
It's asinine for someone to pay $60k on a crappy legal defense on a case where the facts were against her when she could have settled for $3500. My question is, why did she make this decision? When people do irrational things, I get suspicious. If someone on the street offers me a genuine-looking Rolex for $50, it makes me think something is up. When a housewife from Minnesota spends entirely too much money to get out of a little trouble, it makes me think something is up.
There are several possible rational explanations for this - she has deep pockets no one knows about, she has been bankrolled by the EFF under the table, she has been bankrolled by the RIAA under the table, she's very stubborn and likes to stand up for what she believes in even if it costs her big bucks she doesn't have, or maybe she's just as dumb as a box of rocks and didn't see the freight train coming. I would accept any of these explanations if there is evidence for it.
Aren't you the slightest bit curious as to what motivated her to reject a settlement when she had such a weak case? Or is her case only weak in hindsight?
This makes me wonder if they didn't pay her not to settle, so they'd have a nice example to show to everyone else. It's been pointed out many times in this forum that her case was weak from the start, and that she spent $60k defending herself (very badly.) Why would she do this if she weren't on the RIAA's payroll? I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but that's my best theory at this point.
Someone please correct me with some solid evidence that I'm wrong! I don't want to be right about this...
I blame the law and the jury in this case. They could easily have voted differently, if they had brains, guts, and information.
Good point. Of course, in order to do what's right, you need to pretend to be unaware of the concept of jury nullification long enough to get on a jury, so that you can then take action to keep injustice from being done by the court.
I have found that power supplies that look good to a multimeter may not look so good to a computer and may still cause problems. It might be putting out 5 volts, but how clean is that 5 volts? An oscilloscope could give you a better picture of how the power supply is working, or there's always my favorite method... swapping in a different power supply and seeing if the problem goes away.
I'm glad that Mom and Pop are out there doing a good job at a good price for people in your area, though. More power to them!
Interestingly enough, a couple weeks ago I was playing my bass (a 5-string Warwick through an Eden/SWR amp rig) through a Monster "guitar" cable and thought it sounded a little thin. So I plugged in an El Cheapo $15 cable and immediately the bass sounded fuller. So I'm thinking there are differences between the various models of Monster cable... however I'm not convinced that these differences necessarily make things better. I suspect that someone at Monster just has too much time on their hands, and likes making cables that cater to certain frequency ranges. I've never heard an improvement in a guitar A/B test between Monster and El Cheapo. This might just be a huge compliment to the El Cheapo cables I happen to have lying around, though.
Most tube Marshalls, and all Music Man heads (among others) use diode clipping, so a lot of the time when people think they're hearing tube distortion, part of what they are hearing is solid-state distortion. These amps do use tube power sections (and while the Marshalls also use preamp tubes, the Music Man preamp is all solid-state) so the other part of the sound comes from the smoothness of the power tubes. I personally believe it's more important to have power tubes then preamp tubes (compare a Music Man with SS preamp and tube power amp to a Marshall Valvestate with tube preamp and SS power amp, for example) and I find nothing wrong with solid-state components in a preamp.
For years, Steve Vai has used a Boss DS-1 solid-state distortion pedal in front of his tube amps; I've done this as well with good results. Jimi Hendrix used a solid-state Fuzz Face in front of his Marshalls, as another example. Part of the "tube mystique" is hype. Use your ears, try every piece of gear you can get your hands on, and use what sounds good with your guitar. In some cases, that might even mean a modeling processor.
The main problem with modelers is the crap you'll get from purists about using a "digital-sounding" device, even if in a blind listening test, they couldn't tell a modeled Marshall from a real Marshall (and if you're going through a good power amp and a good speaker cabinet, that is quite possible.) Also, keep in mind that there is a lot of variation among tube amps. A modeled Marshall might not sound just like your Marshall, but then someone else's Marshall might not, either. I leave decisions on what to use to my ears, and I've done a lot of shows with a Boss GT-6 where my guitar sounded great (and my back thanked me for leaving the big, heavy tube head at home.) I am also sure that a GT-6 run through a crappy amp and crappy speakers would be unbearable, so it's important to make sure your entire signal chain is good enough. If used properly, I'm convinced that modern modeling gear can be up to the task.
TFA says that the Gibson does it mechanically. My post proposed that a guitar could use the Gibson's interface (pulling the knob) but instead of mechanically tuning the guitar, applying a digital pitch shift to the output of each string (Line6-style) to make the guitar sound in tune, as suggested by GP. I apologize for any confusion.
Manring is incredible. Those levers are made by hipshot and you can retrofit them on most guitars and basses.
A Floyd Rose works great if you don't need alternate tunings, and if you like having a whammy bar. Thanks to the Eddie Van Halen D-Tuna, at least drop-D with a locking tremolo is now quick and easy.
My main problem with the Floyd Rose is that if I play an open string and bend some other strings at the same time, the open string doesn't hold its pitch - the change in tension on the bent strings makes the open string go out of tune. For blues playing, that can be kind of a bummer, so I tend to use fixed bridges more often.
It's an useful advance in technology, but just for a different market. This guitar isn't for people who play at home and have ample time to tune between songs. It's for people who are currently bringing half a dozen guitars to a show, and when one goes out of tune, they hand one to the roadie and pick up another. It's quicker to strum and push a knob to have it tune itself then to swap guitars, and maybe you can get by on fewer guitars if you don't have to swap as often (though anyone who doesn't want their audience to have to wait a minute while they change a broken string is still going to have to bring more than one.) In my opinion, part of putting on a good show is not making people wait for you to tune. This guitar will make it easier to put on a good show.