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User: MightyYar

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  1. Re:Neat, but not especially novel on Tilting 4WD 'Spider Car' Makes Light Work of Bizarre Terrain · · Score: 1

    And yet you'd probably go ape-shit if someone called "C++" "C".

  2. Re:litleness on Epic Mega Bridge To Connect America With Russia Gets Closer To Reality · · Score: 1

    Yes, China has no enormous military buildup right now, and they aren't fortifying the South China Sea or being aggressive with their neighbors at all.

  3. Re:Plate boundary on Epic Mega Bridge To Connect America With Russia Gets Closer To Reality · · Score: 1

    Until the next earthquake, and then you fix it. A hell of a lot more straightforward than making something last in the violent and frozen marine environment. I hope there is no metal in it. Or concrete. This thing has to compete with giant ships lumbering across the ocean - it will be a challenge.

  4. Re:litleness on Epic Mega Bridge To Connect America With Russia Gets Closer To Reality · · Score: 1

    Why would you need to heavily fortify the bridge? If something objectionable starts to cross it, a WW2 dive bomber could do the job.

  5. Re:The Microsoft key!!!! I've never used it...ever on Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Caps Lock Key Still So Prominent On Keyboards? · · Score: 1

    I think you need to look at the first Mac keyboard. There was no "control" key. Just the Command and Option keys. The Command key was for keyboard shortcuts and the Option key was to enter special characters (accents, extra symbols, etc). They later added the "Control" key where the caps lock key is typically located now and moved "caps lock" to a tiny button next to the space bar. This was done to be compatible with terminal applications.

  6. Re:Robo Cars Will be More Fuel Efficient on When Do Robocars Become Cheaper Than Standard Cars? · · Score: 1

    The auto market is one of the most competitive and low-margin. You need another example for your theorem. I can get a Versa for under $12,000 that is a better car in almost every way than anything that could have been purchased in 1980. We've had 200% inflation since then... What sort of crap did you get for $6000 in 1980? Did it last 150,000 miles and have airbags, crumple zones, a CD player, and AC?

  7. Re:If race doesn't exist, how is this possible? on Genetic Access Control Code Uses 23andMe DNA Data For Internet Racism · · Score: 1

    I agree. Substitute man's intervention for some other one-off event. It doesn't really change my point. Polar bears are separated from brown bears by less than half a million years - they may be more analogous to humans, which have less than a 100,000 to have differentiated. My point is that the differentiation - mild as it was - has now largely been undone. Especially here in the US where you have people with significant African heritage living as "white" people and the average "black" person having 30% European heritage. A classification system is completely useless from a scientific standpoint.

  8. Re:If race doesn't exist, how is this possible? on Genetic Access Control Code Uses 23andMe DNA Data For Internet Racism · · Score: 0

    Remember, they produce fertile offspring when interbred.

    But they don't interbreed unless a person intervenes.

    A wolf does with a dog. The wolf is a wild, untameable dangerous animal, a dog can be tamed.

    Ignoring for the moment that a wolf is basically a wild dog, again they only breed when man intervenes. Dogs wouldn't exist at all without man's intervention.

    So that means, character traits are also inheritable, within one species. Well...

    Weird logic jump, but yes, character traits are heritable. Humans haven't been selectively bred by a weird outside force who wants a docile animal with a smooshed up face and breathing trouble. Humans quite obviously inherit their character traits from their parents. But if you take your typical brown American, they probably have European, native American, and African ancestry. Maybe some Asian. How the hell are you going to classify that person, let alone try to correlate their inherited skin color to their inherited personality? A classification system that cannot classify the President (or nearly 1/3 of the US) is pretty useless.

  9. Re:Units on New Horizons Returns Best Images of Pluto's Moons Hydra and Nix · · Score: 2

    And oddly, not an island.

  10. Re:Units on New Horizons Returns Best Images of Pluto's Moons Hydra and Nix · · Score: 1

    "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations"

  11. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    Haha, that sounds awful! Probably uses something like the SPEEX codec in a 44kbps stream :)

  12. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    Strings are bad - and cymbals. MP3 at low bitrates is indeed horrible. But those are all high-end that would be completely absent on AM. If you wished you could encode the MP3 with the high end filtered/compressed out and it would sound just like AM. People seem to prefer bad high end to no high end.

    In any event, I wouldn't listen to either low-bitrate MP3 or AM except maybe in the car where it doesn't much matter :)

  13. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure how old you are, but maybe your ears have lost high frequency response? AM has a very low dynamic range - something like 30dB. You can usually tell immediately that the radio is tuned to AM rather than FM. You could also be lucky enough to be listening to AM with a receiver that can handle HD or stereo broadcasts... those should sound better.

    I would like the name of that streaming service, to avoid if possible :)

  14. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    I'm skeptical, but perhaps in an ideal state you could coax AM radio to sound as good as Pandora's free stream at 128kbps. Certainly not in the typical configuration of an AM radio in 1980. It was not stereo, had horrid dynamic range (lower than the telephone!), and it picked up motor noise from your car engine or refrigerator. And again, you were listening through those horrid 1970s factory speakers or possibly a really crappy set of foam headphones.

  15. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    Heh, yeah, now I have this image of Neil Young listening to a 48kbps MP3 and declaring digital dead.

  16. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    And AM/FM radio often have static and drop-outs, and low dynamic range. Even at it's best, FM radio is distinguishable from an LP - which itself is generally full of pops and clicks and sounds a bit worse every time you play it. Tape is distinguishable from an LP, and was usually played on a crappy deck. An 8-track is an abomination, with crosstalk where you could actually hear the other tracks.

    Sure, Spotify streams are distinguishable from a CD under good listening conditions. But so are all of the other media he lists. The man is completely deluded. Good artists usually are. I don't really care, since the art is what matters and not the opinions of the artist.

  17. Re: I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, righ on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    Probably. I was born in the 70s, so "oldies" tend to be from the early rock-n-roll era, while "classics" tend to be from the 70s. When it is 2050, I'll probably still be calling 70s rock "classic rock".

  18. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    So were car speakers, especially in the 70s and 80s. Clock radios. Awful 1980s walkman earphones. The man came of age and built his fan base in an era with really crappy audio technology by modern standards. His stance only makes sense when filtered through the "eccentric artist" point of view.

    Now it is true that in 1980, one could pipe their cassette deck through a really nice amp and set of speakers. Just like you can do today with Spotify.

  19. Re: I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, righ on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    He might not need my money, but then neither does Bill Gates but they still charge money for Windows. I really have no idea whether this behavior is driven by greed or insanity or a little of both, but it doesn't change all of the classic music he has made.

  20. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    If a print artist sold prints using an analog transfer process for 40 years and then someone came along and started making digital copies that were visually indistinguishable from the former analog copies? That's an almost perfect analogy, and yes, I'd also call that artist bat-shit nuts and completely ignore their opinion.

    It's OK - great artists seem to be highly correlated with bat shittedness. Young has made some really classic music and his personality quirks do not diminish his prior works of art. Bill Cosby's 70s stand-up is still funny, even if he was a rapist the whole time.

  21. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I'm perfectly capable of listening to his music (stealing, if need be) and tuning his insane ass out. Put his opinions in the same part of my brain as Michael Jackson and Jim Carey.

  22. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    No, I don't see the difference. He's not happy how his music (input) sounds coming out of the streaming service (output). I also think you are missing the part where he talks about the format being below the standards he is seeking to "preserve" his life's work.

  23. Re:I'm sure this isn't about Young vs Trump, right on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, Neil Young is not being misrepresented. Straight from his Facebook page:

    I was there.
    AM radio kicked streaming's ass.
    Analog Cassettes and 8 tracks also kicked streaming's ass,
    and absolutely rocked compared to streaming.

    Streaming sucks. Streaming is the worst audio in history.
    If you want it, you got it. It's here to stay.
    Your choice.

    Copy my songs if you want to. That's free.
    Your choice.

    All my music, my life's work, is what I am preserving the way I want it to be.

    It's already started. My music is being removed from all streaming services. It's not good enough to sell or rent.

    Make streaming sound good and I will be back.

    Neil Young

    I hope for his sake that he is really just trying to push his magic sound machine and doesn't believe any of this.

  24. You can own a condo. Land comes with property taxes. You have condo fees, but in general the economics work out for a big common space vs. a bunch of individual spaces. A tiny home on it's own parcel also implies low-density housing, which makes you dependent on an automobile. The city is not for everyone, but it is the best way to keep your ecological footprint low, if that is your thing.

  25. Mark my words - the "tiny home" thing is a trend that will die like bell bottoms and pet rocks. You can already get a 700 sq. ft. condo for the same price - this is not a new thing. You are absolutely right that most of the growth will come from people currently living without glass windows or indoor plumbing, but if we can figure out the right free trade / labor balance there is plenty of room for growth right here in the developed world. It just won't seem like it because it will be in the low single-digit percentages.