And how exactly do you expect a prof who's lecturing to a hundred or more students to keep track of who exactly knows their material or not?
There's a professor in another thread under this article who answered this question for you. Sorry, I don't have a convenient link.
As far as faking knowing the material, you can't bullshit a bullshitter. And that's the truth. Deadline extensions don't help in every case. Like anything that's intended to account for genuine "acceptable" emergencies, they don't cover every single case. My sister had some trouble with one of her classes because she went to a funeral and they didn't believe her. With her record and her grades, I can't say they had any reason not to believe her. In any case, she wound up dropping the class without refund and retaking the class. SO much for your deadline extensions. The fact is, if she weren't so damn honest, she could have faked the paper and finished the class rather than spend another $1000 to retake it the next semester, $1,000 she didn't have. She almost had to drop out completely for awhile over that and save up more money. Just because some arrogant bastard in a tie in some office somewhere decided she didn't deserve a deadline extension.
In former times this was easy - you were marking papers from year to year and could easily remember plagiarised essays, or essays copied from one another within a year group - but with the advent of the internet
Yeah, yeah. The internet is the source of all of our problems. Get rid of the internet, and all of our troubles go away.
Someone get me a towel! It looks like I'm dripping sarcasm!
As a current university student (studying chemistry, though), I agree. It lowers the value and meaning of a degree if it's easy to get by cheating. Not to mention that you're screwing yourself over if you constantly cheat.
The #1 thing lowering the value and meaning of a degree, in America at least, is the value and meaning of a High School diploma.
If it were 6/100, that might be a valid opinion. When the average is 20/100 (higher in some types of writing classes) who plagiarize part or all of at least one paper
So, 20 out of 100 students will plagiarize all or part of at least one paper? Meanwhile, 80 out of 100 will not. Of those 20 out of 100, what is the further breakdown on how many papers they will plagiarize?
Get real, dude.:) College ain't easy (or at least that's what all the college kids tell me, I didn't go, personally). Maybe someone dies in the family, and the kid has to go to a funeral and misses some study time or something and the only way to keep his grade and get his degree is to steal a paper, eh? Would you flunk a kid that learned the material but wasn't able to turn in a paper that was critical to their grade? What exactly are we trying to accomplish with education in the first place? Are we trying to see how high everybody can score like it's a sporting event, or are we just trying to learn the material?
I say that because I did finish High School, and one of my teachers had that same philosophy. He figured he didn't much care if I completed any assignments because I demonstrated day in and day out that I was learning the material better than the rest of the class. I cheated on my grades in that class because he graded with the 'honor system', and he knew I was cheating. But when it comes down to it, what's the point if the kid learns the material but still winds up with a low grade?
So, you go ahead and reduce the rest of the world to the lowest common denominator. But look around you. Is this lowest common demoninator a world you really want to live in? Not me. This place sucks. And if its the best we can do.... (Star trek quote ahead) "let's just push the button we'd be better off dead".
I hope students are required to hand their papers in to anti-cheat sites, before hand. Hey Id like to make sure people are all getting a fair shake.
So then, an environment in which everyone is assumed to be a cheater until proven otherwise by automated software is an environment that fosters trust, growth, and learning? Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.:) I didn't learn that one in a university...
That aside, do the laws you mentioned (impersonating a police officer, etc.) even apply to illegal aliens? Maybe the RIAA is more intelligent than we think.
Um, don't all the laws apply to illegal aliens? You can't kill an illegal alien, why should you be able to pretend you're a cop to them? Laws aren't just for "the protection of citizens". They're to keep order, and so they *must* apply to everyone if they're to accomplish that goal.
That said, they won't necessarily throw an illegal alien into jail whenever they break the law, it depends entirely on the law. If it's not a severe enough infraction, it's deportation, but you can bet if an illegal alien kills someone, they're going to jail.
They also enjoy some protection under the law, but I don't think they can just walk in to a police station and make a complaint. The cop's just going to say "Let's see your green card" and when they don't show a green card, they get sent down to INS. Sure, the cop's not likely to investigate, but he is also obligated if he sees someone raping an illegal alien to stop the rape...
Man, I so badly want to make some sort of comment about Demolition Man, but all I can say is, I've seen hot cops before, but never as hot as, well, that one chick that stopped me for having tail lights out. I saw her again later when she came to my friend's house when his roommates (also my friends) were fighting. Damn, she was cute.
Which, of course, brings us back to heart disease, eating at McDonald's, and so forth.:)
I, for one, (this isn't what you think it is) didn't think for a minute Bush actually gave a fuck about space. The biggest reason? Many slashdotters (and people who actually know what they're talking about) talk about going to Mars, the asteroid belt, et al, as providing us a big lift towards developing non-fossil fuel energy. That, of course, would solve SO MANY of our problems down here on this sweltering rock. But there are certain political and economical interests in this country that would be devastated if they had to switch their entire business model to a new source of energy. Hell, it'd be like using P2P filesharing as a marketing strategy, the idea's just so foreign to these guys.
(puts can opener away. I think I managed to get all the worms out this time, we'll see.:) )
Well, since you want to go at it like that, I can play along.
You came up with 6-7 people dying every day in every city over 100,000 people in it as an average that happens every day, and it's just heart disease.
We've had, what, 3000 people die in the last 3 years as a result of terrorism? (not counting soldiers, of course) That comes to 1000/year, and that's only in one city. So, to use your number of cities, 260, 1000/260 = 3.85 people per city per year. 3.85/365 days = 0.01 people per day per city per year.
So, you're saying that with 0.01 people per city per day per year dying as a result of terrorism, compared to (your number) 6-7 people dying per city per day per year as a result of heart disease, terrorism is the greater risk?
In my math classes, we always learned that 6 > 0, and 0.01 is near enough to zero as makes no odds.
And I haven't even started on how preventable terrorism deaths really are for a country that doesn't meddle.
I'm assuming you're not married. If I had to spend several months in a small confined space with my wife...well, The Shining comes to mind...
Then you probably need a new wife or some of them erection enhancement pills I get emails about every day.
Seriously. There's really only one thing for a married couple (or any couple, for that matter) to do when they're confined in a small space for several months at a time...
This is yet another of those long term goals that the president will not need to deliver in the short run. There will be no money, no manpower, no political arm-twisting.
You know, I agree with the concept of Presidential term limits to prevent any one man from acquiring too much power as President, but more and more it appears to me to breed short-sightedness in our presidents. The right man for the job shouldn't care so much about his next election, he should be laying down a plan that can be approved by congress and followed for the next 15-20 years, and subsequent presidents for the time period should be charged with continuing the plan. The lucky guy that gets to be in office when there's a new plan will have a wonderful opportunity, but since we'd all be thinking farther ahead than we are now, he'd have much greater accountability for the plan itself.
Or so I think. I'm not, exactly, a political scientist, if those two words can be credibly combined, that is...
The perfect folks for figuring out who will work with who are the US and British Submarine Training Commands, since American and British subs have the longest deployment periods.
Ah yes, the American and British navies, where 400 sailors go out, and 200 couples come back.
Nah, that's a stupid story. I predict that any book with that story would just be long, especially boring, and far more controversial than it's worth the time to read.
Oops, you're absolutely right, you said "computer speakers", and I interpreted that as the same shitty computer speakers everyone else runs and complains about how bad computer music sounds.
I checked the back of my loudspeaker for you, and it's a KLH Model 6. It's actually an excellent speaker, but it's so old I don't even know if they built tweeters back then. Gets great bass, and when it's coupled with a subwoofer it rocks ass. My guitar sounds really awesome through it. The home-made speaker doesn't sound too bad, but it is combo-amp "precision" speakers (isn't "precision" a radio shack brand?) mounted in particle board. I sealed the case up, except for the ports in the face of the smaller squier speaker. It gets pretty good bass and seems to have more frequency range than the KLH, but lacks a certain amount of dynamic range. That could also have something to do with the different amps powering each channel, though. Any ideas?;) Better yet, any ideas on cheap, good-sounding, power amp kits? I've looked....
Heh, I've been running my computer through a real stereo ever since the Amiga had it's 4-channel, 8-bit, 22.1k sound. That stuff was rockin' back in the day. One of these days, I'll have a better system, but what I've got now is actually superior to most of the systems I've run in the past.
I suspect you and I have very diffferent ideas about what 'serious listening' means - those two things are mutually exclusive to me. Maybe if parked by a nice lake.
Well, probably not. See, I used to do my serious listening by sitting on the floor in an "optimal" place for hearing the sound from the stereo, and the stereo was strategically placed, and so forth. I shut off the computer, tv, anything else in the room that would introduce interference (not the heater in the winter and not the air conditioner, that was background noise I accepted), and listened to CD after CD, beginning to end, without interruption. Thing is, that's a luxury to me, now. Even if I could get a room in my house alone (not likely, three kids and a wife sharing a two bedroom basement), I never get enough time to listen beginning to end. Besides that, all the amplification equipment is in the living room, and it's situated mostly in mind of keeping small children from tearing it up. So optimal placement of speakers is not in effect. Besides that, though, I don't get enough sequential time in which I can listen end-to-end anymore, unless it's in the car. Therefore, I have to do my serious listening while driving alone, and I have developed a tendency for picking suboptimal routes.:)
You have no basis for this statement. You have no idea what I listen with. While I wouldn't tolerate the sound of my computer in the room where I listen to music, my MP3 decoder does send music as a digital stream to my receiver. This makes it easy to compare MP3 vs CD.
Um,a ctually, you used the words "little computer speakers" in your statement. I have yet to hear "little computer speakers" that actually sound good in a way that makes the encoder/decoder the bottleneck on good sound from the computer. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I've heard plenty of speakers, many that were labeled "hi-fi", that class as "little computer speakers". Problem is, it's very difficult to get decent sound out of a little case. Even your car speakers aren't in a "little" case. Door-mounted speakers use the whole door as their case, and that's why they usually produce better bass. Then there's the whole issue of speaker boxes in the trunk... Anyway, point is, you said "little speakers" so I concluded "little speakers".:)
I was talking about enocoding/decoding, not equipment. I have music (specifically vocals) that seem to be particularly challenging to the process. CDs that sound perfect become shredded on my iPod when encoded in MP3 (the iPod decoder appears to be junk). AAC does better, but neither can compare to the CD.
Hmm, the problem with most systems plugged into computers that I've seen is that the speakers are actually the bottleneck in good sound from the computer. Why does it matter how your audio is stored if you're just gonna push it through shit? I know, "I burn them to CD" or whatever. Great, actually, that you're streaming to your receiver. Best way to take advantage of the resource.:)
For the record, the bottleneck on my system sounding good is a combination of speakers and amp, and not the codec. I've got a Fender Squier 45 watt amp and a Fender Pioneer 110 75watt amp. I tore the speakers out of these combo guitar amps and stuck them together in a case made out of particle board. My other speaker is an old loudspeaker that actually sounds great, except it doesn't have a tweeter so it's missing some highs. Great mids and lows, but no highs, so no presence. It's a jury rigged and damn near duct-taped setup. My car speakers are much better, and my truck speakers kick the ass out of the car speakers.:)
Heh. Of that list, Silverchair is the only band I"ve heard of, and they totally suck. COme on, man! In the '80s the AUssies sent us good bands. Now they're sending us silverchair? THat's a WMD if ever I heard one! Let's take those fuckers out.... heh.
/me wants vengeance for silverchair. They totally suck.
The MP3/AAC processes do a really good job, but the encoders and the decoders aren't perfect. Certainly extremely high bitrates help, but you start eating into the whole reason for compression in the first place.
Hmm. I've got 120GB of hard drive space in which to store uncompressed music, if I like. When I do serious listening, it's usually in the car. Wife and three kids, I just don't have time anymore to sit and listen like I used to. But when it comes down to it, the main theme that has played in all new music mediums has been practicality. It's far more practical for me to use my computer for the music, and it's getting more and more practical for others to do so as well. The thing you have to get over is the mindset that a computer "requires" those stupid little computer speakers. You can get a sound card with digital out and plug that into your amp, and it'll be well worth it.:) I've got some pretty decent stuff plugged in to my computer...
You are right, though. The statement isn't universally acceptable. I'd gladly pay to download uncompressed music, but I wouldn't pay to download mp3's, no matter how high the quality is. I find iTunes a rip-off, unless they start giving us uncompressed music.:)
Of course, I'm much happier knowing that RIAA members don't get any of my money...
I'm not saying the industry itself is generating a lot of money, it surely is, but it is a business after all, and businesses are supposed to earn money, they are not charities. I certainly do not believe that the artists are recieving the short end of the stick either. When was the last time you saw them "struggling."
You did *not* say "commercially successful musicans" or anything of the sort. I responded to what you said. If you meant something else, well, nothing I can do about that.
Fact is, the vast majority of musicians out there are struggling to be heard, and P2P represents a way for them to be heard. Shutting it down, claiming it's "immoral" or whatever, closes off that resource to the vast majority of musicians out there. What is "public good"? Is it closing off resources that make it possible for musicians to market themselves effectively? Is it closing off technology that evens the playing field by empowering a large number of musicians? Or is it making absolutely certain that only the big, fat record companies can make money off of music?
Seeing as how i'm an american and I am entitled to free speach
Um, actually, you're only entitled to speech not regulated by Congress. Hardly Free.
As an American, I consider it my duty to periodically review my government and it's founding documentation to determine if my government is fulfilling its purpose as is properly laid out. I prefer not to lean on that document as the reason I can do shit.:)
That said, it is stupid that you got flamed for making a comment that would otherwise have been received as "friendly competition". We've been engaged in friendly competition with the Brits for years and maintain a strong relationship with them as part of the deal. Friendship means a lot more than just not talking trash about people. In fact, if a person defines "friendship" as "not talking trash about me", they're not my friend.:)
Slashdot Mirror
And how exactly do you expect a prof who's lecturing to a hundred or more students to keep track of who exactly knows their material or not?
There's a professor in another thread under this article who answered this question for you. Sorry, I don't have a convenient link.
As far as faking knowing the material, you can't bullshit a bullshitter. And that's the truth. Deadline extensions don't help in every case. Like anything that's intended to account for genuine "acceptable" emergencies, they don't cover every single case. My sister had some trouble with one of her classes because she went to a funeral and they didn't believe her. With her record and her grades, I can't say they had any reason not to believe her. In any case, she wound up dropping the class without refund and retaking the class. SO much for your deadline extensions. The fact is, if she weren't so damn honest, she could have faked the paper and finished the class rather than spend another $1000 to retake it the next semester, $1,000 she didn't have. She almost had to drop out completely for awhile over that and save up more money. Just because some arrogant bastard in a tie in some office somewhere decided she didn't deserve a deadline extension.
I leave judgement up to you.
In former times this was easy - you were marking papers from year to year and could easily remember plagiarised essays, or essays copied from one another within a year group - but with the advent of the internet
Yeah, yeah. The internet is the source of all of our problems. Get rid of the internet, and all of our troubles go away.
Someone get me a towel! It looks like I'm dripping sarcasm!
As a current university student (studying chemistry, though), I agree. It lowers the value and meaning of a degree if it's easy to get by cheating. Not to mention that you're screwing yourself over if you constantly cheat.
The #1 thing lowering the value and meaning of a degree, in America at least, is the value and meaning of a High School diploma.
'nuff said.
Let's see...
If it were 6/100, that might be a valid opinion. When the average is 20/100 (higher in some types of writing classes) who plagiarize part or all of at least one paper
So, 20 out of 100 students will plagiarize all or part of at least one paper? Meanwhile, 80 out of 100 will not. Of those 20 out of 100, what is the further breakdown on how many papers they will plagiarize?
Get real, dude. :) College ain't easy (or at least that's what all the college kids tell me, I didn't go, personally). Maybe someone dies in the family, and the kid has to go to a funeral and misses some study time or something and the only way to keep his grade and get his degree is to steal a paper, eh? Would you flunk a kid that learned the material but wasn't able to turn in a paper that was critical to their grade? What exactly are we trying to accomplish with education in the first place? Are we trying to see how high everybody can score like it's a sporting event, or are we just trying to learn the material?
I say that because I did finish High School, and one of my teachers had that same philosophy. He figured he didn't much care if I completed any assignments because I demonstrated day in and day out that I was learning the material better than the rest of the class. I cheated on my grades in that class because he graded with the 'honor system', and he knew I was cheating. But when it comes down to it, what's the point if the kid learns the material but still winds up with a low grade?
So, you go ahead and reduce the rest of the world to the lowest common denominator. But look around you. Is this lowest common demoninator a world you really want to live in? Not me. This place sucks. And if its the best we can do.... (Star trek quote ahead) "let's just push the button we'd be better off dead".
I hope students are required to hand their papers in to anti-cheat sites, before hand. Hey Id like to make sure people are all getting a fair shake.
So then, an environment in which everyone is assumed to be a cheater until proven otherwise by automated software is an environment that fosters trust, growth, and learning? Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. :) I didn't learn that one in a university...
That aside, do the laws you mentioned (impersonating a police officer, etc.) even apply to illegal aliens? Maybe the RIAA is more intelligent than we think.
Um, don't all the laws apply to illegal aliens? You can't kill an illegal alien, why should you be able to pretend you're a cop to them? Laws aren't just for "the protection of citizens". They're to keep order, and so they *must* apply to everyone if they're to accomplish that goal.
That said, they won't necessarily throw an illegal alien into jail whenever they break the law, it depends entirely on the law. If it's not a severe enough infraction, it's deportation, but you can bet if an illegal alien kills someone, they're going to jail.
They also enjoy some protection under the law, but I don't think they can just walk in to a police station and make a complaint. The cop's just going to say "Let's see your green card" and when they don't show a green card, they get sent down to INS. Sure, the cop's not likely to investigate, but he is also obligated if he sees someone raping an illegal alien to stop the rape...
Man, I so badly want to make some sort of comment about Demolition Man, but all I can say is, I've seen hot cops before, but never as hot as, well, that one chick that stopped me for having tail lights out. I saw her again later when she came to my friend's house when his roommates (also my friends) were fighting. Damn, she was cute.
No sarcasm intended, simple statement of fact. Stop five people on the street and ask them where or what Europa is. Go ahead, I'll wait.
While you're at it, ask 'em where or what Europe is. I bet you get the same answer...
I, for one, wouldn't want to make decisions by polling random people on the street.
Which, of course, brings us back to heart disease, eating at McDonald's, and so forth. :)
I, for one, (this isn't what you think it is) didn't think for a minute Bush actually gave a fuck about space. The biggest reason? Many slashdotters (and people who actually know what they're talking about) talk about going to Mars, the asteroid belt, et al, as providing us a big lift towards developing non-fossil fuel energy. That, of course, would solve SO MANY of our problems down here on this sweltering rock. But there are certain political and economical interests in this country that would be devastated if they had to switch their entire business model to a new source of energy. Hell, it'd be like using P2P filesharing as a marketing strategy, the idea's just so foreign to these guys.
(puts can opener away. I think I managed to get all the worms out this time, we'll see. :) )
Well, since you want to go at it like that, I can play along.
You came up with 6-7 people dying every day in every city over 100,000 people in it as an average that happens every day, and it's just heart disease.
We've had, what, 3000 people die in the last 3 years as a result of terrorism? (not counting soldiers, of course) That comes to 1000/year, and that's only in one city. So, to use your number of cities, 260, 1000/260 = 3.85 people per city per year. 3.85/365 days = 0.01 people per day per city per year.
So, you're saying that with 0.01 people per city per day per year dying as a result of terrorism, compared to (your number) 6-7 people dying per city per day per year as a result of heart disease, terrorism is the greater risk?
In my math classes, we always learned that 6 > 0, and 0.01 is near enough to zero as makes no odds.
And I haven't even started on how preventable terrorism deaths really are for a country that doesn't meddle.
I was with you all the way until:
lead a nation of thinkers.
I can't help but ask, where the fuck country do you live? The US I live in is hardly a "nation of thinkers".
Why not send bush himself....hmmm, maybe not....we would be in war with Jupiter soon if he went up there.
Nah, Jupiter's been nuking Europa for a long time, so we won't start anything with them.
Wait a minute, Europa's not a continent...
I'm assuming you're not married. If I had to spend several months in a small confined space with my wife...well, The Shining comes to mind...
Then you probably need a new wife or some of them erection enhancement pills I get emails about every day.
Seriously. There's really only one thing for a married couple (or any couple, for that matter) to do when they're confined in a small space for several months at a time...
This is yet another of those long term goals that the president will not need to deliver in the short run. There will be no money, no manpower, no political arm-twisting.
You know, I agree with the concept of Presidential term limits to prevent any one man from acquiring too much power as President, but more and more it appears to me to breed short-sightedness in our presidents. The right man for the job shouldn't care so much about his next election, he should be laying down a plan that can be approved by congress and followed for the next 15-20 years, and subsequent presidents for the time period should be charged with continuing the plan. The lucky guy that gets to be in office when there's a new plan will have a wonderful opportunity, but since we'd all be thinking farther ahead than we are now, he'd have much greater accountability for the plan itself.
Or so I think. I'm not, exactly, a political scientist, if those two words can be credibly combined, that is...
The perfect folks for figuring out who will work with who are the US and British Submarine Training Commands, since American and British subs have the longest deployment periods.
Ah yes, the American and British navies, where 400 sailors go out, and 200 couples come back.
What? Are you saying the resources out there are insecure now?
Of course not! There's evil-doers out there building weapons of mass destruction! Why else do you think ol' bush is so hot on space all of a sudden?
Good idea - you should write a book.
Nah, that's a stupid story. I predict that any book with that story would just be long, especially boring, and far more controversial than it's worth the time to read.
Oops, you're absolutely right, you said "computer speakers", and I interpreted that as the same shitty computer speakers everyone else runs and complains about how bad computer music sounds.
I checked the back of my loudspeaker for you, and it's a KLH Model 6. It's actually an excellent speaker, but it's so old I don't even know if they built tweeters back then. Gets great bass, and when it's coupled with a subwoofer it rocks ass. My guitar sounds really awesome through it. The home-made speaker doesn't sound too bad, but it is combo-amp "precision" speakers (isn't "precision" a radio shack brand?) mounted in particle board. I sealed the case up, except for the ports in the face of the smaller squier speaker. It gets pretty good bass and seems to have more frequency range than the KLH, but lacks a certain amount of dynamic range. That could also have something to do with the different amps powering each channel, though. Any ideas? ;) Better yet, any ideas on cheap, good-sounding, power amp kits? I've looked....
Heh, I've been running my computer through a real stereo ever since the Amiga had it's 4-channel, 8-bit, 22.1k sound. That stuff was rockin' back in the day. One of these days, I'll have a better system, but what I've got now is actually superior to most of the systems I've run in the past.
I suspect you and I have very diffferent ideas about what 'serious listening' means - those two things are mutually exclusive to me. Maybe if parked by a nice lake.
Well, probably not. See, I used to do my serious listening by sitting on the floor in an "optimal" place for hearing the sound from the stereo, and the stereo was strategically placed, and so forth. I shut off the computer, tv, anything else in the room that would introduce interference (not the heater in the winter and not the air conditioner, that was background noise I accepted), and listened to CD after CD, beginning to end, without interruption. Thing is, that's a luxury to me, now. Even if I could get a room in my house alone (not likely, three kids and a wife sharing a two bedroom basement), I never get enough time to listen beginning to end. Besides that, all the amplification equipment is in the living room, and it's situated mostly in mind of keeping small children from tearing it up. So optimal placement of speakers is not in effect. Besides that, though, I don't get enough sequential time in which I can listen end-to-end anymore, unless it's in the car. Therefore, I have to do my serious listening while driving alone, and I have developed a tendency for picking suboptimal routes. :)
You have no basis for this statement. You have no idea what I listen with. While I wouldn't tolerate the sound of my computer in the room where I listen to music, my MP3 decoder does send music as a digital stream to my receiver. This makes it easy to compare MP3 vs CD.
Um,a ctually, you used the words "little computer speakers" in your statement. I have yet to hear "little computer speakers" that actually sound good in a way that makes the encoder/decoder the bottleneck on good sound from the computer. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I've heard plenty of speakers, many that were labeled "hi-fi", that class as "little computer speakers". Problem is, it's very difficult to get decent sound out of a little case. Even your car speakers aren't in a "little" case. Door-mounted speakers use the whole door as their case, and that's why they usually produce better bass. Then there's the whole issue of speaker boxes in the trunk... Anyway, point is, you said "little speakers" so I concluded "little speakers". :)
I was talking about enocoding/decoding, not equipment. I have music (specifically vocals) that seem to be particularly challenging to the process. CDs that sound perfect become shredded on my iPod when encoded in MP3 (the iPod decoder appears to be junk). AAC does better, but neither can compare to the CD.
Hmm, the problem with most systems plugged into computers that I've seen is that the speakers are actually the bottleneck in good sound from the computer. Why does it matter how your audio is stored if you're just gonna push it through shit? I know, "I burn them to CD" or whatever. Great, actually, that you're streaming to your receiver. Best way to take advantage of the resource. :)
For the record, the bottleneck on my system sounding good is a combination of speakers and amp, and not the codec. I've got a Fender Squier 45 watt amp and a Fender Pioneer 110 75watt amp. I tore the speakers out of these combo guitar amps and stuck them together in a case made out of particle board. My other speaker is an old loudspeaker that actually sounds great, except it doesn't have a tweeter so it's missing some highs. Great mids and lows, but no highs, so no presence. It's a jury rigged and damn near duct-taped setup. My car speakers are much better, and my truck speakers kick the ass out of the car speakers. :)
Heh. Of that list, Silverchair is the only band I"ve heard of, and they totally suck. COme on, man! In the '80s the AUssies sent us good bands. Now they're sending us silverchair? THat's a WMD if ever I heard one! Let's take those fuckers out.... heh.
/me wants vengeance for silverchair. They totally suck.
The MP3/AAC processes do a really good job, but the encoders and the decoders aren't perfect. Certainly extremely high bitrates help, but you start eating into the whole reason for compression in the first place.
Hmm. I've got 120GB of hard drive space in which to store uncompressed music, if I like. When I do serious listening, it's usually in the car. Wife and three kids, I just don't have time anymore to sit and listen like I used to. But when it comes down to it, the main theme that has played in all new music mediums has been practicality. It's far more practical for me to use my computer for the music, and it's getting more and more practical for others to do so as well. The thing you have to get over is the mindset that a computer "requires" those stupid little computer speakers. You can get a sound card with digital out and plug that into your amp, and it'll be well worth it. :) I've got some pretty decent stuff plugged in to my computer...
You are right, though. The statement isn't universally acceptable. I'd gladly pay to download uncompressed music, but I wouldn't pay to download mp3's, no matter how high the quality is. I find iTunes a rip-off, unless they start giving us uncompressed music. :)
Of course, I'm much happier knowing that RIAA members don't get any of my money...
You said:
I'm not saying the industry itself is generating a lot of money, it surely is, but it is a business after all, and businesses are supposed to earn money, they are not charities. I certainly do not believe that the artists are recieving the short end of the stick either. When was the last time you saw them "struggling."
You did *not* say "commercially successful musicans" or anything of the sort. I responded to what you said. If you meant something else, well, nothing I can do about that.
Fact is, the vast majority of musicians out there are struggling to be heard, and P2P represents a way for them to be heard. Shutting it down, claiming it's "immoral" or whatever, closes off that resource to the vast majority of musicians out there. What is "public good"? Is it closing off resources that make it possible for musicians to market themselves effectively? Is it closing off technology that evens the playing field by empowering a large number of musicians? Or is it making absolutely certain that only the big, fat record companies can make money off of music?
Ha-ha! THis is the best new troll to come out! I thoroughly enjoy reading this one. :)
Seeing as how i'm an american and I am entitled to free speach
Um, actually, you're only entitled to speech not regulated by Congress. Hardly Free.
As an American, I consider it my duty to periodically review my government and it's founding documentation to determine if my government is fulfilling its purpose as is properly laid out. I prefer not to lean on that document as the reason I can do shit. :)
That said, it is stupid that you got flamed for making a comment that would otherwise have been received as "friendly competition". We've been engaged in friendly competition with the Brits for years and maintain a strong relationship with them as part of the deal. Friendship means a lot more than just not talking trash about people. In fact, if a person defines "friendship" as "not talking trash about me", they're not my friend. :)
It's because they used a Ford engine. Had they used a Chevy, it would've run the first time and they could have focused on kicking England's ass. :)
Disclaimer: I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, I just like taking stabs at Ford from time to time.