Buy from independents instead, if you must buy. But is it really that hard going a single month without buying anything?
Rediscover the old movies, music and games you already own. If you're anything like me, you probably have a couple of titles that you never got around to. Give them a go:-)
I am in fact walking the walk. Most of my reading material comes from the public domain (thank you, Project Gutenberg!) and I hardly watch any movies or TV shows. Yes, I am that guy who doesn't even own a TV.
I have cut most of the major publishers out of my life already, cutting out all of them for a month will not be a challenge.
BTW, nice move starting a sales spiel by calling bullshit on my statements. That's one sale you won't be getting, generous return policy or not.
There no reason to disregard my arguments because you feel insulted for some reason unknown to me.
English is not my first language, does tinkering have a particularly negative connotation in American English that I am unaware of? In the company I keep both online and off, tinkering is regarded as a positive trait, signaling great curiosity and desire to learn by experimentation.
I have been nothing but civil and respectful in tone and intent, I'm sorry if you misunderstand my words and therefore ignore the underlying argument.
You're still mistaken about digital sound, though. Please read my post disregarding small language barriers, and make an informed reply rather than an insulted dismissal. Please also visit the forums at hydrogenaudio and get educated on the finer points of digital sound and compression.
I don't know how much of a difference it'll make, but I won't be buying any music, movies or books in March. Not a single CD, DVD or paperback, nothing. Not even a download of any kind.
Probably won't make a big difference, but it'll sure make me feel better.
If you can pick out the difference between 24/96 and the same track dithered and resampled to 16/44.1, the dither+resampling was done wrong, or you're using some very specific non-music test sample. Done properly, the only difference between a piece of music in 24/96 and 16/44.1 is a tiny bit of noise generated by the dithering at only a few dB above the noise floor. Compare the two tracks in any competent audio software and generate a difference track. It should very nearly null completely except for the aforementioned few dB of noise. Completely irrelevant for music. That's all the higher bitrate gives you, not the "subtle interplay between instruments", but a lower noise floor. Essential for recording when you're stacking multiple tracks on top of each other, irrelevant for the final release when the mastering is finished and the sound won't be tinkered with anymore.
The debate has raged on for years on sites like hydrogenaudio, but no one has been able to prove that they can hear a difference with a proper, double-blind ABX test. If you can hear a difference, I urge you to submit a thread there with your results. You could help improve future releases of digital audio encoders and players.
You may tinker with music, but you obviously don't understand PCM at all. Let's say I record a 20kHz perfect sine wave at 16/44.1. I know it's a perfect sine wave because 1) it sounds like one, 2) I generated it myself using an old analogue tone generator and 3) I checked it with an oscilloscope before recording it.
Now I play back this very same sine wave recorded onto my PC at 16/44.1 into my oscilloscope again and the result? A perfect 20kHz sine wave. No gaps, no stair steps, no jagged edges or "gaps".
I used this exact same method with my dad, who has worked professionally with both analogue and digital electronics since 1975. I wanted to prove to him that his theory about vinyl sound being "continuous" and CD sound being "choppy and cold and digital" was faulty. Turns out that was he was really missing in modern music was the classic "live in studio" sound of his favorite 60s and 70s music and I actually agree with him.
I want the bass to rattle the snare drum a little on certain notes and I like the slightly unpolished final result, it just sounds more real, which is why my MSFL vinyl rips of the original Beatles albums (at 16/44.1!) are some of my absolute favorites, no slackjawed remastering there! Modern music production has a tendency to become a little too sterile, but it has nothing to do with the distribution format and everything to do with the studio and technicians during the recording process.
Don't get me wrong, I want people to use 24/96, hell, use 24/192 or even higher in the studio while converting back and forth and tinkering with the sound. But for final distribution, 16/44.1 is more than good enough, we aren't even using half of what the format is actually capable off, there are very very few releases that come even close to using all the dynamic range available. Telarc's release of the 1812 Overture comes to mind and it is an amazing showcase of what humble red book audio can do in regards to transients, dynamic range and clarity.
This would only be a problem if the DAC didn't reclock the signal. Then a slight loss of sync between the digital source and the DAC could cause some (very small, mind you!) amount of distortion.
Since all DACs today reclock the signal, it is no longer a problem.
I am willing to bet money that you cannot hear the difference between any piece of music in 24/96 and the same piece of music in a high-quality dithered 16/44.1 downsample. Do an ABX test. I did for weeks and weeks before I decided to downsample my high-quality vinyl rips and digital downloads. There was no difference, none at all. And I tested on multiple different computer and devices on $250 headphones and $2000 speakers.
24/96 and higher bit/sample rates are essential for recording, mixing and mastering where you want to preserve as much quality and headroom as possible while you're mucking around with the sound. But for the final release master, CD-quality is more than good enough.
Tell me, did you know that the signal/noise ratio of CD-quality audio is 96dB? That is the difference between "quiter than a sensory-deprivation tank"-quiet and "jackhammer running at full tilt 1m from your ears"-loud.
For 24-bit audio's 144dB signal/noise ratio, replace the jackhammer with a jet engine 30m from your ears, 14dB above the threshold of pain! Except that even the very best audio equipment available today has a very hard time approaching even 130dB S/N ratio even under ideal conditions.
Now answer me honestly, you you actually want that sort of dynamic range? Do you want the cannons on the Telarc release of the 1812 Overture to physically burst your eardrums when played back at a realistic volume?
The same goes for the sampling rate. 44.1kHz can reproduce sound up to 22.05kHz perfectly, it's all there in the Nyquistâ"Shannon sampling theorem, it's a must-read if you want to understand digital sound. Perhaps you can actually hear up to around 25kHz, as some people under the age of 20-25 can. After that point, age takes its toll and severely reduces your high-frequency hearing. Odds are that even if you can hear frequencies that high, the sensitivity of your ears is severely rolled off above 20kHz (like -50-60dB rolled off).
Now... Please tell me in scientific, verifiable non-audiophile terms why a well-mastered CD just doesn't have enough fidelity to reproduce the music you listen to. You even evoked the magic word "vinyl", even though vinyl is absolutely useless beneath ~50Hz and above ~12-15Hz, depending on how well the record has been treated.
The problem with modern digital music distribution isn't the format, CD-quality is actually amazingly good and doesn't degrade on playback like vinyl. But it requires the music to be mastered properly and not mashed-together in the top 6dB of dynamic range for radio by some monkey at a mixing desk. Digital clipping is harsh and horrible-sounding, but we have 96dB of headroom to avoid it, what we need are good mastering technicians, not a new format.
Re: RHCP, see if you can find the version mastered for vinyl, the mastering is so much better. I own the CD version of Californication and it clips and distorts like you wouldn't believe. I downloaded a good vinyl rip, which is probably illegal, but I already own the CD, so fuck it. The sound still isn't perfect, a bit too in-your-face for my liking. But there's so much more headroom, much greater dynamics and no clipping at all. It's actually listenable now.
There is a small scene of high-quality 24-bit 96khz vinyl rips on various torrent sites. I did a high-quality downsample to 16/44.1, it's not like anyone can hear the difference on vinyl rips (noise etc.) and the 24/96 files are huge.
Just the other day, there was a discussion on this very website, where multiple well-spoken libertarian posters seriously tried to argue for a "first come, first serve" free market approach to land zoning and environmentalism. Meaning that if you came first and setup your factory in an area, people who moved in later would have no right to complain about your pollution. Unless of course it increased, then they could sue, obviously.
And we all know that every kind of pollution is visible and obvious and that no silent, long-term mutations or degenerative effects happen at all. Additionally, who would represent the natural wildlife in court after you've destroyed their habitat with your factory?
The free market is a fallacy. Human greed and lack of compassion will see to that.
It would behoove you to read up on things like actual, proper marxism, and I don't mean the propaganda and spin-infested spiel you have been fed by politicians and others with political interest your whole life.
Go read all three unabridged parts of Das Kapital (the Penguin Classics edition is quite nice), it really is an eye-opener. No matter what you've heard of communism and marxism, I am willing to bet that the pictures you have in your head of these ideologies are completely out of line with reality.
There is nothing wrong with a smaller government, the administrative bit of the public sector has been out of control in the western world for years. But we don't have to abolish the government entirely or make it completely bare-bones as libertarians apparently want. What we need are more nurses and teachers, and a lot fewer administrators and bean counters.
The staunch opposition to hard-line libertarianism concerns the utopia of the all-correcting "free market", which WILL quite effectively oppress the poor and those without money and power.
Stop and go traffic isn't really a problem in most cars with auto start/stop.
With a manual gearbox, the engine will only stop if you're at a standstill, in neutral with the clutch released. It'll start up again as soon as you push in the clutch. In stop and go traffic, you are rarely completely still for more than a few seconds.
In cars with automatic gearboxes, there is usually a delay of 5-10 seconds before the engine stops. It starts up again as soon as you release the brake, of course. I believe some cars with automatic gearboxes will only stop the engine if you put it in neutral.
In addition to that, there are a host of variables that need to be fulfilled before the engine will stop. Coolant temperature, outside temperature, running time etc. etc.
In the real world, auto start/stop works well on any sort of ICE engine and powertrain combination.
Tell that to all the people who've just finished their educations to find that there are no jobs for them.
There is such a thing as over-qualified and over-educated, no matter how little the college/university-focused western world wants to admit it.
Your level of education is still secondary to who you are and how you approach problem-solving, that's not really soemthing you can learn in any effective way. I went to a vocational school, took a 5-year IT education and getting paid more than most of my colleagues, who are all academics.
The related video links usually has some good suggestions for similar (or surprisingly dissimilar) artists, I've found a lot of interesting music that way.
Videoconferencing has worked wonders my my department, which is split up and located at two different physical locations, 200km apart. Having face-to-face contact through videoconferencing has helped us immensely.
All the video conferencing equipment I've seen has both a mute button and a microphone off button. Learn to love them.
You try making sense of a teleconference when you have 10+ people on the line, some of them with bad connections with delays up to multiple seconds. People speak over each other and interrupt and it can be really hard to hear the difference between people with similar voices.
With video, you can gesture and read the other participants' body language. It helps immensely when trying to understand complex trains of thought.
So if I use my control over the radio waves to broadcast nothing but random gibberish and nothing of any value whatsoever, that's perfectly fine? (Not that different from radio stations today, I admit)
So if I happen to cause interference to something susceptible to radio waves, that's perfectly fine if I was there first? And there would be nothing anyone could do about it except leave?
And you don't see how this favors the rich and wealthy to a ridiculous degree?
Never mind radio waves, let's say I set up a factory that pollutes to an insane degree, but creates all the fancy technological gubbins that people crave, iPhones and flat screen televisions and whatnot. Products which I sell at half the price of the competition because I don't have to worry about regulations or the environment.
Who's going to fight for the animals and the environment? Can birds band together and form class-action lawsuits?
We know practical communism does not work, because it's been tried enough times and in enough ways we know failure is the end state every time.
Name one actual communist state that wasn't brought down by outside politically-disagreeing forces.
If you say USSR, you've already failed. That was fascism and tyrannical dictatorship under a thin, mostly-transparent veneer of pretend communism. As were (and are) most other so-called communist states. A rule of thumb is that any nation with the word "democratic" or "people's" or "republic" in the name is nothing but a fascist dictatorship.
Instead, look at Allende's Chile. He was a marxist, not a "communist" and while Chile wasn't exactly perfect under his rule, it actually worked pretty fucking well. At least, until the CIA etc. undermined it all and instigated a coup.
In the libertarian theory unused property comes into ownership through homesteading which basically mean you have to start using unused land. The same theory exists with air/water pollution, noise, and radio waves.
So let me get this straight, if I use ALL of the available radio spectrum before anyone else has a chance, by default I will have the right to use it as I see fit and no one can do anything about it?
And you don't see any problems with this "first come, first serve, fuck everyone else" philosophy?
I'd love it if there was some standard 3D model available for each type of unit. Then I could completely customize them to match my preferences.
Swapping weapons/heads/limbs on the physical plastic or metal figurines is no problem, but unless you're extremely handy with epoxy putty, stuff like changing facial expressions or various surface details is damn hard. Working in a 3D modelling program would make that so much easier and infinitely undo/redoable.
But knowing GW, look forward to being excluded from all tournaments and banned for life if your figurines don't have the correct GW-approved RFID tag.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't crank up the torrents.
Buy from independents instead, if you must buy. But is it really that hard going a single month without buying anything?
Rediscover the old movies, music and games you already own. If you're anything like me, you probably have a couple of titles that you never got around to. Give them a go :-)
Well, then I guess I'll just have to pirate even more stuff to live up to their expectations! ;-)
I am in fact walking the walk. Most of my reading material comes from the public domain (thank you, Project Gutenberg!) and I hardly watch any movies or TV shows. Yes, I am that guy who doesn't even own a TV.
I have cut most of the major publishers out of my life already, cutting out all of them for a month will not be a challenge.
BTW, nice move starting a sales spiel by calling bullshit on my statements. That's one sale you won't be getting, generous return policy or not.
There no reason to disregard my arguments because you feel insulted for some reason unknown to me.
English is not my first language, does tinkering have a particularly negative connotation in American English that I am unaware of? In the company I keep both online and off, tinkering is regarded as a positive trait, signaling great curiosity and desire to learn by experimentation.
I have been nothing but civil and respectful in tone and intent, I'm sorry if you misunderstand my words and therefore ignore the underlying argument.
You're still mistaken about digital sound, though. Please read my post disregarding small language barriers, and make an informed reply rather than an insulted dismissal. Please also visit the forums at hydrogenaudio and get educated on the finer points of digital sound and compression.
I don't know how much of a difference it'll make, but I won't be buying any music, movies or books in March. Not a single CD, DVD or paperback, nothing. Not even a download of any kind.
Probably won't make a big difference, but it'll sure make me feel better.
If you can pick out the difference between 24/96 and the same track dithered and resampled to 16/44.1, the dither+resampling was done wrong, or you're using some very specific non-music test sample. Done properly, the only difference between a piece of music in 24/96 and 16/44.1 is a tiny bit of noise generated by the dithering at only a few dB above the noise floor. Compare the two tracks in any competent audio software and generate a difference track. It should very nearly null completely except for the aforementioned few dB of noise. Completely irrelevant for music. That's all the higher bitrate gives you, not the "subtle interplay between instruments", but a lower noise floor. Essential for recording when you're stacking multiple tracks on top of each other, irrelevant for the final release when the mastering is finished and the sound won't be tinkered with anymore.
The debate has raged on for years on sites like hydrogenaudio, but no one has been able to prove that they can hear a difference with a proper, double-blind ABX test. If you can hear a difference, I urge you to submit a thread there with your results. You could help improve future releases of digital audio encoders and players.
You may tinker with music, but you obviously don't understand PCM at all. Let's say I record a 20kHz perfect sine wave at 16/44.1. I know it's a perfect sine wave because 1) it sounds like one, 2) I generated it myself using an old analogue tone generator and 3) I checked it with an oscilloscope before recording it.
Now I play back this very same sine wave recorded onto my PC at 16/44.1 into my oscilloscope again and the result? A perfect 20kHz sine wave. No gaps, no stair steps, no jagged edges or "gaps".
I used this exact same method with my dad, who has worked professionally with both analogue and digital electronics since 1975. I wanted to prove to him that his theory about vinyl sound being "continuous" and CD sound being "choppy and cold and digital" was faulty. Turns out that was he was really missing in modern music was the classic "live in studio" sound of his favorite 60s and 70s music and I actually agree with him.
I want the bass to rattle the snare drum a little on certain notes and I like the slightly unpolished final result, it just sounds more real, which is why my MSFL vinyl rips of the original Beatles albums (at 16/44.1!) are some of my absolute favorites, no slackjawed remastering there! Modern music production has a tendency to become a little too sterile, but it has nothing to do with the distribution format and everything to do with the studio and technicians during the recording process.
Don't get me wrong, I want people to use 24/96, hell, use 24/192 or even higher in the studio while converting back and forth and tinkering with the sound. But for final distribution, 16/44.1 is more than good enough, we aren't even using half of what the format is actually capable off, there are very very few releases that come even close to using all the dynamic range available. Telarc's release of the 1812 Overture comes to mind and it is an amazing showcase of what humble red book audio can do in regards to transients, dynamic range and clarity.
Read up on PCM. It's highly fascinating.
This would only be a problem if the DAC didn't reclock the signal. Then a slight loss of sync between the digital source and the DAC could cause some (very small, mind you!) amount of distortion.
Since all DACs today reclock the signal, it is no longer a problem.
I am willing to bet money that you cannot hear the difference between any piece of music in 24/96 and the same piece of music in a high-quality dithered 16/44.1 downsample. Do an ABX test. I did for weeks and weeks before I decided to downsample my high-quality vinyl rips and digital downloads. There was no difference, none at all. And I tested on multiple different computer and devices on $250 headphones and $2000 speakers.
24/96 and higher bit/sample rates are essential for recording, mixing and mastering where you want to preserve as much quality and headroom as possible while you're mucking around with the sound. But for the final release master, CD-quality is more than good enough.
Tell me, did you know that the signal/noise ratio of CD-quality audio is 96dB? That is the difference between "quiter than a sensory-deprivation tank"-quiet and "jackhammer running at full tilt 1m from your ears"-loud.
For 24-bit audio's 144dB signal/noise ratio, replace the jackhammer with a jet engine 30m from your ears, 14dB above the threshold of pain! Except that even the very best audio equipment available today has a very hard time approaching even 130dB S/N ratio even under ideal conditions.
Now answer me honestly, you you actually want that sort of dynamic range? Do you want the cannons on the Telarc release of the 1812 Overture to physically burst your eardrums when played back at a realistic volume?
The same goes for the sampling rate. 44.1kHz can reproduce sound up to 22.05kHz perfectly, it's all there in the Nyquistâ"Shannon sampling theorem, it's a must-read if you want to understand digital sound. Perhaps you can actually hear up to around 25kHz, as some people under the age of 20-25 can. After that point, age takes its toll and severely reduces your high-frequency hearing. Odds are that even if you can hear frequencies that high, the sensitivity of your ears is severely rolled off above 20kHz (like -50-60dB rolled off).
Now... Please tell me in scientific, verifiable non-audiophile terms why a well-mastered CD just doesn't have enough fidelity to reproduce the music you listen to. You even evoked the magic word "vinyl", even though vinyl is absolutely useless beneath ~50Hz and above ~12-15Hz, depending on how well the record has been treated.
The problem with modern digital music distribution isn't the format, CD-quality is actually amazingly good and doesn't degrade on playback like vinyl. But it requires the music to be mastered properly and not mashed-together in the top 6dB of dynamic range for radio by some monkey at a mixing desk. Digital clipping is harsh and horrible-sounding, but we have 96dB of headroom to avoid it, what we need are good mastering technicians, not a new format.
That is probably the single most significant part of the MFI guidelines.
Oh, how I wish we could get a standard reference level for audio mastering music like there is for movies on DVD.
A mid-bass boost is a cheap and easy way to "improve" bass response in earphones and small speakers, the target group for most music sold on iTunes.
But this technique should be implemented in the playback device or speakers, not hardcoded into the files.
Re: RHCP, see if you can find the version mastered for vinyl, the mastering is so much better. I own the CD version of Californication and it clips and distorts like you wouldn't believe. I downloaded a good vinyl rip, which is probably illegal, but I already own the CD, so fuck it. The sound still isn't perfect, a bit too in-your-face for my liking. But there's so much more headroom, much greater dynamics and no clipping at all. It's actually listenable now.
There is a small scene of high-quality 24-bit 96khz vinyl rips on various torrent sites. I did a high-quality downsample to 16/44.1, it's not like anyone can hear the difference on vinyl rips (noise etc.) and the 24/96 files are huge.
Really? You resort to arguing semantics already?
Just the other day, there was a discussion on this very website, where multiple well-spoken libertarian posters seriously tried to argue for a "first come, first serve" free market approach to land zoning and environmentalism. Meaning that if you came first and setup your factory in an area, people who moved in later would have no right to complain about your pollution. Unless of course it increased, then they could sue, obviously.
And we all know that every kind of pollution is visible and obvious and that no silent, long-term mutations or degenerative effects happen at all. Additionally, who would represent the natural wildlife in court after you've destroyed their habitat with your factory?
The free market is a fallacy. Human greed and lack of compassion will see to that.
It would behoove you to read up on things like actual, proper marxism, and I don't mean the propaganda and spin-infested spiel you have been fed by politicians and others with political interest your whole life.
Go read all three unabridged parts of Das Kapital (the Penguin Classics edition is quite nice), it really is an eye-opener. No matter what you've heard of communism and marxism, I am willing to bet that the pictures you have in your head of these ideologies are completely out of line with reality.
Nice straw man you've got there.
There is nothing wrong with a smaller government, the administrative bit of the public sector has been out of control in the western world for years. But we don't have to abolish the government entirely or make it completely bare-bones as libertarians apparently want. What we need are more nurses and teachers, and a lot fewer administrators and bean counters.
The staunch opposition to hard-line libertarianism concerns the utopia of the all-correcting "free market", which WILL quite effectively oppress the poor and those without money and power.
Stop and go traffic isn't really a problem in most cars with auto start/stop.
With a manual gearbox, the engine will only stop if you're at a standstill, in neutral with the clutch released. It'll start up again as soon as you push in the clutch. In stop and go traffic, you are rarely completely still for more than a few seconds.
In cars with automatic gearboxes, there is usually a delay of 5-10 seconds before the engine stops. It starts up again as soon as you release the brake, of course. I believe some cars with automatic gearboxes will only stop the engine if you put it in neutral.
In addition to that, there are a host of variables that need to be fulfilled before the engine will stop. Coolant temperature, outside temperature, running time etc. etc.
In the real world, auto start/stop works well on any sort of ICE engine and powertrain combination.
Tell that to all the people who've just finished their educations to find that there are no jobs for them.
There is such a thing as over-qualified and over-educated, no matter how little the college/university-focused western world wants to admit it.
Your level of education is still secondary to who you are and how you approach problem-solving, that's not really soemthing you can learn in any effective way. I went to a vocational school, took a 5-year IT education and getting paid more than most of my colleagues, who are all academics.
The related video links usually has some good suggestions for similar (or surprisingly dissimilar) artists, I've found a lot of interesting music that way.
Must be lead paint, then.
What are you, some kind of pervert?
I bet you even like *shudder* consensual intercourse in the missionary position, you piece of filth!
Fair enough, it depends a lot on your workflows.
Videoconferencing has worked wonders my my department, which is split up and located at two different physical locations, 200km apart. Having face-to-face contact through videoconferencing has helped us immensely.
All the video conferencing equipment I've seen has both a mute button and a microphone off button. Learn to love them.
You try making sense of a teleconference when you have 10+ people on the line, some of them with bad connections with delays up to multiple seconds. People speak over each other and interrupt and it can be really hard to hear the difference between people with similar voices.
With video, you can gesture and read the other participants' body language. It helps immensely when trying to understand complex trains of thought.
So if I use my control over the radio waves to broadcast nothing but random gibberish and nothing of any value whatsoever, that's perfectly fine? (Not that different from radio stations today, I admit)
So if I happen to cause interference to something susceptible to radio waves, that's perfectly fine if I was there first? And there would be nothing anyone could do about it except leave?
And you don't see how this favors the rich and wealthy to a ridiculous degree?
Never mind radio waves, let's say I set up a factory that pollutes to an insane degree, but creates all the fancy technological gubbins that people crave, iPhones and flat screen televisions and whatnot. Products which I sell at half the price of the competition because I don't have to worry about regulations or the environment.
Who's going to fight for the animals and the environment? Can birds band together and form class-action lawsuits?
We know practical communism does not work, because it's been tried enough times and in enough ways we know failure is the end state every time.
Name one actual communist state that wasn't brought down by outside politically-disagreeing forces.
If you say USSR, you've already failed. That was fascism and tyrannical dictatorship under a thin, mostly-transparent veneer of pretend communism. As were (and are) most other so-called communist states. A rule of thumb is that any nation with the word "democratic" or "people's" or "republic" in the name is nothing but a fascist dictatorship.
Instead, look at Allende's Chile. He was a marxist, not a "communist" and while Chile wasn't exactly perfect under his rule, it actually worked pretty fucking well. At least, until the CIA etc. undermined it all and instigated a coup.
In the libertarian theory unused property comes into ownership through homesteading which basically mean you have to start using unused land. The same theory exists with air/water pollution, noise, and radio waves.
So let me get this straight, if I use ALL of the available radio spectrum before anyone else has a chance, by default I will have the right to use it as I see fit and no one can do anything about it?
And you don't see any problems with this "first come, first serve, fuck everyone else" philosophy?
I'd love it if there was some standard 3D model available for each type of unit. Then I could completely customize them to match my preferences.
Swapping weapons/heads/limbs on the physical plastic or metal figurines is no problem, but unless you're extremely handy with epoxy putty, stuff like changing facial expressions or various surface details is damn hard. Working in a 3D modelling program would make that so much easier and infinitely undo/redoable.
But knowing GW, look forward to being excluded from all tournaments and banned for life if your figurines don't have the correct GW-approved RFID tag.
I can see it now...
1. Scan
2. Enlarge 50%
3. Send to random lady
4. ???
5. PROFIT!