That's the electrodynamic bit. The conducting tether cuts magnetic field lines. This induces a voltage and causes a current to flow along it. (You emit ions at both ends to complete the circuit). Normally, that causes electromagnetic damping (like a dynamo). But, if you use solar cells to drive the current the opposite way, you can get a propulsion force...
See here for more.
I get quite a lot of "You have won £500, please call this (premium rate) number to claim" spam. Since so much of it is identical, it would be trivial for my provider (Vodafone) to block it all, simply by scanning for any identical message sent out to more than say 100 people. But they aren't interested - I had a long dialogue with their customer "services" people and they don't seem to want to bother. Registering with the UK telephone preference service helps a bit, but the only other alternative is to ask the provider to totally disable SMS.
1)The problem isn't the MP3 files themselves (They sound great played back on PC, or even on the iPod via: CD -> [convert] -> MP3 -> [convert back on pc] -> WAV -> [transfer] -> iPod )
2)There is, as yet, no system which will allow me to put my CDs into storage, and only use the digitized version. (I want high capacity, and playback which is at least as good as 320k MP3, played back on a non-crippled decoder.)
3)I'm waiting - the current technology just isn't good enough. Hopefully the next iteration will be.
4)Admittedly, I haven't tested the very latest hdd players. So far, though, they're all too heavy.
Also, I want something ogg - capable. Perhaps even a PDA + microdrive.
I found that the iPod does a ghastly job of very high bit rate MP3s (anything abouve 256), where the artefacts become very obvious. This is especially so with classical music with high dynamic range, in the quiet bits.
I confirmed this with several different iPods on different computers, and several listeners. I even got a demo in a Mac store - and even the salesman was surprised. (I have some sound samples, if anyone wants to offer a mirror for them.)
Richard
P.S. My saga ended up after 6 weeks of technical "support" from Apple concluding that: 1)There is a bug in the iPod - the processor is too slow - and it throws away data it cannot decode. 2)Apple *hate* their customers 3)I got a refund.
True enough. That makes it harder. But nevertheless, the recipient of a spam does have a chain of IP addresses where at least one (we don't necessarily know which) is verified by subsequent "good" servers as being "evil".
So, it might be possible to search for patterns in these chains.
What's wrong with the following solution? I can't see anything wrong - and it ought to be simple to implement. (SMTP would need some minor changes) It seems too easy:-)
Every time mail is routed from one server to the next, the receiving server should 'stamp' the mail with the IP address of the sending server. That way, genuine mail has a valid sequence of IP addresses, and spam can be traced back to either the originator's IP, or the first mailserver to "lie" on the stamp.
Either way, we then have an authenticated list of IP addresses of "bad people" - who could be dropped into the Real-Time Black Hole (or similar).
Also, given the spammer's IP address and timestamp, they could be traced quickly.
This would need all SMTP servers to change (by adding extra mail headers), which might take 2 years to permeate most of the world's systems. So it's not an instant fix, but would work in due course (like IP v.6). It's also backwards compatible.
I think that the iPod does a very bad attempt at this. MP3s, encoded at 320k play back really badly on the iPod, far worse than 128/192k ones.
I suspect that the iPod hardware hasn't enough horsepower - and it is discarding bits that it cannot decode fast enough. The MP3s sound fine on the pc, or decoded to wav and then played back on the iPod. But played back (as MP3) on the iPod, the result is dismal - there's a 5Hz "wobbling", rather like a steel band, and lots of distortion.
(Apple won't help, but I have replicated this problem on multiple setups both Linux and OSX - it would be interesting to see if any/.ers have seen the same thing. You need a good recording of a classical CD with very large dynamic range eg Mahler 8, part II to demonstrate it - listen to the quiet bits.)
[I have some demo files, but can't link them - I'll get slashdotted off the net !]
Slashdot Mirror
Of your points, you can do #3 in about 1 minute: it's not ideal, but it does work:
Edit -> Mail and Newsgroup settings -> Outgoing Server ->Advanced -> select
Point #4 has an easy workaround - create dummy news accounts rather than mail accounts. Again, not perfect, but it works.
That's the electrodynamic bit. The conducting tether cuts magnetic field lines. This induces a voltage and causes a current to flow along it. (You emit ions at both ends to complete the circuit). Normally, that causes electromagnetic damping (like a dynamo). But, if you use solar cells to drive the current the opposite way, you can get a propulsion force... See here for more.
I get quite a lot of "You have won £500, please call this (premium rate) number to claim" spam. Since so much of it is identical, it would be trivial for my provider (Vodafone) to block it all, simply by scanning for any identical message sent out to more than say 100 people. But they aren't interested - I had a long dialogue with their customer "services" people and they don't seem to want to bother. Registering with the UK telephone preference service helps a bit, but the only other alternative is to ask the provider to totally disable SMS.
I'm afraid not. All I can say is that:
1)The problem isn't the MP3 files themselves (They sound great played back on PC, or even on the iPod via: CD -> [convert] -> MP3 -> [convert back on pc] -> WAV -> [transfer] -> iPod )
2)There is, as yet, no system which will allow me to put my CDs into storage, and only use the digitized version. (I want high capacity, and playback which is at least as good as 320k MP3, played back on a non-crippled decoder.)
3)I'm waiting - the current technology just isn't good enough. Hopefully the next iteration will be.
4)Admittedly, I haven't tested the very latest hdd players. So far, though, they're all too heavy.
Also, I want something ogg - capable. Perhaps even a PDA + microdrive.
I found that the iPod does a ghastly job of very high bit rate MP3s (anything abouve 256), where the artefacts become very obvious. This is especially so with classical music with high dynamic range, in the quiet bits.
I confirmed this with several different iPods on different computers, and several listeners. I even got a demo in a Mac store - and even the salesman was surprised.
(I have some sound samples, if anyone wants to offer a mirror for them.)
Richard
P.S. My saga ended up after 6 weeks of technical "support" from Apple concluding that:
1)There is a bug in the iPod - the processor is too slow - and it throws away data it cannot decode.
2)Apple *hate* their customers
3)I got a refund.
True enough. That makes it harder. But nevertheless, the recipient of a spam does have a chain of IP addresses where at least one (we don't necessarily know which) is verified by subsequent "good" servers as being "evil". So, it might be possible to search for patterns in these chains.
What's wrong with the following solution? I can't see anything wrong - and it ought to be simple to implement. (SMTP would need some minor changes) It seems too easy :-)
Every time mail is routed from one server to the next, the receiving server should 'stamp' the mail with the IP address of the sending server. That way, genuine mail has a valid sequence of IP addresses, and spam can be traced back to either the originator's IP, or the first mailserver to "lie" on the stamp.
Either way, we then have an authenticated list of IP addresses of "bad people" - who could be dropped into the Real-Time Black Hole (or similar).
Also, given the spammer's IP address and timestamp, they could be traced quickly.
This would need all SMTP servers to change (by adding extra mail headers), which might take 2 years to permeate most of the world's systems.
So it's not an instant fix, but would work in due course (like IP v.6). It's also backwards compatible.
I think that the iPod does a very bad attempt at this. MP3s, encoded at 320k play back really badly on the iPod, far worse than 128/192k ones. I suspect that the iPod hardware hasn't enough horsepower - and it is discarding bits that it cannot decode fast enough. The MP3s sound fine on the pc, or decoded to wav and then played back on the iPod. But played back (as MP3) on the iPod, the result is dismal - there's a 5Hz "wobbling", rather like a steel band, and lots of distortion. (Apple won't help, but I have replicated this problem on multiple setups both Linux and OSX - it would be interesting to see if any /.ers have seen the same thing. You need a good recording of a classical CD with very large dynamic range eg Mahler 8, part II to demonstrate it - listen to the quiet bits.)
[I have some demo files, but can't link them - I'll get slashdotted off the net !]