Even better was when the code was hex instead of BASIC. Oh, the hours of fun entering those unreadable programs! (This is at least partly sarcastic, heh.) My favorites were Compute and Compute's Gazette, and Ahoy. Yeah, I was a Commodore kid.
Many people know this already, but for those who don't, Lance Armstrong overcame malignant testicular cancer to become the world's greatest long-distance cyclist.
It's definitely beatable, and with yours being non-malignant your odds are even better. All the best.
I agree that advertising is valid, when there's a legitimate product being offered from a reputable source. I don't mind seeing the occasional email from computer hardware and software companies, stuff that I've opted to receive.
What I hate is scammers who as you say do the pathetic tactics. If I set up filters blocking bogus headers, keywords and the like, it means I don't want your junk, plain and simple.
As an example, I put 'viagra' in my blocklist. So in comes an email with v1agra or v|agra in it. What does the spammer think I'm going to do? "Oh, he got past my filter. I guess I have to buy his product now." Duh. If you have to deceive your way into my Inbox, it means I wouldn't ever buy from you anyhow. Spammers are idiots.
Keep your wits about you. Those pitchfork-wielding junk mail haters are crafty. I used to do that job too, flyer delivery.;)
I agree with you completely, though I would spend that $7k on a stereo instead of a TV since I generally prefer music to movies. I just need the disposable income.:)
"We don't talk to worms and advanced civilizations don't talk to us!"
This is an assumption. You can't attribute behavioral characteristics upon an alien civilization we haven't even found yet.
"One cannot communicate even an extremely small fraction of that information content across interstellar space using radio waves."
We're not looking for aliens to email us the Encyclopedia Galactica. We just want them to say, "hi."
"Why on earth would one attempt to communicate with a civilization that is fundamentally less sophisticated than a nematode worm and with whom it is impossible to exchange a significant amount of information that one has at ones disposal?"
Maybe, like us, they'd like to know that they're not alone in the universe? I'd be thrilled to learn of life elsewhere, even if we weren't able to share information in any significant way.
Unfortunately, getting off the grid is far too expensive an initial outlay for most people. Hydroelectric obviously isn't going to be available for most either, so they're limited to solar and wind, both of which depend greatly on the climate in a given area.
Switching to high efficiecy appliances (when your old ones are ready to be replaced) and compact fluorescent light bulbs is a step in the right direction that everyone can do though.
I don't know how feasible it would be to attempt to connect two far-apart space telescopes as an optical interferometer. IANA space telescope expert of course, but it seems to me that it'd be extremely complicated to keep two scopes aligned precisely enough.
If professional patent examiners stopped accepting laughably obvious patents written in vague 'legalise' by lawyers, I would agree with you.
As it stands now, however, there are even websites out there listing 'absurd patents of the week'.
Patents are there to encourage people to innovate knowing that their ideas are protected, rather than what seems to be going on often, namely people making an obvious patent, not applying the idea in any practical sense, then suing anyone later who does use it.
Would you believe someone patented the making of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Things like this are ridiculous but the USPTO allows them.
When the Napster vs Metallica controversy first started, I thought it would be pretty funny if people who hated them burned CDs with a ton of Metallica MP3s on them and gave them out to friends, at work, at schools, etc. as 'gifts'... Before long, everyone who wants Metallica's music has got one, and their sales plummet.
No offense, Lars, it was only a passing thought.;)
"Am i missing something?"
Yes. If AAC encodes signals with higher fidelity at matching bitrates, you might need a 160kbps MP3 to sound as good as a 128kbps AAC, hence, the AAC is smaller at the same quality.
On the other hand, 128kbps AAC and 128kbps MP3s are going to be very similar in size, but the AAC should sound slightly better.
Transcoding from MP3 to AAC is also a really really bad idea, since you're encoding all of the MP3's original artifacts and adding to them AAC's. It would be a waste of time and your music would actually sound slightly worse. AAC is intended for encoding from original WAVs, not MP3s.
The file size concerns should be diminishing though, as storage devices like hard drives get larger and cheaper. You might consider focusing more on sound quality than on saving a few bytes.:)
Studio technicians and musicians aren't generally known for having 'golden ears'. In fact long hours in front of loud monitors and guitar amps tends to make for poor hearing of very high frequencies.
Most people agree that Vorbis (often referred to as Ogg, but that's the container) is superior at low bitrates as its artifacts are usually less offensive than those of low bitrate MP3s etc. Vorbis is certainly NOT the best lossy codec at high bitrates however. I would be curious to know when this test was done, and what MP3, AAC and MPC encoders were used.
The statement that at above 128 kilobits/second none of the codecs were clearly distinguishable from CD is laughable and leads me to believe the testers either have 'tin ears' or are untrained in spotting encoder artifacts. Training really matters here! It makes a big difference when you know how an encoder screws up a signal, and how to spot it.
The general consensus among those 'in the know' is that in order to reach transparency or 'near CD quality' with MP3 you'll need a good encoder like LAME and a VBR bitrate in the neighborhood of 220+ kbps. (Use the standard preset.)
I wonder if these tests were conducted using loudspeakers. Most codec testing is done with headphones which tend to be better for spotting tiny differences in encoded material.
I agree, Orbit is nice. First thing I did after installing Firebird 0.6 was to grab the old Orbit theme (and a couple of others too) and put the UI back to how I had it with Phoenix.:)
So far I'm liking Firebird. Good stuff.
I've been waiting ages (since about '96) to see these show up on store shelves here in Canada. I wonder what's preventing them from small speaker market domination. If the HSS speakers work as ATC claims, they'd be awesome in so many different applications.
I have to wonder if perhaps they're not truly 'hi-fi' across the audio spectrum and thus not appealing to the home theatre and music crowd.
I wonder how much cheaper it could be made. I don't know how much it costs in the first place. Is it truly cost-prohibitive right now, for the small amounts that would be needed for already-expensive high-end processors?
I saw them demonstrate on TV how it can be handled after being super-heated. Really amazing.
Hahaha! Thanks for the tip. LOL Alas, how do I guarantee she won't just come here and then leave me? Do these girls include an electronic monitoring device on their ankle like criminals under house-arrest do?
(Psst, feminisits in the audience, it's a joke! OK?):)
I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but I definitely have bought a large number of CDs after downloading an MP3 to sample the music. Until a few weeks ago I had a 2.1GB hard drive (not enough room for a big MP3 collection after you put an OS and a bunch of software on it) and still have no CD burner, but have 750+ store-bought CDs.
If I like the song enough, I will buy the disc. If not, well, the artist isn't losing anything, and I've had a listen not unlike hearing it on the radio.
I think burners and huge hard drives are making it easier for people to download and keep music rather than use it for sampling purposes. Are there levies on hard drives and CD-Rs for this reason?
First off I'll qualify this by saying I'm an atheist. You'll notice I used a small 'g' in godlike. I'm not suggesting we could create a universe, or be as powerful as the God of the Bible. That's absurd, obviously. I'm talking about humanity having the ability to control practically all aspects of our day-to-day lives from the weather, to our health, to manufacturing literally any object using nanotechnology.
I hardly think the internet is equal to what the Borg are, with each and every being linked to the queen in real-time. The internet is closer to a hi-tech postal system in my view. It certainly is speeding the spread of ideas though! But I'm referring to all of us (or anyone who wanted to be that is) being somehow linked (yeah, like the internet, but with our minds, not our computers) and pooling the sum of human knowledge into this mind-internet.
If a mind-machine interface can be built, it'll happen eventually for those who wish it to.
I've been saying the same sort of things (humanity becoming a Borg-like hive mind, etc.) for a few years now, but I always get "are you insane?" type reactions. My only major point of contention would be your 5-10 year timeline. I feel that's a bit optimistic and I'm thinking it's closer to 50 years.
The end result is that same though: humanity will evolve into something godlike, using nanotech to control our environment at the molecular scale. I'm hoping I live long enough to see it happen.
Yes, the design styles you speak of are indeed for the purpose of reducing drag. I think many people find the look of these very efficient cars unappealing, so that's why the covered rear wheels etc. aren't being applied to gasoline-powered cars.
I saw a link posted here recently (can't seem to find it) that demonstrated just how much less drag one of these designs produced, and it was pretty impressive. It makes sense to use a design like this (even if it's ugly) when the target market is people extremely concerned about the efficiency of their cars. Makes less sense to attempt to push the efficiency on SUV owners, though I agree that making vehicles more efficient across-the-board would be great.
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Even better was when the code was hex instead of BASIC. Oh, the hours of fun entering those unreadable programs! (This is at least partly sarcastic, heh.) My favorites were Compute and Compute's Gazette, and Ahoy. Yeah, I was a Commodore kid.
Many people know this already, but for those who don't, Lance Armstrong overcame malignant testicular cancer to become the world's greatest long-distance cyclist.
It's definitely beatable, and with yours being non-malignant your odds are even better. All the best.
I agree that advertising is valid, when there's a legitimate product being offered from a reputable source. I don't mind seeing the occasional email from computer hardware and software companies, stuff that I've opted to receive.
;)
What I hate is scammers who as you say do the pathetic tactics. If I set up filters blocking bogus headers, keywords and the like, it means I don't want your junk, plain and simple.
As an example, I put 'viagra' in my blocklist. So in comes an email with v1agra or v|agra in it. What does the spammer think I'm going to do? "Oh, he got past my filter. I guess I have to buy his product now." Duh. If you have to deceive your way into my Inbox, it means I wouldn't ever buy from you anyhow. Spammers are idiots.
Keep your wits about you. Those pitchfork-wielding junk mail haters are crafty. I used to do that job too, flyer delivery.
I agree with you completely, though I would spend that $7k on a stereo instead of a TV since I generally prefer music to movies. I just need the disposable income. :)
"We don't talk to worms and advanced civilizations don't talk to us!" This is an assumption. You can't attribute behavioral characteristics upon an alien civilization we haven't even found yet. "One cannot communicate even an extremely small fraction of that information content across interstellar space using radio waves." We're not looking for aliens to email us the Encyclopedia Galactica. We just want them to say, "hi." "Why on earth would one attempt to communicate with a civilization that is fundamentally less sophisticated than a nematode worm and with whom it is impossible to exchange a significant amount of information that one has at ones disposal?" Maybe, like us, they'd like to know that they're not alone in the universe? I'd be thrilled to learn of life elsewhere, even if we weren't able to share information in any significant way.
Unfortunately, getting off the grid is far too expensive an initial outlay for most people. Hydroelectric obviously isn't going to be available for most either, so they're limited to solar and wind, both of which depend greatly on the climate in a given area.
Switching to high efficiecy appliances (when your old ones are ready to be replaced) and compact fluorescent light bulbs is a step in the right direction that everyone can do though.
I don't know how feasible it would be to attempt to connect two far-apart space telescopes as an optical interferometer. IANA space telescope expert of course, but it seems to me that it'd be extremely complicated to keep two scopes aligned precisely enough.
I think this could cause a real boom in the aerospace industry.
If professional patent examiners stopped accepting laughably obvious patents written in vague 'legalise' by lawyers, I would agree with you.
As it stands now, however, there are even websites out there listing 'absurd patents of the week'.
Patents are there to encourage people to innovate knowing that their ideas are protected, rather than what seems to be going on often, namely people making an obvious patent, not applying the idea in any practical sense, then suing anyone later who does use it.
Would you believe someone patented the making of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Things like this are ridiculous but the USPTO allows them.
When the Napster vs Metallica controversy first started, I thought it would be pretty funny if people who hated them burned CDs with a ton of Metallica MP3s on them and gave them out to friends, at work, at schools, etc. as 'gifts'... Before long, everyone who wants Metallica's music has got one, and their sales plummet. No offense, Lars, it was only a passing thought. ;)
Why was the parent modded Troll? It's obviously just a joke using a bunch of acronyms. Sheesh, mods having a bad day at home or something?
*chuckles* Seems we both spotted the parent post and decided to give our advice, which seems to agree.
Yep, lossless is definitely the way to go if you've got the hard drive space and don't need the files for a portable player today.
What're you using? Flac? Ape?
"Am i missing something?" Yes. If AAC encodes signals with higher fidelity at matching bitrates, you might need a 160kbps MP3 to sound as good as a 128kbps AAC, hence, the AAC is smaller at the same quality.
:)
On the other hand, 128kbps AAC and 128kbps MP3s are going to be very similar in size, but the AAC should sound slightly better.
Transcoding from MP3 to AAC is also a really really bad idea, since you're encoding all of the MP3's original artifacts and adding to them AAC's. It would be a waste of time and your music would actually sound slightly worse. AAC is intended for encoding from original WAVs, not MP3s.
The file size concerns should be diminishing though, as storage devices like hard drives get larger and cheaper. You might consider focusing more on sound quality than on saving a few bytes.
Studio technicians and musicians aren't generally known for having 'golden ears'. In fact long hours in front of loud monitors and guitar amps tends to make for poor hearing of very high frequencies.
Most people agree that Vorbis (often referred to as Ogg, but that's the container) is superior at low bitrates as its artifacts are usually less offensive than those of low bitrate MP3s etc. Vorbis is certainly NOT the best lossy codec at high bitrates however. I would be curious to know when this test was done, and what MP3, AAC and MPC encoders were used.
The statement that at above 128 kilobits/second none of the codecs were clearly distinguishable from CD is laughable and leads me to believe the testers either have 'tin ears' or are untrained in spotting encoder artifacts. Training really matters here! It makes a big difference when you know how an encoder screws up a signal, and how to spot it.
The general consensus among those 'in the know' is that in order to reach transparency or 'near CD quality' with MP3 you'll need a good encoder like LAME and a VBR bitrate in the neighborhood of 220+ kbps. (Use the standard preset.)
I wonder if these tests were conducted using loudspeakers. Most codec testing is done with headphones which tend to be better for spotting tiny differences in encoded material.
The Fall Guy? I have two words for you.
:)
1. Heather
2. Thomas
Yowzah!
I agree, Orbit is nice. First thing I did after installing Firebird 0.6 was to grab the old Orbit theme (and a couple of others too) and put the UI back to how I had it with Phoenix. :)
So far I'm liking Firebird. Good stuff.
I've been waiting ages (since about '96) to see these show up on store shelves here in Canada. I wonder what's preventing them from small speaker market domination. If the HSS speakers work as ATC claims, they'd be awesome in so many different applications.
I have to wonder if perhaps they're not truly 'hi-fi' across the audio spectrum and thus not appealing to the home theatre and music crowd.
Still, a fascinating bit of technology!
Don't forget Automatic Weapon Russian Roulette. Oh wait, that's 11 isn't it...
I wonder how much cheaper it could be made. I don't know how much it costs in the first place. Is it truly cost-prohibitive right now, for the small amounts that would be needed for already-expensive high-end processors?
I saw them demonstrate on TV how it can be handled after being super-heated. Really amazing.
Hahaha! Thanks for the tip. LOL Alas, how do I guarantee she won't just come here and then leave me? Do these girls include an electronic monitoring device on their ankle like criminals under house-arrest do?
:)
(Psst, feminisits in the audience, it's a joke! OK?)
"... a supermodel wife who is also a contortionist."
Um, where can I get one of these?
I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but I definitely have bought a large number of CDs after downloading an MP3 to sample the music. Until a few weeks ago I had a 2.1GB hard drive (not enough room for a big MP3 collection after you put an OS and a bunch of software on it) and still have no CD burner, but have 750+ store-bought CDs. If I like the song enough, I will buy the disc. If not, well, the artist isn't losing anything, and I've had a listen not unlike hearing it on the radio. I think burners and huge hard drives are making it easier for people to download and keep music rather than use it for sampling purposes. Are there levies on hard drives and CD-Rs for this reason?
First off I'll qualify this by saying I'm an atheist. You'll notice I used a small 'g' in godlike. I'm not suggesting we could create a universe, or be as powerful as the God of the Bible. That's absurd, obviously. I'm talking about humanity having the ability to control practically all aspects of our day-to-day lives from the weather, to our health, to manufacturing literally any object using nanotechnology.
I hardly think the internet is equal to what the Borg are, with each and every being linked to the queen in real-time. The internet is closer to a hi-tech postal system in my view. It certainly is speeding the spread of ideas though! But I'm referring to all of us (or anyone who wanted to be that is) being somehow linked (yeah, like the internet, but with our minds, not our computers) and pooling the sum of human knowledge into this mind-internet.
If a mind-machine interface can be built, it'll happen eventually for those who wish it to.
I've been saying the same sort of things (humanity becoming a Borg-like hive mind, etc.) for a few years now, but I always get "are you insane?" type reactions. My only major point of contention would be your 5-10 year timeline. I feel that's a bit optimistic and I'm thinking it's closer to 50 years.
The end result is that same though: humanity will evolve into something godlike, using nanotech to control our environment at the molecular scale. I'm hoping I live long enough to see it happen.
Yes, the design styles you speak of are indeed for the purpose of reducing drag. I think many people find the look of these very efficient cars unappealing, so that's why the covered rear wheels etc. aren't being applied to gasoline-powered cars.
I saw a link posted here recently (can't seem to find it) that demonstrated just how much less drag one of these designs produced, and it was pretty impressive. It makes sense to use a design like this (even if it's ugly) when the target market is people extremely concerned about the efficiency of their cars. Makes less sense to attempt to push the efficiency on SUV owners, though I agree that making vehicles more efficient across-the-board would be great.