Isn't that the same thing, only on a more informal level?
I put an add on various job boards, and (x) number of people reply with résumés and Salary Requirements listed.
Hi!
I'm Joe Blow and I am a great fit for your job. I am willing to start at $85K. Résumé follows.
Best regards,
Joe Blow
and then I get a Resume of equal value and qualification from Jane Jones, but she's only asking for $60k. And I get another cover letter from Mickey Mushka, fresh off the boat from Freedonia, with a similar resume as Jones and Blow and he's more than happy to work for $35k.
If Mushka's English is up to par, and his work is good, I'll take him on and reward him with $40k.
We do these kinds of "auctions" all the time. It's called labour under capital.
The number 300 million I put together myself after analysing how much energy it takes for the Average Wasteful American to survive (about 5 earth's worth, according to New Scientist) and then figuring the Average American (and Europeans aren't that far behind at 4.3 earths) could probably optimise their consumption by 60%. So, take 6 billion people, divide by 5 and then reduce that by about 2/3. that gives you about 400 milion people.
I figured that by the time we can reduce the population to that value (without resorting to nuclear war etc.) we'll probably need 1.5 to 2x as much energy per person (as much of our work will be done by robots) so cut that number dow and you get a number like 250 - 300 million people all over the world living extremely comfortable lives in a highly automated society.
It's really not misanthropy - it's more a kind of Green Post-Humanism. We're just animals, really. If my numbers are off - that's fine - but the numbers we have now are utterly unsustainable. so it's not a question of IF we reduce, but How Much We Reduce, How We Reduce, and When That WIll Happen.
If you want a really scary book, read "the End Of The World" by John Leslie. He's a mathematician who specialised in Bayesian math. Totally creepy stuff. He figures we're done for in about 500 years. Complete extinction. I disagree with him, for reasons too complex to get into here, but suffice to say, I think we're just starting out, and have simply done some really dumb things straight out of the blocks. Getting control of our population footprint and our use ofresources is of primary and absolute importance. If we don't do that, then Leslie's correct - we're cooked and we'll be gone in a few hundred years. For no good reason, except our own short sightedness.
Not because they don't work (they do) or that they are unsafe (they are, but can be managed in such a way to be quite safe).
The problem is: energy production systems need to be universal. And I DON'T think giving the likes of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Burma, Chechnya, etc. access to plutonium is a good idea under ANY circumstances.
The only nuclear power that's worth a damn is fusion, and we haven't puzzled that one out yet...
(Bottom line, he maintains, is that it's [hydrogen] a cruel hoax and energy disaster, and far less useful than, for example, heavy hybrid automobiles that get about 50 - 60 miles on an electric charge alone -- which accounts for more than 85% of driving in the US and elsewhere on a daily basis -- and which are available now.)
What is also sad from my viewpoint is that hydrogen, technically, isn't really a "fuel". You need a lot of energy to make it. Now, if one uses solar power to make electricity to crack water to make H, then you've sort of solved part of the problem, but solar panels have a shelf life, and are dependent on local weather conditions.
I don't see Hydrogen as much of a solution for transportation. But I do think it could be used for home heating and local electrical generation in adverse environments. Still, the generation of Hydrogen is the big nut to crack. I think one nation on earth could become the Saudi Arabia of Hydrogen: Iceland.
1. They're an island, so they have all the water they need. 2.The whole freakin' island is basically a lava slick.
You don't have to drill very far down to get Enormous Amounts of geothermal energy, which they are already tapping for island electrical needs. All they have to do is build extra geothermal plants and crack the Atlantic Ocean. Geothermal s steady and continuous power (the earth isn't going to cool off anytime in the near future, and as Iceland is part of the Atlantic Spread, I don't think anything we can do will slow plate tectonics or cool Iceland off).
Hawaii and Vanuatu could be the Pacific Equivalents. Steady energy, lots of water. With that kind of a set up, we'll have a situation more like petroleum, where we'd have a real "fuel" i.e., lots of stored energy for very little energy expenditure in its creation.
I used to be all into Hydrogen - thikning - Hey - it turns into WATER when you burn it! KEWL!
But when I found out that the easiest hydrogen to get is out of petroleum, and that getting it out of either water or petroleum takes a lot of energy (which we get from either petroleum or fission - neither of which is renewable, except for the politically suicidal option of breeder reactors) my enthusiasm faded.
The first thing is conservation, and the article provides a lot of great ideas (many of which I am already doing, and had pointers for some that I will be dong!) for that. But I'm afraid that the next several decades will be warfare over water and energy, and we really need to find solutions to both problems.
I've stated before that the real problem is demographic - there are simply too many people. We need to *gradually* reduce populations to a sustainable level (I would estimate a global population of 250 - 300 million could be made sustainable indefinitely) and then develop long term energy, water, and metal recycling solutions.
If we don't the not so distant future will be one of horrifying catastrophe: disease, continuous war over ever dimishing resources, no power, crushing poverty and crowding, and a long term future best described as a paleolithic extinction event.
So, these are simple little choices we can make now, so we can plan for the future. OR, we can be our typical shortsighted green eyed greedy guts eat the world up everything for me and mine, and fuck the rest of you losers and simply watch the most precious of things in the universe - sentience - disappear.
It WILL eventually disappear, but it doesn't have to go this way - so stupidly, and so preventably.
In addition, the NARIP-supplied "iTunes Artist-Producer Royalty Calculation" sheet was fascinating because it answers the question all artists on iTunes keep asking: "How much of a 99-cent download do I get to keep?" While indie artists do better, for major label artists, Apple collects 34 cents, the label keeps 55 cents, and the artist gets a dime.
Ah yes, a dime. Some things never change.
And this shows exactly why Apple isn't a friend to the musician. IF they were , they would allow artists to deal directly with iTunes as a distribution system. Instead, Apple, like all the other corporate thieving bastards, require artists to go through intermediaries, all who take a massive cut of the money.
There are umbrella orgs, such as CDBABY, but WHO in their right minds wants to be part of an organisation called CDBABY? There are a few others, but still, They Take All Their Cut. Leeches - the lot of 'em. They must be SMASHED. After all, it wasn't that long ago that for one to hear music, you had to get off your fat ass and learn to play an instrument. This recorded music thing is an historic anomaly. It will go away. Some day.
If so, which wuold you rather have, one of these, or 10 or even 20 cheapie machines linked in a Beowulf cluster?
Sun's running down the same rabbit hole SGI did, and look where it got them.
Of course, if Apple keeps muscling in on its developers (FCP vs Avid/Adobe, Logic vs everybody, etc.) Apple could well go the way of SGI...so they need to be careful.
It's not a pretty site, and frankly, I think Sun is doomed. They make good stuff, but they've been very badly managed and picked the wrong enemies.
If we had 1/10 the population, we would only need 1/10 the amount of energy. Given that Americans consume energy at the rate of Five Earths, with 1/10 the population, it wouldn't be a problem.
The solution to the pollution and energy problems is to reduce the population. Pure and simple.
Soner or later all their shell gaming is going to come to an end, and they're going to go down big time.
Watching the SCO saga is like watching a completely preventable train wreck in the slowest possible motion - kind of like watching snakegrass grow, or watching paint on the ugliest painting ever painted dry. Mondrian's skidmarks after a night of taxidancing. Picasso's Kleenex. Something like that.
We should start putting up options on when this idiotic extravaganza will come to a final end.
2005?
2006?
2007?
2438?
I no longer feel sorry for any one left treading water at SCO. They've had PLENTY of time to jump ship and flee the scene. When the slowly grinding wheel of justice makes its dirty, uuuh, duty, clean, nnnuuh, clear, these trusswrappers will be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and they will all have to walk the plank.
"I was Darl McBride, CEO at SCO for ages. Now I ask customers 'you want fries with that?' "
DVD player -> Time Base Corrector -> Computer Video In.
Burn DVD for self, and then pop the file into shared folder for the ravenous hordes on Limewire to "share".
The ONLY thing that will really slow these bastards down is if the decryption system is in the monitor itself, located somewhere in the processor for the projector / screen.
Audio, as usual, leads the way - we're about >
Eventually, some smarty pants will figure out a way around the audio driver and built a simple route to the Hard Drive, but until then, the Time Base Corrector is your friend...
So: the cryptofascist drones at ClearChannel have their panties in a twist because micro$oft figured out that pumping an unimaginitive list of Great Hits By PreFab Pop Stars over the web is a way to get the attention of the average American (who, by and large, has precious little in the way of cultural sophistication and intelligence).
And they're snagging the call letters of their carbon copy crapola stations?
As one poster noted, it's hard to know who to hate...
But the facts are simple: if radio stations had REAL DJs that were allowed to play whatever the fuck they wanted to, and then hired DJs on the basis of the depth and breadth of their musical selections and the cleverness of their song choices, there is No Way M$ could copy that, as each DJ would be regionally dependent on local taste. Example: the DJs of San Francisco might not fair very well in Oklahoma City. But it would all be by Sensibility, which is the most crucial marker of aesthetic choice.
But Bog Forbid anyone figure THAT one out... the closestthing you can do is get a live365 station but that's expensive and a bit of a rip off...
As it is, RealPlayer is universally despised for several reasons, many of them valid. the few that grind me are:
1. It's more than one click away from the main website.
2. It tries to take over your system as a default media system and sign you up for all kinds of spam on install.
3. It's BUTT ugly. It looks like the rejects from the XP UI team were hired to design it, when the rejects from the QuickTime UI team would have been a better choice.
4. I can't DL the content of RealMedia, like I can with mpeg or quickTime.
5. It's a bit [buffering 10%] too eager [buffering 25%] to send media [buffering 40%] before it's [buffering 75%] ready. And scrubbing [buffering 85%] is nearly [buffering 95%] impossible.
Fix these problems, and people might take Real Seriously. So the question is:
WHEN are you going to fix these OBVIOUS deficiencies that have plagued the player for YEARS?
One actively supports the interests of the super-rich who run the corporations that permit Americans to live the wasteful ignorant lives they cling to with violent desperation, or not.
It boils down to class, and class warfare. It always has and always will. Marx was wrong about prescriptions, but his analysis was spot on 150 years ago, and it's still dead accurate.
Some things are different: events are certainly moving on a deeper and larger scale than the capitalists could possibly muster in 1870, but the structure has remained the same: there are a very few people on top and a lot of people on the bottom. The globalisation of wealth has made entire nations part of the "top" and entire continents part of the "bottom" - and you know who's getting fucked.
"Conservatives" (especially those of the more recent "neocon" variety, who are little more than penny ante fascists) are people who have internalised the false consciousness machine of contemporary capitalist culture to such a degree that they cheerfully support the plutocrats who enslave them. In fact, their culturally instilled cranio-rectal inversion is so complete, they don't see themselves as being willing participants in their own self enslavement - they see themselves as supporters of "freedom and liberty".
Meanwhile, the powers that be are re-aligning the economies into Orwellian superstates. The Europeans are doing it through an opt-in confederacy (EU), the Americans are doing it with their typically murderously belligerent policy of co-option, destruction and subordination (from Wounded Knee to Baghdad) and forming Oceania by way of NAFTA. East Asia is forming more slowly, as is typical of the Chinese Empire.
The great battle will be between a collapsing Oceania and a rising EastAsia. Eurasia will sit on the sidelines and watch the two destroy each other, and then move in to scoop up what's left.
This isn't tinfoil hat theory. this is stuff that has been documented over and over and over.
Now, if you have any sense: ORGANISE A COHERENT RESISTANCE AND GET A PLACE AT THE TABLE OF OCEANIA. Prevent the disaster. If the neocon agenda goes on by its own logic, there will be an eventual war between EastAsia and Oceania. It will be fought through terror proxies first, then localised wars and rebeliions at the periphery. The results will be millions dead so the rich bastards running the American State can stay rich and the powerful shitbags running the Chinese Gov stay in power.
WAKE UP PEOPLE. Or don't: just pretend it isn't happening and surrender your children to be cannon fodder in some far off oil rich country for the sake of Exxon, Halliburton, and Walmart.
Obviously, the eMac sucks at some things, but has benefits in others. And it's all of a dollar or two more expensive than the equivalent Dell, and lord knows an order of magnitude more attractive.
For what you get, Apple computers are competitively priced. You can argue little crappy pinheaded arguments over the details, but all things considered, they're not so bad.
From my experience, the SOFTWARE is what's expensive. Fuck - for the price of Photoshop and AVID DV Express, I can buy one helluva nice computer on EITHER platform.
The cost of hardware is comparatively incidental anymore.
Of course, Linux this and Linux that, Free here, Free There - been there, done that, and frankly spent WAY too much time dicking around with my computer to get a proper workflow going, and on top of it, most of the Linux software *just isn't up to snuff*. A lot of it has to do with patents (which is why GIMP can't do anything interesting in CMYK space, for example) and really lame ass UI design (which is why GIMP is such a pain in the arse to use, for example).
I still don't know of a decent NLE video system on Linux that does what FCP can do on the mac or AVID on Windows.
So - sure - save $200 on a Linux box - and GET NOTHING DONE.
At the same time: I FERVENTLY hope and pray that this will change - soon. I am NOT a bigot against Linus, by any stretch. At the same time, I won't get rid of my Mac - but I'll cheerfully stop using Windows as soon as Linux is easier and better and HAS THE SOFTWARE I NEED TO GET MY WORK DONE.
Seriously - if the corporate nanny state insists on penalising me for driving then they can just as well DRIVE THE DAMN CAR FOR ME.
In which case, it might as well be a bus, because that's as fast as I'll be getting across town.
I drive like a complete nutcase, but I NEVER have had an accident, nor have I ever caused an accident. I get speeding tickets about once every three - four years. The difference is: I get there fast, if not first.
I pay VERY close attention when I am driving. I don't zone out listening to Rush Fartbag. I don't twitch myself into a state of road rage - I just look ahead, find the empty lanes, and go for it.
My nemeses are middle aged asian women who invariably drive a big Lexus. It's not racist or sexist - it's just that they weren't raised in a car culture - they were raised in a bicycle culture and slapped into submission. Consequently, they're petrified behind the wheel. Perfectly nice decent people, but TOTALLY in the way on the road. The black box will, of course, give them good ratings while they clog up the highways.
I wonder how these black boxes will go over in Italy...
This has been written on the wall since day one. You get an iPod-savvy video camera, hook up the firewire ipod to it, and start recording in full DV.
When you hit pause or stop on the camera, it automatically saves end of file, and is then ready to start a new clip. the clips are all arranged on the iPod drive. You then take your iPod home and transfer data to your computer and edit the mess.
Advantages?
1. No "Log and Capture" bullshit. It's already in a Quicktime file.
2. A 40gig iPod holds more video than a video tape. DV runs 13gigs an hour. Your average tape is an hour, some are 90 minutes. A 40gig iPod holds about 3 hours of DV.
3. No need to store boxes of tapes. A 120 gig drive will hold about 9 hours of video. A decent DV tape still costs about $5, so that's about $50 (with tax) for the tape alone. How much is your time worth blown in log and capture? (price of 120 gig drive) - $50?
The wireless end of it probably has to do with recording conferences in iChat, or sending cheezola videos to your buddies in iChat or some video conferencing software. Or, there might be some idea of transferring video from iPod to computer for editing wirelessly. Seems kind of stupid to me, but you never know.
But the tapeless video recording is so needed - how do you think they did star wars? With tape? Nope. Banks of drives.
the reason why I prefer a GUI to a CLI : visual organisation of data.
On my computer, I designed my own desktop image in Photoshop. In large words and coloured areas, I have "regions" of stuff that is instantly available to me, and arranged intuitively and visually. So, my upper left area is my "VIDEO" area, and just below that is AUDIO. Below that is WEBSITE, where there are folders to everything having to do with my website and web activities (such as blogs, posts, audio filez, etc.). On the right side of the screen is SYSTEM where I have shortcuts to everything in my system, so I don't have to go drilling down into My Computer, and then SHORTCUTS where I organise the desktop shortcuts to various apps. There's one more area in the lower center, called VARIOUS, and it has folders and shortcuts to sundry files, arranged according to necessity and fiat.
In short: I have almost instant access to anything I do on my computer, and filing it can't be simpler: Desktop / whatever. I have this system on both of my Macintosh computers and my Windows box, and it works great. It's What A GUI Is Built For. When I resurrect the ancient weezing compaq, I'll put a similar organisation system in the GUI for SUSE.
If you file stuff intelligently in the first place and use the GUI creatively, it obviates the need for funky ass WinFS nonsense.
NOTHING is worse than the fucking "telephone game". Story starts innocuous enough about Timmy getting reprimanded by the Gym teacher and ends up into some outlandish bullshit about Timmy getting his cock sucked by the male Gym teacher for missing a basket during an important shot in a worthless game during class.
A Time Base Corrector strips all that crap out, and gives you a raw video signal, which is very necessary if you're editing in a professional video suite.
However, if you put a DVD into the line, and run it through a TBC, you ca nthen re-record it onto a digital target, and make as many copies as you want. Sure: there's some loss, and a good TBC costs several hundred bucks, but IT WORKS.
I didn't know Hong Kong had a one-child policy. I know the PRC did, but not HK.
Correct _ HK did not. But now that HK is part of the PRC, activities there must be seen the the context of the PRC. Somebody in Tibet wouldn't build a VGF for the millions of Permanently Single Men in Shanghai, but someone in HK would.
The VGF has almost no market value in a place where there is a closer to 50/50 ratio of females to males in a society. It would only have traction in a society where women were rare and expensive: like the PRC.
for all those Men who were born by way of the One Child Policy because of female infanticide. Years ago they'd dump female babies in the trash because they thought "Having a Boy is Better". Now the families of Girls are reaping a Huge Dowry payment for their daughter, while the poor boy gets a "Virtual Girlfriend".
Stupid idiots.
Erogenous zomes I live you,
Without you what would a poor boy do?
Without you mankind handkinds through the blues...
-from "Counting Out Time" by Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, 1974.
touch typing was invented back in the early twentieth century because there were no photocopy machines or printers. copies had to be done with carbon paper, and you had to really hammer the key to get through more than 2 layers of paper.
back in the day, women were especially hired at low wages to work in "typing pools", where they would be given some hand written notes or previously typed documents to type or retype up for the managers, who were universally men.
typing was seen as women's work, and typing classes were basically for women to learn to be secretaries for men and do their typing for them.
The advent of the photocopier blew away the typing pool. Then the personal computer and low cost printing eliminated the job of "secretary" and brought in the advent of the executive assistant (which is a glorous word for what used to be a secretary). such must have typing skills, but it's not quite the day in day out focus, as many managers can now type faster than they can write, and the software helps them with spelling and grammar.
So, I think some basic typing skills are useful, but not as necessary as they used to be. eventually we will see the advent of really good voice recognition, and that will also remove the need for a lot of fast typing.
From this, it is clear that the historical necessity of widespread skills in rapid accurate typing is no longer present (we don't have typing pools or secretaries) and with advances in software, the needs get simpler and less taxing, allowing people to focus on the ideas being communicated, rather than the machines doing the communicating.
Slashdot Mirror
I put an add on various job boards, and (x) number of people reply with résumés and Salary Requirements listed.
Hi!
I'm Joe Blow and I am a great fit for your job. I am willing to start at $85K. Résumé follows.
Best regards,
Joe Blow
and then I get a Resume of equal value and qualification from Jane Jones, but she's only asking for $60k. And I get another cover letter from Mickey Mushka, fresh off the boat from Freedonia, with a similar resume as Jones and Blow and he's more than happy to work for $35k.
If Mushka's English is up to par, and his work is good, I'll take him on and reward him with $40k.
We do these kinds of "auctions" all the time. It's called labour under capital.
RS
thanks for responding reasonably.
The number 300 million I put together myself after analysing how much energy it takes for the Average Wasteful American to survive (about 5 earth's worth, according to New Scientist) and then figuring the Average American (and Europeans aren't that far behind at 4.3 earths) could probably optimise their consumption by 60%. So, take 6 billion people, divide by 5 and then reduce that by about 2/3. that gives you about 400 milion people.
I figured that by the time we can reduce the population to that value (without resorting to nuclear war etc.) we'll probably need 1.5 to 2x as much energy per person (as much of our work will be done by robots) so cut that number dow and you get a number like 250 - 300 million people all over the world living extremely comfortable lives in a highly automated society.
It's really not misanthropy - it's more a kind of Green Post-Humanism. We're just animals, really. If my numbers are off - that's fine - but the numbers we have now are utterly unsustainable. so it's not a question of IF we reduce, but How Much We Reduce, How We Reduce, and When That WIll Happen.
If you want a really scary book, read "the End Of The World" by John Leslie. He's a mathematician who specialised in Bayesian math. Totally creepy stuff. He figures we're done for in about 500 years. Complete extinction. I disagree with him, for reasons too complex to get into here, but suffice to say, I think we're just starting out, and have simply done some really dumb things straight out of the blocks. Getting control of our population footprint and our use ofresources is of primary and absolute importance. If we don't do that, then Leslie's correct - we're cooked and we'll be gone in a few hundred years. For no good reason, except our own short sightedness.
all the best,
Ralphie
The problem is: energy production systems need to be universal. And I DON'T think giving the likes of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Burma, Chechnya, etc. access to plutonium is a good idea under ANY circumstances.
The only nuclear power that's worth a damn is fusion, and we haven't puzzled that one out yet...
RS
(Bottom line, he maintains, is that it's [hydrogen] a cruel hoax and energy disaster, and far less useful than, for example, heavy hybrid automobiles that get about 50 - 60 miles on an electric charge alone -- which accounts for more than 85% of driving in the US and elsewhere on a daily basis -- and which are available now.)
What is also sad from my viewpoint is that hydrogen, technically, isn't really a "fuel". You need a lot of energy to make it. Now, if one uses solar power to make electricity to crack water to make H, then you've sort of solved part of the problem, but solar panels have a shelf life, and are dependent on local weather conditions.
I don't see Hydrogen as much of a solution for transportation. But I do think it could be used for home heating and local electrical generation in adverse environments. Still, the generation of Hydrogen is the big nut to crack. I think one nation on earth could become the Saudi Arabia of Hydrogen: Iceland.
1. They're an island, so they have all the water they need.
2.The whole freakin' island is basically a lava slick.
You don't have to drill very far down to get Enormous Amounts of geothermal energy, which they are already tapping for island electrical needs. All they have to do is build extra geothermal plants and crack the Atlantic Ocean. Geothermal s steady and continuous power (the earth isn't going to cool off anytime in the near future, and as Iceland is part of the Atlantic Spread, I don't think anything we can do will slow plate tectonics or cool Iceland off).
Hawaii and Vanuatu could be the Pacific Equivalents. Steady energy, lots of water. With that kind of a set up, we'll have a situation more like petroleum, where we'd have a real "fuel" i.e., lots of stored energy for very little energy expenditure in its creation.
I used to be all into Hydrogen - thikning - Hey - it turns into WATER when you burn it! KEWL!
But when I found out that the easiest hydrogen to get is out of petroleum, and that getting it out of either water or petroleum takes a lot of energy (which we get from either petroleum or fission - neither of which is renewable, except for the politically suicidal option of breeder reactors) my enthusiasm faded.
The first thing is conservation, and the article provides a lot of great ideas (many of which I am already doing, and had pointers for some that I will be dong!) for that. But I'm afraid that the next several decades will be warfare over water and energy, and we really need to find solutions to both problems.
I've stated before that the real problem is demographic - there are simply too many people. We need to *gradually* reduce populations to a sustainable level (I would estimate a global population of 250 - 300 million could be made sustainable indefinitely) and then develop long term energy, water, and metal recycling solutions.
If we don't the not so distant future will be one of horrifying catastrophe: disease, continuous war over ever dimishing resources, no power, crushing poverty and crowding, and a long term future best described as a paleolithic extinction event.
So, these are simple little choices we can make now, so we can plan for the future. OR, we can be our typical shortsighted green eyed greedy guts eat the world up everything for me and mine, and fuck the rest of you losers and simply watch the most precious of things in the universe - sentience - disappear.
It WILL eventually disappear, but it doesn't have to go this way - so stupidly, and so preventably.
Your every decision has far reaching effects.
RS
In addition, the NARIP-supplied "iTunes Artist-Producer Royalty Calculation" sheet was fascinating because it answers the question all artists on iTunes keep asking: "How much of a 99-cent download do I get to keep?" While indie artists do better, for major label artists, Apple collects 34 cents, the label keeps 55 cents, and the artist gets a dime.
Ah yes, a dime. Some things never change.
And this shows exactly why Apple isn't a friend to the musician. IF they were , they would allow artists to deal directly with iTunes as a distribution system. Instead, Apple, like all the other corporate thieving bastards, require artists to go through intermediaries, all who take a massive cut of the money.
There are umbrella orgs, such as CDBABY, but WHO in their right minds wants to be part of an organisation called CDBABY? There are a few others, but still, They Take All Their Cut. Leeches - the lot of 'em. They must be SMASHED. After all, it wasn't that long ago that for one to hear music, you had to get off your fat ass and learn to play an instrument. This recorded music thing is an historic anomaly. It will go away. Some day.
RS
Kiew da wabbit!
it's down 48%.
Thanks, George. You useless freakin Dork.
RS
If so, which wuold you rather have, one of these, or 10 or even 20 cheapie machines linked in a Beowulf cluster?
Sun's running down the same rabbit hole SGI did, and look where it got them.
Of course, if Apple keeps muscling in on its developers (FCP vs Avid/Adobe, Logic vs everybody, etc.) Apple could well go the way of SGI...so they need to be careful.
It's not a pretty site, and frankly, I think Sun is doomed. They make good stuff, but they've been very badly managed and picked the wrong enemies.
RS
The solution to the pollution and energy problems is to reduce the population. Pure and simple.
Now go out there and ki....
Ki...KI.....KI!!!! PORGIE!!!!!
RS
Unfortunately any message sent to me decrypts to read "Drink More Bosco."
RS
Watching the SCO saga is like watching a completely preventable train wreck in the slowest possible motion - kind of like watching snakegrass grow, or watching paint on the ugliest painting ever painted dry. Mondrian's skidmarks after a night of taxidancing. Picasso's Kleenex. Something like that.
We should start putting up options on when this idiotic extravaganza will come to a final end.
2005?
2006?
2007?
2438?
I no longer feel sorry for any one left treading water at SCO. They've had PLENTY of time to jump ship and flee the scene. When the slowly grinding wheel of justice makes its dirty, uuuh, duty, clean, nnnuuh, clear, these trusswrappers will be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and they will all have to walk the plank.
"I was Darl McBride, CEO at SCO for ages. Now I ask customers 'you want fries with that?' "
Hope and Pray.
RS
Burn DVD for self, and then pop the file into shared folder for the ravenous hordes on Limewire to "share".
The ONLY thing that will really slow these bastards down is if the decryption system is in the monitor itself, located somewhere in the processor for the projector / screen.
Audio, as usual, leads the way - we're about > Eventually, some smarty pants will figure out a way around the audio driver and built a simple route to the Hard Drive, but until then, the Time Base Corrector is your friend...
RS
And they're snagging the call letters of their carbon copy crapola stations?
As one poster noted, it's hard to know who to hate...
But the facts are simple: if radio stations had REAL DJs that were allowed to play whatever the fuck they wanted to, and then hired DJs on the basis of the depth and breadth of their musical selections and the cleverness of their song choices, there is No Way M$ could copy that, as each DJ would be regionally dependent on local taste. Example: the DJs of San Francisco might not fair very well in Oklahoma City. But it would all be by Sensibility, which is the most crucial marker of aesthetic choice.
But Bog Forbid anyone figure THAT one out... the closestthing you can do is get a live365 station but that's expensive and a bit of a rip off...
RS
RS
As it is, RealPlayer is universally despised for several reasons, many of them valid. the few that grind me are:
1. It's more than one click away from the main website.
2. It tries to take over your system as a default media system and sign you up for all kinds of spam on install.
3. It's BUTT ugly. It looks like the rejects from the XP UI team were hired to design it, when the rejects from the QuickTime UI team would have been a better choice.
4. I can't DL the content of RealMedia, like I can with mpeg or quickTime.
5. It's a bit [buffering 10%] too eager [buffering 25%] to send media [buffering 40%] before it's [buffering 75%] ready. And scrubbing [buffering 85%] is nearly [buffering 95%] impossible.
Fix these problems, and people might take Real Seriously. So the question is:
WHEN are you going to fix these OBVIOUS deficiencies that have plagued the player for YEARS?
RS
It boils down to class, and class warfare. It always has and always will. Marx was wrong about prescriptions, but his analysis was spot on 150 years ago, and it's still dead accurate.
Some things are different: events are certainly moving on a deeper and larger scale than the capitalists could possibly muster in 1870, but the structure has remained the same: there are a very few people on top and a lot of people on the bottom. The globalisation of wealth has made entire nations part of the "top" and entire continents part of the "bottom" - and you know who's getting fucked.
"Conservatives" (especially those of the more recent "neocon" variety, who are little more than penny ante fascists) are people who have internalised the false consciousness machine of contemporary capitalist culture to such a degree that they cheerfully support the plutocrats who enslave them. In fact, their culturally instilled cranio-rectal inversion is so complete, they don't see themselves as being willing participants in their own self enslavement - they see themselves as supporters of "freedom and liberty".
Meanwhile, the powers that be are re-aligning the economies into Orwellian superstates. The Europeans are doing it through an opt-in confederacy (EU), the Americans are doing it with their typically murderously belligerent policy of co-option, destruction and subordination (from Wounded Knee to Baghdad) and forming Oceania by way of NAFTA. East Asia is forming more slowly, as is typical of the Chinese Empire.
The great battle will be between a collapsing Oceania and a rising EastAsia. Eurasia will sit on the sidelines and watch the two destroy each other, and then move in to scoop up what's left.
This isn't tinfoil hat theory. this is stuff that has been documented over and over and over.
here
Here
and HERE.
Now, if you have any sense: ORGANISE A COHERENT RESISTANCE AND GET A PLACE AT THE TABLE OF OCEANIA. Prevent the disaster. If the neocon agenda goes on by its own logic, there will be an eventual war between EastAsia and Oceania. It will be fought through terror proxies first, then localised wars and rebeliions at the periphery. The results will be millions dead so the rich bastards running the American State can stay rich and the powerful shitbags running the Chinese Gov stay in power.
WAKE UP PEOPLE. Or don't: just pretend it isn't happening and surrender your children to be cannon fodder in some far off oil rich country for the sake of Exxon, Halliburton, and Walmart.
RS
compare a machine to a Dell, just for fun. In fact, there's a website that does just that.
So let's look at the bottom of the barrel: a $650 computer.
Obviously, the eMac sucks at some things, but has benefits in others. And it's all of a dollar or two more expensive than the equivalent Dell, and lord knows an order of magnitude more attractive.
For what you get, Apple computers are competitively priced. You can argue little crappy pinheaded arguments over the details, but all things considered, they're not so bad.
From my experience, the SOFTWARE is what's expensive. Fuck - for the price of Photoshop and AVID DV Express, I can buy one helluva nice computer on EITHER platform.
The cost of hardware is comparatively incidental anymore.
Of course, Linux this and Linux that, Free here, Free There - been there, done that, and frankly spent WAY too much time dicking around with my computer to get a proper workflow going, and on top of it, most of the Linux software *just isn't up to snuff*. A lot of it has to do with patents (which is why GIMP can't do anything interesting in CMYK space, for example) and really lame ass UI design (which is why GIMP is such a pain in the arse to use, for example).
I still don't know of a decent NLE video system on Linux that does what FCP can do on the mac or AVID on Windows.
So - sure - save $200 on a Linux box - and GET NOTHING DONE.
At the same time: I FERVENTLY hope and pray that this will change - soon. I am NOT a bigot against Linus, by any stretch. At the same time, I won't get rid of my Mac - but I'll cheerfully stop using Windows as soon as Linux is easier and better and HAS THE SOFTWARE I NEED TO GET MY WORK DONE.
RS
for one thing: I'll take the 35 hour work week.
Also, they did NOT have negative GDP in 2003. It's close to zero, but it's not negative. Don't believe me? ask the spooks:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ fr.html
thirdly, their unemployment rate, while high, is not 15%. In 2003 it was 9.6%, again per the spooks.
Parent is a TROLL.
RS
Seriously - if the corporate nanny state insists on penalising me for driving then they can just as well DRIVE THE DAMN CAR FOR ME.
In which case, it might as well be a bus, because that's as fast as I'll be getting across town.
I drive like a complete nutcase, but I NEVER have had an accident, nor have I ever caused an accident. I get speeding tickets about once every three - four years. The difference is: I get there fast, if not first.
I pay VERY close attention when I am driving. I don't zone out listening to Rush Fartbag. I don't twitch myself into a state of road rage - I just look ahead, find the empty lanes, and go for it.
My nemeses are middle aged asian women who invariably drive a big Lexus. It's not racist or sexist - it's just that they weren't raised in a car culture - they were raised in a bicycle culture and slapped into submission. Consequently, they're petrified behind the wheel. Perfectly nice decent people, but TOTALLY in the way on the road. The black box will, of course, give them good ratings while they clog up the highways.
I wonder how these black boxes will go over in Italy...
RS
When you hit pause or stop on the camera, it automatically saves end of file, and is then ready to start a new clip. the clips are all arranged on the iPod drive. You then take your iPod home and transfer data to your computer and edit the mess.
Advantages?
1. No "Log and Capture" bullshit. It's already in a Quicktime file.
2. A 40gig iPod holds more video than a video tape. DV runs 13gigs an hour. Your average tape is an hour, some are 90 minutes. A 40gig iPod holds about 3 hours of DV.
3. No need to store boxes of tapes. A 120 gig drive will hold about 9 hours of video. A decent DV tape still costs about $5, so that's about $50 (with tax) for the tape alone. How much is your time worth blown in log and capture? (price of 120 gig drive) - $50?
The wireless end of it probably has to do with recording conferences in iChat, or sending cheezola videos to your buddies in iChat or some video conferencing software. Or, there might be some idea of transferring video from iPod to computer for editing wirelessly. Seems kind of stupid to me, but you never know.
But the tapeless video recording is so needed - how do you think they did star wars? With tape? Nope. Banks of drives.
RS
On my computer, I designed my own desktop image in Photoshop. In large words and coloured areas, I have "regions" of stuff that is instantly available to me, and arranged intuitively and visually. So, my upper left area is my "VIDEO" area, and just below that is AUDIO. Below that is WEBSITE, where there are folders to everything having to do with my website and web activities (such as blogs, posts, audio filez, etc.). On the right side of the screen is SYSTEM where I have shortcuts to everything in my system, so I don't have to go drilling down into My Computer, and then SHORTCUTS where I organise the desktop shortcuts to various apps. There's one more area in the lower center, called VARIOUS, and it has folders and shortcuts to sundry files, arranged according to necessity and fiat.
In short: I have almost instant access to anything I do on my computer, and filing it can't be simpler: Desktop / whatever. I have this system on both of my Macintosh computers and my Windows box, and it works great. It's What A GUI Is Built For. When I resurrect the ancient weezing compaq, I'll put a similar organisation system in the GUI for SUSE.
If you file stuff intelligently in the first place and use the GUI creatively, it obviates the need for funky ass WinFS nonsense.
RS
TIMMY!
TIMMY!
TIMMMMY!
Cartman: Shut up, ya retard!
RS
However, if you put a DVD into the line, and run it through a TBC, you ca nthen re-record it onto a digital target, and make as many copies as you want. Sure: there's some loss, and a good TBC costs several hundred bucks, but IT WORKS.
The MPAA is so full of shit. Grrrr.
RS
Correct _ HK did not. But now that HK is part of the PRC, activities there must be seen the the context of the PRC. Somebody in Tibet wouldn't build a VGF for the millions of Permanently Single Men in Shanghai, but someone in HK would.
The VGF has almost no market value in a place where there is a closer to 50/50 ratio of females to males in a society. It would only have traction in a society where women were rare and expensive: like the PRC.
RS
Stupid idiots.
Erogenous zomes I live you,
Without you what would a poor boy do?
Without you mankind handkinds through the blues...
-from "Counting Out Time" by Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, 1974.
RS
back in the day, women were especially hired at low wages to work in "typing pools", where they would be given some hand written notes or previously typed documents to type or retype up for the managers, who were universally men.
typing was seen as women's work, and typing classes were basically for women to learn to be secretaries for men and do their typing for them.
The advent of the photocopier blew away the typing pool. Then the personal computer and low cost printing eliminated the job of "secretary" and brought in the advent of the executive assistant (which is a glorous word for what used to be a secretary). such must have typing skills, but it's not quite the day in day out focus, as many managers can now type faster than they can write, and the software helps them with spelling and grammar.
So, I think some basic typing skills are useful, but not as necessary as they used to be. eventually we will see the advent of really good voice recognition, and that will also remove the need for a lot of fast typing.
From this, it is clear that the historical necessity of widespread skills in rapid accurate typing is no longer present (we don't have typing pools or secretaries) and with advances in software, the needs get simpler and less taxing, allowing people to focus on the ideas being communicated, rather than the machines doing the communicating.
This doesn't mean that the quality is higher...
It just means we get more of it...
RS