> how much sleep do you get in that half hour? The full 30 mins.
> do you manage to see the safety demonstration? Why would I waste my time seeing something I've seen before? Besides, I already know before hand if the plane is not safe to fly.
So you never criticize products or services nor provide feedback so things can be improved??
Methinks you need to re-read the part where I said since you clearly don't grok the point: Any ideology taken to an extreme is never a good idea.
I know this might be above your understanding but you DO realize it is possible to actually use something and yet still be super critical of it. It is not mutually exclusive, nor hypercritical, even if it appears that way. It's called picking your battles. What tradeoffs of freedom for conveniences is up to each person to decide.
Now if you want to hold to some "high moral ground hermit of never using DRM" go right ahead; meanwhile I'll be enjoying the 1 or 2 blurays I make an exception for every year such as Baraka, BBC Planet Earth, etc., because I believe in the value of SOME of the products I purchase. If it was up to me, there would be no DRM nor Copyright, but sadly, for the time being, not enough customers give a dam to change the system. My life has been enriched by those things more then the negative consequences of supporting DRM. The world isn't Black and White so when are you going to stop pretending it is?
Lastly, instead of wasting energy not understanding concepts, how about organizing a [inter] national Boycott DVD / BluRay movies day instead? That would be much more beneficial to everyone.
> Ironic that you seem to advocate boycotting DRM, yet you still buy Blurays. 1. It is not for me to advocate one position of the other -- people are smart enough to come to their own conclusions.
2. It only appears hypocritical because, no offense, you lack the wisdom of balance: Taking any ideology to an extreme is never a good thing in the long run.
3. Everyone needs to make their own choice for what is rewarding bad behavior and what is acceptable. Just because something has DRM doesn't mean you are not allowed to back it. i.e. Copy a _number_ for personal use. If it weren't for MakeMKV or AnyDVD I probably would not buy any Blu Rays as the "value" of the investment would not make it worth it.
> , there are a lot of people who think streaming is "good enough". Agreed. Streaming definitely is good enough. The problem is not the average consumer, but the ISPs and Networks. They absolutely hate streaming. The two extremes are: Content: You must pay for every watching on every device, and only on devices we allow you. Consumers: I want to watch anything on any device.
The fight is already here; the outcome is inevitable, it is just a matter of time before the industry wakes up and gives consumers what they want.
> I'm also not quite as negative on Netflix's prospects That's because you don't have access to the facts -- i.e. how much the license fees that must be paid to the content creators and the content carriers. Basically Netflix is fucked -- they just don't have the capital to afford something that increases ~ 10% every year.:-/ Netflix is a great service. Unfortunately politics (and economics) is going to kill it.
While AnyDVD HD is a good way to treat the *symptom*, it does nothing to stop the *problem*.
I only buy Documentaries / Sci-Fi / Action movies on Blu Rays where the increased resolution is very, very nice. For everything else such as comedies, dramas, etc. who gives a fuck about "SD" (Standard Definition) quality? That is, the ROI on "comedy" Blu Ray is worse then comedy DVD.
The general consensus on/. is that the _only_ solution to DRM is to NOT use it hence the boycotting of the Digital *Rental* Mis-Management.. (Yes, intentionally creating a new DRM acronym. =)
Furthermore, the article is wrong on 2 things:
1) Fiber is a pipe dream. The ISPs are not interested in investing *billions* to run "fiber to the door" It will eventually happen but will take 20 years.
2) Netflix will be gone in 2 years. They can't afford the licensing costs.
Here is an interesting quote on liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism:
"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals -- if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can't say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to ensure that we don't each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path."
-- The solution to politics is to remove ALL money -- if parties want to be kept then they can pool their lobbying funds so that EVERYONE gets an equal chance to buy off the public with the pros / cons of their position.
"Gargolyes" may have had its share of problems but come on it wasn't THAT bad - certainly not as cheesy/silly (which I still like) as the original TMNT, Scooby Do, Transformers, or Inspector Gadget.
Agreed. The problem is people are unable to discern between:
- the spirit of the law, and - the letter of the law.
partially due to crap laws that no one wants to "fix" because there is too much money in the system (as one of your examples points out), it is in a lawyer's best interest to have as many convoluted laws as possible, and people generally don't give a dam about bad laws -- they would rather bitch about sports / music / movies.
i.e. The letter of the law says that even 1 mph over the speed limit is "illegal" yet we all know that speed limits in many cases are artificially lowered to increase the revenue base.
Legalism is a moral crutch attempting to promote greed and "moralism" (which usually means, my morals not yours, of course.)
When you have bullshit laws where a house owner can get charged for murder for _defending_ their property from some idiot trying burglarize the place, one has to ask "Where the fuck is some common sense?" Wow, here's a fucking concept. If you don't want the face the consequences for an illegal act (getting shot from the homeowner), how about not breaking into his place!
No kidding! Cause we ALL know that video games caused all the atrocities of World War I and World War II, right?... OH WAIT. SOME people are inherently violent -- the "medium" they use to express that is irrelevant !
Don't you love how every generation just has to blame X for what it doesn't understand? e.g. '40 Dancing '50 Soul Music '60 Rock N Roll '70 Drugs '80 DnD '90 Video Games '00 Guns / Homosexuality Obviously the list isn't 100 accurate, but you get the point.
Agreed on SMB. Agreed that Metroid (prferably the Game Boy Advance version =) should be included. Along with Mortal Kombat for the SNES. The Modern Windows version should include Limbo and/or Braid. Also would of preferred Ico over SoC.
I can tell you have never taught another programmer nor learned the benefits of reverse engineering so you can write better code! e.g. I used to work on a professional C/C++ compiler for consoles. Customers would sometimes ONLY provide assembly code and it was your job to figure out why the compiler was generating invalid code.
Here is an perfect example -- a friend of mine was taking a CS course and the assembly code the prof provided was absolute shit -- a perfect example of how to NOT write code. I cleaned up the assembly code into a properly commented assembly and then provided a mid-level source. By having the 3 versions to compare against my friend was able to get a better handle on reading and writing assembly code, understanding how a compiler would translate a mid-level language to a low level language, learn some good commenting styles, etc.
First, the original crap assembly provided by the Prof: 0000 RD R5 Inpt// Read the no. of integers to be added from the input buffer 0004 MOVI R6 0// Set a counter to reg-6 and initialize to 0 0008 MOVI R1 0// Set the Zero register to its value 000C MOVI R0 0// Clear Accumulator 0010 LDI R10 Inpt// Load address of input buffer into reg 10 0014 LDI R13 Temp// Load address of temp buffer into reg 13 0018 LOOP1: ADDI R10 4// Point to the next address of input buffer by adding 4 001C RD R11 (R10)// Load the content(data) of address in reg-10 in reg-11 0020 ST (R13) R11// Store the data in the address pointed to by reg-13 0024 ADDI R13 4// Point to the next address of temp buffer 0028 ADD I R6 1// Increment the counter 002C SLT R8 R6 R5// Set reg-8 to 1 if reg-6 < reg-5, and 0 otherwise 0030 BNE R8 R1 LOOP1// Branch if content of Reg- 8 and Reg-1 is not equal 0034 MOVI R6 0// Reset the counter to Zero 0038 LDI R9 Temp// Loading the address temp into reg 9 003C LOOP2: LW R7 0(R9)// Loads the content of the address in reg-9 in reg-7 , reg-9 is // B-reg . 0 is the offset 0040 ADD R0 R0 R7// Add the content of accumulator with reg-7 and stored in acc. 0044 ADDI R6 1// Incrementing the counter by 1 0048
1. That is what a _man_ wrote down. The burden of proof is to prove that God wrote that.
2. Reincarnation does not conflict with that statement which is both true and false. It is up to you to resolve that paradox.
3. Why would the disciples ask if a man had sinned before he was born? John 9:2 "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
> are you going to believe what God says in the all-time best seller? You are confusing Popularity with Quality. i.e. Otherwise McDonalds would claim they make the best gourmet food.
It is obvious you've never spent much time writing nor reading heavily optimized code, such as loop unrolling, removing branching, NOR fixing bugs. WRT the later a proper bugfix will contain a comment to the bugzilla number AND make a note about other potential issues / work arounds, test cases, edge cases, design flaws, etc.
Sometimes you also deal with code because the original programmer couldn't spend the time to properly name things (either function and/or variables), and only provides a few comments (if you are lucky.)
Without using the function names would you be able to a) Describe how these work without googling them? b) Rename the variables to more descriptive ones?
i.e. int popcount (unsigned int n) {
n = (n & 0x55555555) + ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555);
n = (n & 0x33333333) + ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333);
n = (n & 0x0F0F0F0F) + ((n >> 4) & 0x0F0F0F0F);
n = (n & 0x00FF00FF) + ((n >> 8) & 0x00FF00FF);
n = (n & 0x0000FFFF) + (n >> 16);
return n;
or
float rsqrtf( float x) {
float xhalf = 0.5f*x;
int i = *(int*)
i = 0x5F375A86 - (i>>1);
x = *(float*)
x = x*(1.5f-xhalf*x*x);
return x; }
> If you have to write comments, your code is not readable nor understandable by another person.
That's nonsense.
_Proper_ commenting tells _why_ you did something. I want to know _how_ you did something I can [usually] read the code. i.e.
* Did you work-around an existing design flaw that would be too big to fix?
* Was this a result of fixing another bug that exposed a new issue?
* Is the code doing something tricky / non-obvious?
* It also doesn't hurt to give a -reference- for the algorithm, because sometime it is not obvious WHY the code is doing what it is. e.g.
You do realize Non-locality of Mind has already been proven, right?
See the documentary "The Quantum Activist". It features Dr. Amit Goswami, Ph.D, retired, Professor of physics at the University of Oregon's Institute of Theoretical Science for 30 years, so its not like it features some unknown nut-job.
> they turn all pseudo-skeptic and quote James Randi chapter and verse FTFY. James Randi is a pseudo-skeptic -- he can't apply his skepticism towards his own skepticism. See: http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Page30.htm#RealSkeptics
> there's no such thing as spirits, ghosts, gods, reincarnation or afterlife? WRT the afterlife, the only people you should talk to IMHO are people who have been declared clinically dead, and yet "awoke" 30 mins, 1 hr later. etc. Because unless you have been dead, you have _zero_ experience. Who would you rather learn from? Somebody who went through an "interesting experience" or someone who has no frame of reference or knowledge about a topic yet pretends to?
WRT reincarnation, the evidence is still controversial (i.e. as in, it goes against my belief system so I can't accept it.) It would be best to read the evidence for yourself and make your own mind up, instead of letting other people dictate what they _think_ is correct.
1. Children's Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child, by Carol Bowman 2. Many Lives Many Masters, Brian Weiss 3. You Have Been Here Before: A Psychologist Looks at Past Lives, Dr. Edith Fiore 4. Children Who Remember, Dr. Ian Stevenson 5. Past Lives, Future Lives, Dick Sutphen 6. Reliving Past Lives, Helen Wambach 7. Edgar Cayce's Story of Karma, Mary Ann Woodward 8. Mass Dreams of the Future, Chet Snow 9. Reincarnation, Sylvia Cranston and Carey Williams 10. Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives, by Michael Duff Newton
Slashdot Mirror
> how much sleep do you get in that half hour?
The full 30 mins.
> do you manage to see the safety demonstration?
Why would I waste my time seeing something I've seen before? Besides, I already know before hand if the plane is not safe to fly.
Yup, Freelancer was a great game. Spent many, many days just hauling cargo around to make some credits to buy bigger and bigger cargo ships.
The mouse flight worked extremely well.
They really need to make a new "spiritual successor", because the ending sucked :-/
So you never criticize products or services nor provide feedback so things can be improved??
Methinks you need to re-read the part where I said since you clearly don't grok the point:
Any ideology taken to an extreme is never a good idea.
I know this might be above your understanding but you DO realize it is possible to actually use something and yet still be super critical of it. It is not mutually exclusive, nor hypercritical, even if it appears that way. It's called picking your battles. What tradeoffs of freedom for conveniences is up to each person to decide.
Now if you want to hold to some "high moral ground hermit of never using DRM" go right ahead; meanwhile I'll be enjoying the 1 or 2 blurays I make an exception for every year such as Baraka, BBC Planet Earth, etc., because I believe in the value of SOME of the products I purchase. If it was up to me, there would be no DRM nor Copyright, but sadly, for the time being, not enough customers give a dam to change the system. My life has been enriched by those things more then the negative consequences of supporting DRM. The world isn't Black and White so when are you going to stop pretending it is?
Lastly, instead of wasting energy not understanding concepts, how about organizing a [inter] national Boycott DVD / BluRay movies day instead? That would be much more beneficial to everyone.
> Ironic that you seem to advocate boycotting DRM, yet you still buy Blurays.
1. It is not for me to advocate one position of the other -- people are smart enough to come to their own conclusions.
2. It only appears hypocritical because, no offense, you lack the wisdom of balance: Taking any ideology to an extreme is never a good thing in the long run.
3. Everyone needs to make their own choice for what is rewarding bad behavior and what is acceptable. Just because something has DRM doesn't mean you are not allowed to back it. i.e. Copy a _number_ for personal use. If it weren't for MakeMKV or AnyDVD I probably would not buy any Blu Rays as the "value" of the investment would not make it worth it.
> , there are a lot of people who think streaming is "good enough".
Agreed. Streaming definitely is good enough. The problem is not the average consumer, but the ISPs and Networks. They absolutely hate streaming. The two extremes are:
Content: You must pay for every watching on every device, and only on devices we allow you.
Consumers: I want to watch anything on any device.
The fight is already here; the outcome is inevitable, it is just a matter of time before the industry wakes up and gives consumers what they want.
> I'm also not quite as negative on Netflix's prospects :-/ Netflix is a great service. Unfortunately politics (and economics) is going to kill it.
That's because you don't have access to the facts -- i.e. how much the license fees that must be paid to the content creators and the content carriers. Basically Netflix is fucked -- they just don't have the capital to afford something that increases ~ 10% every year.
i.e. Do you understand why Netflix lost "Starz" ? When you can only afford hundreds of millions while the networks can afford a billion who do you think is going to get the license?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/09/netflix-to-lose-starz-its-most-valuable-source-of-new-movies.html
While AnyDVD HD is a good way to treat the *symptom*, it does nothing to stop the *problem*.
I only buy Documentaries / Sci-Fi / Action movies on Blu Rays where the increased resolution is very, very nice. For everything else such as comedies, dramas, etc. who gives a fuck about "SD" (Standard Definition) quality? That is, the ROI on "comedy" Blu Ray is worse then comedy DVD.
The general consensus on /. is that the _only_ solution to DRM is to NOT use it hence the boycotting of the Digital *Rental* Mis-Management.. (Yes, intentionally creating a new DRM acronym. =)
Furthermore, the article is wrong on 2 things:
1) Fiber is a pipe dream. The ISPs are not interested in investing *billions* to run "fiber to the door" It will eventually happen but will take 20 years.
2) Netflix will be gone in 2 years. They can't afford the licensing costs.
Agreed.
One of the best/funniest for "The floppy disk anthem" would have to be Beagle Bro's "Silicon City" two-liner
RUN TL:CHUGGACHUGGA
Two floppy drives.
One steam-engine starting up =)
i.e.
1 HOME:POKE 50,223:FOR X=150 TO 255:SPEED=X:PRINT PEEK(49385) + PEEK( 49386);:PRINT "CHUGGA";:PRINT PEEK( 49387);:NEXT:END
It would alternate turning on/off the floppy drive motors of the 2 floppy drives. =)
http://beagle.applearchives.com/the_software/vintage_beagle_bros_softwar/silicon_salad.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=beaglo+bros+chuggachugga
HBO's True Blood.
Sex scenes with lots of filler in-between. (So that's where Ensign Ro ended up ...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Forbes
oblg.
http://www.mrlovenstein.com/comic/50
(sorry no xkcd)
Very nice summary!
Here is an interesting quote on liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism:
"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals -- if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can't say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to ensure that we don't each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path."
Guess who said that and when !?
From interview published in Reason (1 July 1975)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan
--
The solution to politics is to remove ALL money -- if parties want to be kept then they can pool their lobbying funds so that EVERYONE gets an equal chance to buy off the public with the pros / cons of their position.
I knew about those, but forgot about them. Thanks for the time frames too!
shut your mouth =)
"Gargolyes" may have had its share of problems but come on it wasn't THAT bad - certainly not as cheesy/silly (which I still like) as the original TMNT, Scooby Do, Transformers, or Inspector Gadget.
> This is a worthless comment, a waste of space.
Your tips for coding and what you learnt from reverse engineering are where again?
> The regular laws are bad enough.
Agreed. The problem is people are unable to discern between:
- the spirit of the law, and
- the letter of the law.
partially due to crap laws that no one wants to "fix" because there is too much money in the system (as one of your examples points out), it is in a lawyer's best interest to have as many convoluted laws as possible, and people generally don't give a dam about bad laws -- they would rather bitch about sports / music / movies.
i.e. The letter of the law says that even 1 mph over the speed limit is "illegal" yet we all know that speed limits in many cases are artificially lowered to increase the revenue base.
Legalism is a moral crutch attempting to promote greed and "moralism" (which usually means, my morals not yours, of course.)
When you have bullshit laws where a house owner can get charged for murder for _defending_ their property from some idiot trying burglarize the place, one has to ask "Where the fuck is some common sense?" Wow, here's a fucking concept. If you don't want the face the consequences for an illegal act (getting shot from the homeowner), how about not breaking into his place!
No kidding! Cause we ALL know that video games caused all the atrocities of World War I and World War II, right? ... OH WAIT. SOME people are inherently violent -- the "medium" they use to express that is irrelevant !
Don't you love how every generation just has to blame X for what it doesn't understand?
e.g.
'40 Dancing
'50 Soul Music
'60 Rock N Roll
'70 Drugs
'80 DnD
'90 Video Games
'00 Guns / Homosexuality
Obviously the list isn't 100 accurate, but you get the point.
What a bunch of fuck tards.
Agreed on SMB.
Agreed that Metroid (prferably the Game Boy Advance version =) should be included.
Along with Mortal Kombat for the SNES.
The Modern Windows version should include Limbo and/or Braid.
Also would of preferred Ico over SoC.
Whoops, look like I didn't properly format my html code.
Should be:
int i = *(int*) & x;
and
x = *(float*) & i;
Thus, the proper code should be:
float rsqrtf( float x)
{
float xhalf = 0.5f*x;
int i = *(int*) & x;
i = 0x5F375A86 - (i >> 1);
x = *(float*) & i;
x = x*(1.5f - xhalf*x*x);
return x;
}
I can tell you have never taught another programmer nor learned the benefits of reverse engineering so you can write better code! e.g. I used to work on a professional C/C++ compiler for consoles. Customers would sometimes ONLY provide assembly code and it was your job to figure out why the compiler was generating invalid code.
// Read the no. of integers to be added from the input buffer // Set a counter to reg-6 and initialize to 0 // Set the Zero register to its value // Clear Accumulator // Load address of input buffer into reg 10 // Load address of temp buffer into reg 13 // Point to the next address of input buffer by adding 4 // Load the content(data) of address in reg-10 in reg-11 // Store the data in the address pointed to by reg-13 // Point to the next address of temp buffer // Increment the counter // Set reg-8 to 1 if reg-6 < reg-5, and 0 otherwise // Branch if content of Reg- 8 and Reg-1 is not equal // Reset the counter to Zero // Loading the address temp into reg 9 // Loads the content of the address in reg-9 in reg-7 , reg-9 is
// B-reg . 0 is the offset // Add the content of accumulator with reg-7 and stored in acc. // Incrementing the counter by 1
Here is an perfect example -- a friend of mine was taking a CS course and the assembly code the prof provided was absolute shit -- a perfect example of how to NOT write code. I cleaned up the assembly code into a properly commented assembly and then provided a mid-level source. By having the 3 versions to compare against my friend was able to get a better handle on reading and writing assembly code, understanding how a compiler would translate a mid-level language to a low level language, learn some good commenting styles, etc.
First, the original crap assembly provided by the Prof:
0000 RD R5 Inpt
0004 MOVI R6 0
0008 MOVI R1 0
000C MOVI R0 0
0010 LDI R10 Inpt
0014 LDI R13 Temp
0018 LOOP1: ADDI R10 4
001C RD R11 (R10)
0020 ST (R13) R11
0024 ADDI R13 4
0028 ADD I R6 1
002C SLT R8 R6 R5
0030 BNE R8 R1 LOOP1
0034 MOVI R6 0
0038 LDI R9 Temp
003C LOOP2: LW R7 0(R9)
0040 ADD R0 R0 R7
0044 ADDI R6 1
0048
1. That is what a _man_ wrote down. The burden of proof is to prove that God wrote that.
2. Reincarnation does not conflict with that statement which is both true and false. It is up to you to resolve that paradox.
3. Why would the disciples ask if a man had sinned before he was born?
John 9:2 "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
> are you going to believe what God says in the all-time best seller?
You are confusing Popularity with Quality. i.e. Otherwise McDonalds would claim they make the best gourmet food.
It is obvious you've never spent much time writing nor reading heavily optimized code, such as loop unrolling, removing branching, NOR fixing bugs. WRT the later a proper bugfix will contain a comment to the bugzilla number AND make a note about other potential issues / work arounds, test cases, edge cases, design flaws, etc.
Sometimes you also deal with code because the original programmer couldn't spend the time to properly name things (either function and/or variables), and only provides a few comments (if you are lucky.)
Without using the function names would you be able to
a) Describe how these work without googling them?
b) Rename the variables to more descriptive ones?
i.e.
int popcount (unsigned int n)
{
n = (n & 0x55555555) + ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555);
n = (n & 0x33333333) + ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333);
n = (n & 0x0F0F0F0F) + ((n >> 4) & 0x0F0F0F0F);
n = (n & 0x00FF00FF) + ((n >> 8) & 0x00FF00FF);
n = (n & 0x0000FFFF) + (n >> 16);
return n;
or
float rsqrtf( float x)
{
float xhalf = 0.5f*x;
int i = *(int*)
i = 0x5F375A86 - (i>>1);
x = *(float*)
x = x*(1.5f-xhalf*x*x);
return x;
}
> If you have to write comments, your code is not readable nor understandable by another person.
That's nonsense.
_Proper_ commenting tells _why_ you did something. I want to know _how_ you did something I can [usually] read the code.
i.e.
* Did you work-around an existing design flaw that would be too big to fix?
* Was this a result of fixing another bug that exposed a new issue?
* Is the code doing something tricky / non-obvious?
* It also doesn't hurt to give a -reference- for the algorithm, because sometime it is not obvious WHY the code is doing what it is.
e.g.
You do realize Non-locality of Mind has already been proven, right?
See the documentary "The Quantum Activist". It features Dr. Amit Goswami, Ph.D, retired, Professor of physics at the University of Oregon's Institute of Theoretical Science for 30 years, so its not like it features some unknown nut-job.
Well worth watching.
The magic words you are looking for is:
* laser turntable
It uses a laser for its pickup so the vinyl is never touched.
i.e.
http://www.elpj.com/
Of course it is not without its critics:
http://www.high-endaudio.com/RC-ELP.html
Now if only the dam price was so obnoxious ...
You make some good other points.
You mean like this experiment?
"I. Human-Machine Anomalies"
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/experiments.html
> if physicists are so interested why are they not researching it?
Because it is easier to ignore the evidence then to be honest and admit there is something here we don't understand.
i.e.
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/publications.html
> they turn all pseudo-skeptic and quote James Randi chapter and verse
FTFY. James Randi is a pseudo-skeptic -- he can't apply his skepticism towards his own skepticism.
See: http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Page30.htm#RealSkeptics
> there's no such thing as spirits, ghosts, gods, reincarnation or afterlife?
WRT the afterlife, the only people you should talk to IMHO are people who have been declared clinically dead, and yet "awoke" 30 mins, 1 hr later. etc. Because unless you have been dead, you have _zero_ experience. Who would you rather learn from? Somebody who went through an "interesting experience" or someone who has no frame of reference or knowledge about a topic yet pretends to?
WRT reincarnation, the evidence is still controversial (i.e. as in, it goes against my belief system so I can't accept it.) It would be best to read the evidence for yourself and make your own mind up, instead of letting other people dictate what they _think_ is correct.
http://www.squidoo.com/the-best-reincarnation-books
http://letusponder.hubpages.com/hub/10-books-about-Reincarnation
1. Children's Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child, by Carol Bowman
2. Many Lives Many Masters, Brian Weiss
3. You Have Been Here Before: A Psychologist Looks at Past Lives, Dr. Edith Fiore
4. Children Who Remember, Dr. Ian Stevenson
5. Past Lives, Future Lives, Dick Sutphen
6. Reliving Past Lives, Helen Wambach
7. Edgar Cayce's Story of Karma, Mary Ann Woodward
8. Mass Dreams of the Future, Chet Snow
9. Reincarnation, Sylvia Cranston and Carey Williams
10. Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives, by Michael Duff Newton
Best of luck in your journey!