> Not all laws are equal in my books. Murder is not a law I break with the same equanimity as a local parking ordinance.
I think you're getting at the difference between a moral law and a civil law. Now "moral" can be a loaded word, so you can maybe think of it as the difference between an *intrinsic* human law and a law imposed by the government for the purposes of maintaining order or commerce. Both are important, but usually breaking moral laws are considered more severe.
It is *wrong* to murder somebody. It is just *illegal* to run a stop sign. That's a big distinction.
Of course, it's not always so clear cut. What if you run a stop sign and hit somebody? Is it immoral to download a song illegally? How about a terabyte of songs? Does that cross the line? Is there a difference between downloading a Beatles song and one by the local struggling artist? The law of the government cannot and should not make such distinctions, but we as thinking individuals must do so on a daily basis. That's what a conscience is for.
It's also a matter of motivation. Most US cell phone users are locked into two-year contracts by now. This limits the pace of change-over from carrier to carrier, limiting the forces of the free-market economy, limiting competition, limiting carriers' motivation to offer better service. Why spend millions and millions of dollars to upgrade a network if your customers are locked in anyway?
Bob Sullivan's book Gotcha Capitalism makes some good points about this, as well as about how we almost never pay the advertised price for service.
Sigh. Because it works on every Internet-enabled device you can get your hands on? Um, hello? Did you even read the article's headline? I can understand not reading TFA, but at least read the summary!
Why use a webmail interface at all? I never understood the obsession with GMail's interface or any browser-based interface for that matter. There are dedicated email-reading applications that do a much better job than a browser ever can, and with Blue HttpMail you can use your Hotmail account as if it were IMAP. That way, you are not at the mercy of whims of a webmail administration crew, who can decide to change the interface or requirements or ads whenever they feel like it.
Of course it's dependent on what the musician is feeling. Just as you can tell a person's emotions from their voice, even if they are trying to disguise them, a guitarist shows his emotions through his playing, whether he wants to or not. Improvising on an instrument is far from being a limited context. There are infinite variations in the way a single note can be played, and infinite ways they can be combined. Compare SRV's version of Little Wing to Hendrix's, if you don't believe me. Sure you can simulate a range of variations, and even use some heuristics to determine what kind of mood a particular section of music should try for, but if we can't even get a telephone menu system to be user-friendly, I highly doubt we can simulate the style of a great musician.
Yes, but it's not about random variations. The whole idea behind a musician having a unique "style" is the subtle variations that can be added in response to the songs message, or the musician's interpretation. I can tell a B.B. King solo in the first three notes. Same with Stevie Ray Vaughan.
And no, this cannot be done programatically. The tone, timbre, pitch, timing, attack, decay, and volume of each note is dependent on what the musician is feeling at that particular moment. There is no way to program the feeling of a song. Yes, you can try to duplicate one particular artist's interpretation of a song, but good luck trying to apply this technique to a different song, with a subtly different feel.
Furthermore, one of the best things about live performance is the interaction between the musician and the crowd. There is nothing like the electricity in the air that is felt in the crowd as a master guitarist holds that bend... holds it... holds it... and BAM! transitions into a blistering solo, bringing the crowd to its feet.
How do I get a job as a fraudulent link-clicker? Seriously, I think I'd be pretty good at it. My right hand is very strong... From clicking my mouse, I mean (you sickos!).
"Indeed, what makes an Indian any less of a programmer than an American or a European?"
Um, let's see:
* an inferior education system
* less government privacy protection(as we've seen recently)
* the challenge of describing product requirements to non-native English speakers
* a twelve-hour time difference
* the fact that the best and brightest Indian engineers come to America or the UK.
Need I go on?
Slashdot Mirror
> Not all laws are equal in my books. Murder is not a law I break with the same equanimity as a local parking ordinance.
I think you're getting at the difference between a moral law and a civil law. Now "moral" can be a loaded word, so you can maybe think of it as the difference between an *intrinsic* human law and a law imposed by the government for the purposes of maintaining order or commerce. Both are important, but usually breaking moral laws are considered more severe.
It is *wrong* to murder somebody. It is just *illegal* to run a stop sign. That's a big distinction.
Of course, it's not always so clear cut. What if you run a stop sign and hit somebody? Is it immoral to download a song illegally? How about a terabyte of songs? Does that cross the line? Is there a difference between downloading a Beatles song and one by the local struggling artist? The law of the government cannot and should not make such distinctions, but we as thinking individuals must do so on a daily basis. That's what a conscience is for.
It's also a matter of motivation. Most US cell phone users are locked into two-year contracts by now. This limits the pace of change-over from carrier to carrier, limiting the forces of the free-market economy, limiting competition, limiting carriers' motivation to offer better service. Why spend millions and millions of dollars to upgrade a network if your customers are locked in anyway?
Bob Sullivan's book Gotcha Capitalism makes some good points about this, as well as about how we almost never pay the advertised price for service.
If you're using Firefox on Linux, chances are you also have or can get Thunderbird. If you have a better tool, why not use it?
Why use a webmail interface at all? I never understood the obsession with GMail's interface or any browser-based interface for that matter. There are dedicated email-reading applications that do a much better job than a browser ever can, and with Blue HttpMail you can use your Hotmail account as if it were IMAP. That way, you are not at the mercy of whims of a webmail administration crew, who can decide to change the interface or requirements or ads whenever they feel like it.
What??
My keyboard may be laden with bacteria, but it's MY bacteria. Who knows who's been using that toilet?
Then the suit should be filed against the websites illegally serving their copyrighted images, not Google.
Right, but then they wouldn't make it to the front page of slashdot.
Hell, I still don't have a laptop, and I probably never will. The keyboards are too hard to use with my big hands.
Networks pretty much administer themselves these days, don't they? Isn't that what Microsoft is promoting?
Of course it's dependent on what the musician is feeling. Just as you can tell a person's emotions from their voice, even if they are trying to disguise them, a guitarist shows his emotions through his playing, whether he wants to or not. Improvising on an instrument is far from being a limited context. There are infinite variations in the way a single note can be played, and infinite ways they can be combined. Compare SRV's version of Little Wing to Hendrix's, if you don't believe me. Sure you can simulate a range of variations, and even use some heuristics to determine what kind of mood a particular section of music should try for, but if we can't even get a telephone menu system to be user-friendly, I highly doubt we can simulate the style of a great musician.
And no, this cannot be done programatically. The tone, timbre, pitch, timing, attack, decay, and volume of each note is dependent on what the musician is feeling at that particular moment. There is no way to program the feeling of a song. Yes, you can try to duplicate one particular artist's interpretation of a song, but good luck trying to apply this technique to a different song, with a subtly different feel.
Furthermore, one of the best things about live performance is the interaction between the musician and the crowd. There is nothing like the electricity in the air that is felt in the crowd as a master guitarist holds that bend... holds it... holds it... and BAM! transitions into a blistering solo, bringing the crowd to its feet.
Show me a synthesizer that can do that.
How do I get a job as a fraudulent link-clicker? Seriously, I think I'd be pretty good at it. My right hand is very strong... From clicking my mouse, I mean (you sickos!).
"Indeed, what makes an Indian any less of a programmer than an American or a European?" Um, let's see: * an inferior education system * less government privacy protection(as we've seen recently) * the challenge of describing product requirements to non-native English speakers * a twelve-hour time difference * the fact that the best and brightest Indian engineers come to America or the UK. Need I go on?