OK, say your MP3s are identical to the CD original. Where can I get those MP3s? From Itunes? From a mate at work who rips the latest White Stripes CD for me? (note: piracy is wrong:) Or from sitting at my computer, checking the internet for the latest updates and tweaking settings in my CD Ripper, waiting for it to finish, copying it to my ipod, burning it onto CD, etc etc?
As I've said, that isn't what I want from an audio format; for me it's not a technical exercise - if it takes hours of effort to create a copy of some music i bought because i wanted to relax listening to it, what's the point? If it needs a computer, then already, i'm having to do extra stuff, even if that's only turning the computer on and opening up Grip.
MP3 doesn't retain the very high or very low frequencies as well, in my opinion. The difference is minimal (actually, miniscule would be more accurate), but when I'm sat in a dark room concentrating on the music, or listening to each chord through a decent pair of headphones, it's that sort of thing that i'll pay money to improve. MP3 doesn't cut it for me (yet).
Saying that, I'm the kind of person who spends good money on different kinds of cable and can tell the difference between them when listening to music. For me, most MP3s are like listening to FM radio - it sounds great until you play it through a half decent setup, and then play the same thing from CD or vinyl, at which point MP3 starts to sound a bit, well, hollow.
The sound quality issue isn't FUD; ATRAC (in its latest incarnations) is simply a better compression algorithm for audio quality (at comparable file sizes); see here or here for example. Now, I'm not saying you couldn't produce an MP3 which sounds better than ATRAC, but in common usage, ATRAC generally has more fidelity. Saying that, I'm sure as MD drops off as a format and MP3 becomes even more mainstream, MP3 will improve to the point that it overtakes ATRAC - and it's not a huge difference at the moment. But it's big enough for me - I didn't spend money on a decent hifi to waste my time listening to poorly compressed music on it. They're both compromises, but at the moment, in practical usage, ATRAC is less of a compromise than MP3.
A DVD player which plays MP3s is not an "MP3 player" - you'd have to use a computer to burn a CD/DVD specifically for listening on it. This is not the same as having one MD which I can use in a portable player or a deck. How many people do you know who keep their MP3 player contents sync'd with CDs ? If I'm listening to music while walking home, then decide I want to carry on listening to the same music, but on my hifi, I can simply take the disc out of my MD player, put it in my deck, and i'm done. With a computer based format like MP3 I'd need to burn it to a new medium first. Again, a computer is required. I spend all day in front of a computer - when I'm relaxing, listening to music, I don't mind using a cd player, but having to use a computer is an intermediate step i don't want.
Of course, with some portables you get a line-out which means you can plug it into your amp and listen direct from there, but not many come with a line-in which you can record via without using a computer. that's fine for many people, who want to use it via a computer. I don't.
And my MD portable IS a sony - an MZ-E909, at 71.1 x 77.6 x 12.5 mm (2cm smaller in height but 3cm wider, and about 5mm deeper - not that much difference - they both slip into a pocket easily). For that I get around 40 hours battery life (and more like 100 hours if i don't mind one AA battery piggybacking) - a nano gives about 14 hours. The build quality is also much better, IMO (magnesium shell - dropped many times with no ill effects, and even sat on a couple of times). So i get a slightly squarer, slightly thicker body, but only have to charge it every few weeks rather than every few days. Again, not a big deal, but it suits me.
I'm not saying MD/ATRAC is better than MP3 in all it's forms, it isn't - I'm just saying that it isn't quite the dead duck some people would have you believe - at least not in technical terms. For me, it's a great format, let down only by Sony's refusal to make it more mainstream. MP3 on MD could have been huge, if Sony had not been so dense a few years ago. Now anyone who hasn't already invested in the format would be mad to buy into it.
I think you're being unfair on minidisc - it still has several advantages over other formats (although they're now outnumbered by disadvantages).
Compared to CDs, minidisc is small - that might not sound like much, but it means I can slip a MD player in my jeans pocket, my shirt pocket, hold it comfortably in my hand, whatever. For portable music, that's a must - CDs can never be as portable.
Compared to MP3 players, the sound quality is vastly better (OK, maybe "vast" is an overstatement, but for someone into hi-fi, try listening to a decent MD recording or a decent MP3 recording - the MD is clearly better; even my 9-year old deck sounds better than any MP3 I've heard, and I've heard a few). Most consumers don't care much about this (which is why you see so many Ipod owners with the original, nasty, low-quality earphones), but some people do. You can also get MD hifi units to put next to your CD player, which I've yet to see for MP3 (although I'm sure someone has made one somewhere); related to that, for MP3 players, you really need a computer for them to be worthwhile. You may be able to record from line-in on some of them, but that's not what they're designed for. I like listening to music on my stereo, not my computer. I still buy CDs - not MP3s. And I like my portable music player to sound good and be usable with my home stereo and music collection - all this fits much better with MD than it does MP3. Lastly, you exaggerated the price for MD units. I've never paid more than £1 for a minidisc (blank; although the new data versions are about twice that), and I've been using it since 1997. I've also never paid more than £170 for a player - hifi or portable - and for that money I've never had to buy the cheapest one, but have managed to get a good mid-range unit (my MD deck is 9 years old and still sounds comparable to CD, just about). That makes it better value than any MP3 player, for my needs. My current MD portable is about the size of an Ipod nano, give or take, and cost £150 two years ago. It sounds far better, and the battery lasts for days on end. It holds far less music, granted, but I personally prefer listening to an album or 3 several times per day than 200 unique tracks; if I wanted that, I'd listen to radio.
I know none of these reasons are likely to hold much weight with 95% of consumers, but if i was sure the format had a future, I'd still buy it (I'm not, so I don't anymore - my current units will be my last)
You're 100% right in saying that sony messed up with marketing the format, though: first it was touted as a replacement for CD when it should have been replacing cassette tape, then they tried selling pre-recorded discs. When MP3s started getting popular, sony held out and refused to give the few remaining MD fans a proper MP3 compatible unit - as far as I know the ones that currently exist are still crippled with poor software and DRM.
As you pointed out, this is par for the course with sony. MD, Memory Stick, the list goes on. Apart from anything else, it's bad business.
of course you can take photos of the Eiffel Tower at night... this is the sort of rubbish that helps no-one, it really annoys me! this is exactly the reason that this situation exists - someone reads an article that says "you cannot do XYZ" and then goes round telling people "you can't do ABC".
You're not allowed to PUBLISH photos of the tower at night - but even then, the policy is that amateur publication, such as displaying the image on your homepage on the internet, will be overlooked.
i'm a keen photographer, although at the moment I seem to spend more time reading about my hobby than actually doing it. One of the magazines I regularly read has been full of tales of police/security over-zealousness for months now. Unfortunately in Britain at the moment, the police do not need to charge you with anything to detain you - if they have suspicions of any sort that they can relate to terrorism in any way, they can haul you off to the station for questioning. This has happened and been reported in photography magazines several times recently (and that's only the incidents that the victims actually wrote to magazines about). A well known case was of a man taking photos around (I think) Canary Wharf in London (near the Gherkin building and all the new, Norman Foster -esque architecture). He was basically meandering round taking photos of buildings, someone reported him to the police as being suspicious, and that was that: I believe he was taken to the station, questioned and interviewed, but eventually released without charge. I've read dozens of similar reports in the last few months.
The problem is exacerbated in Britain because of (in my view) the scare-mongering tabloid press and their one-upmanship over fantastic headlines; there have been so many over-the-top stories and rumours about paedophiles over the last few years, for instance, that much of the public is now paranoid about the issue, even though such crimes have pretty much stayed at the same level they were at decades ago. Famously, after one paper named and printed photos of known sex-offenders, gangs of vigilantes went round beating up people who looked like the people in the pictures, or had similar names; and in one case, a paediatrician was forced to flee her home because people thought she was a danger to children and daubed threatening graffiti over her house. This eventually led last year to the major of London announcing a plan to erect signs in public spaces such as parks to warn people to be suspicious of anyone with a camera; thankfully he has since backed down.
Unfortunately this does seem to be rubbing off on people: much of the public would now rather not ask questions but just act on their paranoia. In the recent case of an innocent man being shot by police because he happened to live in a block of flats where a terrorist suspect lived, it quickly became apparent that it was all a terrible case of mistaken identity and incompetence by the police; but most of the people I heard talking about it in the following days thought the victim deserved it, either because he was an illegal immigrant (he had overstayed his visa), or because he vaulted the ticket barrier (he did not), or because he had on a bulky jacket (he did not), or just because it's better to be safe than sorry, and a few unnecessary deaths is a price worth paying (!). I had to stop myself from having a big argument with a taxi driver a week after the incident, as he was adamant that even if the man was innocent, was acting innocently and did nothing wrong whatsoever, his death was still OK because we live in dangerous times and if the police think, for whatever reason, that someone *might* be slightly suspicious, shooting him 8 times at point blank range is the best thing to do. Needless to say I didn't tip him.
Unfortunately people are becoming accustomed to paranoia - it seems our governments are in some cases willingly fostering a feeling of unease about anything and anyone, and people are responding.
I take your point about technology, but I do think you're being overly optimistic for the short to medium term. even in western countries where cleaner technology is readily available, emissions are still going up - and they show no sign of going back down again in most countries (the UK is actually doing pretty well on this front, but nowhere near as well as we should be, and we're one of the best in the world in this area, which is pretty depressing). the fact is that given the choice between a dirty but cheap technology, and a slightly cleaner but more expensive one, people and businesses will largely choose the former - as they do now - unless governments force them to do otherwise. what happened to emissions in texas while a certain mr bush was governor there, for example? how many people do you know who drive hybrid cars? or who have given up their car to use public transport? what you're doing is admirable but unless it's mirrored by the majority, the overall trend will continue.
and all this conveniently forgets that most of the world is still on its way to (large scale) industrialisation, and while on that journey the vast majority of countries will care less about emissions than about economic growth (eg. china and india, to name the obvious examples). and when most western countries don't seem to really care that much, who can blame them?
that's a fair point, but just using your example: suppose you spend millions and succeed in providing clean water to 5 million people. Then in 10 years time, the supply of clean water for 4 million of those people becomes submerged / inaccessible / polluted by rising levels of the sea and tidal rivers.
clean drinking water is a goal to work towards, yes, but you can't ignore other things just because one goal is worthwhile and achievable. imagine if new orleans had just spent 50 million dollars on public transport infrastructure before katrina; a great investment before the hurricane, but 50 million dollars on improving flood defences would have been money spent much more wisely.
I stated that an exact prediction couldn't be made, but a general one could: there's nothing wrong with that statement, and my examples showed this. There are in fact plenty of data points for this in the climate 'arena': like all the studies that have shown that the world is getting warmer at an accelerating rate, for example. So, we can't predict exactly how much warmer the world will be in 10 or 100 years time, but given all the data we have (various data covering several millenia, if you include things like polar ice core measurements etc) we *can* predict that it will be, relative to now, considerably warmer by several degrees. You don't need "billions" of data points to make a prediction, by the way: you can make predictions with as much data as you like. In this particular case, there is plenty.
If you want to get pedantic about things, then no prediction can ever be made about anything, ever: will the sun rise tomorrow? not at the earth's core, no. will slashdot self combust? who can tell? if that's the level of argument you want, I suppose you should be reading... no, wait, slashdot IS the perfect place! The word "predict" exists because it has a different meaning to the word "know". No one can know what will happen in the future, but you *can* predict it. Not exactly (as I originally stated) in all cases, but a prediction can always be made. So far from saying something was both unpredictable and predictable at the same time, I was merely saying that a certain level of exactness is not possible, whereas another level of (lesser) exactness IS possible using current data. You might want to re-read my original post - I predict you'll find that I'm right (there: a prediction made with only one data point!).
As for how I reached my conclusion, it's very simple: millions of people around the world (and animals, and flora) depend on the current environment for their survival - any drastic change in that environment means death and/or destruction on a massive scale. A few more degrees of heat and polar bears have no ice to hunt on any more. A few more feet in the ocean level in southern asia and a few million people in Bangladesh become homeless. There are hundreds if not thousands of other examples. How about all the sea life in the north atlantic that depends on the gulf stream? or the insect life that depends on the warm air created by the gulf stream?
"Why do people like you insist on supporting your opinions after they've been challenged instead of questioning them honestly and admitting you may have missed something."
Because they're supported by a wealth of evidence, and I've yet to see any evidence to make me change my mind. Perversely, I don't change my mind everytime someone shouts "you're wrong! you're wrong!"
"Why are you so arrogant that you're convinced your lay assessment is in any way valid?"
Why are *you* convinced? Personally, I'm interested in the subject as a whole, I've read a lot of background information over the course of many years, and the evidence I've seen and am aware of is overwhelmingly one-sided (in terms of quantity and conclusions i mean, not in terms of bias). I used to work for a government research agency, and while i had nothing to do with weather/climate modelling myself, i know people who were. i also know a few environmental scientists (old uni friends mostly); i've yet to meet anyone who's both qualified to comment in a professional capacity, and who doubts the general premise that climate change is happening and will have consequences.
By 2050, industrialized nations will be emitting little CO2
and you're basing that on what? the last 45 years of emission trends?
Yes, the world is going to warm a couple of degrees, and sea levels will rise a few feet. No, this will not be the apocalypse.
tell that to the Dutch. or Bangladesh. or anywhere with-lying coastal regions, anywhere that relies on specific ocean currents (eg. North Western Europe) for it's current climate, anywhere... well, just anywhere, really. It's not a simple matter of places getting warmer - Britain is likely to get much colder if the Gulf Stream is affected, which it quite probably will be when the sea temperature rises. No-one can really predict exactly what is going to happen, but it's pretty certain it won't be good for most people.
OK, so let's presume you're right, and let's even presume that the rather slow and laborious temperature changes during the transition to the last ice age was in any way comparable to the fast and accelerating changes we're currently experiencing. let's presume that it is all, in fact, down to nature and nothing to do with us.
it's still happening. what are we going to do about it?
Firstly, 2400dpi is not "high-end" for a film scanner. My Scan Dual III (several years old, and only GBP 200 new) has a 2820dpi resolution. That gives around a 10-mpixel image for 35mm film. You can get consumer scanners of 4000dpi and more for not much more than that. I know of at least one flatbed scanner which is quite cheap and easily exceeds your supposed limit - and this from a person who has never bought a flatbed scanner in my life (there are sure to be many others). As for supposed "marketing" claims - I've yet to hear of a scanner which doesn't deliver the advertised resolution. They may not make full use of that resolution, and many high-res scanners may produce subjectively worse scans than lower-res scanners, but any scanner which advertises 2400dpi and only delivers 2200dpi would be false advertising, apart from anything else.
Secondly, just because it is a 4x5 camera doesn't mean that the image being scanned is 4x5; if the scanner is placed behind the film-plane of the camera, the projected image size will increase. In fact, even if it is ON the film plane exactly, it's likely that there would be a (slightly) larger area than 4x5 inches available, as the projected image would be cropped to fit the rectangle of the film frame in normal use.
the point is that what's good for your family (bigger SUV) is not necessarily good for society in general (more deaths from bigger SUV collisions). and what's bad for society in general is also bad for you and your family (your big heavy SUV may not be so big and heavy once everyone else is driving bigger and heavier SUVs - which is made more likely by you driving one).
you just fell victim to your own argument - alcohol blood levels are no more boolean than is safety levels: one person with the same amount of alcohol in their system as another person will not be affected in the same way as the other person - one could be practically unaffected, the other almost totally drunk.
drink-driving limits are largely arbitrary because the effect of alcohol on people's driving ability is not a linear equation, and thus almost impossible to define/predict. that being so, choosing a very low limit (which will stop some people drinking unnecessarily but save lives) as opposed to a high level (which will let people with a high tolerance for alcohol drink more, but let anyone else drive while drunk and thus cause a lot of deaths) would seem to be the only sensible option.
as for the other factors like having a cold, or sleeping poorly - how would you suggest testing for those? or are you saying that if other factors exist which have a similar negative effect, but that those factors are currently not legislated against, then drunk-driving should also be exempt from legislation? please tell me that is not your argument.
Perhaps I just build my sites wrong, I tend to make the html and php far to intertwined with a lot of the html being build by the code not just the php filling in certain blanks.
You're right. You build your sites wrong.:)
I also think you're confused about what templates are used for. They're not just there to separate HTML and PHP code, but to separate data code from presentation code. These are not the same things.
You can have php code which manipulates data (eg. database interaction) and php code which manipulates presentation (eg. HTML or template markup). The two should be separated where possible - this doesn't mean that php shouldn't be used to create HTML markup - but with most template engines - smarty is a good example here - most of the time php isn't necessary to create HTML, because the template system can do it and php is unnecessary.
Perhaps I only seen bad implementiations of templates but in my experience the end result was always that you could never tell wich part of the fucking site was controlling what and that even simple modifications meant you had to figure out the template engine being used.
You're right again - you've only seen bad implementations. It should be easy to tell which code controls what, much easier in fact than without templates. If the wrong data is being displayed, it's in the data layer. If the correct data is being displayed incorrectly, it's in the presentation layer. Easy huh?
Imagine a world in which everything every government (or other group in power) did was immediately 100% transparent to any observer.
I can see no downsides to this whatsoever - the depressing thing is that it's eminently possible, equally sensible - but ultimately impossible.
Your assertion that freedom and privacy are completely separate is misleading: they may be separate concepts, but the one affects the other very closely, especially in 'modern' society.
Until very recently a certain degree of privacy was not just assumed, but practically guaranteed in most societies: until the modern age there simply weren't the resources or the means for a government to collect all communications. Governments could attempt to collect such information but past a certain point it would invariably involve the use of force and/or fear, which are just the kind of societies that modern democracy is supposed to get rid of.
Also, saying that privacy is not a right but a luxury is making quite a big assumption - that governments have a fundamental right to know everything about us, and that in cases where this isn't true the situation is a luxury for the common man. I don't share that opinion: I am of the view that the government that I had a part in electing, via the democratic process, is there to act in my interests and on my behalf. It is there purely to allow myself and people like me to live my life. That is basic principle of democracy - power of the people, not *over* the people. You're forgetting this fundamental distinction.
You might also want to check the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - which includes an article on privacy. (I know this declaration is worthless in today's "the facts on the ground have changed" world, but I still think it's a worthwhile document). The fact that intelligent people now believe privacy is a luxury is just one of the many ways in which our world is changing for the worse because of the spectre of terrorism and, mainly, because of the knee-jerk overreactions to it from otherwise sensible people. Sacrificing your rights will not protect your liberty.
As Benjamin Franklin very rightly said: "They that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
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OK, say your MP3s are identical to the CD original. Where can I get those MP3s? From Itunes? From a mate at work who rips the latest White Stripes CD for me? (note: piracy is wrong :) Or from sitting at my computer, checking the internet for the latest updates and tweaking settings in my CD Ripper, waiting for it to finish, copying it to my ipod, burning it onto CD, etc etc?
As I've said, that isn't what I want from an audio format; for me it's not a technical exercise - if it takes hours of effort to create a copy of some music i bought because i wanted to relax listening to it, what's the point? If it needs a computer, then already, i'm having to do extra stuff, even if that's only turning the computer on and opening up Grip.
I can, and yes I have tried.
MP3 doesn't retain the very high or very low frequencies as well, in my opinion. The difference is minimal (actually, miniscule would be more accurate), but when I'm sat in a dark room concentrating on the music, or listening to each chord through a decent pair of headphones, it's that sort of thing that i'll pay money to improve. MP3 doesn't cut it for me (yet).
Saying that, I'm the kind of person who spends good money on different kinds of cable and can tell the difference between them when listening to music. For me, most MP3s are like listening to FM radio - it sounds great until you play it through a half decent setup, and then play the same thing from CD or vinyl, at which point MP3 starts to sound a bit, well, hollow.
The sound quality issue isn't FUD; ATRAC (in its latest incarnations) is simply a better compression algorithm for audio quality (at comparable file sizes); see here or here for example. Now, I'm not saying you couldn't produce an MP3 which sounds better than ATRAC, but in common usage, ATRAC generally has more fidelity. Saying that, I'm sure as MD drops off as a format and MP3 becomes even more mainstream, MP3 will improve to the point that it overtakes ATRAC - and it's not a huge difference at the moment. But it's big enough for me - I didn't spend money on a decent hifi to waste my time listening to poorly compressed music on it. They're both compromises, but at the moment, in practical usage, ATRAC is less of a compromise than MP3.
A DVD player which plays MP3s is not an "MP3 player" - you'd have to use a computer to burn a CD/DVD specifically for listening on it. This is not the same as having one MD which I can use in a portable player or a deck. How many people do you know who keep their MP3 player contents sync'd with CDs ? If I'm listening to music while walking home, then decide I want to carry on listening to the same music, but on my hifi, I can simply take the disc out of my MD player, put it in my deck, and i'm done. With a computer based format like MP3 I'd need to burn it to a new medium first. Again, a computer is required. I spend all day in front of a computer - when I'm relaxing, listening to music, I don't mind using a cd player, but having to use a computer is an intermediate step i don't want.
Of course, with some portables you get a line-out which means you can plug it into your amp and listen direct from there, but not many come with a line-in which you can record via without using a computer. that's fine for many people, who want to use it via a computer. I don't.
And my MD portable IS a sony - an MZ-E909, at 71.1 x 77.6 x 12.5 mm (2cm smaller in height but 3cm wider, and about 5mm deeper - not that much difference - they both slip into a pocket easily). For that I get around 40 hours battery life (and more like 100 hours if i don't mind one AA battery piggybacking) - a nano gives about 14 hours. The build quality is also much better, IMO (magnesium shell - dropped many times with no ill effects, and even sat on a couple of times). So i get a slightly squarer, slightly thicker body, but only have to charge it every few weeks rather than every few days. Again, not a big deal, but it suits me.
I'm not saying MD/ATRAC is better than MP3 in all it's forms, it isn't - I'm just saying that it isn't quite the dead duck some people would have you believe - at least not in technical terms. For me, it's a great format, let down only by Sony's refusal to make it more mainstream. MP3 on MD could have been huge, if Sony had not been so dense a few years ago. Now anyone who hasn't already invested in the format would be mad to buy into it.
I think you're being unfair on minidisc - it still has several advantages over other formats (although they're now outnumbered by disadvantages).
Compared to CDs, minidisc is small - that might not sound like much, but it means I can slip a MD player in my jeans pocket, my shirt pocket, hold it comfortably in my hand, whatever. For portable music, that's a must - CDs can never be as portable.
Compared to MP3 players, the sound quality is vastly better (OK, maybe "vast" is an overstatement, but for someone into hi-fi, try listening to a decent MD recording or a decent MP3 recording - the MD is clearly better; even my 9-year old deck sounds better than any MP3 I've heard, and I've heard a few). Most consumers don't care much about this (which is why you see so many Ipod owners with the original, nasty, low-quality earphones), but some people do. You can also get MD hifi units to put next to your CD player, which I've yet to see for MP3 (although I'm sure someone has made one somewhere); related to that, for MP3 players, you really need a computer for them to be worthwhile. You may be able to record from line-in on some of them, but that's not what they're designed for. I like listening to music on my stereo, not my computer. I still buy CDs - not MP3s. And I like my portable music player to sound good and be usable with my home stereo and music collection - all this fits much better with MD than it does MP3. Lastly, you exaggerated the price for MD units. I've never paid more than £1 for a minidisc (blank; although the new data versions are about twice that), and I've been using it since 1997. I've also never paid more than £170 for a player - hifi or portable - and for that money I've never had to buy the cheapest one, but have managed to get a good mid-range unit (my MD deck is 9 years old and still sounds comparable to CD, just about). That makes it better value than any MP3 player, for my needs. My current MD portable is about the size of an Ipod nano, give or take, and cost £150 two years ago. It sounds far better, and the battery lasts for days on end. It holds far less music, granted, but I personally prefer listening to an album or 3 several times per day than 200 unique tracks; if I wanted that, I'd listen to radio.
I know none of these reasons are likely to hold much weight with 95% of consumers, but if i was sure the format had a future, I'd still buy it (I'm not, so I don't anymore - my current units will be my last)
You're 100% right in saying that sony messed up with marketing the format, though: first it was touted as a replacement for CD when it should have been replacing cassette tape, then they tried selling pre-recorded discs. When MP3s started getting popular, sony held out and refused to give the few remaining MD fans a proper MP3 compatible unit - as far as I know the ones that currently exist are still crippled with poor software and DRM.
As you pointed out, this is par for the course with sony. MD, Memory Stick, the list goes on. Apart from anything else, it's bad business.
of course you can take photos of the Eiffel Tower at night... this is the sort of rubbish that helps no-one, it really annoys me! this is exactly the reason that this situation exists - someone reads an article that says "you cannot do XYZ" and then goes round telling people "you can't do ABC".
You're not allowed to PUBLISH photos of the tower at night - but even then, the policy is that amateur publication, such as displaying the image on your homepage on the internet, will be overlooked.
publication is NOT the same as photography!
this was in manchester - although I have no doubt my experiences would be echoed across the country.
i'm a keen photographer, although at the moment I seem to spend more time reading about my hobby than actually doing it. One of the magazines I regularly read has been full of tales of police/security over-zealousness for months now. Unfortunately in Britain at the moment, the police do not need to charge you with anything to detain you - if they have suspicions of any sort that they can relate to terrorism in any way, they can haul you off to the station for questioning. This has happened and been reported in photography magazines several times recently (and that's only the incidents that the victims actually wrote to magazines about). A well known case was of a man taking photos around (I think) Canary Wharf in London (near the Gherkin building and all the new, Norman Foster -esque architecture). He was basically meandering round taking photos of buildings, someone reported him to the police as being suspicious, and that was that: I believe he was taken to the station, questioned and interviewed, but eventually released without charge. I've read dozens of similar reports in the last few months.
The problem is exacerbated in Britain because of (in my view) the scare-mongering tabloid press and their one-upmanship over fantastic headlines; there have been so many over-the-top stories and rumours about paedophiles over the last few years, for instance, that much of the public is now paranoid about the issue, even though such crimes have pretty much stayed at the same level they were at decades ago. Famously, after one paper named and printed photos of known sex-offenders, gangs of vigilantes went round beating up people who looked like the people in the pictures, or had similar names; and in one case, a paediatrician was forced to flee her home because people thought she was a danger to children and daubed threatening graffiti over her house. This eventually led last year to the major of London announcing a plan to erect signs in public spaces such as parks to warn people to be suspicious of anyone with a camera; thankfully he has since backed down.
Unfortunately this does seem to be rubbing off on people: much of the public would now rather not ask questions but just act on their paranoia. In the recent case of an innocent man being shot by police because he happened to live in a block of flats where a terrorist suspect lived, it quickly became apparent that it was all a terrible case of mistaken identity and incompetence by the police; but most of the people I heard talking about it in the following days thought the victim deserved it, either because he was an illegal immigrant (he had overstayed his visa), or because he vaulted the ticket barrier (he did not), or because he had on a bulky jacket (he did not), or just because it's better to be safe than sorry, and a few unnecessary deaths is a price worth paying (!). I had to stop myself from having a big argument with a taxi driver a week after the incident, as he was adamant that even if the man was innocent, was acting innocently and did nothing wrong whatsoever, his death was still OK because we live in dangerous times and if the police think, for whatever reason, that someone *might* be slightly suspicious, shooting him 8 times at point blank range is the best thing to do. Needless to say I didn't tip him.
Unfortunately people are becoming accustomed to paranoia - it seems our governments are in some cases willingly fostering a feeling of unease about anything and anyone, and people are responding.
I take your point about technology, but I do think you're being overly optimistic for the short to medium term. even in western countries where cleaner technology is readily available, emissions are still going up - and they show no sign of going back down again in most countries (the UK is actually doing pretty well on this front, but nowhere near as well as we should be, and we're one of the best in the world in this area, which is pretty depressing). the fact is that given the choice between a dirty but cheap technology, and a slightly cleaner but more expensive one, people and businesses will largely choose the former - as they do now - unless governments force them to do otherwise. what happened to emissions in texas while a certain mr bush was governor there, for example? how many people do you know who drive hybrid cars? or who have given up their car to use public transport? what you're doing is admirable but unless it's mirrored by the majority, the overall trend will continue.
and all this conveniently forgets that most of the world is still on its way to (large scale) industrialisation, and while on that journey the vast majority of countries will care less about emissions than about economic growth (eg. china and india, to name the obvious examples). and when most western countries don't seem to really care that much, who can blame them?
that's a fair point, but just using your example: suppose you spend millions and succeed in providing clean water to 5 million people. Then in 10 years time, the supply of clean water for 4 million of those people becomes submerged / inaccessible / polluted by rising levels of the sea and tidal rivers.
clean drinking water is a goal to work towards, yes, but you can't ignore other things just because one goal is worthwhile and achievable. imagine if new orleans had just spent 50 million dollars on public transport infrastructure before katrina; a great investment before the hurricane, but 50 million dollars on improving flood defences would have been money spent much more wisely.
I stated that an exact prediction couldn't be made, but a general one could: there's nothing wrong with that statement, and my examples showed this. There are in fact plenty of data points for this in the climate 'arena': like all the studies that have shown that the world is getting warmer at an accelerating rate, for example. So, we can't predict exactly how much warmer the world will be in 10 or 100 years time, but given all the data we have (various data covering several millenia, if you include things like polar ice core measurements etc) we *can* predict that it will be, relative to now, considerably warmer by several degrees. You don't need "billions" of data points to make a prediction, by the way: you can make predictions with as much data as you like. In this particular case, there is plenty.
If you want to get pedantic about things, then no prediction can ever be made about anything, ever: will the sun rise tomorrow? not at the earth's core, no. will slashdot self combust? who can tell? if that's the level of argument you want, I suppose you should be reading... no, wait, slashdot IS the perfect place! The word "predict" exists because it has a different meaning to the word "know". No one can know what will happen in the future, but you *can* predict it. Not exactly (as I originally stated) in all cases, but a prediction can always be made. So far from saying something was both unpredictable and predictable at the same time, I was merely saying that a certain level of exactness is not possible, whereas another level of (lesser) exactness IS possible using current data. You might want to re-read my original post - I predict you'll find that I'm right (there: a prediction made with only one data point!).
As for how I reached my conclusion, it's very simple: millions of people around the world (and animals, and flora) depend on the current environment for their survival - any drastic change in that environment means death and/or destruction on a massive scale. A few more degrees of heat and polar bears have no ice to hunt on any more. A few more feet in the ocean level in southern asia and a few million people in Bangladesh become homeless. There are hundreds if not thousands of other examples. How about all the sea life in the north atlantic that depends on the gulf stream? or the insect life that depends on the warm air created by the gulf stream?
"Why do people like you insist on supporting your opinions after they've been challenged instead of questioning them honestly and admitting you may have missed something."
Because they're supported by a wealth of evidence, and I've yet to see any evidence to make me change my mind. Perversely, I don't change my mind everytime someone shouts "you're wrong! you're wrong!"
"Why are you so arrogant that you're convinced your lay assessment is in any way valid?"
Why are *you* convinced? Personally, I'm interested in the subject as a whole, I've read a lot of background information over the course of many years, and the evidence I've seen and am aware of is overwhelmingly one-sided (in terms of quantity and conclusions i mean, not in terms of bias). I used to work for a government research agency, and while i had nothing to do with weather/climate modelling myself, i know people who were. i also know a few environmental scientists (old uni friends mostly); i've yet to meet anyone who's both qualified to comment in a professional capacity, and who doubts the general premise that climate change is happening and will have consequences.
that do you?
how about this: I can't prediect the exact weather for February, but I can predict that it will almost certainly be colder than June.
or: I can't predict exactly how long I will live, but however long it is, it's almost certainly going to be less than 200 years.
see? easy. that "exactly" word is the killer - look it up.
and you're basing that on what? the last 45 years of emission trends?
Yes, the world is going to warm a couple of degrees, and sea levels will rise a few feet. No, this will not be the apocalypse.tell that to the Dutch. or Bangladesh. or anywhere with-lying coastal regions, anywhere that relies on specific ocean currents (eg. North Western Europe) for it's current climate, anywhere... well, just anywhere, really. It's not a simple matter of places getting warmer - Britain is likely to get much colder if the Gulf Stream is affected, which it quite probably will be when the sea temperature rises. No-one can really predict exactly what is going to happen, but it's pretty certain it won't be good for most people.
OK, so let's presume you're right, and let's even presume that the rather slow and laborious temperature changes during the transition to the last ice age was in any way comparable to the fast and accelerating changes we're currently experiencing. let's presume that it is all, in fact, down to nature and nothing to do with us.
it's still happening. what are we going to do about it?
You paid for the Earth? Really?
;)
Wanna buy a bridge?
The point is that such scanners are available and are not expensive (relatively speaking). Whether they are any good or not - I have no idea.
Secondly, just because it is a 4x5 camera doesn't mean that the image being scanned is 4x5; if the scanner is placed behind the film-plane of the camera, the projected image size will increase. In fact, even if it is ON the film plane exactly, it's likely that there would be a (slightly) larger area than 4x5 inches available, as the projected image would be cropped to fit the rectangle of the film frame in normal use.
the point is that what's good for your family (bigger SUV) is not necessarily good for society in general (more deaths from bigger SUV collisions). and what's bad for society in general is also bad for you and your family (your big heavy SUV may not be so big and heavy once everyone else is driving bigger and heavier SUVs - which is made more likely by you driving one).
you just fell victim to your own argument - alcohol blood levels are no more boolean than is safety levels: one person with the same amount of alcohol in their system as another person will not be affected in the same way as the other person - one could be practically unaffected, the other almost totally drunk.
drink-driving limits are largely arbitrary because the effect of alcohol on people's driving ability is not a linear equation, and thus almost impossible to define/predict. that being so, choosing a very low limit (which will stop some people drinking unnecessarily but save lives) as opposed to a high level (which will let people with a high tolerance for alcohol drink more, but let anyone else drive while drunk and thus cause a lot of deaths) would seem to be the only sensible option.
as for the other factors like having a cold, or sleeping poorly - how would you suggest testing for those? or are you saying that if other factors exist which have a similar negative effect, but that those factors are currently not legislated against, then drunk-driving should also be exempt from legislation? please tell me that is not your argument.
What if the drunk is driving the same (or bigger) SUV than you are? Still happy?
And what about their non-server products? You know, the ones that are ubiquitous in every office of every country in the EU?
You're right. You build your sites wrong. :)
I also think you're confused about what templates are used for. They're not just there to separate HTML and PHP code, but to separate data code from presentation code. These are not the same things.
You can have php code which manipulates data (eg. database interaction) and php code which manipulates presentation (eg. HTML or template markup). The two should be separated where possible - this doesn't mean that php shouldn't be used to create HTML markup - but with most template engines - smarty is a good example here - most of the time php isn't necessary to create HTML, because the template system can do it and php is unnecessary.
Perhaps I only seen bad implementiations of templates but in my experience the end result was always that you could never tell wich part of the fucking site was controlling what and that even simple modifications meant you had to figure out the template engine being used.
You're right again - you've only seen bad implementations. It should be easy to tell which code controls what, much easier in fact than without templates. If the wrong data is being displayed, it's in the data layer. If the correct data is being displayed incorrectly, it's in the presentation layer. Easy huh?
Imagine a world in which everything every government (or other group in power) did was immediately 100% transparent to any observer. I can see no downsides to this whatsoever - the depressing thing is that it's eminently possible, equally sensible - but ultimately impossible.
You're quite right. All such conversations should be taped and logged. The Soviet Union was right all along.
Your assertion that freedom and privacy are completely separate is misleading: they may be separate concepts, but the one affects the other very closely, especially in 'modern' society.
Until very recently a certain degree of privacy was not just assumed, but practically guaranteed in most societies: until the modern age there simply weren't the resources or the means for a government to collect all communications. Governments could attempt to collect such information but past a certain point it would invariably involve the use of force and/or fear, which are just the kind of societies that modern democracy is supposed to get rid of.
Also, saying that privacy is not a right but a luxury is making quite a big assumption - that governments have a fundamental right to know everything about us, and that in cases where this isn't true the situation is a luxury for the common man. I don't share that opinion: I am of the view that the government that I had a part in electing, via the democratic process, is there to act in my interests and on my behalf. It is there purely to allow myself and people like me to live my life. That is basic principle of democracy - power of the people, not *over* the people. You're forgetting this fundamental distinction.
You might also want to check the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - which includes an article on privacy. (I know this declaration is worthless in today's "the facts on the ground have changed" world, but I still think it's a worthwhile document). The fact that intelligent people now believe privacy is a luxury is just one of the many ways in which our world is changing for the worse because of the spectre of terrorism and, mainly, because of the knee-jerk overreactions to it from otherwise sensible people. Sacrificing your rights will not protect your liberty.
As Benjamin Franklin very rightly said: "They that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Garlic? Bread?
(apologies to non-UK readers who may not get the joke)