Assume you are right, and that the energy passed to the footbal from the arm is the input. Here is the physical account of the ball's flight.
The arm passes potential energy to kenetic energy to the ball. Once the ball is let go, the kinetic energy and momentum of the ball carries it through the air. Gravity, wind resistence, and thus friction wear away at the stored energy and causes the ball to fall to the ground.
Now from my original reply to you, you should be able to see that processing is an active concept. In both humans and computers, the unit takes in the input, run certain methods/functions/whathaveyou on it, and outputs the result. The football case is clearly not doing this. The football is a passive carrier of the energies that act on it. It has no active causal power associated with it.
Since it's flying through the air, clearly it is doing something with the input.
This sort of argument is similar to stating, "The sky is a color. Clearly that means that the sky is green." This is obviously not the case.
Well, that's a rather presumptuous conclusion.
No, it really is not. Look at it this way. There are two possibilities. Either the mind processes the visual input when looking at the baseballs, or it does not. Let's assume it doesn't. If this is the case, then what happens between the body perceiving the baseballs and its asserting "There are four baseballs here"? Well, by definition, we surmise that any possible answer to this question leaves anything the brain does to get from point A to B as passive, just like the football. If the brain is passive, though, this means that it is a reflexive response. By reflexive response, I mean that the brain, just like the football as it is thrown, merely acts in accord with the energies being pressed against it. This is where we move into my last statement, which you must have taken the wrong way. If the brain does not process information, we are left with a purely deterministic or purely chaotic account of the brain, body, and the world around us in general.
Think about it for a minute. If the brain does not process, then it does not make decisions. A decision implies that there are two or more available options that can be chosen from, and that the choice is causal of reasons internal of the decision maker. If the brain does not process information, than there can be no mental reason for the choice that is made. The only possible options left are that any decision is just a random and arbetrary declaration on "This one!" or it is a predetermined outcome. Because of the results of claiming that the brain is not a unit that performs processing, those are the only two available options if you were to take that route. Notice in both posts, I say IF. If you chose to conceede that the brain does in fact process input, then you would not run into such issue. However, I am not putting words into your mouth. I'm just working through the logical consequences of both sides of a potential belief you may have.
First, the football example is outside of the guidelines I gave for a program. What input is the football given? Is there any reason to believe that the football processes that input? Granted, the output would be it falling against the ground, but 1 quality of 3 isn't enough.
And are you really telling me that visual, auditory, or other such perceptions are not inputs? Kim Sterelny and Paul Griffiths would disagree with that along with most other philosophers and scientists.
What you need to do is open your mind a bit. Inputs and processing come in a variety of types and tokens. Don't think for an instant that because the terms are most commonly used in programming, that is all they mean.
As far as processing goes. I fail to see how a brain is be a processor of information. You see several baseballs on the ground. You are able to count them up and determine that there are four of them. Either you were able to process the visual input and make the determination that there is four baseballs on the ground, or that idea was somehow innate, and declaring the number and type of objects on the ground is mere reflex and involved no learning whatsoever. If this is the case, why could you not do that from birth?
Your only real out if to claim to be a devout determinist, where absolutely everything is predetermined by physics or some pseudoscientiffic avenue. If this is the case, though, words have no meaning and all we're doing is playing the predetermined symbol game.
My assumption that we are "programmed" comes from a couple of things. First, is a loose concept of program. By program, I assert any process that takes input, processes the input, and provides output in a methodological fashion. This can be shown easily. Input comes from perceptions and is fed into the processor (the brain). From there the information is processed in some methodological form (uniform both in the brain at hand and other tokens of that brain) and sent as output to the body and consequently the mind. Instinct itself ensures that the brain is not a tabula rasa, and also shows that the brain has some sort of responsive programming.
But the question of nature and nurture is as cut and dry for neither side. To say (which I know you aren't going that far) that it is all nurture would require the mind to be a tabula rasa. Likewise, to claim that the development of the mind is strictly nature would be to undermine several studies, the most famous with identical twins.
However, what about instinctual things? Fight or flight perhaps... dogs' instinct not to soil its den... bird migration... while I doubt these things are directly coded for in DNA (although Richard Dawkins and many other prominent biologists would in fact claim so), the DNA (in conjunction perhaps with other cellular data) does in the end code for an organism with these instinct. Perhaps these instincts are a product of the physical brain. They definitely are not the types of things pseudobiologists call memes.
Let's move beyond the question of DNA though, because I think an admission to the inherent program within the brains of complex living this is brought out. Living things take in inputs from their senses, process those inputs, and form conclusions about the inputs they take. Input, processing, output. What else is necessary for a program? Even if the hardcode of the brain is never unraveled, or even if it is not expressible there seems to be no reason to believe that the human brain is a program of some sort.
The next step is obviously giving the machines a certain amount of autonomous control over their actions. From here, it is a matter of building the ability of the robot to act and react in the proper way. However, this brings us back to the age old question of intelligence. Assume you are able to build a robot that is the best robot fighter around. Does this in any way imply that the robot is an "intelligent fighter?"
My initial thought would be no. The robot must be able to learn from its mistakes in order to have the basis of intelligence. It must be able to modify its programming, understanding, and fighting. But it must do more too. It must be able to take into account anything that it can perceive and attempt to assimilate differences in things like climate, terrain, and obstacles rather than simply act as a block machine for fighting. Eventually, the machine's instructions will be nothing like the original instructions it was programmed with.
This leaves us with the next question. Assume it can do all those things? Is there any reson to believe that it is an "intelligent fighter" rather than a machine doing what it is programmed to? But alas, is there any reason to think that we do more than what we are programmed to?
Thanks for the info. I'm unable to get to the Real page as it's blocked by our corporate proxy. Is this a new development by any chance? I thought I remember hearing (when Real first decided to sell music) that it was in.ra format.
While better audio codecs have been advanced (MP3, ogg, FLAC...) it seems that the real audio format has maintained its position at the end of the pack. While I am not such an audiophile that I feel like researching expert information on audio quality, it seems that I notice a great difference when listening to an.ra file as opposed to an MP3. Getting half the quality for half the price seems like a wash to me. That is, unless they are either distributing music in another format or have advanced their own encoding process. However, even an advance in the Real Audio format seems negligible. While it is nice that the files are currently compatable with the iPod, it still seems Real is taking the "too propritary" road.
Now before I get tossed into the flamebait category, I do understand that iTunes, MusicMatch, and the rest of the competition is fairly proprietary in their own right. But iTunes, and to a degree MusicMatch, are quite a bit less intrusive applications than RealPlayer.
Further, does anyone remember the user privacy sagas that Real has been through? Does anyone really trust Real to safeguard your information? I don't know about the rest of you, but Real lost my trust a long time ago. They could give out $0.01 songs and $0.10 albums, and that alone would scare me away.
I think you took the parent post out of context. The poster was not making a comment against Ethernet, but actually supporting the longevity of it.
The way I took it, the poster was saying that WAN connections are available at a fraction of what Ethernet LANs are capable of transmitting, thus speed advances are really a negligable. This means that collisions due to network capacity limits are not a factor in finding a new networking access method to replace Ethernet. Further, with the ease of adding nodes to the network, once a new carrier method is needed, designed, and available it will prolly be adopted very slowly.
It is not a major climate change that spells disaster for life, but rather a rapid major climate change that spells disaster for life as we know it. The theory of evolution from Darwin relies on two important premises. First, that evolution occurs over a long period of time (long meaning spanning several generations. Second, that natural selection is not cumulative. This means that selection does not make for better phenotypic expression, but rather that the phenotypic expression being selected is better suited for the creature's environment at the current time.
Thus, an extremely rapid change in environment can be devestating for complex creatures because there is not enough time for evolution by selection. The more drastic the climate change, the more likely that no suitable phenotype is available to be selected for, forcing the species into extinction.
I'm going to repost this here so it isn't just a single response to a poster:
Right... I guess I didn't phrase this right. iTunes already streams Apple Lossless to the AEx. Granted, it converts whatever the original format is to Apple Lossless basically "on the fly." So this makes the post even more incomprehensible. It seems to tell me that now I can stream Apple Lossless to the AEx. All I was trying to say "No kidding, I can already do that." So what purpose does this decryption function? It seems that it does not provide any additional functionality, especially in the light that whatever you are streaminging must convert to Apple Lossless for the AEx to understand how to play it (as I understand it). Since I do not know of any other SW that converts files to Apple Lossless, this seems like a lost venture. So I am still at the beginning inquiry. What services does decrypting the stream serve?
Right... I guess I didn't phrase this right. iTunes already streams Apple Lossless to the AEx. Granted, it converts whatever the original format is to Apple Lossless basically "on the fly." So this makes the post even more incomprehensible. It seems to tell me that now I can stream Apple Lossless to the AEx. All I was trying to say "No kidding, I can already do that." So what purpose does this decryption function? It seems that it does not provide any additional functionality, especially in the light that whatever you are streaminging must convert to Apple Lossless for the AEx to understand how to play it (as I understand it). Since I do not know of any other SW that converts files to Apple Lossless, this seems like a lost venture. So I am still at the beginning inquiry. What services does decrypting the stream serve?
Maybe I missed something, and I haven't been able to RTFA for obvious reasons. But doesn't the Airport Express take any stream sent to it from iTunes 4.6 or greater? What I am getting at is, on my iBook, I should be able to stream any file that plays from iTunes to the Airport Express. So what did I miss? Is this the ability to do that from other programs on other platforms? If so, why does the poster pick out the ability to transfer Apple Lossless files?
There's much to be said in favor of your post. Look at any true science, and notice two things. First, the science is rooted in philosophy. That is, the science was initially an area of philosophical inquiry. Chemistry started from the philosophy of Democratus. Physics got jump started through Aristotle's writings. Secondly, philosophy drives science. Look at the theoretical side of any science. Quantum physics, biological diversity... it is all fed from logical deductions of the empirical science by philosophers.
Now back to computer science. Look at Turing, who was really one of the first minds behind the modern day concept of computer. Look at how computers develop and advance. It isn't just technical applications of engineering marvels, but also the innovation of better premises and methods within computer science.
Here's the thing. Not enough philosophy is being taught in any of our science programs, much less computer science which (at the undergrad level) is almost entirely applied science. While I agree that true computer science is as philosophical as it is applicable, I must disagree that such agenda is being pushed through the CS programs.
After reading the abstract and a small portion of this article which seems difficult for me (a nonbiologist) to parse, I am left with a major concern. Is this good science? What I mean by this is that we have to be careful about how we determine causality. Is this a good random sample? What are the determining factors that make this causal link? I'm sure the research methods state this, but if anyone has a layman's assessment of this study.
Mr. Borrayo who voluntarily gave his merchandise away or the RIAA who says they did not represent themselves as the police? If you believe the later, then why have "official badges" to flash, why would Mr. Borrayo have given his products up to the non-authoritative members of the RIAA, and why need to dress up like law enforcement officials?
One time I was installing a new hard drive for a customer. He wanted the data transferred from the old drive to the new one and the old drive discarded. The company I worked for had just obtained a copy of Ghost and it was our first time using it. I mixed up the two drives and copied the larger (new) drive to the smaller one and destroyed all the client's data.
I agree, the 20GB backpack is very bulky for "hiptop" or "pocket" portability. However, the potential for smaller backpacks exists as it is always a modular upgrade from the base. So while DI has a crappy design for their 20GB backpack, they can always change the design on the 40GB backpack as its only constraint is proper attachment to the base.
Wow, that was a horrible post. Let me detail this a bit more. When I am looking for an MP3 player, I am looking for just that. I think the ability to upgrade storage is paramount to a good portable music player. In other words, I would rather spend more upfront for cheaper storage upgrade alternatives that keep the life cycle of the unit longer.
Now, I can see the objections already. Look at how sleek and sexy the ne iRiver is. Look at the color display. However, these things are neither necessary nor components of a good portable music player. How does a color display either give us better quality audo or a better lifecycle for our product? In fact, it does neither. It is basically frivilous, and only should be considered in the purchase when 2 models are otherwise equal. In this case, it can be shown that models without such flashy features provide useful benefits over the iRiver.
I think the ability to upgrade by tossing new backpacks (which granted they have been slow to release) onto a player as an ability to upgrade storage makes the Neuros much more attractive than the iRiver.
what if she got permission and the bar was closed. After hours is it a public place? Since it isn't open to the public at that point I would say it isn't
I would agree with such a statement. Although in court you would have the defendant arguing that and the prosecution arguing the exact opposite and I guess it would matter more what the judge thought and who made the better argument. However, I definitely agree that it would not constitute a public place as stipulated. IANAL (yet, but getting there).
Unless you're on the jury during her trial. Then you also have the right to, in effect, rule on the law itself. If you don't think the law is a good one, you can vote for a not guilty verdict.
No, juries are there to determine matters of fact. They are there not to judge law, but rather to judge if a given set of facts constitutes the violation of the law at hand and to determine what facts are most believable when facts disagree.
Yes, and in Temple, Texas, it is punishable by hanging to steal cattle - on the spot no less.
And your point is...? Since my argument was not that the law was a good one, but rather that it is not the bar owner's obection that caused her to be ticketed, I fail to see what point you have with this.
The only reason she was charged was because the bar owner objected.
Really? Why didn't you say so in the first place? I'll just take your word for it then. No wait, I think I'll evaluate the arguments. There's my argument which shows exactly why the bar owner's objection is not necessary for prosecution, and then there is your bold unsupported statement that it is so because it is so. Well, let's see which one isn't circular...
Let's try this example on. I take a picture of myself nekkid and, using photoshop transpose my body in such a way that it looks like president Lincoln on the Lincoln Memorial is fellating me. I'ma perv who likes funny pics so I post it on my website and advertise that it is not fake. Also, lets assume that DC has the same public nudity law. Does this constitute photographic evidence? Should, on the basis of this photograph alone, I be ticketed for getting a hummer from Lincoln? I know the example seems outlandish, but when we look at laws and legal proceedure, we must take these kind of examples into account in order to create laws that are applicable universally.
If she did have permission, we wouldn't be posting here, would we?
Yes we would. You see the law in question involves nudity in public locations. Even if the owner had given permission to take the nude pictures, it would not deviate from the fact that, in Lincoln Nebraska, that bar is considered a public place and thus the act of being nude in that place is against the law.
Slashdot Mirror
Assume you are right, and that the energy passed to the footbal from the arm is the input. Here is the physical account of the ball's flight.
Now from my original reply to you, you should be able to see that processing is an active concept. In both humans and computers, the unit takes in the input, run certain methods/functions/whathaveyou on it, and outputs the result. The football case is clearly not doing this. The football is a passive carrier of the energies that act on it. It has no active causal power associated with it.
This sort of argument is similar to stating, "The sky is a color. Clearly that means that the sky is green." This is obviously not the case.
No, it really is not. Look at it this way. There are two possibilities. Either the mind processes the visual input when looking at the baseballs, or it does not. Let's assume it doesn't. If this is the case, then what happens between the body perceiving the baseballs and its asserting "There are four baseballs here"? Well, by definition, we surmise that any possible answer to this question leaves anything the brain does to get from point A to B as passive, just like the football. If the brain is passive, though, this means that it is a reflexive response. By reflexive response, I mean that the brain, just like the football as it is thrown, merely acts in accord with the energies being pressed against it. This is where we move into my last statement, which you must have taken the wrong way. If the brain does not process information, we are left with a purely deterministic or purely chaotic account of the brain, body, and the world around us in general.
Think about it for a minute. If the brain does not process, then it does not make decisions. A decision implies that there are two or more available options that can be chosen from, and that the choice is causal of reasons internal of the decision maker. If the brain does not process information, than there can be no mental reason for the choice that is made. The only possible options left are that any decision is just a random and arbetrary declaration on "This one!" or it is a predetermined outcome. Because of the results of claiming that the brain is not a unit that performs processing, those are the only two available options if you were to take that route. Notice in both posts, I say IF. If you chose to conceede that the brain does in fact process input, then you would not run into such issue. However, I am not putting words into your mouth. I'm just working through the logical consequences of both sides of a potential belief you may have.
First, the football example is outside of the guidelines I gave for a program. What input is the football given? Is there any reason to believe that the football processes that input? Granted, the output would be it falling against the ground, but 1 quality of 3 isn't enough.
And are you really telling me that visual, auditory, or other such perceptions are not inputs? Kim Sterelny and Paul Griffiths would disagree with that along with most other philosophers and scientists.
What you need to do is open your mind a bit. Inputs and processing come in a variety of types and tokens. Don't think for an instant that because the terms are most commonly used in programming, that is all they mean.
As far as processing goes. I fail to see how a brain is be a processor of information. You see several baseballs on the ground. You are able to count them up and determine that there are four of them. Either you were able to process the visual input and make the determination that there is four baseballs on the ground, or that idea was somehow innate, and declaring the number and type of objects on the ground is mere reflex and involved no learning whatsoever. If this is the case, why could you not do that from birth?
Your only real out if to claim to be a devout determinist, where absolutely everything is predetermined by physics or some pseudoscientiffic avenue. If this is the case, though, words have no meaning and all we're doing is playing the predetermined symbol game.
My assumption that we are "programmed" comes from a couple of things. First, is a loose concept of program. By program, I assert any process that takes input, processes the input, and provides output in a methodological fashion. This can be shown easily. Input comes from perceptions and is fed into the processor (the brain). From there the information is processed in some methodological form (uniform both in the brain at hand and other tokens of that brain) and sent as output to the body and consequently the mind. Instinct itself ensures that the brain is not a tabula rasa, and also shows that the brain has some sort of responsive programming.
But the question of nature and nurture is as cut and dry for neither side. To say (which I know you aren't going that far) that it is all nurture would require the mind to be a tabula rasa. Likewise, to claim that the development of the mind is strictly nature would be to undermine several studies, the most famous with identical twins.
However, what about instinctual things? Fight or flight perhaps... dogs' instinct not to soil its den... bird migration... while I doubt these things are directly coded for in DNA (although Richard Dawkins and many other prominent biologists would in fact claim so), the DNA (in conjunction perhaps with other cellular data) does in the end code for an organism with these instinct. Perhaps these instincts are a product of the physical brain. They definitely are not the types of things pseudobiologists call memes.
Let's move beyond the question of DNA though, because I think an admission to the inherent program within the brains of complex living this is brought out. Living things take in inputs from their senses, process those inputs, and form conclusions about the inputs they take. Input, processing, output. What else is necessary for a program? Even if the hardcode of the brain is never unraveled, or even if it is not expressible there seems to be no reason to believe that the human brain is a program of some sort.
The next step is obviously giving the machines a certain amount of autonomous control over their actions. From here, it is a matter of building the ability of the robot to act and react in the proper way. However, this brings us back to the age old question of intelligence. Assume you are able to build a robot that is the best robot fighter around. Does this in any way imply that the robot is an "intelligent fighter?"
My initial thought would be no. The robot must be able to learn from its mistakes in order to have the basis of intelligence. It must be able to modify its programming, understanding, and fighting. But it must do more too. It must be able to take into account anything that it can perceive and attempt to assimilate differences in things like climate, terrain, and obstacles rather than simply act as a block machine for fighting. Eventually, the machine's instructions will be nothing like the original instructions it was programmed with.
This leaves us with the next question. Assume it can do all those things? Is there any reson to believe that it is an "intelligent fighter" rather than a machine doing what it is programmed to? But alas, is there any reason to think that we do more than what we are programmed to?
I think the robots should have been equipped with a ripcord head that extended when they lose.
Thanks for the info. I'm unable to get to the Real page as it's blocked by our corporate proxy. Is this a new development by any chance? I thought I remember hearing (when Real first decided to sell music) that it was in .ra format.
While better audio codecs have been advanced (MP3, ogg, FLAC...) it seems that the real audio format has maintained its position at the end of the pack. While I am not such an audiophile that I feel like researching expert information on audio quality, it seems that I notice a great difference when listening to an .ra file as opposed to an MP3. Getting half the quality for half the price seems like a wash to me. That is, unless they are either distributing music in another format or have advanced their own encoding process. However, even an advance in the Real Audio format seems negligible. While it is nice that the files are currently compatable with the iPod, it still seems Real is taking the "too propritary" road.
Now before I get tossed into the flamebait category, I do understand that iTunes, MusicMatch, and the rest of the competition is fairly proprietary in their own right. But iTunes, and to a degree MusicMatch, are quite a bit less intrusive applications than RealPlayer.
Further, does anyone remember the user privacy sagas that Real has been through? Does anyone really trust Real to safeguard your information? I don't know about the rest of you, but Real lost my trust a long time ago. They could give out $0.01 songs and $0.10 albums, and that alone would scare me away.
I think you took the parent post out of context. The poster was not making a comment against Ethernet, but actually supporting the longevity of it. The way I took it, the poster was saying that WAN connections are available at a fraction of what Ethernet LANs are capable of transmitting, thus speed advances are really a negligable. This means that collisions due to network capacity limits are not a factor in finding a new networking access method to replace Ethernet. Further, with the ease of adding nodes to the network, once a new carrier method is needed, designed, and available it will prolly be adopted very slowly.
It is not a major climate change that spells disaster for life, but rather a rapid major climate change that spells disaster for life as we know it. The theory of evolution from Darwin relies on two important premises. First, that evolution occurs over a long period of time (long meaning spanning several generations. Second, that natural selection is not cumulative. This means that selection does not make for better phenotypic expression, but rather that the phenotypic expression being selected is better suited for the creature's environment at the current time. Thus, an extremely rapid change in environment can be devestating for complex creatures because there is not enough time for evolution by selection. The more drastic the climate change, the more likely that no suitable phenotype is available to be selected for, forcing the species into extinction.
I'm going to repost this here so it isn't just a single response to a poster: Right... I guess I didn't phrase this right. iTunes already streams Apple Lossless to the AEx. Granted, it converts whatever the original format is to Apple Lossless basically "on the fly." So this makes the post even more incomprehensible. It seems to tell me that now I can stream Apple Lossless to the AEx. All I was trying to say "No kidding, I can already do that." So what purpose does this decryption function? It seems that it does not provide any additional functionality, especially in the light that whatever you are streaminging must convert to Apple Lossless for the AEx to understand how to play it (as I understand it). Since I do not know of any other SW that converts files to Apple Lossless, this seems like a lost venture. So I am still at the beginning inquiry. What services does decrypting the stream serve?
Right... I guess I didn't phrase this right. iTunes already streams Apple Lossless to the AEx. Granted, it converts whatever the original format is to Apple Lossless basically "on the fly." So this makes the post even more incomprehensible. It seems to tell me that now I can stream Apple Lossless to the AEx. All I was trying to say "No kidding, I can already do that." So what purpose does this decryption function? It seems that it does not provide any additional functionality, especially in the light that whatever you are streaminging must convert to Apple Lossless for the AEx to understand how to play it (as I understand it). Since I do not know of any other SW that converts files to Apple Lossless, this seems like a lost venture. So I am still at the beginning inquiry. What services does decrypting the stream serve?
Maybe I missed something, and I haven't been able to RTFA for obvious reasons. But doesn't the Airport Express take any stream sent to it from iTunes 4.6 or greater? What I am getting at is, on my iBook, I should be able to stream any file that plays from iTunes to the Airport Express. So what did I miss? Is this the ability to do that from other programs on other platforms? If so, why does the poster pick out the ability to transfer Apple Lossless files?
There's much to be said in favor of your post. Look at any true science, and notice two things. First, the science is rooted in philosophy. That is, the science was initially an area of philosophical inquiry. Chemistry started from the philosophy of Democratus. Physics got jump started through Aristotle's writings. Secondly, philosophy drives science. Look at the theoretical side of any science. Quantum physics, biological diversity... it is all fed from logical deductions of the empirical science by philosophers. Now back to computer science. Look at Turing, who was really one of the first minds behind the modern day concept of computer. Look at how computers develop and advance. It isn't just technical applications of engineering marvels, but also the innovation of better premises and methods within computer science. Here's the thing. Not enough philosophy is being taught in any of our science programs, much less computer science which (at the undergrad level) is almost entirely applied science. While I agree that true computer science is as philosophical as it is applicable, I must disagree that such agenda is being pushed through the CS programs.
After reading the abstract and a small portion of this article which seems difficult for me (a nonbiologist) to parse, I am left with a major concern. Is this good science? What I mean by this is that we have to be careful about how we determine causality. Is this a good random sample? What are the determining factors that make this causal link? I'm sure the research methods state this, but if anyone has a layman's assessment of this study.
Mr. Borrayo who voluntarily gave his merchandise away or the RIAA who says they did not represent themselves as the police? If you believe the later, then why have "official badges" to flash, why would Mr. Borrayo have given his products up to the non-authoritative members of the RIAA, and why need to dress up like law enforcement officials?
One time I was installing a new hard drive for a customer. He wanted the data transferred from the old drive to the new one and the old drive discarded. The company I worked for had just obtained a copy of Ghost and it was our first time using it. I mixed up the two drives and copied the larger (new) drive to the smaller one and destroyed all the client's data.
I agree, the 20GB backpack is very bulky for "hiptop" or "pocket" portability. However, the potential for smaller backpacks exists as it is always a modular upgrade from the base. So while DI has a crappy design for their 20GB backpack, they can always change the design on the 40GB backpack as its only constraint is proper attachment to the base.
Wow, that was a horrible post. Let me detail this a bit more. When I am looking for an MP3 player, I am looking for just that. I think the ability to upgrade storage is paramount to a good portable music player. In other words, I would rather spend more upfront for cheaper storage upgrade alternatives that keep the life cycle of the unit longer. Now, I can see the objections already. Look at how sleek and sexy the ne iRiver is. Look at the color display. However, these things are neither necessary nor components of a good portable music player. How does a color display either give us better quality audo or a better lifecycle for our product? In fact, it does neither. It is basically frivilous, and only should be considered in the purchase when 2 models are otherwise equal. In this case, it can be shown that models without such flashy features provide useful benefits over the iRiver.
I think the ability to upgrade by tossing new backpacks (which granted they have been slow to release) onto a player as an ability to upgrade storage makes the Neuros much more attractive than the iRiver.
Let's try this example on. I take a picture of myself nekkid and, using photoshop transpose my body in such a way that it looks like president Lincoln on the Lincoln Memorial is fellating me. I'ma perv who likes funny pics so I post it on my website and advertise that it is not fake. Also, lets assume that DC has the same public nudity law. Does this constitute photographic evidence? Should, on the basis of this photograph alone, I be ticketed for getting a hummer from Lincoln? I know the example seems outlandish, but when we look at laws and legal proceedure, we must take these kind of examples into account in order to create laws that are applicable universally.