Understanding that pop music in this article surely refers to popular music of today and not specifically electronic, mostly dance, music, I've got a few complaints about this article.
1. If you analyze music based solely on the mathematical characteristics of the sound without any historical or cultural context, you might as well follow with a critique of paintings by counting the number of colors used by Rembrandt vs those used by Warhol.
2. Music is genealogy. Ergo, similarity must exist. It indicates the convergence of genetics from multiple sources into a singular modern pop musical form. Today's popular music can have a rhythm section that borrows heavily from Caribbean sounds which borrow from African, and yet have neo-classical European influences in the melody. We'll ignore the fact as we're talking about western music, we're already dealing with a specific set of genetic traits.
3. The commonality of musical instruments (digital gear included) means that there will be common sounds. Most the hot rodded guitar pickups you buy today are based on one of two platforms: mahogany and maple bodied PAF guitar or alder/ash bodied single coil guitar. PAF was a 50's era technology. One of the pickups I play today is a 36th Anniversary Dimarzio PAF that is a copy of the original Gibson PAF. Also: Def Leppard's "Hysteria", ZZ Top's "Eliminator", and Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" are three genetically diverse rock albums which share a similar sound because all three employ the use of Tom Scholz' Rockman guitar amp, compressor and chorus/echo gear which Tom created to encapsulate his signature Boston guitar sound. Additionally, much of the synth sounds used in pop music are signature preset sounds that vary between brands and models of keyboard synthesizers. Yes, folks, just as there is a Fender sound and a Marshall sound, there is also a Korg sound and a Roland sound.
4. Music has gotten louder in part because music has gotten heavier due to the influences of each generation before. I myself a British rock guitarist. My sound is the British sound (ie, Marshall amps, V shape equalization, heavy overdriven PAF style humbucker sound with obvious blues background that originate in the Mississippi Delta mixed with decidedly German cultural influences). I was influenced by bands that were influenced by Led Zeppelin, Buddy Guy, and so on. The kids who came after me were influenced by bands that were contemporary to my sound (Metallica and so on). There's a reason why I don't hear a lot of blues in today's harder heavy metal, and it's because those kids grew up listening to Metallica in the 90s whereas I grew watching Metallica in the 80s. Every genre of music has gotten heavier. Hip Hop/Rap musicians aren't doing Zip Zap Rap anymore. Even American country music is heavier and more rocking today than during the days of Merle Haggard. Pop music today is heavily influenced by the club scene as it has been for a long time. And today's club scene is very bass-heavy.
5. 60 years is not a long enough time to be making an educated criticism about how today's music sounds the same. 60 years is not even the lifetime of a person. 60 years means I can take Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Ry Cooder, Frank Zappa, David Gilmour, Tony Iommi, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Adrian Smith, Paul Gilbert, Slash, John Mayer, Joe Bonamassa, and Orianthi Panagaris, and put them into a single room and they will find a common dialect in music with which to communicate. And actually, with a few exceptions, I can do that. The point is, in 2012, we're still only a few generations removed from the earlier pop musical forms that are perceivably distinct enough that we'd consider them alien in comparison; for example, big band music.
6. Congratulations, with this research at hand, some crotchety geezer can shout that it sounds the same, then blame some anonymous music industry exec for ensuring that all music anywhere is exactly similar.
This is correct. If I remember correctly, the Stormtrooper Corps is actually the Grand Army renamed. I think it's possible there were human recruits. Both the Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy used human recruits, and licensed 3rd party sources such as West End Games' original Star Wars roleplaying game featured recruiting ads promoting the Corps. If you were going to clone your stormtroopers, why stop there and not clone the AT-ST/AT-AT pilots Lea's comment about Luke's height could have been a reference to cloning, but it could also indicate that the Corps has strict requirements for height and weight. Another possibility is that Lea, like most Rebel scum, enjoys taking shots wherever she can regardless of whom she hurts. Just saying, kill many Bothans, bloody war crime! Destroy an under construction Death Star filled with thousands of human independent contractors and wreak havoc with the galactic economy just so the only chick in the galaxy can take over, huzzah!! Watch, someone's going to whine about how Alderaan was a peaceful planet of nerfherders with no weapons of any kind and accuse me of being an Alderaanian Holocaust denier.
Are you quite sure it's anyone, aside of course for precluded groups. I thought that the original Berlin Patient got a transplant from someone who seemed to have a kind of genetic immunity to HIV?
No one cares whether you accept it. The only thing you're asked to do is stand aside and refrain from attacking or mocking gay couples that pass you on a public street. Your one vote doesn't matter because there is no vote count to be taken, nor should there be. You may not be talking about gassing homosexuals, but there are people on the Right that are. Shall I pull up the video of the woman advocating for putting all homosexuals within an electrified fence so that they naturally die off? You obviously don't associate with those types -- but just maybe you do and you don't realize it because they know that their fantastic right to be free from offense is greatly countered by the realities of life. What's your measure for being "in your face" anyway? Is it seeing a gay couple making out; all but having sex right there in front of you? I'm straight, and I've seen plenty of heterosexual couples making out in public places. I think it's tacky, and I'd prefer not to see it. Amazingly, I find that I can simply look away. I don't have to make any other changes to my regimen, nor do I have to avoid public places I enjoy. Or do you think it's "in your face" when two gays kiss casually or hold hands, or when an advertisement features an otherwise "normal" looking happy family that could be your family?
Really, as a practical matter, the only "in your face" gaydom you're exposed to is casual indications that a person is gay (a button, a pin, a light public display of affection with a member of the same sex) or gay rights advocacy. The first you'll have to just deal with. The latter will go away once gays are treated with full equality. Notice how the blacks and the hispanics aren't demanding the right to vote and intermarry? If you're having to constantly shield yourself from rainbow-infused wild acts of hedonistic gaydom, I suggest you leave that particular adult theater and go somewhere else.
Off-topic, I didn't intend to imply that you were a stereotypical Fox News viewer, just that your comment has been echoed often by Fox News and its hardline viewers, so I apologize it came off that way. I haven't watched Stossel since his much earlier consumer report type Give me a Break segments. I watch a lot of different programs too, the ones you listed included plus BBC and others in addition to a lot of print.
I like the idea of a distributed movement because that lack of ownership means the movement remains organic rather than potentially driven by a cult of personality that, save having an actual purpose, would turn the movement into a business opportunity. But you're absolutely right, the message gets diluted fast, and that's the rub. I have heard some very intelligent, young college aid Occupy organizers who look respectful, but you have to find their message on Livestream and Justin TV and Stickam. I've often been told that they can't get fair time in the press, even the so-called liberal mainstream press, because the press wants Occupy to have a celebrity spokesperson or a politico; someone who can generate ratings with their presence and someone who won't tell a cable news pundit that their bosses contributed to their problems. Whenever the press did cover Occupy NYC, they've consistently focused on any negative angle they could find such as assaults and robberies within the encampments, etc. I recall reading about all these STDs that were being spread through the camp due to the hedonistic sex the occupants were having. Many of the Occupy protesters are in fact older Americans, but that the face of Occupy is college-age young seems to have hurt them.
I can tell you absolutely that not everyone in Occupy was demanding that. I'm not saying you didn't see someone who did, but if you were paying attention, you know that Occupy is a distributed protest movement that is heavily localized and focusing mostly on local problems. There is a lot of crossover because cities across the country are experiencing similar circumstances. Occupy Wall Street and Occupy NYC were just the most public showings. There in fact have been many many more Occupy protests which the national media ignored. I already said there were fringe positions being advocated; ending fossil fuels now is obviously one of them. It is a naive demand, and there are several more I can think of, but that doesn't invalidate the common complaints that Occupy has made which have also been made by average Americans and even the Tea Party at the opposite end of the spectrum. Should talk about the Tea Partiers' demands that we ban Sharia law from our courts?
Most Americans don't think Occupy is a crazy fringe movement. Actually, that attitude is mostly amongst Fox viewers who, like you, find it easy to dismiss Occupy's complaints by saying they should get cleaned up and occupy a job. I know a lot of pretty clean middle-class white people from midwestern suburbia that can't occupy jobs, and they're are conservatives.
Here's some research showing that Americans seem almost disinterested despite moderately agreeing with the movement, and that is only where they understand the movement. Other polls shows that a majority of Americans at least agree with Occupy that there is a very large gap that's widening between the very rich and the middle class, and that this has been unhealthy. Even the Tea Party agrees with this.
Again, Occupy is a distributed protest movement, so view each Occupy protest group separately in order to understand what that particular Occupy wants. There is no singular official list of demands as there is no official organization that speaks for the whole. Admittedly, that's not always easy, but I haven't seen the press jump through hoops to make sense of Occupy whereas even CNN gave ample attention to the Tea Party. Were you at Occupy UC Davis or Occupy Seattle and were asked to explain Occupy's demands and then talked about how they wanted an end to the fossil fuel economy, you'd be completely wrong.
I didn't intend to imply that they were the fringe of the entire population, only that their protest represented the fringe of the main protest. The majority of the Occupy protesters, for example in NYC, were not in Zuccotti Park to advocate for legalization even if the majority likely would have agreed with legalization.
Thank you for the info. You mentioned fanless before. That's actually the direction I want to go too. This iMac cost me $1500, so you definitely beat me on price, and I've been wanting an AMD and ATI rig. The last time I sat down to seriously map out a Linux install, people were saying to devote twice your RAM to it, so 32GB swap partition seems wasteful, heh. My main interest however is in building a DAW that I can sit (and sometimes sleep) in front of all night.
Really? Not a single Chinese made component? None? No rare earths? Well, good on you. Is this a turnkey system you bought flat out, or did you build yourself? It's not a Foxconn mobo I'm sure. It probably does best my Mac in every category other quality providing you have the proper case. If so, tell me what you can about it because I'm laying out plans for a new desktop. Since I want it to be a tower this time out, I'm definitely going non-Apple.
Ssssh, better not let the me who did wrote a Bill Gates apologist post a few stories ago know. Incidentally, Steve Jobs is dead, and Tim Cook isn't exactly an idol. Being pragmatic is the only reasonable option because blind devotion to being socially and environmentally conscious precludes one from being a consumer of high tech gadgets because these gadgets universally employ chemicals and rare minerals which are assembled under very sad circumstances for our enjoyment. That is an Apple apology? If it is, I'd like to hear a good defense for Google's horrible treatment of its Chinese factory workers who made tablets and phones for Motorola.
Well, for starters, when I look at products on Amazon, I might no longer get a Facebook app that displays Facebooks users who also liked what I'm looking at.:)
One of the big video podcasts from the Zuccotti Park Occupy protests in NYC was broadcast via Livestream on an Android mobile phone - a Samsung (think maybe an S). It had an external battery pack. It was one of the best things I had every seen in modern journalism. When the city pulled the plug on all the established press and refused flyovers from CNN and other networks, the park was in a total media blackout, but this little podcast show was broadcasting everything for hours straight on a mobile phone with a wi-fi hot spot. In anything, Occupy NYC was a multimedia advertising for Android. I've seen Tea Party protesters with iPhones and Motorolas of all sorts. Anyway, I think it takes a special kind of stupid to divine the political and social beliefs of a person by the brand of electronic gadgets they prefer or vice versa. We're one step away from saying closeted gay pedophile fascists that think shooting at an animal from a box hidden in a tree is hunting prefer start menus and openly gay latte drinkers that clip the plastic rings on soda packs to keep from injuring the furry animals at the landfill prefer happy clowns that juggle and smile at them when they do something right.
I've seen some. This was years ago though in the 1990s, and obviously things have changed. In many small communities, local credit unions are vital players. I've seen it all through the south.
I've covered the Occupy movement and have heard from many Occupy protesters. I have seen that segment that advocates an end to capitalism, but they were definitely the fringe, just like the others who were advocating for marijuana legalization. There's also that anti-war contingency. Mostly the Occupy movement has been advocating for increased transparency in government, increased fairness for middle class via legislation that serves the desire of the populist middle class vs the elitist super-rich. There is the national healthcare issue, which I think you're talking about with the forcing everyone to make the same choices, but otherwise what other position has the Occupy movement tried to force on the entire country? And really, does the Occupy movement stand out from any other organized movement that's attempted to get everyone on the same page socially? The Tea Party is doing the exact same thing, and oddly enough, under the Tea Party banner are a lot of segmented positions that are in line with the Occupy movement such as pro-legalization of drugs, lower taxes, anti-war, greater transparency between government and business.
Not so much "green" in the classic sense, but I do consider two localized environmental issues: heat dissipation and noise. I have chosen more expensive with less horsepower specifically because my requirements include low heat dissipation and low noise, and I can buy any retail PC on the market I want. My Quad Core iMac is dissipates a comfortable amount of heat and is very quiet vs comparable mobile and all-in-one desktop systems, so it's worth owning. Plus, it doesn't have distracting features like flashing lights - something I never liked. The only really noisy component is the slot-loaded superdrive, but it's all moving parts, and I rarely use it anyway.
I do actively prefer greener products when those products are disposables, especially kitchen/bathroom products, but with electronic gadgets, I think it's difficult to be green. Pragmatism wins out for me. I wouldn't not buy an Apple product because it became less green than it used to be. Anyone who would is fooling themselves if they regularly buy tech. It's not as if suddenly every non-Apple PC and every Android tablet out there instantly lacks toxic chemicals or rare earth materials that were harvested by impoverished Africans that labored under the brutality of machete wielding thugs. I would love to see a modern computer with current gen performance which has zero environment and geopolitical impact, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.
Apple has had a friendly relationship with a lot of its hardware partners. Apple has historically been pragmatic about those friendships, and very quick to move on when necessary. That's why my Mac is Intel and ATI instead of AIM. Personally, I would have loved another generation of Power PC. I would have liked to see Apple pair up with AMD as well, but admittedly, I can't think of a technical reason why they ought to have. Cook is a supply chain management guy foremost; I doubt he'd kill x86-64. What would his alternative be?
I really need a Star Wars cabinet, the one designed as a cockpit. I have no space for things like that, however. I played Pole Position again recently in an actual cab. Tempest was better than Star Wars in terms of gameplay, but being a Star Wars kid, I was completely immersed in that one. But for me, nothing beats Robotron. I dare say it was the Romero Dawn of the Dead of robots attacking humans games, fill with social commentary... or maybe it's my nostalgia. The artwork in all those games still is beautiful to look at it, even for box art on Atari home systems. There was great artwork then, less so now I think. But again, that might be my age, I prefer that old style hand painted fantasy art, the stuff of Frazetta and Dean. Those old Psygnosis games were especially amazing for the art. I feel sorry for gamers today. Xbox Live is an amazing thing. I remember how awesome life was when my friends and I networked Doom and then played Warcraft later, so I won't detract from the experience games like Call of Duty offer, but as an Atari kid, I used to hang out in a near pitch black arcade that was interior designed to look like a pirate's cave. The only lighting came from those cabinets and the token machine. That will always beat sitting on a gamer's chair in front of the computer or the TV.
Atari turning 40 reminds me of those doo-wop music groups that are turning calling themselves The Coasters, The Platters, etc, but who actually only bought the name and weren't ever part of the actual music group despite acting like they were when talking to the audience from the stage. Is there anybody at Hasbro or Infogrames that actually was part of Atari when it was a company and not just a trademark?
One of my favorite bits that comes up now and again started with Peter running home with his golden ticket, then falling on the sidewalk and gripping his ankle. He just rocks back and forth wincing and and gasping. The joke goes on longer than it should, and therein lies the humor.
I love Mac OS X, but I can live without the dock. Even on NeXTStep I didn't use the Dock much except to inform me that I have incoming mail, or to tell me the time. Both those needs are gone now. I'm an old fvwm1.x fan. I still think the Motif windows decorations were the best ever. Lion sorta has the right idea with regard to Launchpad. I was really hesitant at first because it was clearly a step away from Mac OS X towards iOS, but it's a cleaner, more efficient way to launch apps whilst still enjoying the visual beauty of icons (something I didn't have when I was using fvwm for example). But Apple didn't ship Lion with a tool to let you customize the presentation of Launchpad. Certain apps and folders just didn't need to be there. You had to download Andreas Ganske’s Launchpad-Control to make it nice. I do like Mission Control a lot. Ditch the dock altogether, and just leave me on screen widgets that I can place onto my immediate desktop and not just Dashboard, then I'll be happiest.
I have a couple of webcam I've been wanting to use since there seems to be an unwritten rule that the front-facing camera has to be so horrible on these devices. The reason why i want a higher quality front facing camera is that I've got a laptop that I use for skype video chat when I'm on the road. It would be so much nicer to just rely on a handheld Droid. If I had a Intel based Windows tablet with USB, or even a Linux based tablet, I could use things like video capture devices -- peripherals other than input and mass storage.
I still have a cable subscription, and that's mostly because I tend to keep my TV on all day for background noise. I do nearly all of my TV viewing outside of evening news by Internet: Hulu Plus, Netflix, iTunes when I have to have it now. Then there's YouTube, Internet Archive, and USENET for everything else I could never get on DVD. Crackle is another option, but I know nothing about it.
As for devices, I have a Xbox 360 and PS3 both of which can play video or stream from Netflix and Hulu. On Xbox 360, this feature requires paid subscription to Xbox Live. I also have an Oppo Digital upscaling DVD player that can load Flash video, h.264, xvid, and other formats. I also have an Apple TV. Apple TV has YouTube and Netflix support as well as iTunes. There's additional streaming options as well, but I haven't tried them. I don't like Apple TV that much though for Netflix. The interface and search via Netflix' website is far better. Also, sometimes, Netflix playback on Apple TV pauses or stutters. This has never been a problem for me using Netflix's website. iTunes is good as expected.
No, I think I can blame HP. The Slate's troubles went well beyond touch support. It was under powered. It was expensive. It had short battery life. After the OS, you weren't left with much horsepower or storage. It failed to live up to the value proposition of having Windows in tablet form. None of these were Microsoft's fault. HP wasn't the only guinea pig. Asus and Samsung both made nice tablets, but they were very expensive, and they were heavy, had poor battery life, and produced a lot of heat. They seemed to be at their best when tethered to a keyboard, mouse, and AC adapter. The iPad and the better Android tablets set a standard for what a tablet should be, and these Windows tablets failed. These Windows tablets were basically trapped in that void between good laptop and good tablet. Should we even discuss the marketing effort? So, how were any of those hardware decisions Microsoft's fault? HP felt so let down they went out and bought Palm? I liked WebOS, but that was HP's mistake. No one told them to go and buy WebOS. If they needed an OS, they could have gone with Android and instantly had an avenue for promoting the product. I've made some bad business decisions recently too, but I'm not going to go out and buy RIM.
You're right about Windows Phone 8. I was looking to switch to WP7 and the Lumia 900, but held off because I wanted to wait until WP8 came out, or at least until it was certain the Lumia would get an upgrade. I'm betting a lot of other consumers did as well. I'm not sure Windows 8 not being available today makes that much of a difference, really. Consumers expect to be able to upgrade Windows, so even a Windows 7 tablet made today spec'ed for Windows 8 should sell -- providing of course that you can sell the idea of a heavy, low battery life, expensive gadget that isn't iPad, isn't Samsung Galaxy, and isn't the laptop you already own.
I myself believe that. Bill Gates post Microsoft has different interests and priorities. If you know anything about Gates as a person, you know that he's a serious poker player. He's serious about every game he plays, board games included. He won the PC game and the software game, so there's less incentive to keep playing now and instead be an elder statesman/end Microsoft apologist rant
The new Microsoft tablet does look amazing. It's the first tablet I can justify buying. I'll be able to use that USB port for the actual USB devices I own, unlike with Android. Regarding Microsoft's inability to make a good tablet: it's not really their fault. Microsoft designed a good operating system and even provided OEMs with good hardware designs that take advantage of the software, but as I've been told in tech press circles, the OEMs are stupid and short-sighted -- HP, the whole lot of them, can't think beyond tower computers and laptops unless they're pinned down. Surface is different because Microsoft is making the software AND the hardware too. Honestly, it's going to be a crying shame when Microsoft under-markets this device and kills it off.
This. No doubt people will learn to get very good typing on a keyboard in time. I look at it like guitar necks. Some are more comfortable than others. Some facilitate one's technique better than others. If you're a hunter-pecker typist, touch screen typing will probably be about equal to regular keyboard typing anyway. I watched Microsoft's presentation of the new Surface tablet. It's a pretty amazing little device, and with the built in kick stand and cover that doubles as a regular keyboard with trackpad, the essence of Parent's argument is still valid for certain devices. Still, if I'm carrying around a tablet, I don't think I'm counting on having many flat surfaces on which to nest myself.
Incidentally, am I alone in disliking the feel of typing on glass? Little touches and slides on my phone don't bother me so much, but the feeling of striking on screen keys on the iPad and each Android tablet I've tried is a bit unpleasant.
Slashdot Mirror
Understanding that pop music in this article surely refers to popular music of today and not specifically electronic, mostly dance, music, I've got a few complaints about this article.
1. If you analyze music based solely on the mathematical characteristics of the sound without any historical or cultural context, you might as well follow with a critique of paintings by counting the number of colors used by Rembrandt vs those used by Warhol.
2. Music is genealogy. Ergo, similarity must exist. It indicates the convergence of genetics from multiple sources into a singular modern pop musical form. Today's popular music can have a rhythm section that borrows heavily from Caribbean sounds which borrow from African, and yet have neo-classical European influences in the melody. We'll ignore the fact as we're talking about western music, we're already dealing with a specific set of genetic traits.
3. The commonality of musical instruments (digital gear included) means that there will be common sounds. Most the hot rodded guitar pickups you buy today are based on one of two platforms: mahogany and maple bodied PAF guitar or alder/ash bodied single coil guitar. PAF was a 50's era technology. One of the pickups I play today is a 36th Anniversary Dimarzio PAF that is a copy of the original Gibson PAF. Also: Def Leppard's "Hysteria", ZZ Top's "Eliminator", and Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" are three genetically diverse rock albums which share a similar sound because all three employ the use of Tom Scholz' Rockman guitar amp, compressor and chorus/echo gear which Tom created to encapsulate his signature Boston guitar sound. Additionally, much of the synth sounds used in pop music are signature preset sounds that vary between brands and models of keyboard synthesizers. Yes, folks, just as there is a Fender sound and a Marshall sound, there is also a Korg sound and a Roland sound.
4. Music has gotten louder in part because music has gotten heavier due to the influences of each generation before. I myself a British rock guitarist. My sound is the British sound (ie, Marshall amps, V shape equalization, heavy overdriven PAF style humbucker sound with obvious blues background that originate in the Mississippi Delta mixed with decidedly German cultural influences). I was influenced by bands that were influenced by Led Zeppelin, Buddy Guy, and so on. The kids who came after me were influenced by bands that were contemporary to my sound (Metallica and so on). There's a reason why I don't hear a lot of blues in today's harder heavy metal, and it's because those kids grew up listening to Metallica in the 90s whereas I grew watching Metallica in the 80s. Every genre of music has gotten heavier. Hip Hop/Rap musicians aren't doing Zip Zap Rap anymore. Even American country music is heavier and more rocking today than during the days of Merle Haggard. Pop music today is heavily influenced by the club scene as it has been for a long time. And today's club scene is very bass-heavy.
5. 60 years is not a long enough time to be making an educated criticism about how today's music sounds the same. 60 years is not even the lifetime of a person. 60 years means I can take Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Ry Cooder, Frank Zappa, David Gilmour, Tony Iommi, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Adrian Smith, Paul Gilbert, Slash, John Mayer, Joe Bonamassa, and Orianthi Panagaris, and put them into a single room and they will find a common dialect in music with which to communicate. And actually, with a few exceptions, I can do that. The point is, in 2012, we're still only a few generations removed from the earlier pop musical forms that are perceivably distinct enough that we'd consider them alien in comparison; for example, big band music.
6. Congratulations, with this research at hand, some crotchety geezer can shout that it sounds the same, then blame some anonymous music industry exec for ensuring that all music anywhere is exactly similar.
This is correct. If I remember correctly, the Stormtrooper Corps is actually the Grand Army renamed. I think it's possible there were human recruits. Both the Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy used human recruits, and licensed 3rd party sources such as West End Games' original Star Wars roleplaying game featured recruiting ads promoting the Corps. If you were going to clone your stormtroopers, why stop there and not clone the AT-ST/AT-AT pilots Lea's comment about Luke's height could have been a reference to cloning, but it could also indicate that the Corps has strict requirements for height and weight. Another possibility is that Lea, like most Rebel scum, enjoys taking shots wherever she can regardless of whom she hurts. Just saying, kill many Bothans, bloody war crime! Destroy an under construction Death Star filled with thousands of human independent contractors and wreak havoc with the galactic economy just so the only chick in the galaxy can take over, huzzah!! Watch, someone's going to whine about how Alderaan was a peaceful planet of nerfherders with no weapons of any kind and accuse me of being an Alderaanian Holocaust denier.
Are you quite sure it's anyone, aside of course for precluded groups. I thought that the original Berlin Patient got a transplant from someone who seemed to have a kind of genetic immunity to HIV?
No one cares whether you accept it. The only thing you're asked to do is stand aside and refrain from attacking or mocking gay couples that pass you on a public street. Your one vote doesn't matter because there is no vote count to be taken, nor should there be. You may not be talking about gassing homosexuals, but there are people on the Right that are. Shall I pull up the video of the woman advocating for putting all homosexuals within an electrified fence so that they naturally die off? You obviously don't associate with those types -- but just maybe you do and you don't realize it because they know that their fantastic right to be free from offense is greatly countered by the realities of life. What's your measure for being "in your face" anyway? Is it seeing a gay couple making out; all but having sex right there in front of you? I'm straight, and I've seen plenty of heterosexual couples making out in public places. I think it's tacky, and I'd prefer not to see it. Amazingly, I find that I can simply look away. I don't have to make any other changes to my regimen, nor do I have to avoid public places I enjoy. Or do you think it's "in your face" when two gays kiss casually or hold hands, or when an advertisement features an otherwise "normal" looking happy family that could be your family?
Really, as a practical matter, the only "in your face" gaydom you're exposed to is casual indications that a person is gay (a button, a pin, a light public display of affection with a member of the same sex) or gay rights advocacy. The first you'll have to just deal with. The latter will go away once gays are treated with full equality. Notice how the blacks and the hispanics aren't demanding the right to vote and intermarry? If you're having to constantly shield yourself from rainbow-infused wild acts of hedonistic gaydom, I suggest you leave that particular adult theater and go somewhere else.
Off-topic, I didn't intend to imply that you were a stereotypical Fox News viewer, just that your comment has been echoed often by Fox News and its hardline viewers, so I apologize it came off that way. I haven't watched Stossel since his much earlier consumer report type Give me a Break segments. I watch a lot of different programs too, the ones you listed included plus BBC and others in addition to a lot of print.
I like the idea of a distributed movement because that lack of ownership means the movement remains organic rather than potentially driven by a cult of personality that, save having an actual purpose, would turn the movement into a business opportunity. But you're absolutely right, the message gets diluted fast, and that's the rub. I have heard some very intelligent, young college aid Occupy organizers who look respectful, but you have to find their message on Livestream and Justin TV and Stickam. I've often been told that they can't get fair time in the press, even the so-called liberal mainstream press, because the press wants Occupy to have a celebrity spokesperson or a politico; someone who can generate ratings with their presence and someone who won't tell a cable news pundit that their bosses contributed to their problems. Whenever the press did cover Occupy NYC, they've consistently focused on any negative angle they could find such as assaults and robberies within the encampments, etc. I recall reading about all these STDs that were being spread through the camp due to the hedonistic sex the occupants were having. Many of the Occupy protesters are in fact older Americans, but that the face of Occupy is college-age young seems to have hurt them.
I can tell you absolutely that not everyone in Occupy was demanding that. I'm not saying you didn't see someone who did, but if you were paying attention, you know that Occupy is a distributed protest movement that is heavily localized and focusing mostly on local problems. There is a lot of crossover because cities across the country are experiencing similar circumstances. Occupy Wall Street and Occupy NYC were just the most public showings. There in fact have been many many more Occupy protests which the national media ignored. I already said there were fringe positions being advocated; ending fossil fuels now is obviously one of them. It is a naive demand, and there are several more I can think of, but that doesn't invalidate the common complaints that Occupy has made which have also been made by average Americans and even the Tea Party at the opposite end of the spectrum. Should talk about the Tea Partiers' demands that we ban Sharia law from our courts?
Most Americans don't think Occupy is a crazy fringe movement. Actually, that attitude is mostly amongst Fox viewers who, like you, find it easy to dismiss Occupy's complaints by saying they should get cleaned up and occupy a job. I know a lot of pretty clean middle-class white people from midwestern suburbia that can't occupy jobs, and they're are conservatives.
Here's some research showing that Americans seem almost disinterested despite moderately agreeing with the movement, and that is only where they understand the movement. Other polls shows that a majority of Americans at least agree with Occupy that there is a very large gap that's widening between the very rich and the middle class, and that this has been unhealthy. Even the Tea Party agrees with this.
Again, Occupy is a distributed protest movement, so view each Occupy protest group separately in order to understand what that particular Occupy wants. There is no singular official list of demands as there is no official organization that speaks for the whole. Admittedly, that's not always easy, but I haven't seen the press jump through hoops to make sense of Occupy whereas even CNN gave ample attention to the Tea Party. Were you at Occupy UC Davis or Occupy Seattle and were asked to explain Occupy's demands and then talked about how they wanted an end to the fossil fuel economy, you'd be completely wrong.
I didn't intend to imply that they were the fringe of the entire population, only that their protest represented the fringe of the main protest. The majority of the Occupy protesters, for example in NYC, were not in Zuccotti Park to advocate for legalization even if the majority likely would have agreed with legalization.
Thank you for the info. You mentioned fanless before. That's actually the direction I want to go too. This iMac cost me $1500, so you definitely beat me on price, and I've been wanting an AMD and ATI rig. The last time I sat down to seriously map out a Linux install, people were saying to devote twice your RAM to it, so 32GB swap partition seems wasteful, heh. My main interest however is in building a DAW that I can sit (and sometimes sleep) in front of all night.
Really? Not a single Chinese made component? None? No rare earths? Well, good on you. Is this a turnkey system you bought flat out, or did you build yourself? It's not a Foxconn mobo I'm sure. It probably does best my Mac in every category other quality providing you have the proper case. If so, tell me what you can about it because I'm laying out plans for a new desktop. Since I want it to be a tower this time out, I'm definitely going non-Apple.
Ssssh, better not let the me who did wrote a Bill Gates apologist post a few stories ago know. Incidentally, Steve Jobs is dead, and Tim Cook isn't exactly an idol. Being pragmatic is the only reasonable option because blind devotion to being socially and environmentally conscious precludes one from being a consumer of high tech gadgets because these gadgets universally employ chemicals and rare minerals which are assembled under very sad circumstances for our enjoyment. That is an Apple apology? If it is, I'd like to hear a good defense for Google's horrible treatment of its Chinese factory workers who made tablets and phones for Motorola.
Well, for starters, when I look at products on Amazon, I might no longer get a Facebook app that displays Facebooks users who also liked what I'm looking at. :)
One of the big video podcasts from the Zuccotti Park Occupy protests in NYC was broadcast via Livestream on an Android mobile phone - a Samsung (think maybe an S). It had an external battery pack. It was one of the best things I had every seen in modern journalism. When the city pulled the plug on all the established press and refused flyovers from CNN and other networks, the park was in a total media blackout, but this little podcast show was broadcasting everything for hours straight on a mobile phone with a wi-fi hot spot. In anything, Occupy NYC was a multimedia advertising for Android. I've seen Tea Party protesters with iPhones and Motorolas of all sorts. Anyway, I think it takes a special kind of stupid to divine the political and social beliefs of a person by the brand of electronic gadgets they prefer or vice versa. We're one step away from saying closeted gay pedophile fascists that think shooting at an animal from a box hidden in a tree is hunting prefer start menus and openly gay latte drinkers that clip the plastic rings on soda packs to keep from injuring the furry animals at the landfill prefer happy clowns that juggle and smile at them when they do something right.
Huh, anyone see the mouse to my Amiga?
I've seen some. This was years ago though in the 1990s, and obviously things have changed. In many small communities, local credit unions are vital players. I've seen it all through the south.
I've covered the Occupy movement and have heard from many Occupy protesters. I have seen that segment that advocates an end to capitalism, but they were definitely the fringe, just like the others who were advocating for marijuana legalization. There's also that anti-war contingency. Mostly the Occupy movement has been advocating for increased transparency in government, increased fairness for middle class via legislation that serves the desire of the populist middle class vs the elitist super-rich. There is the national healthcare issue, which I think you're talking about with the forcing everyone to make the same choices, but otherwise what other position has the Occupy movement tried to force on the entire country? And really, does the Occupy movement stand out from any other organized movement that's attempted to get everyone on the same page socially? The Tea Party is doing the exact same thing, and oddly enough, under the Tea Party banner are a lot of segmented positions that are in line with the Occupy movement such as pro-legalization of drugs, lower taxes, anti-war, greater transparency between government and business.
Not so much "green" in the classic sense, but I do consider two localized environmental issues: heat dissipation and noise. I have chosen more expensive with less horsepower specifically because my requirements include low heat dissipation and low noise, and I can buy any retail PC on the market I want. My Quad Core iMac is dissipates a comfortable amount of heat and is very quiet vs comparable mobile and all-in-one desktop systems, so it's worth owning. Plus, it doesn't have distracting features like flashing lights - something I never liked. The only really noisy component is the slot-loaded superdrive, but it's all moving parts, and I rarely use it anyway.
I do actively prefer greener products when those products are disposables, especially kitchen/bathroom products, but with electronic gadgets, I think it's difficult to be green. Pragmatism wins out for me. I wouldn't not buy an Apple product because it became less green than it used to be. Anyone who would is fooling themselves if they regularly buy tech. It's not as if suddenly every non-Apple PC and every Android tablet out there instantly lacks toxic chemicals or rare earth materials that were harvested by impoverished Africans that labored under the brutality of machete wielding thugs. I would love to see a modern computer with current gen performance which has zero environment and geopolitical impact, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.
Apple has had a friendly relationship with a lot of its hardware partners. Apple has historically been pragmatic about those friendships, and very quick to move on when necessary. That's why my Mac is Intel and ATI instead of AIM. Personally, I would have loved another generation of Power PC. I would have liked to see Apple pair up with AMD as well, but admittedly, I can't think of a technical reason why they ought to have. Cook is a supply chain management guy foremost; I doubt he'd kill x86-64. What would his alternative be?
I really need a Star Wars cabinet, the one designed as a cockpit. I have no space for things like that, however. I played Pole Position again recently in an actual cab. Tempest was better than Star Wars in terms of gameplay, but being a Star Wars kid, I was completely immersed in that one. But for me, nothing beats Robotron. I dare say it was the Romero Dawn of the Dead of robots attacking humans games, fill with social commentary... or maybe it's my nostalgia. The artwork in all those games still is beautiful to look at it, even for box art on Atari home systems. There was great artwork then, less so now I think. But again, that might be my age, I prefer that old style hand painted fantasy art, the stuff of Frazetta and Dean. Those old Psygnosis games were especially amazing for the art. I feel sorry for gamers today. Xbox Live is an amazing thing. I remember how awesome life was when my friends and I networked Doom and then played Warcraft later, so I won't detract from the experience games like Call of Duty offer, but as an Atari kid, I used to hang out in a near pitch black arcade that was interior designed to look like a pirate's cave. The only lighting came from those cabinets and the token machine. That will always beat sitting on a gamer's chair in front of the computer or the TV.
Atari turning 40 reminds me of those doo-wop music groups that are turning calling themselves The Coasters, The Platters, etc, but who actually only bought the name and weren't ever part of the actual music group despite acting like they were when talking to the audience from the stage. Is there anybody at Hasbro or Infogrames that actually was part of Atari when it was a company and not just a trademark?
One of my favorite bits that comes up now and again started with Peter running home with his golden ticket, then falling on the sidewalk and gripping his ankle. He just rocks back and forth wincing and and gasping. The joke goes on longer than it should, and therein lies the humor.
I love Mac OS X, but I can live without the dock. Even on NeXTStep I didn't use the Dock much except to inform me that I have incoming mail, or to tell me the time. Both those needs are gone now. I'm an old fvwm1.x fan. I still think the Motif windows decorations were the best ever. Lion sorta has the right idea with regard to Launchpad. I was really hesitant at first because it was clearly a step away from Mac OS X towards iOS, but it's a cleaner, more efficient way to launch apps whilst still enjoying the visual beauty of icons (something I didn't have when I was using fvwm for example). But Apple didn't ship Lion with a tool to let you customize the presentation of Launchpad. Certain apps and folders just didn't need to be there. You had to download Andreas Ganske’s Launchpad-Control to make it nice. I do like Mission Control a lot. Ditch the dock altogether, and just leave me on screen widgets that I can place onto my immediate desktop and not just Dashboard, then I'll be happiest.
I have a couple of webcam I've been wanting to use since there seems to be an unwritten rule that the front-facing camera has to be so horrible on these devices. The reason why i want a higher quality front facing camera is that I've got a laptop that I use for skype video chat when I'm on the road. It would be so much nicer to just rely on a handheld Droid. If I had a Intel based Windows tablet with USB, or even a Linux based tablet, I could use things like video capture devices -- peripherals other than input and mass storage.
I still have a cable subscription, and that's mostly because I tend to keep my TV on all day for background noise. I do nearly all of my TV viewing outside of evening news by Internet: Hulu Plus, Netflix, iTunes when I have to have it now. Then there's YouTube, Internet Archive, and USENET for everything else I could never get on DVD. Crackle is another option, but I know nothing about it.
As for devices, I have a Xbox 360 and PS3 both of which can play video or stream from Netflix and Hulu. On Xbox 360, this feature requires paid subscription to Xbox Live. I also have an Oppo Digital upscaling DVD player that can load Flash video, h.264, xvid, and other formats. I also have an Apple TV. Apple TV has YouTube and Netflix support as well as iTunes. There's additional streaming options as well, but I haven't tried them. I don't like Apple TV that much though for Netflix. The interface and search via Netflix' website is far better. Also, sometimes, Netflix playback on Apple TV pauses or stutters. This has never been a problem for me using Netflix's website. iTunes is good as expected.
No, I think I can blame HP. The Slate's troubles went well beyond touch support. It was under powered. It was expensive. It had short battery life. After the OS, you weren't left with much horsepower or storage. It failed to live up to the value proposition of having Windows in tablet form. None of these were Microsoft's fault. HP wasn't the only guinea pig. Asus and Samsung both made nice tablets, but they were very expensive, and they were heavy, had poor battery life, and produced a lot of heat. They seemed to be at their best when tethered to a keyboard, mouse, and AC adapter. The iPad and the better Android tablets set a standard for what a tablet should be, and these Windows tablets failed. These Windows tablets were basically trapped in that void between good laptop and good tablet. Should we even discuss the marketing effort? So, how were any of those hardware decisions Microsoft's fault? HP felt so let down they went out and bought Palm? I liked WebOS, but that was HP's mistake. No one told them to go and buy WebOS. If they needed an OS, they could have gone with Android and instantly had an avenue for promoting the product. I've made some bad business decisions recently too, but I'm not going to go out and buy RIM.
You're right about Windows Phone 8. I was looking to switch to WP7 and the Lumia 900, but held off because I wanted to wait until WP8 came out, or at least until it was certain the Lumia would get an upgrade. I'm betting a lot of other consumers did as well. I'm not sure Windows 8 not being available today makes that much of a difference, really. Consumers expect to be able to upgrade Windows, so even a Windows 7 tablet made today spec'ed for Windows 8 should sell -- providing of course that you can sell the idea of a heavy, low battery life, expensive gadget that isn't iPad, isn't Samsung Galaxy, and isn't the laptop you already own.
I myself believe that. Bill Gates post Microsoft has different interests and priorities. If you know anything about Gates as a person, you know that he's a serious poker player. He's serious about every game he plays, board games included. He won the PC game and the software game, so there's less incentive to keep playing now and instead be an elder statesman /end Microsoft apologist rant
The new Microsoft tablet does look amazing. It's the first tablet I can justify buying. I'll be able to use that USB port for the actual USB devices I own, unlike with Android. Regarding Microsoft's inability to make a good tablet: it's not really their fault. Microsoft designed a good operating system and even provided OEMs with good hardware designs that take advantage of the software, but as I've been told in tech press circles, the OEMs are stupid and short-sighted -- HP, the whole lot of them, can't think beyond tower computers and laptops unless they're pinned down. Surface is different because Microsoft is making the software AND the hardware too. Honestly, it's going to be a crying shame when Microsoft under-markets this device and kills it off.
This. No doubt people will learn to get very good typing on a keyboard in time. I look at it like guitar necks. Some are more comfortable than others. Some facilitate one's technique better than others. If you're a hunter-pecker typist, touch screen typing will probably be about equal to regular keyboard typing anyway. I watched Microsoft's presentation of the new Surface tablet. It's a pretty amazing little device, and with the built in kick stand and cover that doubles as a regular keyboard with trackpad, the essence of Parent's argument is still valid for certain devices. Still, if I'm carrying around a tablet, I don't think I'm counting on having many flat surfaces on which to nest myself.
Incidentally, am I alone in disliking the feel of typing on glass? Little touches and slides on my phone don't bother me so much, but the feeling of striking on screen keys on the iPad and each Android tablet I've tried is a bit unpleasant.