A recording studio generally tries to eliminate any and all reflections. A concert hall tries to have certain kinds of reflections that are desirable. Concert halls and studios have totally different design characteristics, although if I had a nice, old mahogony timber church to work with, I'd embrace its sonic characteristics. In a plaster house or office building, you have to try to eliminate the room, unless the room is really huge.
Do some room treatment, starting with a big enough room to actually hold a couple of periods of a big sound wave. Eliminate early reflections. Don't have walls parallel to each other. Put fiberglass bass traps in the corners and anywhere else that reflects. It may be counterintuitive to non-audio types, but *trapping* bass waves, that is, stopping them from reflecting back to the point source or the listener, will *increase* the bass response in the room. One of these expensive woofers in a bad room won't give the bass response of a mundane speaker in a well-treated room.
The Washington Times has slightly more credibility than the Weekly World News.
To be fair, the publisher of that paper makes some of the best travel guides available. On many a road trip I have consulted "the Moonie Book" with great results. But I wouldn't consider the Washington Times to be more than an entertainment source, sort of a right wing "Onion" or "Daily Show".
Ditto. screen is absolutely essential, no doubt about it. I do wish it had the ability to split terms vertically as well as horizontally. I still miss the terminal sizing ability of desqview, if you go back that far.
I also map quite a few keybindings in screen, and I make good use of the multiplex capability for collaboration and teaching.
"How many times does he actually have to recite his SSN? In the rare instance that he needs it (employer, government) can't he say "I'll get back to you, I don't have it on me"?"
Yes, it's not a crime to forget your social security number, and the only people who actually need to know it, are already in a position to give it to you, they don't need to request it.
Most people are not even able to verify that the number you give is really your SSN at all. You'd have problems with 1099s in a bank situation, and that is probably fraud there. But anyone without an actual need to know your SSN, is going to have real trouble verifying the number. They aren't even doing that, generally, they are simply using the last four digits as a PIN.
How would you, a private individual, go about verifying a SSN anyway? Call up a government office and explain that you are so-and-so, and you need to confirm Joe Bloggs' SSN? If you can do THAT, why bother with this security argument anyway?
This act would impede your ability to produce, preserve and store your own creative works and documentary material. That's an important challenge, because the copyrights and other rights of an individual are on at least an equal standing with those of a corporation.
>"Excerptation for the purpose of pedagogy" is one of the cornerstones of the "fair use" >exemption.
So... Anybody with a teaching certificate and a homeschool can operate a music file sharing hub with total impunity? Or are there some limitations to "pedagological fair use?"
"US is a republic not a democracy. That's just a word lawmakers use to keep you anesthetized."
The US republic is a particular form of a representative democracy.
Re:Hypothetical question....
on
Patents vs. Secrecy
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"So here is the hypothetical question, suppose I invented a new method to decrypt information VERY fast (i.e polynomial time). If I did not apply for a patent here, but either patented it in europe, or just published it, would that be illegal?"
Release the information anonymously, and enjoy being the catalyst that begins the post-crypto world.
If you came up with such a discovery, would you *really* let any government have it?
>Implies that the key requirement was not having a fan.
It's desirable, for instance in a music room. I too would be very interested in an economical fanless solution, but will settle for the quiet-ish alternatives I already have until there is a strong motivation to upgrade.
"Fanless" while still high performance enough to run software synths and multitrack recorders, would qualify as a strong motivation to upgrade, but not to crossgrade.
I do have a mini-itx experimental box which is fanless, and I find it very useful, but it isn't up to the task of my primary application, which pretty much requires a 3.0G P4, fast RAM, and a big drive. As it stands, the drive is the loudest component of my main system. What I *really* want to see is an affordable solid state drive in the several-gigabytes range. I'd settle for running totally from RAM and using a CF for media, and I can actually do this with Linux already. Unfortunately, I like to use certain windows-only software for my recorder and for my musical instruments. (I'm aware of all the Linux audio software and am active in a couple of projects, so please don't respond with links to those.)
Lots of people who aren't musicians are still serious about their environment being quiet. I can totally respect the desire for that.
Hey, I might actually settle for a 30 meter VGA and USB cable, come to think of it.
In practice, a doctrine of "Might Makes Right" is being tested and put into action by the US and others. No country with a military force has raised the slightest opposition to it. Force prevails and nothing short of a resisting force seems to have any power to change that. There may be an appetizing fantasy that things can go differently, but does history really support that?
But if a EULA like the Microsoft EULA or the GPL doesn't "stand up" in court, the user has NO rights afterwards with regard to the software. Either you accept the EULA or you accept that you have no right to any of the privileges it grants.
The EULA is not a contract, it's a license that you may either agree to, and if you agree, you are granted certain privileges under copyright law that you would not otherwise have, or else you don't agree, in which case you have none of those privileges.
>It doesn't appear that Taiwan honors foreign patents via treaty
This is particularly sticky because some countries buy the Chinese party line that Taiwan is a province of the PRC, and others superficially (few officially) recognize Taiwan as sovreign. Taiwan didn't sign the Berne Convention on copyrights (not patents, I know the difference), and Taiwan isn't a WIPO member.
Does Switzerland or the EU formally recognize Taiwan as distinct from the PRC?
The Swiss have powerful friends. You really don't want to piss them off. Don't underestimate their influence just because they don't have a large military.
"Risky move, considering the support of the United States is what keeps them from being a province of China..."
The US seems to play both sides of this. USA has no embassy in Taiwan. Unless I missed something, Taiwan is not a UN member. If China actually took action the world, not just the US, would do nothing, just as they did nothing for Tibet and nothing for Hong Kong, just as nobody raised any opposition over the US in Iraq.
"Then how come this is the third post I've seen of yours with that same self-righteous teetotaling tone"
Partly because I'm serious about that, and partly because I wish people would think about what kind of behavior they support.
These people aren't getting off. They probably aren't even in jail, and likely are back on the road, drinking and driving. I think that's a Bad Thing. I would support much more severe penalties for DUI than the ones that exist currently.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't take any money from any political party, and enjoy the freedom of speech you've always had.
A recording studio generally tries to eliminate any and all reflections. A concert hall tries to have certain kinds of reflections that are desirable.
Concert halls and studios have totally different design characteristics, although if I had a nice, old mahogony timber church to work with, I'd embrace its sonic characteristics. In a plaster house or office building, you have to try to eliminate the room, unless the room is really huge.
Do some room treatment, starting with a big enough room to actually hold a couple of periods of a big sound wave. Eliminate early reflections. Don't have walls parallel to each other. Put fiberglass bass traps in the corners and anywhere else that reflects. It may be counterintuitive to non-audio types, but *trapping* bass waves, that is, stopping them from reflecting back to the point source or the listener, will *increase* the bass response in the room. One of these expensive woofers in a bad room won't give the bass response of a mundane speaker in a well-treated room.
The Washington Times has slightly more credibility than the Weekly World News.
To be fair, the publisher of that paper makes some of the best travel guides available. On many a road trip I have consulted "the Moonie Book" with great results. But I wouldn't consider the Washington Times to be more than an entertainment source, sort of a right wing "Onion" or "Daily Show".
>The U.S. doesn't have jurisdiction over the entire world.
Plenty of countries seem happy enough to march in lockstep with them, though.
Ditto. screen is absolutely essential, no doubt about it. I do wish it had the ability to split terms vertically as well as horizontally. I still miss the terminal sizing ability of desqview, if you go back that far.
I also map quite a few keybindings in screen, and I make good use of the multiplex capability for collaboration and teaching.
"How many times does he actually have to recite his SSN? In the rare instance that he needs it (employer, government) can't he say "I'll get back to you, I don't have it on me"?"
Yes, it's not a crime to forget your social security number, and the only people who actually need to know it, are already in a position to give it to you, they don't need to request it.
Most people are not even able to verify that the number you give is really your SSN at all. You'd have problems with 1099s in a bank situation, and that is probably fraud there. But anyone without an actual need to know your SSN, is going to have real trouble verifying the number. They aren't even doing that, generally, they are simply using the last four digits as a PIN.
How would you, a private individual, go about verifying a SSN anyway? Call up a government office and explain that you are so-and-so, and you need to confirm Joe Bloggs' SSN? If you can do THAT, why bother with this security argument anyway?
This act would impede your ability to produce, preserve and store your own creative works and documentary material. That's an important challenge, because the copyrights and other rights of an individual are on at least an equal standing with those of a corporation.
>What members of the public would you like to design nuclear waste storage facilities?
Whoever designs them, has to live in them with their kids.
>"Excerptation for the purpose of pedagogy" is one of the cornerstones of the "fair use"
>exemption.
So... Anybody with a teaching certificate and a homeschool can operate a music file sharing hub with total impunity? Or are there some limitations to "pedagological fair use?"
"Hmm, not knowing that liquid nitrogen is completely non-flamable and ~200 degrees below zero...?"
What happens to one of those tanks when you heat it rapidly?
>Interestingly the areas with greatest sprinkler protection are the libraries.
The risk isn't so much the collection, but the fact that it is an excellent and abundant fuel.
"US is a republic not a democracy. That's just a word lawmakers use to keep you anesthetized."
The US republic is a particular form of a representative democracy.
"So here is the hypothetical question, suppose I invented a new method to decrypt information VERY fast (i.e polynomial time). If I did not apply for a patent here, but either patented it in europe, or just published it, would that be illegal?"
Release the information anonymously, and enjoy being the catalyst that begins the post-crypto world.
If you came up with such a discovery, would you *really* let any government have it?
If you dance with the devil, sooner or later you have to pay the fiddler.
Why didn't you buy control of Blizzard with some of the money you got for selling out Slashdot?
>Implies that the key requirement was not having a fan.
It's desirable, for instance in a music room. I too would be very interested in an economical fanless solution, but will settle for the quiet-ish alternatives I already have until there is a strong motivation to upgrade.
"Fanless" while still high performance enough to run software synths and multitrack recorders, would qualify as a strong motivation to upgrade, but not to crossgrade.
I do have a mini-itx experimental box which is fanless, and I find it very useful, but it isn't up to the task of my primary application, which pretty much requires a 3.0G P4, fast RAM, and a big drive. As it stands, the drive is the loudest component of my main system. What I *really* want to see is an affordable solid state drive in the several-gigabytes range. I'd settle for running totally from RAM and using a CF for media, and I can actually do this with Linux already. Unfortunately, I like to use certain windows-only software for my recorder and for my musical instruments. (I'm aware of all the Linux audio software and am active in a couple of projects, so please don't respond with links to those.)
Lots of people who aren't musicians are still serious about their environment being quiet. I can totally respect the desire for that.
Hey, I might actually settle for a 30 meter VGA and USB cable, come to think of it.
In practice, a doctrine of "Might Makes Right" is being tested and put into action by the US and others. No country with a military force has raised the slightest opposition to it. Force prevails and nothing short of a resisting force seems to have any power to change that. There may be an appetizing fantasy that things can go differently, but does history really support that?
But if a EULA like the Microsoft EULA or the GPL doesn't "stand up" in court, the user has NO rights afterwards with regard to the software. Either you accept the EULA or you accept that you have no right to any of the privileges it grants.
The EULA is not a contract, it's a license that you may either agree to, and if you agree, you are granted certain privileges under copyright law that you would not otherwise have, or else you don't agree, in which case you have none of those privileges.
>It doesn't appear that Taiwan honors foreign patents via treaty
This is particularly sticky because some countries buy the Chinese party line that Taiwan is a province of the PRC, and others superficially (few officially) recognize Taiwan as sovreign. Taiwan didn't sign the Berne Convention on copyrights (not patents, I know the difference), and Taiwan isn't a WIPO member.
Does Switzerland or the EU formally recognize Taiwan as distinct from the PRC?
> Eminent domain doesn't work internationally.
At the end of the day, *NOTHING* works internationally except for *force*.
The Swiss have powerful friends. You really don't want to piss them off. Don't underestimate their influence just because they don't have a large military.
"Risky move, considering the support of the United States is what keeps them from being a province of China..."
The US seems to play both sides of this. USA has no embassy in Taiwan. Unless I missed something, Taiwan is not a UN member. If China actually took action the world, not just the US, would do nothing, just as they did nothing for Tibet and nothing for Hong Kong, just as nobody raised any opposition over the US in Iraq.
"Stopping a potential pandemic is more important than not stepping on a businessman's toes."
How will this decision go over with the PRC?
"Then how come this is the third post I've seen of yours with that same self-righteous teetotaling tone"
Partly because I'm serious about that, and partly because I wish people would think about what kind of behavior they support.
These people aren't getting off. They probably aren't even in jail, and likely are back on the road, drinking and driving. I think that's a Bad Thing. I would support much more severe penalties for DUI than the ones that exist currently.