Because so much of the content on video sites like Youtube is of independent origin, sooner or later the Equal Protection doctrine will become the other edge of the sword. There is a widespread assumption that "production" is strictly a corporate affair, and that the "consumer" never produces anything. This assumption, and litigation based on it, can backfire.
It will be like winning the lottery when some independent producer has his right to his own material challenged in some ham-handed sweep that assumes all content is pirated. Inidividuals have rights and there can be dire consequences for abridging those rights.
>So please, leave off with this. If it really is a concern for you as a musician, get an Echo Audiofire or an M-Audio Firewire Solo.
Did you even read my messages?
I have a Studer desk, an Iz Radar, a professionally treated room, (clients!), etc., etc., and my objection to some corporation trying to control my ability to use a consumer device in a certain way, stands.
Don't talk to me about alternatives, as if that eliminates the confrontation and exonerates the RIAA somehow.
But in this case they've suppressed recording the driver's buffer before it passed through the converter. That's not "noisy as hell", it's purely digital without interference, even in systems with the worst audio devices.
But the point isn't technology or quality; the point is, who may exert control over the means of production of the end-user's creative work?
It's simply amazing how much support is given to parties like RIAA and Dell here on slashdot when the topic presents an opportunity to ridicule someone.
>why do i need a mixing board or expensive software to see if a few superimposed tracks are going to work well together when i've been >provided the tools for such a simple task for over a decade?
You don't, and you're in the wrong argument.
The stereo mix in nearly any consumer soundcard is pretty good. It's 16 bit/44.1kHz. Nothing wrong with capturing that.
Of course, I'd like to see for myself whether Audacity fails to capture the sound device on the notebook in question.
>if you are trying to record anything in high quality using the sterio plugs on your laptop, you are doing it very, very, wrong
Yes, when I do serious work, I do it on the Studer desk with the Iz Radar V. So? How does this change my argument that crippling my hardware in a specific way, does not limit me from using it for a specific production technique?
Recording the stereo mix of a consumer sound device is a legitimate technique, and for the *RIAA* to be the party suppressing the capability is unacceptable. All the twittering jibes about how "you shouldn't do that" don't add up to anything.
>Equally valid question: what real good would having the source available do for anyone?
And what about those of us who *do* have the source? (My university was one of the few with a source license.) I wonder if end-of-lifing the product changes the contract terms.
The only thing I take from this is that "upper management" is "somebody else", despite the superior competencies of the people who work "under" them. But that never seems to translate into promotion, does it?
And pointing this out is "flamebait?"
There seem to be a LOT of organizations where the people in charge make stupid decisions, and the people who are lower on the latter know better. But there are vanishingly few stories where these smarter people with their better ideas have used that as a tool to attain a position of authority. Why do you suppose that is the case?
>the DEA still doesn't differentiate between hemp and marijuana
Of course they don't. You can get marijuana from uncultivated hemp in a few generations of cloning and isolating female plants, and you can take the best marijuana plants and let them grow wild without controlling their reproductive cycle, and end up with inert "hemp."
But feral cannabis and cannabis sativa are the same species of plant. The main thing that differentiates them is simply the growing method. Cannabis Sativa is cultivated (that's what the word "sativa" means) by choosing female plants early in the life cycle, and isolating them so that they remain unfertilized, and (usually) artificially controlling their light source so that "they think it's the spring equinox" at all times. The result is an unfertilized flowering bud that contains maximal amounts of the active ingredient of the "drug", THC.
The idea that a wild field of marijuana is even viable as a commercial product is ridiculous. If you smoke that, you might as well be smoking alfalfa.
>27 years experience and I've heard this idea before. It is dumb.
And you are (hopefully) not one of those people who refers to "upper management" as "them." At the very least, you are (hopefully) willing and able to say "it's dumb" in the language that "upper management" understands, and they (hopefully), understand the reason they pay you is for the expertise to know when and how to say "it's dumb."
Validity of a rule published by a federal agency is not contingent upon the Chief Executive personally reading it. It's not as though deleting an e-mail was a veto. Anyone subject to this rule is still required to follow it.
Made in China. I never claimed to be some kind of absolute zealot, sheesh.
>In point in fact, fuel prices are NOT a marginal thing for most people.
You missed my point entirely. In terms of food transport, transportation certainly is marginal. How much does it cost to ship a truckload of strawberries from Mexico to Ohio? What fraction of the wholesale market price is that shipping cost (fuel, vehicle lease, permits, driver compensation)? A doubling of fuel price is not a doubling of food price, but that's how people are acting.
>So, in short, while money seems to be no object to you, those of us living on tight budgets tend to be >hurt most in such a crisis.
I work in scientific research at a university; don't lecture me about "tight budgets."
If gasoline is more than 1 or 2 percent of your annual budget, you made choices to make that so. Take responsibility for those choices.
>I think it's idiotic for these project leaders are attaching their pet causes to software with bunch of >contributors.
And I think you miss something fundamental about "Free as in Speech." I'd go as far as to say you are supporting the suppression of free speech with your comment.
>I'm talking about buying futures just to create a shortage.
Clearly, that is the case, but you're talking about it in general terms, without any kind of data to support your assertions. Do you actually follow the marketplace, or are you just guessing?
I read your post, and I don't get the impression that you've studied economics or that you even fully understand how the oil market (or any other commodities market) works.
To your credit, I do note that you are at least not one of the people claiming that "the President" (or VP) has directly contributed to the current oil prices, or that "the Congress" could directly do anything to change it -- although you are making vague hints at "regulation" that leads me to suspect you believe Congress has the power to interfere in the market directly.
It's not clear where you find this "artificial shortage." There is no supply problem that correlates to the recent price increase. There is also no demand increase that drives a price increase. It's not clear what mechanism allows the sort of "hoarding" you describe, given the nature of futures contracts. I realize there is a business trade in immediate delivery contracts and that investment banks have diversified into refineries and oil storage, but this phenomenon is minuscule on the global scale and does not explain everything.
The market traders foresee scarcity, and speculation is one approach to mitigating that scarcity. A natural consequence of this is free market speculation, which will eventually smooth prices and supply. I don't consider this "a bad thing", FWIW.
You should probably be aware that I also consider an oil value level (as opposed to "price") where gasoline powered transportation becomes uneconomical, to be a necessary event in the greater human experience.
But back on topic, I'd like to know (1) how much oil is physically being hoarded, in billions of barrels, (2) where it is being hoarded, and (3) who, specifically, is hoarding.
Last question: What corporate board could be persuaded not to sell every last drop in reserve, at today's historic price?
Well, the "regulation" you are looking for is "position limits on long-only index funds", and I don't disagree that would be a good thing. (H.L. Hunt was a friend of my dad's, the bastard.)
If you borrow from the bank to meet a margin call, you have limits to your exposure. If you happen to be the bank, you are classified as a "commercial investor" and have no such limits.
Here's a wrench for you. I think oil will be down at the end of the year. I think because of the side-effects of high oil prices, it may fall in the investors' (not "speculators") interest to start discounting their supply and taking a loss, as a driver for positive returns in other areas (the "oil hedge" becoming a useful tool aside from a direct profit center.) I believe that ordinary traders who are buying long positions today might take a bath. There is enough pressure driven by transportation costs that such adjustments, far-fetched as they may sound, are possible.
Yes, it's a bubble. But also, future oil scarcity is not a myth, and I realize people have screamed about "running out" since the 50s. But a reality-based assessment shows that oil is becoming more scarce, and that there won't be some rapid event where "we run out" as certain people seem to imagine, but hopefully there will be a rapid decline in demand. $12/gallon gasoline might help with that. Preferential consumption of locally produced goods will help more. I'm already doing this -- I choose my food based on the distance it traveled, and not the price or the label. This has several effects, (1.) it further marginalizes transportation costs, (2.) it keeps money in the local economy, and (3.) the local producer benefits directly.
It's all a tempest in a teapot anyway. Fuel prices are a marginal thing for most people, despite the plaintive cries that you hear ("can't afford to go to work", or the notion that food prices double when fuel prices double, tired of hearing that one.)
>They should rather get out and go to some sort of medieval festival.
That costs real money and often involves travel, and is an infrequent escape. On the other hand, many gamers will jump at the chance to go to a festival or an SCA war or what have you. I believe there is significant intersection between the people you perceive as distinct groups.
Personally I can quit anytime, after this next raid with my Kara guild.
>And that, good friends, is SecondLife in a sentence. You may think there's more to that game, but it's all a >scam.
I myself operate a Zen meditation house, and a live music venue, and do quite a few things not mentioned in your sentence, and you've basically just accused me of "scamming."
Slashdot Mirror
>Tofu = Pure. Tastes like nothing, low market share, obscure to most, loved by a very small minority.
Billions of people eat it daily as a staple of their diet.
A minority perhaps, but more than the population of your entire country.
Because so much of the content on video sites like Youtube is of independent origin, sooner or later the Equal Protection doctrine will become the other edge of the sword. There is a widespread assumption that "production" is strictly a corporate affair, and that the "consumer" never produces anything. This assumption, and litigation based on it, can backfire.
It will be like winning the lottery when some independent producer has his right to his own material challenged in some ham-handed sweep that assumes all content is pirated. Inidividuals have rights and there can be dire consequences for abridging those rights.
>So please, leave off with this. If it really is a concern for you as a musician, get an Echo Audiofire or an M-Audio Firewire Solo.
Did you even read my messages?
I have a Studer desk, an Iz Radar, a professionally treated room, (clients!), etc., etc., and my objection to some corporation trying to control my ability to use a consumer device in a certain way, stands.
Don't talk to me about alternatives, as if that eliminates the confrontation and exonerates the RIAA somehow.
>Internal laptop cards are noisy as hell.
But in this case they've suppressed recording the driver's buffer before it passed through the converter.
That's not "noisy as hell", it's purely digital without interference, even in systems with the worst audio
devices.
But the point isn't technology or quality; the point is, who may exert control over the means of production of the end-user's creative work?
It's simply amazing how much support is given to parties like RIAA and Dell here on slashdot when the topic presents an opportunity to ridicule someone.
Unified movement, indeed.
>Idiots.
When you sink to the level of personal insult, you give up any realistic participation in the discussion, and any point you may have made is ignored.
>they have fans that will WAIT until Blizzard's games come out.
They have fans that drop out of college, quit jobs, let spouses move out, etc., for the game.
One problem is that any other company has to compete with *that*.
>why do i need a mixing board or expensive software to see if a few superimposed tracks are going to work well together when i've been
>provided the tools for such a simple task for over a decade?
You don't, and you're in the wrong argument.
The stereo mix in nearly any consumer soundcard is pretty good. It's 16 bit/44.1kHz. Nothing wrong with capturing that.
Of course, I'd like to see for myself whether Audacity fails to capture the sound device on the notebook in question.
>if you are trying to record anything in high quality using the sterio plugs on your laptop, you are doing it very, very, wrong
Yes, when I do serious work, I do it on the Studer desk with the Iz Radar V.
So?
How does this change my argument that crippling my hardware in a specific way, does not limit me from using it for a specific production technique?
Recording the stereo mix of a consumer sound device is a legitimate technique, and for the *RIAA* to be the party suppressing the capability is unacceptable. All the twittering jibes about how "you shouldn't do that" don't add up to anything.
>It isn't about recording audio input from microphones, it is about making a copy of whats going out to the speakers.
Don't try to dictate to me how I may, or may not, use my tools, thank you.
>Is this to prevent home grown artists from recording their own high quality material?
As a musician, I would want to challenge this as abridgement of my rights, and I'd want to make a (worth $Billions$) anti-trust case out of it.
>Equally valid question: what real good would having the source available do for anyone?
And what about those of us who *do* have the source? (My university was one of the few with a source license.)
I wonder if end-of-lifing the product changes the contract terms.
Why do you want President Obama's administration to have less authority than President Bush?
The only thing I take from this is that "upper management" is "somebody else", despite the superior competencies of the people who work "under" them. But that never seems to translate into promotion, does it?
And pointing this out is "flamebait?"
There seem to be a LOT of organizations where the people in charge make stupid decisions, and the people who are lower on the latter know better. But there are vanishingly few stories where these smarter people with their better ideas have used that as a tool to attain a position of authority. Why do you suppose that is the case?
>Anyone else notice that the typographers who either reside in the US or have resided in the US their writing is much more legible?
I did... the rest are writing in their second or third language. How's your penmanship in your second language?
>the DEA still doesn't differentiate between hemp and marijuana
Of course they don't.
You can get marijuana from uncultivated hemp in a few generations of cloning and isolating female plants, and
you can take the best marijuana plants and let them grow wild without controlling their reproductive cycle, and
end up with inert "hemp."
But feral cannabis and cannabis sativa are the same species of plant. The main thing that differentiates them
is simply the growing method. Cannabis Sativa is cultivated (that's what the word "sativa" means) by choosing female plants early in the life cycle, and isolating them so that they remain unfertilized, and (usually) artificially controlling their light source so that "they think it's the spring equinox" at all times. The result is an unfertilized flowering bud that contains maximal amounts of the active ingredient of the "drug", THC.
The idea that a wild field of marijuana is even viable as a commercial product is ridiculous. If you smoke that, you might as well be smoking alfalfa.
>27 years experience and I've heard this idea before. It is dumb.
And you are (hopefully) not one of those people who refers to "upper management" as "them."
At the very least, you are (hopefully) willing and able to say "it's dumb" in the language
that "upper management" understands, and they (hopefully), understand the reason they pay you
is for the expertise to know when and how to say "it's dumb."
I frequently see a car that has a (regular random) plate 420-THC. And the girl whose car it is, clearly gets a kick out of having the plate.
>Then why is it an issue?
On further investigation, I found that it isn't.
Validity of a rule published by a federal agency is not contingent upon the Chief Executive personally reading it. It's not as though deleting an e-mail was a veto. Anyone subject to this rule is still required to follow it.
>Buying futures can create a shortage of futures
Thank you, YOU GET IT!
There are *two* demand curves here -- the demand for the product, and the demand for the contract. They are intertwined in very complex ways.
There was some talk in the House, on the suggestion that people buying commodities futures should be equipped to accept delivery. Imagine the chaos.
>what about the pop you drink?
I don't.
>The beer?
Brewed in the same building where I work.
>The computer you are typing on?
Made in China. I never claimed to be some kind of absolute zealot, sheesh.
>In point in fact, fuel prices are NOT a marginal thing for most people.
You missed my point entirely. In terms of food transport, transportation certainly is marginal.
How much does it cost to ship a truckload of strawberries from Mexico to Ohio? What fraction of the
wholesale market price is that shipping cost (fuel, vehicle lease, permits, driver compensation)?
A doubling of fuel price is not a doubling of food price, but that's how people are acting.
>So, in short, while money seems to be no object to you, those of us living on tight budgets tend to be
>hurt most in such a crisis.
I work in scientific research at a university; don't lecture me about "tight budgets."
If gasoline is more than 1 or 2 percent of your annual budget, you made choices to make that so. Take responsibility for those choices.
>I think it's idiotic for these project leaders are attaching their pet causes to software with bunch of
>contributors.
And I think you miss something fundamental about "Free as in Speech." I'd go as far as to say you are supporting the suppression of free speech with your comment.
>I'm talking about buying futures just to create a shortage.
Clearly, that is the case, but you're talking about it in general terms, without any kind of data to support your assertions. Do you actually follow the marketplace, or are you just guessing?
I read your post, and I don't get the impression that you've studied economics or that you even fully understand how the oil market (or any other commodities market) works.
To your credit, I do note that you are at least not one of the people claiming that "the President" (or VP) has directly contributed to the current oil prices, or that "the Congress" could directly do anything to change it -- although you are making vague hints at "regulation" that leads me to suspect you believe Congress has the power to interfere in the market directly.
It's not clear where you find this "artificial shortage." There is no supply problem that correlates to the recent price increase. There is also no demand increase that drives a price increase. It's not clear what mechanism allows the sort of "hoarding" you describe, given the nature of futures contracts. I realize there is a business trade in immediate delivery contracts and that investment banks have diversified into refineries and oil storage, but this phenomenon is minuscule on the global scale and does not explain everything.
The market traders foresee scarcity, and speculation is one approach to mitigating that scarcity. A natural consequence of this is free market speculation, which will eventually smooth prices and supply.
I don't consider this "a bad thing", FWIW.
You should probably be aware that I also consider an oil value level (as opposed to "price") where gasoline powered transportation becomes uneconomical, to be a necessary event in the greater human experience.
But back on topic, I'd like to know (1) how much oil is physically being hoarded, in billions of barrels, (2) where it is being hoarded, and (3) who, specifically, is hoarding.
Last question: What corporate board could be persuaded not to sell every last drop in reserve, at today's historic price?
Well, the "regulation" you are looking for is "position limits on long-only index funds", and I don't disagree that would be a good thing. (H.L. Hunt was a friend of my dad's, the bastard.)
If you borrow from the bank to meet a margin call, you have limits to your exposure. If you happen to be the bank, you are classified as a "commercial investor" and have no such limits.
Here's a wrench for you. I think oil will be down at the end of the year. I think because of the side-effects of high oil prices, it may fall in the investors' (not "speculators") interest to start discounting their supply and taking a loss, as a driver for positive returns in other areas (the "oil hedge" becoming a useful tool aside from a direct profit center.) I believe that ordinary traders who
are buying long positions today might take a bath. There is enough pressure driven by transportation costs that such adjustments, far-fetched as they may sound, are possible.
Yes, it's a bubble. But also, future oil scarcity is not a myth, and I realize people have screamed about "running out" since the 50s. But a reality-based assessment shows that oil is becoming more scarce, and that there won't be some rapid event where "we run out" as certain people seem to imagine, but hopefully there will be a rapid decline in demand. $12/gallon gasoline might help with that. Preferential consumption of locally produced goods will help more. I'm already doing this -- I choose my food based on the distance it traveled, and not the price or the label. This has several effects, (1.) it further marginalizes transportation costs, (2.) it keeps money in the local economy, and (3.) the local producer benefits directly.
It's all a tempest in a teapot anyway. Fuel prices are a marginal thing for most people, despite the plaintive cries that you hear ("can't afford to go to work", or the notion that food prices double when fuel prices double, tired of hearing that one.)
>They should rather get out and go to some sort of medieval festival.
That costs real money and often involves travel, and is an infrequent escape.
On the other hand, many gamers will jump at the chance to go to a festival
or an SCA war or what have you. I believe there is significant intersection
between the people you perceive as distinct groups.
Personally I can quit anytime, after this next raid with my Kara guild.
>Nowadays that would likely get you jailed.
You can naturally cite one such case, yes?
>And that, good friends, is SecondLife in a sentence. You may think there's more to that game, but it's all a
>scam.
I myself operate a Zen meditation house, and a live music venue, and do quite a few things not mentioned in your sentence, and you've basically just accused me of "scamming."