Bigotry is ugly no matter what direction it is spewed from. The comments I made are true of every political party that has ever had power. And since whatever political party has the power at any given time calls the majority of the shots, the will of the "state" is essentially synonymous with the will of that particular party. It's that way here and it's that way wherever you are.
This insidious cancerous hatred for America that has been spoonfed to you has obviously blinded you. As long as you can be made to focus your attentions on the EEVIL America, your own government can pass draconian legislation and steal your civil liberties from right beneath your nose. You are a pathetic tool.
The ability to do what the government doesn't want us to do isn't called freedom over here, it's called lawbreaking.
If you don't realize the absurdity of this comment, I almost hesitate to reveal it to you. But I'm in a good mood today so WTF.
There are many things the government doesn't want you to do that are not against the law in most western style democracies. Such as, oh I don't know, field an oppositional candidate in an upcoming election. Speak out against draconian legislation. Expost hypocrisy and corruption. The list goes on and on. As a poster above me somewhere said, ubiquitous public surveillance does have the ability to curtail some of these very lawful activities. Oh, there's a group of young kids getting loud and protesting near camera #3452, time to send in the goons.
The point that you and people like you don't seem to get is that back in the day before CCTV and all that, it wasn't that everybody necessarily couldn't be watched, it's that it was not a particularly trivial undertaking to make it happen. So, in effect, one did have a certain sense of privacy even when in a public place. And in actual practise, this sense of privacy wasn't illusory at all but was in effect quite real.
Now that the scales are being tipped so far in favor towards ubiquitous surveillance, people have every right to be uneasy and against it. There are a whole host of other draconian security measures that can be effected through technology but just because they can be done doesn't mean they should be done. This crosses the line on many levels. Not the least of which are human dignity. It's quite simply offensive and undignified to have my "public" life actively watched by some person in a room somewhere every moment. This also crosses the line of just how much authority should the state have in people's day to day lives in a modern democracy. Who is the state and whose interests are they really representing in moves such as this? From my perspective, the state is made up of people just like you and me that are supposed to be our good faith representatives. This isn't representation, this is control.
The line out on most devices generally puts out the same thing as the headphone out (sometimes with an impedence difference) just with a set volume that whilst having a high gain avoids clipping the input on whatever it's hooked up to. In the case of an FM transmitter, the transmitter takes this input and converts it internally to an FM signal and broadcasts this so that your radio can pick it up.
I find that when I use my debit/credit card it's actually much faster than cash. I usually swipe my card and type in the pin number while the checkout person is still scanning my items. By the time the checker is done, all they have to do is hit the submit button and my card is approved in seconds versus taking my cash and counting my change, etc.
I know you didn't comment specifically about them but I'll just say a couple of sentences about the automated machines. They're actually really fast due to the fact that unbeknownst to most people, you don't even have to touch any of the buttons on the screen; just walk up and start scanning your items and the machine automatically gets the idea and starts with the "place item in the bag" routine. And when you get finished scanning your crap, you don't have to touch "finished" or whatever, just put your card in the reader and the computer automatically goes into pay mode. Very fast in my experience.
The volume of your ipod doesn't effect the loudness coming out of *your* transmitter precisely because you are using the line out that is built into the dock connector input on the bottom of your ipod which has a constant volume regardless of how you have the volume of the headphone output set. You can actually use a transmitter connected to the headphone out and have the headphone out set lower than the line out would have been thus using less battery power than you would using the line out. So on this point you are in fact wrong.
Based on experience from the review of thousands of years of human history I'd say it's inevitable that self-sufficient settlements will declare independence immediately followed by vigorous protestations and aggression by their associated Earth-based governments.
Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States
in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including
the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies
The Outer Space Treaty was considered by the Legal Subcommittee in 1966 and agreement was reached in the General Assembly in the same year (resolution 2222 (XXI). The Treaty was largely based on the Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, which had been adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 1962 (XVIII) in 1963, but added a few new provisions. The Treaty was opened for signature by the three depository Governments (the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America) in January 1967, and it entered into force in October 1967. The Outer Space Treaty provides the basic framework on international space law, including the following principles:
* the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind;
* outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States;
* outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means;
* States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner;
* the Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes;
* astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of mankind;
* States shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental activities;
* States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and
* States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.
98 States have ratified, and an additional 27 have signed the Outer Space Treaty (as of 1 January 2006).For further information, see the Treaty Status Index.
The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies is available in the following languages and formats.
You make what I assume to be valid points. However...
How is this easier when manually managed by directories?
Time. Mine is valuable. Dragging songs to a directory takes seconds. You simply add the original artist to "Composer" or "notes," or whatever other field takes your fancy, and the remixer to "Artist" (or the other way around, depending on preference). Then you create Smart Playlists to look for strings in both the Artist and the Composer or Notes. You make rules on how this is handled. Heck, you could even add both the artist name and remixer name to the Artist tag, and have it look at those. You can even add text to the notes, like "remixed by" or "written by" to help refine the system, and add information....takes days depending on the size of the collection.
Damn, the first 2 must be insane then. I remember my friends wanting me to go to their houses and beat Megaman 3 just to show them it could be done and because they were just too pissed off to mess with it anymore.
I'm not going to respond to the rest of your post specifically because it really boils down to opinion. Ours differ. However...
Once you let go of the "I have to manage my files myself" syndrome and let iTunes do it, you'll be making your computer work for you. Until then, do your directories thing if you think it's good enough, and do the work your computer should be doing.
What part of I sat for at least six hours editing all that crap only to reload my iPod and still have orphaned files, some songs with the artist's name spelled slightly differently, etc. is making my "computer work for me?
And for "Best of the 80's" etc., I frankly don't listen to my music that way. I am well aware of how smart playlists work. I gave them and all of the other whizbang crap on iTunes a chance when I bought my iPod. I couldn't find a single instance where I was like "oh shit, this rocks". Personally I prefer Winamp and directories. For me it's just seems to work the way I work unlike iTunes.
Sorry I had a preview button issue, this completes my thought.
And the real issue is that while many people have a complete understanding of how the tags and all that work, they just plain don't want to do it that way and wouldn't have to were it not for Job's obsession with dumbing down an interface to the absolute lowest common denominator. The only reason this is an issue is, for whatever reason, the iPod doesn't support organizing your music in directories. If it did, you could use a combination of tags and folders however you see fit.
Create a folder action that tags all files dropped into that folder with the name of the folder.
What you are saying is I can make it so any mp3 that gets put into a particular folder is automatically tagged under artist name with the name of the folder? Sounds like a great idea, how exactly is this done again? And is this recursive? Say I have a subfolder in my Soundgarden folder for the album Louder Than Love and I put a song in the Louder Than Love folder I can make it so it gets Soundgarden in artist name? And if I have a remix folder inside my Tori Amos directory that by necessity has the name of the artist and whoever remixed the song in the artist field, I can keep that from getting fucked up?
Its more complex than just $folder and all tracks in it get $folder in the artist name field.
First of all, the way I like to listen to my music is to put it all on shuffle knowing that eventually it'll get to a song by an artist that just happens to work for me at that particular moment in time then I'll take it off shuffle and let that artist play out.
That was from my original post. I have no interest in "smart playlists". I know what I want to hear and how I want to hear it. What part of that do you not understand?
While what you say is almost correct. Your example is consistent with reality only up to the point of *accurate, consistent filenames*. That's not even nearly always the case. Many people have directory upon directory of Track01.mp3, Track02.mp3 and on and on. The easiest way to deal with these kinds of problems is to just let people organize their files on their mp3 player (kind of like an iRiver, for example, does) in a directory tree and when they feel like it, they can fix everything by renaming the files and using "Tag and Rename" or whatever and then start using the metadata to organize their music. Only thing is, many people just prefer to use the directories. Not because it is "antiquated" as another poster so condescendingly put it but maybe they just like seeing what is actually there not some extra layer of gunk.
And furthermore, what are you going to do with your mashups that have more than one primary artist but for whatever reason you want it classified with a particular artist so you leave it in that folder though you want the filename and id3 tag to represent both artist's names. So when you play your music by artist, you won't hear your mashups and remixes with the artists you normally associate them with. That's just a clusterfuck. And what about, for example, if you have a Tool directory and you want the "String Tribute to Tool" to be in it so you will hear that when you listen to your other Tool albums. Only problem is, the "String Tribute" isn't Tool themselves. Its another band. And another clusterfuck. All solved simply by using directories not meta data.
I know I'm about to get flamed for this but this reminds me of the GOTO vs. nested loop debate. With some languages just stripping out the GOTO altogether because it promotes "bad programming practises". Why not just give people the option and accept that some are different. Sheesh.
Bear in mind that for the computers at the time 640 KB was plenty. Obviously, with contemporary computer systems, such a small amount of RAM would be useless.
Same goes for mp3 players. With present feature sets and file lengths 10 GB is quite sufficient for most people's needs, including myself. I say that because this started when the poster asked me if my player had 80 GB of capacity therefore projecting his preferences onto me. In the future when everybody is using lossless 7.1 channel hi bitrate audio and High Def video and other yet to be fully developed things like virtual reality headsets, etc. on their personal media devices, 80 GB will seem paltry. But that isn't today. And you aren't going to be doing those things on your 5th gen iPod.
Here's a question for anybody in the know. Does Rockbox shore up these shortcomings? If so, I'm thinking about going another round with a new iPod. Honestly, iPods do have by far the sweetest form factor of all of the mp3 players currently on the market. Its basically flawless in its slickness and if not for the UI, I'd still have mine instead of making do with the Creative I have now.
Slashdot Mirror
This insidious cancerous hatred for America that has been spoonfed to you has obviously blinded you. As long as you can be made to focus your attentions on the EEVIL America, your own government can pass draconian legislation and steal your civil liberties from right beneath your nose. You are a pathetic tool.
Your strawmen are as transparent as your bigomous anti-americanism. Go back under your bridge little troll.
If you don't realize the absurdity of this comment, I almost hesitate to reveal it to you. But I'm in a good mood today so WTF.
There are many things the government doesn't want you to do that are not against the law in most western style democracies. Such as, oh I don't know, field an oppositional candidate in an upcoming election. Speak out against draconian legislation. Expost hypocrisy and corruption. The list goes on and on. As a poster above me somewhere said, ubiquitous public surveillance does have the ability to curtail some of these very lawful activities. Oh, there's a group of young kids getting loud and protesting near camera #3452, time to send in the goons.
Now that the scales are being tipped so far in favor towards ubiquitous surveillance, people have every right to be uneasy and against it. There are a whole host of other draconian security measures that can be effected through technology but just because they can be done doesn't mean they should be done. This crosses the line on many levels. Not the least of which are human dignity. It's quite simply offensive and undignified to have my "public" life actively watched by some person in a room somewhere every moment. This also crosses the line of just how much authority should the state have in people's day to day lives in a modern democracy. Who is the state and whose interests are they really representing in moves such as this? From my perspective, the state is made up of people just like you and me that are supposed to be our good faith representatives. This isn't representation, this is control.
The line out on most devices generally puts out the same thing as the headphone out (sometimes with an impedence difference) just with a set volume that whilst having a high gain avoids clipping the input on whatever it's hooked up to. In the case of an FM transmitter, the transmitter takes this input and converts it internally to an FM signal and broadcasts this so that your radio can pick it up.
As that link didn't seem to work out very well, try this one.
Miracle Mile is in Coral Gables, FL.
I know you didn't comment specifically about them but I'll just say a couple of sentences about the automated machines. They're actually really fast due to the fact that unbeknownst to most people, you don't even have to touch any of the buttons on the screen; just walk up and start scanning your items and the machine automatically gets the idea and starts with the "place item in the bag" routine. And when you get finished scanning your crap, you don't have to touch "finished" or whatever, just put your card in the reader and the computer automatically goes into pay mode. Very fast in my experience.
The volume of your ipod doesn't effect the loudness coming out of *your* transmitter precisely because you are using the line out that is built into the dock connector input on the bottom of your ipod which has a constant volume regardless of how you have the volume of the headphone output set. You can actually use a transmitter connected to the headphone out and have the headphone out set lower than the line out would have been thus using less battery power than you would using the line out. So on this point you are in fact wrong.
Awesome! Now we get to hear what one really long train wreck sounds like in slow motion.
Do you think the leaders at Novell will subsequently hang themselves?
Based on experience from the review of thousands of years of human history I'd say it's inevitable that self-sufficient settlements will declare independence immediately followed by vigorous protestations and aggression by their associated Earth-based governments.
in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including
the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies
The Outer Space Treaty was considered by the Legal Subcommittee in 1966 and agreement was reached in the General Assembly in the same year (resolution 2222 (XXI). The Treaty was largely based on the Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, which had been adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 1962 (XVIII) in 1963, but added a few new provisions. The Treaty was opened for signature by the three depository Governments (the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America) in January 1967, and it entered into force in October 1967. The Outer Space Treaty provides the basic framework on international space law, including the following principles:
* the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind;
* outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States;
* outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means;
* States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner;
* the Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes;
* astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of mankind;
* States shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental activities;
* States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and
* States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.
98 States have ratified, and an additional 27 have signed the Outer Space Treaty (as of 1 January 2006).For further information, see the Treaty Status Index.
The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies is available in the following languages and formats.
Excerpted from http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/outerspt.html
When you just put the songs in a directory, you don't have to edit the tags. That's how its easier. You don't even have to worry about it.
Time. Mine is valuable. Dragging songs to a directory takes seconds. You simply add the original artist to "Composer" or "notes," or whatever other field takes your fancy, and the remixer to "Artist" (or the other way around, depending on preference). Then you create Smart Playlists to look for strings in both the Artist and the Composer or Notes. You make rules on how this is handled. Heck, you could even add both the artist name and remixer name to the Artist tag, and have it look at those. You can even add text to the notes, like "remixed by" or "written by" to help refine the system, and add information. ...takes days depending on the size of the collection.
Damn, the first 2 must be insane then. I remember my friends wanting me to go to their houses and beat Megaman 3 just to show them it could be done and because they were just too pissed off to mess with it anymore.
Once you let go of the "I have to manage my files myself" syndrome and let iTunes do it, you'll be making your computer work for you. Until then, do your directories thing if you think it's good enough, and do the work your computer should be doing.
What part of I sat for at least six hours editing all that crap only to reload my iPod and still have orphaned files, some songs with the artist's name spelled slightly differently, etc. is making my "computer work for me?
And for "Best of the 80's" etc., I frankly don't listen to my music that way. I am well aware of how smart playlists work. I gave them and all of the other whizbang crap on iTunes a chance when I bought my iPod. I couldn't find a single instance where I was like "oh shit, this rocks". Personally I prefer Winamp and directories. For me it's just seems to work the way I work unlike iTunes.
And the real issue is that while many people have a complete understanding of how the tags and all that work, they just plain don't want to do it that way and wouldn't have to were it not for Job's obsession with dumbing down an interface to the absolute lowest common denominator. The only reason this is an issue is, for whatever reason, the iPod doesn't support organizing your music in directories. If it did, you could use a combination of tags and folders however you see fit.
What you are saying is I can make it so any mp3 that gets put into a particular folder is automatically tagged under artist name with the name of the folder? Sounds like a great idea, how exactly is this done again? And is this recursive? Say I have a subfolder in my Soundgarden folder for the album Louder Than Love and I put a song in the Louder Than Love folder I can make it so it gets Soundgarden in artist name? And if I have a remix folder inside my Tori Amos directory that by necessity has the name of the artist and whoever remixed the song in the artist field, I can keep that from getting fucked up?
Its more complex than just $folder and all tracks in it get $folder in the artist name field.
That was from my original post. I have no interest in "smart playlists". I know what I want to hear and how I want to hear it. What part of that do you not understand?
And furthermore, what are you going to do with your mashups that have more than one primary artist but for whatever reason you want it classified with a particular artist so you leave it in that folder though you want the filename and id3 tag to represent both artist's names. So when you play your music by artist, you won't hear your mashups and remixes with the artists you normally associate them with. That's just a clusterfuck. And what about, for example, if you have a Tool directory and you want the "String Tribute to Tool" to be in it so you will hear that when you listen to your other Tool albums. Only problem is, the "String Tribute" isn't Tool themselves. Its another band. And another clusterfuck. All solved simply by using directories not meta data.
I know I'm about to get flamed for this but this reminds me of the GOTO vs. nested loop debate. With some languages just stripping out the GOTO altogether because it promotes "bad programming practises". Why not just give people the option and accept that some are different. Sheesh.
Bear in mind that for the computers at the time 640 KB was plenty. Obviously, with contemporary computer systems, such a small amount of RAM would be useless.
Same goes for mp3 players. With present feature sets and file lengths 10 GB is quite sufficient for most people's needs, including myself. I say that because this started when the poster asked me if my player had 80 GB of capacity therefore projecting his preferences onto me. In the future when everybody is using lossless 7.1 channel hi bitrate audio and High Def video and other yet to be fully developed things like virtual reality headsets, etc. on their personal media devices, 80 GB will seem paltry. But that isn't today. And you aren't going to be doing those things on your 5th gen iPod.
Here's a question for anybody in the know. Does Rockbox shore up these shortcomings? If so, I'm thinking about going another round with a new iPod. Honestly, iPods do have by far the sweetest form factor of all of the mp3 players currently on the market. Its basically flawless in its slickness and if not for the UI, I'd still have mine instead of making do with the Creative I have now.
1. Super Mario 3. You know you've played that game enough times when you can get through all 8 worlds with just one small mario.
2. Unreal. Yeah, it's unreal.
3. Megaman 3. By far the hardest (good) Famicom game there was. Also one of the best.
4. Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. You know you want more of that PC Engine goodness.
5. Quake. The almighty.