Actually, it's true. There are plenty of Stereo-Component CD recorders that only accept "Audio" CD-Rs.
Tell me how it works. How can the CD burner possibly tell if the disc packaging has a label saying "for audio" or "for data." Where did you hear about this, and what evidence do you have?
You need to calm down, seriously. Home Theater components that can burn a CD *cannot* burn a DATA CDR, it *needs* a MUSIC CDR. At least it was so a few years ago.
Please, provide some evidence. How does the burner tell the difference? A CD is made to standards. If it is a standard CD, it is indistinguishable to a computer or CD player. The only difference is the packaging, and the fact that different manufacturers use different surface colours and finishes - which in the old days, were not reliable in all players.
This line should be said in the croaky, dying voice of an old sage like Obi-Wan or Yoda, as advice to a plucky young Jedi who doesn't realize how little he knows, and will later regret not learning more from the old sage. For years, the Jedi will ponder "what is this mystical Spaceballs that he spoke of" and it will eat him up inside, until his younger sister reveals the truth about Dark Helmet.
Because in the US that's the only religion that gets censored.
Are you kidding? Christians get to push their agenda loudly in the most inappropriate places. The most powerful people in the country are religious. Christians are not being persecuted or discriminated against. It's mostly gays, atheists and muslims who get religiously (or philosophically) discriminated against, censored, or even physically attacked. Christians have multi-million dollar PR machines and total political dominance at their disposal.
That's hilarious, but if they don't derive any more income from speeding tickets they'll just increase taxes on petrol or road taxes.
So what?
1. I would rather that people not speed than people pay too high taxes. People get killed by speeding and pollution, but not by petrol taxes.
2. Petrol needs to be more expensive, and road taxes need to be higher. At the moment, the rest of society is subsidizing the cheap roads, pollution and cheap petrol - even if they do not drive cars. Make the drivers pay for the roads they use and the pollution they cause. Don't burden everyone else with your driving habit.
disclaimer - I enjoy driving, but realize that it is a privilege and a bad habit that I must pay for and take responsibility for.
.. Eventually. That just means that more plates get stolen, so that the perp has a couple of spares.
And then what?
How do they evade detection by the video systems and still make any use of their plates? And how would the thief know when each victim is going to report? Stealing a "spare" just means more incriminating evidence, and more eyewitness evidence to track the thief.
Its job is to state that claims have been made, one way or the other, who made those claims, what sort of support the claims enjoy and what criticism they suffer, and other stuff relevant to the claims.
Isn't that just journalism, not writing reference material?
Without an immune system weakened by AIDS, that infection most likely either wouldn't have happened or never would have gotten so bad as to kill you. It doesn't make you sound any smarter to keep insisting that AIDS doesn't kill you just because there's an extra step involved.
I don't care about "seeming smart" - I'm just talking about facts. You admit that AIDS is not what kills you, just as you admit that jumping off a building does not kill you. then you claim I am wrong, even though you admit it?
The examples aren't even comparable. jumping off a building, short of bizarre air current, results in hitting the grounds. Getting AIDS does not necessarily lead to contracting a disease that will kill you. Logic, man!
These devices were drm encumbered, and would not accept "data" cd-r's.
What a load of horseshit. Seriously, what is your source for this allegation? How does this mythical DRM in CD players work?
If what you were saying is true, why have I been able to play "data" CDs in every audio CD player I have owned? Sure, if I use a crappy quality CD it may fail. but there is no difference between the "data" and "audio" CDs that the CD player can detect.
I find it somewhat bothersome that such ignorance can even be seriously repeated in public. Tell me how you found out this "information."
Ahem... no.
At the time you could get Netscape CDs everywhere, pushed by internet providers (AOL comes to mind..)
Only in a very limited part of the world (America) - for the rest of the world where there was no AOL, everybody would just use FTP to download web browsers. After all, at the time, most internet users were already used to using NNTP newsgroups, FTP, email, and possibly BBSes.
I never saw a CD with Netscape on it until well after it was a mainstream success, and even then it was not on an AOL CD. But every FTP server on the planet had a copy available.
Just as using a blunt instrument to add holes to your car makes it go faster, radio waves make your newsfeeds go faster. It doesn't matter whether you are using a dial-up, cable, wireless or satellite internet connection. It's the radio waves on the icon that make your RSS content go fast. It also means that any news received over RSS is more reliable. After all, we all trust the broadcast media. Radio waves are the definition of credibility.
In other words, why defend your own position when it's much less work to silence the opposition?
I don't have any power or desire to "silence" anyone. Instead, I said to ignore them. They have a right to free speech - but we are not obliged to listen. Nor is slashdot obliged to pay any attention to them. Not the same as trying to "silence" the opposition - which is a tactic favored by many of these right-wing "Christian" groups. In fact, many of them approve of violence against those who do not share their beliefs.
I would never do any of that. But I am free to point out bias when it exists. If you cannot see how clearly this group is biased, then you have problems. What's wrong with dismissing an opponent who has no credibility?
You didn't read what I wrote. If you had, you would have addressed my statement that the larger an organisation the greater the likelihood of diluting the talent with mediocrity.
Which is exactly what I did. I addressed this by citing real-world examples. If larger companies are so corrosive to talent, then why hasn't some smaller company produced similar talent to take on Adobe and Apple?
Why should I care? I'm not talking about money. Many of the best things in life are unprofitable.
Podcasting right now is a fad, with tons of people trying to make a quick buck off of the popularity
I don't quite see it this way. All the podcasts I use are by people not expecting to make money - or from existing radio stations which are community-run - as a convenience for their listeners. I don't see many people thinking they will make money directly from podcasting.
A handfull will actually succeed, probably using very traditional business models, a few more will get bought up by BigCo, and the vast majority will fall by the wayside, wondering why The Revolution didn't last.
So what? That's the typical mark of a successful medium. So podcasting will still being used by media. How does that make podcasting unsuccessful, just because you don't like the content or the companies producing it? Assuming your scenario comes true. I'm not sure why everyone is so quick to dismiss this. After all, who would have thought "blogging" could be so big? Who would have thought one little MP3 player could shake up the whole music industry. Who would have a thought a mere search engine could challenge Microsoft? We just don't know yet, and it is foolish to narrow your thinking. What has amazed me about the internet, is that the "success" in adoption was driven by stuff that most geeks consider utterly stupid - like animated smileys, online casinos, etc.
It's incredible how much the "little things" have made the internet popular - while many of the "big ideas" have fallen by the wayside. If anything, I think podcasting will succeed because it's not a "big idea" - it's just a little one that makes sense. Podcasting is not going to be at the center of anyone's media universe - but it will make a regular part of the digital diet for many people.
Streaming media and other online delivery have been tried many, many times - but it wasn't until the word "podcasting" came into play that media outlets started really getting interested in it. It's hard to get people interested when you have to explain a bunch of keywords like "streaming" and a bunch of different video players. But when they have a simple word like "podcasting" and know what it does because they own an iPod - it clicks.
I find it very surprising myself, I was working in this area (online media) during the internet boom. I'm amazed at how much that stupid word "podcasting" has changed perceptions. It doesn't make sense - but that's how the world works. It's like when writing a journal online became "blogging." Why do people respond to really dumb words? It kind of drives me crazy, but it can't be denied.
Among the general population, podcasting is a complete non-event.
How do you know? What makes you say this? The local radio station I listen to podcasts most of their talk shows. The station says the podcasts are extremely popular. The audience for that station is typically NOT composed of geeks.
among those early adopters willing to embrace a new and awkward technology temporarily, and the classic mistake of drawing an endless growth curve is repeated.
1. What is "awkward" about podcasting? It appeals to people because it is so convenient and easy. Click on podcast. Get regular audio/video. Which gets automatically tranferred to your playlists and iPod.
2. When did I, or anyone else, say that it would have endless growth? I just said it is popular and useful. Neither of which you have meaningfully rebutted.
Right - it's another distribution mechanism for the existing media producers. That is news why, again?
It's news because it's popular. And the point is not that it's new, or offer any substantially different media. It's that the delivery method is very important. Podcasting is convenient, and replaces the awkwardness of going to multiple websites and searching for content. Eliminates the need to check for new content. So, it's not particularly radical - but that doesn't mean it's not popular and useful.
Radio is nothing like the newspaper business. Firstly, radio is awkward: People only listen to the radio generally when no other option is available. In the car, for instance, or at a gym with no TVs, or at the workplace when it's just background noise. Podcasting represents very little of a threat to any of these. It isn't going to change anything.
You sound like the people who thought the internet was "just a fad" for geeks and early adopters.
Also, your comment about the radio makes little sense. Again, what is so awkward about radio? And what makes you think people only listen in the background? I listen to very interesting and informative radio shows which I give my full attention. Talk-back radio is extremely popular - suggesting that radio listeners are NOT passive, and want to interact with their radio hosts.
For reasonable quality the bulb must be a point lightsource,
Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The best results I have had with photographic enlargers have used a diffusing panel, for an equivalent light source the same size as the negative. Why would the light source have to be a point source? The lens focuses the light - what you want is an evenly illuminated image plane.
This centralization, along with the insistance of the government that it, and it alone, be responsible for rescue efforts was the problem with the Katrina response.
What a stupid comment! The problem was that the management was incompetent, not that it was centralized. Why would a centralized management prevent locals from also responding, unless it was incompetent or evil?
Other countries have centrally managed emergency response, and they do much better than America. The facts are that FEMA (in addition to local authorities) neglected their responsibility. Centralization isn't the issue.
Now there's a whole new 'Pro' look going into things like Aperture.
While I agree with you on the other shit (brushed metal, woodgrain, etc) - the "Pro" interface is the best thing since... errr... something else that was really good. It's not just a "look" - it is very functional and space-saving. I wish the whole of MacOS X was like the "Pro" interface.
Decent cameras are USB mass storage devices, the required software should be a part of your desktop OS.
The OS should have a built-in utility to read the RAW image files from a camera? Some of those RAw formats are supposedly proprietary, anyway. I installed the Nikon software to properly read RAW files from my camera (an expensive Nikon Pro model) and the software install totally nuked my icons and dock settings. This is truly miserable software - but until Apple released the "Aperture" application - only Photoshop or Nikon's software were mainstream solutions, and both sucked. That the Nikon software actually nuked my system settings was a true insult. That Adobe Photoshop has such limited RAW import is painful. Still, I had to pay a good chunk of cash for Aperture - when Adobe or Nikon should have given me that functionality for free. And yes, I can preview RAW files in the MacOS finder much quicker than in Photoshop - but the Finder should not be a digital photography tool. So, my OS has done more than it should be expected to do with RAW files - while the makers of hardware and software that actually works with RAW files - have done a miserable job below expectations.
Heh. I remember those tim es, and software definitely did not work better. I think it's just nostalgia to think so. Back then, we were basically expected to be programmers just to be computer users. But people (particularly intelligent people like Woz) tend to get used to that, and thus forget what it was really like.
I see better user interfaces in pc games than I do in other software.
What "other software" do you use? I find game interfaces to be very clunky and buggy. Especially in strategy games. Focus problems abound, and inconsistencies in behavior are rife. Compared to a standard Mac app, when I play a game, I feel limited by the awful user interfaces.
I can endlessly customize the interfaces on my professional productivity and creativity applications. But usually I don't change much, because they are shipped with very good interfaces that do everything I need. It's often easier to map a joystick or other input to a real application, than it is to map to a game, with all the different ways each game seems to handle things.
The only meaningful exception I can think of is Flight Simulators, which offer meaningful calibration and customisation. Sometimes with games you don't know exactly how the game is processing the input data. On good flight sims, it shows you exactly what the input is doing - and allows one to do nearly anything with it.
The best software (IMO) comes from small groups or individuals with exceptional talent, never from a gigantic corporation.
Depends on what you mean by "comes from." Apple's software comes from small groups of very talented individuals. But it is sold by a large corporation (Apple). I cannot buy the software directly from the talented individuals, even though they wrote it.
Final Cut Pro and Motion are stunning pieces of software, as close to perfect as can be. Adobe Photoshop is also brilliant. All of these titles are almost completely bug-free for any meaningful usage.
I simply cannot get anything comparable software-wise directly from small developers. There has never been anything comparable from non-corporate sources, because this level of programming requires lots of money.
But perhaps you can tell me where I can buy equivalents of these titles from small developers. I have never seen any. Often there are innovative small titles from small developers. But these are also often much more buggy than the major releases - even if they do offer unique features or performance in specific areas. I still buy them of course - but they are an adjunct to the "powerhouse" software that drives most of my creative work, not a replacement for the big guns.
Slashdot Mirror
Tell me how it works. How can the CD burner possibly tell if the disc packaging has a label saying "for audio" or "for data." Where did you hear about this, and what evidence do you have?
Please, provide some evidence. How does the burner tell the difference? A CD is made to standards. If it is a standard CD, it is indistinguishable to a computer or CD player. The only difference is the packaging, and the fact that different manufacturers use different surface colours and finishes - which in the old days, were not reliable in all players.
This line should be said in the croaky, dying voice of an old sage like Obi-Wan or Yoda, as advice to a plucky young Jedi who doesn't realize how little he knows, and will later regret not learning more from the old sage. For years, the Jedi will ponder "what is this mystical Spaceballs that he spoke of" and it will eat him up inside, until his younger sister reveals the truth about Dark Helmet.
Are you kidding? Christians get to push their agenda loudly in the most inappropriate places. The most powerful people in the country are religious. Christians are not being persecuted or discriminated against. It's mostly gays, atheists and muslims who get religiously (or philosophically) discriminated against, censored, or even physically attacked. Christians have multi-million dollar PR machines and total political dominance at their disposal.
So what?
1. I would rather that people not speed than people pay too high taxes. People get killed by speeding and pollution, but not by petrol taxes.
2. Petrol needs to be more expensive, and road taxes need to be higher. At the moment, the rest of society is subsidizing the cheap roads, pollution and cheap petrol - even if they do not drive cars. Make the drivers pay for the roads they use and the pollution they cause. Don't burden everyone else with your driving habit.
disclaimer - I enjoy driving, but realize that it is a privilege and a bad habit that I must pay for and take responsibility for.
And then what?
How do they evade detection by the video systems and still make any use of their plates? And how would the thief know when each victim is going to report? Stealing a "spare" just means more incriminating evidence, and more eyewitness evidence to track the thief.
Isn't that just journalism, not writing reference material?
I don't care about "seeming smart" - I'm just talking about facts. You admit that AIDS is not what kills you, just as you admit that jumping off a building does not kill you. then you claim I am wrong, even though you admit it?
The examples aren't even comparable. jumping off a building, short of bizarre air current, results in hitting the grounds. Getting AIDS does not necessarily lead to contracting a disease that will kill you. Logic, man!
Why would one want to support a candidate who refuses freedom of rights, rights of expression, and the rights of consumers?
What a load of horseshit. Seriously, what is your source for this allegation? How does this mythical DRM in CD players work?
If what you were saying is true, why have I been able to play "data" CDs in every audio CD player I have owned? Sure, if I use a crappy quality CD it may fail. but there is no difference between the "data" and "audio" CDs that the CD player can detect.
I find it somewhat bothersome that such ignorance can even be seriously repeated in public. Tell me how you found out this "information."
Only in a very limited part of the world (America) - for the rest of the world where there was no AOL, everybody would just use FTP to download web browsers. After all, at the time, most internet users were already used to using NNTP newsgroups, FTP, email, and possibly BBSes.
I never saw a CD with Netscape on it until well after it was a mainstream success, and even then it was not on an AOL CD. But every FTP server on the planet had a copy available.
Just as using a blunt instrument to add holes to your car makes it go faster, radio waves make your newsfeeds go faster. It doesn't matter whether you are using a dial-up, cable, wireless or satellite internet connection. It's the radio waves on the icon that make your RSS content go fast. It also means that any news received over RSS is more reliable. After all, we all trust the broadcast media. Radio waves are the definition of credibility.
Heh heh. It's funny because it's true!
But it's not. The effects of another disease kill you. AIDS just makes it much easier for you to catch the disease that effects the killing.
I don't have any power or desire to "silence" anyone. Instead, I said to ignore them. They have a right to free speech - but we are not obliged to listen. Nor is slashdot obliged to pay any attention to them. Not the same as trying to "silence" the opposition - which is a tactic favored by many of these right-wing "Christian" groups. In fact, many of them approve of violence against those who do not share their beliefs.
I would never do any of that. But I am free to point out bias when it exists. If you cannot see how clearly this group is biased, then you have problems. What's wrong with dismissing an opponent who has no credibility?
Which is exactly what I did. I addressed this by citing real-world examples. If larger companies are so corrosive to talent, then why hasn't some smaller company produced similar talent to take on Adobe and Apple?
Why should I care? I'm not talking about money. Many of the best things in life are unprofitable.
Podcasting right now is a fad, with tons of people trying to make a quick buck off of the popularity
I don't quite see it this way. All the podcasts I use are by people not expecting to make money - or from existing radio stations which are community-run - as a convenience for their listeners. I don't see many people thinking they will make money directly from podcasting.
A handfull will actually succeed, probably using very traditional business models, a few more will get bought up by BigCo, and the vast majority will fall by the wayside, wondering why The Revolution didn't last.
So what? That's the typical mark of a successful medium. So podcasting will still being used by media. How does that make podcasting unsuccessful, just because you don't like the content or the companies producing it? Assuming your scenario comes true. I'm not sure why everyone is so quick to dismiss this. After all, who would have thought "blogging" could be so big? Who would have thought one little MP3 player could shake up the whole music industry. Who would have a thought a mere search engine could challenge Microsoft? We just don't know yet, and it is foolish to narrow your thinking. What has amazed me about the internet, is that the "success" in adoption was driven by stuff that most geeks consider utterly stupid - like animated smileys, online casinos, etc.
It's incredible how much the "little things" have made the internet popular - while many of the "big ideas" have fallen by the wayside. If anything, I think podcasting will succeed because it's not a "big idea" - it's just a little one that makes sense. Podcasting is not going to be at the center of anyone's media universe - but it will make a regular part of the digital diet for many people.
Streaming media and other online delivery have been tried many, many times - but it wasn't until the word "podcasting" came into play that media outlets started really getting interested in it. It's hard to get people interested when you have to explain a bunch of keywords like "streaming" and a bunch of different video players. But when they have a simple word like "podcasting" and know what it does because they own an iPod - it clicks.
I find it very surprising myself, I was working in this area (online media) during the internet boom. I'm amazed at how much that stupid word "podcasting" has changed perceptions. It doesn't make sense - but that's how the world works. It's like when writing a journal online became "blogging." Why do people respond to really dumb words? It kind of drives me crazy, but it can't be denied.
How do you know? What makes you say this? The local radio station I listen to podcasts most of their talk shows. The station says the podcasts are extremely popular. The audience for that station is typically NOT composed of geeks.
among those early adopters willing to embrace a new and awkward technology temporarily, and the classic mistake of drawing an endless growth curve is repeated.
1. What is "awkward" about podcasting? It appeals to people because it is so convenient and easy. Click on podcast. Get regular audio/video. Which gets automatically tranferred to your playlists and iPod.
2. When did I, or anyone else, say that it would have endless growth? I just said it is popular and useful. Neither of which you have meaningfully rebutted.
Right - it's another distribution mechanism for the existing media producers. That is news why, again?
It's news because it's popular. And the point is not that it's new, or offer any substantially different media. It's that the delivery method is very important. Podcasting is convenient, and replaces the awkwardness of going to multiple websites and searching for content. Eliminates the need to check for new content. So, it's not particularly radical - but that doesn't mean it's not popular and useful.
Radio is nothing like the newspaper business. Firstly, radio is awkward: People only listen to the radio generally when no other option is available. In the car, for instance, or at a gym with no TVs, or at the workplace when it's just background noise. Podcasting represents very little of a threat to any of these. It isn't going to change anything.
You sound like the people who thought the internet was "just a fad" for geeks and early adopters.
Also, your comment about the radio makes little sense. Again, what is so awkward about radio? And what makes you think people only listen in the background? I listen to very interesting and informative radio shows which I give my full attention. Talk-back radio is extremely popular - suggesting that radio listeners are NOT passive, and want to interact with their radio hosts.
Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The best results I have had with photographic enlargers have used a diffusing panel, for an equivalent light source the same size as the negative. Why would the light source have to be a point source? The lens focuses the light - what you want is an evenly illuminated image plane.
What a stupid comment! The problem was that the management was incompetent, not that it was centralized. Why would a centralized management prevent locals from also responding, unless it was incompetent or evil?
Other countries have centrally managed emergency response, and they do much better than America. The facts are that FEMA (in addition to local authorities) neglected their responsibility. Centralization isn't the issue.
While I agree with you on the other shit (brushed metal, woodgrain, etc) - the "Pro" interface is the best thing since ... errr ... something else that was really good. It's not just a "look" - it is very functional and space-saving. I wish the whole of MacOS X was like the "Pro" interface.
The OS should have a built-in utility to read the RAW image files from a camera? Some of those RAw formats are supposedly proprietary, anyway. I installed the Nikon software to properly read RAW files from my camera (an expensive Nikon Pro model) and the software install totally nuked my icons and dock settings. This is truly miserable software - but until Apple released the "Aperture" application - only Photoshop or Nikon's software were mainstream solutions, and both sucked. That the Nikon software actually nuked my system settings was a true insult. That Adobe Photoshop has such limited RAW import is painful. Still, I had to pay a good chunk of cash for Aperture - when Adobe or Nikon should have given me that functionality for free. And yes, I can preview RAW files in the MacOS finder much quicker than in Photoshop - but the Finder should not be a digital photography tool. So, my OS has done more than it should be expected to do with RAW files - while the makers of hardware and software that actually works with RAW files - have done a miserable job below expectations.
Heh. I remember those tim es, and software definitely did not work better. I think it's just nostalgia to think so. Back then, we were basically expected to be programmers just to be computer users. But people (particularly intelligent people like Woz) tend to get used to that, and thus forget what it was really like.
What "other software" do you use? I find game interfaces to be very clunky and buggy. Especially in strategy games. Focus problems abound, and inconsistencies in behavior are rife. Compared to a standard Mac app, when I play a game, I feel limited by the awful user interfaces.
I can endlessly customize the interfaces on my professional productivity and creativity applications. But usually I don't change much, because they are shipped with very good interfaces that do everything I need. It's often easier to map a joystick or other input to a real application, than it is to map to a game, with all the different ways each game seems to handle things.
The only meaningful exception I can think of is Flight Simulators, which offer meaningful calibration and customisation. Sometimes with games you don't know exactly how the game is processing the input data. On good flight sims, it shows you exactly what the input is doing - and allows one to do nearly anything with it.
Depends on what you mean by "comes from." Apple's software comes from small groups of very talented individuals. But it is sold by a large corporation (Apple). I cannot buy the software directly from the talented individuals, even though they wrote it.
Final Cut Pro and Motion are stunning pieces of software, as close to perfect as can be. Adobe Photoshop is also brilliant. All of these titles are almost completely bug-free for any meaningful usage.
I simply cannot get anything comparable software-wise directly from small developers. There has never been anything comparable from non-corporate sources, because this level of programming requires lots of money.
But perhaps you can tell me where I can buy equivalents of these titles from small developers. I have never seen any. Often there are innovative small titles from small developers. But these are also often much more buggy than the major releases - even if they do offer unique features or performance in specific areas. I still buy them of course - but they are an adjunct to the "powerhouse" software that drives most of my creative work, not a replacement for the big guns.