If you want to start denouncing mp3 collectors, such as myself (I have about 55 mp3 cds, which is a decent amount) I think you need to see the other side of the picture.
Fact - Music piracy stats (just like software piracy stats) are unreliable at best, and blatently made-up at worst. This is basically because record companies have no real way to determine how much is lost from piracy. Not every person that downloads a "pirated" album would have bought a legit copy of the album had there not been the mp3s. In other words, if I download 5 random albums, I'm not "stealing" $75 of merchandise because to be honest, without mp3 availability I would have gone without the albums rather than spend money on them. Thus, the companies wouldnt have made that $75 either way. However, record companies do tend to assume the contrary so they can bloat their "piracy losses" and make it a big deal.
Fact: Music piracy does not threaten the livlihood of artists. Artists make a very little percentage of the money generated by the sale of an album (maybe a dollar or two per $15 album). Rather, the only people who are threatened in any way by music piracy are the record companies. And they are the bloated, money driven corporate scum despised by many in the music industry. If anyone hurts the artist, it is the greedy record company who signs the artist under the pretense of aiding his career, then copyrights all the artists' work, whores him out to the media, distorts the actual craft of the music for the sake of record sales, and pockets the majority of record sale money in order to have a hefty profit. In an optomistic sense, pirates are kinda helping the artists by not only exposing the band, but also killing off the evil giants known as record companies. Oh and let us not forgot that the majority of a musician's income comes from concerts, gigs, tours, endorsments, advertising, etc. Record sales generate a small percentage of a musician's income.
Fact: Many many bands support taping and trading of their music. As shown by this Phish event, and this lil page - http://www.enteract.com/~wagner/btat/index.html - a large amount of bands are for distribution of their music. Yes I understand that doesn't include studio albums, but it does totally mean that the majority of bootleg live music which is traded heavily through the internet is perfectly legal and fine.
Fact: Emusic and the like are just as bad as the record companies. Just because they deal in "legal mp3's" doesnt make them the poster child for a good honest business. Emusic charges just as much as, if not more for lower quality digital music (poorly ripped and encoded imho) than standard cds. Even though they have support from several major bands, I'm certain that Emusic pockets the same excessively high percentage of the money from music sales as record companies do. Emusic doesnt care about artists, they're just some clueless suits trying to cash in off of the digital music movement. They're just as full of crap and gimmicks as all the other bloated record companies. And then there's sites like mp3.com, who claims to be in staunch support of the artist, yet recently decided to offically support their own payola scheme and charge artists for more exposure. Personally, the whole legal mp3 aspect doesn't make any of the sites any better. They're just as greedy as the others, and I hope they fail.
I doubt you intended to incite this type of a response, but as a devoted mp3 collector and trader, I find it unfair for you to suggest that I am some morally decrepit jerk because of my habit. Me and the like just want to have some fun and some good music to listen to without paying out the ass for it (Btw when you consider the costs of a good computer, cd burner, cd-r media, broadband connection, and cd storage I am spending a LOT more than a cent) If you really want to complain about evils, go take a look at the record companies. Granted, music "pirates" shouldnt be hailed as heroes, but when it comes down to it we are the far lesser of two evils.
God I love legos! I've played with those things in my childhood years, and they provided hours of endless fun. I'd still be spending hordes of money of legos if it wasnt for the blasted "Recommended for ages 7-12" sign that graced every package. Now if I'd go to the counter to buy those cool new legos I'd be greeted with more embarassment than a guy buying a full case of condoms and adult diapers. I think we should petition to have that evil sign removed from every box of legos so closet lego collectors can buy lego products in public without feeling any shame or recieving any scrutiny from others. Now if you excuse me, I must go shut the windowblinds and lock myself in my room so nobody will find out my secret lego habit.:)
1. You could always immerse the tower in a large cooler full of dry ice, keeping the machine cool, and emmiting a steady stream of CO2 vapors for your entertainment.
2. Spray some liquid nitrogen on the cpu. Sure you might shatter the cpu, but if it survives, you can overclock that baby like hell... not to mention having extra liquid N2 readily available in case you get a nasty wart on your typing fingers.
3. Set up office in one of those giant wind tunnels with the case open, and anchor everything to the floor. Now hows that for a good fan?
4. Failing that you could always rent a giant meat locker or other refridgerated area and run your computer from there.
5. Move to Antarctica. If you by chance can get a high speed internet connection there, gimme a shell:)
6. Chain a small sibling or a friend to your desk, and have them continuously blow on the cpu to cool it, keeping a whip handy should they whine about being bored, tired, or hungry.
Now that the cooling issue is settled, let's see how ridiculously fast we can overclock. Maybe we can push that Celeron 550 up to 1 gHz without it melting on us.
Obviously the impact of this program will depend totally on the support of colleges, and frankly I don't expect much. I fail to see what reason a major university would have to pay $2000 (even though it isn't much to them) for a "service" that will potentially reduce their profits from admission tuition. Besides, every school has a financial aid program set up for these exact purposes anyway, meaning the whole project is unnecessary. Also, the statements of the founder of the site make me very very skeptical about any potential of this program.
"he admits that state schools and private institutions like Princeton and Notre Dame wouldn't necessarily need eCollegebid"
Well um, weve already eliminated state schools and private colleges, which is like, what 99% of colleges? Seriously though, without any support from major universitys, the program will flop. Maybe a few students will be interested in a small scale, affordable school... but I think the majority of high school kids, especially the high achieving ones the program seeks, would rather want to go to Harvard, Duke, Stanford, or a state school rather than Bumblefuck University or Northwest Southern Central East Rhode Island College. And when the students see that their top choices are not offered on the site, they'll go back to mailing forms in.
"By the end of the year he hopes to have between 35 and 50 colleges active in the database"
35 to 50?????? THERE ARE MANY THOUSANDS OF COLLEGES OUT THERE!!!! What good would the program do if it only featured 1% of colleges? I realize the relative youth of the site, but nobody's gonna bother with such a limited choice. Moreover, the fact that the founder refuses to list specific names disturbs me. We all know that if, say Yale, or even some random state school, were to take part in the program he would be shamelessly promoting it. "YES, EVEN TOP SCHOOLS LIKE YALE SUPPORT THE ECOLLEGEBID PROGRAM!" Instead, he's just hiding full information to cover up the glaring weakness of the site.
I'm afraid I have to agree with all the critics. However a novel idea, the site fails to show itself a worthy replacment of current financial aid programs. It's not going to attract any big name colleges, and in turn the limited selection of available schools on the site will completely turn off any prospective users. I'm sure it might help a few kids here and there find some quaint little backwoods college for a cheap price, but eCollegeBid won't make it in the long run.
*sigh* Is there no end to this kind of crap? I'm just of sick of clueless suits aimlessly tacking on buzzwords and other crap to generate interest. The worst part of the whole internet revolution is this whole buzzword trend thats come across. Seems like everyone's adding "Cyber-", "E-", "-Online", or "-.com" in a pathetic attempt to cash in off the web. The sad part is even the government has been induced into all of this mindless drivel, passing various "Cyber-" bills and what not, and now the state of Massachusetts is pulling this crap. I'm not questioning Massachusetts' status as a top technology state, but all this method of advertising it is pathetic. You're not going to win many people over with this, because nobody cares about how witty and clever your naming ability is. Concentrate on proving that Massachusetts is a real legitimate place to locate a technological business. In fact, I bet the majority of skilled engineers and programmers Mass is trying to recruit will probably be turned off by this blatent act of shallow self-promotion and head back to the Silicon Valley. And just another hint Massachusetts, you do have one of the top tech schools in the nation (MIT of course), why not focus on getting all those promising students to continue their work in MA instead of trying to flash around a punned logo.
Finally, the perfect thing for all those poor palm users who have been forced to be live with poor quality, grainy grayscale pr0n. The simple inclusion of color includes incredible promise for pr0n. No longer will we have to carry laptops to allow for full portable pr0n usage potential. No longer will our hardcore palm pilot sexpics be confined to limited monochrome graphics. The sheer though of having full color lesbian action pics on a device the size of my hand brings tears to my eyes. I predict that this simple, but wonderous advancment in pda (and more importantly pr0n) technology will sell palmpilots to all those pr0n connissuers on the go. Now all 3Com needs to do is add mpeg support, and were in portable pr0n heaven!
btw, while were on the topic check out these great "potential palm pilot ads.":)
I think this is an interesting lil program that will really help Linux become much more widespread and get the standard user more comfortable with the transition to Linux. After all one of the main reasons Windows is so mainstream is its "do everything for you attitude", and the "work it out yourself" nature of Linux seems to have deterred, and even instilled fear into the average pc user.
But I still dont know whether this is in the best interest of new Linux users. I thought most of the point of Linux was learning how to set up everything so you dont have to rely on the OS to try to figure it out for you. It may be useful for when you're lazy or new, but the concept of automation might spread to other areas and be abused. I hope that the newbies who do start to run Linux with the aid of the program dont become fully dependant on auto-install features. After all these automated install routines should be considered only as training wheels and disposed of after the necessary experience is gained. Otherwise, why switch in the first place?
a few flaws, but it's a start
on
$200 Linux PCs
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· Score: 2
As of now it still looks too good to be true. After all, still no monitor, some highly outdated components, and no mention of a warranty. Not to mention the eerie IMac-esque focus on color and looks (now in 6 delicious fruit flavors). Might make a nice gift for granny or the kids or a halfassed web machine (ew), but i dont expect too much use from it yet.
However, the option to have Linux preinstalled on the box is a great idea that is finally coming around. Yes, self installation does teach a user a large amount of necessary information and skills, but then again, how many mainstream pc users could deal with installing windows by themselves from scratch? It's great that buyers are finally getting some choice on what OS they can run on their box instead of having windows foisted upon them. Of course this may result in some clueless newbies inadvertently screwing up their new boxes, but it's definitly worth it to establish Linux as a true mainstream force. The trend, if sucessful could convince software companies to port all their products to Linux and provide more tech support for Linux users. Plus, if Linux hits the mainstream, MS might actually have to start working on fixing Windows instead of relying on their market monopoly. I hope this trend continues in full force.
Imagine the effects widespread tech devotion would have on the college scene:
#1. College football and basketball replaced by such popular technically themed sports as College Hax0ring, College Virus Programming, and College Server-Admining "And in an incredible display of 31337ness, the underdogs from Georgia Tech 0wned top-ranked MIT's boxes to advance to the Final Four of the NCAA's 2000 College Hax0ring Championships"
#2. Fraternaty iniations will become nerd-oriented "To become a true Alpha, you will have to install 5 different Linux distribs on the same box within the nest half-hour... and then bear the pain and watch as we reformat all your hard work!!!! BUAHAHAHA"
#3. Frat parties will change drastically "Hey Bill, massive Quake LAN party at the Delta house!!!! All the hot Linux sorority girls will be there"
#4. The SATS will be completely redone, and will feature Hardware and Programming sections "Question 31337: Why does Wind0ze suck?" a) because it does b) Frequent BSOD's, poor use of memory, minimal security... c) BILL GATES MUST DIE!!!! d) all of the above
#5. College applications will have radically different questions "Name_______ Year Of Graduation____ Prefered Unix-Based OS_____ Gigs Of Mp3's (to the nearest 10)____ Number Of 31337 Shell Accounts____"
That, my friends, is the future of college education!
I am ecstatic of the idea of Linux hotels, and I propose that the idea be taken even further and a chain of hourly charging Linux motels be opened now. After all, Linux geeks desperately need a place to bring all those hot drunk Linux chix0rs they pick up at LUG meetings. Just picture it, what could be more romantic than a night of Linux-themed sex0r with penguin bedsheets, wallpaper, magic fingers (controlled by a Linux box of course) and a condom vending machine that distributes condoms with penguin graphics stamped on them. This is a glorious idea for horny Linux geeks across the world!
I don't want to seem like a soulless monster, which is what professor Singer has been stigmatized as, but the I do feel the man has somewhat of a point.
First of all, I would like to state that I disagree with waiting until months after the birth to perform the "act", but I think it should be considered from the prenatal stage to recently after the birth. Since modern medical technology has enabled people to forsee the physical status of the baby in fetus form, potential serious disabilities should be fairly detctable. In such a case the doctor could make a detailed note of this to the expecting parents, and the option of abortion could be raised, or closer monitoring of the fetus could be done to see what actions could be taken.
I know this may sound inhumane, but I'm sure the severly disabled aren't exactly living in a state of bliss. Yes there are many disabled people who do manage to somewhat overcome their situation and live relatively normal lives. However, I'm sure that there as many if not more disabled individuals who are unhappy and miserable because of their situation. As a sidenote I would like to say that the decision depends on what is labelled as severly disabled (obviously 'too light' or 'imperfect skin' and such minor issues shouldnt be listed, only EXTREME CASES OF DISABILITY).
Since I have no experience with disability, I will admit that I don't have much of a place saying that euthinasia will benefit the disabled themselves, but then there are the utilitarian reasons for it. First of all the parents have to be considered in the affair. Yes, the majority of such are readily willing to take whatever action needed out of obligatory parental and familial love, but without a doubt it places them in a highly stressful, expensive, and to some extent miserable situation to have to devote their own lives to taking care of a single disbaled person. It can be especially problematic in households with multiple children, where the 'healthy' ones are neglected because of demands of the disabled child, or where there are multiple disabled children that require more care.
Also there are the sheer medical costs that are required to care for an extremely handicapped person. Although parents should be able to care for the child if they can afford to, most such parents aren't so well off, and thus the costs necessary for care are sent to insurance or the governemnts health care program, and as a result the average American citizen. I don't have anything personal against disabled people, but it is outrageous that a fair share taxes I pay should be used by the government to subsidize the exhorbant medical costs of someone who cannot pay for them by themselves. I don't mind giving charity, but tax money should not be diverted towards such a resultless cause. The benefit of the average person outweighs the need of a single lesser individual. In effect, such programs disrupt natural selection, where those incapable of independant survival are weeded out by failure to fend for oneself. Instead, the capable are being brought down by the needs of the disabled. Lastly, promoting the disabled population will ultimately lead to a continued abundance of highly disabled indivuals, as their genes will be passed on down, thus creating future struggles with disability as well.
Lastly I would like to adress the moral issue. As I stated above, I do DISAGREE with killing after an extended period after birth. The decision for euthinasia should be researched, contemplated (and hopefully finalized)before the birth process occurs. And despite what we think, fetuses are not fully sentient beings like developed human beings. Who among us can recall memories from the fetus stage, or even the early stages of infancy? The fetus or infant may be human physically, but nearly in terms of mental capacity. Thus I think it's fair to label it as a lesser version of a human during this transitory period.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I don't strongly advocate Mr. Singer's proposal, but I do feel that the option perhaps be looked into instead of being instantly labelled as murderous evil. Though it may seem cruel, the plan does have potential benefits to the masses, which is the general goal of the majority of such proposals. Perhaps if a clear line on what constitutes severe disability were drawn, and the decisions were backed by months of prenatal research, the plan could be a decent idea.
And before I close, I would like to ask that I not be flamed. It is my opinion on the issue, and you have every right to strongly disagree with me. But when people resort to heavy personal attacks because the way an individual thinks, as is being done to Mr. Singer, they commit just as great a crime as what they are convicting him of.
Sure I have to admit that the idea is impressive, but what would be accomplished by using such technoloigcal resources to place a scrolling ad on a box? Not only is this an utter waste of technology, but it also creates even more problems regarding pollution and waste. It might save some paper, but at least you can gather up paper and recycle it. I doubt that you can the same with silicon, and the article didn't even bother to explore the possible negative ecological ramifications that these disposable chips could have. I'm not trying to be some tree-hugger, but we certainally don't need to be wasting resources and creating potential polluting problems for the sake of having some flashy milk carton ads. Besides, if current newspaper publishing and reading is too much of hassle, why not utilize the internet as means of distribution as so many other sites are currently doing? That would be a lot more convenient than disposable chip newspapers.
It's a nice little plan and I applaud the researchers, but I feel it would be much nicer if they focused their talents toward something else more usefull and less potentially damaging. Hell the article spent less than one full paragraph listing real life applications for the technology, and the few that were mentioned are not so incredibly urgent or revolutionary that disposable processors will become the standard.
Considering the possible mass amounts of waste these dispoasble chips could create, the minimal convenience that stands to be gained is nothing. Nice job guys, but find something better to do.
Personally I think Patriot made a bad choice by deciding to have all these "toy" computers run Windows. I can just picture the shouts of all those little tykes: "Mommy, Mommy why's the screen all blue?"
Gotta give Pizza Hut some credit though. I mean, look at the way they're taking the initative. Rocket advertising, and a large burned logo on the moon! Sure there may not be any life on the moon, but Pizza Hut can't be bothered with such trivial details when there's a vast untapped moon market out there that is just waiting for fast food pizza!
Seriously though, wtf does Pizza Hut hope to accomplish with this. Even scarier is the simple thought of defacing a whole heavenly body just for advertising purposes. That kinda stuff is supervillan material (though I suppose todays corporations are the current equivilent). Besides do they really expect people to be walking around at night, look up and suddenly see a giant Pizza Hut logo staring down at them, and develop an irrisitble craving for Pizza. Here's a thought Pizza Hut, spend the money improving your food and service. I don't give a crap if you have a logo on some random Russian rocket, I want a pizza that actually has more than a drop of pizza sauce on it and I want it delivered before I start gnawing on my limbs to satisfy my hunger.
Gotta give Pizza Hut some credit though. I mean, look at the way they're taking the initative. Rocket advertising, and a large burned logo on the moon! Sure there may not be any life on the moon, but Pizza Hut can't be bothered with such trivial details when there's a vast untapped moon market out there that is just waiting for fast food pizza!
Seriously though, wtf does Pizza Hut hope to accomplish with this. Even scarier is the simple thought of defacing a whole heavenly body just for advertising purposes. That kinda stuff is supervillan material (though I suppose todays corporations are the current equivilent). Besides do they really expect people to be walking around at night, look up and suddenly see a giant Pizza Hut logo staring down at them, and develop an irrisitble craving for Pizza. Here's a thought Pizza Hut, spend the money improving your food and service. I don't give a crap if you have a logo on some random Russian rocket, I want a pizza that actually has more than a drop of pizza sauce on it and I want it delivered before I start gnawing on my limbs to satisfy my hunger.
Yes, it is possible to rip from DAT's I have yet to actually do so myself but here's a link to a thread on mp3.com's forum that should explain the process.
Sorry to be offtopic, but as an obsessive simpsons fan I have to correct it. It should be "40 rods to the hogshead", and of lesser note he makes a gramatical error in the end and says "and that's the way I likes it!"
Btw the bestsimpsons reference site is www.snpp.com, if you ever need to look up other obscure quotes:)
I wonder if you could build multiple layers of fresnel boxes and expontentially increase the size of your monitor. Screw 30", set up a double box for your own 60" monster. Just sit back 15 or so feet, play a vcd, and you got your own mega blurry mini-theater!!!
Out of boredom, and a overly large amount of free time, I decided to make some betting odds for what I'm going to be doing come New Year's Eve 2:1 says I'll be exploiting bandwidth left free by all those people out partying by stockpiling mp3
I do feel that it is a good thing that online music is finally getting recognized and used by artists, but it looks like there is a fair share of improvment to be done.
First of all, despite the article's heavy focus on mp3, the two artists noted for releasing online music (David Bowie and Pete Townshend) didn't even release their albums in that format. As several readers here have pointed out, Bowie released his album in *shudder* liquid audio, and Townshends album was in.wma format.
But let me get back to mp3's. As of now, I imagine that new album releases are mp3 are likely intended to for use with portable mp3 players. As it seems with the amount of memory available on current players, (32 or 64 on the Rio), mp3 players expect that the user will encode their mp3's in a highly compressed and thus lower quality bitrate, like 96 or 128. Furthermore I havent found a major legal mp3 site which goes into detailed description about how they encode their mp3s (judging by their product support i bet they use *vomit* xing). I also doubt the artists or sites will care enough to encode their tracks at multiple bitrates and such to give consumers a choice. As a person who cares a lot about sound quality, I find this kind of dissapointing. Although I dislike the price of CD's, I do appreciate the control and choice I have in ripping and encoding my own mp3's. And if online downloads with only one choice of mp3 quality become the mainstream, the whole open nature of mp3s will be essentially void. I don't oppose mp3 releases, rather I think it's great to give the RIAA a run for its money, but I just hope the whole practice is given a little more time and quality consideration.
Personally I just hope all these victimized sites don't try any pagejacking of their own to get back at the porns sites. Few things would piss me off more than having a legitmate site pop up when im trying to get my daily porn fix:)
Slashdot Mirror
If you want to start denouncing mp3 collectors, such as myself (I have about 55 mp3 cds, which is a decent amount) I think you need to see the other side of the picture.
Fact - Music piracy stats (just like software piracy stats) are unreliable at best, and blatently made-up at worst. This is basically because record companies have no real way to determine how much is lost from piracy. Not every person that downloads a "pirated" album would have bought a legit copy of the album had there not been the mp3s. In other words, if I download 5 random albums, I'm not "stealing" $75 of merchandise because to be honest, without mp3 availability I would have gone without the albums rather than spend money on them. Thus, the companies wouldnt have made that $75 either way. However, record companies do tend to assume the contrary so they can bloat their "piracy losses" and make it a big deal.
Fact: Music piracy does not threaten the livlihood of artists. Artists make a very little percentage of the money generated by the sale of an album (maybe a dollar or two per $15 album). Rather, the only people who are threatened in any way by music piracy are the record companies. And they are the bloated, money driven corporate scum despised by many in the music industry. If anyone hurts the artist, it is the greedy record company who signs the artist under the pretense of aiding his career, then copyrights all the artists' work, whores him out to the media, distorts the actual craft of the music for the sake of record sales, and pockets the majority of record sale money in order to have a hefty profit. In an optomistic sense, pirates are kinda helping the artists by not only exposing the band, but also killing off the evil giants known as record companies. Oh and let us not forgot that the majority of a musician's income comes from concerts, gigs, tours, endorsments, advertising, etc. Record sales generate a small percentage of a musician's income.
Fact: Many many bands support taping and trading of their music. As shown by this Phish event, and this lil page - http://www.enteract.com/~wagner/btat/index.html - a large amount of bands are for distribution of their music. Yes I understand that doesn't include studio albums, but it does totally mean that the majority of bootleg live music which is traded heavily through the internet is perfectly legal and fine.
Fact: Emusic and the like are just as bad as the record companies. Just because they deal in "legal mp3's" doesnt make them the poster child for a good honest business. Emusic charges just as much as, if not more for lower quality digital music (poorly ripped and encoded imho) than standard cds. Even though they have support from several major bands, I'm certain that Emusic pockets the same excessively high percentage of the money from music sales as record companies do. Emusic doesnt care about artists, they're just some clueless suits trying to cash in off of the digital music movement. They're just as full of crap and gimmicks as all the other bloated record companies. And then there's sites like mp3.com, who claims to be in staunch support of the artist, yet recently decided to offically support their own payola scheme and charge artists for more exposure. Personally, the whole legal mp3 aspect doesn't make any of the sites any better. They're just as greedy as the others, and I hope they fail.
I doubt you intended to incite this type of a response, but as a devoted mp3 collector and trader, I find it unfair for you to suggest that I am some morally decrepit jerk because of my habit. Me and the like just want to have some fun and some good music to listen to without paying out the ass for it (Btw when you consider the costs of a good computer, cd burner, cd-r media, broadband connection, and cd storage I am spending a LOT more than a cent) If you really want to complain about evils, go take a look at the record companies. Granted, music "pirates" shouldnt be hailed as heroes, but when it comes down to it we are the far lesser of two evils.
God I love legos! I've played with those things in my childhood years, and they provided hours of endless fun. I'd still be spending hordes of money of legos if it wasnt for the blasted "Recommended for ages 7-12" sign that graced every package. Now if I'd go to the counter to buy those cool new legos I'd be greeted with more embarassment than a guy buying a full case of condoms and adult diapers. I think we should petition to have that evil sign removed from every box of legos so closet lego collectors can buy lego products in public without feeling any shame or recieving any scrutiny from others. Now if you excuse me, I must go shut the windowblinds and lock myself in my room so nobody will find out my secret lego habit. :)
1. You could always immerse the tower in a large cooler full of dry ice, keeping the machine cool, and emmiting a steady stream of CO2 vapors for your entertainment.
:)
2. Spray some liquid nitrogen on the cpu. Sure you might shatter the cpu, but if it survives, you can overclock that baby like hell... not to mention having extra liquid N2 readily available in case you get a nasty wart on your typing fingers.
3. Set up office in one of those giant wind tunnels with the case open, and anchor everything to the floor. Now hows that for a good fan?
4. Failing that you could always rent a giant meat locker or other refridgerated area and run your computer from there.
5. Move to Antarctica. If you by chance can get a high speed internet connection there, gimme a shell
6. Chain a small sibling or a friend to your desk, and have them continuously blow on the cpu to cool it, keeping a whip handy should they whine about being bored, tired, or hungry.
Now that the cooling issue is settled, let's see how ridiculously fast we can overclock. Maybe we can push that Celeron 550 up to 1 gHz without it melting on us.
Obviously the impact of this program will depend totally on the support of colleges, and frankly I don't expect much. I fail to see what reason a major university would have to pay $2000 (even though it isn't much to them) for a "service" that will potentially reduce their profits from admission tuition. Besides, every school has a financial aid program set up for these exact purposes anyway, meaning the whole project is unnecessary. Also, the statements of the founder of the site make me very very skeptical about any potential of this program.
"he admits that state schools and private institutions like Princeton and Notre Dame wouldn't necessarily need eCollegebid"
Well um, weve already eliminated state schools and private colleges, which is like, what 99% of colleges? Seriously though, without any support from major universitys, the program will flop. Maybe a few students will be interested in a small scale, affordable school... but I think the majority of high school kids, especially the high achieving ones the program seeks, would rather want to go to Harvard, Duke, Stanford, or a state school rather than Bumblefuck University or Northwest Southern Central East Rhode Island College. And when the students see that their top choices are not offered on the site, they'll go back to mailing forms in.
"By the end of the year he hopes to have between 35 and 50 colleges active in the database"
35 to 50?????? THERE ARE MANY THOUSANDS OF COLLEGES OUT THERE!!!! What good would the program do if it only featured 1% of colleges? I realize the relative youth of the site, but nobody's gonna bother with such a limited choice.
Moreover, the fact that the founder refuses to list specific names disturbs me. We all know that if, say Yale, or even some random state school, were to take part in the program he would be shamelessly promoting it. "YES, EVEN TOP SCHOOLS LIKE YALE SUPPORT THE ECOLLEGEBID PROGRAM!" Instead, he's just hiding full information to cover up the glaring weakness of the site.
I'm afraid I have to agree with all the critics. However a novel idea, the site fails to show itself a worthy replacment of current financial aid programs. It's not going to attract any big name colleges, and in turn the limited selection of available schools on the site will completely turn off any prospective users. I'm sure it might help a few kids here and there find some quaint little backwoods college for a cheap price, but eCollegeBid won't make it in the long run.
We could also add .slashachusetts and have our lil slashdot mirror running in case the main server ever borks out :)
*sigh* Is there no end to this kind of crap? I'm just of sick of clueless suits aimlessly tacking on buzzwords and other crap to generate interest. The worst part of the whole internet revolution is this whole buzzword trend thats come across. Seems like everyone's adding "Cyber-", "E-", "-Online", or "-.com" in a pathetic attempt to cash in off the web. The sad part is even the government has been induced into all of this mindless drivel, passing various "Cyber-" bills and what not, and now the state of Massachusetts is pulling this crap. I'm not questioning Massachusetts' status as a top technology state, but all this method of advertising it is pathetic. You're not going to win many people over with this, because nobody cares about how witty and clever your naming ability is. Concentrate on proving that Massachusetts is a real legitimate place to locate a technological business. In fact, I bet the majority of skilled engineers and programmers Mass is trying to recruit will probably be turned off by this blatent act of shallow self-promotion and head back to the Silicon Valley. And just another hint Massachusetts, you do have one of the top tech schools in the nation (MIT of course), why not focus on getting all those promising students to continue their work in MA instead of trying to flash around a punned logo.
Burrito sized you say? Now we get the best of both worlds... small, efficient micro SMD's AND your choice of cheese, beans, and hot sauce!
Finally, the perfect thing for all those poor palm users who have been forced to be live with poor quality, grainy grayscale pr0n. The simple inclusion of color includes incredible promise for pr0n. No longer will we have to carry laptops to allow for full portable pr0n usage potential. No longer will our hardcore palm pilot sexpics be confined to limited monochrome graphics. The sheer though of having full color lesbian action pics on a device the size of my hand brings tears to my eyes. I predict that this simple, but wonderous advancment in pda (and more importantly pr0n) technology will sell palmpilots to all those pr0n connissuers on the go. Now all 3Com needs to do is add mpeg support, and were in portable pr0n heaven!
:)
btw, while were on the topic check out these great "potential palm pilot ads."
http://attrition.org/gallery/simplyporn01.jpg
http://attrition.org/gallery/simplyporn02.jpg
http://attrition.org/gallery/simplyporn03.jpg
http://attrition.org/gallery/simplyporn04.jpg
I think this is an interesting lil program that will really help Linux become much more widespread and get the standard user more comfortable with the transition to Linux. After all one of the main reasons Windows is so mainstream is its "do everything for you attitude", and the "work it out yourself" nature of Linux seems to have deterred, and even instilled fear into the average pc user.
But I still dont know whether this is in the best interest of new Linux users. I thought most of the point of Linux was learning how to set up everything so you dont have to rely on the OS to try to figure it out for you. It may be useful for when you're lazy or new, but the concept of automation might spread to other areas and be abused. I hope that the newbies who do start to run Linux with the aid of the program dont become fully dependant on auto-install features. After all these automated install routines should be considered only as training wheels and disposed of after the necessary experience is gained. Otherwise, why switch in the first place?
As of now it still looks too good to be true. After all, still no monitor, some highly outdated components, and no mention of a warranty. Not to mention the eerie IMac-esque focus on color and looks (now in 6 delicious fruit flavors). Might make a nice gift for granny or the kids or a halfassed web machine (ew), but i dont expect too much use from it yet.
However, the option to have Linux preinstalled on the box is a great idea that is finally coming around. Yes, self installation does teach a user a large amount of necessary information and skills, but then again, how many mainstream pc users could deal with installing windows by themselves from scratch? It's great that buyers are finally getting some choice on what OS they can run on their box instead of having windows foisted upon them. Of course this may result in some clueless newbies inadvertently screwing up their new boxes, but it's definitly worth it to establish Linux as a true mainstream force. The trend, if sucessful could convince software companies to port all their products to Linux and provide more tech support for Linux users. Plus, if Linux hits the mainstream, MS might actually have to start working on fixing Windows instead of relying on their market monopoly. I hope this trend continues in full force.
Imagine the effects widespread tech devotion would have on the college scene:
#1. College football and basketball replaced by such popular technically themed sports as College Hax0ring, College Virus Programming, and College Server-Admining
"And in an incredible display of 31337ness, the underdogs from Georgia Tech 0wned top-ranked MIT's boxes to advance to the Final Four of the NCAA's 2000 College Hax0ring Championships"
#2. Fraternaty iniations will become nerd-oriented
"To become a true Alpha, you will have to install 5 different Linux distribs on the same box within the nest half-hour... and then bear the pain and watch as we reformat all your hard work!!!! BUAHAHAHA"
#3. Frat parties will change drastically
"Hey Bill, massive Quake LAN party at the Delta house!!!! All the hot Linux sorority girls will be there"
#4. The SATS will be completely redone, and will feature Hardware and Programming sections
"Question 31337: Why does Wind0ze suck?"
a) because it does
b) Frequent BSOD's, poor use of memory, minimal security...
c) BILL GATES MUST DIE!!!!
d) all of the above
#5. College applications will have radically different questions
"Name_______
Year Of Graduation____
Prefered Unix-Based OS_____
Gigs Of Mp3's (to the nearest 10)____
Number Of 31337 Shell Accounts____"
That, my friends, is the future of college education!
I am ecstatic of the idea of Linux hotels, and I propose that the idea be taken even further and a chain of hourly charging Linux motels be opened now. After all, Linux geeks desperately need a place to bring all those hot drunk Linux chix0rs they pick up at LUG meetings. Just picture it, what could be more romantic than a night of Linux-themed sex0r with penguin bedsheets, wallpaper, magic fingers (controlled by a Linux box of course) and a condom vending machine that distributes condoms with penguin graphics stamped on them. This is a glorious idea for horny Linux geeks across the world!
I don't want to seem like a soulless monster, which is what professor Singer has been stigmatized as, but the I do feel the man has somewhat of a point.
First of all, I would like to state that I disagree with waiting until months after the birth to perform the "act", but I think it should be considered from the prenatal stage to recently after the birth. Since modern medical technology has enabled people to forsee the physical status of the baby in fetus form, potential serious disabilities should be fairly detctable. In such a case the doctor could make a detailed note of this to the expecting parents, and the option of abortion could be raised, or closer monitoring of the fetus could be done to see what actions could be taken.
I know this may sound inhumane, but I'm sure the severly disabled aren't exactly living in a state of bliss. Yes there are many disabled people who do manage to somewhat overcome their situation and live relatively normal lives. However, I'm sure that there as many if not more disabled individuals who are unhappy and miserable because of their situation. As a sidenote I would like to say that the decision depends on what is labelled as severly disabled (obviously 'too light' or 'imperfect skin' and such minor issues shouldnt be listed, only EXTREME CASES OF DISABILITY).
Since I have no experience with disability, I will admit that I don't have much of a place saying that euthinasia will benefit the disabled themselves, but then there are the utilitarian reasons for it. First of all the parents have to be considered in the affair. Yes, the majority of such are readily willing to take whatever action needed out of obligatory parental and familial love, but without a doubt it places them in a highly stressful, expensive, and to some extent miserable situation to have to devote their own lives to taking care of a single disbaled person. It can be especially problematic in households with multiple children, where the 'healthy' ones are neglected because of demands of the disabled child, or where there are multiple disabled children that require more care.
Also there are the sheer medical costs that are required to care for an extremely handicapped person. Although parents should be able to care for the child if they can afford to, most such parents aren't so well off, and thus the costs necessary for care are sent to insurance or the governemnts health care program, and as a result the average American citizen. I don't have anything personal against disabled people, but it is outrageous that a fair share taxes I pay should be used by the government to subsidize the exhorbant medical costs of someone who cannot pay for them by themselves. I don't mind giving charity, but tax money should not be diverted towards such a resultless cause. The benefit of the average person outweighs the need of a single lesser individual. In effect, such programs disrupt natural selection, where those incapable of independant survival are weeded out by failure to fend for oneself. Instead, the capable are being brought down by the needs of the disabled. Lastly, promoting the disabled population will ultimately lead to a continued abundance of highly disabled indivuals, as their genes will be passed on down, thus creating future struggles with disability as well.
Lastly I would like to adress the moral issue. As I stated above, I do DISAGREE with killing after an extended period after birth. The decision for euthinasia should be researched, contemplated (and hopefully finalized)before the birth process occurs. And despite what we think, fetuses are not fully sentient beings like developed human beings. Who among us can recall memories from the fetus stage, or even the early stages of infancy? The fetus or infant may be human physically, but nearly in terms of mental capacity. Thus I think it's fair to label it as a lesser version of a human during this transitory period.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I don't strongly advocate Mr. Singer's proposal, but I do feel that the option perhaps be looked into instead of being instantly labelled as murderous evil. Though it may seem cruel, the plan does have potential benefits to the masses, which is the general goal of the majority of such proposals. Perhaps if a clear line on what constitutes severe disability were drawn, and the decisions were backed by months of prenatal research, the plan could be a decent idea.
And before I close, I would like to ask that I not be flamed. It is my opinion on the issue, and you have every right to strongly disagree with me. But when people resort to heavy personal attacks because the way an individual thinks, as is being done to Mr. Singer, they commit just as great a crime as what they are convicting him of.
-Ater-
Sure I have to admit that the idea is impressive, but what would be accomplished by using such technoloigcal resources to place a scrolling ad on a box? Not only is this an utter waste of technology, but it also creates even more problems regarding pollution and waste. It might save some paper, but at least you can gather up paper and recycle it. I doubt that you can the same with silicon, and the article didn't even bother to explore the possible negative ecological ramifications that these disposable chips could have. I'm not trying to be some tree-hugger, but we certainally don't need to be wasting resources and creating potential polluting problems for the sake of having some flashy milk carton ads. Besides, if current newspaper publishing and reading is too much of hassle, why not utilize the internet as means of distribution as so many other sites are currently doing? That would be a lot more convenient than disposable chip newspapers.
It's a nice little plan and I applaud the researchers, but I feel it would be much nicer if they focused their talents toward something else more usefull and less potentially damaging. Hell the article spent less than one full paragraph listing real life applications for the technology, and the few that were mentioned are not so incredibly urgent or revolutionary that disposable processors will become the standard.
Considering the possible mass amounts of waste these dispoasble chips could create, the minimal convenience that stands to be gained is nothing. Nice job guys, but find something better to do.
Personally I think Patriot made a bad choice by deciding to have all these "toy" computers run Windows. I can just picture the shouts of all those little tykes: "Mommy, Mommy why's the screen all blue?"
Gotta give Pizza Hut some credit though. I mean, look at the way they're taking the initative. Rocket advertising, and a large burned logo on the moon! Sure there may not be any life on the moon, but Pizza Hut can't be bothered with such trivial details when there's a vast untapped moon market out there that is just waiting for fast food pizza!
Seriously though, wtf does Pizza Hut hope to accomplish with this. Even scarier is the simple thought of defacing a whole heavenly body just for advertising purposes. That kinda stuff is supervillan material (though I suppose todays corporations are the current equivilent). Besides do they really expect people to be walking around at night, look up and suddenly see a giant Pizza Hut logo staring down at them, and develop an irrisitble craving for Pizza. Here's a thought Pizza Hut, spend the money improving your food and service. I don't give a crap if you have a logo on some random Russian rocket, I want a pizza that actually has more than a drop of pizza sauce on it and I want it delivered before I start gnawing on my limbs to satisfy my hunger.
Gotta give Pizza Hut some credit though. I mean, look at the way they're taking the initative. Rocket advertising, and a large burned logo on the moon! Sure there may not be any life on the moon, but Pizza Hut can't be bothered with such trivial details when there's a vast untapped moon market out there that is just waiting for fast food pizza!
Seriously though, wtf does Pizza Hut hope to accomplish with this. Even scarier is the simple thought of defacing a whole heavenly body just for advertising purposes. That kinda stuff is supervillan material (though I suppose todays corporations are the current equivilent). Besides do they really expect people to be walking around at night, look up and suddenly see a giant Pizza Hut logo staring down at them, and develop an irrisitble craving for Pizza. Here's a thought Pizza Hut, spend the money improving your food and service. I don't give a crap if you have a logo on some random Russian rocket, I want a pizza that actually has more than a drop of pizza sauce on it and I want it delivered before I start gnawing on my limbs to satisfy my hunger.
Yes, it is possible to rip from DAT's I have yet to actually do so myself but here's a link to a thread on mp3.com's forum that should explain the process.
1 .html
http://bboard.mp3.com/mp3/ubb/Forum1/HTML/00053
Hope that helped
Sorry to be offtopic, but as an obsessive simpsons fan I have to correct it. It should be "40 rods to the hogshead", and of lesser note he makes a gramatical error in the end and says "and that's the way I likes it!"
:)
Btw the bestsimpsons reference site is www.snpp.com, if you ever need to look up other obscure quotes
I wonder if you could build multiple layers of fresnel boxes and expontentially increase the size of your monitor. Screw 30", set up a double box for your own 60" monster. Just sit back 15 or so feet, play a vcd, and you got your own mega blurry mini-theater!!!
Out of boredom, and a overly large amount of free time, I decided to make some betting odds for what I'm going to be doing come New Year's Eve 2:1 says I'll be exploiting bandwidth left free by all those people out partying by stockpiling mp3
I do feel that it is a good thing that online music is finally getting recognized and used by artists, but it looks like there is a fair share of improvment to be done.
.wma format.
First of all, despite the article's heavy focus on mp3, the two artists noted for releasing online music (David Bowie and Pete Townshend) didn't even release their albums in that format. As several readers here have pointed out, Bowie released his album in *shudder* liquid audio, and Townshends album was in
But let me get back to mp3's. As of now, I imagine that new album releases are mp3 are likely intended to for use with portable mp3 players. As it seems with the amount of memory available on current players, (32 or 64 on the Rio), mp3 players expect that the user will encode their mp3's in a highly compressed and thus lower quality bitrate, like 96 or 128. Furthermore I havent found a major legal mp3 site which goes into detailed description about how they encode their mp3s (judging by their product support i bet they use *vomit* xing). I also doubt the artists or sites will care enough to encode their tracks at multiple bitrates and such to give consumers a choice. As a person who cares a lot about sound quality, I find this kind of dissapointing. Although I dislike the price of CD's, I do appreciate the control and choice I have in ripping and encoding my own mp3's. And if online downloads with only one choice of mp3 quality become the mainstream, the whole open nature of mp3s will be essentially void. I don't oppose mp3 releases, rather I think it's great to give the RIAA a run for its money, but I just hope the whole practice is given a little more time and quality consideration.
Personally I just hope all these victimized sites don't try any pagejacking of their own to get back at the porns sites. Few things would piss me off more than having a legitmate site pop up when im trying to get my daily porn fix :)