Steve Irwin was essentially a wildlife daredevil, famous for risking his life as entertainment, and he obviously took one risk too many. He was famous, you could say, for defying the expected.
Jim Fixx was the most prominent advocate of running and jogging to improve health and fitness, and he dropped dead at 52 while running. Despite whatever other factors might have caused his death, I'd still say that's far more incongruous than a daredevil dying in a stunt.
But to whatever extent that either man's death was "ironic", it is not exclusive to either's death being "tragic".
The reason record labels don't pay artists much is because record labels spend millions in giving out advances, in promoting the music, and most artists never make back the money spent on them.
Let me get this straight...when listing reasons why artists don't get paid much, the first one you list is that they have to pay advances to the artists?!?
And big business? Well, they'll be doing the same. A lot of the functionality we've been seeing plugged into Vista (not this Glass and New Improved Solitaire! rubbish) has been directed towards business.
After seeing what a major corporation went through to move from Win2K to XP (which was by far a less sweeping upgrade than what Vista seems to be), I can't imagine that big business will be migrating to Vista all so quickly. I can only imagine how many VB6 apps will have problems in Vista. From everything I've heard, XP to Vista will be huge migration effort compared to 2000 to XP, and I have a feeling the business world is going to adopt a more "wait and see" attitude. I have little doubt they will still eventually drink the MS kool-aid, but I think they'll need a lot more prodding this around.
You just don't get it, it's the pro-Pluto people that are the terrorists, and they must be defeated. This is all part of greater struggle against Iceball Fascism, where all the the objects in the Kuiper Belt are going to join together and form the great Iceball Caliphate. If we don't fight against Pluto, we'll be fighting the Iceballs here on Earth. You pro-Pluto people are just appeasing the Fascist Iceballs.
What I'd like to see is a system where the music is storted on the computer in the library in a lossless format, and then when you sync your player, if it can fit on as lossless, then that's how it goes. (There are a lot of people running around with half-full or less iPods!) If it can't, then it would start to compress it using the codec of your choice.
Obviously, this could increase sync times a lot --
There is an existing codec that can do pretty much what you ask WITHOUT transcoding: Wavpack.
Wavpack is a pretty neat little codec that does both lossy and lossless compression. It also has a "hybrid" lossless mode that creates two files: one is fixed bitrate lossy audio (.wv), the other is the "correction" file (.wvc) which contains all the discarded data from the lossy compression and together the two files comprise a lossless track.
So for your scenario, you could have your home library ripped with hybrid Wavpack and have lossless goodness, but to load to your portable player you could load only the lossy portion to save space. No extra transcoding needed.
The only drawback is that Wavpack is not supported by any hardware devices out of the box, though the Wikipedia article says that players that can run Rockbox can play Wavpack.
I haven't found that at all. In fact, I started using CFLs a few years ago for hard-to-reach enclosed ceiling fixtures for the sole reason that I wouldn't need to replace them as often. I haven't replaced one yet, though since they've been coming down in price I've been using them to replace all my incandescent lights.
Bingo! I have to believe 99% of all the people who passed around the "Snakes on a Plane" meme did so out of a "My-God-this-is too-stupid-even-for-Hollywood" mindset. Does it really surprise anyone that such publicity might not result in blockbuster sales?
I know these Hollywood marketing types are trained to believe that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but this is the second article I've read wondering why the Internet buzz didn't translate into 3. Profit! without either even mentioning the fact that all the hype was based on the absurdity of the film's name.
"No, no, this just proves the failure of the Internet as a marketing tool." Hmmm...then again, maybe it's a good thing for them to draw that conclusion, and keep these clueless asshats focused elsewhere.
whilst this is no doubt a bit of a "d'oh" moment for MS I doubt it will be a serious problem for anyone. * For this to have any affect on you you need to have SP1 but have the latest update of security for IE 6, surely if anyone updated regularly and applied security updates they'd be using SP2 anyway...
Well, count me as "not anyone". I still run Win2000 on two machines, and my one XP box is still SP1 because I refuse to install WGA. On the other hand, this now prevents me from using Windows Update as well so you could say it doesn't affect me, but I can still update through WindizUpdate though I'm not sure if the broken patch made it there or not.
Point being...there are still people who haven't gone to SP2 or even XP yet and don't plan to, but they still install updates. They might be a small minority percentage-wise, but that doesn't mean there's not lots of them out there.
"I dunno how much AIDS scare y'all, but I got a theory - the day they come out with a cure for AIDS. Guaranteed, one-shot cure. On that day, there's gonna be fucking in the streets, man. It's over! Who're you? C'mere! What's your name, baby? No, it's over, yeah, woo-hoo! Man, if you can't get laid on that day, cut it off."
I am saying that evolution is obviously a successful idea, so why should we care what idiots think? Those people are not the people who will be developing the successful drugs.
No, but in a democracy, the idiots can vote for people who will make such development more difficult (e.g., stem cells). That's why a majority of ignorami is a problem.
The RIAA is a late-comer to the "flag"-method of content control, which can be generically described as follows: mandate all broadcasters to use technology to embed mandated "flags" that are then "respected" by hardware designed under mandate to obey the mandatory behavior.
Why devise a new solution when a fitting solution already exists?
That was my stated solution to the discomfort of airline travel long before 9/11 made the experience truly suck. Dope 'em up and ship 'em like cargo. It would probably even reduce the cost considerably.
I could get flamed for this, but in the early years, Ross Perot with Texas Instruments is a good example of how that can work.
I don't know if you'd call it a flame, but as far as I can determine, Ross Perot had no direct connection to Texas Instruments. Perot made his fortune founding a company called EDS. Texas Instruments is not mentioned on Wikipedia's Ross Perot page or on the EDS page, nor are either Perot or EDS mentioned on the Texas Instruments page.
Also, I don't know about the early days, but I once had a head-hunter come forward with an opportunity at EDS, which a respected colleague who had worked for them said it was the most anal and controlling employer he ever worked for. For whatever that's worth.
Where did I say that corn shouldn't ever be used? It's just not an efficient source from which to produce ethanol as a long term option.
Thing is...no one is saying that we in the US ONLY need to use corn...
Well, if you look up to where this thread started, the assertion was:
in order to replace gasoline, 97% of the land mass of the US would have to be nothing but corn to produce the amount of ethanol
This view is likely based on a study often used to refute the idea of ethanol as a fuel (cited elsewhere on this thread), and it only considers corn as a fuel crop.
So yes, some people out there ARE only considering corn.
Hmmm...reminds me of the War of Drugs, the US enacts a bad policy and blindly follows it down the road to ruin without ever reconsidering whether such a policy has become counterproductive or even self-destructive.
I guess you could say the US is "Stuck in the Corn Hole".
Actually, I've always thought some variation of the diesel-electric model could be very useful, and it was not my intention to criticize the idea.
One thing I like about it is that it seems as it would be a good way to make electric vehicles more practical, that is, instead of relying solely on battery charge, have small diesel generator as backup. Such a system might also be able to easily integrate solar panels on the vehicle to help keep the electrical charge up and extend the vehicle range. I have no idea how practical or efficient any of that might be, but it strikes me an interesting area to explored.
I personally think we should be moving towards hybrid biodiesel vehicles - the diesel drives a generator, the electrical power is used immediately or stored, the braking energy is captured and stored...
I believe what you describe here is not what anyone would call a hybrid technology, but is more akin to diesel-electric, which has been widely used for trains and ships for many years.
Actually, Brazil (which encompasses much of the Amazon basin), manages a great degree of self-sufficiency for vehicle fuel using ethanol, and they haven't had to use 97% of their land to do it. A large part of their success stems from the fact that they use sugar cane, not corn, to make ethanol, which I read is far more efficient in terms of both land use and energy required for conversion than corn.
Corn is not a great source for producing ethanol, but the reason it is the highly touted source in the US is because there is already a massive and highly subsidized infrastruture for growing corn in the US, and corn farmers have a powerful lobby. Ethanol from corn may well not be a long-term energy solution, but that doesn't mean that ethanol form other sources can't be viable, and Brazil has shown that.
"Definition of rock journalism: People who can't write, doing interviews with people who can't think, in order to prepare articles for people who can't read."
What if he didn't believe in the cause? What if he believed the protestors were WRONG and he believes the opposite way? In his mind, then, the hippies are the selfish ones for blocking up traffic for their "cause". Who gets to protest the protesters?
I think you really need a refresher course in how free speech works. If the protesters have the right to hold a protest in the fashion they did, it is utterly irrelevant who agrees with them or not. If it bothers you that much, then it's YOU who should be protesting the protesters. Amazing how that works, isn't it?
Sounds to me like you're one of those hippies who refuse to believe that anyone else could possibly be right if their view differs from yours.
Sounds to me like you're one of those of those right-wing zealots who believe that people should have free speech only when you agree with them.
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Well, notwithstanding the "uncle" post's objection to the common understanding of the word "ironic", I would argue that Jim Fixx's death is more ironic than Steve Irwin's (in the "misused" sense of "incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs)."
Steve Irwin was essentially a wildlife daredevil, famous for risking his life as entertainment, and he obviously took one risk too many. He was famous, you could say, for defying the expected.
Jim Fixx was the most prominent advocate of running and jogging to improve health and fitness, and he dropped dead at 52 while running. Despite whatever other factors might have caused his death, I'd still say that's far more incongruous than a daredevil dying in a stunt.
But to whatever extent that either man's death was "ironic", it is not exclusive to either's death being "tragic".
Let me get this straight...when listing reasons why artists don't get paid much, the first one you list is that they have to pay advances to the artists?!?
After seeing what a major corporation went through to move from Win2K to XP (which was by far a less sweeping upgrade than what Vista seems to be), I can't imagine that big business will be migrating to Vista all so quickly. I can only imagine how many VB6 apps will have problems in Vista. From everything I've heard, XP to Vista will be huge migration effort compared to 2000 to XP, and I have a feeling the business world is going to adopt a more "wait and see" attitude. I have little doubt they will still eventually drink the MS kool-aid, but I think they'll need a lot more prodding this around.
You just don't get it, it's the pro-Pluto people that are the terrorists, and they must be defeated. This is all part of greater struggle against Iceball Fascism, where all the the objects in the Kuiper Belt are going to join together and form the great Iceball Caliphate. If we don't fight against Pluto, we'll be fighting the Iceballs here on Earth. You pro-Pluto people are just appeasing the Fascist Iceballs.
There is an existing codec that can do pretty much what you ask WITHOUT transcoding: Wavpack.
Wavpack is a pretty neat little codec that does both lossy and lossless compression. It also has a "hybrid" lossless mode that creates two files: one is fixed bitrate lossy audio (.wv), the other is the "correction" file (.wvc) which contains all the discarded data from the lossy compression and together the two files comprise a lossless track.
So for your scenario, you could have your home library ripped with hybrid Wavpack and have lossless goodness, but to load to your portable player you could load only the lossy portion to save space. No extra transcoding needed.
The only drawback is that Wavpack is not supported by any hardware devices out of the box, though the Wikipedia article says that players that can run Rockbox can play Wavpack.
I haven't found that at all. In fact, I started using CFLs a few years ago for hard-to-reach enclosed ceiling fixtures for the sole reason that I wouldn't need to replace them as often. I haven't replaced one yet, though since they've been coming down in price I've been using them to replace all my incandescent lights.
Bingo! I have to believe 99% of all the people who passed around the "Snakes on a Plane" meme did so out of a "My-God-this-is too-stupid-even-for-Hollywood" mindset. Does it really surprise anyone that such publicity might not result in blockbuster sales?
I know these Hollywood marketing types are trained to believe that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but this is the second article I've read wondering why the Internet buzz didn't translate into 3. Profit! without either even mentioning the fact that all the hype was based on the absurdity of the film's name.
"No, no, this just proves the failure of the Internet as a marketing tool." Hmmm...then again, maybe it's a good thing for them to draw that conclusion, and keep these clueless asshats focused elsewhere.
Doubly ironic that you would say that in a thread about how an update actually introduced a bug.
Well, count me as "not anyone". I still run Win2000 on two machines, and my one XP box is still SP1 because I refuse to install WGA. On the other hand, this now prevents me from using Windows Update as well so you could say it doesn't affect me, but I can still update through WindizUpdate though I'm not sure if the broken patch made it there or not.
Point being...there are still people who haven't gone to SP2 or even XP yet and don't plan to, but they still install updates. They might be a small minority percentage-wise, but that doesn't mean there's not lots of them out there.
"I dunno how much AIDS scare y'all, but I got a theory - the day they come out with a cure for AIDS. Guaranteed, one-shot cure. On that day, there's gonna be fucking in the streets, man. It's over! Who're you? C'mere! What's your name, baby? No, it's over, yeah, woo-hoo! Man, if you can't get laid on that day, cut it off."
-- Bill Hicks
No, but in a democracy, the idiots can vote for people who will make such development more difficult (e.g., stem cells). That's why a majority of ignorami is a problem.
FTA:
Why devise a new solution when a fitting solution already exists?
That was my stated solution to the discomfort of airline travel long before 9/11 made the experience truly suck. Dope 'em up and ship 'em like cargo. It would probably even reduce the cost considerably.
Fourteen garbage cans.
I don't know if you'd call it a flame, but as far as I can determine, Ross Perot had no direct connection to Texas Instruments. Perot made his fortune founding a company called EDS. Texas Instruments is not mentioned on Wikipedia's Ross Perot page or on the EDS page, nor are either Perot or EDS mentioned on the Texas Instruments page.
Also, I don't know about the early days, but I once had a head-hunter come forward with an opportunity at EDS, which a respected colleague who had worked for them said it was the most anal and controlling employer he ever worked for. For whatever that's worth.
Where did I say that corn shouldn't ever be used? It's just not an efficient source from which to produce ethanol as a long term option.
Well, if you look up to where this thread started, the assertion was:
This view is likely based on a study often used to refute the idea of ethanol as a fuel (cited elsewhere on this thread), and it only considers corn as a fuel crop.
So yes, some people out there ARE only considering corn.
Hmmm...reminds me of the War of Drugs, the US enacts a bad policy and blindly follows it down the road to ruin without ever reconsidering whether such a policy has become counterproductive or even self-destructive.
I guess you could say the US is "Stuck in the Corn Hole".
Actually, I've always thought some variation of the diesel-electric model could be very useful, and it was not my intention to criticize the idea.
One thing I like about it is that it seems as it would be a good way to make electric vehicles more practical, that is, instead of relying solely on battery charge, have small diesel generator as backup. Such a system might also be able to easily integrate solar panels on the vehicle to help keep the electrical charge up and extend the vehicle range. I have no idea how practical or efficient any of that might be, but it strikes me an interesting area to explored.
I believe what you describe here is not what anyone would call a hybrid technology, but is more akin to diesel-electric, which has been widely used for trains and ships for many years.
Good point, too much of the commentary I've read so far seems fixated on the false idea that corn is the only possible source for ethanol.
Actually, Brazil (which encompasses much of the Amazon basin), manages a great degree of self-sufficiency for vehicle fuel using ethanol, and they haven't had to use 97% of their land to do it. A large part of their success stems from the fact that they use sugar cane, not corn, to make ethanol, which I read is far more efficient in terms of both land use and energy required for conversion than corn.
Corn is not a great source for producing ethanol, but the reason it is the highly touted source in the US is because there is already a massive and highly subsidized infrastruture for growing corn in the US, and corn farmers have a powerful lobby. Ethanol from corn may well not be a long-term energy solution, but that doesn't mean that ethanol form other sources can't be viable, and Brazil has shown that.
"Writing [Talking] about music is like dancing about architecture."
Evidently that one is not attributed with certainty to Zappa...see here.
Still a great quote though.
The actual Zappa quote:
"Definition of rock journalism: People who can't write, doing interviews with people who can't think, in order to prepare articles for people who can't read."
I think you really need a refresher course in how free speech works. If the protesters have the right to hold a protest in the fashion they did, it is utterly irrelevant who agrees with them or not. If it bothers you that much, then it's YOU who should be protesting the protesters. Amazing how that works, isn't it?
Sounds to me like you're one of those of those right-wing zealots who believe that people should have free speech only when you agree with them.