What's the difference between The Onion and mainstream media? Everyone at The Onion knows their product is 100% fictional.
Often, the Onion is closer to the truth than real news media.
To paraphrase Stuart Lee: Now, that story about an apple user isn't true, but I feel what it says about apple users...
I don't think I've ever spent any time converting FLAC to AAC (which is what I use on my portable player - HTC Desire). I buy a CD, put it in the media player, and press OK on the remote control. Some minutes later, the CD pops out again. The media player music storage has a FLAC copy (which it plays just fine), the portable player sync folder has an AAC copy.
I don't see why I couldn't download a FLAC file, and have some service auto-convert it to AAC and put it in the appropriate place. Should be trivial on Windows or Linux.
If you have any DNLA media players, FLAC could be converted on the fly to whatever format they want, including any of the widely supported.lossless formats, like WAV, WMA Lossless, and Apple Lossless, etc.
Whether you think the difference in quality between mp3 & lossless is worth it is a personal choice. If you listen to a lot of classical, or actually know what a cymbal or violin sounds like, you might prefer FLAC. If you only listen to compressed to death pop through $0.50 earbuds on a clipped at 200Hz & 16KHz portable player while standing next to a busy road, then you're probably happy with mp3:-)
But personal choice is what the article is arguing for - why not actually allow people the choice in music downloads, in an unencumbered music format, that anyone with a PC capable of downloading it can listen to?
(TBH, I expect the answer would be "personal choice in music formats does not make money for the vendor".)
They have ignored court orders. They publish whatever they like and people seem to automatically assume that everything they say is the absolute truth, despite they having no credible track record. WikiLeaks is not a wiki in the true sense, there is no collaboration, the only people allowed to post are their little Cabal. Wikipedia, despite it's problems allows people to challenge its decisions in a publicly accountable way.
I think you've missed the whole point of WikiLeaks.
It's designed to be immune to national court orders, because it's meant to report on abuses by governments and their legal processes.
It's also designed to be unaccountable because it's meant to be immune to pressure on individuals by governments and corporations.
The fact that wikileaks has to go to these lengths to ensure that reporting corruption and abuse is possible is a reflection on the societies we live in, not the organisation itself.
They were not aquitted, they had their previous convictions quashed.
They were all originally found guilty, and sentenced to "up to" 3 years each, just for possessing a few dodgy pamphlets and recordings of "extremist sermons".
The appeals court (luckily a Court of Note in the UK, which means this does set a precedent) decided that in order to convict, the prosecution had to show intent to commit terrorist offences. The convictions were quashed because the jury was not told this, and the prosecution evidence would probably not have demonstrated it if they had been.
There's a whole bunch of these 'going equipped' style laws in the UK, where the courts presume to know why you were doing something that, without the intent to commit a crime in the future, would not be illegal.
Actually, the first sound (aside from crying) that a baby is capable of forming is the sound 'ma', and subsequently 'ma-ma'. Unfortunately, all those mothers who believe their child is referring to them are mistaken, although the term rapidly becomes associated with mother anyway, so it gets to be true after a while.
It should be obvious really, how else would every child ever born (that could vocalise) select the same sound?
Babies make a lot of different sounds well before they say 'ma': squealing, giggling, 'aaaaah', 'oooo', 'oh', 'eh', etc.
The fist consonant-vowel sound my son made was 'boo', followed by 'baa', then 'waa'.
Most euro languages have the same root, and particularly fundamental words like mother change very little. Non-European languages have different sounds for 'mother', infant-speak analogues include 'mu(-mu)' and 'ha(-ha)', at least.
TFA says Sun has "debuted software for a high-end cellphone that looked very similar to the Apple iPhone" but there are no pictures. In fact, I combed the web for more stories about this and none seem to have any pictures.
"Debuted Software"
-
You want pictures of the source code maybe?
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Industry experts say that baggage mishandling costs the industry globally $US1.7 billion each year, and that much of this cost is due to failures in the barcode-based tagging system.
...and RFID, which is much like barcode except for the (far more insecure) scanning method is supposed to correct the "problem"? I smell an ulterior motive.
In this instance, the lack of 'security' of rfid is one of it's more useful features.
The system allows a tagged bag to be tracked over it's entire (in airport) journey from check in to luggage hold automaticaly, meaning that many more check points can be used without slowing down the baggage handling, and any luggage in the wrong place can be flagged quickly. It also means that bags cannot 'accidentaly' walk through the wrong door without the tag being removed making stealing luggage a little more difficult.
This is kinda silly. When's the last time you showed your driver's license to your ISP? Or used it at the metro? Or in the grocery store (unless you're one of those freaks that still uses checks?) Or at a toll booth.
We don't show ID in those cases now and there's no reason to think we'll have to with a national ID (and this proposal certainly doesn't call for it, so you'll have a chance to dissent if/when that is proposed.)
In the UK we:
are currently at the start of the process of spending at least $10,000,000,000 on a national ID card & database (bearing in mind that the GDP of the UK is about a 10th of the USA's).
are starting to install something called ANPR - Automatic Number Plate Recognition, which will be used to track all car journeys, and is currently used as a road charging system in central London.
have a very successfull system called Oyster, that allows you to wave your RFID chipped card at the entry points to the London Underground so you don't have to keep buying tickets.
have just mandated the retention of emails & web browsing habits by ISPs.
have just mandated the retention of phone records by the phone companies - including the cell location of your mobile.
All of these things - cars, Oyster cards, internet connections, mobile phones - either require some form of identity check to own, or soon will. When (if they ever manage to get it to work) the ID card system comes on line, that ID check will be the biometric ID card.
So, every car journey, every tube trip, every phone call, email you send or receive, and web site you visit as a UK citizen or as a visitor to the country will soon be linked to your ID, along with your fingerprints, iris scan, photo, and if you ever get arrested (not charged, or found guilty, but arrested), your DNA.
Of course, the cards won't be mandatory, you just won't be able to use a bank, or get a passport, or drivers licence, or visit your doctor, or get on a plane, or get a job, or collect social security, or vote, without one.
So far the government has found so little support for all of these things, that they've had to publish statistics which aren't merely misleading, but are direct outright lies. So what one has to ask oneself is: why? Why, if it's not popular, and is very expensive, does the government want the ID database and card? And the you might think to yourself, "this is a state that recently locked up a dozen people without trial because it didn't have enough evidence to prosecute them, and also arrested someone under the anti-terrorism laws for heckling a politician..."
The funny thing is, we used to say the UK was like the US, only 10 years behind...
The scary thing is, this is the only icon they have for patent stories. Slashdot readers now take it for granted that a story about a patent will be about a bogus patent. That's how bad the problem has become.
We "take it for granted?" What's that supposed to mean?
That it's automatically assumed by readers of/. that any story on a patent will be about a bogus patent.
Slashdot Mirror
There's plenty of other ways to get your news.
Exactly. Get your news like this great story, Apple User Acting Like His Dad Just Died from The Onion, America's Finest News Source.
What's the difference between The Onion and mainstream media? Everyone at The Onion knows their product is 100% fictional.
Often, the Onion is closer to the truth than real news media. To paraphrase Stuart Lee: Now, that story about an apple user isn't true, but I feel what it says about apple users...
https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/us_v_cassidy/cassidy-complaint.pdf Page 5 onwards. HTH.
I don't think I've ever spent any time converting FLAC to AAC (which is what I use on my portable player - HTC Desire). I buy a CD, put it in the media player, and press OK on the remote control. Some minutes later, the CD pops out again. The media player music storage has a FLAC copy (which it plays just fine), the portable player sync folder has an AAC copy.
I don't see why I couldn't download a FLAC file, and have some service auto-convert it to AAC and put it in the appropriate place. Should be trivial on Windows or Linux.
If you have any DNLA media players, FLAC could be converted on the fly to whatever format they want, including any of the widely supported .lossless formats, like WAV, WMA Lossless, and Apple Lossless, etc.
Whether you think the difference in quality between mp3 & lossless is worth it is a personal choice. If you listen to a lot of classical, or actually know what a cymbal or violin sounds like, you might prefer FLAC. If you only listen to compressed to death pop through $0.50 earbuds on a clipped at 200Hz & 16KHz portable player while standing next to a busy road, then you're probably happy with mp3 :-)
But personal choice is what the article is arguing for - why not actually allow people the choice in music downloads, in an unencumbered music format, that anyone with a PC capable of downloading it can listen to?
(TBH, I expect the answer would be "personal choice in music formats does not make money for the vendor".)
Simon.
Ah, so essentially it's an argument amongst philosophers, rather than anything... constructive:
Philosopher Popper says the scientific method is X, see all these examples E, thus science is Justified in context Truth.
Physicists S go "WTF? Hey, Steve's just discovered the Top Quark!"
Philosopher Feyerabend says E are not examples of X, but of various K, therefore science is not Justified in Truth, but in Usefulness.
Physicists S go "WTF? Hey look, Bob's just built a giant superconducting supercollider!"
Etc.
I think you've missed the whole point of WikiLeaks.
It's designed to be immune to national court orders, because it's meant to report on abuses by governments and their legal processes.
It's also designed to be unaccountable because it's meant to be immune to pressure on individuals by governments and corporations.
The fact that wikileaks has to go to these lengths to ensure that reporting corruption and abuse is possible is a reflection on the societies we live in, not the organisation itself.
They were not aquitted, they had their previous convictions quashed.
They were all originally found guilty, and sentenced to "up to" 3 years each, just for possessing a few dodgy pamphlets and recordings of "extremist sermons".
The appeals court (luckily a Court of Note in the UK, which means this does set a precedent) decided that in order to convict, the prosecution had to show intent to commit terrorist offences. The convictions were quashed because the jury was not told this, and the prosecution evidence would probably not have demonstrated it if they had been.
There's a whole bunch of these 'going equipped' style laws in the UK, where the courts presume to know why you were doing something that, without the intent to commit a crime in the future, would not be illegal.
Babies make a lot of different sounds well before they say 'ma': squealing, giggling, 'aaaaah', 'oooo', 'oh', 'eh', etc.
The fist consonant-vowel sound my son made was 'boo', followed by 'baa', then 'waa'.
Most euro languages have the same root, and particularly fundamental words like mother change very little. Non-European languages have different sounds for 'mother', infant-speak analogues include 'mu(-mu)' and 'ha(-ha)', at least.
Symbian itself has been on a hiring binge for ages, since Google 'stole' many of their key staff.
In this instance, the lack of 'security' of rfid is one of it's more useful features.
The system allows a tagged bag to be tracked over it's entire (in airport) journey from check in to luggage hold automaticaly, meaning that many more check points can be used without slowing down the baggage handling, and any luggage in the wrong place can be flagged quickly. It also means that bags cannot 'accidentaly' walk through the wrong door without the tag being removed making stealing luggage a little more difficult.
Unless you live in a civilized country, where adequate social health care will be available.
All of these things - cars, Oyster cards, internet connections, mobile phones - either require some form of identity check to own, or soon will. When (if they ever manage to get it to work) the ID card system comes on line, that ID check will be the biometric ID card.
So, every car journey, every tube trip, every phone call, email you send or receive, and web site you visit as a UK citizen or as a visitor to the country will soon be linked to your ID, along with your fingerprints, iris scan, photo, and if you ever get arrested (not charged, or found guilty, but arrested), your DNA.
Of course, the cards won't be mandatory, you just won't be able to use a bank, or get a passport, or drivers licence, or visit your doctor, or get on a plane, or get a job, or collect social security, or vote, without one.
So far the government has found so little support for all of these things, that they've had to publish statistics which aren't merely misleading, but are direct outright lies. So what one has to ask oneself is: why? Why, if it's not popular, and is very expensive, does the government want the ID database and card? And the you might think to yourself, "this is a state that recently locked up a dozen people without trial because it didn't have enough evidence to prosecute them, and also arrested someone under the anti-terrorism laws for heckling a politician..."
The funny thing is, we used to say the UK was like the US, only 10 years behind...
Fairly common usage, I would have thought.