Nobody I know would pay a dime for music when they can get other music, just as good, for free
I pay for music because I want two things:
1) The best possible quality of recording (i.e. not compressed). 2) The artists to be able to afford to make more great music.
Sure I could avoid paying $10 for that CD I really like, but I (unlike, it seems, many people) can see a little beyond the immediate present and want to ensure that the artist is able to make more like it. I know lots of musicians and others in the music business, and I know how much time and effort goes into creating something great. It's not something you can do on the weekend while working a regular job, so cut the cashflow and you make it impossible for them to record the music in the first place. That would be a huge tragedy in my opinion.
Mozart was paid to write music, as were Lennon, Cobain and Elvis - it's always been this way. It's not just music - authors, painters, film makers, dancers, scholars. They all enrich our lives and our culture but can only survive and reach the peak of their potential if they are financially supported by their work. Those who would let their own short sighted greed destroy that are the real enemies here, IMHO.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the current way of doing things is perfect, and I'm fully behind the university in this story in not giving way to these rather vague requests, but I strongly believe that making and recording music is a valuable activity and should be supported - not destroyed.
Which says that there is no future for Java under OSX
Why not? MS has.NET as their strategic dev platform for Windows, but guess what? I can still write/run Java just fine. Why does the existence of LLVM preclude Java?
I'm thinking of buying a mini as a "toe in the water" of the mac world. Would it have killed them to put a panel on the bottom to allow access to the ram slots? Or even used screws to close the case? The fact that they charge an ABSURD $150 for 2gb and do their hardest to PREVENT you upgrading is enough to really put me off the whole idea. If I bought a PC for the same price I could sure as hell add memory without needing to attack the case with a putty knife. I don't want to run games on it, but we all know that 1gb is already only "OK" for many apps and will soon, inevitably, not be enough.
From what I can tell the Pro is much more PC like when it comes to upgrading, and that's great, but I don't understand why they make it so hard on the lower end machines. Well actually I do, and I don't like the reason.
I don't give a flying fuck whether Nintendo or MS sold more consoles, I was simply responding to the absurd conclusion that because there were more of product X on the shelf than product Y, that "no-one wants" product X.
It's an interesting POV, I understand what he's saying about revoloution vs evoloution. But in reality, I have all three of the new consoles and 90% of may gaming time (or maybe more) is on the 360. My wife is currently similar, though when Galaxy comes out I'm sure she'll be all over that. My concern is not that the hardware (of both the Wii and the PS3) isn't capable of cool things, but simply that the software isn't there yet (with a few notable exceptions).
if you talk with them about copyright, most people will not agree that creators can restrict who can access their work once it is released.
And studies have shown that a large percentage of the population of the USA don't agree that man evolved from apes, but that doesn't make it the case. Just because a large number of people agree on something does not make it right. Take away the cash flow and there simply won't be popular/commercial music of the same form as there is today. Now you and I may not think that's a bad thing, but I bet the guys buying the bootleg CDs of Britney & Rhianna would feel differently.
Maybe it's been a long day for me, but I don't see those numbers you're quoting in the link provided. Hit the query button - you can create your own report with whatever criteria they have in the DB. It's pretty flexible.
I'm sure the interstate sees way more cars per any given time period than a smaller two lane highway, Indeed, but there are also probably far more miles of two lane roads than interstates, so the real data point would be deaths per passenger mile by road type, rather than just total deaths. That would require data for how much of the different types of roads exist and how they're used, which I didn't google for.
Also, as a final thought, do any of these statistics take into account a driver's familiarity with the roads compared to people who aren't familiar with the roads? For instance if someone from Kansas comes to my small Indiana town are he and I held to the same amount of risk factor even though I know about subtleties in the roads and routes through town that this person (for the sake of argument) wouldn't? Would you be held accountable for the fact that you're (hypothetically) paying no attention to the road and playing with your radio because you drive the same route every day and know it like the back of your hand, whereas I'm fully alert and watching everything because it's unfamiliar to me? I would be interested in statistics but it would be my guess that familiarity breeds laziness, not good driving:)
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd encourage to look at hard numbers rather than pulling guesses out of your ass. Take a look here.
What do I see right away? Well your belief that secondary roads are much safer than highways doesn't seem entirely right - for 2005 I see 44.5k deaths on major roads vs 56.5k deaths on smaller roads. A difference sure, but not all that massive.
The split by vehicle type is also rather interesting, deaths in 4/5 door hatchbacks (the "tiny-ass POS" that I happen to drive) amount to a massive 292, vs almost 28 thousand for your "safe" big-ass car, and no - that difference cannot be explained away by total numbers of vehicles on the road. Small cars are more stable, more agile, and often just better designed with regards to safety. At least that's my belief, and I've yet to see stats to counter that.
You make a good point, although Lost in Space was certainly shown in the UK, although I only remember seeing it in the early 90's I think, as a "cult" late night show. I've no idea whether it was shown closer to it's actual creation.
Obviously this is something the general public like and want. The general public would probably quite like large amounts of free money, doesn't mean it makes sense for them to get it.
Big business fails to provide Actually big business did provide - the actual content that is. Big business paid for all those TV shows to be made in the first place (obviously things are a little different when it comes to BBC content, but that's a whole other discussion).
public finds elsewhere And if big business don't get compensated for creating the content they'll stop doing so and the public will have to find _everything_ elsewhere. Good luck with that.
It never fails to amaze me how many people think that TV shows and movies cost nothing to make. If you simply don't want to watch them that's great - I applaud you. But if you do want to watch them, but don't want to pay for them (either with money or eyeball time) how do you think they're going to keep being made?
Lucky for you, oggenc and mpg123 can be used to re-encode your music. Actually, you might want to do this anyway, to free up some disc space (I am in the process, because my disc is beginning to get a bit full).
Transcoding between lossy formats is a really bad idea. Re-rip from source or leave it as it is.
I am curious, as any time that I have done 120 plus MPH, my reaction time was affected by adrenaline Or was it your perception of your reaction times that was affected? "Look at me, I'm going so fast, I'm so cool". Please.
On the highway, you are in one mode: Avoid everything. Actually, this guy was probably in many modes. Look at GPS, look at radar detector, drink more coffee, try to stay awake. Oh, and maybe glance ahead every so often.
Assuming dry pavement So it never rained on this whole trip? There were guaranteed to be no oil patches on the highway? No loose gravel? No glass that could cause a blowout? The highway is not a racetrack and is not maintained to the safety level of a racetrack.
That M5 likely would stop from 100 MPH in in under 200 feet Awesome. So now he just has to make sure to stay 200ft behind any other vehicle at all times. Think he actually did that? Nah, me neither.
Speed doesn't kill. Bad decisions do. People make bad decisions every day. Everyone does. When it comes to driving, speed invariably makes the results of those bad decisions much worse. He wants to throw his ass around a racetrack at high speed he's got my blessing, but stay the hell off the roads my kids are on.
I'll join the others introducing themselves to you:)
I stood outside TRU in Times Square for 6 hours the morning of launch day to get my Wii, so no-one can say I wasn't excited to get this thing. Played it a bunch the first month or so, but since my wife finished SPM we've basically never switched it on (except to install an update every so often). I honestly can't remember the last Wii game I bought, Metroid is something I'm interested in playing but to be honest it's at the end of a very long list. I just don't have enough time to play all the games on other systems I'm into, and nothing on the Wii appeals enough to beat them in the queue. Mario Kart is a probable buy, likewise Galaxy - but this just feels like the GC all over again.
Meanwhile I'm finishing Bioshock before starting Halo, finishing DiRT before starting Forza or PGR4 and at some point I'll make it back to R6 Vegas. Ratchet & Clank looks unmissable (first PS3 title to win that award in my book) and I still haven't really finished Crackdown. I will say that the PS3 isn't currently used much more than the Wii, but the 360 is miles ahead (at least for the games I enjoy).
That may be true for things like HDMI, I don't know the specifics. But it isn't true for SPDIF (typically used for digital audio). Whilst the signal certainly is digital, it only has very basic error correction (parity). Therefore it's perfectly possible for a bit error to creep through, and depending on where in the datastream it occurs it may be audible.
Everyone bleating about how ethernet is able to reliably transfer data over cheap patch cables is ignoring the layers of protocol on top of the physical wire which detect and resolve physical errors (which certainly do happen, even in a well built ethernet system). The ultimate solution for an error (retransmission of the packet/frame) isn't typically possible with things like HDMI or SPDIF because buffering is very difficult (often impossible). People want to hit play on the CD and start listening, not wait 20 seconds for a buffer to fill up:) In digital audio, you have to put something out there every clock tick even if you know it's wrong, so DACs will often interpolate or simply copy a previous value. This will lead to a subtle degradation of the sound without any indication to the listener. Of course, if it's so subtle to not be noticable that's fine, but with very revealing systems and careful listeners, it's often these kind of things that lead to perceived differences between cables and other components.
Of course, spending $100 on an HDMI cable is excessive, but I'm happy to spend $30 on a coax SPDIF over a $5 version (or even a plain RCA patch which some people use because the plugs look the same!). Cost isn't an indication of quality either, I know that many people use CAT5 and power cable for speakers & interconnects with great results, because they're good quality & low impedance.
You're confusing first sale with copyright. The things that you own are (a) the physical phone, (b) a copy of the software and (c) a license to use the software. The first sale doctrine ensures that you can resell that to someone as a single unit, and indeed you can - Apple will not try to stop you reselling the phone on ebay. However, you do _not_ have the right to modify the copy of the software on the phone - just as you don't have the right to modify a copy of XP you bought or indeed any software where the copyright holder hasn't explicitly given you that right.
When I said I was looking at it 90 degrees on, I meant 90 degress from normal, which would be 180 degrees I guess. Basically, I was looking at the thing sideways:)
Is this a perception thing, like DLP artifacts? I ask because I'm also pretty picky when it comes to displays (I'm a photographer) and I honestly don't see any of the problems you mention, and haven't on any decent LCD for a long time. I'm currently looking at a 3 or 4 year old 20" Eizo and just for kicks I flipped it around so I was looking at it almost 90 degrees on. Apart from some glare it looked fine - black is black, white is white and everything else is just peachy. At home I have a pair of Dell 20" screens (not widescreen) and again, I don't notice any issues. I don't game on that machine a lot, but when I do I haven't noticed any problems with blacks (and I've played FEAR and Doom 3 on it, which are pretty dark games).
Maybe some callibration would help, or maybe some people's eyes respond differently and they pick up on different problems? I stopped using CRT 4 years ago and I have no desire whatsoever to go back. What's interesting though is that I have yet to find an LCD TV that I can watch...they never look anywhere near as good as a plasma to me, although I know plenty of people who hate plasma. I guess it's all personal.
Just how many more mass graves do we need before you misty eyed 'citizens of the world' realize the US is the leading cause of mass death today. None - I believe that already. Oh, you meant UN? Never mind...
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Nobody I know would pay a dime for music when they can get other music, just as good, for free
I pay for music because I want two things:
1) The best possible quality of recording (i.e. not compressed).
2) The artists to be able to afford to make more great music.
Sure I could avoid paying $10 for that CD I really like, but I (unlike, it seems, many people) can see a little beyond the immediate present and want to ensure that the artist is able to make more like it. I know lots of musicians and others in the music business, and I know how much time and effort goes into creating something great. It's not something you can do on the weekend while working a regular job, so cut the cashflow and you make it impossible for them to record the music in the first place. That would be a huge tragedy in my opinion.
Mozart was paid to write music, as were Lennon, Cobain and Elvis - it's always been this way. It's not just music - authors, painters, film makers, dancers, scholars. They all enrich our lives and our culture but can only survive and reach the peak of their potential if they are financially supported by their work. Those who would let their own short sighted greed destroy that are the real enemies here, IMHO.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the current way of doing things is perfect, and I'm fully behind the university in this story in not giving way to these rather vague requests, but I strongly believe that making and recording music is a valuable activity and should be supported - not destroyed.
Which says that there is no future for Java under OSX
.NET as their strategic dev platform for Windows, but guess what? I can still write/run Java just fine. Why does the existence of LLVM preclude Java?
Why not? MS has
I'm thinking of buying a mini as a "toe in the water" of the mac world. Would it have killed them to put a panel on the bottom to allow access to the ram slots? Or even used screws to close the case? The fact that they charge an ABSURD $150 for 2gb and do their hardest to PREVENT you upgrading is enough to really put me off the whole idea. If I bought a PC for the same price I could sure as hell add memory without needing to attack the case with a putty knife. I don't want to run games on it, but we all know that 1gb is already only "OK" for many apps and will soon, inevitably, not be enough.
From what I can tell the Pro is much more PC like when it comes to upgrading, and that's great, but I don't understand why they make it so hard on the lower end machines. Well actually I do, and I don't like the reason.
Get help. Seriously. It's a fricking phone.
Please, make the fanboys stop.
I don't give a flying fuck whether Nintendo or MS sold more consoles, I was simply responding to the absurd conclusion that because there were more of product X on the shelf than product Y, that "no-one wants" product X.
I go to Best Buy all the time to see the Halo XBox 360s that no one wants.
You do know the 360 outsold the Wii last month, right? Do you assume that because your supermarket always has bread on the shelf that no-one wants it?
It's an interesting POV, I understand what he's saying about revoloution vs evoloution. But in reality, I have all three of the new consoles and 90% of may gaming time (or maybe more) is on the 360. My wife is currently similar, though when Galaxy comes out I'm sure she'll be all over that. My concern is not that the hardware (of both the Wii and the PS3) isn't capable of cool things, but simply that the software isn't there yet (with a few notable exceptions).
if you talk with them about copyright, most people will not agree that creators can restrict who can access their work once it is released.
And studies have shown that a large percentage of the population of the USA don't agree that man evolved from apes, but that doesn't make it the case. Just because a large number of people agree on something does not make it right. Take away the cash flow and there simply won't be popular/commercial music of the same form as there is today. Now you and I may not think that's a bad thing, but I bet the guys buying the bootleg CDs of Britney & Rhianna would feel differently.
Maybe it's been a long day for me, but I don't see those numbers you're quoting in the link provided.
:)
Hit the query button - you can create your own report with whatever criteria they have in the DB. It's pretty flexible.
I'm sure the interstate sees way more cars per any given time period than a smaller two lane highway,
Indeed, but there are also probably far more miles of two lane roads than interstates, so the real data point would be deaths per passenger mile by road type, rather than just total deaths. That would require data for how much of the different types of roads exist and how they're used, which I didn't google for.
Also, as a final thought, do any of these statistics take into account a driver's familiarity with the roads compared to people who aren't familiar with the roads? For instance if someone from Kansas comes to my small Indiana town are he and I held to the same amount of risk factor even though I know about subtleties in the roads and routes through town that this person (for the sake of argument) wouldn't?
Would you be held accountable for the fact that you're (hypothetically) paying no attention to the road and playing with your radio because you drive the same route every day and know it like the back of your hand, whereas I'm fully alert and watching everything because it's unfamiliar to me? I would be interested in statistics but it would be my guess that familiarity breeds laziness, not good driving
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd encourage to look at hard numbers rather than pulling guesses out of your ass. Take a look here.
What do I see right away? Well your belief that secondary roads are much safer than highways doesn't seem entirely right - for 2005 I see 44.5k deaths on major roads vs 56.5k deaths on smaller roads. A difference sure, but not all that massive.
The split by vehicle type is also rather interesting, deaths in 4/5 door hatchbacks (the "tiny-ass POS" that I happen to drive) amount to a massive 292, vs almost 28 thousand for your "safe" big-ass car, and no - that difference cannot be explained away by total numbers of vehicles on the road. Small cars are more stable, more agile, and often just better designed with regards to safety. At least that's my belief, and I've yet to see stats to counter that.
You make a good point, although Lost in Space was certainly shown in the UK, although I only remember seeing it in the early 90's I think, as a "cult" late night show. I've no idea whether it was shown closer to it's actual creation.
Obviously this is something the general public like and want.
The general public would probably quite like large amounts of free money, doesn't mean it makes sense for them to get it.
Big business fails to provide
Actually big business did provide - the actual content that is. Big business paid for all those TV shows to be made in the first place (obviously things are a little different when it comes to BBC content, but that's a whole other discussion).
public finds elsewhere
And if big business don't get compensated for creating the content they'll stop doing so and the public will have to find _everything_ elsewhere. Good luck with that.
It never fails to amaze me how many people think that TV shows and movies cost nothing to make. If you simply don't want to watch them that's great - I applaud you. But if you do want to watch them, but don't want to pay for them (either with money or eyeball time) how do you think they're going to keep being made?
Lucky for you, oggenc and mpg123 can be used to re-encode your music. Actually, you might want to do this anyway, to free up some disc space (I am in the process, because my disc is beginning to get a bit full).
Transcoding between lossy formats is a really bad idea. Re-rip from source or leave it as it is.
Yeah, you're right. I did actually read both stories but I guess I forgot to engage my brain. As did whoever made the link on the original story!
I am curious, as any time that I have done 120 plus MPH, my reaction time was affected by adrenaline
Or was it your perception of your reaction times that was affected? "Look at me, I'm going so fast, I'm so cool". Please.
On the highway, you are in one mode: Avoid everything.
Actually, this guy was probably in many modes. Look at GPS, look at radar detector, drink more coffee, try to stay awake. Oh, and maybe glance ahead every so often.
Assuming dry pavement
So it never rained on this whole trip? There were guaranteed to be no oil patches on the highway? No loose gravel? No glass that could cause a blowout? The highway is not a racetrack and is not maintained to the safety level of a racetrack.
That M5 likely would stop from 100 MPH in in under 200 feet
Awesome. So now he just has to make sure to stay 200ft behind any other vehicle at all times. Think he actually did that? Nah, me neither.
Speed doesn't kill. Bad decisions do.
People make bad decisions every day. Everyone does. When it comes to driving, speed invariably makes the results of those bad decisions much worse. He wants to throw his ass around a racetrack at high speed he's got my blessing, but stay the hell off the roads my kids are on.
This story names the drivers who caused the accident as Morley and McConville, who are named as Team Polizei drivers in this story.
VP is awesome, first I got hooked then my wife did. One of those well reviewed but strangely under appreciated gems.
I'll join the others introducing themselves to you :)
I stood outside TRU in Times Square for 6 hours the morning of launch day to get my Wii, so no-one can say I wasn't excited to get this thing. Played it a bunch the first month or so, but since my wife finished SPM we've basically never switched it on (except to install an update every so often). I honestly can't remember the last Wii game I bought, Metroid is something I'm interested in playing but to be honest it's at the end of a very long list. I just don't have enough time to play all the games on other systems I'm into, and nothing on the Wii appeals enough to beat them in the queue. Mario Kart is a probable buy, likewise Galaxy - but this just feels like the GC all over again.
Meanwhile I'm finishing Bioshock before starting Halo, finishing DiRT before starting Forza or PGR4 and at some point I'll make it back to R6 Vegas. Ratchet & Clank looks unmissable (first PS3 title to win that award in my book) and I still haven't really finished Crackdown. I will say that the PS3 isn't currently used much more than the Wii, but the 360 is miles ahead (at least for the games I enjoy).
That may be true for things like HDMI, I don't know the specifics. But it isn't true for SPDIF (typically used for digital audio). Whilst the signal certainly is digital, it only has very basic error correction (parity). Therefore it's perfectly possible for a bit error to creep through, and depending on where in the datastream it occurs it may be audible.
:) In digital audio, you have to put something out there every clock tick even if you know it's wrong, so DACs will often interpolate or simply copy a previous value. This will lead to a subtle degradation of the sound without any indication to the listener. Of course, if it's so subtle to not be noticable that's fine, but with very revealing systems and careful listeners, it's often these kind of things that lead to perceived differences between cables and other components.
Everyone bleating about how ethernet is able to reliably transfer data over cheap patch cables is ignoring the layers of protocol on top of the physical wire which detect and resolve physical errors (which certainly do happen, even in a well built ethernet system). The ultimate solution for an error (retransmission of the packet/frame) isn't typically possible with things like HDMI or SPDIF because buffering is very difficult (often impossible). People want to hit play on the CD and start listening, not wait 20 seconds for a buffer to fill up
Of course, spending $100 on an HDMI cable is excessive, but I'm happy to spend $30 on a coax SPDIF over a $5 version (or even a plain RCA patch which some people use because the plugs look the same!). Cost isn't an indication of quality either, I know that many people use CAT5 and power cable for speakers & interconnects with great results, because they're good quality & low impedance.
You're confusing first sale with copyright. The things that you own are (a) the physical phone, (b) a copy of the software and (c) a license to use the software. The first sale doctrine ensures that you can resell that to someone as a single unit, and indeed you can - Apple will not try to stop you reselling the phone on ebay. However, you do _not_ have the right to modify the copy of the software on the phone - just as you don't have the right to modify a copy of XP you bought or indeed any software where the copyright holder hasn't explicitly given you that right.
Hardware yes, software no.
Clarification:
:)
When I said I was looking at it 90 degrees on, I meant 90 degress from normal, which would be 180 degrees I guess. Basically, I was looking at the thing sideways
(Note, not flaming, honest questions)
Is this a perception thing, like DLP artifacts? I ask because I'm also pretty picky when it comes to displays (I'm a photographer) and I honestly don't see any of the problems you mention, and haven't on any decent LCD for a long time. I'm currently looking at a 3 or 4 year old 20" Eizo and just for kicks I flipped it around so I was looking at it almost 90 degrees on. Apart from some glare it looked fine - black is black, white is white and everything else is just peachy. At home I have a pair of Dell 20" screens (not widescreen) and again, I don't notice any issues. I don't game on that machine a lot, but when I do I haven't noticed any problems with blacks (and I've played FEAR and Doom 3 on it, which are pretty dark games).
Maybe some callibration would help, or maybe some people's eyes respond differently and they pick up on different problems? I stopped using CRT 4 years ago and I have no desire whatsoever to go back. What's interesting though is that I have yet to find an LCD TV that I can watch...they never look anywhere near as good as a plasma to me, although I know plenty of people who hate plasma. I guess it's all personal.
Just how many more mass graves do we need before you misty eyed 'citizens of the world' realize the US is the leading cause of mass death today.
None - I believe that already. Oh, you meant UN? Never mind...
Since nobody would dare consider direct IP-to-IP functionality for console gaming
*cough*Xbox Live*cough*
They seem to get along pretty well with peer networking.