I think the courts are crazy to state that there is no privacy in computer repair. What if you have your company's business plan on the hard drive when your display card fails? Do you simply refuse to send that computer in for repair? Do you let every law enforcement agency in the country have a copy of your business plan?
> >... vinyl records are crap compared to CD's in every measurable way... >
I used to believe that too. I think there is a problem with that reasoning. If the sound is going directly into the ears through earbuds (iPod-style) then CDs (if perfectly mastered) might capture almost everything. However, the psychoacoustic models which state that CDs are good enough to capture everything that humans can hear do not account for what happens when the sound comes out of a speaker and bounces off of e.g. a piece of furniture or a wall. Two waveforms that sound the same before interacting with a wall often don't sound quite the same after interacting with that same wall. For this reason you need much higher resolution than psychoacoustic models would imply.
Second, I would like to point out that CDs are passe. CDs at 44.1/16 may not sound like vinyl, but DVDs that are mastered to 48/24 or 96/24 sound much better. Blu-Ray promises to be even better yet. I think the real problem, though, is that these players often have crummy drive mechanisms that temporally distort the sound and crummy Digital-Audio Converters (DACs) that nonlinearly distort the sound. Having said that, there are enough DVD-video players in homes now that there could be a huge market for the first major recording artist to put music on a DVD UNENCRYPTED so that people can rip it to their computers in full 96/24. Yeah somebody in the record industry will say "oh but they could rip, compress, and then post on BitTorrent and destroy our business model blah blah blah..." But there is probably a way to master the album in such a way that it doesn't sound particularly good when compressed (e.g. using a lot of interesting right/left pans).
Third, SACD players using 2282/1 sampling do sound VERY MUCH like vinyl. The audio spectrum for SACD is more like vinyl than that of CDs. See:
Instead of bringing back vinyl, I hope the industry will adopt SACD. It has the sound quality of vinyl, but without the clicks, pops, finicky needles, mechanical wear, etc. Even better, a high-quality SACD player doesn't lighten your wallet by $3,000 like a top-line turntable does. Subjectively, I have listened to CDs, DVDs, a few Blu-Ray demos (admittedly through crummy electronics store speakers), and SACD. SACD, to my ears, sounds better than the other digital formats. Yes, I have become an SACD convert. My hat is off to Sony for distributing SACD. Now if I can only convince them to make the discs rippable...
Yeah! Finally someone has written an article on this topic! For years Nokia has been selling cell phones with built-in hard disk drives (i.e. think cell phone meets iPod classic) overseas. I've never seen any of them get into the US. The best I can get in the US is a cell phone with a small flash drive like the Apple iPhone. The only problem with this article is that it didn't mention enough products.
Another example is the Nissan Skyline. Remember how many years it took for THAT to get into the US?
I want a lot more than 80 columns. I think displays should support a full 255 columns per line. Besides coding, it would also make word processing a lot simpler.
Turnabout is fair play. If Microsoft issues legal opinions saying that GPL3 and Antitrust Laws don't apply to them, then FSF should issue its own legal opinion stating that Microsoft's patents and copyrights don't apply to anybody else. Two can play at the game of publishing absurd legal opinions, IMHO.
You're kidding me! I can see 1080 lines VERY easily, particularly on a large screen. I'm hoping we someday get broadcasts in 1440P (essentially a 4-megapixel screen). Until then, no HD for me either. I'm not going to spend $2000 on a display until I'm no longer able to easily see individual pixels. On the other hand, the audio formats in Blu-Ray look to be VERY good. I might get a Blu-Ray player even though I'm not going to get an HDTV.
By that reasoning, we shouldn't rank digital PCS phones against analog cell phones, either. I think all technologies that allow one to make a voice call to someone else's phone are equally worth considering.
I think it's perfectly legitimate to compare an IP phone against a PCS phone-- particularly if the IP phone is cheaper for phone+web+mail+messaging.
I've been putting off purchasing a Nokia N800 until iPhone appears in stores. I don't find the chart to be helpful because it doesn't list the N800 or other competitive phones.
I agree. They took Tesla's work without even giving him credit for it. Smells like plagiarism. Also, the toroidal coils in the illustration look a lot like subsequent curl-free vector potential patents (e.g. Gelinas).
Not illegal, but very discreditable for a company that asks us to trust its Windows Security Updates. Do you want to have your personal files stored by an Operating System from such a company? Not me. I don't trust them.
I think the birthday paradox has something to do with it, but there still seems to be something wrong with the "random play" mode of iTunes. And random mode on my Squeezebox is even worse. With iTunes, I was able to help things by pushing the "smart shuffle" preference toward the "less likely" end. I have the smart shuffle preference one notch away from the very end of "less likely", and something still seems to be wrong. Supposedly, this setting would make iTunes play almost everything in my song library before repeating a tune. Doesn't seem to be working that way. I still hear a lot of repeats. And I have over a half-dozen songs (out of 176) that seem to never get played by the random shuffle selector, e.g. "Strip My Mind" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I've been trying to discern a pattern for what is happening. I don't have any compelling statistical proof, but the following seems to be the case:
* When a particular song is playing, iTunes seems to be biased toward songs that are nearby on the play list (in alphabetical order). I have all 176 songs in a single large "album", and I get the impression that when it shuffles to the next song it seems to take small jumps around the alphabet based on the first character of the song name.
* When you play the shuffle with a particular song, it seems as if the identity of that song sets a randseed. There seems to be not only repeating songs, but also to some extend repeating song patterns.
None of the above is scientific, and I could be totally wrong.
As some other posts have pointed out, it seems like an algorithm that shuffles the songs like a deck or cards and then deals the entire deck works better. Using quasi-random algorithms rather than pseudo-random algorithms might also be worth trying. I would also be interested in an algorithm that could look at the audio properties of two MP3 files and attempt to determine if playing the two songs in sequence would sound good (i.e. something that could avoid playing punk rock right after Yanni). Maybe something with a tuning knob what I could use to indicate my "mood".
I think the answer to Office Software in general (not just MS Office) will be a switch to component-oriented systems. In a component-oriented world you don't need a giant company to produce a productivity application because smaller components produced by multiple third-party providers can collaborate to produce a better overall experience (e.g. a provider can concentrate on just producing the best spell-checker for use in larger environments). I have thought about this in more detail than I can post here, so please see the following URL:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/verdantium/
Slashdot Mirror
Next Egypt will file an infringement suit against the Transamerica Building. Finally, something to replace OJ as the trial of the century!
I think the courts are crazy to state that there is no privacy in computer repair. What if you have your company's business plan on the hard drive when your display card fails? Do you simply refuse to send that computer in for repair? Do you let every law enforcement agency in the country have a copy of your business plan?
This ruling leaves very few good choices.
> ... vinyl records are crap compared to CD's in every measurable way...
>
>
I used to believe that too. I think there is a problem with that reasoning. If the sound is going directly into the ears through earbuds (iPod-style) then CDs (if perfectly mastered) might capture almost everything. However, the psychoacoustic models which state that CDs are good enough to capture everything that humans can hear do not account for what happens when the sound comes out of a speaker and bounces off of e.g. a piece of furniture or a wall. Two waveforms that sound the same before interacting with a wall often don't sound quite the same after interacting with that same wall. For this reason you need much higher resolution than psychoacoustic models would imply.
Second, I would like to point out that CDs are passe. CDs at 44.1/16 may not sound like vinyl, but DVDs that are mastered to 48/24 or 96/24 sound much better. Blu-Ray promises to be even better yet. I think the real problem, though, is that these players often have crummy drive mechanisms that temporally distort the sound and crummy Digital-Audio Converters (DACs) that nonlinearly distort the sound. Having said that, there are enough DVD-video players in homes now that there could be a huge market for the first major recording artist to put music on a DVD UNENCRYPTED so that people can rip it to their computers in full 96/24. Yeah somebody in the record industry will say "oh but they could rip, compress, and then post on BitTorrent and destroy our business model blah blah blah..." But there is probably a way to master the album in such a way that it doesn't sound particularly good when compressed (e.g. using a lot of interesting right/left pans).
Third, SACD players using 2282/1 sampling do sound VERY MUCH like vinyl. The audio spectrum for SACD is more like vinyl than that of CDs. See:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t44492.html
Instead of bringing back vinyl, I hope the industry will adopt SACD. It has the sound quality of vinyl, but without the clicks, pops, finicky needles, mechanical wear, etc. Even better, a high-quality SACD player doesn't lighten your wallet by $3,000 like a top-line turntable does. Subjectively, I have listened to CDs, DVDs, a few Blu-Ray demos (admittedly through crummy electronics store speakers), and SACD. SACD, to my ears, sounds better than the other digital formats. Yes, I have become an SACD convert. My hat is off to Sony for distributing SACD. Now if I can only convince them to make the discs rippable...
I stand corrected. ThinkGeek just brought it back. As of a few months ago there was no way to import one, though.
I've also been wishing that some of the cool LED T-Shirts in the UK would get imported to this side of the pond. So far, no luck. For an example, see: http://www.otherlandtoys.co.uk/sound-activated-illuminating-tshirt-p-1878.html
Yeah! Finally someone has written an article on this topic! For years Nokia has been selling cell phones with built-in hard disk drives (i.e. think cell phone meets iPod classic) overseas. I've never seen any of them get into the US. The best I can get in the US is a cell phone with a small flash drive like the Apple iPhone. The only problem with this article is that it didn't mention enough products.
Another example is the Nissan Skyline. Remember how many years it took for THAT to get into the US?
I want a lot more than 80 columns. I think displays should support a full 255 columns per line. Besides coding, it would also make word processing a lot simpler.
Turnabout is fair play. If Microsoft issues legal opinions saying that GPL3 and Antitrust Laws don't apply to them, then FSF should issue its own legal opinion stating that Microsoft's patents and copyrights don't apply to anybody else. Two can play at the game of publishing absurd legal opinions, IMHO.
You're kidding me! I can see 1080 lines VERY easily, particularly on a large screen. I'm hoping we someday get broadcasts in 1440P (essentially a 4-megapixel screen). Until then, no HD for me either. I'm not going to spend $2000 on a display until I'm no longer able to easily see individual pixels. On the other hand, the audio formats in Blu-Ray look to be VERY good. I might get a Blu-Ray player even though I'm not going to get an HDTV.
By that reasoning, we shouldn't rank digital PCS phones against analog cell phones, either. I think all technologies that allow one to make a voice call to someone else's phone are equally worth considering. I think it's perfectly legitimate to compare an IP phone against a PCS phone-- particularly if the IP phone is cheaper for phone+web+mail+messaging.
I've been putting off purchasing a Nokia N800 until iPhone appears in stores. I don't find the chart to be helpful because it doesn't list the N800 or other competitive phones.
I have heard that Georgia is also trying to ban Rock and Roll. :-)
I agree. They took Tesla's work without even giving him credit for it. Smells like plagiarism. Also, the toroidal coils in the illustration look a lot like subsequent curl-free vector potential patents (e.g. Gelinas).
Not illegal, but very discreditable for a company that asks us to trust its Windows Security Updates. Do you want to have your personal files stored by an Operating System from such a company? Not me. I don't trust them.
I think the birthday paradox has something to do with it, but there still seems to be something wrong with the "random play" mode of iTunes. And random mode on my Squeezebox is even worse. With iTunes, I was able to help things by pushing the "smart shuffle" preference toward the "less likely" end. I have the smart shuffle preference one notch away from the very end of "less likely", and something still seems to be wrong. Supposedly, this setting would make iTunes play almost everything in my song library before repeating a tune. Doesn't seem to be working that way. I still hear a lot of repeats. And I have over a half-dozen songs (out of 176) that seem to never get played by the random shuffle selector, e.g. "Strip My Mind" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I've been trying to discern a pattern for what is happening. I don't have any compelling statistical proof, but the following seems to be the case: * When a particular song is playing, iTunes seems to be biased toward songs that are nearby on the play list (in alphabetical order). I have all 176 songs in a single large "album", and I get the impression that when it shuffles to the next song it seems to take small jumps around the alphabet based on the first character of the song name. * When you play the shuffle with a particular song, it seems as if the identity of that song sets a randseed. There seems to be not only repeating songs, but also to some extend repeating song patterns. None of the above is scientific, and I could be totally wrong. As some other posts have pointed out, it seems like an algorithm that shuffles the songs like a deck or cards and then deals the entire deck works better. Using quasi-random algorithms rather than pseudo-random algorithms might also be worth trying. I would also be interested in an algorithm that could look at the audio properties of two MP3 files and attempt to determine if playing the two songs in sequence would sound good (i.e. something that could avoid playing punk rock right after Yanni). Maybe something with a tuning knob what I could use to indicate my "mood".
I think the answer to Office Software in general (not just MS Office) will be a switch to component-oriented systems. In a component-oriented world you don't need a giant company to produce a productivity application because smaller components produced by multiple third-party providers can collaborate to produce a better overall experience (e.g. a provider can concentrate on just producing the best spell-checker for use in larger environments). I have thought about this in more detail than I can post here, so please see the following URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/verdantium/