Yeah, you see, what would happen when using that plan, is that the top 1,000 sites would become the top 1,001 to top 2,000 sites.

Once you start to understand http://nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main1/some of the things in the pipeline for KDE beginning with 4.0, you start to get that tickling sensation in your stomach. There's no other desktop out there with that kind of potential.

In the attached article, if people could distinguish between an MP3 and FLAC, it was because the MP3 was good enough no flaws could be detected. That's fine; people can't distinguish good compression from the real thing. However, if they COULD distinguish an MP3, but preferred to the flac, it was because they found the error pleasing... just like you and tapes.

That's a really good point! As it is today, we (musicians using computers, and producers) use plugins to re-create compression artifacts of tape machines and tube amps, hiss, pops, and crackles from vinyl source and imperfect sound booths and studio rooms, distortion from amps, etc. Some of those plugins cost thousands of dollars.

Sure, part of it is making up for the shortcomings of a 44.1kHz/16-bit eventual downsample, but most of it is about recreating what people have come accustomed to perceiving as the "right quality" of sound.

Now, as much as I loathe the lisping, watery and distorted sound of treble when exposed to bad temporal digital compression, this might just be what the new generations perceive as being the "authentic quality of sound".

We didn't have the fidelity or clarity when we were young that the CD introduced, and we're producing plugins to recreate some of the "shortcomings". Why should this be any different from the way the new generations approach music?

Argh! Can't... find... anything... to... say... that's... more... funny... than what they're already saying!

The holy book heads' battle with science a.k.a. lucency a.k.a. anti-brainwash a.k.a. non-bullshit is much akin to a talking monkey trying to explain the passing of seasons as somehow being ultimately tied to the taste of bananas.

They're just so funny!

Except, of course, when they go postal with the crusading, and the suicide bombing, and the child molestation, and the... Ah well, maybe it's not so funny after all...

It's exactly algorithms like the one used by Pandora that make me agree with the viewpoint that it's not possibly to calculate what "other music" I like based upon the "known music" that I like.

Anyone with a preference for Electro Pop will likely have been wondering when the hell Pandora would learn the difference between Miss Kittin and Scooter after mindlessly clicking "Dislike" on eurodance tracks when Pandora fails to see the difference between one type of electronic music with a repetitive beat and another.

The only really worthful algorithm we'll ever manage to produce is one that uses the collective intelligence of all its users.

Stop being arithmetic supergeeks wanting to put everything inside a box, and start figuring out how to get all these weird unpredictable people to input valuable data into your system.

Google figured this out more than a decade ago, so why are we still seeing stupid mathematical and "pattern-based" algorithms every year?

The thing about tests like these is that they say nothing about quality in general or "the truth" as perceived by the individual.

The majority of people in historic Germany voted for Hitler.
The majority of people thought DDT was a good idea for keeping moths out of your clothes.
The majority of people are more scared of dying in a terrorist attack than of taking a leathal step in the bath (http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2362835/posts).
The majority of Americans don't know that Georgia is not just an American state. ...and so forth.

You can either learn from this that any selected majority of people are idiots, or that they just have different opinions, but that - thank you scientists - there are actually non-idiots out there working hard to provide crisp sounding silky smooth feinschmecker audio fidelity for the ones of us who can actually tell a difference.

Think of it this way: 1/3 thinks that 48kbps AAC+ sounds better that 160kbps OGG Vorbis... Well, don't throw out those broken loudspeakers just yet - there's a market stock-full of suckers out there just begging to buy them from you, just as long as you tell 'em they're 48kbps Ready (TM).

This is exactly right.

I used to work at a video duplicating plant where we controlled our source machines (Beta, DigiBeta, C1s, D2s, etc.) via a central computer. We had about 20 source machines providing movies, commercials, logos, and trailers to over 4000 VHS recorders divided into 14 racks.

Until we got the centralized computer management thingie, we used manual switchboards and our skills to start, synchronize, and switch between, different source machines providing logos, trailers, commercials, and features, making sure each "item" was properly synchronized after each other.

This was not so difficult with just trailers before a film, but if you had two source reels that needed to be switched in the middle of a movie, you had to make damn sure you didn't switch sources more than a couple of frames out of sync, or you'd get a really bad copy. It was a fun little game, but the computerized system, of course, made the whole thing much easier and much more accurate.

But of course, this accuracy depended on the accuracy of the OS the system ran on. A running video player controlled via RF over BNC cables doesn't provide interrupts, the entire thing had to be timed to the frame from within the application itself. And not for one source and one target, but for M sources and M targets. So you needed an OS which absolutely guaranteed a time slice from the kernel at an absolutely non-negotiable point in time.

That, at the time, would be Windows 3.11 :) And the time (when I left) was 1998. We were wondering at the time why the hell they'd use Windows 3.11 for that task, but I'm pretty sure they're still using that old thing, at least I don't see any reason why they wouldn't ;)

I take it then, that you have never voted. Ballots ARE anonymous in the United States. They are guaranteed to be anonymous. It is NO ONE'S business how anyone marks a ballot. I'm not even permitted into the booth to watch how someone marks their ballot. The wife and I are not even permitted to occupy the same booth at the same time. Your understanding of the American voting system is seriously incomplete.

Now, I happen to be proud of my vote. I TELL people how I voted. Interested? I voted against Bill Clinton every chance I had. I voted for Bush the first time, and voted against him the second time. I voted for Obama. I'm proud of my votes, though I'm less proud of my Bush vote than my other votes.

But, anonymity at the ballot box is guaranteed for a reason. I could presumably bully my wife into voting my way, or punish her for not voting my way. She's a little bitty woman, it would be no problem to smack her around until she sees reason.

Do you see the reason for anonymity, now?

Actually, Microsoft Office isn't all that compatible with Microsoft Office, when you are talking about different versions. In my 6-7 years running Linux at work, I used OpenOffice exclusively to write and edit documents, and to create and modify spreadsheets. I never had a problem exchanging documents with others. Of course, I was careful to save documents in the Microsoft Word "DOC" format, and spreadsheets in the Microsoft Excel "XLS" format.

It's true that sometimes Word will fail to render a document properly. But it's not the fault of OpenOffice - sometimes, Microsoft Word fails to properly display other Microsoft Word files. An example I wrote about a few months ago:

Last night, one of the attendees sent out some notes for us to read before the meeting. We all dutifully printed out our copy of the document, and brought it with us to the meeting.

Despite the fact that the document was created with Microsoft Office, and that we all run Microsoft Office, there were 3 different versions of the printed document at the meeting. You could tell by looking around the table that one version of the notes (printed from Microsoft Office for Macintosh) arranged the text around a table in a weird way. Another version (printed by Microsoft Office 2007) put a page break in a different place and put an extra blank line between a table and its caption. The original version (Microsoft Office 2003) was formatted as intended.

This was a simple 3-page document in "DOC" format, with an enumerated list of paragraphs, so it didn't take long for us to realize our copies printed out differently, and to figure out the correlation between versions of Word and how the document printed out.

I think it just goes to show: if you have a document that absolutely must preserve formatting, send it as a PDF.

If it's more fossil fuels, then it's not being green; it's cutting diesel costs

As someone pointed out (hopefully in another thread), the diesel produces more CO2 than the electricity needed, even if the electricity is generated by the dirtiest generation plant on the planet.

In addition to this post, with EDF algorithm if you meet some given conditions, you have the guaranty that your deadlines will be met.

Who would decide whose marriages are "in the best interest of society" and what criteria would be used?

It would be hard to nail down fair, clear criteria unless it was something very simple like couples can only be married if they are currently raising minor children. Study after study (http://www.apa.org/pi/parent.html) has shown that kids raised by 2 gay parents fare about as well as those raised by 2 straight parents. The more significant component seems to be having two actively involved parents raising a child, rather than their specific gender or sexual orientation. Even then, there are plenty of single parents who do a much better job of raising their children than many couples, even married couples who are the biological parents of the child.

Most importantly though, it's undeniable that people (straight, gay, single, coupled) are going to continue having children regardless of their ability to marry. Don't those children deserve the protections conferred by the parents raising them being able to marry?

Even taking children out of the equation, there is a clear case to be made for supporting marriage. I mean, nobody's ever worked hard to ban or dissolve the marriages of people who either could not have or chose not to have children, right? Married people tend to fare better than those who are single with regard to happiness, longevity and health.