That particular stretch of road (405) is pretty much the _only_ north south passage through that part of LA because of geography (and crappy urban planning.) It could be 30 lanes in each direction and still be slow.
Northwest Austin has a similar problem, though on a much smaller scale. The only two roads that go out from the city are US 183 (a surface highway upgraded to freeway in the past two decades) and Parmer Lane (a 6-lane highway street with traffic lights, though mercifully the worst intersection has good topography for an overpass someday). There are roads that cut across perpendicular to them, but not parallel. (Part of the problem is that development beyond Parmer is blocked by the Robertson Ranch area, which the heirs want to unload slowly for tax reasons, while beyond 183 is too hilly.)
It would be worse if it was a major through-traffic route (like I-35 is), but it's a major rush hour traffic pain as it is.
What amazes me is that in all the years Apple has been making smartphones, it's still impossible to add a music file from email to itunes on the phone.
It's not really amazing if you think of it in the right context: Any music not acquired via RIAA-approved methods must be piracy, according to the RIAA. Ripping CDs is allowed, but only grudgingly, because it was already being done before they knew it could be a "problem". P2P file sharing (aka Napster and its many descendants) is right out.
Also, e-mail? Of all the ways to get music files, that doesn't really seem convienent. Do you watch Netflix movies via e-mail? Just because you could do something doesn't mean it's a great idea. And I've never heard of Windows users sending music via e-mail, so as far as cheap shots go, that's a pretty lame one.
I've ripped a few songs off of vinyl, and they still sound like vinyl when I play them on my iPod, and I'm not talking about the snap crackle pop. The highs sound too "bright" or something.
I suppose if they were brand new records, played on one of those laser record players, there might be a difference, but that would hardly be a typical vinyl listening environment. Otherwise, it's just a form of distortion that is desirable to some people, like vacuum tube amplifiers. Also, the weakest link is still the human ear. Older ears are going to hear things differently.
It is very clear that you have never owned an iPod or used iTunes with one. The model (particularly at the time in question) is that the master copy of the music is kept on your computer's hard drive. You manage the list of music files on the computer via iTunes, and then iTunes does a one-way synchronization of the files and index to match the master set.
What happened here is that Real found a way to steal (yes, I said it) usage of Apple's DRM method via a loophole. They used Apple's proprietary code and algorithms for their own profit. Either they updated the iPod directly (thus creating an index that didn't match the master copy in iTunes) or they messed around with the iTunes database on the master computer. If the latter had been the case, we would hear about music being "deleted" from within iTunes as well. If the former had been the case, well, if you want to throw away iTunes and keep using whatever music manager Real provides, go right on ahead, but stop using iTunes. If it was the latter, then they were messing around with undocumented and unsupported ways of adding music to iTunes. Neither of which method Apple ever assumed or implied any obligation to support.
encrypted file system
[Citation needed]
Seriously, years ago when I looked at the filesystem on my 1st generation iPod Nano (which still works and hasn't yet caught fire, probably because I use it in a car, and not as a walkman) the music was simply in an invisible folder with random file names. I presume that the song list was a simple flat database file somewhere in there to keep track of those random file names. It wasn't encrypted, just obfuscated so that you couldn't trivially mount it as a flash drive and copy specific song files from it. (And I never used the iTMS.)
Also, once I found five CD-Rs of a 6-disc set backup of someone's iPod and it was basically the same, only the songs on it were mostly with the old iTMS DRM, so they were unusable because of their encryption (in the music files, not the file system).
Real is just trying to sue to get some money because they're just a slowly dying company at this point. They've just slowly been bleeding money and eventually will end up declaring bankruptcy or selling their brand name, though I'm not really sure whey anyone would want it.
In electronics, brand names like RCA and Zenith have certainly been sold around. After all, they used to be well-known and well-respected names and... oh wait, never mind, this is Real we're talking about.
"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne
