You are assuming that your ears are as good or better than the average persons ears. What if your hearing isn't as good as even average ears. I have never claimed to have good hearing as I am almost 50 years old. But, I have always been able to tell the difference between compressed and uncompressed audio. Most people can't. I would probably say less than 5% of the population. Does that make me have good ears that I can tell the difference?? Probably not.

Case in point. A number of years ago when I was going to church with an ex-girlfriend, one morning we were running late and had entered the church after it had started. Upon opening the main doors, I could hear this high pitch squeal. As we got closer to the auditorium I made mention to my girlfriend at the time that it was getting loud. She ask what was and I said the squeal. She said "Oh". Upon opening a side door to the auditorium the squeal wasn't deafening but was unpleasant.

I wondered why nobody else was bothered by it. After we sat down, I started looking around to see if anyone else was bothered with it. Out of the 250 to 300 people, I noticed maybe five that were showing signs of covering their ears. Some teenagers, some adults. Half women. Half men. I would occasionally put my fingers in my ears every now and then to take a break from it.

I noticed the guy at the sound board in his mid to late 60's happily oblivious to the high pitch squeal along with the rest of the entire audience.

I would bet dollars to doughnuts that the 5 or so people in the audience that were bothered by the squeal could also tell the difference between compressed and uncompressed.

I fear for the day that I lose the ability to hear high pitch sounds. I know it is coming one day. I fear it because I listen to live music and more so recordings of music, for the clean crispness of music. It will be a sad day for me when it is gone. It is also sad for me to know that most people don't appreciate music as I do because they don't hear it as I do. I am a real believer in FLAC for loss-less. Could I tell if something was better than 44.1k.... probably not.

On the other hand MP3's are probably good enough for every one in that audience that day that didn't have their fingers in their ears. And do you manufacture music for the masses that can't tell the difference or spend lots of money on the manufacture of music for the 1% of people that can truly appreciate it???

3737 days is more than 10 year. That is around 2002 sometime this machine was powered up. I was working for a company then that was still supporting Windows 95 at that time and had several running.

One of the support staffs duties on Friday night was to shut the windows 95 machines down because if we came in Monday morning everyone of them would be sitting at a blue screen. This is the 2001 to 2002 time frame. But it doesn't matter.... I was being funny any way. Nathan

I park 5 miles and some away from work and ride the rest of the way in... http://connect.garmin.com/activity/284217239 I rode in this morning even though it was 22 degrees outside. 10 degrees below freezing. But riding in forces me to ride back to my vehicle the 5 miles and some too.

When people at work complain about having to park at the back of the building and walk from there, I tell them my assigned parking space is 5 1/2 miles away.

I've been doing it for years... I started riding to work in 2006 but I have only had a GPS to record my rides since October 2007 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/162441932

Nathan

That is 3730 more days than Windows 95 could stay up.

If time is money, have it cost some time. No actual money is involved but a few seconds of your life. The 1c click would cost you 1 second with a pop up, the 3c click would cost 3 seconds with a pop up.

Why is that so hard to think about?

Nathan

I've been thinking about something like this for years. What would happen if caffeine suddenly became unavailable or worse illegal?

I spent two to three weeks getting off caffeine. Let me tell you it is a horrible experience. I've never been a big coffee drinker but I do like tea and soft drinks.

The first week is horrible. The second week is excruciatingly horrible. The third week is pretty bad but is survivable with acetaminophen.

The forth week you are able to think again for longer periods than 30 seconds or so with out the feeling of a metal clamp around the inside of your brain. I was also able to stop taking Tylenol. I was caffeine free for about two months before I started drinking tea again. I've stopped completely with the soft drinks though.

I only hope that if I try to stop drinking tea that I won't go through that again.

Just because I decided to stop taking caffeine, didn't remove the desire to continue drinking it.

Fifteen years ago or so, maybe more, I came home from work and a feral male cat of several years old was on my front porch of my house that is about 10 wooden steps up from the ground. I didn't see the cat until I had the key in the frond door and it had let out a rather strange meow. It scared me at first because I wasn't expecting it. The front porch is about 10 feet wide so the cat was about 5 feet away in the shadows. I turned the front porch light on and was going to shew the cat away until I could see that it was badly bleeding. I bent down and it hissed at me. I said "Fine" to myself and stood back up and turned to the door. The cat made another guttural meow so I decided to get a damp towel to see if I could clean it up. When I got back with the towel the cat sat up. I said to the cat that I was only going to clean off the blood, like I knew the cat would understand English or any spoken word.

It didn't hiss at me at all until I started touching it. He never attempted to claw at me or any thing. Just hissed loudly when I guess tried to clean a sore spot. I got the cat clean enough to see that he had several large open wounds, a large welt on it left shoulder, and was going to need a vet visit. My only problem was how I was going to get the cat there.

I got my keys to my truck and came back with a clean towel. I tried to wrap the towel around the cat, and he was having none of it. I gave up left the towel there and went to open the door.

The cat made even a worse meow sound as I opened the door. I asked it what it wanted, like it was going to speak to me. I got in the cats face and said it needed a trip to the vet whether it liked it or not. I grabbed the back of its neck and could feel the welt on its shoulder. The cat hissed and swatted at me. I let go.

I backed off for thirty seconds or so and then got down on my knees. I put my right hand under its back legs and then my left hand up under its chest and the cat just went limp laying on its right side in my left hand. He sat on my lap the entire drive to the vet clinic four or five miles away.

The vet gave the cat some shots and then looked at it wounds. The vet said that it has either been kicked really hard or had been hit by a car. I live on a dead end street with about 15 houses total on either side of it, probably a half mile from a major road. I keep asking myself how the cat knew to pick my house.

Since the cat was feral the vet split the bill with me but told me since it was feral that the clinic could not keep the cat and the cat would need a week or so for some place to stay. I thought... "Well my basement'. The vet gave me a carrying cage big enough for a dog. I thought the cat could stay in that because I didn't want the cat pooping all over the place.

The next day I get home from work and I had purchased some dry cat food for it. I go down to the basement to feed the cat. I get close to the cage and the cat starts batting and clawing at the door. It even clawed at my hand as I tried to undo the latch. So I tossed in some dry food. It didn't want it. I stood up and said "What?" like it was going to understand me. It let out a soft meow kind of like saying please.

I bent down to open the cage door. Now I keep all my yard power tools in my basement as well as fluids as oil too. I had split some oil on the concrete floor of the basement a weekend or so ago after working on the lawnmower. I had put down some chem-dry to clean it up. As soon as I opened the cage door, the cat jumped out and went straight for the chem-dry, squatted down and did number 2. It must have looked like cat litter, but again... how did it know.

So I went to the store for cat litter and found two cardboard boxes. I filled one box with litter and another box with carpet padding. I left both for the cat in the basement, said goodnight and turned off the light.

The next night I went down to feed the cat, the cat box had been used and the cat was sleeping in the box with the carpet padding. Again how did the cat know to use the cat box if it had been feral all of its life? I filled the food bowl and left clean water.

The third night the cat was up and walking around. He meowed a few times like he was glad to see me. Again the cat box had been used. I filled the food bowl and had clean water for the other. The cat let me pet him as he ate.

The forth night I go down to the basement, the cat is sitting at the glass sliding door to the back yard. I fill the food bowl and the cat isn't interested. He just sits at the sliding glass door. I walk over to the door and the cat lets out a quite meow. I say "What?" again like I knew it was going to understand. The cat puts its right paw on the glass door like it knew that was the way out and I was going to open it for him. I did open the sliding glass door and the cat took off, never to be seen again.

I call the vet the next day and he tells me the the stitches will dissolve in a few days and the cat will be fine.

That was the smartest cat I ever knew. It was only 6 months or so before I got another cat and have had one ever since. Tell me a dog would have done that.

Nathan

You can also tell that the engine was placed in the right spot.

I've seen them on sale for a while now.

http://www.everbuying.com/product298595.html

On the other hand.... Give everyone a gun and home invasions drop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_Georgia#Gun_law

I don't see anywhere in his statement where he singled out the use of a gun. Do you???

Burning at the stake, hanging, the electric chair, death by foobar are all viable alternatives. That is unless you want to ban or control those options too.

Nathan