I remember using mp3.com

David Drummond got it just right. I do think wide scale monitoring should stop, but shedding some light on what really is happening is necessary to gain the voter's trust.

Big Government is more than just government. These are people, with agendas, who will abuse their power to achieve their personal objectives, wrapped in a shroud of doing what's right for the country. Then there is political party affiliation, where too often people are loyal to the point of treading on their opponents rights. Big Government puts power in the hands of individual people, and that is where it is abused.

At least you get a return. Where I work, ping is dead. Perhaps Carrier Pigeons do not pass ICMP.

I'm old enough to remember the walls of every beer and pizza join around Campaign-Urbana crammed with pinball machines and guys like me going for a free game after a pitcher of Old Milwaukee. The clatter of thumpers and bumpers, the constant bells. Bump bump ... Tilt! Just after grad school Atari released the home version of Pong. I bought one, might still be in my attic.

Never heard anything about pinball games creating mass murderers. Juvenile delinquents hanging around pool halls, sure, but shooting people with guns?

What, no photon torpedoes?

You are on the right track. Back in the 70's Audio mag did some stories which proposed that the warmth of tube sound comes from how the amp reacts when over-driven. A transistor amp clips hard and produces odd numbered harmonics. A tube amp has a softer transition into clipping and produces even numbered harmonics. (Maybe not odd vs. even as much as which dominates.) Even numbered harmonics blend in better with original frequencies while odd numbered harmonics stand out from the original, so equal amounts do not produce an equal effect. A waveform enriched by second and fourth harmonics will sound richer and fatter, which a waveform enriched by third and fifth harmonics will sound rough and buzzy.

Generally we are talking about clipping of transients.

Analog tape also introduces clipping, and a well made pro deck (15ips half track stereo or better) will do so gently. Digital equipment clips extremely hard, so max level must never be exceeded. A digital recording can contain transients at much higher levels relative to the main waveform body, thus pushing the playback amps into clipping. And if these are transistors, the clipping sounds ugly.

Why do IC op-amps sound worse that discrete transistor amps? Could be that to create the necessary resistors the IC designers use a bunch of transistors, which exacerbate the problem.

+1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Inventor_for_Android

My first computer was an Ohio Scientific. 6502, 4k RAM. I added 4K (maxed the MB) and purchased the assembler. Loved coding up assembly code, wrote my own terminal emulator, had to wire in the RS232 interface. Shunned the Apple ][ because OSI did lower case and had graphic gliphs in upper 128 bytes of character generator, great for writing games. Apple ][ only had solid colored blocks, but could do hi-res graphics (cough) if you could afford 48k RAM. My second computer was an IBM Portable Computer (sewing machine case luggable) used for work. Third computer was an Apple Proforma, last of the 68020 family. My kids loved that one. Several fruit colored iMacs, skipped the basket ball version, have a couple flat screen iMacs, MacBooks, you name it. But I prefer my Fujitsu running FreeBSD.

I was working at a retail computer store when the Lisa came out. I recall sales falling through the floor with no new product, customers flocking to the new IBM PC (sold exclusively at IBM stores). Our store had to hire and train a Lisa specialist. He would spend an hour prepping for a demo, setting up a word processing window and a spreadsheet window to show how cool cut and paste was. He did not set that up in front of the client because of how long it took to load those two programs. I think he sold one.

The //e was introduced with the slogan "Apple II forever!" I doubted it then but was impressed by the longevity of the e and the c. Pleasantly surprised that the Lisa and Mac survived adolescence. Many Apple retailers did not, as they lacked the cash reserves Apple had amassed.

The universe would not tolerate more than one of me.

Now, turning to Bill Cosby, "What's a qubit?"

Jumping in here although there are many places in this thread where I would like to comment.

Some points made by others I agree with: 1) Laptops were too expensive, big, and heavy, 2) battery life was not good enough, compounded by OS designers resource-hungry designs, 3) teachers set in their ways, 4) lack of software compatibility, 5) inadequate WiFi coverage and bandwidth.

Over ten years ago I started the Open Slate Project to develop an educational solution similar to what Mr. Fowlkes describes, and I certainly agree with the article's headline. In my concept, an app called Super Chalk Board functions in a client-server manner to transmit data, including live, even hand drawn, input from any slate to any slate or group within the classroom. The display is in layers (think GIMP or Photoshop) with the top layer being notes made by the slate user (student). The slate would have enough storage to hold a reasonable amount of material locally, so that review, study, even homework assignments can be done without a network connection. Sessions would be recorded so that a student who missed class could download the session from home or when they return.

While searching for a way to implement Super Chalk Board I came across Squeak Smalltalk and am convinced that it would made the ideal foundation for Open Slate's software, which I dubbed Chalk Dust. I have used a book morph to create a sample of a first generation Chalk Dust application. Still not networked, but even so rich in potential. Much has been done by the Etoys team to bring Squeak to young children.

The Open Slate Project has been languishing lately but the rise in inexpensive hardware has inspired me to restart it. Anyone interested can look over the somewhat outdated site and sign up for our (low volume) mailing list. Always looking for contributors, or help of any kind for that matter.

Hang it above my EICO HF-87 vacuum tube amp and play the LA Phil recording of the music from Star Wars *real loud* Trick will be to catch the drippings so that they don't gum up the EL-34 / 6CA7 tubes. Good thing my AR turntable and HF-85 preamp are well away from the power amp. The result is the clearest sounding turkey possible.

typo, sorry, that is Harry Partch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Partch

Pythagoras. I first learned this lesson from a book by Harry Parth, but this works:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit3/unit3.html

Truthy

How long has it been since that meme appeared here? Nice flash-back, nice end to the week. Thanks!