Pain_Man

Very nice. Looks like there is more than smokestacks in the Garden State. Don't blame me--that's an old George Carlin routine. Seriously, I recognize many of these progs. Some of which I didn't know were freeware. Quite a public service there. Thanks. I nominate Jersey Guy for the Internet Medal of Honor. Prize is a warm, half empty can of Budweiser and three AOL cds. Enjoy!

Which, I suspect is the real motivation behind this. I can just imagine the "concept" meeting... "We don't need to sell [/i]more[/i] beer, if we could cut the volume per can down by a fourth or a third we can increase per unit sales and drive up per unit profit greatly!" "Holy Lord CEO, I have a proposal on my desk, your Majesty. I think it's the answer to our probablem." "Speak, peon." "This wanker has an idea of how to make a self-cooling beer can--" "Who gives a shit about that?" "No sir, for it to work, we have to reduce the amount of beer by a third. My calculations show that even with the extra cost for the cans, net profit per unit increases by 5.3019%!" "Excellent, peon, serf, do you have a name? You're not the chauffer or the 18 yr old Romanian maid, so what's your name again?" "Perkins? Nice to meet you." "But I've worked here for eight yea--" "Never mind that! Get this idea going! My bonus will jump by millions! Oh and you'll get a $1 an hour raise and a extra day of vacation when you hit twenty years. Of course, we'll have canned your ass long before that. God, I kill myself. Okay out, Jones, whatever your name is. The Romanian maid'll be here any moment. Make sure no one distrubs me for TWO minutes..."

You must be far more of a conoisseur than I. I've never heard of that.

Fascinating concept, eh Shamus? Put beer in frig, beer becomes cold, drink beer. WOW! I hate to say this about my own country , but this idea is the epitome of everything that's wrong with America. We're no so bloody lazy we can't be bothered to put our suds in the fridge. We just want to open the can and, presto, have cold beer instantly. No need to move ass from couch for any longer than necessary!

Got to get this off my chest, after yet another story like this one. It's not hard to understand why record sales have declined 10 out of the last 12 years: for at least fifteen years, the industry--excepting Art Music, which is sometimes called "Classical," something akin to calling all pop music Rockabilly--has offered market researcahed, focused-grouped, poll-tested, ratings fueled drivel. Is it SO far fetched that people are just sick of manufactured crap? Compared to the 60s, 70s, and the first half of the 80s, the music of the 90's and the "Oughts" simply sucks. Where are the Zeps, the Beatles, the Floyds, the Tulls, the Croces, the Dylans, the OMDs, the Depeche Modes? In short, WHERE ARE THE BRITS? Alas, the Simon Cowells and Simon Fullers, while not very succesful, at least before American Idol, are emlematic of the sad fact that the consolidation in the music business has spread the American model of manufactured music to the home of the Beatles. Twice before the British saved American pop music which it turned itself into inspid garbage. After the death of Buddy Holley in 1959, American music turned itself into Fabian and his ilk--just awful. It took the Brits, starting with the Beatles in 1964 to save the popular music invented in America (ironically it originated as a mixture of English "folk" music with African rhythms). The "British Invasion" the Liverpudlians began soon ushered in the most brilliant pop music ever created. Thru the door opened by the Beatles walked The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Yes, Rush (yes, Canadian) and many others. By the late 70s, the wave of conglomeration had led to the crapification of music. One response was the putrid stench of punk. This didn't last long, with only the Clash showing any real talent or staying power. Only a few American bands of brilliance emerged including Fleetwood Mac & the Eagles. Once again, pop music was in the doldrums. By 1980, "the British [were] coming" and that was, again, a good thing. The synth pop, or New Wave, era started just as Disco was breathing its last foul breaths. Depeche Mode, U2, Duran Duran, OMD, Joy Division/New Order, the Cure, the Smiths, and, on the US side, artists such as Oingo Boingo, Tom Petty, Don Henley held things up in the early and mid-80s. By 1990, the creative gas had run out, so to speak. For the next fifteen years the Maurice Stars & Lou Pearlman would bombard us with manufactured shit like New Kids on the Block, InSync, 98 Degrees, Christian Aguilera, Britney Spears. The few bands of real talent, such as the New Orleans-based Squirrel Nut Zippers, found getting their heads above water--excepting the occasional novelty hit--nearly impossible. The Marketeers had taken over completely. Image was all that mattered. It didn't matter if you could sing. If you were beautiful, had a great bod and could dance, they could take a real singer's voice, lay a thin veneer of your own over it (e.g. Paula Abdul, which is what makes her job as "judge" of singing filled with an irony she clearly is oblivious to) or you could completely fake it (a la Milli Vanilli), but most common was taking a thin, nasally voice, like Madonna's, and using "studio magic" put notes back in tune that weren't anywhere close. What talent had once provided, computers could now simulate. Records sales entered into a severe and steep, almost uninterrupted decline. Only rap ("hip-hop") showed any real juice and that was more because of its immense ability to irritate anyone over the age of 20--i.e. parents. Since 2 out of 3 rap fans are white, teenaged boys, relating to life in the 'Hood probably was not the music's charm. It was what the French call epater les bourgeois--to outrage the middle class. But rap quickly revealed a creative sterility. What happened? In came the Marketeers again. There's an old computer acronym: GIGO. If the "artists" a record company is signing have the talent of people who can't get an edition in a Vegas lounge, they're unlikely to produce a "Sgt. Pepper's," "Stairway to Heaven" or a "Strangelove" or an "If You Leave." Then the Internet Revolution took hold. Finally! The idiot-ass executives who run the world's three record company's realized they now had an out. It wasn't their fault for producing shitty music, it was the public's fault for stealing it! (Despite the fact that record stores near college campuses, the evil "centers" of this plague of imaginary piracy, showed increases in sales!) Millions of dollars could be reaped from bogus lawsuits and the P2P phenomenon provided an excellent excuse to whine to Congress and the courts that they were the victims of millions of their fans, er, "thieves." If the Internet would just go away, if CD burners would simply vanish, then all would be FINE. Since they won't, "Let's lock 'em down." "But there's a legal right to record music you've paid for." "Who gives a shit about that? Rights, schmights. Get to work treating our fans like criminals!" "Quality" is a term rarely heard and never heeded in boardrooms and executive suites of the three companies who control the music industry. The buzzword is "piracy." It's now "give us your cute, your cut, your good hair and telegenic looks..." Once again, as demonstrated below, the "piracy" charge is a dodge. A dodge from signing REAL talent--regardless of their looks, or their "marketability", a dodge for actually doing the leg work of going to the small bars, or listening to demos, where great bands and singers have always been incubated, the real talent nutured, the genius honed, refined and made ready. One can only pray the British Isles once again manages to save American music from a nearly terminal mediocrity. But I wonder how like that is now that only 3 companies control everything (Sony-BMG, Universal-Vivendi and Time-Warner). The Capitol Records, the Chrysalis Records, the Atlantic Records and other "indies" that provided the outlet for REAL talent to make it to listener's ears are all gone now--swallowed up by corporate behemoths who care only for profits and the stock (share) price that determines the CEOs mult-million dollar salaries. With such a stranglehold on the traditional channel, I pray the Net becomes the way to pray the cold, dead corporate hands from around music's neck. If music can be delivered directly to the fan, by passing the little plastic disk stage, then the record companies will go the way of the dinosaur. It can't happen soon enough. 2005: RIAA gets it totally wrong AGAIN After 2005, RIAA gets it totally wrong again 3 January 2006 16:54 by Dela [picture]Now that 2005 has come to an end, major music labels can assess their sales over the past 12 months. To the annoyance of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), music CD sales in the U.S. dropped by about 3.5% according to Nielsen Soundscan. CD sales had risen by 2.3% in 2004 and the music companies were quick to applaud their anti-piracy efforts and gave those efforts full credibility for the rise in CD sales. However, now faced with a 3.5% drop, the same companies are blaming piracy all over again. However, looking back over the past year, the collective anti-piracy efforts of both the music and movie industries on the Internet reached a whole new level of toughness. Specifically, the entertainment industry has the U.S. Supreme Court Grokster ruling under it's belt, which then led to many P2P services disappearing or changing completely. Now add on the 7,000+ lawsuits from the RIAA against P2P users and the Australian Kazaa case; it was a good year for anti-piracy efforts (from the music industry's usual point of view). So that brings us to a question; if the music industry cited the 2004 anti-piracy efforts for the rise of music sales, then why were their anti-piracy efforts ineffective in 2005? Perhaps the answer is simply that the RIAA was wrong in 2004? One thing that is easily forgotten by music companies is that economical changes affect sales all around the world - sometimes people have less or more money to spend on music. Then you must remember that technology advances lead to new "must have" products every year that consumers buy up, leaving them with less money to spend on music. Then, there is also another factor; maybe less people were really interested in the music selection major labels provided in 2004. It seems the the major music labels of the world believe that all their customers have the same amount of money each year and spend it on the same things. New gadgets like Sony's PlayStation Portable and new iPods (and other MP3 players) in 2005 were purchased with many consumers' spare cash, leaving them less money to spend on music. Also, take into account some of the recent natural disasters in the world, such as the December 2004 Asian tsunami disaster which saw many people donating large amounts of money in early 2005 to help out. There are countless things that are not music-related that could have contributed to the drop in CD sales. Legal music downloads have also grown in popularity. Many consumers now have turned from buying CDs and instead just pay for single downloads instead of full albums on CD. Does piracy affect music sales? Of course it does but can it be solely blamed for CD sales drops in 2005? That's very doubtful. It is probably just easier for the music companies to blame piracy (particularly file sharing piracy) for drops in CD sales than to accept that some consumers were less interested in music in 2005 for example. Source: The Register

[ Why do you think the KGBPAA and the GesatpoRIAA are going after P2P networks so hard? The French just put stringent requirements on them. There's pressure on Congress to outlaw or severely restrict them (basically by making the ISP financially responsible for the so-called "infringement"). They want to close off that channel. Once they've nailed that down, then comes the $5 to watch ER and $2.50 a pop to watch your DVDs. It's coming. It's only a matter of time. Of course, They are too stupid to realize that this will only spur a gray-to-black market for Rights Protection Technology. Encryption schemes will be cracked. Ananymous filesharing networks will be created with RSA1024 encryption. Basic law of physics: for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Only Hollywood dimtwits are too stupid to realize this.

What're you, new? (Take no offense...) Of course its a conspiracy. You think its a coincidence that the stories on ABC, CBS & NBC are the same stories as on the front page of the NY Times! What's even worse is being old enough to remember when San Diego had only 5 channels. And LA had only 8.

I'm not sure how I got this, but here goes...

Thanks for the info. This'll never fly. I know one thing: I'll never buy another Phillips or Magnavox TV again if they implement this crap. But it just adds more evidence to what I've been saying for years: "DRM", "copy protection" all of that shit has NOTHING to do with piracy. Absolutely nothing. This all goes back to the "Bill bill." Gates inadervtantly tipped his hand to his (and Hollywood, the Networks and record companies) REAL goal. This is ALL about figuring out how to charge us for watching each episode of popular shows. About charging us for taping shows (that we might miss for example while we're WORKING so we can afford to buy these bastards' products!). About creating ways to make us pay a few bucks evertime we pop a DVD (or whatever) into the player to watch something we've already paid for! FOLLOW THE MONEY is my maxim and, 'ceptin' where religion is involved, it is almost always true. The public outcry on this, if they move to put it into production--let alone if the FCC allows it--will be horrendous, at least in the US. There are plenty of Congressmen and Senators willing to take to the well of their respective to Chambers to denounce this. After all, it beats doing anything about something that really matters--like cutting that damn gas tax which adds 50 cents to each gallon of gas! In fact, depending upon locality, state (and sometimes local taxes) taxes make up 25% to 33% of every gallon of gas sold in the US.

This is quite true. Mercedes and BMV may enjoy the cachet of their names but they are miserable to own. You're looking at $200US/month on maintenance on average (a lot of people pay more, especially more expensive the model). But this has always been true of German technology. Their engineers can be quite clever, brilliant even (the "misting" carbeurator invented by a Daimler distributor; the V-1, V-2 rockets--the basis of all ballistic and space missiles built by everyone since; nerve gas; modern pharmaceuticals (which their government destroyed by price controls)--but in quality control German products often suck. An interview with a German tanker about his WWII experiences: "Our tanks may have had better armor and better guns [than the Allies'] but what did it matter when they broke down every 100km? The American and British tanks could go forever." Exactamundo! Using a modern example: instead of throttle cable, the Mercedes has a mechanical assembly with EIGHTEEN separate MECHANICAL parts intead of a...steel cable! Which do you think breaks down more often?

I read on one of the sites someone has linked to in their signature that said that JVC used to produce the best. (The operative term being used to.) I do remember seeing some JVC 8cm discs for camcorders but that's about it. And I think I saw a picture on a website of some DDCDRs made by them. If they were better than Taiyo, I wonder why they aren't still making them?

"Is there any chance I will reach the Nineteenth Heaven, oh Brahmin?" asked Omni. "It depends," replied the Brahmin, "on what kind of life you lead." "I try to be a good citizen, a good husband, a good father, a good friend. I sometimes lend money without interest to the rich; I give to the poor. I preserve peace among my neighors." "But," asked the Brahmin, "do occasionally stick nails into your bottom?" [ ] "Never, reverend father." "I am sorry," the Brahmin replied, "you will certainly never attain the Nineteenth Heaven." --Voltaire from the short story, Badabec

See below

ROTFLMAO.

I would say by 1000% Mais bien sur!

From my mother, a great, true story: The Budweiser Story How Budweiser handled those who laughed at attacks on 9/11 [i would remind my British cousins that 300 UK citizens died in the attacks; my Canadian cousins should remember that 50+ Canadians died as well] ...Thought you might like to know what happened in a little town north of Bakersfield, California*. On September 11th, a Budweiser employee was making a delivery to a[n Arab-American-owned] convenience store in a California town named McFarland. He knew of the tragedy that had just occurred in New York when he entered the business to find the two Arab-Americans, who owned the business, whooping and hollering to show their approval and support of this treacherous attack. The Budweiser employee went to his truck, called his boss and told him of the very upsetting event! He didn't feel he could be in that store with those horrible people. His boss asked him, "Do you think you could go in there long enough to pull every Budweiser product and item our beverage company sells there? We'll never deliver to them again." The employee walked in, proceeded to pull every single product his beverage company provided and left with an incredible grin on his face. He told them never to bother to call for a delivery again. Budweiser happens to be the beer of choice for that community. [it should be noted that Budweiser has a60% of the beer market in the US.] [imagine Paul Harvey's baritone intonations...] And Now [for] The Rest Of The Story: It seems that the Bud driver and the Pepsi [driver for that area] are neighbors Bud called Pepsi and told him. Pepsi called his boss who told him to pull all Pepsi products as well!!! That would include Frito Lay, etc. Furthermore, word spread and all vendors followed suit! At last report, the store was closed indefinitely. A good old [fashioned] American ass whoopin! Finally... ....THANK AN AMERICAN OR BRITISH SOLDIER!!! God Bless America and the UK! *Approxiametly 100k north-east of LA.

Besides the lower scan (burnt at 12x) looks pretty sweet, does it not?

My idiot brother-in-law's in jail. And I've banned him from the house. So I don't have to worry about that. Hopefully, the state of Nevada will keep him nice and behind bars for several years to come. He's 40 yrs old and still getting arrested on coke charges (he simply can't fathom that it's illegal to tell an undercover cop where to buy dope! Nay the less, your point's excellent Chewie. There are two perspectives here: the first is that of an entertainment device, the second that of a storage device. And I agree, as long as the data can be retrieved from a DVD and transfered to a format that can be played then the DVD's proved its worth.

You've got a lot more knowledge than I do so I don't want to seem as tho' I'm arguing with you. But so far even some three yr old CMCs with wretched scans are still playing fine. However, your point will probably prove out over the longer term, five, ten, fifteen years (tho' I kind of doubt we'll still be using DVDs at the ten yr mark, let alone fifteen). In the immediate term, the question remains open--in my experience.

With a tongue capable of that, polo, you should not have any need to pretend to be anything. What's that old joke about the guy with the foot-long tongue?

I've just recently started scanning my disks. I still not convinced of the actual worth of the procedure. I have a number of disks with atrocious scans that play perfectly well in my set-top and in my PC burners. So far the relationship between a quality scan and quality "video experience", to me, seems tenuous at best. Nay-the-less, I was getting some not so good readings from TYG03s burnt set at 16x (of course I've never seen it hit 16 and it rarely stays above 13x for long). Grain told me he'd been experiencing the same thing but that slowing them down had a beneficial effect on the scans. So far this is turning out to be true. To reiterate, watching these discs on my HDTV (a CRT not a LCD or reflector) shows no difference. But the scans are the scans. In the interests of full disclosure I should add that they were NOT burned on the same burners but were burned in the same PC. Take a look at this one burnt at 16x max: And this one burnt with the speed set to 12x: Obviously, slowing down increases quality as far as the DIP scanner is concerned. By almost 14% overall. And C1 errors are a whopping 1400% lower with the slower speed than with the higher even though the higher speed burn was done on the excellent Plextor PX-716A.

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me. --Woody Allen Seconds does not necessarily mean shoddy just as "first quality goods" doesn't guarantee excellent workmanship. A second can be, in every way that matters, the same as a "firsts." When I first started selling carpet--long story but a guy has to eat --the place had a big sign inside that said, "ALWAYS FIRST QUALITY GOODS!" Which puzzled me because they sold a lot of crappy floorcovering. "First Quality" just means the product met, exactly, the manufacturer's specifications. Don't know about Canadian law, but in the US, it would be a crime to sell seconds as firsts. (But then again who defines first? Second?) The reasons for putting something on the "seconds" pile can be ridiculously minor. A second could be that the cover wasn't the precise color required (not the recordable side). Or that they left this ATIP data off. There are myriad reasons. To take an example from another industry, carpet that was supposed to be one size is cut to another. That would make it second but it is in no way inferior to the batch that was cut to the right size and shipped to stores. After all, a Suzuki Swift (also sold as the Geo Metro in the US once upon a time) bought off the lot is "first quality goods". But a used Nissan would almost certainly be a far better vehicle (I had my Nissan truck for 10 yrs before I sold it, and only replaced ONE clutch during over 100,000+ miles including 4 cross country runs--3K miles one way).

One of my main online vendors has a TY "store" (it's supermediastore.com) and they have a big warning posted on every TY page about how to spot genuine TYs. Apparently, phonying up CMC, Prodisc and worse (if that's possible) and passing them as TY's is quite the business. That's one of the big reasons I quit buying all but Verbatim 95058 & 95053 (-R & +R respectively) in stores. Even Fuji which could once be counted upon to sell TYs has switched to different brands. You really can't trust anyone. Same with some discs Plextor foisted upon me; in the box for my Px-716A was a coupon for 50 CDRs for $5, Prodiscs of course!) And Memorex, jesus. Been burned by them. In late 2003 when I got my first burner (I really appreciate you guys working out so many bugs for me with burning and the thing unmentionable; it was a great help, ). I first bought Memorex DVDs basing the decision how good the cassette tapes used to be. And for a while they were using Ricohs. Now, of course, they don't. Sad to see such a great name placed over such trash. Even with Verbatim CDs you must be careful. I bought a 50 pack (it was one of those promotions where ya got 100 MP3s from emusic.com) of Verbatim CDRs. Turned out to be CMCs! Needless to say I only use them for things that aren't in any way important (copies of my daughter's CDs, quick burns for my wife to take to work, or if I come up with a "songlist" I want to hear; I know, use CDRWs, but what else am I gonna use CMCs for? Plus it was $9.99. Before you say caveat emptor, BestBuy also sells the above-mentioned Verbatim DVDs for $7.99/25 periodically. naturally, I grab a hundred everytime they run that sale.

The women were in their 30s! I could understand it more if the victims were befuddled Alzheimer's patients or "developmentally disabled" (since we can't say "retarded" anymore, at least in the US, the penalty is having to watch 40 hours of Oprah straight, they taze you if you start to fall asleep, or they smack your nuts with a ballpeen hammer 3 times; hard to say which would be more painful...yeah, it'd have to Oprah, my nuts'd quit hurting in a few hours...40 hours of Oprah could cause permanent brain damage). But normal, adult-type female? Just letting a strange guy fondle their cans? I spent a lot of year, nice, normal, young trying to fondle cans and got nowhere. Guess I should have made myself look sixty and pretended I was a doctor.

I have a feeling if his thing was wanking (if that means I what I believe it does ) he wouldn't be in jail for sexual assault.