Hitting digital limitations? Go Analog!

In reply to this weblog entry on hitting DRM limitations, I wrote

There's one way they can't stop you, though there's a minor loss in quality (give or take...most heavy-compression audio formats already are lossy, so it really can't get any worse): run it through an analog mode on the way into a computer. Music won't really be "CD-quality", but for spoken word, who's going to notice. And this works fine for me when I'm making (personal use only) CDs from DVD and VHS concerts (that I own -- no piracy here you RIAA jackasses).

Basically, what you do, requiring either 2 computers, or an intervening high quality tape recorder or the phillips cd-recorder thingy, is wire one computer's "speaker" jack (not the headphone jack, as that's amplified and will distort) into the input (again, not the amplified "mic" jack) of another computer, play with the volume and input settings 'til you don't see red, then with appropriate software (n-track studio works for me on my win98 laptop @ home) record it into .wav files. With something in .wav mode, you can do anything you want. Remember to record into 16bit, 44.1 stereo to match the CD rating.

If you don't have 2 computers handy, you can use a tape recorder with Dolby-B to have a temp copy that you play back into the computer, or a digital tape recorder will suffice even better, but again, using the analog i/o lines instead of trying an all-digital solution. Keep in mind that an audio cd holds 650-700 (74min or 80min) plus of space, so you'll need a lot of free disc space, on a single partition, to make the .wav files.

Mind you, with any CD already cut, you can copy that independently, so the whole "you can only make one cd out of this" is a stupid and useless. But I read and noticed you already noted that flaw in their logic...

It really comes down to this: any one audio package by itself isn't enough to do all the audio you want to do, in order to stay DRM compliant, but the right combination of tools, and the willingness to pass through an analog mode on the way, will allow you to do anything.

still more wild on the future commentary ;-)

Two parts to "intelligence" by human standards

There's really two things to consider in producing another creature like humans that visibly demonstrate their intelligence by manipluting their environment to suit them and assert some mastery (domestication) of lesser animals.

One of course, is actually having the brains and a complex means of communicating ideas besides "bad", "good", "i like that" and "i fear that". The other is the means of manipulating the environment, and tools. And we still don't clearly understand how this happened to us to be able to properly predict how another spinoff creature might reach the same point. We see signs of growing tool use in other primates now, but much of that is a result of them watching us do it ("monkey see monkey do"), and as such can't be relied on to make the type of predictions the show was aiming for.

Certainly ant and bee colonies are a clear demonstration of how an individual in a group can be an idiot and yet through signals sent by messenger individuals (utterly unaware of what they're carrying) the colony can show massive awareness and adaptation to situations in its environment. In other words, the colony shows signs of consciousness and individuality even as the individual insect shows none. The special decided to look at the extensions of such colonies in jellyfish and spiders.

I think another fault might have been ignoring the fact that our metal and buildings and trash would still be in some parts of the environment...it would have been nifty to see what might have evolved as a result of the situation of an abandoned city falling apart.

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"It's not like all animals will grow really big if nothing killed them." -- not all, but some will, and if sticking your neck out gets you food others can't get, then long necks will likely evolve. The problem is that most creatures today eat grass (no need for a long neck unless the body is too tall like elk and moose) or climb up into the trees they eat from. For a turtle to evolve a long neck, it would have had to have found some reason to not have evolved grass-eating which is nature's current direction of things since grass is so prevelant (even giraffes can deal with grasses, though they prefer leaves).

"why would sharks suddenly have a need for bioluminescence" -- perhaps a lack of food on the surface of the oceans due to excessive heat or cold? Although some creatures (like cats) have been steadily gaining some degree of infrared heat-sensitivity to deal with the dark...

"remember how raptors hunt in packs and use logic" -- I still consider that speculation at this point...believable, but not enough to base an argument on...particularly not after having based a movie on it ;-)

"Also squid have existed for millions of years and have remained pretty much unchanged" -- I would agree with this assesment. some creatures have definitely shown an end-of-the-road aspect of their evolutionary existance (as in, they're unchanged from pre-dinosaur times) and I don't see nature trying again with the invertibrates as long as there are vertibrates who can eat them.

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on the show's prediction of the elimination of mammals:

yes, the big cats are disappearing, mostly due to us hunting them or taking away their own hunting and breeding grounds, but the small cats, particularly the domestic cats, are tremendously well adapted hunters of small insects and rodents, and given that most mass-extinctions tend to take out the larger animals, I can't see the food supply of cats ever disappearing...and small cats aren't hunted by anybody (you don't get much eating a meat-eater, and nature knows that).

Right now, we're the biggest killer of cats (roadkill) and the biggest danger to their extinction (eventually we might get stupid and "fix" the last domestic cat and poof! no more cats).