Things Smackie Thinks You Need to Know...

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Five ways to make digital music sing

Neil Young says the tech industry doesn't care as much about music quality as it should.

Perhaps that's because the average iPod-toting iTunes customer doesn't give a second thought to whether the digital file of the latest single they just bought is uncompressed or lossless.

A lot of people understand my beef with Comcast, but many people ask me what my beef with at&t is (and I'm not talking about wireless). I mean, the copper phone service has been pretty good for decades. It stupid shit like this that makes me hate at&t. Congratulations, WiMax, you've finally made it!

AT&T Tries to Kill WiMax

Would you kick a crippled person just as they were standing on their feet, about to walk for the first time in years? AT&T would! Against all odds, WiMax just might make it, pending the merger of Sprint and Clearwire's WiMax divisions. So AT&T filed with a petition with the FCC to block it.

The rationale behind AT&T's petition is basically that the deal requires more scrutiny. Their official statement on the matter, sent to us by an AT&T spokesman, is that, "While AT&T does not fundamentally oppose the underlying transaction, Sprint and Clearwire should be required to demonstrate that its merger serves the public interest just like any other providers would have to do." Specifically, a significant chunk of the 2.5GHz spectrum their network will run on is actually leased from the schools and non-profits (which use it for the Educational Broadband Service).

According to Ars, AT&T is arguing that if you count the spectrum holdings Sprint and Clearwire lease from the EBS license holders, they pass the threshold requiring a "competitive analysis" of what the spectrum landscape would look like post-merger, which they don't have in their merger filings. Even though, as Ars points out, when AT&T bought Dobson Communications last year, they said EBS spectrum didn't really count.

So, it has to be askedâ??is AT&T finally scared of WiMax?

Originally posted by vansmack:
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help? i don't get it. 1012? isn't ascii…..

Originally posted by vansmack:

Five ways to make digital music sing

only a so-so article/blog posting, but the last paragraph pointed out something that never occurred to me:

Listen to it live. If the other options still aren't getting it done, you can always go see your favorite act in person. But Rule No. 1 still applies: Actually listen. A lot of people "talk because they're used to music being in the background, they don't just shut up and listen to it."

too true.

Originally posted by sweetcell:
only a so-so article/blog posting, but the last paragraph pointed out something that never occurred to me:

Congratulations on making it to the end. I thought that same thing as I read that, but I loved the last point.

I frequent a lot of communities like this, although I tend not to participate as heavily elsewhere as I do here. A lot of great stuff can come out of these forums, despite what most folks think/say.

So one particular case happened this weekend regarding my quest for the perfect sub-$400 laptop to plug into my Home Server based network.

Acer released a good looking new SSD (solid-state-drive [think Flash]) based laptop with Linux pre-installed, called the AcerOne.

With a lot of these inexpensive models, folks are buy them with Linux preinstalled and installing XP on their own to save costs (~$100). A fair number of users were reporting more problems than usual with the upgrade. Acer was virtually useless in helping solve the problem (they claimed that XP drivers weren't out for the SSD, which is a myth as drivers don't run the SSD) until a group of users broke it down for the rest of us.

Turns out that by sharing information amongst the forum, it was discovered that Acer used two different SSDs - one from Intel and and one from Samsung - in their first run models. Well, the Intel choice reads and writes at about half the speed of the Samsung model and virtually cripples the machine. They broke it down even further from where the machines were purchased and what SSDs they got.

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the US models (purcahsed mostly from Newegg) have the Intel chip and Newegg has started sending them back to Acer for the Samsung models. So, if you're looking for the Acer One, I'd wait a little while. I suspect the Dell UMPC will be out in a matter of weeks anyway which should drive the market price down even further. Here's to hoping they used Samsung chips!

I'm pretty sure Houston couldn't look any more retarded in this article:

Houston Resists Recycling, and Independent Streak Is Cited

A few gems as to why Houston chooses not to recycle.

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• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Landfill costs here are cheap.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;The cityâ??s sprawling, no-zoning layout makes collection expensive.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;there is little public support for the kind of effort it takes to sort glass, paper and plastics.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Houstonians are skeptical of anything that appears to be oversold or exaggerated&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Houstonians have an independent streak that rebels against mandates or anything that seems trendy or hyped up.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;a locally renowned chef approached a city-run recycling depot in her silver pick-up truck full of containers, she was turned away. â??They said my truck was too full.â?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Compounding the cityâ??s difficulties is a contract it signed in the 1990s that requires 30 percent of residential waste to go to landfills until 2027&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;

<font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda">
Meanwhile, their recyle rate is 2.6%, not 70% as would be allowed by that contract.

LA, twice the land size of Houston, recycles at a rate of 62%.

The effort to separate? What year is it that this is considered difficult?

Trendy or hyped up? Maybe in 1990…but in 2008, I'm pretty sure it's proven effective.

Re-tar-ded.

Angels Get Tiexera from Braves for Kotchman

I can only assume that the Angels believe they can resign Tex, otherwise this deal makes no sense in the long run. Kotchman will be a great first basemen.

Originally posted by vansmack:
Angels Get Tiexera from Braves for Kotchman

I can only assume that the Angels believe they can resign Tex, otherwise this deal makes no sense in the long run. Kotchman will be a great first basemen.

they're gonna have to raise beer prices.

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
they're gonna have to raise beer prices.

Are they free in Oakland yet, or not until Huston Street gets dealt?

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
they're gonna have to raise beer prices.

Are they free in Oakland yet, or not until Huston Street gets dealt?

no, but tomorrow is $2 root beer floats. . .

Originally posted by vansmack:
The Dropkick Murphy's played with the Bosstones at the OC Fair last night.

"What's up Angel fans? We were going to play Tessie tonight but since the Angels swept the Red Sox this weekend, we're not gonna do it!"

I would have played it anyway and said until the Angels win a game against Boston in October, we'll play Tessie.

Just wondering if they're ever going to play it….

Is anybody as excited as I am to see Manny Ramirez along side Andrew Jones in the outfiled in Chavez Ravine?

Awesome!

That ball is going to roll and roll and roll….

Oh, and Jay Bay just went from favorite Bucco to hated status in a matter of minutes, but boy am I going to enjoy his fantasy numbers in Boston. And to think I tried to deal him for Teix yesterday and was rejected.

Sprint early termination fees are illegal, judge rules

COURT: CALIFORNIA LAW FORBIDS EARLY TERMINATION CHARGES

I have so many thoughts on this I don't even know where to start…

i've been partial to jack wilson myself, but hopefully they can move him too

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
i've been partial to jack wilson myself, but hopefully they can move him too

I thought he would go to LA. Did they put him on the waiver list?

If Man-Ram works out, I can see LA picking up Wilson's deal for the remainder of the year.

This is great news…

FCC slaps Comcastâ??s wrist over network neutrality; Sets precedent


The Federal Communications Commission on Friday ruled 3-2 that Comcast overstepped its network management authority by blocking BitTorrent peer to peer traffic, but stopped short of fining the cable company. The move clarifies the boundaries a bit for other carriers and sends the message that the FCC enforces network neutrality principles.

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
i've been partial to jack wilson myself, but hopefully they can move him too

I thought he would go to LA. Did they put him on the waiver list?

If Man-Ram works out, I can see LA picking up Wilson's deal for the remainder of the year.

i havent read anything that says they have for sure, but the word (or maybe hope) is he is on the waiver list

cause really, the team is worth blowing up and if youre going to blow it up, blow it up right

I hear you.

I also heard that Manny won't be in the lineup tonight for the Dodgers because the Blue Doo-Rags were banned in the early ninties because of gang wars and Manny won't play without one.

I suggested they contact Alyssa Milano.