Soyuz TMA-11 Comes Home, More or Less...

On May 5, 3:09 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Jeff Findley wrote:
That's because teachers these days (at least at my kids' schools) consider
the Internet to be a legitimate reference when writing a paper. :-P

It is, provided you are looking for just facts...and not opinions...and
cross-check what you find.

That also means that that definition of " facts " would include all of
the
sites about the 9/11 Jewish Conspiracy, and the Moon Landing Hoax...

Posting web sites has as much editorial and peer review credibility as
does self publishing by a vanity press. It MAY be better than that,
but
theres no standard by which to discern such a difference.

Doing that by books would be very time-consuming, but on the Internet
it's easy.

No, its really not. Derek's distinction between facts and knowledge
was
spot on. There are a lot of facts on the Web, some of them even true,
but
for real knowledge in depth, books are still the place to go to.

This proposition also presupposes that books are without error in
regards to information, which certainly is not the case.

Well, as no one suggested that straw donkey, then that neither adds
nor
distracts from the relative credibility of each source. But, for the
most credible
knowledge, books remain the gold standard. And, they come without
every
use fees...

Andre

On May 2, 11:45 pm, "Scott Hedrick" wrote:
"Andre Lieven" wrote in message

...

On May 1, 10:50 pm, "Scott Hedrick" wrote:
"Andre Lieven" wrote in message

...

OK, I have to chime in here with a good defense of books. Along
with Sam Cogley, attorney at law... Jim Kirk known him...

Books, very very good. Sam Cogley, twit (played very well by a very good
actor).

It's already essentially impossible to win a case without access to
Westlaw
or the equivalent. There's simply too much to simply flip through some
books, outside of small claims court.

That depends on the memory skills of the person involved. Certainly
prior to things like Westlaw, it had to be done.

Yes, it was *drudge work*. Lincoln made some comment about the lawyer not
being worth his hire without doing the drudge work. Then Saint West and
Saint Shepard devised legal indexing methods.

Moreover, recently I was able to access Westlaw and download 230MB of
references as Word files in about 16 hours. I couldn't even find much of
that material via paper, because it would have taken too long. I'm trying to
update my textbook on quieting titles, and what would have taken months by
hand (and a great deal more money) took a few hours.

Well, I'm not saying that its all bad, but that systems changes such
as this
one do change what is and isn't accessable. Several folks have already
pointed
out that a lot of pre CD music is simply unavailable on any digital
format. Ergo
the new types of record turntables with direct to computer connections
so that
one can play an LP right into one's hard drives.

Some older skills that get replaced by technology are worth
maintaining for their own sake.

I agree. Tangentally, it's also important to maintain pure genetic stocks of
legacy crops, if only to occasionally reinvigorate the hybrids.

Yes.

That wouldn't sell such a device to me, because most of my books are
trade
paperbacks or hardcovers, mostly the latter, and with many oversized
reference books among them, where a paperback page size would be far,
far too small.

Magazines, then. It seems to be the only place I can catch up on my tech
manuals.

That'd be not that different from the screen size that a reference
book
would need to be readable on an e-book reading device.

As I recall, wasn't it a *paper* edition of a newspaper which alerted SG1
that the friendly aliens weren't so friendly (since the natives had
regressed in technology and no longer had computers)? (The Aschen from
"2010" and "2001")

I'd have to look that one up, or re-watch the episodes. Ten seasons is
a lot of episodes...

"200" has got to be a classic. I found the last episode to be a bit
emotional. Can't believe Carter blew the chance to squeeze Thor's little
grey butt...

Oh, that episode was brilliant. " Sir, is that you ?... beats... "
No... ".

It was a wonderful series. Far better and more good fun than it's
relatively
low cultural radar return would suggest.

Compared to when I was a young fan, we live in a multi media world
of plentiful SF, some of it actually good. Compared to a decade where
the TV highlights were The Starlost, Space 1999, and the original BSG,
a decade with ten years of SG-1, with Atlantis, the new BSG, not to
mention all the DC Animated Universe offerings is a good time.

Andre

Andre Lieven wrote:

Well, I'm not saying that its all bad, but that systems changes such
as this one do change what is and isn't accessable. Several folks have
already pointed out that a lot of pre CD music is simply unavailable
on any digital format.

Oddly enough - I had a weird encounter with that just a few hours
ago...

Back in 1976 my uncle, who wanted to be a country star, released a
self published album of 'trucker' music to cash in on the CB craze. I
hadn't thought of it in years, until tonite I was looking at a list of
the top songs of 1975 (which includes C.W. McCall's _Convoy_) and was
reminded of Jodie's album..

Here's a novelty album which sold a few thousand copies and vanished
without a trace thirty plus years ago... Yet, when I googled, right
as the top result was a blog entry offering the album for download.
(Even odder? The entry was written just two days ago.)

Ergo the new types of record turntables with direct to computer
connections so that one can play an LP right into one's hard drives.

Yep. Despite the above, much of my New Wave vinyl collection isn't
available, legally or otherwise, in a digital format. I need to get
one of those turntables soon.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
news:MqGdnSLBGfIzx4LVnZ2dnUVZ_vWdnZ2d@northdakotat elephone...


Fevric J Glandules wrote:
In the same universe that hosts: (1) the paperless office,
(2) electricity that's too cheap to meter, and (3) a 20-hour work week,
perhaps.


applause


I don't know about the others, but keep a eye peeled for that paperless
office at some point down the road.

Maybe.

At least with today's cheap digital projectors we've done away with
transparencies. Now you can project your PowerPoint documents on the wall
and even play them with audio! Cool right? Wrong! Even my kids spend more
time tweaking colors, fonts, and etc in their PowerPoint's than they do
putting in acual *content*. :-(

There are several Dilbert cartoons on this very subject (PowerPoint's devoid
of actual content).

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
news:5MGdnV0RupEFxoLVnZ2dnUVZ_gGdnZ2d@northdakotat elephone...

It is, provided you are looking for just facts...and not opinions...and
cross-check what you find.
Doing that by books would be very time-consuming, but on the Internet it's
easy.
This proposition also presupposes that books are without error in regards
to information, which certainly is not the case.

If you're at a *good* Internet site, it will cite sources which are in
print, so you can double check them, and get more information.
Astronautix.com is one of these sorts of sites. Unfortunately, it's in the
minority. I'd be leery of using other Internet sites as cross checks,
unless you actually find a site with primary sources (i.e. actual pictures
or scans of original documents).

Sometimes I wonder if kids these days know what a primary source is.

http://www.lib.washington.edu/Subject/History/RUSA/

Finding two secondary sources that contain the same "facts" still isn't as
good as finding an actual primary source. People who do actual research are
looking for as many primary sources as possible.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
Andre Lieven wrote:
Ergo the new types of record turntables with direct to computer
connections so that one can play an LP right into one's hard drives.

Yep. Despite the above, much of my New Wave vinyl collection isn't
available, legally or otherwise, in a digital format. I need to get
one of those turntables soon.

I'm not sure how good those turntables really are for archival purposes, but
they certainly are convenient. They essentially contain a turntable, a
turntable preamp (the one with the RIAA equalizer), and a USB sound card.
You can set one of these up right next to your PC, so it's very convenient.

My setup has a lot more pieces. It's an old turntable hooked into an old
receiver, which feeds into an old Minidisc recorder (it's got a good analog
to digital converter), which feeds its optical digital output into the
optical digital input on my PC sound card. This works well for me since my
audio equipment is sitting right next to my PC equipment.

I used this setup to transfer several dozen old vinyl albums to CD. Some
were loaned to me by my wife's grandmother and others were given to me by my
grandmother. In both cases, their old turntables had "gone bad". Now they
can play their old albums on CD.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

Jeff Findley wrote:
"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
Andre Lieven wrote:
Ergo the new types of record turntables with direct to computer
connections so that one can play an LP right into one's hard drives.

Yep. Despite the above, much of my New Wave vinyl collection isn't
available, legally or otherwise, in a digital format. I need to get
one of those turntables soon.

I'm not sure how good those turntables really are for archival purposes, but
they certainly are convenient. They essentially contain a turntable, a
turntable preamp (the one with the RIAA equalizer), and a USB sound card.
You can set one of these up right next to your PC, so it's very convenient.

They are, in fact, just awful. I reviewed a couple of them for an audio
magazine and I was pretty horrified. None of them had cartridges that
tracked as well as the lowest-common-denominator Stanton 500, and none of
them met RIAA specs. They all had audible cogging. I would not recommend
any of them. Stay away from _anything_ direct-drive for archival work.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Andre Lieven" wrote in message
...
Several folks have already
pointed
out that a lot of pre CD music is simply unavailable on any digital
format. Ergo
the new types of record turntables with direct to computer connections
so that
one can play an LP right into one's hard drives.

I'm considering getting one. I had a tiny collection of LPs but no
turntable. Finally got a used one, and my kids tore out the needle before I
had a chance to use it. I got an "all in one" for Christmas, and I am now
expanding my collection. I still have my H.R. PuffNStuff and Josie and the
Pussycats 45s.

"200" has got to be a classic. I found the last episode to be a bit
emotional. Can't believe Carter blew the chance to squeeze Thor's little
grey butt...

Oh, that episode was brilliant. " Sir, is that you ?... beats... "
No... ".

Oh, yeah! I was thinking it was a shame that Walter had never gotten to go
through the orifice, then comes that episode.

Compared to when I was a young fan, we live in a multi media world
of plentiful SF, some of it actually good. Compared to a decade where
the TV highlights were The Starlost, Space 1999, and the original BSG,
a decade with ten years of SG-1, with Atlantis, the new BSG, not to
mention all the DC Animated Universe offerings is a good time.

Let's not mention "Stargate: Infinity" again...


** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
Finding two secondary sources that contain the same "facts" still isn't as
good as finding an actual primary source. People who do actual research
are looking for as many primary sources as possible.

I was asked to give a eulogy. Not having done one before, I went online. I
checked out the first 27 links. The first 26 contained the same exact
quotes, and the 27th was an Amazon.con listing for the book the other sites
were quoting from.

"No, young man, you did *not* find 27 references. You found *one* reference.
You can learn from this experience and learn how to better filter your
responses or not, but the discussion is over and your grade stands."

On the other hand, the fact that all of these other sites quoted the same
source lends some strength to that source.


** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On 6 May 2008 11:24:51 -0400, in a place far, far away,
(Scott Dorsey) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Jeff Findley wrote:
"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
Andre Lieven wrote:
Ergo the new types of record turntables with direct to computer
connections so that one can play an LP right into one's hard drives.

Yep. Despite the above, much of my New Wave vinyl collection isn't
available, legally or otherwise, in a digital format. I need to get
one of those turntables soon.

I'm not sure how good those turntables really are for archival purposes, but
they certainly are convenient. They essentially contain a turntable, a
turntable preamp (the one with the RIAA equalizer), and a USB sound card.
You can set one of these up right next to your PC, so it's very convenient.

They are, in fact, just awful. I reviewed a couple of them for an audio
magazine and I was pretty horrified. None of them had cartridges that
tracked as well as the lowest-common-denominator Stanton 500, and none of
them met RIAA specs. They all had audible cogging. I would not recommend
any of them. Stay away from _anything_ direct-drive for archival work.
--scott

Yeah, I can imagine that they're basically a vinyl lathe.

Unfortunately, it's been so long since most people had experience with
records (and anyone under thirty probably has none) that they've
forgotten the lessons of the era. I keep meaning to getting around to
replacing the tonearm/cartridge on my old Planar table, but it's
getting hard to find quality ones, though Grado still seems to be
around. I'd love to find a needle for my old Grace 707, but even if
I'd stockpiled them from the day, I suspect that the suspension might
be shot just from deterioration, even without use.