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Graf Zahl

End of MP3 licensing and stupid journalism

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okay fine water is only wet above 0C and below 100C, and the sky is only blue during the day while not covered by clouds

Edited by Arctangent

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Propaganda is something I had to write in my essays for (a lot of times), so I believe I can recognise it, when it makes its appearance, but it is so advanced nowadays that many new ways of propaganda will have appeared. And I barely trust anyone that easily. There is a lot of bullshit in TV channels and the internet, so I stick with people I know they have personality and are honest. In my country, every direction in politics seems to go right. And for that reason I don't watch politics closely. <<No trust, no reasoning, no what to say>>. So I just wait for a mini Messiah that will take the role of country leader. I don't care what group he is in. If he respects the people of my country, he is worthy and probably won't make stupid decisions and agreements.

 

And for the love of God, I get crazy whenever I see people my age knowing the theories of Marx and Lenin by heart, like they could be applied in my country somehow. Yes, dreaming is always good, but kid, you'd better land sometime from your fluffy clouds and start living with us in the dark at times dimension that we call reality. I myself always have hope and don't like to quit, but I also notice how the world works around me and I try not to lose contact with it (trying to hit the middle solution again). I wanted to say everything included in this paragraph for a really long time and seeing this topic, I couldn't resist.

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7 minutes ago, ShotgunDemolition said:

Propaganda is something I had to write in my essays for (a lot of times), so I believe I can recognise it, when it makes its appearance

The easiest target is the one who believes he cannot be touched.

7 minutes ago, ShotgunDemolition said:

I stick with people I know they have personality and are honest

Because personality and the ability to filter the white-noise that is propaganda have nothing to do with one another, you basically surround yourself with your influences of choice/personal preference, meaning that there's a good chance you're actually a part of the problem.

 

I don't know you personally, and I don't know the people you surround yourself with, let alone the situation you're in.

 

The only outlets I "trust" in regards to information are those that wear their bias on their sleeves one way or another.

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5 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

Is it now a requirement to be incompetent to work in journalism and take some corporate statements with a clear agenda at face value?

I think it's more like batting for the same team, namely capitalists.  Nearly all journalism will always have some sort of bias, and since most media is corporately owned, it's naturally going to have a capitalistic bias of some sort.  Doesn't matter if it's conservative, liberal, or whatever, if it's not owned by the people themselves, it's owned by capitalists...

 

...who really like it when we're obedient consumers.  It's now ingrained in us to throw away apparently useless technology, and companies that control said technology can easy trigger this response in us by stating that it's "outdated" or similar.  It doesn't matter if the technology is still useful, we don't always like to listen to reason.

 

Either way, I'm glad the patents expired since it will hopefully mean even more support from FOSS.

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5 minutes ago, YukiRaven said:

Doesn't matter if it's conservative, liberal, or whatever, if it's not owned by the people themselves, it's owned by capitalists...

 

...who really like it when we're obedient consumers.

Couldn't have said it any better.

 

Yeah, I agree with this approach of being "outdated, so it should be shitcanned". Sure there's better formats than mp3 depending on what you want, but mp3s aren't bad overall to begin with.

 

On that note, there's also a certain chance we're all biased, because we still play an age-old video-game. :p

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Funny enough, most Journalists don't even try to hide their bias (you can also call it lies) anymore. Yeah, there might be still good Journalists, but you know, they usually suddenly die in a car accident or get an heart attack from out of nowhere.

 

Anyways, there is a lot of misinformation going on in those alternative news pages and also in social medias. There is hope though. We are living in a age in which we can communicate with our loved ones within a very short time (e.g.: You live in USA and your wife is out for a business trip in Australia, you are still able to talk with her through the internet connection).

 

And if some of you really want to find out the truth then I think the best way is to become a Journalist (like travelling personally to some locations where several events are happening). It doesn't have to be Warzones, I think demonstrations/protests are good enough for a first step. And if you did that, then look at what each newspaper wrote about that event, you will eventually find something very interesting.  This might quickly turn into a big pile of work.

 

Another problem is, if events are happening outside of your country. While looking at all of those events from your point of view, it would be also good to look at it from that country's point of view,but how are you going to do that? I asked that rhetorical question, because a country will never have only 1 opinion! I mean, even our laws have, shall we say, "open" passages, because after all we are all human beings.

 

This leads me to my final sentence; I believe that we all have this way of thinking, the one way or the other, inside our minds, which is: "I am on the right/good side!". In my opinion, this kind of thought is unavoidable at some point, because if you would completely eliminate this kind of thought, then you would end up by doubting everyone and everything and you would have lots of struggle to make the next move.

 

(I am using "You" and its variations in a general purpose. I didn't address "You" at a specific person)

Edited by rodster

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8 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

The easiest target is the one who believes he cannot be touched.

That is true and I understand it is kind of arrogant of me to say what I said. In my country there is a saying that goes like this: <<Guard your clothes to have half of them.>>. But it is one of many sayings, so it is not easy to remember each one of them individually.

 

Perhaps I should have been more clear in my post, especially in a topic like this.

Firstly, NIH you quoted half of what I was trying to say (the quote should include my second sentence too). I wanted to state that I can see propaganda in its original forms like during WW2 (Goebbels for an example) or generally under an upcoming dictator that wants to gain power. Today's propaganda however is considerably harder to spot due to it being well thought out and in most cases it involves psychology to spread, so that makes things even worse for us.

 

And about personality, what I meant is that I will have a harder time trusting someone whose spirit is a blank page, filled with thoughts that are not his own (a fully automatic, guided by others person). On the other hand, someone who is more independent can win my trust more easily, but he could as well spread propaganda, which would be harder to spot, due to him winning some of my trust. Essentially, what I do in this case, is keeping a bit of trust in the latter person, while checking him from time to time, by seeing other sources of information too and comparing them.

An example that comes to mind is game reviewers. I know many reviewers from youtube that are honest to a certain degree, but they differ from each other thanks to their opinions and personalities. That doesn't stop me from watching their reviews though, when a new game is released and most of the time there is an agreement on their verdicts. And then I read IGN's and similar sites' reviews, because I know they are most likely payed by the game companies to rate their products positively (that doesn't happen always though). This way, I can know if an <<honest>> in my opinion reviewer is truly honest to me, at the time period I checked him. Same with propaganda. I can compare a source of info with what masters of propaganda say or used to say and decide if it is an almost completely propaganda-free source.

8 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

On that note, there's also a certain chance we're all biased, because we still play an age-old video-game. :p

Typical answer to this: <<NO, WE ARE NOT BIASED!!! EVERYONE ELSE IS!!!>>. 

Ideal answer: <<We could be, but we could also not be.>>  (a 50-50 chance). Honestly, I am going to test this out on my friend. He recently finished Doom 2016 and started a replay on Nightmare, because he loved it. He also told me that in the previous difficulty he beat the SMM after battling it for like 20 minutes, without the BFG and by using his super shotgun most of the time, because he forgot he had the BFG on him (I laughed a bit there, like the evil person I can be). So, maybe I can get him to play Doom1, although he told me he tried it once and got lost in E1M1 (I will have to guide him a bit on the start if he ever decides to play the original again).

 

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As sad as this kind of incompetent "journalism" is, it still hides something far sadder:

 

Looking at the various music downloads stores, most are, bluntly spoken, pure shit. That goes particularly for Amazon who only have MP3 on offer, but nothing modern. The only one that genuinely seems to care about quality is iTunes, where not only better compression formats are available, including lossless, but it also seems to be the only one which offers the CDs' bonus tracks. Again no such luck on Amazon which rarely have more than the base versions, and in inferior quality.

 

So from a pure commercial standpoint, the sooner MP3 really dies, the better for the customers. Today bandwidth is high enough that any store not offering lossless formats should be boycotted!


 

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27 minutes ago, Hell Theatre said:

Looking at the various music downloads stores, most are, bluntly spoken, pure shit. That goes particularly for Amazon who only have MP3 on offer, but nothing modern. The only one that genuinely seems to care about quality is iTunes, where not only better compression formats are available, including lossless, but it also seems to be the only one which offers the CDs' bonus tracks.

Beg pardon, Graf, but this is a bit bullshit. Doesn't this actually depend on what the musicians/producers themselves put on sale rather than the store? For example, most of my favourite artists who sell on Bandcamp seem to offer "MP3, FLAC and more". Streaming services like Spotify usually provide dynamic quality depending whether you're on a permanent connection or mobile data. I certainly wouldn't want to download FLAC on my shitty data plan, heh. As for Amazon... uh, I guess that's what you're right about and they should be avoided like the bubonic plague.

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13 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

The only outlets I "trust" in regards to information are those that wear their bias on their sleeves one way or another.

That's not a bad line of reasoning... One aspect of an "honest" news source is just being open about its bias.

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4 hours ago, dew said:

Beg pardon, Graf, but this is a bit bullshit. 

You're not replying to Graf, you know.

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35 minutes ago, Jaxxoon R said:

You're not replying to Graf, you know.

Oops, what a silly mistake from me!

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