[X-Unix] What's in an MP3's resource fork..? [Was: Re: [X4U] ._annoying_files on SMB shares - can I remove them..?]

[Alex]

On Thursday, Apr 22, 2004, at 14:38 Canada/Eastern, Eugene Lee wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 12:17:38PM -0400, Alex wrote:
>
> : [...]  I don't like or understand
> : Schoenberg or Alban Berg, but that doesn't mean they're no good.
>
> Resource forks are not transparent to the user, are not portable to
> non-Mac platforms, may be irrevocably lost when data is transported to
> another Mac through one or more intermediary non-Macs, and belong to a
> platform that many pundits argue dominate 5% of the world's computer
> population and thus represents 5% of the world's computing experience.

And that is going to help me persuade my musicologist friend that 
"Erwartung" is crap -- how, exactly?

> Resource forks are not transparent to the user [...]

They're perfectly transparent. The user has no clue they're there 
(witness Stroller's initial mishap). Wish my windows had that kind of 
transparency, especially on a nice sunny day like today.

> [...] are not portable to
> non-Mac platforms, may be irrevocably lost when data is transported to
> another Mac through one or more intermediary non-Macs[...]

In other words, the rest of the world hasn't yet caught up with the 
Mac. Oh well, what can you do -- just have patience, trust in progress, 
and wait.

> [...] belong to a
> platform that many pundits argue dominate 5% of the world's computer
> population and thus represents 5% of the world's computing experience.

Maybe yes, and maybe no -- so what? The "mere idea of criticizing the 
government, of being secure from arbitrary arrest, of having a fair 
trial (or even a fairish trial, or even a trial at all)" [Robert 
Conquest] has been the privilege of a tiny minority of human beings for 
a tiny part of the history of the human race -- and certainly doesn't 
represent in the least the political experience of the vast majority 
('way more than 95%). Does that mean it's bad, and we should be in a 
rush to give it up?

f