Archive for April, 2009
Copy Music Off of Your iPod in Five Easy Steps
These instructions explain how to copy files from your iPod to your Mac using the tools built into Mac OS X. There is plenty of 3rd-party software that can transfer files from iPods, for example EphPod for Windows and iLinkPod for Mac, but the method I will show you does not require 3rd party software. The procedure is basically this: use the command line to copy the randomly-named files from the iPod to a temporary folder on your Mac’s hard drive, then add them to iTunes to automatically re-organize and rename the files appropriately.
The copy process will require double the amount of disk space that is used on your iPod. So if you have 6GB worth of music on your iPod, copying the music off of your iPod will require 12GB worth of space on your computer — 6GB of storage for the files copied from the iPod, plus 6GB of temporary storage (which you can delete after).
A new folder will appear on your desktop, and you can type in a new name for it. Name the new folder “ipod”.
Click on the icon of your iPod. This should show you the summary screen:
Scroll down to the Options section, and make sure that the option to “Enable Disk Use” is enabled:
Click the “Apply” button if the option was previously not enabled.
Click the “Apply” button after making changes. Note that, from now on, when you add new music to iTunes, a copy of those files will be made in your Music folder. So remember to delete original files after importing to iTunes.
cp -R "/Volumes/My iPod/iPod_Control/Music/*" ~/Desktop/ipod/ ;
Open a Terminal window from your Applications -> Utilities folder, and press ⌘-v (or Edit -> Paste) to paste the text into it. Use the back-arrow key (←) to move the cursor to where it says “My iPod”, and use your delete key to replace “My iPod” with the name of your iPod, which you noted in step 2. So for example, if your iPod is named FooPod, the line in your Terminal window should look like:
When the command line looks like the above, except with your iPod’s name in place of FooPod, press the Enter key.
The temporary “ipod” folder on your desktop will begin to fill up with the files from your iPod. The files will have random names, like “ZTUG.mp3″ — don’t worry, that will be fixed in the next step! The copy process could take a long time, depending how much music you have on your iPod. This will in no way effect the contents of your iPod. It merely copies the files, it doesn’t change them.
When iTunes is finished importing the files, you can delete the temporary folder (“ipod”). You’re done!
Kurzweil on Biology as Information Technology
VBS TV has posted a quirky, documentary-style interview with Ray Kurzweil. For those who have read his books or listened to his speeches, there isn’t much new material here. Although, it does help clarify what Kurzweil means when he says that biology and other areas of science are becoming information technology, and thus subject to the same exponential growth in progress.
Visit VBS for the rest of the interview.
In another post I put forward an example of one way that biology could be considered to be transforming into information technology: a computer programming language was developed that manipulates DNA into rearranging cellular matter according to the instructions in the computer program. In this example, there is a direct mapping between IT and cellular biology: the former manipulates the latter.
I was on the right track, but as the interview shows, Kurzweil extends that idea, assuming that in the future there will be a full flowering of nano-technology, as conceived by K. Eric Drexler. From the interview:
Ten years ago, if I wanted to send you a movie, I’d send you a FedEx package. I’d now send you an e-mail attachment. Same for a music file, or a book. These can now be sent as information files. Those used to be physical products, and increasingly, more and more physical products will become just [information].
Ultimately, when we have full-scale nano-technology, which is re-organizing matter and energy at the molecular level, I’ll be able to e-mail you a toaster, or toast…
The idea is that once we can fully describe an object at the atomic level, we will have an atomic blueprint for it. Then that object essentially becomes information, because all we would need to reconstruct that object in physical reality is the appropriate manufacturing technologies. According to Kurzweil, once mature nanotechnology is developed, we will be able to fabricate any objects with the same efficiency with which we can now copy books and movies.
As the Paul Rothemund talk demonstrates, this is already beginning to happen in biology. Every aspect of the genome is being intensely studied and mapped out; a comprehensive map of the human brain is scheduled for completion in 2012. This is why Kurzweil has been saying that biology is presently becoming an information technology.
Once in the form of pure information, technological progress occurs exponentially, as Kurzweil notes:
No commentsThere’s a new iPhone that’s twice as powerful as last year’s for half the money, and that’s not just because Apple is so brilliant. It’s true of all electronics, and in fact it’s not just electronics. It’s true of anything where we have information, whether it’s brain scanning or biological technologies.
