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You might be thinking of tivoguide.

There's a big problem with software-services, and that is that the consumer doesn't feel like they're getting the same "value" (whatever that is) that they get when they have something they can hold in their hands. With hardware, you can usually repurpose it, but with software, you feel like you're held hostage and we know that companies sometimes stop support (DOS, QuickBASIC, J#) if not disappear altogether. Even though alternate guide services exist, I like TiVo's, but feel secure by TiVo's policies toward [friendly] hackers.

Witness TiVo, by far the best piece of consumer electronic to come along in a long while. To get the full value, you need to buy a TiVo box -and- get a lifetime subscription. Now, pretend you're standing in BestBuy in the TiVo section and you're looking at price tags.

Alternate Universe #1: Buy a TiVo box for $50 and purchase the lifetime service for $450. How do you feel? (Personally, I wonder why the box is so cheap and how long they'll stay in business.)

Alternate Universe #2: Buy a TiVo box for $450 and purchase a lifetime service for $50. How do you feel? (Now, I feel like getting several boxes.) ...what changed? The fact that I'm walking out of the store holding something I *perceive* to put value in. I can see the TiVo box. I can't see the service.

Incidently, this is why a $250 box with $250 service causes so many consumers to sit there and ponder about making the plunge. (You should. -ed.)

The point being that free hardware is perceived as cheap hardware, even if it isn't. We also know, free hardware gets repurposed. (Witness the Cue:CAT barcode readers.)

No, if I'm going to have to pay for software, I want it to be like Apple's model for OS X -- everytime an update comes out, I *want* to shell out cash to get the new, _stable_, features that breath new life into my system.

I do NOT want to have to deal with the hassle of license codes.

As for me, sell me the hardware -- give me the software.

Might as well supply the link to the page you got that line of perl from and stop acting like you're a perl geek.

And here's an excellent implementation of it in PERL:

http://okcomputer.antiflux.org/~grant/asciimation. html

Although I agree that there are plenty of things on slashdot that are a bit obscure to the uninitialized reader,I don't know if slashdot should be responsible to make the links. I guess the motto is "If you don't understand it, go figure it out". In addition to "everything", there are plenty of resources available such as the Jargon File and the The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (see link below) etc etc.

CVS is part of the "open source" culture as many "open source" projects use CVS to keep the source to their project. CVS allows many people to check out the source at once, and submit updates. (of course, most projects are of the manner that you have to be trusted first, and the way to be trusted is to submit good patches)

Anyways, I personally use this link which generates a definition for the word you enter from many sources. BTW, Xfree86 CVS'ing the code is great, it means better collabration. I use the JCVS client to access CVS repositories and it is great!

Google is your friend

"asciimation star wars"
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Yes, I found it here. It was linked to in the original thread.

http://okcomput er.antiflux.org/~superfly/star-wars-asciimation.ht ml

Star Wars ASCII, now if only I could get the Matrix in ASCII format, screw DVD

Take a look at WordNet. You can use their online version or download it.

It has also been formatted for the DICT protocol. I wrote a web interface that accesses WordNet and a number of other dictionaries. (dict.org has one too, but I like mine more... and also I noticed theirs after I was finished.)

I'm working on an alternative viewer using Perl and Curses. Right now it supports pausing and multiple forward speeds (even though they aren't accurate). I plan to add reverse play once I fix the speed control.

Take a look at dict.org's dictionary server at http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict, or my version at http://okcomputer.antiflux.org/~s uperfly/dict.cgi.