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ReplayTV 4500: No Hacking, or Else
mcglk writes "I was happy to see that SonicBlue had released its new generation of ReplayTV, the 4500. And it was $250 cheaper than the 4000. Except for that $250 one-time service activation fee. Worse is the agreement that goes along with it. Term1A basically says, No more hacking. Term1G says that they can enable or disable anything they want without notice. And Term2C says that if someone even alleges you are infringing on copyright, you can be shut down with no notice, no recourse, and there's nothing you can do about itthe agreement indemnifies them completely. I was really looking forward to getting one of these, too." Under that agreement, SonicBlue claims the right to destroy your device when you connect for updates.
You ever see the movie The Jerk? There's a scene where Steve Martin is the Guess-Your-Weight guy at a carnival and someone comes up and asks him what the prizes are. He turns around to face a huge wall filled with carnival prizes and points out a 2 inch area containing tiny prizes, hardly worth winning against the guesser for.
There are quite a few more than 128 characters that need to be represented. Limiting yourself to those few makes you look petty when you decide to complain about something that more than 90% of users have no problem with.
I have been pwned because my
Its true what they say - that love is blind. People will go on supporting something even if they hate it. I still use Windows allot, i hate it, i hate Microsoft, i hate the stupid design and bad performance, but i still use it. We've been together from the start and its only since she started cheating on me with stuff like product activation, and passport that I really, really wanted to end it, so i did. I tried SuSE, shes great, but i always end up booting Windows. Just recently i met a girl called BeOS. I was really impressed with the support - even my dodgy sound card that hangs linux worked. But she still didn't _feel_ right you know? Maybe it was the mouse, i don't know. Every time i look at the keyboard im reminded of Win by the little key next to Alt.
Once a company has you, your their bitch. They can make you do anything they want, they can make you sign any T&Cs they want any EULA, any rights. Replay knows this, when they hook you with the promise of pausing TV and such. Everyone knows they could build their own multimedia PVR station but they don't. They could write the front-end and tie the devices together. They could put in any drive they wanted and copy anything to anywhere. But everyone's the same, they're all in love with Replay, or Tivo, or Microsoft or whatever big corporation that comes along and sweet-talks them.
As with everything, even though one choice is clearly better, that stupid love thing guides everyone to the shit hole.
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How the FUCK does this shit get an "insightful" from the mods? I swear, slashdot has really gone to the shitter. Mod me down all you like, bitches.
While we're on the topic, I'd like to pose a slightly off topic quesiton.
Can you actually give up your ability to sue? The Blockbuster contract that I decided not to sign last night actually said, "You agree not to participate in any class-action suits..." among other crap.
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