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TiVo Has to Fund Your Local Stadium
Strudelkugel writes "The Washington Post has a truly Kafka-esque article regarding TiVo, the broadcast flag, the NFL and limited file sharing. "TiVo, the company that makes the digital-video-recorder boxes that inspire such strange idolatry among their users, is in a weird spot. It's asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to add a new feature -- the option for a TiVo user to send recorded digital TV programs via the Internet to nine other people." Just wait until your read the rest of the story..." This one is actually really worth a read to see just how bizarrely corrupt this all is. Enjoy.
...than taxpayers having to fund a local stadium?
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Enjoy.
This article really highlights just how out-of-control the broadcast flag has become. As an owner of the HR10-250, the high definition Directivo, I wonder if this $1000 box will become worthless next July?
If I don't have a stadium near me?
I like muppets.
My favorite part of the article is the bit about going to Congress to get ligislation enacted to get rid of or disable analog outputs. That single line pretty much sums up (in my view) just how out of control this broadcast flag has gotten.
Understand that TiVo itself is no hero. Its proposed system is thoroughly hobbled. The people to whom you'd send recordings online would need you to add them to a "secure viewing group" by ordering special security keys for their Windows computers, associated with your TiVo bill. Each viewer would need to plug one such key into a PC to receive, watch or edit your recordings.
Makes me wonder if they will ask for the contact info of the receiver/viewer friend also?
Why do we keep subsidizing broken businesses? The NFL isn't like the airlines or Amtrak, our country could still function normally if some of the less profitable teams folded.
How did the cat get so fat?!?!
I'm tired of this. Stop restricting information flow with legal means. Stop having copyrights and patents. If people want to keep secrets, let them encrypt their data. If people want to hack that encryption, let them try.
It's a ridiculously tiny jump from freedom of speech to freedom of information. The only reason it seems like a big jump to having no copyrights is that, although we're far better off than some parts of the world, we don't REALLY have free speech.
Bottom line: if they want the TV revenue, let them take the risks associated with having it out there. As the article says, at this point an online viewer would be lucky to watch the game by the next day anyway, and who knows? Maybe this kind of exposure would draw in MORE fans and let them sell out MORE games. Maybe.
Ok as long as the NFL will handle all the frostbite injury lawsuits in Buffalo. This is the same as horse racetracks (in NJ, for example) saying that they MUST have slot machines to keep interest in horse racing alive....doesn't make any sense at all.
Wow, the NFL sure is spending a lot of effort to prevent people from watching their in-market game-- which any sensible DirecTV customer can do today. Sick of the Raiders game being blacked out in Oakland? Well, just "move" to Los Angeles, and you'll be able to see every game on Sunday Ticket. And there are more ways than that.
Do you think the NFL will come after me for a DMCA violation-- is this considered a workaround of an effective security method?
"Maybe their engineers understand how to inflate a football, but I don't think they understand encoded, encrypted MPEG-2," TiVo's tightly secured format. MPEG-2 isn't TiVo's...
I don't see where the article says that TiVo has to fund the local stadium. Here's the relevant excerpt:
This is an important point: The NFL is not asking the FCC to protect its television business -- never mind that the flag exists only to stop indiscriminate file sharing, not cure every copyright-infringement issue.
No, the NFL is asking for help with a stadium business, one that already benefits from massive government welfare. (A December 2002 Buffalo News story calculated that the taxpayers of Erie County, N.Y., had anted up about $148 million for the Bills and their stadium over the previous decade.)
I agree, the development is definitely "kafka-esque", but that is because this sets a precedent for new product designs/launches to be approved by the big G.
Another problem is that the very *taxpayers* whose money is currently funding the local stadium and other organizations are getting so greedy that they're trying to mandate laws/legislations against the very public that funds them.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Jim Burger, a lawyer for TiVo, fumed about the NFL's complaint: "Maybe their engineers understand how to inflate a football, but I don't think they understand encoded, encrypted MPEG-2," TiVo's tightly secured format.
Perhaps it is Mr. Burger that doesn't understand. The ability to rip unencumbered video streams from a hacked TiVi has existed for sometime now. If you want to know the future, Mr. Burger, study the past...
From the article:
"Until that can be answered, his lobby contends that the safest course is to block Internet sharing -- after all, he noted, you can just pop a DVD in the mail."
Don't they also dislike the idea of people using DVD-Rs to distribute their material?
In many ways, we're seeing examples of how people want dumber technology. Hands up the number of people who hang on to outdated CD-ROM drives because they ignore the corrupted crap that infests so many of today's alleged CDs? (recently, I didn't realise I'd bought an unrippable CD until after I'd ripped it). When the pernicious broadcast flag becomes endemic, people are once again going to look for older tech to overcome it. Tivo will find itself out-featured by older models, ones that ignore such crap.
To my mind, this is a sure sign that things are going wrong (as if more signs were needed); the broadcast flag and other silliness are anti-technology (and anti-business) because they'll discourage people from upgrading. Of course, they'll be banking on the fact that relatively few people will stick to such technologies, but it only takes one person with a linux-based PVR and a copy of gtk-gnutella to totally screw the pooch.
One thing about the article, though; it implies that the NFL are wasting their time because bandwidth limitations mean it'll never be practical. This assumes that super-duper ultra-high-speed connections will never be available (or at least commonplace); this is a specious argument, I reckon. Not that I'm arguing for it; I just dislike arguments that can be easily overcome.
Just to spread the word, there is a site calledBug Me Not that is designed for the specific purpose of supplying usernames/passwords for these types of free registration sites.
They have Mozilla and IE extensions for easy access, and anyone can add to their database. Tell everyone you know (their motto).
This is exactly why I bought ReplayTV 5040's instead of a Tivo. I can extract, burn, or move my recordings around any way I see fit, including internet sharing with other folks, whether I "know" them or not (see poopli.com).
Blow me, MPAA, and ditto for you, Tivo. It's my recording and my house. You don't want me to use the recording, KEEP THE PROGRAMMING OUT OF MY HOUSE. And as for the No Fun League, as if I'd ever be bored enough to watch, much less record a pro game...
Is there a person on earth who doesn't have a registration to the New York Times and the Washington Post?
They're two of the most important papers in America. There's no excuse not to be reading them every damned day.
TiVo, the company that makes the digital-video-recorder boxes that inspire such strange idolatry among their users, is in a weird spot. It's asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to add a new feature -- the option for a TiVo user to send recorded digital TV programs via the Internet to nine other people.
Huh? Permission? Doesn't the government's involvement in consumer electronics stop with making sure that a gadget doesn't jam your neighbor's reception or electrocute you? Since when do the feds get to vote on product designs?
The answer is, since last November, when the FCC voted to require manufacturers to support the "broadcast flag" system by July 1 of next year. This convoluted mechanism aims to stop full-quality copies of digital broadcasts from circulating on the Internet.
The FCC didn't mandate any one anti-file-sharing scheme and instead invited companies to submit their own proposals, which brings us to TiVo's vaguely Soviet predicament. Among the schemes a handful of firms have proposed, only TiVo's would allow tightly controlled online transfers of recorded programs.
For this, the company has drawn the ire of the National Football League and the Motion Picture Association of America, which have asked the FCC to deny TiVo's proposal.
The NFL says that TiVo's Internet-sharing feature will allow people to send game broadcasts to blacked-out viewers in real time (a team's home game can be aired locally only if it sells out beforehand).
"It's a question of pure ability to sell tickets," said Frank Hawkins, the NFL's senior vice president for business affairs. "Buffalo typically sells out September and October, but they've got an open-air stadium. They'll never sell out those December games if they are unable to enforce the blackout rule."
This is an important point: The NFL is not asking the FCC to protect its television business -- never mind that the flag exists only to stop indiscriminate file sharing, not cure every copyright-infringement issue.
No, the NFL is asking for help with a stadium business, one that already benefits from massive government welfare. (A December 2002 Buffalo News story calculated that the taxpayers of Erie County, N.Y., had anted up about $148 million for the Bills and their stadium over the previous decade.)
In other words, the league is asking manufacturers and viewers to further subsidize team owners who are already gorging themselves at the public trough.
There's also the slight problem that the NFL's nightmare -- blacked-out viewers watching a game live on the Internet -- is all but impossible. With almost every broadband connection available today, it would take hours to upload a game. A recipient would be lucky to finish watching a Sunday afternoon game before Monday, and sending a high-definition copy would take most of the week.
Jim Burger, a lawyer for TiVo, fumed about the NFL's complaint: "Maybe their engineers understand how to inflate a football, but I don't think they understand encoded, encrypted MPEG-2," TiVo's tightly secured format.
Whenever full-quality, real-time video on the Internet does become commonplace, I expect to see the NFL capitalizing on it instead of complaining, just as it has profited from such earlier advances as satellite TV.
The MPAA, meanwhile, says that the way TiVo would allow customers to share recordings online with people who may not be friends or family members amounts to indiscriminate redistribution.
The Washington-based group wants TiVo to impose an "affinity requirement," said Fritz Attaway, its executive vice president for government relations.
But how can TiVo tell if the people to whom you've sent a program are really friends and
everything in moderation
watching a game on television/their computer a replacement for going to the game? If possible, I would much prefer to go to a game rather than watch it on TV. Being able to watch a game on TV has no bearing on whether or not I will buy a ticket. The atmosphere is just so much different. Plus, you can decide what you want to watch, you aren't forced to watch what the camera is pointing at. This is just another one fo those "enablers", it enables them to do all sorts of stupid shit to cover up the fact that they just can't sell tickets.
There is a reason people don't go to Buffalo games in November and December, it's fucking freezing! Do they seriously expect someone to say, "Well, it's so cold out that really don't want to go to the game, but since I can't watch it on TV, I will go anyhow"? My best guess is that they will just not watch the game, or go to a bar or something to watch it, where people pay even less attention to the commercials....
Just another example of how out of touch governmental bodies (FCC included) are with reality.
All these things do is legitimize 'illegal' copying and sharing. As rules and regulations become more and more absurd, more people feels no need to obey them.
Once most everybody ignores the law it becomes largely irrelevant except as a means to create a new revenue source (i.e. direct fines, indirect contributions by the beneficiaries of the that law) for the government and/or a tool instill fear in the hearts of the government subjects (that's you and I.)
After a second thought maybe the FCC is not in touch with reality after all.
...funding their local "education" establishment and huge amounts of those monies going to subsidise the NFL and NBA "farm teams" in the schools? since when is getting children addicted to professional sports part of an "education"? Aren't there other athletic and fun pursuits that might cost less available? Why not make those businesses fund them instead? Why should people on pensions-more or less pretty fixed incomes, be asked to support professional sports leagues to perpetuate the societal addiction to team sports? If these profitable businesses have enough to pay salaries in the millions per year to "sports stars",it seems like they can fund local schools "teams" then, don't ask the tax payers to do it.
When it comes to technology our own government leaders are out of touch. GB does not even use email and if that's a example of how smart our USPTO,Congress, and others are then were in big trouble.
I dont believe that what Tivo is doing is such a bad thing. What I do believe that the cable companies who are trying to knock Tivo off it's seat are probably the cause of the problems in the first place. All they had to do is put a bug in the ears of the RIAA,MPAA, and the NFL the latter which probably knows the least about the device. Then those groups go arguing to the FCC where they might have a slight idea of what MPEG2 consists of but I'm sure the group arguing against Tivo conviently forgot to mention the slow speeds of our current broadband services.
Now 3 years down the road this will be a changed world in the US as the FTTP rollouts will be in full steam and will have probably crossed the 2million mark or even more and it would be a standard thing to have a 10/10 connection to the internet. It's even faster between neigborhoods with testing in Keller TX, on multi gig transferrs taking a few seconds. So I would expect that people could then easily send videos to others. Hell with a little work Tivo could turn your box into a Napster for tv shows, and other recordings using the combined networked Tivo's as local servers.
Back to my point. These groups want to shut Tivo down so they can profit on their own distribution methods and limit choices to the consumer so they can inflate prices as they please. And it's true that NFL teams tend to milk whatever city they reside in through taxes. Now they want to milk the consumer even more through limited choice and high prices. If they wanted to do otherwise they would work with Tivo to come up with a acceptable solution and restrictions. However since they're not I have to stick with my original theory.
Is there a person on earth who doesn't have a registration to the New York Times and the Washington Post?
They're two of the most important papers in America.
The vast majority of the people on earth are not in America.
I'm not gonna get an ulcer worrying about it. If this is the world we're doomed to live in, then I guess I'll live in it with everyone else, the alternative being what it is. The fact is that this *would* hurt some NFL teams, and they could, if they wanted to, not broadcast it at all. It is completely their right to do what they want with the content that they provide to broadcasters.
> TiVo vs. the Broadcast Flag Wavers
> By Rob Pegoraro The Washington Post Sunday, August 1, 2004; Page F06
Thanks. You can still let eight other people read it, too.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
...the Post has some stuff that's worth reading about, and hang the registration?
I moved from ten miles northeast of DC to Columbia, SC. I still have my browser's home set to washingtonpost.com, simply because the local paper down here sucks even worse, and I miss living in a real urban area; the Post gives me a taste of life back home.
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
The vast majority of the people on earth are not in America.
Yeah, and may be if those baby-making foreigners picked up a newspaper instead of fornicating every chance they got, their country's problems of starvation and overpopulation wouldn't be so serious.
What's this "broadcast flag" shit? I guess anything is possible over there these days. If you can run a compiler, seriously, use mplayer and forget about copy protection/DRM stuff for good.
But can you record HD?
Link to the unregistered article or just paste the text?
Seriously.
Who gives a shit about pro sports anyways? I cannot think of a more useless waste of time than sitting down and watching an NFL game.
But I guess the joe sixpacks have to be kept distracted while their government ass-rapes them.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Why do we keep subsidizing broken businesses? The NFL isn't like the airlines or Amtrak, our country could still function normally if some of the less profitable teams folded.
... particularly the current administration.
Sports is the mechanism by which the powers that be keep the American people dumbed down, sedate, and easily controlled. More so than religion (although that is certainly also a potent tool in undermining a person's ability to think critically), more so than a shoddy educational system.
Sports is the true opiate of the poeple. Baseball fans who can't balance their checkbook routinely excersize college level statistical analysis on their favorite player's batting averages and team's performance. Clearly these people aren't stupid per se, or necessarilly ignorant, but their creative and intellectual capacity has been stupified and hijacked toward ends that present no competition or threat to those who rule. The message is quite clear and effective: "think as much as you like, as long as it isn't about something important."
The last thing they are ever going to do is allow a key component of the Bread and Circuses America is spoonfed to fall, regardless of how much of the rest of the economy subsidizing their existence will harm. Just as the Romans would routinely choose to ship expensive sand for the Colesium, rather than much needed food for the people, so to will our government choose to prop up Hollywood and the NFL, at any expense.
To do otherwise risks the very real possibility that the sleeping, fooled and distracted masses of America might actually arise from the couch and get involved politically, and that is something none of the current politicans want
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Beware the thrice-watched rule. :-D
It's refreshing to see the NFL has been rather open about the whole purpose of FCC-recognized corporate welfare. When asked why the NFL was demanding governmental heavy-handedness and intervention in the free market, the NFL suit answered:
"It's a question of pure ability to sell tickets," said Frank Hawkins, the NFL's senior vice president for business affairs.
Exactly. Hawkins goes on to explain that "they'll never sell out those December games if they are unable to enforce the blackout rule" (meaning manipulate, coerce and destroy consumer choice). The honest answer, however, is that the value of a northern market outdoor stadium seat significantly diminishes as it gets damn cold in December. And this is the consumer's problem how?
Has the NFL ever studied popsicle sales, especially looking at them in, say, January in Detroit? (Clue: The local Good Humor man doesn't drive down neighborhood streets when the outside temperature is lower than that of his product!) What about the hot soup sales at Disney World in July? If you've hit Disney's parks at different times of the year, you'll learn that they're well in tune to the weather and consumer behavior (ever notice the umbrellas that amazingly pop up all over at the stands just as the drops are starting to fall?)
If these businesses were run like the NFL, we'd have the government shutting down grocery stores in Orlando and limiting the only food choice to Campbell's Cream of Brocalli in order to protect the Disney soup racket.
Just as the RIAA doesn't understand (nor care about) the consumers of its industry's products, the NFL has lost it on fans. A Cleveland Browns seat may be worth $125 in September, but certainly not in December. Their inability to understand this is not grounds for absurd government intervention, and any bureaucrat that supports this nonsense is probably on someone's payola (hey Junior Powell - get your Redskins season tickets yet?).
And there we have it! You've just won the coveted "IDIOT OF THE DAY" award.
Open your mind you fucking idiot.
Sounds to me like you're just jealous that you can't get laid.
I'll also point out that the vast majority of the rest of the world does not suffer from starvation or overpopulation.
Even if this were to fly ( much to the glee of the RIAA and MPAA ) how do they propse we listen/watch things?
Ive not seen too many digital earbuds.. or digital portable TVs...
Espically audio, it has to be analog at some point.. but then again, if they ban A/D converters, then i guess they have won.. and hopefully noone will listen to music again, until the laws are repealed and the morons that are passing them are put in jail.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I guess we're coming to a point where the consumer protests about the lack of "added value" in broadcast media. When you go to a football match, or a baseball game, or a rock concert you're getting to see people performing live for your entertainment. That shows talent and professionalism, and it's the sort of thing for which people should expect to pay a reasonable price.
Broadcast media,however, is a service for which we already pay once in channel access charges, and now technologu is being deployed to prevent us sharing the pre-packaged, re-transmitted coverage of old events for which we've already paid if not once then several times.
Contrary to the apparent beliefs of the broadcast industry, subscribers are sophisticated enough to know when they're being ripped off, and when a service provider loses the trust of its customer base no amount of law or technology can save them.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
unlike yo momma
ziiiiiing!
n the case of literature and the like this is intended to keep publishers from printing copies without paying the authors, for a limited time. ...
If you want to make such a change, you need to amend the consititution.
That's a really tough road to hoe.
Especially if it is paved with asphalt. Really, that's "tough row to hoe" as in "row of corn."
I think it was Valenti who was quoted as saying that he wants to define "limited time" as "forever" but since his lawyers told him that's not possible, he'll settle for "forever minus a day."
But, just as the copyright industry is "legally hacking" the provision, we could do the same thing (if we had the power to get an amendment in place, we certainly would have the enough power to do the following) -- define "limited time" to the first 10 seconds after publication.
The difference between Valenti's absurdity and my apparent absurdity is that his position is akin to eating his own feedcorn -- by destroying the public domain, eventually there will be no raw material to draw on as a basis for new creations, everything will require licensing and royalties and you can be certain that as soon as there is no longer any "free" competition for raw material, the cost of the not-free stuff will skyrocket.
Meanwhile, my proposal still leaves open plenty of room for artists to make money. Not distributors and the other types of middlemen who make up the copyright induistry and only serve as bottlenecks today, there is no room for them to make much money, certainly not the gazillions that they do today. But the artists, the actual creators of the work can still get paid and even paid well if they are successful by implementing the idea of escrowed release to the public domain. Essentially, they set a total price for their work, interested buyers pay into an escrowed account. Once the total meets the price (or the seller lower his asking price), the work is released to the public domain. Artists who create popular work will be able to fetch successively higher prices for each new release.
One might argue that under such a scheme it is impossible to get started in the first place since no one will know the quality of your work. My response is that under today's system so many artists work for next to nothing all of their lives that simply releasing a few pieces of work for free as advertising is effectively no different than the way things work today and provides a much higher probability of achieving some level of success in the long run.
Perhaps a simpler, more catchy way to say "escrowed release to the public domain" would be - "work once, paid once (just like everybody else)."
PS, googling for "streetperformer protocol" will turn up a white paper or two describing one form of escrowed release to the public domain.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Peter: Ooooh, tape this for me
Brian: Oooooooooh sorry, the VCR hasn't worked since you tried to tape Monday Night Football
(flashback, Peter puts tape in VCR and presses record, then security guards bust in)
Security Guard: Do you have the expressed written cocent of ABC and the National Football League?
Peter: (holding up contract) Just ABC
(Peter jumps out of the way just as they begin shooting at the VCR)
This one is actually really worth a read to see just how bizarrely corrupt this all is. Enjoy.
Heh. Yeah, nice try.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
1992 US Presidential Election: Yes, I smoked pot, but I didn't inhale.
2024 US Presidential Election: Yes, I downloaded on Napster, but I didn't share.
This really does relate to the topic at hand. I'm not trying to be morally superior or anything. Just want to give you some advice about reducing your tv habits before the DRM kicks in.
I gave up television a year ago tomorrow when I moved and decided that I couldn't afford the price of cable at least for a month or so during the transition to the new location.
I've always been a television junky though and really expected that I'd get something: satellite, cable, or even go back to antenna broadcasts. I'd come in from work and HAVE to have the tv playing something in the background. I remember even driving around for several weekends evaluating different recording technologies (Tivo looked the most promising) and I probably would have even bought one in anticipation if I'd already decided whether I was getting satelite or cable service.
For housewarming, christmas, and my birthday I received some fantastic DVD series (Six Feet Under, Babylon 5, some britcoms and music documentaries) that I'd put into my computer or dvd player when I just wanted something on. Six Feet Under was so good that I actually thought of getting HBO to see the show (but I'd have missed two seasons which weren't out yet on DVD).
I was talking to an old friend who knew of my pop-culture, tv-addicted habits. He wanted me to watch the new Battlestar Galactica but I told him that I didn't have cable. Not to worry he said, it'd be rebroadcast that night and later in the week if I thought my cable would be back on then. He was in shock when I told them that I didn't have a subscription and didn't really intend to get one. They said that such a declaration from a television addict like me was akin to Bill Gates switching to Mac OS X.
With some efforts above and beyond the call of my friend, I did wind up watching the Battlestar remake and quite enjoyed it. I probably would have liked it better without the incessant commercials (on a DVD release or something). I'd forgotten just how annoying those things can be.
Now with stories like this, it appears that the DRM is only going to get worse. The advertising is only going to get longer and bolder. I wish I could say that my decision was one of moral rectitude, but it was really one of evolved practicality. I can say that giving up tv is a whole lot easier than you probably imagine (I certainly couldn't imagine it).
Give it up now while your friends can still videotape those one or two shows that you "must see". It'll only get more expensive and more difficult when DRM comes on the scene.
Why are articles from the registration-only Washington Post allowed?
(Score:-1, Offtopic)
Because discussion of the format of the current story is ever so offtopic.
May we never see th
Ok, suppose that TIVO plays along with this little farce. It will pass on the additional expenses to the customers in some form or another. Higher expenses, higher prices. No big deal, right? (I would be pissed though. I hate pro sports, and never watch them, so why should I have to pay anything?)
UNTIL, some SE Asian company makes a Tivo clone that does everything that a tivo does, EXCEPT pay attention to broadcast flags, or pay 'protection' fees to the NFL. Now they have a product that is better, and cheaper, because it left a feature out. Basically they have built a better mousetrap by not adding something on.
Adding 'features' like CSS, Macrovision, Broadcast flags, and Trusted Computing Controls will ALWAYS fail because if you have a single company/person who decides not to play by the rules, they can build a better product by simply not doing adding in the encryption features.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I think some of what you say is true, but I don't think that the NFL going under (as if that would ever happen) would wake people up. People would just find something else to get absorbed in. Sports is a break from reality - something fun to get away from it all for a few hours. Would the movie or music industry suddenly collapsing make millions of people get up and register to vote? No, movies and music would still exist and quite possibly someone would come along to fill the gap. Similary, the NFL collapsing would force people to go elsewhere (college, local, or other leagues) or another league would pop up. Sports is not the problem; the people are the problem. We just don't fucking care or are too lazy to get up and do something about it. As long as it is a two party system (and it will be for a VERY long time, maybe even until the end) we will be stuck with two poor choices, one only slightly better than the other.
I'm a huge NFL fan (not a stat freak, though), but I know what's going on politically. I am going to vote in November, too. But aside from that, I either just don't fucking care or am too lazy to do anything else. All the "bad stuff" going on is "way over there"; people like me won't care until it's too late. To what do I attribute this to? The utter hopelessness of our two party system. Frankly, I don't think John Kerry (or Al Gore) would have done anything significantly different than George W. Bush. It's the system itself that is busted.
The vast majority of the people on earth are not in America.
This is true. On the other hand, if you use the internet to get any type of english-language news, you read the New York Times and the Washington Post. For someone to complain about these newspapers on an english-language site like Slashdot, in response to article about possible American FCC restrictions on American-model-only TiVo's, is totally asinine.
If anyone reading Slashdot really gives two fucks and a donut what the FCC is doing to limit American adoption of new technologies, they're reading the New York Times and the Washington Post every day already. Otherwise, they're just bitching because bitching is fun.
Have you ever noticed that they always show starving babies and small children on those PBS specials? You know, if the conditions are such that your baby is going to starve to death, why the fuck would you have a baby? If those damn niggers could keep their dicks in their pants maybe they wouldn't have so many starving babies!
"This one is actually really worth a read to see just how bizarrely corrupt this all is. Enjoy."
thought only to be possible "once in a blue moon", by actually really reading the article cmdrtaco has proved us....well, right.
once in a blue moon, indeed.
Nope. I'm going to DIY an HD PVR while I can still get a pre-flag capture card, though.
Let's see...
games on TiVo have pause rewind fast forward and instant replay
games in NFL stadium... have noisy fans and overpriced beer
Maybe the NFL should stop worrying about TiVo and try to add TiVo features to stadiums? Maybe put a TV jack (and maybe ethernet/wireless for computers) into the seating so people can watch the game with the stats, instant replays, and zooming in.
Why do old coporations seek to prevent technology because they are too slow to use it to their advantage?
What UTTER rubbish.
Though I am concerned about all the issues you talk about, the New York Times and the Washington Post are the LAST place I would look for informative unbiased articles about these issues.
They offend me with their dumb-arse, corporate-suckfullness.
The NYT has had some of the most crappy excuses for journalism ever (Jayson Blair anyone?), and the Washington Post is just yet another fan-boy for a bynch of crap politicians.
Get a friggin' life, and try reading any one of 1000s of other online newspapers IN ENGLISH. Hell, even Xinhua has better reporting of copyright issues than NYT or WP, and it's a lot of reactionary commie claptrap!
I have a simple rule - if I wasn't going to vote for either of the two major party candidates anyway, because they just aren't worthy of the office they're seeking, then I vote for someone else. It's that or "none of the above".
I happen to think that Kerry isn't as lame a human being as Bush or Gore, but if he were, I'd be voting for Nader again, or I'd vote Green, or anyone else I thought might be able to do the job. If nothing else, it's a reminder to whichever party thinks it "lost" my vote that it never really owned it in the first place.
Ever since I moved here from Europe I was wondering WHY I am not allowed to watch local stations from other areas. I mean they are already on the transponder, why can't I see local ABC from, say, NY? FCC does not allow that to protect local tv stations monopoly. If it was not for this rule, you'd always be able to watch your favorite game by simply switching to another local station.
So, perhaps we should do something about that rule first. And when all local stations (ok, many local stations if not all, satellite feed is limited in size after all) are easily available anywhere in continental US, NFL et all won't be able to force local black-out, as viewers would simply flip the channel.
Hyperom.com
Can this be the same Slashdot where I get flamed all the time for mentioning the Second Amendment?
You boys and girls seem all upset when the Federal Government starts depriving you of your toys and amusements, like analog plugs for your TiVo. Lots of complaints about how dumb and crooked all these arguments are I see. Well, you know, you're right. It is dumb and crooked.
Welcome to Gun Owner Land kids. How do you like it so far?
> if you loose[sic], you've wasted your vote.
A vote is not a bet on who wins. A vote is an expression of your preference.
A vote for a losing candidate is not "wasted". A wasted vote would be a vote for someone you don't want.
The sane, rational, non-sheeplike reason to vote Demublican and ask for your second choice is that if you vote for your first choice then you're voting against your second choice, thus helping your last choice get elected. There are voting systems that solve this paradox. We don't use them in the US unfortunately.
And what happens when your capture card in that PC dies?
Maybe you'd better buy two. Or three....
UNTIL, some SE Asian company makes a Tivo clone that does everything that a tivo does, EXCEPT pay attention to broadcast flags
And watch U.S. customs stop every single unit at the border.
This is not about the broadcast flag and only vaguely about fair use and your rights as a consumer. This is about TiVo establishing their right to redistribute content ths same way your local cable provider redistributes you local broadcast station. CATV tested these limits in the midwest in the fifties with tall towers and local coax. Ted Turner broke the mold with TBS and CNN making Atlanta a global distribution hub. TiVo is taking this to the Internet, as a new means of redistributing content. They just push the cable headend out to your TiVo box and let you serve your friends and your common programming interests. Thus the requirement for subscriber ID's. TiVo needs to know who, anonymously aggregated, is watching what--because, like all television networks, they will rise or fall as a business by proving market demographics, both to advertizers and to content vendors who will want to get on their network--to distribuet movies. Don't be confused by the appeal to the FCC--this is part of TiVo's on again-off again struggle to find a business model they can defend.
This has been proven in many studies. Look 'em up.
The issue is sadly simple: teams will take off for cheaper pastures if they don't get what they want. This gives them an amazing leverage to get taxpayer money as sports fans are religious in their devotion to their teams.
Worse is the hypocrisy here. Many of these fans are right-wing economist defenders who believe in the free market. In a free sports market we would tell corrupt owners to take a hike, but brand loyalty is so high these people are willing to force ME to pay for THEIR stadium, which is nothing more than a private business thus corporate welfare on a grand scale. Even worse is that these monies could be put into education, city works, and other programs which could bring business into the metro area.
Until sports fans grow up into clear thinking adults then my and your taxes will keep making the wealthier even wealthier while schools and infrastructure keep getting worse. And then these fans have the gall to complain about too much taxation.
Yes, every 3rd or fourth time I go there I get a new one.
The vast majority might not live in America, but they might be concerned about what is happening in America and what Americans are thinking. Just ask the Iraqis and the Afgans or people from hundreds of other countries whether what happens in America affects them.
In Europe soccer players don't go off to uni to further their career, they simply go & get a job at a footy club playing soccer.
Here in Sydney, Australia, Rugby League players don't go off to uni to further their career, they simply go of & get a job at a footy club playing the greatest game on earth. Then later they retire & buy a pub or sports store or become a commentator.
It seems to me in the US a college education has become a prestigue/class thing that everyone's expected to have if they don't want to be consided a red neck illiterate, never mind the fact it's not desirable for everyone to desire a college education.
AFAIC sports people are much better off pursueing their sporting career by playing their sport when they're young 'n strong. They can always go to uni mature-age in their 30's after they've retired from injuries.
I use the internet to get news because I want to find out what's going on in the world. My experience of American news outlets is that they tell you very little about what's going on outside the U.S. Therefore I read British news sites (and /.).
To keep this in perspective, let's remember that the whole copy-protection issue is an accident of history. Publishers, broadcasters and record companies have been able to flourish all these years because the general public simply didn't have the capability to widely distribute copies of things. If distributing copies had been as trivially simple as it is now, at the time sound and video recordings were invented, there would be no media companies because there would have been no market for records and tapes. People who wanted to make money in that area would have had to do it in a different way, or not at all. We would not have it ingrained in our minds that the world can't function properly unless someone owns or controls the distribution of every image and sound they produce. It's not a moral imperative, it's just an idea we are used to. If we want to, we can get used to other ideas just as well.
Is there a person on earth who doesn't have a registration to the New York Times and the Washington Post? Actually, I'm porbably responsible for ten to twenty registrations because of all the times I lost my password or changed computers since 1996. I'm sure I'm not the only one, either. I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point in the near future, The New York Times has more "registered users" than the population of the Earth.
Instead of dealing with the annoying registration at the Washington Post why not go to Yahoo and read the same article without the bother
Yahoo Article
I think some of you are missing the point. The point is that, for many people, SPECTATOR SPORTS and "Hollywood Drama" are what keeps people in their little ruts, heads bowed down, slogging away at their 9-to-5, many of these people don't know anything more and frankly don't care to know anything more about their world.
People like that are spoon-fed EVERYTHING.
Gvt: Pay this tax!
Lemming: OK...
Gvt: Vote for THIS guy!
Lemming: OK...
Gvt: Go Cubbies!
Lemming: OK...
People with access to the inner workings of the political system and access to mass media are in the unique position of being able to tell millions of people what to do. And of course some of them will do it. It might be only 10%, but 10% of a million is still alot of people.
Politicians and celebrities are usually wealthier than the "average" American...and I'm pretty sure they wil always do whatever will help them to stay that way.
In many ways, any ONE of these "special" people has more practical influence on "America" then all of us "Slashdotters" combined.
Well.....except for the fact that the university isn't as concerned about furthering their careers as it is using this to make money (at least in the major sports). I don't really see a problem with this but we shouldn't pretend that the college serves primarily as a training center catering to the athlete. Rather they capitilize on the social pressure of athletes to attend college and the existing draft system to skim money out of this deal.
As I said I don't see any problem with this. College football and etc.. should properly be regarded as part of the universitys fundraising not their educational system. The football players are no differnt than waiters at a 1000 per plate dinner they are just paid in diplomas (from a school they probably could have gotten into) and access to the draft system. Since having colleges is a valuable social good giving them this opportunity seems like a good thing.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
During the OJ trial I learned that he makes $25,000 a month from his retirement package from the NFL. That's obviously $300,000 a year.
I consider that an obscene amount of money considering he only worked 10 years for the NFL. And even then he only worked at most 6 months out of each year.
If the NFL can afford to give someone who worked less than five years a lifetime salary of $300,000, it has a LOT of money.
Thus the question is: Why can't its owners buy their own god-damn stadiums?!?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The deficit is NOT a record unless you ignore inflation and the relative size of the economy. That doesn't mean that it is good, but it certainly isn't a record.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
My god, that's genius! Do you know what you've stumbled on to? If the /. effect can down the mightiest servers just from one click per person, what would happen if everyone signed up with ten sets of (bogus) data? Not only would their servers go down under the load, they'd stay down until they figure how to remove the bogus data without harming their precious database. Genius I tell you!
God speaks through him? I hadn't heard that one before!
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
What bothers me about Wal Mart is the fact that they have the recording industry by the balls
Yes, but at the same time Wal-Mart is either doing this to respond to the demands of their own consumers, or else they're throwing away a lot of money foolishly. The fact that Wal-Mart usually follows the money (rather well, in fact) leads me to believe the recording industry has completely lost touch with the market (we already know this from their position on P2P, as well as their increased spending on fewer artists e.g. "let's shove more of this Michael Jackson and Britney Spears shit out - hell, if you advertised recorded hog squeals, these fools will buy it").
So let Wal-Mart respond to its market, and let the recording industry and the NFL fail when they don't. Gosh, it almost sounds like an opportunity for a "Roger and Me" Michael Moore movie about the corruption and decay in these two industries. Oh wait... Michael's now a member of the hollywood establishment and has sold out, so I guess we can rule out attacks on RIAA and friends.
I'd vote libertarian if it weren't for the fact that I disagree with them on most of the issues.
Test 1 2 3 4
exactly! shh, don't tell them about poopli either!! tivo is taking all the flack to get close to the features that replay has had for years.
We've given the FCC veto power over consumer electronics.
We've given the RIAA, MPAA, and virtually everybody who owns "content" veto power over consumer electronics.
Why should I pay for something that I don't control? If I pay all that money for a Tivo, don't I have the right to decide what to do with it?
Apparently not.
If not for this hidden article in the Post, how many people would even be aware how much intrusion into our lives is happening via these folks?
You either let your congressman/senator know now, or yet another right will be lost. If it isn't already.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
You don't need a constitutional amendment, if the courts can affirm congresses power to extend copyrights to infinity, then there is no reason why they wouldn't have the power to set copyrights back to zero too. In addition, it is sorta of irrelavent, because it is very likely that society can secure the right to copy whatever information comes their way without the government's help.
BTW, the US constitution was written at a time when you couldn't zap the entire library of congress to the other side of the planet in a matter of seconds, and the mere fact that that copyrights had an expiration date is proof that they didn't see it as an inaliable right like free speech.
When push comes to shove, it's going to come down to a choice between copyrights and free speech, and it is copyrights that must loose.
Is there a person on earth who doesn't have a registration to the New York Times and the Washington Post?
/.
Maybe all those people who realise that they were just an outlet for government propaganda regarding the Iraq war? never mind, Saddam was a bad man anyway? probably they'll be telling you the truth next time something big comes up.
Anyhow, it takes me all day to read
Excuse me for asking... exactly what the hell are they argueing about? The only units that record digital content are directv receivers. And the DTivo's will never have ethernet (HMO) enabled -- DTV explicitly stated the USB ports (and thus ethernet) are not to be enabled on DTivos. (No S1 unit will ever have the Home Media Option, and thus sharing ability, available to it, but does support an ethernet card.)
That's right, the only systems capable of sharing recorded content recorded that content off air -- standard definition, OTA... none of this FCC broadcast flag bullshit even applies.
A few other errors... no US model Tivo has digital outputs. Only DTV models record digitally broadcast data. The others digitized an analog broadcast. Sharing of recorded content will/can not be in real-time -- the item will have to be recorded completely before being transmitted at speeds 10-20x (SD) or 100x (HD) slower than the recorded bit rate, based on today's broadband technology. It is unlikely people will have home broadband connections capable of streaming HD content in realtime in the coming decades.
YEE-HA! Saddle up, boys, we got us some taxation wit'out repersentation goin' on. Time to have us another revolution!
Field of Schemes an excellent website devoted to exposure of the great stadium swindle.
Yeah, I'm really revved up to vote for.....uhhh, who is the Libertarian candidate again?
Harry Browne? Who the hell is Harry Browne?
Face it, you don't vote for ideology, you vote for PEOPLE. The people who you think will carry out your ideology most effectively. Noted traits: memorable personality, ability to communicate ideas, ability to convert normal citizens through rational debate. These traits are what separate the Clintons, Reagans and Kennedys of this world from the Bushes, Carters and Kerrys.
To break the two party system you're going to need a vibrant leader capable of converting normal people into supporters. Who has Harry Browne or Ralph Nader converted, really? They lack the oratory and logical skills to counter the two party hacks; they can't convert anyone, and they only get their votes by preaching to the already converted.
Don't bash the voting system just because your second rate (or third rate, for a pun} candidates don't have the organizing and elocutory skills to rise above it. Politics is made by people. Get an able person for your candidate and call back in 4 years.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A294 28-2004Jul31.html
How about we pass a law that says only U.S. citizens can contribute or financially support a candidate? No PAC funding. No "soft" party funding. No corporate funding. No foriegn funding. If any of those want to help a candidate financially, they have to get out and get citizens to open their wallets for their chosen cattle-herder.
And how does this help? The PACs, corporations, and foreign interest will just run "issue ads", and fund "action groups" with no ties (direct or indirect) to the campaign in question. It's what they're doing now on behalf of the Democrats, in order to get around the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, because they don't have the same kind of direct-donor money machine the Republicans do.
Face it. The problem isn't the money machines that the major parties use. It's US. We should be able to distinguish fact from fiction, do our own research, and discount the MTV/PepsiSmash-ized media circus that passes for news and commentary today. There should be unbiased sources for news, accurate and in-depth debate, clear discussions of party planks with the general public, and a reasoned and insightful choice come voting day.
Instead, we have lies delivered as truth. Emotion and hyperbole delivered as matter-of-fact. Sound bites and media campaigns designed to influence public opinion. Bread and circuses to corral votes and keep incumbents in power. AND WE (as in the American people) ACCEPT IT.
Do you honestly think that we can restrict their money, and keep them to the spirit of the law, when we can't even keep them in check now? We need to take the foxes out of the henhouse before we staple the wire netting in place. Otherwise, we're just ensconing the foxes right where they want to be.
Personally, I think two things would help to change the political landscape in this country, money or no:
1. Move election day to the first Tuesday after Tax Day. Let's see the politicians try and raise their salaries for themselves and justify it when people see how much money the government is taking.
2. Regularize redistricting, and get rid of the winner-take all system. Right now, gerrymandering continues across the country with the consent of both parties, in an effort to create districts that are bulletproof for the incumbent party. We should regularize districts on a grid basis by population, and combine the elections for multiple districts in order to prevent the 50%+1 system from ensuring that only major party candidates can secure representation.
Number one isn't going to happen, not with the current politicos in power. Number two might happen on a local basis, assuming you have a voter initiative system in place, and someone with enough guts and money to ram it through. But you're going to need to break the legislative stranglehold on things - one reason why I like governor Schwartzenegger's proposed plan to cut the California legislature to part-time status.
In the meantime, what can WE (as in the Slashdot crowd) do? Well, first thing is to get that GeekPAC running (geekpac.org, supposedly - and it's down, for who knows how long.) The second is to break up the media empires that politicians cater to for positive spin and information control. The third is to encourage competition on all fronts, in order to churn up the layers of sediment, and get proper representation going. Lastly, is to educate the populace (not an easy task) and get them to treat the vote with more respect than they treat the rest of government.
There are four boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
TiVo vs. the Broadcast Flag Wavers
By Rob Pegoraro
The Washington Post
Sunday, August 1, 2004; Page F06
TiVo, the company that makes the digital-video-recorder boxes that inspire such strange idolatry among their users, is in a weird spot. It's asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to add a new feature -- the option for a TiVo user to send recorded digital TV programs via the Internet to nine other people.
Huh? Permission? Doesn't the government's involvement in consumer electronics stop with making sure that a gadget doesn't jam your neighbor's reception or electrocute you? Since when do the feds get to vote on product designs?
The answer is, since last November, when the FCC voted to require manufacturers to support the "broadcast flag" system by July 1 of next year. This convoluted mechanism aims to stop full-quality copies of digital broadcasts from circulating on the Internet.
The FCC didn't mandate any one anti-file-sharing scheme and instead invited companies to submit their own proposals, which brings us to TiVo's vaguely Soviet predicament. Among the schemes a handful of firms have proposed, only TiVo's would allow tightly controlled online transfers of recorded programs.
For this, the company has drawn the ire of the National Football League and the Motion Picture Association of America, which have asked the FCC to deny TiVo's proposal.
The NFL says that TiVo's Internet-sharing feature will allow people to send game broadcasts to blacked-out viewers in real time (a team's home game can be aired locally only if it sells out beforehand).
"It's a question of pure ability to sell tickets," said Frank Hawkins, the NFL's senior vice president for business affairs. "Buffalo typically sells out September and October, but they've got an open-air stadium. They'll never sell out those December games if they are unable to enforce the blackout rule."
This is an important point: The NFL is not asking the FCC to protect its television business -- never mind that the flag exists only to stop indiscriminate file sharing, not cure every copyright-infringement issue.
No, the NFL is asking for help with a stadium business, one that already benefits from massive government welfare. (A December 2002 Buffalo News story calculated that the taxpayers of Erie County, N.Y., had anted up about $148 million for the Bills and their stadium over the previous decade.)
In other words, the league is asking manufacturers and viewers to further subsidize team owners who are already gorging themselves at the public trough.
There's also the slight problem that the NFL's nightmare -- blacked-out viewers watching a game live on the Internet -- is all but impossible. With almost every broadband connection available today, it would take hours to upload a game. A recipient would be lucky to finish watching a Sunday afternoon game before Monday, and sending a high-definition copy would take most of the week.
Jim Burger, a lawyer for TiVo, fumed about the NFL's complaint: "Maybe their engineers understand how to inflate a football, but I don't think they understand encoded, encrypted MPEG-2," TiVo's tightly secured format.
Whenever full-quality, real-time video on the Internet does become commonplace, I expect to see the NFL capitalizing on it instead of complaining, just as it has profited from such earlier advances as satellite TV.
The MPAA, meanwhile, says that the way TiVo would allow customers to share recordings online with people who may not be friends or family members amounts to indiscriminate redistribution.
The Washington-based group wants TiVo to impose an "affinity requirement," said Fritz Attaway, its executive vice president for government relations.
But how can TiVo tell if the people to whom you've sent a program are really friends and family without launching its own Total Information Awareness program? Attaway called that "a good question." Until that can be answered, his lob
Yes, you definitely should change your presidential election voting system to a 2-stage system used in many democratic countries throughout the world (including my home country of Finland).
That way everybody can vote whomever they REALLY want on the first round, and then on the second round the least inferior candidate of the two remaining.
How would this system affect the upcoming elections? Ralph Nader would get a lot more votes on the first round. Probably over 10%. Bush and Kerry would still be the ones passing to second round, BUT other candidates wouldn't be there messing things up anymore, and Kerry would win by a large margin. (If used in 2000, Gore would be president now.)
The current US system definitely favors Republicans.
Libertarians are usually reflexively anti-government; most seem to be pretty close to anarcho-capitalism. And the LP itself tends to be a party for gun nuts and pot smokers (not that I don't like firearms and drugs, mind you). The problem is that those of us who lean towards a libertarian viewpoint overall but don't share the LP's rabid viewpoint are left with nowhere to turn. Since we don't want to see the government gutted by a bunch of Ayn Rand groupies, we have to choose which of the major parties offends us less. In my case, it's the Democrats, because the Republicans are either insincere or simply pro-business, and are enslaved to the Religious Right anyway. So I'll grit my teeth and settle for the socialism of so-called liberals.
Personally, I don't even consider myself a libertarian. I'm a classical liberal, which means I like free trade, no corporate welfare, no central planning, relatively small govenrment, and a great degree of personal liberty. This doesn't mean I think we should have a minimalist federal government, only that I don't think government should try to do everything. (Anyone who doesn't understand this distinction should read "The Road to Serfdom.") The idea is to harness competition and the free market to improve human lives; it's an alternative to mercantilism or socialism.
Unfortunately, classical liberalism is almost dead; Clinton was one of the few politicians whose policies ever came close. It's obvious that Kerry/Edwards don't favor it either, but since Bush isn't really any better I guess I'll hold my nose and vote for Kerry.
I swear, there should be an absolute moratorium on permitting links to sites with popup ads in articles (or, for that matter, posts) on Slashdot. At best, it's just rude. But perhaps congress (yeah, the opposite of progress) will wind up inadvertently making popup ads illegal in their insidious efforts to regulate the internet. Well, one can hope, anyway.
RHCE; are you certified? Karma: ambiguous.
I haven't watched TV in 3 years; instead, I either go to my local bittorrent site and get the shows from there if there's something worth watching, or I'll buy a DVD of anime here or there. I also don't get commercials this way, which is really really nice because I hate them with a vengance.
Frankly, TV is going to go downhill as better p2p networks, storage, and more bandwidth become available. And with those, better business practices. We've got 320 gig harddisks now, with dsl connections. In 10 years, we'll have several terrabyte sized disks with t3 pipes going to each household, if the economy keeps on it's path, not to mention more processing power. If a decent quality movie fits on a cd, then a 120 of them will fit on a drive; that's a quite a library...
I only see this as a law that will attempt to slow the speed of this adoption. We'll also see other adoptions such as being able to buy an entire season of some show for $5-$10, whereas you're paying for faster bandwidth to download a high quality copy that's insured against bad stuff and isn't crippled or bad quality in any way. P2P is reliable but it isn't fast, you don't get insurance against bad copies, low quality, or that someone didn't rename bad porn as a movie. I personally don't see it slowing down the adoption at all; whatever encryption they make, someone will inevitably break and rebroadcast.
As for the few topics above this that are talking about taxes going to fund corporations; as long as the people don't know, they won't care. Grease the monkey and he'll grease you back, that's the name of the game.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
I put as much stock in their articles as the Pulitzer Prize Committee does... er... Janet Cooke's Jimmy's World Jayson Blaire Though Blaire worked for the NYTimes maybe it is time we set aside our trust for the media and tell the FCC to go blow it out their ass.
Wow this is truly amazing. Anyone remember the day when we all had VCR's and we could record anything that was being broadcast and send copies to friends? Do you think the FCC was ever involved when VCR manufactures added a feature to automatically record a program at a certain day and time? No. But suddenly, now that technology as improved they want to stop it.
There was never a broadcast flag in the past, why should there be one now? Did someone force me to sign an EULA before I watch TV broadcast on public airwaves? In the past there was a natural limitation that prevented games broadcast locally from being seen in other areas of a country (the signal only transmitted so far), now the FCC wants to maintain that limitation through an artificial administrative control system?
Look, if they want to attack someone it shouldn't be the end user or the company that manufactures the device. They are only going to hurt the consumer and the hardware manufactures. Maybe shuting down websites or people who are providing copies of programs to 100's of strangers would be appropriate. But telling a manufacturer that they have to change a 1 to a 0 in their code is ludicrous. Frustrating consumers is just wrong.
Look at some of the stuff Michael Powell is talking about. He is very pro-consumer.
No. He is very pro-lobby.
I'm a registered Republican. Live in a county that voted 93% for Bush last election. Hate parasites like Kerry and Edwards. Despise trial attorneys and their fleecing of the US.
However, I'm not hoodwinked with Powell's FCC. It's a one-stop shop for former Bell monopolies and energy monopolies. Give Powell's friends enough cash and he'll push anything for you. He's like a radiofrequency ATM machine if you know how to grease the skids.
He's your typical silver spoon child (which should be banned from government) and consumers are the last thing on his mind.
Please, don't confuse pro-lobby with pro-consumer. You're buying into the regional Bell advertising, and it's really not that good.
The reason tracks say they need slots is because the slots pay for the racing and allow the racing to make more for the state while keeping the game cleaner.
Slot machines earn steadily, work all day, and attract lots of people.
With races, the state gets a cut (24-26 percent, IIRC) of the total action. The more people play, the more the state makes.
Tracks in the US work on a parimutuel system. This means that all the money wagered on a given bet (win, place, show, exacta, trifecta, etc) goes into a common pool for that bet. The state gets a cut, and the remainder is divvied out to everyone with a winning pick on that bet.
This means that the actual odds are based on money bet per horse or combination, and are not set by the track or anyone else. The track has absolutely no interest in whichever horse wins, only that as many people as possilbe play.
Also, when there are few people betting it is much easier to manipulate the odds by placing devious strategic bets. Here's how that works: Odds at a track come from the parimutuel system. Off-track betting uses the track odds, but OTB wagering may not be included in the parimutuel calculation. Certainly betting with a bookie is not.
Let's say I know a trainer at course X who says "Da numbah 3 in da fifth is a lock." If I go to the track and throw a large amount (eg $1000) on number 3, it will tilt the odds proportionally to how much has been bet in total -- the less has been bet at the track, the greater effect it will have on final payouts, meaning a lower return for me when 3 comes in.
Let's say for the sake of argument that my $1000 bet at the track takes the 3 horse from 6:1 to 3:1. If I make the bet at OTB, the horse is still 6:1 (because my bet is not figured in the parimutuel).
Now, let's say that I make my bet on the 3 at an OTB or with a bookie for $5,000 instead of $1,000, but have a friend lay a $1,000 bet at the track on the number 8 horse. This would increase the odds for the 3 proportional to the total handle at the track. By doing this I could increace my off-track odds from 6:1 to, say 10:1 -- meaning my take from an off-track win would go from $35,000 to $55,000, at the cost of a $1000 loss.
This sort of thing has happened before. But the more people bet at the track, the larger the handle, and therefore the more money is required to tilt the odds.
If slots bring more people to the track, they also make it harder for people to fix races this way (although it is not 'fixing' so much as playing with payoffs).
So to recap, many tracks have found that slots, besides being gold mines themselves, tend to bring in more punters, meaning a bigger slice for the state, and a much bigger investment by people wanting to rig the numbers. This technique is still possible, just much more difficult.
While this may be a bad thing for those unfortunate enough to think they can actually beat the slots, it has been good for tracks and good for racing.
Incidentally, I was at the Charles Town (WV) racetrack today and lost $2 on slots in about 1 minute, but won about $35 on horses over 12 races. It was a good day. My dad did even better -- he hit a $120 exacta ($1 bet) in the last race and ended up about $180 ahead.
Sorry this post was off-topic.
Skip the registration BS:
TiVo vs. the Broadcast Flag Wavers
By Rob Pegoraro
The Washington Post
Sunday, August 1, 2004; Page F06
TiVo, the company that makes the digital-video-recorder boxes that inspire such strange idolatry among their users, is in a weird spot. It's asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to add a new feature -- the option for a TiVo user to send recorded digital TV programs via the Internet to nine other people.
Huh? Permission? Doesn't the government's involvement in consumer electronics stop with making sure that a gadget doesn't jam your neighbor's reception or electrocute you? Since when do the feds get to vote on product designs?
The answer is, since last November, when the FCC voted to require manufacturers to support the "broadcast flag" system by July 1 of next year. This convoluted mechanism aims to stop full-quality copies of digital broadcasts from circulating on the Internet.
The FCC didn't mandate any one anti-file-sharing scheme and instead invited companies to submit their own proposals, which brings us to TiVo's vaguely Soviet predicament. Among the schemes a handful of firms have proposed, only TiVo's would allow tightly controlled online transfers of recorded programs.
For this, the company has drawn the ire of the National Football League and the Motion Picture Association of America, which have asked the FCC to deny TiVo's proposal.
The NFL says that TiVo's Internet-sharing feature will allow people to send game broadcasts to blacked-out viewers in real time (a team's home game can be aired locally only if it sells out beforehand).
"It's a question of pure ability to sell tickets," said Frank Hawkins, the NFL's senior vice president for business affairs. "Buffalo typically sells out September and October, but they've got an open-air stadium. They'll never sell out those December games if they are unable to enforce the blackout rule."
This is an important point: The NFL is not asking the FCC to protect its television business -- never mind that the flag exists only to stop indiscriminate file sharing, not cure every copyright-infringement issue.
No, the NFL is asking for help with a stadium business, one that already benefits from massive government welfare. (A December 2002 Buffalo News story calculated that the taxpayers of Erie County, N.Y., had anted up about $148 million for the Bills and their stadium over the previous decade.)
In other words, the league is asking manufacturers and viewers to further subsidize team owners who are already gorging themselves at the public trough.
There's also the slight problem that the NFL's nightmare -- blacked-out viewers watching a game live on the Internet -- is all but impossible. With almost every broadband connection available today, it would take hours to upload a game. A recipient would be lucky to finish watching a Sunday afternoon game before Monday, and sending a high-definition copy would take most of the week.
Jim Burger, a lawyer for TiVo, fumed about the NFL's complaint: "Maybe their engineers understand how to inflate a football, but I don't think they understand encoded, encrypted MPEG-2," TiVo's tightly secured format.
Whenever full-quality, real-time video on the Internet does become commonplace, I expect to see the NFL capitalizing on it instead of complaining, just as it has profited from such earlier advances as satellite TV.
The MPAA, meanwhile, says that the way TiVo would allow customers to share recordings online with people who may not be friends or family members amounts to indiscriminate redistribution.
The Washington-based group wants TiVo to impose an "affinity requirement," said Fritz Attaway, its executive vice president for government relations.
But how can TiVo tell if the people to whom you've sent a program are really friends and family without launching its own Total Information Awareness program? Attaway called that "a good question." U
The mayor (Anthony Williams) here in D.C has been seriously proposing the construction of a baseball stadium to attract the expos. This stadium is expected to cost between 180 and 400 million dollars. Meanwhile, our schools are firing 500 teachers because we lack the money. Funny priorities, wouldn't you agree?
"Guns don't kill people, bullets do."
On the other hand, if you use the internet to get any type of english-language news, you read the New York Times and the Washington Post.
What about BBC News? For English-language news on the Internet, I'd think that BBC News is used more often than the NYT or Washington Post.
They're two of the most liberal, biased, full-of-shit papers in America. There's no excuse to be reading them every damned day Read Everything, not just biased crap served on a flatscreen, you insensitive clod.
Umm... No. Republicans had non-profit groups before the Democrats.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
...about your vote being "wasted" because you do not support the status quo--which is basically what happens regardless of this election's outcome.
Face it--regardless of whether Bush or Kerry is POTUS next year, it'll be pretty much the status quo. If anything changed the status quo, it wasn't Bush's arrival in the White House, it was a bunch of demented Islamic fundamentalists driving planes into big buildings that changed everything. The domestic assault on personal liberties was well underway AGES before Floridians decided that most hanging and pregnant chads belonged to Bush.
The Clinton Democrats sheparded through bills leading to the cretion of the Broadcast Flag and the DMCA quite happily. Hollywood loves the Democratic party--the relationship makes them more money. Bush and company are too fixated on the "war on terror" and making sure their oil friends are taken care of. Elephant or Donkey it doesn't matter, they're both old-world political animals--they just obey different lobbyist masters.
At any rate if you are really dissatisfied with your government, I say PLEASE--"WASTE" your vote. Change may take years (a few terms to be sure) but it's the only way to guarantee change. Let me relate the "Canadian experience" for those Americans that may be unaware:
In 1988, Canada was goverened by the Mulroney-led Progressive Conservatives (PCs). The PCs were reaching the end of their first mandate and the polls looked good to call an election (no fixed election dates here--the PM gets to call an election when he feels he can win--unless parliament has sat for five years). Many (especially in the west) found the PCs to be arrogant and oblivious to their concerns, and by the time the election was called these voters had established the "Reform Party of Canada" (RPC).
In 1988 they barely registered--less than 10 percent of the vote and no seats. They were laughed off as a fringe movement as the PCs coasted to a large majority. The PCs continued to rule with arrogance, and in 1993 then forced to go to another election under a new (and equally arrogant) leader, discontent grew. By this time, nationalists in Quebec felt motivated to organise and had formed the BLOC. Those in ontario decided to give the opposition Liberals a chance.
The result was astonishing--but not simply because the Liberals won as expected. The PCs were reduced to 2 seats and lost party status (by parliamentary convention they could not form a caucus and had to sit as independents). The SEPARATIST BLOC party became official opposition by a one seat margin over the RPC (52 to 51 seats). These parties had ZERO representation previously. Enough people decided to "waste their votes" by not voting for the two traditional mainline parties (the Liberals and PCs) and changed the political landscape of Canada permanently.
The old-line PCs were understandably upset, blaming the breakaway RPCers of handing the Liberals a blank cheque and ineffective opposition, but nobody can disagree that the PCers we never that arrogant again. The RPC (later re-constituted into the Alliance party) later became official opposition and the PCs kept limping along--regaining party status just barely and holding enough support to split the vote and allow the Liberals to govern to this day.
This made the Liberals even more arrogant and corrupt than the original Mulroney-era PCs, which brough forth some new events. The Alliance and PC disbanded and agreed to set aside differences and create a new Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). The socialist New Democrats and the "fringe" Greens also had new leaders and re-worked platforms. The combination of a unified principal opposition and renewed choice on the left siphoned support from both sides of the Liberals and reduced them to a minority government this year, subsequently deflating the ego of the Liberals and making it neccesary for them to cooperate more with other parties to hold power. We've also got the strongest opposition party in 25 years--similar
Never said they didn't. Just saying that we've had "finance reform" and the same money is still pouring into races - it's just bypassing going to the party and candidate, and going straight onto the street and into the media.
"It's a question of pure ability to sell tickets," said Frank Hawkins, the NFL's senior vice president for business affairs.
Why is the NFL allowed to say this but Tivo not allowed to counter with "It's a question of the pure ability to sell Tivos"? Seriously, what makes a professional sports team more important than any other business?
Those existing teams, and the league that supports them, would be under no obligation to schedule any games involving your team. Effectively, you'd have to start your own league. This has been done, with varying degrees of success (AL, AFL, USFL, WHA, XFL, etc.). Some of them died due to a lack of support, some died due to a bad product (*koff*XFL*koff*), and yet others ended up merging with the very league they were competing against. One (WHA) even merged AND re-formed, at least if the NHL lockout happens as expected. Then there's always the option of bringing a minor league team to your town, or a top-level team in a "B" sport. There is a market for this. (I don't bring up the WNBA because that's subsidized by the NBA.)
As for paying someone well for playing ONLY ten years, well that's a long time for a running back. Football, running the ball in particular, is a young man's game. Whatever else you may say about OJ, I can tell you he feels every single one of those hits he took over 10 years, every time he gets out of his chair. Also players could (and do) sustain season- or career-ending injuries at any time. How many jobs can you say THAT about? When is the last time YOU took a 100 mph piece of rubber on the side of the jaw?
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
no wonder amtrak's always broke;-)
Face it. The problem isn't the money machines that the major parties use. It's US.
I disagree, the current campaign finance rules have a lot to do with it. There *is* something that we the voters can do though! The root of the corruption problem is that it is now worth it for a representative to "sell" their vote. The reasons this have come to pass are many and varied. Some have to do with "us" the voters and some don't.
The key to solving this problem is to make it not worth selling votes. To do this you need to attack on 2 fonts, you need to make it benefit less to sell a vote and cost more.
Prong 1: Benefit less
Candidates need money to get votes. When candidates are starved for money, the one with the most money wins. When candidates have enough money to really get their message across to the people, the better candidate wins. The key to making money less important is to let the candidates have more of it. This seems counter-intuitive but it makes sense and there is lots of evidence to back it up. If you know about what kind of person a candidate is and you don't like them, you won't vote for them no matter how much money they spend.
For some reason people keep insisting that reducing the amount of money a candidate can get is the solution to this problem. It just doesn't make sense. A candidate that has enough money to get his message out isn't vulnerable to being bought whereas a candidate that *needs* your money is a candidate you can buy. Most of the laws I've heard people suggest to solve this issue would simply make it worse. Candidates would need money more desperately and be more vulnerable to outside influence. When the trial lawyers association calls up with 1,000 members who have all written checks and are just waiting for your vote before they send them, and the politician needs that money, you bet they'll cave. The easier you make it for the candidates to get money, the weaker the strings get on each donation.
The start of this mess was the horrible Supreme Court ruling to fight "the appearance of corruption" and putting the arbitrary $1,000 limit on campaign donations. That was an unfortunate decision on the part of the Supreme Court and it has traded the appearance of corruption for the real thing, legal vote selling that's deeply embedded in our political system now. The result is that now we have an election before every election and only the rich are invited to vote. It's a money election and unless you get significant support, you can't be a candidate. This seems to have hurt democrats more since republicans tend to have larger numbers of people who donate smaller amounts and democrats tend to have smaller numbers of ultra-wealthy idealists who donate lots of money. Conspiracy theorists can run wild as to whether that was intentional. Recently, the independent add campaigns like moveon.org have undone this tipping of the scales possibly reversing it since $1,000 doesn't go as far as it used to. It's time to do away with this rule that was so strangely enacted. That would do a lot towards reducing the benefit of selling votes.
Prong 2: Cost more
Reducing the strength of the strings attached to contributions is a start but to really break the current system of vote selling we need to start watching our politicians and make it cost them votes when they do it. If it looses them more votes than the money gains them, they won't do it. This means when your senator votes for the DMCA and receives a few thousand dollars from media interests, it should show up in elections. The challenger should be able to stand on a podium and say "My opponent is corrupt. Here's what they did!" and have people listen. This is a tough problem but it could be solved without changing any laws, although the current systems make it hard.
What we need is an organization that monitors politicians and compares their funding sources with their policy decisions. If a politician votes for something that isn't in their consti
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
You didn't address my point about inflation, or of our debt RELATIVE to our income (comparing our deficit to prior years is meaningless, kind of like complaining about how my rent went up by 5% and ignoring my 30% increase in income over that time period).
And yes, your math is all wrong. Some work in your favor, and some don't. There aren't 280 million tax payers, since you have to exclude most kids under the age of 14 or 15, married individuals filing jointly reduce your count as well as those whose income's are to low to pay income taxes to begin with. That increases the average refund by maybe twofold. The "cost" of the tax cut was given over a ten year period, and was phased in (thought I believe the total was closer to 2 trillon). This should decrease your total refund by a little more than five fold. The result is current yearly refunds significantly smaller than your prediction.
Lastly, you argue that the wealthly benefitted disproprotionately from the tax cuts. Which SEEMS true enough looking at who got what "back" in terms of benefits. Of course, what you fail to disclose is that the wealthy also PAY in substantially more than the poor. So what you say, the rich got more back (in dollars) than the poor, they must have gotten the better deal. Then explain to me, if the poor got screwed and the rich got all the benefit, then how come the rich's share of the overall tax burden ROSE after the tax cut? (The percentage of total tax collection paid by those in the top brachets rose, meaning that the burden shifted toward the rich.)
The reason the dollar amounts are so "skewed" on the refunds is that the rich pay the lions share of the total dollars in the first place. Almost all the income taxes are paid by the top half (97%), for two reasons, they earn more income than the bottom half (thus a percentage tax would take much more from them than someone with less wealth) and they also pay a higher tax RATE as well. Almost any reduction in tax rates would "disproportionately" benefit the rich, simply because they pay almost all of the income taxes in the first place. In order to do what you suggest, we would have to intentionally screw the rich by specifically excluding them from any tax cuts at all.
The fundamental problem here is one of perception, there are two different views of the function and nature of a tax cut. One group sees tax cuts as a form of government spending. They see a wealthy guy getting lots of money after a tax cut and someone much poorer person not getting nearly as much. When a tax cut is looked at through the light of a benefit bestowed upon someone from the government, then it would NATURALLY seem outraegous that the rich are given so much more than the poor. After all, the rich don't need it and the poor do. The situation ought to be reversed!!! The other group sees taxes as cost imposed by society upon it's citizens. Therefore when a reduction in taxes is proposed, it would be expressly unfair to punish those who foot the heaviest bill. (Of course there are disagreements in DEGREE within these two groups) But the mindsets are fundamentally different.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Yes, but you're right that it will take a lot more than just saying "don't do that" as long as they can continue doing "almost, but not quite, that."
We need to take the foxes out of the henhouse before we staple the wire netting in place. Otherwise, we're just ensconing the foxes right where they want to be.
So, you're volunteering to be my write-in VP candidate?
The vast majority might not live in America, but they might be concerned about what is happening in America
Not so true, ok business people are interested in what's going on in the US, and some people (like me) are interested in it's foreign politics. But the vast majority doesn't give a damn about what happens in the US (except for Holywood of course).
and what Americans are thinking.
And reading those papers will help us understanding an american mind? What I have heard is that most american media do not represent what the average american thinks.
Just ask the Iraqis and the Afgans or people from hundreds of other countries whether what happens in America affects them.
Unfortunately you're right, the US (and it's corporations) governs more countries than it is supposed to. Allthough not in every country its as obvious as in Iraq or Afganistan. But then again, that's no reason why the non-american public should be subjected to american we-are-the-greatest-and-rule-the-world-media.
This is one lame signature, please read the message above instead.