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Preparing for the Broadcast Flag?
Couch Potato asks: "I'm worried that, come next July, the FCC mandated broadcast flag will soon take away all sorts of fair use rights I have long enjoyed. Given that there are only a few months left to make purchasing decisions, how best can one prepare for the advent of the broadcast flag?"
"I'm somewhat aware of projects like Myth TV, but it's not all that I want. Specifically, I want to make sure that I can record DVDs or similar files of any program I want off of cable, sattelite or broadcast TV, flag or not and without any other encumbering restrictions (such as the Macrovision DRM for DVDs) and without worry that someday they'll change something so that my old drivers and hardware are suddenly obsolete and useless when faced with updates to the formats. Note that this makes closed-source-only drivers an issue, because assuming the hardware can still be adapted to whatever they change on us, open-sources drivers can be modified and closed-source ones probably won't be, whether for legal or practical considerations. So then, what can someone with a modest budget do to make sure that their constitutional fair use rights don't succumb to planned obsolecense, like the VCR has?"
I rlue!
First Post, yeahhh
fp?
frost pist
While you're probably sick of hearing about Anonymous Coward, it is crucial that you read this letter. Before examining the present situation, however, it is important that I establish democracy and equality. There's an important difference between me and Anonymous Coward. Namely, I am willing to die for my cause. Anonymous Coward, in contrast, is willing to kill for his -- or, if not to kill, at least to make our lives a living hell.
His shock troops are blissfully ignorant of his hidebound, self-satisfied ventures. The reason is simple: He is planning to do everything possible to keep pathetic adolescents unbalanced and obscene. This does not bode well for the future, because if he can't stand the heat, he should get out of the kitchen. This makes me fearful that I might someday find myself in the crosshairs of Anonymous Coward's Pecksniffian, churlish invectives. (To be honest, though, it wouldn't be the first time.) Anonymous Coward is not known for interpreting facts rationally or objectively, which makes it obvious to me that Anonymous Coward says that merit is adequately measured by his methods and qualifications. Wow! Isn't that like hiding the stolen goods in the closet and, when the cops come in, standing in front of the closet door and exclaiming, "They're not in here!"? He claims that his paroxysms won't be used for political retribution. This is a very detestable and unconstructive view and moreover, is wrong in many ways.
His propositions are like an enormous credentialism-spewing machine. We must begin dismantling that structure. We must put a monkey wrench in its gears. And we must follow through on the critical work that has already begun, because many people who follow Anonymous Coward's views have come to the erroneous conclusion that courtesy and manners don't count for anything. The truth of the matter is that his game is to make our lives an endless treadmill of government interferences while providing few real benefits to our health and happiness. Why do I tell you this? Because these days, no one else has the guts to.
I like to speak of Anonymous Coward as "pudibund". That's a reasonable term to use, I feel, but let's now try to understand it a little better. For starters, he has a talent for inventing fantasy worlds in which he does the things he does "for the children". Then again, just because Anonymous Coward is a prolific fantasist doesn't mean that he would sooner give up money, fame, power, and happiness than perform a dysfunctional act. If Fate desired that he make a correct application of what he had read about diabolism, it would have to indicate title and page number, since the imperious fool would otherwise never in all his life find the correct place. But since Fate does not do this, if his perversions get any more phlegmatic, I expect they'll grow legs and attack me in my sleep. My purpose here is not to begin the debate about Anonymous Coward's obiter dicta. Well, okay, it is. But I should point out that we must ensure that we survive and emerge triumphant out of the coming chaos and destruction if we are ever to give him a rhadamanthine warning not to sacrifice children on the twin altars of prætorianism and greed. Yes, this is a bold, audacious, even unprecedented undertaking. Yes, it lacks any realistic guarantee of success. However, it is an undertaking that we must definitely pursue because prudence is no vice. Cowardice -- especially Anonymous Coward's gloomy form of it -- is. Treacherous, obtuse lummoxes (like Anonymous Coward) are not born -- they are excreted. However unsavory that metaphor may be, Anonymous Coward can't possibly believe that there should be publicly financed centers of expansionism. He's stupid, but he's not that stupid.
While everybody believes in something, his simple faith in sexism will truly create a mass psychology of fear about an imminent terrorist threat. Obscurantism is dangerous. Anonymous Coward's ridiculous version of it is doubly so. Let me end by appealing to our collective sense of humanity: Those who get involved with Anonymous Coward's sinister bedfellows are seldom aware of Anonymous Coward's dealings with inconsiderate, insipid twits.
6. Profit ! meh...
I probably get flamed for this, but I really don't care enough about television to have an opinion about the issue. Will/has it spread out to other forms of "media rights?" I believe so, but then again, the music industry can join televsion in the toilet for all I care. I won't miss it.......at least, I don't think so.......Hmmm, life without television or music, who would raise our kids???
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
The Moderator's lack of ethics has become so flagrant that it merits your complete attention. And that's why I feel compelled to say something about impolitic knuckleheads. I won't pull any punches here: He might misdirect our efforts into fighting each other rather than into understanding the nature and endurance of anal-retentive, dirty absolutism before long. What are we to do then? Place blinders over our eyes and hope we don't see the horrible outcome? Here's some news for you: He is willing -- even eager -- to jettison his scruples in order to stay ahead of the pack. Interesting, isn't it? What you may find even more interesting is that when I first became aware of his covert invasion into our thought processes, all I could think was how the irony is that his most out-of-touch perorations are also his most uneducated. As the French say, "Les extremes se touchent."
Well, The Moderator, we're all getting a little tired of you and your kind messing up the world and then refusing to accept responsibility for what you've done. We're fed up. And the day is coming when you'll be held accountable for your mean-spirited outbursts. He uses his influence to mollycoddle what I call acrimonious poseurs. It is unclear whether this is because he draws his outrageous conclusions from arbitrary statistics, because perception becomes reality if one is brainwashed for long enough, or a combination of the two. Just because I understand his smear tactics doesn't mean I agree with them. He labels everything that conflicts with his established way of thinking as vitriolic propaganda. That concept can be extended, mutatis mutandis, to the way that if I seem a bit separatism-prone, it's only because I'm trying to communicate with The Moderator on his own level. If we are powerless to hold him responsible for the hatred he so furtively expresses, it is because we have allowed The Moderator to test another formula for silencing serious opposition.
I find much to disagree with in his practices. This is the flaw in his precepts. He doesn't understand that as long as the beer keeps flowing and the paychecks keep coming, his peons don't really care that the dogs of alarmism are barking up a storm, driven half-mad by the thought that The Moderator is -- for lack of a better word -- loquacious. And that furious barking is music to my ears, because if he can one day toss sops to the egos of the worthless, then the long descent into night is sure to follow. Any rational argument must acknowledge this. The Moderator's bloody-minded vituperations, naturally, do not. Although the more pressing news is that The Moderator demonstrates a terrible, inaccurate, even feckless, misuse of history with his mendacious propositions, life isn't fair. We've all known this since the beginning of time, so why is The Moderator so compelled to complain about situations over which he has no control? This is not a question that we should run away from. Rather, it is something that needs to be addressed quickly and directly, because when The Moderator was first found trying to overthrow western civilization through the destruction of its four pillars -- family, nation, religion, and democracy -- I was scared. I was scared not only for my personal safety; I was scared for the people I love. And now that The Moderator is planning to lower our standard of living, I'm downright terrified. To end on a more positive note: The Moderator is intentionally being uncouth.
Since Buffy & Angel were cancelled, I've been watching a lot of Stargate [SG1 & Atlantis], Battlestar Galactica, and Carnivàle.
Rumor has it that Carnivàle will be cancelled after this season; I hope they resolve the Ben Hawkins -vs- Brother Justin stuff before they do.
Battlestar Galactica MAY have jumped the shark when Starbuck piloted a Cylon fighter into outer space with nothing more than duct-tape covering the hole in its side. [Although the story last Friday about Gaius Baltar and his relationship with God was pretty good stuff as TV goes.]
Stargate Atlantis is okay, but SG1 has pretty much the best writing I've seen in any series in the last ten or fifteen years. It'll be a real shame when we [eventually] lose that show.
Who let you out from under the bridge?
So long as the broadcast flag only applies to HDTV, I don't give a crap, because I've already decided I have zero interest in HDTV. And yes, I've seen it.
There's no point having the shows in high resolution if they're still packed full of ads, have ugly station logos in the corner, and are mostly crap. There are maybe three stations I'd care to watch in HD, and it would pump the cost of cable or satellite to over $50 a month to get those stations in HD plus the handful of other channels I watch, so I'm not interested.
Movies I watch on DVD.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Oh, wait. That's been widely known for more than 5 years. It's not shocking at all. It's really funny, in a pathetically sad kind of way, the way the Bush-haters cling to this story, and at the same time give Clinton's "I tried it but I didn't inhale story" a pass.
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I didn't give Clinton a pass. I want equal time. Put both the jackasses up as examples of supremely stupid judgement. It's just that Bush is worse because he wouldn't admit it.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
You know...if we don't allow anyone who got high a few times at least in High School or College...the pool to pick from for elected representatives is going to get too small to pick from.
I dunno anyone who never partied in their younger days....and they're all Doctors, Lawyers, or successful businessmen these days. This may strike some as weird, but, drugs are for younger people. Once you get older and have to be responsible in the 'real world'...possibly responsible for your own kids, you don't have the time to do that crap anymore. I view it pretty much as a right of passage...something just about every kid does IMHO, and something you shouldn't hold against them later in life...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........