I heard about this through other channels, but felt a need, like a fish making its way upstream, to come back and throw in a little something.
Yes, I'm one of those early UIDs. I still remember Chips and Dips, and I still remember when one CmdrTaco announced on IRC that we should all check it out. Later, that we should all create accounts. I eventually did so, as have... well, millions of others in the intervening 14 years. (Has it really been 14 years now?)
I've not been reading so much lately, but for a long time Slashdot was a hub of geek culture for me. The passing of the founders out of its good graces, and back into the mass of us "little people", will not be forgotten. Things have changed, but Slashdot lives.
Rob, if you're looking for a place to waste some spare time, #linuxOS is still around. We won't give you too much crap about ignoring us since the olden days. (Well, we'll try not to.) And we won't put any stickers on you. I can promise that much.
Seriously? The idea is to go for yet another rewrite? And it sounds like it's going to be a half-assed database backing (SQLite? Is this right?)? Why not just move to an abstracted storage backend, and let the admin pick what works for him (or write his own backend plugin)? You know, like PowerDNS has been doing for awhile now. Seriously, guys, let's just stop using BIND and move to a better nameserver; it really seems like ISC is going to be rewriting BIND until the heat death of the universe.
Why do you care so much about Microsoft over Google? What's the angle? Besides, don't you have enough money?
And, as others have pointed out, Google got where they were because they're (arguably, anyway) better than anything else out there. Why would the top 1000 sites take a one-time $1m payoff, knowing all the search-driven traffic they'd lose, which if they're a top 1000 site, would probably quickly overshadow that $1m? It doesn't make any sense. It'd be like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
How about, oh, making a better search engine? That might beat Google. Or maybe Google's just done so well, no one will ever beat them. (Yeah, right.)
If you're referring to the Virginia Tech shooter, he even dragged that out again on a recent appearance on Glenn Beck's show - even though that assertion has been thoroughly destroyed, he still insists he's right. This is not the mark of a reasonable man, but that of a self-righteous freakshow. Jack, go away, please.
The $300 million they spent to bribe Warner Bros god knows how much on others, should have been used to cut the cost of players and media, then they could have won the Format war following free market ideals instead of underhanded deals that are now requiring Sony to jack up the prices on everything Blu-Ray to make up the diffrence.
And Toshiba plying Paramount with $100 million (and probably doing the same with some of the other studios that were behind it) is somehow acceptable? Really now? I don't think payola is good, but don't be pissed because of that - both sides did it (thought maybe Sony had the deeper pockets to do it *with*)...
As opposed to Toshiba slipping Paramount $100 million to get them to back HD-DVD? I don't particularly like it, but don't pretend that Toshiba is immune to such payola strategies - both sides do it, so trying to use that to say "hurr bluray r teh sucx they had to pay to make it popular" is rather disingenuous.
The only reason it's decent is because Microsoft didn't wrote it - Sybase did. Of course, as time goes by, it diverges more and more from Sybase's original code base, but still, that's the only reason it's not terrible.
There's more than just the guide you're paying for - if you have broadband service (I do), you get access to TiVoCast video downloads, TiVoToGo, TiVoToComeBack, music streaming, photo viewing, Yahoo! weather, and other features - and of course, it helps to pay for software maintenance/development for the TiVo codebase. Also, I guess I don't feel like $13 is that much - it would by me lunch for approximately one day, and I'm not strapped for cash now. Certainly not to the point that one day's lunch a month isn't worth it for the convenience I get from it.
I would assume that if it's got an ATSC tuner, it just captures the MPEG-2 bitstream and writes it onto the disk; that's how most modern DVRs do it, since encoding ASICs aren't too cheap, and in the electronics market a $10 chip can make or break profit margins.
To flip that around: digital cable and HDTV are worthless to people until they get their weird interoperability problems fixed.
I'll take more capabilities over more pixels, any day.
I'll stick with my Series3 TiVo, where I get the best of both - all the programming, *and* all the flexibility. Yay capitalism - it actually sort of works, sometimes!
I have the TiVo Series3; I in fact download HD programming from it for assorted purposes (for bringing elsewhere for watching on my laptop, or for watching while in transit to/from NYC). Also, programs like pyTiVo have been great for watching torrented shows - even HD torrents (which can be had in 720p!) - so the shows that I can't get via local sources in HD (since our local NBC affiliate is in the dark ages) can still be watched *the right way*...
Assuming your cable box has an IEEE-1394 port; even though there's an FCC mandate, cable companies still aren't reliable about including such advanced technology in their cable boxes.
So that his only make you want to do so after 10 or 15 is an improvement? Just because it's somewhat less than "really bad" still doesn't make it something I would be watching willingly...
This sounds so familiar. I had a run-in with Toshiba "support" a few months back, while trying to replace a faulty HDMI module in my Toshiba HDTV (it was a gift); I ordered the part from a third party (which I was successfully able to install with almost no trouble when I finally got it; but I digress), and it took literally 3 months to get this $100-or-so part.
I called the supplier I'd ordered it from several times; they went so far as to search nationally for it with other part suppliers, and could not find one *anywhere*. Literally, not one. Zip. Zero. Zilch. They provided me with info to call up Toshiba; so I did. Toshiba told me that "oh, we're not making that part right now, and we don't know when we're going to be making it again." Seriously? A multinational manufacturing company has no idea when they'll be making parts for their own equipment? Eventually I think they got tired of my calls, because I finally received it; a couple months later they called up to ask if I'd received the part.
It's not directly related, but I found it to be an interesting peek into their idea of customer service - the fact that it took 3 months for one simple part (which I replaced *myself* in about 15 minutes, by the by - with my own two little hands) just amazes me, as well as the fact that they told me they had no idea when they'd even make it. Like someone wanders into the factory one day and decides "ooh, we haven't made these in awhile"?
Not quite true; low-power and certain translator stations will not be subject to the Feb '09 shutoff date. There will continue to be a certain amount of analog broadcasting, but all major stations will have to switch over to ATSC fully then. I imagine small stations will have to commit to a switchover sometime in the not-too-distant future, but analog won't be *completely* gone for awhile yet.
Most of the digital transmitters are currently only operating at a small fraction of the output power of the NTSC transmitters; this is to save power, reduce the odds of the transmitters interfering with one another, etc. Once the analog shutoff occurs, as I understand it, the ATSC transmitters' power output will be significantly increased, which should substantially expand the reception area for the new digital stations.
Actually, I believe that cutoff is in 2012, not 2011; also, yes, many cable companies have been quite lame about the whole CableCARD mess, but my TiVo Series 3 with 2 Moto S-Cards works just fine (the company's constant desire to blame the cards for occasional issues notwithstanding - those've all been headend issues, acknowledged by the clued local guys). People just need to be more willing to complain to the FCC - that's what I did, and they suddenly got very interested in satisfying my desire for CableCARDs after I did so.
Does it support PAE this time? I'm not seeing anything in the release notes, so I'm guessing the answer is "no"; unfortunately if it doesn't, that makes it (still) useless to me. I'd love to run NetBSD in a Xen domU, but all my production Xen hosts use PAE - 4 GB on a VM host box is just not enough, and NetBSD's continued dogged insistence that PAE is an ugly hack (yes, it is, but that's *beside* the point) is getting really obnoxious. I'd just go with the x86_64 Xen kernel, except that they don't even have an x86_64 Xen-enabled kernel yet...
Slashdot Mirror
I heard about this through other channels, but felt a need, like a fish making its way upstream, to come back and throw in a little something.
Yes, I'm one of those early UIDs. I still remember Chips and Dips, and I still remember when one CmdrTaco announced on IRC that we should all check it out. Later, that we should all create accounts. I eventually did so, as have... well, millions of others in the intervening 14 years. (Has it really been 14 years now?)
I've not been reading so much lately, but for a long time Slashdot was a hub of geek culture for me. The passing of the founders out of its good graces, and back into the mass of us "little people", will not be forgotten. Things have changed, but Slashdot lives.
Rob, if you're looking for a place to waste some spare time, #linuxOS is still around. We won't give you too much crap about ignoring us since the olden days. (Well, we'll try not to.) And we won't put any stickers on you. I can promise that much.
Seriously? The idea is to go for yet another rewrite? And it sounds like it's going to be a half-assed database backing (SQLite? Is this right?)? Why not just move to an abstracted storage backend, and let the admin pick what works for him (or write his own backend plugin)? You know, like PowerDNS has been doing for awhile now. Seriously, guys, let's just stop using BIND and move to a better nameserver; it really seems like ISC is going to be rewriting BIND until the heat death of the universe.
Why do you care so much about Microsoft over Google? What's the angle? Besides, don't you have enough money?
And, as others have pointed out, Google got where they were because they're (arguably, anyway) better than anything else out there. Why would the top 1000 sites take a one-time $1m payoff, knowing all the search-driven traffic they'd lose, which if they're a top 1000 site, would probably quickly overshadow that $1m? It doesn't make any sense. It'd be like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
How about, oh, making a better search engine? That might beat Google. Or maybe Google's just done so well, no one will ever beat them. (Yeah, right.)
If you're referring to the Virginia Tech shooter, he even dragged that out again on a recent appearance on Glenn Beck's show - even though that assertion has been thoroughly destroyed, he still insists he's right. This is not the mark of a reasonable man, but that of a self-righteous freakshow. Jack, go away, please.
The $300 million they spent to bribe Warner Bros god knows how much on others, should have been used to cut the cost of players and media, then they could have won the Format war following free market ideals instead of underhanded deals that are now requiring Sony to jack up the prices on everything Blu-Ray to make up the diffrence.
And Toshiba plying Paramount with $100 million (and probably doing the same with some of the other studios that were behind it) is somehow acceptable? Really now? I don't think payola is good, but don't be pissed because of that - both sides did it (thought maybe Sony had the deeper pockets to do it *with*)...
As opposed to Toshiba slipping Paramount $100 million to get them to back HD-DVD? I don't particularly like it, but don't pretend that Toshiba is immune to such payola strategies - both sides do it, so trying to use that to say "hurr bluray r teh sucx they had to pay to make it popular" is rather disingenuous.
The only reason it's decent is because Microsoft didn't wrote it - Sybase did. Of course, as time goes by, it diverges more and more from Sybase's original code base, but still, that's the only reason it's not terrible.
There's more than just the guide you're paying for - if you have broadband service (I do), you get access to TiVoCast video downloads, TiVoToGo, TiVoToComeBack, music streaming, photo viewing, Yahoo! weather, and other features - and of course, it helps to pay for software maintenance/development for the TiVo codebase. Also, I guess I don't feel like $13 is that much - it would by me lunch for approximately one day, and I'm not strapped for cash now. Certainly not to the point that one day's lunch a month isn't worth it for the convenience I get from it.
I would assume that if it's got an ATSC tuner, it just captures the MPEG-2 bitstream and writes it onto the disk; that's how most modern DVRs do it, since encoding ASICs aren't too cheap, and in the electronics market a $10 chip can make or break profit margins.
I'll stick with my Series3 TiVo, where I get the best of both - all the programming, *and* all the flexibility. Yay capitalism - it actually sort of works, sometimes!
I have the TiVo Series3; I in fact download HD programming from it for assorted purposes (for bringing elsewhere for watching on my laptop, or for watching while in transit to/from NYC). Also, programs like pyTiVo have been great for watching torrented shows - even HD torrents (which can be had in 720p!) - so the shows that I can't get via local sources in HD (since our local NBC affiliate is in the dark ages) can still be watched *the right way*...
Assuming your cable box has an IEEE-1394 port; even though there's an FCC mandate, cable companies still aren't reliable about including such advanced technology in their cable boxes.
I'd be embarrassed to be from there right about now.
Their casting was a little far off... but not that far, really. Kinda sad and scary that they were so on with that prediction.
So that his only make you want to do so after 10 or 15 is an improvement? Just because it's somewhat less than "really bad" still doesn't make it something I would be watching willingly...
This sounds so familiar. I had a run-in with Toshiba "support" a few months back, while trying to replace a faulty HDMI module in my Toshiba HDTV (it was a gift); I ordered the part from a third party (which I was successfully able to install with almost no trouble when I finally got it; but I digress), and it took literally 3 months to get this $100-or-so part.
I called the supplier I'd ordered it from several times; they went so far as to search nationally for it with other part suppliers, and could not find one *anywhere*. Literally, not one. Zip. Zero. Zilch. They provided me with info to call up Toshiba; so I did. Toshiba told me that "oh, we're not making that part right now, and we don't know when we're going to be making it again." Seriously? A multinational manufacturing company has no idea when they'll be making parts for their own equipment? Eventually I think they got tired of my calls, because I finally received it; a couple months later they called up to ask if I'd received the part.
It's not directly related, but I found it to be an interesting peek into their idea of customer service - the fact that it took 3 months for one simple part (which I replaced *myself* in about 15 minutes, by the by - with my own two little hands) just amazes me, as well as the fact that they told me they had no idea when they'd even make it. Like someone wanders into the factory one day and decides "ooh, we haven't made these in awhile"?
But no one complains about how Perl teaches bad habits.
Actually, I say that all the time. And I like Perl. I still think it should never be used as a teaching language ever; it makes you lazy.
HD-DVD used AACS too - it's not like either format gave up on DRM. And I do believe someone busted BD+ too... so really, who cares?
Not quite true; low-power and certain translator stations will not be subject to the Feb '09 shutoff date. There will continue to be a certain amount of analog broadcasting, but all major stations will have to switch over to ATSC fully then. I imagine small stations will have to commit to a switchover sometime in the not-too-distant future, but analog won't be *completely* gone for awhile yet.
Most of the digital transmitters are currently only operating at a small fraction of the output power of the NTSC transmitters; this is to save power, reduce the odds of the transmitters interfering with one another, etc. Once the analog shutoff occurs, as I understand it, the ATSC transmitters' power output will be significantly increased, which should substantially expand the reception area for the new digital stations.
Actually, I believe that cutoff is in 2012, not 2011; also, yes, many cable companies have been quite lame about the whole CableCARD mess, but my TiVo Series 3 with 2 Moto S-Cards works just fine (the company's constant desire to blame the cards for occasional issues notwithstanding - those've all been headend issues, acknowledged by the clued local guys). People just need to be more willing to complain to the FCC - that's what I did, and they suddenly got very interested in satisfying my desire for CableCARDs after I did so.
Does it support PAE this time? I'm not seeing anything in the release notes, so I'm guessing the answer is "no"; unfortunately if it doesn't, that makes it (still) useless to me. I'd love to run NetBSD in a Xen domU, but all my production Xen hosts use PAE - 4 GB on a VM host box is just not enough, and NetBSD's continued dogged insistence that PAE is an ugly hack (yes, it is, but that's *beside* the point) is getting really obnoxious. I'd just go with the x86_64 Xen kernel, except that they don't even have an x86_64 Xen-enabled kernel yet...
I for one welcome our human-crunching alien overlords...
Muncha-Buncha-Cruncha-Humans!
Windows is promiscuous: runs anything for anybody. small wonder it gets compromised so often.
:)
Yes. Windows is the slutty girl of operating systems.