What do ya mean I'm not a potential parent? I am too! And I'm a potential immortal as well. I'm not dead yet!
More seriously...
If I choose to not have my children curse, or
watch violence, I expect that society will not make the decision impossible.
Agreed.
I dont have any problem with the fact that kids 'end up' seeing porn, and hearing cussing.
My problem is when my tax dollars are being used to PROVIDE that. I dont agree with that.
I object to my tax dollars being used to censor materials at a public terminal. Why should your objection take precedence over mine? Especially when yours violates the first amendment?
I have no problems with censoring, and I completely disagree that the internet has ANYTHING to do with it.
As you've no doubt gathered, I do have problems with censorship. And if the internet has nothing to do with it, does that mean that you also favor banning books if they have sexual or violent themes? Or use curse words?
As for the supreme court you may wish to check out the Dread Scott decision. In which the supreme court ruled that slaverly was legal and that congress could not outlaw slavery.
I doubt we'd get a similar ruling today. So perhaps it is not the case that they will always rule the same way.
If violence and sex in media has NO influence on people, then why is advertising a multi-billion industry?
From my original post:
"I have yet to see any studies that show that the viewing of violent or sexual images has a negative effect on the majority of the viewers."
I didn't claim viewing violence or sex had no effect. If fact viewing sexual materials has a definite effect on me. A pleasurable one.
I simply pointed out that I have see no studies that show it has a NEGATIVE effect. Everyone seems to assume it does, at least on children. Show me the evidence.
The fact that those supporting such censorship don't have any sceintific evidence is rather telling. Because if there was any you can sure the pro censorship crowd would be trumpeting it.
Of course, the idea that sex = bad could be so ingrained in our culture it never occurs to most people to question it. Kinda like believing the world is flat prior to Copernicus or that commies were bad in the '50s.
How does it sound when we change one word? Let's see: The idea itself (censoring the net) is good,...
It doesn't sound so innocuous anymore.
I have yet to see any studies that show that the viewing of violent or sexual images has a negative effect on the majority of the viewers. Of any age. (Just as some people are more susceptible to alcoholism it may be the case that a small segment of the population cannot safely view violent or sexual images, but the case is far from settled.)
I've heard quite a bit about protecting children from porn on the net, but I have seen no compelling reasons for doing so. We seem to take it for granted that sex = bad. This is certainly not the case elsewhere, I've seen X rated movies on the French equivelant of HBO, topless women in English newspapers, and similar elsewhere in Europe. What social problems are a result of children growing up in such an environment?
Yet both sides of the filtering debate take it as a given the children should not be exposed to sexual material. Seems to me that this assumption is flawed.
I think it was Frank Zappa (I don't have a the reference) who told congress that he wanted his children to be exposed to this stuff in the media, so that they would be inoculated against it in real life. That makes sense to me.
And despite the scape goating of the media over violent content, violent crime is down again this year. Perhaps video games serve as an outlet for violence and not a cause?
Censoring is wrong. Period. The internet doesn't change that.
Until the major companies black list the company and refuse to deal with them. It's kind of like the MPAA with movies sure you can make a movie that isn't rated but don't expect any theater to run it
Soon it may not matter want the MPAA thinks.
A friend of mine just bought a digital cam corder. He already has an iMac with iMovie software. Think about it, the tools to make movies, albeit probably pretty bad movies, but movies never the less, are now affordable to the average consumer.
He's got two kids. They, and a lot of their friends, are going to grow up with this technology.
The generation that grew up with computers gave us video games. What are these kids gonna do?
I have a small home theater set up. DVD, progressive scan TV, DD processor, surround speakers, etc. Cost a few grand all told. Really good home theater set ups are still a bit pricey. Equivalent in price to say a nice boat or a nice in ground pool (complete with patio and deck).
With the advent of HDTV, which looks great on a larger screen, and falling although not yet reasonable prices, how long will it be until home theaters become fairly commonplace?
So, we have a generation that will grow up making movies and viewing technology moving into the homes. So what if the local theater won't play it. We'll just watch it in our home theaters.
Once upon a time computing resources were locked behind glass doors and only a select few had access. Today I've got four computers in my condo. The PC revolution has changed how we work and play. Of the big mainframe makers, only IBM is still around (unless you want to count Unisys).
We can start the see the glimmerings of a similar shift in entertainment. The MPAA and the RIAA are right to be terrified of PCs and the net. Because it will completely change the way they do business. And many of their member companies may not survive.
You're wrong. Long distance is a phenominally profitable business, but it's not a fast growing business, so these companies stock prices get hammered --- NOT!
Long is not "phenominally profitable business".
Long distance is a good cash flow business. But the profits, caused by the price wars between the long distance providers, have eroded away.
The head guy at Worldcom, Ebbers, in his remarks on a conference call to analysts recounted how they had to bid on the long distance business of Kmart at below cost. No profits there. Essentially Worldcom uses long distance as a loss leader.
You are correct when you state that one reason these companies are splitting to jack up the stock prices. But the other side of that is that they are spinning off the no longer profitable long distance businesses.
Toppling the WinTel hegemony is tough- akin to overthrowing the telephone company...
From USAToday (print edition) for 11/2/02000:
... Just a few years ago, long-distance reigned supreme....
Those changes are the first tremors in a seismic shift that analysts say could mean the death of the residential long-distance business as we know it....
If so, WorldCom joined the death march Wednesday, saying it's forming a new tracking stock under the MCI brand for its slow-growth consumer long-distance and dial-up Internet businesses. AT&T decided last week to split into separate companies for consumer, business, broadband and wireless. Some analysts expect Sprint to issue a similar tracking stock Friday.
Those familiar brands -- AT&T, MCI and Sprint -- won't disappear any time soon. And you'll always be able to buy home-based long-distance service.
Do you really think Microsoft would fork a GPL implementation and open source their improvements?
Yes.
If they did, would that really be so bad?
Yes.
Realize that everything Microsoft does is to maintain their Windows franchise. So I can easily imagine them forking the code in such a way that it only runs on Windows. Then include it with the default Windows install. And change Windows so other versions don't work or work poorly. And there would be nothing to stop them from adding non-GPL'd extentions. Windows only of course.
At first I thought they were just errors. But then I learned that these 'mistakes' were intentional. I don't recall if I read about it or saw it on TV, but someone from a map publisher was interviewed about and confirmed the practise.
As for the examples, here are a couple I think are instances of this, but they could be errors.
I've seen maps of NJ that show a town called "Hiltons" between Atlantic Highlands and Highlands. I grew up in Atlantic Highlands. There is no such town.
When I first moved to Burlington county NJ I picked up some maps so that I could find my way around. Twice I got messed up because short (>= 1/2 mile) roads marked on the map didn't exist.
Finally, a map I own (I live in NJ but I'm in CA on business now or I'd dig out the map and give an exact reference) the condo complex I live in is not shown and a road that does not exist is shown instead.
Steve M
Re:This sort of thing has been done for years ...
on
Obfuscated Circuitry?
·
· Score: 2
Map makers use a similar tactic to prevent copying. They add nonexistant towns, roads, etc. to their maps. If someone else's map shows up with one of these fake features it's off to court they go.
From the Reuters story:
They said people with amnesia who played the popular computer game Tetris dreamed about the images it invoked, but could not remember actually playing the game. And, unlike people with normal memories, they never really got any better at the game.
This shows that when the brain is filing away the memories it needs to keep, it has to go through a series of steps, and dreaming is a manifestation of one crucial step, Dr. Robert Stickgold, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School (news - web sites) in Boston, who led the study, said.
Far from showing that dreaming is a crucial step, this would seem to show that dreaming is irrelevant.
If dreaming were important we would expect the dreamers to improve. Yet they did not.
big ears' comment above about amnesics having functional procedural memory would seen to support this interpretation.
A similar thing happend to me with code. When I was in grad school working on a problem late into the night I would occasionally dream about the problem.
Local regions of the code would be correct, but the code elsewhere would change, but like your equations, the code would change in correct ways locally, although globally it wouldn't work.
I actually solved a handful of problems this way. Including a partularly troublesome one in a formal lingo class.
Does anyone ever remember actually reading something during a dream?
Yes, I've been able to read during dreams. But it is a strange type of 'reading'. I can only read in chunks, not a single word at a time. And the chunks are very ephemeral, no re-reading.
It is rare that this happens. Most times the words are just gibberish. But it has happened during the 'exam dream'. I'm no longer in school so I when I have this dream it is about a class that I haven't been attending and now have a test. I can read the question and start to answer but then the either the questions change or I realize in the dream that I'm no longer in school so I must be dreaming.
Everyone I've talked to about the 'exam dream' has had similar experiences (sans the bit about being able to read).
I've also played sports and I and those who I've talked about this with who played sports have the 'sports dream'. It goes like this. I'm playing soccer, the goal is open, but the ball is just out of reach. Friends who played baseball are trying to field the ball but it stays just out of reach. Football players have a passed ball stay just out of reach. The ball never gets by, it just stays out of reach.
The curious thing about these dreams is the indeterminate nature. In the baseball dream you don't field the ball, but you don't not field the ball. It just stays out of reach.
Think what Nixon or Hoover would have done with this ability.
As I mentioned in another post in this thread, it would be very easy to ruin someone's reputation or blackmail them.
Yes, the legitimate uses for a system like this is to watch for terrorist attacks or organized crime activities. But how hard would it be for the NSA to track the activities of those on its 'enemies list'? Not hard at all.
So when Senator Doe, formerly an out spoken critic of the NSA, comes out of a meeting with the NSA and now says he understands why the NSA needs to do what they do, is it because he has had a change of heart? Or is it because the NSA showed him his file? And mentioned that information wants to be free.
I have a question. Does it really matter if they watch you? There are laws covering what they can and cannot use as evidence agianst you. If they had a folder of you doing subversive freaky things....so what? They can't use it unless they had a reason to suspect you in the first place.
Just because they can't use it in court doesn't mean they can't use it.
The info can be leaked to destroy your reputation. Imagine what Nixon or Hoover would have done with this.
It can be used for blackmail. Again think Nixon or Hoover.
Recall the McCarthy hearings. If you were a suspected comunist sympathizer you were done. You had no recourse. And you had done nothing illegal. And nobody cared how the info was gathered.
Fast forward to today. Want to destroy a political foe, leak info that she had an abortion. Or is gay. Or likes looking at images of naked people. All of these things are legal. And the voters won't care that the data was uncovered illegally.
It really does matter if they watch you. Because if it can be abused it will be.
I spent some time in Paris and saw a show like this as well. It was kind of like the show Blind Date in the states but in the French version anything goes. And usually did.
Even more suprising was that the premium movie channel (kinda like HBO) ran uncut porno flicks.
I doubt these are coming to the x-box.
But this does raise an interesting question. Why can't we recieve TV networks from other countries via cable or satellite? Instead of the BBC in America why can't we just get the BBC?
In Europe the hotels offered a choice of networks from many countries. And come to think of it, you can get CNN just about anywhere. So why the complete absense of of foreign networks in the US?
Check out HRRC, the Home Recording Rights Coalition.
It seems the entertainment industry is trying to get home recording of DTV and HDTV classified as "Theft of Service". Time shifting would thus be illegal.
Also, although I forget where I saw this bit, Rupert Murdoch is behind an initiative to develop satellite TV receiver/PVR combo the software for which will allow codes in the transmission that prevent fastforward. No more commercial skip.
It disgusts me the way companies focus on greed at the expense of the customer.
Pay very close attention to this one, people...
Do more than that. Write you elected officials and let them know you oppose these efforts. Write to the manufacturers and tell them you won't buy their products (it is not enough simply to not buy, let them know why you didn't.) Similarly, tell those companies that are doing a good job that they are and why. Finally, write the advertisers that use any of this technology and tell them that you won't purchase their products.
It is a scary world that the MPAA, RIAA, et al envision. Do your part to prevent it from happening.
While Tivo does have a subscription option you can get a lifetime (of the box) subscription for $199. ReplayTV does not have asubscription fee, but in general costs ~$200 more than Tivo for equivalent recording time.
So for a smart consumer, you've got a maximum life time profit of $200 - [(cost of box) - (price of box)].
Doesn't look like much of a profit opportunety here.
I expect we'll be seeing ads on PVRs in the not too distant future.
I don't have a Tivo, I have a ReplayTV. And one of the features that Tivo has that Replay doesn't is the time and date recording feature. So yes you can use it just like a vcr.
But I've found that service to be quite useful. And I use my electrical wiring to make the phone connection using plug in phone jacks.
Neal Stephenson in In the Beginning Was the Command Line makes the argument that since OS's are now free (as in beer) then in order to keep selling Windows MS must differentiate it somehow.
One way to do this would be to only write apps for Windows.
Stephenson points out the problem with this is that as more and more people move to free OS's there are less and less people using Windows and thus less and less people to buy MS's apps.
The only way out of this trap for MS is to sell apps for any and all OS's but this will cannibalize Windows sales. It will also end the Windows Everywhere dream/nightmare.
And even if MS did write apps for other OS's they could only stay in business as long as there were no free (beer) apps.
So it isn't in MS's best interest to write apps for Linux. But it isn't in MS's best interests not to write apps for Linux.
...but we haven't learned their language (correct me if I'm wrong)...
Of course, there may not be any language to learn.
Note that we have been able to teach apes, dolphins, and even parrots to communicate with us using a system of our devising. But they haven't been able to do the same. We've at least recognized that they are worth trying to talk to. They just don't seem smart enough to recipracate.
On a more serious note, any alien intelligence we see, given our current technology, will either be via a radio or laser signal or because they show up here and announce themselves. Either way, they will have readily identifiable technology. And that will clue us in.
I agree that once we start visiting other worlds, we may not always recognize an intelligent species. But I think we've got plenty of time to work on those skills.
Slashdot Mirror
As a potential parent, unlike you, ...
What do ya mean I'm not a potential parent? I am too! And I'm a potential immortal as well. I'm not dead yet!
More seriously ...
If I choose to not have my children curse, or watch violence, I expect that society will not make the decision impossible.
Agreed.
I dont have any problem with the fact that kids 'end up' seeing porn, and hearing cussing. My problem is when my tax dollars are being used to PROVIDE that. I dont agree with that.
I object to my tax dollars being used to censor materials at a public terminal. Why should your objection take precedence over mine? Especially when yours violates the first amendment?
I have no problems with censoring, and I completely disagree that the internet has ANYTHING to do with it.
As you've no doubt gathered, I do have problems with censorship. And if the internet has nothing to do with it, does that mean that you also favor banning books if they have sexual or violent themes? Or use curse words?
As for the supreme court you may wish to check out the Dread Scott decision. In which the supreme court ruled that slaverly was legal and that congress could not outlaw slavery.
I doubt we'd get a similar ruling today. So perhaps it is not the case that they will always rule the same way.
Steve M
If violence and sex in media has NO influence on people, then why is advertising a multi-billion industry?
From my original post:
"I have yet to see any studies that show that the viewing of violent or sexual images has a negative effect on the majority of the viewers."
I didn't claim viewing violence or sex had no effect. If fact viewing sexual materials has a definite effect on me. A pleasurable one.
I simply pointed out that I have see no studies that show it has a NEGATIVE effect. Everyone seems to assume it does, at least on children. Show me the evidence.
The fact that those supporting such censorship don't have any sceintific evidence is rather telling. Because if there was any you can sure the pro censorship crowd would be trumpeting it.
Of course, the idea that sex = bad could be so ingrained in our culture it never occurs to most people to question it. Kinda like believing the world is flat prior to Copernicus or that commies were bad in the '50s.
Steve M
The idea itself (filtering the net) is good,...
This does seem to be a popular assumption.
How does it sound when we change one word? Let's see: The idea itself (censoring the net) is good,...
It doesn't sound so innocuous anymore.
I have yet to see any studies that show that the viewing of violent or sexual images has a negative effect on the majority of the viewers. Of any age. (Just as some people are more susceptible to alcoholism it may be the case that a small segment of the population cannot safely view violent or sexual images, but the case is far from settled.)
I've heard quite a bit about protecting children from porn on the net, but I have seen no compelling reasons for doing so. We seem to take it for granted that sex = bad. This is certainly not the case elsewhere, I've seen X rated movies on the French equivelant of HBO, topless women in English newspapers, and similar elsewhere in Europe. What social problems are a result of children growing up in such an environment?
Yet both sides of the filtering debate take it as a given the children should not be exposed to sexual material. Seems to me that this assumption is flawed.
I think it was Frank Zappa (I don't have a the reference) who told congress that he wanted his children to be exposed to this stuff in the media, so that they would be inoculated against it in real life. That makes sense to me.
And despite the scape goating of the media over violent content, violent crime is down again this year. Perhaps video games serve as an outlet for violence and not a cause?
Censoring is wrong. Period. The internet doesn't change that.
SteveM
Until the major companies black list the company and refuse to deal with them. It's kind of like the MPAA with movies sure you can make a movie that isn't rated but don't expect any theater to run it
Soon it may not matter want the MPAA thinks.
A friend of mine just bought a digital cam corder. He already has an iMac with iMovie software. Think about it, the tools to make movies, albeit probably pretty bad movies, but movies never the less, are now affordable to the average consumer.
He's got two kids. They, and a lot of their friends, are going to grow up with this technology.
The generation that grew up with computers gave us video games. What are these kids gonna do?
I have a small home theater set up. DVD, progressive scan TV, DD processor, surround speakers, etc. Cost a few grand all told. Really good home theater set ups are still a bit pricey. Equivalent in price to say a nice boat or a nice in ground pool (complete with patio and deck).
With the advent of HDTV, which looks great on a larger screen, and falling although not yet reasonable prices, how long will it be until home theaters become fairly commonplace?
So, we have a generation that will grow up making movies and viewing technology moving into the homes. So what if the local theater won't play it. We'll just watch it in our home theaters.
Once upon a time computing resources were locked behind glass doors and only a select few had access. Today I've got four computers in my condo. The PC revolution has changed how we work and play. Of the big mainframe makers, only IBM is still around (unless you want to count Unisys).
We can start the see the glimmerings of a similar shift in entertainment. The MPAA and the RIAA are right to be terrified of PCs and the net. Because it will completely change the way they do business. And many of their member companies may not survive.
I'm looking forward to it.
Steve M
You're wrong. Long distance is a phenominally profitable business, but it's not a fast growing business, so these companies stock prices get hammered --- NOT!
Long is not "phenominally profitable business".
Long distance is a good cash flow business. But the profits, caused by the price wars between the long distance providers, have eroded away.
The head guy at Worldcom, Ebbers, in his remarks on a conference call to analysts recounted how they had to bid on the long distance business of Kmart at below cost. No profits there. Essentially Worldcom uses long distance as a loss leader.
You are correct when you state that one reason these companies are splitting to jack up the stock prices. But the other side of that is that they are spinning off the no longer profitable long distance businesses.
Steve M
Toppling the WinTel hegemony is tough- akin to overthrowing the telephone company ...
From USAToday (print edition) for 11/2/02000:
Those changes are the first tremors in a seismic shift that analysts say could mean the death of the residential long-distance business as we know it. ...
If so, WorldCom joined the death march Wednesday, saying it's forming a new tracking stock under the MCI brand for its slow-growth consumer long-distance and dial-up Internet businesses. AT&T decided last week to split into separate companies for consumer, business, broadband and wireless. Some analysts expect Sprint to issue a similar tracking stock Friday.
Those familiar brands -- AT&T, MCI and Sprint -- won't disappear any time soon. And you'll always be able to buy home-based long-distance service.
You just might not recognize it. ...
So your point was?
Steve M
Then somebody ought to be fired, becuase they just could have preordered and got 50 of them.
Steve M
Do you really think Microsoft would fork a GPL implementation and open source their improvements?
Yes.
If they did, would that really be so bad?
Yes.
Realize that everything Microsoft does is to maintain their Windows franchise. So I can easily imagine them forking the code in such a way that it only runs on Windows. Then include it with the default Windows install. And change Windows so other versions don't work or work poorly. And there would be nothing to stop them from adding non-GPL'd extentions. Windows only of course.
Steve M
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore. Vote Third Party to disrupt the process.
But a third party vote is a vote for Bush or Gore.
And how is voting, which is part of the process, disruptive?
Vote for the candidate that best represents your interests, Bush, Gore, or anybody else.
For me that's Gore. YMMV.
Steve M
Microsoft.
Or any other company that saw Java as a threat.
Steve M
Yes.
At first I thought they were just errors. But then I learned that these 'mistakes' were intentional. I don't recall if I read about it or saw it on TV, but someone from a map publisher was interviewed about and confirmed the practise.
As for the examples, here are a couple I think are instances of this, but they could be errors.
I've seen maps of NJ that show a town called "Hiltons" between Atlantic Highlands and Highlands. I grew up in Atlantic Highlands. There is no such town.
When I first moved to Burlington county NJ I picked up some maps so that I could find my way around. Twice I got messed up because short (>= 1/2 mile) roads marked on the map didn't exist.
Finally, a map I own (I live in NJ but I'm in CA on business now or I'd dig out the map and give an exact reference) the condo complex I live in is not shown and a road that does not exist is shown instead.
Steve M
Map makers use a similar tactic to prevent copying. They add nonexistant towns, roads, etc. to their maps. If someone else's map shows up with one of these fake features it's off to court they go.
Steve M
From the Reuters story: They said people with amnesia who played the popular computer game Tetris dreamed about the images it invoked, but could not remember actually playing the game. And, unlike people with normal memories, they never really got any better at the game. This shows that when the brain is filing away the memories it needs to keep, it has to go through a series of steps, and dreaming is a manifestation of one crucial step, Dr. Robert Stickgold, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School (news - web sites) in Boston, who led the study, said.
Far from showing that dreaming is a crucial step, this would seem to show that dreaming is irrelevant.
If dreaming were important we would expect the dreamers to improve. Yet they did not.
big ears' comment above about amnesics having functional procedural memory would seen to support this interpretation.
Steve M
A similar thing happend to me with code. When I was in grad school working on a problem late into the night I would occasionally dream about the problem.
Local regions of the code would be correct, but the code elsewhere would change, but like your equations, the code would change in correct ways locally, although globally it wouldn't work.
I actually solved a handful of problems this way. Including a partularly troublesome one in a formal lingo class.
Steve M
Does anyone ever remember actually reading something during a dream?
Yes, I've been able to read during dreams. But it is a strange type of 'reading'. I can only read in chunks, not a single word at a time. And the chunks are very ephemeral, no re-reading.
It is rare that this happens. Most times the words are just gibberish. But it has happened during the 'exam dream'. I'm no longer in school so I when I have this dream it is about a class that I haven't been attending and now have a test. I can read the question and start to answer but then the either the questions change or I realize in the dream that I'm no longer in school so I must be dreaming.
Everyone I've talked to about the 'exam dream' has had similar experiences (sans the bit about being able to read).
I've also played sports and I and those who I've talked about this with who played sports have the 'sports dream'. It goes like this. I'm playing soccer, the goal is open, but the ball is just out of reach. Friends who played baseball are trying to field the ball but it stays just out of reach. Football players have a passed ball stay just out of reach. The ball never gets by, it just stays out of reach.
The curious thing about these dreams is the indeterminate nature. In the baseball dream you don't field the ball, but you don't not field the ball. It just stays out of reach.
Steve M
Because it can be abused.
Think what Nixon or Hoover would have done with this ability.
As I mentioned in another post in this thread, it would be very easy to ruin someone's reputation or blackmail them.
Yes, the legitimate uses for a system like this is to watch for terrorist attacks or organized crime activities. But how hard would it be for the NSA to track the activities of those on its 'enemies list'? Not hard at all.
So when Senator Doe, formerly an out spoken critic of the NSA, comes out of a meeting with the NSA and now says he understands why the NSA needs to do what they do, is it because he has had a change of heart? Or is it because the NSA showed him his file? And mentioned that information wants to be free.
That's why we should all care.
Steve M
I have a question. Does it really matter if they watch you? There are laws covering what they can and cannot use as evidence agianst you. If they had a folder of you doing subversive freaky things....so what? They can't use it unless they had a reason to suspect you in the first place.
Just because they can't use it in court doesn't mean they can't use it.
The info can be leaked to destroy your reputation. Imagine what Nixon or Hoover would have done with this.
It can be used for blackmail. Again think Nixon or Hoover.
Recall the McCarthy hearings. If you were a suspected comunist sympathizer you were done. You had no recourse. And you had done nothing illegal. And nobody cared how the info was gathered.
Fast forward to today. Want to destroy a political foe, leak info that she had an abortion. Or is gay. Or likes looking at images of naked people. All of these things are legal. And the voters won't care that the data was uncovered illegally.
It really does matter if they watch you. Because if it can be abused it will be.
Steve M
I spent some time in Paris and saw a show like this as well. It was kind of like the show Blind Date in the states but in the French version anything goes. And usually did.
Even more suprising was that the premium movie channel (kinda like HBO) ran uncut porno flicks.
I doubt these are coming to the x-box.
But this does raise an interesting question. Why can't we recieve TV networks from other countries via cable or satellite? Instead of the BBC in America why can't we just get the BBC?
In Europe the hotels offered a choice of networks from many countries. And come to think of it, you can get CNN just about anywhere. So why the complete absense of of foreign networks in the US?
Steve M
Check out HRRC, the Home Recording Rights Coalition.
It seems the entertainment industry is trying to get home recording of DTV and HDTV classified as "Theft of Service". Time shifting would thus be illegal.
Also, although I forget where I saw this bit, Rupert Murdoch is behind an initiative to develop satellite TV receiver/PVR combo the software for which will allow codes in the transmission that prevent fastforward. No more commercial skip.
It disgusts me the way companies focus on greed at the expense of the customer.
Pay very close attention to this one, people...
Do more than that. Write you elected officials and let them know you oppose these efforts. Write to the manufacturers and tell them you won't buy their products (it is not enough simply to not buy, let them know why you didn't.) Similarly, tell those companies that are doing a good job that they are and why. Finally, write the advertisers that use any of this technology and tell them that you won't purchase their products.
It is a scary world that the MPAA, RIAA, et al envision. Do your part to prevent it from happening.
Steve M
While Tivo does have a subscription option you can get a lifetime (of the box) subscription for $199. ReplayTV does not have asubscription fee, but in general costs ~$200 more than Tivo for equivalent recording time.
So for a smart consumer, you've got a maximum life time profit of $200 - [(cost of box) - (price of box)].
Doesn't look like much of a profit opportunety here.
I expect we'll be seeing ads on PVRs in the not too distant future.
Steve M
I don't have a Tivo, I have a ReplayTV. And one of the features that Tivo has that Replay doesn't is the time and date recording feature. So yes you can use it just like a vcr.
But I've found that service to be quite useful. And I use my electrical wiring to make the phone connection using plug in phone jacks.
Steve M
Neal Stephenson in In the Beginning Was the Command Line makes the argument that since OS's are now free (as in beer) then in order to keep selling Windows MS must differentiate it somehow.
One way to do this would be to only write apps for Windows.
Stephenson points out the problem with this is that as more and more people move to free OS's there are less and less people using Windows and thus less and less people to buy MS's apps.
The only way out of this trap for MS is to sell apps for any and all OS's but this will cannibalize Windows sales. It will also end the Windows Everywhere dream/nightmare.
And even if MS did write apps for other OS's they could only stay in business as long as there were no free (beer) apps.
So it isn't in MS's best interest to write apps for Linux. But it isn't in MS's best interests not to write apps for Linux.
So maybe it's time to sell all that MS stock...
Steve M
Or maybe just a fork in 'our' evolution.
Steve M
Humans may be the first species to create it's own successor.
Hasn't every species alive today been created by its predessor?
Human's may be first to bypass evolution and intentionally try to to it.
Steve M
Of course, there may not be any language to learn.
Note that we have been able to teach apes, dolphins, and even parrots to communicate with us using a system of our devising. But they haven't been able to do the same. We've at least recognized that they are worth trying to talk to. They just don't seem smart enough to recipracate.
On a more serious note, any alien intelligence we see, given our current technology, will either be via a radio or laser signal or because they show up here and announce themselves. Either way, they will have readily identifiable technology. And that will clue us in.
I agree that once we start visiting other worlds, we may not always recognize an intelligent species. But I think we've got plenty of time to work on those skills.
Steve M