Except for the portion of the content that has highly-placed product ads.
You'd be able to fast forward through most of that episode of 24, but when the CTU ops start talking about how the hackers can't break in because their Cisco network is self-protecting, well, that you'll need to watch (and no, I wasn't making that up.. there was an embarrassing 30 seconds of the show that was nothing but Cisco product placement. It was the most egregious example of commercial placement masquerading as regular content since the Friends "Pottery Barn" episode).
I'm not so convinced that it's really that bad. At least I still hope it ain't.
In the US, it pretty much is that bad. Very few people are willing to boycott or simply do without a service whose terms they don't like. If the restrictions on the service end up being too onerous, you'll just see growing opposition to the restrictions, followed by increasing popularity of software/hacks that end up removing the restrictions. But as long as that service along with the restrictions is the only way to receive the content (unlike the DIVX deal where same-quality DVDs were available at the same time), Americans will go for the service and then break the protections.
Parent poster was probably not serious. But if he was... well first of all, you should probably stop reading any webpage the instant your brain processes the word "spoilers." And second, the phrase "Galactica Atmo Drop" doesn't mean much at all out of context. You have to think about it for awhile just to figure out what that means.
Ah, bad luck, like another poster mentioned. I had an old 21" CRT monitor (still worked well) that I wanted to get rid of, so I offered it for free with local pickup on Craig's List. That day I headed home during the lunch break, gave away the monitor to the first responder, and notified the other interested people that it was gone. Now, maybe the market for monitors is larger than the one for coffee tables, but... 21" 80-lb CRT monitors?;)
Even better, promise him support for the product when he needs it when accepting that $50. OOo is pretty complete, and support is usually the missing link that most people are looking for when they try FOSS alternatives. It's not ripping off the friend, it's really how the distribution model should work.
Yeah, because those Linux types are never able figure out how to bypass media company's attempts to control the way we view things.
They haven't yet. I would personally LOVE to see the encrypted HDTV protections broken, though. My pcHDTV over-the-air card leaves much to be desired (mostly because it's over the air..)
But my point isn't to rip off the content, it's to manipulate the stuff you're paying for in the way you want to - time shifting it, putting it on you're iPod etc. And to allow you to FAST FORWARD THE ADS!
Ah, but you're missing the point of the content companies. Since the ads pay for the content, then fast forwarding the ads IS ripping off the content to them.
And yes, before you ask, so is changing the channel during the commercial break, etc. This issue hasn't really come up much before because there was nothing that they could do about it before. Now that the control technologies are coming into market, the content companies are finally getting the chance to piss off all the home viewers by restricting how they watch, 20 years after watching patterns and habits have established themselves.
I always presumed that their goal was to keep John-Q-consumer from easily making copies.
Not entirely. It's not so much keeping the consumer from making unauthorized copies as it is keeping the consumer from gaining unauthorized access. This includes copying, of course, but it also bans sampling (say for a collage/montage), playing your region 1 dvd on a region 2 dvd player, buying a player that allows you to skip commercials that the publisher wants you to see, or shifting formats to your portable player without paying an additional fee.
Re:Clearly The Solution Is...
on
The BBC On RMT
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· Score: 2, Insightful
(that's right, with 8 million subscribers, they can gross a billion dollars a year.
Except they aren't. You're making the incorrect assumption of 8billion * $15. What you need to do is take the number of American subscribers, subtract from that the number of accounts that are merely free trial accounts (a great number of which are used by the gold sellers to spam), and you get the amount of money brought in in America. Then, for each market, figure out how it's priced (China is a huge market and they pay nowhere close to $15/month). We hear a lot about how many subscribers WoW has, but the actual amount of income is another matter.
Your friend had a terrible teacher then who gave a totally inaccurate impression of law interpreted by the courts. Most judges would be able to see the flaw of the argument "X looks like Y. You have something that looks like Y, therefore it is X." It won't be long until you'd get some case about someone who tried passing off, say, a cheap knock-off that exactly resembled a Rolex as a Rolex itself. That wasn't a flaw in the system, simply your friend's teacher using a terrible analogy.
It's a technology site. Keep along with this trend and tomorrow we'll have a Slashdot story of Bush announcing Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, Saturday will feature a debate story on which side has the upper edge in the Iraq funding debate, and Sunday will run a story on how nicely Nancy Pelosi is adapting to her new job as Speaker of the House. The "Politics" section does not imply that any article of a political bent is acceptable; it should still have some type of science/technology angle, otherwise it's off-topic. It should have been posted on Newsforge.
The question was completely irrelevant to the topic at hand, as it dealt with someone who was completely unrelated to the complaint being investigated. They basically got him on stand and asked him a lot of pointed questions about his sex life dealing with people who hadn't brought complaints.
In a sexual harassment case, establishing a pattern of harassment can be important. If you're looking at a sexual harassment complaint from one former co-worker, you want to check if the behavior is still happening with current co-workers. It was not irrelevant to the trial. The trial itself may have been a partisan witch hunt and waste of time and money, but the Lewinsky questions were not unrelated to what was being investigated.
So if you lie about something that isn't anyone's business regarding the behavior of two consenting adults, then it's an impeachable offense
Correct. Clinton was under oath. He could have refused to answer. There were consequences to that, of course, but it's doubtful that the impeachment would have gone as far as it did. He would have had the moral high ground after all. When he lied under oath and did his oops, my bad, and "it depends on what your definition of "is" is," thing later, he lost all his support.
On the other hand, if you lie about matters of improper squandering of our nation's lives and treasure, you're just being persecuted for political gain?
Bush wasn't under oath. Despicable? Oh yes, certainly. Impeachable? Debatable. Kucinich's bill is probably an attempt to get the President and/or Vice-President under oath, something they steadfastly refuse to do. There are reasons why the administration insists that all its officials not have to be under oath.
No... no, taken word for word the grandparent's post is still pretty implausible, even for a public school. Something tells me the story is a little different from the exact wording used in the post.
Well I found this rebuttal to the perjury accusations on a "liberal" site.
It's a pretty bad rebuttal, too. Clinton knew -exactly- what he was saying when he said he didn't have sex with Lewinsky, and he later came out and admitted he should have told the truth. Oral sex is sex to pretty much everyone except for a few Clinton apologists; that's why it's called oral sex. It was sex, he knew it was sex, and he simply hoped the truth wouldn't come out. It was a lie that he got rightfully punished for (in a way I wish we could do to the current president..) I found the entire proceeding to be a complete waste of time and money started by a faction who were angry that an evangelical, born-again white man wasn't President, but I strongly believe that each and every time the President lies to the American people should met with pretty harsh punishment. Clinton's word games helped galvanize support for the evangelicals and gave us the utterly abysmal situation we have today.
Yes, infrastructure needs are real, but everything is being passed now as a bond (cash + interest), including non-critical, non-infrastructure projects. "New road? Don't bother with a tax, let's pass a bond. Want to start a huge stem cell research center? Let's pass another bond!" The problem with bonds is once you get used to passing them, you inherit crushing debt and end up paying as much in interest as you do for the original project. I think it would do us Californians' free-spending nature a little good if it were curtailed by having to pay more upfront costs.
California is currently in very dire straights right now concerning bonds -- that is, we've passed way too many of them. In proposition advertisements, proponents usually portray a bond as being free money that you never have to worry about ("We can get what we want and we can do it without raising taxes! Everyone wins!"). This will put an incredible strain on the residents of the state before too long when those bonds need to be paid back and you don't have the money for any more improvements or maintenance because you're spending all your money paying for things that were bought a decade ago.
The economy is not a zero-sum game. One person's accumulation of wealth does not prevent another person's ascendancy. Now, granted, the power afforded by a great deal of wealth can then be used to stifle innovation or competition, but one does not need to flow from the other.
Slashdot Mirror
Around where I live, going outside at 11pm at night (when I tend to watch TV) is not a very good idea.
Except for the portion of the content that has highly-placed product ads.
You'd be able to fast forward through most of that episode of 24, but when the CTU ops start talking about how the hackers can't break in because their Cisco network is self-protecting, well, that you'll need to watch (and no, I wasn't making that up.. there was an embarrassing 30 seconds of the show that was nothing but Cisco product placement. It was the most egregious example of commercial placement masquerading as regular content since the Friends "Pottery Barn" episode).
In the US, it pretty much is that bad. Very few people are willing to boycott or simply do without a service whose terms they don't like. If the restrictions on the service end up being too onerous, you'll just see growing opposition to the restrictions, followed by increasing popularity of software/hacks that end up removing the restrictions. But as long as that service along with the restrictions is the only way to receive the content (unlike the DIVX deal where same-quality DVDs were available at the same time), Americans will go for the service and then break the protections.
Parent poster was probably not serious. But if he was... well first of all, you should probably stop reading any webpage the instant your brain processes the word "spoilers." And second, the phrase "Galactica Atmo Drop" doesn't mean much at all out of context. You have to think about it for awhile just to figure out what that means.
They haven't yet. I would personally LOVE to see the encrypted HDTV protections broken, though. My pcHDTV over-the-air card leaves much to be desired (mostly because it's over the air..)
Your cable fees in addition to the advertising fees pay for the content.
Ah, but you're missing the point of the content companies. Since the ads pay for the content, then fast forwarding the ads IS ripping off the content to them.
And yes, before you ask, so is changing the channel during the commercial break, etc. This issue hasn't really come up much before because there was nothing that they could do about it before. Now that the control technologies are coming into market, the content companies are finally getting the chance to piss off all the home viewers by restricting how they watch, 20 years after watching patterns and habits have established themselves.
If the product is illegal for sale in the US, then the Chinese OEM doesn't have much to sue over.
Not entirely. It's not so much keeping the consumer from making unauthorized copies as it is keeping the consumer from gaining unauthorized access. This includes copying, of course, but it also bans sampling (say for a collage/montage), playing your region 1 dvd on a region 2 dvd player, buying a player that allows you to skip commercials that the publisher wants you to see, or shifting formats to your portable player without paying an additional fee.
Except they aren't. You're making the incorrect assumption of 8billion * $15. What you need to do is take the number of American subscribers, subtract from that the number of accounts that are merely free trial accounts (a great number of which are used by the gold sellers to spam), and you get the amount of money brought in in America. Then, for each market, figure out how it's priced (China is a huge market and they pay nowhere close to $15/month). We hear a lot about how many subscribers WoW has, but the actual amount of income is another matter.
Your friend had a terrible teacher then who gave a totally inaccurate impression of law interpreted by the courts. Most judges would be able to see the flaw of the argument "X looks like Y. You have something that looks like Y, therefore it is X." It won't be long until you'd get some case about someone who tried passing off, say, a cheap knock-off that exactly resembled a Rolex as a Rolex itself. That wasn't a flaw in the system, simply your friend's teacher using a terrible analogy.
I'm pretty sure I heard that first in an Iron Maiden song: "The evil that men do lives on and on." From their Seventh Son of a Seventh Son album.
Shakespeare ripped off a lot of people.
Maybe, maybe not. Did the original poster march over to Valenti's funeral and start protesting?
Heaven means getting punched in the stomach by Kurt Vonnegut? That's pretty hardcore.
It's a technology site. Keep along with this trend and tomorrow we'll have a Slashdot story of Bush announcing Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, Saturday will feature a debate story on which side has the upper edge in the Iraq funding debate, and Sunday will run a story on how nicely Nancy Pelosi is adapting to her new job as Speaker of the House. The "Politics" section does not imply that any article of a political bent is acceptable; it should still have some type of science/technology angle, otherwise it's off-topic. It should have been posted on Newsforge.
In a sexual harassment case, establishing a pattern of harassment can be important. If you're looking at a sexual harassment complaint from one former co-worker, you want to check if the behavior is still happening with current co-workers. It was not irrelevant to the trial. The trial itself may have been a partisan witch hunt and waste of time and money, but the Lewinsky questions were not unrelated to what was being investigated.
Correct. Clinton was under oath. He could have refused to answer. There were consequences to that, of course, but it's doubtful that the impeachment would have gone as far as it did. He would have had the moral high ground after all. When he lied under oath and did his oops, my bad, and "it depends on what your definition of "is" is," thing later, he lost all his support. On the other hand, if you lie about matters of improper squandering of our nation's lives and treasure, you're just being persecuted for political gain?
Bush wasn't under oath. Despicable? Oh yes, certainly. Impeachable? Debatable. Kucinich's bill is probably an attempt to get the President and/or Vice-President under oath, something they steadfastly refuse to do. There are reasons why the administration insists that all its officials not have to be under oath.
No... no, taken word for word the grandparent's post is still pretty implausible, even for a public school. Something tells me the story is a little different from the exact wording used in the post.
Not answering at the trial is reasonable. Lying is not.
It's a pretty bad rebuttal, too. Clinton knew -exactly- what he was saying when he said he didn't have sex with Lewinsky, and he later came out and admitted he should have told the truth. Oral sex is sex to pretty much everyone except for a few Clinton apologists; that's why it's called oral sex. It was sex, he knew it was sex, and he simply hoped the truth wouldn't come out. It was a lie that he got rightfully punished for (in a way I wish we could do to the current president..) I found the entire proceeding to be a complete waste of time and money started by a faction who were angry that an evangelical, born-again white man wasn't President, but I strongly believe that each and every time the President lies to the American people should met with pretty harsh punishment. Clinton's word games helped galvanize support for the evangelicals and gave us the utterly abysmal situation we have today.
Yes, infrastructure needs are real, but everything is being passed now as a bond (cash + interest), including non-critical, non-infrastructure projects. "New road? Don't bother with a tax, let's pass a bond. Want to start a huge stem cell research center? Let's pass another bond!" The problem with bonds is once you get used to passing them, you inherit crushing debt and end up paying as much in interest as you do for the original project. I think it would do us Californians' free-spending nature a little good if it were curtailed by having to pay more upfront costs.
California is currently in very dire straights right now concerning bonds -- that is, we've passed way too many of them. In proposition advertisements, proponents usually portray a bond as being free money that you never have to worry about ("We can get what we want and we can do it without raising taxes! Everyone wins!"). This will put an incredible strain on the residents of the state before too long when those bonds need to be paid back and you don't have the money for any more improvements or maintenance because you're spending all your money paying for things that were bought a decade ago.
The economy is not a zero-sum game. One person's accumulation of wealth does not prevent another person's ascendancy. Now, granted, the power afforded by a great deal of wealth can then be used to stifle innovation or competition, but one does not need to flow from the other.