I hope her first accident, the one that teaches her how dumb and selfish this is, only injures/kills her and no one else.
I also hope her insurance company reads time.com.
I suppose the sort of attitudes that cause people to intensionaly do any unsafe things driving (texting, street racing, whatever) often come from not being old enough to have learned first hand how a few milliseconds can pertinently screw up so many lives.
That being said, I've been run off the road by cell users who are way more than old enough to know better.
Wow...every doctor (including dermatologists) I've ever been to would seriously disagree. The "press" has nothing to do with that. The best you'll get from a "healthy tan" is skin that looks like an old football by the time you're 45...the worst you get is dead.
As someone whose father (who spent WWII in the tropics) and has been battling various carcinomas his entire adult life, and whose grandfather (who worked outdoors a lot) died from melanoma, and whose best friends father (an avid golfer) is in the process of dying from one...I have to ask you where on earth you got this from?
Ahh...just discovered one big downside. In firefox under Linux I can't search for something by pasting it (with the middle mouse) as, unlike with a text box, firefox assumes I'm pasting a url...bummer.
I noticed the same sort of thing creating an ebay auction some time ago...their fancy ajax text entry (unless I'm missing something) seems to defy any form of text pasting (as it's not an actual text box or text area).
I totally agree. Also, the fact that you can enter the line numbers and can hit Enter to get the next page or results rather than using a mouse is enough to get me using it on my laptop...I detest the mice on laptops frankly. While it's not the most amazing thing I've ever seen, to me it's worth using just for that...very cool. I'm surprised it seems to be getting put down so much here.
Frankly, my only concern is that I'm allowed to use my open source MythTV box with a CableCard in order to record shows off encrypted QAM channels like Discovery HD. Currently, I cannot do this due to the ridiculous certified media center PC and Vista requirement. If anyone knows a way around this, please tell me. The analog cutoff is looming and I don't want to lose my recording ability. We can only hope that this will eventually become a reality (though I have very low expectations on the matter). Fortunately, most cable companies appear to be planning to maintain analog cable for at least a few years after the broadcast DTV transition, as long as HD isn't that important to you. This will NEVER happen...not in the non-DRM-crippled world anyway, and I'm not just being cynical either. I'm not a lawyer, but it certainly appears that it would totally violate the CHILA (CableCARD Host Licensing Agreement):
Check this out from page 26:
2. Controlled Content Paths. Content shall not be available on outputs other than those specified in the Compliance Rules, and, within such Licensed Product, Controlled Content shall not be present on any user accessible buses (as defined below) in non-encrypted, compressed form. Similarly unencrypted Keys used to support any content encryption and/or decryption in the Licensed Productâ(TM)s data shall not be present on any user accessible buses Sounds pretty clear to me. All this crap makes me really happy with my three-HD-tuner OTA-only mythtv system (all for a whopping $20 a year for schedules direct)...anyone in a location where they can do the same should really vote with their checkbooks and just say no to all this...I've had no pay TV since 1989.
Actually, Mythtv is pretty easy to set up now Especially for those in the U.S. who are only using an antenna and target their system for digital only as I did (which of course is all there will be after 2/2009). An all digital mythtv system for OTA is really slick and straight forward. The backend process just writes the mpeg ts directly to disk with no encoding and virtually no CPU (unless you auto-flag commercials...which is soooo cool by the way). I have three pcHDTV tuners in a Dell 4600 for my backend machine and it records three HD shows at once (even while watching a fouth previously recorded show from the frontend) without a hitch. The $20/year for schedulesdirect.org listings will be the best $20 you've ever spent...those folks did an awesome job.
Just bear in mind that the CPU requirements for playing HD on the frontend are pretty high....2.8 or 3 Ghz at least. You also need a lot of disk for the 6+ GB/hour of HD mpeg.
For anyone with a decent amount of linux experience it's not difficult on any decent distro. My frontend and backend are both Gentoo, and frankly I think it's ideal, as it's easy to build a system with only what's needed for myth and nothing more.
Oh yea...and this whole thing with M$ and the broadcast flag...I can't believe they're enforcing a rule that was struck down my the courts at the expense of their customers...that's pretty amazing even for them.
How much time before the pchdtv folks get sued, then? DMCA has already put the odds against them. Ah...how much time until they're sued? I'd say most likey not until the broadcast flag is actually mandated. Getting a little ahead of ourselves don't you think?
I was just going to point that out as well. My three HD-5500 cards I bought a year ago will happily ignore the flag and record NBC stuff in HD in my mythtv system. pcHDTV has no plans on ever observing the flag that I'm aware of. I actually didn't think much of any capture cards did.
What's with NBC anyway? As if it's not bad enouhg that their flaky HD broadcasts mix frame rates (commercials vs shows) as well as mixing progressive and interlaced frames (surprisingly, mythtv handles it ok)...now they send the broadcast flag. Try to screw with us a little more why not...
The only need I've actually had for Wine is to run DVDFab HD Decrypter 4 (since so many newer DVD's copy protection seem to defy backup by any other means).
As a matter of fact, I run it on my headless mythtv backend using ssh and X11Forwarding without even having X running on the box...compare that to a Windows install.
Companies don't really like telling you that thing you are about to buy sucks. How about fining everyone that spent the last few years marketing UHF only antennas as "HD antennas" when in fact, huge numbers of stations all over the country are moving their digital broadcast to their old VHF frequency in 2009.
At least addressing an analog TV doesn't require climbing up on your roof.
Isn't the price of broadband access in the U.S. already far too wrapped up with entertainment the way it is? I'm already paying a $5 premium to by broadband provider because I'm not interested in their pay TV (strict MythTv/OTA guy here).
How many people will lose their jobs/careers/freedom for these transgressions?
None. In an administration where Attorney General Michael Mukasey says that Harriot Miers and Josh Bolton broke no laws (uh...contempt of congress?) by ignoring a congressional subpoena at the presidents request (think Nixon telling John Dean to "stay home" from the Watergate hearings), I'd say you're spot on.
The average user cannot tell there is a difference - because the Windows default is to hide the extension!
It may be criminally insane, but its the default. That's one that's driven me crazy for years. I'm sure it goes back to early days of Windows and their attempt to look more like Mac OS 9 (which got the file type info from the resource fork). Any time I do something for anyone on their Windows machine and the extensions are hidden I just change the setting...I don't even ask if that's what they want.
Who else here has ever been trying to walk someone though a software install over the phone and said "Now double click 'Setup'"...and they respond "which one"...because of course there's setup.exe, setup.ini, etc etc...just awful.
I really wish there were HD tuners with cablecard compatibility that could be used with mythtv, but I don't think the powers that be will ever allow that. I certainly don't see it happening. I think there's a reason that cablecard slots tend to be in units where you can't get to the content. When this came up on the mythtv users mailing list, I downloaded the CableCARD-Host Interface License Agreement (CHILA):
http://www.opencable.com/downloads/CHILA.pdf...and quickly found this:
2. Controlled Content Paths. Content shall not be available on outputs other than those specified in the Compliance Rules, and, within such Licensed Product, Controlled Content shall not be present on any user accessible buses (as defined below) in non-encrypted, compressed form. I think that says it all.
Yeah, I have a mythtv box with an HDHomeRun but I'm living in an apartment building where the over-the-air channels are impossible to tune, and where time warner encrypts all of the hd channels except for the weather ones (they started encrypting basic channels soon after I got my hdhomerun too). I love my mythtv box, but it's useless for HD at the moment. I have three HD-5500 tuners in my mythtv system, which I use strictly for OTA. Luckily I get good reception.
As to your statement about Time Warner, I used to just assume that the DTV local affiliate networks fell under the "must carry" and "in the clear" rules, but I've seen a great deal of debate about it, and many on the mythtv users mailing list seem to be running into your situation.
It all makes me really glad I can use an antenna. It's starting to look like the advent of HD, for many, is turning into a huge step backward for those who don't want to be married to their providers hardware. Truly sad.
They're definitely not all close to the CO, but the closer you are, the less fiber they have to run. Regardless of where you are, they have to run fiber to your neighborhood obviously. I don't think anyone really knows how they decide where and when to rollout FIOS.
Actually where I am, I'm close to a CO by line of site, but due to the Raritan River, my actual distance from the CO in terms of the copper lines was very poor...I wouldn't have been able to get better than 768Kb DSL, yet they've rolled out FIOS here.
I'm in central New Jersey...not a big city, but these days anything at or above the center of the state is considerer a suburb of NYC. The FIOS rollout in those areas has been pretty significant, at least for those not to far from a Verizom CO.
I have to count myself as one of the lucky ones. My area is a pretty good example of competition working well.
I've had Optimum Online (cablevision) internet for years. I pay $50 a month for internet only. I have no pay TV at all. I was sure I was going to switch to FIOS when it was available. When FIOS first became available it was a great deal (about $35 a month for 20Mbit I believe) but before I got around to switching, that slowly turned into $50 for 15 Mbit (unless of course you get their TV package). In the mean time, to compete, OOL upped the downstream bandwidth from 10 Mbit to 15Mbit for the same $50 I'd been paying for the last four years...so I never switched.
The upstream would have been faster, and OOL has some nasty practices of secret upstream bandwidth capping that really suck...but they've actually been very reliable and it just wasn't worth switching over. Also, with my OOL, $50 is actually $50, unlike everything with Verizon where $50 tends to turn into $65 after they get done adding line item "taxes" (that are actually taxes charged to them that they pass off as though the feds require them to charge you).
My gripe is that even when there is broadband competition in this country, it's always tied to pay TV, and without that, you don't get the best deals...but compared to others situations (at least in this country) I certainly can't complain.
STOP BUYING DRM PROTECTED MEDIA. Problem solved. Read a book, peruse Slashdot, talk to your wife... i dunno, but giving the hollywood pigs their chow will not bring about any change. Couldn't agree more. Why would this situation change if the public keeps throwing money at it? This is the same reason that pay TV is in the state it's in...too few people exercise their right as consumers to just say no.
The more I read about DRM, cable company's encrypted broadcasts, etc etc, the happier I am with my current setup...OTA HD DTV programs recorded in MythTV and the occasional rented DVD. No DRM, not even any pay TV. Hell...now I'm reading more and more that there's apparently a great deal of debate as to whether the cable TV "must carry" and "in the clear" rules apply to the HD networks I can get on my antenna for free...they can keep all of it thank you...yet most everyone complains while throwing that payment at them every month.
I don't do business with companies that treat me like a criminal...period. I'd no sooner buy DRM protected content than shop in a store that frisks all their customers on the way out the door. On the other hand, I'm happy to shop on Amazon's mp3 site. I've been pretty thrilled at the growing selection there after the addition of all the Warner Music Group stuff. Other companies may eventually realize that there's a big market for non-DRM content, but not if the public keeps sending them the opposite message.
I think that people are soon going to realize something that speaks to their pocket books about Linux: it runs on the slowest of hardware. Absolutely. I recently rebuilt a friends old Dell Optiplex GX1 (512 MB ram, 450 Mhz) with kubuntu. For the everyday stuff he's doing, his DSL connection is his only significant speed bottleneck. He's thrilled to death with it. I'd expect that 1.5 Ghz to be pretty good...and after all, we are talking $200.
Slashdot Mirror
I hope her first accident, the one that teaches her how dumb and selfish this is, only injures/kills her and no one else.
I also hope her insurance company reads time.com.
I suppose the sort of attitudes that cause people to intensionaly do any unsafe things driving (texting, street racing, whatever) often come from not being old enough to have learned first hand how a few milliseconds can pertinently screw up so many lives.
That being said, I've been run off the road by cell users who are way more than old enough to know better.
Wow...every doctor (including dermatologists) I've ever been to would seriously disagree. The "press" has nothing to do with that. The best you'll get from a "healthy tan" is skin that looks like an old football by the time you're 45...the worst you get is dead.
As someone whose father (who spent WWII in the tropics) and has been battling various carcinomas his entire adult life, and whose grandfather (who worked outdoors a lot) died from melanoma, and whose best friends father (an avid golfer) is in the process of dying from one...I have to ask you where on earth you got this from?
Ahh...just discovered one big downside. In firefox under Linux I can't search for something by pasting it (with the middle mouse) as, unlike with a text box, firefox assumes I'm pasting a url...bummer.
I noticed the same sort of thing creating an ebay auction some time ago...their fancy ajax text entry (unless I'm missing something) seems to defy any form of text pasting (as it's not an actual text box or text area).
I totally agree. Also, the fact that you can enter the line numbers and can hit Enter to get the next page or results rather than using a mouse is enough to get me using it on my laptop...I detest the mice on laptops frankly. While it's not the most amazing thing I've ever seen, to me it's worth using just for that...very cool. I'm surprised it seems to be getting put down so much here.
http://www.opencable.com/downloads/CHILA.pdf
Check this out from page 26: 2. Controlled Content Paths. Content shall not be available on outputs other than those
specified in the Compliance Rules, and, within such Licensed Product, Controlled Content shall
not be present on any user accessible buses (as defined below) in non-encrypted, compressed
form. Similarly unencrypted Keys used to support any content encryption and/or decryption in
the Licensed Productâ(TM)s data shall not be present on any user accessible buses Sounds pretty clear to me. All this crap makes me really happy with my three-HD-tuner OTA-only mythtv system (all for a whopping $20 a year for schedules direct)...anyone in a location where they can do the same should really vote with their checkbooks and just say no to all this...I've had no pay TV since 1989.
Just bear in mind that the CPU requirements for playing HD on the frontend are pretty high....2.8 or 3 Ghz at least. You also need a lot of disk for the 6+ GB/hour of HD mpeg.
For anyone with a decent amount of linux experience it's not difficult on any decent distro. My frontend and backend are both Gentoo, and frankly I think it's ideal, as it's easy to build a system with only what's needed for myth and nothing more.
Oh yea...and this whole thing with M$ and the broadcast flag...I can't believe they're enforcing a rule that was struck down my the courts at the expense of their customers...that's pretty amazing even for them.
I was just going to point that out as well. My three HD-5500 cards I bought a year ago will happily ignore the flag and record NBC stuff in HD in my mythtv system. pcHDTV has no plans on ever observing the flag that I'm aware of. I actually didn't think much of any capture cards did.
What's with NBC anyway? As if it's not bad enouhg that their flaky HD broadcasts mix frame rates (commercials vs shows) as well as mixing progressive and interlaced frames (surprisingly, mythtv handles it ok)...now they send the broadcast flag. Try to screw with us a little more why not...
The only need I've actually had for Wine is to run DVDFab HD Decrypter 4 (since so many newer DVD's copy protection seem to defy backup by any other means).
As a matter of fact, I run it on my headless mythtv backend using ssh and X11Forwarding without even having X running on the box...compare that to a Windows install.
Tom
At least addressing an analog TV doesn't require climbing up on your roof.
Isn't the price of broadband access in the U.S. already far too wrapped up with entertainment the way it is? I'm already paying a $5 premium to by broadband provider because I'm not interested in their pay TV (strict MythTv/OTA guy here).
None. In an administration where Attorney General Michael Mukasey says that Harriot Miers and Josh Bolton broke no laws (uh...contempt of congress?) by ignoring a congressional subpoena at the presidents request (think Nixon telling John Dean to "stay home" from the Watergate hearings), I'd say you're spot on.
Yes...but, with the proper resolve, they do eventually remove the evil dictator when used in combination with 50+ years of the natural aging process.
Here's an interesting related theory that definitely affects traffic:
http://discovermagazine.com/2005/apr/math-of-changing-lanes
Apparently you perceive cars passing you differently than those you pass, causing you to always think the "other lane" is faster.
It may be criminally insane, but its the default. That's one that's driven me crazy for years. I'm sure it goes back to early days of Windows and their attempt to look more like Mac OS 9 (which got the file type info from the resource fork). Any time I do something for anyone on their Windows machine and the extensions are hidden I just change the setting...I don't even ask if that's what they want.
Who else here has ever been trying to walk someone though a software install over the phone and said "Now double click 'Setup'"...and they respond "which one"...because of course there's setup.exe, setup.ini, etc etc...just awful.
http://www.opencable.com/downloads/CHILA.pdf
As to your statement about Time Warner, I used to just assume that the DTV local affiliate networks fell under the "must carry" and "in the clear" rules, but I've seen a great deal of debate about it, and many on the mythtv users mailing list seem to be running into your situation.
It all makes me really glad I can use an antenna. It's starting to look like the advent of HD, for many, is turning into a huge step backward for those who don't want to be married to their providers hardware. Truly sad.
They're definitely not all close to the CO, but the closer you are, the less fiber they have to run. Regardless of where you are, they have to run fiber to your neighborhood obviously. I don't think anyone really knows how they decide where and when to rollout FIOS. Actually where I am, I'm close to a CO by line of site, but due to the Raritan River, my actual distance from the CO in terms of the copper lines was very poor...I wouldn't have been able to get better than 768Kb DSL, yet they've rolled out FIOS here.
I'm in central New Jersey...not a big city, but these days anything at or above the center of the state is considerer a suburb of NYC. The FIOS rollout in those areas has been pretty significant, at least for those not to far from a Verizom CO.
I have to count myself as one of the lucky ones. My area is a pretty good example of competition working well.
I've had Optimum Online (cablevision) internet for years. I pay $50 a month for internet only. I have no pay TV at all. I was sure I was going to switch to FIOS when it was available. When FIOS first became available it was a great deal (about $35 a month for 20Mbit I believe) but before I got around to switching, that slowly turned into $50 for 15 Mbit (unless of course you get their TV package). In the mean time, to compete, OOL upped the downstream bandwidth from 10 Mbit to 15Mbit for the same $50 I'd been paying for the last four years...so I never switched.
The upstream would have been faster, and OOL has some nasty practices of secret upstream bandwidth capping that really suck...but they've actually been very reliable and it just wasn't worth switching over. Also, with my OOL, $50 is actually $50, unlike everything with Verizon where $50 tends to turn into $65 after they get done adding line item "taxes" (that are actually taxes charged to them that they pass off as though the feds require them to charge you).
My gripe is that even when there is broadband competition in this country, it's always tied to pay TV, and without that, you don't get the best deals...but compared to others situations (at least in this country) I certainly can't complain.
The more I read about DRM, cable company's encrypted broadcasts, etc etc, the happier I am with my current setup...OTA HD DTV programs recorded in MythTV and the occasional rented DVD. No DRM, not even any pay TV. Hell...now I'm reading more and more that there's apparently a great deal of debate as to whether the cable TV "must carry" and "in the clear" rules apply to the HD networks I can get on my antenna for free...they can keep all of it thank you...yet most everyone complains while throwing that payment at them every month.
I don't do business with companies that treat me like a criminal...period. I'd no sooner buy DRM protected content than shop in a store that frisks all their customers on the way out the door. On the other hand, I'm happy to shop on Amazon's mp3 site. I've been pretty thrilled at the growing selection there after the addition of all the Warner Music Group stuff. Other companies may eventually realize that there's a big market for non-DRM content, but not if the public keeps sending them the opposite message.
I'm holding off for either Surly, Tipsy, or Remorseful.
Tom
Well I was able to find this while searching for an OS to replace my aging MSDOS 5.0:
http://tinyurl.com/3dcnak
...sorry...that was intended to read "In climate where..."