First off, you're basically describing Citizendium, a Wiki-based encyclopedia founded by Larry Sanger to compete with Wikipedia.
Secondly, requiring people to provide their real names is very "un-wiki", meaning that it flies in the face of some of the core philosophies of Wikipedia. Anyone is supposed to be able to contribute on equal footing, regardless of who you are. Other people can also correct you if you're wrong, regardless of who you are or who they are. If a 12-year-old can compose a more convincing argument than a Nobel laureate, then that argument carries the day, not either person.
Finally, there's no reason why CIA agents shouldn't be allowed to contribute to Wikipedia. No doubt they have hobbies and interests just like you and I. They can contribute positively and objectively to any number of articles unrelated to their profession. If they want to edit articles relating to the CIA, they are expected to abide by Wikipedia's guideline on conflicts of interest, just like anyone else. I work for a company that has a entry in Wikipedia and I've edited Wikipedia before. Does that mean my company has "inflitrated" Wikipedia?
On the other hand, there are plenty of people and organizations that do try to influence Wikipedia's articles through decidedly underhanded means. Thankfully, the Wikipedia community is usually very good at detecting that kind of thing and sorting it out. Wikipedia has a wonderful tendency to right itself eventually. No attempt to spin an article in any one direction will last very long if it's a popular or important topic.
SlimVirgin was not at all involved in editing Operation Entebbe. Four other editors -- nadav1, Beit Or, Tewfik and Makaristos -- argued for removing the passage. You can see the discussion here. Their point is that the Colin quote is a second-hand reporting of a rumor from an unnamed source. Other editors, chiefly Agha Nader, argued that since the item was picked up by major media, it is de facto notable and should be included.
At issue is Wikipedia's guideline on the inclusion of fringe theories, which says that "ideas which are of borderline or minimal notability may be documented in Wikipedia, but should not be given undue weight." Some of the editors believed that mentioning the rumor at all constitutes giving it undue weight. Others were of the opinion that the passage as written gave the rumor undue weight.
Whether or not you agree, their position is not totally without merit. Reasonable people will interpret Wikipedia's guidelines and policies differently and come to different conclusions on the inclusion of specific material. Disagreeing with a conspiracy theorist does not mean you are a CIA shill.
Re:So, my DVR is half the monthly subscription.
on
The Trouble With TiVo
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· Score: 1
They know that they could bring in a few more customers if they lowered the price, but they'd be making less money on every customer. Heh. Emphasis doesn't make much sense on "customer". It was supposed to be "they'd be making less money on every customer."
Re:So, my DVR is half the monthly subscription.
on
The Trouble With TiVo
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· Score: 1
If it was $4.99/mo there would still be people who would complain that it isn't free. The price of the service isn't determined by how much you wish it costs, but by what brings in the most profit for TiVo. TiVo isn't stupid. They know that they could bring in a few more customers if they lowered the price, but they'd be making less money on every customer. I'm sure someone at TiVo has run the numbers and come to the conclusion that $12.95 is the best balance between attracting customers and making money per customer.
Also, your cable or satellite provider can afford to give you a unit for free and charge less per month because a base equipment cost is already factored into your monthly payment. They only charge you $5.99 more for the DVR, but really you're paying some unknown amount per month to offset the cost of your equipment as part of your normal bill. TiVo doesn't get any of that money, so you have to pay the full cost of the unit.
It's like buying a cellphone. If you get the cheap Nokia, it's "free", except you're really just paying for it with your monthly fees. If you buy a Blackberry from your service provider, they'll charge you more, but still not as much as it really costs. TiVo is like buying the unlocked phone directly from RIM without any service provider discounts.
Chambers isn't going to come out and say that Linksys sucks compared to Cisco, but you can be sure that's another reason why they've put off merging the brands. Chambers' admission here really isn't anything new, by the way. He's not committing to any specific timeframe to convert the Linksys brand, he just says "over time". I think he wants to put out a few generations of better Linksys equipment before they'll bless it with the Cisco brand.
I had a standard definition Series 2 TiVo until I moved and got an HDTV. You can transfer movies to and from a PC. Shows coming off the TiVo are DRM-encumbered by default, but you can hack the unit itself to disable DRM entirely or run a program on your PC to scrape it from individual files. Videos transferred from your PC have to be converted to MPEG-2 at a specific resolution if you go through TiVoToGo. However, there's an application called tivoserver that will convert videos on the fly and serve them up through the TiVo's Multi-Room Viewing interface.
TiVo doesn't support removing commercials and likely never will for obvious reasons. Your other two feature requests seem like they have a rather limited appeal, frankly.
The big benefit of the TiVo has always been the interface. I lived with it for a few years and it does everything it's supposed to do very well. I've put off getting cable at my new address because the only HD DVR they offer is the crappy Motorola box. TiVo introducing this box right now is really my dream come true.
I just checked my university's current password policy and it's actually N != 3. As in 1, 2, 4 or more. That seems even more odd to me. I'm fairly certain it used to be N < 3, because when they first instituted it (some years ago, I've since graduated) I had to change my password which had more than three letters.
In that case, the words are still there, you just have to memorize the capitalization and non-word components, which honestly isn't hard, people just think it is. Define "hard". Since I know I'm me, passwords are an annoying speed bump in the best case scenario. In the worst case, a password I can't remember is worthless, no matter how strong it is.
Password Nazis these days are really frigging annoying. The most annoying rule I keep coming across is "no more than N letters in a row". Obviously that's meant to make it harder to use a dictionary word, but it trips me up frequently even though I never use dictionary words. I'd wager most people use mostly the same non-alpha characters and the current push for "strong" passwords likely makes them just as common as Q or X.
I've often wondered if all these rules designed to make passwords harder to guess actually limit the search space, making it easier to guess passwords. For example, when my university introduced its new password rules, they offered the example password "hP!bD;825" for Happy Birthday 8/25. How many people do you think simply used hP!bD; and their birthday? How many people will use an otherwise vulnerable password but tweak it in a completely predictable way to pass the filter? qW!eR!tY anyone?
How did you block text messages with Cingular? I've never seen a "Absolutely No Text Messages" option from them, only the default pay-per-message that comes with every plan unless you want to pay more.
In a very real way, you're taking advantage of the extra performance by spending less time (and money) optimizing your code. Pouring over the code to squeeze out that last byte of RAM isn't a very efficient use of resources. These days, your time is more expensive than a stick of RAM.
One thing about commercial software is that popular, well used competitive software will not disappear because people got bored and moved onto other things. Popular, well-used open source software won't disappear either, because somebody else will take over. If no one steps up, then it wasn't really that popular to begin with. Or if some company really needs the software badly, they can hire someone to work on it.
Are there really all that many Windows attacks that can remotely exploit a default service? Seems to me the most common vector is people downloading sketchy software from sketchy places. Is there something about Mac OS X that protects users from themselves? Second to that are exploits for IE or Outlook. Aside from "Microsoft programmers are stupid and write bad code" is there some fundamental reason that Safari or Mail couldn't be exploited? I'm not being rhetorical, I really want to know if there is some architectural difference about Mac OS that makes it inherently safer.
The GPL has always restricted what developers can do so that users may have more freedom. RMS doesn't care about TiVo's "freedom" to lock down the hardware they sell. He doesn't care if certain companies or industries won't be using GPLv3 software. Linus' interest is in expanding the reach of open source software; Stallman's is in protecting the rights of users. Each of them is working consistent to their aims.
The "people who provide them with software for free" provided it under a specific licens... which they are fully honoring, including making available all their source code. And now they've adopted a new license, except TiVo doesn't want to "fully honor" that license because it conflicts with their business model. Well, tough shit. No one said they had to use GNU software. Even so, they're still free to use the GPLv2 versions of the software, which is more than can be said of proprietary licenses. They're just not entitled to benefit from the (future) work of others unless they're willing to accept the terms offered.
When Tivo sold you the hardware, they made NO representation that it would support software compiled by others. Don't like it? Build a competitor... except that the harsh reality is that, without some sort of lock-in, you won't make money off subscriptions, so you'll have to make all your profit from the initial sale... which will make you uncompetitive, price-wise. The FSF is making NO representation that they'll allow you to restrict the use of their software through hardware. Don't like it? Write your own... except that the harsh reality is that it's a lot of work and costs a lot of money... which means you've been skating by on the backs of other people up until now. If certain businesses can't be profitable without restricting the freedom of their users, then they'll go away and RMS won't shed a tear.
The GPL was supposed to be about software, not hardware. When it crosses that boundary, dictating what hardware you can and can't run it on, it betrays its own "freedoms". GPLv3 is not violating any of the Free Software freedoms, it's enforcing them in the context of a hardware-software system. Being conscious of the environment in which the software runs isn't inherently unethical as you seem to suggest. There's no magic line that says you can take these sorts of things into consideration but not those. If I'm releasing my software for free, I get to set the terms. I could add a "No Companies Named TiVo" section to my license if I just don't happen to like their name.
The rest of your doomsday predictions about the flight of commercial partners from Free Software is ridiculous. There's some real fear, uncertainty, and doubt for you. The worst case scenario is that we'll see a GPLv2 fork of the GNU project, perhaps sponsored financially by those commercial partners. And that's perfectly fine. It's what Free Software is all about, frankly: the assurance that the developer will never be able to take what you already have, not that they'll give you continuing support in perpetuity. If we were talking about a proprietary vendor instead, you wouldn't even have that.
If you're not happy with the limitations of Tivo, don't buy it. There ARE other options. Let the marketplace sort it out by voting with your wallet or purse. Buying a Tivo because you want their features, then whining that somehow they've taken your freedom away, when you knew the deal up-front, and there are free alternatives, is hypocritical. And the exact same argument applies to TiVo itself. They have other options as well. Let them vote with their wallet or do the development themselves. They have no standing to dictate terms to people who provide them software for free.
You're free to recompile everything tivo uses, including the kernel - it just won't run on THEIR hardware. Actually, when they sell it to me, it becomes my hardware. TiVo is telling me what I can and can't do with software they didn't write on hardware I own. If they're not comfortable with the rights the GPL affords me as a user -- which has always been a moral/political goal of the FSF -- then they can write their own or buy it from someone else. I don't think RMS would much mind.
If I wrote the software for that VCR and then found out the company is doing things with it I simply don't like, then maybe I'll rethink what I'll let them do with it. It's not about whatever rights or expectations you have when you purchase a product. If I don't like their name, I can add a provision to the license for my software that says companies named TiVo may not use it. And they'd be SOL.
Tivo is controlling its hardware, not its software, and without such controls, it can't actually function as a business. Actually it ceases to be their hardware when they sell it to me. I'd like to be able to control my hardware, thanks.
TiVo does not have an intrinsic right to software they didn't write. If TiVo's business model is enabled by Free software, it's only because of the generosity of the authors. Some of them don't like what TiVo has done with their software, including that business model, so now they're being slightly less generous. If TiVo doesn't like that, they can write their own or buy someone else's. That's more than they would have if Free software didn't exist at all.
It would be fair to say Koizumi, despite his foibles, *was* elected and at the time, he espoused a vision that got people excited. He stepped down, not because he wanted to go, but because of a power sharing arrangement that said he had to give Shinzo Abe a go. Ah Shinzo... I don't even think his mama is excited about him. Seems like the same thing that just happened with Gordon Brown in the UK. It's just the way the parliamentary system works. You elect a party, not a person. They may run with one guy as the leader during the election, but there's no real guarantee that he's gonna stick around.
I'm too lazy to check, but as long as GCC uses the "GPLv2 or any later version" language, then people who contributed to it as a v2 project consented to exactly this scenario. Linux is explicitly version 2 only.
1. At #4 is the Wii, which as of this comment Amazon doesn't have stocked save for random people selling their own. Amazon is still selling Wiis directly. (It's how I got mine.) They only get a few in every once in a while, just like every other retailer. Usually it only takes a few minutes before they sell out. They're selling absolutely all the stock they get. The only reason the Wii isn't any higher on the list is because they can't get enough to meet demand.
Is it any surprise that Cisco is dismissing "radio" as "old fashioned" (nice choice of calling it "radio" instead of "wireless"), when high-bandwidth wireless technologies like WiMAX [wikipedia.org] and UMTS Rev 8 [wikipedia.org] are at least an option worth considering as a solution to the "last mile" problem? All Cisco cares about is bandwidth. The more bandwidth used, the greater the strain on the network infrastructure, the more routers and switches you need to support it all. If WiMAX could do 40Gbps to the home (each home), they'd probably be more interested in it.
Complaining about the use of "radio" is a pretty low blow, considering English isn't this guy's native language. Hell, he was talking to a Swedish newspaper, so it's possible that's just how the newspaper translated it into English.
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First off, you're basically describing Citizendium, a Wiki-based encyclopedia founded by Larry Sanger to compete with Wikipedia.
Secondly, requiring people to provide their real names is very "un-wiki", meaning that it flies in the face of some of the core philosophies of Wikipedia. Anyone is supposed to be able to contribute on equal footing, regardless of who you are. Other people can also correct you if you're wrong, regardless of who you are or who they are. If a 12-year-old can compose a more convincing argument than a Nobel laureate, then that argument carries the day, not either person.
Finally, there's no reason why CIA agents shouldn't be allowed to contribute to Wikipedia. No doubt they have hobbies and interests just like you and I. They can contribute positively and objectively to any number of articles unrelated to their profession. If they want to edit articles relating to the CIA, they are expected to abide by Wikipedia's guideline on conflicts of interest, just like anyone else. I work for a company that has a entry in Wikipedia and I've edited Wikipedia before. Does that mean my company has "inflitrated" Wikipedia?
On the other hand, there are plenty of people and organizations that do try to influence Wikipedia's articles through decidedly underhanded means. Thankfully, the Wikipedia community is usually very good at detecting that kind of thing and sorting it out. Wikipedia has a wonderful tendency to right itself eventually. No attempt to spin an article in any one direction will last very long if it's a popular or important topic.
SlimVirgin was not at all involved in editing Operation Entebbe. Four other editors -- nadav1, Beit Or, Tewfik and Makaristos -- argued for removing the passage. You can see the discussion here. Their point is that the Colin quote is a second-hand reporting of a rumor from an unnamed source. Other editors, chiefly Agha Nader, argued that since the item was picked up by major media, it is de facto notable and should be included.
At issue is Wikipedia's guideline on the inclusion of fringe theories, which says that "ideas which are of borderline or minimal notability may be documented in Wikipedia, but should not be given undue weight." Some of the editors believed that mentioning the rumor at all constitutes giving it undue weight. Others were of the opinion that the passage as written gave the rumor undue weight.
Whether or not you agree, their position is not totally without merit. Reasonable people will interpret Wikipedia's guidelines and policies differently and come to different conclusions on the inclusion of specific material. Disagreeing with a conspiracy theorist does not mean you are a CIA shill.
If it was $4.99/mo there would still be people who would complain that it isn't free. The price of the service isn't determined by how much you wish it costs, but by what brings in the most profit for TiVo. TiVo isn't stupid. They know that they could bring in a few more customers if they lowered the price, but they'd be making less money on every customer. I'm sure someone at TiVo has run the numbers and come to the conclusion that $12.95 is the best balance between attracting customers and making money per customer.
Also, your cable or satellite provider can afford to give you a unit for free and charge less per month because a base equipment cost is already factored into your monthly payment. They only charge you $5.99 more for the DVR, but really you're paying some unknown amount per month to offset the cost of your equipment as part of your normal bill. TiVo doesn't get any of that money, so you have to pay the full cost of the unit.
It's like buying a cellphone. If you get the cheap Nokia, it's "free", except you're really just paying for it with your monthly fees. If you buy a Blackberry from your service provider, they'll charge you more, but still not as much as it really costs. TiVo is like buying the unlocked phone directly from RIM without any service provider discounts.
Chambers isn't going to come out and say that Linksys sucks compared to Cisco, but you can be sure that's another reason why they've put off merging the brands. Chambers' admission here really isn't anything new, by the way. He's not committing to any specific timeframe to convert the Linksys brand, he just says "over time". I think he wants to put out a few generations of better Linksys equipment before they'll bless it with the Cisco brand.
I had a standard definition Series 2 TiVo until I moved and got an HDTV. You can transfer movies to and from a PC. Shows coming off the TiVo are DRM-encumbered by default, but you can hack the unit itself to disable DRM entirely or run a program on your PC to scrape it from individual files. Videos transferred from your PC have to be converted to MPEG-2 at a specific resolution if you go through TiVoToGo. However, there's an application called tivoserver that will convert videos on the fly and serve them up through the TiVo's Multi-Room Viewing interface.
TiVo doesn't support removing commercials and likely never will for obvious reasons. Your other two feature requests seem like they have a rather limited appeal, frankly.
The big benefit of the TiVo has always been the interface. I lived with it for a few years and it does everything it's supposed to do very well. I've put off getting cable at my new address because the only HD DVR they offer is the crappy Motorola box. TiVo introducing this box right now is really my dream come true.
I just checked my university's current password policy and it's actually N != 3. As in 1, 2, 4 or more. That seems even more odd to me. I'm fairly certain it used to be N < 3, because when they first instituted it (some years ago, I've since graduated) I had to change my password which had more than three letters.
Password Nazis these days are really frigging annoying. The most annoying rule I keep coming across is "no more than N letters in a row". Obviously that's meant to make it harder to use a dictionary word, but it trips me up frequently even though I never use dictionary words. I'd wager most people use mostly the same non-alpha characters and the current push for "strong" passwords likely makes them just as common as Q or X.
I've often wondered if all these rules designed to make passwords harder to guess actually limit the search space, making it easier to guess passwords. For example, when my university introduced its new password rules, they offered the example password "hP!bD;825" for Happy Birthday 8/25. How many people do you think simply used hP!bD; and their birthday? How many people will use an otherwise vulnerable password but tweak it in a completely predictable way to pass the filter? qW!eR!tY anyone?
How did you block text messages with Cingular? I've never seen a "Absolutely No Text Messages" option from them, only the default pay-per-message that comes with every plan unless you want to pay more.
In a very real way, you're taking advantage of the extra performance by spending less time (and money) optimizing your code. Pouring over the code to squeeze out that last byte of RAM isn't a very efficient use of resources. These days, your time is more expensive than a stick of RAM.
Quick summary of the spoilers
Are there really all that many Windows attacks that can remotely exploit a default service? Seems to me the most common vector is people downloading sketchy software from sketchy places. Is there something about Mac OS X that protects users from themselves? Second to that are exploits for IE or Outlook. Aside from "Microsoft programmers are stupid and write bad code" is there some fundamental reason that Safari or Mail couldn't be exploited? I'm not being rhetorical, I really want to know if there is some architectural difference about Mac OS that makes it inherently safer.
The GPL has always restricted what developers can do so that users may have more freedom. RMS doesn't care about TiVo's "freedom" to lock down the hardware they sell. He doesn't care if certain companies or industries won't be using GPLv3 software. Linus' interest is in expanding the reach of open source software; Stallman's is in protecting the rights of users. Each of them is working consistent to their aims.
The rest of your doomsday predictions about the flight of commercial partners from Free Software is ridiculous. There's some real fear, uncertainty, and doubt for you. The worst case scenario is that we'll see a GPLv2 fork of the GNU project, perhaps sponsored financially by those commercial partners. And that's perfectly fine. It's what Free Software is all about, frankly: the assurance that the developer will never be able to take what you already have, not that they'll give you continuing support in perpetuity. If we were talking about a proprietary vendor instead, you wouldn't even have that.
If I wrote the software for that VCR and then found out the company is doing things with it I simply don't like, then maybe I'll rethink what I'll let them do with it. It's not about whatever rights or expectations you have when you purchase a product. If I don't like their name, I can add a provision to the license for my software that says companies named TiVo may not use it. And they'd be SOL.
TiVo does not have an intrinsic right to software they didn't write. If TiVo's business model is enabled by Free software, it's only because of the generosity of the authors. Some of them don't like what TiVo has done with their software, including that business model, so now they're being slightly less generous. If TiVo doesn't like that, they can write their own or buy someone else's. That's more than they would have if Free software didn't exist at all.
I'm too lazy to check, but as long as GCC uses the "GPLv2 or any later version" language, then people who contributed to it as a v2 project consented to exactly this scenario. Linux is explicitly version 2 only.
Congratulations, you've just independently rediscovered streaming video.
Complaining about the use of "radio" is a pretty low blow, considering English isn't this guy's native language. Hell, he was talking to a Swedish newspaper, so it's possible that's just how the newspaper translated it into English.
No more.