Does anyone know whether the copy protection also limits the ability to save the program to DVD? We have a series 1 TiVo, and had been thinking about upgrading to a new TiVo with a DVD burner. But if I can't save shows to the DVD, there isn't much point if I can't actually save shows to it.
Augustz is certainly correct. Hydrogen is not free. Indeed, 90% of the hydrogen produced now is made through steam reforming of hydrocarbons, which produces carbon dioxide as a biproduct, and wastes 30% of the energy.
A much better way to produce hydrogen is through the hydrolysis of water (the reverse reaction to what a fuel cell does), which requires an emissions-free source of electricity. Believe it or not, nuclear power is becoming safer with every generation. Another alternative is direct hydrolysis through solar semiconductors that can split water directly to hydrogen and oxygen. A review by Nate Lewis in last December's Nature (article not available on the web, but 414, 569, 2001) talks about new work in In/Ni doped TiO2 that have yields as high as 1%.
This article at Physics Today has a good discussion of many of the topics. Unfortunately, the excellent follow-up articles on hydrogen fuel and nuclear power are not availble on the web.
MS has a history of presenting patently ridiculous restrictions as trial baloons that they retract when hit with opposition. I don't think the way to respond to this is to figure out a hack that will convince MSN you're running Outlook, etc., but to contact Qwest (or MSN?) customer support and tell them that if they want to continue receiving $$ from you they have to support something other than Outlook, etc. Enough broadband companies have gone out of business recently that they'll think twice before alienating customers.
What we need is an electronic version of the Amnesty International letter writing tables. People could log in, get presented with a list of the most eggregious offenses against free and open software, and have the links to send polite emails to those companies asking them to change their practices. Maybe this type of approach would have kept Congress from passing DMCA...
For some time I've been saying, to whomever would listen, that people
in the music industry didn't get internet music.
In a recent
article Adam Curry illustrates this far better than I could. The
fact that Mr. Curry is one of the more technically adept people in
the industry illustrates just how far they are from understanding
either the capabilities of the internet or the spirit of the nerd
revolution.
The central point in Mr. Curry's article is that formats, essentially
radio stations buying playlists from a market research firm rather
than trusting the taste of their DJs, are what is good and pure about
radio today, and that we should spread the white light of formats to
Napster and Gnutella.
Formats have destroyed the creativity and the variety in radio. It is
now possible to drive cross-country listening to the radio and not
hear one new song. I'm sorry, Mr. Curry, but some of us don't want to
listen to the same Top 3 song at the top of every hour. Some of us
would like to have radio introduce us to exciting new artists, not to
rehash the same tired old songs that every other radio station
plays. The tragedy of this practice is that most of the DJs at these
boring radio stations are people who feel passionate about music,
people whose taste I would love to explore, if they were only given
the opportunity to express that taste. But they are not given that
opportunity. Rather, they are forced to play a bland repetition of
songs that no doubt bores them as much as it bores me.
Those who seek something new and different from music have
either turned to college or public radio, or have found their way to
Napster and internet music. Napster is refreshing precisely because it
does not have formats. Once can download whatever music they like to
their hard disk, create a huge playlist, and random play to their
hearts content. Napster provides depth, so that one can listen to Cat
Power and Erik Satie and Black Flag back-to-back, should the mood
strike you.
It is a characteristic of old-school people who find themselves in a
new paradigm to attempt to clothe their previous medium in the new
technology and to pretend that they are modern.
WorldClassRock is a great
example of this. Los Angeles is a vast, diverse radio market provided
with an abyssmal selection of radio stations. Channel 101.9, and later
channel 103.1, were a brief break from this monotony. In both cases,
though, they could not establish a profitable presence on the dial. My
own theory is that they were killed by their own playlist. The
listeners of those radio stations truly wanted the "world class rock"
that the stations claimed to have, and were instead provided with
playlist rock. For a while it was a different playlist, and was a
novel break, but soon other radio stations copied their format enough
to make their station sound old and tired.
One had hoped that going online would allow the radio statio
to take advantage of the novel features that the internet
provides. Throw out the playlist! Listen to your DJs! Perhaps support
real-time user rating of the songs you play. Or support two parallel
streams at the same time, so that if a person doesn't like what is on
one stream, they could listen to the other. The internet, after all,
does not have the same limitations on the available number of
frequencies that broadcast radio has. Alas, so far it appears that
WorldClassRock is the same old playlist, the same old commercials, and
the FM stations offered, just broadcast over a different medium, but
perhaps it is too early to tell. One can still hold out hope that
their true spirit will emerge in time.
I do, however, hold out some hope for
SonicNet, which allows users to
tailor their music feed in much the same way that
My Yahoo! allows user to select the
news articles they want to see. The selection is still a bit limited,
but what is encouraging is that SonicNet is trying to do something
different and creative with the technology rather than pushing the
same thing threw new wires.
The nerds on the internet in general have very good taste in
music. We want the same variety and creativity from our music that we
put into our own work. Mainstream radio hasn't given this to us,
they've given us Brittany Spears and Third Eye Blind played over and
over and over, and we've gone to Napster. Those who escape from the
roof will think twice before coming in through the front door
again. I'm sure that Mr. Curry means well, but I'm afraid he simply
doesn't Get It.
Hmmm. Turns out my thesis is being provided there also, here.
I just called Ms Seda to discuss the matter of her selling my copyrighted work. I was very polite, I simply want to know by what right her company can sell my work.
She didn't answer, so I left a message that included my telephone number. I don't suppose I'll ever hear back from her, but if I do I'll post a follow-up here.
BTW, my thesis is available for free from my web page. Truth be told, I'm always so happy whenever anyone wants to read the damn thing that I trip over my own feet to email them a copy. It's not that I expect to make money off of this, I would have just liked to have been notified in advance. The irony is that I now know how the musicians feel about Napster.
Slashdot Mirror
Chairs will continue to fly until morale improves.
Does anyone know whether the copy protection also limits the ability to save the program to DVD? We have a series 1 TiVo, and had been thinking about upgrading to a new TiVo with a DVD burner. But if I can't save shows to the DVD, there isn't much point if I can't actually save shows to it.
Augustz is certainly correct. Hydrogen is not free. Indeed, 90% of the hydrogen produced now is made through steam reforming of hydrocarbons, which produces carbon dioxide as a biproduct, and wastes 30% of the energy.
A much better way to produce hydrogen is through the hydrolysis of water (the reverse reaction to what a fuel cell does), which requires an emissions-free source of electricity. Believe it or not, nuclear power is becoming safer with every generation. Another alternative is direct hydrolysis through solar semiconductors that can split water directly to hydrogen and oxygen. A review by Nate Lewis in last December's Nature (article not available on the web, but 414, 569, 2001) talks about new work in In/Ni doped TiO2 that have yields as high as 1%.
This article at Physics Today has a good discussion of many of the topics. Unfortunately, the excellent follow-up articles on hydrogen fuel and nuclear power are not availble on the web.
What we need is an electronic version of the Amnesty International letter writing tables. People could log in, get presented with a list of the most eggregious offenses against free and open software, and have the links to send polite emails to those companies asking them to change their practices. Maybe this type of approach would have kept Congress from passing DMCA...
The central point in Mr. Curry's article is that formats, essentially radio stations buying playlists from a market research firm rather than trusting the taste of their DJs, are what is good and pure about radio today, and that we should spread the white light of formats to Napster and Gnutella.
Formats have destroyed the creativity and the variety in radio. It is now possible to drive cross-country listening to the radio and not hear one new song. I'm sorry, Mr. Curry, but some of us don't want to listen to the same Top 3 song at the top of every hour. Some of us would like to have radio introduce us to exciting new artists, not to rehash the same tired old songs that every other radio station plays. The tragedy of this practice is that most of the DJs at these boring radio stations are people who feel passionate about music, people whose taste I would love to explore, if they were only given the opportunity to express that taste. But they are not given that opportunity. Rather, they are forced to play a bland repetition of songs that no doubt bores them as much as it bores me.
Those who seek something new and different from music have either turned to college or public radio, or have found their way to Napster and internet music. Napster is refreshing precisely because it does not have formats. Once can download whatever music they like to their hard disk, create a huge playlist, and random play to their hearts content. Napster provides depth, so that one can listen to Cat Power and Erik Satie and Black Flag back-to-back, should the mood strike you.
It is a characteristic of old-school people who find themselves in a new paradigm to attempt to clothe their previous medium in the new technology and to pretend that they are modern. WorldClassRock is a great example of this. Los Angeles is a vast, diverse radio market provided with an abyssmal selection of radio stations. Channel 101.9, and later channel 103.1, were a brief break from this monotony. In both cases, though, they could not establish a profitable presence on the dial. My own theory is that they were killed by their own playlist. The listeners of those radio stations truly wanted the "world class rock" that the stations claimed to have, and were instead provided with playlist rock. For a while it was a different playlist, and was a novel break, but soon other radio stations copied their format enough to make their station sound old and tired. One had hoped that going online would allow the radio statio to take advantage of the novel features that the internet provides. Throw out the playlist! Listen to your DJs! Perhaps support real-time user rating of the songs you play. Or support two parallel streams at the same time, so that if a person doesn't like what is on one stream, they could listen to the other. The internet, after all, does not have the same limitations on the available number of frequencies that broadcast radio has. Alas, so far it appears that WorldClassRock is the same old playlist, the same old commercials, and the FM stations offered, just broadcast over a different medium, but perhaps it is too early to tell. One can still hold out hope that their true spirit will emerge in time.
I do, however, hold out some hope for SonicNet, which allows users to tailor their music feed in much the same way that My Yahoo! allows user to select the news articles they want to see. The selection is still a bit limited, but what is encouraging is that SonicNet is trying to do something different and creative with the technology rather than pushing the same thing threw new wires.
The nerds on the internet in general have very good taste in music. We want the same variety and creativity from our music that we put into our own work. Mainstream radio hasn't given this to us, they've given us Brittany Spears and Third Eye Blind played over and over and over, and we've gone to Napster. Those who escape from the roof will think twice before coming in through the front door again. I'm sure that Mr. Curry means well, but I'm afraid he simply doesn't Get It.
I just called Ms Seda to discuss the matter of her selling my copyrighted work. I was very polite, I simply want to know by what right her company can sell my work. She didn't answer, so I left a message that included my telephone number. I don't suppose I'll ever hear back from her, but if I do I'll post a follow-up here.
BTW, my thesis is available for free from my web page. Truth be told, I'm always so happy whenever anyone wants to read the damn thing that I trip over my own feet to email them a copy. It's not that I expect to make money off of this, I would have just liked to have been notified in advance. The irony is that I now know how the musicians feel about Napster.