No way on Earth I would work hard writing or creating something to have it passed around the Internet for free. I create for my own profit, not your entertainment. Once the Internet community stops (I know it isn't everyone but it is enough to be a major problem) stealing content created by artists for profit, we will finally be able to embrace the open standards we all truly want. Until then DRM will live one in some for or other.
The guys keeps bringing up the same studies he did 10 years ago as of they have any relevancy now. This issue needs a better face than Bennett, he lacks credibility.
I get what TW is trying to do here. With hulu, youtube, netflix, p2p, bittorrent and the plethora of other options for downloading entertaining content users are going to slowly start canceling their cable services. Especially the premium content that TW get's so much revenue from (HBO, Sports packages etc.)
Now you can pretty much stream any sporting event live, so even that isn't going to keep viewers subscribed.
But they are missing one critical piece. Most users don't know anything about how the software on their computers work. They automatically assume that their A/V product will protect them from every botnet and worm out there. Is some 66 year-old woman who is infected with a botnet and sending out gigs of SPAM per day really using the bandwidth she would pay for. She has been diligent in trying to protect he computer by installing A/V software, but she is by no means and expert and shouldn't be expected to know that a botnet has infected her computer. The botnet software is designed to hide itself from her knowledge.
So who is TW going to charge for that bandwidth usage. Because as far as she is concerned all she did was download a few pics of the grandkids, send a few emails, and do some genealogy research. Then she gets hit with a Tier1 usage bill. She won't be able to sufficiently explain the extra usage, and I'm pretty certain the person answering phones at TW won't be able to explain it either.
My wife is a science teacher. She left a job recovering organs and tissues etc. for transplant to become a science teacher because it afforded her more time with the kids.
In her years of teaching she has noticed a few prevalent problems that cause problems with science education, her and I have discussed these at great length.
1. There is a shortage of science teachers. It is always hardest for the the schools to recruit science and math teachers.
2. Due to the fact that the science and math teachers are generally smarter, more logical, and better organized than their 'Bachelor of Arts' counter-parts they are usually the first to be promoted into quasi-management positions (Asst. Principal, Principal etc.)
3. Most of these promotees quickly become disenfranchised with the bureaucracy and idiocy that runs rampant through American schools. They end up getting very frustrated, and instead of resigning from the quasi-management job and going back to being a teacher, their frustration with the 'whole system' causes them to quit outright and seek their fortunes elsewhere.
The future of science education in America is bleak my friends (and foes.)
... or writing if someone else can come along and make money off your invention. Just imagine if Wal-Mart could print and sell and book they wanted without permission from the author or the publisher. What if they could take your program or product, have it made in China for a tenth of your cost and sell it for their own profit.
I don't create the products I create for 'social good.' I create them to make money. If I come up with a unique and new idea, it's mine (or at least it belongs to the company I created it for.)
Patents and copyright exist to ensure that the creator is protected. Sure there are problems with the way things are now, where patents are being given a little too freely, but to abolish copyrights and patents altogether is just absurd.
They were sitting around and talking about where the safest place to be on the plane was if it blew up or crashed. Of course the other passengers got scared because they heard words like crash and blow-up. These people deserved what they got, the fact that they were Muslim made this news. But anyone would have gotten this treatment.
Except for the fact that if they allow access to pornographic sites, they will be in violation of CIPA and lose federal funding. I am honestly surprised that the idiotic Bennett Hasselton has not weighed in on this.
"(and you can keep your smart remarks to yourself)" -From the Article
Ummm... then why post it on/. We lurk here for the express purpose of making smart (and sometimes not so smart remarks. Sheesh, way to take the fun out of it.
My wife threw mine out the car window as I was checking email when we were on vacation. She told me "They can do without you for two weeks. If they can't, then you deserve a huge raise. You can call your boss next time we stop and give him my cellphone number to call in case of an emergency."
Best vacation I had in quite a while. Reminded me of the good old days when you could actually go on a business trip and be "out of the office." Now you spend the entire day doing local business, and several hours in the evening handling at the office business. You work more on the road than you do in the office.
I have had my Kindle for about 5 months now, and I remain happy with my purchase.
Now, keep in mind that I did not buy my kindle as a PDA, or a multi-function device. I bought my Kindle to read books, without having to carry several books. This means that I spend very little time surfing the Internet, or reading email on my Kindle. It is possible to do so, but I have devices that are better suited to those tasks.
I used to use my PDA for reading e-Books, but the backlit screen wore on the eyes, and the screen was not sized for the task. The Kindle's screen has been great for reading, in any conditions I have been in (yes you do need a light to read in the dark, that's what my bedside lamp is for.)
The fact that I am able to download books directly from Amazon whenever I want has been very useful, as has the ability to download books directly from the gutenberg library.
One of the biggest knocks that I have heard from others is the concerns about the copyright protection that is built into the device. I know this won't be a popular comment here, but that is something I really don't care about. When I buy the book I know that it will only ever work on my Kindle, but that's what I want the book to do. Once I have read the book I have little to no use for it.
My biggest complaint about the Kindle is all of you. If I am in public reading my Kindle, here is a hint, I AM READING LEAVE ME ALONE. Seriously, if you want to know about the Kindle go to Amazon, because I would rather read than explain/show the device to you.
My i-Pod is a 5th 80 Gigger... It is almost full of my music and movies. I switched from the 20Gig to the 80 Gig because I got sick and tired of selecting which media I wanted to sync. If I let the auto sync happen invariably, the song I wanted to listen to wasn't there.
Until there is a 160GB version of the touch I am out. I won't buy an iPhone because AT&T sucks in my area.
OK argument about Internet filtering and censorship aside....
An ISP I used to consult for used an 8e6 R2000 for Internet filtering as a value add service. The nice thing about it was that it was completely passive. It operates as a sniffer. So there will be no need to reconfigure routes or force users to proxy (you should all throw your proxies in the trash anyways.) There is also a child pornography list included on the unit.
Tivo HD prices will be their death
on
Can TiVo be Saved?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I was a long time Tivo subscriber. Then I bought an HDTV.
I knew that I would need to upgrade my Tivo to support HD. I was hit by sticker shock!!! $1000 smackeroonies for the Directv-Tivo unit that supports HD. I explored other options. Low and behold, Dish Network had a similiar unit which i could rent for $5 a month.
I will spare you the details since you can do math. But my thought process was this, the useful life on something like this is 3 years before new tech is needed.
$1000 over three years versus $5 a month over three years. That's an $800 dollar difference. You can guess what this Tivo subscriber did.
Dish Network is horrible. I had Dish network for a little over a year. The signal scrambled regularly, despite having them adjust the dish on 3 occasions. The content was lacking as well. I switched to DirecTV, great signal, and I get NFL Sunday Ticket.... something Dish Network does not have.
It used to be that when you went on a business trip, you were "out of the office."
This meant that you might check your voice mail once or twice per day. Even then, there wasn't a whole lot you could do. At the most you could answer a few questions. The point is that you were unavailable and everyone just accepted that fact.
There was a situation at one company where a salesman was called on his cellphone during his honeymoon, and told to come back to the office because he was losing a deal.... sorry, but I am sure someone could have figured it out without ruining this poor guys honeymoon.
Now with broadband in a every room, and a cellphone on your hip you are perpetually available. On top of that, you put in a full work day in the city you are visiting, then you spend several hours answering email and voice mail in the hotel room. So in all actuality you are probably working MORE hours while on the road. AND IT IS EXPECTED!!!
Flying cattle class is as bad as it gets, but at least for X number of hours you are unavailable and can relax. But no, wait, you have to get out the laptop and work on the design proposal etc. But at least the phone isn't ringing, or someone isn't in your cubicle/office asking for something else.
So now istead of getting a few minutes to relax, or at least get some work done uninterupted, the yahoos back at the office can get ahold of you.
I have come to the conclusion that there are times when I just don't need to be available. So turn off the cellphone, leave the laptop in the case, insert headphones into iPod, shuffle songs, open good book, and relax. If it can't wait a few hours, they will find some way to figure it out without me.
I was at the Los Angeles Auto Show a few years back. One of the GM auto makers was showing off their vehicle of the future... It had a rather displeasing original i-Mac color scheme, since i-Macs had just come out roughly 1.5 yrs before.
You get inside and there are no windows (the glass type) insteads their were monitors allowing you to view 360 in all directions.
Being a geek, I decided I would play with some of the controls, while the marketing spokeshole sat there and told me about how thiswas the future.
I changed the track on the CD Player and a nice message displayed at the buttom of the monitor that would make up the drivers side of the front window telling me what CD/Track i was listening to.
Then I fired up the Navigation system... all around me in the 360 degrees of monitors... there was a blue screen of death/exception error.
It was one of thos moments where I wish I had a camera.
Overall, I don't mind the ide of having an OS on the car, I would of course prefer something other than Windows. The key is that the OS must not be a portion of the critical operation of the vehicle. If the stereo/navigation system etc. stops working S.F.W. I can still drive the car.
However if the OS takes the driver input and converts this into the control of the car, I am out...
Slashdot Mirror
Just wait until you get your first "full-time" IT job and realize those people you are tutoring are your boss.
Hello California:
Please stop making laws that ruin our cars.
Thank you,
The rest of the US
From the file of Capt. Obvious....
Bourbon Street, New Orleans. During Mardi Gras.
Websense is not a good product. Squid+Dan's Guardian is OK but lacks many key features, but ANYTHING is better than Websense.
You name it "Statewide Salaries 2009"
No way on Earth I would work hard writing or creating something to have it passed around the Internet for free. I create for my own profit, not your entertainment. Once the Internet community stops (I know it isn't everyone but it is enough to be a major problem) stealing content created by artists for profit, we will finally be able to embrace the open standards we all truly want. Until then DRM will live one in some for or other.
I have found this phenomenon localized in my community. It's called Wal-Mart.
The guys keeps bringing up the same studies he did 10 years ago as of they have any relevancy now. This issue needs a better face than Bennett, he lacks credibility.
I get what TW is trying to do here. With hulu, youtube, netflix, p2p, bittorrent and the plethora of other options for downloading entertaining content users are going to slowly start canceling their cable services. Especially the premium content that TW get's so much revenue from (HBO, Sports packages etc.)
Now you can pretty much stream any sporting event live, so even that isn't going to keep viewers subscribed.
But they are missing one critical piece. Most users don't know anything about how the software on their computers work. They automatically assume that their A/V product will protect them from every botnet and worm out there. Is some 66 year-old woman who is infected with a botnet and sending out gigs of SPAM per day really using the bandwidth she would pay for. She has been diligent in trying to protect he computer by installing A/V software, but she is by no means and expert and shouldn't be expected to know that a botnet has infected her computer. The botnet software is designed to hide itself from her knowledge.
So who is TW going to charge for that bandwidth usage. Because as far as she is concerned all she did was download a few pics of the grandkids, send a few emails, and do some genealogy research. Then she gets hit with a Tier1 usage bill. She won't be able to sufficiently explain the extra usage, and I'm pretty certain the person answering phones at TW won't be able to explain it either.
My wife is a science teacher. She left a job recovering organs and tissues etc. for transplant to become a science teacher because it afforded her more time with the kids.
In her years of teaching she has noticed a few prevalent problems that cause problems with science education, her and I have discussed these at great length.
1. There is a shortage of science teachers. It is always hardest for the the schools to recruit science and math teachers.
2. Due to the fact that the science and math teachers are generally smarter, more logical, and better organized than their 'Bachelor of Arts' counter-parts they are usually the first to be promoted into quasi-management positions (Asst. Principal, Principal etc.)
3. Most of these promotees quickly become disenfranchised with the bureaucracy and idiocy that runs rampant through American schools. They end up getting very frustrated, and instead of resigning from the quasi-management job and going back to being a teacher, their frustration with the 'whole system' causes them to quit outright and seek their fortunes elsewhere.
The future of science education in America is bleak my friends (and foes.)
All American Idol, all the time.
... or writing if someone else can come along and make money off your invention. Just imagine if Wal-Mart could print and sell and book they wanted without permission from the author or the publisher. What if they could take your program or product, have it made in China for a tenth of your cost and sell it for their own profit.
I don't create the products I create for 'social good.' I create them to make money. If I come up with a unique and new idea, it's mine (or at least it belongs to the company I created it for.)
Patents and copyright exist to ensure that the creator is protected. Sure there are problems with the way things are now, where patents are being given a little too freely, but to abolish copyrights and patents altogether is just absurd.
They were sitting around and talking about where the safest place to be on the plane was if it blew up or crashed. Of course the other passengers got scared because they heard words like crash and blow-up. These people deserved what they got, the fact that they were Muslim made this news. But anyone would have gotten this treatment.
Except for the fact that if they allow access to pornographic sites, they will be in violation of CIPA and lose federal funding. I am honestly surprised that the idiotic Bennett Hasselton has not weighed in on this.
"(and you can keep your smart remarks to yourself)" -From the Article
Ummm... then why post it on /. We lurk here for the express purpose of making smart (and sometimes not so smart remarks. Sheesh, way to take the fun out of it.
My wife threw mine out the car window as I was checking email when we were on vacation. She told me "They can do without you for two weeks. If they can't, then you deserve a huge raise. You can call your boss next time we stop and give him my cellphone number to call in case of an emergency."
Best vacation I had in quite a while. Reminded me of the good old days when you could actually go on a business trip and be "out of the office." Now you spend the entire day doing local business, and several hours in the evening handling at the office business. You work more on the road than you do in the office.
OK, so what if I'm old.
"Proper safety procedures were in force, the safety systems performed as expected, and no one was put at risk."
But one guy did talk funny for a few minutes.
Ba-dum-bump
I have had my Kindle for about 5 months now, and I remain happy with my purchase.
Now, keep in mind that I did not buy my kindle as a PDA, or a multi-function device. I bought my Kindle to read books, without having to carry several books. This means that I spend very little time surfing the Internet, or reading email on my Kindle. It is possible to do so, but I have devices that are better suited to those tasks.
I used to use my PDA for reading e-Books, but the backlit screen wore on the eyes, and the screen was not sized for the task. The Kindle's screen has been great for reading, in any conditions I have been in (yes you do need a light to read in the dark, that's what my bedside lamp is for.)
The fact that I am able to download books directly from Amazon whenever I want has been very useful, as has the ability to download books directly from the gutenberg library.
One of the biggest knocks that I have heard from others is the concerns about the copyright protection that is built into the device. I know this won't be a popular comment here, but that is something I really don't care about. When I buy the book I know that it will only ever work on my Kindle, but that's what I want the book to do. Once I have read the book I have little to no use for it.
My biggest complaint about the Kindle is all of you. If I am in public reading my Kindle, here is a hint, I AM READING LEAVE ME ALONE. Seriously, if you want to know about the Kindle go to Amazon, because I would rather read than explain/show the device to you.
My i-Pod is a 5th 80 Gigger... It is almost full of my music and movies. I switched from the 20Gig to the 80 Gig because I got sick and tired of selecting which media I wanted to sync. If I let the auto sync happen invariably, the song I wanted to listen to wasn't there.
Until there is a 160GB version of the touch I am out. I won't buy an iPhone because AT&T sucks in my area.
OK argument about Internet filtering and censorship aside....
An ISP I used to consult for used an 8e6 R2000 for Internet filtering as a value add service. The nice thing about it was that it was completely passive. It operates as a sniffer. So there will be no need to reconfigure routes or force users to proxy (you should all throw your proxies in the trash anyways.) There is also a child pornography list included on the unit.
I was a long time Tivo subscriber. Then I bought an HDTV.
I knew that I would need to upgrade my Tivo to support HD. I was hit by sticker shock!!! $1000 smackeroonies for the Directv-Tivo unit that supports HD. I explored other options. Low and behold, Dish Network had a similiar unit which i could rent for $5 a month.
I will spare you the details since you can do math. But my thought process was this, the useful life on something like this is 3 years before new tech is needed.
$1000 over three years versus $5 a month over three years. That's an $800 dollar difference. You can guess what this Tivo subscriber did.
Dish Network is horrible. I had Dish network for a little over a year. The signal scrambled regularly, despite having them adjust the dish on 3 occasions. The content was lacking as well. I switched to DirecTV, great signal, and I get NFL Sunday Ticket.... something Dish Network does not have.
it has officially been slashdotted!!!!
it really pisses me off that the "crap" I broke, or took apart is worth money now.
Does this mean I should save my old Palm Pilot because it will be worth some money some day?
OK so maybe I am dating myself... but...
It used to be that when you went on a business trip, you were "out of the office."
This meant that you might check your voice mail once or twice per day. Even then, there wasn't a whole lot you could do. At the most you could answer a few questions. The point is that you were unavailable and everyone just accepted that fact.
There was a situation at one company where a salesman was called on his cellphone during his honeymoon, and told to come back to the office because he was losing a deal.... sorry, but I am sure someone could have figured it out without ruining this poor guys honeymoon.
Now with broadband in a every room, and a cellphone on your hip you are perpetually available. On top of that, you put in a full work day in the city you are visiting, then you spend several hours answering email and voice mail in the hotel room. So in all actuality you are probably working MORE hours while on the road. AND IT IS EXPECTED!!!
Flying cattle class is as bad as it gets, but at least for X number of hours you are unavailable and can relax. But no, wait, you have to get out the laptop and work on the design proposal etc. But at least the phone isn't ringing, or someone isn't in your cubicle/office asking for something else.
So now istead of getting a few minutes to relax, or at least get some work done uninterupted, the yahoos back at the office can get ahold of you.
I have come to the conclusion that there are times when I just don't need to be available. So turn off the cellphone, leave the laptop in the case, insert headphones into iPod, shuffle songs, open good book, and relax. If it can't wait a few hours, they will find some way to figure it out without me.
-DM
I was at the Los Angeles Auto Show a few years back. One of the GM auto makers was showing off their vehicle of the future... It had a rather displeasing original i-Mac color scheme, since i-Macs had just come out roughly 1.5 yrs before.
You get inside and there are no windows (the glass type) insteads their were monitors allowing you to view 360 in all directions.
Being a geek, I decided I would play with some of the controls, while the marketing spokeshole sat there and told me about how thiswas the future.
I changed the track on the CD Player and a nice message displayed at the buttom of the monitor that would make up the drivers side of the front window telling me what CD/Track i was listening to.
Then I fired up the Navigation system... all around me in the 360 degrees of monitors... there was a blue screen of death/exception error.
It was one of thos moments where I wish I had a camera.
Overall, I don't mind the ide of having an OS on the car, I would of course prefer something other than Windows. The key is that the OS must not be a portion of the critical operation of the vehicle. If the stereo/navigation system etc. stops working S.F.W. I can still drive the car.
However if the OS takes the driver input and converts this into the control of the car, I am out...