I'd like to see a document citing prior art for every claim of every patent in the H.264 pool's patent list [mpegla.com].
The burden of proof is not on me or anyone using open source anything... not on the High Definition Video (and audio) Codec(s) either. Granted High Definition normally is in reference to video not audio. Whether they be just a standard or open source software.
The burden of proof is on the MPEG-LA, of which Microsoft is a member, assuming they think they have a patent or copyright to fight with. As many people have pointed out until its proved in a court of law, its just FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), nothing new there.
They should not be allowed to make vague claims that they have submarine patents. I call BS! If they have a pool of patents as you say, let them stand up in a court of law and prove it.
The depth charges have been launched....boom........splash..... kerboom
Its way past time for those assumedsubmarine patents to surface, if they even exist at all. I for one do not believe that they do.
And even if they do have some obscure BS patent they claim is valid, when its not...it DOES NOT MATTER at all....
X.264 was coded/programmed/written from scratch, from the ground up. It is not built on anything related to H.264 whether we believe its open or not.
Game over for the DRM folks with respects to high definition video codecs. And they know it...that is why they only talk and put nothing up. I say put up or shut up! The cowards, they know their house of cards proprietary high definition video codec wise is about to fall. History will show that Mozilla was the smart one here. Smart enough to not pay up to the maximum $5 million license for H.264. They are not stupid...smart like foxes! Apple foolishly is paying royalties....
As to x264:
Performance-wise, x264 can encode 4 or more 1080p streams in realtime on a single consumer-level computer.
x264 forms the core of many web video services, such as Youtube, Facebook, Vimeo, and Hulu. It is also used in television broadcast by companies such as Avail Media.
MPlayer is only one of many players that utilize Theora which utilizes ffmpeg. One of many....
I dare the submarine to rise into a court of law, stand up and be counted. You think they will go up against Google? Yea right.
As for Adobe, why in the heck would you wrap your content in a wrapper when thanks to HTML5 you do not need too! Why depend on anything flash from a company that you know in your heart of hearts will just end up crashing, eating excessive memory and opening up your system to various infec
H.264 is a standard, not software, so it doesn't have any source. And it isn't open because the specification has over-bearing license restrictions with legally dubious claims and demand high fees. That makes x.264 (in it's current form and distribution method) illegal, and the MPEGLA could shut it down whenever they like....
Your opinion and one I (and many others) do not share. There is prior art for the H.264 codec, It is open source. Thus x.264 is open as well.
Yes the MPEGLA will bully anyone they believe will NOT fight back. They understand that if one person with deep enough pockets fight backs and wins, its game over for their extortion based on fake patent/copyrights.
I can only hope they will sue the wrong people and lose the ability to bully anyone else.
Of course they will pick and chose their battles wisely to avoid a losing scenario.
I think as of yet, there's no video format that works on every browser natively. So plugins are needed. Might as well go for a universal plugin. I'm sure a cross-platform plugin would rule that kind of a niche, even if it sucked in oh so many ways. I wonder why such a thing doesn't already exist... oh wait.
A good point. I guess MPlayer is still a plug in. At least a plug-in is better then a toolbar or widget that does other things that violate a user's privacy.
Thankfully there are high definition video formats that are open and free and players like MPlayer that will play those codecs that already work in every browser + operating system combination. But you do need that plugin don't you.
Sadly we are not always offered a choice, even when the open data format is far superior to the proprietary codec. And never underestimate the DRM forces that want to control everything, if given a choice (they are and have for years already) they will always choose the proprietary format they mistakenly believe they can control and force on customers.
You have to choose not to play. Thankfully today, there is almost always multiple news sources that offer the same content in an open data format. As you learn which sources do this, simply use them instead of the others. It really is that simple.
I have never agreed with the people that attempted to argue, in my mind unsuccessfully, that the H.264 standard was not open source. I believe H.264 is open source and admit that a few companies have proprietary H.264 codecs. And of course there is always X.264, which even the proprietary tools can not take away and call close source.
If you want to run Windows (for games) I get that, purchase Windows 7 separately and install it, the method you choose will vary and is up to you...but at least you KNOW IT WILL WORK.
Linux has more device drivers than any other operating system in the world, ever. The only reason anyone has problems is always related to proprietary hardware/software/BIOS crap...all of which is easy to avoid, purchase from a Linux vendor ONLY.
Same with Android, buy only hardware where you have Linux root access, avoid all other proprietary chips/hardware.
Follow that advice and no more problems, ever.
It is that simple.
My next PC from ZaReason will also run CentOS, Damn Small Linux and Fedora in addition to the latest greatest Ubuntu. If I have learned anything from all the Microsoft Windows BS over the years, its never put all your eggs in one basket. Also, if you only have two choices, you have no choice.
I learned the hard way, you can too, see the message at the bottom, but first to your post...
If the new version of Skype is attempting to force you to provide additional information through Coarse location (your words) or Acting as an account authenticator then only purchase handsets that give you full Linux root access and you can install any version of Linux Skype. I suspect that the proprietary provider, whether Verizon, Cingular, ATT, TMobile, whoever (they are all equally bad based on customer no service alone) has added code to ruin your day, document who you are in order to sell your personal information to others (advertisers) and geo locate you through triangulation or some other method...none of which is honestly good for you (can you say stalker, I knew you could).
If the handset does not allow for root access so you can configure and install software of your choosing, do NOT purchase it.
This avoids all the hassles. And another hint, I can serve more clients with WiFi and DD-WRT running on a supported device then any 3G, 4G... or 10G network. Just wait until I can get Fiber to the home (FTTH) that is starting to be offered in a few areas in the USA. I can not wait to be out from under the bandwidth restricting, throttling cable companies (100% of them limit your bandwidth, you just do not know if you are not running one of these three softwares on a DD-WRT supported device!: DD-WRT, OpenWrt or Tomato. That too is a choice you made that limits your ability to log and see what is really going on.
Stop making poor choices, stop purchasing proprietary hardware that only hurts and limits you.
No Root Access ~ Not Smart! Not Smart ~ Dumb device!
I would add No Linux ~ Not Smart, but that is my admitted bias based on poor experience with Microsoft since the day they started business. Yes I used IBM PC DOS before MS DOS...that that is another story.
Note: Some versions of Android allow for Root Access, just not any of the versions put out by the cellular companies, do NOT purchase their handsets. Those same cellular companies choose proprietary hardware and chips on purpose to lock down the device, prevent you from configuring or installing software. To help them and hurt you...do not buy their crap proprietary hand sets.
Read and write contact data - I assume this means the Skype app stores contact data in the phone's address book, but it also gives it access to all my other contact data (local or google contacts).
Even crazier when you consider that there are well over 100 different browsers on the market...I was shocked to discover this, like most people I knew about Firefox, Netscape (no uses that any more right?), Opera, Safari, Konqueror, Gnuzilla, SeaMonkey, Iceweasel, Fennec, Maemo, Lynx...was not surprised when I went to the wikipedia page on browsers and started counting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers. I stopped at 90...well over 100...yet fools still use IE...amazingly crazy (Using the same browser and expecting a different result).
The writing is on the wall. The only thing Apple and Microsoft are trying to do is hijack multimedia on the web by forcing their standards (or standards that they have some control over) down our throats. Remember when most streaming was done in the Windows Media formats? How about having to install a crippleware version of Quicktime just to play a video from a friend?
I for one am glad that Adobe provides flash equally for Linux, even though some video drivers are shit and can't even play it properly. (hello netbooks!)
If you are in the business of making operating systems, you have no business having control of the way content is delivered over the web.
I do not support Adobe and never will. Their neglect of anything not Windows should earn them everyone's spurn and they should NEVER be supported again, EVER.
Can you say x.264, I knew you could. I could play both x.264 and h.264 high definition content on my Nokia N800 hand held three years ago, 2007.
The fact that Silverlight would NOT support either the first two years of its existence and only MS only later included h.264 in Silverlight when their play for controlling their new standard simply did not work bears out the truth of your assertion that they are attempting to control multimedia and the web. This is not Microsoft's first attempt at control, nor will it be the last...that we can all count on.
And Adobe has been so quick to stay in bed with Microsoft, its the only reason that they have not supported Linux from day one when a new version of Flash is released.
You and I both know that content put on the web that would run under Flash 7, Flash 8, Flash 9 does NOT require Flash 10 to play, thus forcing an automatic update to view it is insane and short sighted.
I for one can not wait to see the death of Flash, permanently and forever. If I have an alternative website that does not require Flash, I will go to it every time. It was bad enough that Flash slowed down my netbook with only 512MB, still inexcusable.
However when I bought a Linux ION Breeze PC from ZaReason with 4 core processors and 4 GB of RAM, never in my wildest dreams did I expect to still continue to have problems with Flash. You have got to be kidding me! And with a Nvidia ION GeForce 9400M GPU built in...and FLASH is still dragging me down...ARE YOU SERIOUS?
None of the 4 processors are maxed out continuously and I have plenty of free RAM memory, yet FLASH still negatively impacts me, amazingly bad. Thank goodness I am running Linux and can do two things, virtualize/sandbox my browser running Flash and utilize one of the many open source projects that will let me dictate which and how many of my processors run in each virtualized sandbox/instance of the operating system I am running. Sorry, but Windows would never get me all the way there...virtual windows, yes it can do that, but being able to control which processors do what and when, never.
Flash you need to go and it can NOT be soon enough.
Hey web content developers, there are open source high definition video and audio codecs that will give your customers a superior experience while not limiting them to any one operating system or any one player. They have existed for years...do us a favor and start wrapping your content into one of them, if not many of us will pass your content by...
The funny thing is superior content can be released using FREE (NO DRM) CODECs. These free and open source codecs are better than any of the proprietary codecs vendors (Microsoft, Adobe) are putting forward in vain attempts at controlling multimedia on the web.
Silly wabbits...
There are plenty of high definition open source codecs working on Vimeo. Better quality, less artifacts and better play rates for all operating systems.
Buy a hardware from Linux Vendors ONLY. You can always install Windows, Mac OSX, whatever, however if you lock your self into hardware that is planned to be obsolete, well you get what you pay for, not...you actually paid more, fools.
I remember when they use to say, no one ever got fired for buying IBM.
I also remember when they use to say, no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft.
The fact is, if the hardware will run Linux, it will run Windows and probably Mac OS/X (technically just another Linux/Unix distro). However the opposite can not be stated as fact.
If you buy a Windows Computer or a MacIntosh computer, there very will may be components (BIOS, Graphics Processing Unit, chips that control sound,...) that will NOT run in Linux.
So now this is true for the Sony PS3 now...why is anyone surprised.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish...over and over and over and over again.
If your hardware runs Linux on day 1, it will run Linux 10 years from that day.
Be smart buy from either ZaReason or System 76. and ugh if you must, install Windows, at least down the road the hardware can be used for something constructive...say a DVD recorder on steroids, specialized firewall/router, home file server or a Home Controller or a game station.
Its ALWAYS smart to have options. Remember if you do NOT have at least THREE choices, you have no choice!
Why isn't some tycoon plugging it and putting a pipe in it?
Finally they are according to the news I heard on the radio today, for what that is worth. The reason they did not do this initially, is that they, BP, was capping it in for later use.
The fact that this happened when they are were trying to put a cement cap in it, does not help the millions of Americans that depend on an un-polluted Gulf for their livelihoods.
I'd like to see two reforms (besides revoking personhood to corporations, and if what I've read is correct it wasn't even a Supreme Court ruling, but an error made by a law clerk):
It should be a felony to attempt to contribute to more than one candidate in any race, as that serves no other purpose except bribery
It should be illegal to contribute to any candidate one is not eligible to vote for. Why is it a convicted felon can't affect an election with a vote, but he can with money? Why should Bill Gates, who isn't an Illinois resident or voter, be able to affect an election in Illinois? Corporations, unions, etc should not be able to contribute, period.
Since that K5 article my 4th amendment rights were abused twice, once on the day we commemorate those who died defending those same rights that were abused!
Right after I posted I thought of this, Prevent any politician from working in a lobbyist capacity for at least 4 years after leaving office, preferably 8 years. By that time they would have other jobs.
Surely we are not voting for people who can not hold down a job are we?
I use to think some of the best professors I had in college were the ones who had worked in the field and could relate their work experience with the text book knowledge and tell you why one concept would not work versus another based on practical experience.
Now that I think about it, term limits plus the above, plus limits on campaign contributions from individuals (ONLY, no companies) might just do the trick.
Good luck getting any of it approved through a legislature that wants to protect their future chance of becoming a lobbyist.
After all look at health care, giving MORE money to the health care companies (forcing Americans to do business with those abusing them, who will be the first America, refusing to purchase coverage that gets arrested...not exactly debtor prisons, but not much different either.), doing nothing to stem abuses, correcting the system and preventing anything good coming from the new legislation for at least 4 years further down the road.
And you would want them to pass laws that would prevent them from taking 6 figure or 7 figure salaried jobs as lobbyists? It just is not going to happen.
Tell you what, if they allow the FairTax to come out of committee, where its been since 1996, for a floor vote in BOTH the House and the Senate (two different committee road blocks here) then I will tell you that your two proposals might have a chance.
We just need to elect more people to office that do not intend to make it a profession. Serving your country was never intended by our founding fathers to be a profession, thus encouraging abuses of the system, duh moment there.
Oh for the record, as much as I would like to see Pres Obama veto it all and insist on a public option, which would make him more politically and publicly favorable than ever, I doubt he will do that. Over 57% of Americans believe Health Care should be a basic right, I suggest to you that our current level of taxation should provide more then enough revenue to cover it also.
If they can not pass something that majority of Americans want, and want badly, what makes us believe they are going to pass financial campaign reform...wishing they would, but thinking they wont.
I still like your ideas especially #1 regardless, only concerned about the new laws being abused to control voters and voter turnout.
If you "dump cellular all together" then why would you need a handset?
The best thing to do is to dump cellular all together. You save enough money each year that you can buy a new hand set every year if you want with your savings.
Simple, I have access to WiFi at home and at work, well over 80% of my calling area, however a cord attached to the router/computer really does not make sense all the time.
With a WiFi Bridge, you can extend your Wifi out to almost an acre of land, thus you have extended your calling area. That hand set will ring and that is the point isn't it?
My Nokia N800 has the GPS capability, costs extra and an extra monthly fee. The Nokia N800 never had cellular capability however like the Nokia N900. In fact cellular is the only addition to the N900 vs the N800. Yes, GPS without cellular....it is possible.
For me the reason to get rid of cellular was a customer-no-service reason as much as a value proposition. Had they not tried to put extra charges on my bill and wrongly attempt to extort me to pay them, I might still be stuck in the "hole in the ethers" (think boat analogy) mode. But they pissed me off and then I learned that they were racking me over the coals financially. My total cost of ownership (TCO) is only $5 per month / $60 per year. And there are 20 million Skype users every day. And Skype is not the cheapest VoIP solution available to me, just the one I like and have used extremely successfully for well over 3 years now...I love it! So I churned from cellular.
I still love having a handset. And my handset pays HD Video (H.264) via open source codecs (no Windows / Adobe required), allows me a full browser to read emails and use social media and more.
Even better, I can answer the phone on my computer or via the handset (I can choose to have them both to ring if I want, in fact I could have multiple handsets around the house all ring at the same time...) as the WiFi signal means I am NOT tethered thanks to my DD-WRT enabled firewall/router at all.
if what I've read is correct it wasn't even a Supreme Court ruling, but an error made by a law clerk)
If that is true, should be easy to get it overturned, but suspect that the judges voted corporations the person-hood rights, admittedly I need to look into the specifics. I just know that they did and our founders warned us against this as it would lead to a Fascist state/country. Our founding fathers were very aware of what a Facist state would mean. The same can be said for any veteran that fought in either WWI or WWII.
We need to get money out of politics and we need to get back to the way serving your country for a short period of time and returning to your profession/job having helped your community, your state, your country as it was envisioned by our founding fathers, at least most of them. There are always exceptions aren't there.
At least they would have incentives to create jobs if they knew they might need one.
I am just not sure about the methods. The current slate of laws are abused, as you pointed out, read that post too, wow. Not good at all!
The biggest abuse related directly to voting is having charges trumped up on an individual or group of individuals making them not eligible to vote. I would like to see voters rights restored to those wrongly accused and I am not interested in creating more laws that can be mis-used, no matter how well intended, by political parties to remove large segments of the population from voting and thus preventing reform while maintaining their corrupt power base.
Money out, absolutely, but not at the cost of voters and a person's rights.
While I see the good intent of what you would like, I also know you understand how the powers that be could miss use it to maintain control...
I don't see what that has to do with copyright at all.
The reason copyright terms have been extended so many times for so long is that large corporate media has exerted its large influence in Congress to get these laws passed. The interests of the general public are not represented by lobbyists, giving the corporations a monopoly on the attention of Congress. Limiting the size (and thereby the power) of these corporations would break part of that monopoly power.
-1 Insightful, really, Really REALLY?
The poster above him did not see what my comment had to do with Copyrights. This post explained it well enough for the average Joe to understand, thus I saw no reason to reply again until I saw the moderation.
While copyright can be assigned to a corporation, the materials mentioned in the slash dot post were assigned to people, not corporations, think of the time frame people.
Think about it. If Corporations have the same rights as people and those copyrights were granted/assigned to people, the abuse of extending copyrights for additional years (THE VERY point of the slashdot post to begin with) seems to be perpetuated by companies/corporations (specifically various media companies that also want to inflict DRM BS on us...that's another related topic to copyrights.) Here are two quotes from the slashdot article, so meta moderators see that this post and the last are on topic:
If the 1790 copyright maximum term of 28 years was still in effect, everything that had been published by 1981 would be now be in the public domain
and
...maximum term of 56 years (if renewed)...
Obviously corporate person-hood and laws giving corporations the same rights as people is very much a part of this problem, if not part of the heart of the problem.
Corporations have limited rights, per our Constitution and our Bill of Rights (which the above poster has made valid points how our rights have been eroded over the years...great link/article, and still on topic as well). The abuse of copyright laws by corporations is most definitely part of the problem and impacts all of us directly by denying us access to the materials, as the system intended, after the copyright period ran out.
Its like the companies have no interest in innovation and providing new entertainment, spending money on new work, helping new artists get discovered and bringing us all quality entertainment. Nope all they want to do is use their corporate lobbyist power to extend the copyright laws further out, denying our use of the material as originally intended after the first 28 year term ran out...
To the companies, I say innovate or die! And while you are at it, try to create some jobs and help recover the economy, wasting all that money to extend copyright laws to enrich yourself and hurt Americans. Shame on you, I most certainly call that un-American!
Someone please mode the posters up, this topic of person-hood most definitely applies to Copyright!
I will have to go back and read that one, can not right now, but I saved it for future reference, also noted that there some good comments associated with it.
I hope you are wrong, that the bill of rights is not complete dead and also hope that it can be revived along with education about the Constitution as I strongly believe that all the corporate abuses, including Copyright, can be stopped, prevented and reversed if companies are treated as companies and not people.
It goes beyond the fact that a person lives and dies, even that person can pass the copyright to his children/family/Heirs in a couple of legal forms. Thus the copyright is still being enforced by people directly related to the copyright holder. I am definitely for that, but only the length of the copyright as set originally, not how it has been abused and extended.
Its absurd that copyrights get extended again and again, beyond the legal limits originally intended.
If corporations have the same rights of a person, person-hood, they will enforce the copyrights theoretically forever, definitely not what was intended by Copyright law. And not what I would want to see either.
If companies get more person-hood rights it will only get worse, not better. I sincerely hope the Supreme Court Decision that granted some person-hood rights will be overturned, they have more financial incentive to wreck havoc on current system, including copyright laws.
Now person-hood for corporations extends into many other areas besides copyright, but that alone does not make it off topic with respects to copyright law, as it applies there as well.
I see treating people as people and companies as companies with a clear separation (same with religion for the sake of freedom to worship, but that is off topic) as a first necessary step to remove much of the money (ie corporate lobbyists, very few are not backed by corporations...) out of politics. With the amount of money corporations have and their financial incentive to extend the years material remains in a copyright status, well the system is ripe for abuse.
As to the person who mentioned that it would not be any different if one company gave millions to a politician vs a single multi-millionaire giving that politician/political party millions of dollars (without regards to the legality of how much a single person can give) is most certainly very different as they can not hide in the shadows behind the constructs of a corporation. I would suggest that there are some very rich individuals that are so polarizing because of their views that politicians would think twice about taking their money for fear of losing their office. Sure they are greedy and want the money, however they still have to get votes to get/maintain their office.
The ability of a company to gain any person-hood rights most definitely impacts Copyrights and Copyright laws in a negative manner.
How do you have an always on connection for your VOIP w/out 3G?
Or are you treating it like a land line tied to WAPs basically? i.e. if you're not within wifi range you're not contactable.
You are exactly right, I do not have an always on connection. If I am not connected, I can not make/receive calls. If anyone calls me the answering service takes the message. So I do not miss any calls.
Of course if there was city wide WiFi I would be golden. Regardless I still have over 80% coverage for my life. (Home and work)
With the DD-WRT (same with Tomato or OpenWRT I assume) I can create a WiFi bridge that covers all of my house and most of a good size yard. The last company I worked for allowed for a WiFi router serving my side of the building. So at work and at home I had 100% coverage for $5.00 per month.
The only place I do not have coverage is when I am in my car. I have started noticing that most of the places I go, shop, run errands have WiFi hotspots in/near them so if I wanted to connect I could, most of the time I do not bother.
There is something to be said for limiting interruptions when you are not working or on the clock!
It's pretty obvious really. The whole point of copyright was to enable the creator to benefit commercially from their artwork for a limited period so that they would have an income and be able to continue producing works that enrich/entertain society. As distribution has become quicker and quicker, the time needed for an artist to commercially exploit their work has decreased and therefore the time period for which copyright applies ought to be shorter, not longer, than in the past.
What has happened instead is that time periods have been extended, more and more money has been made, which has concentrated the means of distribution into fewer hands, with the net effect of decreasing the amount of art (music, literature etc.) that is widely available. This is now starting to change with digital distribution, although it's quite clear that DRM is not about preventing the pirating of works (because it doesn't stop commercial pirates) but is about maintaining a barrier to entry into the market.
Great post, simple to the point.
Another reason to DENY companies person-hood
What in the constitution allows a company to buy the rights from a person and continue them in force as if they are a person?
Everything we need to fix problems with corporations are in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. If we really are a nation of laws, its time to start enforcing them.
Even Presidents must NOT be above the law!
To not enforce laws ensures their continued abuse. I do not think that this is what our founding fathers had in mind!
I wouldn't have bothered with it, except the drivers were the ones hit with a critical security vulnerability [vuxml.org]. They were also deprecated and Nvidia had declared that only the newer drivers would be patched. My options were:
1. Live with a remote root vulnerability,
2. Upgrade my motherboard to something with PCIe, a new CPU, new RAM, and a new graphics card, or
3. Hope the Free drivers were at least minimally functional.
The "practical" choice of using closed drivers would have cost me a few hundred dollars. I'm glad the impractical alternative existed.
Be wary of so called security and root exploits used as ploys to force you to upgrade. Even worse if it entrenches you further into their proprietary FUD world where you will be forced to upgrade forever and at a fee of course.
Check the security certs, almost all of these so call root exploits require the cracker to get access to your root account or they simply can NOT perform the exploit.
You have to read the fine print.
If you do not have a secure root / admin password, its game over for you anyway.
Another phrase to look for is that the exploit requires "local" access to your computer. I doubt you are going to give your keys to a cracker to get physical access to your machine. Also this is a very righteous reason to get pissed at the cable company when they throttle your access to perpetuate the bandwidth scarcity myth. When/if you try to troubleshooting your connection problems, they are first going to tell you to bypass all your security (software and hardware) to make sure those pieces are not part of the problem.
They throttle you in order to charge you $10 more per month next year.
Do you have the operating system CD to restore your PC if it gets cracked? Probably not any more. Especially if you bought your computer from a big box store.
Read, learn and remove the FEAR, Uncertainty and DOUBT from their FUD. It will save you time and money!
ah but they doubled their termination fee. now it is cheaper to get a divorce than to pay verizon to get out of the contract.
Of course if you were smart enough to buy your phone outright at retail, you do not have a contract and can leave when you want...
A company in New York, Mobile City Online will sell you the latest greatest phones. Full retail, no discounts. However you will not have a contract. Based on your comment that they are doubling their termination fee, it could be cheaper to save up your money and buy your phone out right.
You have to buy the model meant for your carrier's cellular system. So a little research is in order.
The best thing to do is to dump cellular all together. You save enough money each year that you can buy a new hand set every year if you want with your savings.
The carriers are counting on you being unwilling to leave cellular, guess thats why they can double their termination fee, add $5,000 or $20,000 to your bill and you will put up with it.
I hope you get mod-ed way up! I could not agree more. With the "Fear" for me has become a lack of TRUST of all American cellular providers.
I've owned four cell phones in my life. My first, a Qualcomm brick was very cool - it was a phone. I torched it and got a Motorola StarTac and it was very cool
I too had a phone, a brick, before my Motorola StarTAc, love Motorola products. Just can not stand the carriers at all. I had over seven years with the first provider before they tried to stick charges on my bill, well over $500 of charges I did not make. I was surprised when they simply did not remove the charges. I had gone back through my bills, had never called any of the numbers. I offered to come to their office, let them call the numbers and find who was at the number in order to prove I did not know them. (I was not going to be stupid and call them myself and have the carrier use that discovery call against me, in order to get them to remove them from my bill.)
My seven year positive track record mattered NOT. They said pay up or else. I made the normal monthly and told them I expected them to remove the other charges. They refused, turned off my service and sent me to collections. Customer-No-Service and I was paying between $150 - $200 per month for service, so I was not just a basic customer. They simply did not care.
What chance do you have if you are only a basic customer paying $50 per month to your provider for service? Yea, your screwed!
I had switched providers before they cut me off. You have that ability when you are month to month without a contract/plan. If the carrier screws you over you can churn. I did. There is a company in New York, Mobile City, that will sell to you, at retail prices of course, a hand set that will work on your preferred carrier/provider's network. If you walk into a provider, they can enable that hand set to work on their network and you will have no contract! Month to month baby, worth it to be free to CHURN if they mess with you!
Everything was okay with the second provider for the first three years; until I purchased unlimited text messaging. I had to pay an additional premium amount above and beyond my monthly plan in order to prevent surprise charges. I think it cost me an extra $40 per month above and beyond my over $100 per month cellular service. So once again the carrier was going to have me in their preferred monthly payment range of $150 per month. You think they would be happy with that and be more willing to work with you to resolve problems, NOT.
They provisioned the text messaging part of my plan incorrectly, so my text messages were eating into my voice minutes and when I needed voice minutes I was paying per minute charges above and beyond my normal per minute plan, which I was now exceeding thanks to the mistake in provisioning of the text messaging, geez. The end result was an inflated bill of around $800, not around $150 as I expected. Even more bizarre is that the first time in 3 years the itemized bill (that I paid extra each month for because of that first negative experience three years earlier) was missing. I received a total bill ONLY. When I called my carrier, they first tried to tell me that I had not paid for itemized billing. That was a lie. I told the rep to look again, at that point they said an itemized bill would be sent to me. I never got it from them. Three times different reps said they would send it to me and everything would be taken care of. I never received an itemized bill via official channels. A friend of mine working at the company was able to get me an itemized bill. They actually had the nerve to deny me an itemized bill, even though I had been paying an extra charge per month, for it, for over 3 years. Instead of taking care of me, their customer, they attempted to extort me into paying the full bill. (I do not know about you, but I simply wi
Excellent post, I too agree that when someone comes along to provide a viable mainstream alternative that US public will embrace it. I have found mine, but it is decide-ly not for everyone. I 86ed my cellular provider over 4 years ago, went to VoIP + WiFi and never looked back. I was linked from PC to a headset for years until the Nokia N800 came out. Bit the bullet and bought one when they were expensive just like the N900 is today. Since I no longer had the cellular monthly charges, I recouped my costs within a few months. The device rocks. Sound is crystal, H.264 Video high def capability and more. GPS, WebCam, Two Micro USB slots (I have two 4 GB cards in mine and occasionally see 16 GB and 32 GB micro SSD cards available for under $18 per.
The only thing I do not have is cellular. After two attempts to rip me off for over $500 the first time and over $800 the second time in about 13 - 14 years of service, I simply do NOT TRUST any of the cellular companies. When you search on RipOffReports.com for any of them, you will see why, not just hundreds of complaints, but thousands. Obviously the cellular companies do not believe you will do as I did and churn away from them. Because of this, they can provide you with more customer-no-service then you can stand and you will not do anything about it! Oh, wait, you might switch to one of the other carriers. And a few years later you will probably switch back to them...THIS IS WHAT THEY THINK and believe to be true.
Thus they can deny you service, they can deny you upgraded software, they can deny you an open device that prevents you from using the software you need and want. They can lock up Android, prevent you from jail-breaking it and what are you going to do?
Are you willing to give up cellular?
Obviously not, they know this about you, thus they do not fear pissing you off at every turn. Because they know you do not have the Kohonas to churn, not just from them, but away from cellular all together.
That's okay, I have your back, I churned, but I did it for me. Others will follow, but will enough? Probably not.
They got your Kohanas in a vice grip and they know it, suckers.
You only have to do one thing to break free. Make one decision and you are free and will save a hell of allot of money. Enough money to afford not either a new smart hand set each year or a new net book computer each and every year!
What's that one decision you must make? Glad you asked.... You must decide, as in olden days gone by, that if someone calls you when you can NOT be connected to the Internet, they must leave you a message. That's it. That is the only decision you must make.
Decide that if you can not be connected to the Internet, someone will have to leave you a message. It is that simple.
If you can stomach that, you can get rid of cellular forever. You really do not give up that much anymore. A DD-WRT enabled firewall/router at work and at home will give you Internet access for a smart WiFi enabled smart phone for well over 80% of your life. You use your existing Internet provider at home and you use the company Internet provider at work. So there should be no additional charge for service. All you need is the smart hand held device. The Android will work. The Nokia N770, N800, N810, N900 will also work. With the Nokia N900 you would have cellular capability if you wanted it.
For emergencies, purchase a prepaid handset, 7-Eleven had them for under $100, I am sure others do as well. Never give out that number, only use it in emergencies and you simply recharge it once per year, $10 will do it. Remember its only used in Emergencies, keep it turned off otherwise and no one can call you and cause charges you do not want.
A bit extreme, perhaps, but I have been doing this, and laughing all the way to the bank, for over 4 years now. My service is better than the old AT&T land line service. Even it went down once in a blue moon.
Thank you for your opinion, I may or may not agree with it, but hopefully the idiot who modded every post in this subthread he did not agree with as "troll" (what a sad person) is overruled.
I have noticed this on other threads, valid point being meta - moderated down for no apparent or obvious reason.
In multiple cases posters (both anonymous and registered users) with actual first hand experiences have been mod-ed down to either -1 or 0.
The only two reasons I can think of are:
Censorship: If you rate a post below a certain threshold, very few people will see/read it or even be aware of it. My guess is, posts below 2, will rarely get seen. Drive them to -1 or 0 and they will not get seen.
Personal vendetta: Someone takes a personal dislike to someone and uses the meta-moderation to drive their rating there. My guess is that this someone has friends and they work together to trash individuals.
Another point, the current meta-moderation system shows you ONLY the post, out of context of the article or the posts above it, therefore, the current system encourages a single post to be taken out of context. When I meta-moderate I often do not moderate a post if I can not discern what it is about...could be on topic, could be off topic, there is simply no way to tell by ONLY looking at it.
A good reason for you to copy/paste the section of the previous poster's comments when replying else your post will be out of context when it stands alone.
As for the topic at hand: I develop software, I expect updates, that does not bother me. What I detest and believe should be avoided (and I am in the minority currently) is automatic updating, refreshing, downloading. I believe nothing should be downloaded on a customers product without their approval, period. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to this rule.
I have stopped purchasing any software that forces me to auto-update it, or to auto-update my operating system in order to use it.
I stopped using Windows at home, after over 20 years of use, mid way through Windows 2000, because my setting of "Do not download, update without my approval" setting was ignored by Microsoft and the update, download proceeded anyway. Sorry, that's my PC, I purchased it and the software...I decide when to introduce risk into my IT infrastructure.
Having been interrupted by an update, download gone wrong in the past, I plan when I want to do this to minimize my downtime and interruptions. This use to be a smart business decision that minimized risk. Somewhere midway through Win 2000, they went wrong.
I am already considering which Linux distros will reduce my interruptions as well. Just because there is an upgrade, does not mean that I have to have it. I decide when, period, end of discussion. Its my hardware, I bought it, I own it, I decide.
Updates are fine as long as the person who owns the computer decides when.
You are right on the money, how did you get a -1 rating? Are shills for the industry perpetuating the DMCA fraud on the American Public becoming meta-moderators and rigging this so that most people will not see posts like this one?
The DMCA notices are FRAUDulent 99% of the time. They must provide PROOF, which is what the poster above was stating. This is fact. They are counting on people running scared and pulling things off the Internet without questioning the validity of the DMCA take down notices.
You do have rights in America, you should never give up your rights without a fight. Force them to prove their notice or you supporting their illegal notices.
Please someone mod the parent up, way up, people need to see the truth about Fraudulent DMCA take down notices. Also mod up posts #
#30371846 ~ this person suggested modifying the illegal DMCA take down notice and sending the modified letter back. Should not have been meta moderated negative anything.
#30371902 ~ again modification of an illegal DMCA take-down notice and sending it back...why not, I sure as heck would not relinquish my rights and admit guilt when I was not guilty, seems like a good method of civil protest, given the illegal DMCA take-down notice. Take their BS and shovel it back to them!; this poster, not anonymous, sexconker, gives a valid explanation in this post, #30373008.
#30373356 should be +5, not -1 insightful! Please fix this.
#30372050 ~ This is first hand experience, not second hand, not hearsay, why on earth does what actually happened to this individual not rate +5. A -1 Interesting, are you kidding me? Someone is using the meta-moderating system to censor responses....how dare you!
#30373196 ~ this post and the one before it, this post was an answer about the anonymous posters earlier posts and a question by another person, seems like a smart answer and further proof we, Americans, need Net Neutrality to prevent excessive abuses! Should others find themselves in this unfortunate position, this is one method to use the system to get out of it. Especially when the system is being legislated and configured to censor and control you illegally.
Here is another great post, censored via meta-moderation, pathetic, please mod it back up as it is Insightful!
#30373176 ~ makes sense to me to make the DMCA fools prove wrong doing before pulling content. Especially when you know they can not prove it!
I do not blame the above poster for being anonymous, look at how they are being censored. I am reporting you. I hope others report you. Whoever meta-moderated should be prevented from further censoring of slashdot content.
My guess is they know a -1 rating is less likely to get read, thus effectively censored. Unfortunately for you, there are people like me that read at the -1 level for this very reason.
How dare you use meta moderation for censorship of first hand experiences!
The only reason I can see for this to happen with this persons posts, is that you are a shill for the companies attempting to push the DMCA FRAUDULENT take down notices on the unsuspecting public. These tactics will NOT work with an informed populace!
...Interestingly for some legal reason I did not really comprehend they can press such charges against you in any court in the country (that is how it works in Germany anyway) which has two benefits: it adds to your legal costs and ensures a judge that is likely to see things their way. But cavalry seems to be on its way at least in Germany they are discussing now to let us all pay a license fee for using a computer like device just to compensate for alleged theft so we are all 'saved'. To me it seems that not only the lawmakers in western world but the the whole lot of legal system is supporting a bunch of parasites.
Cavalry is the wrong imagery, the four horseman of the apocalypse would be a more correct image if this BS gets passed anywhere in the world.
This would be awful. I have internet, therefore I might be forced to pay a fee for pirated Microsoft applications, even though I never use Microsoft applications anymore! Yes I saw the light over two years ago and have been Microsoft free at home since that time. I still am forced to use Microsoft for business contracts, unfortunately, looking to change that one day! So if you are a MacIntosh and/or Linux software user you could be forced to support Microsoft against your wishes? And who decides at what level you support them? Its all bad if any laws like this ever pass. I choose not to purchase Microsoft products, specifically because I do not want to support their business model now or in the future, therefore the last thing I would want to do is support their software for any reason.
I hope it does not pass there, as I would not want it to pass here. Currently I can still vote with my $$$$ and not purchase their products. I hope this never changes fore any of us.
I can buy them without a cellular provider and use VoIP (Skype like over 20 Million others) + WiFi to talk where I spend over 80% of my life. Why on earth should you use cellular if WiFi is available. Even if you want cellular, here in the US every carrier, except Metro PCS, will nickel and dime you for every second, minute that you use. And I am not talking about the rounding up to the nearest minute that they do to all of us either.
An open source DD-WRT enabled hardware firewall/router (price depending on features from $15 - $100) at home and another one at work pretty much covers it. The DD-WRT software gives you secure tunnels, SSH, VPNs, IPTables and most importantly a way to see your actual bandwidth usage 24 X 7. If the cable company tries to rip you off marketing 16,000 Kbps down and 2,000 Kbps upstream; you can complain when they throttle you back to less than 400Kbps down and less than 40Kbps upstream.
If you are not using DD-WRT software on a residential router at home, you honestly do not know if you are being throttled back and/or restricted or not.
Nothing wrong with the Nokia N810, congrats for getting it on ebay for $140, that is an excellent price. About the only thing the Nokia N810 did NOT have that the Nokia N800 had was the FM Chip. So I would consider buying another N800, before I purchase the N810.
The Nokia N900 has the FM chip again, however the webcam does not reverse 180 degrees as the N800's does. Wish it did.
Also, the Nokia N800 has two Micro SD slots, one under the GPS module and one on the exterior.
You can get a 32GB Micro SD card and grow the file system by that amount (use the SSD slot under the GPS module and just make it permanent. And you can put a second 32GB Micro SD Card in the external slot for additional applications and data. Virtually unlimited disk space if you have two Micro SD slots.
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I'd like to see a document citing prior art for every claim of every patent in the H.264 pool's patent list [mpegla.com].
The burden of proof is not on me or anyone using open source anything... not on the High Definition Video (and audio) Codec(s) either. Granted High Definition normally is in reference to video not audio. Whether they be just a standard or open source software.
The burden of proof is on the MPEG-LA, of which Microsoft is a member, assuming they think they have a patent or copyright to fight with. As many people have pointed out until its proved in a court of law, its just FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), nothing new there.
They should not be allowed to make vague claims that they have submarine patents. I call BS! If they have a pool of patents as you say, let them stand up in a court of law and prove it.
The depth charges have been launched....boom........splash..... kerboom
The new open media project is called WebM. As expected, the VP8 codec is at the center of WebM. Google acquired the video technology earlier this year, and developers have been itching with anticipation for Google to release VP8 as open source code. Wednesday morning, they got their wish.
Another depth charge is launched....boom........splash..... kerboom
As of June 15, 2010, FFMpeg new release has decoders and encoders for VP8 (via Google's libvpx library)
Another depth charge is launched....boom........splash..... kerboom
x264 is a free software library and application for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format, and is is released under the terms of the GNU GPL. The code is written from scratch by Laurent Aimar, Loren Merritt, Eric Petit (OS X), Min Chen (vfw/asm), Justin Clay (vfw), Måns Rullgård, Radek Czyz, Christian Heine (asm), Alex Izvorski, Alex Wright and Jason Garrett-Glaser.
Its way past time for those assumed submarine patents to surface, if they even exist at all. I for one do not believe that they do.
And even if they do have some obscure BS patent they claim is valid, when its not...it DOES NOT MATTER at all....
X.264 was coded/programmed/written from scratch, from the ground up. It is not built on anything related to H.264 whether we believe its open or not.
Game over for the DRM folks with respects to high definition video codecs. And they know it...that is why they only talk and put nothing up. I say put up or shut up! The cowards, they know their house of cards proprietary high definition video codec wise is about to fall. History will show that Mozilla was the smart one here. Smart enough to not pay up to the maximum $5 million license for H.264. They are not stupid...smart like foxes! Apple foolishly is paying royalties....
As to x264:
Performance-wise, x264 can encode 4 or more 1080p streams in realtime on a single consumer-level computer.
x264 forms the core of many web video services, such as Youtube, Facebook, Vimeo, and Hulu. It is also used in television broadcast by companies such as Avail Media.
MPlayer is only one of many players that utilize Theora which utilizes ffmpeg. One of many....
I dare the submarine to rise into a court of law, stand up and be counted. You think they will go up against Google? Yea right.
As for Adobe, why in the heck would you wrap your content in a wrapper when thanks to HTML5 you do not need too! Why depend on anything flash from a company that you know in your heart of hearts will just end up crashing, eating excessive memory and opening up your system to various infec
H.264 is a standard, not software, so it doesn't have any source. And it isn't open because the specification has over-bearing license restrictions with legally dubious claims and demand high fees. That makes x.264 (in it's current form and distribution method) illegal, and the MPEGLA could shut it down whenever they like....
Your opinion and one I (and many others) do not share. There is prior art for the H.264 codec, It is open source. Thus x.264 is open as well.
Yes the MPEGLA will bully anyone they believe will NOT fight back. They understand that if one person with deep enough pockets fight backs and wins, its game over for their extortion based on fake patent/copyrights.
I can only hope they will sue the wrong people and lose the ability to bully anyone else.
Of course they will pick and chose their battles wisely to avoid a losing scenario.
I think as of yet, there's no video format that works on every browser natively. So plugins are needed. Might as well go for a universal plugin. I'm sure a cross-platform plugin would rule that kind of a niche, even if it sucked in oh so many ways. I wonder why such a thing doesn't already exist... oh wait.
A good point. I guess MPlayer is still a plug in. At least a plug-in is better then a toolbar or widget that does other things that violate a user's privacy.
Thankfully there are high definition video formats that are open and free and players like MPlayer that will play those codecs that already work in every browser + operating system combination. But you do need that plugin don't you.
Sadly we are not always offered a choice, even when the open data format is far superior to the proprietary codec. And never underestimate the DRM forces that want to control everything, if given a choice (they are and have for years already) they will always choose the proprietary format they mistakenly believe they can control and force on customers.
You have to choose not to play. Thankfully today, there is almost always multiple news sources that offer the same content in an open data format. As you learn which sources do this, simply use them instead of the others. It really is that simple.
I have never agreed with the people that attempted to argue, in my mind unsuccessfully, that the H.264 standard was not open source. I believe H.264 is open source and admit that a few companies have proprietary H.264 codecs. And of course there is always X.264, which even the proprietary tools can not take away and call close source.
It is simple to avoid all hardware related issues with all Linux distros today, especially those related to WiFi, Sound, Video, etc....
Follow this advice and NEVER have problems again, ever.
Purchase your hardware ONLY from Linux Vendors, my favorite is ZaReason. Another is System 76. I know there are many more.
I just updated to Ubuntu 10-10 last night on my Breeze Pro 4220 (starting at $399, still under $816 with quad core, 4GB RAM and 1GB HD) and it is working like a champ! I love getting 4 cores, 4GB RAM and a GB hard drive for under $816...love it!
If you want to run Windows (for games) I get that, purchase Windows 7 separately and install it, the method you choose will vary and is up to you...but at least you KNOW IT WILL WORK.
Linux has more device drivers than any other operating system in the world, ever. The only reason anyone has problems is always related to proprietary hardware/software/BIOS crap...all of which is easy to avoid, purchase from a Linux vendor ONLY.
Same with Android, buy only hardware where you have Linux root access, avoid all other proprietary chips/hardware.
Follow that advice and no more problems, ever.
It is that simple.
My next PC from ZaReason will also run CentOS, Damn Small Linux and Fedora in addition to the latest greatest Ubuntu. If I have learned anything from all the Microsoft Windows BS over the years, its never put all your eggs in one basket. Also, if you only have two choices, you have no choice.
I learned the hard way, you can too, see the message at the bottom, but first to your post...
If the new version of Skype is attempting to force you to provide additional information through Coarse location (your words) or Acting as an account authenticator then only purchase handsets that give you full Linux root access and you can install any version of Linux Skype. I suspect that the proprietary provider, whether Verizon, Cingular, ATT, TMobile, whoever (they are all equally bad based on customer no service alone) has added code to ruin your day, document who you are in order to sell your personal information to others (advertisers) and geo locate you through triangulation or some other method...none of which is honestly good for you (can you say stalker, I knew you could).
If the handset does not allow for root access so you can configure and install software of your choosing, do NOT purchase it.
This avoids all the hassles. And another hint, I can serve more clients with WiFi and DD-WRT running on a supported device then any 3G, 4G... or 10G network. Just wait until I can get Fiber to the home (FTTH) that is starting to be offered in a few areas in the USA. I can not wait to be out from under the bandwidth restricting, throttling cable companies (100% of them limit your bandwidth, you just do not know if you are not running one of these three softwares on a DD-WRT supported device!: DD-WRT, OpenWrt or Tomato. That too is a choice you made that limits your ability to log and see what is really going on.
Stop making poor choices, stop purchasing proprietary hardware that only hurts and limits you.
No Root Access ~ Not Smart!
Not Smart ~ Dumb device!
I would add No Linux ~ Not Smart, but that is my admitted bias based on poor experience with Microsoft since the day they started business. Yes I used IBM PC DOS before MS DOS...that that is another story.
Nokia Nxxx devices have Maemo Root Access
Note: Some versions of Android allow for Root Access, just not any of the versions put out by the cellular companies, do NOT purchase their handsets. Those same cellular companies choose proprietary hardware and chips on purpose to lock down the device, prevent you from configuring or installing software. To help them and hurt you...do not buy their crap proprietary hand sets.
Read and write contact data - I assume this means the Skype app stores contact data in the phone's address book, but it also gives it access to all my other contact data (local or google contacts).
I run Skype (for Linux of course) on my Asus Eee PC netbook, ZaReason Breeze Pro 4220 (starting at $399, still under $816 with quad core, 4GB RAM and 1GB HD) and Nokia N800 just fine. There is a Linux version of Skype that will run on all three of them. There is a version of Linux that will run on your hardware and if you purchase the right hardware, without additional configuration issues.
Hint: The right hardware is NEVER offered by big box stores, Microsoft, Microsoft partners, or Cellular providers....just a fact. You control th
Even crazier when you consider that there are well over 100 different browsers on the market...I was shocked to discover this, like most people I knew about Firefox, Netscape (no uses that any more right?), Opera, Safari, Konqueror, Gnuzilla, SeaMonkey, Iceweasel, Fennec, Maemo, Lynx...was not surprised when I went to the wikipedia page on browsers and started counting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers. I stopped at 90...well over 100...yet fools still use IE...amazingly crazy (Using the same browser and expecting a different result).
The writing is on the wall. The only thing Apple and Microsoft are trying to do is hijack multimedia on the web by forcing their standards (or standards that they have some control over) down our throats. Remember when most streaming was done in the Windows Media formats? How about having to install a crippleware version of Quicktime just to play a video from a friend?
I for one am glad that Adobe provides flash equally for Linux, even though some video drivers are shit and can't even play it properly. (hello netbooks!)
If you are in the business of making operating systems, you have no business having control of the way content is delivered over the web.
I do not support Adobe and never will. Their neglect of anything not Windows should earn them everyone's spurn and they should NEVER be supported again, EVER.
Can you say x.264, I knew you could. I could play both x.264 and h.264 high definition content on my Nokia N800 hand held three years ago, 2007.
The fact that Silverlight would NOT support either the first two years of its existence and only MS only later included h.264 in Silverlight when their play for controlling their new standard simply did not work bears out the truth of your assertion that they are attempting to control multimedia and the web. This is not Microsoft's first attempt at control, nor will it be the last...that we can all count on.
And Adobe has been so quick to stay in bed with Microsoft, its the only reason that they have not supported Linux from day one when a new version of Flash is released.
You and I both know that content put on the web that would run under Flash 7, Flash 8, Flash 9 does NOT require Flash 10 to play, thus forcing an automatic update to view it is insane and short sighted.
I for one can not wait to see the death of Flash, permanently and forever. If I have an alternative website that does not require Flash, I will go to it every time. It was bad enough that Flash slowed down my netbook with only 512MB, still inexcusable.
However when I bought a Linux ION Breeze PC from ZaReason with 4 core processors and 4 GB of RAM, never in my wildest dreams did I expect to still continue to have problems with Flash. You have got to be kidding me! And with a Nvidia ION GeForce 9400M GPU built in...and FLASH is still dragging me down...ARE YOU SERIOUS?
None of the 4 processors are maxed out continuously and I have plenty of free RAM memory, yet FLASH still negatively impacts me, amazingly bad. Thank goodness I am running Linux and can do two things, virtualize/sandbox my browser running Flash and utilize one of the many open source projects that will let me dictate which and how many of my processors run in each virtualized sandbox/instance of the operating system I am running. Sorry, but Windows would never get me all the way there...virtual windows, yes it can do that, but being able to control which processors do what and when, never.
Flash you need to go and it can NOT be soon enough.
Hey web content developers, there are open source high definition video and audio codecs that will give your customers a superior experience while not limiting them to any one operating system or any one player. They have existed for years...do us a favor and start wrapping your content into one of them, if not many of us will pass your content by...
The funny thing is superior content can be released using FREE (NO DRM) CODECs. These free and open source codecs are better than any of the proprietary codecs vendors (Microsoft, Adobe) are putting forward in vain attempts at controlling multimedia on the web.
Silly wabbits...
There are plenty of high definition open source codecs working on Vimeo. Better quality, less artifacts and better play rates for all operating systems.
Buy a hardware from Linux Vendors ONLY. You can always install Windows, Mac OSX, whatever, however if you lock your self into hardware that is planned to be obsolete, well you get what you pay for, not...you actually paid more, fools.
I remember when they use to say, no one ever got fired for buying IBM.
I also remember when they use to say, no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft.
The fact is, if the hardware will run Linux, it will run Windows and probably Mac OS/X (technically just another Linux/Unix distro). However the opposite can not be stated as fact.
If you buy a Windows Computer or a MacIntosh computer, there very will may be components (BIOS, Graphics Processing Unit, chips that control sound, ...) that will NOT run in Linux.
So now this is true for the Sony PS3 now...why is anyone surprised.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish...over and over and over and over again.
If your hardware runs Linux on day 1, it will run Linux 10 years from that day.
Be smart buy from either ZaReason or System 76. and ugh if you must, install Windows, at least down the road the hardware can be used for something constructive...say a DVD recorder on steroids, specialized firewall/router, home file server or a Home Controller or a game station.
Its ALWAYS smart to have options. Remember if you do NOT have at least THREE choices, you have no choice!
Why isn't some tycoon plugging it and putting a pipe in it?
Finally they are according to the news I heard on the radio today, for what that is worth. The reason they did not do this initially, is that they, BP, was capping it in for later use. The fact that this happened when they are were trying to put a cement cap in it, does not help the millions of Americans that depend on an un-polluted Gulf for their livelihoods.
I'd like to see two reforms (besides revoking personhood to corporations, and if what I've read is correct it wasn't even a Supreme Court ruling, but an error made by a law clerk):
Since that K5 article my 4th amendment rights were abused twice, once on the day we commemorate those who died defending those same rights that were abused!
Right after I posted I thought of this, Prevent any politician from working in a lobbyist capacity for at least 4 years after leaving office, preferably 8 years. By that time they would have other jobs.
Surely we are not voting for people who can not hold down a job are we?
I use to think some of the best professors I had in college were the ones who had worked in the field and could relate their work experience with the text book knowledge and tell you why one concept would not work versus another based on practical experience.
Now that I think about it, term limits plus the above, plus limits on campaign contributions from individuals (ONLY, no companies) might just do the trick.
Good luck getting any of it approved through a legislature that wants to protect their future chance of becoming a lobbyist.
After all look at health care, giving MORE money to the health care companies (forcing Americans to do business with those abusing them, who will be the first America, refusing to purchase coverage that gets arrested...not exactly debtor prisons, but not much different either.), doing nothing to stem abuses, correcting the system and preventing anything good coming from the new legislation for at least 4 years further down the road.
And you would want them to pass laws that would prevent them from taking 6 figure or 7 figure salaried jobs as lobbyists? It just is not going to happen.
Tell you what, if they allow the FairTax to come out of committee, where its been since 1996, for a floor vote in BOTH the House and the Senate (two different committee road blocks here) then I will tell you that your two proposals might have a chance.
We just need to elect more people to office that do not intend to make it a profession. Serving your country was never intended by our founding fathers to be a profession, thus encouraging abuses of the system, duh moment there.
Oh for the record, as much as I would like to see Pres Obama veto it all and insist on a public option, which would make him more politically and publicly favorable than ever, I doubt he will do that. Over 57% of Americans believe Health Care should be a basic right, I suggest to you that our current level of taxation should provide more then enough revenue to cover it also.
If they can not pass something that majority of Americans want, and want badly, what makes us believe they are going to pass financial campaign reform...wishing they would, but thinking they wont.
I still like your ideas especially #1 regardless, only concerned about the new laws being abused to control voters and voter turnout.
With #2 I see the same problems that we have with the two party system, having to register as one or the other in order to vote in the primaries, that needs to be done away with. As most Americans are neither Republicans (9%) nor Democrats (18%)
In fact advocating and advertising this political reality needs to be part of the process of removing lobbyist money from politic
If you "dump cellular all together" then why would you need a handset?
The best thing to do is to dump cellular all together. You save enough money each year that you can buy a new hand set every year if you want with your savings.
Simple, I have access to WiFi at home and at work, well over 80% of my calling area, however a cord attached to the router/computer really does not make sense all the time.
With a WiFi Bridge, you can extend your Wifi out to almost an acre of land, thus you have extended your calling area. That hand set will ring and that is the point isn't it?
My Nokia N800 has the GPS capability, costs extra and an extra monthly fee. The Nokia N800 never had cellular capability however like the Nokia N900. In fact cellular is the only addition to the N900 vs the N800. Yes, GPS without cellular....it is possible.
For me the reason to get rid of cellular was a customer-no-service reason as much as a value proposition. Had they not tried to put extra charges on my bill and wrongly attempt to extort me to pay them, I might still be stuck in the "hole in the ethers" (think boat analogy) mode. But they pissed me off and then I learned that they were racking me over the coals financially. My total cost of ownership (TCO) is only $5 per month / $60 per year. And there are 20 million Skype users every day. And Skype is not the cheapest VoIP solution available to me, just the one I like and have used extremely successfully for well over 3 years now...I love it! So I churned from cellular.
I still love having a handset. And my handset pays HD Video (H.264) via open source codecs (no Windows / Adobe required), allows me a full browser to read emails and use social media and more.
Even better, I can answer the phone on my computer or via the handset (I can choose to have them both to ring if I want, in fact I could have multiple handsets around the house all ring at the same time...) as the WiFi signal means I am NOT tethered thanks to my DD-WRT enabled firewall/router at all.
if what I've read is correct it wasn't even a Supreme Court ruling, but an error made by a law clerk)
If that is true, should be easy to get it overturned, but suspect that the judges voted corporations the person-hood rights, admittedly I need to look into the specifics. I just know that they did and our founders warned us against this as it would lead to a Fascist state/country. Our founding fathers were very aware of what a Facist state would mean. The same can be said for any veteran that fought in either WWI or WWII.
We need to get money out of politics and we need to get back to the way serving your country for a short period of time and returning to your profession/job having helped your community, your state, your country as it was envisioned by our founding fathers, at least most of them. There are always exceptions aren't there.
At least they would have incentives to create jobs if they knew they might need one.
I am just not sure about the methods. The current slate of laws are abused, as you pointed out, read that post too, wow. Not good at all!
The biggest abuse related directly to voting is having charges trumped up on an individual or group of individuals making them not eligible to vote. I would like to see voters rights restored to those wrongly accused and I am not interested in creating more laws that can be mis-used, no matter how well intended, by political parties to remove large segments of the population from voting and thus preventing reform while maintaining their corrupt power base.
Money out, absolutely, but not at the cost of voters and a person's rights.
While I see the good intent of what you would like, I also know you understand how the powers that be could miss use it to maintain control...
Its an interesting double edged sword, isn't it!
I don't see what that has to do with copyright at all.
The reason copyright terms have been extended so many times for so long is that large corporate media has exerted its large influence in Congress to get these laws passed. The interests of the general public are not represented by lobbyists, giving the corporations a monopoly on the attention of Congress. Limiting the size (and thereby the power) of these corporations would break part of that monopoly power.
-1 Insightful, really, Really REALLY?
The poster above him did not see what my comment had to do with Copyrights. This post explained it well enough for the average Joe to understand, thus I saw no reason to reply again until I saw the moderation.
While copyright can be assigned to a corporation, the materials mentioned in the slash dot post were assigned to people, not corporations, think of the time frame people.
Think about it. If Corporations have the same rights as people and those copyrights were granted/assigned to people, the abuse of extending copyrights for additional years (THE VERY point of the slashdot post to begin with) seems to be perpetuated by companies/corporations (specifically various media companies that also want to inflict DRM BS on us...that's another related topic to copyrights.) Here are two quotes from the slashdot article, so meta moderators see that this post and the last are on topic:
If the 1790 copyright maximum term of 28 years was still in effect, everything that had been published by 1981 would be now be in the public domain
and
...maximum term of 56 years (if renewed)...
Obviously corporate person-hood and laws giving corporations the same rights as people is very much a part of this problem, if not part of the heart of the problem.
Corporations have limited rights, per our Constitution and our Bill of Rights (which the above poster has made valid points how our rights have been eroded over the years...great link/article, and still on topic as well). The abuse of copyright laws by corporations is most definitely part of the problem and impacts all of us directly by denying us access to the materials, as the system intended, after the copyright period ran out.
Its like the companies have no interest in innovation and providing new entertainment, spending money on new work, helping new artists get discovered and bringing us all quality entertainment. Nope all they want to do is use their corporate lobbyist power to extend the copyright laws further out, denying our use of the material as originally intended after the first 28 year term ran out...
To the companies, I say innovate or die! And while you are at it, try to create some jobs and help recover the economy, wasting all that money to extend copyright laws to enrich yourself and hurt Americans. Shame on you, I most certainly call that un-American!
Someone please mode the posters up, this topic of person-hood most definitely applies to Copyright!
I argued several years ago that the bill of rights is dead
I will have to go back and read that one, can not right now, but I saved it for future reference, also noted that there some good comments associated with it.
I hope you are wrong, that the bill of rights is not complete dead and also hope that it can be revived along with education about the Constitution as I strongly believe that all the corporate abuses, including Copyright, can be stopped, prevented and reversed if companies are treated as companies and not people.
It goes beyond the fact that a person lives and dies, even that person can pass the copyright to his children/family/Heirs in a couple of legal forms. Thus the copyright is still being enforced by people directly related to the copyright holder. I am definitely for that, but only the length of the copyright as set originally, not how it has been abused and extended.
Its absurd that copyrights get extended again and again, beyond the legal limits originally intended.
If corporations have the same rights of a person, person-hood, they will enforce the copyrights theoretically forever, definitely not what was intended by Copyright law. And not what I would want to see either.
If companies get more person-hood rights it will only get worse, not better. I sincerely hope the Supreme Court Decision that granted some person-hood rights will be overturned, they have more financial incentive to wreck havoc on current system, including copyright laws.
Now person-hood for corporations extends into many other areas besides copyright, but that alone does not make it off topic with respects to copyright law, as it applies there as well.
I see treating people as people and companies as companies with a clear separation (same with religion for the sake of freedom to worship, but that is off topic) as a first necessary step to remove much of the money (ie corporate lobbyists, very few are not backed by corporations...) out of politics. With the amount of money corporations have and their financial incentive to extend the years material remains in a copyright status, well the system is ripe for abuse.
As to the person who mentioned that it would not be any different if one company gave millions to a politician vs a single multi-millionaire giving that politician/political party millions of dollars (without regards to the legality of how much a single person can give) is most certainly very different as they can not hide in the shadows behind the constructs of a corporation. I would suggest that there are some very rich individuals that are so polarizing because of their views that politicians would think twice about taking their money for fear of losing their office. Sure they are greedy and want the money, however they still have to get votes to get/maintain their office.
The ability of a company to gain any person-hood rights most definitely impacts Copyrights and Copyright laws in a negative manner.
How do you have an always on connection for your VOIP w/out 3G?
Or are you treating it like a land line tied to WAPs basically? i.e. if you're not within wifi range you're not contactable.
You are exactly right, I do not have an always on connection. If I am not connected, I can not make/receive calls. If anyone calls me the answering service takes the message. So I do not miss any calls.
Of course if there was city wide WiFi I would be golden. Regardless I still have over 80% coverage for my life. (Home and work)
With the DD-WRT (same with Tomato or OpenWRT I assume) I can create a WiFi bridge that covers all of my house and most of a good size yard. The last company I worked for allowed for a WiFi router serving my side of the building. So at work and at home I had 100% coverage for $5.00 per month.
The only place I do not have coverage is when I am in my car. I have started noticing that most of the places I go, shop, run errands have WiFi hotspots in/near them so if I wanted to connect I could, most of the time I do not bother.
There is something to be said for limiting interruptions when you are not working or on the clock!
It's pretty obvious really. The whole point of copyright was to enable the creator to benefit commercially from their artwork for a limited period so that they would have an income and be able to continue producing works that enrich/entertain society. As distribution has become quicker and quicker, the time needed for an artist to commercially exploit their work has decreased and therefore the time period for which copyright applies ought to be shorter, not longer, than in the past.
What has happened instead is that time periods have been extended, more and more money has been made, which has concentrated the means of distribution into fewer hands, with the net effect of decreasing the amount of art (music, literature etc.) that is widely available. This is now starting to change with digital distribution, although it's quite clear that DRM is not about preventing the pirating of works (because it doesn't stop commercial pirates) but is about maintaining a barrier to entry into the market.
Great post, simple to the point.
Another reason to DENY companies person-hood
What in the constitution allows a company to buy the rights from a person and continue them in force as if they are a person?
Everything we need to fix problems with corporations are in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. If we really are a nation of laws, its time to start enforcing them.
Even Presidents must NOT be above the law!
To not enforce laws ensures their continued abuse. I do not think that this is what our founding fathers had in mind!
I wouldn't have bothered with it, except the drivers were the ones hit with a critical security vulnerability [vuxml.org]. They were also deprecated and Nvidia had declared that only the newer drivers would be patched. My options were:
1. Live with a remote root vulnerability,
2. Upgrade my motherboard to something with PCIe, a new CPU, new RAM, and a new graphics card, or
3. Hope the Free drivers were at least minimally functional.
The "practical" choice of using closed drivers would have cost me a few hundred dollars. I'm glad the impractical alternative existed.
Be wary of so called security and root exploits used as ploys to force you to upgrade. Even worse if it entrenches you further into their proprietary FUD world where you will be forced to upgrade forever and at a fee of course.
Check the security certs, almost all of these so call root exploits require the cracker to get access to your root account or they simply can NOT perform the exploit.
You have to read the fine print.
If you do not have a secure root / admin password, its game over for you anyway.
Another phrase to look for is that the exploit requires "local" access to your computer. I doubt you are going to give your keys to a cracker to get physical access to your machine. Also this is a very righteous reason to get pissed at the cable company when they throttle your access to perpetuate the bandwidth scarcity myth. When/if you try to troubleshooting your connection problems, they are first going to tell you to bypass all your security (software and hardware) to make sure those pieces are not part of the problem.
They throttle you in order to charge you $10 more per month next year.
Do you have the operating system CD to restore your PC if it gets cracked? Probably not any more. Especially if you bought your computer from a big box store.
Read, learn and remove the FEAR, Uncertainty and DOUBT from their FUD. It will save you time and money!
ah but they doubled their termination fee. now it is cheaper to get a divorce than to pay verizon to get out of the contract.
Of course if you were smart enough to buy your phone outright at retail, you do not have a contract and can leave when you want...
A company in New York, Mobile City Online will sell you the latest greatest phones. Full retail, no discounts. However you will not have a contract. Based on your comment that they are doubling their termination fee, it could be cheaper to save up your money and buy your phone out right.
You have to buy the model meant for your carrier's cellular system. So a little research is in order.
The best thing to do is to dump cellular all together. You save enough money each year that you can buy a new hand set every year if you want with your savings.
The carriers are counting on you being unwilling to leave cellular, guess thats why they can double their termination fee, add $5,000 or $20,000 to your bill and you will put up with it.
The choice must always be yours.
I hope you get mod-ed way up! I could not agree more. With the "Fear" for me has become a lack of TRUST of all American cellular providers.
I've owned four cell phones in my life. My first, a Qualcomm brick was very cool - it was a phone. I torched it and got a Motorola StarTac and it was very cool
I too had a phone, a brick, before my Motorola StarTAc, love Motorola products. Just can not stand the carriers at all. I had over seven years with the first provider before they tried to stick charges on my bill, well over $500 of charges I did not make. I was surprised when they simply did not remove the charges. I had gone back through my bills, had never called any of the numbers. I offered to come to their office, let them call the numbers and find who was at the number in order to prove I did not know them. (I was not going to be stupid and call them myself and have the carrier use that discovery call against me, in order to get them to remove them from my bill.)
My seven year positive track record mattered NOT. They said pay up or else. I made the normal monthly and told them I expected them to remove the other charges. They refused, turned off my service and sent me to collections. Customer-No-Service and I was paying between $150 - $200 per month for service, so I was not just a basic customer. They simply did not care.
What chance do you have if you are only a basic customer paying $50 per month to your provider for service? Yea, your screwed!
I had switched providers before they cut me off. You have that ability when you are month to month without a contract/plan. If the carrier screws you over you can churn. I did. There is a company in New York, Mobile City, that will sell to you, at retail prices of course, a hand set that will work on your preferred carrier/provider's network. If you walk into a provider, they can enable that hand set to work on their network and you will have no contract! Month to month baby, worth it to be free to CHURN if they mess with you!
Everything was okay with the second provider for the first three years; until I purchased unlimited text messaging. I had to pay an additional premium amount above and beyond my monthly plan in order to prevent surprise charges. I think it cost me an extra $40 per month above and beyond my over $100 per month cellular service. So once again the carrier was going to have me in their preferred monthly payment range of $150 per month. You think they would be happy with that and be more willing to work with you to resolve problems, NOT.
They provisioned the text messaging part of my plan incorrectly, so my text messages were eating into my voice minutes and when I needed voice minutes I was paying per minute charges above and beyond my normal per minute plan, which I was now exceeding thanks to the mistake in provisioning of the text messaging, geez. The end result was an inflated bill of around $800, not around $150 as I expected. Even more bizarre is that the first time in 3 years the itemized bill (that I paid extra each month for because of that first negative experience three years earlier) was missing. I received a total bill ONLY. When I called my carrier, they first tried to tell me that I had not paid for itemized billing. That was a lie. I told the rep to look again, at that point they said an itemized bill would be sent to me. I never got it from them. Three times different reps said they would send it to me and everything would be taken care of. I never received an itemized bill via official channels. A friend of mine working at the company was able to get me an itemized bill. They actually had the nerve to deny me an itemized bill, even though I had been paying an extra charge per month, for it, for over 3 years. Instead of taking care of me, their customer, they attempted to extort me into paying the full bill. (I do not know about you, but I simply wi
Excellent post, I too agree that when someone comes along to provide a viable mainstream alternative that US public will embrace it. I have found mine, but it is decide-ly not for everyone. I 86ed my cellular provider over 4 years ago, went to VoIP + WiFi and never looked back. I was linked from PC to a headset for years until the Nokia N800 came out. Bit the bullet and bought one when they were expensive just like the N900 is today. Since I no longer had the cellular monthly charges, I recouped my costs within a few months. The device rocks. Sound is crystal, H.264 Video high def capability and more. GPS, WebCam, Two Micro USB slots (I have two 4 GB cards in mine and occasionally see 16 GB and 32 GB micro SSD cards available for under $18 per.
The only thing I do not have is cellular. After two attempts to rip me off for over $500 the first time and over $800 the second time in about 13 - 14 years of service, I simply do NOT TRUST any of the cellular companies. When you search on RipOffReports.com for any of them, you will see why, not just hundreds of complaints, but thousands. Obviously the cellular companies do not believe you will do as I did and churn away from them. Because of this, they can provide you with more customer-no-service then you can stand and you will not do anything about it! Oh, wait, you might switch to one of the other carriers. And a few years later you will probably switch back to them...THIS IS WHAT THEY THINK and believe to be true.
Thus they can deny you service, they can deny you upgraded software, they can deny you an open device that prevents you from using the software you need and want. They can lock up Android, prevent you from jail-breaking it and what are you going to do?
Are you willing to give up cellular?
Obviously not, they know this about you, thus they do not fear pissing you off at every turn. Because they know you do not have the Kohonas to churn, not just from them, but away from cellular all together.
That's okay, I have your back, I churned, but I did it for me. Others will follow, but will enough? Probably not.
They got your Kohanas in a vice grip and they know it, suckers.
You only have to do one thing to break free. Make one decision and you are free and will save a hell of allot of money. Enough money to afford not either a new smart hand set each year or a new net book computer each and every year!
What's that one decision you must make? Glad you asked.... You must decide, as in olden days gone by, that if someone calls you when you can NOT be connected to the Internet, they must leave you a message. That's it. That is the only decision you must make.
Decide that if you can not be connected to the Internet, someone will have to leave you a message. It is that simple.
If you can stomach that, you can get rid of cellular forever. You really do not give up that much anymore. A DD-WRT enabled firewall/router at work and at home will give you Internet access for a smart WiFi enabled smart phone for well over 80% of your life. You use your existing Internet provider at home and you use the company Internet provider at work. So there should be no additional charge for service. All you need is the smart hand held device. The Android will work. The Nokia N770, N800, N810, N900 will also work. With the Nokia N900 you would have cellular capability if you wanted it.
For emergencies, purchase a prepaid handset, 7-Eleven had them for under $100, I am sure others do as well. Never give out that number, only use it in emergencies and you simply recharge it once per year, $10 will do it. Remember its only used in Emergencies, keep it turned off otherwise and no one can call you and cause charges you do not want.
A bit extreme, perhaps, but I have been doing this, and laughing all the way to the bank, for over 4 years now. My service is better than the old AT&T land line service. Even it went down once in a blue moon.
Thank you for your opinion, I may or may not agree with it, but hopefully the idiot who modded every post in this subthread he did not agree with as "troll" (what a sad person) is overruled.
I have noticed this on other threads, valid point being meta - moderated down for no apparent or obvious reason.
In multiple cases posters (both anonymous and registered users) with actual first hand experiences have been mod-ed down to either -1 or 0.
The only two reasons I can think of are:
Another point, the current meta-moderation system shows you ONLY the post, out of context of the article or the posts above it, therefore, the current system encourages a single post to be taken out of context. When I meta-moderate I often do not moderate a post if I can not discern what it is about...could be on topic, could be off topic, there is simply no way to tell by ONLY looking at it.
A good reason for you to copy/paste the section of the previous poster's comments when replying else your post will be out of context when it stands alone.
As for the topic at hand: I develop software, I expect updates, that does not bother me. What I detest and believe should be avoided (and I am in the minority currently) is automatic updating, refreshing, downloading. I believe nothing should be downloaded on a customers product without their approval, period. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to this rule.
I have stopped purchasing any software that forces me to auto-update it, or to auto-update my operating system in order to use it.
I stopped using Windows at home, after over 20 years of use, mid way through Windows 2000, because my setting of "Do not download, update without my approval" setting was ignored by Microsoft and the update, download proceeded anyway. Sorry, that's my PC, I purchased it and the software...I decide when to introduce risk into my IT infrastructure.
Having been interrupted by an update, download gone wrong in the past, I plan when I want to do this to minimize my downtime and interruptions. This use to be a smart business decision that minimized risk. Somewhere midway through Win 2000, they went wrong.
I am already considering which Linux distros will reduce my interruptions as well. Just because there is an upgrade, does not mean that I have to have it. I decide when, period, end of discussion. Its my hardware, I bought it, I own it, I decide.
Updates are fine as long as the person who owns the computer decides when.
You are right on the money, how did you get a -1 rating? Are shills for the industry perpetuating the DMCA fraud on the American Public becoming meta-moderators and rigging this so that most people will not see posts like this one?
The DMCA notices are FRAUDulent 99% of the time. They must provide PROOF, which is what the poster above was stating. This is fact. They are counting on people running scared and pulling things off the Internet without questioning the validity of the DMCA take down notices.
You do have rights in America, you should never give up your rights without a fight. Force them to prove their notice or you supporting their illegal notices.
Please someone mod the parent up, way up, people need to see the truth about Fraudulent DMCA take down notices. Also mod up posts #
#30371846 ~ this person suggested modifying the illegal DMCA take down notice and sending the modified letter back. Should not have been meta moderated negative anything.
#30371902 ~ again modification of an illegal DMCA take-down notice and sending it back...why not, I sure as heck would not relinquish my rights and admit guilt when I was not guilty, seems like a good method of civil protest, given the illegal DMCA take-down notice. Take their BS and shovel it back to them!; this poster, not anonymous, sexconker, gives a valid explanation in this post, #30373008.
#30373356 should be +5, not -1 insightful! Please fix this.
#30372050 ~ This is first hand experience, not second hand, not hearsay, why on earth does what actually happened to this individual not rate +5. A -1 Interesting, are you kidding me? Someone is using the meta-moderating system to censor responses....how dare you!
#30373196 ~ this post and the one before it, this post was an answer about the anonymous posters earlier posts and a question by another person, seems like a smart answer and further proof we, Americans, need Net Neutrality to prevent excessive abuses! Should others find themselves in this unfortunate position, this is one method to use the system to get out of it. Especially when the system is being legislated and configured to censor and control you illegally.
Here is another great post, censored via meta-moderation, pathetic, please mod it back up as it is Insightful!
#30373176 ~ makes sense to me to make the DMCA fools prove wrong doing before pulling content. Especially when you know they can not prove it!
I do not blame the above poster for being anonymous, look at how they are being censored. I am reporting you. I hope others report you. Whoever meta-moderated should be prevented from further censoring of slashdot content.
My guess is they know a -1 rating is less likely to get read, thus effectively censored. Unfortunately for you, there are people like me that read at the -1 level for this very reason.
How dare you use meta moderation for censorship of first hand experiences!
The only reason I can see for this to happen with this persons posts, is that you are a shill for the companies attempting to push the DMCA FRAUDULENT take down notices on the unsuspecting public. These tactics will NOT work with an informed populace!
...Interestingly for some legal reason I did not really comprehend they can press such charges against you in any court in the country (that is how it works in Germany anyway) which has two benefits: it adds to your legal costs and ensures a judge that is likely to see things their way. But cavalry seems to be on its way at least in Germany they are discussing now to let us all pay a license fee for using a computer like device just to compensate for alleged theft so we are all 'saved'. To me it seems that not only the lawmakers in western world but the the whole lot of legal system is supporting a bunch of parasites.
Cavalry is the wrong imagery, the four horseman of the apocalypse would be a more correct image if this BS gets passed anywhere in the world.
This would be awful. I have internet, therefore I might be forced to pay a fee for pirated Microsoft applications, even though I never use Microsoft applications anymore! Yes I saw the light over two years ago and have been Microsoft free at home since that time. I still am forced to use Microsoft for business contracts, unfortunately, looking to change that one day! So if you are a MacIntosh and/or Linux software user you could be forced to support Microsoft against your wishes? And who decides at what level you support them? Its all bad if any laws like this ever pass. I choose not to purchase Microsoft products, specifically because I do not want to support their business model now or in the future, therefore the last thing I would want to do is support their software for any reason.
I hope it does not pass there, as I would not want it to pass here. Currently I can still vote with my $$$$ and not purchase their products. I hope this never changes fore any of us.
I can buy them without a cellular provider and use VoIP (Skype like over 20 Million others) + WiFi to talk where I spend over 80% of my life. Why on earth should you use cellular if WiFi is available. Even if you want cellular, here in the US every carrier, except Metro PCS, will nickel and dime you for every second, minute that you use. And I am not talking about the rounding up to the nearest minute that they do to all of us either.
An open source DD-WRT enabled hardware firewall/router (price depending on features from $15 - $100) at home and another one at work pretty much covers it. The DD-WRT software gives you secure tunnels, SSH, VPNs, IPTables and most importantly a way to see your actual bandwidth usage 24 X 7. If the cable company tries to rip you off marketing 16,000 Kbps down and 2,000 Kbps upstream; you can complain when they throttle you back to less than 400Kbps down and less than 40Kbps upstream.
ONLY purchase a DD-WRT supported router, do not waste your hard earned money.
If you are not using DD-WRT software on a residential router at home, you honestly do not know if you are being throttled back and/or restricted or not.
Nothing wrong with the Nokia N810, congrats for getting it on ebay for $140, that is an excellent price. About the only thing the Nokia N810 did NOT have that the Nokia N800 had was the FM Chip. So I would consider buying another N800, before I purchase the N810.
The Nokia N900 has the FM chip again, however the webcam does not reverse 180 degrees as the N800's does. Wish it did.
Also, the Nokia N800 has two Micro SD slots, one under the GPS module and one on the exterior.
You can get a 32GB Micro SD card and grow the file system by that amount (use the SSD slot under the GPS module and just make it permanent. And you can put a second 32GB Micro SD Card in the external slot for additional applications and data. Virtually unlimited disk space if you have two Micro SD slots.