I imagine that MySpace's web servers have "literally exploded" on at least several occasions. That's the only plausible explanation for all the complaints I hear about the site's excessive amount of downtime.
Have you ever started an indie band? How about an indie software company? I think that perhaps you really don't know what you're talking about, either way.
Anybody who can play and has access to recording equipment can get an MP3 onto the net.
Anyone who can write a few thousand lines of code and has a computer can get a game onto the net, just the same as an indie band. You qualify the latter half of your statement with "a game... that anybody wants to play" without also qualifying the former with "music that anybody wants to hear."
Either of these undertakings require an incredible amount of skill, and an incredible amount of time and dedication to produce a quality result - one that people want.
I think it's an indicator of the sorry state of Comcast cable internet service.
Unfortunately, Comcast is far and away the best value consumer grade internet service 'round these parts. DSL is relatively unreliable (imagine that), and slower for the same price. Satelite has far too much latency and very limited bandwidth. Then there's a local microwave wireless service, but that requires a significant investment in equipment, and is still far less bandwidth for the money. The only other options are a business class connection such as a T1, which is far outside the price range for a household internet line.
The biggest problem I ever had with connectivity and reliability on Comcast is that the power connector of the cable modem they provided me originally eventually became loose, and would power off the modem if you jostled it. They replaced it without comment once I actually took the time to complain. You just don't really hear from the 95% of people who are totally satisfied with their Comcast service, because they don't feel the need to complain on Slashdot about their mediocre service for a mediocre price.
No, I think the sad state is broadband in the U.S. in general, certainly not just Comcast. Other countries that are much smaller geographically can pull off high speed internet to the vast majority of their population for much cheaper with significantly less required infrastructure. It makes the U.S. look bad. Aren't we supposed to be number one?:P
My cable modem bandwidth has more than tripled in the past two years and I expect it to continue.
That's funny, because my Comcast cable internet service currently is still slower than the service I had through its ancestor @Home 7 or 8 years ago. And I pay extra for the faster package. Go figure.
If this isn't an indicator of the sorry state broadband here in the U.S., I'm not sure what is.
For those of you who failed miserably at catching the satire in this, let me explain it.
I strongly disagree with the precedent this decision will set. As a strong believer in personal privacy, and an avid internet user, the thought that my personal information would be freely available to any person connected to the internet is scary.
I make the false assumption that by being on the internet, my information is available to everyone.
Leaving information such as my name, address, and telephone number open to the general public (and not just my fellow Americans, either) puts me at great risk of becoming a victim of identity theft, internet scams, computer hackers, and even terrorism.
First, this is information which is generally available freely in a phone book, in online directories, and any number of other places. Should I choose to remain unlisted, I can pay a small fee or buy a mobile phone. Should I choose to remain unlisted in the.us registry, I can buy a different domain name which doesn't have such draconian terms imposed upon it, or write an angry letter to my congressman (which I certainly have done, though it's not quite as it appears here;). Secondly, it's quite typical of today's sensationalist media to make references to terrorism where it's pretty much irrelevant.
Please reconsider this decision, for my sake, and yours. It is in everyone's best interests to allow those who want to keep their information private to do so.
This part is true.
I firmly believe in the tenets on which this country was founded: truth, justice, and the American way.
Did nobody catch the reference to Superman?
This decision is anathema to these core American beliefs, and goes against the teachings of the Holy Father. He would certainly not like to see His children harmed through inaction by the representatives of His children.
Typical appeal to patriotism, and religious scare tactics.
AND THE HOLY FIRES OF HEAVEN WILL RAIN DOWN UPON THEE, O CONGRESSMAN!
AND IF THE SUPERMAN REFERENCE DIDN'T TIP YOU OFF, PERHAPS THIS ABOVE SENTENCE SHOULD HAVE!
I strongly disagree with the precedent this decision will set. As a strong believer in personal privacy, and an avid internet user, the thought that my personal information would be freely available to any person connected to the internet is scary. Leaving information such as my name, address, and telephone number open to the general public (and not just my fellow Americans, either) puts me at great risk of becoming a victim of identity theft, internet scams, computer hackers, and even terrorism. Please reconsider this decision, for my sake, and yours. It is in everyone's best interests to allow those who want to keep their information private to do so.
I firmly believe in the tenets on which this country was founded: truth, justice, and the American way. This decision is anathema to these core American beliefs, and goes against the teachings of the Holy Father. He would certainly not like to see His children harmed through inaction by the representatives of His children.
AND THE HOLY FIRES OF HEAVEN WILL RAIN DOWN UPON THEE, O CONGRESSMAN!
Piracy might become easier, but it'll also be much easier to crack down on it. I don't believe for a minute that there won't be some sort of watermarking to uniquely identify each copy of the movie that's distributed to individual theatres. The content providers wouldn't allow digital distribution without something protecting them. It's almost certain some sort of watermarking will be used to enable tracking down "pirates".
asked of a best buy employee, "why should i pay $20 extra for gold plating on this usb cable?" replied the best buy drone, "It prevents printer backfires."
Cut straight from the EULA in the Trepia application:
ANY INFORMATION OR MATERIAL SUBMITTED OR SENT TO TREPIA, INC., WILL BE DEEMED NOT TO BE CONFIDENTIAL OR SECRET. By submitting or entering information into the Trepia Application or the Trepia Website, or into the Trepia Service you (1) warrant that you have no rights of any kind to the Material; that to the best of your knowledge no other party has any rights to the Material; (2) grant Trepia, Inc. an unrestricted, perpetual, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, display, perform, adapt, modify, transmit and distribute the Material in all media, and you further agree that Trepia, Inc. is free to use any ideas, know-how, concepts, techniques or other materials you send us for any purpose.
Several providers used to have a 'first incoming minute free', but it was far too widely abused... Paying for only outgoing calls would be quite a stupid thing to do for a wireless provider, as what people would do, is call person X, say "Hey person X, call me back." then hang up. Person X calls you back, and you've only used a single minute of your price plan. Really not the greatest business decision, as far as revenue is concerned, anyway.
This is not a descrambler at all, that's handled entirely by the cable box. The only thing this particular device achieves is to prevent the PPV order from being transmitted back to the cable provider. The digital cable box, or "DCT" will let you order as many movies as you want, up to a credit limit set by the cable provider. For AT&T Broadband in the greater Chicago area anyway, it usually defaults to $100 or $150. As far as the DCT is concerned, you're watching the movie, and being billed for it. Once the DCT fails to respond for a certain time period, usually a couple weeks, it'll be shut down, and prompt you, the subscriber, to call in. You're then forced to have a technician come out and check out the DCT to find out what's going on before you're allowed to have the service restored, unless the problem can be determined by a bit of quick troubleshooting on the phone.
All in all, this little filter does the same thing as leaving the phone cord unplugged on older networks where the cable network wasn't two-way. I have no sympathy whatsoever for anyone who thought they would get away with it. There would be no use in trying to convince the tech that the DCT is broken either. They have diagnostic tools and whatnot. Even if you were to convince a technician that the DCT is broken, and they swapped it for a new one, guess what? You're still billed for those PPV movies that are remaining in the DCT. They clean those out once the DCT is returned and put them on your bill, sometimes as much as 6 months later;)
(disclaimer: i worked for at&t broadband chicago until about 2 months ago)
it's sold at all 3 albertson's in town here, also at a couple smaller local stores... it's generally given to me in a paper bag. as far as where it's made, i doubt at the store, it comes in 5lb bricks, although they will sell smaller broken chunks...
from their site: "AutoZen is a software 'brain machine' for Linux. It generates sounds that are meant to cause the brain to temporarily shift to a different dominant frequency and cause the user to experience an altered state of consciousness. It is similar to the devices seen in the 'Sharper Image' catalog and in magazine ads, but the price is a lot more attractive!"
Transcoding, as it as been so named, is inherently a Bad Thing(TM). Going from one lossy format to another only further degrades the quality of the file.
Take for example making a photocopy of a passage from a book. You then take this photocopy and fax it to me. The quality degradation is that same that will happen when you transcode from MP3 to Ogg. So if you have MP3s currently, either leave them as MP3, or re-rip them directly from the CD(You did pay for these songs, right?;)
disclaimer: i work for at&t cable tv and do billing and tech support for a major metropolitan area which shall not be mentioned...
AT&T does not _require_ your SSN at all. We can't legally do that. We are to request it and bug you every time you call until we get it, so it can be used for collections if you don't pay your bill, but we all tell you that it's used for 'security' purposes. I.e., we ask for the last 4 digits when a customer calls so we can verify somewhat that they are in fact the account holder, and it's not your 14 year old son calling to order a porno.
Slashdot Mirror
I imagine that MySpace's web servers have "literally exploded" on at least several occasions. That's the only plausible explanation for all the complaints I hear about the site's excessive amount of downtime.
Have you ever started an indie band? How about an indie software company? I think that perhaps you really don't know what you're talking about, either way.
Anybody who can play and has access to recording equipment can get an MP3 onto the net.
Anyone who can write a few thousand lines of code and has a computer can get a game onto the net, just the same as an indie band. You qualify the latter half of your statement with "a game ... that anybody wants to play" without also qualifying the former with "music that anybody wants to hear."
Either of these undertakings require an incredible amount of skill, and an incredible amount of time and dedication to produce a quality result - one that people want.
I think it's an indicator of the sorry state of Comcast cable internet service.
Unfortunately, Comcast is far and away the best value consumer grade internet service 'round these parts. DSL is relatively unreliable (imagine that), and slower for the same price. Satelite has far too much latency and very limited bandwidth. Then there's a local microwave wireless service, but that requires a significant investment in equipment, and is still far less bandwidth for the money. The only other options are a business class connection such as a T1, which is far outside the price range for a household internet line.
The biggest problem I ever had with connectivity and reliability on Comcast is that the power connector of the cable modem they provided me originally eventually became loose, and would power off the modem if you jostled it. They replaced it without comment once I actually took the time to complain. You just don't really hear from the 95% of people who are totally satisfied with their Comcast service, because they don't feel the need to complain on Slashdot about their mediocre service for a mediocre price.
No, I think the sad state is broadband in the U.S. in general, certainly not just Comcast. Other countries that are much smaller geographically can pull off high speed internet to the vast majority of their population for much cheaper with significantly less required infrastructure. It makes the U.S. look bad. Aren't we supposed to be number one? :P
My cable modem bandwidth has more than tripled in the past two years and I expect it to continue.
That's funny, because my Comcast cable internet service currently is still slower than the service I had through its ancestor @Home 7 or 8 years ago. And I pay extra for the faster package. Go figure.
If this isn't an indicator of the sorry state broadband here in the U.S., I'm not sure what is.
For those of you who failed miserably at catching the satire in this, let me explain it.
I strongly disagree with the precedent this decision will set. As a strong believer in personal privacy, and an avid internet user, the thought that my personal information would be freely available to any person connected to the internet is scary.
I make the false assumption that by being on the internet, my information is available to everyone.
Leaving information such as my name, address, and telephone number open to the general public (and not just my fellow Americans, either) puts me at great risk of becoming a victim of identity theft, internet scams, computer hackers, and even terrorism.
First, this is information which is generally available freely in a phone book, in online directories, and any number of other places. Should I choose to remain unlisted, I can pay a small fee or buy a mobile phone. Should I choose to remain unlisted in the .us registry, I can buy a different domain name which doesn't have such draconian terms imposed upon it, or write an angry letter to my congressman (which I certainly have done, though it's not quite as it appears here ;). Secondly, it's quite typical of today's sensationalist media to make references to terrorism where it's pretty much irrelevant.
Please reconsider this decision, for my sake, and yours. It is in everyone's best interests to allow those who want to keep their information private to do so.
This part is true.
I firmly believe in the tenets on which this country was founded: truth, justice, and the American way.
Did nobody catch the reference to Superman?
This decision is anathema to these core American beliefs, and goes against the teachings of the Holy Father. He would certainly not like to see His children harmed through inaction by the representatives of His children.
Typical appeal to patriotism, and religious scare tactics.
AND THE HOLY FIRES OF HEAVEN WILL RAIN DOWN UPON THEE, O CONGRESSMAN!
AND IF THE SUPERMAN REFERENCE DIDN'T TIP YOU OFF, PERHAPS THIS ABOVE SENTENCE SHOULD HAVE!I strongly disagree with the precedent this decision will set. As a strong believer in personal privacy, and an avid internet user, the thought that my personal information would be freely available to any person connected to the internet is scary. Leaving information such as my name, address, and telephone number open to the general public (and not just my fellow Americans, either) puts me at great risk of becoming a victim of identity theft, internet scams, computer hackers, and even terrorism. Please reconsider this decision, for my sake, and yours. It is in everyone's best interests to allow those who want to keep their information private to do so.
I firmly believe in the tenets on which this country was founded: truth, justice, and the American way. This decision is anathema to these core American beliefs, and goes against the teachings of the Holy Father. He would certainly not like to see His children harmed through inaction by the representatives of His children.
AND THE HOLY FIRES OF HEAVEN WILL RAIN DOWN UPON THEE, O CONGRESSMAN!
Piracy might become easier, but it'll also be much easier to crack down on it. I don't believe for a minute that there won't be some sort of watermarking to uniquely identify each copy of the movie that's distributed to individual theatres. The content providers wouldn't allow digital distribution without something protecting them. It's almost certain some sort of watermarking will be used to enable tracking down "pirates".
asked of a best buy employee, "why should i pay $20 extra for gold plating on this usb cable?"
replied the best buy drone, "It prevents printer backfires."
ANY INFORMATION OR MATERIAL SUBMITTED OR SENT TO TREPIA, INC., WILL BE DEEMED NOT TO BE CONFIDENTIAL OR SECRET. By submitting or entering information into the Trepia Application or the Trepia Website, or into the Trepia Service you (1) warrant that you have no rights of any kind to the Material; that to the best of your knowledge no other party has any rights to the Material; (2) grant Trepia, Inc. an unrestricted, perpetual, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, display, perform, adapt, modify, transmit and distribute the Material in all media, and you further agree that Trepia, Inc. is free to use any ideas, know-how, concepts, techniques or other materials you send us for any purpose.
[Connected] There are 41 people in your area.
Male: 40
Female: 1
Something's wrong here.
Several providers used to have a 'first incoming minute free', but it was far too widely abused... Paying for only outgoing calls would be quite a stupid thing to do for a wireless provider, as what people would do, is call person X, say "Hey person X, call me back." then hang up. Person X calls you back, and you've only used a single minute of your price plan. Really not the greatest business decision, as far as revenue is concerned, anyway.
Yes but what if you tried to 'convince' the DCT that it is broken?
;)
You'd be billed for it of course, unless you're good enough you can make it look like it convinced itself
This is not a descrambler at all, that's handled entirely by the cable box. The only thing this particular device achieves is to prevent the PPV order from being transmitted back to the cable provider. The digital cable box, or "DCT" will let you order as many movies as you want, up to a credit limit set by the cable provider. For AT&T Broadband in the greater Chicago area anyway, it usually defaults to $100 or $150. As far as the DCT is concerned, you're watching the movie, and being billed for it. Once the DCT fails to respond for a certain time period, usually a couple weeks, it'll be shut down, and prompt you, the subscriber, to call in. You're then forced to have a technician come out and check out the DCT to find out what's going on before you're allowed to have the service restored, unless the problem can be determined by a bit of quick troubleshooting on the phone.
;)
All in all, this little filter does the same thing as leaving the phone cord unplugged on older networks where the cable network wasn't two-way. I have no sympathy whatsoever for anyone who thought they would get away with it. There would be no use in trying to convince the tech that the DCT is broken either. They have diagnostic tools and whatnot. Even if you were to convince a technician that the DCT is broken, and they swapped it for a new one, guess what? You're still billed for those PPV movies that are remaining in the DCT. They clean those out once the DCT is returned and put them on your bill, sometimes as much as 6 months later
(disclaimer: i worked for at&t broadband chicago until about 2 months ago)
i once received the following at work in the proprietary software used for cable tv tech support/etc....
"You need help. Please call 1-800-xxx-xxxx for assistance."
it's sold at all 3 albertson's in town here, also at a couple smaller local stores... it's generally given to me in a paper bag. as far as where it's made, i doubt at the store, it comes in 5lb bricks, although they will sell smaller broken chunks...
The problem is that dry ice is (a) expensive and (b) not always that easy to get.
He obviously hasn't heard of the wonder which I like to call a "grocery store." It's sold at most supermarkets for $0.99/lb. around here...
hah. i have linux 7.3. these people are behind the times!
take a look at this software project AutoZen.
from their site: "AutoZen is a software 'brain machine' for Linux. It generates sounds that are meant to cause the brain to temporarily shift to a different dominant frequency and cause the user to experience an altered state of consciousness. It is similar to the devices seen in the 'Sharper Image' catalog and in magazine ads, but the price is a lot more attractive!"
Transcoding, as it as been so named, is inherently a Bad Thing(TM). Going from one lossy format to another only further degrades the quality of the file.
;)
Take for example making a photocopy of a passage from a book. You then take this photocopy and fax it to me. The quality degradation is that same that will happen when you transcode from MP3 to Ogg.
So if you have MP3s currently, either leave them as MP3, or re-rip them directly from the CD(You did pay for these songs, right?
the ogg/vorbis irc channel has moved away from OPN/freenode to their own private server as well. irc.xiph.org/irc.vorbis.com #vorbis
what happens if it rains? will there be tents? some sci-fi rain-repelling force field?
disclaimer: i work for at&t cable tv and do billing and tech support for a major metropolitan area which shall not be mentioned...
AT&T does not _require_ your SSN at all. We can't legally do that. We are to request it and bug you every time you call until we get it, so it can be used for collections if you don't pay your bill, but we all tell you that it's used for 'security' purposes. I.e., we ask for the last 4 digits when a customer calls so we can verify somewhat that they are in fact the account holder, and it's not your 14 year old son calling to order a porno.
gotta love google's cache of the site, if only it cached the images too...
This is actually explained pretty well on the project's page which is here
Would this "humouse" be an anthropomorphistic creature, like those featured here? Some people get off on furry humanoids...