You're asking for television programming to change its distribution model to be closer to the way that the WWW is distributed - all content on demand
Yes, exactly.
But if your suggestion were implemented it would require most folks to change.
Not necessarily. A cable company could switch over to completely on-demand, internet based distribution for all of their digital channels (analog channels would either have to remain, or would require converter hardware for people who wished to remain analog). Consider that people have no way of knowing how the signal gets to the cable box, as long as it looks good on their TV, and it starts playing when they select it in the program guide (or switch to that 'channel') they will be happy with it.
Rather than broadcasting programs to everyone, they would just be streamed to whomever had selected that show from their program guide. The 'channels' shown in the program guide could be whatever program lineup a particular network was providing, or it could be a custom format defined by/for the user.
The system would have all the same capabilities that the existing digital cable system has, plus more.
I don't know enough about the bandwidth availability on cable networks to know if it would work, but it seems that there should be more than enough. Programs with few viewers would take less bandwidth from the system than they would if broadcast as they are now, and programs with very large viewership could be broadcast to the entire network at the same time (perhaps using the current digital broadcast protocols) and the local cable box could cache the show locally until its owner watched it (Eventually it would expire and be deleted to make room for newer programs, but could always be retrieved from the provider).
Just some ideas. There are lots of ways they could alleviate heavy network demand, and eventually I'd expect sudden demand to taper off as people learned that they could watch their new episodes whenever they wanted, instead of when it was 'on'.
All true. The interesting part is that this is probably a good thing for the most part. We generate lots and lots of data that nobody is going to be interested in. The important stuff will probably be preserved, and enough of the cultural/historical stuff will stick around for future historians to figure things out.
Imagine trying to find anything in 1000 years if every piece of data were saved.
I have something like 400 channels on the digital cable system. With 7 decoders I could surf 4 channels at a time while recording up to three other channels.
Of course that would require that it decode digital cable.
there's no way the major networks will agree to allow people to pick what they want to watch and when
I agree that they will feel this way, but there is nothing they can do about it without outlawing recording completely.
I can record as many concurrent analog cable streams as I like right now, and it costs me $5 a month for digital cable boxes, so I can get a couple more of those to record digital channels (with rebroacasts and two channels I can get pretty much anything). Now I can watch any time, without ads, for the cost of a Tivo (or a MythTV download and a few decoder cards).
The networks are already screwed, they just haven't started doing something different yet.
Obviously not everyone is going to go to the trouble of setting up a recording system, but cable companies are going to start offering PVR cable boxes soon (some may already), which brings the bar down even more. Its just a matter of time before channel lineups and commercial breaks become irrelevant and obsolete.
Not exactly. Most people don't watch networks, they watch whatever is on after the last thing they watched, unless they know something particularly good is on somewhere else at the same time.
This is mostly because networks jam the start and ends of shows together and why we get the first part of the show before the title sequence.
No break, more viewers, more ad money.
But with PVRs, people won't be watching ads as much, nor will they watch 'live' as often. So why bother with networks anymore? Broad/multicast/cache popular shows to save bandwidth and dump commercials for paid content (and make fewer commercials for free content).
This is why I suggested that content providers could provide programming lineups similar to current TV, but more customized for location and viewer.
Shows would never have to compete, good shows would get watched, and crappy shows would get dumped. Niche shows could adapt to their viewers so that they can charge higher rates.
They could provide a resolution limited version of the show for free. Provide the whole episode at one-quarter B&W resolution with 8 bit mono sound, for free, and provide the full res version for a buck.
What I'm really suggesting is that the cable company be reduced to a network service company with a cache of frequenly accessed material. They provide a fat pipe, and I use it to buy TV shows from whomever I please.
Each producer would sell their shows however they wanted, per show, by subscription (with perhaps an extra fee for access to previous seaons).
You would still be able to make local archive copies of whatever you choose, however you want it.
Presumably most producers would let you watch shows multiple times, along with old shows (just depends on their fee structures) without paying multiple times, since you could just record it locally. The only reason to charge for subsequent viewings would be to cover bandwidth.
Latency might be a problem, but no more so than with internet streaming video. The local player will pre-cache data so avoid any of those kinds of issues.
Anyway, I'm not saying you shouldn't have the ability to record stuff and archive it yourself, just that if lots of people are doing that, why should we have to all have copies of our shows?
We are sitting on a very high capacity network, and most of us don't have any interest in building archives of shows (I have a modest DVD collection, but if I could download them whenever I want for a buck, I would love to get rid of them). The logical choice is to have the network provider (or someone else with lots of upstream) cache them for us so we can watch when we like.
I understand that neither the advertisers nor the networks will be very keen on having to do anything differently than they do now, but its eventually going to happen if only because the cable companies will want to offer these kinds of services to their customers.
I'd have to agree. Before I buy a PVR its going to have to be able to handle at least two digital streams at once, preferably by directly storing the compressed video data without reencoding, ala DirecTivo.
Frankly, I'd prefer if the cable company would just store all this stuff at THEIR end, dump all the broadcast channels, and use the bandwidth to feed the cable modem system so I can watch anything I want, whenever I want, without having to make copies at my end. I'll even pay extra so I don't have to watch commercials, and I'll be happy to tell the networks which shows I watch, when I watch them, and if I thought they sucked or not.
They can even set up 'suggested lineups' for different viewing preferences so it works kind of like regular TV where shows come on at regular times, but they can talior the steams for more groups. This would let them take advantage of multicast capabilities and let them hit viewers with highly directed programming (ie, I want the sci-fi and technology stream, no chick flicks, and no horror-pretending-to-be-sci-fi, but my wife might want the cooking, home-improvement, and drama stream).
It would be nice to still have the stream cached locally so I can pause whatever I'm watching, but I don't really want to have to keep a terrabyte system sitting around so I can watch older stuff, that should be provided by the cable company.
Come on networks, use your imagination, this stuff shouldn't be too hard! I've already got purchase on demand, streaming, pause-able, rewindable digital movies, start doing it with regular TV too!
would the actual file contents be stored off in another table
It would be stored in a relation. RDBs don't have tables.
I'm having difficulty picturing this.
'Relational Database' typically refers to something like DB2 or MSSQL that support features like foreign keys and referential integrity, allowing one to create relations between tables.
It sounds like you are taking about some kind of abstraction of the relational concept. Thats fine, there are ways to represent data other than the table format most systems use, but I don't understand how you are suggesting it be organized.
I know that many database systems support raw partion access for disks, and that a traditional filesystem could be implimented in such a database, but I don't see why this would be as much and improvement as some people suggest.
Oh, right, because any relational DB is always fast and stable. right.
It was slow and crashed because it was a POS implimentation.
Seriously though, what would the user experiance on a system built on a database file system be like? Mostly I see this as useful for data that requires/benefits from lots of metadata, like MP3 files where I want rich tagging. But would the actual file contents be stored off in another table (the 'MP3FRAME' table for example, which contains all the frames of all MP3 files stored on the drive).
I don't understand why people are so critical of the Segway.
Look at the name. Segway. As in segue: "to move smoothly and unhesitatingly from one state, condition, situation, or element to another"
As in, the Segway HT exists only to get people comfortabe with the self-balancing technology so that Kamen's wheelchair desigh won't seem as shocking.
The Segway itself seems much less useful than say, a skateboard or a pair of rollerblades, except perhaps for the crippled or elderly (who would probably do well to avoid moving at high speeds on unprotected platforms anyway).
The wheelchair form though, seems like it would be excellent for rich disabled people who want to go places where disabled access is not provided.
Personally, if I were unable to walk I'd build myself a hybrid gasoline-electric chair with tank-style treads (non-marking rubber of course). Screw the handi-crip access ramps, I'll take the stairs, and I'll run over anybody in my way, thanks.
You could also put changes into a 'pending' state, and let subsequent viewers (particularly those with decent reputations) approve the changes before they are displayed as the active page.
No it doesn't. It just tells them what channel I happened to leave the cable box on. When the show was over, or I got board, I turn off the TV and leave the cable box on.
How does the PVR know when I'm watching, and when I've just turned off the TV and audio system and left the PVR running? As far as anyone could tell from my digital cable box, I watch TV 24/7, often watching the same channel for 8 or 10 hours at a time (various timers on the box or programmed into the remote switch channels at preprogrammed times).
In America, schools are not allowed to ban students from wearing clothing that expressed political or religious beliefs
Sort of. Public schools can ban anything that they deem distracting or inappropriate. They can also institute strict dress codes such as the tan/black slacks (or skirt for girls) and white dress shirt that has been so popular in San Antonio and other Texas schools.
I agree regarding conformity and the associated dangers, but in some areas certain things can be communicated by clothing styles that are not appropriate for school. In San Antonio (where I went to school and so can relate first-hand information) gang 'colors' were/are expressed in any number of ways, from a certain style of bandana to combinations of brand-name clothing. Schools that allow these expressions or cultural divisions have more problems with cliquish behavour and cultural intolerance. Dress codes help to discourage this kind of behavour.
Naturally dresscodes are only one tool in educators toolbox, and should be used only as appropriate.
Obviously you've never done this. The current flowing from the battery in this case is not limited by the internal resistance of the battery, but by the resistance of the tongue. The 6v battery will flow about 2/3rds the current of the 9v battery.
Put an ohm meter on your tongue if you don't believe me, you'll find plenty of resistance to limit the current from a ~9vdc source to safe levels.
patenting software just doesn't make sense. [...] it's like patenting a book
I disagree. Software is definately not like a book. A book requires someone read it to be useful. Software is part of a machine, it can do useful things without (direct) interaction from people.
Copyrights apply to the blueprints for a building, just as they apply to the source code for a building. Patents apply to the technique or method used to accomplish something, perhaps a way to make elevators safer, or to encode video into digital data. Two different things.
I believe that software patents should exist, I don't think that they should have the same terms as patents on physical objects. Patents should expire while the technology is still relevant, and computer technology current moves too fast to use the same durations as many other technologies. I'd put the upper limit on software patents at about 3 years.
Slashdot Mirror
You're asking for television programming to change its distribution model to be closer to the way that the WWW is distributed - all content on demand
:)
Yes, exactly.
But if your suggestion were implemented it would require most folks to change.
Not necessarily. A cable company could switch over to completely on-demand, internet based distribution for all of their digital channels (analog channels would either have to remain, or would require converter hardware for people who wished to remain analog). Consider that people have no way of knowing how the signal gets to the cable box, as long as it looks good on their TV, and it starts playing when they select it in the program guide (or switch to that 'channel') they will be happy with it.
Rather than broadcasting programs to everyone, they would just be streamed to whomever had selected that show from their program guide. The 'channels' shown in the program guide could be whatever program lineup a particular network was providing, or it could be a custom format defined by/for the user.
The system would have all the same capabilities that the existing digital cable system has, plus more.
I don't know enough about the bandwidth availability on cable networks to know if it would work, but it seems that there should be more than enough. Programs with few viewers would take less bandwidth from the system than they would if broadcast as they are now, and programs with very large viewership could be broadcast to the entire network at the same time (perhaps using the current digital broadcast protocols) and the local cable box could cache the show locally until its owner watched it (Eventually it would expire and be deleted to make room for newer programs, but could always be retrieved from the provider).
Just some ideas. There are lots of ways they could alleviate heavy network demand, and eventually I'd expect sudden demand to taper off as people learned that they could watch their new episodes whenever they wanted, instead of when it was 'on'.
Oh well, its fun to dream
All true. The interesting part is that this is probably a good thing for the most part. We generate lots and lots of data that nobody is going to be interested in. The important stuff will probably be preserved, and enough of the cultural/historical stuff will stick around for future historians to figure things out.
Imagine trying to find anything in 1000 years if every piece of data were saved.
I have something like 400 channels on the digital cable system. With 7 decoders I could surf 4 channels at a time while recording up to three other channels.
Of course that would require that it decode digital cable.
BitBleeper - Automated audio censorship
BitCheeper - Coupon managment
BitLeeper - Compression and organization
BitSteeper - For perfect digital Earl Gray
there's no way the major networks will agree to allow people to pick what they want to watch and when
I agree that they will feel this way, but there is nothing they can do about it without outlawing recording completely.
I can record as many concurrent analog cable streams as I like right now, and it costs me $5 a month for digital cable boxes, so I can get a couple more of those to record digital channels (with rebroacasts and two channels I can get pretty much anything). Now I can watch any time, without ads, for the cost of a Tivo (or a MythTV download and a few decoder cards).
The networks are already screwed, they just haven't started doing something different yet.
Obviously not everyone is going to go to the trouble of setting up a recording system, but cable companies are going to start offering PVR cable boxes soon (some may already), which brings the bar down even more. Its just a matter of time before channel lineups and commercial breaks become irrelevant and obsolete.
Are you correcting me, or explaning what I said?
I'm hoping that the PVRs for digital cable will work the same way, so I can capture several full quality streams at once.
Not exactly. Most people don't watch networks, they watch whatever is on after the last thing they watched, unless they know something particularly good is on somewhere else at the same time.
This is mostly because networks jam the start and ends of shows together and why we get the first part of the show before the title sequence.
No break, more viewers, more ad money.
But with PVRs, people won't be watching ads as much, nor will they watch 'live' as often. So why bother with networks anymore? Broad/multicast/cache popular shows to save bandwidth and dump commercials for paid content (and make fewer commercials for free content).
This is why I suggested that content providers could provide programming lineups similar to current TV, but more customized for location and viewer.
Shows would never have to compete, good shows would get watched, and crappy shows would get dumped. Niche shows could adapt to their viewers so that they can charge higher rates.
They could provide a resolution limited version of the show for free. Provide the whole episode at one-quarter B&W resolution with 8 bit mono sound, for free, and provide the full res version for a buck.
What I'm really suggesting is that the cable company be reduced to a network service company with a cache of frequenly accessed material. They provide a fat pipe, and I use it to buy TV shows from whomever I please.
Each producer would sell their shows however they wanted, per show, by subscription (with perhaps an extra fee for access to previous seaons).
You would still be able to make local archive copies of whatever you choose, however you want it.
Presumably most producers would let you watch shows multiple times, along with old shows (just depends on their fee structures) without paying multiple times, since you could just record it locally. The only reason to charge for subsequent viewings would be to cover bandwidth.
Latency might be a problem, but no more so than with internet streaming video. The local player will pre-cache data so avoid any of those kinds of issues.
Anyway, I'm not saying you shouldn't have the ability to record stuff and archive it yourself, just that if lots of people are doing that, why should we have to all have copies of our shows?
We are sitting on a very high capacity network, and most of us don't have any interest in building archives of shows (I have a modest DVD collection, but if I could download them whenever I want for a buck, I would love to get rid of them). The logical choice is to have the network provider (or someone else with lots of upstream) cache them for us so we can watch when we like.
I understand that neither the advertisers nor the networks will be very keen on having to do anything differently than they do now, but its eventually going to happen if only because the cable companies will want to offer these kinds of services to their customers.
I'd have to agree. Before I buy a PVR its going to have to be able to handle at least two digital streams at once, preferably by directly storing the compressed video data without reencoding, ala DirecTivo.
Frankly, I'd prefer if the cable company would just store all this stuff at THEIR end, dump all the broadcast channels, and use the bandwidth to feed the cable modem system so I can watch anything I want, whenever I want, without having to make copies at my end. I'll even pay extra so I don't have to watch commercials, and I'll be happy to tell the networks which shows I watch, when I watch them, and if I thought they sucked or not.
They can even set up 'suggested lineups' for different viewing preferences so it works kind of like regular TV where shows come on at regular times, but they can talior the steams for more groups. This would let them take advantage of multicast capabilities and let them hit viewers with highly directed programming (ie, I want the sci-fi and technology stream, no chick flicks, and no horror-pretending-to-be-sci-fi, but my wife might want the cooking, home-improvement, and drama stream).
It would be nice to still have the stream cached locally so I can pause whatever I'm watching, but I don't really want to have to keep a terrabyte system sitting around so I can watch older stuff, that should be provided by the cable company.
Come on networks, use your imagination, this stuff shouldn't be too hard! I've already got purchase on demand, streaming, pause-able, rewindable digital movies, start doing it with regular TV too!
would the actual file contents be stored off in another table
It would be stored in a relation. RDBs don't have tables.
I'm having difficulty picturing this.
'Relational Database' typically refers to something like DB2 or MSSQL that support features like foreign keys and referential integrity, allowing one to create relations between tables.
It sounds like you are taking about some kind of abstraction of the relational concept. Thats fine, there are ways to represent data other than the table format most systems use, but I don't understand how you are suggesting it be organized.
I know that many database systems support raw partion access for disks, and that a traditional filesystem could be implimented in such a database, but I don't see why this would be as much and improvement as some people suggest.
Oh, right, because any relational DB is always fast and stable. right.
It was slow and crashed because it was a POS implimentation.
Seriously though, what would the user experiance on a system built on a database file system be like? Mostly I see this as useful for data that requires/benefits from lots of metadata, like MP3 files where I want rich tagging. But would the actual file contents be stored off in another table (the 'MP3FRAME' table for example, which contains all the frames of all MP3 files stored on the drive).
It took us thousands of years of technological progress to come up with protection equal to its ferocity.
Actually, our usual protection works much better. This protection consists of two strategies, 1: Stay away from Bears, and 2: Don't piss off Bears.
Failing those, minor stratigies such as "Only piss off small Bears" and "Run faster than your Friends" come into play.
The best protection from a pissed off grizzly is a friend who runs slower than you.
I don't understand why people are so critical of the Segway.
Look at the name. Segway. As in segue: "to move smoothly and unhesitatingly from one state, condition, situation, or element to another"
As in, the Segway HT exists only to get people comfortabe with the self-balancing technology so that Kamen's wheelchair desigh won't seem as shocking.
The Segway itself seems much less useful than say, a skateboard or a pair of rollerblades, except perhaps for the crippled or elderly (who would probably do well to avoid moving at high speeds on unprotected platforms anyway).
The wheelchair form though, seems like it would be excellent for rich disabled people who want to go places where disabled access is not provided.
Personally, if I were unable to walk I'd build myself a hybrid gasoline-electric chair with tank-style treads (non-marking rubber of course). Screw the handi-crip access ramps, I'll take the stairs, and I'll run over anybody in my way, thanks.
You could also put changes into a 'pending' state, and let subsequent viewers (particularly those with decent reputations) approve the changes before they are displayed as the active page.
No it doesn't. It just tells them what channel I happened to leave the cable box on. When the show was over, or I got board, I turn off the TV and leave the cable box on.
How does the PVR know when I'm watching, and when I've just turned off the TV and audio system and left the PVR running? As far as anyone could tell from my digital cable box, I watch TV 24/7, often watching the same channel for 8 or 10 hours at a time (various timers on the box or programmed into the remote switch channels at preprogrammed times).
In America, schools are not allowed to ban students from wearing clothing that expressed political or religious beliefs
Sort of. Public schools can ban anything that they deem distracting or inappropriate. They can also institute strict dress codes such as the tan/black slacks (or skirt for girls) and white dress shirt that has been so popular in San Antonio and other Texas schools.
I agree regarding conformity and the associated dangers, but in some areas certain things can be communicated by clothing styles that are not appropriate for school. In San Antonio (where I went to school and so can relate first-hand information) gang 'colors' were/are expressed in any number of ways, from a certain style of bandana to combinations of brand-name clothing. Schools that allow these expressions or cultural divisions have more problems with cliquish behavour and cultural intolerance. Dress codes help to discourage this kind of behavour.
Naturally dresscodes are only one tool in educators toolbox, and should be used only as appropriate.
How about a regular bucket pressurised to about 15 or so PSI, enough to get the water up to the roof.
I think that would be much easier to find and transport than a 40 foot bucket.
Maybe thats a good thing, else we'd have to start calling it the net of a million lies.
Obviously you've never done this. The current flowing from the battery in this case is not limited by the internal resistance of the battery, but by the resistance of the tongue. The 6v battery will flow about 2/3rds the current of the 9v battery.
Put an ohm meter on your tongue if you don't believe me, you'll find plenty of resistance to limit the current from a ~9vdc source to safe levels.
patenting software just doesn't make sense. [...] it's like patenting a book
I disagree. Software is definately not like a book. A book requires someone read it to be useful. Software is part of a machine, it can do useful things without (direct) interaction from people.
Copyrights apply to the blueprints for a building, just as they apply to the source code for a building. Patents apply to the technique or method used to accomplish something, perhaps a way to make elevators safer, or to encode video into digital data. Two different things.
I believe that software patents should exist, I don't think that they should have the same terms as patents on physical objects. Patents should expire while the technology is still relevant, and computer technology current moves too fast to use the same durations as many other technologies. I'd put the upper limit on software patents at about 3 years.
I am French and takes laicity very seriously
Ok, thats twice in this thread. Pardon my ignorance, but what, exactly, is 'laicity'?
I dunno about you, but if I had mosquitos breeding in my dishwater I'd look into getting a crystal meth supplier or something.