Yes, that is a great US law. But it does not change the fact that the US legal system has most of the same issues the UK legal system has, with respect to fairness for those who don't have the means to even spend $5000 on a case, much less $200000. The fact is, these systems are biased towards those with money. And being able to countersue to recover that money (where it can be done) doesn't help very much. It's a good thing that rightful people like Simon Singh do have some money. It's unfair even to him that he has to spend all that (I hope he has a means to recover it). But at least he was in a position to get some of the fairness at some point that most other people would never be able to get.
The problem is that not everyone understands language, and the diversity of meaning. This is particularly problematic with people heavily involved in law, where the language needs to be precise, even to the extreme of being excessively verbose. So it is no surprise that some judges would misunderstand what is meant, or even dare make an assumption that a certain thing would be meant.
To be clear enough in writing to be sure all judges would understand it would be to write in a style no one else can.
Actually, it is the UK legal system that doesn't work. Neither does the US legal system, or the AU legal system. But for this we can focus on the broken UK legal system.
Basically, what is broken is that the truth is effectively restricted to people with money and wealth. It's good that we have people like Simon Singh who have enough money to make it work, and make it work the right way. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those with money and wealth also tend to be those who perverse and corrupt the system with lies and untruths. So it is a very biased system, even if it might well be balanced and just when those facing off are well moneyed. In other words, it's not a system for ordinary people. So unless we can find a new system to replace it, or at least supplement it, there is no justice, and no truth, for ordinary people most of the time.
My TV has no ethernet connection. That would be a plus if they added that along with all codec support. But so far I have not seen it. I have seen some TVs with ethernet, but the described support is always minimal (lets you get online for some web surfing on a restricted set of sites... that pay the TV make tons of money, I'm sure).
MPEG-2 is the codec within the ATSC. But the ATSC stream also has other stuff, like more than one channel at a time, channel IDs, closed-caption data, program guide data sometimes, etc. Many ATSC tuner cards can deliver this bit stream in whole. The bit stream is what is delivered to the TV station 8-VSB modulator. It it what comes from the tuner's 8-VSB demodulator. Storing the whole stream takes less processor action, but required more stored space. When you play it back, you can play whatever subchannel you want.
In addition to all this, I'm also looking for an 8-VSB RF modulator so I can feed out signals other tuners can receive. Adding QAM64 and QAM256 to that is a plus. And COFDM would also be a plus (to support DVB).
Then it should be as simple as letting someone turn on or off each output device, and even let each select which sound to output, or even mix sources. There is never a valid excuse for only being about to output one at a time unless the device channels would be overloaded (then we drag the hardware engineer in for his grilling).
So where is a cheap noiseless front end with enough CPU power to handle all media formats including those saved by MythTV? My guess is 2x3.0GHz or 4x2.4GHz is the minimum, along with 2GB RAM. Got that in a cheap noiseless, yet, with gigabit ethernet?
I'll name it... the ATSC streams recorded by MythTV in USA. I'm looking for a playback box that can handle those, directly, including live as they are being recorded (slightly behind in time, of course), via SMB or NFS over gigabit ethernet. It should also support the same format as a static file on USB memory stick (SDHC card support is a plus) or USB hard drive (must support drives up to 2TB). Must be dead quite (no fans, no internal HDDs) and run cool.
Will Sage and Myth interoperate? I'm looking for a powerful but dead quiet front end box. It needs to be able to handle the ATSC stream files I've saved from my tuner server running Myth (this box in the basement captures the streams, only). I haven't yet found a computer box I could use because they are either underpowered, or big and noisy.
Can it handle the ATSC bit stream files that get recorded from digital tuner cards? They don't say, so either that's an omission by their product design team, or it goes under some other name. MythTV handles it just fine.
That's a stupid design, then. It should just output the audio both ways at the same time. Maybe the previous iPhone antenna engineer guy was wandering around the halls and told some programmer that if he outputs both at the same time, each only gets half the volume level.
This existing law is both good and bad. Many posts here already detail that. My solution is to change the law to provide a simple safe harbor that avoids the anti-competitive aspect of patent number markings. Under this proposal, any patent numbers that include at the end of the identifying number, separated by a dash, the correct year of expiration, shall not be a violation.
Security is not a "get over it" issue. Flash is broken and insecure. It would be the big gaping hole in an otherwise secure computer. Just because the masses run their computers insecurely, that doesn't mean others should, too.
This would not be the same issue if we were talking about something that ONLY Flash could do. If that were the case, then it would be a genuine tradeoff. But playing video is NOT limited to Flash. It's been possible long before web sites like YouTube. And browsers like Firefox could at least as far back as version 2.0 could play video directly (I found a few sites that had playable videos).
The point is, playing video is NOT a Flash specific thing. But it all comes down to how the web site is configured. If there is a plain video link, it can be made to trigger mplayer or other video players (you might need to set your browser to know which player you want to run) in a separate window. With the video tag, you can also easily embed the video to play inside the browser (unmanaged, or managed with a little simple Javascript). And this can even be done in a way that still allows those who don't care about the security of their computers and prefer to use Flash to still use it anyway.
So where is the video about how to make a web site with universally playable videos that don't need Flash?
It has been tradition for the system (bootloader, OS, etc) to "own" the first track (which can mean up to 63 sectors on PCs with legacy CHS MBRs). MBR doesn't have enough partitions to waste. With GPT, now you have 128 of them, though GPT uses 34 sectors, not just one (and a duplicate set at the end of the drive for backup). The decent way out of this is to leave the first entire track to the system.
It is legacy that the system "owns" the entire first disk track, not just the first sector. In the case of PCs with 63 sectors per track, that means all sectors from 0 to 62 which make the first track. It would be fewer sectors for smaller tracks in different geometry.
That area has traditionally been boot loader space, even on non-MBR computers. Now with the GUID Partition Table (GPT) format, there are now enough partitions available to waste one for a boot loader 2nd image. And guess what... GPT uses that space after MBR for its own table. Basically, the space belongs to the system. Sure, we know malware often uses it. But that make any excuse for applications to do so. If anything, anti-virus code should always be blocking writing to this area by any application, even with administrator rights.
If you think GRUB developers should have done it different, please explain how. And don't use LILO's stupid hack as an excuse, because that breaks all the time.
If anything, people should just not give applications any administrator rights. Better yet, if you have to run Windows with Linux, run it in a virtual machine.
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Yes, that is a great US law. But it does not change the fact that the US legal system has most of the same issues the UK legal system has, with respect to fairness for those who don't have the means to even spend $5000 on a case, much less $200000. The fact is, these systems are biased towards those with money. And being able to countersue to recover that money (where it can be done) doesn't help very much. It's a good thing that rightful people like Simon Singh do have some money. It's unfair even to him that he has to spend all that (I hope he has a means to recover it). But at least he was in a position to get some of the fairness at some point that most other people would never be able to get.
The problem is that not everyone understands language, and the diversity of meaning. This is particularly problematic with people heavily involved in law, where the language needs to be precise, even to the extreme of being excessively verbose. So it is no surprise that some judges would misunderstand what is meant, or even dare make an assumption that a certain thing would be meant.
To be clear enough in writing to be sure all judges would understand it would be to write in a style no one else can.
Actually, it is the UK legal system that doesn't work. Neither does the US legal system, or the AU legal system. But for this we can focus on the broken UK legal system.
Basically, what is broken is that the truth is effectively restricted to people with money and wealth. It's good that we have people like Simon Singh who have enough money to make it work, and make it work the right way. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those with money and wealth also tend to be those who perverse and corrupt the system with lies and untruths. So it is a very biased system, even if it might well be balanced and just when those facing off are well moneyed. In other words, it's not a system for ordinary people. So unless we can find a new system to replace it, or at least supplement it, there is no justice, and no truth, for ordinary people most of the time.
My TV has no ethernet connection. That would be a plus if they added that along with all codec support. But so far I have not seen it. I have seen some TVs with ethernet, but the described support is always minimal (lets you get online for some web surfing on a restricted set of sites ... that pay the TV make tons of money, I'm sure).
MPEG-2 is the codec within the ATSC. But the ATSC stream also has other stuff, like more than one channel at a time, channel IDs, closed-caption data, program guide data sometimes, etc. Many ATSC tuner cards can deliver this bit stream in whole. The bit stream is what is delivered to the TV station 8-VSB modulator. It it what comes from the tuner's 8-VSB demodulator. Storing the whole stream takes less processor action, but required more stored space. When you play it back, you can play whatever subchannel you want.
In addition to all this, I'm also looking for an 8-VSB RF modulator so I can feed out signals other tuners can receive. Adding QAM64 and QAM256 to that is a plus. And COFDM would also be a plus (to support DVB).
Then it should be as simple as letting someone turn on or off each output device, and even let each select which sound to output, or even mix sources. There is never a valid excuse for only being about to output one at a time unless the device channels would be overloaded (then we drag the hardware engineer in for his grilling).
After looking closer, this thing can't record HD at all. I definitely need HD timeshifting from unencrypted TV channels.
What does the night have to do with anything? Are you living in Dark City?
So where is a cheap noiseless front end with enough CPU power to handle all media formats including those saved by MythTV? My guess is 2x3.0GHz or 4x2.4GHz is the minimum, along with 2GB RAM. Got that in a cheap noiseless, yet, with gigabit ethernet?
I'll name it ... the ATSC streams recorded by MythTV in USA. I'm looking for a playback box that can handle those, directly, including live as they are being recorded (slightly behind in time, of course), via SMB or NFS over gigabit ethernet. It should also support the same format as a static file on USB memory stick (SDHC card support is a plus) or USB hard drive (must support drives up to 2TB). Must be dead quite (no fans, no internal HDDs) and run cool.
But can it read, via SMB or NFS over gigabit ethernet, the ATSC capture files from MythTV?
Will Sage and Myth interoperate? I'm looking for a powerful but dead quiet front end box. It needs to be able to handle the ATSC stream files I've saved from my tuner server running Myth (this box in the basement captures the streams, only). I haven't yet found a computer box I could use because they are either underpowered, or big and noisy.
Underpowered. Let me know when the CPU gets up to 2x3.0MHz or 4x2.66MHz. Or feel free to point to a decent commercial front end box.
But what networked playback boxes can be used with MythTV for the front end where a computer cannot go?
Can it handle the ATSC bit stream files that get recorded from digital tuner cards? They don't say, so either that's an omission by their product design team, or it goes under some other name. MythTV handles it just fine.
That's a stupid design, then. It should just output the audio both ways at the same time. Maybe the previous iPhone antenna engineer guy was wandering around the halls and told some programmer that if he outputs both at the same time, each only gets half the volume level.
This existing law is both good and bad. Many posts here already detail that. My solution is to change the law to provide a simple safe harbor that avoids the anti-competitive aspect of patent number markings. Under this proposal, any patent numbers that include at the end of the identifying number, separated by a dash, the correct year of expiration, shall not be a violation.
... 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 erase/write cycles?
I don't see any around. Did it kill them off?
Security is not a "get over it" issue. Flash is broken and insecure. It would be the big gaping hole in an otherwise secure computer. Just because the masses run their computers insecurely, that doesn't mean others should, too.
This would not be the same issue if we were talking about something that ONLY Flash could do. If that were the case, then it would be a genuine tradeoff. But playing video is NOT limited to Flash. It's been possible long before web sites like YouTube. And browsers like Firefox could at least as far back as version 2.0 could play video directly (I found a few sites that had playable videos).
The point is, playing video is NOT a Flash specific thing. But it all comes down to how the web site is configured. If there is a plain video link, it can be made to trigger mplayer or other video players (you might need to set your browser to know which player you want to run) in a separate window. With the video tag, you can also easily embed the video to play inside the browser (unmanaged, or managed with a little simple Javascript). And this can even be done in a way that still allows those who don't care about the security of their computers and prefer to use Flash to still use it anyway.
So where is the video about how to make a web site with universally playable videos that don't need Flash?
... how to make your computer and/or your web browser be able to play these videos without borging it with Flash?
It has been tradition for the system (bootloader, OS, etc) to "own" the first track (which can mean up to 63 sectors on PCs with legacy CHS MBRs). MBR doesn't have enough partitions to waste. With GPT, now you have 128 of them, though GPT uses 34 sectors, not just one (and a duplicate set at the end of the drive for backup). The decent way out of this is to leave the first entire track to the system.
Change all your references to sectors into being a reference to track, then you'll have it right. That's the way systems have worked for decades.
It is legacy that the system "owns" the entire first disk track, not just the first sector. In the case of PCs with 63 sectors per track, that means all sectors from 0 to 62 which make the first track. It would be fewer sectors for smaller tracks in different geometry.
That area has traditionally been boot loader space, even on non-MBR computers. Now with the GUID Partition Table (GPT) format, there are now enough partitions available to waste one for a boot loader 2nd image. And guess what ... GPT uses that space after MBR for its own table. Basically, the space belongs to the system. Sure, we know malware often uses it. But that make any excuse for applications to do so. If anything, anti-virus code should always be blocking writing to this area by any application, even with administrator rights.
If you think GRUB developers should have done it different, please explain how. And don't use LILO's stupid hack as an excuse, because that breaks all the time.
If anything, people should just not give applications any administrator rights. Better yet, if you have to run Windows with Linux, run it in a virtual machine.