Huh. I would have sworn that it was around 2000 that I stopped looking. I had DVD player at the time (in my computer, plugged into my TV) but I decided that even with $60/year for TiVo, I'd rather have that.
Maybe I'm misremembering the timeframe, or maybe I didn't look hard enough for a recorder.
The meaning of the word creationism is contextual. It can mean the belief that a god created the universe. However when discussing it in the context of evolution, it distinctly means the rejection of evolution in favor of a literal interpretation of a religious creation story.
Mine has several settings, I usually record on 3 hr setting, which is about in the middle. Quality to me isn't that big of a deal, but I haven't been caught up in the "look my TV/penis is bigger than yours" mindset. I don't care about HD or having a 52" TV. Yes, I've seen them - whooptie doo. It's not just a pissing contest--you can't buy a new SD TV in most big box stores these days (at least, not around here.) Even the pawn shops don't tend to take them, and when they have them in, you're taking a risk on it that it's going to be half broken. Buying online is fine, but then you're paying huge shipping fees.
The world is moving to flatscreens, which means they're moving to fixed resolutions and crappy scaling for anything that doesn't evenly divide into its resolution (and in some cases, for things which do but are just much smaller.)
I dislike it. To me, CRTs look better for SD content. But I'm also realistic--when my TV dies, I'm probably not going to have the choice to get a CRT.
VHS quality is very deceptive. What that usually means is 320x240 at 30fps resolution, or 320x288 at 25fps, which will appear fairly blocky on large TVs. Real VHS will appear blurry rather than blocky--to me, it's superior, but I understand that different people may have different tastes.
I was tempted by DVD recorders many times. The main reasons I never took the plunge are: - Too expensive. I kept waiting for the prices to drop, and they never did. When I stopped caring, they were just under $1,000. - Low recording capacity. I think the blanks are good for 2 hours. It may vary based upon quality, but quality matters--I'd rather have VHS than low-quality digital. - TiVo hacking. Eventually, I got a TiVo, and could extract shows on my own, and burn them to (slightly out-of-spec) DVD.
I finally got rid of the TiVo when I got satellite, but now don't care so much about archiving. My DVR gets the shows, I watch them, then I delete them. I came to realize that most of the stuff that I wanted more-permanent copies of, I rarely watched again, anyway.
So the truth is, for me, a DVR is all I want. Swapping DVD blanks and low recording times make the solution completely unacceptable at this point, even if they came down in price significantly.
You're conflating simple DNS queries with administrative DNS actions in an attempt to call me a troll and attack my technical knowledge. Of course DNS is a requirement for the modern Internet--to suggest otherwise would be absurd. And of course, if you couldn't have information which is included in the zone file, we wouldn't be able to navigate using domain names. What's essential is that one rarely needs all of the information in the zone file. Classical DNS management suggests that only related DNS servers need to do a zone transfer. It's traditionally a replication mechanism, not intended for end users.
But hey, nice attempt to manipulate small facts to present a distorted view. Maybe you should become a politician.
Go read the actual legal briefing and see if you still agree. It was highly distorted in both the Slashdot summary and the article linked from Slashdot.
She isn't allowed to go and independently research the issue, but she could have asked a few questions about traditional use of DNS and zone transfers. She had a good understanding of the primary use of DNS and zone transfers. That's why she ruled in the way that she did.
Further reading from the link I posted states that the court isn't ruling on normal DNS requests. Under "CONCLUSIONS OF LAW":
2. The Court need not determine whether a normal, single DNS query is authorized within the meaning of the statute. Even if there had been any authorization for a such a DNS query or lookup, Ritz exceeded that authorization in violation of the statute by conducting a zone transfer and attempting further access. So the court isn't claiming that a DNS query, in the general case, is illegal.
Without reading deeper, I can see how you might infer this. However, part of the facts of the case included the fact that most zone transfers are not intended for the public internet. Given that as a fact in the case, the judge would have to rule in this way. Perhaps, if you disagree with that fact, you should argue against that.
The zone transfers conducted and attempted by Ritz were far outside the intended use of zone transfers. Ritz was never given authorization or permission by Sierra for the zone transfers. -- http://www.spamsuite.com/node/351
The intended purpose of a website is to display information. The intended purpose of an administrative page on a website is for the site manager to modify the settings of the website. Accessing the first pseudo-anonymously (as is the way of the Internet) is clearly the intended use. Accessing the second pseudo-anonymously (because the administrator forgot to set a password) clearly is not.
What matters most here, is the wording of the computer crime laws in North Dakota. So far, no one's bother to bring that up.
Geeks don't like this ruling, though, because it's not black-and-white. A geek think that if it's open on the Internet, it ought to be legal. If it asks for a password and you break in, it ought not be. Absent other means of gaining authorization, a request on the Internet implies a request for authorization, and a reply with the requested information from the server ought to imply authorization. The burden should be on the server operator to restrict or allow access, because on a pseudo-anonymous Internet, there's no other metric we can use. "Most of the time, the server operator wouldn't want this?"
I've never encountered RAM going bad. I've encountered a lot of RAM being bad to begin with, however. Good for you, buddy. I've seen it plenty of times. Before I install RAM, I always check it. When a computer starts going bad, it's also usually the first thing I check. It happens.
Sure, it could happen. Congratulations, a high-tech laptop is less serviceable than a whitebox PC. Whoddathunk it? Nice strawman, but I'm comparing it to the Macbook, which, incidentally, has replaceable RAM.
As for the optical drive, I use mine every other month, why should I carry it around every day? Great. Lots of people use the optical drive daily.
The battery... 95% of users don't swap them around, the only exceptions being those who need extra long battery life. So we have established that the Air isn't going to compete in the rugged industrial laptop category... that's quite the bummer, buddy! Replaceable batteries are really useful on, say, long flights or long trips. Exactly the same time that you want an ultraportable.
Optical audio out? Completely useless. Not to me.
Stream over wifi or Bluetooth (has Apple implement hifi audio on their bluetooth stack in Leopard?). Apple sells a device for that. Which both adds to the cost (gotta buy the device) and reduces your battery life (all that wifi/bluetooth.)
You're missing the point. The Air is not replacing the MacBook, it's a new product. You quite clearly missed my point. I'm not under the impression that the Macbook is being replaced--rather, I'm under the impression that the Macbook is a better ultraportable computer than the Macbook Air. Being thinner than an inch (the Macbook thickness) doesn't do anything for portability. Being 2 pounds lighter? Maybe, but for all that you're giving up, I don't think so. Keep in mind also that every feature I listed is likely to turn some category of people off of this device--that adds up.
I was trying to be fair and throw a bone to all the Apple lovers. I'm also disappointed in the lack of Ethernet--of course, you can always get an adapter.
Yeah, but time and again, reports come out that Apple machines just don't handle low-quality RAM too well. The extra few bucks for better quality control (that's almost all it CAN be--it's the same damn physical chips) is worth the trouble, in my opinion.
Also, in the Macbook (with its integrated video), you really want two 1gig sticks in order to make up the difference. On Newegg right now, you get 1GB sticks each for $24.99.
I'll summarize another post I made along the same lines.
First, I wholeheartedly agree that there is a market for sub-notebooks. I've been wanting to pick one up myself. I consider the Macbook to be on the larger side of the sub-notebook class of computers. What I was talking about was specifically the Macbook Air, specifically compared to Apple's next smallest notebook.
Here's what you get going from the stock Macbook to the Macbook Air: 2 pounds lighter. 0.25 inches thinner, at its thickest. Spiffy new touchpad. OLED screen, meaning that the LCD should last longer (this is a marginal improvement) 1 extra gb of RAM, base (costs $150 to add to the Macbook on Apple's website, $50 to add after-market) Trendy new computer that few other people have.
Here's what you give up: 1 optical drive 1 USB port 1 Firewire port (probably not a big deal to travelers) 1 replaceable battery (meaning that your travelers won't be able to carry a spare) 1 hour of battery life (even worse considering the lack of a replaceable battery) 1 ethernet jack (probably not a big deal, since wireless is slowly becoming ubiquitous) 400mhz on the low end, 200mhz on the high end. Replaceable RAM (RAM starts going bad? Your Mac is going in for service. Hope it doesn't go bad after the warranty is up.) Stereo speakers Optical audio out $600
I simply can't believe that the things you get are highly sought after.
Wanna bet the touchpad shows up on the other Apple notebooks as they are refreshed? No, because it seems obvious that they'll do it. I was disappointed that the touchpad wasn't added to them today. Once everyone oohs and ahhs over how great it is, they'll add it to their other lines to increase the sales of those.
People DO pay for size. I wasn't talking generically. I was talking specifically about the Macbook Air.
There's size, and then there are the dimensions that really matter.
The Macbook is 13.3". The Macbook Air is 13.3". Where they've cut down is on thickness (and not much on that) and weight (from 5 pounds on the Macbook to 3 pounds on the Macbook Air.) The weight is nice, if you don't mind a non-replaceable battery, no optical drive, and extremely limited expandability (one USB and one DVI.) The advertised battery life is actually lower than on the Macbook!
Talking generically, you're right. People might spend more money on a smaller, lighter notebook. In this case, though, they're spending more money on a thinner, lighter notebook which eliminates a lot of the features that notebook users probably take for granted right now. I simply can't believe that there is a huge market for the feature set of the Macbook Air compared to the featureset of the Macbook. I can completely believe that the trendy nature of "the new Mac laptop" has a large market.
It can't matter that much. There aren't many situations where it's necessary from a usability or pragmatic standpoint.
These laptops are trendy, nothing more. If you want to be trendy, it's perfect--and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But I'm going to get really tired of hearing how innovative Apple is with the Air when functionally, the only new thing is the touchpad (which, you'll note, they didn't put in their other notebook lines, possibly because they realize that it's the only thing that really separates the Air from the Macbook/Pro.
No, I don't. Perhaps you thought I was suggesting that such a practice was morally ok--I wasn't. But I was trying to look at it from a purely business side of things.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh. I would have sworn that it was around 2000 that I stopped looking. I had DVD player at the time (in my computer, plugged into my TV) but I decided that even with $60/year for TiVo, I'd rather have that.
Maybe I'm misremembering the timeframe, or maybe I didn't look hard enough for a recorder.
The meaning of the word creationism is contextual. It can mean the belief that a god created the universe. However when discussing it in the context of evolution, it distinctly means the rejection of evolution in favor of a literal interpretation of a religious creation story.
The world is moving to flatscreens, which means they're moving to fixed resolutions and crappy scaling for anything that doesn't evenly divide into its resolution (and in some cases, for things which do but are just much smaller.)
I dislike it. To me, CRTs look better for SD content. But I'm also realistic--when my TV dies, I'm probably not going to have the choice to get a CRT.
VHS quality is very deceptive. What that usually means is 320x240 at 30fps resolution, or 320x288 at 25fps, which will appear fairly blocky on large TVs. Real VHS will appear blurry rather than blocky--to me, it's superior, but I understand that different people may have different tastes.
I was tempted by DVD recorders many times. The main reasons I never took the plunge are:
- Too expensive. I kept waiting for the prices to drop, and they never did. When I stopped caring, they were just under $1,000.
- Low recording capacity. I think the blanks are good for 2 hours. It may vary based upon quality, but quality matters--I'd rather have VHS than low-quality digital.
- TiVo hacking. Eventually, I got a TiVo, and could extract shows on my own, and burn them to (slightly out-of-spec) DVD.
I finally got rid of the TiVo when I got satellite, but now don't care so much about archiving. My DVR gets the shows, I watch them, then I delete them. I came to realize that most of the stuff that I wanted more-permanent copies of, I rarely watched again, anyway.
So the truth is, for me, a DVR is all I want. Swapping DVD blanks and low recording times make the solution completely unacceptable at this point, even if they came down in price significantly.
The more important question is whether or not she won, not whether or not she sued. You can sue just about anyone, whether or not your case has merit.
You're conflating simple DNS queries with administrative DNS actions in an attempt to call me a troll and attack my technical knowledge. Of course DNS is a requirement for the modern Internet--to suggest otherwise would be absurd. And of course, if you couldn't have information which is included in the zone file, we wouldn't be able to navigate using domain names. What's essential is that one rarely needs all of the information in the zone file. Classical DNS management suggests that only related DNS servers need to do a zone transfer. It's traditionally a replication mechanism, not intended for end users.
But hey, nice attempt to manipulate small facts to present a distorted view. Maybe you should become a politician.
Go read the actual legal briefing and see if you still agree. It was highly distorted in both the Slashdot summary and the article linked from Slashdot.
I doubt that most geeks would agree with your statement, but judging by the comments on Slashdot, my statement is well-supported.
It all goes to intent. The judge understood the intent of zone transfers, and thus made the ruling despite the fact that the DNS server was wide open.
I've never wished that I had mod points more than today.
That said, the people on Slashdot aren't making a legal ruling that will affect someone's life.
The intended purpose of a website is to display information. The intended purpose of an administrative page on a website is for the site manager to modify the settings of the website. Accessing the first pseudo-anonymously (as is the way of the Internet) is clearly the intended use. Accessing the second pseudo-anonymously (because the administrator forgot to set a password) clearly is not.
What matters most here, is the wording of the computer crime laws in North Dakota. So far, no one's bother to bring that up.
Geeks don't like this ruling, though, because it's not black-and-white. A geek think that if it's open on the Internet, it ought to be legal. If it asks for a password and you break in, it ought not be. Absent other means of gaining authorization, a request on the Internet implies a request for authorization, and a reply with the requested information from the server ought to imply authorization. The burden should be on the server operator to restrict or allow access, because on a pseudo-anonymous Internet, there's no other metric we can use. "Most of the time, the server operator wouldn't want this?"
Please see my post at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=419084&cid=22067098
Yeah, you'll note that about a dozen other people already pointed that out. Thanks for your added support.
Geez, one thing about Slashdot--there's always a ready supply of self-righteous assholes ready to correct your tiniest mistake.
No worries! None of the others were actually direct replies to my post, I don't think.
I was trying to be fair and throw a bone to all the Apple lovers. I'm also disappointed in the lack of Ethernet--of course, you can always get an adapter.
Yeah, but time and again, reports come out that Apple machines just don't handle low-quality RAM too well. The extra few bucks for better quality control (that's almost all it CAN be--it's the same damn physical chips) is worth the trouble, in my opinion.
Also, in the Macbook (with its integrated video), you really want two 1gig sticks in order to make up the difference. On Newegg right now, you get 1GB sticks each for $24.99.
I'll summarize another post I made along the same lines.
First, I wholeheartedly agree that there is a market for sub-notebooks. I've been wanting to pick one up myself. I consider the Macbook to be on the larger side of the sub-notebook class of computers. What I was talking about was specifically the Macbook Air, specifically compared to Apple's next smallest notebook.
Here's what you get going from the stock Macbook to the Macbook Air:
2 pounds lighter.
0.25 inches thinner, at its thickest.
Spiffy new touchpad.
OLED screen, meaning that the LCD should last longer (this is a marginal improvement)
1 extra gb of RAM, base (costs $150 to add to the Macbook on Apple's website, $50 to add after-market)
Trendy new computer that few other people have.
Here's what you give up:
1 optical drive
1 USB port
1 Firewire port (probably not a big deal to travelers)
1 replaceable battery (meaning that your travelers won't be able to carry a spare)
1 hour of battery life (even worse considering the lack of a replaceable battery)
1 ethernet jack (probably not a big deal, since wireless is slowly becoming ubiquitous)
400mhz on the low end, 200mhz on the high end.
Replaceable RAM (RAM starts going bad? Your Mac is going in for service. Hope it doesn't go bad after the warranty is up.)
Stereo speakers
Optical audio out
$600
I simply can't believe that the things you get are highly sought after.
There's size, and then there are the dimensions that really matter.
The Macbook is 13.3". The Macbook Air is 13.3". Where they've cut down is on thickness (and not much on that) and weight (from 5 pounds on the Macbook to 3 pounds on the Macbook Air.) The weight is nice, if you don't mind a non-replaceable battery, no optical drive, and extremely limited expandability (one USB and one DVI.) The advertised battery life is actually lower than on the Macbook!
Talking generically, you're right. People might spend more money on a smaller, lighter notebook. In this case, though, they're spending more money on a thinner, lighter notebook which eliminates a lot of the features that notebook users probably take for granted right now. I simply can't believe that there is a huge market for the feature set of the Macbook Air compared to the featureset of the Macbook. I can completely believe that the trendy nature of "the new Mac laptop" has a large market.
It can't matter that much. There aren't many situations where it's necessary from a usability or pragmatic standpoint.
These laptops are trendy, nothing more. If you want to be trendy, it's perfect--and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But I'm going to get really tired of hearing how innovative Apple is with the Air when functionally, the only new thing is the touchpad (which, you'll note, they didn't put in their other notebook lines, possibly because they realize that it's the only thing that really separates the Air from the Macbook/Pro.
No, I don't. Perhaps you thought I was suggesting that such a practice was morally ok--I wasn't. But I was trying to look at it from a purely business side of things.
Congress /approves/ funding--that the President requests.
All I have to do is request less.