First you need to come up with a way of labeling the products that doesn't imply it is a bad thing. Face it, if you put a mandated label on something, people don't "decide for themselves". They assume that it's bad but the government can't come out and say it.
The sad part is that "genetic modification" is going to take the majority of the blame, not the individuals at Monsanto that actually caused the problem.
While their efforts will likely not work, and while they might be better off taking another route, their efforts are nonetheless not legislating morality (since, I repeat, it doesn't block porn), and, even if it did amount to legislating morality, would still be acceptable.
To you. You left that part off the sentence. It would still be acceptable to you.
Perhaps it would still be acceptable to other people too, but I doubt it would be acceptable to the majority of people who actually understand what the legislation does (beyond "It's a law to protect children", or whatever).
So AFAIK (which as we now both know isn't too far at all) encrypted signals don't even enter into the equation assuming you have a cable box and an IR blaster to handle it. Is that incorrect?
Yes, that is incorrect. The cable box will convert the encrypted digital signal from the cable into either an encrypted digital signal that your TV understands (HDCP protected DVI or HDMI), an analog HD signal (component video, labeled Y'PbPr on your TV), or an analog SD signal (S-Video, RF over RG-6 coax which you then tune your TV to channel '3' or whatever to view, or composite 'RCA' video). You can't capture HDCP digital signals, and you can't capture the component signal for any reasonable sum of money, so essentially you can't capture the encrypted HD signal (at least not without an illegally hacked cable box which strips the encryption).
The card you linked to can capture the digital signal from the cable company (Encoded as Digital QAM) or the ATSC signal from a digital over-the-air broadcast without a cable box, but only if the signal is unencrypted*. To decrypt the signal, you need either a cable box (which will only output in the non-captureable formats I described above, or a CableCARD enabled device. CableCARD certification is only given to devices that impose the above limitations, so that doesn't help either.
What is analog HD video anyhow? Seems like an oxymoron, again demonstrating my lack of knowledge in this arena.
High-Def video is not necessarily digital, and digital video is not necessarily high-def. 'HD' refers (typically.. the term has been bastardized recently) to video with at least 720 lines of resolution. That video can be transmitted however you'd like. Common interconnects are Component (analog) and HDMI (digital). Digital cable and over the air broadcasts may be digital, but they can be in the old 480i resolution, and thus SD.
* Technically, it can capture the encrypted signal, but since it is encrypted you wouldn't be able to decode and display it.
That is exactly what I said it is. It can capture non-encrypted, digital HD video, and SD analog content. It cannot capture analog HD video. It cannot capture HD content from digital cable if it is encrypted (for practically everybody, anything that isn't also available with an antenna is encrypted). It is an ATSC/NTSC + DVB + Unencrypted QAM capture card. Exactly what I was referring to in my post, and pretty much completely useless if you want to have a DVR that can record cable-only HD content. You can also capture via firewire, and you can get a card for that for $10, but it doesn't help you capture encrypted HD content.
That's not a good analogy. With the DTV switchover, the Government is asking people to spend money in order to receive the same level of service. Sure, it has more pixels, but it's still just television.
Since when does it have more pixels? Last I checked a 480i signal has the same number of pixels regardless of whether the transmission is digital or analog.
having to worry whether the person is using TeamSpeak, Ventrillo, or Skype.
That's actually a feature in my book.... Well not the "worrying" part. I don't worry about it.
I just don't talk to anybody through voice chat unless we're logged into the same private server. I don't want to talk to any random squeaker who doesn't know what 'noob' means, but uses the term ever 20 seconds because they're fairly sure it's derogatory.
It wouldn't be as easy as you think. Practically all FPSs on consoles "help" the player aim in one way or another to make up for the fact that the accuracy, precision, and even the consistency from controller to controller are ridiculously low. If the mouse and keyboard version of the game don't have the same aids, you may actually be at a disadvantage even though the controller is provably less precise.
Seriously, go try to find one that a normal human can afford. There are professional models that are meant for video editing consoles and cost thousands of dollars, but a consumer affordable analog HD capture card just doesn't exist. You can get digital capture either via ATSC, firewire, or unencrypted QAM (or DVB if you live in Europe), but for analog HD or encrypted digital (the bulk of non-broadcast content) you're just out of luck.
I can think of an easy law that would address all of these problems...
If you cause an accident because you're being stupid. You (not your insurance company) have to pay for the damage you to to other people and their property. You should still have insurance to cover the damage if you can't pay, but you should have your license revoked until you finish repaying your debt to the insurer.
If there were consequences to irresponsible behavior, people would be inclined to stop behaving badly. Also, it would lower insurance premiums drastically.
I also completely agree that the driving test should be crafted to weed out bad drivers, rather than giving a license to anybody that can afford the fee.
The Tivo electricity usage is on par with the cable box alone. A general purpose computer transcoding video 24/7 is significantly more power hungry than a device that writes bits from the network to disk.
My series 3 Tivo draws about 30 watts. My MythTV box running SD content used 90 watts. If you increase the CPU utilization by 4x, what do you think will happen?
There aren't any gas toasters because they wouldn't work very well. Burning natural gas produces CO2 and water vapor. You'd have soggy toast unless the flame was above the bread, and then you'd have to flip the toast... For a demonstration, put a pot of cold water on the stove and turn on the gas. You'll see the condensation from the exhaust products form on the outside of the pot.
I probably should get a gas dryer, but in the summer you can go one better and use a clothes line. I'm planning on getting an induction stove (more efficient than gas even, because much less heat is lost to the air) as soon as I can afford one.
Unless they're lying about the efficiency ratings, tankless models can be significantly more efficient than water heaters with a tank. I'm upgrading to a tankless water heater in a few months, but the old one is gas already, and isn't contributing to my electric bill.
Sorry.... Encrypted content isn't transmitted over the firewire interface. Either you don't have it working, or you got a lucky buggy cable box. (Or maybe you don't have any encrypted channels).
I didn't give up because I couldn't figure it out. I gave up because it's provably impossible without a hacked cable box that I wasn't willing to buy. Sure, you can record whatever content is available over firewire, but at least where I live, that is exactly the same content that I could get with an antenna.
And it never occurred to me to determine how much power my setup was using--although, my monthly electric bill for my house is around the cost of TiVo subscription, so I'm not sure you're correct.
Holy crap! How much is your electricity? Around here it's $0.22/kwH.. My monthly electric bill is 10x the cost of a Tivo subscription, and that's after replacing practically everything (except the stove/oven which is inefficient by definition) with the latest energy efficient stuff!
If you don't care about HD, the parent has a point. MythTV can record whatever you want as long as you don't mind it being in SD. It also has other nice features like MythDVD, and MAME integration, etc...
Once you want HD though, MythTV becomes almost useless.
I know you're wrong because I tried to do exactly this before I went and bought a Series 3 Tivo. The only way to have a DVR for encrypted HD is to get a Tivo or a POS cableco DVR. Your setup (unless you have some magical HD capture card that nobody makes) can only record encrypted HD content that has been downconverted to SD, and even if you did have HD capture, it would be re-encoded.
Oh, and put a watt-meter on your cable box+MythTV combo. I'll bet you spend more on additional electricity than you would on the monthly Tivo service fee.
Using text messages doesn't mean you have to be rude. Quite the contrary, a text message can mean that you're not interrupting the receiver with a phone call about something quick, and instead sending them a quick message that they can read at their leisure. Nobody is forcing you to use it under the table at dinner. Since the advent of text messaging it is nice to no longer have to deal with the formalities and interruptions of a phone call for quick things like "Can you pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work?". Additionally, it can actually bring you closer to your friends and family with less interference into daily life than a phone call, which may not be acceptable during the day. Checking a text message is significantly easier than checking voicemail, and it isn't any less personal.
It's also nice to have the data package so you can do things like phone book lookups without powering up a laptop and finding a hotspot. Really, when you're walking around, who wants to carry a laptop anyway? I'll admit, though, that it is purely a luxury, and 4 out of five times you can get the information you need from Google SMS anyway (reason enough to have text messaging, if you ask me...).
I agree that $150 is insane though. Especially considering that I currently get (from Sprint) unlimited Nights, 750 daytime minutes (of which I never use all of since SMS), unlimited text messages, and unlimited data for $55/month. I think that these plans are meant for the theoretical people who spend hundreds of dollars on land-line long distance every month. To somebody like that I can see how it would be attractive.
And turn off the damned ringer. It isn't any less annoying because it's stock. Your phone has a silent/vibrate mode for a reason, and if it can't be near your body, then use the "beep" mode.
Who cares about writing though? Isn't the point of all this that you should be able to read the documents without having to pay Microsoft?
They've already got a lock on the market. The only reason they're bothering with this stuff is because some governments and companies have laws/rules stating documents need to be stored in an ISO standard format. Those rules and laws exist to guarantee the ability to read those documents. The only piece of software that should care at all about being able to write OpenXML files is Microsoft Office. If you're not using Office, why would you care that you are capable of writing a file that can be read by it?
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First you need to come up with a way of labeling the products that doesn't imply it is a bad thing. Face it, if you put a mandated label on something, people don't "decide for themselves". They assume that it's bad but the government can't come out and say it.
Yeah, that's what it sounds like.... And that's my point. It's unfortunate that it sounds like that because GM can be good.
You don't have to lay it out again... It's clear that we would be at an impasse.
We disagree, and I'm not going to argue with you about it because I don't think I have any chance of influencing your position.
The sad part is that "genetic modification" is going to take the majority of the blame, not the individuals at Monsanto that actually caused the problem.
To you. You left that part off the sentence. It would still be acceptable to you.
Perhaps it would still be acceptable to other people too, but I doubt it would be acceptable to the majority of people who actually understand what the legislation does (beyond "It's a law to protect children", or whatever).
Yes, that is incorrect. The cable box will convert the encrypted digital signal from the cable into either an encrypted digital signal that your TV understands (HDCP protected DVI or HDMI), an analog HD signal (component video, labeled Y'PbPr on your TV), or an analog SD signal (S-Video, RF over RG-6 coax which you then tune your TV to channel '3' or whatever to view, or composite 'RCA' video). You can't capture HDCP digital signals, and you can't capture the component signal for any reasonable sum of money, so essentially you can't capture the encrypted HD signal (at least not without an illegally hacked cable box which strips the encryption).
The card you linked to can capture the digital signal from the cable company (Encoded as Digital QAM) or the ATSC signal from a digital over-the-air broadcast without a cable box, but only if the signal is unencrypted*. To decrypt the signal, you need either a cable box (which will only output in the non-captureable formats I described above, or a CableCARD enabled device. CableCARD certification is only given to devices that impose the above limitations, so that doesn't help either.
High-Def video is not necessarily digital, and digital video is not necessarily high-def. 'HD' refers (typically.. the term has been bastardized recently) to video with at least 720 lines of resolution. That video can be transmitted however you'd like. Common interconnects are Component (analog) and HDMI (digital). Digital cable and over the air broadcasts may be digital, but they can be in the old 480i resolution, and thus SD.
* Technically, it can capture the encrypted signal, but since it is encrypted you wouldn't be able to decode and display it.
Holy crap....
Hello, Pot? I'd like you to meet kettle.
Can I get an Emacs vs. vi?
Sigh.
That is exactly what I said it is. It can capture non-encrypted, digital HD video, and SD analog content. It cannot capture analog HD video. It cannot capture HD content from digital cable if it is encrypted (for practically everybody, anything that isn't also available with an antenna is encrypted). It is an ATSC/NTSC + DVB + Unencrypted QAM capture card. Exactly what I was referring to in my post, and pretty much completely useless if you want to have a DVR that can record cable-only HD content. You can also capture via firewire, and you can get a card for that for $10, but it doesn't help you capture encrypted HD content.
Did you even bother to read that page?
Since when does it have more pixels? Last I checked a 480i signal has the same number of pixels regardless of whether the transmission is digital or analog.
DTV does not mean HDTV.
That's actually a feature in my book.... Well not the "worrying" part. I don't worry about it.
I just don't talk to anybody through voice chat unless we're logged into the same private server. I don't want to talk to any random squeaker who doesn't know what 'noob' means, but uses the term ever 20 seconds because they're fairly sure it's derogatory.
It wouldn't be as easy as you think. Practically all FPSs on consoles "help" the player aim in one way or another to make up for the fact that the accuracy, precision, and even the consistency from controller to controller are ridiculously low. If the mouse and keyboard version of the game don't have the same aids, you may actually be at a disadvantage even though the controller is provably less precise.
You're missing the HD capture card.
Seriously, go try to find one that a normal human can afford. There are professional models that are meant for video editing consoles and cost thousands of dollars, but a consumer affordable analog HD capture card just doesn't exist. You can get digital capture either via ATSC, firewire, or unencrypted QAM (or DVB if you live in Europe), but for analog HD or encrypted digital (the bulk of non-broadcast content) you're just out of luck.
Series 3 Tivo does not transcode digital broadcasts.
Also, when it does transcode it does not use a general purpose processor, but instead a more efficient (for the task) programmable DSP.
I can think of an easy law that would address all of these problems...
If you cause an accident because you're being stupid. You (not your insurance company) have to pay for the damage you to to other people and their property. You should still have insurance to cover the damage if you can't pay, but you should have your license revoked until you finish repaying your debt to the insurer.
If there were consequences to irresponsible behavior, people would be inclined to stop behaving badly. Also, it would lower insurance premiums drastically.
I also completely agree that the driving test should be crafted to weed out bad drivers, rather than giving a license to anybody that can afford the fee.
MythTV Electricity + Cable box electricity.
The Tivo electricity usage is on par with the cable box alone. A general purpose computer transcoding video 24/7 is significantly more power hungry than a device that writes bits from the network to disk.
My series 3 Tivo draws about 30 watts. My MythTV box running SD content used 90 watts. If you increase the CPU utilization by 4x, what do you think will happen?
There aren't any gas toasters because they wouldn't work very well. Burning natural gas produces CO2 and water vapor. You'd have soggy toast unless the flame was above the bread, and then you'd have to flip the toast... For a demonstration, put a pot of cold water on the stove and turn on the gas. You'll see the condensation from the exhaust products form on the outside of the pot.
I probably should get a gas dryer, but in the summer you can go one better and use a clothes line. I'm planning on getting an induction stove (more efficient than gas even, because much less heat is lost to the air) as soon as I can afford one.
Unless they're lying about the efficiency ratings, tankless models can be significantly more efficient than water heaters with a tank. I'm upgrading to a tankless water heater in a few months, but the old one is gas already, and isn't contributing to my electric bill.
Nine times out of 10, a failed assert is implemented as a hard exit.
Please, do the people using and maintaining your code a favor, and return status instead of crashing when your assert fails.
(This isn't necessarily directed at you. I'm just making a general point.)
I didn't give up because I couldn't figure it out. I gave up because it's provably impossible without a hacked cable box that I wasn't willing to buy. Sure, you can record whatever content is available over firewire, but at least where I live, that is exactly the same content that I could get with an antenna.
Holy crap! How much is your electricity? Around here it's $0.22/kwH.. My monthly electric bill is 10x the cost of a Tivo subscription, and that's after replacing practically everything (except the stove/oven which is inefficient by definition) with the latest energy efficient stuff!
If you don't care about HD, the parent has a point. MythTV can record whatever you want as long as you don't mind it being in SD. It also has other nice features like MythDVD, and MAME integration, etc...
Once you want HD though, MythTV becomes almost useless.
Really? All three Blu-Ray titles are in the top 100?
Kidding, of course, but the Blu-Ray selection, and the HD-DVD selection too for that matter is pretty terrible right now.
I know you're wrong because I tried to do exactly this before I went and bought a Series 3 Tivo. The only way to have a DVR for encrypted HD is to get a Tivo or a POS cableco DVR. Your setup (unless you have some magical HD capture card that nobody makes) can only record encrypted HD content that has been downconverted to SD, and even if you did have HD capture, it would be re-encoded.
Oh, and put a watt-meter on your cable box+MythTV combo. I'll bet you spend more on additional electricity than you would on the monthly Tivo service fee.
Keep in mind that incoming messages count against that too, and that since pagers are a thing of the past, SMS is the logical replacement.
Using text messages doesn't mean you have to be rude. Quite the contrary, a text message can mean that you're not interrupting the receiver with a phone call about something quick, and instead sending them a quick message that they can read at their leisure. Nobody is forcing you to use it under the table at dinner. Since the advent of text messaging it is nice to no longer have to deal with the formalities and interruptions of a phone call for quick things like "Can you pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work?". Additionally, it can actually bring you closer to your friends and family with less interference into daily life than a phone call, which may not be acceptable during the day. Checking a text message is significantly easier than checking voicemail, and it isn't any less personal.
It's also nice to have the data package so you can do things like phone book lookups without powering up a laptop and finding a hotspot. Really, when you're walking around, who wants to carry a laptop anyway? I'll admit, though, that it is purely a luxury, and 4 out of five times you can get the information you need from Google SMS anyway (reason enough to have text messaging, if you ask me...).
I agree that $150 is insane though. Especially considering that I currently get (from Sprint) unlimited Nights, 750 daytime minutes (of which I never use all of since SMS), unlimited text messages, and unlimited data for $55/month. I think that these plans are meant for the theoretical people who spend hundreds of dollars on land-line long distance every month. To somebody like that I can see how it would be attractive.
And turn off the damned ringer. It isn't any less annoying because it's stock. Your phone has a silent/vibrate mode for a reason, and if it can't be near your body, then use the "beep" mode.
Who cares about writing though? Isn't the point of all this that you should be able to read the documents without having to pay Microsoft?
They've already got a lock on the market. The only reason they're bothering with this stuff is because some governments and companies have laws/rules stating documents need to be stored in an ISO standard format. Those rules and laws exist to guarantee the ability to read those documents. The only piece of software that should care at all about being able to write OpenXML files is Microsoft Office. If you're not using Office, why would you care that you are capable of writing a file that can be read by it?
I wasn't aware that something had changed and suddenly two wrongs make a right.