TIVO had a heck of a time getting their CableCard approval and had to DROP features in order to get it.
Exactly my point.
They have also sued at least one cable provider over their use of TIVO patented features
So they're willing to screw customers to get CableCard support, *and* sue the cable industry over patents. Apparently they're even more desperate and screwed up than I thought.
Just because TIVO can work well with cable companies does *not* mean they are in bed with them somehow
Fine, allow me to rephrase. TIVO is willing to cowtow to the cable industry and screw their customers (such as dropping 30 second commercial skip support) when it serves their motives. I fail to see how this is any better.
Good for you. I'm sure 50% of the geek community will agree and 50% won't. It's a matter of opinion, and in this case, yours differs from that of the OpenBSD team (and mine, BTW).
Or just drop some ethernet and put all that stuff in a big backend server somewhere. Then get a nice, slimline case running an mATX board for your frontend.
You mean like watching TV? Clearly it's not "completely irrelevant", and I'd hardly call watching SD or downconverted HD (not to mention the million other things Myth can do) insufficient for "a more-than-minimally-functional system".
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.
Ha ha, yeah, if you think Myth users selected it as an option because it's cheaper, you're seriously misguided. I know I selected Myth because it's more flexible, powerful, and featureful than any commercial DVR I could buy (I don't have an HDTV at this point, so downconverted HD would be just fine for me).
Because you have no control over the content you record. And they're friggin' buggy. Oh, and they're inflexible. And you can't expand or upgrade them (my Myth box has 2 tuners and 250GB... but eventually, I plan to have 3 tuners and >TB. Good luck getting that on a TW DVR).
Besides, can you listen to your digital music collection with your TW box? Or web radio? Can you watch your ripped DVD collection? Or downloaded video?
And then there's the more esoteric. Can you get RSS feeds, or the news, or weather on those boxes? Can you play games on them?
Yes. I have two tuners on my Myth box connected to two DSTBs. If you'd done any reading at all, you'd know this.
Can it record an HD signal at full resolution without recompressing it?
Of course, not, but we both know that's a rhetorical question. OTOH, downconverted HD still looks pretty friggin' good. And there's firewire or ATSC capture options for some.
But I will agree, the fact that Tivo is in bed with the cable industry does give them an advantage, here.
In general it is pretty good at changing the channels, there times when it does not change the channel correctly.
Then it's not set up terribly well. I have a pair of DCT2524's controlled by my Myth box using a pair of blasters from here, and I have never, repeat, never missed a single tune.
I was going to say the same thing. I was talking to someone the other day who was using a cableco DVR, and they were talking about how awesome it was to skip commercials. "Yeah, I just hit the skip button a few times, and voila!". He was pretty impressed when I told him that my Myth box will actually detect the start and end of commercials, and if you ask it to, will skip them automatically without the user having to touch the remote.:)
The fact is, Tivo and the like are in bed with cable companies (they have to be if they want to directly capture any encrypted content), and are extremely unlikely to implement any features that might jeapardize advertising revenue or facilitate piracy.
The downside is that my Myth box is stuck with SD analog capture from DSTBs (here in Canada, there is no mandate that any digital channels be provided unencrypted).
Ha ha ha ha! Oh god... man, that's a good one. Yeah, you're right, TV is the *only* thing stopping the American population from becoming actively involved in life. As opposed to, say, ignorance, laziness, short-sightedness, or simply being distracted by the day-to-day necessities of living (working, paying the bills, eating, raising the kids...).
Yeah - the choice between an inferior screen and a modern OS versus a superior screen and a faulty OS.
Choice is still choice.;)
As for the rest of your complaints, you're absolutely right, PalmOS has it's problems, and for many people it's not the best choice. But for me, a guy who uses his Palm to write (with my IR keyboard), read e-books and watch movies (the bigger screen on my T|X is wonderful for this), listen to music, manage my schedule (datebk5 kicks ass), occasionally check my email (I use Snappermail, not Versa, which is total shit), and maybe hack code with something like OnboardC or PP, it's perfect.
Again, it all comes down to choice. For you, PalmOS is a bad choice. OTOH, it works great for me. *shrug*
But to interpret the presence of the 700w as some kind of death knell for PalmOS is, I think, jumping to illogical conclusions.
My kneecaps are already intact. But you're saying that now I have to pay to keep them that way?
That's right! By either paying the guy with the ball-peen hammer to go away, or hiring private security, because, guess what?, there are no publically-funded policy in the libertarian fantasy world.
The problem is that it can be a significant legal hassle to get the necessary agreements in place, a hassle which is costly in both time and money. The result is that many internet radio stations will likely just disappear.
What the indie scene desperately needs to do is band together and form a licensing clearing house, similar to ASCAP and the like, which could serve as a single point of contact for radio stations to license their works.
It was actually back in 2002, all thanks to the DMCA CARP ruling. The SomaFM About Page covers what they went through during that time. Now, with the latest fees, they're looking at about $1 million in royalty fees for the year of 2007, compared to $22,000 for 2006.
And all this just as I started listening to them... thanks a lot, Copyright Royalty Board. Assholes.
As it happens, this also further damages traditional media business models. Right now, with their control on distribution, the large media companies can use their clout to promote artists they believe are mass marketable. Internet Radio, on the other hand, fractures their market, because smaller (or worse, independant) artists may get more airplay. It also means their current payola schemes no longer work... how can you buy off thousands of internet radio stations running out of people's basements?
In the end, the only people Internet Radio helps are the small artists and the music-listening public. Unfortunately, neither of these groups has much lobbying clout, and so we see ridiculous outcomes like this.
The thing is, more power makes a platform easier to program for.
Holy crap, what crack are *you* smoking?? The PS3 is, by all accounts, the most difficult to program platform yet, and the PS2 held the same title during it's generation. And the only reason the XBoxes are relatively easy to target is because they're so similar to a PC, and Microsoft writes fairly decent devkit. Meanwhile, the GC, GBA, DS, and Wii are all reported to be incredibly easy to dev for, with very solid, inexpensive kits.
Hell, my own experience is that the GBA and DS are paragons of simplicity. If the GC and Wii are at all similar, I'm sure they're an absolute dream to develop for.
If some people in your graduating class are morons then that is a problem with your university, because in my university no one got the CS BSc degree without deserving it.
Yeah, I bet no one skated by in their class projects by being part of a group that contained people who were actually competant. And I bet they never effectively copied assignments from others, in the name of "working in groups". Or just barely squeezed by in their exams, relying on their project and assignment grades to buoy their average.
Honestly, just because *you* never encountered anyone who managed to squeak out of University with a degree, doesn't mean people didn't manage it. I graduated from the University of Alberta, which has a top-notch computing science program, and believe me, some people managed to get a degree despite being largely incompetant as a software developer.
Now, that's not to say that your odds aren't better by hiring someone with a University degree. But it's by no means a slam dunk.
Look at healthcare organizations in the states - they are private organizations, independently accredited by a private third-party organization. And the result is the safest, highest quality healthcare in the world.
That's inaccessible to 16% of the American population, or some 45.8 million people. Plus, given the amount of money spent (#1 at over $4000 per person, or 14.6% of GDP) versus life expectancy (#31), and it's one of the more *inefficient* systems in the world, too.
And now you want to do the same thing to education? Yeah... great idea.
Ha ha. Yeah, I'm sure *everybody* is editing HD video and storing RAW images from their digital cameras.
Sorry dude, but just because *you* might be doing those things, doesn't make you any less the exception. The fact is, *most* people would be just fine with old hardware, because most people really do just browse the web, check their email, and write documents with their PC.
while dylan isn't a pop artist by any means, his music and songs are certainly far from boring
Well, while it's true that Dylans *music* is good, his *singing* is horrible. Honestly, if someone *else* sang his stuff, it would be brilliant... the lyrics, the arrangements, all fantastic. But that voice...!
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TIVO had a heck of a time getting their CableCard approval and had to DROP features in order to get it.
Exactly my point.
They have also sued at least one cable provider over their use of TIVO patented features
So they're willing to screw customers to get CableCard support, *and* sue the cable industry over patents. Apparently they're even more desperate and screwed up than I thought.
Just because TIVO can work well with cable companies does *not* mean they are in bed with them somehow
Fine, allow me to rephrase. TIVO is willing to cowtow to the cable industry and screw their customers (such as dropping 30 second commercial skip support) when it serves their motives. I fail to see how this is any better.
Good for you. I'm sure 50% of the geek community will agree and 50% won't. It's a matter of opinion, and in this case, yours differs from that of the OpenBSD team (and mine, BTW).
Or just drop some ethernet and put all that stuff in a big backend server somewhere. Then get a nice, slimline case running an mATX board for your frontend.
Umm... get a second STB? Or buy one of those ultracheap digital-analog converters the US government will be subsidizing.
You mean like watching TV? Clearly it's not "completely irrelevant", and I'd hardly call watching SD or downconverted HD (not to mention the million other things Myth can do) insufficient for "a more-than-minimally-functional system".
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.
Ha ha, yeah, if you think Myth users selected it as an option because it's cheaper, you're seriously misguided. I know I selected Myth because it's more flexible, powerful, and featureful than any commercial DVR I could buy (I don't have an HDTV at this point, so downconverted HD would be just fine for me).
Because you have no control over the content you record. And they're friggin' buggy. Oh, and they're inflexible. And you can't expand or upgrade them (my Myth box has 2 tuners and 250GB... but eventually, I plan to have 3 tuners and >TB. Good luck getting that on a TW DVR).
Besides, can you listen to your digital music collection with your TW box? Or web radio? Can you watch your ripped DVD collection? Or downloaded video?
And then there's the more esoteric. Can you get RSS feeds, or the news, or weather on those boxes? Can you play games on them?
Can it record two channels at the same time?
Yes. I have two tuners on my Myth box connected to two DSTBs. If you'd done any reading at all, you'd know this.
Can it record an HD signal at full resolution without recompressing it?
Of course, not, but we both know that's a rhetorical question. OTOH, downconverted HD still looks pretty friggin' good. And there's firewire or ATSC capture options for some.
But I will agree, the fact that Tivo is in bed with the cable industry does give them an advantage, here.
In general it is pretty good at changing the channels, there times when it does not change the channel correctly.
Then it's not set up terribly well. I have a pair of DCT2524's controlled by my Myth box using a pair of blasters from here, and I have never, repeat, never missed a single tune.
I was going to say the same thing. I was talking to someone the other day who was using a cableco DVR, and they were talking about how awesome it was to skip commercials. "Yeah, I just hit the skip button a few times, and voila!". He was pretty impressed when I told him that my Myth box will actually detect the start and end of commercials, and if you ask it to, will skip them automatically without the user having to touch the remote. :)
The fact is, Tivo and the like are in bed with cable companies (they have to be if they want to directly capture any encrypted content), and are extremely unlikely to implement any features that might jeapardize advertising revenue or facilitate piracy.
The downside is that my Myth box is stuck with SD analog capture from DSTBs (here in Canada, there is no mandate that any digital channels be provided unencrypted).
Ha ha ha ha! Oh god... man, that's a good one. Yeah, you're right, TV is the *only* thing stopping the American population from becoming actively involved in life. As opposed to, say, ignorance, laziness, short-sightedness, or simply being distracted by the day-to-day necessities of living (working, paying the bills, eating, raising the kids...).
Yeah - the choice between an inferior screen and a modern OS versus a superior screen and a faulty OS.
;)
Choice is still choice.
As for the rest of your complaints, you're absolutely right, PalmOS has it's problems, and for many people it's not the best choice. But for me, a guy who uses his Palm to write (with my IR keyboard), read e-books and watch movies (the bigger screen on my T|X is wonderful for this), listen to music, manage my schedule (datebk5 kicks ass), occasionally check my email (I use Snappermail, not Versa, which is total shit), and maybe hack code with something like OnboardC or PP, it's perfect.
Again, it all comes down to choice. For you, PalmOS is a bad choice. OTOH, it works great for me. *shrug*
But to interpret the presence of the 700w as some kind of death knell for PalmOS is, I think, jumping to illogical conclusions.
How does thst demonstrate anything? The Treo 700p runs PalmOS. Maybe they're just trying to give the customer choice.
My kneecaps are already intact. But you're saying that now I have to pay to keep them that way?
That's right! By either paying the guy with the ball-peen hammer to go away, or hiring private security, because, guess what?, there are no publically-funded policy in the libertarian fantasy world.
Fun, eh?
The problem is that it can be a significant legal hassle to get the necessary agreements in place, a hassle which is costly in both time and money. The result is that many internet radio stations will likely just disappear.
What the indie scene desperately needs to do is band together and form a licensing clearing house, similar to ASCAP and the like, which could serve as a single point of contact for radio stations to license their works.
It was actually back in 2002, all thanks to the DMCA CARP ruling. The SomaFM About Page covers what they went through during that time. Now, with the latest fees, they're looking at about $1 million in royalty fees for the year of 2007, compared to $22,000 for 2006.
And all this just as I started listening to them... thanks a lot, Copyright Royalty Board. Assholes.
As it happens, this also further damages traditional media business models. Right now, with their control on distribution, the large media companies can use their clout to promote artists they believe are mass marketable. Internet Radio, on the other hand, fractures their market, because smaller (or worse, independant) artists may get more airplay. It also means their current payola schemes no longer work... how can you buy off thousands of internet radio stations running out of people's basements?
In the end, the only people Internet Radio helps are the small artists and the music-listening public. Unfortunately, neither of these groups has much lobbying clout, and so we see ridiculous outcomes like this.
Let me put this simply: You live in an atypical echo chamber.
Personally, I know 2 people who own HDTVs, one of which bought his simply because it was on sale due to the model being discontinued.
The thing is, more power makes a platform easier to program for.
Holy crap, what crack are *you* smoking?? The PS3 is, by all accounts, the most difficult to program platform yet, and the PS2 held the same title during it's generation. And the only reason the XBoxes are relatively easy to target is because they're so similar to a PC, and Microsoft writes fairly decent devkit. Meanwhile, the GC, GBA, DS, and Wii are all reported to be incredibly easy to dev for, with very solid, inexpensive kits.
Hell, my own experience is that the GBA and DS are paragons of simplicity. If the GC and Wii are at all similar, I'm sure they're an absolute dream to develop for.
If some people in your graduating class are morons then that is a problem with your university, because in my university no one got the CS BSc degree without deserving it.
Yeah, I bet no one skated by in their class projects by being part of a group that contained people who were actually competant. And I bet they never effectively copied assignments from others, in the name of "working in groups". Or just barely squeezed by in their exams, relying on their project and assignment grades to buoy their average.
Honestly, just because *you* never encountered anyone who managed to squeak out of University with a degree, doesn't mean people didn't manage it. I graduated from the University of Alberta, which has a top-notch computing science program, and believe me, some people managed to get a degree despite being largely incompetant as a software developer.
Now, that's not to say that your odds aren't better by hiring someone with a University degree. But it's by no means a slam dunk.
Look at healthcare organizations in the states - they are private organizations, independently accredited by a private third-party organization. And the result is the safest, highest quality healthcare in the world.
That's inaccessible to 16% of the American population, or some 45.8 million people. Plus, given the amount of money spent (#1 at over $4000 per person, or 14.6% of GDP) versus life expectancy (#31), and it's one of the more *inefficient* systems in the world, too.
And now you want to do the same thing to education? Yeah... great idea.
First off, the DMCA applies to circumvention devices for encrypted content. Last I checked, this thing wasn't a decryption device.
Second, this thing doesn't "bypass" the DS startup handshake. It implements it (it was cracked some time ago, as I understand it).
Ha ha. Yeah, I'm sure *everybody* is editing HD video and storing RAW images from their digital cameras.
Sorry dude, but just because *you* might be doing those things, doesn't make you any less the exception. The fact is, *most* people would be just fine with old hardware, because most people really do just browse the web, check their email, and write documents with their PC.
Sure, why not? Specifically, I would expect they'd excavate the tent site, deploy the thing, and then cover it back over with the excavated regolith.
while dylan isn't a pop artist by any means, his music and songs are certainly far from boring
Well, while it's true that Dylans *music* is good, his *singing* is horrible. Honestly, if someone *else* sang his stuff, it would be brilliant... the lyrics, the arrangements, all fantastic. But that voice...!