So the corollary, that Some PC owners also own a Mac is not true? The not-vice-versa part of the title doesn't make any sense. If I own a PC and a Mac, then I am BOTH a PC owner who has a Mac, and a Mac owner to owns a PC, or, to put it like the title states: "One Mac owner also owns a PC, AND vice-versa."
I recently saw a wall clock with similar "atomic" time-setting capabilites here in the US. I'm betting that if they can do it for around $30, then a computer interface to such a thing must be pretty cheep too. I don't think they used GPS for it (the clock wasn't expensive enough).
http://www.simplyradios.com/acatalog/rev99193.ht m
There IS a DirecTV + Tivo combo box. It's been out for months. Check out either or both companies' web sites for info.
The only problem with the unit is that it doesn't contain an RF tuner in it, so you either bypass the "directivo" to watch local cable or broadcast tv live, or you get your locals through directv.
The big advantage is that the recording capaicity for this unit is at the highest possible, dtv-quality picture, because it just records the DTV signal to the hard drive, with no mpeg decompression/recompression like the stand-alone units have to do.
While I agree that it isn't fair that you are not allowed to sell your account/items from outside the game, there are things to keep in mind:
There are only so many GMs who can be hired by Sony/EQ.
Sold accounts are said (by an EQ representative known as Abashi on line) to be the #1 source of fraud perpetrated against the purchasers; bad person sells account, then shortly thereafter removes all in-game items from that account and transfers it to another one for instance.
Most purchasers will go to GMs with complaints about this kind of fraud.
There are not enough GMs to deal with this in addition to legitimate in-game complaints/bug reports/etc.., and it's not even Sony's problem, as they never intended that accounts be transferable.
So, what do you suggest they do? Hire 1000 GMs, who can magically figure out who perpetrated the fraud and then pursue them in real life legally? What about the players who need to report a game-related problem? Do they just have to sit there on-line waiting for hours for a response?
It's a matter of what they can deal with. They can't help people who get defrauded, but they don't have a mechanism to just ignore people who petitiion GMs, flame them for not helping the defrauded, etc...
They may get flack (or lawsuits) for not allowing the sale of accounts & in-game items, but I for one would rather just go along with them on this than have them wasting time and money on lazy stupid people.
If you have a stand-alone box, then this change does not affect you. Later, it has been stated that this will allow OPT-IN programs, giving them and you the flexibilty to control how much of your data is shared (if any at all, you can opt out of even the agregate data that is uploaded).
For the direct tv/tivo combination, they HAVE to link this info for pay-per-view billing. Before the licence change, that was impossible, and would have limited the functionallity legally possible with this combo box.
When are the posters here at slashdot going to RESEARCH submissions before implying that someone is being screwed.
No. You didn't read that correctly. The tivo unit knows what you watch, by virtue of keeping track of the shows you want recorded, and the ratings you give to those shows. It categorizes those shows by genre (among other categories like actor and director). This genre would be used to decide which of these PAX (or whatever he said) ads to record for later playback.
As a Tivo user, I've read the tivo section of the avs forum linked to from the tivo web site. This has come up, and after learning about how these targeted ads will work, I am confident that my privacy isn't being intruded upon.
First, what's probably going to happen is the Tivo service is going to reserve space on the tivo for these targeted ads. They are doing this in new models already. Second, Tivo doesn't upload personal info with you viewing habits. All they know is what was watched, not who watches it (yes, it would be easy to link it, but thier privacy policy, and representatives guarantee that they will not link said data if you don't let them, and you can even opt out of the aggregate info upload. Third, all information on what YOU watch on Tivo is stored locally. Not on a server. If the unit crashes, they can't help you. You get a new Tivo and start setting up recordings, giving thumbs up/down on shows like you did when you first got it.
So, I gather from what I DO know about Tivo, that what will happen is that the locally stored data will be used to record ads that match your viewing habits into the reserved space mentioned above. How you will be presented with these ads, I don't know, but the point is that all of the decisions on what you see are determined locally. Tivo doesn't know what Joe Tivo User watches. They do know that X people what dramas, Y people what sci-fi, and Z people watch both. That kind of data they know.
So I'm not concerned about Tivo specifically. But just wait until other companies get into the game. Microsoft is targeting the PVR market; how do you think they'll handle your privacy?
I'd like a link to a Tivo representative or some other definitive proof of this. I remember distinctly that Richard Bulwinkle, a Tivo rep who regularly posts to the AVS/Tivo forum, mentioned that there was concern over whether the volume of calls into their servers was going to exceed their telephone service bandwidth. He seemed pretty clear that the problem was not that the server would be bogged down by too much internet traffic, but rather that the phone "lines" would be too busy to handle all of the incomming calls.
On the other hand, the local calls being forwarded to the server would be quite a bit more costly than just setting up an internet server (or 50 of them). Okay, now that I've tried to dispute your claim, I can see the merits, and can probably just go to the forum and find the relevant discussions...
I guess I shouln't be surprised the the majority of posters here don't get that this article was about MEDIA BIAS. This article is not about the reletive merits of MS software versus GNU/Linux software (the writer does bring that in, but only as a minor dig).
Let me sum up for you who apparently can write but not read (well, maybe someone else can read this to you)...
Redhat software package ships with default password; media goes crazy over this so-called "back door" into the operating system.
Microsoft ships thier SQL server with no password for "se" user and no prompt to change it, allowing complete system compromise under common cirumstances; media is strangely quiet about this.
In other words, very similar problems, but MS doesn't get attacked by the media.
Actually, there's not a need for ethernet. You don't connect to the internet to get the data that it downloads on a daily basis. You dial directly into the Tivo servers for that. They may use PPP, they proably don't, as there's little reason to supply an IP address; just negotiate with the server tell it what data you need, and start recieving. The tivo guide data and software updates ARE NOT available over the internet. So having ethernet cards in Tivos would be useless.
There's less hacking (i.e. fewer people try) on something that isn't linked into the internet these days, which results in fewer headaches for the maintainers.
Note: I am not arguing that this is some kind of security feature... think of it as building you castle in the middle of the desert instead of in downtown New York or London... where would you get more people trying to break in from?
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With that said, any INTERNET appliance should have an ethernet option, with all the requisite info included with the ethernet option, so that users could support thier own situations. With the advent of linux being used as a foundation to build other things on, ethernet is a no-brainer. Just sell the card that replaces the modem, so you only have to include the module for that card. DHCP or static? Trivial to have the user configure.
Gosh, since ALL open-source advocates have the exact same oppinions on every piece of software out there, I can't imagine why they would be so inconsistent as to have conflicting oppinions.
Sometimes I type and submit before I think, but I've seen enough of this tripe.
I'm an American. Most American's support Bush for president in polls. I don't support Bush.
"Why can't Americans make up their minds! Either they're for Bush or against him!"
I think Replay has already done this kind of thing, and Tivo WILL do it in the near future. You just tell your DVR what actors/directors/shows you like, and when those shows come on, they get recorded if there's room. On Tivo, they're called Suggestions, and they will get more sophisticated with the next software release.
In the mean-time, I hope I get a choice if Tivo decides to do this web-connectivity thing. I do NOT want to deal with some script kiddie cracking my Tivo.
Interesting fact: read the beginning of Genesis. Read the TWO DIFFERENTLY ORDERED creation stories. God creates the heavens, earth, seas, animals, humans, etc... in different orders. The two stories occur sequentially, so you just have to start with In the Beginning... and read until you've noticed that the first day happens twice. When I was in bible school, and the many times it was read during services, never once was this pointed out or explained. The discovery of this in a world literature class my freshman year of college eventually led me to become an Atheist. I guess guilt and inconsistent readings of the bible WERE the only way they could keep me "in the faith." I now look on religion as necessary for the morality of the short-sighted, and the sanity of the superstitious. It benefits me to keep people from murdering me (as everyone is prone to do if they don't believe in God, Heaven and Hell;-), so I don't think of Religion as bad or stupid... just not for me.
I don't know why it's moderated down to 0, but I noticed that there were 4 posts below my threshold (don't have time or patience for trolls). But there was only 1 post that deserved to be moderated down, the others were valid points of view (one just said NO, but that's fine by me). I think the moderators are being a little crankey here. Note that this is a short GPLd program, and will not stir up any controversy like the MS Kerbose thing did.
Is it because it specifically addressed the problem of finding the program in question, and not the concept of free software? By that standard, this comment deserves to be moderated down, because it is about the moderation of posts here.
Actually, I guess I should have noted that I DID find it (makedoc7.cpp). It's just took a _LONG_ time and about 100 google-found sites to actually locate it. Give it a try yourself; even searching for makedoc7.cpp doesn't lead you anywhere. By the way, site-scooper's home is where it's posted, with some mods to the original. It wouldn't compile for me, until I removed a check for an unsigned int being < 0. I'll be looking at some of those sites to see if I can make sure it finds a good home.
Maybe some day I'll have the time to actually learn c++. If it's not been adopted, then I'll use it and it's users as guinnee pigs.
Thanks for the help everyone!
Re:Hacking the mandatory subscription?
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Hacking The Tivo
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though there are some issues, you have options: 1. Replay doesn't require you to subscribe (they just charge $200 more up front... hmm, sounds like tivo's lifetime service). So buy Replay if that ploy dupes you, or buy the lifetime+ tivo for the price of a Replay. 2. You can forego the service altogether and treat the Tivo like a digital vcr. If you think this is the way to go, you're wasting your money on a tivo; just get a tv capture card for your PC. The service makes it possible to foget when things come on, and let tivo adjust to the network's schedules.
The ethernet option is not likely with the current hardware; no standard slots available. Besides, why bother with a tivo if all you want is a digital vcr? The Tivo is much cooler than that, and worth either the lifetime service (lifetime of machine, btw), or the $10/month. I've had one for 4 months and can't imagine dealing with live tv again.
Re:They released code under GPL....
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Hacking The Tivo
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Tivo doesn't offer upgrades to hard drives. Phillips does. Phillips negotiated with Tivo to make sure that the boxes were not user upgradable. I don't think Tivo really cared one way or another, because their target audience is not as techinically able as most people here.
Tivo makes money in 2 ways: selling aggregate data (unless you opt out) about what shows are being recorded (but NOT by whom, that data is never linked according to their privacy policy), and somewhat by the monthly service fee (over time, they don't make anything off of the $200 "lifetime" sub).
Then just buy a Tivo, but don't subscribe to the service. It's that simple. You don't get software updates, guide data, etc... but you've got a digital video recorded that works ALMOST like a VCR; You can watch something from the beginning, even if it's still being recorded. You can watch anything already recored, in any order, even while a show is being recorded. What you can't do is watch one show LIVE (through Tivo), while recording another show. There's only 1 tuner in the Tivo, and it's designed to watch all shows through it, allowing pausing of live tv.
It's a very good thing that everyone here is concerned about the possible privacy concerns here, but there is less to it than the post here suggests.
The abilities that they want to put into ReplayTv will enable the Neilson people to start allowing the inclusion of households with digital video recorders (DVRs?). Right now, they can't track such households, because they track by channel number & time that a show is tuned in, while the DVRs allow you to watch something 15 minutes, hours or days after it airs. What they are doing will ALLOW people with ReplayTv to participate in the Neilson ratings system. It's very much an OPT-IN kind of thing, especially since Replay and Tivo do NOT ask you info that the Neilson people need (like are there childern, pets, computers, etc in your house). You'd have to say "Hey, I want to be a Neilson household, get a box to punch in when I'm sitting in front of the tube, when I get up and walk away, and supply all this statistical info."
And as far as targeted advertisement and viewing habits... At least on Tivo (which I own one of), the ratings you give to things you watch/record are only stored locally. When the next 2 week's worth of shows gets downloaded, it indexes according to genre, actors and other stuff, and then compares that with the shows that you've rated. If it finds something that you might like (based almost completely on genre & actors, not titles, directors, etc.) it schedules something to record. No data is uploaded to accomplish this.
Now, people do have some things wrong... Tivo at least promises never to link your viewing habits to your account without your expressed permission, but they do reserve the option to upload aggregate info on what shows were watched. They just aren't allowed to match that up to your account. It would only be of limited use to them anyway, as you only give one person's name, address & phone number to them, and not enough information on who else might be in that household.
I believe that the intent here was that EXTREME's are not evil. When you talk about ABSOLUTES, then that's a whole other game. The original post did seem to confuse the two, but the point is still valid. If hold your hand out flat, place something in it and it doesn't float away, then you can expect to win a bet that says it will drop to the ground if you turn your hand over (unless, of course, it's glued to your hand 8^P ).
Speical circumstances and poorly thought-out statements can always have exceptions too them. That's why laws of physics don't say "everything falls to earth", they say that "objects with mass will attract each other over a distance with a force that is inversely proportional to the distance between them." If I've missed a key element to that law, then I'm sorry, but that is an extreem statement. You can't get away from that in anything that can be observed. Theories might state exceptions to the rule, at the EXTREEMS of a continuum, like black holes throwing equations all out of wack, or when you try to use this law in situations where other forces are at play (magnetism, friction, anhesives, cats...).
The big point here is that extreems aren't always bad, and in engineering (yes I AM and engineer), one must make absolute assertions to even get started. Sometimes these absolutes smack you in the face, "Well, sir, I assumed that if the database contained zero in that field, and the equation tried to divide using that field as a denominator, that either the code would catch it, or the OS would. Sorry your ship's dead in the water." Most of the time, you have to assume that something is a given; 2+3=6, assuming that "+" means "multiply the values on either side of this sign". Most of the time, "+" means "add", but you could change the meaning of that symbol if you wanted to, and you can always make an exception to the rule if you want to nit-pick.
You may be on the debate team, but you're obviously not experienced the difference between the old "Ma Bell" and today. Sure there were some hicups, and now there are (oh HORRORS!) a lot of choices to make when you get telephone service, but today is vastly better.
Would you be happy if you were given these sets of options?... 1 Leasing each phone in your house from THE phone company OR Leasing each phone... 2 Chosing between black, canary yellow, beige, or sky blue for the afore-mentioned telephone(s) OR Spray-painting your phone, and hoping they will never want to switch out the old phone with something else... 3 paying 25 cents per minute for long distance OR not using long distance at all...
That's your vast list of options with the old system. The operators didn't care if you got good assistance with your phone calls, and had no incentive to be nice; where would you take your business to?
>>how do we prevent the innocent from stubmling across pr0n *mistakenly*?
When was the last time YOU accidentally stumbled accross porn? I can't think of a single incedent. Now there ARE dangers: www.whitehouse.com is a porn site, whilee www.whitehouse.gov is what you'd expect. How do you avoid this? Educate your children: "Government stuff ends in.gov, never in.com, other stuff ends in.com,.org,.net; And other countries end in.au,.ge, etc..". Make them visit the Whitehouse's site and other government agencies to ingrain the idea in thier heads. Then make sure they're supervised and can ask for help if they don't know how to find a site.
The issue is being confused here by emotions on one side, and technical know-how on the other. Like the article said, everybody is talking past each other.
If you want to convice someone that filtering is bad, you have to find emotional anecdotes that show how it is bad. Let me give you a hypothetical example:
Nine-year-old Suzie knows that Mommy is fighting breast cancer. She wants to know more about it; Suzie is scared for her mother and for herself, but Mommy won't talk about it (understandably), and Daddy is reticent and vague about it too. Suzie says "Can I go to the library today?" "Sure, honey that's a great idea." So off to the library she goes. She is fully intent on asking the librarian to help her find sites about breast cancer so she can help Mommy. The librarian is glad to help, but when they attempt to search for sites, the keywork "breast" is blocked automatically. The Librarian, not being confident in the use of computers (her job IS primarily involved with print, and has been for 20 years), doesn't know how to turn off the filter, or isn't allowed to.
So they look around the library for information in print. Finding a few 4 year old magazine articles and some highly technical books on the subject. So Suzie leaves with only a vague idea of what her mother is dealing with, and absolutely no opportunity to chat with other relatives of breast cancer victims.
I know, I know, I obviously have never tried to research breast cancer in a library, and there are all sorts of holes in this hypothetical story. But I'm not suggesting you use my story; get stories from real-world examples. E-mail Librarians who are dealing with filtered software. You only need 1 or 2 stories that really hit home to get a foot in the door with the emotional people who are for filtering. THEN you can talk about over-filtering, filtered-site lists being closed to public scrutiny, etc...
Slashdot Mirror
So the corollary, that Some PC owners also own a Mac is not true? The not-vice-versa part of the title doesn't make any sense. If I own a PC and a Mac, then I am BOTH a PC owner who has a Mac, and a Mac owner to owns a PC, or, to put it like the title states: "One Mac owner also owns a PC, AND vice-versa."
Oops. The URL is for some clock that uses a system in Europe. It's not GPS based, from the looks of the description.
I recently saw a wall clock with similar "atomic" time-setting capabilites here in the US. I'm betting that if they can do it for around $30, then a computer interface to such a thing must be pretty cheep too. I don't think they used GPS for it (the clock wasn't expensive enough).
t m
http://www.simplyradios.com/acatalog/rev99193.h
There IS a DirecTV + Tivo combo box. It's been out for months. Check out either or both companies' web sites for info.
The only problem with the unit is that it doesn't contain an RF tuner in it, so you either bypass the "directivo" to watch local cable or broadcast tv live, or you get your locals through directv.
The big advantage is that the recording capaicity for this unit is at the highest possible, dtv-quality picture, because it just records the DTV signal to the hard drive, with no mpeg decompression/recompression like the stand-alone units have to do.
While I agree that it isn't fair that you are not allowed to sell your account/items from outside the game, there are things to keep in mind:
There are only so many GMs who can be hired by Sony/EQ.
Sold accounts are said (by an EQ representative known as Abashi on line) to be the #1 source of fraud perpetrated against the purchasers; bad person sells account, then shortly thereafter removes all in-game items from that account and transfers it to another one for instance.
Most purchasers will go to GMs with complaints about this kind of fraud.
There are not enough GMs to deal with this in addition to legitimate in-game complaints/bug reports/etc.., and it's not even Sony's problem, as they never intended that accounts be transferable.
So, what do you suggest they do? Hire 1000 GMs, who can magically figure out who perpetrated the fraud and then pursue them in real life legally? What about the players who need to report a game-related problem? Do they just have to sit there on-line waiting for hours for a response?
It's a matter of what they can deal with. They can't help people who get defrauded, but they don't have a mechanism to just ignore people who petitiion GMs, flame them for not helping the defrauded, etc...
They may get flack (or lawsuits) for not allowing the sale of accounts & in-game items, but I for one would rather just go along with them on this than have them wasting time and money on lazy stupid people.
If you have a stand-alone box, then this change does not affect you. Later, it has been stated that this will allow OPT-IN programs, giving them and you the flexibilty to control how much of your data is shared (if any at all, you can opt out of even the agregate data that is uploaded).
For the direct tv/tivo combination, they HAVE to link this info for pay-per-view billing. Before the licence change, that was impossible, and would have limited the functionallity legally possible with this combo box.
When are the posters here at slashdot going to RESEARCH submissions before implying that someone is being screwed.
No. You didn't read that correctly. The tivo unit knows what you watch, by virtue of keeping track of the shows you want recorded, and the ratings you give to those shows. It categorizes those shows by genre (among other categories like actor and director). This genre would be used to decide which of these PAX (or whatever he said) ads to record for later playback.
Clear?
As a Tivo user, I've read the tivo section of the avs forum linked to from the tivo web site. This has come up, and after learning about how these targeted ads will work, I am confident that my privacy isn't being intruded upon.
First, what's probably going to happen is the Tivo service is going to reserve space on the tivo for these targeted ads. They are doing this in new models already. Second, Tivo doesn't upload personal info with you viewing habits. All they know is what was watched, not who watches it (yes, it would be easy to link it, but thier privacy policy, and representatives guarantee that they will not link said data if you don't let them, and you can even opt out of the aggregate info upload. Third, all information on what YOU watch on Tivo is stored locally. Not on a server. If the unit crashes, they can't help you. You get a new Tivo and start setting up recordings, giving thumbs up/down on shows like you did when you first got it.
So, I gather from what I DO know about Tivo, that what will happen is that the locally stored data will be used to record ads that match your viewing habits into the reserved space mentioned above. How you will be presented with these ads, I don't know, but the point is that all of the decisions on what you see are determined locally. Tivo doesn't know what Joe Tivo User watches. They do know that X people what dramas, Y people what sci-fi, and Z people watch both. That kind of data they know.
So I'm not concerned about Tivo specifically. But just wait until other companies get into the game. Microsoft is targeting the PVR market; how do you think they'll handle your privacy?
I'd like a link to a Tivo representative or some other definitive proof of this. I remember distinctly that Richard Bulwinkle, a Tivo rep who regularly posts to the AVS/Tivo forum, mentioned that there was concern over whether the volume of calls into their servers was going to exceed their telephone service bandwidth. He seemed pretty clear that the problem was not that the server would be bogged down by too much internet traffic, but rather that the phone "lines" would be too busy to handle all of the incomming calls.
On the other hand, the local calls being forwarded to the server would be quite a bit more costly than just setting up an internet server (or 50 of them). Okay, now that I've tried to dispute your claim, I can see the merits, and can probably just go to the forum and find the relevant discussions...
I guess I shouln't be surprised the the majority of posters here don't get that this article was about MEDIA BIAS. This article is not about the reletive merits of MS software versus GNU/Linux software (the writer does bring that in, but only as a minor dig).
Let me sum up for you who apparently can write but not read (well, maybe someone else can read this to you)...
Redhat software package ships with default password; media goes crazy over this so-called "back door" into the operating system.
Microsoft ships thier SQL server with no password for "se" user and no prompt to change it, allowing complete system compromise under common cirumstances; media is strangely quiet about this.
In other words, very similar problems, but MS doesn't get attacked by the media.
THAT is what the friggin' article is about!
Actually, there's not a need for ethernet. You don't connect to the internet to get the data that it downloads on a daily basis. You dial directly into the Tivo servers for that. They may use PPP, they proably don't, as there's little reason to supply an IP address; just negotiate with the server tell it what data you need, and start recieving. The tivo guide data and software updates ARE NOT available over the internet. So having ethernet cards in Tivos would be useless.
There's less hacking (i.e. fewer people try) on something that isn't linked into the internet these days, which results in fewer headaches for the maintainers.
Note: I am not arguing that this is some kind of security feature... think of it as building you castle in the middle of the desert instead of in downtown New York or London... where would you get more people trying to break in from?
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With that said, any INTERNET appliance should have an ethernet option, with all the requisite info included with the ethernet option, so that users could support thier own situations. With the advent of linux being used as a foundation to build other things on, ethernet is a no-brainer. Just sell the card that replaces the modem, so you only have to include the module for that card. DHCP or static? Trivial to have the user configure.
No, YOU grow up!
Neener, neener, neener!
Yes, this post does deserve to be moderated down. If I could do it, I would myself. So does the parent post. pbbbbbbttttt!
Gosh, since ALL open-source advocates have the exact same oppinions on every piece of software out there, I can't imagine why they would be so inconsistent as to have conflicting oppinions.
Sometimes I type and submit before I think, but I've seen enough of this tripe.
I'm an American. Most American's support Bush for president in polls. I don't support Bush.
"Why can't Americans make up their minds! Either they're for Bush or against him!"
Have I made my point?
I think Replay has already done this kind of thing, and Tivo WILL do it in the near future. You just tell your DVR what actors/directors/shows you like, and when those shows come on, they get recorded if there's room. On Tivo, they're called Suggestions, and they will get more sophisticated with the next software release.
In the mean-time, I hope I get a choice if Tivo decides to do this web-connectivity thing. I do NOT want to deal with some script kiddie cracking my Tivo.
Interesting fact: read the beginning of Genesis. Read the TWO DIFFERENTLY ORDERED creation stories. God creates the heavens, earth, seas, animals, humans, etc... in different orders. The two stories occur sequentially, so you just have to start with In the Beginning... and read until you've noticed that the first day happens twice. When I was in bible school, and the many times it was read during services, never once was this pointed out or explained. The discovery of this in a world literature class my freshman year of college eventually led me to become an Atheist. I guess guilt and inconsistent readings of the bible WERE the only way they could keep me "in the faith." I now look on religion as necessary for the morality of the short-sighted, and the sanity of the superstitious. It benefits me to keep people from murdering me (as everyone is prone to do if they don't believe in God, Heaven and Hell ;-), so I don't think of Religion as bad or stupid... just not for me.
I don't know why it's moderated down to 0, but I noticed that there were 4 posts below my threshold (don't have time or patience for trolls). But there was only 1 post that deserved to be moderated down, the others were valid points of view (one just said NO, but that's fine by me). I think the moderators are being a little crankey here. Note that this is a short GPLd program, and will not stir up any controversy like the MS Kerbose thing did.
Is it because it specifically addressed the problem of finding the program in question, and not the concept of free software? By that standard, this comment deserves to be moderated down, because it is about the moderation of posts here.
Actually, I guess I should have noted that I DID find it (makedoc7.cpp). It's just took a _LONG_ time and about 100 google-found sites to actually locate it. Give it a try yourself; even searching for makedoc7.cpp doesn't lead you anywhere. By the way, site-scooper's home is where it's posted, with some mods to the original. It wouldn't compile for me, until I removed a check for an unsigned int being < 0. I'll be looking at some of those sites to see if I can make sure it finds a good home.
Maybe some day I'll have the time to actually learn c++. If it's not been adopted, then I'll use it and it's users as guinnee pigs.
Thanks for the help everyone!
though there are some issues, you have options:
1. Replay doesn't require you to subscribe (they just charge $200 more up front... hmm, sounds like tivo's lifetime service). So buy Replay if that ploy dupes you, or buy the lifetime+ tivo for the price of a Replay.
2. You can forego the service altogether and treat the Tivo like a digital vcr. If you think this is the way to go, you're wasting your money on a tivo; just get a tv capture card for your PC. The service makes it possible to foget when things come on, and let tivo adjust to the network's schedules.
The ethernet option is not likely with the current hardware; no standard slots available. Besides, why bother with a tivo if all you want is a digital vcr? The Tivo is much cooler than that, and worth either the lifetime service (lifetime of machine, btw), or the $10/month. I've had one for 4 months and can't imagine dealing with live tv again.
Tivo doesn't offer upgrades to hard drives. Phillips does. Phillips negotiated with Tivo to make sure that the boxes were not user upgradable. I don't think Tivo really cared one way or another, because their target audience is not as techinically able as most people here.
Tivo makes money in 2 ways: selling aggregate data (unless you opt out) about what shows are being recorded (but NOT by whom, that data is never linked according to their privacy policy), and somewhat by the monthly service fee (over time, they don't make anything off of the $200 "lifetime" sub).
Then just buy a Tivo, but don't subscribe to the service. It's that simple. You don't get software updates, guide data, etc... but you've got a digital video recorded that works ALMOST like a VCR; You can watch something from the beginning, even if it's still being recorded. You can watch anything already recored, in any order, even while a show is being recorded. What you can't do is watch one show LIVE (through Tivo), while recording another show. There's only 1 tuner in the Tivo, and it's designed to watch all shows through it, allowing pausing of live tv.
It's a very good thing that everyone here is concerned about the possible privacy concerns here, but there is less to it than the post here suggests.
The abilities that they want to put into ReplayTv will enable the Neilson people to start allowing the inclusion of households with digital video recorders (DVRs?). Right now, they can't track such households, because they track by channel number & time that a show is tuned in, while the DVRs allow you to watch something 15 minutes, hours or days after it airs. What they are doing will ALLOW people with ReplayTv to participate in the Neilson ratings system. It's very much an OPT-IN kind of thing, especially since Replay and Tivo do NOT ask you info that the Neilson people need (like are there childern, pets, computers, etc in your house). You'd have to say "Hey, I want to be a Neilson household, get a box to punch in when I'm sitting in front of the tube, when I get up and walk away, and supply all this statistical info."
And as far as targeted advertisement and viewing habits... At least on Tivo (which I own one of), the ratings you give to things you watch/record are only stored locally. When the next 2 week's worth of shows gets downloaded, it indexes according to genre, actors and other stuff, and then compares that with the shows that you've rated. If it finds something that you might like (based almost completely on genre & actors, not titles, directors, etc.) it schedules something to record. No data is uploaded to accomplish this.
Now, people do have some things wrong... Tivo at least promises never to link your viewing habits to your account without your expressed permission, but they do reserve the option to upload aggregate info on what shows were watched. They just aren't allowed to match that up to your account. It would only be of limited use to them anyway, as you only give one person's name, address & phone number to them, and not enough information on who else might be in that household.
I believe that the intent here was that EXTREME's are not evil. When you talk about ABSOLUTES, then that's a whole other game. The original post did seem to confuse the two, but the point is still valid. If hold your hand out flat, place something in it and it doesn't float away, then you can expect to win a bet that says it will drop to the ground if you turn your hand over (unless, of course, it's glued to your hand 8^P ).
Speical circumstances and poorly thought-out statements can always have exceptions too them. That's why laws of physics don't say "everything falls to earth", they say that "objects with mass will attract each other over a distance with a force that is inversely proportional to the distance between them." If I've missed a key element to that law, then I'm sorry, but that is an extreem statement. You can't get away from that in anything that can be observed. Theories might state exceptions to the rule, at the EXTREEMS of a continuum, like black holes throwing equations all out of wack, or when you try to use this law in situations where other forces are at play (magnetism, friction, anhesives, cats...).
The big point here is that extreems aren't always bad, and in engineering (yes I AM and engineer), one must make absolute assertions to even get started. Sometimes these absolutes smack you in the face, "Well, sir, I assumed that if the database contained zero in that field, and the equation tried to divide using that field as a denominator, that either the code would catch it, or the OS would. Sorry your ship's dead in the water." Most of the time, you have to assume that something is a given; 2+3=6, assuming that "+" means "multiply the values on either side of this sign". Most of the time, "+" means "add", but you could change the meaning of that symbol if you wanted to, and you can always make an exception to the rule if you want to nit-pick.
You may be on the debate team, but you're obviously not experienced the difference between the old "Ma Bell" and today. Sure there were some hicups, and now there are (oh HORRORS!) a lot of choices to make when you get telephone service, but today is vastly better.
Would you be happy if you were given these sets of options?...
1 Leasing each phone in your house from THE phone company OR Leasing each phone...
2 Chosing between black, canary yellow, beige, or sky blue for the afore-mentioned telephone(s) OR Spray-painting your phone, and hoping they will never want to switch out the old phone with something else...
3 paying 25 cents per minute for long distance OR not using long distance at all...
That's your vast list of options with the old system. The operators didn't care if you got good assistance with your phone calls, and had no incentive to be nice; where would you take your business to?
>>how do we prevent the innocent from stubmling across pr0n *mistakenly*?
.gov, never in .com, other stuff ends in .com, .org, .net; And other countries end in .au, .ge, etc..". Make them visit the Whitehouse's site and other government agencies to ingrain the idea in thier heads. Then make sure they're supervised and can ask for help if they don't know how to find a site.
When was the last time YOU accidentally stumbled accross porn? I can't think of a single incedent. Now there ARE dangers: www.whitehouse.com is a porn site, whilee www.whitehouse.gov is what you'd expect. How do you avoid this? Educate your children: "Government stuff ends in
The issue is being confused here by emotions on one side, and technical know-how on the other. Like the article said, everybody is talking past each other.
If you want to convice someone that filtering is bad, you have to find emotional anecdotes that show how it is bad. Let me give you a hypothetical example:
Nine-year-old Suzie knows that Mommy is fighting breast cancer. She wants to know more about it; Suzie is scared for her mother and for herself, but Mommy won't talk about it (understandably), and Daddy is reticent and vague about it too. Suzie says "Can I go to the library today?" "Sure, honey that's a great idea." So off to the library she goes. She is fully intent on asking the librarian to help her find sites about breast cancer so she can help Mommy. The librarian is glad to help, but when they attempt to search for sites, the keywork "breast" is blocked automatically. The Librarian, not being confident in the use of computers (her job IS primarily involved with print, and has been for 20 years), doesn't know how to turn off the filter, or isn't allowed to.
So they look around the library for information in print. Finding a few 4 year old magazine articles and some highly technical books on the subject. So Suzie leaves with only a vague idea of what her mother is dealing with, and absolutely no opportunity to chat with other relatives of breast cancer victims.
I know, I know, I obviously have never tried to research breast cancer in a library, and there are all sorts of holes in this hypothetical story. But I'm not suggesting you use my story; get stories from real-world examples. E-mail Librarians who are dealing with filtered software. You only need 1 or 2 stories that really hit home to get a foot in the door with the emotional people who are for filtering. THEN you can talk about over-filtering, filtered-site lists being closed to public scrutiny, etc...