Apologists have a long, scandalous history of referencing scandals from history to downplay present scandals engendered by apologists that will make history for being scandalous. Then again, this is not a new development.
"If the Bush Administration wants to make the case that they (The Bush Administration) have been more successful than the EU in reducing emissions, then the logical start point for comparison is about when they took over which would be 2001."
So the Bush Administration wants to show that they were the reason why the U.S. had reduced emissions...
"...the article points out correctly that Greenhouse emissions tend to drop during economic slowdowns."
ISPs don't hate Internet video because it uses up too much bandwidth (that they're overselling). They hate Internet video because it competes with their own video services. Think about it:
Comcast charges you $45/month for Internet and $60/month for digital cable television service. If you can get your TV over the Internet that means you won't need to pay that $60/month to them anymore. Right now there's very few online TV services but that is changing very quickly. They saw this coming so their "big plan" to counter the online video revolution is to provide IPTV services of their own and to ensure that IPTV services over the Internet are relegated to the slow lane (just a tad too slow to do HDTV):
Also consider for a moment Comcast's DOCSIS 3.0 plans:
* ~10% of the bandwidth will be dedicated to general Internet access ("customers will be psyched to get 12 megabits download!"). * ~90% of the bandwidth will be dedicated (exclusively) to Comcast's IPTV and VoIP services.
How's that for Net Neutrality? Comcast gets exclusive access to their own Internet super-speed pipe right to your house while any Internet-based competitors get stuck in the slow lane.
Verizon's FIOS service is also sold in a similar configuration (with dedicated bandwidth for their video service) and AT&T has similar plans with their own IPTV services.
We got into this mess because Joe Suburban doesn't see how much oil is "left" when he fills up his tank. He doesn't know how many refineries there are. He doesn't understand that oil is a finite resource. All he knows is that when he needs to fill up his tank there are always dozens of gas stations nearby to meet his needs. Prices have only risen to the point of "really annoying" so it is unlikely that he will change his ways.
Joe Suburban might have heard about oil shortages--or maybe he read about them once--but he himself never experienced it and those that did weren't living in the 21st century where a trip to the grocery store can mean a gallon or two and commutes can burn several. It was a crisis, sure, but when we have another one it will be much, much worse and Joe Suburban hasn't the faintest idea that it is coming. Even if he does think about, "the time when we run out of oil" he thinks in terms of "long time from now". Why worry about it? Didn't the news just report that "they" just found 15 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico? What Joe doesn't know is that 15 billion barrels is only two years supply and because he doesn't know there's no "market force" to correct for it. All you have to do to verify this fact is to look at the latest sales figures for gas guzzlers.
Gas prices can go up and down considerable amounts but the demand is always there--and very inflexible. I'm sure we could cut consumption by, say, 25% in a very short time if we really worked at it but the truth is that may be too late. Why? When the news reports even a hint that there could be an oil shortage people will start buying up as much as they can... "To make it through the shortage." It doesn't matter that there's 1200 billion barrels of proven oil reserves left. It only matters that Joe Suburban won't be able to get gas when he needs it and the problem will escalate very, very quickly.
The problem is that the rate at which it can be pumped out of the ground and refined will reach a peak and, while the demand will still exist (increasing every year!), the rate will not. Thus; the last voice heard before the entire collapse of the U.S. economy (government? civilization?) will be from an "expert" exclaiming, "But there's still billions and billions of barrels left!"
In my opinion, if Comcast starts cutting off users who "use too much bandwidth" because they're watching competitor's TV channels they will be in violation of antitrust laws. In fact, I'd say they're ALREADY in violation of said laws by giving themselves the exclusive right to the majority of bandwidth available on your Internet connection.
When DOCSIS 3.0 is rolled out Comcast plans to allot something like 85% of the bandwidth to their own IPTV services. Unless they open up that channel to competitors they're definitely using their monopoly in an anti-competitive, abusive manner. In fact, by making all these plans right now with other companies in the cable industry they're COLLUDING and RACKETEERING to ensure they maintain their monopoly in the future.
Something must be done about this and I hope public awareness increases as a result of increased Internet TV viewership.
I hope their definition is symmetric. There's lots you can do with 2Mbps download but there's lots more you can do with 2Mbps upload. It would be more pertinent for congress to bring back local loop unbundling and to split up companies that sell both content and Internet access (i.e. cable companies and telephone companies now selling TV).
I am so sick of the cable industry's "big ideas" when it comes to Internet access. Comcast especially. The cable industry's "big plan" includes a very antiquated idea: That they can sell content *and* a service to get that content at the same time. Let me explain:
Right now your cable company coax is primarily used up by analog and digital television channels. This "content" is highly un-exclusive. Meaning you can get the same TV channels and shows from many other providers. Their entire business model is built on the idea that while this content is not exclusive to the world at-large, they do have a monopoly on its delivery to you (if you ignore satellite TV).
Now they're selling Internet access and they expect to be able to continue to enjoy their monopoly on content? They are either delusional or they fully expect to overcome Network Neutrality. Here's why:
When we've all got 16+ megabit Internet connections (~the amount needed for streaming HDTV) what's to stop us from subscribing to Internet-based television services? Better yet, what's to stop us from just getting said video feeds for free? Not to mention the fact that most TV shows don't NEED to be streamed in the first place.
The answer: Absolutely nothing. I look forward to the day when I can subscribe to Comcast Internet and then watch TV streamed over the Internet from an infinite amount of channels. Hell, I'm already doing this in a way by way of video podcasts that are automatically downloaded to my MythTV box.
By providing high-speed Internet access to their customers they're forcing themselves to compete on content and that is something the cable industry is not used to doing. If Verizon is smart, they'll start offering their FIOS TV channels to *anyone* on the Internet willing to pay for them.
150 megabits is slow anyway. Let's talk about a much more USEFUL Internet connection: At gigabit speeds.
-Riskable http://riskable.com/ "For a market to be fair and just Regulations are a must"
That is actually quite interesting! It could very well be an enormous manifestation of Archimedes Principle... While not technically a fluid, at such pressure and depth the presence of water would explain why we have continents and not just a random mass of islands (as a result of mere volcanic activity).
Over the course of time (billions of years) the earth could have thrust all that matter upwards as a result of water forming at extreme temperature and pressure. In other words, the mass that we know of as "earth" (dirt & rocks) would be buoyed upwards as a result of water being pressurized underneath: The less dense (lighter) molecules and elements would "float" (be forced upwards) while the densest, most immutable molecules would "sink" (squeezing the lighter ones upwards).
I'm not a physicist by any means (I'm not even good at math), but if there's one thing I've discovered in nature it is that there are parallels between the microscopic world, the macroscopic one, and the astronomical one. It could very well be that the "unified theory of physics" will reveal that Archimedes Principal (or a variant thereof) is what brings Einsteinian physics and quantum physics together.
Vibrating one-dimensional strings might oscillate in such a way that compatible oscillations stick together forming quarks and gluons which leaves the tightest vibrations as a nucleus of sorts and depending on the harmony of the matter different elements are formed. Repeat upwards in scale ad nauseum. This would also explain why very heavy elements (in terms of atomic weight) are much less stable than their smaller counterparts: Less mass means less entropy in oscillations which means there's less chance of some matter getting out of whack.
As many commenters have pointed out, these new rules only apply when your company is being sued... Or do they? I propose that there's TWO reasons why you cannot avoid implementing systems that (can) comply:
1) These new rules apply to the discovery phase of a trial. Any trial. That means if you do business with a company that is being sued or one of your employees is being sued you're under the "discovery umbrella" and can be held accountable if you can't provide requested documents.
2) If your company were sued tomorrow, would you be able to retain documents in a way that would meet their requirements? That day? That week? How long would it take? The speed with which you must comply with these rules is entirely up to the discretion of the judge. I can only imagine that he will not stand for a typical IT department's, "pace of implementation". In fact, he may not stand for any "pace" at all. Is it unreasonable for him to expect you to hang on to all of your electronic evidence starting the day you get served? Especially when these rules have been around for a while (I give it a year before "But Judge, new rules!" stops being accepted as an excuse).
Then there's the problem of existing implementations that lack pertinent storage controls: A user can download something to their PC and wipe it--erasing evidence--in between nightly backups. As part of the discovery process it may be revealed that the user downloaded the file (via the proxy server logs), but where is that file? Will companies be held accountable for not implementing desktops that can protect against such actions by their users?
I have lots of other questions and theories, but my time is limited. I'll close by saying that I don't think these new rules are a bad idea per se, but I do believe that the courts should be lenient when there's time and resource limitations on the speed of compliance. In a few years I'm sure that compliance will be business as usual, but right now, your typical Windows IT implementations will not be able to meet the needs of the court. Linux, on the other hand...
The Prius actually goes 0-60 in about ten seconds... Equivalent to a PT Cruiser.
I used to live in Massachusetts right off of Rt 1 in Danvers. I'd be amazed if there was a road like this anywhere else in the U.S. where you have to merge into 80MPH traffic from a *driveway*. The Prius didn't give me any more or less trouble that my Nissan Maxima did a 0-60 in 7 seconds.
Never design a house around it being "cool" because that wears off. Instead, make the "cool" factor easily swapped out and replaced with the latest style. The rest of the home should utilize tech that benefits it's occupants in efficiency and ergonomics.
My ideal home specs are thus:
* Every room has it's own air return and heat/cool zone with their own thermostats. That way you can "turn off" unused rooms to save energy. * Insulated interior doors that are weather-stripped like exterior doors to make the previous suggestion work better as well as provide soundproofing. * Utilize the geography of the home to ease the energy burden. If you're building in a hot, sunny environment, install solar-powered water heating. If you're in a cool, dry environment, build the home into the ground to utilize natural insulation. You get the idea. * Utilize sunlight-piping to light hallways and non-open rooms during the day. * Use fiber-optics to provide accent lighting in the living areas. * Install insulated vents so that hot air can be utilized in the summer to aid the water heater and cold air can be utilized in the winter to aid the refrigerator/freezer.
This is a form of contract reform. Contract law states that a contract cannot break any existing laws.
Since a "Cell phone bill of rights" would set forth laws to which a carrier contract cannot break, it would effectively be reforming their contracts.
If MA passes this law and Cingular still sells two-year contracts, after one year that part of the contract would be null and void. They could argue that you signed it, but you'd have the law on your side.
Unfortunately, it would still probably cost you more than $300 to fight a claim in court and even if you won you'd be fighting with their collection agency for years trying to get that removed from your credit history.
To me, your argument is moot. If all a political party can muster up is 20 supporters, it never had a chance to begin with. However, you do have a good point and it is something to consider: In a system where you limit donations only to voters and then further limit them to restricted dollar amounts, how does a third party get a leg up?
One way is to completely get rid of political parties. Why do we need them? It seems that smaller, more focused groups would be able to get more done. Not only that, but why do they always have to be opposing? Why not have a candidate that belongs to a red party and a green party? A blue and a purple? Shouldn't their beliefs and policies be at the forefront of their campaign, not the party they belong to?
My only stipulation would be that political groups should not be allowed to get involved in funding or supporting a single candidate.
An IP Address is not an identity An IP Address is not an identity An IP Address is not an identity!
If a crime is committed and it is traced back to an IP, that is A START of an investigation and should NEVER be the end of it! Far too often do we instantly assume that just because the crime came from a certain IP address, the person who owns the machine is the person who committed the crime.
All an IP gives you is the "place" part of the puzzle. Worse than this is the fact that it is virtual and multi-dimensional. The "place" where the crime occurred actually exists in many physical locations at once and can be nearly limitless in scope.
More important in these types of investigations is the "means" and the "motive". If neither exist for the person behind the IP, it is likely that his machine (or connection) merely acted as a proxy.
It just seems *WAY* too easy to frame someone for an Internet-related crime. Just find some motive and place "the means" on their machine.
If I were on a jury for any sort of Internet crime, the amount of evidence against the accused would have to be ENORMOUS for me to even consider a "conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt".
I think a better way to curtail the problem you speak of is to merely make churches start paying property taxes like every other business.
Re:On-demand is the future, today.
on
Television Reloaded
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· Score: 2, Informative
I have Comcast digital cable and I use on-demand fairly regularly. However, I have a number of big issues with it. For me (and I'm sure many others), it is nothing more than a neat trick than a useful feature...
1) The interface sucks. You can't search for shows. You can't customize it. There's no easy way to see what is new and what is old.
2) You need a Comcast-provided box to use it. With an ATSC CableCard tuner, there's no way to watch on-demand. As more and more of these TVs become available with their special features (true PiP, PVR-like functions, etc), no one is going to want to bother with Comcast's boxes. This will probably change in 2007 when all cable companies are required to use CableCards along with the rest of the industry.
3) The shows are almost *ALWAYS* old. I don't want to see 3-weeks-ago's Alias. I want to see TONIGHTS episode... I don't care if it takes a couple hours to transcode or whatever, but often times shows are literally MONTHS old and they'll stay in On-Demand for weeks at a time.
4) Shows are shown out-of-order. I want to know what genius thought it was a good idea to put up episode 7-9, 15-18, then the season finale.
5) You have to watch Comcast advertisements when you're browsing for shows. SUPREMELY annoying. "This week in On-Demand! Four-months old episodes of 24 shown out of order! Brought to you by Coca Cola."
You know, it's funny that you mention that... I've been running at 2048x1536 (~130 dpi) for several weeks now and I love it. Fonts are so nice, I've even turned off anti-aliasing.
It all depends on the websites you visit. Some scale well (Slashdot) and some scale horrifically (news.com.com.com.com.com.com.com =).
Its come to the point where I just don't go to sites like news.com.com anymore (not that I went to that site often to begin with). I get almost 100% of my (Internet) news through RSS at this point and let me tell you, Akregator only looks better & better as you increase resolution.
Over the years I've gotten used to the junk email I get from autoresponders and verification notices. The amount of spam I receive used to be out of control, but since spam started escalating a few years ago I've made myself a spam expert.
The only solution really is to run my own server and keep up to date with all the latest anti-spam tech. Fortunately I haven't had to switch to a whitelist yet.
On the upside, I already know my email address is on every spammer's list in existance, so I can just freely post it just about anywhere knowing it won't make a difference.
There's two types of TV tuners out for PCs right now: Those with hardware encoders, and those without
The cheap ones (usually under $50) do not come with hardware encoders.
Hardware encoders (usually MPEG2) look superior and are generally smoother, taking the load off your CPU. Do not assume that since you have quad-processor super PC that it's enough to output great/smooth video. A hardware MPEG2 encoder is still superior.
As for internal VS external, there's a few USB 2.0 tuners with built-in hardware encoders, but none of them work in Linux. You're better off getting a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 (or 350 if you need TV-out) and sticking it in a MythTV Linux box... The current king of Tivo-like software.
1) If you use a Tuner card with an MPEG encoder, it records in MPEG2. If you use a Tuner without an MPEG2 encoder, MythTV uses your CPU to record in either RTJPEG or MPEG4 (user configurable). MythTV can transcode these formats to pretty much whatever you want after the recording is done.
2) MythTV can automatically flag commercials during recording. When it later transcodes the recording, it auto-skips these flagged areas. Works quite well, but can occasionally mess up (mostly it doesn't miss parts of your show, but might record an extraneous commercial or two). It has some newer experimental commercial skip features which I haven't tried yet. It's all user-configurable.
3) MythTV doesn't require a tuner. You could hook your cable box up to a video input of some sort on your PC and use it with an IRBlaster or serial cable (assuming your cable box can be controlled by a serial port).
4) If you buy a WinTV PVR card, it comes with a remote and IR interface... These work flawlessly with MythTV. However, I should note that MythTV works with LIRC... So if you get any old IR reciever working with LIRC, it'll work with MythTV. Essentially this means you can use MythTV with just about any remote you can get your hands on.
5) MythTV supports TV, Videos (auto-metadata lookups which is sweet, checkout the screenshots page), games (MAME, SNES, NES, Linux games, very cool), weather (My favorite module), RSS Newsfeeds, DVDs (which includes a nice ripper), and some others I can't think of off the top of my head right now. There's also a MythPhone module in development that works like Netmeeting/Gnomemeeting (http://www.zen13655.zen.co.uk/mythphone.html).
6) It's Linux, however, there's hooks and things in the code so that it might run on Windows some day. We'll see.
MythTV RIGHT NOW is an amazing piece of software, but because it's open-source, it's rapidly developing into something much, much more. Right now it's the PVR leader and I suspect it's going to remain that way for quite some time... A very promising future.
There's currently two ways to use MythTV with digital cable... The first (and most obvious) way is to use an IRBlaster. It's a device that hooks up to your MythTV box that changes the channel on your cable box when you change the channel on MythTV. It slows things down a bit, so it isn't ideal.
The other way is to get a cable box with a serial port (that works with MythTV). The only one I know off the top of my head is the Motorola DC2000 series. If you ask your cable company for a firewire-equipped box, they're most likely going to give you a DC2000. Also, if you get an HDTV cable box, you're most likely going to get a DC2000.
If you have the serial port setup, digital cable changes channels fast and works like a charm. A superior solution to the IRBlaster.
Side note: In this setup you don't even need a TV tuner card. Just some sort of video input to your PC. However, if you do want to get a TV tuner card, make sure you buy a WinTV PVR-250 or a PVR-350. They have built-in MPEG2 encoders which look absolutely beautiful and take quite a load off your CPU.
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"It makes me sick to my stomach when I think of how much I get charged as a private person and what the breaks the health insurance industry gets."
Aha! A pre-existing condition! You'll never get insurance now!
Apologists have a long, scandalous history of referencing scandals from history to downplay present scandals engendered by apologists that will make history for being scandalous. Then again, this is not a new development.
"If the Bush Administration wants to make the case that they (The Bush Administration) have been more successful than the EU in reducing emissions, then the logical start point for comparison is about when they took over which would be 2001."
So the Bush Administration wants to show that they were the reason why the U.S. had reduced emissions...
"...the article points out correctly that Greenhouse emissions tend to drop during economic slowdowns."
That explains a lot!
ISPs don't hate Internet video because it uses up too much bandwidth (that they're overselling). They hate Internet video because it competes with their own video services. Think about it:
Comcast charges you $45/month for Internet and $60/month for digital cable television service. If you can get your TV over the Internet that means you won't need to pay that $60/month to them anymore. Right now there's very few online TV services but that is changing very quickly. They saw this coming so their "big plan" to counter the online video revolution is to provide IPTV services of their own and to ensure that IPTV services over the Internet are relegated to the slow lane (just a tad too slow to do HDTV):
Also consider for a moment Comcast's DOCSIS 3.0 plans:
* ~10% of the bandwidth will be dedicated to general Internet access ("customers will be psyched to get 12 megabits download!").
* ~90% of the bandwidth will be dedicated (exclusively) to Comcast's IPTV and VoIP services.
How's that for Net Neutrality? Comcast gets exclusive access to their own Internet super-speed pipe right to your house while any Internet-based competitors get stuck in the slow lane.
Verizon's FIOS service is also sold in a similar configuration (with dedicated bandwidth for their video service) and AT&T has similar plans with their own IPTV services.
We got into this mess because Joe Suburban doesn't see how much oil is "left" when he fills up his tank. He doesn't know how many refineries there are. He doesn't understand that oil is a finite resource. All he knows is that when he needs to fill up his tank there are always dozens of gas stations nearby to meet his needs. Prices have only risen to the point of "really annoying" so it is unlikely that he will change his ways.
Joe Suburban might have heard about oil shortages--or maybe he read about them once--but he himself never experienced it and those that did weren't living in the 21st century where a trip to the grocery store can mean a gallon or two and commutes can burn several. It was a crisis, sure, but when we have another one it will be much, much worse and Joe Suburban hasn't the faintest idea that it is coming. Even if he does think about, "the time when we run out of oil" he thinks in terms of "long time from now". Why worry about it? Didn't the news just report that "they" just found 15 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico? What Joe doesn't know is that 15 billion barrels is only two years supply and because he doesn't know there's no "market force" to correct for it. All you have to do to verify this fact is to look at the latest sales figures for gas guzzlers.
Gas prices can go up and down considerable amounts but the demand is always there--and very inflexible. I'm sure we could cut consumption by, say, 25% in a very short time if we really worked at it but the truth is that may be too late. Why? When the news reports even a hint that there could be an oil shortage people will start buying up as much as they can... "To make it through the shortage." It doesn't matter that there's 1200 billion barrels of proven oil reserves left. It only matters that Joe Suburban won't be able to get gas when he needs it and the problem will escalate very, very quickly.
The problem is that the rate at which it can be pumped out of the ground and refined will reach a peak and, while the demand will still exist (increasing every year!), the rate will not. Thus; the last voice heard before the entire collapse of the U.S. economy (government? civilization?) will be from an "expert" exclaiming, "But there's still billions and billions of barrels left!"
In my opinion, if Comcast starts cutting off users who "use too much bandwidth" because they're watching competitor's TV channels they will be in violation of antitrust laws. In fact, I'd say they're ALREADY in violation of said laws by giving themselves the exclusive right to the majority of bandwidth available on your Internet connection.
When DOCSIS 3.0 is rolled out Comcast plans to allot something like 85% of the bandwidth to their own IPTV services. Unless they open up that channel to competitors they're definitely using their monopoly in an anti-competitive, abusive manner. In fact, by making all these plans right now with other companies in the cable industry they're COLLUDING and RACKETEERING to ensure they maintain their monopoly in the future.
Something must be done about this and I hope public awareness increases as a result of increased Internet TV viewership.
I hope their definition is symmetric. There's lots you can do with 2Mbps download but there's lots more you can do with 2Mbps upload. It would be more pertinent for congress to bring back local loop unbundling and to split up companies that sell both content and Internet access (i.e. cable companies and telephone companies now selling TV).
I am so sick of the cable industry's "big ideas" when it comes to Internet access. Comcast especially. The cable industry's "big plan" includes a very antiquated idea: That they can sell content *and* a service to get that content at the same time. Let me explain:
Right now your cable company coax is primarily used up by analog and digital television channels. This "content" is highly un-exclusive. Meaning you can get the same TV channels and shows from many other providers. Their entire business model is built on the idea that while this content is not exclusive to the world at-large, they do have a monopoly on its delivery to you (if you ignore satellite TV).
Now they're selling Internet access and they expect to be able to continue to enjoy their monopoly on content? They are either delusional or they fully expect to overcome Network Neutrality. Here's why:
When we've all got 16+ megabit Internet connections (~the amount needed for streaming HDTV) what's to stop us from subscribing to Internet-based television services? Better yet, what's to stop us from just getting said video feeds for free? Not to mention the fact that most TV shows don't NEED to be streamed in the first place.
The answer: Absolutely nothing. I look forward to the day when I can subscribe to Comcast Internet and then watch TV streamed over the Internet from an infinite amount of channels. Hell, I'm already doing this in a way by way of video podcasts that are automatically downloaded to my MythTV box.
By providing high-speed Internet access to their customers they're forcing themselves to compete on content and that is something the cable industry is not used to doing. If Verizon is smart, they'll start offering their FIOS TV channels to *anyone* on the Internet willing to pay for them.
150 megabits is slow anyway. Let's talk about a much more USEFUL Internet connection: At gigabit speeds.
-Riskable
http://riskable.com/
"For a market to be fair and just
Regulations are a must"
That is actually quite interesting! It could very well be an enormous manifestation of Archimedes Principle... While not technically a fluid, at such pressure and depth the presence of water would explain why we have continents and not just a random mass of islands (as a result of mere volcanic activity).
Over the course of time (billions of years) the earth could have thrust all that matter upwards as a result of water forming at extreme temperature and pressure. In other words, the mass that we know of as "earth" (dirt & rocks) would be buoyed upwards as a result of water being pressurized underneath: The less dense (lighter) molecules and elements would "float" (be forced upwards) while the densest, most immutable molecules would "sink" (squeezing the lighter ones upwards).
I'm not a physicist by any means (I'm not even good at math), but if there's one thing I've discovered in nature it is that there are parallels between the microscopic world, the macroscopic one, and the astronomical one. It could very well be that the "unified theory of physics" will reveal that Archimedes Principal (or a variant thereof) is what brings Einsteinian physics and quantum physics together.
Vibrating one-dimensional strings might oscillate in such a way that compatible oscillations stick together forming quarks and gluons which leaves the tightest vibrations as a nucleus of sorts and depending on the harmony of the matter different elements are formed. Repeat upwards in scale ad nauseum. This would also explain why very heavy elements (in terms of atomic weight) are much less stable than their smaller counterparts: Less mass means less entropy in oscillations which means there's less chance of some matter getting out of whack.
Just food for thought.
As many commenters have pointed out, these new rules only apply when your company is being sued... Or do they? I propose that there's TWO reasons why you cannot avoid implementing systems that (can) comply:
1) These new rules apply to the discovery phase of a trial. Any trial. That means if you do business with a company that is being sued or one of your employees is being sued you're under the "discovery umbrella" and can be held accountable if you can't provide requested documents.
2) If your company were sued tomorrow, would you be able to retain documents in a way that would meet their requirements? That day? That week? How long would it take? The speed with which you must comply with these rules is entirely up to the discretion of the judge. I can only imagine that he will not stand for a typical IT department's, "pace of implementation". In fact, he may not stand for any "pace" at all. Is it unreasonable for him to expect you to hang on to all of your electronic evidence starting the day you get served? Especially when these rules have been around for a while (I give it a year before "But Judge, new rules!" stops being accepted as an excuse).
Then there's the problem of existing implementations that lack pertinent storage controls: A user can download something to their PC and wipe it--erasing evidence--in between nightly backups. As part of the discovery process it may be revealed that the user downloaded the file (via the proxy server logs), but where is that file? Will companies be held accountable for not implementing desktops that can protect against such actions by their users?
I have lots of other questions and theories, but my time is limited. I'll close by saying that I don't think these new rules are a bad idea per se, but I do believe that the courts should be lenient when there's time and resource limitations on the speed of compliance. In a few years I'm sure that compliance will be business as usual, but right now, your typical Windows IT implementations will not be able to meet the needs of the court. Linux, on the other hand...
-Riskable
http://www.riskable.com/
"I have a license to kill -9"
The Prius actually goes 0-60 in about ten seconds... Equivalent to a PT Cruiser.
I used to live in Massachusetts right off of Rt 1 in Danvers. I'd be amazed if there was a road like this anywhere else in the U.S. where you have to merge into 80MPH traffic from a *driveway*. The Prius didn't give me any more or less trouble that my Nissan Maxima did a 0-60 in 7 seconds.
-Riskable
http://www.riskable.com/
"I have a license to kill -9"
Never design a house around it being "cool" because that wears off. Instead, make the "cool" factor easily swapped out and replaced with the latest style. The rest of the home should utilize tech that benefits it's occupants in efficiency and ergonomics.
My ideal home specs are thus:
* Every room has it's own air return and heat/cool zone with their own thermostats. That way you can "turn off" unused rooms to save energy.
* Insulated interior doors that are weather-stripped like exterior doors to make the previous suggestion work better as well as provide soundproofing.
* Utilize the geography of the home to ease the energy burden. If you're building in a hot, sunny environment, install solar-powered water heating. If you're in a cool, dry environment, build the home into the ground to utilize natural insulation. You get the idea.
* Utilize sunlight-piping to light hallways and non-open rooms during the day.
* Use fiber-optics to provide accent lighting in the living areas.
* Install insulated vents so that hot air can be utilized in the summer to aid the water heater and cold air can be utilized in the winter to aid the refrigerator/freezer.
I have a lot more, but I've run out of time.
-Riskable
http://www.riskable.com/
"I have a license to kill -9"
Note to self: XFS is not supported by EnCase.
This is a form of contract reform. Contract law states that a contract cannot break any existing laws.
Since a "Cell phone bill of rights" would set forth laws to which a carrier contract cannot break, it would effectively be reforming their contracts.
If MA passes this law and Cingular still sells two-year contracts, after one year that part of the contract would be null and void. They could argue that you signed it, but you'd have the law on your side.
Unfortunately, it would still probably cost you more than $300 to fight a claim in court and even if you won you'd be fighting with their collection agency for years trying to get that removed from your credit history.
To me, your argument is moot. If all a political party can muster up is 20 supporters, it never had a chance to begin with. However, you do have a good point and it is something to consider: In a system where you limit donations only to voters and then further limit them to restricted dollar amounts, how does a third party get a leg up?
One way is to completely get rid of political parties. Why do we need them? It seems that smaller, more focused groups would be able to get more done. Not only that, but why do they always have to be opposing? Why not have a candidate that belongs to a red party and a green party? A blue and a purple? Shouldn't their beliefs and policies be at the forefront of their campaign, not the party they belong to?
My only stipulation would be that political groups should not be allowed to get involved in funding or supporting a single candidate.
Repeat after me:
An IP Address is not an identity
An IP Address is not an identity
An IP Address is not an identity!
If a crime is committed and it is traced back to an IP, that is A START of an investigation and should NEVER be the end of it! Far too often do we instantly assume that just because the crime came from a certain IP address, the person who owns the machine is the person who committed the crime.
All an IP gives you is the "place" part of the puzzle. Worse than this is the fact that it is virtual and multi-dimensional. The "place" where the crime occurred actually exists in many physical locations at once and can be nearly limitless in scope.
More important in these types of investigations is the "means" and the "motive". If neither exist for the person behind the IP, it is likely that his machine (or connection) merely acted as a proxy.
It just seems *WAY* too easy to frame someone for an Internet-related crime. Just find some motive and place "the means" on their machine.
If I were on a jury for any sort of Internet crime, the amount of evidence against the accused would have to be ENORMOUS for me to even consider a "conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt".
I think a better way to curtail the problem you speak of is to merely make churches start paying property taxes like every other business.
I have Comcast digital cable and I use on-demand fairly regularly. However, I have a number of big issues with it. For me (and I'm sure many others), it is nothing more than a neat trick than a useful feature...
1) The interface sucks. You can't search for shows. You can't customize it. There's no easy way to see what is new and what is old.
2) You need a Comcast-provided box to use it. With an ATSC CableCard tuner, there's no way to watch on-demand. As more and more of these TVs become available with their special features (true PiP, PVR-like functions, etc), no one is going to want to bother with Comcast's boxes. This will probably change in 2007 when all cable companies are required to use CableCards along with the rest of the industry.
3) The shows are almost *ALWAYS* old. I don't want to see 3-weeks-ago's Alias. I want to see TONIGHTS episode... I don't care if it takes a couple hours to transcode or whatever, but often times shows are literally MONTHS old and they'll stay in On-Demand for weeks at a time.
4) Shows are shown out-of-order. I want to know what genius thought it was a good idea to put up episode 7-9, 15-18, then the season finale.
5) You have to watch Comcast advertisements when you're browsing for shows. SUPREMELY annoying. "This week in On-Demand! Four-months old episodes of 24 shown out of order! Brought to you by Coca Cola."
You know, it's funny that you mention that... I've been running at 2048x1536 (~130 dpi) for several weeks now and I love it. Fonts are so nice, I've even turned off anti-aliasing.
It all depends on the websites you visit. Some scale well (Slashdot) and some scale horrifically (news.com.com.com.com.com.com.com =).
Its come to the point where I just don't go to sites like news.com.com anymore (not that I went to that site often to begin with). I get almost 100% of my (Internet) news through RSS at this point and let me tell you, Akregator only looks better & better as you increase resolution.
Oops, wrong link. That's for the A-Data card, Try this (Actual SanDisk card for $68)
1GB SanDisk SD card for $69 shipped.
Guess it's time for you to make that purchase and help the economy a little bit =)
Over the years I've gotten used to the junk email I get from autoresponders and verification notices. The amount of spam I receive used to be out of control, but since spam started escalating a few years ago I've made myself a spam expert.
The only solution really is to run my own server and keep up to date with all the latest anti-spam tech. Fortunately I haven't had to switch to a whitelist yet.
On the upside, I already know my email address is on every spammer's list in existance, so I can just freely post it just about anywhere knowing it won't make a difference.
There's two types of TV tuners out for PCs right now: Those with hardware encoders, and those without
The cheap ones (usually under $50) do not come with hardware encoders.
Hardware encoders (usually MPEG2) look superior and are generally smoother, taking the load off your CPU. Do not assume that since you have quad-processor super PC that it's enough to output great/smooth video. A hardware MPEG2 encoder is still superior.
As for internal VS external, there's a few USB 2.0 tuners with built-in hardware encoders, but none of them work in Linux. You're better off getting a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 (or 350 if you need TV-out) and sticking it in a MythTV Linux box... The current king of Tivo-like software.
All I can answer is in regards to MythTV:
1) If you use a Tuner card with an MPEG encoder, it records in MPEG2. If you use a Tuner without an MPEG2 encoder, MythTV uses your CPU to record in either RTJPEG or MPEG4 (user configurable). MythTV can transcode these formats to pretty much whatever you want after the recording is done.
2) MythTV can automatically flag commercials during recording. When it later transcodes the recording, it auto-skips these flagged areas. Works quite well, but can occasionally mess up (mostly it doesn't miss parts of your show, but might record an extraneous commercial or two). It has some newer experimental commercial skip features which I haven't tried yet. It's all user-configurable.
3) MythTV doesn't require a tuner. You could hook your cable box up to a video input of some sort on your PC and use it with an IRBlaster or serial cable (assuming your cable box can be controlled by a serial port).
4) If you buy a WinTV PVR card, it comes with a remote and IR interface... These work flawlessly with MythTV. However, I should note that MythTV works with LIRC... So if you get any old IR reciever working with LIRC, it'll work with MythTV. Essentially this means you can use MythTV with just about any remote you can get your hands on.
5) MythTV supports TV, Videos (auto-metadata lookups which is sweet, checkout the screenshots page), games (MAME, SNES, NES, Linux games, very cool), weather (My favorite module), RSS Newsfeeds, DVDs (which includes a nice ripper), and some others I can't think of off the top of my head right now. There's also a MythPhone module in development that works like Netmeeting/Gnomemeeting (http://www.zen13655.zen.co.uk/mythphone.html).
6) It's Linux, however, there's hooks and things in the code so that it might run on Windows some day. We'll see.
MythTV RIGHT NOW is an amazing piece of software, but because it's open-source, it's rapidly developing into something much, much more. Right now it's the PVR leader and I suspect it's going to remain that way for quite some time... A very promising future.
There's currently two ways to use MythTV with digital cable... The first (and most obvious) way is to use an IRBlaster. It's a device that hooks up to your MythTV box that changes the channel on your cable box when you change the channel on MythTV. It slows things down a bit, so it isn't ideal.
The other way is to get a cable box with a serial port (that works with MythTV). The only one I know off the top of my head is the Motorola DC2000 series. If you ask your cable company for a firewire-equipped box, they're most likely going to give you a DC2000. Also, if you get an HDTV cable box, you're most likely going to get a DC2000.
If you have the serial port setup, digital cable changes channels fast and works like a charm. A superior solution to the IRBlaster.
Side note: In this setup you don't even need a TV tuner card. Just some sort of video input to your PC. However, if you do want to get a TV tuner card, make sure you buy a WinTV PVR-250 or a PVR-350. They have built-in MPEG2 encoders which look absolutely beautiful and take quite a load off your CPU.