My kids get very frustrated on the rare occasions that we watch a cable TV show that isn't DVRed.
"Dad, fast forward through the commercials." "I can't. It's live." "Just hit the fast forward button!" "It's live TV." "But if you hit the fast forward button you'll go by the commercials."
I think cable is dying, but has a lot of momentum behind it. This means it will take quite awhile to die. Add in that many cable TV providers control people's Internet service as well and "Internet TV" might hit some hurdles from cable ISPs trying to protect their businesses. (See Time Warner Cable's idea awhile back to cut everyone down to 5GB per month... a plan which was met with much anger and which they were forced to backpedal on.)
Time Warner Cable recently released a Roku app to let you view live TV using your TW Cable account. It's not OTA TV, but it's a step in the right direction. I await the day when cable companies will release their own Roku apps (as well as apps for other OTT boxes) and will compete with each over for online-based subscriptions.
As far as OTA goes, there seem to be a few OTA TV channel apps on Roku, but they are for small stations in places that I don't live. Maybe that will expand and more people watch their TV online.
And, unfortunately, when someone does compete with P2P as a competitor and beats it, they treat that company as an enemy. Example, Netflix. It's an easy to use service and is on virtually all devices. You can buy an inexpensive Roku box for $50 and then get thousands of shows for $10 a month. How have the content providers treated Netflix? Many are trying to keep their content off of it as if having their content stream via Netflix (and getting paid for that) is a horrible thing. Imagine how much better Netflix's service would be if the content providers opened their vaults and let Netflix have access to everything? Even if Netflix doubled their price, it would be a wonderful service that millions more would sign up for. However, it would also seriously disrupt the business model that content providers know and love and so they try their best to withhold content from Netflix. Ironically, this just helps piracy, not the content providers.
It assumes that "average consumers" must watch 157 hours of traditional television every month to be satisfied. The article very carefully never explains why it thinks this is a valid assumption.
Exactly. My kids began watching normal cable TV (though less than 157 hours a month). After we got a Roku box and Netflix, they began watching that AND cable. Slowly, they migrated until they now watch very little cable TV* at all. Even more recently, they've taken to getting their entertainment from tablet computer games and the TV will often remain off entirely. Even if we accept that customers "need" X hours of entertainment every month, that entertainment can come from a variety of sources. TV is just one of those sources, not the only source.
* We're considering cancelling cable. The only reason it has remained is that Time Warner Cable gave us a great deal this year to keep us as customers. We watch some shows (e.g. Mythbusters) that don't show new episodes via OTA, on a station website, or on Netflix. Once you factor in paying for those shows, our savings shrink to the point that cancellation doesn't save us much. However, cable TV is constantly on the edge of cancellation with us and it's only a matter of time before it goes.
If they think Hamlet is too violent with 8 murders and one suicide, what about the Bible? That thing's full of people killing other people for various reasons. Heck, the exodus from Egypt alone kills all of the Pharaoh's soldiers while the Israelites celebrate on the shore. (To be fair to the Israelites, they did just escape from slavery. Seeing your former slave masters drowning as you escape to freedom is cause for celebration.) Is the Bible censored too? Do we need to come up with a child-friendly version of it?
"And so, as Lot escaped Sodom and Gomorrah, God came down and... gave them a very stern talking to.... then Lot's wife looked back and... got really dizzy so she had to lie down for a bit..."
At that point, why not have the order transmit electronically to the restaurant. You'd select the McDonald's that you want to order from (the app could pre-select a nearby one and you could override that if you preferred a different one), place your order, and you'd get a confirmation number. The order would appear on that restaurant's order screen and they would prepare it. By the time you arrived, your order would be ready to pick up. You could even tie it in with your credit card so that the meal is paid for via the app. Click what you want, drive up and grab it. Makes it very easy. (Just don't order McDonald's food while driving!)
And that's if it even hits Earth. If the rockets burn too long they may push the asteroid too far so that it gets flung out to space (gravitational slingshot around Earth). I'll worry if we decide to capture HUGE asteroids on our first go around, but 60 meters large asteroids seem to be an extremely low risk.
The current US Political system is like a weird version of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Yes, you could vote for a third party, but if not enough other people do the same, the major party candidate you like more loses votes and can lose the election. If you "betray" (to use the prisoner's dilemma language) your other third party voters, though, and vote for the major party candidate you like more, you stand a better chance of getting the major party candidate you like more but you also help turn those third party votes into "lost votes" for your major party pick. Add in major party momentum (and more than a little bit of rules tweaking done by major parties to ensure only they are electable) and third party candidates have nearly impossible uphill battles to get elected.
Now if we had a instant runoff style electoral system, we could put third party candidates as our first choice and still vote for our favored major party candidate as our fallback choice. Placing a vote for a third party candidates wouldn't be seen as "throwing your vote away" and the major parties would get challenged by other parties gaining power. Which, of course, is exactly the reason we'll never see instant runoff voting instituted as long as the Democrat-Republican party runs the show.
Well, the NSA seems to "only" collect meta-data (unless I've missed some further revelations). It would be sort of like one spouse secretly having motion detectors secretly set up in their house to tell who is in which rooms and for how long for the purposes of making sure the other spouse isn't having an affair. "Gee, Sally. You're spending an awful lot of time in the bedroom when I'm at work. Is there anything you'd like to confess?!!!"
I'm convinced that you could pass any legislation if you were good at coming up with the right acronym. "Well, sure the C.U.T.E. P.U.P.P.I.E.S. act would mean anyone who criticized the government would get locked up for 10 years, but do you really want to be seen as being anti-Cute Puppies?!!!!!"
NOTE: I don't know anything about Elysium except that which I've gleaned from trailers/Internet chatter. That being said...
I could see an Elysium-like situation occurring. Not "everyone else is poor and downtrodden and the rich escape into space", but "the rich make an orbiting resort for them to enjoy zero-g vacations." I can imagine that the rich and famous would LOVE such a place. Being able to brag to your friends that you just vacationed on Club $pace would make you the envy of your friends. To say nothing of being literally out of reach of paparazzi. (Let's see those zoom lenses not only see all the way to space, but view through station walls.)
After awhile, the rich pave the way for the cost to drop and others can afford to take part. Especially when space business opportunities emerge. (e.g. Mining asteroids.) Eventually, everyone can go into space for a nominal cost.
It's not a guarantee (the rich could also hoard the technology so that only they are allowed in space), but it is a path where a permanent space presence similar to Elysium could be constructed and still benefit all of mankind.
And if we are bubbling, the question is: When the bubble pops will we level out or drop down to a previous technology level? A bubble of that magnitude popping would have significant effects and could toss us back technologically speaking.
And it's made all the more worse by another "default mode" of human thinking: Once I've come to a conclusion, admitting I was wrong and/or changing my mind is A Bad Thing.
So you start out with X must be wrong (where X is the moon landing or vaccines being safe or the Holocaust having happened) because the individual didn't personally experience it or has anecdotal "evidence" to the contrary (even if said evidence is that a friend of their uncle's neighbor said it). Then, once their opinion has been set, they refuse to change it no matter now much evidence is presented to them because altering their opinion/admitting being wrong is A Bad Thing. It's better (in the person's view) to decide that the mountain of evidence pointing to them being wrong is itself wrong (or part of some conspiracy) than it is to admit that they are wrong.
True, but when someone has been giving good messages for awhile, you build up a sense of trust that their next message will be a good one. On the flip side, if someone has been sending bad messages for awhile, you lose all trust in further messages from them. Yes, the person could still be proven right or wrong and go against expectations, but still past performance is considered. If someone who pushed bunk "alternative medicine" cures came out with something that he claimed cured a disease, people wouldn't believe him. He could be right but he would start out with no trust versus someone (or some company) with a proven track record.
Or to put it in computer terms: If Microsoft touted their next operating system as highly secure against attacks, how many here would initially believe their claims to be true? Now what if the claim was made by a Linux vendor who has released iteration after iteration of highly secure Linux builds? Yes, Microsoft could wind up putting out a secure OS and that Linux vendor might mess up and release something highly vulnerable and yes, the operating systems should be evaluated on their own (not based on past performance of the people who made them) but historical evidence is still very important.
Step 1: To increase security, fire 90% of sysadmins Step 2: Make the remaining 10% do the jobs of the fired 90%. Plus their own jobs. Plus the additional work of any new projects/expansions. Step 3: Profit! (For foreign hackers who break into the under-secured servers and for overworked sysadmins who turn leakers ala Snowden.)
900 former NSA sysadmins in the same prison? Sounds like a pilot for a Netflix original series. Kind of like The IT Crowd meets Orange Is The New Black.
Recently, we were stuck in front of a woman who was talking on her cell phone (no hand-free set either, phone to ear talking) and driving erratically. And then she took out some makeup to put on WHILE talking on her cell phone WHILE driving. I say "stuck in front" because there was no way to get away from her quickly and she was swerving every which way. We definitely did NOT feel safe. I'm not sure what kind of risk assessment these people do who think "I can do these two highly distracting things while I drive and I'll be completely safe!"
So you've got 1TB on a chip the size of a postage stamp? Who's to say that you didn't put a movie's DVD rip on that and mail it to a friend of yours? PIRACY!!! We've got to outlaw all mail since it could possibly be used to pirate our valuable intellectual property! Think of the children (of the overpaid content company executives)!
- This message brought to you by the MPAA and RIAA
I read it that way too and, for some reason, wasn't shocked at the prospect of the NRA advocating the use of deadly force against people who opposed them.
Yes because your content has a similar name to content that another entity owns the IP rights to and they mistakenly think that you streamed their stuff. So you can either try to plea bargain or fight the court case for months, possibly win, but wind up bankrupt either way.
I'd propose one amendment to your "copyright enforcement tax", entities can waive their access to using federal resources to prosecute copyright infringers and will thus be exempt from this tax. Waiving access means that you can't have Joe Uploader prosecuted for a felony because he distributed your copyrighted work without permission, however you can still seek the usual civil penalties. In fact, someone could even make a logo for companies to put on their works to advertise that they are waiving access and thus don't tax (pun intended) the federal government's resources to prosecute copyright infringers. This logo could be seen as good PR that would boost sales which, added to the lack of a "copyright enforcement tax", would make for larger profits.
Plus there's the "even a broken clock is right twice a day" situation. If you argue that the TSA is bad because they don't catch terrorists, what happens when they catch one? It's bound to happen eventually just due to pure luck (or incompetence on the part of the terrorist). If your only argument is "TSA is bad because they don't catch terrorists" your argument is severely weakened thanks to one lucky snag.
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My kids get very frustrated on the rare occasions that we watch a cable TV show that isn't DVRed.
"Dad, fast forward through the commercials."
"I can't. It's live."
"Just hit the fast forward button!"
"It's live TV."
"But if you hit the fast forward button you'll go by the commercials."
I think cable is dying, but has a lot of momentum behind it. This means it will take quite awhile to die. Add in that many cable TV providers control people's Internet service as well and "Internet TV" might hit some hurdles from cable ISPs trying to protect their businesses. (See Time Warner Cable's idea awhile back to cut everyone down to 5GB per month... a plan which was met with much anger and which they were forced to backpedal on.)
Time Warner Cable recently released a Roku app to let you view live TV using your TW Cable account. It's not OTA TV, but it's a step in the right direction. I await the day when cable companies will release their own Roku apps (as well as apps for other OTT boxes) and will compete with each over for online-based subscriptions.
As far as OTA goes, there seem to be a few OTA TV channel apps on Roku, but they are for small stations in places that I don't live. Maybe that will expand and more people watch their TV online.
And, unfortunately, when someone does compete with P2P as a competitor and beats it, they treat that company as an enemy. Example, Netflix. It's an easy to use service and is on virtually all devices. You can buy an inexpensive Roku box for $50 and then get thousands of shows for $10 a month. How have the content providers treated Netflix? Many are trying to keep their content off of it as if having their content stream via Netflix (and getting paid for that) is a horrible thing. Imagine how much better Netflix's service would be if the content providers opened their vaults and let Netflix have access to everything? Even if Netflix doubled their price, it would be a wonderful service that millions more would sign up for. However, it would also seriously disrupt the business model that content providers know and love and so they try their best to withhold content from Netflix. Ironically, this just helps piracy, not the content providers.
Exactly. My kids began watching normal cable TV (though less than 157 hours a month). After we got a Roku box and Netflix, they began watching that AND cable. Slowly, they migrated until they now watch very little cable TV* at all. Even more recently, they've taken to getting their entertainment from tablet computer games and the TV will often remain off entirely. Even if we accept that customers "need" X hours of entertainment every month, that entertainment can come from a variety of sources. TV is just one of those sources, not the only source.
* We're considering cancelling cable. The only reason it has remained is that Time Warner Cable gave us a great deal this year to keep us as customers. We watch some shows (e.g. Mythbusters) that don't show new episodes via OTA, on a station website, or on Netflix. Once you factor in paying for those shows, our savings shrink to the point that cancellation doesn't save us much. However, cable TV is constantly on the edge of cancellation with us and it's only a matter of time before it goes.
If they think Hamlet is too violent with 8 murders and one suicide, what about the Bible? That thing's full of people killing other people for various reasons. Heck, the exodus from Egypt alone kills all of the Pharaoh's soldiers while the Israelites celebrate on the shore. (To be fair to the Israelites, they did just escape from slavery. Seeing your former slave masters drowning as you escape to freedom is cause for celebration.) Is the Bible censored too? Do we need to come up with a child-friendly version of it?
"And so, as Lot escaped Sodom and Gomorrah, God came down and... gave them a very stern talking to.... then Lot's wife looked back and... got really dizzy so she had to lie down for a bit..."
I tried to order dessert in a restaurant and received a 314 - Pie Moved error.
At that point, why not have the order transmit electronically to the restaurant. You'd select the McDonald's that you want to order from (the app could pre-select a nearby one and you could override that if you preferred a different one), place your order, and you'd get a confirmation number. The order would appear on that restaurant's order screen and they would prepare it. By the time you arrived, your order would be ready to pick up. You could even tie it in with your credit card so that the meal is paid for via the app. Click what you want, drive up and grab it. Makes it very easy. (Just don't order McDonald's food while driving!)
And that's if it even hits Earth. If the rockets burn too long they may push the asteroid too far so that it gets flung out to space (gravitational slingshot around Earth). I'll worry if we decide to capture HUGE asteroids on our first go around, but 60 meters large asteroids seem to be an extremely low risk.
The current US Political system is like a weird version of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Yes, you could vote for a third party, but if not enough other people do the same, the major party candidate you like more loses votes and can lose the election. If you "betray" (to use the prisoner's dilemma language) your other third party voters, though, and vote for the major party candidate you like more, you stand a better chance of getting the major party candidate you like more but you also help turn those third party votes into "lost votes" for your major party pick. Add in major party momentum (and more than a little bit of rules tweaking done by major parties to ensure only they are electable) and third party candidates have nearly impossible uphill battles to get elected.
Now if we had a instant runoff style electoral system, we could put third party candidates as our first choice and still vote for our favored major party candidate as our fallback choice. Placing a vote for a third party candidates wouldn't be seen as "throwing your vote away" and the major parties would get challenged by other parties gaining power. Which, of course, is exactly the reason we'll never see instant runoff voting instituted as long as the Democrat-Republican party runs the show.
Well, the NSA seems to "only" collect meta-data (unless I've missed some further revelations). It would be sort of like one spouse secretly having motion detectors secretly set up in their house to tell who is in which rooms and for how long for the purposes of making sure the other spouse isn't having an affair. "Gee, Sally. You're spending an awful lot of time in the bedroom when I'm at work. Is there anything you'd like to confess?!!!"
I'm convinced that you could pass any legislation if you were good at coming up with the right acronym. "Well, sure the C.U.T.E. P.U.P.P.I.E.S. act would mean anyone who criticized the government would get locked up for 10 years, but do you really want to be seen as being anti-Cute Puppies?!!!!!"
NOTE: I don't know anything about Elysium except that which I've gleaned from trailers/Internet chatter. That being said...
I could see an Elysium-like situation occurring. Not "everyone else is poor and downtrodden and the rich escape into space", but "the rich make an orbiting resort for them to enjoy zero-g vacations." I can imagine that the rich and famous would LOVE such a place. Being able to brag to your friends that you just vacationed on Club $pace would make you the envy of your friends. To say nothing of being literally out of reach of paparazzi. (Let's see those zoom lenses not only see all the way to space, but view through station walls.)
After awhile, the rich pave the way for the cost to drop and others can afford to take part. Especially when space business opportunities emerge. (e.g. Mining asteroids.) Eventually, everyone can go into space for a nominal cost.
It's not a guarantee (the rich could also hoard the technology so that only they are allowed in space), but it is a path where a permanent space presence similar to Elysium could be constructed and still benefit all of mankind.
And if we are bubbling, the question is: When the bubble pops will we level out or drop down to a previous technology level? A bubble of that magnitude popping would have significant effects and could toss us back technologically speaking.
And it's made all the more worse by another "default mode" of human thinking: Once I've come to a conclusion, admitting I was wrong and/or changing my mind is A Bad Thing.
So you start out with X must be wrong (where X is the moon landing or vaccines being safe or the Holocaust having happened) because the individual didn't personally experience it or has anecdotal "evidence" to the contrary (even if said evidence is that a friend of their uncle's neighbor said it). Then, once their opinion has been set, they refuse to change it no matter now much evidence is presented to them because altering their opinion/admitting being wrong is A Bad Thing. It's better (in the person's view) to decide that the mountain of evidence pointing to them being wrong is itself wrong (or part of some conspiracy) than it is to admit that they are wrong.
True, but when someone has been giving good messages for awhile, you build up a sense of trust that their next message will be a good one. On the flip side, if someone has been sending bad messages for awhile, you lose all trust in further messages from them. Yes, the person could still be proven right or wrong and go against expectations, but still past performance is considered. If someone who pushed bunk "alternative medicine" cures came out with something that he claimed cured a disease, people wouldn't believe him. He could be right but he would start out with no trust versus someone (or some company) with a proven track record.
Or to put it in computer terms: If Microsoft touted their next operating system as highly secure against attacks, how many here would initially believe their claims to be true? Now what if the claim was made by a Linux vendor who has released iteration after iteration of highly secure Linux builds? Yes, Microsoft could wind up putting out a secure OS and that Linux vendor might mess up and release something highly vulnerable and yes, the operating systems should be evaluated on their own (not based on past performance of the people who made them) but historical evidence is still very important.
Step 1: To increase security, fire 90% of sysadmins
Step 2: Make the remaining 10% do the jobs of the fired 90%. Plus their own jobs. Plus the additional work of any new projects/expansions.
Step 3: Profit! (For foreign hackers who break into the under-secured servers and for overworked sysadmins who turn leakers ala Snowden.)
Wouldn't incrementing one form the NSB (National Security Bureau)? And then one more would make the NSC (National Security Corporation?).
900 former NSA sysadmins in the same prison? Sounds like a pilot for a Netflix original series. Kind of like The IT Crowd meets Orange Is The New Black.
Recently, we were stuck in front of a woman who was talking on her cell phone (no hand-free set either, phone to ear talking) and driving erratically. And then she took out some makeup to put on WHILE talking on her cell phone WHILE driving. I say "stuck in front" because there was no way to get away from her quickly and she was swerving every which way. We definitely did NOT feel safe. I'm not sure what kind of risk assessment these people do who think "I can do these two highly distracting things while I drive and I'll be completely safe!"
So you've got 1TB on a chip the size of a postage stamp? Who's to say that you didn't put a movie's DVD rip on that and mail it to a friend of yours? PIRACY!!! We've got to outlaw all mail since it could possibly be used to pirate our valuable intellectual property! Think of the children (of the overpaid content company executives)!
- This message brought to you by the MPAA and RIAA
I read it that way too and, for some reason, wasn't shocked at the prospect of the NRA advocating the use of deadly force against people who opposed them.
Yes because your content has a similar name to content that another entity owns the IP rights to and they mistakenly think that you streamed their stuff. So you can either try to plea bargain or fight the court case for months, possibly win, but wind up bankrupt either way.
I'd propose one amendment to your "copyright enforcement tax", entities can waive their access to using federal resources to prosecute copyright infringers and will thus be exempt from this tax. Waiving access means that you can't have Joe Uploader prosecuted for a felony because he distributed your copyrighted work without permission, however you can still seek the usual civil penalties. In fact, someone could even make a logo for companies to put on their works to advertise that they are waiving access and thus don't tax (pun intended) the federal government's resources to prosecute copyright infringers. This logo could be seen as good PR that would boost sales which, added to the lack of a "copyright enforcement tax", would make for larger profits.
Plus there's the "even a broken clock is right twice a day" situation. If you argue that the TSA is bad because they don't catch terrorists, what happens when they catch one? It's bound to happen eventually just due to pure luck (or incompetence on the part of the terrorist). If your only argument is "TSA is bad because they don't catch terrorists" your argument is severely weakened thanks to one lucky snag.