Well, only two typos in this post. First, it is "pushes," not "pushs." Secondly, you confused "than" with "then." Of course, nobody really cares in the long run... Anyways...
I'm glad to see more and more countries embracing open source software. Although many Americans have no problem shelling out $100 for WindozeXP (I certainly do, that is why don't), it is simply infeasable for someone living in a countries with average weekly salaries in the tens of dollars. Of course, these people won't be buying the computer for themselves. Rather, besides government agencies, the only computers would probably be in community "computer centers." With linux, it is not hard to localize a system to a country, and large-scale multi-user systems would not be so hard to manage.
2) It does not cost $2000. Not even close. In fact, when I bought my deck 2 years ago, I paid $300, as long as I subscribed to a year of sattilite TV (which by the way, I am still using).
I'm sure this technology can be made cheaper if you get rid of the sattilite reciever.
3) Tapes are still here. Yes, they will be done with within the next 5 to 7 years. I have a collection of over 200 VHS tapes, and replacing them all with DVD's is not an option (I don't run a software monopoly). Sure, I will probably never buy another tape in my life, but I still need something to watch them on. Granted, not everyone wants or needs a new VCR, so I can understand if they don't want one.
4) THIS IS NOT MEANT TO REPLACE DVD!!! This is meant for an alternative for people who don't want to abandon thier massive tape collection (well, they can keep thier VCR and buy a DVD player, but face it, can the average person hook both up at the same time?) and at the same time want high-quality movies. Also, this makes a good "middle-step" for those who don't want to dive into DVD recorders (and who would until a real universal standard is reached?).
If someone gets a patent on genes, I want the patent on Oak Trees and Duckbill Platypuses, because I can look at thier genes and remove any irrelevant pairs, and say that the sequence does not occur in nature. Of course, I wouldn't do this because I feel it it just plain wrong to try to patent a fundamental piece of nature. But someone thinks otherwise...
Face it, the human race is too high tech for evolution. We can no longer evolve naturally (allthough I am not ruling out evolution through genetic engineering or other such means) because we are able to remedy nearly all of our faults.
You see, if a fish was born in the ocean with a negative genetic defect, there is nothing to save it. It will soon be killed by a predator. We all know Darwin's Theory, so I'll move on. What differentiates us from that fish (or rather, species of fish), is we have been able to learn about, and treat, most any problem that affects our race. When a baby is sick or born with a disorder (assuming proper healthcare is available), we are able to do quite a bit to help her. We have created various medicines and treatments for most and disease. Even people with mental retardation can live a fairly normal life because care is available to them. If an ape was born mentally retarded, most likely it would die within a short period of time because it simply can't take care of itself. Since we as humans can overcome these obstacles, no longer does the "survival of the fittest" axiom apply.
Our gene codebase will still contain errors, and now there is virtually no natural way to wipe them out. And because of the immense population, a positive genetic defect (say, one that would make us 10x smarter) would take centuries, if not millennia to propagate.
Sure we will all be different in most respects, but radical changes are no longer possible. Also, as sick as it sounds to us Americans (well, most Americans), incest is a primary method of diversifying and strenghtening the gene pool. Dog breeders take advantage of this, but most of the world does not (including me). So basically, our natural evolution has run out, and it is up to us to continue it through science. It might be hard for some people to swallow, but genetic engineering and gene replacement is probably the only way to keep our species evolving.
These are just my thoughs, and I'm sure I may be wrong about something. Any comments? I sure would like to hear what others have to think.
Almost three years ago I bought this D-VHS recorder/sattillite reciever. We only got one D-VHS tape with it (it felt much higher quality than a standard VHS tape or even a S-VHS tape), and I quickly filled it up Southpark episodes (it was good at the time). Since the tape records the exact MPEG2 bitstream (or so it claims) going into the receiver, the picture quality on the tape was identical to what we saw. This also meant, however that when the sattilite lost its signal (due to tree branches blowing into the dish's line-of-sight), you would get the same annoying picture dropout (which is of course, expected). If it wasn't for me being able to get this for dirt cheap, I never would have bought it, but nevertheless I get a really good quality VCR with it.
Basically, my point is this is nothing new. It costs significantly less than a DVD burner, offers just as good picture quality (as long as your material is high quality), and allows you to have near-perfect digital duplicates of your source. If only the SCMS didn't hinder it's abilites, I think this would have been a good in-between step for people who want high-quaility copies without shelling out DVD-burner cash.
...conversion from Naturally Aspirated (carburator) to Electronic Fuel Injection with a Motec system. You can have your passenger plug a laptop into the computer (behind the passenger seat, inside) and remap the fuel ranges while you're driving!
I can see it now. While driving along peacefully at 65mph, obeying the speed limit, your 14 year old script-kiddie son sitting next to you remaps the fuel injector to inject the fuel at full capacity regardless of throttle position. Since he was running Windows, his computer crashes shortly afterwards and you find yourself cruising down the highway at 200mph. You put her in neutral, in a vain attempt to lose speed, but the engine over-revs and blows up. As you finally coast to a stop (about 10 minutes later), you teach your son a lesson.
Never remap fuel settings in Windows!
(Ok, so the above story wouldn't actually work because the butterfly valves would prevent any air intake to the engine, but who cares..)
As the article points out, PVR's do not use removable media (hey, now there is a good idea for me to patent... if only I believed in our patent and copyright system and it was how it should be). Therefor, it makes it nearly impossible for me to distribute/lend my copy to someone else (network TiVos are something else). This was the video industry's major gripe against VCRs when they were introduced. All though I would be quite enraged if they prevented me from recording broadcasts on a removable digital media, I would be far more enraged if I could not make digital recordings on a PVR.
Ultimately, IMHO, something like SCMS will be introduced to prevent multiple perfect digital copies originating from one source. However, SCMS was a joke for MiniDisc/DAT-- many units simply ignored the copybits or gave the option to turn them off. If worse came to worse, you can whip up a bit stripper and copy until your heart is content. Hopefully, if we end up getting a SCMS-like system on digital broadcasts, it will be taken as seriously as it was on MD/DAT and/or be very simple to beat...
One major difference between something like this and preventing ripping/copying from a CD on your computer is the way the devices interact in the system. In a computer, it would be hard, if not impossible to filter out the corruption put into a copy protected CD short of getting entirely new hardware.
However, because TV devices are often "daisy-chained" together, additional components can be added to filter out this signal corruption. Usually the cable from the wall goes into the PVR, and from there goes to the TV. If some sort of video copy-protection were to be implemented, it probably wouldn't be long until some "magic black box" gets invented to remove this corrupion. Then, your problem (if you are a cable subsciber, that is) is solved.
A major problem comes from digital broadcasts such as satillite and HDTV. The copy-protection scheme is now part of the bitstream, and it becomes much harder to make a black box to filter out the copy protection. This kind of thing exists to defeat SCMS on MiniDiscs, but dealing with hundreds of videostreams simultaneously whould require quite some power (and money).
Is there some simpler way to do this (besides preventing this from happening in the first place)?
Afterthough: If we did any of this, would we be violating the DMCA?
Well, 50MHz stamps do exist. I own three, and you can do all kinds of nerdy stuff with it, like make an RGB LED harddrive light or a maze-navigating robot (like I do with mine).
Oh wait.... you meant postage stamps, not Basic Stamps...
Ok... that may seem reasonable. Except, if you look at the pic on the website, the container looks like a bottle of motor oil. Empty bottles of motor oil weigh in at about an ounce. The current going rate for gold is about $260 an ounce. I can not imagine a container costing more than its weight in gold. Of course, they can make it out of platinum, and I would be wrong...
According to the website, it is $7495.99 for the generator and three fuel bottles. For the generator and nine bottles, the price jumps to $9995.99. Doing some basic math, the cost of a fuel comes out to about $416.66 per bottle, unless I am missing something major. Also, it claims the nine-bottle pack is a 24-hour supply. If you live on a non-Bill Gates budget, nobody can afford spending $3750 a day on fuel.
Granted, this baby can supply a constant kilowatt of power. But doing the math, you are paying $156.25 per kilowatt-hour. This has to be the most ludicrisly expensive method of power generation I know. You may as well hire 10,000 hampsters to run on a wheel to supply your backup power. I'm sure they can generate just as much power, not to mention the only fuel required is cheap dried food and water. But you do have to clean up all those hampster pellets...
Wow, this is really a cool concept, but it is not without its faults. First off, this program only works in short-wave AM, not the regular AM that we all have on our radios. The documentation states a default frequency of 10E7Hz (10MHz), and I doubt that you can get it to work at regular AM frequencies (.53 to 1.7Mhz). A darn shame considering my stereo is literally 1 foot away from my computer...
Secondly, your audio options are limited. Although I have yet to try the program, I'm sure what you get is a MIDI-esque playback of Beethoven's "Song for Eliza" (a.k.a. Fur Elise) at best. Likely, it is just sine-wave beeps at the right frequency. The next step is to figure out how to play.wav files, and the holy grail, mp3 and Ogg Vorbis. I'm sure someone will figure out how to do this in the near future, although I could not imagine good audio fidelity from this method. No worries though, it is not like you bought your monitor to play music. The concept, however, is one of the best I have seen in recent memory. Just don't go modifying your monitor to be a local radio broadcast station, I'm sure the FCC would not like that!
Geez, can I say 'too' any more times at the end of the sentence? Let me rephrase that last one to read, "Now I can be a techno-geek and join the circus!"
Although the rotor is of small mass, I cannot help but wonder if gyroscopic effects would be noticeable with this device. With the rotor spinning at 2.4E6 RPM (40,000 times a second), I would assume there to be significant gyroscopic effects. Imagine impressing your friends as you ballance your laptop on your finger. Since the battery is slightly off-center, it would cause the laptop to rotate around your finger, too. Now I can finally join the circus and be a techno-geek too!
We avoided this fiasco this time around. It's always good to let the others know in advance.
I missed the last shower due to mental error, and I hung a big sign up in my room that reads "Nov 18" so I don't forget this one. Hopefully, this is "The Year" and we get the really good storm bursts. Keep your fingers crossed!
Slashdot Mirror
Well, only two typos in this post. First, it is "pushes," not "pushs." Secondly, you confused "than" with "then." Of course, nobody really cares in the long run... Anyways...
I'm glad to see more and more countries embracing open source software. Although many Americans have no problem shelling out $100 for WindozeXP (I certainly do, that is why don't), it is simply infeasable for someone living in a countries with average weekly salaries in the tens of dollars. Of course, these people won't be buying the computer for themselves. Rather, besides government agencies, the only computers would probably be in community "computer centers." With linux, it is not hard to localize a system to a country, and large-scale multi-user systems would not be so hard to manage.
Apparently Extrans isn't working. Dammit.
OK. Last time. Let me get this right.
I hate forgetting to type .
Did it work?
I hate forgetting to set to Extrans and meaning to say "'s."
I hate forgetting 's. I hate hitting submit instead of preview. I hate life. I hate you.
Ok, I'm better now.
Ok.. a couple things you forgot to mention.
1) D-VHS is cheap to record to, DVD is not. At least for the time being that is. I happen to own a , and can make perfect quality duplicates from my satilite dish, for little more than the cost of a tape.
2) It does not cost $2000. Not even close. In fact, when I bought my deck 2 years ago, I paid $300, as long as I subscribed to a year of sattilite TV (which by the way, I am still using).
I'm sure this technology can be made cheaper if you get rid of the sattilite reciever.
3) Tapes are still here. Yes, they will be done with within the next 5 to 7 years. I have a collection of over 200 VHS tapes, and replacing them all with DVD's is not an option (I don't run a software monopoly). Sure, I will probably never buy another tape in my life, but I still need something to watch them on. Granted, not everyone wants or needs a new VCR, so I can understand if they don't want one.
4) THIS IS NOT MEANT TO REPLACE DVD!!! This is meant for an alternative for people who don't want to abandon thier massive tape collection (well, they can keep thier VCR and buy a DVD player, but face it, can the average person hook both up at the same time?) and at the same time want high-quality movies. Also, this makes a good "middle-step" for those who don't want to dive into DVD recorders (and who would until a real universal standard is reached?).
Just some replies to "random museings" (sic.)
If someone gets a patent on genes, I want the patent on Oak Trees and Duckbill Platypuses, because I can look at thier genes and remove any irrelevant pairs, and say that the sequence does not occur in nature. Of course, I wouldn't do this because I feel it it just plain wrong to try to patent a fundamental piece of nature. But someone thinks otherwise...
Face it, the human race is too high tech for evolution. We can no longer evolve naturally (allthough I am not ruling out evolution through genetic engineering or other such means) because we are able to remedy nearly all of our faults.
You see, if a fish was born in the ocean with a negative genetic defect, there is nothing to save it. It will soon be killed by a predator. We all know Darwin's Theory, so I'll move on. What differentiates us from that fish (or rather, species of fish), is we have been able to learn about, and treat, most any problem that affects our race. When a baby is sick or born with a disorder (assuming proper healthcare is available), we are able to do quite a bit to help her. We have created various medicines and treatments for most and disease. Even people with mental retardation can live a fairly normal life because care is available to them. If an ape was born mentally retarded, most likely it would die within a short period of time because it simply can't take care of itself. Since we as humans can overcome these obstacles, no longer does the "survival of the fittest" axiom apply.
Our gene codebase will still contain errors, and now there is virtually no natural way to wipe them out. And because of the immense population, a positive genetic defect (say, one that would make us 10x smarter) would take centuries, if not millennia to propagate.
Sure we will all be different in most respects, but radical changes are no longer possible. Also, as sick as it sounds to us Americans (well, most Americans), incest is a primary method of diversifying and strenghtening the gene pool. Dog breeders take advantage of this, but most of the world does not (including me). So basically, our natural evolution has run out, and it is up to us to continue it through science. It might be hard for some people to swallow, but genetic engineering and gene replacement is probably the only way to keep our species evolving.
These are just my thoughs, and I'm sure I may be wrong about something. Any comments? I sure would like to hear what others have to think.
Almost three years ago I bought this D-VHS recorder/sattillite reciever. We only got one D-VHS tape with it (it felt much higher quality than a standard VHS tape or even a S-VHS tape), and I quickly filled it up Southpark episodes (it was good at the time). Since the tape records the exact MPEG2 bitstream (or so it claims) going into the receiver, the picture quality on the tape was identical to what we saw. This also meant, however that when the sattilite lost its signal (due to tree branches blowing into the dish's line-of-sight), you would get the same annoying picture dropout (which is of course, expected). If it wasn't for me being able to get this for dirt cheap, I never would have bought it, but nevertheless I get a really good quality VCR with it.
Basically, my point is this is nothing new. It costs significantly less than a DVD burner, offers just as good picture quality (as long as your material is high quality), and allows you to have near-perfect digital duplicates of your source. If only the SCMS didn't hinder it's abilites, I think this would have been a good in-between step for people who want high-quaility copies without shelling out DVD-burner cash.
um... did you read that little blurb on the bottom I wrote about butterfly valves?
This is slashdot, we will never learn that anti-windows jokes aren't funny anymore.
I can see it now. While driving along peacefully at 65mph, obeying the speed limit, your 14 year old script-kiddie son sitting next to you remaps the fuel injector to inject the fuel at full capacity regardless of throttle position. Since he was running Windows, his computer crashes shortly afterwards and you find yourself cruising down the highway at 200mph. You put her in neutral, in a vain attempt to lose speed, but the engine over-revs and blows up. As you finally coast to a stop (about 10 minutes later), you teach your son a lesson.
Never remap fuel settings in Windows!
(Ok, so the above story wouldn't actually work because the butterfly valves would prevent any air intake to the engine, but who cares..)
Nice, but haven't we seen this before? Well, maybe some people missed it the first time around...
As the article points out, PVR's do not use removable media (hey, now there is a good idea for me to patent... if only I believed in our patent and copyright system and it was how it should be). Therefor, it makes it nearly impossible for me to distribute/lend my copy to someone else (network TiVos are something else). This was the video industry's major gripe against VCRs when they were introduced. All though I would be quite enraged if they prevented me from recording broadcasts on a removable digital media, I would be far more enraged if I could not make digital recordings on a PVR.
Ultimately, IMHO, something like SCMS will be introduced to prevent multiple perfect digital copies originating from one source. However, SCMS was a joke for MiniDisc/DAT-- many units simply ignored the copybits or gave the option to turn them off. If worse came to worse, you can whip up a bit stripper and copy until your heart is content. Hopefully, if we end up getting a SCMS-like system on digital broadcasts, it will be taken as seriously as it was on MD/DAT and/or be very simple to beat...
...Then, of course, we would violate the DMCA and go to jail for months before our arraignment...
One major difference between something like this and preventing ripping/copying from a CD on your computer is the way the devices interact in the system. In a computer, it would be hard, if not impossible to filter out the corruption put into a copy protected CD short of getting entirely new hardware.
However, because TV devices are often "daisy-chained" together, additional components can be added to filter out this signal corruption. Usually the cable from the wall goes into the PVR, and from there goes to the TV. If some sort of video copy-protection were to be implemented, it probably wouldn't be long until some "magic black box" gets invented to remove this corrupion. Then, your problem (if you are a cable subsciber, that is) is solved.
A major problem comes from digital broadcasts such as satillite and HDTV. The copy-protection scheme is now part of the bitstream, and it becomes much harder to make a black box to filter out the copy protection. This kind of thing exists to defeat SCMS on MiniDiscs, but dealing with hundreds of videostreams simultaneously whould require quite some power (and money).
Is there some simpler way to do this (besides preventing this from happening in the first place)?
Afterthough: If we did any of this, would we be violating the DMCA?
Well, 50MHz stamps do exist. I own three, and you can do all kinds of nerdy stuff with it, like make an RGB LED harddrive light or a maze-navigating robot (like I do with mine).
Oh wait.... you meant postage stamps, not Basic Stamps...
Ok... that may seem reasonable. Except, if you look at the pic on the website, the container looks like a bottle of motor oil. Empty bottles of motor oil weigh in at about an ounce. The current going rate for gold is about $260 an ounce. I can not imagine a container costing more than its weight in gold. Of course, they can make it out of platinum, and I would be wrong...
According to the website, it is $7495.99 for the generator and three fuel bottles. For the generator and nine bottles, the price jumps to $9995.99. Doing some basic math, the cost of a fuel comes out to about $416.66 per bottle, unless I am missing something major. Also, it claims the nine-bottle pack is a 24-hour supply. If you live on a non-Bill Gates budget, nobody can afford spending $3750 a day on fuel.
Granted, this baby can supply a constant kilowatt of power. But doing the math, you are paying $156.25 per kilowatt-hour. This has to be the most ludicrisly expensive method of power generation I know. You may as well hire 10,000 hampsters to run on a wheel to supply your backup power. I'm sure they can generate just as much power, not to mention the only fuel required is cheap dried food and water. But you do have to clean up all those hampster pellets...
Pretty picture next to the story. I don't think I've ever seen it before.
Wow, this is really a cool concept, but it is not without its faults. First off, this program only works in short-wave AM, not the regular AM that we all have on our radios. The documentation states a default frequency of 10E7Hz (10MHz), and I doubt that you can get it to work at regular AM frequencies (.53 to 1.7Mhz). A darn shame considering my stereo is literally 1 foot away from my computer...
.wav files, and the holy grail, mp3 and Ogg Vorbis. I'm sure someone will figure out how to do this in the near future, although I could not imagine good audio fidelity from this method. No worries though, it is not like you bought your monitor to play music. The concept, however, is one of the best I have seen in recent memory. Just don't go modifying your monitor to be a local radio broadcast station, I'm sure the FCC would not like that!
Secondly, your audio options are limited. Although I have yet to try the program, I'm sure what you get is a MIDI-esque playback of Beethoven's "Song for Eliza" (a.k.a. Fur Elise) at best. Likely, it is just sine-wave beeps at the right frequency. The next step is to figure out how to play
Geez, can I say 'too' any more times at the end of the sentence? Let me rephrase that last one to read, "Now I can be a techno-geek and join the circus!"
Although the rotor is of small mass, I cannot help but wonder if gyroscopic effects would be noticeable with this device. With the rotor spinning at 2.4E6 RPM (40,000 times a second), I would assume there to be significant gyroscopic effects. Imagine impressing your friends as you ballance your laptop on your finger. Since the battery is slightly off-center, it would cause the laptop to rotate around your finger, too. Now I can finally join the circus and be a techno-geek too!
We avoided this fiasco this time around. It's always good to let the others know in advance.
I missed the last shower due to mental error, and I hung a big sign up in my room that reads "Nov 18" so I don't forget this one. Hopefully, this is "The Year" and we get the really good storm bursts. Keep your fingers crossed!
Ah... We killed him already! Get a mirror up quick!
Ok, sorry, how about I say we are a Republic to be more correct. However, the fact remains that we can buy into our government if we had enough money.