We're getting there, but we're not there yet. And we won't be until storage is truly ubiquitous. I've actually spent some of my weekend re-organizing my music collection, ripping CDs that hadn't listened in a while, etc. But even with the 600G of storage in my PC, I still can't have everything I want unless it's compressed. And I'm thinking about how to listen to my collection in my car. Bringing hundreds of CDs around with me isn't practical. MP3 CDs hold maybe 10-20 albums. HDD based devices (ipods and the like) still can't hold everything I own... not even close. And I want to have a DVD server so rather than pulling out the DVD, I can just call up one of the hundreds of DVDs I own on a menu.
Yes, storage is becoming more impressive all the time. But it's still a very long way from being to the point where you don't have to think about how and where you store and move your files. And it will be very cool when that day comes.
Don't confuse the issue. This has nothing to do with software, or copyright infringement, or cracking. It has to do with fraud and actively participating in that fraud. And yes, the answer to intentionally and purposefully committing fraud is jail time.
There needs to be SEVERE penalties to discourage others from picking up where this left off. I vote for jail time for the company executives AND those developers who knew exactly what they were doing (or in this case, weren't doing).
The risk/reward ratio is still tilting too far toward reward for those who would defraud others using the internet.
-S
Can I use this to...?
on
Sim Epidemic
·
· Score: 1
Can I use this to figure out how best to spread my next cold to friends, family, and co-workers so I don't have to suffer alone?
If cable/satellite providers would only sell channels individually
Careful what you wish for. Do you really want cable/satellite providers only carrying the few most popular channels? It's the lack of total ala-carte that brings diversity. Do you think there's enough people to pay directly for channels like Sci-Fi, Discovery, BBC America, The Science Channel, and the like? There isn't. It's only because it's a package deal that there's enough viewership to support those channels.
Do I want to pay for We, Lifetime, or SoapNet? No, I don't. But I understand that part of my montly payment goes to those so that I can have Sci-Fi too. That model, while probably causing everyone to pay a little more, allows a much wider diversity of programming.
And stern's switching to XM anyway, which just shows that the problem isn't the cursing, it's using a public resource to broadcast your curses.
Make sure the FCC knows you want them to keep their grubby paws of satellite radio. The religious right are coming after satellite radio as well.
And it gets worse. The terresterial broadcasters are now saying that they won't be able to compete against satellite unless the FCC levies the same restrictions against satellite that they do on regular radio.
I'm a very happy XM subscriber and I'd hate to think that they might get sucked into this rediculous quagmire as well.
What exactly do you expect when the religious right gets the current administration re-elected.
The best thing WE can do is to contact the FCC and let them know that we disagree (yes, use the American Family Association's website against them). The bulk of the feedback they get tells them that showing a naked breast on TV or speaking a certain word is the most horrific thing that could happen to the populus.
Having had XM for a few months, I can not even begin to tell how absolutely sucky broadcast radio is. I know you think you know that it sucks. I thought so to. But I just didn't realize how horrid it had become until I had a wealth of listening options in my car. Just the thought of yet another inane "radio personality" (I refuse to use the term DJ... they're not) screaching at me makes me shutter. And if I have to go somewhere in my wife's car (sans XM)... ugh.
As far as a merger... well, I must admit that I'm a bit miffed with their exclusive sports contracts right now. XM has (or will have) Major League Baseball and Sirius has (or will have) NFL. I'd love to have both, but not if I have to get two sets of equipment and pay two subscription charges.
I think most of the rest of the programming (Stern and company excluded) is mostly duplicated between the two. The music selections are very similar as is much of the other programming.
Right now, I think they need to grow the subscriber base and I don't know as if the competition between XM and Sirius helps matters. I've heard a lot of people say that they're waiting to see which one survives before jumping on board. That's not a good thing for the long term viability of either one. In the long run, I think a merger would be helpful. They're competing against the status quo and against "free" broadcast radio. That alone should keep rates down. I don't think the XM vs. Sirius competition really means as much.
Episode I was like watching my childhood melt into easily-marketable claptrap
You know, I've felt the same way about Episode I. I hated it.
But then this past week I had a revelation. In the years since it was relesed, I had a kid. He's about four and a half years old now. We've watched the first (original) three together (including pausing at the Guido scene to explain that Han shot first), and he's loved them.
Then we watched Episide I last week. And while I was sitting there squirming and re-living the pain, he was REALLY loving it. Jar Jar... "He's funny!". He cracked up at the pod race announcers. Anikin accidentally destroying the space station was met with "That was AWESOME!".
Episide I was not for me. It was designed to satisfy the intellect of a four year old. Well, "designed to" may be to strong, but that's where it succeeded, whether that was the intention or not. Everying I loathed about it, he loved. It's sad that Lucas smashed my dreams of a satisfying first chapter, but my four year old thinks differently.
Although we're talking about slightly different technology here, I've got a Samsung DLP TV. Although they haven't stated it in writing as such, from what I can gather they've been extremely good to people who have experienced "dead pixels" on their DLP sets. I haven't had any problems at all with mine (find wood, knock, repeat), but I know some people who have had the "light engines" in their sets replaced by Samsung due to dead pixels. With getting fixed pixel technology off the ground, Samsung has been reasonably consumer friendly. It doesn't suprise me that they're taking the high road here as a differentiator from their competition.
Sony on the other hand has been very stingy with their LCD sets as far as dead pixels go. Apparantly they find some number of dead pixels to be acceptable. I don't know what the threshold is, but I know that LCD sets have a reputation for dead pixels and that Sony hasn't been particularly good about getting it resolved.
Could it be that the mass media actually showed a reasonable amount of restraint on covering this story until more information was in hand? In the previous Slashdot stories posted on this subject, there was a lot of complaining about "What aren't the major media outlets covering this story?!?!?"
Well, this is why. The data is/was incomplete. The calculations are/were preliminary and ever-changing based on new observations. There was no point in starting a panic and sensationalizing the story at this point.
Sometimes we, the readers/contributors of Slashdot aren't as collectively bright as we think we are.
A few minutes ago I'd jumped on news.google.com to see if there were any updates on MN4 (insert look of shock that/. isn't my first source of news). Of course, being a fumble-fingers, I typed "asteroid" as "asteriod". Lo and behold, what is the ONLY news site around to have such a misspelling...
I'm not saying it isn't prohibited. I know that it is. But the reality is that it happens all the time, probably on just about every flight. Most computer users don't have a clue how to determine if their wireless is disabled.
First, engine and wind noise provide natural noise masking. It will only be the few closest people that you'd be able to hear talking. And to be honest, I'd mostly prefer that they talk to someone on their cell phones rather than trying to strike up a conversation with me.
Secondly, I'm surprised that the FAA and/or FCC is still concerned about the planes. I can't remember the last time I went on a flight and didn't hear a phone accidentally ring in flight. Oops. Forgot to shut off your cell phone. Yet despite most flights having at least some passengers who leave their cell phones on, it hasn't caused any problems. If it were an actual issue, it would be pervasive.
And finally, a huge number of people bring on laptops and although they might not be actively attached to a wireless connection, the computers are still sitting there probing the airwaves looking for connection points. Again, no problem there despite the fact that wireless computer technology is present and active on most flights.
Oh, I hope we're a step closer to freeing up DRM restricted WMV files and here's why...
I bought (as in I paid for) WMV files from MLB.com of this year's baseball playoffs because I didn't save my TiVo'd copies and wanted to have the games in my personal archive. At MLB.com, they used advertising verbiage like "watch them whenever you want!" and "burn them to CD!". Apparantly I didn't read the fine print close enough (or maybe it wasn't in the fine print), but those files are heavily DRM restricted. I have to be connected to the internet and log onto MLB.com to watch them. And even then, I can't even fast forward. Pathetic.
All I wanted to do was to convert them DVD-compatible MPEG2 for MY USE. I want to watch them on my TV instead of my computer. I paid for them and I should be able to view them somewhere other than my PC. I searched high and low and couldn't find a way to break the DRM. Sheesh, it's not like I'm trying to do anything that could be construed as illegal, at least by any rational person. Really frustrating.
If Jon's thing helps free these files in a way that will allow me to media-shift them, then I'm all for it! Even if it's not so I can watch them on Linux. Heck, I've had to use DeCSS to extract MPEG files from DVDs of MY OWN HOME VIDEOS because the original tapes were damaged. How pathetic is it that I needed a tool like that in order to view files that I and I alone own copyright on?
According to this article, Apple sold 2.01M ipods in a single quarter recently. At 6% that the parent article claims, that would be about 120K new Mac users per quarter? According to this article, their total computer sales are 836K for about the same time. Ipods driving 14% of their total computer sales? Seems high.
I had regularly TiVo'd the live-action version of "The Tick". When it was canceled, I remembered reading news articles about the time it was on and how that killed it in the ratings. And I, a TiVo user, had absolutely NO CLUE when it was actually broadcast. None. All I knew was sometime during the week a new episode showed up on the Now Playing list, so when I had a bit of spare time, I watched it.
It's good that they're taking this step. Maybe some otherwise decent shows will show higher ratings now.
Actually, I've had my.sig for a very long time. I didn't copy it from anywhere (i.e., I made it up myself, though it seems a fairly obvious statement so it's certainly possible that others had it before me, though I'm not aware of any). Since I've started using it on/., I've seen it showing up in various places. It's kind of cool to see it quoted along with quotes from great authors.
For those with sigs shut off, here's what it says...
"What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?"
Slashdot Mirror
Computer-generated?!?!? Hang on a second. That's CHEATING!
You're supposed to BUILD something (physical) with Lego's. Take a picture of it. REBUILD slightly. Repeat. String together pictures into movie.
Computer-generated LEGO's are for wusses!
-S
We're getting there, but we're not there yet. And we won't be until storage is truly ubiquitous. I've actually spent some of my weekend re-organizing my music collection, ripping CDs that hadn't listened in a while, etc. But even with the 600G of storage in my PC, I still can't have everything I want unless it's compressed. And I'm thinking about how to listen to my collection in my car. Bringing hundreds of CDs around with me isn't practical. MP3 CDs hold maybe 10-20 albums. HDD based devices (ipods and the like) still can't hold everything I own... not even close. And I want to have a DVD server so rather than pulling out the DVD, I can just call up one of the hundreds of DVDs I own on a menu.
Yes, storage is becoming more impressive all the time. But it's still a very long way from being to the point where you don't have to think about how and where you store and move your files. And it will be very cool when that day comes.
-S
Don't confuse the issue. This has nothing to do with software, or copyright infringement, or cracking. It has to do with fraud and actively participating in that fraud. And yes, the answer to intentionally and purposefully committing fraud is jail time.
-S
There needs to be SEVERE penalties to discourage others from picking up where this left off. I vote for jail time for the company executives AND those developers who knew exactly what they were doing (or in this case, weren't doing).
The risk/reward ratio is still tilting too far toward reward for those who would defraud others using the internet.
-S
Can I use this to figure out how best to spread my next cold to friends, family, and co-workers so I don't have to suffer alone?
-S
Careful what you wish for. Do you really want cable/satellite providers only carrying the few most popular channels? It's the lack of total ala-carte that brings diversity. Do you think there's enough people to pay directly for channels like Sci-Fi, Discovery, BBC America, The Science Channel, and the like? There isn't. It's only because it's a package deal that there's enough viewership to support those channels.
Do I want to pay for We, Lifetime, or SoapNet? No, I don't. But I understand that part of my montly payment goes to those so that I can have Sci-Fi too. That model, while probably causing everyone to pay a little more, allows a much wider diversity of programming.
-S
It's Costa Rica for crying out loud. They're not capable of setting a global economic precedent except for maybe the price of coffee.
-S
Make sure the FCC knows you want them to keep their grubby paws of satellite radio. The religious right are coming after satellite radio as well.
And it gets worse. The terresterial broadcasters are now saying that they won't be able to compete against satellite unless the FCC levies the same restrictions against satellite that they do on regular radio.
I'm a very happy XM subscriber and I'd hate to think that they might get sucked into this rediculous quagmire as well.
-S
The best thing WE can do is to contact the FCC and let them know that we disagree (yes, use the American Family Association's website against them). The bulk of the feedback they get tells them that showing a naked breast on TV or speaking a certain word is the most horrific thing that could happen to the populus.
-S
"There are no magnetars close enough to worry about, however, Gaensler and two other astronomers told SPACE.com."
-S
Until I get a flat panel monitor on the wall of my bathroom, the magazine will have to do.
-S
Having had XM for a few months, I can not even begin to tell how absolutely sucky broadcast radio is. I know you think you know that it sucks. I thought so to. But I just didn't realize how horrid it had become until I had a wealth of listening options in my car. Just the thought of yet another inane "radio personality" (I refuse to use the term DJ... they're not) screaching at me makes me shutter. And if I have to go somewhere in my wife's car (sans XM)... ugh.
As far as a merger... well, I must admit that I'm a bit miffed with their exclusive sports contracts right now. XM has (or will have) Major League Baseball and Sirius has (or will have) NFL. I'd love to have both, but not if I have to get two sets of equipment and pay two subscription charges.
I think most of the rest of the programming (Stern and company excluded) is mostly duplicated between the two. The music selections are very similar as is much of the other programming.
Right now, I think they need to grow the subscriber base and I don't know as if the competition between XM and Sirius helps matters. I've heard a lot of people say that they're waiting to see which one survives before jumping on board. That's not a good thing for the long term viability of either one. In the long run, I think a merger would be helpful. They're competing against the status quo and against "free" broadcast radio. That alone should keep rates down. I don't think the XM vs. Sirius competition really means as much.
-S
All this snow in the northeast is really starting to piss me off.
-S
1000+ comment thread coming your way.
-S
You know, I've felt the same way about Episode I. I hated it.
But then this past week I had a revelation. In the years since it was relesed, I had a kid. He's about four and a half years old now. We've watched the first (original) three together (including pausing at the Guido scene to explain that Han shot first), and he's loved them.
Then we watched Episide I last week. And while I was sitting there squirming and re-living the pain, he was REALLY loving it. Jar Jar... "He's funny!". He cracked up at the pod race announcers. Anikin accidentally destroying the space station was met with "That was AWESOME!".
Episide I was not for me. It was designed to satisfy the intellect of a four year old. Well, "designed to" may be to strong, but that's where it succeeded, whether that was the intention or not. Everying I loathed about it, he loved. It's sad that Lucas smashed my dreams of a satisfying first chapter, but my four year old thinks differently.
-S
Although we're talking about slightly different technology here, I've got a Samsung DLP TV. Although they haven't stated it in writing as such, from what I can gather they've been extremely good to people who have experienced "dead pixels" on their DLP sets. I haven't had any problems at all with mine (find wood, knock, repeat), but I know some people who have had the "light engines" in their sets replaced by Samsung due to dead pixels. With getting fixed pixel technology off the ground, Samsung has been reasonably consumer friendly. It doesn't suprise me that they're taking the high road here as a differentiator from their competition.
Sony on the other hand has been very stingy with their LCD sets as far as dead pixels go. Apparantly they find some number of dead pixels to be acceptable. I don't know what the threshold is, but I know that LCD sets have a reputation for dead pixels and that Sony hasn't been particularly good about getting it resolved.
-S
Could it be that the mass media actually showed a reasonable amount of restraint on covering this story until more information was in hand? In the previous Slashdot stories posted on this subject, there was a lot of complaining about "What aren't the major media outlets covering this story?!?!?"
Well, this is why. The data is/was incomplete. The calculations are/were preliminary and ever-changing based on new observations. There was no point in starting a panic and sensationalizing the story at this point.
Sometimes we, the readers/contributors of Slashdot aren't as collectively bright as we think we are.
-S
news.google.com search
Yea, that's right.
Figures.
-S
I'm not saying it isn't prohibited. I know that it is. But the reality is that it happens all the time, probably on just about every flight. Most computer users don't have a clue how to determine if their wireless is disabled.
-S
First, engine and wind noise provide natural noise masking. It will only be the few closest people that you'd be able to hear talking. And to be honest, I'd mostly prefer that they talk to someone on their cell phones rather than trying to strike up a conversation with me.
Secondly, I'm surprised that the FAA and/or FCC is still concerned about the planes. I can't remember the last time I went on a flight and didn't hear a phone accidentally ring in flight. Oops. Forgot to shut off your cell phone. Yet despite most flights having at least some passengers who leave their cell phones on, it hasn't caused any problems. If it were an actual issue, it would be pervasive.
And finally, a huge number of people bring on laptops and although they might not be actively attached to a wireless connection, the computers are still sitting there probing the airwaves looking for connection points. Again, no problem there despite the fact that wireless computer technology is present and active on most flights.
-S
Oh, I hope we're a step closer to freeing up DRM restricted WMV files and here's why...
I bought (as in I paid for) WMV files from MLB.com of this year's baseball playoffs because I didn't save my TiVo'd copies and wanted to have the games in my personal archive. At MLB.com, they used advertising verbiage like "watch them whenever you want!" and "burn them to CD!". Apparantly I didn't read the fine print close enough (or maybe it wasn't in the fine print), but those files are heavily DRM restricted. I have to be connected to the internet and log onto MLB.com to watch them. And even then, I can't even fast forward. Pathetic.
All I wanted to do was to convert them DVD-compatible MPEG2 for MY USE. I want to watch them on my TV instead of my computer. I paid for them and I should be able to view them somewhere other than my PC. I searched high and low and couldn't find a way to break the DRM. Sheesh, it's not like I'm trying to do anything that could be construed as illegal, at least by any rational person. Really frustrating.
If Jon's thing helps free these files in a way that will allow me to media-shift them, then I'm all for it! Even if it's not so I can watch them on Linux. Heck, I've had to use DeCSS to extract MPEG files from DVDs of MY OWN HOME VIDEOS because the original tapes were damaged. How pathetic is it that I needed a tool like that in order to view files that I and I alone own copyright on?
-S
-S
Been done.
And don't forget to use a towel.
-S
I had regularly TiVo'd the live-action version of "The Tick". When it was canceled, I remembered reading news articles about the time it was on and how that killed it in the ratings. And I, a TiVo user, had absolutely NO CLUE when it was actually broadcast. None. All I knew was sometime during the week a new episode showed up on the Now Playing list, so when I had a bit of spare time, I watched it.
It's good that they're taking this step. Maybe some otherwise decent shows will show higher ratings now.
-S
Actually, I've had my .sig for a very long time. I didn't copy it from anywhere (i.e., I made it up myself, though it seems a fairly obvious statement so it's certainly possible that others had it before me, though I'm not aware of any). Since I've started using it on /., I've seen it showing up in various places. It's kind of cool to see it quoted along with quotes from great authors.
For those with sigs shut off, here's what it says...
"What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?"
-S