What are these maaaaagical "features" anyway? From the forum, all they seem to be covering is the decrypting aspect, but what else does it do beyond removing the rating system?
(1) Create supercomputers that get increasingly powerful and versatile, advanced to the point that they could defeat one out of dozens of chess champions.
(2)... *cough cough* Yes Bueller? Sell the usage of said supercomputers on a metered rate? Congratulations, A+ for you!
Here I was, hoping the Shirow model would be a little plastic version of Colonol Usanagi... You can guess where the left and right buttons were located...
I've been considering modding my old Macs into PCs, with two IIlc's holding FlexATX mobos if I can swing the port drilling properly (with a PCI riser for networking), and a PowerPC 6116 with a MicroATX board, gonna need to stock up on parts though, so in a sense I paid $15 a pop for used Mac cases... The systems are still functional, but frankly not much can be done with them...
After visiting the Litrix website, I'm impressed by the sheer scale of the hardware involved with making the displays. For an adequate comparison, imagine two 2-drawer filing cabinets side by side. This means something spectacular; Anyone who can purchase the machinery can produce a display, and due to the sheer size, can even produce displays in a store front setting under their own brand stamping.
This opens up a huge boon to the small computer retailer. Want to sell displays? Print 'em! Save a bundle on the costs of shipping heavy glass CRTs, and the risk of shipping fragile TFT displays.
Due to pre and post printing processes, the likelihood of being able to "print your own" display are slim, since more than likely you still would need to test the leads to the polymer substrate, calibrate the individual displays, test for bad pixels, and laminate the whole pile together. In other words, don't expect to save a bundle by buying the fabrication hardware and doing it yourself, at least not until Avery or some other mainstream paper manufacturer comes out with a "EZ LEP" package, complete with inks you could only use once (logically, by the time the display dies, the ink cart will be dried out).
Still, this does a good deal for both online retailers and brick and mortar shops, and opens up a world of possibilities.
More detailed specs and pictures can be found here: http://southernwholesale.zoovy.com/product/DVD9510
Surprisingly versatile for the money...
(curiously, Shinsonic does not have this player on their own website, but they do have a portable DVD player with built in Megadrive/Genesis game system, but I digress)
Simple: When you want to watch the DVD on the big screen, using the player's video out jack. If you're at a tech deprived friend's house, for example, and you have a DVD of your favorite movie, but he only has a VCR. So you plug in your caple and start playing on battery power (unless you're anal enough to carry the power adapter with you at all time) for 4 hours instead of 2.
I'm not sure what others' experiences have been with this company, but I'm looking into getting it myself... A new company, called NetSpend (www.netspend.com) is offering reloadable MasterCards which you can either put money onto at any store or check cashing location that allows it, or get money deposited to via online transaction... The bonus, of course, is that you can access your money directly (while paying the average $1-$2 fee for ATM usage), and a paltry $20 per year charge to maintain your account...
The only apparent drawback of the program is that you can only transfer funds from one NetSpend account to another, so of course, your buyers/contributers need to have a card themselves... Considering that the fee is extremely low, and the fact that NetSpend is on the BBB, they seem a bit more straightforward than PayPal... Also, they don't need to pass any credit application procedures, or open a bank account (unlike secured credit cards), it can be extremely simple to obtain.
Another added bonus is that the credit card acts as a secondary form of ID...
I think the guy who owns The Tick needs to contact a lawyer, other than the coloration of the wings, and the style of antennae, one would think him to have more than just a passing resemblance to Arthur (AKA The Moth)...
POS systems, read "Point of Sales" for the layman. These devices involve a simple computer and display for the purposes of sales, and in many cases (going back as far as the mid 1980s) included a 300 baud modem for the purpose of sending credit card information for purchases. Similarly, there were credit card terminals for years, AND of course, ATM POS terminals (and the machines themselves) around for well over a decade.
Doesn't that therefore disqualify these false patents as prior art?
Oddly enough, I haven't had any problem using (shudder) IE 6 to view the maps in question, without any third party apps... Yah yah yah, Micro$oft bad and all, it still does the job, despite their detonating Pintos and supporting the nazi vermacht, I don't see any of you bombing Fords either... (okay, it's OT but it's still my view, if you don't like MS' products, then don't complain about having to pay for others)
Mail the discs back to AOL, ship them postage due and C.O.D., then either AOL will have to pay the post office again, OR the post office will refuse to ever take their CDs in mass mailing shipments...
The Romulan and Klingon empires filed suit against Boeing today, responding to the trademark and copyright infringing title of the new aircraft, stating "We'll have justice, or we'll wedge a photon torpedo so far up your (expletive deleted) that your (expletive deleted) will glow for weeks, after which, your (expletive deleted) will explode, taking your (expletive deleted), your (expletive deleted), and your (expletive deleted) with it!"
Huh? Wha? How can you play a completely unrelated game on a completely different hardware platform? If it's done via emulation, then why haven't we seen any emulators for the PC (which the XBox is an extremely closer equivilent to than a PS2)? Lets sum up a PS2: Proprietary CPU, proprietary GPU, a bear and a half to code for... Compared to an Xbox which is simply a PIII 750 with 64 Mb SDRAM and a proprietary knockoff of the Nforce chipset/GPU... Methinks the article poster needs to doublecheck his articles more often, especially since the article he refers to states specifically:
"Microsoft would be forced to reconsider selling the Xbox video game system in Australia, or seek changes to the law, following the acquittal in July of a Sydney man alleged to have sold chips that modify a Sony PlayStation 2 to play imported games, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said yesterday."
Microsoft is not complaining about XBox mod chips, they're complaining about Playstation 2 modchips, which, if not declared illegal in a court of law, set a precedent making mod chip manufacture/retailing for the XBox legal as well...
"Personally, I'd like to see Lucas standing out on Hollywood Blvd holding a placard that says "The end is near! Repent from your evil filesharing ways!""
I'd be more amused to see George Lucas standing at the corner of Hollywood and Vine holding a sign that states "Will direct Episode 3 for food"
Take all the megamovieplexgargantua theaters, and instead of each minitheater being open to all, have them designated as:
Theater 1, The Playpen: Squalling babies allowed, offering counselling at a premium for idiots who take their 2 year olds in to see the latest rated R slasher flicks.
Theater 2, The Lame Room: For people who really don't care about watching the movie, and instead want to talk, make out, use their cel phones.
Theater 3, The Idiot Room: for people who want to do their own MST3K performance.
Theater 4, Paradise: For people who actually want to *gasp* watch the movie.
That way, they'll actually make MORE money, rather than driving away the folks who would normally want Theater 4!
Meanwhile, has anyone else noticed the irony that this is the same Lucasfilm that not only took upwards of 5 years originally to release their movies to tape/DVD, but supported the old "pay to watch" DIVX standard, refusing to release the original trilogy to DVD until it died?
Thanks for reposting the link, I erroneously confused messenger for MSN messenger (which is disabled from startup anyway) in the last post, only to get such a popup for some crap porn site with a bazillion popup screens called http://angry.at/freebies (I checked it out out of curiousity)... Wired is apparently getting nuked by the slashdot effect, so I couldn't navigate it properly (claims that my browser isn't standard)...
Especially since those crappy quality pirated movies are shot IN movie theaters, forever preserving every cough, conversation, cel phone ringer, and screaming baby! Way to get the "experience"!
I just wanna patent the concept behind the constantly flashing 12:00 on all VCRs and clocks, then the world will be mine! Mine I tell you! Muahhahhahhahhhh!!!
Slashdot Mirror
What are these maaaaagical "features" anyway? From the forum, all they seem to be covering is the decrypting aspect, but what else does it do beyond removing the rating system?
#2 has FINALLY been solved!
... *cough cough* Yes Bueller? Sell the usage of said supercomputers on a metered rate? Congratulations, A+ for you!
(1) Create supercomputers that get increasingly powerful and versatile, advanced to the point that they could defeat one out of dozens of chess champions.
(2)
(3) Profit!
Has anyone tried seeing if a signal could still be carried on the cable? Would be a cute test to see if it held up to the century of existance...
Or, just to play on the irony, run some packets over it do a bit of IRC or telnet chatting...
First Slashdot say Worldcom bad, then Worldcom good, then Worldcom bad! Frankenstein's head hurt! Slashdot BAD!!!
"Maybe they could add a Saturday Action block that was subtitled. Adults can read, right?"
If I wanted to read, I'd go to school!
Sorry, didn't have my morning coffee yet, and forgot her exact name, and yes, who wouldn't want to... You know...
Here I was, hoping the Shirow model would be a little plastic version of Colonol Usanagi... You can guess where the left and right buttons were located...
I've been considering modding my old Macs into PCs, with two IIlc's holding FlexATX mobos if I can swing the port drilling properly (with a PCI riser for networking), and a PowerPC 6116 with a MicroATX board, gonna need to stock up on parts though, so in a sense I paid $15 a pop for used Mac cases... The systems are still functional, but frankly not much can be done with them...
After visiting the Litrix website, I'm impressed by the sheer scale of the hardware involved with making the displays. For an adequate comparison, imagine two 2-drawer filing cabinets side by side. This means something spectacular; Anyone who can purchase the machinery can produce a display, and due to the sheer size, can even produce displays in a store front setting under their own brand stamping.
This opens up a huge boon to the small computer retailer. Want to sell displays? Print 'em! Save a bundle on the costs of shipping heavy glass CRTs, and the risk of shipping fragile TFT displays.
Due to pre and post printing processes, the likelihood of being able to "print your own" display are slim, since more than likely you still would need to test the leads to the polymer substrate, calibrate the individual displays, test for bad pixels, and laminate the whole pile together. In other words, don't expect to save a bundle by buying the fabrication hardware and doing it yourself, at least not until Avery or some other mainstream paper manufacturer comes out with a "EZ LEP" package, complete with inks you could only use once (logically, by the time the display dies, the ink cart will be dried out).
Still, this does a good deal for both online retailers and brick and mortar shops, and opens up a world of possibilities.
More detailed specs and pictures can be found here: http://southernwholesale.zoovy.com/product/DVD9510
Surprisingly versatile for the money...
(curiously, Shinsonic does not have this player on their own website, but they do have a portable DVD player with built in Megadrive/Genesis game system, but I digress)
Simple: When you want to watch the DVD on the big screen, using the player's video out jack. If you're at a tech deprived friend's house, for example, and you have a DVD of your favorite movie, but he only has a VCR. So you plug in your caple and start playing on battery power (unless you're anal enough to carry the power adapter with you at all time) for 4 hours instead of 2.
I'm not sure what others' experiences have been with this company, but I'm looking into getting it myself... A new company, called NetSpend (www.netspend.com) is offering reloadable MasterCards which you can either put money onto at any store or check cashing location that allows it, or get money deposited to via online transaction... The bonus, of course, is that you can access your money directly (while paying the average $1-$2 fee for ATM usage), and a paltry $20 per year charge to maintain your account...
The only apparent drawback of the program is that you can only transfer funds from one NetSpend account to another, so of course, your buyers/contributers need to have a card themselves... Considering that the fee is extremely low, and the fact that NetSpend is on the BBB, they seem a bit more straightforward than PayPal... Also, they don't need to pass any credit application procedures, or open a bank account (unlike secured credit cards), it can be extremely simple to obtain.
Another added bonus is that the credit card acts as a secondary form of ID...
I think the guy who owns The Tick needs to contact a lawyer, other than the coloration of the wings, and the style of antennae, one would think him to have more than just a passing resemblance to Arthur (AKA The Moth)...
POS systems, read "Point of Sales" for the layman. These devices involve a simple computer and display for the purposes of sales, and in many cases (going back as far as the mid 1980s) included a 300 baud modem for the purpose of sending credit card information for purchases. Similarly, there were credit card terminals for years, AND of course, ATM POS terminals (and the machines themselves) around for well over a decade.
Doesn't that therefore disqualify these false patents as prior art?
Awright, now they have the budget to bring back Dr. Who for another season! More tinfoil and oatmeal skinned aliens than ever before!
Oh, that might be the case, I thought the links were straight to the .sid files... Doh!
Oddly enough, I haven't had any problem using (shudder) IE 6 to view the maps in question, without any third party apps... Yah yah yah, Micro$oft bad and all, it still does the job, despite their detonating Pintos and supporting the nazi vermacht, I don't see any of you bombing Fords either... (okay, it's OT but it's still my view, if you don't like MS' products, then don't complain about having to pay for others)
Mail the discs back to AOL, ship them postage due and C.O.D., then either AOL will have to pay the post office again, OR the post office will refuse to ever take their CDs in mass mailing shipments...
The Romulan and Klingon empires filed suit against Boeing today, responding to the trademark and copyright infringing title of the new aircraft, stating "We'll have justice, or we'll wedge a photon torpedo so far up your (expletive deleted) that your (expletive deleted) will glow for weeks, after which, your (expletive deleted) will explode, taking your (expletive deleted), your (expletive deleted), and your (expletive deleted) with it!"
"Xbox to play Sony PS2 games"
Huh? Wha? How can you play a completely unrelated game on a completely different hardware platform? If it's done via emulation, then why haven't we seen any emulators for the PC (which the XBox is an extremely closer equivilent to than a PS2)? Lets sum up a PS2: Proprietary CPU, proprietary GPU, a bear and a half to code for... Compared to an Xbox which is simply a PIII 750 with 64 Mb SDRAM and a proprietary knockoff of the Nforce chipset/GPU... Methinks the article poster needs to doublecheck his articles more often, especially since the article he refers to states specifically:
"Microsoft would be forced to reconsider selling the Xbox video game system in Australia, or seek changes to the law, following the acquittal in July of a Sydney man alleged to have sold chips that modify a Sony PlayStation 2 to play imported games, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said yesterday."
Microsoft is not complaining about XBox mod chips, they're complaining about Playstation 2 modchips, which, if not declared illegal in a court of law, set a precedent making mod chip manufacture/retailing for the XBox legal as well...
It helps to read the article now and then guys...
"Personally, I'd like to see Lucas standing out on Hollywood Blvd holding a placard that says "The end is near! Repent from your evil filesharing ways!""
I'd be more amused to see George Lucas standing at the corner of Hollywood and Vine holding a sign that states "Will direct Episode 3 for food"
Take all the megamovieplexgargantua theaters, and instead of each minitheater being open to all, have them designated as:
Theater 1, The Playpen: Squalling babies allowed, offering counselling at a premium for idiots who take their 2 year olds in to see the latest rated R slasher flicks.
Theater 2, The Lame Room: For people who really don't care about watching the movie, and instead want to talk, make out, use their cel phones.
Theater 3, The Idiot Room: for people who want to do their own MST3K performance.
Theater 4, Paradise: For people who actually want to *gasp* watch the movie.
That way, they'll actually make MORE money, rather than driving away the folks who would normally want Theater 4!
Meanwhile, has anyone else noticed the irony that this is the same Lucasfilm that not only took upwards of 5 years originally to release their movies to tape/DVD, but supported the old "pay to watch" DIVX standard, refusing to release the original trilogy to DVD until it died?
Thanks for reposting the link, I erroneously confused messenger for MSN messenger (which is disabled from startup anyway) in the last post, only to get such a popup for some crap porn site with a bazillion popup screens called http://angry.at/freebies (I checked it out out of curiousity)... Wired is apparently getting nuked by the slashdot effect, so I couldn't navigate it properly (claims that my browser isn't standard)...
Especially since those crappy quality pirated movies are shot IN movie theaters, forever preserving every cough, conversation, cel phone ringer, and screaming baby! Way to get the "experience"!
I just wanna patent the concept behind the constantly flashing 12:00 on all VCRs and clocks, then the world will be mine! Mine I tell you! Muahhahhahhahhhh!!!