It might help against those few spammers that are after PageRank, and care to look for and parse robots.txt. It won't help against the brute-force idiots who spam everything in sight, just because there are public referer pages out on the Internet
The robots.txt reference would be to prevent GoogleBot, et alia, from giving a rats ass about the content of the 'refer page'. The idea (not my idea by the way) is that if the spammer doesn't benefit from the spam with increased page ranking, the incentive is gone.
The whole think is flawed logic. Again, it is not mine logic. I'm just doing the explaining. As you state, such spammer are using brute-force, they aren't going to check each page to see if
GoogleBot, et alia, will index the page. It's easier just to hit the page anyway. Spammers aren't known for discresion.
On a side note:
I'm using Firefox. This information means nothing.
Firefox has climbed to 6% for visitors to sites that use Net Applications' Web-monitoring software. This information means very little.
If you make this statistic news because of its results, the news is automatically biased. If someone decided ahead of time to post the results of Net Applications' Web-monitoring software browser market share before knowing the numbers, then this article would actually mean something.
The idea is that some bots are going to load web pages using a selected 'spam' referer value so that they can try to get on the 'referer list'.
Once they are on the list, and a search bot indexes the page, that page now increases the selected_'spam'_referer_value_site's number_of_pages_that_reference_the_site.
The more pages on the web that reference a site, the higher its ranking will be in the search engine.
The theory is that, if I have a bot that does nothing but load pages from the internet with the refer of viagra-p1mp.com, and this bot's tenacious loading of pages causes the viagra-p1mp.com site to appear on referer logs, then search engines might actually rank the site slightly higher than if I wasn't hiting those sites with GET requests every 20 seconds.
And about the password protect thing mentioned GGGP and GGP post, I believe that the idea is if you need a password to access the stats, then the bots won't index them. If that is the idea, however, wouldn't a quick edit to robot.txt be better? Not sure, since I didn't make the original posts.
BTW!!!, viagra-p1mp.com is AVAilable. Register it TODAY and GEt a frEE RQLEX.
I don't find that argument very convincing. If the reason for sentencing people to prison was merely to prevent them from committing further crimes then why are people imprisoned who commit crimes against a specific person that they feel wronged them?
If a woman's husband cheats on her and she responds by blowing his brains out (or in the recent Texas case running him over twenty times with her car), under your logic, why should she be imprisoned?
That's easy. Don't you feel that someone who thinks that killing someone is socially acceptable should be in prision? If they feel it is acceptable behavior to kill someone in such a case , they might also feel it is equally ok in another case.
If a killing doesn't fit the bill of justifiable homiside, then they are a danger to society by being the type of person who finds it acceptable to kill in cases where society in general doesn't agree.
Keep in mind that I'm not consulted in such cases, so my opinion has little actual bearing on why people are imprisioned. If you gave me an example that didn't fit my criteria, I could just as easily argue that the someone should not be imprisioned.
A secure browser would be very easy to design. There is no reason why a browser has to have the ability to install anything.
However, people want more than basic functionality, they want eye candy. They want to be able to experience everything that is out there. If someone has a cool java game, they want to play it.
Secure browsers exist (some are even text-only), but you probably can't play tetris on them.
Punishment (time in prison, fines, loss of privileges like voting or driving, etc) is meant to pay your debt to society...
With the exception of 'fines', such punishment doesn't pay anything to society. If anything, it costs society.
The only rational reason behind imprisioning someone is to prevent them from commiting further crimes by physically removing them from society. This, of course, only works for lengthy sentences.
I would suppose that short sentences are supposed to be a deterent against future crimes (not wanting to repeat the experience), but they are a lousy deterent.
If you really wanted someone to 'pay a debt', you would either have to impose fines or use them for forced-labor.
I don't think Google should give preference to their own pages in their search engine.
The page was a google cache page. Have you ever been served a google cache page as part of a Google search? I am fairly certain I haven't so I don't believe that this page would be a 'preference' in their search engine.
Second, does anyone have ANY evidence that this page only has the keywords in the title BECAUSE it is cached. This could very easily be what the page WAS when it was cached, and someone changed the title at some point.
I don't see this effect generated in other google caches:
By the way, to quickly get to a Google cache, try this bookmarklet:
NAME: ::Google Cache for this page
LOCATION:
javascript:document.location.href= 'http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:' +document.location.href.replace(/http:\/\//,'')
a 512MB memory module... $289.99 a 512MB memory module... $266.21 a 512MB memory module... $275.49 a 512MB memory module... $246.49 Not buying from Dell.... priceless.
But seriously, it always pays to shop around. You just wouldn't expect to be shopping around from the same suppiler.:)
It always is not is necessary is completely unambiguous. The thick translation possibly is better then does not have the translation, specially when you knew the translation is the rough start and.
The above was the following text....
It isn't always necessary to be totally unambiguous. Even rough translation can be better then no translation, especially when you know the translation is rough to begin with.
If you need precise translation, then you pay for a trusted translator. If you need some, on-the-fly better-than-nothing, then why not try to create a translator that might just be able to 'learn' to translate. It would seem a lot more flexible than some static-dictionary translator.
The parent comment doesn't deserve 'Troll'. Their comment is very succinct, describing the browser as a 'striped down' version. Better and clean are not exactly trolling words.
I look forward to trying K-Meleon when it gets to 1.0. Otherwise, for now, I'll stick with Firefox. It may be a bit bloated, but I'm running on WinXP, so I'm used to bloat.
The parent post didn't say they shouldn't recieve any penality, simply that jail time shouldn't be part of it.
In your example, sending a burglar to jail would stop him from stealing for the short time they are in prison, but do you really want to pay their room and board (your tax dollars at work).
Wouldn't it be better in such a case to attach a monitary penality (of which you should recieve some or all) along with a 'probationary period' that would increase any later sentences should they continue to commit crime.
I'd rather see non-violent criminals forced to contribute to society than forcing them to leech off of it in prison.
Clearly, denying you a return because you were flagged by a computer database is an abuse of their return policy.
It is not that clear. This sort of information isn't generally used against people who are following the return policy (e.g. have a receipt, return within time period allowed). This type of info is used against people who habitually return items without a receipt. They might be willing to take you at your word once or twice, but if you make a habit of returning questionable stuff on a regular basis, they will stop bending their rules for you.
There are a lot of people who know that if they make a fuss at a return counter, they can generally get a store to give them money for just about anything and use that to return old stuff just to get new replacements for free. In the end, this kind of abuse is reflected in the prices stores charge.
If it were just about e-mail, I'd say ditch the -.
on
"e-mail" vs "email"
·
· Score: 1
I could see "email", if it weren't for the fact that there's a lot of e-'s out there. The "e-" means something that can't be easily defined by "e".
There are so many e-'s. I don't think ecommerice, ebusiness, ebanking, etc. would necessarily cause a problems, but you can't create a system where a beginning e means "e-". On the other hand, adding the "e-" to just about any word will create a new meaning.
If I wrote "e-gaming", people would know what I mean. The word "egaming" wouldn't have the same immediate recognision. egam? Is that pronounced egg-am? Maybe not the best example, but the point is, you can't account for every possibility.
Sure, you can decide it's "email", but still keep the "e-" for everything else. But in my opinion, "email" is just laziness. There's little need for a "new word".
The next thing you know, you would get people wondering what an electronic cho is. Think about it.
If I become desensitized to something, such as violence, that doesn't mean that I will be more likly to commit violence. It just means that it will have less emotional impact.
Example, I am desensitized to violence and I see someone shot before my eyes and they are now lying in a pool of their own blood. Do I pull out a gun and start shooting people too? No, I assess the situation and call for help. A less "desensitied" person would probably just stand there screaming. I don't have to have an emotional reaction to know what's right.
People are still responsable for their own actions. "Quake" doesn't teach people to shoot real people, it teaches them to click targets on their computer screen....
The center of gravity for the system, just like us
on
Planets Without Stars
·
· Score: 1
They would orbit around the center of gravity of their system. Our solar system actually does the same. Technically, the center of gravity isn't the direct center of the sun for our system. Mind you, the actual center is probably only a few meters, or maybe a few miles, from the center. Not worth doing the math over.
Take two planets, send them past each other and, if they "get caught" in each others gravitational field, then they will orbit each other around the center. Add more planets, and you just have a more complex system, but there will still be a center of gravity.
The data is being shared out of necessity. Can anyone actually concieve of being able to get DirecTV service _without_ DirecTV having your contact information?
The policy is simple, if you get a "combo box" that gets service from both TiVo and one of their partners (such as the "DirecTV with TiVo service" box), then your name and contact info will be avaiable to both companies.
None of the "sharing" is marketable simply because the data is still protected by the privacy policy. It's a condition of the sharing.
If you don't want DirecTV to have your contact info, then don't get the "DirecTV with TiVo service" box. Or, get it but don't use it.
The whole thing is silly, but it seems that anything regarding privacy will immediatly be interpreted as bad.
The "Opt-out" will protect you from having your anonomous data collected. It won't let you get DirecTV service out of the "DirecTiVo" without DirecTV knowing who you are.
If the parent post was true, then I could see calling it "Insightful", since it's not. It's FUD.
First, a 90-days manufacturer's warentee does NOT mean that it won't last past 90-days. It's current life expectancy is in excess of 5 years, which is plenty.
Since, if your machine craps out, and you have to get it replaced, you can transfer your lifetime to the new unit. That's one big advantage that TiVo has over Replay.
However, if you want to replace your unit with something different, then your lifetime service is still with the original unit. However, unless your just going to toss your old unit in the trash, the subscription still has value and will continue to service that machine.
The idea of selling your service subscription independant of the box is just silly. The service is for the box. The box can be used without the service, but the service does nothing without the box.
As far as the service being worth it, it sure is. For the luxury of never having to care about what time anything is on, for always having my favorite shows at my fingertips, for everything else TiVo gives me, I'll gladly pay a one-time cost of $200. I've spent more for less.
Now, about the "article". This person seems to suffer from a common problem. If it has a screen, he wants it to download porn from the internet. Sorry, if people really want web on their TV, that's great for them. For me, my TV is my movie theater, I have a computer for downloading porn.;)
Two of his "goals" are already met. He want's a one-time cost. TiVo has that. You don't have to go monthly or annually if you don't want to.
As far as privacy, no one knows what _you_ watch, only what people, in general, are watching. This is a Good Thing. I want people to know what I watch so the Networks can stop cancling my shows.
His comments about such things as "TiVo Inc. can't put a network connection.... [because]....some smart ass hax0r will kode up a better...." Um hello? There are plenty of smart ass hackers coding up plenty. Obviously some people don't realise that you can hack code without an internet connection. Mind you, people have also hacked an internet connection, but you still won't be able to turn it into an MP3 player, or download anything from your favorite porn site.
He gripes about paying for listings. It's not about listings, it's about a service. It's what it does with the listings that your paying for. TiVo is a huge time-saving device. I don't know what his time's worth, but my TiVo has paid for itself months ago.
His fun TiVo hacks are also a joke. The first, providing an alternate service is laughable. I doubt he knows the first thing about it. It's not as if you can _legally_ rip that data from the web and do what you want with it. He speaks of "venture kapital", I hope he realizes it should all be saved for lawyer's fees.
The second "suggestion" was using VBI for the TV listings. Great idea, if someone didn't already patent the process. It's being done already, but unless you want to get back to the topic of monthly fees, you can forget about it.
Besides, using VBI will, at most, tell me what's on now or maybe what's on next on the channel your tuned to. TiVo stores at least 10 days of data for all of your channels and needs it's data enough in advance to plan out all of it's upcomming recordings. Part of what TiVo does is it takes all the shows you want it to record and records them each time they are on. You can't do that by relying on VBI, which would require TiVo to channel surf to find show. It's laughable.
The third, "MP3 and Napster support". Would someone explain why I would be using my TV for MP3! If I want to _listen_ to music, I wouldn't be using my TV!
I really can't continue about how silly the whole article was. TiVo is about making the most of TV, and all he could think of was wanting to download porn and MP3s. (Not that that's a bad thing.;) )
Now, if you will excuse me, I have 76 shows on my 108 hour TiVo and, unlike people forced to channel surf, each one is something I like.
Obviously, the only legitmate need would be applications that use huge quantites of storage, such as video editing/storage.
Some may want them simply to stick in their TiVo to add 96 hours of capacity (see: TiVo Underground). Some would fill the space by not uninstalling no-longer-used software and by not deleting installation files. Neither example is a need, simply a luxury.
However, unless you need that much space, these drives are not ready for prime time. You can get reliable storage in the 30 to 45 GB range for around $4 per GB. The 75 GB 75GXP runs a bit under $6.80 per GB. (e.g. $508.28 from pcwonders.com)
However, everything needs to start somewhere. As larger drives become availale, and applications are developed to take advantage of the increased capacity of modern drives, these drives will drop into line with their smaller counterparts.
Feel free to interpret "applications are developed to take advantage of the increased capacity of modern drives" as "applications sacrifice storage efficiency for laziness and simplisity";)
This doesn't necessarily mean that they stop working after that point. It's reasonable to assume that a molecular device that can perform a repetative function can continue to repeat that function.
If I were to say that I've rebooting my computer hundereds of times, you wouldn't assume that I can no longer boot it.
Also, it helps to pay closer heed to the quoted source than the authors text. The author quoted:
"....they may be repeatedly switched on and off over reasonably long periods of time in a solid-state device under normal laboratory conditions. For the first time, we are able to turn the molecular switches on and off repeatedly."
Molecules don't break down from wear in quite the same manner as larger scale components. Assuming that such switches are properly housed, there lifespan would be affected by things like changing environmental conditions (EM, temp, etc.) but not repetative use.
The part I objected to is the following:
The UCLA groups, in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard researchers, are working on making molecular computers that may "learn and improve the more they are used," Heath said.
This just doesn't ring true. First, they are far from actually developing a "molecular computer". How could they be working on one that does anything, let alone a learning one.
This sounds like hype... call it "text-candy" for lack of a better term. The principles for bullding a computer are not really changing here (switches, logic gates, etc.) so developing a "learning molecular computer" has two steps:
There's some rather faulty logic going on with the general concept. I'm not saying that the idea wouldn't work, but it is rather a bit of overkill. Using a ground-based laser to punch through the atmosphere in order to deflect a piece of debris doesn't make sense when there would be much cheaper alternatives.
One, if nothings else, it could be station-based. That would mean that the laser wouldn't need the power to clear the atmosphere, and it would make targeting a lot easier (there's a very low relative speed for a target approaching you).
Two, since this whole process involves tracking and eliminating a known threat (and therefore preperation time would be in weeks/months/etc. and not minutes), the same level of protection could be achieved simply by using the station's robotic arm to place protective panels where they would deflect the known incomming debris.
The surface-to-space kill-o-zap device would be reduced to a simple catcher's mit (which sounds a lot cooler than a broom), although it should shouldn't actually "catch" the debris (unless very small), but instead deflect, which is easier.
The device mentioned in the artical would not be able to deflect anything with a decent amount of mass. Anything that a ground-based laser could "deflect" could just as easily be deflected by a physical barrier.
Mind you, I'm guessing that they want the funding for their toy and they also want the "hype" to bolster support for a declining NASA.
Now, regarding some rather odd comments in the parent post....:
First, it's ground-based. They are not putting it on the station.
Second,.... what if something goes wrong? Please, they would have to go through great effort to actually hit something in space. The odds of them not only missing, but hitting something that would be miles away..... it's not as if they are going to wait until it's a few hundred feet from the station.
Third... a puncture in the station would cause an air leak, not a major incident. I'm not saying some 5 cent piece of chewing gum would fix the leak. This is NASA. Some 50 dollar piece of chewing gum would be used to fix it.
Slashdot Mirror
The robots.txt reference would be to prevent GoogleBot, et alia, from giving a rats ass about the content of the 'refer page'. The idea (not my idea by the way) is that if the spammer doesn't benefit from the spam with increased page ranking, the incentive is gone.
The whole think is flawed logic. Again, it is not mine logic. I'm just doing the explaining. As you state, such spammer are using brute-force, they aren't going to check each page to see if GoogleBot, et alia, will index the page. It's easier just to hit the page anyway. Spammers aren't known for discresion.
On a side note:
If you make this statistic news because of its results, the news is automatically biased. If someone decided ahead of time to post the results of Net Applications' Web-monitoring software browser market share before knowing the numbers, then this article would actually mean something.
Go Firefox!
The idea is that some bots are going to load web pages using a selected 'spam' referer value so that they can try to get on the 'referer list'.
Once they are on the list, and a search bot indexes the page, that page now increases the selected_'spam'_referer_value_site's number_of_pages_that_reference_the_site.
The more pages on the web that reference a site, the higher its ranking will be in the search engine.
The theory is that, if I have a bot that does nothing but load pages from the internet with the refer of viagra-p1mp.com, and this bot's tenacious loading of pages causes the viagra-p1mp.com site to appear on referer logs, then search engines might actually rank the site slightly higher than if I wasn't hiting those sites with GET requests every 20 seconds.
And about the password protect thing mentioned GGGP and GGP post, I believe that the idea is if you need a password to access the stats, then the bots won't index them. If that is the idea, however, wouldn't a quick edit to robot.txt be better? Not sure, since I didn't make the original posts.
BTW!!!, viagra-p1mp.com is AVAilable. Register it TODAY and GEt a frEE RQLEX.
Yes. Compile-time errors now introduce an electric shock through the keyboard and mouse.
Apparently, the key to quick compile times is ellimiting the hackers who need to compile more than once to get it compiled.
That's easy. Don't you feel that someone who thinks that killing someone is socially acceptable should be in prision? If they feel it is acceptable behavior to kill someone in such a case , they might also feel it is equally ok in another case.
If a killing doesn't fit the bill of justifiable homiside, then they are a danger to society by being the type of person who finds it acceptable to kill in cases where society in general doesn't agree.
Keep in mind that I'm not consulted in such cases, so my opinion has little actual bearing on why people are imprisioned. If you gave me an example that didn't fit my criteria, I could just as easily argue that the someone should not be imprisioned.
A secure browser would be very easy to design. There is no reason why a browser has to have the ability to install anything.
However, people want more than basic functionality, they want eye candy. They want to be able to experience everything that is out there. If someone has a cool java game, they want to play it.
Secure browsers exist (some are even text-only), but you probably can't play tetris on them.
With the exception of 'fines', such punishment doesn't pay anything to society. If anything, it costs society.
The only rational reason behind imprisioning someone is to prevent them from commiting further crimes by physically removing them from society. This, of course, only works for lengthy sentences.
I would suppose that short sentences are supposed to be a deterent against future crimes (not wanting to repeat the experience), but they are a lousy deterent.
If you really wanted someone to 'pay a debt', you would either have to impose fines or use them for forced-labor.
Link please?
But seriously, It is nice to see that Harvard Business School values ethics. I applaud their decision.
The page was a google cache page. Have you ever been served a google cache page as part of a Google search? I am fairly certain I haven't so I don't believe that this page would be a 'preference' in their search engine.
Second, does anyone have ANY evidence that this page only has the keywords in the title BECAUSE it is cached. This could very easily be what the page WAS when it was cached, and someone changed the title at some point.
The whole article sounds like FUD to me.
By the way, to quickly get to a Google cache, try this bookmarklet:
::Google Cache for this page
NAME:
LOCATION:
javascript:document.location.href= 'http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:' +document.location.href.replace(/http:\/\//,'')
a 512MB memory module ... $289.99 ... $266.21 ... $275.49 ... $246.49 .... priceless.
:)
a 512MB memory module
a 512MB memory module
a 512MB memory module
Not buying from Dell
But seriously, it always pays to shop around. You just wouldn't expect to be shopping around from the same suppiler.
The above was the following text....
.... traslated using AltaVista Bable Fish Translation into Chinese-Trad and then translated back into English.
If you need precise translation, then you pay for a trusted translator. If you need some, on-the-fly better-than-nothing, then why not try to create a translator that might just be able to 'learn' to translate. It would seem a lot more flexible than some static-dictionary translator.
The parent comment doesn't deserve 'Troll'. Their comment is very succinct, describing the browser as a 'striped down' version. Better and clean are not exactly trolling words.
I look forward to trying K-Meleon when it gets to 1.0. Otherwise, for now, I'll stick with Firefox. It may be a bit bloated, but I'm running on WinXP, so I'm used to bloat.
The parent post didn't say they shouldn't recieve any penality, simply that jail time shouldn't be part of it.
In your example, sending a burglar to jail would stop him from stealing for the short time they are in prison, but do you really want to pay their room and board (your tax dollars at work).
Wouldn't it be better in such a case to attach a monitary penality (of which you should recieve some or all) along with a 'probationary period' that would increase any later sentences should they continue to commit crime.
I'd rather see non-violent criminals forced to contribute to society than forcing them to leech off of it in prison.
It is not that clear. This sort of information isn't generally used against people who are following the return policy (e.g. have a receipt, return within time period allowed). This type of info is used against people who habitually return items without a receipt. They might be willing to take you at your word once or twice, but if you make a habit of returning questionable stuff on a regular basis, they will stop bending their rules for you.
There are a lot of people who know that if they make a fuss at a return counter, they can generally get a store to give them money for just about anything and use that to return old stuff just to get new replacements for free. In the end, this kind of abuse is reflected in the prices stores charge.
I could see "email", if it weren't for the fact that there's a lot of e-'s out there. The "e-" means something that can't be easily defined by "e".
There are so many e-'s. I don't think ecommerice, ebusiness, ebanking, etc. would necessarily cause a problems, but you can't create a system where a beginning e means "e-". On the other hand, adding the "e-" to just about any word will create a new meaning.
If I wrote "e-gaming", people would know what I mean. The word "egaming" wouldn't have the same immediate recognision. egam? Is that pronounced egg-am? Maybe not the best example, but the point is, you can't account for every possibility.
Sure, you can decide it's "email", but still keep the "e-" for everything else. But in my opinion, "email" is just laziness. There's little need for a "new word".
The next thing you know, you would get people wondering what an electronic cho is. Think about it.
If I become desensitized to something, such as violence, that doesn't mean that I will be more likly to commit violence. It just means that it will have less emotional impact.
Example, I am desensitized to violence and I see someone shot before my eyes and they are now lying in a pool of their own blood. Do I pull out a gun and start shooting people too? No, I assess the situation and call for help. A less "desensitied" person would probably just stand there screaming. I don't have to have an emotional reaction to know what's right.
People are still responsable for their own actions. "Quake" doesn't teach people to shoot real people, it teaches them to click targets on their computer screen....
They would orbit around the center of gravity of their system. Our solar system actually does the same. Technically, the center of gravity isn't the direct center of the sun for our system. Mind you, the actual center is probably only a few meters, or maybe a few miles, from the center. Not worth doing the math over.
Take two planets, send them past each other and, if they "get caught" in each others gravitational field, then they will orbit each other around the center. Add more planets, and you just have a more complex system, but there will still be a center of gravity.
The data is being shared out of necessity. Can anyone actually concieve of being able to get DirecTV service _without_ DirecTV having your contact information?
The policy is simple, if you get a "combo box" that gets service from both TiVo and one of their partners (such as the "DirecTV with TiVo service" box), then your name and contact info will be avaiable to both companies.
None of the "sharing" is marketable simply because the data is still protected by the privacy policy. It's a condition of the sharing.
If you don't want DirecTV to have your contact info, then don't get the "DirecTV with TiVo service" box. Or, get it but don't use it.
The whole thing is silly, but it seems that anything regarding privacy will immediatly be interpreted as bad.
The "Opt-out" will protect you from having your anonomous data collected. It won't let you get DirecTV service out of the "DirecTiVo" without DirecTV knowing who you are.
If the parent post was true, then I could see calling it "Insightful", since it's not. It's FUD.
;)
....some smart ass hax0r will kode up a better...." Um hello? There are plenty of smart ass hackers coding up plenty. Obviously some people don't realise that you can hack code without an internet connection. Mind you, people have also hacked an internet connection, but you still won't be able to turn it into an MP3 player, or download anything from your favorite porn site.
;) )
First, a 90-days manufacturer's warentee does NOT mean that it won't last past 90-days. It's current life expectancy is in excess of 5 years, which is plenty.
Since, if your machine craps out, and you have to get it replaced, you can transfer your lifetime to the new unit. That's one big advantage that TiVo has over Replay.
However, if you want to replace your unit with something different, then your lifetime service is still with the original unit. However, unless your just going to toss your old unit in the trash, the subscription still has value and will continue to service that machine.
The idea of selling your service subscription independant of the box is just silly. The service is for the box. The box can be used without the service, but the service does nothing without the box.
As far as the service being worth it, it sure is. For the luxury of never having to care about what time anything is on, for always having my favorite shows at my fingertips, for everything else TiVo gives me, I'll gladly pay a one-time cost of $200. I've spent more for less.
Now, about the "article". This person seems to suffer from a common problem. If it has a screen, he wants it to download porn from the internet. Sorry, if people really want web on their TV, that's great for them. For me, my TV is my movie theater, I have a computer for downloading porn.
Two of his "goals" are already met. He want's a one-time cost. TiVo has that. You don't have to go monthly or annually if you don't want to.
As far as privacy, no one knows what _you_ watch, only what people, in general, are watching. This is a Good Thing. I want people to know what I watch so the Networks can stop cancling my shows.
His comments about such things as "TiVo Inc. can't put a network connection.... [because]
He gripes about paying for listings. It's not about listings, it's about a service. It's what it does with the listings that your paying for. TiVo is a huge time-saving device. I don't know what his time's worth, but my TiVo has paid for itself months ago.
His fun TiVo hacks are also a joke. The first, providing an alternate service is laughable. I doubt he knows the first thing about it. It's not as if you can _legally_ rip that data from the web and do what you want with it. He speaks of "venture kapital", I hope he realizes it should all be saved for lawyer's fees.
The second "suggestion" was using VBI for the TV listings. Great idea, if someone didn't already patent the process. It's being done already, but unless you want to get back to the topic of monthly fees, you can forget about it.
Besides, using VBI will, at most, tell me what's on now or maybe what's on next on the channel your tuned to. TiVo stores at least 10 days of data for all of your channels and needs it's data enough in advance to plan out all of it's upcomming recordings. Part of what TiVo does is it takes all the shows you want it to record and records them each time they are on. You can't do that by relying on VBI, which would require TiVo to channel surf to find show. It's laughable.
The third, "MP3 and Napster support". Would someone explain why I would be using my TV for MP3! If I want to _listen_ to music, I wouldn't be using my TV!
I really can't continue about how silly the whole article was. TiVo is about making the most of TV, and all he could think of was wanting to download porn and MP3s. (Not that that's a bad thing.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have 76 shows on my 108 hour TiVo and, unlike people forced to channel surf, each one is something I like.
Obviously, the only legitmate need would be applications that use huge quantites of storage, such as video editing/storage.
Some may want them simply to stick in their TiVo to add 96 hours of capacity (see: TiVo Underground). Some would fill the space by not uninstalling no-longer-used software and by not deleting installation files. Neither example is a need, simply a luxury.
However, unless you need that much space, these drives are not ready for prime time. You can get reliable storage in the 30 to 45 GB range for around $4 per GB. The 75 GB 75GXP runs a bit under $6.80 per GB. (e.g. $508.28 from pcwonders.com)
However, everything needs to start somewhere. As larger drives become availale, and applications are developed to take advantage of the increased capacity of modern drives, these drives will drop into line with their smaller counterparts.
Feel free to interpret "applications are developed to take advantage of the increased capacity of modern drives" as "applications sacrifice storage efficiency for laziness and simplisity" ;)
The author of the article wrote:
This doesn't necessarily mean that they stop working after that point. It's reasonable to assume that a molecular device that can perform a repetative function can continue to repeat that function.
If I were to say that I've rebooting my computer hundereds of times, you wouldn't assume that I can no longer boot it.
Also, it helps to pay closer heed to the quoted source than the authors text. The author quoted:
Molecules don't break down from wear in quite the same manner as larger scale components. Assuming that such switches are properly housed, there lifespan would be affected by things like changing environmental conditions (EM, temp, etc.) but not repetative use.
The part I objected to is the following:
This just doesn't ring true. First, they are far from actually developing a "molecular computer". How could they be working on one that does anything, let alone a learning one.
This sounds like hype... call it "text-candy" for lack of a better term. The principles for bullding a computer are not really changing here (switches, logic gates, etc.) so developing a "learning molecular computer" has two steps:
They are currently on step one....
There's some rather faulty logic going on with the general concept. I'm not saying that the idea wouldn't work, but it is rather a bit of overkill. Using a ground-based laser to punch through the atmosphere in order to deflect a piece of debris doesn't make sense when there would be much cheaper alternatives.
One, if nothings else, it could be station-based. That would mean that the laser wouldn't need the power to clear the atmosphere, and it would make targeting a lot easier (there's a very low relative speed for a target approaching you).
Two, since this whole process involves tracking and eliminating a known threat (and therefore preperation time would be in weeks/months/etc. and not minutes), the same level of protection could be achieved simply by using the station's robotic arm to place protective panels where they would deflect the known incomming debris.
The surface-to-space kill-o-zap device would be reduced to a simple catcher's mit (which sounds a lot cooler than a broom), although it should shouldn't actually "catch" the debris (unless very small), but instead deflect, which is easier.
The device mentioned in the artical would not be able to deflect anything with a decent amount of mass. Anything that a ground-based laser could "deflect" could just as easily be deflected by a physical barrier.
Mind you, I'm guessing that they want the funding for their toy and they also want the "hype" to bolster support for a declining NASA.
Now, regarding some rather odd comments in the parent post....:
First, it's ground-based. They are not putting it on the station.
Second, .... what if something goes wrong? Please, they would have to go through great effort to actually hit something in space. The odds of them not only missing, but hitting something that would be miles away..... it's not as if they are going to wait until it's a few hundred feet from the station.
Third... a puncture in the station would cause an air leak, not a major incident. I'm not saying some 5 cent piece of chewing gum would fix the leak. This is NASA. Some 50 dollar piece of chewing gum would be used to fix it.