Hey, geniuses!! A couple of hundred thousand freeloaders that think that spending money is evil are not a market force to be reconned with.
Just because the average/. user is big on OSS (and music piracy) doesn't mean they think spending money is evil. While I'm sure there is much in the way of free hardware out there, for the most part a good deal of money is spent by Slashdot fanboys on:
1. Media
a. paper
b. CD / DVD
c. toner / ink 2. Hardware
a. Monitor
b. Motherboard/cpu
c. Memory
d. Storage 3. Snack food - Beverages - take out
Not Compaq nor Dell's demographic... but defintely Verbatim, HP, CDW, Pringles, and Starbucks's demographic. Let's face it, a self builder is going to spend more money on their PC than your average Dell buyer. A/V pirates and OSS users alike spend a good deal on blank media, cases, and paper.
So what you are saying is the slashdot fanboy crowd needs to get organized and prove they are a market demographic and actively lobby for programing they enjoy? This would be wonderful.
If someone really wants to send out inappropriate emails, they're going to figure out some other way to do so, such as via a free webmail account somewhere.
But if you use a webmail, it's not coming from the company e-mail is it? So for the most part it's someone else's problem. It's one thing for Joe at Widget Inc to send off an e-mail from the Widget.com.... as any e-mail represents the company. I.e. if Joe says, "It's lunch time h'm going to download porn and masturbate at my desk" this would reflect poorly on the company. However if Joe were to use webmail to e-mail this, it's not an official document from the company, only reflects poorly on joe, and the company can deny accountability regarding e-mail sex services.
What I find interesting is the distinction between email and phone use. It's illegal in many states -- may even be federal law for all I know -- to listen in on employee phone communication. Why doesn't email deserve this same protection?
"Thank you for calling Widget inc... this call may be recorded for quality control purposes. "
The rule of thumb in America at least is you can record telephone conversations so long as either one or both parties are aware it's being recorded depending on the state that is.
If you want a small plug/wire and a small voltage, your going to end up with a small watt limit, fine for things currently run on DC, but not a GLOBAL standard.
Higher than an RJ-45 connector. I don't mean to totally replace the house wiring with DC, but create a standard for a house DC plug for use with portable devices, ones which you're likely to take with you to other countries. This would include laptops, CD players, digital alarm clocks, you name it. Anything that consumes higher wattage, save things like hair dryers, are not things you are likely to travel with.
Establish a GLOBAL standard for power and just go with it. Why not just 12V DC, the already established standard for autos. PoE is such a mickey mouse solution as others have already pointed out will likely confuse people. Pick a plug... anything in the 10mm size should be just dandy.
Perhaps someone who has wired their house for low voltage would share their solutions. IIRC you couldn't have low and high voltage in the same gang box according to the NEC (National Electrical Code - USA), which is unfortunate as that would be the obvious way to get wall current and convert it to low voltage which is apparently a NO NO.
Copyright infringement is only a criminal offense if it is done for profit, or the work which is copied has a retail value over $1,000.
That's the thing... the RIAA and MPAA have inflated values as to what they believe a song's / movie's value is. While the going per track rate is about a buck a piece... I believe the RIAA assume that each track = whole album @ $15 a pop. But even at $1 a pop and the user is sharing 1001 songs there would be a good argument that this is criminal copyright infringement. Whether a DA would prosecute or a judge would agree is another story all together.
I'm glad someone's standing up for pirates, but couldn't you use the same argument (privacy) these schools are using to defend withholding the names of people running a kiddie porn ring or some other illegal activity? They should address the IP issues instead of using privacy as the standard by which their actions are to be judged. This could be an opportunity to take a stand and make a statement instead of a ruling that will be overturned. Thoughts?
I would THINK that anyone investigating a kiddie porn ring would go by the book rather than risk a judge throwing out evidence. For example:
1. Someone reports this to the School 2. School (this being very criminal) reports it to the police / tells the informent to contact the police them selves 3. Police investiate, supenea School 4. Ring gets busted
There is a long standing prodecure for criminal investigations, and no matter how much you feel an individual or a group are scumbags they do have rights.
The blame lies with the recipient who chooses to use a blacklist. By setting up my mailserver to use (say) MAPS RBL as an absolute indicator of whether I wish to receive e-mail from you, I am partly delegating my mail policy to MAPS.
If my decision to use MAPS RBL affects my customers' ability to receive legitimate e-mail, they should take action, as I should be answerable to them (in the worst case, they can pay for alternate mail provision). As sender, you have no relationship to me, as recipient, you do.
It would be nice if other admins agree with you. Many choose to believe what they are subscribing to is a service. I've never had a formal contract with any RBL so I don't know the details of the contract. But I suspect the belief that it is a service leads them to push the responcibility to the RBL maintainer to update and make corrections rather than what you sugest and maintain a whitelist based on the customer's request.
There have been too many times I've had to go through the circle of madness "hey, we are not getting e-mail from there, please fix it" only to have the responce be
1. Run your own damn smtp server (Good idea, but that's not what we're paying for). 2. Contact the RBL (Who in turn say contact the ISP) 3. Tell the sender to switch ISPs the filthy spammers (or change ISPs and pick one that doesn't deal with buck passing).
Not true, it's the people who buy from spammers fault. If spamming weren't so damn profitable, then it would cease to exist. Plain and simple!
Wow, you missed the point. You really really missed the point. The point is here and you're off in Egypt somewhere.
You make it sound as though the spam problem that sysadmins deal with is non-existant, guess what buddy . . . without dnsbl's in place there is a good chance that most e-mail servers would be choking and full. Spamming is a real pain in everyones ass, and its going to suck until it's obliterated or until providers take personal responsibility (yeah right...).
The point was... you have these people who make black lists. Your ISP uses their black list. If there was an error and you're on the black list, the ISP typically doesn't flag you as a good guy, they refer you to the people who maintain the list denying accountability for it. A well managed list will provide you with a procedure to get off the black list, and re-evaluate entries. A badly managed list will blacklist you at the first complaint whether spam or not, keep whole address blocks listed even if sold to someone else and no longer a source of spam (d'oh that's why that net block was so cheap). These bad lists will say "We just make the list, it's up to your provider to use it, talk to them it's not our problem" in the hopes that their list causes people to leave their provider. Great if it's a spam ridden nest of hell, but bad if it's not.
This is what I mean about a lack off accountability. Two groups, the subscriber and the list manager, in some cases, will just play dodge ball with the issue. The ISP could if they wanted manage a small whitelist to deal with cases where the blacklist is invalid. But for the most part they don't and refer you to the list maintainer. List maintainer, in most cases will refer you back to the ISP.
In some cases, the solution is worse than the problem. This is what I mean by accountability.
If you care so much about it, run your own and do as you wish. You don't need to change isp's.
Righto.... you really want whords of AOL users to run their own mail servers? Not to speak of the fact that ISPs like AOL block outbound port 25 for good reasons. Not sure about inbound. Besides, this does NO good what so ever on any house connection as chances are it's blocked already, either by people who take your advice and end up being open relays or spammers they buy into it cause of the open port 25.
I understand full well spam is a huge problem. But also a huge problem are bad lists that people subscribe to the bad lists, the ones poorly maintained that will flag on the first complaint, that will not unflag even if there is proof of new ownership / resolved security issues / spammer disposal...etc...etc...
Is MAPS forcing you to use their lists? No. So what's your problem?
So in the end no one is accountable. The ISP doesn't make the list MAPS does, so it's not their fault. MAPS says no one has to use their lists so it's not their fault they just make the list. Any collateral damage is just a figment of your imagination. Nobody's fault, nobody's problem.
This is the major issue I have with many spam lists. You are fed this circular logic and the only way to break the circle is to change ISPs and hope you don't have a problem again.
If it's region code crippled I'm not buying it. If I can't use it the way I want to I'm not interested. Ner nerny ner ner.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it hard if not impossible to find DVD players that are not region free in the region 2 zone? Or is your objection a protest to region codes in general?
Have you tried a portable DVD player? Most of them are multi-region and multi-format, can play DVD, VCD, MP3 music and JPG photos from CD and DVD. Some can also play DivX. Be sure to choose one that allows you to de-power the display, to save precious milliamp-hours.
Most i've tried are rather large and are dependent on the screen to navigate which tends to suck up the power. When ever I bring this up every thinks oh just get a portable video player. I want a discman that takes DVD media. I want a car deck that takes DVD media. No fancy screen, don't care about watching movies.
The only thing that bothers me is that if i want to listen to my flatmates cd, i will want to put it on my ipod for a while. He uses media player to rip his music, so it wont play on my ipod.
Then don't buy an ipod. I don't have an ipod, but I thought ipod did.mp3, or unless your saying your flatmate rips music to.wma format, in which case you should convince them to rip in.mp3 and avoid all that DRM crap and have the benefit of being able to burn discs that play in most DVD players. Parodon my ipod ignorance on this issue.
I personally am holding out for a portable music player that reads.mp3 on DVD media. It's what my DVD player understands, it's what my PC understands, and the media is a heck of a lot cheaper than flash memory solutions.
If music companies sat down and thought about what they are doing, they would realise that they are competing against the mp3 player market, because if they dont sell something that plays on most mp3 players, then people wont buy it!
That's just it. They are not interested in selling you what you want, only what they want to sell. Vinyl, 8 track, cassette, CD, SACD/DVD-A, Microsoft audio CD(whatever that's called), it's in the industry's best interest to create short term standards so you buy the same thing over and over again.
But I've really got to question how people could watch TV in the US. I mean, I've seen good quality off-the-wire NTSC, and compared to PAL it's shit! Forget the lower resolution of NTSC - the colour & phasing problems are enough to put me off it.
I often wonder about PAL 50hz regions, how could you stand getting up and going to the loo and seeing major flicker unless your looking at the TV dead on. Not to speak of 200+V reaking havic on hifi equipment.
In the past, we made up for the limitations of NTSC with really good cameras but this has not been a true statement since the the 80s. We also have a tint control to take care of this color shift which only needs to be adjusted once if at all using cable or if your there and abouts of the same distance from all the broadcast towers. I can't speak of phasing problems as this I never noticed.
As far as the TVs being shit, well... in the past I used an Amiga monitor to watch my TV. A traditional TV was for guests who have never seen anything better.
What, exactly, makes you think that only "rednecks" and fat people on welfare have antiquated TVs?
There is an old running joke about rednecks having a working TV on top of a non-working one. What they are refering to are those old TVs what were big wooden pieces of furnature, many of which were very nice pieces of wood and many people, not just rednecks, when the tubes failed just put the new TV on top of the old one. They were huge heavy beasts and it took people till the 80s to move them. And I gotta admit, just about anyone who still had that tv on top of TV by the 80s were people who had gun racks in their pickup trucks... unless it was Virgina where it's illegal to have a gun rack in your pickup truck. But eventually even the rednecks gave up on the TV ontop of TV, and used the TV to support beer cans for target practice.
From what i've observed, the people on welfare, esp those who live in the projects and have their room paid for, have the most modern TVs. Higher disposable income. Not sure about rednecks.
I've never heard a non geek complain about picture quality on an average broadcast TV. Unless it's a signal strength problem or a failing TV, consumers don't care. NTSC is good enough.
Because a non-geek simply doesn't know any better, or know there is another option.
Look at the number of people who download TV shows. The quality really isn't as good as a broadcast but people love it anyway.
VCD for example isn't anywhere close to broadcast, but looks a hell of a lot better than VHS SLP mode and if burnt to CD cost less than VHS tape.
Those HDTV rips... even those 350meg ones look better on my PC monitor than the TV broadcast on my TV. Those 700meg TV rips are at the point where they are so close to broadcast quality I couldn't care less. Now those direct copies off PVRs, direct digital to mpeg-2 look exactly like the broadcast as they are 1:1 with the broadcast. From what i'e seen these are pretty limited to the newsgroups.
When can we Americans start viewing this? I've been a huge Dr. Who fan since I was a little kid. I first saw Dr. Who in the early 80's on PBS in Chicago. Are there any UK people nice enough to recommend a way to view these new episodes without resorting to buy expensive international subscription channels? Thanks and much appreciated!
I don't know what you mean by expensive international subscription channels. If you're talking BBC-America it might be on digital cable or might be in the regular expanded basic lineup. I get it Doctor Who in America over cable via CBUT, a CBC affiliate In a handful of cities carry CBC as a basic cable channel.
If you really want to, you can request CBC from your cable operator. If you like watching the Olympics then this is a must have. Contact your local PBS station and ask them to license it. Toss them a couple of bucks if you like. Wait for the DVDs and buy them... region free player that does PAL might be helpful, these are not uncommon. Ask the BBC for streaming video or downloads Screw the BBC and download your self
John Cleese to do this video? I know the answer, money, but this is definitley strange. When was the last time you saw a celebrity like this involved in promoting some obscure IT product?
And I don't pay that much attention. I'm sure it's more common than you think though these days it's far more common for celebrities to do voice overs than appearances.
To be truthful, the first stream wasn't in 1996. It was way back in 1994, when WXYC started streaming using CuSeeMe. WREK (Georgia Tech's student radio) also started streaming with their own in-house software the same day WXYC went live, but it was not officially advertised until a later date.
Note, the following is neither a troll nor a flame, but rather an accurate account my first experience with CuSeeMe circa 1994 or so.
I remember CuSeeMe very well. I remember my brother and my self showing our mother this. The future of communication... real time video conferencing around the world for free. On an 68030 based mac we found a reflector site with a number of participants. After a few moments the first guy shows up... shirtless but no big deal. Then the second guy shows up, also shirtless. But as it turns out they were not just shirtless, they were all nakid. The 5th man showed up as just a penis and everyone said, "hi Ralf" or some such.
We wanted to show our mother the future in communications, and there it was, the future was a bunch of nakid men.
Now just everyone pause and think. What would people do with these 1gbit streams if there was no (illegal) downloadable content?
AV conferencing AV streaming, i.e. network TV/HDTV Remote terminal access VPN Net conferencing
I would think that any service that permits people to work without the use of transportation would be of great benifit to any large city. I would think piracy isn't the only application.
The problem is their getting hit can hurt other people.For example, people swerve to miss them, hit someone else or at least someone else's car. That's why jaywalking is illegal...it's because its a 'traffic' violation, like swerving into other people's lane, and can cause others to get hurt, not a safety issue of the person doing it, like failing to wear a seatbeat.
Actually I thought it was a ticketable infraction to help assign guilt and accounability in the event of a ped-auto accident. If jay walking wasn't illegal the driver would always be accountable if hitting some jack ass that jumped out into the middle of the road.
But I've never heard of anyone written up for jaywalking unless they actually caused an accident with it, or at least almost caused one
The first time I saw someone issued a Jay-walking ticket was in Seattle. I thought it was a joke. No accident that I could see just enforcement. After being issued the ticket they used the cross walk and got hit by a car.
At least the officers were on bikes and not in cars. It's one thing to pull over a car, but to block traffic for a pedestrian offence which would require passing in the on comming lane?
Another question. Regardless if it is state level or federal level. There are several different numbers, stored in several different DB's used for several different purposes. All in the hands of govn branches. What is to stop them from tying it all together?
We would. It's a very unpopular idea, so most Senators or Represenativive who want to be re-elected would vote for this, I would hope. I can't think of a good comercial reason national IDs so very little chance of business lobbying for this idea. Still if not regected by either the Executive (President) or Congressional (Senate and House of Represenatives), it's bloody likely that this issue would be taken up with the Judicial branch. This is affectionately described as the three ring circus.
Suppose you have one ID number, rendering access to several different DB's. Acces to one DB is limited to the relevant govn branch. You offcourse have access to all data, since it's all about you. The govn can indeed abuse its power and access the other DB's. But they could in the first/current example as well.
Any one agency can abuse it's power irregardless. But when you put all the cookies in one jar it just makes it easier. Keeping the cookies in seperate jars makes it more likely that someone is noticed diping where they shouldn't.
This was best described by someone else in this way, "We're a bunch of loonies who get scared of our own shadow and try to kill it with our shotgun." And in many ways this is true.
This second example limits the amount of numbers/cards you need to know/have. One card for the govn, one for each bank,..
This is pretty much what we have already. Social or tax ID for matters of money, and state issued drivers license / ID card for identity. Though Social isn't used as id, it's that stupid piece of paper that falls apart.
Thoughts of paranoia aside of giving the federal government too much information, this would increase the number of cards in our wallet by one. Driver's licenses is a State agency, not federal one. A national ID wouldn't prove you have the right to drive. To me the very thought would be redundant.
Thoughts of paranoia range from too much information held by one agency, and non-citizen's rights.
Why is state trusted more than federal? If there was no federal, would you trust city council more than state?
Bear in mind that America is rather young. Not everyone lives in a city. For example, I'm from a place that only became a city in 1994.
It's not so much that the state is more trusted than federal but more about keeping existing checks and balances. One is a citizen of America but a resident of a state, district if you live in the national capital, or territory as is the case with Puerto Rico, Guam... etc. If as a State you don't like what the Federal government is doing, you can fight or choose to leave the Union and form your own country, though leaving the union is unheard of but is ultimate final legal remedy available. In turn if you don't like what your state is doing you can again fight either locally or though the federal system or leave and move to a different state.
It's called "committing a crime". Stop trying to justify it and gloss it over. Any copy who accepts a bribe is just a thug wearing a badge.
Those damn copies taking bribes.
Really, no one needs morality when there isn't enough it eat. If we keep police's salary at the poverty level, we shouldn't be shocked if they take bribes and tips. If raising pay would reduce crime then by god raise the damn pay, these are public servents not public surfs.
The key in fighting crime is actually acknowledging the root cause and doing something about it. There can be no justice so long as law is absolute.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, geniuses!! A couple of hundred thousand freeloaders that think that spending money is evil are not a market force to be reconned with.
/. user is big on OSS (and music piracy) doesn't mean they think spending money is evil. While I'm sure there is much in the way of free hardware out there, for the most part a good deal of money is spent by Slashdot fanboys on:
Just because the average
1. Media
a. paper
b. CD / DVD
c. toner / ink
2. Hardware
a. Monitor
b. Motherboard/cpu
c. Memory
d. Storage
3. Snack food - Beverages - take out
Not Compaq nor Dell's demographic... but defintely Verbatim, HP, CDW, Pringles, and Starbucks's demographic. Let's face it, a self builder is going to spend more money on their PC than your average Dell buyer. A/V pirates and OSS users alike spend a good deal on blank media, cases, and paper.
So what you are saying is the slashdot fanboy crowd needs to get organized and prove they are a market demographic and actively lobby for programing they enjoy? This would be wonderful.
If someone really wants to send out inappropriate emails, they're going to figure out some other way to do so, such as via a free webmail account somewhere.
But if you use a webmail, it's not coming from the company e-mail is it? So for the most part it's someone else's problem. It's one thing for Joe at Widget Inc to send off an e-mail from the Widget.com.... as any e-mail represents the company. I.e. if Joe says, "It's lunch time h'm going to download porn and masturbate at my desk" this would reflect poorly on the company. However if Joe were to use webmail to e-mail this, it's not an official document from the company, only reflects poorly on joe, and the company can deny accountability regarding e-mail sex services.
What I find interesting is the distinction between email and phone use. It's illegal in many states -- may even be federal law for all I know -- to listen in on employee phone communication. Why doesn't email deserve this same protection?
"Thank you for calling Widget inc... this call may be recorded for quality control purposes. "
The rule of thumb in America at least is you can record telephone conversations so long as either one or both parties are aware it's being recorded depending on the state that is.
If you want a small plug/wire and a small voltage, your going to end up with a small watt limit, fine for things currently run on DC, but not a GLOBAL standard.
Higher than an RJ-45 connector. I don't mean to totally replace the house wiring with DC, but create a standard for a house DC plug for use with portable devices, ones which you're likely to take with you to other countries. This would include laptops, CD players, digital alarm clocks, you name it. Anything that consumes higher wattage, save things like hair dryers, are not things you are likely to travel with.
Establish a GLOBAL standard for power and just go with it. Why not just 12V DC, the already established standard for autos. PoE is such a mickey mouse solution as others have already pointed out will likely confuse people. Pick a plug... anything in the 10mm size should be just dandy.
Perhaps someone who has wired their house for low voltage would share their solutions. IIRC you couldn't have low and high voltage in the same gang box according to the NEC (National Electrical Code - USA), which is unfortunate as that would be the obvious way to get wall current and convert it to low voltage which is apparently a NO NO.
Copyright infringement is only a criminal offense if it is done for profit, or the work which is copied has a retail value over $1,000.
That's the thing... the RIAA and MPAA have inflated values as to what they believe a song's / movie's value is. While the going per track rate is about a buck a piece... I believe the RIAA assume that each track = whole album @ $15 a pop. But even at $1 a pop and the user is sharing 1001 songs there would be a good argument that this is criminal copyright infringement. Whether a DA would prosecute or a judge would agree is another story all together.
I'm glad someone's standing up for pirates, but couldn't you use the same argument (privacy) these schools are using to defend withholding the names of people running a kiddie porn ring or some other illegal activity? They should address the IP issues instead of using privacy as the standard by which their actions are to be judged. This could be an opportunity to take a stand and make a statement instead of a ruling that will be overturned. Thoughts?
I would THINK that anyone investigating a kiddie porn ring would go by the book rather than risk a judge throwing out evidence. For example:
1. Someone reports this to the School
2. School (this being very criminal) reports it to the police / tells the informent to contact the police them selves
3. Police investiate, supenea School
4. Ring gets busted
There is a long standing prodecure for criminal investigations, and no matter how much you feel an individual or a group are scumbags they do have rights.
The blame lies with the recipient who chooses to use a blacklist. By setting up my mailserver to use (say) MAPS RBL as an absolute indicator of whether I wish to receive e-mail from you, I am partly delegating my mail policy to MAPS.
If my decision to use MAPS RBL affects my customers' ability to receive legitimate e-mail, they should take action, as I should be answerable to them (in the worst case, they can pay for alternate mail provision). As sender, you have no relationship to me, as recipient, you do.
It would be nice if other admins agree with you. Many choose to believe what they are subscribing to is a service. I've never had a formal contract with any RBL so I don't know the details of the contract. But I suspect the belief that it is a service leads them to push the responcibility to the RBL maintainer to update and make corrections rather than what you sugest and maintain a whitelist based on the customer's request.
There have been too many times I've had to go through the circle of madness "hey, we are not getting e-mail from there, please fix it" only to have the responce be
1. Run your own damn smtp server (Good idea, but that's not what we're paying for).
2. Contact the RBL (Who in turn say contact the ISP)
3. Tell the sender to switch ISPs the filthy spammers (or change ISPs and pick one that doesn't deal with buck passing).
Not true, it's the people who buy from spammers fault. If spamming weren't so damn profitable, then it would cease to exist. Plain and simple!
...).
Wow, you missed the point. You really really missed the point. The point is here and you're off in Egypt somewhere.
You make it sound as though the spam problem that sysadmins deal with is non-existant, guess what buddy . . . without dnsbl's in place there is a good chance that most e-mail servers would be choking and full. Spamming is a real pain in everyones ass, and its going to suck until it's obliterated or until providers take personal responsibility (yeah right
The point was... you have these people who make black lists. Your ISP uses their black list. If there was an error and you're on the black list, the ISP typically doesn't flag you as a good guy, they refer you to the people who maintain the list denying accountability for it. A well managed list will provide you with a procedure to get off the black list, and re-evaluate entries. A badly managed list will blacklist you at the first complaint whether spam or not, keep whole address blocks listed even if sold to someone else and no longer a source of spam (d'oh that's why that net block was so cheap). These bad lists will say "We just make the list, it's up to your provider to use it, talk to them it's not our problem" in the hopes that their list causes people to leave their provider. Great if it's a spam ridden nest of hell, but bad if it's not.
This is what I mean about a lack off accountability. Two groups, the subscriber and the list manager, in some cases, will just play dodge ball with the issue. The ISP could if they wanted manage a small whitelist to deal with cases where the blacklist is invalid. But for the most part they don't and refer you to the list maintainer. List maintainer, in most cases will refer you back to the ISP.
In some cases, the solution is worse than the problem. This is what I mean by accountability.
If you care so much about it, run your own and do as you wish. You don't need to change isp's.
Righto.... you really want whords of AOL users to run their own mail servers? Not to speak of the fact that ISPs like AOL block outbound port 25 for good reasons. Not sure about inbound. Besides, this does NO good what so ever on any house connection as chances are it's blocked already, either by people who take your advice and end up being open relays or spammers they buy into it cause of the open port 25.
I understand full well spam is a huge problem. But also a huge problem are bad lists that people subscribe to the bad lists, the ones poorly maintained that will flag on the first complaint, that will not unflag even if there is proof of new ownership / resolved security issues / spammer disposal...etc...etc...
Is MAPS forcing you to use their lists? No. So what's your problem?
So in the end no one is accountable. The ISP doesn't make the list MAPS does, so it's not their fault. MAPS says no one has to use their lists so it's not their fault they just make the list. Any collateral damage is just a figment of your imagination. Nobody's fault, nobody's problem.
This is the major issue I have with many spam lists. You are fed this circular logic and the only way to break the circle is to change ISPs and hope you don't have a problem again.
If it's region code crippled I'm not buying it. If I can't use it the way I want to I'm not interested. Ner nerny ner ner.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it hard if not impossible to find DVD players that are not region free in the region 2 zone? Or is your objection a protest to region codes in general?
Have you tried a portable DVD player? Most of them are multi-region and multi-format, can play DVD, VCD, MP3 music and JPG photos from CD and DVD. Some can also play DivX. Be sure to choose one that allows you to de-power the display, to save precious milliamp-hours.
Most i've tried are rather large and are dependent on the screen to navigate which tends to suck up the power. When ever I bring this up every thinks oh just get a portable video player. I want a discman that takes DVD media. I want a car deck that takes DVD media. No fancy screen, don't care about watching movies.
You mean like this one? Nice toy, does DivX/Xvid too, y'know...
No, not quite like that one. No screen fancy large screen just audio from DVD media.
The only thing that bothers me is that if i want to listen to my flatmates cd, i will want to put it on my ipod for a while. He uses media player to rip his music, so it wont play on my ipod.
.mp3, or unless your saying your flatmate rips music to .wma format, in which case you should convince them to rip in .mp3 and avoid all that DRM crap and have the benefit of being able to burn discs that play in most DVD players. Parodon my ipod ignorance on this issue.
.mp3 on DVD media. It's what my DVD player understands, it's what my PC understands, and the media is a heck of a lot cheaper than flash memory solutions.
Then don't buy an ipod. I don't have an ipod, but I thought ipod did
I personally am holding out for a portable music player that reads
If music companies sat down and thought about what they are doing, they would realise that they are competing against the mp3 player market, because if they dont sell something that plays on most mp3 players, then people wont buy it!
That's just it. They are not interested in selling you what you want, only what they want to sell. Vinyl, 8 track, cassette, CD, SACD/DVD-A, Microsoft audio CD(whatever that's called), it's in the industry's best interest to create short term standards so you buy the same thing over and over again.
But I've really got to question how people could watch TV in the US. I mean, I've seen good quality off-the-wire NTSC, and compared to PAL it's shit! Forget the lower resolution of NTSC - the colour & phasing problems are enough to put me off it.
I often wonder about PAL 50hz regions, how could you stand getting up and going to the loo and seeing major flicker unless your looking at the TV dead on. Not to speak of 200+V reaking havic on hifi equipment.
In the past, we made up for the limitations of NTSC with really good cameras but this has not been a true statement since the the 80s. We also have a tint control to take care of this color shift which only needs to be adjusted once if at all using cable or if your there and abouts of the same distance from all the broadcast towers. I can't speak of phasing problems as this I never noticed.
As far as the TVs being shit, well... in the past I used an Amiga monitor to watch my TV. A traditional TV was for guests who have never seen anything better.
What, exactly, makes you think that only "rednecks" and fat people on welfare have antiquated TVs?
There is an old running joke about rednecks having a working TV on top of a non-working one. What they are refering to are those old TVs what were big wooden pieces of furnature, many of which were very nice pieces of wood and many people, not just rednecks, when the tubes failed just put the new TV on top of the old one. They were huge heavy beasts and it took people till the 80s to move them. And I gotta admit, just about anyone who still had that tv on top of TV by the 80s were people who had gun racks in their pickup trucks... unless it was Virgina where it's illegal to have a gun rack in your pickup truck. But eventually even the rednecks gave up on the TV ontop of TV, and used the TV to support beer cans for target practice.
From what i've observed, the people on welfare, esp those who live in the projects and have their room paid for, have the most modern TVs. Higher disposable income. Not sure about rednecks.
I've never heard a non geek complain about picture quality on an average broadcast TV. Unless it's a signal strength problem or a failing TV, consumers don't care. NTSC is good enough.
Because a non-geek simply doesn't know any better, or know there is another option.
Look at the number of people who download TV shows. The quality really isn't as good as a broadcast but people love it anyway.
VCD for example isn't anywhere close to broadcast, but looks a hell of a lot better than VHS SLP mode and if burnt to CD cost less than VHS tape.
Those HDTV rips... even those 350meg ones look better on my PC monitor than the TV broadcast on my TV. Those 700meg TV rips are at the point where they are so close to broadcast quality I couldn't care less. Now those direct copies off PVRs, direct digital to mpeg-2 look exactly like the broadcast as they are 1:1 with the broadcast. From what i'e seen these are pretty limited to the newsgroups.
When can we Americans start viewing this? I've been a huge Dr. Who fan since I was a little kid. I first saw Dr. Who in the early 80's on PBS in Chicago. Are there any UK people nice enough to recommend a way to view these new episodes without resorting to buy expensive international subscription channels? Thanks and much appreciated!
I don't know what you mean by expensive international subscription channels. If you're talking BBC-America it might be on digital cable or might be in the regular expanded basic lineup. I get it Doctor Who in America over cable via CBUT, a CBC affiliate In a handful of cities carry CBC as a basic cable channel.
If you really want to, you can request CBC from your cable operator. If you like watching the Olympics then this is a must have.
Contact your local PBS station and ask them to license it. Toss them a couple of bucks if you like.
Wait for the DVDs and buy them... region free player that does PAL might be helpful, these are not uncommon.
Ask the BBC for streaming video or downloads
Screw the BBC and download your self
John Cleese to do this video? I know the answer, money, but this is definitley strange. When was the last time you saw a celebrity like this involved in promoting some obscure IT product?
Tom Baker... Lalla Ward.... PR1ME computer commercials. Before that I remember Bill Cosby on TV speaking for the TI-99/4a.
And I don't pay that much attention. I'm sure it's more common than you think though these days it's far more common for celebrities to do voice overs than appearances.
For Christ's sake, this is supposed to be a family show, not alt.sex.daleks
Experiment
Experiment
EXPERIMENT!
To be truthful, the first stream wasn't in 1996. It was way back in 1994, when WXYC started streaming using CuSeeMe. WREK (Georgia Tech's student radio) also started streaming with their own in-house software the same day WXYC went live, but it was not officially advertised until a later date.
Note, the following is neither a troll nor a flame, but rather an accurate account my first experience with CuSeeMe circa 1994 or so.
I remember CuSeeMe very well. I remember my brother and my self showing our mother this. The future of communication... real time video conferencing around the world for free. On an 68030 based mac we found a reflector site with a number of participants. After a few moments the first guy shows up... shirtless but no big deal. Then the second guy shows up, also shirtless. But as it turns out they were not just shirtless, they were all nakid. The 5th man showed up as just a penis and everyone said, "hi Ralf" or some such.
We wanted to show our mother the future in communications, and there it was, the future was a bunch of nakid men.
Now just everyone pause and think. What would people do with these 1gbit streams if there was no (illegal) downloadable content?
AV conferencing
AV streaming, i.e. network TV/HDTV
Remote terminal access
VPN
Net conferencing
I would think that any service that permits people to work without the use of transportation would be of great benifit to any large city. I would think piracy isn't the only application.
The problem is their getting hit can hurt other people.For example, people swerve to miss them, hit someone else or at least someone else's car. That's why jaywalking is illegal...it's because its a 'traffic' violation, like swerving into other people's lane, and can cause others to get hurt, not a safety issue of the person doing it, like failing to wear a seatbeat.
Actually I thought it was a ticketable infraction to help assign guilt and accounability in the event of a ped-auto accident. If jay walking wasn't illegal the driver would always be accountable if hitting some jack ass that jumped out into the middle of the road.
But I've never heard of anyone written up for jaywalking unless they actually caused an accident with it, or at least almost caused one
The first time I saw someone issued a Jay-walking ticket was in Seattle. I thought it was a joke. No accident that I could see just enforcement. After being issued the ticket they used the cross walk and got hit by a car.
At least the officers were on bikes and not in cars. It's one thing to pull over a car, but to block traffic for a pedestrian offence which would require passing in the on comming lane?
Another question. Regardless if it is state level or federal level. There are several different numbers, stored in several different DB's used for several different purposes. All in the hands of govn branches. What is to stop them from tying it all together?
We would. It's a very unpopular idea, so most Senators or Represenativive who want to be re-elected would vote for this, I would hope. I can't think of a good comercial reason national IDs so very little chance of business lobbying for this idea. Still if not regected by either the Executive (President) or Congressional (Senate and House of Represenatives), it's bloody likely that this issue would be taken up with the Judicial branch. This is affectionately described as the three ring circus.
Suppose you have one ID number, rendering access to several different DB's. Acces to one DB is limited to the relevant govn branch. You offcourse have access to all data, since it's all about you. The govn can indeed abuse its power and access the other DB's. But they could in the first/current example as well.
Any one agency can abuse it's power irregardless. But when you put all the cookies in one jar it just makes it easier. Keeping the cookies in seperate jars makes it more likely that someone is noticed diping where they shouldn't.
This was best described by someone else in this way, "We're a bunch of loonies who get scared of our own shadow and try to kill it with our shotgun." And in many ways this is true.
This second example limits the amount of numbers/cards you need to know/have. One card for the govn, one for each bank,..
This is pretty much what we have already. Social or tax ID for matters of money, and state issued drivers license / ID card for identity. Though Social isn't used as id, it's that stupid piece of paper that falls apart.
Thoughts of paranoia aside of giving the federal government too much information, this would increase the number of cards in our wallet by one. Driver's licenses is a State agency, not federal one. A national ID wouldn't prove you have the right to drive. To me the very thought would be redundant.
Thoughts of paranoia range from too much information held by one agency, and non-citizen's rights.
Why is state trusted more than federal? If there was no federal, would you trust city council more than state?
Bear in mind that America is rather young. Not everyone lives in a city. For example, I'm from a place that only became a city in 1994.
It's not so much that the state is more trusted than federal but more about keeping existing checks and balances. One is a citizen of America but a resident of a state, district if you live in the national capital, or territory as is the case with Puerto Rico, Guam... etc. If as a State you don't like what the Federal government is doing, you can fight or choose to leave the Union and form your own country, though leaving the union is unheard of but is ultimate final legal remedy available. In turn if you don't like what your state is doing you can again fight either locally or though the federal system or leave and move to a different state.
It's called "committing a crime". Stop trying to justify it and gloss it over. Any copy who accepts a bribe is just a thug wearing a badge.
Those damn copies taking bribes.
Really, no one needs morality when there isn't enough it eat. If we keep police's salary at the poverty level, we shouldn't be shocked if they take bribes and tips. If raising pay would reduce crime then by god raise the damn pay, these are public servents not public surfs.
The key in fighting crime is actually acknowledging the root cause and doing something about it. There can be no justice so long as law is absolute.