Most likely, you do not know the true inside scope. At Echo, the box will be exactly what the original poster stated. I have heard that the others are heading down the same path with linux boxens as well.
Who said anything about Echo? Who said anything about "others"? We're talking about AOL/TWs crappy entry into the business.
Most likely these system will come with about 100G of diskspace, but only 20 g will be available to the consumer.
Most likely, you didn't RTFA. These won't actually be PVRs built into the set-top boxes, they'll just be "control terminals" for what is essentially video-on-demand. The shows will be kept at a central "hub" location and will be digitally streamed to the cable customer. Disk space won't be the issue-- bandwidth will. How many of your neighbors using it will it take to make the show you "recorded" start giving you "skips-n-freezies"? My normally 1500kbps cable modem service (Time/Warner!) would drop to 256kbps between 5pm and 8pm. You think the same won't happen with this? This product is lame.
Minor correction here. Names of countries change all the time. The country we call Iraq was founded in 1920. There is no such thing as "ancient Iraq", just like there is no such thing as an "ancient United States". The correct term is "ancient mesopotamians".
Are you saying we can't do it now or we can't do it ever? The Thuraya satellite, which serves mobile phones from geosynchronous earth orbit, has a 12.25 meter dish antenna.
I'm not sure what he meant by "cannot fit a 100 ft dish", but the example you cite as rebuttal is less than 40 feet (12.25m * 39inches = 39.8125 feet), so what you said makes no sense either...
AMD...Was recently considering leaving the CPU business altogether.
No, that was an false rumor caused by people misunderstanding a quote from AMD's CEO (that Sanders guy? I can never remember his name. I keep thinking "Larry Sanders", but that's not right...). What he said was something like "AMD isn't going to play this silly desktop CPU game anymore". He only meant that AMD wasn't going to play mindless megahertz games with Intel anymore; you know, the constant push to get out a "faster" chip. They weren't quitting the CPU business, they were redefining their goals. I think hew was actually alluding to the x86-64. Not a bad idea, if you ask me-- put your resources into making a better chip rather than trying to squeeze a few more mHz out of their existing CPU designs.
In your 2003 Annual Report in January, you declare that the company will drop prices, lowering revenue.
You really don't understand economics, do you. Does WalMart lower prices because it wants to lower revenue? Think about it. Taxation discourages taxable behavior. The higher the tax, the fewer people who will engage in the behavior. Do you really think that raising taxes is the only way to get more money? Economics is not a static equation; it's about how much the money in the system moves around. Taxation is an inefficiency and acts as a brake. The less taxation, the more the money moves around. Did you know that the same money that my boss pays me (after taxes come out) is ALSO used to pay the people I buy goods and services from? And (after THEIR taxes) the people THEY buy goods and services from? This repeats until taxes have eaten it all. This is a more accurate illustration of economics than your simplistic static view. A man might make 10 million dollars, but unless he takes it in cash and throws it into the fireplace, he has to spend it somewhere! One man getting richer does not mean the rest of us get poorer (unless he is engaged in fraud, which is crime, not economics). Crimony, but I'm sick of people thinking their comic-book-physics grade understanding of economics (lower price=less money! hyuk!) gives them enough insight to lay judgement upon tax policies!
GMs fault,
if they dont RP it warn them,
you cant take a palidin in D&D and start
slaughting incoent ppl unless the DM lets you,
you cant take a Chr in gurps and start ignoring
the disadvantages unless the GM lets you..
Oh, I absolutely agree. I did, in fact, enforce the roleplaying rules for their disadvantages. What I got tired of was that they (it was two players in particular) never got the point. "I run over and pick up the Lady's luggage!" they'd say, and I'd say "Roll your will to overcome laziness" and they'd whine about it. The problem is, they saw those -40 points as their due and whatever disads one picks to get to the -40 max as just "jumping hoops" required of them to get them (Lazy-Greedy-Alky becoming the canonical min/max player choices). That's not to say I don't like GURPS. I've had games where GURPS worked quite well. The problem I've run into is players getting wrapped up in the min/max machinations of the system rather than the role playing. GURPS seems to encourage mediocre players to become worse. My games have become less about the system and more about the role playing of late anyway, so I've opted for the more abstract D&D system because it's quicker.
Fortunately, most of the players I have aren't packrats at all, but then I don't give out much treasure.:)
heh. I cured MY packrat players the opposite way: I gave them HUGE treasure that's too heavy to carry. Sure, that tapestry is worth 3000GP, but it weighs 400lbs. Who's gonna carry it? Or my alternate favorite: inflation. You find 10,000SP, but that just doesn't get you as much as it used to...
"No! you know why? 'cause you ALL make a character who's a Lazy (-10), Greedy (-15), Alcoholic (-15) and then don't role play it!"
-one reason why I no longer GM using GURPS.
eventually you should catch on that an AC of 20 isn't good. Or is it now?
At the risk of exposing my geek-ness, I answer: the New Rules say a higher AC is better. It simplifies the system somewhat, in that if your char has an AC of 15, then one must roll a 15 or higher to hit you. There are bonuses and penalties and such that further complicate hitting, but that's basically the gist of the New Way.
Yes. Plus, if your car does stall out on the tracks, get the hell out of the car! If the gates were up when you drove on to the track, you will certainly have enough time.
Also, when approaching a railroad crossing, you should open your window a bit so that you can hear the train even if the safety mechanisms are broken.
Exactly! Turn down that thumpin' bass you're so dang proud of and maybe look up and down the track before you cross!
Re:Conservative/Liberal take on it
on
Fooled by Randomness
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Liberals go the other way. Luck, circumstance, and opportunity play huge roles in where you are. Poor people are poor because of luck and circumstance. People get hit by trains because they might have just plain been unlucky. Your situation is a result of your environment, including dumb luck.
So hard work does nothing, eh? It's all luck and circumstance. Pfff! Every time I've stopped worrking my situation got worse, and every time I started working again, it got better. What luck I must have had lately, since I've been doing better the whole 8 years I've been working where I am. I've even been lucky enough to have people pay me when I do side work for them on weekends!
Are you on crack?
This is my favorite quote above: People get hit by trains because they might have just plain been unlucky
Provably false. People get hit by trains because they're on the railroad tracks when the train goes by. This has nothing to do with luck, or circumstance. It has to do with bad decision making. Nobody's car ever "stalls out" on the tracks like in the movies. People try to "beat the train"... and fail.
I don't think it works that way. With ATM cards the PIN is stored on the card using a one-way hash or some such (like unix passwords, yes?). A cracker gaining access to 2.2mil one-way checksums isn't very useable. Of course, just because *I* wouldn't store the un-encrypted PIN somewhere with the number doesn't mean the CC co's wouldn't.
P.S. I wish people would stop saying "PIN number". What do you think the "N" in "PIN" stands for, huh? While we're at it, quit it with the "ATM machine" thing too. And if I see one more form asking for my "SSN#", I'm gonna go postal! (just one of my petty foibles)
Is it just me or does it seem that Google is trying to become the number 1 information portal?
I think they're working a different angle. Remember, during the California Gold Rush the guys who got rich weren't the guys digging for gold-- it was the guys selling the shovels. Google, by providing a myriad of ever-improving search capabilities to various entities (such as portals) is essentially selling the shovels here...
So as if my searches weren't already becoming diluted with Blog drivel they definitely will now!
Actually, I think this may help the situation. At present, all the lame-ass blogs on the web are counted like any other web site by Google's search engine. If they buy up all these blogs, they can "segregate" them, if you will, into their own category; much like Google does now with the USENET archive it got from deja.com. I suspect that the blogs will still be indexed by the search engine, but they will be "scored" differently (as in "they're only blogs; value = value / 3") and not show up as often as they do now. I hate getting freak-fuck blog hits when I'm doing technical reasearch, and I imagine the Google engine guys don't like it either. I'm hoping for an improvement here. I'd love a checkbox that basically tells the engine "if (hit == "blog") score = 0;". I could do without commentary from feebs who name themselves after [tech product] and complain about their average lives, when all I wanted was a driver for [tech product].
You don't see newsgroup posts on your usual searches, do you?
Yes, all the time. Try to search for anything technical, and you'll find people chattering about it on web-archived newsgroups and web-archived mailing lists. Or more likely, chattering about something else, but using your search terms in a way that you didn't anticipate.
Yeah, but the hits aren't coming from the Google Groups archive, they're coming from an outside site.
I worked about 160 hours a week for a few weeks in January.
Yeesh! Who's your speed connection, and can you hook me up? With only 168 hours in a week, how did you use the extra 8 hours? did you sleep 1 hour a night, or save it up for Sunday?:)
Give me a break, installing that software is a crime in itself
Not necessarily. You're pulling arguments out of your ass, friend.
It's not legal for me to make keys for other people houses even if I haven't robbed the place yet
It's not illegal to make a key to someone else's house. In fact, your own house key (if it's a common brand such as Schlage[10^5 possible combinations] or Kwikset[6^5 combinations]) already fits the front door to someone else's house-- I guarantee it. Posession of a someone else's key may be incriminating evidence in the case of burglary, but it is not a crime in and of itself.
Or to swipe someones credit card...
Theft of property. No one can claim ownership of a password, so this analogy is flawed. Posession of a password is, at best, incriminating evidence.
And for the immidiate discussion-stopper, it's not legal for terrorists to gather intelligence, even if they haven't blown up the target yet
Gathering publicly available information is not illegal. Conspiracy to commit (crime X) may be illegal, and gathering/posessing intelligence in order to commit said crime may be incriminating evidence, but unless that information is classified secrets or the like, mere posession isn't against the law. Likewise, having a piece of paper with a list of userIDs and passwords isn't illegal either-- but if someone's been getting into those users' systems, boy will you look guilty!
In short, you don't seem to grasp the distinction between "incriminating evidence" and the crime itself.
I think you mean "cleaved in twain". Twine means "twisted" which (though certainly applicable to Windows) doesn't really go with "cleaved".
[/wordnazi]
A) A "very lucky and very skilled nut" gets off a shot that CIA marksman were unable to duplicate later.
CIA? Why would a CIA marksman have anything to do with investigating a presidential assasination? The CIA cultivates, collects, and analyzes intelligence regarding foreign countries. Did you mean perhaps the FBI or the Secret Service?
-OR-
B)Some very powerful members of the newly arrisen Military Industrial Complex decide to off an extremely popular and powerful president who's goals are diametrically opposed to theirs. They make various mistakes in their plotting which are obvious now, but less so then (magic bullet etc.). They frame Oswald for the crime, hoping to get to him before he can testify.
They made all these mistakes that are "obvious now", but somehow have managed to remain anonymous? Sorry, but while some of this "evidence" is admittedly suspicious (though I have seen equally plausible scenarios explaining the Magic Bullet in not-so-magic ways), until I see something explaining exactly who the conspirators are and why/how they did it, I'm more inclined to believe it was the classic Lone Gunman. That's just me, though.
Odd, I though the state you lived in provided the enviroment in which buinesses could thrive
You thought wrong. The environment in which businesses thrive exists in nature wherever two human beings meet and want to trade goods. The federal government streamlines the process somewhat by minting currency, but the state governments are more or less LEECHES feeding on those of us who actually PRODUCE. Some of this leeching is tolerable because we get desirable centralized services (fire, police, etc.), but saying that the state is the source of business-amenable conditions is just plain ignorant.
No.
The insulation stops the ice from forming so that much is denied you
Actually, that much (and more) is denied you, because you obviously know nothing about it and choose to spout off anyway. Quote from space.com article: "Ice forms on the tank because of the super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen inside." --Paul Fischbeck, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who conducted the 1994 analysis.
You sound like every other conspiracy theorist* here. Short on knowledge, but long on theory.
*conspiracy theorists are often control freaks who can't stand the thought that something might happen beyond their (or someone else's) control. The idea that we're fallible, or that circumstances can be such that Bad Things happen despite all attempts to prevent them is inconceivable to them. No, there's no way a single, very lucky and very skilled nut could've killed Kennedy, it was a CONSPIRACY. Yeah, if that makes you feel better, go ahead and think it. But in reality, there are some things beyond our (or others) control...{/rant]
Slashdot Mirror
Who said anything about Echo? Who said anything about "others"? We're talking about AOL/TWs crappy entry into the business.
Most likely, you didn't RTFA. These won't actually be PVRs built into the set-top boxes, they'll just be "control terminals" for what is essentially video-on-demand. The shows will be kept at a central "hub" location and will be digitally streamed to the cable customer. Disk space won't be the issue-- bandwidth will. How many of your neighbors using it will it take to make the show you "recorded" start giving you "skips-n-freezies"? My normally 1500kbps cable modem service (Time/Warner!) would drop to 256kbps between 5pm and 8pm. You think the same won't happen with this? This product is lame.
Minor correction here. Names of countries change all the time. The country we call Iraq was founded in 1920. There is no such thing as "ancient Iraq", just like there is no such thing as an "ancient United States". The correct term is "ancient mesopotamians".
ATM machine, PIN number, etc. Drives me mad, personally....
I'm not sure what he meant by "cannot fit a 100 ft dish", but the example you cite as rebuttal is less than 40 feet (12.25m * 39inches = 39.8125 feet), so what you said makes no sense either...
No, that was an false rumor caused by people misunderstanding a quote from AMD's CEO (that Sanders guy? I can never remember his name. I keep thinking "Larry Sanders", but that's not right...). What he said was something like "AMD isn't going to play this silly desktop CPU game anymore". He only meant that AMD wasn't going to play mindless megahertz games with Intel anymore; you know, the constant push to get out a "faster" chip. They weren't quitting the CPU business, they were redefining their goals. I think hew was actually alluding to the x86-64. Not a bad idea, if you ask me-- put your resources into making a better chip rather than trying to squeeze a few more mHz out of their existing CPU designs.
You really don't understand economics, do you. Does WalMart lower prices because it wants to lower revenue? Think about it. Taxation discourages taxable behavior. The higher the tax, the fewer people who will engage in the behavior. Do you really think that raising taxes is the only way to get more money? Economics is not a static equation; it's about how much the money in the system moves around. Taxation is an inefficiency and acts as a brake. The less taxation, the more the money moves around. Did you know that the same money that my boss pays me (after taxes come out) is ALSO used to pay the people I buy goods and services from? And (after THEIR taxes) the people THEY buy goods and services from? This repeats until taxes have eaten it all. This is a more accurate illustration of economics than your simplistic static view. A man might make 10 million dollars, but unless he takes it in cash and throws it into the fireplace, he has to spend it somewhere! One man getting richer does not mean the rest of us get poorer (unless he is engaged in fraud, which is crime, not economics). Crimony, but I'm sick of people thinking their comic-book-physics grade understanding of economics (lower price=less money! hyuk!) gives them enough insight to lay judgement upon tax policies!
Oh, I absolutely agree. I did, in fact, enforce the roleplaying rules for their disadvantages. What I got tired of was that they (it was two players in particular) never got the point. "I run over and pick up the Lady's luggage!" they'd say, and I'd say "Roll your will to overcome laziness" and they'd whine about it. The problem is, they saw those -40 points as their due and whatever disads one picks to get to the -40 max as just "jumping hoops" required of them to get them (Lazy-Greedy-Alky becoming the canonical min/max player choices). That's not to say I don't like GURPS. I've had games where GURPS worked quite well. The problem I've run into is players getting wrapped up in the min/max machinations of the system rather than the role playing. GURPS seems to encourage mediocre players to become worse. My games have become less about the system and more about the role playing of late anyway, so I've opted for the more abstract D&D system because it's quicker.
heh. I cured MY packrat players the opposite way: I gave them HUGE treasure that's too heavy to carry. Sure, that tapestry is worth 3000GP, but it weighs 400lbs. Who's gonna carry it? Or my alternate favorite: inflation. You find 10,000SP, but that just doesn't get you as much as it used to...
"No! you know why? 'cause you ALL make a character who's a Lazy (-10), Greedy (-15), Alcoholic (-15) and then don't role play it!"
-one reason why I no longer GM using GURPS.
At the risk of exposing my geek-ness, I answer: the New Rules say a higher AC is better. It simplifies the system somewhat, in that if your char has an AC of 15, then one must roll a 15 or higher to hit you. There are bonuses and penalties and such that further complicate hitting, but that's basically the gist of the New Way.
Also, when approaching a railroad crossing, you should open your window a bit so that you can hear the train even if the safety mechanisms are broken.
Exactly! Turn down that thumpin' bass you're so dang proud of and maybe look up and down the track before you cross!
So hard work does nothing, eh? It's all luck and circumstance. Pfff! Every time I've stopped worrking my situation got worse, and every time I started working again, it got better. What luck I must have had lately, since I've been doing better the whole 8 years I've been working where I am. I've even been lucky enough to have people pay me when I do side work for them on weekends!
Are you on crack ?
This is my favorite quote above:
People get hit by trains because they might have just plain been unlucky
Provably false. People get hit by trains because they're on the railroad tracks when the train goes by. This has nothing to do with luck, or circumstance. It has to do with bad decision making. Nobody's car ever "stalls out" on the tracks like in the movies. People try to "beat the train"... and fail.
You get the idea.
I don't think it works that way. With ATM cards the PIN is stored on the card using a one-way hash or some such (like unix passwords, yes?). A cracker gaining access to 2.2mil one-way checksums isn't very useable. Of course, just because *I* wouldn't store the un-encrypted PIN somewhere with the number doesn't mean the CC co's wouldn't.
P.S. I wish people would stop saying "PIN number". What do you think the "N" in "PIN" stands for, huh? While we're at it, quit it with the "ATM machine" thing too. And if I see one more form asking for my "SSN#", I'm gonna go postal! (just one of my petty foibles)
I think they're working a different angle. Remember, during the California Gold Rush the guys who got rich weren't the guys digging for gold-- it was the guys selling the shovels. Google, by providing a myriad of ever-improving search capabilities to various entities (such as portals) is essentially selling the shovels here...
Actually, I think this may help the situation. At present, all the lame-ass blogs on the web are counted like any other web site by Google's search engine. If they buy up all these blogs, they can "segregate" them, if you will, into their own category; much like Google does now with the USENET archive it got from deja.com. I suspect that the blogs will still be indexed by the search engine, but they will be "scored" differently (as in "they're only blogs; value = value / 3") and not show up as often as they do now. I hate getting freak-fuck blog hits when I'm doing technical reasearch, and I imagine the Google engine guys don't like it either. I'm hoping for an improvement here. I'd love a checkbox that basically tells the engine "if (hit == "blog") score = 0;". I could do without commentary from feebs who name themselves after [tech product] and complain about their average lives, when all I wanted was a driver for [tech product].
Yes, all the time. Try to search for anything technical, and you'll find people chattering about it on web-archived newsgroups and web-archived mailing lists. Or more likely, chattering about something else, but using your search terms in a way that you didn't anticipate.
Yeah, but the hits aren't coming from the Google Groups archive, they're coming from an outside site.
Yeesh! Who's your speed connection, and can you hook me up? With only 168 hours in a week, how did you use the extra 8 hours? did you sleep 1 hour a night, or save it up for Sunday? :)
Not necessarily. You're pulling arguments out of your ass, friend.
It's not legal for me to make keys for other people houses even if I haven't robbed the place yet
It's not illegal to make a key to someone else's house. In fact, your own house key (if it's a common brand such as Schlage[10^5 possible combinations] or Kwikset[6^5 combinations]) already fits the front door to someone else's house-- I guarantee it. Posession of a someone else's key may be incriminating evidence in the case of burglary, but it is not a crime in and of itself.
Or to swipe someones credit card...
Theft of property. No one can claim ownership of a password, so this analogy is flawed. Posession of a password is, at best, incriminating evidence.
And for the immidiate discussion-stopper, it's not legal for terrorists to gather intelligence, even if they haven't blown up the target yet
Gathering publicly available information is not illegal. Conspiracy to commit (crime X) may be illegal, and gathering/posessing intelligence in order to commit said crime may be incriminating evidence, but unless that information is classified secrets or the like, mere posession isn't against the law. Likewise, having a piece of paper with a list of userIDs and passwords isn't illegal either-- but if someone's been getting into those users' systems, boy will you look guilty!
In short, you don't seem to grasp the distinction between "incriminating evidence" and the crime itself.
I think you mean "cleaved in twain". Twine means "twisted" which (though certainly applicable to Windows) doesn't really go with "cleaved". [/wordnazi]
A) A "very lucky and very skilled nut" gets off a shot that CIA marksman were unable to duplicate later.
CIA? Why would a CIA marksman have anything to do with investigating a presidential assasination? The CIA cultivates, collects, and analyzes intelligence regarding foreign countries. Did you mean perhaps the FBI or the Secret Service?
-OR-
B)Some very powerful members of the newly arrisen Military Industrial Complex decide to off an extremely popular and powerful president who's goals are diametrically opposed to theirs. They make various mistakes in their plotting which are obvious now, but less so then (magic bullet etc.). They frame Oswald for the crime, hoping to get to him before he can testify.
They made all these mistakes that are "obvious now", but somehow have managed to remain anonymous? Sorry, but while some of this "evidence" is admittedly suspicious (though I have seen equally plausible scenarios explaining the Magic Bullet in not-so-magic ways), until I see something explaining exactly who the conspirators are and why/how they did it, I'm more inclined to believe it was the classic Lone Gunman. That's just me, though.
You thought wrong. The environment in which businesses thrive exists in nature wherever two human beings meet and want to trade goods. The federal government streamlines the process somewhat by minting currency, but the state governments are more or less LEECHES feeding on those of us who actually PRODUCE. Some of this leeching is tolerable because we get desirable centralized services (fire, police, etc.), but saying that the state is the source of business-amenable conditions is just plain ignorant.
Actually, that much (and more) is denied you, because you obviously know nothing about it and choose to spout off anyway. Quote from space.com article: "Ice forms on the tank because of the super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen inside." --Paul Fischbeck, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who conducted the 1994 analysis.
You sound like every other conspiracy theorist* here. Short on knowledge, but long on theory.
*conspiracy theorists are often control freaks who can't stand the thought that something might happen beyond their (or someone else's) control. The idea that we're fallible, or that circumstances can be such that Bad Things happen despite all attempts to prevent them is inconceivable to them. No, there's no way a single, very lucky and very skilled nut could've killed Kennedy, it was a CONSPIRACY. Yeah, if that makes you feel better, go ahead and think it. But in reality, there are some things beyond our (or others) control...{/rant]
A valiant attempt to inject mysticism, I'll grant you, but there were only seven crew members, not nine. Bzzzt. Thanks for playing.
heh. maybe we SHOULD block 'em...