I can sort of see the argument here, but it basically ruins the point of having a standard interface like DirectX
Shrug... welcome to reality. DirectX, OpenGL, etc. don't properly model the hardware in some cases leading to much worse performance than should be available.
It's not like saying 1+1 = 3. It's more like saying what's 7+7+7+7+7+7? Well, it's the same as 7*6, but guess which one is faster to calculate?
And it's not quite like that either, I know, because the bit that FutureMark is tentatively agreeing with is Nvidia changing the shader precision, which can lead to a loss of quality (so maybe it is 1+1 = 1.999999999998).
ATI did pretty much the same thing with their drivers, leading to a much slimmer 1.9% improvement. Of course, it's unclear how much of Nvidia's improvement was from the shader changes (which FM is considering) versus from the other modifications they made (like clipping issues). The latter points are not in question by FM - they are cheating.
Then you go to your Win2k server and setup a new port... then assign drivers. This is also detailed in the manual that comes with the card.
I have the Hawking PS12U - the HP JetDirect series was inadequate since it lacked USB ports and was about 3x more expensive for less functionality. The documentation details how to set things up, but it's rather deeply wrong on how to go about doing so. The Add Port functionality isn't discussed, and it's in different places in Win98, Win2k, and XP.
How would you know? Your knowledge of Windows is still stuck in the Win98 era. THAT WAS FIVE YEARS AGO!?
I'm so happy you don't work for my company. I pity whoever you do work for. We have a multitude of PCs at home... some run Win98SE, some run Win XP, some run Linux. The fact that I have boxes running 98 does not mean my "knowledge of Windows" is stuck in that era. I simply don't see the point in dropping a hundred bucks or so everytime MS puts out a new version of Windows. Win98SE is quite stable and fast if you know what you're doing, buy good hardware, and configure things right.
Not to mention I was talking about programming at that point. And the APIs involved haven't changed significantly between Win98 and XP.
It is more complicated than that, and you know it.
Even under Windows it's not that simple... ok, sure, for the dead simple cases it is, and it's not much harder under *nix with CUPS (AFAIK CUPS doesn't autodetect and autoconfigure, but I haven't hooked up a USB printer to my Linux box to check).
How do you setup a network printer under Windows? No, not a shared printer... one that sits on the network with maybe a little interface box and that's it. It sure as hell wasn't as easy as it should be, and even when you figure it out it doesn't always work. My HP Deskjet will use IPP just fine, from both Win98SE (which was an utter bitch to get working, since MS claims IPP support for Win98SE and then proceeds to avoid actually making it available) and XP (which was confusing to setup properly since the Add Port button is deeply obfusicated). My Canon photoprinter absolutely, positively refuses to play nice with IPP though. So even under Windows it is more complicated than that.
And adding print support in Windows isn't as simple as saying print(mystuff); -- proper printing support is quite a bit more complex. Dunno if CUPS is more or less complex than Win32 services, but I suspect it's a tie.
This isn't a book for average users, it's a book for admins. There are corallarys in every system, be it Windows, Mac (pre OS-X), *nix, mainframe, or whatever... the simple stuff should be simple. The complex stuff, sadly, remains overly complex.
Issue #1 - sorry, but if you think that one part of a megacorp can't forget about another part of a megacorp, it just means you've never worked for a company with more than 100 people (if you have, then please tell me exactly what each and every one of those people are doing right now... oh, you don't know? So maybe something you do could negatively affect one of them, without either of you knowing about it... funny that).
I've never seen a season pass auto-deleted, nor have I read about it on the TiVo forums. Could happen, but it'd be a bug. And a rare one at that.
Oh, as a hint - the TiVo Customer Support people are generally clueless, as is most CS. Use the TiVo Community boards. You get much better help.
Issue #2 - oh, so you didn't get any other software versions for free? If you're a current subscriber with a Series2 system then you just recently got v4.0 of the software for free. Older customers have gotten v1.1, v1.2, v1.3, v2.0, v2.5, v3.0, v3.1 (maybe), and v3.2 (maybe). All for free. I started out with v1.2 on my S1 boxes and saw the upgrades in functionality up through v3.2, and there were a lot.
The HMO software functionality was never promised as part of TiVo. It is a value added capability and has nothing to do with the primary functionality. You don't want it, don't get it. Oh, and parts of it work just fine over a phone line too.
Issue #3 - I suggest you talk to the FSF then. If TiVo were in violation of the GPL you can bet the FSF would be talking to them about it. As it is, TiVo's not in violation so the FSF isn't involved. Your interpretations of the GPL are incorrect.
Good thing... since this has been known since day 1 and is fairly obvious in their EULA.
I'd like to see it for myself, too. I'd like to know just what they're tracking
So go to the TiVo Forums, look in the Underground, and find the references to what TiVo is uploading. It's all done completely confidentially - the viewing information is sent as a separate log file, is not sent at all if you opt-out, and contains no personally identifying information (yeah, there's the TiVo service number that's inherent in the transaction, but TiVo has stated that it is not stored with the aggregate data. Individuals who have worked for TiVo have said the same thing too).
how the reports look for the ad agencies buying this stuff
Then I suggest that you either get a job at an ad agency, get a friend at one, or become one yourself... that's what they're selling you know. Giving it away for free defeats the purpose.
I wonder if TiVo includes any data like
No, but other geographic databases do. Any ad agency worth its fee will have a bunch of these and tie the data together appropriately.
Is there an opt-out feature?
Yes. As I recall, it's even in the EULA which you didn't even glance at.
Even taking into consideration the sheer magnitude of the universe and the number of planets within it, a very small percentage are Earth-like. Most are more like Jupiter, huge gas giants.
This is based on what? The planets we've detected thus far? Well, since we can only detect extrasolar planets that are as or more massive than Jupiter it's no wonder that they're all looking awfully big! I bet if you go to a Ford plant and look at what cars they make you'll only find Fords too. Doesn't mean that there are only Fords out there though.
We have no way of knowing that our solar system is typical (nor do we know that it's atypical), but if we were to use it as a basis point then you could say that 5/9's or more of the planets in the universe will be non-gas giants. Because of the 9 commonly recognized planets (no, don't go there) only 4 are gas giants. But that's about as much of a fair comparison as your statement is... the reality is we won't be able to make good guesses about extrasolar planetary systems until we have much, much better telescopes and other detection mechanisms.
Sure, we have models, and those models seem to indicate that our solar system is rare, but none of the models is completely accurate. And they're all based off of a single data point.
Life on Mars may not increase the likelihood of life being elsewhere in the Universe -- since life on both planets could have come from the same source (which is not necessarily Earth). But it does mean that life can exist on other planets, and that's a big step. A huge one.
Their monthly charge is too much for me. I don't like the idea of my $250 lifetime subscription going away when I want to get a new TiVO box or my own box dies.
It's a $300 lifetime sub now BTW. Went up in February.
And it doesn't go away when you want to get a new TiVo box. Look at eBay - units with lifetime are selling for $300 more than units without. It's a non-depreciating feature, at least so far. And it's a lot better than throwing $13/mo away with no way of getting the money back in the future.
It's also possible that TiVo will offer a transferance in the future -- in March they offered any S1 TiVo owner the option to transfer their service to an S2 TiVo at no cost. Yeah, it was a zero-sum game since you could still sell the S1 TiVo on eBay and get your lifetime sub money out of it, but it made the process easier. Did it with both my TiVos, and happy I did - HMO is a nice addon.
If I get an "80 hour TiVO," it's not going to have the 80 gig (or bigger) drive that I would get.
The 80 hour TiVo's have 80G drives in them. A small portion is reserved for the OS, but that'll be true for a roll-your-own too. Still ends up with 80 hours of recording space (in Basic). And you can still add another HD trivially - there's upgrade instructions all over the place. I upgraded both my S1 TiVo's, but haven't felt the need to do so for the S2's - we've never even come close to running out of space.
Shrug - it's up to you, and you seem to have made your mind up. But I have friends who wanted PVRs a couple months ago. One decided to roll his own using MythTV. One bought a TiVo. Guess which one still doesn't have a functioning system? And has spent far more than the other friend did (including lifetime subscription)?
Uh... go out and buy/rent a DVD for some movie that HBO is showing. Now watch the two - either interleaved or one after the other.
Note that the DVD version is far better quality, usually shown in the original aspect ratio (aka letterboxed), and has far, far better audio.
Some of this is improved by going to digital sat, but not entirely. All of this is (potentially) fixed by watching HD-HBO, but that's a whole different discussion.
Of course, if you have a 20" TV and are using the built in sound, well, I suppose it won't matter to you in the least.
you'd need a VIA EPIA with at least around an 800MHz chip on it
I think you'd be deeply, deeply disappointed in the performance with that chip.
You've also forgotten an IR receiver, keyboard, mouse (both wireless... right?), CD-ROM (unless you somehow planned to boot and install Linux over the network), and probably a few other items. Toss in another $100 or so.
You know you can buy a refurb 80 hour S2 TiVo for $250 right now. Or a brand new one for $350. Or go to eBay and get a S1 box for ~$150. Add $300 for lifetime service and suddenly you have a box with an intuitive user interface that just plain WORKS.
If you find fiddling around with things to make them work is enjoyable, and what you like to do in your spare time, then go for the build your own route. After all, getting there can be half the fun, and no doubt -- you can get more options that way. If you like doing other things in your spare time, want your wife/family/SO/children/random strangers to be able to use it then get a TiVo or Replay. Then you can spend all your free time doing whatever else you want to do (be it watching TV or something else) instead of trying to make something that's "nearly there" there.
And you'd hazard wrong on that Sky+ box. It's noticably inferior to both TiVo and Replay.
You also forgot the various cable box PVRs that are appearing, Microsoft's UltimateTV, Dish Network's Dishplayer (which is the most widely used PVR), and quite a few others that are actually available. Oh, and there's Toshiba's upcoming (ie - not available) PVR with a rewriteable DVD drive that uses TiVo software.
Thing is, TiVo is better software-wise than any of them. Replay has had ethernet longer, allows more broad show sharing, but it doesn't have the functionality or stability TiVo does. UltimateTV is third, Dishplayer a distant fourth, and the rest are barely capable of functioning.
They may not be the only two, but they're the only two you should bother considering.
That's not a very good indicator though... HL2 wasn't available in playable form, but it's due out in September. Sure, there's probably going to be slippage, but I'd be surprised if it's not available before next year's E3.
I agree, in premise, that the awards are absurd, but look at the industry. All of the "journalism" is absurd.
Actually allocate the addresses in a way that has some semblance of fairness to it.
Ok... so define "fair". Sure, China has 1.1B people. How many of them have a computer? How many of them even have access to one? Not to mention the little niggling detail of the Great Firewall of China, which means that nearly every system is firewalled and NAT'd anyway.
India is a somewhat better scenario really, with nearly as many people but (on average) a much higher technology level. As I recall they have fewer IP addresses than China too.
But if you do it based on number of systems potentially needing an IP then the US will still be high up on the list... probably #1. Certainly not 70% of the IPs, but far more than the population would otherwise indicate.
The real question isn't whether or not to reallocate the existing IP structure (large portions of which have already been reallocated, which is convienently ignored), but whether we should move to IPv6 or more aggressive use of NAT and similar technologies.
You don't need a phone line with TiVo -- if you buy a Series2 box (which is all you can get new) then you can connect a USB to ethernet dongle to it and use it for everything -- including the initial setup call. All you have to do is plug in the dongle and set the phone prefix to ",#401" (the pause key does commas).
Current units are still shipping with 3.x, so if you want to use a wireless network you're SOL until it self-updates to 4.0 (well, you can use a USB->ethernet dongle plus a wireless bridge).
Note, however, that the DirecTiVo's are not under TiVo's control, but DirecTV's. DirecTV has seen fit to disable the USB ports on all models, for no given reason. So none of the above applies if you have DirecTV and want to use a DirecTiVo (of course, if you have DirecTV you have to have a phone line anyway...)
You're more or less correct, if I read what you wrote correctly:)
But they're not in legal lala-land if so -- what they're saying is that some of their code was released by a 3rd party to the Linux kernel. They, as the copyright holder, did not authorize that release and, as such, the code is NOT under GPL.
Which would be true -- otherwise I could take all the Harry Potter books and release them under the FDL and suddenly Ms. Rowling and Scholastic would have lost their copyright! But that's not how it works - I'm not an authorized party and I don't own the copyright to those books. You can't change the license to something that you don't own!
I still think SCO is full of it, but what they've said is correct.
Of course, they proceeded to distribute the infringing code under the GPL after they knew it was illegal. That throws a monkey wrench into things -- but IANAL and don't know exactly what the legal implications of that is. I'd guess that, one way or another, they've violated the GPL, but I think the most you could get is damages that are triple the sales made during the known infringing period -- not much. And that's only if it's a registered copyright. Unregistered copyrights can only sue for cessation of subsequent infringement, and they've already stopped distributing the GPL code so they're already in compliance there.
Sticky, sticky, sticky.
Again, I think SCO is full of it, but it's increasingly looking like the courts are going to have to decide on this one. It's certainly not a good day for Linux -- this is the same kind of thing that caused *BSD pains in the early 90s.
because for most products ANY os is pure stupidity.
That's not really true... many embedded devices do run an OS, but it's not one you'll have ever heard of. These OS's are designed specifically for embedded use, and embedded use only -- they're probably not much more complicated than DOS (in fact, most are much simpler as far as interfaces go).
Sure, you can get away without an embedded OS for a lot of stuff, but if you want to do file management (for data recording purposes as an example) or need to deal with anything more than rudimentary I/O then you're much, much better off getting an OS up and running than rewriting all that crap yourself. Especially since for file management you probably want to be able to interface with a floppy disk (or more recently a flash card or USB dongle) that can then be read in a standard PC.
Most critical systems DO run an OS because of this. Part of a critical system is being able to figure out WTF was going on when it failed -- and an OS can provide a lot of services toward that goal.
The key being that all of these OS's have a memory footprint a fraction of the size of Linux... but have most of the features you'd need all the same.
Heck, my wife was an English major, but she's still a geek... we actually met through friends... in EQ. Yeah, it's weird, and I don't recommend losing your life to EQ for the slim chance of meeting someone, but it worked for us.
She recently bought a 802.11b router/nic for her laptop. I bought a new MB/PS/CPU/HD for an MP3 server.
Oh... and we had a dremel on our Wedding Registry. Heck, she wanted it even more than I did (although I gotta admit it's cool and useful - planning to cut a cat door into one of our doors this weekend using it).
She routinely buys stuff from Thinkgeek too... the last purchase was a "I (heart) My Geek" t-shirt for her:)
Oh, and your last statement couldn't be more true!
Yeah, I wouldn't touch that either... I haven't looked at the code at all, but from that snippet it looks more like someone coding C in C++ than anything else. That code snippet has no place in a proper C++ program - there's several other (better) ways to do it.
I knew very little C++ coming into this job -- and the head programmer knew that. Hardly a mastery of the language. Nor do I consider knowing the STL being a master - it's pretty freaking simple.
The other languages don't protect you as much as you seem to think they do. They have their foibles and dangers as well - and if you don't know about them then they can be exploited just as easily.
Let's face it, languages with security features are more suitable for servers.
Uh, exactly what security features are you looking for?
I'm assuming you're going to be using the STL... if you're not, well then I hope you're not planning on using any Perl modules or Python libraries either, because otherwise you're really comparing apples and oranges (not that you aren't already, but that's another discussion).
std::string and std::vector take care of most of the security concerns you might have -- presuming you use them properly of course. If you need to deal with pointers and std::auto_ptr isn't useful (which, in general, it's not) then use a smart pointer library -- I highly recommend Boost - I've used it's shared_ptr class and like it. In over a year of serious C++ development we've had exactly one memory related problem -- and that was from me misusing boost (and suspecting I was doing so during development but forgetting about it during testing).
The general concerns with C/C++ are buffer overruns and other memory stomps. If you use the right libraries it's not an issue in either (go look at vsftpd's string functions for an example of what I'm talking about in C). If you're writing insecure C++ code then it's most likely because you're ignoring significant language features (like the STL). It's not a language issue.
I'm sure the creationists will pitch a fit if chimps are reclassified.
Any purist creationist gets annoyed if you just say DNA... but they're easily discredited. The intelligent ones will simply shrug because it doesn't matter in the slightest as far as their faith/belief goes. The middle majority will be disquieted by it at the very least, which is probably true for how most people will feel regardless of their creationist/evolutionist/whatever leanings.
I wonder if there would be any legal ramifications regarding the rights of chimps compared to other animals.
Certainly various animal rights activists will use this as a rallying cry to stop experimentation on chimpanzees. Of course, you can make the counter argument that because they are the closest to us genetically they are also some of the best test subjects. Unless, of course, the aforesaid activist would like to volunteer for stage 1 drug testing... no? Didn't think so.
Re:Saw this on Google News a while back
on
OSI vs SCO
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They've publicly said that Linux will become their core OS.
Who is "they"?
One product manager said that, and he's nothing but a lacky. AIX is going nowhere (as much as I would like it to go into the toilet) and isn't going to be replaced by Linux in the short term. Nor are the various mainframe OS's. Linux is going to be an option for IBM as long as they feel it's viable, but that's it -- an option. And if IBM decides that Linux is too fraught with peril you'll see them pull back from it over a number of years and start pushing their own solutions again or maybe even a BSD solution (doubtful).
I think the OP is correct, and he stated it very succintly. It may be that IBM will decide that the cheaper route is to buy SCO out, but even $100M is a lot of lawyers' fees. And IBM may want to make a statement -- it all depends on cost. Ideology is not going to enter into it, and anyone thinking differently hasn't figured out the real world yet.
by then I was into differentials, so it was easier to do it on paper then plug it into the calculator
Probably started using a calculator in 10th or 11th grade - advanced algebra or whatever. I remember that I had a great calculator by the time I was taking AP Calculus -- it could do basic differentials and integrations. It was sloooow at it though, so I'd only use it as a backup check to my own work by hand -- by the time it was finished I would have done one or two more problems. Lost it sometime in college though.
And yes, I know HP and other scientific calculators could do far more, but this was a $20 calculator, not a $400 one.
Slashdot Mirror
I can sort of see the argument here, but it basically ruins the point of having a standard interface like DirectX
Shrug... welcome to reality. DirectX, OpenGL, etc. don't properly model the hardware in some cases leading to much worse performance than should be available.
It's not like saying 1+1 = 3. It's more like saying what's 7+7+7+7+7+7? Well, it's the same as 7*6, but guess which one is faster to calculate?
And it's not quite like that either, I know, because the bit that FutureMark is tentatively agreeing with is Nvidia changing the shader precision, which can lead to a loss of quality (so maybe it is 1+1 = 1.999999999998).
ATI did pretty much the same thing with their drivers, leading to a much slimmer 1.9% improvement. Of course, it's unclear how much of Nvidia's improvement was from the shader changes (which FM is considering) versus from the other modifications they made (like clipping issues). The latter points are not in question by FM - they are cheating.
Then you go to your Win2k server and setup a new port... then assign drivers. This is also detailed in the manual that comes with the card.
I have the Hawking PS12U - the HP JetDirect series was inadequate since it lacked USB ports and was about 3x more expensive for less functionality. The documentation details how to set things up, but it's rather deeply wrong on how to go about doing so. The Add Port functionality isn't discussed, and it's in different places in Win98, Win2k, and XP.
How would you know? Your knowledge of Windows is still stuck in the Win98 era. THAT WAS FIVE YEARS AGO!?
I'm so happy you don't work for my company. I pity whoever you do work for. We have a multitude of PCs at home... some run Win98SE, some run Win XP, some run Linux. The fact that I have boxes running 98 does not mean my "knowledge of Windows" is stuck in that era. I simply don't see the point in dropping a hundred bucks or so everytime MS puts out a new version of Windows. Win98SE is quite stable and fast if you know what you're doing, buy good hardware, and configure things right.
Not to mention I was talking about programming at that point. And the APIs involved haven't changed significantly between Win98 and XP.
It is more complicated than that, and you know it.
Even under Windows it's not that simple... ok, sure, for the dead simple cases it is, and it's not much harder under *nix with CUPS (AFAIK CUPS doesn't autodetect and autoconfigure, but I haven't hooked up a USB printer to my Linux box to check).
How do you setup a network printer under Windows? No, not a shared printer... one that sits on the network with maybe a little interface box and that's it. It sure as hell wasn't as easy as it should be, and even when you figure it out it doesn't always work. My HP Deskjet will use IPP just fine, from both Win98SE (which was an utter bitch to get working, since MS claims IPP support for Win98SE and then proceeds to avoid actually making it available) and XP (which was confusing to setup properly since the Add Port button is deeply obfusicated). My Canon photoprinter absolutely, positively refuses to play nice with IPP though. So even under Windows it is more complicated than that.
And adding print support in Windows isn't as simple as saying print(mystuff); -- proper printing support is quite a bit more complex. Dunno if CUPS is more or less complex than Win32 services, but I suspect it's a tie.
This isn't a book for average users, it's a book for admins. There are corallarys in every system, be it Windows, Mac (pre OS-X), *nix, mainframe, or whatever... the simple stuff should be simple. The complex stuff, sadly, remains overly complex.
Issue #1 - sorry, but if you think that one part of a megacorp can't forget about another part of a megacorp, it just means you've never worked for a company with more than 100 people (if you have, then please tell me exactly what each and every one of those people are doing right now... oh, you don't know? So maybe something you do could negatively affect one of them, without either of you knowing about it... funny that).
I've never seen a season pass auto-deleted, nor have I read about it on the TiVo forums. Could happen, but it'd be a bug. And a rare one at that.
Oh, as a hint - the TiVo Customer Support people are generally clueless, as is most CS. Use the TiVo Community boards. You get much better help.
Issue #2 - oh, so you didn't get any other software versions for free? If you're a current subscriber with a Series2 system then you just recently got v4.0 of the software for free. Older customers have gotten v1.1, v1.2, v1.3, v2.0, v2.5, v3.0, v3.1 (maybe), and v3.2 (maybe). All for free. I started out with v1.2 on my S1 boxes and saw the upgrades in functionality up through v3.2, and there were a lot.
The HMO software functionality was never promised as part of TiVo. It is a value added capability and has nothing to do with the primary functionality. You don't want it, don't get it. Oh, and parts of it work just fine over a phone line too.
Issue #3 - I suggest you talk to the FSF then. If TiVo were in violation of the GPL you can bet the FSF would be talking to them about it. As it is, TiVo's not in violation so the FSF isn't involved. Your interpretations of the GPL are incorrect.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not.
Good thing... since this has been known since day 1 and is fairly obvious in their EULA.
I'd like to see it for myself, too. I'd like to know just what they're tracking
So go to the TiVo Forums, look in the Underground, and find the references to what TiVo is uploading. It's all done completely confidentially - the viewing information is sent as a separate log file, is not sent at all if you opt-out, and contains no personally identifying information (yeah, there's the TiVo service number that's inherent in the transaction, but TiVo has stated that it is not stored with the aggregate data. Individuals who have worked for TiVo have said the same thing too).
how the reports look for the ad agencies buying this stuff
Then I suggest that you either get a job at an ad agency, get a friend at one, or become one yourself... that's what they're selling you know. Giving it away for free defeats the purpose.
I wonder if TiVo includes any data like
No, but other geographic databases do. Any ad agency worth its fee will have a bunch of these and tie the data together appropriately.
Is there an opt-out feature?
Yes. As I recall, it's even in the EULA which you didn't even glance at.
Even taking into consideration the sheer magnitude of the universe and the number of planets within it, a very small percentage are Earth-like. Most are more like Jupiter, huge gas giants.
This is based on what? The planets we've detected thus far? Well, since we can only detect extrasolar planets that are as or more massive than Jupiter it's no wonder that they're all looking awfully big! I bet if you go to a Ford plant and look at what cars they make you'll only find Fords too. Doesn't mean that there are only Fords out there though.
We have no way of knowing that our solar system is typical (nor do we know that it's atypical), but if we were to use it as a basis point then you could say that 5/9's or more of the planets in the universe will be non-gas giants. Because of the 9 commonly recognized planets (no, don't go there) only 4 are gas giants. But that's about as much of a fair comparison as your statement is... the reality is we won't be able to make good guesses about extrasolar planetary systems until we have much, much better telescopes and other detection mechanisms.
Sure, we have models, and those models seem to indicate that our solar system is rare, but none of the models is completely accurate. And they're all based off of a single data point.
Life on Mars may not increase the likelihood of life being elsewhere in the Universe -- since life on both planets could have come from the same source (which is not necessarily Earth). But it does mean that life can exist on other planets, and that's a big step. A huge one.
Directly from TiVo - I don't have the link, but check out www.tivocommunity.com -- TiVoPony posted about it around a week ago. Limited availability.
Their monthly charge is too much for me. I don't like the idea of my $250 lifetime subscription going away when I want to get a new TiVO box or my own box dies.
It's a $300 lifetime sub now BTW. Went up in February.
And it doesn't go away when you want to get a new TiVo box. Look at eBay - units with lifetime are selling for $300 more than units without. It's a non-depreciating feature, at least so far. And it's a lot better than throwing $13/mo away with no way of getting the money back in the future.
It's also possible that TiVo will offer a transferance in the future -- in March they offered any S1 TiVo owner the option to transfer their service to an S2 TiVo at no cost. Yeah, it was a zero-sum game since you could still sell the S1 TiVo on eBay and get your lifetime sub money out of it, but it made the process easier. Did it with both my TiVos, and happy I did - HMO is a nice addon.
If I get an "80 hour TiVO," it's not going to have the 80 gig (or bigger) drive that I would get.
The 80 hour TiVo's have 80G drives in them. A small portion is reserved for the OS, but that'll be true for a roll-your-own too. Still ends up with 80 hours of recording space (in Basic). And you can still add another HD trivially - there's upgrade instructions all over the place. I upgraded both my S1 TiVo's, but haven't felt the need to do so for the S2's - we've never even come close to running out of space.
Shrug - it's up to you, and you seem to have made your mind up. But I have friends who wanted PVRs a couple months ago. One decided to roll his own using MythTV. One bought a TiVo. Guess which one still doesn't have a functioning system? And has spent far more than the other friend did (including lifetime subscription)?
Getting movies from HBO
Uh... go out and buy/rent a DVD for some movie that HBO is showing. Now watch the two - either interleaved or one after the other.
Note that the DVD version is far better quality, usually shown in the original aspect ratio (aka letterboxed), and has far, far better audio.
Some of this is improved by going to digital sat, but not entirely. All of this is (potentially) fixed by watching HD-HBO, but that's a whole different discussion.
Of course, if you have a 20" TV and are using the built in sound, well, I suppose it won't matter to you in the least.
you'd need a VIA EPIA with at least around an 800MHz chip on it
I think you'd be deeply, deeply disappointed in the performance with that chip.
You've also forgotten an IR receiver, keyboard, mouse (both wireless... right?), CD-ROM (unless you somehow planned to boot and install Linux over the network), and probably a few other items. Toss in another $100 or so.
You know you can buy a refurb 80 hour S2 TiVo for $250 right now. Or a brand new one for $350. Or go to eBay and get a S1 box for ~$150. Add $300 for lifetime service and suddenly you have a box with an intuitive user interface that just plain WORKS.
If you find fiddling around with things to make them work is enjoyable, and what you like to do in your spare time, then go for the build your own route. After all, getting there can be half the fun, and no doubt -- you can get more options that way. If you like doing other things in your spare time, want your wife/family/SO/children/random strangers to be able to use it then get a TiVo or Replay. Then you can spend all your free time doing whatever else you want to do (be it watching TV or something else) instead of trying to make something that's "nearly there" there.
It's not available!
And you'd hazard wrong on that Sky+ box. It's noticably inferior to both TiVo and Replay.
You also forgot the various cable box PVRs that are appearing, Microsoft's UltimateTV, Dish Network's Dishplayer (which is the most widely used PVR), and quite a few others that are actually available. Oh, and there's Toshiba's upcoming (ie - not available) PVR with a rewriteable DVD drive that uses TiVo software.
Thing is, TiVo is better software-wise than any of them. Replay has had ethernet longer, allows more broad show sharing, but it doesn't have the functionality or stability TiVo does. UltimateTV is third, Dishplayer a distant fourth, and the rest are barely capable of functioning.
They may not be the only two, but they're the only two you should bother considering.
That's not a very good indicator though... HL2 wasn't available in playable form, but it's due out in September. Sure, there's probably going to be slippage, but I'd be surprised if it's not available before next year's E3.
I agree, in premise, that the awards are absurd, but look at the industry. All of the "journalism" is absurd.
Actually allocate the addresses in a way that has some semblance of fairness to it.
Ok... so define "fair". Sure, China has 1.1B people. How many of them have a computer? How many of them even have access to one? Not to mention the little niggling detail of the Great Firewall of China, which means that nearly every system is firewalled and NAT'd anyway.
India is a somewhat better scenario really, with nearly as many people but (on average) a much higher technology level. As I recall they have fewer IP addresses than China too.
But if you do it based on number of systems potentially needing an IP then the US will still be high up on the list... probably #1. Certainly not 70% of the IPs, but far more than the population would otherwise indicate.
The real question isn't whether or not to reallocate the existing IP structure (large portions of which have already been reallocated, which is convienently ignored), but whether we should move to IPv6 or more aggressive use of NAT and similar technologies.
You don't need a phone line with TiVo -- if you buy a Series2 box (which is all you can get new) then you can connect a USB to ethernet dongle to it and use it for everything -- including the initial setup call. All you have to do is plug in the dongle and set the phone prefix to ",#401" (the pause key does commas).
Current units are still shipping with 3.x, so if you want to use a wireless network you're SOL until it self-updates to 4.0 (well, you can use a USB->ethernet dongle plus a wireless bridge).
Note, however, that the DirecTiVo's are not under TiVo's control, but DirecTV's. DirecTV has seen fit to disable the USB ports on all models, for no given reason. So none of the above applies if you have DirecTV and want to use a DirecTiVo (of course, if you have DirecTV you have to have a phone line anyway...)
Happen to have plans/suggestions for the cat tree? I'm looking at building one sometime... just keep finding other things to do instead.
The only plan I've seen is one from PETA... it's ok, but nothing special.
You're more or less correct, if I read what you wrote correctly :)
But they're not in legal lala-land if so -- what they're saying is that some of their code was released by a 3rd party to the Linux kernel. They, as the copyright holder, did not authorize that release and, as such, the code is NOT under GPL.
Which would be true -- otherwise I could take all the Harry Potter books and release them under the FDL and suddenly Ms. Rowling and Scholastic would have lost their copyright! But that's not how it works - I'm not an authorized party and I don't own the copyright to those books. You can't change the license to something that you don't own!
I still think SCO is full of it, but what they've said is correct.
Of course, they proceeded to distribute the infringing code under the GPL after they knew it was illegal. That throws a monkey wrench into things -- but IANAL and don't know exactly what the legal implications of that is. I'd guess that, one way or another, they've violated the GPL, but I think the most you could get is damages that are triple the sales made during the known infringing period -- not much. And that's only if it's a registered copyright. Unregistered copyrights can only sue for cessation of subsequent infringement, and they've already stopped distributing the GPL code so they're already in compliance there.
Sticky, sticky, sticky.
Again, I think SCO is full of it, but it's increasingly looking like the courts are going to have to decide on this one. It's certainly not a good day for Linux -- this is the same kind of thing that caused *BSD pains in the early 90s.
because for most products ANY os is pure stupidity.
That's not really true... many embedded devices do run an OS, but it's not one you'll have ever heard of. These OS's are designed specifically for embedded use, and embedded use only -- they're probably not much more complicated than DOS (in fact, most are much simpler as far as interfaces go).
Sure, you can get away without an embedded OS for a lot of stuff, but if you want to do file management (for data recording purposes as an example) or need to deal with anything more than rudimentary I/O then you're much, much better off getting an OS up and running than rewriting all that crap yourself. Especially since for file management you probably want to be able to interface with a floppy disk (or more recently a flash card or USB dongle) that can then be read in a standard PC.
Most critical systems DO run an OS because of this. Part of a critical system is being able to figure out WTF was going on when it failed -- and an OS can provide a lot of services toward that goal.
The key being that all of these OS's have a memory footprint a fraction of the size of Linux... but have most of the features you'd need all the same.
Heck, my wife was an English major, but she's still a geek... we actually met through friends... in EQ. Yeah, it's weird, and I don't recommend losing your life to EQ for the slim chance of meeting someone, but it worked for us.
:)
She recently bought a 802.11b router/nic for her laptop. I bought a new MB/PS/CPU/HD for an MP3 server.
Oh... and we had a dremel on our Wedding Registry. Heck, she wanted it even more than I did (although I gotta admit it's cool and useful - planning to cut a cat door into one of our doors this weekend using it).
She routinely buys stuff from Thinkgeek too... the last purchase was a "I (heart) My Geek" t-shirt for her
Oh, and your last statement couldn't be more true!
Yeah, I wouldn't touch that either... I haven't looked at the code at all, but from that snippet it looks more like someone coding C in C++ than anything else. That code snippet has no place in a proper C++ program - there's several other (better) ways to do it.
I knew very little C++ coming into this job -- and the head programmer knew that. Hardly a mastery of the language. Nor do I consider knowing the STL being a master - it's pretty freaking simple.
The other languages don't protect you as much as you seem to think they do. They have their foibles and dangers as well - and if you don't know about them then they can be exploited just as easily.
Let's face it, languages with security features are more suitable for servers.
Uh, exactly what security features are you looking for?
I'm assuming you're going to be using the STL... if you're not, well then I hope you're not planning on using any Perl modules or Python libraries either, because otherwise you're really comparing apples and oranges (not that you aren't already, but that's another discussion).
std::string and std::vector take care of most of the security concerns you might have -- presuming you use them properly of course. If you need to deal with pointers and std::auto_ptr isn't useful (which, in general, it's not) then use a smart pointer library -- I highly recommend Boost - I've used it's shared_ptr class and like it. In over a year of serious C++ development we've had exactly one memory related problem -- and that was from me misusing boost (and suspecting I was doing so during development but forgetting about it during testing).
The general concerns with C/C++ are buffer overruns and other memory stomps. If you use the right libraries it's not an issue in either (go look at vsftpd's string functions for an example of what I'm talking about in C). If you're writing insecure C++ code then it's most likely because you're ignoring significant language features (like the STL). It's not a language issue.
Katie Pulls Candy On Friday. Good Stuff.
Hardly the only thing I remember from Biology, but one of the few mnemonic's I remember for anything.
I'm sure the creationists will pitch a fit if chimps are reclassified.
Any purist creationist gets annoyed if you just say DNA... but they're easily discredited. The intelligent ones will simply shrug because it doesn't matter in the slightest as far as their faith/belief goes. The middle majority will be disquieted by it at the very least, which is probably true for how most people will feel regardless of their creationist/evolutionist/whatever leanings.
I wonder if there would be any legal ramifications regarding the rights of chimps compared to other animals.
Certainly various animal rights activists will use this as a rallying cry to stop experimentation on chimpanzees. Of course, you can make the counter argument that because they are the closest to us genetically they are also some of the best test subjects. Unless, of course, the aforesaid activist would like to volunteer for stage 1 drug testing... no? Didn't think so.
They've publicly said that Linux will become their core OS.
Who is "they"?
One product manager said that, and he's nothing but a lacky. AIX is going nowhere (as much as I would like it to go into the toilet) and isn't going to be replaced by Linux in the short term. Nor are the various mainframe OS's. Linux is going to be an option for IBM as long as they feel it's viable, but that's it -- an option. And if IBM decides that Linux is too fraught with peril you'll see them pull back from it over a number of years and start pushing their own solutions again or maybe even a BSD solution (doubtful).
I think the OP is correct, and he stated it very succintly. It may be that IBM will decide that the cheaper route is to buy SCO out, but even $100M is a lot of lawyers' fees. And IBM may want to make a statement -- it all depends on cost. Ideology is not going to enter into it, and anyone thinking differently hasn't figured out the real world yet.
by then I was into differentials, so it was easier to do it on paper then plug it into the calculator
Probably started using a calculator in 10th or 11th grade - advanced algebra or whatever. I remember that I had a great calculator by the time I was taking AP Calculus -- it could do basic differentials and integrations. It was sloooow at it though, so I'd only use it as a backup check to my own work by hand -- by the time it was finished I would have done one or two more problems. Lost it sometime in college though.
And yes, I know HP and other scientific calculators could do far more, but this was a $20 calculator, not a $400 one.