Interesting info. I was assuming it wouldn't be too hard to map ClickTV data to whatever format TiVo expects. I still think it shouldn't be *that* hard. ClickTV has actors, directors, genre, year, as well as episode title, a rerun flag, etc.
My main thing isn't trying to avoid paying for the service. Afterall, it's not that expensive, $200 or so for a lifetime subscription? The main problem is that I simply can't get the service without paying long distance charges, and those could *really* stack up quickly. I've considered Replay but to me the features set of TiVo far outweighs it. Good points though. I guess the service is a lot more than just making sure it gets The Simpsons correctly.
I live in Canada where you can't buy a TiVo, and even if you could you couldn't get the service. I really love the TiVo concept -- never searching for a blank tape when you want to record something, never waiting around to find the start of a show. And that doesn't even mention what the service gets you -- automatic recording of your favourite shows without having to even know when they're on.
But unfortunately I can't buy a TiVo or get the service here. But maybe soon that won't matter. I can easily buy one in the US and bring it over. I'm pretty sure you can use it as a fancy VCR even if you don't have the service. I've considered doing this already. The main sticking point is the service.
Last time I talked to the TiVo rep who frequents all the discussion groups he said they had no plans to move into Canada. If they did I'd worry that a TiVo I bought in the US and brought over wouldn't work with the Canadian service once they introduce it here, but as it stands I guess that's not an issue.
So I might just go get one of these babies soon. But I wonder -- if you can get a BASH prompt on these things, modify the hard drive, and do everything else these guys currently do, how far are we from not needing the service? Ideally I'd like to exchange the modem in the box for an Ethernet card, add the TiVo to my home LAN, and let it use ClickTV for listings.
Now am I dreaming? Anybody think this is easy? Anybody think it's impossible?
I believe that the correct way of phrasing this is that "IBM supplies a Linux Server running on mainframe hardware, pricing starts at $125,000 but drops to $45 in high volumes"
Actually I noticed that too. And it's not the modems themselves that have private IPs, it's 3 or 4 hops down the line. I noticed problems when I tried to give my own local domain 10.X addresses and did a traceroute. What can be done about this?
Are the Netwinders hideously overpriced? I looked around and couldn't find anything for under $1000 US. Is it just that form factor? Am I missing something?
Kuro5hin.org is now having a discussion on the death of copyright, started because of a discussion on the Freenet mailing list. What if Freenet really took off and copyright became unenforcable? What would happen to artists?
Microsoft will of course be the one to decide who's qualified right? And they'll do it by allowing only MCSE's or whatever the highest "microsoft indoctrination degree" is.
Actually, I think the judge is on to most of MS's trickery and will probably have some independant 3rd party qualify people.
Who needs population control if we can just move new people to Mars? But then we run out of room there, oops, now what? The problem's just bigger.
We don't think saving the earth's environment is as important anymore because hey, we'll just move to mars and leave our trashed planet behind
We don't worry about blowing up the planet because hey, there's always Mars
Sure nothing may currently live there, by our current definition of life, but what about what we can learn from a planet we haven't altered? What if our idea of what is "alive" changes?
If we terraform it who will live there? It could be a divisive thing. For example, either the home for first class citizens who can afford the trip, or for criminals who get sent there. Either way it provides a means of avoiding a problem instead of solving it.
There are many potential problems, sure some of these are exaggerated but just because we can do it doesn't mean we should.
And the artists? And the artists formerly known as children? And the children who claim that their parents are actually famous artists and not the boring people who people think they are? And poor kid rock!!
Re:Next Generation - full speech recognition in a
on
Gnome 1.2.0 Released
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· Score: 2
I think that speech integration may go a long way to speeding up the interaction with the computer. For example, I want an application loaded, say Emacs (what else could I need?:-) ) and I simply ask for it to be loaded. I want to see the time, I ask for it and the computer tells me - this could be either spoken to me or shown on screen. I want to bold text while editing, I simply say "Bold"...
And then the guy in the cubicle next to you freaks out starts screaming "@#$@ Biff! Shut up! If you want it bold hit Control-B! Do you realize how annoying your voice is? How hard do you think it is for me to listen to you talking at your computer for 8 hours a day!!! And about that letter you dictated to your doctor yesterday, yes of course you should have that rash looked at! No, it's not normal for ones privates to ooze green pus, and no, there is no cure for chronic anal leakage!"
This guy is working in Word 97. Maybe he upgraded because he wanted new features, maybe he was forced to upgrade whatever. Now he works in Word, wants to save a file, the native format is now Word 97, and being Microsoft they make sure that Word 97 files are not backwards compatible with Word 95. You can "save as Word 95" but that actually converts it to Word 95. Any time you convert something it approximates how to do the thing you want in the new format. If you've spent lots of time positioning things, and making it look good, it will now most likely look like crap.
The AskSlashdot question was "Can XML Replace Proprietary Document Formats?", the problem with Word was the reason for the question. But hey, if Word works fine for you, feel free to keep on using it, dumbass.
I've heard an unverified rumour of a prank like this. Unfortunately this didn't go nearly as well. Guys from the all-male dorm called Leonard at my University (Queen's) snuck a cow high up into an all girl's dorm McNeill.
Unfortunately getting the cow out wasn't as easy. The halls and stairways were very narrow so the cow couldn't be turned around. The cow would not back down the stairs, and there was no other way to get it out. So unfortunately the cow had to be killed and butchered inside the dorm and brought down in pieces.
Oh well, most of the other pranks worked much better.
Maybe it's that this feels like weasely self-promotion. Just because nobody is keeping the profits from the book doesn't mean nobody is getting anything out of it. Slashdot, Andover, Katz and Cdr Taco's girlfriend all get good amounts of publicity from the book.
It also makes me uneasy because the people whose comments are used are not getting anything out of it either. Basically their comments were grabbed, jammed together, edited, and put in a book which someone then sold for indirect financial gains.
I know comedians get pretty pissed when someone "steals their bit" and uses it without giving them credit. Isn't this the same sort of thing?
Here on the Slashdot site itself, Andover makes money off people's comments indirectly. If an interesting story / comment gets posted people look at it and some might click on a banner ad nearby and so Andover makes money. But the poster and the general community also benefit. That post becomes part of a discussion. The poster can read people's responses and understand their advice, their suggestions, their point-of-view.
In dead tree format, the people who made that book possible get nothing out of it. Their stories are taken and given to the world. The world may benefit from it somehow, but what does the poster get?
The bottom of the page says "Comments are owned by the Poster." Does that only apply when they're being sued for what someone said? It seems like they shouldn't be able to have it both ways. Either the comments are ours and all you do is display them, or the comments are yours and you can use them as you see fit, but you have to take responsibility for everything said here.
Sorry if this rambles a bit, but I really am bothered by this. And I really don't know why. If my comments were used and they entertained, helped, or taught someone something that's great. But aren't they my comments? Shouldn't I have some say if they're going to be used? Shouldn't I have known that this was being planned?
Btw, the "preview" seems to be busted. When I previewed this comment it stripped all the tags from the text box.
Re:Why we will see many exercised options soon
on
Microsoft Loses
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· Score: 1
Hey will, learn to close your tags, Will ya?
Microsoft stock has lost 15% today, 25% since the high earlier this year. That means anyone granted options so far this year most likely has $100 options on a $90 day. Your example assumes that the stock will climb back to $120, but I wonder why. Generally a company facing punishment by the government for illegal business practices is not in a "growth" situation.
Re:Is this really a good thing?
on
Microsoft Loses
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· Score: 2
Nah, Microsoft should only split into two parts:
Microsoft Software
Microsoft Legal
The first half can take care of coding OSes, designing keyboards, etc. The second half can take care of drafting OEM agreements, shrink-wrap licenses, and suing whoever pisses them off.
Yeah, what about employee options?
on
Microsoft Loses
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· Score: 2
The issue of employee stock options is on my mind too. Let's face it, most Microsoft employees are there for the money. Heck, I wouldn't be at my job if it weren't for the money, but I believe in my company and I'd stick around through a rough patch if one came around. But Microsoft doesn't strike me as a company that inspires rabid loyalty among its employees -- it has its defenders, but most tech people who defend it seem to have a financial stake in defending it.
Microsoft employees who were hired recently now have stock options that are essentially worthless -- they have the option to buy at a higher price than the stock is currently trading at. If the price keeps dropping through the next phase and through appeals then Microsoft can no longer woo or retain employees with options.
So does this mean that Microsoft will start losing employees? Will they have to start paying higher wages? 1/3 of Microsoft shares are owned by employees, that means Microsoft employees as a group lost more than 25 billion dollars today!
So here I was, at home with a cold, watching and cheering as I watched the CNN coverage of the findings of Law. Pretty good coverage I thought, I was happy they hadn't broken for a commercial yet.
So finally they broke to commercial. First ad: NASDAQ -- you know, their series of ads saying "where do you find companies like this? Nasdaq, the stock market for the next hundred years" Their featured company: Microsoft
I'm not sure if my throat hurts more from the cold, from the cheering or from the laughter.
I'd like to make this comment a place for people to put their favourite comments from the ruling, so reply to it with your faves. Mine so far are:
Microsoft's actions to counter the Java threat went far beyond the development of an attractive alternative to Sun's implementation of the technology. Specifically, Microsoft successfully pressured Intel, which was dependent in many ways on Microsoft's good graces, to abstain from aiding in Sun's and Netscape's Java development work.
and...
Microsoft's tactics induced many Java developers to write their applications using Microsoft's developer tools and to refrain from distributing Sun-compliant JVMs to Windows users. This stratagem has effectively resulted in fewer applications that are easily portable.
and especially...
Viewing Microsoft's conduct as a whole also reinforces the conviction that it was predacious. Microsoft paid vast sums of money, and renounced many millions more in lost revenue every year, in order to induce firms to take actions that would help enhance Internet Explorer's share of browser usage at Navigator's expense.
You guys might want to point out that it's presented by Andover.Net and VA Linux, who are the owners of Slashdot. I know, in this case it's something they're sponsoring, not something they're trying to promote and make money from -- but now that Slashdot is sponsored by the big boys, you guys should start putting a disclosure statement in things involving Slashdot ownership.
Btw, for those of you like me who have no hope of making it on such short notice, I saw this on the site:
The Festival is Distributed. If you can't physically make it to the Festival, connect to the website and watch the happenings. Or, get your local Net cafe to join up and throw their own fling. All they have to do is let us know and they're in. It would be kinda cool if geeks from all over this little old world of ours could take a couple days off to celebrate. What the hell!
It's mostly because we are killing ourselves trying to get our products out in the US. BSkyB made us an offer we couldn't refuse, but for the most part we are trying to just keep up.
Yep, although I'm paraphrasing. I'm going by my very poor memory here, but it was the TiVo webmaster, Richard Bulwinkle(?) in a TiVo newsgroup. You should still be able to find my post and his in newsgroup archives. Look for ones with "Canada" in the title from about 3 weeks ago.
First they insult us Canucks by including the offensive "Blame Canada" in the oscars, then they refuse to sell TiVo here, what next, steal our top comedians and pass them off as Americans??
Ok, so I'm just jealous. I've looked at both ReplayTV and TiVo and want TiVo. It seems to have a slightly better feature set, and it runs Linux. Now I'm not saying that's a reason because I'm a rabid Linux fan, but that makes it much more likely that eventually:
Someone will be able to hack it, and so TiVO users might be able to customize it and get it to do all the things it doesn't currently do
TiVO may give away more of the source or open up more of the system
The Linux community will benefit from having Linux used in this interesting way, GPLed changes already exist, etc.
But I can't get TiVO here!!. At first the reasons TiVO gave why they weren't selling the units in Canada was the lack of available TV schedule information here and that some encryption built into the system made the things illegal to export. None of these reasons really seemed to hold up, so I recently asked again. Last I've heard they can't expand into new markets because they're having enough trouble keeping up with demand in current markets. Argh!
The good news is that Sony is apparently coming out with their own TiVO unit soon (April was the last date I've heard), which is supposed to be far cheaper than the current Philips TiVO units. This price competition should make it easier to get any of these units (ReplayTV or TiVO) and should drop the prices for all PTV products.
Anyhow, a good website for information on ReplayTV and TiVo is AV Science Forum (and yeah the flash intro sucks).
Anyhow, any other Canadians out there, eh? Do you want your TiVo, eh? Any ideas how we can get it, eh? Any rumours on when it'll arrive, eh?
Ottawa huh? I'm in Ottawa too and have been drooling over TiVO for a while. ReplayTV sounds good, just not quite as good. Unfortunately you can't get TiVO in Canada right now. Can you get ReplayTV in Canada? If so, where and for how much?
Ok, that's for redistributing the original content -- what about taking it, reducing the quality and size, putting it on a CDR and selling it for $4. That's a legitimate worry of the movie people.
I'm currently doing a web site that uses some really big nasty SQL queries. I'm talking about nasty ones using at least 10 left joins, and using some pretty complex "WHERE" clauses.
Recently we hit a bug in MySQL that made the server hang. It turns out this bug had been found by other people and had been fixed in newer releases of the code. One problem down... but I think now we've hit another bug and this is in the newest release.
Based on the complexity of the design of my database, I have the impression that I'm seeing bugs that most other users don't see. But I am making sure to stay well within the stated limits of MySQL.
So my questions are:
Do other people use really big nasty queries with multiple left-joins or am I just a freak who should break things down more?
Is there any place to report MySQL bugs that only seem to pop up in PHP scripts?
How many of the MySQL limits are theoretical, and how many are tested / bug-free limits?
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting info. I was assuming it wouldn't be too hard to map ClickTV data to whatever format TiVo expects. I still think it shouldn't be *that* hard. ClickTV has actors, directors, genre, year, as well as episode title, a rerun flag, etc.
My main thing isn't trying to avoid paying for the service. Afterall, it's not that expensive, $200 or so for a lifetime subscription? The main problem is that I simply can't get the service without paying long distance charges, and those could *really* stack up quickly. I've considered Replay but to me the features set of TiVo far outweighs it. Good points though. I guess the service is a lot more than just making sure it gets The Simpsons correctly.
I live in Canada where you can't buy a TiVo, and even if you could you couldn't get the service. I really love the TiVo concept -- never searching for a blank tape when you want to record something, never waiting around to find the start of a show. And that doesn't even mention what the service gets you -- automatic recording of your favourite shows without having to even know when they're on.
But unfortunately I can't buy a TiVo or get the service here. But maybe soon that won't matter. I can easily buy one in the US and bring it over. I'm pretty sure you can use it as a fancy VCR even if you don't have the service. I've considered doing this already. The main sticking point is the service.
Last time I talked to the TiVo rep who frequents all the discussion groups he said they had no plans to move into Canada. If they did I'd worry that a TiVo I bought in the US and brought over wouldn't work with the Canadian service once they introduce it here, but as it stands I guess that's not an issue.
So I might just go get one of these babies soon. But I wonder -- if you can get a BASH prompt on these things, modify the hard drive, and do everything else these guys currently do, how far are we from not needing the service? Ideally I'd like to exchange the modem in the box for an Ethernet card, add the TiVo to my home LAN, and let it use ClickTV for listings.
Now am I dreaming? Anybody think this is easy? Anybody think it's impossible?
I believe that the correct way of phrasing this is that "IBM supplies a Linux Server running on mainframe hardware, pricing starts at $125,000 but drops to $45 in high volumes"
Actually I noticed that too. And it's not the modems themselves that have private IPs, it's 3 or 4 hops down the line. I noticed problems when I tried to give my own local domain 10.X addresses and did a traceroute. What can be done about this?
Are the Netwinders hideously overpriced? I looked around and couldn't find anything for under $1000 US. Is it just that form factor? Am I missing something?
Kuro5hin.org is now having a discussion on the death of copyright, started because of a discussion on the Freenet mailing list. What if Freenet really took off and copyright became unenforcable? What would happen to artists?
Microsoft will of course be the one to decide who's qualified right? And they'll do it by allowing only MCSE's or whatever the highest "microsoft indoctrination degree" is.
Actually, I think the judge is on to most of MS's trickery and will probably have some independant 3rd party qualify people.
What's wrong with it? Potentially lots of things:
There are many potential problems, sure some of these are exaggerated but just because we can do it doesn't mean we should.
And the artists? And the artists formerly known as children? And the children who claim that their parents are actually famous artists and not the boring people who people think they are? And poor kid rock!!
And then the guy in the cubicle next to you freaks out starts screaming "@#$@ Biff! Shut up! If you want it bold hit Control-B! Do you realize how annoying your voice is? How hard do you think it is for me to listen to you talking at your computer for 8 hours a day!!! And about that letter you dictated to your doctor yesterday, yes of course you should have that rash looked at! No, it's not normal for ones privates to ooze green pus, and no, there is no cure for chronic anal leakage!"
Now how did this get moderated up??
This guy is working in Word 97. Maybe he upgraded because he wanted new features, maybe he was forced to upgrade whatever. Now he works in Word, wants to save a file, the native format is now Word 97, and being Microsoft they make sure that Word 97 files are not backwards compatible with Word 95. You can "save as Word 95" but that actually converts it to Word 95. Any time you convert something it approximates how to do the thing you want in the new format. If you've spent lots of time positioning things, and making it look good, it will now most likely look like crap.
The AskSlashdot question was "Can XML Replace Proprietary Document Formats?", the problem with Word was the reason for the question. But hey, if Word works fine for you, feel free to keep on using it, dumbass.
I've heard an unverified rumour of a prank like this. Unfortunately this didn't go nearly as well. Guys from the all-male dorm called Leonard at my University (Queen's) snuck a cow high up into an all girl's dorm McNeill.
Unfortunately getting the cow out wasn't as easy. The halls and stairways were very narrow so the cow couldn't be turned around. The cow would not back down the stairs, and there was no other way to get it out. So unfortunately the cow had to be killed and butchered inside the dorm and brought down in pieces.
Oh well, most of the other pranks worked much better.
Maybe it's that this feels like weasely self-promotion. Just because nobody is keeping the profits from the book doesn't mean nobody is getting anything out of it. Slashdot, Andover, Katz and Cdr Taco's girlfriend all get good amounts of publicity from the book.
It also makes me uneasy because the people whose comments are used are not getting anything out of it either. Basically their comments were grabbed, jammed together, edited, and put in a book which someone then sold for indirect financial gains.
I know comedians get pretty pissed when someone "steals their bit" and uses it without giving them credit. Isn't this the same sort of thing?
Here on the Slashdot site itself, Andover makes money off people's comments indirectly. If an interesting story / comment gets posted people look at it and some might click on a banner ad nearby and so Andover makes money. But the poster and the general community also benefit. That post becomes part of a discussion. The poster can read people's responses and understand their advice, their suggestions, their point-of-view.
In dead tree format, the people who made that book possible get nothing out of it. Their stories are taken and given to the world. The world may benefit from it somehow, but what does the poster get?
The bottom of the page says "Comments are owned by the Poster." Does that only apply when they're being sued for what someone said? It seems like they shouldn't be able to have it both ways. Either the comments are ours and all you do is display them, or the comments are yours and you can use them as you see fit, but you have to take responsibility for everything said here.
Sorry if this rambles a bit, but I really am bothered by this. And I really don't know why. If my comments were used and they entertained, helped, or taught someone something that's great. But aren't they my comments? Shouldn't I have some say if they're going to be used? Shouldn't I have known that this was being planned?
Btw, the "preview" seems to be busted. When I previewed this comment it stripped all the tags from the text box.
Hey will, learn to close your tags, Will ya?
Microsoft stock has lost 15% today, 25% since the high earlier this year. That means anyone granted options so far this year most likely has $100 options on a $90 day. Your example assumes that the stock will climb back to $120, but I wonder why. Generally a company facing punishment by the government for illegal business practices is not in a "growth" situation.
Nah, Microsoft should only split into two parts:
The first half can take care of coding OSes, designing keyboards, etc. The second half can take care of drafting OEM agreements, shrink-wrap licenses, and suing whoever pisses them off.
The issue of employee stock options is on my mind too. Let's face it, most Microsoft employees are there for the money. Heck, I wouldn't be at my job if it weren't for the money, but I believe in my company and I'd stick around through a rough patch if one came around. But Microsoft doesn't strike me as a company that inspires rabid loyalty among its employees -- it has its defenders, but most tech people who defend it seem to have a financial stake in defending it.
Microsoft employees who were hired recently now have stock options that are essentially worthless -- they have the option to buy at a higher price than the stock is currently trading at. If the price keeps dropping through the next phase and through appeals then Microsoft can no longer woo or retain employees with options.
So does this mean that Microsoft will start losing employees? Will they have to start paying higher wages? 1/3 of Microsoft shares are owned by employees, that means Microsoft employees as a group lost more than 25 billion dollars today!
So here I was, at home with a cold, watching and cheering as I watched the CNN coverage of the findings of Law. Pretty good coverage I thought, I was happy they hadn't broken for a commercial yet.
So finally they broke to commercial. First ad:
NASDAQ -- you know, their series of ads saying "where do you find companies like this? Nasdaq, the stock market for the next hundred years" Their featured company: Microsoft
I'm not sure if my throat hurts more from the cold, from the cheering or from the laughter.
I'd like to make this comment a place for people to put their favourite comments from the ruling, so reply to it with your faves. Mine so far are:
and...
and especially...
You guys might want to point out that it's presented by Andover.Net and VA Linux, who are the owners of Slashdot. I know, in this case it's something they're sponsoring, not something they're trying to promote and make money from -- but now that Slashdot is sponsored by the big boys, you guys should start putting a disclosure statement in things involving Slashdot ownership.
Btw, for those of you like me who have no hope of making it on such short notice, I saw this on the site:
For those interested, here's the quote:
Yep, although I'm paraphrasing. I'm going by my very poor memory here, but it was the TiVo webmaster, Richard Bulwinkle(?) in a TiVo newsgroup. You should still be able to find my post and his in newsgroup archives. Look for ones with "Canada" in the title from about 3 weeks ago.
First they insult us Canucks by including the offensive "Blame Canada" in the oscars, then they refuse to sell TiVo here, what next, steal our top comedians and pass them off as Americans??
Ok, so I'm just jealous. I've looked at both ReplayTV and TiVo and want TiVo. It seems to have a slightly better feature set, and it runs Linux. Now I'm not saying that's a reason because I'm a rabid Linux fan, but that makes it much more likely that eventually:
But I can't get TiVO here!!. At first the reasons TiVO gave why they weren't selling the units in Canada was the lack of available TV schedule information here and that some encryption built into the system made the things illegal to export. None of these reasons really seemed to hold up, so I recently asked again. Last I've heard they can't expand into new markets because they're having enough trouble keeping up with demand in current markets. Argh!
The good news is that Sony is apparently coming out with their own TiVO unit soon (April was the last date I've heard), which is supposed to be far cheaper than the current Philips TiVO units. This price competition should make it easier to get any of these units (ReplayTV or TiVO) and should drop the prices for all PTV products.
Anyhow, a good website for information on ReplayTV and TiVo is AV Science Forum (and yeah the flash intro sucks).
Anyhow, any other Canadians out there, eh? Do you want your TiVo, eh? Any ideas how we can get it, eh? Any rumours on when it'll arrive, eh?
Ottawa huh? I'm in Ottawa too and have been drooling over TiVO for a while. ReplayTV sounds good, just not quite as good. Unfortunately you can't get TiVO in Canada right now. Can you get ReplayTV in Canada? If so, where and for how much?
Ok, that's for redistributing the original content -- what about taking it, reducing the quality and size, putting it on a CDR and selling it for $4. That's a legitimate worry of the movie people.
I'm currently doing a web site that uses some really big nasty SQL queries. I'm talking about nasty ones using at least 10 left joins, and using some pretty complex "WHERE" clauses.
Recently we hit a bug in MySQL that made the server hang. It turns out this bug had been found by other people and had been fixed in newer releases of the code. One problem down... but I think now we've hit another bug and this is in the newest release.
Based on the complexity of the design of my database, I have the impression that I'm seeing bugs that most other users don't see. But I am making sure to stay well within the stated limits of MySQL.
So my questions are: