I suspect the problem of getting repairs will be less than the problem of getting the equipment in the first place. I'm sure there will be leases, and repairs will come as part of the lease procedure; then there will be service contracts, and when a significant number of theaters no longer have service contracts, the technology will have matured enough that spare parts won't cost a bloody fortune.
So what if you don't agree to these terms? You save $250, obviously, but you're left with an unworkable piece of hardware.
Well, what if you could make it workable? Can a *nix be ported onto it? Add a video codec, and create an open-source PVR OS?
Maybe this is something SonicBlue is hoping for. They've got a nice piece of hardware, and they can keep making 'em, just as long as it's someone else who takes the blame for that 30-second commercial skip.
First off, what's the difference in equipment necessary to "steal" basic cable from a cable modem connection? A splitter and some extra coax. Who pays for these? The consumer. What's the cost to the cable company? Zero.
Second, who's losing out when someone "steals" basic cable? Is it the cable company? I suppose, if a significant percentage of people hooking into that service would otherwise choose to pay for basic cable. I personally feel that wouldn't be a large number; when you've got broadband, TV is less entertaining, at least to me.
Are the networks losing money when people do this? A little, maybe. These people aren't being counted in ratings shares, so it means less ad revenue. These companies might be getting a small share of the revenue from the cable company if those connections were legitimate, but I believe they mostly get their money from the advertising.
So what's the solution? How 'bout requiring people with cable modems to buy basic cable service, but at a price they won't object to? Say, an extra $10-15 per month? That's enough for the cable company to pay off any rebroadcast royalties, with no additional investment in equipment needed for them. Even people with satellite dishes might find the cable TV useful, as it would carry local channels their dishes wouldn't supply.
It's trivial enough if you don't have fifty billion options. Just have a nice, default install, assume that everything on the CD is going to be installed on the HD (even compressed, modern HDs can eat a Linux distro without indigestion), and go.
First off, I think trying to make companies give up proprietary file formats is stupid, and a violation of free enterprise. Those "standards" are trade secrets, and in my opinion, forcing companies to give away trade secrets of any sort is a horrible precedent.
Second, what makes you think these companies even have a genuine specification of the format? They may have laid it out, but chances are that a few parts of the spec were tweaked while debugging. While those alterations may (hopefully) be internally consistent, trying to code from the spec would be a huge waste of time. The only way to guarantee true interoperability would be to have a copy of the program's source code.
Finally, I've heard a lot of talk about the files being "your data, you should own and control it, and you shouldn't be beholden to a software license". I think this is more of a problem with the intellectual property system today, where you can own a software package, but you can't really OWN it.
If you buy a piece of software and don't like their proprietary file format, reverse engineer it. If you're worried about the integrity of your data, export it.
Back in the days before memory came on SIMMs, a few shady PC hardware manufacturers included "write-only memory" on their motherboards. These devices made the system look like there was an impressive amount of memory on the motherboard, but in actuality they were just molded plastic with unconnected IC pins, filling the spots one would put real RAM chips.
There are physiological differences between people that make the difference where carpal tunnel syndrome is concerned. I lucked out, being big-boned, so I have a large carpal tunnel for my tendons to travel through. Some people have such a small gap that any sort of repetitive finger motions will bring on the symptoms. For a lot of people it's borderline; operating in non-ideal conditions will cause some problems, but paying attention to ergonomics can definitely help.
Here's one for you: What would you do if you looked like a terrorist?
Let's say, some time in the future, they get the face-scanning technology to work right. 0.000001% false-positive rate. And it's implemented all over the US.
Let's also say that, among the 250 million people in the United States, one or more people had facial structures similar enough to terrorists' that they would trigger those scanners. In fact, they'd trigger every scanner that person was surveiled by. And let's say that person were you.
What would you do?
You couldn't go to an airport. You couldn't go to a major public attraction. You probably couldn't go to a public place without fear of some alarm going off and people waving automatic weapons in your face. Would you cower at home? Would you wear a bag over your head? Would you sue the US government? How would you cope?
I know ATI has the most comprehensive video-handling VGA cards, but I'd strongly recommend you dump it in favor of a GeForce-based card with video in/out. ATI's drivers have always been funky and I've never been satisfied with them.
This advice is for a Windows-based system; I don't have any experience with *nix drivers for the ATI cards.
Legislators often won't consider exactly how basic the technology they're banning is; if you want an example, look at firearms. Do you know how complicated zip guns are? Not very, and though they aren't useful at a distance, inside a few feet they're deadly.
Do you have any faucet washers in your tool drawer? Beware; they could be called "silencer parts", and people have been prosecuted for it. The same is true of auto muffler parts.
"Yes, well, we were planning on increasing our price by $2 per month starting in July, so in lieu of sending out checks we'll only charge everyone $1 more for the month of July. From August on we will be charging the planned $2 increase."
Yes, I'm aware that advertising isn't fully protected as free speech under the First Amendment. I do think Nike's statements to the press shouldn't count as advertising. Even if what Nike said was false, this ruling could have a chilling effect on any corporation making any sort of statement, in case something they said would later turn out to be erroneous. When asked about anything by a reporter, a corporate officer would have to say "no comment", no matter the subject, and we'd never hear from them except in front of investigative panels.
If you want beauty, I vote for fractals and chaos mathematics, and their applications. How 'bout diving into the Mandelbrot set?
There's also an experiment you can try if you have a handy particle accelerator; defocus it and fire some electrons at a sheet of lexan. Then touch a grounded wire to the side of the sheet. The electrons, embedded into the face of the plastic will rush to ground, creating pathways that other electrons will follow. The result is a fractal tree. You may have to play with the intensity and run-time, though.
MS has incorporated plenty of open-source already (not GPL'd, of course -- though with their source being proprietary, we can't know for sure). If these extensions were GPL'd, and MS couldn't live without them, I'm sure they would just write a clean room spec and reimplement them.
Unless those extensions were based on patents that required open-source implementation...
I'm not sure. There may be reasons why selling licenses ex-post-facto would also cause problems. I don't think anyone does that; I've never seen anyone settle an IP case that way; either the offender loses the right, or the court upholds the usage. IANAL, so you might want to ask one.
According to current law, if Lucasfilms shows the propensity to forgive others using their trademarked material, their ownership of those trademarks would be jeopardized. It would mean anyone could make Star Wars films or merchandise and sell them. Parodies and documentaries are protected as fair use, so Lucasfilms can promote them without threatening their trademark ownership. I don't know of many IP production companies that'll even go that far.
I can live with getting the Phantom Edit in DivX over P2P file sharing programs. Just let me see Troops on the big screen.
I used to be a big fan of ATI; in fact, I'm using one at this very moment (at the time, the Radeon VE was one of the few readily available dual display cards, and I had no luck with two cards in one system). But I've found their drivers to cause serious problems with Win2K, my console OS of choice, and will not be buying any more of their cards. I'm in the market for a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 (seems there's one company already making them) with dual outputs, and when I find one, bye bye, ATI.
Since I'm running Win2K, and am behind a proxy box, I started wondering how I'd go about preventing my systems from sending those packets. Then I realized that, since all my systems are configured with static IPs, they wouldn't be sending out those update packets anyway.
So my recommendation is, if you aren't using static IPs on your intranet, do so. Not only will it lower the load on the root servers, but it'll also make port routing more reliable. Don't be lazy and depend on DHCP.
Considering how our privacy has gone down the tubes, it's time to roll out the encryption. One thing we can be grateful for is the delay, giving us more broadband options for our encoded communications. Break out PGP phone and all the rest, and hope they don't ban crypto as well.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect the problem of getting repairs will be less than the problem of getting the equipment in the first place. I'm sure there will be leases, and repairs will come as part of the lease procedure; then there will be service contracts, and when a significant number of theaters no longer have service contracts, the technology will have matured enough that spare parts won't cost a bloody fortune.
11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE...
I don't think a $250 set-up fee counts as "free of charge".
So what if you don't agree to these terms? You save $250, obviously, but you're left with an unworkable piece of hardware.
Well, what if you could make it workable? Can a *nix be ported onto it? Add a video codec, and create an open-source PVR OS?
Maybe this is something SonicBlue is hoping for. They've got a nice piece of hardware, and they can keep making 'em, just as long as it's someone else who takes the blame for that 30-second commercial skip.
Yes, that's what I said.
Okay, let's figure this one out.
First off, what's the difference in equipment necessary to "steal" basic cable from a cable modem connection? A splitter and some extra coax. Who pays for these? The consumer. What's the cost to the cable company? Zero.
Second, who's losing out when someone "steals" basic cable? Is it the cable company? I suppose, if a significant percentage of people hooking into that service would otherwise choose to pay for basic cable. I personally feel that wouldn't be a large number; when you've got broadband, TV is less entertaining, at least to me.
Are the networks losing money when people do this? A little, maybe. These people aren't being counted in ratings shares, so it means less ad revenue. These companies might be getting a small share of the revenue from the cable company if those connections were legitimate, but I believe they mostly get their money from the advertising.
So what's the solution? How 'bout requiring people with cable modems to buy basic cable service, but at a price they won't object to? Say, an extra $10-15 per month? That's enough for the cable company to pay off any rebroadcast royalties, with no additional investment in equipment needed for them. Even people with satellite dishes might find the cable TV useful, as it would carry local channels their dishes wouldn't supply.
It's trivial enough if you don't have fifty billion options. Just have a nice, default install, assume that everything on the CD is going to be installed on the HD (even compressed, modern HDs can eat a Linux distro without indigestion), and go.
First off, I think trying to make companies give up proprietary file formats is stupid, and a violation of free enterprise. Those "standards" are trade secrets, and in my opinion, forcing companies to give away trade secrets of any sort is a horrible precedent.
Second, what makes you think these companies even have a genuine specification of the format? They may have laid it out, but chances are that a few parts of the spec were tweaked while debugging. While those alterations may (hopefully) be internally consistent, trying to code from the spec would be a huge waste of time. The only way to guarantee true interoperability would be to have a copy of the program's source code.
Finally, I've heard a lot of talk about the files being "your data, you should own and control it, and you shouldn't be beholden to a software license". I think this is more of a problem with the intellectual property system today, where you can own a software package, but you can't really OWN it.
If you buy a piece of software and don't like their proprietary file format, reverse engineer it. If you're worried about the integrity of your data, export it.
Back in the days before memory came on SIMMs, a few shady PC hardware manufacturers included "write-only memory" on their motherboards. These devices made the system look like there was an impressive amount of memory on the motherboard, but in actuality they were just molded plastic with unconnected IC pins, filling the spots one would put real RAM chips.
There are physiological differences between people that make the difference where carpal tunnel syndrome is concerned. I lucked out, being big-boned, so I have a large carpal tunnel for my tendons to travel through. Some people have such a small gap that any sort of repetitive finger motions will bring on the symptoms. For a lot of people it's borderline; operating in non-ideal conditions will cause some problems, but paying attention to ergonomics can definitely help.
Here's one for you: What would you do if you looked like a terrorist?
Let's say, some time in the future, they get the face-scanning technology to work right. 0.000001% false-positive rate. And it's implemented all over the US.
Let's also say that, among the 250 million people in the United States, one or more people had facial structures similar enough to terrorists' that they would trigger those scanners. In fact, they'd trigger every scanner that person was surveiled by. And let's say that person were you.
What would you do?
You couldn't go to an airport. You couldn't go to a major public attraction. You probably couldn't go to a public place without fear of some alarm going off and people waving automatic weapons in your face. Would you cower at home? Would you wear a bag over your head? Would you sue the US government? How would you cope?
I know ATI has the most comprehensive video-handling VGA cards, but I'd strongly recommend you dump it in favor of a GeForce-based card with video in/out. ATI's drivers have always been funky and I've never been satisfied with them.
This advice is for a Windows-based system; I don't have any experience with *nix drivers for the ATI cards.
Legislators often won't consider exactly how basic the technology they're banning is; if you want an example, look at firearms. Do you know how complicated zip guns are? Not very, and though they aren't useful at a distance, inside a few feet they're deadly.
Do you have any faucet washers in your tool drawer? Beware; they could be called "silencer parts", and people have been prosecuted for it. The same is true of auto muffler parts.
"Yes, well, we were planning on increasing our price by $2 per month starting in July, so in lieu of sending out checks we'll only charge everyone $1 more for the month of July. From August on we will be charging the planned $2 increase."
But how can you possibly live without Joe Cartoon?
Yup. But divide that number by two every two years, and you'll see that it'll be within small business' price range within a decade.
I don't have a penny, but I have a quarter...
Taken with a Fuji S1 Pro, 55mm micro-Nikkor lens and a bunch of extension tubes.
Yes, I'm aware that advertising isn't fully protected as free speech under the First Amendment. I do think Nike's statements to the press shouldn't count as advertising. Even if what Nike said was false, this ruling could have a chilling effect on any corporation making any sort of statement, in case something they said would later turn out to be erroneous. When asked about anything by a reporter, a corporate officer would have to say "no comment", no matter the subject, and we'd never hear from them except in front of investigative panels.
If you want beauty, I vote for fractals and chaos mathematics, and their applications. How 'bout diving into the Mandelbrot set?
There's also an experiment you can try if you have a handy particle accelerator; defocus it and fire some electrons at a sheet of lexan. Then touch a grounded wire to the side of the sheet. The electrons, embedded into the face of the plastic will rush to ground, creating pathways that other electrons will follow. The result is a fractal tree. You may have to play with the intensity and run-time, though.
MS has incorporated plenty of open-source already (not GPL'd, of course -- though with their source being proprietary, we can't know for sure). If these extensions were GPL'd, and MS couldn't live without them, I'm sure they would just write a clean room spec and reimplement them.
Unless those extensions were based on patents that required open-source implementation...
I knows what I knows, and I admits what I don't knows. :-)
I'm not sure. There may be reasons why selling licenses ex-post-facto would also cause problems. I don't think anyone does that; I've never seen anyone settle an IP case that way; either the offender loses the right, or the court upholds the usage. IANAL, so you might want to ask one.
According to current law, if Lucasfilms shows the propensity to forgive others using their trademarked material, their ownership of those trademarks would be jeopardized. It would mean anyone could make Star Wars films or merchandise and sell them. Parodies and documentaries are protected as fair use, so Lucasfilms can promote them without threatening their trademark ownership. I don't know of many IP production companies that'll even go that far.
I can live with getting the Phantom Edit in DivX over P2P file sharing programs. Just let me see Troops on the big screen.
I used to be a big fan of ATI; in fact, I'm using one at this very moment (at the time, the Radeon VE was one of the few readily available dual display cards, and I had no luck with two cards in one system). But I've found their drivers to cause serious problems with Win2K, my console OS of choice, and will not be buying any more of their cards. I'm in the market for a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 (seems there's one company already making them) with dual outputs, and when I find one, bye bye, ATI.
Since I'm running Win2K, and am behind a proxy box, I started wondering how I'd go about preventing my systems from sending those packets. Then I realized that, since all my systems are configured with static IPs, they wouldn't be sending out those update packets anyway.
So my recommendation is, if you aren't using static IPs on your intranet, do so. Not only will it lower the load on the root servers, but it'll also make port routing more reliable. Don't be lazy and depend on DHCP.
Considering how our privacy has gone down the tubes, it's time to roll out the encryption. One thing we can be grateful for is the delay, giving us more broadband options for our encoded communications. Break out PGP phone and all the rest, and hope they don't ban crypto as well.