And not other good television shows like MASH, Alias, The West Wing, The Practice, and a whole bunch more? I mean, lets be honest, Animal Planet kills PBS in the ratings... especially when the dog shows are on. Do you also sit around all day in a Tweed and tutrleneck combo and think about chess moves too?
Please, you can skip the commercials, but you can't tell us when breaking news hits you sit around all day and wait for the nightly PBS broadcast that tells you what happened instead of showing you what happened. This is a ridiculous argument. I mean, I love Black Adder too. But the PBS only argument is bull. Television networks don't suck... and keep in mind that you can't really complain about something you're not paying for.
I have two things to say about Ramadan bombings.
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 1
1. The Yom Kippur War.
2. The Tet Holiday Offensive.
Yes, I would LIKE to respect their religion.
But has anyone expanded the radical notion that we are dealing with them in the underhanded, dirty ways that we haven't with anyone else because for practically all of history they have pointed to everyone else and said "kill"?
For literally centuries, the other tribes of the world have been at arms length with them becasue these nations have been impossible to deal with. I mean, we really don't have this intense hatred with Africans, and after all, we enslaved their people, and bred them. What about the Russians? Nope. Just politics. There is not nearly as much venom as could be between the Europeans and Africans. And that was more recent and more horrific.
Its just that these people have been taught to be butchers for the longest time so long that they have prophecy about it... after all they site grievances a thousand years back. That was a time when we were all barbarians. What a shock if some Christians did nasty things. Considering that all of humanity did nasty things too.
But I can't feel sympathy for them when there are people that are laughing about "the yuppies that jumped out to their deaths" in front of a Mosque IN LONDON. That should be a surefire indication that we should never have listened to them, especially when they use the words OBLIGATION and KILL in a sentence together.
But honestly, none of this will matter when many of you are reading about the US in other countries. You think it won't happen to you in Norway, France, Nicaragua, or wherever. Just watch with morbid fascination. We'll burn in nuclear hellfire for your entertainment. You'll watch and laugh, thinking of a justification or a reason... knowing all the while that many of our sons died to keep your people out of the grip of a madman like Hitler. And only the Brits will be with us to save the world from all of the psychos with nuclear weapons. Of course, they'll get hit too. Then you'll realize what a mess it was. Then you might send troops. Or you might negotiate. But by that time, they'll be aiming for you... just because you're not like them. Not Muslim. Which is reason enough. Then all of civilization will be gone... and we'll be in a museum like the Romans and the Greeks. Reset the clocks people, time to start all over again.
Just keep in mind that the Romans would have never taken this kind of crap. Or the Greeks. They understood the importance of civilization.
The FCC is selling off that band to phone companies, who have lots of moolah, and regardless of what happens, the people are getting shafted. There is an issue about this with local TV stations, they are going under spending millions retrofitting stations to a format that maybe has sold 3k television stations nationwide. When you buy a HD television, the station has probably spent $100,000 US per set to get it to you. It is a crime against the businesses. They could've spent that money on content you would have liked. Better news and weather, better local shows. Better sports. Better everything.
You think the internet controllers are going to sit around while you and your friends pirate every router because you can't set a VCR?
That is a brilliant application for the internet. Definitely what it was designed for. To be your personal movie exchange group, forsaking all others their information so you can get the Berkely Ca advance screening version of Blade Runner.
They are not going to encrypt it. Watch all the commercials you want.
I work in TV. It is based on free watching and commercials. Regular TV is not going to become pay-per-view. Because if it was, then someone would come back and give it away for free. That is not how the system will ever work. Anywhere.
If there is encryption, it is a hardware issue... not the transmissions themselves. I think you might be confusing compression with encryption on this one.
Guess how much most cable companies pay for CNN?
Nothin. Find the satellite. Just run the advertisements, please.
I'm usually very polite on/. but whoever made this "Insightful" was an idiot.
I, as a person that goes out to all of the tough neighborhoods as a news man, sees this kind of truth every day. There are those that want to make it. When they want to, they will. Life will improve when you have your own counselor that buys you things and gets you jobs. My mother's best friend is a social worker, trust me, you just have to see what they go through to understand. Its incredible. Most civilized, educated people can't do their job. Its incredible that the first domestic terrorist attack didn't come from disgruntled social workers, who tried to save society, and then as a mercy killing tried to destoy it.
The hard fact is that most of these people that many say want to work to get a good job are out to fulfill their parole... and that is about it. That is because they are prolific liars. You have to be an excellent liar to feed yourself without working. Its called game. You need to be "played out" once to see what it is like. I allowed myself to get played once to see it. It is a terrible, self-consuming life.
A lot see this as a white/black thing. If they think that, they simply need to turn on Jenny Jones and Springer any given day. That will knock that skin color thing right out of discussion.
I would love to see a million poor climb out of poverty and get a great and wonderful job, but that just isn't going to happen. Those who see it up close know it by heart and by rote.
Mostly, the poor are so magnificent at modeling laziness that they destroy themselves. They won't pay the electric bill on their homes. Why? Dad didn't. So why should I? Dad is still here. So they heat with the stove. Then they won't pay the gas bill. Then they're cold. Then they won't pay the water bill. So then they smell. Then they spend all of their money on junk food. Making them hungry. So then they turn to crime.
We catch them.
We try to rehabilitate.
Guess what? They did it to themselves.
Why?
They stopped going to work. Never came back.
For most of us, work is like breathing.
Most people carry cell phones to check on work at home or on vacations. You know, to keep their jobs in good standing.
These people steal your phones and check on their dope dealers, then sell them your phone.
Then we tell them to get a job (this is where our/. story picks up).
Who is going to give a job to a person that is so stupid that they can't light, heat, clean, or feed themselves?
Usually, social workers get one shot at a business. They come in with the humanitarian approach. The business accepts. Then said smelly, useless worker sells office supplies out the back door (or worse, maybe their main product that comes up missing) to old criminal friends. Business finds out. Never does humanitarian work again. Social worker, ever positive on helping, shops for a new business victim.
That is why there are precious few places left that even take rehabs. They are all tapped out in this country after thirty years of that Berkeley-Commie ridiculousness. Now you have to give businesses incentives so that they won't take a loss with them, or REQUIRE IT BY LAW. So they do it. And the cycle goes on.
Accusations are, by definition, statements made without the proof at that moment. So my suggestion would be to *perhaps* not take them as fact, and consquently not counterslap each other.
Like imawimp.org, letsnotbombduringramadan.org, ithinkthatallpeopleareniceontheinside.edu, stopawarbecauseallwarsarebadjustification.com, selfdefenseisnotanexcuse.org, and of course, imacollegeberkeleycafreakthatcantrealizethatthesep eoplearereallytrynigtokillingmebecauseimaniceperso nsotheymustbetooithinktheyneedahug.com
You could order anthrax over the net before 9/11 as long as you showed that you had credentials that said you were a university researcher... hell, you could order it over the net.
How many of our fundamentalist Arabic friends are in college right now? Probably all of them that don't have full time jobs in the USA. How many work at biotech firms, or have the resources to make fake credentials? So how much real efort do you think it really takes now to get a sample of Anthrax? Just admit you don't know the facts, so therefore you don't have a clue, and that your paranoid little mind went for the big conspiracy.
Yeah, its a conspiracy for America to kill its citizens... from a nation that sends troops to stop other nations from killing their citizens. That would be cost prohibitive, wouldn't it? That would be the opposite if the objective was to subjugate our citizens... would it not?
Honestly, is there one thing that we want from Kosovo or Bosnia? Name one resource that we can't produce cheaper over here. DO IT. Conspiracies have reasons. NAME THEM.
It is amazing that you would say that the Arabs are attacking us because we "resemble" the people that screwed them over. Maybe it is because there are no real major Arabic democracies in the world, and those that say they are are simply faking it... Perhaps they have a ruling class that ALLOWS "those white guys" to screw them over at the benefit of the ruling class. It is a technique that has been used for ages. "DON'T screw the king for the problems he made over money... screw the advisor and his partners." "White guys" have made money in that region and done unethical things. So have the Japanese manufacturers in the USA. Get used to it. They don't have Democracies. This is where their problems lie. This is all political, and trying to incite violence and a Muslim uprising world wide. So what if a nation was screwed. Trying to make a genocidal run at World War Three is way out of the ethical ballpark on any ten nations getting screwed.
Bad practices or whatever, you can't justify the suicide killings of SIX THOUSAND PEOPLE no matter what you say. Keep in mind that this man hates the whole world.
One of the reasons they might not be using the latest compression is the latency of audio vs video. The higher the compression, the more the buffering... and well, for overdubbed movie reasons, the shots have to be live in news. So a higher compression just doesn't work because processor time is yet another delay.
I am a news videographer, and I work in digital, and the audio/video delay is a pain with compression. It makes overdubbed movies... even without a high compression and no sattelites.
Like most sattelite systems, it is usually not duplexed or two-way at all. The way that they are getting a hold of everyone and listening to the station is an old fashioned method... They are dialing into the stations and listening in on a phone line to the control room and the CNN broadcast audio. They could not be able to watch CNN or do anything like that because of the extra equipment weight. Also, there is an issue with the reporter keeping up with the studio, because the light speed delay of about three seconds to get it around the world. It takes a lot of training to look professional and be able to have a conversation with a three second delay in a different time zone.
I am a news videographer, and as a man that does the occasional sat live, there are a few things that you should know. This is really interesting technology. The old way took a load of equipment, time, and money. Time is the problem... in a war, the stationary time is the dangerous part in a hostile country.
I know that everyone is complaining on Slashdot about the picture quality of these new suitcase devices that can transmit anywhere in the world, and they are very impressive. The issue here with these transmitters is that they had to sacrifice something to get the video image in, so it was compressed to the point of massive lossiness. It is acceptable in the news business, because, well, in a situation like this, you need to be able to get out very fast.
But to compare to current inconvenience, they are incredible. Even the newest full band KU band digital transmitters are usually packed in the size of a SMALL TEN WHEEL TRACTOR TRAILOR. Woof. Granted, the viewing of the shot on a full bandwidth is like that in the studio. But in the field without the giant tractor trailer, to get the full signal requires an engineer with a nights prep, and a Ford Econoline-size van of equipment to do it right in the field. Not less important, a rather large amount of electricity which in those situations is often hard to find. So many times you had to bring your own generators. I am not kidding the difficulty of full quality broadcasts... many of the field engineers are ex-military comm school types. It is a tough business. Matter of fact, all of news is a tough business.
I occasionally get to speak with some of the network engineers who travel overseas in hot zones, and they say that some of them keep about 4-thousand US dollars cash on them at all times just to bribe all of their equipment into the country. When Bosnia took off the engineers were some of the first ones in, and they had to weld steel plates outside their dishes so that the snipers wouldn't destroy their transmitters. They were sandbagged in. And they had a military guard.
I can only say that a device that does the work of a nights engineering and a truckload of equipment on a 12V DC source is amazing... AND IT DOES IT LIVE. This will save lives of newsmen by keeping them on the move, and it will keep us in touch in the world. This will soon change everything. I assume that very, very soon that the whole thing will go studio quality, and when it does, it will change the whole nature of live television. Imagine network cameras with this technology built into the camera itself. The world will not miss a thing. It sounds scary and Big Brother like, but for newsmen, we will be able to SHOW you, without the unbelieveability of us TELLING you what is going on.
Better communication. Perhaps more people will understand the truth out there when they see it. It is a good thing... really.
You just wait... if their.NET scheme has a way that they can install programs and move files at their preference without your consent or knowledge, kiss it all goodbye. And when I say all, I mean it AAAAAALLLL.
One day soon after we all get comfortable with this, one malicious little cracker is going to get in the whole F'n system and wipe out all of the useful files in EVERY M$ corporate and Gov't site in the ENTIRE WORLD. This is going to make Code Red look like the Cookie Monster Virus. THIS IS WORLD CLASS IRRESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR, even by Mr. Bill's standards. When the.NET catastrophe happens (and we all know it will happen), think about all of the jobs that are going to be lost when everyone gets their files blown away simultaneously. This is going to affect the whole world's commerce. He wanted to be the biggest player ever. Well, you wait, there is going to be every lawyer in the planet after him pretty soon. Does anyone who is a Christian believer think that a man that uses his intellect and faculties like this isn't working in concert with the forces of evil? This is something that the Soviet Commisars would think up. This is going to regulate all of your behavior... if you can't do what you want to, the computer will own you instead of the other way around. This is usury. Look it up, Christians. Usury. One of the last things that Christ warned about before they hauled him off. Usury is the antithesis of our current society. It is, essentially, taxation without representation. Hardship without signifigant reward. A contract without improved mutual benefit.
I personally have the sense to know that if by computer someone could tamper with you, then by human nature alone, they are. Besides, the whole idea of handing over your personal power that you are liable for by some technicality smacks of personal suicide. I will never let something that is a box that is acting for me without my knowledge ever enter my life... EVER. You should stop your friends now.
Next stop, Microsoft birth certificate registration, burned via barcode under your left eye for permanent idenitification.
Let Bill push em around, let him play his games. He may have a lot of money and influence, then when all of his cronies start turning off computers and turning everyone in to the Govt... then guess what? They'll stop using it. Little man Gates can turn in all of this, and make everyone liable to the point of regulating everything that moves... you know where that'll get him? Dead. Does anyone know the difference between the Govts power and Micros? Pretty simple. Ask the Afghans. He really f's with the Gov't and makes their computers turn off? Then he is F'd. He plays with their computers? F'd. Gleans and prints any sensitive info? He is never seen again.
Besides. Isn't it unnecessary search and seisure when you mess with a person's private property? This man is attempting to do things that you can't do with a search warrant. Isn't it that ONLY established Gov't entities can seize property with a very specific, very well documented search warrant? Trust me, the DoJ is about to close them down and hose them. Messing with this is unconstitutional. The DoJ is waiting for him to hand over a list to the RIAA, and then they are going to take his company away.
I know the market place is different now, but the truth of the matter is that the management of any company is just organized like Congress... the fact that they set their own pay raises, and expect the rest of the grunts to do their fighting for them when they get in messes from wastefulness, incompetence, or apathy.
This is a logical conclusion for any system that humans devise that is heirarchical. YOU WORK, they go play golf on the profits.
But there is a disturbing trend that I read about that has been going on recently, one that even business schools are trying to teach ethics against because it threatens the whole economy. Companies are gettting short term CEOs that are in the company for results, then they screw the future of it to make those results. Then the CEO moves on to the next company with the exact same plan, pocketing a load of money. There are names out there that we all know of, but unlike the past, anytime new management comes into a company now, they lay off people immediately. THIS IS THE NEW FACT OF BUSINESS. They (managers) have done it to themselves on this one. It is a cultural thing. The new corporate culture says, "screw the company for my stock bonuses." What is most surprising is that this is not burning us so horribly yet, which shows how bad MOST of the rest of the world is at business. Please note that I said most. Its surprising that we haven't been getting the crap kicked out of us on this one.
Cuz I ain't buyin another thing from Microsoft ever again, when it can't handle new computing, then I go Linux. I am not an open source purist, but I'll be damned if I'll buy another buggy OS, that takes up more space than its free neighbor. By the way, I think a lot of casual PC users think the same way. Linux will do better than expected in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
And not other good television shows like MASH, Alias, The West Wing, The Practice, and a whole bunch more? I mean, lets be honest, Animal Planet kills PBS in the ratings... especially when the dog shows are on. Do you also sit around all day in a Tweed and tutrleneck combo and think about chess moves too?
Please, you can skip the commercials, but you can't tell us when breaking news hits you sit around all day and wait for the nightly PBS broadcast that tells you what happened instead of showing you what happened. This is a ridiculous argument. I mean, I love Black Adder too. But the PBS only argument is bull. Television networks don't suck... and keep in mind that you can't really complain about something you're not paying for.
(This article sponsored by Eastman-Kodak)
1. The Yom Kippur War.
2. The Tet Holiday Offensive.
Yes, I would LIKE to respect their religion.
But has anyone expanded the radical notion that we are dealing with them in the underhanded, dirty ways that we haven't with anyone else because for practically all of history they have pointed to everyone else and said "kill"?
For literally centuries, the other tribes of the world have been at arms length with them becasue these nations have been impossible to deal with. I mean, we really don't have this intense hatred with Africans, and after all, we enslaved their people, and bred them. What about the Russians? Nope. Just politics. There is not nearly as much venom as could be between the Europeans and Africans. And that was more recent and more horrific.
Its just that these people have been taught to be butchers for the longest time so long that they have prophecy about it... after all they site grievances a thousand years back. That was a time when we were all barbarians. What a shock if some Christians did nasty things. Considering that all of humanity did nasty things too.
But I can't feel sympathy for them when there are people that are laughing about "the yuppies that jumped out to their deaths" in front of a Mosque IN LONDON. That should be a surefire indication that we should never have listened to them, especially when they use the words OBLIGATION and KILL in a sentence together.
But honestly, none of this will matter when many of you are reading about the US in other countries. You think it won't happen to you in Norway, France, Nicaragua, or wherever. Just watch with morbid fascination. We'll burn in nuclear hellfire for your entertainment. You'll watch and laugh, thinking of a justification or a reason... knowing all the while that many of our sons died to keep your people out of the grip of a madman like Hitler. And only the Brits will be with us to save the world from all of the psychos with nuclear weapons. Of course, they'll get hit too. Then you'll realize what a mess it was. Then you might send troops. Or you might negotiate. But by that time, they'll be aiming for you... just because you're not like them. Not Muslim. Which is reason enough. Then all of civilization will be gone... and we'll be in a museum like the Romans and the Greeks. Reset the clocks people, time to start all over again.
Just keep in mind that the Romans would have never taken this kind of crap. Or the Greeks. They understood the importance of civilization.
The FCC is selling off that band to phone companies, who have lots of moolah, and regardless of what happens, the people are getting shafted. There is an issue about this with local TV stations, they are going under spending millions retrofitting stations to a format that maybe has sold 3k television stations nationwide. When you buy a HD television, the station has probably spent $100,000 US per set to get it to you. It is a crime against the businesses. They could've spent that money on content you would have liked. Better news and weather, better local shows. Better sports. Better everything.
You think the internet controllers are going to sit around while you and your friends pirate every router because you can't set a VCR?
That is a brilliant application for the internet. Definitely what it was designed for. To be your personal movie exchange group, forsaking all others their information so you can get the Berkely Ca advance screening version of Blade Runner.
They make their money on advertising...
They are not going to encrypt it. Watch all the commercials you want.
I work in TV. It is based on free watching and commercials. Regular TV is not going to become pay-per-view. Because if it was, then someone would come back and give it away for free. That is not how the system will ever work. Anywhere.
If there is encryption, it is a hardware issue... not the transmissions themselves. I think you might be confusing compression with encryption on this one.
Guess how much most cable companies pay for CNN?
Nothin. Find the satellite. Just run the advertisements, please.
I'm usually very polite on
1. Purchase
2. Monopoly
3. civil
4. backdoor
I, as a person that goes out to all of the tough neighborhoods as a news man, sees this kind of truth every day. There are those that want to make it. When they want to, they will. Life will improve when you have your own counselor that buys you things and gets you jobs. My mother's best friend is a social worker, trust me, you just have to see what they go through to understand. Its incredible. Most civilized, educated people can't do their job. Its incredible that the first domestic terrorist attack didn't come from disgruntled social workers, who tried to save society, and then as a mercy killing tried to destoy it.
The hard fact is that most of these people that many say want to work to get a good job are out to fulfill their parole... and that is about it. That is because they are prolific liars. You have to be an excellent liar to feed yourself without working. Its called game. You need to be "played out" once to see what it is like. I allowed myself to get played once to see it. It is a terrible, self-consuming life.
A lot see this as a white/black thing. If they think that, they simply need to turn on Jenny Jones and Springer any given day. That will knock that skin color thing right out of discussion.
I would love to see a million poor climb out of poverty and get a great and wonderful job, but that just isn't going to happen. Those who see it up close know it by heart and by rote.
Mostly, the poor are so magnificent at modeling laziness that they destroy themselves. They won't pay the electric bill on their homes. Why? Dad didn't. So why should I? Dad is still here. So they heat with the stove. Then they won't pay the gas bill. Then they're cold. Then they won't pay the water bill. So then they smell. Then they spend all of their money on junk food. Making them hungry. So then they turn to crime.
We catch them.
We try to rehabilitate.
Guess what? They did it to themselves.
Why?
They stopped going to work. Never came back.
For most of us, work is like breathing.
Most people carry cell phones to check on work at home or on vacations. You know, to keep their jobs in good standing.
These people steal your phones and check on their dope dealers, then sell them your phone.
Then we tell them to get a job (this is where our
Who is going to give a job to a person that is so stupid that they can't light, heat, clean, or feed themselves?
Usually, social workers get one shot at a business. They come in with the humanitarian approach. The business accepts. Then said smelly, useless worker sells office supplies out the back door (or worse, maybe their main product that comes up missing) to old criminal friends. Business finds out. Never does humanitarian work again. Social worker, ever positive on helping, shops for a new business victim.
That is why there are precious few places left that even take rehabs. They are all tapped out in this country after thirty years of that Berkeley-Commie ridiculousness. Now you have to give businesses incentives so that they won't take a loss with them, or REQUIRE IT BY LAW. So they do it. And the cycle goes on.
LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT.
Accusations are, by definition, statements made without the proof at that moment. So my suggestion would be to *perhaps* not take them as fact, and consquently not counterslap each other.
One benevolent /.er got it right, because your translation lost some of the points that old Benny said about ESSENTIAL liberties.
Like imawimp.org, letsnotbombduringramadan.org, ithinkthatallpeopleareniceontheinside.edu, stopawarbecauseallwarsarebadjustification.com, selfdefenseisnotanexcuse.org, and of course, imacollegeberkeleycafreakthatcantrealizethatthese
While you're at it, could you throw in a couple of "French-speaking bastards" jokes?
Next stop? Corporate controlled wire taps!
Your freedoms are for sale!
Hoooray.
You could order anthrax over the net before 9/11 as long as you showed that you had credentials that said you were a university researcher... hell, you could order it over the net.
How many of our fundamentalist Arabic friends are in college right now? Probably all of them that don't have full time jobs in the USA. How many work at biotech firms, or have the resources to make fake credentials? So how much real efort do you think it really takes now to get a sample of Anthrax? Just admit you don't know the facts, so therefore you don't have a clue, and that your paranoid little mind went for the big conspiracy.
Yeah, its a conspiracy for America to kill its citizens... from a nation that sends troops to stop other nations from killing their citizens. That would be cost prohibitive, wouldn't it? That would be the opposite if the objective was to subjugate our citizens... would it not?
Honestly, is there one thing that we want from Kosovo or Bosnia? Name one resource that we can't produce cheaper over here. DO IT. Conspiracies have reasons. NAME THEM.
Open Source? Ahhh, after all, TRON was designed to liberate the system from the hideous MCP.
I keeeck your ass with a frisbee!
"SAAAAAAARK! Rise from the dead, SAAAARK!"
It is amazing that you would say that the Arabs are attacking us because we "resemble" the people that screwed them over. Maybe it is because there are no real major Arabic democracies in the world, and those that say they are are simply faking it... Perhaps they have a ruling class that ALLOWS "those white guys" to screw them over at the benefit of the ruling class. It is a technique that has been used for ages. "DON'T screw the king for the problems he made over money... screw the advisor and his partners." "White guys" have made money in that region and done unethical things. So have the Japanese manufacturers in the USA. Get used to it. They don't have Democracies. This is where their problems lie. This is all political, and trying to incite violence and a Muslim uprising world wide. So what if a nation was screwed. Trying to make a genocidal run at World War Three is way out of the ethical ballpark on any ten nations getting screwed.
Bad practices or whatever, you can't justify the suicide killings of SIX THOUSAND PEOPLE no matter what you say. Keep in mind that this man hates the whole world.
One of the reasons they might not be using the latest compression is the latency of audio vs video. The higher the compression, the more the buffering... and well, for overdubbed movie reasons, the shots have to be live in news. So a higher compression just doesn't work because processor time is yet another delay.
I am a news videographer, and I work in digital, and the audio/video delay is a pain with compression. It makes overdubbed movies... even without a high compression and no sattelites.
Like most sattelite systems, it is usually not duplexed or two-way at all. The way that they are getting a hold of everyone and listening to the station is an old fashioned method... They are dialing into the stations and listening in on a phone line to the control room and the CNN broadcast audio. They could not be able to watch CNN or do anything like that because of the extra equipment weight. Also, there is an issue with the reporter keeping up with the studio, because the light speed delay of about three seconds to get it around the world. It takes a lot of training to look professional and be able to have a conversation with a three second delay in a different time zone.
I am a news videographer, and as a man that does the occasional sat live, there are a few things that you should know. This is really interesting technology. The old way took a load of equipment, time, and money. Time is the problem... in a war, the stationary time is the dangerous part in a hostile country.
I know that everyone is complaining on Slashdot about the picture quality of these new suitcase devices that can transmit anywhere in the world, and they are very impressive. The issue here with these transmitters is that they had to sacrifice something to get the video image in, so it was compressed to the point of massive lossiness. It is acceptable in the news business, because, well, in a situation like this, you need to be able to get out very fast.
But to compare to current inconvenience, they are incredible. Even the newest full band KU band digital transmitters are usually packed in the size of a SMALL TEN WHEEL TRACTOR TRAILOR. Woof. Granted, the viewing of the shot on a full bandwidth is like that in the studio. But in the field without the giant tractor trailer, to get the full signal requires an engineer with a nights prep, and a Ford Econoline-size van of equipment to do it right in the field. Not less important, a rather large amount of electricity which in those situations is often hard to find. So many times you had to bring your own generators. I am not kidding the difficulty of full quality broadcasts... many of the field engineers are ex-military comm school types. It is a tough business. Matter of fact, all of news is a tough business.
I occasionally get to speak with some of the network engineers who travel overseas in hot zones, and they say that some of them keep about 4-thousand US dollars cash on them at all times just to bribe all of their equipment into the country. When Bosnia took off the engineers were some of the first ones in, and they had to weld steel plates outside their dishes so that the snipers wouldn't destroy their transmitters. They were sandbagged in. And they had a military guard.
I can only say that a device that does the work of a nights engineering and a truckload of equipment on a 12V DC source is amazing... AND IT DOES IT LIVE. This will save lives of newsmen by keeping them on the move, and it will keep us in touch in the world. This will soon change everything. I assume that very, very soon that the whole thing will go studio quality, and when it does, it will change the whole nature of live television. Imagine network cameras with this technology built into the camera itself. The world will not miss a thing. It sounds scary and Big Brother like, but for newsmen, we will be able to SHOW you, without the unbelieveability of us TELLING you what is going on.
Better communication. Perhaps more people will understand the truth out there when they see it. It is a good thing... really.
Price per pound to orbit one of those babies.
Ka-Ching!
-Alex
"Please note that it is now illegal in San Francisco to watch BULLITT and drive at the same time."
"Thank you, Goodnight Slashdot, don't forget to tip your servers!"
You just wait... if their
One day soon after we all get comfortable with this, one malicious little cracker is going to get in the whole F'n system and wipe out all of the useful files in EVERY M$ corporate and Gov't site in the ENTIRE WORLD. This is going to make Code Red look like the Cookie Monster Virus. THIS IS WORLD CLASS IRRESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR, even by Mr. Bill's standards. When the
I personally have the sense to know that if by computer someone could tamper with you, then by human nature alone, they are. Besides, the whole idea of handing over your personal power that you are liable for by some technicality smacks of personal suicide. I will never let something that is a box that is acting for me without my knowledge ever enter my life... EVER. You should stop your friends now.
Next stop, Microsoft birth certificate registration, burned via barcode under your left eye for permanent idenitification.
Let Bill push em around, let him play his games. He may have a lot of money and influence, then when all of his cronies start turning off computers and turning everyone in to the Govt... then guess what? They'll stop using it. Little man Gates can turn in all of this, and make everyone liable to the point of regulating everything that moves... you know where that'll get him? Dead. Does anyone know the difference between the Govts power and Micros? Pretty simple. Ask the Afghans. He really f's with the Gov't and makes their computers turn off? Then he is F'd. He plays with their computers? F'd. Gleans and prints any sensitive info? He is never seen again.
Besides. Isn't it unnecessary search and seisure when you mess with a person's private property? This man is attempting to do things that you can't do with a search warrant. Isn't it that ONLY established Gov't entities can seize property with a very specific, very well documented search warrant? Trust me, the DoJ is about to close them down and hose them. Messing with this is unconstitutional. The DoJ is waiting for him to hand over a list to the RIAA, and then they are going to take his company away.
I know the market place is different now, but the truth of the matter is that the management of any company is just organized like Congress... the fact that they set their own pay raises, and expect the rest of the grunts to do their fighting for them when they get in messes from wastefulness, incompetence, or apathy.
This is a logical conclusion for any system that humans devise that is heirarchical. YOU WORK, they go play golf on the profits.
But there is a disturbing trend that I read about that has been going on recently, one that even business schools are trying to teach ethics against because it threatens the whole economy. Companies are gettting short term CEOs that are in the company for results, then they screw the future of it to make those results. Then the CEO moves on to the next company with the exact same plan, pocketing a load of money. There are names out there that we all know of, but unlike the past, anytime new management comes into a company now, they lay off people immediately. THIS IS THE NEW FACT OF BUSINESS. They (managers) have done it to themselves on this one. It is a cultural thing. The new corporate culture says, "screw the company for my stock bonuses." What is most surprising is that this is not burning us so horribly yet, which shows how bad MOST of the rest of the world is at business. Please note that I said most. Its surprising that we haven't been getting the crap kicked out of us on this one.
Cuz I ain't buyin another thing from Microsoft ever again, when it can't handle new computing, then I go Linux. I am not an open source purist, but I'll be damned if I'll buy another buggy OS, that takes up more space than its free neighbor. By the way, I think a lot of casual PC users think the same way. Linux will do better than expected in the future.