Unbox is not bad on the Tivo. I have had troubles with some low quality encodings (Chuck and Larry) and sometimes it is confusing since their stuff has three different cost levels (rent 24, rent longer, buy). Some things are released rent only, some buy only. Also, they don't always immediately start to download, so you sometimes can't watch for a few minutes at least.
I was hoping the same thing, get netflix involved for the Tivo. I bet Tivo and Amazon are in bed exclusively, so they probably can't bring Netflix in.
I doubt they will ever support third party hardware due to DRM. Vista, XP media center, or Tivo type devices. They don't want to get their silly movies out in the open faster.
I can currently stream or transfer Mpeg 2 from my HTPC to my tivo. You would think someone other than Amazon could let you download movies encrypted with your tivo media access key that get transfered onto your tivo... Two step process, but it would allow for HD movies if you are patient...
Orb is another system that turns the wii into a nice media center frontend. Problem is, all your video, pics, and music have to go through the orb servers, so no tinfoil hats allowed.
Slick interface, but the video is a bit limited.
I am dreaming of a Wii 1080p DVD+bluray+HDDVD box... The wii "OS" interface is about the only thing slicker than the Tivo IMHO.
Better yet, my provider offers Food Network in HD, but only if you use their stinky Scientific Atlanta cable box.
They are using switched digital, so cable card users (Tivo HD) are screwed on most of the HD channels.
Switched digital is apparently on demand cable service, so they don't pipe all the HD channels into everyones house. The low demand channels (ESPN2, Food, MTV) are only piped on demand, and cable cards don't do that yet.
BTW, Tivo HD is awesome. Just got one, and it is 10x better than the SA box, even if I can't get all the programming. It is also 10x easier to set up and maintain than the HTPC boxes I have tried (MythTV and Beyond).
After I realized to kill a few unneeded OS and application processes at startup that apparently were making xp bluescreen, I have had very few bluescreens. I still fault the OS for allowing a nutjob process to bluescreen the machine.
And now I just have hangs and slowdowns. Maybe it does not bluescreen, but the XP box just sits there and stares at me. Sometimes the mouse moves. Sometimes not. Sometimes it comes back. Sometimes not.
"They were all great within the time the [sic] lived."
Did you ever use NT 3.51? 4.0? 2000? They were terrible. XP is the first MS OS that has actually stayed stable for me for more than a few days. I still get bluescreens, but hey, it is a MS product. The "professional" line was worthless in a variety of ways.
For a lot of people, they did go from ME to XP because they had no consumer option. What was the consumer OS from MS after ME? XP Home! Another POS, but far better than ME. So YOU learn your OS history please.
XP was not a descendant of ME, but it was the only upgrade path for millions.
I just got a Tivo HD that works with unbox from Amazon. I think they have three different tiers of rental, a 24 hour period, some other deal, and a full on download and keep version. They seem priced fairly well, but oddly some movies are rental only or buy only. You would think they would all follow some scheme. And they include variable pricing schemes (some rentals are $1, some are $4).
Online video distribution is slowly coming. They can't hold out forever. Music finally got here with itunes, video is coming. I just hope it is flexible enough to work with my devices. I don't want to have to buy everything from Apple...
BTW, the Tivo HD is pretty slick. Put Tivo Desktop on a PC and you can watch videos on the Tivo, so it acts like a HTPC with a nice working interface and stable hardware. I have a flaky HTPC with Beyond TV that makes Tivo Compatible files, so now it is like having four tuners and extra HD space.
Wouldn't it be possible to brick a box by doing some sort of corrupt firmware update? Maybe not brick totally, but kill a few components that can be attacked like CD / DVD drives?
Maybe a crappy bios update? Can't you do that from windows, or do you have to boot from a floppy?
I had a friend that used to co-op with HP in the early 90s. He claimed they would screw around with programs that could oscillate the HD heads at the correct frequency to make the heads physically crash the platters, physically destroying the HD... Not quite a brick, but broken.
I was 10 when jedi came out. I also saw nothing wrong with the ewoks at the time. I remembered speeder bike chases and low-tech overcoming high-tech and some humor here and there.
I also had most of the toys I could get at the time. Even a big honkin fall-apart death star. Ewoks had nothing to do with commercialization for me, I was already all in, as much as a 10 year old can be.
Han shooting first sucked. Midi-cholrians sucked. Acting always sucked (cept Han and Obi) Hamill? Carrie Fisher on ludes? Jar-Jar sucked, but I saw TPM 4x in theaters since I had been two decades without a fix. Looking back, it sucked. CGI sucked. I could follow the space battles in the original series, after the re-release there were 10x more stupid tie fighters.
Binoculars only augment your sight in the visible spectrum.
Helicopters only get you places faster than normal walking.
Both cases augment natural ability to see and move.
IR is still not normally visible to people. But I also read the cops were going through power bills and flagging the high ones, they were obviously running grow lights...
It is like the CCT cameras in London (and now in some places in the states). This really just augments a normal police beat. Given unlimited resources, they could place cops at every street corner and get the same information. Now, with technology, one cop can monitor 10s or 100s or corners at once, making public surveillance economically viable.
A bit scary, but such is the pace of technology. Just make sure to pull your drapes tight. They can't spot you inside your house, unless they are listening on the phone lines so unplug your land lines and take bats out of your cell.
I remember seeing some crazy man claim they could watch you through your TV...
Big RC plane + video camera? 30k sounds reasonable to me.
I think the SC has ruled about using technology to spy on you. If it is normal (visual) it is ok. I think the cops got in trouble for using IR from a helicopter to spot marijuana green houses (abnormal heat signature). Since you don't see IR normally, you can't randomly use that to bust people. But visual cameras should be fine, since technically you could put a human up in a plane and do the same thing, only less efficiently and at a greater cost.
You have no expectation of privacy in public. Maybe that's why they call it "public". Don't like it? Stay home and close your windows.
You have no expectation of privacy online. Your packets go through routers that can be sniffed. Don't like it? Encrypt or stay offline.
But sometimes I need to provide a link in an email or written report such that it does not wrap to four lines. Sometimes the link is not on my server, I am just pointing somebody. tinyurl can be useful.
No one guaranteed you a great job. Blue-collar jobs are still jobs, dismal as they may be. Want a better job? Get a better education than the free one provided by the government.
You can still get a good education at "second-rate" state schools. Hell, you can get a decent start at local tech schools for a lot less money than local state schools. Some of our best students do a few years at a tech school and transfer over to university. They are the ones that can make it through classes while working a job and dealing with a family.
Many states have lottery funded scholarships for students.
You make choices in life. Take a loan or not. Go to college or not. Private or public. You should be able to assess the differences and determine what you want to do. Nobody held a gun to your head to take out loans for private school.
I can see it now. Adobe Quicktime Version 13 Profesional will have 5 autostart services, have mandatory bullshit activation every time it's actively used + background activation every 60 minutes, hijack all your multimedia settings, require 2 gigabytes of disk space and 4 gigabytes of ram, and kill your dog for good measure. I thought it did all that already, whatever version we are at right now.
I hate that damn thing. I can't get it to stop bugging me to update and install a bunch of crap.
I assume we can still write him in. Maybe not for a primary though, I have not voted in a primary in SC...
I saw him campaigning at USC last Sunday. He was as legit as any of the dems running. And he wants to crush Georgia and Tennessee!!! Our peaches are the fuzziest and most juiciful!
Yes, but the pot increases each iteration. You can actually have the lottery expected value for rate of return be greater than 1.
Example: nobody hits the state lottery for weeks (1 in 10 million) and it gets up to 20 million. Assuming only one person wins, you could argue that buying a ticket makes sense mathematically (except for taxes...).
My wife made me wait four hours on a cold January morning to make sure we got our Wii. It has been fun since then.
Although we are not hardcore, we love playing it. I don't mind shelling out $50 for games, $60 for a new controller, $20 for more download points. We have probably dropped $400 in accessories and games since we got it.
People love it. Hardcore gamers aren't that into it, but the Wii is a great experience.
Why not sell slashdot alias email addresses for something reasonable? Maybe a $25 donation to EFF? Current bid is over $600... These are cheap and easy, and you should be able to do a boatload of them without trouble...
I found slashdot when looking at top teams on the distributed computing keybreaking competition.
I remember when they added the account system. I remember debating whether or not I should get an account, since it was an intrusion into my privacy so I held off for a while.
Amazing that some people still read slashdot. I skim other forums, but this is the only one that still seems workable / usable / useful to me. They have had enough technical developments to keep up with the changing internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Unbox is not bad on the Tivo. I have had troubles with some low quality encodings (Chuck and Larry) and sometimes it is confusing since their stuff has three different cost levels (rent 24, rent longer, buy). Some things are released rent only, some buy only. Also, they don't always immediately start to download, so you sometimes can't watch for a few minutes at least.
I was hoping the same thing, get netflix involved for the Tivo. I bet Tivo and Amazon are in bed exclusively, so they probably can't bring Netflix in.
I doubt they will ever support third party hardware due to DRM. Vista, XP media center, or Tivo type devices. They don't want to get their silly movies out in the open faster.
I can currently stream or transfer Mpeg 2 from my HTPC to my tivo. You would think someone other than Amazon could let you download movies encrypted with your tivo media access key that get transfered onto your tivo... Two step process, but it would allow for HD movies if you are patient...
Orb is another system that turns the wii into a nice media center frontend. Problem is, all your video, pics, and music have to go through the orb servers, so no tinfoil hats allowed.
Slick interface, but the video is a bit limited.
I am dreaming of a Wii 1080p DVD+bluray+HDDVD box... The wii "OS" interface is about the only thing slicker than the Tivo IMHO.
Better yet, my provider offers Food Network in HD, but only if you use their stinky Scientific Atlanta cable box.
They are using switched digital, so cable card users (Tivo HD) are screwed on most of the HD channels.
Switched digital is apparently on demand cable service, so they don't pipe all the HD channels into everyones house. The low demand channels (ESPN2, Food, MTV) are only piped on demand, and cable cards don't do that yet.
BTW, Tivo HD is awesome. Just got one, and it is 10x better than the SA box, even if I can't get all the programming. It is also 10x easier to set up and maintain than the HTPC boxes I have tried (MythTV and Beyond).
After I realized to kill a few unneeded OS and application processes at startup that apparently were making xp bluescreen, I have had very few bluescreens. I still fault the OS for allowing a nutjob process to bluescreen the machine.
And now I just have hangs and slowdowns. Maybe it does not bluescreen, but the XP box just sits there and stares at me. Sometimes the mouse moves. Sometimes not. Sometimes it comes back. Sometimes not.
"They were all great within the time the [sic] lived."
Did you ever use NT 3.51? 4.0? 2000? They were terrible. XP is the first MS OS that has actually stayed stable for me for more than a few days. I still get bluescreens, but hey, it is a MS product. The "professional" line was worthless in a variety of ways.
For a lot of people, they did go from ME to XP because they had no consumer option. What was the consumer OS from MS after ME? XP Home! Another POS, but far better than ME. So YOU learn your OS history please.
XP was not a descendant of ME, but it was the only upgrade path for millions.
I just got a Tivo HD that works with unbox from Amazon. I think they have three different tiers of rental, a 24 hour period, some other deal, and a full on download and keep version. They seem priced fairly well, but oddly some movies are rental only or buy only. You would think they would all follow some scheme. And they include variable pricing schemes (some rentals are $1, some are $4).
Online video distribution is slowly coming. They can't hold out forever. Music finally got here with itunes, video is coming. I just hope it is flexible enough to work with my devices. I don't want to have to buy everything from Apple...
BTW, the Tivo HD is pretty slick. Put Tivo Desktop on a PC and you can watch videos on the Tivo, so it acts like a HTPC with a nice working interface and stable hardware. I have a flaky HTPC with Beyond TV that makes Tivo Compatible files, so now it is like having four tuners and extra HD space.
Wouldn't it be possible to brick a box by doing some sort of corrupt firmware update? Maybe not brick totally, but kill a few components that can be attacked like CD / DVD drives?
Maybe a crappy bios update? Can't you do that from windows, or do you have to boot from a floppy?
I had a friend that used to co-op with HP in the early 90s. He claimed they would screw around with programs that could oscillate the HD heads at the correct frequency to make the heads physically crash the platters, physically destroying the HD... Not quite a brick, but broken.
Last January my wife found out that the local Target was getting some Wiis. She sent me out at 5:00 AM to wait in the parking lot.
6:00 nobody.
7:00 nobody.
8:00 nobody.
A handful of people showed up about half an hour before opening. We all got a Wii, no elbowing.
I did not have whiny kid to satisfy before Christmas, so January worked for me.
I love my Wii. I have help sell a number of other families on them. I should get a cut...
I was 10 when jedi came out. I also saw nothing wrong with the ewoks at the time. I remembered speeder bike chases and low-tech overcoming high-tech and some humor here and there.
I also had most of the toys I could get at the time. Even a big honkin fall-apart death star. Ewoks had nothing to do with commercialization for me, I was already all in, as much as a 10 year old can be.
Han shooting first sucked. Midi-cholrians sucked. Acting always sucked (cept Han and Obi) Hamill? Carrie Fisher on ludes? Jar-Jar sucked, but I saw TPM 4x in theaters since I had been two decades without a fix. Looking back, it sucked. CGI sucked. I could follow the space battles in the original series, after the re-release there were 10x more stupid tie fighters.
Binoculars only augment your sight in the visible spectrum.
Helicopters only get you places faster than normal walking.
Both cases augment natural ability to see and move.
IR is still not normally visible to people. But I also read the cops were going through power bills and flagging the high ones, they were obviously running grow lights...
It is like the CCT cameras in London (and now in some places in the states). This really just augments a normal police beat. Given unlimited resources, they could place cops at every street corner and get the same information. Now, with technology, one cop can monitor 10s or 100s or corners at once, making public surveillance economically viable.
A bit scary, but such is the pace of technology. Just make sure to pull your drapes tight. They can't spot you inside your house, unless they are listening on the phone lines so unplug your land lines and take bats out of your cell.
I remember seeing some crazy man claim they could watch you through your TV...
Big RC plane + video camera? 30k sounds reasonable to me.
I think the SC has ruled about using technology to spy on you. If it is normal (visual) it is ok. I think the cops got in trouble for using IR from a helicopter to spot marijuana green houses (abnormal heat signature). Since you don't see IR normally, you can't randomly use that to bust people. But visual cameras should be fine, since technically you could put a human up in a plane and do the same thing, only less efficiently and at a greater cost.
You have no expectation of privacy in public. Maybe that's why they call it "public". Don't like it? Stay home and close your windows.
You have no expectation of privacy online. Your packets go through routers that can be sniffed. Don't like it? Encrypt or stay offline.
But sometimes I need to provide a link in an email or written report such that it does not wrap to four lines. Sometimes the link is not on my server, I am just pointing somebody. tinyurl can be useful.
They are really great. Including all those features at a lower cost is awesome.
I love getting email when I have a message at home.
I like being able to listen to it online.
I like having all my incoming and outgoing call information available.
I like having forwarding for free.
I like low cost international and free national.
I would probably pay a good bit more for this quality of service. TimeWarner offered less at a higher cost, so forget them...
No one guaranteed you a great job. Blue-collar jobs are still jobs, dismal as they may be. Want a better job? Get a better education than the free one provided by the government.
You can still get a good education at "second-rate" state schools. Hell, you can get a decent start at local tech schools for a lot less money than local state schools. Some of our best students do a few years at a tech school and transfer over to university. They are the ones that can make it through classes while working a job and dealing with a family.
Many states have lottery funded scholarships for students.
You make choices in life. Take a loan or not. Go to college or not. Private or public. You should be able to assess the differences and determine what you want to do. Nobody held a gun to your head to take out loans for private school.
I hate that damn thing. I can't get it to stop bugging me to update and install a bunch of crap.
I assume we can still write him in. Maybe not for a primary though, I have not voted in a primary in SC...
I saw him campaigning at USC last Sunday. He was as legit as any of the dems running. And he wants to crush Georgia and Tennessee!!! Our peaches are the fuzziest and most juiciful!
Yes, but the pot increases each iteration. You can actually have the lottery expected value for rate of return be greater than 1.
Example: nobody hits the state lottery for weeks (1 in 10 million) and it gets up to 20 million. Assuming only one person wins, you could argue that buying a ticket makes sense mathematically (except for taxes...).
The pro-microsoft posts that get modded up are just done by MS astroturfers with mod points.
I thought everyone knew that?
I tried to click on the link, but Seamonkey is spinning while trying to load some amazon link? Maybe advertising is a bad idea?
My wife made me wait four hours on a cold January morning to make sure we got our Wii. It has been fun since then.
Although we are not hardcore, we love playing it. I don't mind shelling out $50 for games, $60 for a new controller, $20 for more download points. We have probably dropped $400 in accessories and games since we got it.
People love it. Hardcore gamers aren't that into it, but the Wii is a great experience.
Why not sell slashdot alias email addresses for something reasonable? Maybe a $25 donation to EFF? Current bid is over $600... These are cheap and easy, and you should be able to do a boatload of them without trouble...
Why not do some redirect thing the way slashdot.com points you to slashdot.org? I get a 404 for slashdot.com right now.
Checking now, it looks like www.slashdot.com also points you to slashdot.org...
Wouldn't the cookie still come from slashdot.org after the redirect?
You might actually catch more hits with tards that put in www.slashdot.org...
I found slashdot when looking at top teams on the distributed computing keybreaking competition.
I remember when they added the account system. I remember debating whether or not I should get an account, since it was an intrusion into my privacy so I held off for a while.
Amazing that some people still read slashdot. I skim other forums, but this is the only one that still seems workable / usable / useful to me. They have had enough technical developments to keep up with the changing internet.
Just make a big iwork and dwork to pass around in your FORTRAN calls then go to town...
Not hard to code at all!
I think they added 100 points to the average in the mid 90s when they were starting to ramp up online testing.
Back then, I knew a guy that made a 800 verbal and he got his picture in the local paper (500k population town).
1500+ is commonplace now.
I had people make fun of me at Georgia Tech because I only had a 780 Math. What a bunch of tools...