"I think, but am not sure, that Amazon might have some brick-and-mortar presence in Milwaukee."
They certainly have a presence here in Massachusetts. The local Amazon warehouse/distro center is in Springfield. A two hour or so drive from where I live in Boston.
Even if the Commonwealth does get around to legislating a sales tax on Amazon purchases here, it's still cheaper to use Amazon, and enjoy, in many instances, next day/second day delivery at no extra cost.
"Or not, and they can get crippled when young adults just start using computers. (And let's not forget game consoles) to watch downloaded TV with no profit to them at all."
Not just young adults. I'm 57. The same day I installed OS X was the same day I did my first BitTorrent download for something I had missed a few days previously. An hour or so later:
"Well. THAT was easy!"
Today, If I miss a few weeks of some TV program I'm slightly interested in, either TPB or MiniNova or maybe even USENET will have them all. I queue up the transfers and go and do something else.
The one thing BT has done is make it easy to get overseas media.
I had the last two season of Doctor Who and Torchwood within the hour after the closing credits faded. Same thing with The IT Crowd and Scrapheap Challenge and Brainiac and Time Team and No Heroics.
Frankly, I don't care that BBC or Channel4 don't want me to see them right away. For things like DW and Torchwood, I'd be happy to pay a dollar per episode for same day download. But you get the same old crap from BBC: "Due to international licensing contracts... blah blah bloody blah!"
Fat lot of good those contracts are doing to keep episodes of DW and Torchwood inside the borders of the U.K. Fat lot of good those contracts are doing keeping ball games and sitcoms and sporting events and all the other domestic programming inside the borders of the U.S.
Bits don't care about your contracts or who you intend your programming is for. Bits go where they are wanted.
And really, short of destroying the Internet, you can't stop them from going where they are wanted. Remember the closing line at the end credits for Mystery Science Theater 3000?
"Keep circulating the tapes!"
Bits went where they were wanted, even if they were on videotape.
Along with this article with step by step instructions for having Miro seek out via RSS the programs one is interested in, Torrenting them, and waiting for one to watch them. (FYI, the article leaves out one important step in setting up the RSS feeds, this is addressed in the comments.)
It's a damned poor video card and monitor/TV that can't connect via at least ONE port or another.
As Miro runs on just about anything, even an old 1Ghz G4 Mac, as long as it has a decent video card, can easily process and display "content" on a monitor or TV.
Stick a TV tuner card in an empty PCI slot, plug in an antenna of some sort, and with some more free software and the TitanTV website, and maybe an IR Blaster in one of the USB ports for your cable box if you have one, you have an over the air/cable DVR. (at least in the US.)
Hell, given how cheap halfway decent computers are these days via eBay and Craigslist, you can wind up easily spending more on video and tuner cards than for the actual computer itself.
TV as we have known it is dieing. The easier the media conglomerates make it for us to watch their products, the more likely we are to accept some commercials. Be dicks about whole thing, and we'll watch your stuff commercial free. And considering how easy it is to watch commercial free RIGHT NOW, I don't think there's a whole lot they CAN do to get us to watch their commercials under any circumstances.
I think they just may have begun to sharpen that razor that will cut their collective throats from ear to ear, and that razor will be wielded by their own hands.
I fail to see any difference between asking someone to tape a program for me and for me to get that same program via TPB and BitTorrent.
Indeed, Miro is essentially my DVR for more than a few programs here in the US and from Europe. Sorry, Big Media Conglomerates! I'll watch your offerings when I want to, how I want to, via whatever device I want to, not when/where/what & how YOU want me to watch them. And I'll watch them without commercials, too.
Cue the "Then you're stealing programming by not watching the commercials that PAY for the program!" Big Media Conglomerates retard apologists in 3... 2... 1...
"Kirk: âoeHow long to re-fit?â Scotty: âoeEight weeks. But you donâ(TM)t have eight weeks, so Iâ(TM)ll do it for you in two.â Kirk: âoeDo you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?â Scotty: âoeHow else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?â"
Anyone else remember plain old ASCII, before Microsoft "embraced and extended" it?
When an apostrophe was just an apostrophe, and not some gibberish? When quotation marks didn't need to come in "leading" and "trailing" forms?
(Leela and Fry are in the Planet Express ship, trapped deep in the La Brea tar pits! Seeking any means of escape from Certain Doom, Leela scans the endless depths of their petroleum prison...)
[Leela looks at a scanner.]
LEELA
It's some kind of hollow tube, devoid
of human life. The Los Angeles subway!
We can blast our way in and escape!
"Your Honor, The Engulf and Devour Media Conglomerate, er, I mean, The PEOPLE'S exhibit A:
A Google Screenshot, illustrating how Google facilitates the infringement of copyright and assists in making available these copyrighted files to immoral and unconscionable thieves like THEM!"
(Prosecutor inadvertently points towards jury box. Hilarity Ensues!)
"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things, every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor."
Smoking pot in your car, while driving, with illegal guns and ignoring traffic signs, and thus getting almost everyone in the car arrested on multiple felony counts, isn't stupid?
When asked who owned the firearm, all three occupants of the car stated that the firearm belonged to them.
Who'd have ever guessed?
Apparently, the fact that I was replying to this comment is, somehow, trolling.
...is thick in the air on the first page of comments.
If/. had been around in the 60s, the Randroids would have been howling about seat belts in automobiles, heath warnings on cigarette packages and how thalidomide had been unfairly pulled from the market before the Invisible Hand had been allowed to work it's miracle.
After all, all those kids with flippers could find honest work in a carnival side show.
Oh, and they certainly would scream bloody murder about this "ARPAnet" thing the Feds were wasting THEIR tax money on. Just so a bunch of eggheads in their ivory towers can TYPE at each other!
The very idea!
Come on, President Obama! Fiber to EVERY dwelling in America, with equal access to the Internet "dial tone" via any local ISP, and free, uncensored public Wireless access points on every Federal, State and City/Town owned building while you're at it.
Randroids, you will have the liberty NOT to use any of this if you so desire.
All the more bandwidth for the rest of us rational people.
Slashdot Mirror
"I think, but am not sure, that Amazon might have some brick-and-mortar presence in Milwaukee."
They certainly have a presence here in Massachusetts. The local Amazon warehouse/distro center is in Springfield. A two hour or so drive from where I live in Boston.
Even if the Commonwealth does get around to legislating a sales tax on Amazon purchases here, it's still cheaper to use Amazon, and enjoy, in many instances, next day/second day delivery at no extra cost.
And they keep coming back to Windows.
"Oh, I KNOW Windows loves me. All the abuse is my fault. I deserve it!"
I'd mod you up if I could.
Botnets, worldwide botnets.
What kind of boxes are on botnets?
Compaq, HP, Dell and Sony, TRUE!
Gateway, Packard Bell, maybe even Asus, too.
Are boxes, found on botnets.
All running Windows, FOO!
...to the Hired Help in D.C. who submitted this bill and to those who co-sponsored it.
Email daily, weekly, monthly logs. Several times, just to make sure they get them.
The Post Office has flat rate boxes. Send hard copies if you can afford them.
If they're so concerned with US keeping records, then they can keep those records for us.
"The first rule of Usenet is that we do not talk about Usenet. Everyone has forgotten that still exists, so shuddup already. ;)"
USENET. That's like AOL's 'chat rooms', right?
(fondly recalling the Time Before the Endless September)
I enjoy watching the Simspons on my Magnetbox TV. Often, I tape the episodes with my Panaphonic VCR.
"Or not, and they can get crippled when young adults just start using computers. (And let's not forget game consoles) to watch downloaded TV with no profit to them at all."
Not just young adults. I'm 57. The same day I installed OS X was the same day I did my first BitTorrent download for something I had missed a few days previously. An hour or so later:
"Well. THAT was easy!"
Today, If I miss a few weeks of some TV program I'm slightly interested in, either TPB or MiniNova or maybe even USENET will have them all. I queue up the transfers and go and do something else.
The one thing BT has done is make it easy to get overseas media.
I had the last two season of Doctor Who and Torchwood within the hour after the closing credits faded. Same thing with The IT Crowd and Scrapheap Challenge and Brainiac and Time Team and No Heroics.
Frankly, I don't care that BBC or Channel4 don't want me to see them right away. For things like DW and Torchwood, I'd be happy to pay a dollar per episode for same day download. But you get the same old crap from BBC: "Due to international licensing contracts... blah blah bloody blah!"
Fat lot of good those contracts are doing to keep episodes of DW and Torchwood inside the borders of the U.K. Fat lot of good those contracts are doing keeping ball games and sitcoms and sporting events and all the other domestic programming inside the borders of the U.S.
Bits don't care about your contracts or who you intend your programming is for. Bits go where they are wanted.
And really, short of destroying the Internet, you can't stop them from going where they are wanted. Remember the closing line at the end credits for Mystery Science Theater 3000?
"Keep circulating the tapes!"
Bits went where they were wanted, even if they were on videotape.
And then there's MIRO .
Along with this article with step by step instructions for having Miro seek out via RSS the programs one is interested in, Torrenting them, and waiting for one to watch them. (FYI, the article leaves out one important step in setting up the RSS feeds, this is addressed in the comments.)
It's a damned poor video card and monitor/TV that can't connect via at least ONE port or another.
As Miro runs on just about anything, even an old 1Ghz G4 Mac, as long as it has a decent video card, can easily process and display "content" on a monitor or TV.
Stick a TV tuner card in an empty PCI slot, plug in an antenna of some sort, and with some more free software and the TitanTV website , and maybe an IR Blaster in one of the USB ports for your cable box if you have one, you have an over the air/cable DVR. (at least in the US.)
Hell, given how cheap halfway decent computers are these days via eBay and Craigslist, you can wind up easily spending more on video and tuner cards than for the actual computer itself.
TV as we have known it is dieing. The easier the media conglomerates make it for us to watch their products, the more likely we are to accept some commercials. Be dicks about whole thing, and we'll watch your stuff commercial free. And considering how easy it is to watch commercial free RIGHT NOW, I don't think there's a whole lot they CAN do to get us to watch their commercials under any circumstances.
I think they just may have begun to sharpen that razor that will cut their collective throats from ear to ear, and that razor will be wielded by their own hands.
I fail to see any difference between asking someone to tape a program for me and for me to get that same program via TPB and BitTorrent.
Indeed, Miro is essentially my DVR for more than a few programs here in the US and from Europe. Sorry, Big Media Conglomerates! I'll watch your offerings when I want to, how I want to, via whatever device I want to, not when/where/what & how YOU want me to watch them. And I'll watch them without commercials, too.
Cue the "Then you're stealing programming by not watching the commercials that PAY for the program!" Big Media Conglomerates retard apologists in 3... 2... 1...
"Kirk: âoeHow long to re-fit?â
Scotty: âoeEight weeks. But you donâ(TM)t have eight weeks, so Iâ(TM)ll do it for you in two.â
Kirk: âoeDo you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?â
Scotty: âoeHow else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?â"
Anyone else remember plain old ASCII, before Microsoft "embraced and extended" it?
When an apostrophe was just an apostrophe, and not some gibberish? When quotation marks didn't need to come in "leading" and "trailing" forms?
Good times. Good times.
Tar Tar Pits. He's going to be a character in the Clone Wars series.
Search your feelings! You KNOW it to be true!
(Leela and Fry are in the Planet Express ship, trapped deep in the La Brea tar pits! Seeking any means of escape from Certain Doom, Leela scans the endless depths of their petroleum prison...)
[Leela looks at a scanner.]
LEELA
It's some kind of hollow tube, devoid
of human life. The Los Angeles subway!
We can blast our way in and escape!
"Your Honor, The Engulf and Devour Media Conglomerate, er, I mean, The PEOPLE'S exhibit A:
A Google Screenshot , illustrating how Google facilitates the infringement of copyright and assists in making available these copyrighted files to immoral and unconscionable thieves like THEM!"
(Prosecutor inadvertently points towards jury box. Hilarity Ensues!)
Well, then. Stop having sex with her!
Steve Jobs: "Blu-Ray is a big bag of hurt."
I'll stick with DVD, my 5 year old Samsung player and VLC on my Macintosh.
Botnets, global botnets.
What kind of boxes are on botnets?
Compaq, HP, Dell and Sony, true!
Gateway, Packard Bell, maybe even Asus, too!
Are boxes, found on botnets.
All running Windows. FOO!
If you choose to imitate a Slashdot geek with such impeccable accuracy, you shouldn't be too greatly surprised if you're taken for one.
Your talents are wasted here.
"While I don't care for that idea, either, somehow the idea of a bunch of nerds with no lives watching me isn't all that terrifying."
Says the slashdot geek who obviously has no idea whatsoever about either MIT students or their lives on and off campus.
Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg, of Ulm.
"The West Wing" said it best:
"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things, every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor."
So, pot DOESN'T make you stupid?
Smoking pot in your car, while driving, with illegal guns and ignoring traffic signs, and thus getting almost everyone in the car arrested on multiple felony counts, isn't stupid?
Who'd have ever guessed?
Apparently, the fact that I was replying to this comment is, somehow, trolling.
What quaint customs you have here.
Reading the diverse online police blotters, one must come to the the undeniable conclusion that pot makes you stupid.
Now, getting stupid in your own home is just fine. It when you get stupid outside, that's when you wind up fucking yourself badly.
Here in Boston, for example.
...is thick in the air on the first page of comments.
If /. had been around in the 60s, the Randroids would have been howling about seat belts in automobiles, heath warnings on cigarette packages and how thalidomide had been unfairly pulled from the market before the Invisible Hand had been allowed to work it's miracle.
After all, all those kids with flippers could find honest work in a carnival side show.
Oh, and they certainly would scream bloody murder about this "ARPAnet" thing the Feds were wasting THEIR tax money on. Just so a bunch of eggheads in their ivory towers can TYPE at each other!
The very idea!
Come on, President Obama! Fiber to EVERY dwelling in America, with equal access to the Internet "dial tone" via any local ISP, and free, uncensored public Wireless access points on every Federal, State and City/Town owned building while you're at it.
Randroids, you will have the liberty NOT to use any of this if you so desire.
All the more bandwidth for the rest of us rational people.
Machina Dynamica's The New Intelligent Chip (MD-20)
This is a question that audiophiles worldwide are asking themselves.
Will they be able to treat more CDs and get better sound reproduction at a reasonable price using this new Quantum Dot technology?
The MARCH of SCIENCE (and audiophiles ) continues!
"Machinadynamica has what audiophiles CRAVE!"