Re:No, you can't get MTV a la cart, read it again.
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Cable TV A La Carte?
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· Score: 1
You'll need to read the fine print a little more carefully. Yes, they need to provide local network coverage, but that might mean it's another major market's local networks. I'm a DirecTV subscriber in Minneapolis, and we *do* get our actual local channels through the dish. But I keep seeing regional networks in the program guide even if I can't view them. Since I used to sell this stuff at a retail outlet, I know who to call with specific questions about this stuff. They tell me that regional networks are carried for markets that are too small to carry a dedicated channel. For those out in the boonies of ND, for instance, they'll probably all get Fargo's or Bismarck's local channels or a regional version of NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC, PBS, and *maybe* UPN and/or WB. There's just not enough available bandwidth on the sats to broadcast every channel from every podunk town across the country. Since most of these carry network-only programming with only some local news shows for about an hour or two each day, it only makes economical sense to reduce the duplicated efforts.
What I think is a total scam is that you're already capable of receiving the local network channels from New York to L.A. In fact, the same signal that you're getting is the same one everyone else is getting. It's not a two-way system. The only difference is that your access card is not programmed to receive any other channels than those DirecTV says you're allowed. It's something that DirecTV has very little control over, as well. It's an FCC rule about certain local markets. I'm sure DTV or the local cable company would *love* to sell me more local markets (more money for them), but they're reselling those local markets *to* those same local markets. There's restrictions on sales from their supplier stating that the local channels need to stay local to a limited expanded zone beyond the original broadcast areas.
You get today's pity prize. Some of us are lucky enough to get the local channels plus CNN. *Only* Lifetime? Ignore the box and read a good sci-fi novel.
Normally, I'm a big fan of Sprint's wireless services ("clever" commercials notwithstanding), but there's an alternative here with a decent review of the unit here.
Basically, it's the two-way DirecWay satellite system from Hughes/DirecTV designed for mobile (read: vehicular) use. Obviously, you can't keep this kind of connection alive while in motion due to the satellite aiming requirements, but it does make sense for those with high-bandwidth needs and are on the road for most of their lives or for people who have the cash and the money to spend on this. Those with fifth-wheel campers or RVs, a DirecTV account for their home, and need/want broadband internet speeds when they're out-and-about will probably find this the most useful. The unit will also receive DirecTV signals for those with the ultimate need in mobile entertainment.
It's obviously not as inexpensive as Sprint's offering, and it's far less mobile (you can't carry it with you into a restaurant, for example), but it should be less expensive per unit of bandwidth. If you're wanting this to work on a Honda, it's going to look awefully goofy. But it won't look terribly out of place on a larger vehicle like a pickup truck, camper, RV, or semi cab.
And before anyone gets the idea that I work for these people: I don't. I'm just a bandwidth junkie that has the "occasional" craving to get online when on the road over my annual 2-week-long driving vacations.
(Flame me if you must...) You seem to be very biased as pro-Mac. It also appears you've never really properly configured a system running Windows. I'll agree to the point that Windows (anything), not just XP, is bloated. That's the nature of the beast. But the defaults are installed for people who don't know better and is the primary reason that unknowing (l)users want more processor, RAM, HD, etc., for their new systems. It helps drive the industry, like it or not.
Properly installed, Windows will *fly* around any "default" isntall of the same revision. After installing, delete any unnecessary extras with the "Add/Remove" control panel, and disable a slew of non-essential services. Memory usage drops to about 50-60 MB or so. Each installation is different (based mostly on the user's needs), so YMMV. Mac's aren't exempt from this, either. A default installation of OSX prior to 10.2 didn't allow you the option of selecting which printer definitions you wanted and which ones you didn't. It's all-or-nothing. And a default installation of OSX Server prior to 10.2 still wants to install all the localization files that don't have any place on the server. How hard would it be to select the localization option automatically when choosing which language you'd like to see the installer in?
My point is that Macs != Good and Windows != Bad. I've been down the Mac vs. Windows battle a few too many times, and I keep telling everyone the same thing: Computers are tools. There are better features for specific tasks, but nobody can say, for certain, that one operating system is better than the other. The individual features should be compared against the required tasks. An analogy I commonly make is this: Which is better - Spoon or Fork? How about Sports-Car or Pickup Truck? How about Helicopter or Airplane?
Depends on the task and your preference, doesn't it? Sounds just like "Windows vs. Mac" to me.
And there are plenty of other places to make the "Windows vs. Mac" than/.. I understand that there's plenty of anti-MS sentiment here, but effective IS/IT is less concerned about corporate favoritism and more about what gets the job done.
(I won't call them "accidents" because it implies nobody is at fault and "crash" just states that a collision has occured)
However, using the black boxes in cars allows the gathering of *much more* information that's *much more* accurate. In some crashes, the difference between fatal injuries and a bruising is so minute that it can't be detected after-the-fact. The time to reconstruct the sequence of events will be greatly reduced and will be much more accurate with the additional information. Better yet, it can quickly rule out possibilities that aren't immediately evident. Items such as vehicle speed, engine speed, pitch, yaw, roll, etc. can be quicly entered into a vehicle simulator with other known data like the vehicle's dimensions, time of day, weather, etc. You'd have an accurate reconstruction in a matter of minutes rather than hours or days with traditional methods used today.
Don't get me wrong, either. There will still be absolute requirements for physical evidence gathering and physical crash reconstruction. The black box is not a panacea (yes! My big word of the day), as much as any in the insurance industry and law-enforcement community might want it to be. It's just an additional tool for use in post-crash analysis.
And before anyone starts flaming me for my thoughts on the issue, I am going to wait to purchase a vehicle with one of these in them until I know that it doesn't violate my right to privacy. I just purchased a new vehicle last year (full-size pickup, mfr intentionally withheld) and I'm almost positive it doesn't have one. I'm hoping it will last for 20 years or more. The car I own is already 10 years old and stored winters, and I expect it to last another 10 to 20. I *know* it doesn't have one. I practically tore that car apart to it's frame one year installing a custom audio system. Unless the pre-ODBII engine computer retains any more than it's decaying-average data from the various sensors, I'm good. But you try breaking the law in a sub-100hp "sports" car! (rated at the wheels. 90 mph is easy, but 100 gets a little interesting...) Additionally, I just turned 25. My insurance rates *should* have dropped through the floor, but I noticed only a little dip. My driving record only has one blemish: a 5 mph parking-lot fiasco that I wasn't even present for. The dippy lady backed her minivan into my car. It marked my front bumper, smashed my left headlight, and took out her entire rear window with some dents in her liftgate (damn safety glass all over my car!) Even though I wansn't present, I still was forced to file a claim on my record. Regardless, I still drive more spirited than most and have an almost spotless record. Let that be a lesson to anyone thinking of performance driving school. Learn what your vehicle will do so that you're comfortable with it when you need it. Just make sure that you learn *away* from other traffic! Spend the money for some good seat-time and a good instructor. Do your homework.
Back on topic, I don't think I'm going to have much of a choice since NHTSA (I think) and each state's DOT have final say on what makes a car legal to drive. True, the general public will have to vote either "for" or "against" them, but I think they're inevitable as the potential good generally outweighs the potential bad. Most shee-ple will jump on board right away.
Spying is one bad thing, of course, but I think that these really can make cars safer. Remember that we're forced to be licensed and insured, for both car and driver, before we're allowed onto the public roadways. In doing so, we give the government our physical dimensions and description, our address, and are given a number in exchange that allows us to operate a vehicle. This will probably become another one of the requirements before any new vehicle will be allowed on public roadways. It will most likely be a state-by-state implentation, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the federal government stepped in, though.
That's nothing... Next time you're eating at a rib joint, check the complimentary wet-nap to see if there are instructions on *it*. I've seen them, and it reads like this:
"Just tear open packet and use"
Now, I can't imagine what happened to neccessitate instructions on a wet-nap. I shudder just thinking about it...
The 90-day rule is not something that Verisign itself imposes. More accurately, ICANN has a rule that states (and I'm quoting from memory, here) "Registrar transfers cannot take place within 90 days of renewal"
I work with a small WPP outfit in Mpls., and we get this kind of request all the time. The purpose of this intentionally-vague ICANN rule is inteded to address this exact situation. It's much harder to "slam" a domain name in the middle of it's registration period than it is if it's within 90 days of a renewal. Most registrars won't needlessly contact you for renewal until you get within 90 days of expiration. I think that's why Verisign is going after people 120-180 days out. In fact, I just answered a question about this from someone who has a domain expiring in October and advised them of what Verisign was doing. Their response: "How sleazy!"
With the level of documentation available on domain names, and the fact that registrars are now offering transfer locks, this would be less of an issue if the average Joe would just use a free WHOIS tool to check their own domain name once in a while. It's not like it takes a lot of effort or understanding. If you've got enough grey-matter to register a domain name and get it pointed to the right hosting service, you certainly should be able to figure out how to keep an eye on it.
I don't blame Verisign, specifically. I'm not letting them off the hook, either. What they're doing is definitely sleazy. But they can't legally change anything unless they get authorization from the registrant of the domain name. So it comes down to the lowest common denominator: Joe, I'm-a-sheep-and-a-tool, Public.
I'm not trying to come across as totally anti-RIAA and anti-MPAA. I just think that the way they do business really stinks.
And, besides, I think there's enough precedent to show that they've abused their IP rights to stifle large, legitimate competition. You either play ball with them, or you can kiss your company/job/market/life goodbye. Sure, they have rights, too. I don't think anyone should be flogged, or anything (although the mere thought gives me a strange, sadistic pleasure I cannot comment about here due to this being a "family" show). I *do* think that their control needs to be wrested away.
And, as I stated in my previous posts, head-first isn't working, hasn't worked yet, and probably will never work against these people. It's a battle of control. Control makes market-share. Market-share makes money. Money makes more money. More money provides control. Rinse and repeat.
You can't fight people like this on their own terms. I'm not advocating violence. I'm not even suggesting anything blatently illegal. Not unless you consider civil disobedience blatently illegal.
The more I think about this, the more I realize that it's a matter of morality. Not the holier-than-thou type, but the simple right-and-wrong lessons that should be taught at a a very early age to all human beings. Treat people with respect and they will repect you in kind. Why is this so hard to understand for some people?
And before you tell me that nobody is respecting the RIAA and the MPAA, either, consider that they've been disrespecting their customers (you, me, and John Doe) for a far longer time than this P2P file-pirating has been going on. I'm of the belief that P2P has 2 factions. One is the almost-militant "Down with the RIAA and the MPAA" crowd. The other is the group that's taking advantage of a system that's taken advantage of them for years but has no strong opinion either way, for or against the establishment.
Even I don't fall into those two neat little boxes. I don't even use these technologies. I still buy an occasional CD about 3 to 4 times per year. Most of the time, I'm able to get by with what I hear around me. I also find some great "underground" music that will probably never see the front door of the RIAA's member companies. In effect, I'm boycotting the RIAA without even realizing it. I may cheat once in a while to get a quick fix, but I generally avoid buying commercialized music.
Now that this is turning into a holier-than-thou conversation, I'm going to let this rest. I think I finally got all the pent-up frustrations about the issue out of my system. But if someone else is gathering a flog-mob to head to RIAA HQ, please make me the first on your sign-up list!
I think you're fundamentally correct in regards to the P2P networks. We're not going to win the "battle" this way. The technology behind it really isn't the issue either. There's plenty of inherent non-infringing uses for it. However, I don't think you'd argue that it's an issue of how P2P technology is currently being used in the mainstream, namely music sharing.
That, in and of itself, still does not explicitly mean that P2P is a tool for copyright infringement. More to the point is the tool's *intent*. (IANAL, so take whatever follows, and whatever I have already posted, with a heavy dose of sodium chloride). Our legal system was founded on the basis of intent over 200 years ago. Apparently all of that has changed, depending on how the 800-pound gorillas feel each day. All the major P2P file sharing tools developed so far have been intended to get around the responsibility of adhering to copyright laws. Laws that seem to be the most benefit to the middle parties - RIAA and MPAA. (How'd those sneaky bastards get back in this argument?)
The problem is that an inherently non-infringing P2P network is all but impossible to construct. At least, it is under the current popular definition of "non-infringing." When we design a P2P system to allow only one type of content to pass through, someone will eventually want to protect some works that the system was designed to distibute. Preventing that file from passing through the system it was designed to be delivered with is an exercise in futility. Passing that file constitutes infringement. That's why this whole issue is about control. It's about who controls the distribution of "protected" content. Napster did, for a while. Gnutella still does, to a point. Other smaller players have made their mark. But it's all about control. Existing laws currently favor the establishment, which were practically created by them and for them. And to what end? Control.
I still view the RIAA and the MPAA as irresponsible, immature drug-dealers. They don't like other players on their turf. They'll go to great lengths to protect thier assets. They buy from their suppliers (the artists) at a criminally wholesale price and sell it to their clients (the mass public, aka sheeple) at a grossly inflated profit.
This just reeks of wrongness. It's just business, but this isn't the way it should be. There doesn't seem to be any feasible way to combat the raging beast that is the RIAA and the MPAA head-on. The problem with doing and end-run around them by the general public is that the general public really doesn't want to do it. They don't neccessarily *like* them, but most everybody agrees that they can tolerate them. And the RIAA/MPAA is *great* at determining what the general public wants. They find a hole to suck money out of and they go at it full-force until there's nothing left to extract. They know how people think. They know what people want. They know how to manipulate the public into doing almost anything. That's why they're in business. That's why a direct confrontation won't work. That's why an end-run isn't likely. The only other way we can succeed is by destroying from within. P2P isn't going to win the battle for us. Not directly, anyway.
It may not take a "killer-app" to do it either. I don't know what will, though. Just keep in mind, when NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that would write in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C. The Russians used a pencil. The lesson is to do whatever works. There's always a cheaper, if not better, way to do things. That's what will get us our fair-use back.
And on a side note: The case against the Rio was dropped becasue the device did not directly contribute to the infringement of copyrighted works. It was proven that it copied data in, never out. Apple's iPod is a different story today, and probably wouldn't have made it to market just a few years ago for that very reason. Something to think about...
I wholeheartedly disagree with you on the issue of personal copies being "fair use." As most everyone here will point out, and that courts have determined, time-shifting or media-shifting is most certainly allowable under the fair-use doctrine. Remember the RIAA vs. Diamond Multimedia in regards to the Rio MP3 players? Remember the Sony Betamax case? Remember the stink about Tivo and other PVRs? These are just 3 examples that I can think of right now (feel free to add, anyone) of how our legal system views personal, fair-use copies.
Besides, this whole thing isn't about fair-use, anyway. It's about control of the distribution networks, physical or otherwise. Don't you think that the RIAA and the MPAA have a little too much at stake to lose control over their profits from distribution? It's not even about the technology. I'm sure that if you asked any of the executives at the RIAA or the MPAA about what they thought of the technology they'd reply favorably, as long as they still had control over it. Until they get a digital distribution system in place for people to access, they're going on every witch-hunt they can muster to shut down the competition. You want to talk antitrust measures? These people aren't even allowing competitors to get started, much less become a threat. That's some real anti-competitive behavior.
I suggest that we attack the problem at the core, not from the outside. We should be allowing the RIAA and the MPAA into everything they want access to. Let them think they have control. Get the distribution system online. Get people to start downloading things from it. Then strip it away from them like the children they're acting like. Shut them out of the network like Kaaza just did with Morpheus. Get access to everything then shut them out.
My point is that we've proven we can't defeat this menace head-on. And certainly not in the numbers we've been "attacking" them with lately. Too much of the US is perfectly happy getting their music, movies, TV, news, etc., in a highly polished, sanitized form. Sure, you can find out what's going on if you dig a little bit and do some homework. But who's got the time, anymore?
Granted, the RIAA and the MPAA aren't stupid by any means. But they need to eat some humble pie, IMNSHO. I want to listen to my music on mp3 (160+ or hq variable bitrates). I want to record TV shows on a hard disk to watch at *my* convenience. I'm not a slave to the technology, but I may wind up that way in the future if these companies have their way with the legal system. Under fair-use, I'm allowed to all of this. If they'd have anything to do about it, I'd have to pay each time I wanted to listen to anything. That's just not cool.
Enough of my rantings for one day. I still have some real work to do.
Somebody else may have pointed this out already, and keep in mind that I'm just a low-level geek with knowledge in areas other than this, but...
Let's all assume (correctly) that a particle of 'normal' hydrogen has a neutral charge by having a single Proton and a single Electron. By definition, aparticle of anti-hydrogen has a neutral charge, as well. Seeing as both of these partcles have neutral charges, does it not stand to reason that they will not be attracted to one another due to opposite charges? Maybe my high-school physics classes were a little basic, but it sounds like there's more to do than just introduce hydrogen to anti-hydrogen for there to be a reaction between to two particles with neutral charges. Unless there's some sort of anti-neutral (?!) charge that I'm missing, this doesn't seem dangerous.
Not until you think a little deeper. There are lots of other particles that are *not* neutrally charged that could be used to release energy in the fashion we're all thinking. Further still, this may change chemistry as we know it, as we now might (keyword here, "might") have the ability to mix one anti-element with a different 'normal' to get some desired results.
As someone else suggested, how would anti-water work? Could it still be used to put out a fire? I don't think you'd want to drink it (as the body is over 70% 'normal' water, anyway), but I'm sure it could have some uses. Ta-da! The science of anti-chemistry is born!
Just some random thoughts. If I'm incorrect in my assumptions, let me know. Don't flame me. I'm not that smart, really. I just ask lots of questions.
I have a clueless friend like this, as well. He doesn't understand that I've already checked into them from all the other job sites I've checked.
At the company I work at now, we're apparently posting a job on our site that Monster.com keeps grabbing. They've got some sort of search spider running through our site every once in a while and posing the job that we have posted. The job isn't ready to be filled just yet, but we're getting flooded with resumes for it that keep getting turned down (circular-filed) because we're just not quite ready, yet. The job posting is in a rather small spot on our site, but you *are* able to find it if you look hard enough. It sits there instead of on the main Open Positions page so that it's ready to be deployed at any time we need it.
What's upsetting is that we have no relations with Monster.com. They're doing this on their own. It looks like they're creating their own job-posting-spam from our own posting on our own site. We certainly wouldn't mind the exposure when we're ready, but it's just bothersome that they're not checking with us first.
Oh, well. Better this than the other way around...
This is definitely not new. In fact, there was a company I worked for back in '97 that contracted with Northwest Airlines to do their website support. It was more like doing travel-agent work, and not real tech support, but we also had to do some work with the then-new automated telephone reservations system.
As I seem to recall, it was using IBM's ViaVoice and interfaced with the reservations system. Since it was a pilot product, it was only offered to specific WorldPerks members (about a thousand). Any time that the recognition failed, it kicked them out to our support lines for a manual reservation. Although, it did get better over time. Sitting at the call center alone at 2a gives you a pretty good feel for call volumes...
And now Sprint PCS is going the same route with their support, as well. There's Claire, your Personal Digital Assistant. All you need to do is press *2, *3, or *4 on a Sprint PCS phone to get into it. Pretty lame, really, as it just hinders the process of getting actual support. But their process is rather unique in that you can say, "I want Customer Service," and it will forward you to the real support queue. Rather ineffectual, if you ask me. For a demo, you can go to either a local Sprint PCS store or your local Radio Shack (they both have phones available for demo calls, and remember that long-distance is free;-).
I don't usually reply to posts like this, but I feel I must interject, if only to clear a few things up...
The dual-tuner DirecTV feature of UltimateTV is still unique as it records the bitstream off the satellite feed. As far as I'm aware, Tivo does not do this. It decodes the stream for viewing, then immediately re-encodes it for recording, then decodes it again when viewing at a later time. Sloppy, but effective (and easily adapted from their previous offerings).
The recording feature of UTV is more robust than Tivo. UTV allows you to record a given program with a specific name in a particular time-slot. If there's a skipped week, it won't record it. If it's on every other day, it will record it every other day. All from one recording entry. If your program changes time-slots regularly, not to worry! UTV has an option to expand the time-slot search when looking to record your program. It's completely automated. In addition, the information about your program is taken from the guide and saved with your recording, ala ID3. Tivo's functionality is a bit more involved, if a bit more specific. It also seems to lack the tagging feature. It's not as flexible as the UTV in this regard.
Your comparison about Tivo vs. UTV crashing makes you seem to be reaching for things to argue about. The comparison was to PCs, not Tivo. Nobody ever argued that Tivo units crash. In fact, they're probably more stable than the UTVs, but I haven't had to reboot my UTV since I got it 6 months ago. Your arguement is moot.
The only things that Tivo has on UTV is the one-time "lifetime" subscription option, faster navigation (due to many factors, not limited to more time in the marketplace and the Linux core), and the flexibility for use outside the DirecTV environment. That last one is my opinion as I'm not even sure that UTV has the ability to record an outside source. It may, I'm just not aware of it. Intentionally.
Yes, the OS is slow. Yes, Tivo can do everything UTV can do. But MS did their homework with this device and it seems to be more "user-friendly" than Tivo. And last I heard, MS is releasing an update to the UTVs to make them faster and to add more features that will leave Tivo behind. The subscription will be the only thing left that Tivo has on UTV.
I own an UltimateTV unit made by RCA. I feel I have a good handle on this subject, but YMMV...
The UltimateTV unit does not actually encode anything when you are receiving DirecTV signals. In fact, all it does is store the DirecTV stream to the HD for later decoding. That saves a few processing steps and increases the picture quality from the decode-encode-decode sequence of the Tivo, essentially giving you a *true* time-shifted recording. It's the exact same data, just played back at a different time.
I don't have any information regarding the capabilities of recording external sources (ie: VCR, DVD, analog TV, etc.). I'm not even sure it's possible. I don't seem to recall anything about it in the short reading of the manual I needed for my setup. It's got front-panel AV RCA jacks, so I'm sure there's something there. I just don't know (or care) if it's possible.
These units, one by Sony and one by RCA, are essentially micro-PCs in an AV-sized chassis. If I recall correctly, it runs a *highly* modified version of Winodws CE. When plugged in, the HD starts spinning right away, and keeps going so that it's ready for any programs you have set to record. The current retail version of the software is extremely slow, but I've heard a fix is in the works from various beta-testers that adds *lots* of new functionality and speeds everything up. I just hope that this rumor of MS pulling UltimateTV is false, or at least MS releases the update before they do.
Anyone with more information is certainly welcome to let me know.
...is what will replace the RIAA and/or MPAA if both were to vanish from the face of the earth. Here's a summary (in my own little, demented world):
All artists are going to want exposure. Some more than others, but it'll be as much as they can get. Some independents will show up on the scene to provide a place where artists and audiences can meet (online, real, or otherwise). Keeping in mind that nobody really liked the RIAA and/or MPAA to begin with, nobody will infringe on anyone else's rights by using the honor system. This will work for a time, until one of the "honorable" promotions organizations starts to get a little greedy. Nobody will complain because they are still providing that essential meeting place for artists and audiences. Time goes on, things progress (or digress), and we're back to where we started. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The framework of our capatalist society is both the cause and the solution to this problem. The system works on popularity so if a solution isn't popular, it isn't implemented. There's exceptions to every rule, but this is how the system works.
I don't like the RIAA or MPAA any more than the rest of you. But I'd rather deal with a system I'm familiar with (and can reliably predict) than to eliminate an organization who has a place in our economy, good or bad.
And remember: Keep your friends close, and your enimies even closer.
Actually, the SPDIF stream sends track markers along with the audio data itself. I discovered this, not by accident, when I purchased my first Minidisc system a few years back. One of the advantages mentioned in the manual was that you didn't need the silence detection feature required on the analog side, and that tracks were automatically marked for you when you record via the digital input(s) from CD, DAT, etc.
The issue is ease-of-use. I don't currently know of any software that allows me to access the digital stream going through the sound card's driver. Granted, I'm using winblows. But the easiest solution for me is still the hardware route. It also gives me more options for media conversion (MD, DAT, ADAT, CD, etc) for use in other applications. I still have the option of sending the data to the computer and turning it into any format I choose there, as well.
It's quite a setup that didn't cost me that much money. In fact, most people already have most of the needed equipment and don't even know it. It may not be as flexible as studio-grade gear, but it should all work. That was my whole point. If there's a software solution, I'm not immediately aware of it. I'm perfectly happy with the solution I have devised, and have shared that information to the rest of the world.
It's Tuesday morning as I'm posting this, and I didn't get much sleep last night. Please keep the flames on this post to an appropriate level as I may just be talking out of my ass at this point...
getting digital audio out of a CDROM drive is easier (physically, anyway) than you might think. Most CDROM drives have a 2-pin header for S/PDIF audio so that the processing can happen at the sound card. This is much later in the signal path, still carries the error correction information (effectively removing any EMI and RFI that's going on inside your computer from the audio signal), and allows more processing options. This can be connected to sound cards like the SBLive! series cards or even professional-level cards. I'm not an electrical engineer (INAEE?), but I don't think it would pose too much of a issue to make a cable with the 2-pin plug on one end and the RCA-type connector on the other for use in home-theater setups.
And then there's a little "innovation" in Windows 2k and ME that allows the digital data from the CD to travel over the IDE bus. Again, full digital signal. Only this time, the OS is taking care of the processing.
Taking the digital information from these sources wouldn't be too difficult. It's the making of the "clean" signal that's the issue. It would be far easier to make a high-quality analog copy using studio-grade gear first, then digitize it back to CD using the same gear. For example, it would be best if you could use a CD player's digital out feeding a dedicated outboard D/A converter. You would then feed it's balanced analog output directly to a dedicated A/D converter and the (now "clean") digital signal back into a premastering deck for final assembly. I know that most of us don't have that much equipment lying around the house in dedicated forms, but all of you have D/A converters in your CD players. DAT and MD decks have A/D converters that may work well enough (and some of the older MD decks allowed you to filter the signal through without even setting the deck to record anything).
In short, there's really no reason for this to be an issue. If you enjoy what you can hear, you can bypass the copy-protection methods of any medium. The only limitation is your own ears.
If you can explain to my how one is supposed to methodically test a network connection with multiple single-points-of-failure, I'd love to hear it.
This test usually only lasts for about a minute or two, during which time/. was not functioning, anyway. The/. staff quickly and successfully eliminated the firewall as a source of their outage.
Bypassing the firwall *is*, in some cases, the only way to determine if it's the cause of your network outage. At the companies I've worked at, this test is also documented. But it's only implemented in extreme cases due to the inherent security risks you list above.
If you saw no data flow on your network, how would *you* go about determining the cause? Please be specific.
And, yes, I came from a tolerant company. We also had multiple teams of people to handle problems. The teams consisted of the normal daytime IS staff, and on-call was rotated among us all.
The company actually told us to get sleep if we felt we needed it, even during an on-call outage. The costs of further network downtime due to lack of repair by any one individual is far less than the downtime incurred by tracking down a non-working "fix" by someone who was too tired to know when to call it a day. The potential gains from keeping us all up and working do not outweigh the risks to network stability and reliability. Because we all rotated this duty, there was never a time that we couldn't get back online in a hurry. Besides, the addage "too many cooks spoil the broth" comes to mind. Somtimes time!=money. Do a quality job that takes a little longer in the short-term, and it will be rewarded in innumerable ways in the long-term.
If you had read the whole thing, you'd know that putting the crossover cable in place was to bypass the firewall *TEMPORARILY* to eliminate it as the cause of the outage.
With the FW bypassed: If you have data flowing, your FW needs work (reconfigure, reboot, or other). If no data is flowing, look for another cause.
And if you'd ever worked on-call in this sort of situation, I think your comments would be a little softer. Nobody wants their own network to be down. If the staff thought that sleep was more important to them than getting the network up, I trust that judgement. A downed network is not something you want to be working on with 2-3 hours sleep. You can cause more harm than good. I am man enough to admit that I speak from experience, and have learned my lessons quickly.
That this thing was water-cooled and had it's own dedicated A/C unit? I find it rather amazing that there's roots to OC techniques that early in computer development.
Of course, it needed to be cool enough for people to walk *into* the unit.
IANAL, so take all of this with your requisite grains of salt. That said...
I followed the AHRA when I was in high school and was disturbed to learn about what methods were used to keep digital copies under control. SCMS (Serial Copy Management System) is basically a flag in the subcode consisting of 2 bits telling the SCMS chip inside of whatever device is being used what generation of copy that the data is. A code of "01" means that it's an original and may be copied, while the recording device changes to code to the newly created copy to a "10". The next time it goes through a copy process, the SCMS chip tries to write a code of "11" and won't work. All streams of data that contain the code of "00" are able to be freely copied to any number of generations, as the SCMS chip won't modify this code. (And all of this is from my hazy memory of the details. The system works this way, but the codes might be changed around...)
There was major controversy over this at the time. However, it has proven itself to work fairly effectively. It keeps honest people honest and allows (relatively) unlimited copying for personal uses. As long as you retain the data on it's original medium, you can make as many copies as you want from it. Try to make a copy of a copy and you get screwed.
What this system allows is media-shifting (applicable under the AHRA and the Betamax scenarios) for personal use. Under the AHRA, you can still make custom compilations on digital media to give to your friends. What they have, however, is a digitally uncopyable copy.
For instance, I love Minidisc (and is a whole other posting for me to go off on). I like making custom compilations of my songs to take with me to work or to use in my car. With the DMCA, I can't do that with any of my movies. And that's the thing that irks me the most. (I know, what language!)
What I'd like to ask the MPAA the most is why I'm able to listen to my music anywhere in the world, why I'm able to make digital copies of my CDs onto DAT or MD for use in other parts of my life (like my car, for instance), and why they think that I'm only licencing any movie I purchase and watch in my own home. If it weren't for the fact that I know that these media companies (audio, too) are money grubbing fat-cats that want to dig deeper into my wallet, I'd be utterly confused as to why they did it this way. It's decidedly anti-consumer.
And that's what it should be all about. Where's the representation for us consumers? I write my representatives, but look how well that worked! The consumers are getting screwed. We definitely need a watchdog organization looking out for the consumer's best interest, here.
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You'll need to read the fine print a little more carefully. Yes, they need to provide local network coverage, but that might mean it's another major market's local networks. I'm a DirecTV subscriber in Minneapolis, and we *do* get our actual local channels through the dish. But I keep seeing regional networks in the program guide even if I can't view them. Since I used to sell this stuff at a retail outlet, I know who to call with specific questions about this stuff. They tell me that regional networks are carried for markets that are too small to carry a dedicated channel. For those out in the boonies of ND, for instance, they'll probably all get Fargo's or Bismarck's local channels or a regional version of NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC, PBS, and *maybe* UPN and/or WB. There's just not enough available bandwidth on the sats to broadcast every channel from every podunk town across the country. Since most of these carry network-only programming with only some local news shows for about an hour or two each day, it only makes economical sense to reduce the duplicated efforts.
What I think is a total scam is that you're already capable of receiving the local network channels from New York to L.A. In fact, the same signal that you're getting is the same one everyone else is getting. It's not a two-way system. The only difference is that your access card is not programmed to receive any other channels than those DirecTV says you're allowed. It's something that DirecTV has very little control over, as well. It's an FCC rule about certain local markets. I'm sure DTV or the local cable company would *love* to sell me more local markets (more money for them), but they're reselling those local markets *to* those same local markets. There's restrictions on sales from their supplier stating that the local channels need to stay local to a limited expanded zone beyond the original broadcast areas.
You get today's pity prize. Some of us are lucky enough to get the local channels plus CNN. *Only* Lifetime? Ignore the box and read a good sci-fi novel.
And to further your point, it has risen to +5 Insightful as of my posting. Very funny, indeed.
Normally, I'm a big fan of Sprint's wireless services ("clever" commercials notwithstanding), but there's an alternative here with a decent review of the unit here.
Basically, it's the two-way DirecWay satellite system from Hughes/DirecTV designed for mobile (read: vehicular) use. Obviously, you can't keep this kind of connection alive while in motion due to the satellite aiming requirements, but it does make sense for those with high-bandwidth needs and are on the road for most of their lives or for people who have the cash and the money to spend on this. Those with fifth-wheel campers or RVs, a DirecTV account for their home, and need/want broadband internet speeds when they're out-and-about will probably find this the most useful. The unit will also receive DirecTV signals for those with the ultimate need in mobile entertainment.
It's obviously not as inexpensive as Sprint's offering, and it's far less mobile (you can't carry it with you into a restaurant, for example), but it should be less expensive per unit of bandwidth. If you're wanting this to work on a Honda, it's going to look awefully goofy. But it won't look terribly out of place on a larger vehicle like a pickup truck, camper, RV, or semi cab.
And before anyone gets the idea that I work for these people: I don't. I'm just a bandwidth junkie that has the "occasional" craving to get online when on the road over my annual 2-week-long driving vacations.
(Flame me if you must...) You seem to be very biased as pro-Mac. It also appears you've never really properly configured a system running Windows. I'll agree to the point that Windows (anything), not just XP, is bloated. That's the nature of the beast. But the defaults are installed for people who don't know better and is the primary reason that unknowing (l)users want more processor, RAM, HD, etc., for their new systems. It helps drive the industry, like it or not.
/.. I understand that there's plenty of anti-MS sentiment here, but effective IS/IT is less concerned about corporate favoritism and more about what gets the job done.
Properly installed, Windows will *fly* around any "default" isntall of the same revision. After installing, delete any unnecessary extras with the "Add/Remove" control panel, and disable a slew of non-essential services. Memory usage drops to about 50-60 MB or so. Each installation is different (based mostly on the user's needs), so YMMV. Mac's aren't exempt from this, either. A default installation of OSX prior to 10.2 didn't allow you the option of selecting which printer definitions you wanted and which ones you didn't. It's all-or-nothing. And a default installation of OSX Server prior to 10.2 still wants to install all the localization files that don't have any place on the server. How hard would it be to select the localization option automatically when choosing which language you'd like to see the installer in?
My point is that Macs != Good and Windows != Bad. I've been down the Mac vs. Windows battle a few too many times, and I keep telling everyone the same thing: Computers are tools. There are better features for specific tasks, but nobody can say, for certain, that one operating system is better than the other. The individual features should be compared against the required tasks. An analogy I commonly make is this: Which is better - Spoon or Fork? How about Sports-Car or Pickup Truck? How about Helicopter or Airplane?
Depends on the task and your preference, doesn't it? Sounds just like "Windows vs. Mac" to me.
And there are plenty of other places to make the "Windows vs. Mac" than
All of what you say is true.
(I won't call them "accidents" because it implies nobody is at fault and "crash" just states that a collision has occured)
However, using the black boxes in cars allows the gathering of *much more* information that's *much more* accurate. In some crashes, the difference between fatal injuries and a bruising is so minute that it can't be detected after-the-fact. The time to reconstruct the sequence of events will be greatly reduced and will be much more accurate with the additional information. Better yet, it can quickly rule out possibilities that aren't immediately evident. Items such as vehicle speed, engine speed, pitch, yaw, roll, etc. can be quicly entered into a vehicle simulator with other known data like the vehicle's dimensions, time of day, weather, etc. You'd have an accurate reconstruction in a matter of minutes rather than hours or days with traditional methods used today.
Don't get me wrong, either. There will still be absolute requirements for physical evidence gathering and physical crash reconstruction. The black box is not a panacea (yes! My big word of the day), as much as any in the insurance industry and law-enforcement community might want it to be. It's just an additional tool for use in post-crash analysis.
And before anyone starts flaming me for my thoughts on the issue, I am going to wait to purchase a vehicle with one of these in them until I know that it doesn't violate my right to privacy. I just purchased a new vehicle last year (full-size pickup, mfr intentionally withheld) and I'm almost positive it doesn't have one. I'm hoping it will last for 20 years or more. The car I own is already 10 years old and stored winters, and I expect it to last another 10 to 20. I *know* it doesn't have one. I practically tore that car apart to it's frame one year installing a custom audio system. Unless the pre-ODBII engine computer retains any more than it's decaying-average data from the various sensors, I'm good. But you try breaking the law in a sub-100hp "sports" car! (rated at the wheels. 90 mph is easy, but 100 gets a little interesting...) Additionally, I just turned 25. My insurance rates *should* have dropped through the floor, but I noticed only a little dip. My driving record only has one blemish: a 5 mph parking-lot fiasco that I wasn't even present for. The dippy lady backed her minivan into my car. It marked my front bumper, smashed my left headlight, and took out her entire rear window with some dents in her liftgate (damn safety glass all over my car!) Even though I wansn't present, I still was forced to file a claim on my record. Regardless, I still drive more spirited than most and have an almost spotless record. Let that be a lesson to anyone thinking of performance driving school. Learn what your vehicle will do so that you're comfortable with it when you need it. Just make sure that you learn *away* from other traffic! Spend the money for some good seat-time and a good instructor. Do your homework.
Back on topic, I don't think I'm going to have much of a choice since NHTSA (I think) and each state's DOT have final say on what makes a car legal to drive. True, the general public will have to vote either "for" or "against" them, but I think they're inevitable as the potential good generally outweighs the potential bad. Most shee-ple will jump on board right away.
Spying is one bad thing, of course, but I think that these really can make cars safer. Remember that we're forced to be licensed and insured, for both car and driver, before we're allowed onto the public roadways. In doing so, we give the government our physical dimensions and description, our address, and are given a number in exchange that allows us to operate a vehicle. This will probably become another one of the requirements before any new vehicle will be allowed on public roadways. It will most likely be a state-by-state implentation, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the federal government stepped in, though.
Ok, now I'm off my soapbox. (everyone cheers)
That's nothing... Next time you're eating at a rib joint, check the complimentary wet-nap to see if there are instructions on *it*. I've seen them, and it reads like this:
"Just tear open packet and use"
Now, I can't imagine what happened to neccessitate instructions on a wet-nap. I shudder just thinking about it...
The 90-day rule is not something that Verisign itself imposes. More accurately, ICANN has a rule that states (and I'm quoting from memory, here) "Registrar transfers cannot take place within 90 days of renewal"
I work with a small WPP outfit in Mpls., and we get this kind of request all the time. The purpose of this intentionally-vague ICANN rule is inteded to address this exact situation. It's much harder to "slam" a domain name in the middle of it's registration period than it is if it's within 90 days of a renewal. Most registrars won't needlessly contact you for renewal until you get within 90 days of expiration. I think that's why Verisign is going after people 120-180 days out. In fact, I just answered a question about this from someone who has a domain expiring in October and advised them of what Verisign was doing. Their response: "How sleazy!"
With the level of documentation available on domain names, and the fact that registrars are now offering transfer locks, this would be less of an issue if the average Joe would just use a free WHOIS tool to check their own domain name once in a while. It's not like it takes a lot of effort or understanding. If you've got enough grey-matter to register a domain name and get it pointed to the right hosting service, you certainly should be able to figure out how to keep an eye on it.
I don't blame Verisign, specifically. I'm not letting them off the hook, either. What they're doing is definitely sleazy. But they can't legally change anything unless they get authorization from the registrant of the domain name. So it comes down to the lowest common denominator: Joe, I'm-a-sheep-and-a-tool, Public.
But I'm not bitter, or anything...
I'm not trying to come across as totally anti-RIAA and anti-MPAA. I just think that the way they do business really stinks.
And, besides, I think there's enough precedent to show that they've abused their IP rights to stifle large, legitimate competition. You either play ball with them, or you can kiss your company/job/market/life goodbye. Sure, they have rights, too. I don't think anyone should be flogged, or anything (although the mere thought gives me a strange, sadistic pleasure I cannot comment about here due to this being a "family" show). I *do* think that their control needs to be wrested away.
And, as I stated in my previous posts, head-first isn't working, hasn't worked yet, and probably will never work against these people. It's a battle of control. Control makes market-share. Market-share makes money. Money makes more money. More money provides control. Rinse and repeat.
You can't fight people like this on their own terms. I'm not advocating violence. I'm not even suggesting anything blatently illegal. Not unless you consider civil disobedience blatently illegal.
The more I think about this, the more I realize that it's a matter of morality. Not the holier-than-thou type, but the simple right-and-wrong lessons that should be taught at a a very early age to all human beings. Treat people with respect and they will repect you in kind. Why is this so hard to understand for some people?
And before you tell me that nobody is respecting the RIAA and the MPAA, either, consider that they've been disrespecting their customers (you, me, and John Doe) for a far longer time than this P2P file-pirating has been going on. I'm of the belief that P2P has 2 factions. One is the almost-militant "Down with the RIAA and the MPAA" crowd. The other is the group that's taking advantage of a system that's taken advantage of them for years but has no strong opinion either way, for or against the establishment.
Even I don't fall into those two neat little boxes. I don't even use these technologies. I still buy an occasional CD about 3 to 4 times per year. Most of the time, I'm able to get by with what I hear around me. I also find some great "underground" music that will probably never see the front door of the RIAA's member companies. In effect, I'm boycotting the RIAA without even realizing it. I may cheat once in a while to get a quick fix, but I generally avoid buying commercialized music.
Now that this is turning into a holier-than-thou conversation, I'm going to let this rest. I think I finally got all the pent-up frustrations about the issue out of my system. But if someone else is gathering a flog-mob to head to RIAA HQ, please make me the first on your sign-up list!
I think you're fundamentally correct in regards to the P2P networks. We're not going to win the "battle" this way. The technology behind it really isn't the issue either. There's plenty of inherent non-infringing uses for it. However, I don't think you'd argue that it's an issue of how P2P technology is currently being used in the mainstream, namely music sharing.
That, in and of itself, still does not explicitly mean that P2P is a tool for copyright infringement. More to the point is the tool's *intent*. (IANAL, so take whatever follows, and whatever I have already posted, with a heavy dose of sodium chloride). Our legal system was founded on the basis of intent over 200 years ago. Apparently all of that has changed, depending on how the 800-pound gorillas feel each day. All the major P2P file sharing tools developed so far have been intended to get around the responsibility of adhering to copyright laws. Laws that seem to be the most benefit to the middle parties - RIAA and MPAA. (How'd those sneaky bastards get back in this argument?)
The problem is that an inherently non-infringing P2P network is all but impossible to construct. At least, it is under the current popular definition of "non-infringing." When we design a P2P system to allow only one type of content to pass through, someone will eventually want to protect some works that the system was designed to distibute. Preventing that file from passing through the system it was designed to be delivered with is an exercise in futility. Passing that file constitutes infringement. That's why this whole issue is about control. It's about who controls the distribution of "protected" content. Napster did, for a while. Gnutella still does, to a point. Other smaller players have made their mark. But it's all about control. Existing laws currently favor the establishment, which were practically created by them and for them. And to what end? Control.
I still view the RIAA and the MPAA as irresponsible, immature drug-dealers. They don't like other players on their turf. They'll go to great lengths to protect thier assets. They buy from their suppliers (the artists) at a criminally wholesale price and sell it to their clients (the mass public, aka sheeple) at a grossly inflated profit.
This just reeks of wrongness. It's just business, but this isn't the way it should be. There doesn't seem to be any feasible way to combat the raging beast that is the RIAA and the MPAA head-on. The problem with doing and end-run around them by the general public is that the general public really doesn't want to do it. They don't neccessarily *like* them, but most everybody agrees that they can tolerate them. And the RIAA/MPAA is *great* at determining what the general public wants. They find a hole to suck money out of and they go at it full-force until there's nothing left to extract. They know how people think. They know what people want. They know how to manipulate the public into doing almost anything. That's why they're in business. That's why a direct confrontation won't work. That's why an end-run isn't likely. The only other way we can succeed is by destroying from within. P2P isn't going to win the battle for us. Not directly, anyway.
It may not take a "killer-app" to do it either. I don't know what will, though. Just keep in mind, when NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that would write in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C. The Russians used a pencil. The lesson is to do whatever works. There's always a cheaper, if not better, way to do things. That's what will get us our fair-use back.
And on a side note: The case against the Rio was dropped becasue the device did not directly contribute to the infringement of copyrighted works. It was proven that it copied data in, never out. Apple's iPod is a different story today, and probably wouldn't have made it to market just a few years ago for that very reason. Something to think about...
I'm risking a major flame, here, but...
I wholeheartedly disagree with you on the issue of personal copies being "fair use." As most everyone here will point out, and that courts have determined, time-shifting or media-shifting is most certainly allowable under the fair-use doctrine. Remember the RIAA vs. Diamond Multimedia in regards to the Rio MP3 players? Remember the Sony Betamax case? Remember the stink about Tivo and other PVRs? These are just 3 examples that I can think of right now (feel free to add, anyone) of how our legal system views personal, fair-use copies.
Besides, this whole thing isn't about fair-use, anyway. It's about control of the distribution networks, physical or otherwise. Don't you think that the RIAA and the MPAA have a little too much at stake to lose control over their profits from distribution? It's not even about the technology. I'm sure that if you asked any of the executives at the RIAA or the MPAA about what they thought of the technology they'd reply favorably, as long as they still had control over it. Until they get a digital distribution system in place for people to access, they're going on every witch-hunt they can muster to shut down the competition. You want to talk antitrust measures? These people aren't even allowing competitors to get started, much less become a threat. That's some real anti-competitive behavior.
I suggest that we attack the problem at the core, not from the outside. We should be allowing the RIAA and the MPAA into everything they want access to. Let them think they have control. Get the distribution system online. Get people to start downloading things from it. Then strip it away from them like the children they're acting like. Shut them out of the network like Kaaza just did with Morpheus. Get access to everything then shut them out.
My point is that we've proven we can't defeat this menace head-on. And certainly not in the numbers we've been "attacking" them with lately. Too much of the US is perfectly happy getting their music, movies, TV, news, etc., in a highly polished, sanitized form. Sure, you can find out what's going on if you dig a little bit and do some homework. But who's got the time, anymore?
Granted, the RIAA and the MPAA aren't stupid by any means. But they need to eat some humble pie, IMNSHO. I want to listen to my music on mp3 (160+ or hq variable bitrates). I want to record TV shows on a hard disk to watch at *my* convenience. I'm not a slave to the technology, but I may wind up that way in the future if these companies have their way with the legal system. Under fair-use, I'm allowed to all of this. If they'd have anything to do about it, I'd have to pay each time I wanted to listen to anything. That's just not cool.
Enough of my rantings for one day. I still have some real work to do.
Better than being controlled by *RICHARD* Simmons... "Sweatin' to th-* LOOK OUT! IT'S COMIN' RIGHT FOR US!"
Somebody else may have pointed this out already, and keep in mind that I'm just a low-level geek with knowledge in areas other than this, but...
Let's all assume (correctly) that a particle of 'normal' hydrogen has a neutral charge by having a single Proton and a single Electron. By definition, aparticle of anti-hydrogen has a neutral charge, as well. Seeing as both of these partcles have neutral charges, does it not stand to reason that they will not be attracted to one another due to opposite charges? Maybe my high-school physics classes were a little basic, but it sounds like there's more to do than just introduce hydrogen to anti-hydrogen for there to be a reaction between to two particles with neutral charges. Unless there's some sort of anti-neutral (?!) charge that I'm missing, this doesn't seem dangerous.
Not until you think a little deeper. There are lots of other particles that are *not* neutrally charged that could be used to release energy in the fashion we're all thinking. Further still, this may change chemistry as we know it, as we now might (keyword here, "might") have the ability to mix one anti-element with a different 'normal' to get some desired results.
As someone else suggested, how would anti-water work? Could it still be used to put out a fire? I don't think you'd want to drink it (as the body is over 70% 'normal' water, anyway), but I'm sure it could have some uses. Ta-da! The science of anti-chemistry is born!
Just some random thoughts. If I'm incorrect in my assumptions, let me know. Don't flame me. I'm not that smart, really. I just ask lots of questions.
I have a clueless friend like this, as well. He doesn't understand that I've already checked into them from all the other job sites I've checked.
At the company I work at now, we're apparently posting a job on our site that Monster.com keeps grabbing. They've got some sort of search spider running through our site every once in a while and posing the job that we have posted. The job isn't ready to be filled just yet, but we're getting flooded with resumes for it that keep getting turned down (circular-filed) because we're just not quite ready, yet. The job posting is in a rather small spot on our site, but you *are* able to find it if you look hard enough. It sits there instead of on the main Open Positions page so that it's ready to be deployed at any time we need it.
What's upsetting is that we have no relations with Monster.com. They're doing this on their own. It looks like they're creating their own job-posting-spam from our own posting on our own site. We certainly wouldn't mind the exposure when we're ready, but it's just bothersome that they're not checking with us first.
Oh, well. Better this than the other way around...
This is definitely not new. In fact, there was a company I worked for back in '97 that contracted with Northwest Airlines to do their website support. It was more like doing travel-agent work, and not real tech support, but we also had to do some work with the then-new automated telephone reservations system.
;-).
As I seem to recall, it was using IBM's ViaVoice and interfaced with the reservations system. Since it was a pilot product, it was only offered to specific WorldPerks members (about a thousand). Any time that the recognition failed, it kicked them out to our support lines for a manual reservation. Although, it did get better over time. Sitting at the call center alone at 2a gives you a pretty good feel for call volumes...
And now Sprint PCS is going the same route with their support, as well. There's Claire, your Personal Digital Assistant. All you need to do is press *2, *3, or *4 on a Sprint PCS phone to get into it. Pretty lame, really, as it just hinders the process of getting actual support. But their process is rather unique in that you can say, "I want Customer Service," and it will forward you to the real support queue. Rather ineffectual, if you ask me. For a demo, you can go to either a local Sprint PCS store or your local Radio Shack (they both have phones available for demo calls, and remember that long-distance is free
I don't usually reply to posts like this, but I feel I must interject, if only to clear a few things up...
The dual-tuner DirecTV feature of UltimateTV is still unique as it records the bitstream off the satellite feed. As far as I'm aware, Tivo does not do this. It decodes the stream for viewing, then immediately re-encodes it for recording, then decodes it again when viewing at a later time. Sloppy, but effective (and easily adapted from their previous offerings).
The recording feature of UTV is more robust than Tivo. UTV allows you to record a given program with a specific name in a particular time-slot. If there's a skipped week, it won't record it. If it's on every other day, it will record it every other day. All from one recording entry. If your program changes time-slots regularly, not to worry! UTV has an option to expand the time-slot search when looking to record your program. It's completely automated. In addition, the information about your program is taken from the guide and saved with your recording, ala ID3. Tivo's functionality is a bit more involved, if a bit more specific. It also seems to lack the tagging feature. It's not as flexible as the UTV in this regard.
Your comparison about Tivo vs. UTV crashing makes you seem to be reaching for things to argue about. The comparison was to PCs, not Tivo. Nobody ever argued that Tivo units crash. In fact, they're probably more stable than the UTVs, but I haven't had to reboot my UTV since I got it 6 months ago. Your arguement is moot.
The only things that Tivo has on UTV is the one-time "lifetime" subscription option, faster navigation (due to many factors, not limited to more time in the marketplace and the Linux core), and the flexibility for use outside the DirecTV environment. That last one is my opinion as I'm not even sure that UTV has the ability to record an outside source. It may, I'm just not aware of it. Intentionally.
Yes, the OS is slow. Yes, Tivo can do everything UTV can do. But MS did their homework with this device and it seems to be more "user-friendly" than Tivo. And last I heard, MS is releasing an update to the UTVs to make them faster and to add more features that will leave Tivo behind. The subscription will be the only thing left that Tivo has on UTV.
I own an UltimateTV unit made by RCA. I feel I have a good handle on this subject, but YMMV...
The UltimateTV unit does not actually encode anything when you are receiving DirecTV signals. In fact, all it does is store the DirecTV stream to the HD for later decoding. That saves a few processing steps and increases the picture quality from the decode-encode-decode sequence of the Tivo, essentially giving you a *true* time-shifted recording. It's the exact same data, just played back at a different time.
I don't have any information regarding the capabilities of recording external sources (ie: VCR, DVD, analog TV, etc.). I'm not even sure it's possible. I don't seem to recall anything about it in the short reading of the manual I needed for my setup. It's got front-panel AV RCA jacks, so I'm sure there's something there. I just don't know (or care) if it's possible.
These units, one by Sony and one by RCA, are essentially micro-PCs in an AV-sized chassis. If I recall correctly, it runs a *highly* modified version of Winodws CE. When plugged in, the HD starts spinning right away, and keeps going so that it's ready for any programs you have set to record. The current retail version of the software is extremely slow, but I've heard a fix is in the works from various beta-testers that adds *lots* of new functionality and speeds everything up. I just hope that this rumor of MS pulling UltimateTV is false, or at least MS releases the update before they do.
Anyone with more information is certainly welcome to let me know.
...is what will replace the RIAA and/or MPAA if both were to vanish from the face of the earth. Here's a summary (in my own little, demented world):
All artists are going to want exposure. Some more than others, but it'll be as much as they can get. Some independents will show up on the scene to provide a place where artists and audiences can meet (online, real, or otherwise). Keeping in mind that nobody really liked the RIAA and/or MPAA to begin with, nobody will infringe on anyone else's rights by using the honor system. This will work for a time, until one of the "honorable" promotions organizations starts to get a little greedy. Nobody will complain because they are still providing that essential meeting place for artists and audiences. Time goes on, things progress (or digress), and we're back to where we started. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The framework of our capatalist society is both the cause and the solution to this problem. The system works on popularity so if a solution isn't popular, it isn't implemented. There's exceptions to every rule, but this is how the system works.
I don't like the RIAA or MPAA any more than the rest of you. But I'd rather deal with a system I'm familiar with (and can reliably predict) than to eliminate an organization who has a place in our economy, good or bad.
And remember: Keep your friends close, and your enimies even closer.
Actually, the SPDIF stream sends track markers along with the audio data itself. I discovered this, not by accident, when I purchased my first Minidisc system a few years back. One of the advantages mentioned in the manual was that you didn't need the silence detection feature required on the analog side, and that tracks were automatically marked for you when you record via the digital input(s) from CD, DAT, etc.
:-)
Thought I'd share!
The issue is ease-of-use. I don't currently know of any software that allows me to access the digital stream going through the sound card's driver. Granted, I'm using winblows. But the easiest solution for me is still the hardware route. It also gives me more options for media conversion (MD, DAT, ADAT, CD, etc) for use in other applications. I still have the option of sending the data to the computer and turning it into any format I choose there, as well.
It's quite a setup that didn't cost me that much money. In fact, most people already have most of the needed equipment and don't even know it. It may not be as flexible as studio-grade gear, but it should all work. That was my whole point. If there's a software solution, I'm not immediately aware of it. I'm perfectly happy with the solution I have devised, and have shared that information to the rest of the world.
It's Tuesday morning as I'm posting this, and I didn't get much sleep last night. Please keep the flames on this post to an appropriate level as I may just be talking out of my ass at this point...
getting digital audio out of a CDROM drive is easier (physically, anyway) than you might think. Most CDROM drives have a 2-pin header for S/PDIF audio so that the processing can happen at the sound card. This is much later in the signal path, still carries the error correction information (effectively removing any EMI and RFI that's going on inside your computer from the audio signal), and allows more processing options. This can be connected to sound cards like the SBLive! series cards or even professional-level cards. I'm not an electrical engineer (INAEE?), but I don't think it would pose too much of a issue to make a cable with the 2-pin plug on one end and the RCA-type connector on the other for use in home-theater setups.
And then there's a little "innovation" in Windows 2k and ME that allows the digital data from the CD to travel over the IDE bus. Again, full digital signal. Only this time, the OS is taking care of the processing.
Taking the digital information from these sources wouldn't be too difficult. It's the making of the "clean" signal that's the issue. It would be far easier to make a high-quality analog copy using studio-grade gear first, then digitize it back to CD using the same gear. For example, it would be best if you could use a CD player's digital out feeding a dedicated outboard D/A converter. You would then feed it's balanced analog output directly to a dedicated A/D converter and the (now "clean") digital signal back into a premastering deck for final assembly. I know that most of us don't have that much equipment lying around the house in dedicated forms, but all of you have D/A converters in your CD players. DAT and MD decks have A/D converters that may work well enough (and some of the older MD decks allowed you to filter the signal through without even setting the deck to record anything).
In short, there's really no reason for this to be an issue. If you enjoy what you can hear, you can bypass the copy-protection methods of any medium. The only limitation is your own ears.
If you can explain to my how one is supposed to methodically test a network connection with multiple single-points-of-failure, I'd love to hear it. This test usually only lasts for about a minute or two, during which time /. was not functioning, anyway. The /. staff quickly and successfully eliminated the firewall as a source of their outage.
Bypassing the firwall *is*, in some cases, the only way to determine if it's the cause of your network outage. At the companies I've worked at, this test is also documented. But it's only implemented in extreme cases due to the inherent security risks you list above.
If you saw no data flow on your network, how would *you* go about determining the cause? Please be specific.
And, yes, I came from a tolerant company. We also had multiple teams of people to handle problems. The teams consisted of the normal daytime IS staff, and on-call was rotated among us all.
The company actually told us to get sleep if we felt we needed it, even during an on-call outage. The costs of further network downtime due to lack of repair by any one individual is far less than the downtime incurred by tracking down a non-working "fix" by someone who was too tired to know when to call it a day. The potential gains from keeping us all up and working do not outweigh the risks to network stability and reliability. Because we all rotated this duty, there was never a time that we couldn't get back online in a hurry. Besides, the addage "too many cooks spoil the broth" comes to mind. Somtimes time!=money. Do a quality job that takes a little longer in the short-term, and it will be rewarded in innumerable ways in the long-term.
If you had read the whole thing, you'd know that putting the crossover cable in place was to bypass the firewall *TEMPORARILY* to eliminate it as the cause of the outage.
With the FW bypassed: If you have data flowing, your FW needs work (reconfigure, reboot, or other). If no data is flowing, look for another cause.
And if you'd ever worked on-call in this sort of situation, I think your comments would be a little softer. Nobody wants their own network to be down. If the staff thought that sleep was more important to them than getting the network up, I trust that judgement. A downed network is not something you want to be working on with 2-3 hours sleep. You can cause more harm than good. I am man enough to admit that I speak from experience, and have learned my lessons quickly.
/rant
That this thing was water-cooled and had it's own dedicated A/C unit? I find it rather amazing that there's roots to OC techniques that early in computer development. Of course, it needed to be cool enough for people to walk *into* the unit.
IANAL, so take all of this with your requisite grains of salt. That said...
I followed the AHRA when I was in high school and was disturbed to learn about what methods were used to keep digital copies under control. SCMS (Serial Copy Management System) is basically a flag in the subcode consisting of 2 bits telling the SCMS chip inside of whatever device is being used what generation of copy that the data is. A code of "01" means that it's an original and may be copied, while the recording device changes to code to the newly created copy to a "10". The next time it goes through a copy process, the SCMS chip tries to write a code of "11" and won't work. All streams of data that contain the code of "00" are able to be freely copied to any number of generations, as the SCMS chip won't modify this code. (And all of this is from my hazy memory of the details. The system works this way, but the codes might be changed around...)
There was major controversy over this at the time. However, it has proven itself to work fairly effectively. It keeps honest people honest and allows (relatively) unlimited copying for personal uses. As long as you retain the data on it's original medium, you can make as many copies as you want from it. Try to make a copy of a copy and you get screwed.
What this system allows is media-shifting (applicable under the AHRA and the Betamax scenarios) for personal use. Under the AHRA, you can still make custom compilations on digital media to give to your friends. What they have, however, is a digitally uncopyable copy.
For instance, I love Minidisc (and is a whole other posting for me to go off on). I like making custom compilations of my songs to take with me to work or to use in my car. With the DMCA, I can't do that with any of my movies. And that's the thing that irks me the most. (I know, what language!)
What I'd like to ask the MPAA the most is why I'm able to listen to my music anywhere in the world, why I'm able to make digital copies of my CDs onto DAT or MD for use in other parts of my life (like my car, for instance), and why they think that I'm only licencing any movie I purchase and watch in my own home. If it weren't for the fact that I know that these media companies (audio, too) are money grubbing fat-cats that want to dig deeper into my wallet, I'd be utterly confused as to why they did it this way. It's decidedly anti-consumer.
And that's what it should be all about. Where's the representation for us consumers? I write my representatives, but look how well that worked! The consumers are getting screwed. We definitely need a watchdog organization looking out for the consumer's best interest, here.
Thanks for the rant space, everyone!