The point of an open source PVR is not to make a cheaper or a 100% cost-free PVR. It is to promote open standards, and to create features that you don't see in common PVRs. Like, say, MPEG-4 video. There are lots of opportunities in an open source PVR. But cost avoidance isn't one of them.
This is exactly where the market is heading and exactly why an open source PVR/VOD [personal video recorder / video on demand] machine is needed. You're going to have several different groups enacting their own (proprietary and probably distribution restricted) versions of video formats over the Internet. There needs to be, at least, a single standard that is used that is open and usable among different vendors. (Yes, you say MPEG, but you need to be more specific. Minimum framerate, audio encoding type, resolution, VBR or CBR, etc.)
While I say, "Hurray!" for content being able to be downloaded over the Internet directly to my television, I already know where this is going. Vendor lock-out. And if you want to broadcast your videos over the Internet to your special interest group, you're going to have to marry a vendor. Ugh.
Reason #8 we need an open source PVR/VOD box. Convergence is happening in the television space.
Perhaps another kind of breakthough could be made by leveraging the internet for the keyspace used in your compression. (Okay, I might not have the terminology quite right... that was one of my friend's realms of interest.)
The idea is that you have a token that is given to a remote server, which sends back a stream of data. As long as the tokens were significantly shorter than the data provided, then the observed local compression would be highly significant.
Or, put another way, you're NOT storing data on a remote server. But a remote server has a very well developed library of token/data combinations. So, when a client sends a stream of tokens to this server, they get the original stream of data back (even though the stream of data, itself, isn't recorded in whole at the server).
Again, not for random data. And perhaps better if the tokens at the main server were geared to particular types of data with a different tokenspace for each.
If I remember correctly, and it was shown on Slashdot, an open source project was sued by a german lawyer for trademark violation and created a lot of ill will. What happened, if memory serves, is that in Germany, a lawyer can sue for trademark violation, even without the knowledge, consent, or business dealings with the party being 'violated'.
Great system, huh? So, a lawyer found a trademark violation, and is going after it. Fun stuff. I'm sure we'll see even more.
You're a lowly AC, but I'll go ahead and reply. For one of the math courses, I had my choice of a Japaneese native speaker, a Jamacian native speaker, and a Russian native speaker. I couldn't understand ANY of them well enough to learn the material. (I believe the course was... discrete math?)
Add onto that 10 credit hours of a foreign language (which was hopelessly useless to where I was going), and MIS turned into a shining star. And I have my minor in CS to add to my degree in MIS.
Worked out well for me. And I got a great deal of business exposure which helped in the real world. (That, as opposed to more and more abstract classes in mathematics.)
I would think that a master's degree would be a liability in all but a few situations. When you're starting your first job, I can see someone not wanting to hire someone with a masters degree. And also when hiring someone who has been in the market. The perception is that they'll want a lot of money because of their degree. And although they may sign up if you don't give it to them, they may leave.
My experience is that Masters and Doctors degrees in computer *do* set you apart from others. But usually not in a good way, unless you are at higher levels within a company,
Very few employeers will go into great scrutiny over what degree you got. They might put some spotlight onto which college you got it from, if it is exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. Because you're in college, you've got to be careful not to focus too much on the degree type. In the real world, for the most part (rogue managers aside), it doesn't matter. It just matters that you got a "computer degree".
Of course, I work with people at a "large company" that have photography degrees, technical college degrees, no degrees, and so forth. Basically, here's what the degree does for you:
In some cases, it gets you hired. There will be some employeers that won't consider candidates without degrees.
In almost all circumstances, it affects your ability to get a promotion. You can't reach _X_ level unless you have a degree. It is a golden rule. The college degree increases your cap. And it doesn't matter which degree you have, from what I have seen.
Since it really doesn't matter much in real life, I would advocate two different goals:
1] Go for the degree that will get you out of college easily and quickly.
2] Go for the degree that will stretch you and help you to learn the most things that will help you along your career as your currently understand it.
Of course, as mentioned earlier, for me, the business courses (which weren't really my main interest) has helped an incredible amount to understand the business world. And that is, after all, where I work!
From where I went to college (Oklahoma State University), the difference between MIS and CS was that CS was more geared for programming, and MIS was more geared for business with computers. I started out towards a CS degree, but after facing 'impossible' teachers, I switched to the easier MIS stuff to graduate.
However, it had absolutely no impact (that I am aware of) on my marketability after college. They were looking for a degree. But your mileage may vary.
Actually, I'm thankful that I got the business courses that I would have missed under CS.
What about EM rail to pass lower atmosphere?
on
Magnetic Space Launches
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Based on what I've read so far, it really isn't realistic to expect something like the space shuttle to be placed into orbit 100% from an EM rail. However, I'd go back to those other unconventional designs, like a helicopter or a jet being used as a launch vehicle for something designed to go into orbit. Those are being pushed because the benefit is that they clear the lower, dense atmosphere, which is where a lot of fuel is said to be spent.
If you look at am EM rail as something not to completely launch a vehicle into orbit, but to clear the dense portion of the lower atmosphere (and maybe give it enough velocity to save fuel on acceleration), doesn't it make more sense? That is, an EM rail as part of a greater delivery system, and not the whole delivery system?
Now *that* is a interesting idea. I wonder if there are any drawbacks, other than quite visably announcing where your launch sites are? But it would seem to make for a good first strike capability.
Except there's that funny problem about space. If you launch a spacecraft off of the ISS with a magnetic launcher, then the ISS itself is moved in the opposite direction (based on the relative mass of the station to the vehicle). That is, the ISS is launched, most likely to a lesser degree though, than the vehicle is. Kind of like (but not really at all like) dropping sandbags from a hot air balloon.
That *is* cool! Mod this feller up. He just gave away a good idea.
Re:Used up in the cost to get the electricity, tho
on
Magnetic Space Launches
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Well, I don't think the *cost* of energy (in terms of dollars) really is the issue here. It is the amount of onboard fuel which displaces the amount of cargo you can take into orbit. And since fuel has weight, the more fuel you add, the more fuel you need to achieve orbit. So, earth-based electricity vs. vehicle based fuel really would be a plus.
I'm wondering how much of the benefits of this is in the acceleration/speed they hope to achieve in a small space, versus the height they want to reach. I'm an idiot on the subject, admittedly (who's an expert, anyhow?), but which is more unrealistic, building an EM rail that reaches near orbit, or trying to accelerate 100s of tons verticaly to reach a high speed? (I'm still going to assume that they'll use rockets to reach orbit, and not 100% rely on the rail for the energy.)
I'd like to vote/moderate the stories that have been posted. There are a number of times I've wanted to mark a story as a troll.
In any case, probably the most useful moderation adjustment I've made is to attach a -6 rating to redundant. If it is redundant, then chances are that I don't want to read the repeats.
If I remember correctly, the UID# for AC is 666. I tried to set the friend/foe for AC. The result? A message stating that that isn't an option. Obviously coded for that specific effect. But I happen to agree with the premise.
Yup. The typical pot-luck dinner. However someone, who was easily figured out, brought rum cake. We're not talking normal rum cake. This thing was completely saturated with rum. A slngle slice was almost the same as taking a shot.
Needless to say, there was much christmas cheer going on in the sysadmin and DBA staff. Other than some laughs, surprisingly, nothing was said.
Re:page widening post!
on
Lunar Lasers
·
· Score: 1
Unfortunately, with all these patents flying around for very basic methods of PVR operation, it really makes creating an open source PVR project an absolute MINEFIELD. Heck, it almost seems like a strategy that is worthy of Microsoft. (Hey! Why isn't anyone suing THEM?)
PVRs are going to become more and more important years down the road. And they're going to mix (or are mixing) with VOD functionality. And Microsoft looks like it wants to make the PVR part of a television/home entertainment hub.
But how the heck can a serious open source PVR project be started in this minefield of a legal environment?
Really, that's not a bad idea. Find a box with good cosmetics, and you don't have to care if the insides are completely hosed. I might just have to go with that. (Jukes are way to pricey, IMHO.)
Just to lead you in the right direction, I'm buying a home that has a garage that has already been converted into an 18'x18' living space. (They have an attached carport which I am tempted to turn THAT into a garage!) There's only so much you can put into a slashdot question, you know.;)
I like what I read to far. Any more good tips on how to get the right atmosphere?
My Nokia 5165 (like many other cell phones) has the ability for you to upload new ring tones and other delightful things to it. First, I was playing around with a few web sites that existed. Then I got ahold of the logic and created my own.
In my case, all I had to do was to send an email to mytelephonenumber@mobile.att.net, and it would be processed by the phone. (Great way to act as a pager, too.)
In my experiment with music ring tones, I found that it was quite easy to accidently craft a message (in my case, a new ring tone) that is malformed. And it actually hung my cell phone up.
I probably should have published this as a cool DOS attack, but then again, I really didn't know WHERE to public cell phone DOS attacks, much less what could be done to counter it, so I kept it to myself.
Play around enough, though, and you'll find your own special email you can send to a cell phone that'll lock it tight.
I seem to remember here and there, like Tom's Hardware Guide on the Athlon heat problem w/o a fan, that they used a little hand-held gizmo to measure the surface temperature of the CPU.
I don't know what the range (distance) is on those, or other limitations, but perhaps an idea would be that you can use it to spot check certain areas. Around windows, doors, specific places in the ceiling, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
The point of an open source PVR is not to make a cheaper or a 100% cost-free PVR. It is to promote open standards, and to create features that you don't see in common PVRs. Like, say, MPEG-4 video. There are lots of opportunities in an open source PVR. But cost avoidance isn't one of them.
This is exactly where the market is heading and exactly why an open source PVR/VOD [personal video recorder / video on demand] machine is needed. You're going to have several different groups enacting their own (proprietary and probably distribution restricted) versions of video formats over the Internet. There needs to be, at least, a single standard that is used that is open and usable among different vendors. (Yes, you say MPEG, but you need to be more specific. Minimum framerate, audio encoding type, resolution, VBR or CBR, etc.)
While I say, "Hurray!" for content being able to be downloaded over the Internet directly to my television, I already know where this is going. Vendor lock-out. And if you want to broadcast your videos over the Internet to your special interest group, you're going to have to marry a vendor. Ugh.
Reason #8 we need an open source PVR/VOD box. Convergence is happening in the television space.
Perhaps another kind of breakthough could be made by leveraging the internet for the keyspace used in your compression. (Okay, I might not have the terminology quite right... that was one of my friend's realms of interest.)
The idea is that you have a token that is given to a remote server, which sends back a stream of data. As long as the tokens were significantly shorter than the data provided, then the observed local compression would be highly significant.
Or, put another way, you're NOT storing data on a remote server. But a remote server has a very well developed library of token/data combinations. So, when a client sends a stream of tokens to this server, they get the original stream of data back (even though the stream of data, itself, isn't recorded in whole at the server).
Again, not for random data. And perhaps better if the tokens at the main server were geared to particular types of data with a different tokenspace for each.
Is this idea very silly, or very good?
If I remember correctly, and it was shown on Slashdot, an open source project was sued by a german lawyer for trademark violation and created a lot of ill will. What happened, if memory serves, is that in Germany, a lawyer can sue for trademark violation, even without the knowledge, consent, or business dealings with the party being 'violated'.
Great system, huh? So, a lawyer found a trademark violation, and is going after it. Fun stuff. I'm sure we'll see even more.
You're a lowly AC, but I'll go ahead and reply. For one of the math courses, I had my choice of a Japaneese native speaker, a Jamacian native speaker, and a Russian native speaker. I couldn't understand ANY of them well enough to learn the material. (I believe the course was... discrete math?)
Add onto that 10 credit hours of a foreign language (which was hopelessly useless to where I was going), and MIS turned into a shining star. And I have my minor in CS to add to my degree in MIS.
Worked out well for me. And I got a great deal of business exposure which helped in the real world. (That, as opposed to more and more abstract classes in mathematics.)
I would think that a master's degree would be a liability in all but a few situations. When you're starting your first job, I can see someone not wanting to hire someone with a masters degree. And also when hiring someone who has been in the market. The perception is that they'll want a lot of money because of their degree. And although they may sign up if you don't give it to them, they may leave.
My experience is that Masters and Doctors degrees in computer *do* set you apart from others. But usually not in a good way, unless you are at higher levels within a company,
Very few employeers will go into great scrutiny over what degree you got. They might put some spotlight onto which college you got it from, if it is exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. Because you're in college, you've got to be careful not to focus too much on the degree type. In the real world, for the most part (rogue managers aside), it doesn't matter. It just matters that you got a "computer degree".
Of course, I work with people at a "large company" that have photography degrees, technical college degrees, no degrees, and so forth. Basically, here's what the degree does for you:
In some cases, it gets you hired. There will be some employeers that won't consider candidates without degrees.
In almost all circumstances, it affects your ability to get a promotion. You can't reach _X_ level unless you have a degree. It is a golden rule. The college degree increases your cap. And it doesn't matter which degree you have, from what I have seen.
Since it really doesn't matter much in real life, I would advocate two different goals:
1] Go for the degree that will get you out of college easily and quickly.
2] Go for the degree that will stretch you and help you to learn the most things that will help you along your career as your currently understand it.
Of course, as mentioned earlier, for me, the business courses (which weren't really my main interest) has helped an incredible amount to understand the business world. And that is, after all, where I work!
From where I went to college (Oklahoma State University), the difference between MIS and CS was that CS was more geared for programming, and MIS was more geared for business with computers. I started out towards a CS degree, but after facing 'impossible' teachers, I switched to the easier MIS stuff to graduate.
However, it had absolutely no impact (that I am aware of) on my marketability after college. They were looking for a degree. But your mileage may vary.
Actually, I'm thankful that I got the business courses that I would have missed under CS.
Based on what I've read so far, it really isn't realistic to expect something like the space shuttle to be placed into orbit 100% from an EM rail. However, I'd go back to those other unconventional designs, like a helicopter or a jet being used as a launch vehicle for something designed to go into orbit. Those are being pushed because the benefit is that they clear the lower, dense atmosphere, which is where a lot of fuel is said to be spent.
If you look at am EM rail as something not to completely launch a vehicle into orbit, but to clear the dense portion of the lower atmosphere (and maybe give it enough velocity to save fuel on acceleration), doesn't it make more sense? That is, an EM rail as part of a greater delivery system, and not the whole delivery system?
Now *that* is a interesting idea. I wonder if there are any drawbacks, other than quite visably announcing where your launch sites are? But it would seem to make for a good first strike capability.
Except there's that funny problem about space. If you launch a spacecraft off of the ISS with a magnetic launcher, then the ISS itself is moved in the opposite direction (based on the relative mass of the station to the vehicle). That is, the ISS is launched, most likely to a lesser degree though, than the vehicle is. Kind of like (but not really at all like) dropping sandbags from a hot air balloon.
That *is* cool! Mod this feller up. He just gave away a good idea.
Well, I don't think the *cost* of energy (in terms of dollars) really is the issue here. It is the amount of onboard fuel which displaces the amount of cargo you can take into orbit. And since fuel has weight, the more fuel you add, the more fuel you need to achieve orbit. So, earth-based electricity vs. vehicle based fuel really would be a plus.
I'm wondering how much of the benefits of this is in the acceleration/speed they hope to achieve in a small space, versus the height they want to reach. I'm an idiot on the subject, admittedly (who's an expert, anyhow?), but which is more unrealistic, building an EM rail that reaches near orbit, or trying to accelerate 100s of tons verticaly to reach a high speed? (I'm still going to assume that they'll use rockets to reach orbit, and not 100% rely on the rail for the energy.)
I'd like to vote/moderate the stories that have been posted. There are a number of times I've wanted to mark a story as a troll.
In any case, probably the most useful moderation adjustment I've made is to attach a -6 rating to redundant. If it is redundant, then chances are that I don't want to read the repeats.
If I remember correctly, the UID# for AC is 666. I tried to set the friend/foe for AC. The result? A message stating that that isn't an option. Obviously coded for that specific effect. But I happen to agree with the premise.
Yup. The typical pot-luck dinner. However someone, who was easily figured out, brought rum cake. We're not talking normal rum cake. This thing was completely saturated with rum. A slngle slice was almost the same as taking a shot.
Needless to say, there was much christmas cheer going on in the sysadmin and DBA staff. Other than some laughs, surprisingly, nothing was said.
Oh. Yeah. I reported the bug. Jamie fixed it.
Thanks for the free QA work, Troll.
Hopefully something like this is happening!?!!
Hopefully NOT. Patents on the basic operation of a PVR will only hurt us, the consumer.
Unfortunately, with all these patents flying around for very basic methods of PVR operation, it really makes creating an open source PVR project an absolute MINEFIELD. Heck, it almost seems like a strategy that is worthy of Microsoft. (Hey! Why isn't anyone suing THEM?)
PVRs are going to become more and more important years down the road. And they're going to mix (or are mixing) with VOD functionality. And Microsoft looks like it wants to make the PVR part of a television/home entertainment hub.
But how the heck can a serious open source PVR project be started in this minefield of a legal environment?
When you use that quake/doom interface to actual manage your production servers and to kill processes. That's when you know you've gone TOO FAR.
Really, that's not a bad idea. Find a box with good cosmetics, and you don't have to care if the insides are completely hosed. I might just have to go with that. (Jukes are way to pricey, IMHO.)
Just to lead you in the right direction, I'm buying a home that has a garage that has already been converted into an 18'x18' living space. (They have an attached carport which I am tempted to turn THAT into a garage!) There's only so much you can put into a slashdot question, you know. ;)
I like what I read to far. Any more good tips on how to get the right atmosphere?
My Nokia 5165 (like many other cell phones) has the ability for you to upload new ring tones and other delightful things to it. First, I was playing around with a few web sites that existed. Then I got ahold of the logic and created my own.
In my case, all I had to do was to send an email to mytelephonenumber@mobile.att.net, and it would be processed by the phone. (Great way to act as a pager, too.)
In my experiment with music ring tones, I found that it was quite easy to accidently craft a message (in my case, a new ring tone) that is malformed. And it actually hung my cell phone up.
I probably should have published this as a cool DOS attack, but then again, I really didn't know WHERE to public cell phone DOS attacks, much less what could be done to counter it, so I kept it to myself.
Play around enough, though, and you'll find your own special email you can send to a cell phone that'll lock it tight.
I seem to remember here and there, like Tom's Hardware Guide on the Athlon heat problem w/o a fan, that they used a little hand-held gizmo to measure the surface temperature of the CPU.
I don't know what the range (distance) is on those, or other limitations, but perhaps an idea would be that you can use it to spot check certain areas. Around windows, doors, specific places in the ceiling, etc.
Can anyone build on this?