...yeah, but we STILL want SSX sequels.. THOSE were ok, ok?
Let me play SSX 4 on xbox live and race against friends.. I'd kind of like it on the wii as well, but in this case I've been pining for online play for too long, and I know more people with xbox 360s.
In this case, I'm guessing they used it because otherwise someone would have posted something like "but if he forgot it, then he shouldn't know he has it now, because he forgot!".
Oh man.. I've been actively saying this exact same thing for many years, telling everyone I know (since I had no ability/desire to create such a company).
My examples always included trying a day as a garbageman (which no one would leave an engineering job to do, but would be an interesting experience, riding the truck, etc), taxi driver, crane operator, etc.
..but they're data - they can be changed without recompiling code..
XSLT's syntax may be daunting for some, but it's extremely powerful and lets you do transformations far easier than building custom parsing code to output the same results. More importantly, if the output needs to be tweaked a bit (by either a primary developer, or even an end user wanting to change layout/presentation, etc), then it's far easier to modify an existing XSLT stylesheet, in most cases.
Once you've written enough XSLT stylesheets, trust me, you simplify that part of the equation in your mind to "that's just a stylesheet transform" - it's a clearly solvable problem, and knowing that, you usually then focus on other more important architectural issues of your project, and leave the stylesheet writing for later (or churn it out quick ahead of time).
No, it's not just key/value pairs. It's hierarchical. The hierarchy itself contains data - where things are located. You can't express rich hierachical data easily in a flat key/value layout.
In an XML file, I can throw in extra attributes or elements that won't be read by an old version of an app that wasn't looking for them. In a simple comma-separated-values layout, if I add something to the format, it's completely incompatible with previous versions.
The most complicated tools you have for comma-separated values are along the lines of cut and sed. When you have an XML document, you can convert it to *any* other XML format with a simple XSLT stylesheet (or, for that matter, into non-XML formats). SQL-Select-like statements can be represented with XPath, letting you select various fields of nodes which contain a certain attribute, act on the a certain way, etc.
Any anyway, would you look at an HTML document and say "it's just key-value pairs"? No! The order of elements, the hierarchy of data, etc, all makes up the page as a whole. HTML was an application of SGML, which XML was derived from.. Use XHTML if that last bit confuses you - it's not key/value pairs.
People have thrown the buzzwords at you because they're either really impressed with the technology, or because they're the kind of people that like buzzwords. Ignore the latter group of people, and try to focus on why those of us in the first group are singing its praises.
Again, maybe they could spend some of that money refactoring their modular implementation to allow disable-output-escaping in XSLT when the output method isn't xhtml... (even if it causes a second pass when disable-output-escaping is set to true)..
The worst thing about the 360 release was the piece-of-garbage headset they gave us with the 360, instead of the far superior headset from the original XBox Live kit.
Microsoft doesn't even SELL a good replacement for this, and old headsets don't work unless you buy a new one, cut off the wedge piece, and solder connections to the mute and volume controls.
Other than that, and not having any for people to buy, it's a great platform. It won't even be a topic for discussion when Halo3 comes out, it will be a requirement.
Someone should figure out his gamertag and post it here, so that if the bastard is allowed to play xbox live while waiting for his court date, kids can steer clear, and everyone else can gang up on the guy and keep rockets firing at his head 24x7.
The only thing missing from Thunderbird in my opinion is built-in calender/meeting functionality, which exists as extensions and standalone apps, albeit in beta.
I read the summary several times, then went looking for someone else that already said what I wanted to post.. I was stunned to have to scroll down a few pages to see it.
When I was in college, a friend and I took VLSI Design, even though we were the only two in the class.. We used tools like oct-vem to lay out circuits of our own design, then they actually had our chips sent out to be manufactured.
I wrote an 8-bit ALU with carry-look-ahead lines so you could assemble multiple chips together without the delay of normal carry propagation. When we got them back, I connected 4 of them together to act as a 32-bit ALU.
When laying out the chip, the logic for my chip (as apparently is often the case during VLSI design classes) was very small compared to the size of the chip itself.. So on our chips we put the logic in the center, and when running lines out to the pins, routed them in such a way as to make space for a big rectangular area. My chip had my name written in it, in silicon.:)
There aren't a variety of hardware problems - there are basically only two: the modem, and the hard drives.
People hacking their TiVos typically replace their hard drives anyway, so the hard drive problem is not as much of a problem (plus it's something all DVRs have to deal with - TiVo does a pretty good job at minimizing seeks by how it lays out video.
The modem problem, while a headache, can be fixed pretty easily two ways.. ElectricLegs (I forget his real name, I mention it in my book) posted details on which resistors to check on the motherboard, and they can be fixed if they're bad. The other solution is to stop using the modem altogether. Series2 users can buy a USB ethernet connection - drivers for it are already in your TiVo (and you can even do guided setup via ethernet now with the latest software revision). Series1 owners can buy a TurboNet card (or better yet, a CacheCard which does everything a TurboNet card did but also with MFS database caching). This provides an ethernet jack inside your TiVo.
I have two old Philips 14-hour Series1 TiVos (one with 330 hours, one with 770 hours), and a third Series2 TiVo (with a mere 80 hours I think). Many family members and friends have me fix their TiVos - I've yet to see a modem problem myself, and I haven't seen any other problems. The only other thing I could imagine would be a power supply failure, but I haven't heard of anyone having that actually happen.
I'm sorry you had a problem with your hardware.. Most people don't run into that, with the main exception being the hard drive after about 3-4 years.
I'd like to suggest that people who watch less TV actually have more of a reason to own a TiVo. If you only sit down at a TV for two hours a week, why have those two hours be for the random garbage that's on when you happened to sit down? With a TiVo you can have it record the 2 or 3 shows you care about, and then forget about it.. If you feel so inclined, don't watch TV for a few months - then watch all of the episodes you wanted to catch up on all at once.
Which would you rather do - sit down at a VCR (that you need to make sure you don't fill up, and that you need to rewind) to watch your two shows per week (EACH week - and now vacations become a problem if you actually follow those shows, because you need to fit everything onto a tape) - OR - sit down at your TiVo, see the shows you want, and find out that you also have Blade Runner and five Twilight Zone episodes waiting for you, if you choose to watch them.
One last point - TiVo has helped me and others watch less. There used to be shows I'd watch that I felt I should stick with - because maybe the next week it'd be a bit better, and if I stopped watching, I'd effectively divorce myself from the show because you usually can't miss one episode in the middle of a series. Since TiVo lets things pile up for as long as you want, I'd find myself letting mediocre shows (like latter seasons of Andromeda) piling up.. The immediate need to choose watch-or-divorce went away, and after a few weeks I realized that neither I nor my wife really enjoyed it anymore.. I fastforwarded through some of the episodes, realized I wasn't impressed anymore, and dumped them.
As an aside, you're missing out by not watching Lost.
Yeah, but see, YOU'RE NOT ON THE FENCE! You decided to spend lots of money to build a MythTV box, so you're not who I'm talking about. The people complaining here that "well, I was thinking about buying a TiVo - I was on the fence.. but NOW, well, forget it" are the people that I'm discussing..
Building your own PVR doesn't mean you have brains.. It means you either: A) Want to do it for the fun technical challenge of it B) Think you'll save money building your own C) Have software you want to write and need a TV platform D) Disagree with policies of commercial PVRs and want to avoid them.
I agree with A - I just found it more interesting to reverse engineer one (takes a bit more brains). B is clearly wrong.. It's far cheaper to get a TiVo. C also makes sense, if you really have some interesting app and don't want to write to TiVo's API or hacked APIs. D seems to be what you're claiming.. the problem is, you're wrong on why you claim to dislike them.
TiVos aren't deleting shows without your permission (unless you're talking about pay-per-view recordings delivered by TiVo that you didn't record on your own, or unless you live in a ficticious world created by the trust of a recent incorrect slashdot article).
If you're truly editing out commercials and burning to DVD, you're again clearly not someone considering getting a TiVo - so you're not who I was complaining about. I'd also suggest that you'll never watch those DVDs - I'm someone who knows, I've recorded a lot of things, and they never get watched.. years later, you'll miss those commercials for their nostalgia value too - though you'll still never watch them.
TiVo isn't eroding any of your fair rights.. You want to save to VCR? Go ahead.
I do love my TiVo - it's cheaper, it's a popular platform, I can buy more very cheap, it's got a very nice UI, it's got elegant well-planned-out-and-tested features, and it's not playing catch-up with anyone (with the irritating exception of not having a cablecard HDTV on the market yet). And I use it as a development platform too.
Be happy you built your more-expensive yay-I-did-it-myself MythTV box - just don't go convincing yourself that you're not also another breed of sheep.
Ok, I'm still stunned there are people who haven't decided to get a TiVo yet in this day and age. Slashdot comments like "Well, I was on the fence.. I was about to get one.. But NOW.. nope!" are astounding.. If you don't have one already, I don't get the feeling you were about to sign up anytime soon.. What else did the box need to do for you - produce gold?
As for this most recent news article, it shouldn't affect anyone who's thought about this for more than 10-15 seconds.. Paying the $12/month fee is a suckers game - they let you pay a one-time fee (originally $199, then $249, now I think $299) for the LIFETIME of the unit.. If you have it more than 2 years, the lifetime subscription paid for itself and you're free - if you opted to pay $12 per month, you're losing money.
Who are these slashdot readers who are getting paid so poorly that they can't afford $299 up-front instead of the screw-you-layaway-plan option? They are the only ones who are affected or should be complaining about this change.
Every time TiVo makes some change that lets them stay alive, someone's there to complain that they're not going with them now. No one's buying it - you're not getting the company to change their plan - they're not reading slashdot to see if you're happy about it or not.
Oh yeah - one last thing.. From now on, anyone considering getting a TiVo: TiVo Inc just made it easier to see that the $$/month is a sucker's game.. To "make out" on that deal you'd have to buy a TiVo, decide AFTER a year that you don't like it, but BEFORE two years.. Then maybe you'd save UP TO $150.. Again - who is making these low salaries?!
(and yes, I know DirecTivo people don't have the lifetime option - but then again DirecTV isn't marketing DirecTiVos anymore either)
Then how about TV junkies?! The TV show was one of my all time favorite shows! Bill Bixby WAS Banner.. David Banner. You wouldn't like him when he was angry..
I worked at CMGi for five years, and a good portion of that was working for a daughter company named InfoMation on a project called Echo. It was a web scraping tool that let you create your own personal newspaper, from any source you wanted (web, usenet, mail, rss feeds, etc). Imagine google alerts but you could create custom news feeds to any sites you want.. Have it look each day for new albums from your favorite bands by creating custom searches on music sites.. Have it monitor your competition's website for changes (or look for press releases regarding your competition on the wirefeed services). Track articles in industry trends you want to follow.
I really liked our alert system (ahem), which would put the titles of articles in the subject line, unlike google alerts, which just puts the category.. You could also subscibe via daily summaries which only sent one email per day, or via cellphone/pager sms messages.
I miss it. Unfortunately our sales department tried selling it to the insurance industry, which takes way too long to purchase technology (as opposed to, oh, say, a stock broker, who would want to follow every stock he's got his clients invested in.. go figure).
Re:Bungie said that the next wouldn't be a Halo .
on
Halo 3 Rumours Surface
·
· Score: 1
But the point is, there WILL be a Halo 3.. Most people consider their xbox to be a Halo-playing-device.. It's certainly the main reason the platform was as popular as it was.. Bungie had people drooling over demos of Halo for YEARS, at MacWorld expo after MacWorld expo.. Halo is what sold the xbox. Having another Halo title out there will be key in selling xbox 360's.
Anyone thinking that they didn't/won't have all of Bungie's time from Halo2 until the release of Halo3 spent on Halo3 isn't getting how important the Halo franchise is to the xbox. Bungie gets it, and I'd bet anything that's what they're working on.
And, for the record, you have a poor taste in games.. Halo2 was great.
The date may slip, but the next title from Bungie won't be non-Halo. Quote the slashdot post years from now - I'm saying it here.
Re:Bungie said that the next wouldn't be a Halo .
on
Halo 3 Rumours Surface
·
· Score: 1
Bill Gates has come out publicly announcing there will be a Halo 3, and that it will be released on the day of the release of the PS3:
Slashdot Mirror
Someone call Albert Brooks' mother!
...yeah, but we STILL want SSX sequels.. THOSE were ok, ok?
Let me play SSX 4 on xbox live and race against friends..
I'd kind of like it on the wii as well, but in this case I've been pining for online play for too long, and I know more people with xbox 360s.
Some people think that it's ok to print source code to the concrete prefab building printer. THIS SIMPLY IS NOT SO!!!
4 8 15 16 23 42
Well they certainly don't appreciate being reminded that they still don't support the disable-output-escaping feature of XSLT..
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=98168
In this case, I'm guessing they used it because otherwise someone would have posted something like "but if he forgot it, then he shouldn't know he has it now, because he forgot!".
..and eat cold poison for breakfast.
Oh man.. I've been actively saying this exact same thing for many years, telling everyone I know (since I had no ability/desire to create such a company).
My examples always included trying a day as a garbageman (which no one would leave an engineering job to do, but would be an interesting experience, riding the truck, etc), taxi driver, crane operator, etc.
Wow! So cool that the idea actually flew!!
..but they're data - they can be changed without recompiling code..
XSLT's syntax may be daunting for some, but it's extremely powerful and lets you do transformations far easier than building custom parsing code to output the same results. More importantly, if the output needs to be tweaked a bit (by either a primary developer, or even an end user wanting to change layout/presentation, etc), then it's far easier to modify an existing XSLT stylesheet, in most cases.
Once you've written enough XSLT stylesheets, trust me, you simplify that part of the equation in your mind to "that's just a stylesheet transform" - it's a clearly solvable problem, and knowing that, you usually then focus on other more important architectural issues of your project, and leave the stylesheet writing for later (or churn it out quick ahead of time).
No, it's not just key/value pairs. It's hierarchical. The hierarchy itself contains data - where things are located. You can't express rich hierachical data easily in a flat key/value layout.
In an XML file, I can throw in extra attributes or elements that won't be read by an old version of an app that wasn't looking for them. In a simple comma-separated-values layout, if I add something to the format, it's completely incompatible with previous versions.
The most complicated tools you have for comma-separated values are along the lines of cut and sed. When you have an XML document, you can convert it to *any* other XML format with a simple XSLT stylesheet (or, for that matter, into non-XML formats). SQL-Select-like statements can be represented with XPath, letting you select various fields of nodes which contain a certain attribute, act on the a certain way, etc.
Any anyway, would you look at an HTML document and say "it's just key-value pairs"? No! The order of elements, the hierarchy of data, etc, all makes up the page as a whole. HTML was an application of SGML, which XML was derived from.. Use XHTML if that last bit confuses you - it's not key/value pairs.
People have thrown the buzzwords at you because they're either really impressed with the technology, or because they're the kind of people that like buzzwords. Ignore the latter group of people, and try to focus on why those of us in the first group are singing its praises.
Again, maybe they could spend some of that money refactoring their modular implementation to allow disable-output-escaping in XSLT when the output method isn't xhtml... (even if it causes a second pass when disable-output-escaping is set to true)..
l y_implement_XSLT_in_Firefox
http://digg.com/technology/Mozilla_refuses_to_ful
The worst thing about the 360 release was the piece-of-garbage headset they gave us with the 360, instead of the far superior headset from the original XBox Live kit.
Microsoft doesn't even SELL a good replacement for this, and old headsets don't work unless you buy a new one, cut off the wedge piece, and solder connections to the mute and volume controls.
Other than that, and not having any for people to buy, it's a great platform. It won't even be a topic for discussion when Halo3 comes out, it will be a requirement.
Someone should figure out his gamertag and post it here, so that if the bastard is allowed to play xbox live while waiting for his court date, kids can steer clear, and everyone else can gang up on the guy and keep rockets firing at his head 24x7.
The only thing missing from Thunderbird in my opinion is built-in calender/meeting functionality, which exists as extensions and standalone apps, albeit in beta.
What are the downsides?
I read the summary several times, then went looking for someone else that already said what I wanted to post.. I was stunned to have to scroll down a few pages to see it.
When I was in college, a friend and I took VLSI Design, even though we were the only two in the class.. We used tools like oct-vem to lay out circuits of our own design, then they actually had our chips sent out to be manufactured.
:)
I wrote an 8-bit ALU with carry-look-ahead lines so you could assemble multiple chips together without the delay of normal carry propagation. When we got them back, I connected 4 of them together to act as a 32-bit ALU.
When laying out the chip, the logic for my chip (as apparently is often the case during VLSI design classes) was very small compared to the size of the chip itself.. So on our chips we put the logic in the center, and when running lines out to the pins, routed them in such a way as to make space for a big rectangular area. My chip had my name written in it, in silicon.
There aren't a variety of hardware problems - there are basically only two: the modem, and the hard drives.
People hacking their TiVos typically replace their hard drives anyway, so the hard drive problem is not as much of a problem (plus it's something all DVRs have to deal with - TiVo does a pretty good job at minimizing seeks by how it lays out video.
The modem problem, while a headache, can be fixed pretty easily two ways.. ElectricLegs (I forget his real name, I mention it in my book) posted details on which resistors to check on the motherboard, and they can be fixed if they're bad. The other solution is to stop using the modem altogether. Series2 users can buy a USB ethernet connection - drivers for it are already in your TiVo (and you can even do guided setup via ethernet now with the latest software revision). Series1 owners can buy a TurboNet card (or better yet, a CacheCard which does everything a TurboNet card did but also with MFS database caching). This provides an ethernet jack inside your TiVo.
I have two old Philips 14-hour Series1 TiVos (one with 330 hours, one with 770 hours), and a third Series2 TiVo (with a mere 80 hours I think). Many family members and friends have me fix their TiVos - I've yet to see a modem problem myself, and I haven't seen any other problems. The only other thing I could imagine would be a power supply failure, but I haven't heard of anyone having that actually happen.
I'm sorry you had a problem with your hardware.. Most people don't run into that, with the main exception being the hard drive after about 3-4 years.
I'd like to suggest that people who watch less TV actually have more of a reason to own a TiVo. If you only sit down at a TV for two hours a week, why have those two hours be for the random garbage that's on when you happened to sit down? With a TiVo you can have it record the 2 or 3 shows you care about, and then forget about it.. If you feel so inclined, don't watch TV for a few months - then watch all of the episodes you wanted to catch up on all at once.
Which would you rather do - sit down at a VCR (that you need to make sure you don't fill up, and that you need to rewind) to watch your two shows per week (EACH week - and now vacations become a problem if you actually follow those shows, because you need to fit everything onto a tape) - OR - sit down at your TiVo, see the shows you want, and find out that you also have Blade Runner and five Twilight Zone episodes waiting for you, if you choose to watch them.
One last point - TiVo has helped me and others watch less. There used to be shows I'd watch that I felt I should stick with - because maybe the next week it'd be a bit better, and if I stopped watching, I'd effectively divorce myself from the show because you usually can't miss one episode in the middle of a series. Since TiVo lets things pile up for as long as you want, I'd find myself letting mediocre shows (like latter seasons of Andromeda) piling up.. The immediate need to choose watch-or-divorce went away, and after a few weeks I realized that neither I nor my wife really enjoyed it anymore.. I fastforwarded through some of the episodes, realized I wasn't impressed anymore, and dumped them.
As an aside, you're missing out by not watching Lost.
Yeah, but see, YOU'RE NOT ON THE FENCE! You decided to spend lots of money to build a MythTV box, so you're not who I'm talking about. The people complaining here that "well, I was thinking about buying a TiVo - I was on the fence.. but NOW, well, forget it" are the people that I'm discussing..
Building your own PVR doesn't mean you have brains.. It means you either:
A) Want to do it for the fun technical challenge of it
B) Think you'll save money building your own
C) Have software you want to write and need a TV platform
D) Disagree with policies of commercial PVRs and want to avoid them.
I agree with A - I just found it more interesting to reverse engineer one (takes a bit more brains).
B is clearly wrong.. It's far cheaper to get a TiVo.
C also makes sense, if you really have some interesting app and don't want to write to TiVo's API or hacked APIs.
D seems to be what you're claiming.. the problem is, you're wrong on why you claim to dislike them.
TiVos aren't deleting shows without your permission (unless you're talking about pay-per-view recordings delivered by TiVo that you didn't record on your own, or unless you live in a ficticious world created by the trust of a recent incorrect slashdot article).
If you're truly editing out commercials and burning to DVD, you're again clearly not someone considering getting a TiVo - so you're not who I was complaining about. I'd also suggest that you'll never watch those DVDs - I'm someone who knows, I've recorded a lot of things, and they never get watched.. years later, you'll miss those commercials for their nostalgia value too - though you'll still never watch them.
TiVo isn't eroding any of your fair rights.. You want to save to VCR? Go ahead.
I do love my TiVo - it's cheaper, it's a popular platform, I can buy more very cheap, it's got a very nice UI, it's got elegant well-planned-out-and-tested features, and it's not playing catch-up with anyone (with the irritating exception of not having a cablecard HDTV on the market yet). And I use it as a development platform too.
Be happy you built your more-expensive yay-I-did-it-myself MythTV box - just don't go convincing yourself that you're not also another breed of sheep.
Ok, I'm still stunned there are people who haven't decided to get a TiVo yet in this day and age. Slashdot comments like "Well, I was on the fence.. I was about to get one.. But NOW.. nope!" are astounding.. If you don't have one already, I don't get the feeling you were about to sign up anytime soon.. What else did the box need to do for you - produce gold?
As for this most recent news article, it shouldn't affect anyone who's thought about this for more than 10-15 seconds.. Paying the $12/month fee is a suckers game - they let you pay a one-time fee (originally $199, then $249, now I think $299) for the LIFETIME of the unit.. If you have it more than 2 years, the lifetime subscription paid for itself and you're free - if you opted to pay $12 per month, you're losing money.
Who are these slashdot readers who are getting paid so poorly that they can't afford $299 up-front instead of the screw-you-layaway-plan option? They are the only ones who are affected or should be complaining about this change.
Every time TiVo makes some change that lets them stay alive, someone's there to complain that they're not going with them now. No one's buying it - you're not getting the company to change their plan - they're not reading slashdot to see if you're happy about it or not.
Oh yeah - one last thing.. From now on, anyone considering getting a TiVo: TiVo Inc just made it easier to see that the $$/month is a sucker's game.. To "make out" on that deal you'd have to buy a TiVo, decide AFTER a year that you don't like it, but BEFORE two years.. Then maybe you'd save UP TO $150.. Again - who is making these low salaries?!
(and yes, I know DirecTivo people don't have the lifetime option - but then again DirecTV isn't marketing DirecTiVos anymore either)
Then how about TV junkies?! The TV show was one of my all time favorite shows! Bill Bixby WAS Banner.. David Banner. You wouldn't like him when he was angry..
I worked at CMGi for five years, and a good portion of that was working for a daughter company named InfoMation on a project called Echo. It was a web scraping tool that let you create your own personal newspaper, from any source you wanted (web, usenet, mail, rss feeds, etc). Imagine google alerts but you could create custom news feeds to any sites you want.. Have it look each day for new albums from your favorite bands by creating custom searches on music sites.. Have it monitor your competition's website for changes (or look for press releases regarding your competition on the wirefeed services). Track articles in industry trends you want to follow.
I really liked our alert system (ahem), which would put the titles of articles in the subject line, unlike google alerts, which just puts the category.. You could also subscibe via daily summaries which only sent one email per day, or via cellphone/pager sms messages.
I miss it. Unfortunately our sales department tried selling it to the insurance industry, which takes way too long to purchase technology (as opposed to, oh, say, a stock broker, who would want to follow every stock he's got his clients invested in.. go figure).
Can't wait for Terminal.....
But the point is, there WILL be a Halo 3.. Most people consider their xbox to be a Halo-playing-device.. It's certainly the main reason the platform was as popular as it was.. Bungie had people drooling over demos of Halo for YEARS, at MacWorld expo after MacWorld expo.. Halo is what sold the xbox. Having another Halo title out there will be key in selling xbox 360's.
Anyone thinking that they didn't/won't have all of Bungie's time from Halo2 until the release of Halo3 spent on Halo3 isn't getting how important the Halo franchise is to the xbox. Bungie gets it, and I'd bet anything that's what they're working on.
And, for the record, you have a poor taste in games.. Halo2 was great.
The date may slip, but the next title from Bungie won't be non-Halo. Quote the slashdot post years from now - I'm saying it here.
Bill Gates has come out publicly announcing there will be a Halo 3, and that it will be released on the day of the release of the PS3:
- Release-Date/story.xhtml?story_id=11300CTNVK45
http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Gates-leaks-Halo-3
A good ploy.. If I get a PS3, I'll still be playing Halo 3 on my xbox 360 that first day (and probably for quite a while after that).