I'm sure Yahoo! would happily ignore your bill. If you were lucky it *might* get posted on the bulletin board, next to the cafeteria menu for the week, as humor.
Unless the cellphone number has been given out to a lot of people, I would just change it. It's the path of least resistance...
Well, no offense, but YDKVF (you don't know very far). Tivo fully supports a DirecTV *and* Cable/Rabbit ears integrated lineup. In the setup you tell it you have "Satellite and Cable", give it your zipcode and cable provider (if there is more than 1 choice in your area) and away it goes.
I'm not sure what led you to belive that Tivo won't work with both, but it will. I've even used this setup on my personal Tivo for many years now (ever since Tivo first was introduced, whenever that was...)
How long will it be until we see urban kiddies with mis-matched kustom wheels and unpainted ground effects on these things? (oh yeah, and don't forget the obligatory NOS and MOMO stickers)
At least you won't hear any annoying exhaust systems that sound like a beehive in blender with these, due to the electric drivetrain.
IMO, that will be the biggest problem for them. Standalone TiVo is ubiquitous. It can be used with just about any source... anyone's cable box... any satellite system.
True 'dat, but market research has shown there is a large techno-phobe population that would prefer to "lease" their Tivo from the cable company, a la their STB's and modem's today.
By making it an integrated offering, the cable company can find a new revenue stream (which they need...), and hook more customers who would simply prefer that the nice man from the cable company show up sometime between Noon and 6:00pm to install and configure everything for them. And, rather than shell out $400 for the box, plus a subscription fee, they'll pay $19.99/mo instead.
The "technological" reason is because Digeo started out as Moxi, which was another Steve Perlman venture. By the time that Digeo/Motorola bought Moxi they had already invested significant R&D into a mostly-working platform that was based on linux.
Who knows what Perlman's motivation for linux was over Windows (my guess would be all the obvious stability, resource requirements, licensing issue), but at this point Paul Allen's associations with any other OS have nothing to do with why the box runs linux today.
I'm anxious to see when/if these boxes actually show up en masse in consumers homes.
Well, I don't know where you were looking, but via a google search, I managed to find a huge collection of SIT's on the net that work perfectly for me. Wish I had kept the URL handy, but the.WAV's were arranged by tone type (busy, disconnected, etc), and also by ILEC (Verizon, Pac Bel, SBC, etc).
The Stargate is about $1000 The LCD Keypads they picture are about $300 The Add-On interface for IR Control is about $300
You can order all the crap online at http://www.worthdist.com (no affiliation).
Yeah, it's costly just for call-handling, but as an overall home controller it's not a bad price (technically still a bit too spendy, but the options are somewhat limited).
I use a Stargate to handle my incoming calls. I can filter on any CallerID string, including Private and Unavailable numbers, and play a custom outgoing message, based on the time of day, day of week, CID, temperature outside, etc.
Telemarketers and other nusance callers get a SIT tone, a "DO NOT CALL THIS NUMBER" message, and then a click.
On sundays, the custom filters are disabled (telemarketers legally can't call on Sundays).
You can find.WAV files of SIT tones on the 'net, just adding the "disconnected number" tones to the beginning of your answering machine message will accomplish the same thing that many of the $40 gadgets do.
Stories like this are becoming all too common today. "Targted" Ads have been the wet-dream of marketing ever since Oogg sold a the first wooden club to Vorg.
I read these press releases and "stories" and have to wonder out loud if Marketing departments are made up of some odd aliens from another planet. How can one human being possibly conceive that this will make our viewing experience more pleasant? These Marketeers watch TV also (when they're not getting quotes from each other), would *they* want to be ad-targeted? I highly doubt it.
The Public has consistently shown, especially in the area of TV, that we don't want advertising interruptions, targeted or not. Products like Tivo and Replay have been invented to help us skip ads. Other products have been invented to normalize the volume during commercials, so they're not so freakin' loud. This last one really gets me, these advertisers know we go to the loo, or make a sandwich (or do both) during their commercial that we have no interest in seeing. So their solution is to SHOUT the commercial at us. It reminds me of some little kid running behind me screaming for attention whenever the volume on the commercials goes up. And of course, they have a technical reason to explain that the average volume really isn't louder, it just seems louder (pay no attention to the dishes rattling in the china cabinet).
TV has become pure and utter garbage, only a tiny fraction is barely worth watching. It has gotten to the point that it is not even worth the effort to hack the hackable systems like DBS.
Personally, I'd say at this point you can shove your PVRs and digital cable and HDTV and targeted ads right up the collective ass of Madison Avenue.
The best thing I noted was the power jack marked "12VDC". The native DC power feature and small size make this a cool platform for mobile MP3/OGG player, navigation system, sound processor, etc.
According to the website "that now, 72 years later, the eighth drop is only just about to fall.", it seems 7 drops have fallen so far and the 8th not the 9th drop is now forming. Although this seems like a minor detail, it's a 12% difference in the number of drops, which given that pitch has a computed viscosity of over 100 billion times that of water, 12% could add up to a lot.
You're right, $1300/5 =$260/speaker. I was typing too fast.
Here is a HDTV (RPTV) worth having for $1900: http://www.valleycomputer.net/default.asp? ItemCode =55PP9401
That is merely 1 example, and you can argue all day about what qualifies as "worth having", but the truth is that $2500 buys a lot of TV these days.
RPTV and HDTV prices have come down quite a bit in the last year, they are no longer the toys of the.com stock-options weenies they were when I got mine a few years back.
Yes, you can get a good set of speakers for $2k. Granted I spent more than that on *each* of my front speakers, but you can get a decent sub for $700, that leaves $1300 for the other 5 speakers, or a little more than $100/speaker. I'm not saying you're going to get a heart-stopping THX certified system for that price, but you *will* get a very impressive setup, if you know what you're doing.
For the TV I said $2500 for a rear-projection TV, not a LCD/DLP projector. Again, you won't get the top of the line 500" super-mega-size TV, but you can get a very good 40-60" projection set, again, if you know what you're doing.
The future of TV decoding will be in hardware for quite some time. Hollywierd and the cable co's *are* worried about some rouge software cropping up that allows you to consume for free. They have *NO* incentive to let you watch TV the way you want to.
People may be scared of wasting money on black boxes, but they want their TV! So, most lemmings will buy a new black box so that they can watch the latest lame reality-tv series.
Gawd-forbid the American public read a book, or go outdoors and excercise in their free time.
I don't think there was any incentive before now. Int he past, most cable companies had monopoly territories, and could charge you to lease their juk equipment. With the advent of the DSS systems, and more towns with competitive cable companies they might finally have a reason to standardize.
Of course, once they choose a standard box, they can extort more money from you, by forcing you to "upgrade" to the new box platform.
You can get a high-end receiver for under $2k (Harman/Kardon, Denon, Yamaha, etc) a good set of speakers can be had for another $2K (5.1 setup) add maybe $2500 for a nice HDTV rear-projection set, a few hundred for a progressive-scan DVD player and you've got a very nice setup about $7K.
Sure, the sky is the limit when it comes to spending money on A/V equipment, but it doesn't take $30K to get a "true high-end" system.
Well, for one thing "they" are going to have to decide on a conditional access system (the part the encrypts/decrypts the premium content). The two big players, Motorola and Scientific Atlanta, both currently use their own proprietary schemes, and wield a lot of power on their own (after you spend several *illion dollars to setup a Moto system, switching to SA ain't cheap or easy).
This whole thing sounds like it's going to go the route of HDTV in the US: it's going to keep getting pushed out further and further while Hollyweird and the current monoplies sort out how much they can gouge us, and how much they can minimize our use of the content.
In the end, we all lose.
I think I'm going to put my rabbit ears back on my tube, and tell 'em all to K.M.A
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I'm sure Yahoo! would happily ignore your bill. If you were lucky it *might* get posted on the bulletin board, next to the cafeteria menu for the week, as humor.
Unless the cellphone number has been given out to a lot of people, I would just change it. It's the path of least resistance...
Well, no offense, but YDKVF (you don't know very far). Tivo fully supports a DirecTV *and* Cable/Rabbit ears integrated lineup. In the setup you tell it you have "Satellite and Cable", give it your zipcode and cable provider (if there is more than 1 choice in your area) and away it goes.
I'm not sure what led you to belive that Tivo won't work with both, but it will. I've even used this setup on my personal Tivo for many years now (ever since Tivo first was introduced, whenever that was...)
Yes, but if you drive a Civic on the sidewalk you're more likely to get a ticket (in some states more than others).
I've always wished I could clip along on the sidewalks at 20MPH.
I like the 2 (so far) "Overrated" moderations of this. Seems like I offended some moderators with unpainted ground effects on their cars.
Don't worry, just add more stickers and your car will go faster!
How long will it be until we see urban kiddies with mis-matched kustom wheels and unpainted ground effects on these things? (oh yeah, and don't forget the obligatory NOS and MOMO stickers)
At least you won't hear any annoying exhaust systems that sound like a beehive in blender with these, due to the electric drivetrain.
Yup, sad but true...
For all of it's benefits, sometimes IP connections are better replaced by cereal port connections.
Well then, you might not be what they would call an "ideal customer" :)
IMO, that will be the biggest problem for them. Standalone TiVo is ubiquitous. It can be used with just about any source... anyone's cable box... any satellite system.
True 'dat, but market research has shown there is a large techno-phobe population that would prefer to "lease" their Tivo from the cable company, a la their STB's and modem's today.
By making it an integrated offering, the cable company can find a new revenue stream (which they need...), and hook more customers who would simply prefer that the nice man from the cable company show up sometime between Noon and 6:00pm to install and configure everything for them. And, rather than shell out $400 for the box, plus a subscription fee, they'll pay $19.99/mo instead.
How else will it reliably relay packets to/from the toaster?
Duh!
The "technological" reason is because Digeo started out as Moxi, which was another Steve Perlman venture. By the time that Digeo/Motorola bought Moxi they had already invested significant R&D into a mostly-working platform that was based on linux.
Who knows what Perlman's motivation for linux was over Windows (my guess would be all the obvious stability, resource requirements, licensing issue), but at this point Paul Allen's associations with any other OS have nothing to do with why the box runs linux today.
I'm anxious to see when/if these boxes actually show up en masse in consumers homes.
Well, I don't know where you were looking, but via a google search, I managed to find a huge collection of SIT's on the net that work perfectly for me. Wish I had kept the URL handy, but the .WAV's were arranged by tone type (busy, disconnected, etc), and also by ILEC (Verizon, Pac Bel, SBC, etc).
The Stargate is about $1000
The LCD Keypads they picture are about $300
The Add-On interface for IR Control is about $300
You can order all the crap online at http://www.worthdist.com (no affiliation).
Yeah, it's costly just for call-handling, but as an overall home controller it's not a bad price (technically still a bit too spendy, but the options are somewhat limited).
I use a Stargate to handle my incoming calls. I can filter on any CallerID string, including Private and Unavailable numbers, and play a custom outgoing message, based on the time of day, day of week, CID, temperature outside, etc.
.WAV files of SIT tones on the 'net, just adding the "disconnected number" tones to the beginning of your answering machine message will accomplish the same thing that many of the $40 gadgets do.
Telemarketers and other nusance callers get a SIT tone, a "DO NOT CALL THIS NUMBER" message, and then a click.
On sundays, the custom filters are disabled (telemarketers legally can't call on Sundays).
You can find
Stories like this are becoming all too common today. "Targted" Ads have been the wet-dream of marketing ever since Oogg sold a the first wooden club to Vorg.
I read these press releases and "stories" and have to wonder out loud if Marketing departments are made up of some odd aliens from another planet. How can one human being possibly conceive that this will make our viewing experience more pleasant? These Marketeers watch TV also (when they're not getting quotes from each other), would *they* want to be ad-targeted? I highly doubt it.
The Public has consistently shown, especially in the area of TV, that we don't want advertising interruptions, targeted or not. Products like Tivo and Replay have been invented to help us skip ads. Other products have been invented to normalize the volume during commercials, so they're not so freakin' loud. This last one really gets me, these advertisers know we go to the loo, or make a sandwich (or do both) during their commercial that we have no interest in seeing. So their solution is to SHOUT the commercial at us. It reminds me of some little kid running behind me screaming for attention whenever the volume on the commercials goes up. And of course, they have a technical reason to explain that the average volume really isn't louder, it just seems louder (pay no attention to the dishes rattling in the china cabinet).
TV has become pure and utter garbage, only a tiny fraction is barely worth watching. It has gotten to the point that it is not even worth the effort to hack the hackable systems like DBS.
Personally, I'd say at this point you can shove your PVRs and digital cable and HDTV and targeted ads right up the collective ass of Madison Avenue.
The best thing I noted was the power jack marked "12VDC". The native DC power feature and small size make this a cool platform for mobile MP3/OGG player, navigation system, sound processor, etc.
Well, then. In light of the confusion about how many drops have actually fallen, and when they fell, I propose the experiment be restarted.
According to the website "that now, 72 years later, the eighth drop is only just about to fall.", it seems 7 drops have fallen so far and the 8th not the 9th drop is now forming. Although this seems like a minor detail, it's a 12% difference in the number of drops, which given that pitch has a computed viscosity of over 100 billion times that of water, 12% could add up to a lot.
Sure, that's the way it is supposed to work. When we actually get there is another story...
You're right, $1300/5 =$260/speaker. I was typing too fast.
? ItemCode =55PP9401
.com stock-options weenies they were when I got mine a few years back.
Here is a HDTV (RPTV) worth having for $1900:
http://www.valleycomputer.net/default.asp
That is merely 1 example, and you can argue all day about what qualifies as "worth having", but the truth is that $2500 buys a lot of TV these days.
RPTV and HDTV prices have come down quite a bit in the last year, they are no longer the toys of the
Yes, you can get a good set of speakers for $2k. Granted I spent more than that on *each* of my front speakers, but you can get a decent sub for $700, that leaves $1300 for the other 5 speakers, or a little more than $100/speaker. I'm not saying you're going to get a heart-stopping THX certified system for that price, but you *will* get a very impressive setup, if you know what you're doing.
For the TV I said $2500 for a rear-projection TV, not a LCD/DLP projector. Again, you won't get the top of the line 500" super-mega-size TV, but you can get a very good 40-60" projection set, again, if you know what you're doing.
Is that a valid e-mail address?
The future of TV decoding will be in hardware for quite some time. Hollywierd and the cable co's *are* worried about some rouge software cropping up that allows you to consume for free. They have *NO* incentive to let you watch TV the way you want to.
People may be scared of wasting money on black boxes, but they want their TV! So, most lemmings will buy a new black box so that they can watch the latest lame reality-tv series.
Gawd-forbid the American public read a book, or go outdoors and excercise in their free time.
I don't think there was any incentive before now. Int he past, most cable companies had monopoly territories, and could charge you to lease their juk equipment. With the advent of the DSS systems, and more towns with competitive cable companies they might finally have a reason to standardize.
Of course, once they choose a standard box, they can extort more money from you, by forcing you to "upgrade" to the new box platform.
You can get a high-end receiver for under $2k (Harman/Kardon, Denon, Yamaha, etc) a good set of speakers can be had for another $2K (5.1 setup) add maybe $2500 for a nice HDTV rear-projection set, a few hundred for a progressive-scan DVD player and you've got a very nice setup about $7K.
Sure, the sky is the limit when it comes to spending money on A/V equipment, but it doesn't take $30K to get a "true high-end" system.
Well, for one thing "they" are going to have to decide on a conditional access system (the part the encrypts/decrypts the premium content). The two big players, Motorola and Scientific Atlanta, both currently use their own proprietary schemes, and wield a lot of power on their own (after you spend several *illion dollars to setup a Moto system, switching to SA ain't cheap or easy).
This whole thing sounds like it's going to go the route of HDTV in the US: it's going to keep getting pushed out further and further while Hollyweird and the current monoplies sort out how much they can gouge us, and how much they can minimize our use of the content.
In the end, we all lose.
I think I'm going to put my rabbit ears back on my tube, and tell 'em all to K.M.A