I use a large array of mice embryos suspended in a pink gelatinous goo to power my PC.
The mice are connected to a system whereby the electrical energy from their bodies are siphoned off and turned into electical energy for me to play videogames with.
I call it - The Mousetrix.
I think it's pretty much a perpetual energy source, although I've had to add some additional firewalls to my system due to some odd hack attempts recently......And I keep seeing the words "BOGUS DUDE" flash across the screen occasionally... Perhaps I should upgrade...
And it could be argued that people who let viruses like this onto their machines have no training, are incompetant, and need to have experts solve their problems for them.
Let's try another analogy then:
Let's say that you are just an average person going in to get a flu-shot at the doctor.
The flu vaccine wasn't manufactured correctly and has a small amount of contamination that causes people to become slightly feverish. It's not fatal, but it's uncomfortable.
The health authorities, rather than trying to re-vaccinate everyone effected, put the cure (100% safe and effective) into the public water system to help everyone as quickly as possible, prevent the spread of the problem, etc.
Saw it last night as well. It was good, but not great, for many of the reasons that reviewers already have mentioned.
Seemed like one more pass through the editing booth would've probably trimmed 20 minutes or so out of the picture and left us with something a little leaner (it is VERY long), and which had better pacing. There were a few editing choices in the 3rd act that I found somewhat confusing to follow.
I'm giving it a 7 or a 7.5/10 as it is now.
I think I'm beginning to suffer from CGI overload. Anything can be done in CGI and we all know it, so it's just not as exciting as real live-action sequences. There's the feeling of everything being done on a bluescreen then comp'ed together (sometimes poorly IMHO).
Some of the characters did have LONG dialog sequences, especially near the end of the movie where one long bit of pseudo-exposition nearly put the audience to sleep for 5 min.
It's worth noting that the most amusing moment of the screening was just after the dance-orgy scene when someone in the theatre yelled out "BOGUS!!!!":)
I always sort of wondered about the idea of using a permanently aloft balloon of some type to handle this kind of chore. A really high-strength fabric balloon tethered to the ground by some equally high-strength cable that also grounds it from lightning, etc.
Now add a conduit for injecting helium into it periodically to maintain the altitude, and cabling for an omnidirectional wifi antenna...
Wonder if it'd work. Could possibly get it a few thousand feet up for some pretty decent line-of-sight coverage.
Well, at the time I registered my domain back in 98 or 99, NSI had the default authentication set to a simple email reply.
There were, as I recall, two more options which required that user tag/passwords be included in any change of domain email request.
I selected one of those options - there's no way my site would've ever got stolen... That's all it takes.
Of course, the default security selection (as usual) was the most lax, to avoid scaring off customers.
N.
Re:Itsn't it a moot point?
on
TiVo Basic
·
· Score: 1
The nice thing however, is that when you're receiving a signal through the dish network PVR (or Bell ExpressVu in Canada), the PVR is recording the raw MPEG stream directly - there's no recompression as in TIVO, so you're seeing exactly the same quality picture as if you were watching it live.
But I agree that the user interface could use some work. The biggest flaw (IMHO) is that the unit doesn't allow you to set auto-recording mode based on a search (ie: record everything where "simpsons" appears in the program title). You still have to set timeslot recording, which doesn't help if the station changes the time or day of a program.
The auto-recording via thumbs up/down would be nice, but I've already got mine bagging enough every day that I have to run a end-of-week delete to clear off the stuff I just can't make time to watch.
N.
Re:Can you spell CRTC ;-)
on
TiVo Basic
·
· Score: 1
For what it's worth, my all-time favorite show on TV right now is "Made In Canada" (which is the name of the show, for those who don't know what I'm talking about).
And it's definately Canadian Content.
I believe it's aired in the US under a different name "The Industry" to avoid frightening off viewers:). (although the name makes it sound like it's all about heavy industry, auto manufacturing or something IMHO).
In reality, it's a very funny, very accurate view behind the scenes of a television production company.
And the RIAA (and I suppose the MPAA) is running a very fine line between intimidating pirates, and turning MORE people into pirates by making them angry.
Personally, I'd bet something would happen like this (same as what happened when some European company was going after edonkey users):
File trading decreases for around a week or two because of the scare, then everything is back to normal. The fact of the matter is that the chance that any RIAA/MPAA-type body will go after an individual user is only slightly higher than being struck by lightning on a bright sunny day.
Sure, some people will get burned, but they can't afford, financially, or PR-wise to start goose-stepping on their customers...
Even though many people are downloading music, the majority of them still buy at least a FEW albums. Too much enforcement would mean they wouldn't buy ANY.
Apple's new music store is a good idea, however I still won't buy into DRM music. I'd be happy to pay $0.99 for an unlocked MP3, but I'll never willingly purchase DRM materials that I can't unlock for my own fair use.
The Lian Li case I have uses a small cleanable mesh infront of the front case fans to trap dust. Does a pretty decent job, instead of the usual dustbunnies inside a case, there's just a bit of powder that you need to clean once in a while.
Would it be possible to set an ISP's router to automatically re-direct any TCP packet with a port-25 destination through a spamassasin-type filter to check it before it continues it's journey?
Basically having a router that intercepts anything going out to port 25 from any port and pre-check it before allowing it to continue on?
One of the reasons I'm willing to put up with the compromises in this camera (the biggest being a 1-chip CCD instead of a 3-chip), is that it will put extreme pressure on the other manufacturers to bring out an equivilent (or better) unit at the same price point, driving prices down and features/quality up.
I agree that people certainly aren't going to sell HD programming using a camera like this - by all accounts it's a consumer HD camera. That said, $3,500 is a consumer pricetag. I don't think they'd even try and put this camera in competition with the high-end cameras offered by Sony or Panasonic, that's not their goal.
Yes, it's MPG-2, stored at an average bitrate of around 19Mbps, over twice that of the highest quality DVD video possible, so that's pretty decent in my books...
The biggest problem here is that it's a one-chip camera. If they made a 3-chip version, the quality would be stunning.
Yes, the Varicam is nice, but for what, around $100,000? Remember, this camera is $3,500.
N.
Re:Not standards compliant with anything
on
First HDTV Camcorder
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Erm, it says right in the article that you can set it to standard SD/MiniDV mode to record in the older DV25 format should you so-desire...
What's to stop the corrupt company in question (read RIAA / MPAA) to simply find a company rep in the proper riding and "decide" to give him a salary of $5 million a year. Perhaps that registered voter might "decide" to contribute $4.9 million to the candidate they wish to buy... er... support.
I think it would be a little better to simply cap contributions at $20,000 a year per political party or representitave.
Or just ban it outright - while you're in office, you get your paycheck from the government - anything else gets you jail time.
I'll buy a MAC first, before I buy any hardware or software which incorporates palladium.
And for me, that's saying a lot.
N.
Re:What about Terrasoft? Can't their machines run
on
Beige Box Apple Clone?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Apple's ROMs have always been the key reason that their machine hasn't been cloned.
I've always wondered why they don't use the same technique that the original BIOS cloners used to make a working IBM clone BIOS that was 100% legal.
I don't remember the specifics on the technique, but it involved two completely seperate groups of engineers within the same company who had strictly limited contact with eachother governing how one group reverse-engineered the BIOS, and how the other group created a new BIOS based solely on descriptions of how it operated, without having any specific copyright information that the first group had access to.
I remember being somewhat fascinated when I originally heard about it. Of course now, it's probably illegal due to the DMCA (which probably would've killed the PC revolution had it been on the books 20 years ago).
Well, as some others have pointed out, digital rights management is less of a problem here because of the limited amount of time they'd be able to store the streams.
I'd suspect that they will probably only store 2-3 days of programming, and even then, only store important feeds for longer lengths of time. CNN might get 24 hours of storage, FOX might get 3 days. Home shopping network? None;P
You're absolutely right about the problem with server-side storage, and given the low price of harddisk storage these days, I'd still think it would be more inexpensive to handle on the client side.
The obvious advertising and security aspects of their system make it clear that they are trying to take control away from consumers, rather than give them more choice.
Ah well, with PC technology continually progressing, it should only be another year or two before PC hardware to handle everything a PVR can do and more will be available, easy to use, and infinately extendible. There are products on the market now which are good first steps, but nothing comes close to integrated units like TiVos.
About 50 posts of "He's full of crap, there's no way he could make that work, there are dozens of people working on this smarter than he is".
Followed by "Holy crap, it DOES work".
Oddly enough, few of the original posters put up retractions or apoligies for their initial flaming.
Figures... Everyone is "uber-l33t" and quick to jump on a new poster, but few are man enough to stand up and offer apologies when they're forced to eat their words.
A year ago I would've bought one of these in a snap. Now I have an Athlon 1200 with 200gb of storage, canopus firewire transcoder, DVD-ROM drive, networked to my main server.
Oh yes, and it has a nice vacuum florescent display on the front to show me stuff as it's performing different media tasks, DIVX, DVD, MP3, etc. With a logitech cordless desktop for a remote control, it's great!
Aside from portability (which doesn't really matter for me), I can't think of any other advantages of the KISS unit. A cheap PC can be had for about $400, and is infinately extendable to deal with new media types, etc. And no need to change media.
Slashdot Mirror
I use a large array of mice embryos suspended in a pink gelatinous goo to power my PC.
...And I keep seeing the words "BOGUS DUDE" flash across the screen occasionally... Perhaps I should upgrade...
The mice are connected to a system whereby the electrical energy from their bodies are siphoned off and turned into electical energy for me to play videogames with.
I call it - The Mousetrix.
I think it's pretty much a perpetual energy source, although I've had to add some additional firewalls to my system due to some odd hack attempts recently...
N.
Why not just look at the http-refer info and automatically redirect anyone coming from slashdot away from torrentse.cx to goatse.cx?
N
Just a minor correction - authoring mode DVD-Rs have the CSS area available for use, and the burners can use it to write the keys onto.
:).
The burners were $3,000-4,000 when last I checked, they're still pretty pricey, but much better than a press
N.
And it could be argued that people who let viruses like this onto their machines have no training, are incompetant, and need to have experts solve their problems for them.
Let's try another analogy then:
Let's say that you are just an average person going in to get a flu-shot at the doctor.
The flu vaccine wasn't manufactured correctly and has a small amount of contamination that causes people to become slightly feverish. It's not fatal, but it's uncomfortable.
The health authorities, rather than trying to re-vaccinate everyone effected, put the cure (100% safe and effective) into the public water system to help everyone as quickly as possible, prevent the spread of the problem, etc.
How do you feel?
Saw it last night as well. It was good, but not great, for many of the reasons that reviewers already have mentioned.
:)
Seemed like one more pass through the editing booth would've probably trimmed 20 minutes or so out of the picture and left us with something a little leaner (it is VERY long), and which had better pacing. There were a few editing choices in the 3rd act that I found somewhat confusing to follow.
I'm giving it a 7 or a 7.5/10 as it is now.
I think I'm beginning to suffer from CGI overload. Anything can be done in CGI and we all know it, so it's just not as exciting as real live-action sequences. There's the feeling of everything being done on a bluescreen then comp'ed together (sometimes poorly IMHO).
Some of the characters did have LONG dialog sequences, especially near the end of the movie where one long bit of pseudo-exposition nearly put the audience to sleep for 5 min.
It's worth noting that the most amusing moment of the screening was just after the dance-orgy scene when someone in the theatre yelled out "BOGUS!!!!"
N.
I always sort of wondered about the idea of using a permanently aloft balloon of some type to handle this kind of chore. A really high-strength fabric balloon tethered to the ground by some equally high-strength cable that also grounds it from lightning, etc.
Now add a conduit for injecting helium into it periodically to maintain the altitude, and cabling for an omnidirectional wifi antenna...
Wonder if it'd work. Could possibly get it a few thousand feet up for some pretty decent line-of-sight coverage.
N.
Well, at the time I registered my domain back in 98 or 99, NSI had the default authentication set to a simple email reply.
There were, as I recall, two more options which required that user tag/passwords be included in any change of domain email request.
I selected one of those options - there's no way my site would've ever got stolen... That's all it takes.
Of course, the default security selection (as usual) was the most lax, to avoid scaring off customers.
N.
The nice thing however, is that when you're receiving a signal through the dish network PVR (or Bell ExpressVu in Canada), the PVR is recording the raw MPEG stream directly - there's no recompression as in TIVO, so you're seeing exactly the same quality picture as if you were watching it live.
But I agree that the user interface could use some work. The biggest flaw (IMHO) is that the unit doesn't allow you to set auto-recording mode based on a search (ie: record everything where "simpsons" appears in the program title). You still have to set timeslot recording, which doesn't help if the station changes the time or day of a program.
The auto-recording via thumbs up/down would be nice, but I've already got mine bagging enough every day that I have to run a end-of-week delete to clear off the stuff I just can't make time to watch.
N.
For what it's worth, my all-time favorite show on TV right now is "Made In Canada" (which is the name of the show, for those who don't know what I'm talking about).
:). (although the name makes it sound like it's all about heavy industry, auto manufacturing or something IMHO).
And it's definately Canadian Content.
I believe it's aired in the US under a different name "The Industry" to avoid frightening off viewers
In reality, it's a very funny, very accurate view behind the scenes of a television production company.
Well said, and it brings up an important point:
Just because I download a song, it doesn't make me any more likely to buy it then if I was to hear it on the radio.
Sure I might still have it on my HD, but if I never listen to it again, it's not really lost revenue is it?
Of course, the more that the big companies can complain loudly about "lost revenue", the more they can pressure courts to do whatever they want.
You're exactly right.
And the RIAA (and I suppose the MPAA) is running a very fine line between intimidating pirates, and turning MORE people into pirates by making them angry.
Personally, I'd bet something would happen like this (same as what happened when some European company was going after edonkey users):
File trading decreases for around a week or two because of the scare, then everything is back to normal. The fact of the matter is that the chance that any RIAA/MPAA-type body will go after an individual user is only slightly higher than being struck by lightning on a bright sunny day.
Sure, some people will get burned, but they can't afford, financially, or PR-wise to start goose-stepping on their customers...
Even though many people are downloading music, the majority of them still buy at least a FEW albums. Too much enforcement would mean they wouldn't buy ANY.
Apple's new music store is a good idea, however I still won't buy into DRM music. I'd be happy to pay $0.99 for an unlocked MP3, but I'll never willingly purchase DRM materials that I can't unlock for my own fair use.
N.
Hmm... An impartial product testing company that doesn't take advertisements from companies is "shit"?
Bzzzt. Try again.
N.
The Lian Li case I have uses a small cleanable mesh infront of the front case fans to trap dust. Does a pretty decent job, instead of the usual dustbunnies inside a case, there's just a bit of powder that you need to clean once in a while.
Definately a nice thing.
N.
Would it be possible to set an ISP's router to automatically re-direct any TCP packet with a port-25 destination through a spamassasin-type filter to check it before it continues it's journey?
Basically having a router that intercepts anything going out to port 25 from any port and pre-check it before allowing it to continue on?
N.
One of the reasons I'm willing to put up with the compromises in this camera (the biggest being a 1-chip CCD instead of a 3-chip), is that it will put extreme pressure on the other manufacturers to bring out an equivilent (or better) unit at the same price point, driving prices down and features/quality up.
I agree that people certainly aren't going to sell HD programming using a camera like this - by all accounts it's a consumer HD camera. That said, $3,500 is a consumer pricetag. I don't think they'd even try and put this camera in competition with the high-end cameras offered by Sony or Panasonic, that's not their goal.
N.
Yes, it's MPG-2, stored at an average bitrate of around 19Mbps, over twice that of the highest quality DVD video possible, so that's pretty decent in my books...
The biggest problem here is that it's a one-chip camera. If they made a 3-chip version, the quality would be stunning.
Yes, the Varicam is nice, but for what, around $100,000? Remember, this camera is $3,500.
N.
Erm, it says right in the article that you can set it to standard SD/MiniDV mode to record in the older DV25 format should you so-desire...
N.
No Jim Cameron, no Linda Hamilton...
We'll see, but I don't have my hopes too high...
Gonna wait and see what the reviews are like before I shell out.
N.
I'm afraid I still don't quite follow...
What's to stop the corrupt company in question (read RIAA / MPAA) to simply find a company rep in the proper riding and "decide" to give him a salary of $5 million a year. Perhaps that registered voter might "decide" to contribute $4.9 million to the candidate they wish to buy... er... support.
I think it would be a little better to simply cap contributions at $20,000 a year per political party or representitave.
Or just ban it outright - while you're in office, you get your paycheck from the government - anything else gets you jail time.
N.
I'll buy a MAC first, before I buy any hardware or software which incorporates palladium.
And for me, that's saying a lot.
N.
Apple's ROMs have always been the key reason that their machine hasn't been cloned.
I've always wondered why they don't use the same technique that the original BIOS cloners used to make a working IBM clone BIOS that was 100% legal.
I don't remember the specifics on the technique, but it involved two completely seperate groups of engineers within the same company who had strictly limited contact with eachother governing how one group reverse-engineered the BIOS, and how the other group created a new BIOS based solely on descriptions of how it operated, without having any specific copyright information that the first group had access to.
I remember being somewhat fascinated when I originally heard about it. Of course now, it's probably illegal due to the DMCA (which probably would've killed the PC revolution had it been on the books 20 years ago).
Well, as some others have pointed out, digital rights management is less of a problem here because of the limited amount of time they'd be able to store the streams.
;P
I'd suspect that they will probably only store 2-3 days of programming, and even then, only store important feeds for longer lengths of time. CNN might get 24 hours of storage, FOX might get 3 days. Home shopping network? None
You're absolutely right about the problem with server-side storage, and given the low price of harddisk storage these days, I'd still think it would be more inexpensive to handle on the client side.
The obvious advertising and security aspects of their system make it clear that they are trying to take control away from consumers, rather than give them more choice.
Ah well, with PC technology continually progressing, it should only be another year or two before PC hardware to handle everything a PVR can do and more will be available, easy to use, and infinately extendible. There are products on the market now which are good first steps, but nothing comes close to integrated units like TiVos.
N.
Lol... That forum is a good read...
About 50 posts of "He's full of crap, there's no way he could make that work, there are dozens of people working on this smarter than he is".
Followed by "Holy crap, it DOES work".
Oddly enough, few of the original posters put up retractions or apoligies for their initial flaming.
Figures... Everyone is "uber-l33t" and quick to jump on a new poster, but few are man enough to stand up and offer apologies when they're forced to eat their words.
A year ago I would've bought one of these in a snap. Now I have an Athlon 1200 with 200gb of storage, canopus firewire transcoder, DVD-ROM drive, networked to my main server.
Oh yes, and it has a nice vacuum florescent display on the front to show me stuff as it's performing different media tasks, DIVX, DVD, MP3, etc. With a logitech cordless desktop for a remote control, it's great!
Aside from portability (which doesn't really matter for me), I can't think of any other advantages of the KISS unit. A cheap PC can be had for about $400, and is infinately extendable to deal with new media types, etc. And no need to change media.
N.
For what it's worth, I do own a Powershot G3 and I love it :P
But the article was still too wierd for early this morning... And the GBA is around 1/8th the price of a PSG3 as I recall...