this is one of the most hair-splitting arguments I've ever gotten myself into, but I'll play:
The arguement that they own the signal is spurious at best. To argue that an RF signal is a tangible or intellectual property that is "owned" also gives creedence to tresspass or abandoned property.
Then the RF signal is the media and they own distribution rights to the content encoded in the signal. Just like a CD. If someone throws a CD in your yard, and you don't own a CD player, do you own the music on the CD? No. Legally you may not even have the right to listen to it since you didn't pay for it. Someone did, at some point, but not the actual user of the media (you).
I dont have DirecTV service, nor equipment, yet they are constantly dumping their "property" all over my yard, house, and body. And since I didnt A: ask them to place it there, B: authorize them to place it there, and C: they didnt come to remove it, it could be considered abandoned property.
OK, fine. Build a faraday cage around your yard and house, and be sure to wear your tinfoil suit, to avoid RF pollution.
The storm thing sucks, but a good install can get you a strong enough signal such that only the strongest thunderstorms interrupt service. myself, I'd rather have a good picture 95% of the time than a shitty picture 100% of the time.
What is the difference between recieving NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, WB, etc onto a TV using a simple RF antenna, and doing same with a more complicated parabolic antenna? You are doing the same thing: receiving RF signals. If you stole the reciever and dish from someone else, thats one thing, but if you already BOUGHT the dish/reciever, then its yours. You own the hardware, but the signal still belongs to DirecTV, unless you know some way to claim ownership of a band in the EM spectrum. Your subscription is a license to decode this signal.
If all you want are UHF and VHF channels, great. Good for you. But if you want more, you have to pay for it. It's called accepting responsibility.
And besides, you have already paid once for what you watch by buying advertised products. Your point?
First off, none of the above have anything to do with stealing DirecTV's service. You're comparing multi-use devices (except maybe the bong) to a very specialized piece of equipment.
The RIAA/MPAA subpoenaing your filesystem is different because your PC has more than one use. Same with a DVD burner. A DirecTV reciever has no other use than to convert DirecTV signals. A hacked card has no other use than to steal the signal. If you have both of the above, then you must be a pirate, unless you're that one in 10 million case where you don't use it but you sell it.
I'm usually an anti-big-business super-liberal type, but I don't mind this at all.
Card hackers piss me off. DirecTV service is great. It's worth paying for. You get a hell of a lot more than your average cable service for the same price in both volume of channels and quality of picture.
If you don't want to pay for TV, don't watch it. You'll be better off anyway.
outsourcing is not just a zero sum game, it's a negative sum game. The USA loses more than the economy gains. Not only does the consumer lose his immediate source of income, but when he gets another, it's lower and he'll be more cautious with his spending.
If I'm communicating with someone that I know in the real world I consider online communications to be real-world communications.
If I'm communicating with someone that I have never met, I consider that to not be real-world and for the communications themselves to be nothing more than a network game.
When I was a kid I was in the online = real world camp. To put it shortly, it was not good for me. I trusted the wrong people and believed the wrong things and fortunately I came out of it without being killed.
If your measure is new algorithms and technologies that no-one has ever thought of before then I'd say the advanced degrees are a little more pertinent. Only because you know more of what people have already thought of. Coming up with things that nobody else has thought of requires creativity. You either have creativity or you don't. No amount of Education will make you creative if you just naturally aren't so.
That said, I have nothing but respect for those who have the fortitude to finish a Ph.D. I certainly don't.
ok, I'll concede that point; the happiest people in the world -want- nothing. I don't run in the kind of millionaire circles where they are both materialistic and have all the material things that they want, so the only people I've met that wanted nothing had nothing to start with.
Yeah, but only from the absolute wrong kind of females for a geeky guy - the golddigging kind that just want to get a ride in your car and even if they stick with you, they're still fucking around behind your back with at least 2 or 3 other guys.
Oh, I'll cry tonight because you don't like me. A slashdotter's opinion of me is so meaningful that it can cause me to change absolutely nothing. In fact, for a cumshit like you I think I'll become even more of an asshole.
Go play with your Porsche hot wheels. Maybe if you blow the salesman for the 242nd time he'll let you take another test drive.
Porsches aren't known for ease of maintenance. High-performance anything takes more work.
Stainless steel sinks are not only of better material but they're easier to maintain, too. It's a win-win situation.
There are a lot, and I mean a LOT of people who never understand this. My stepfather-in-law, for one. He buys the absolute cheapest crap he can find and thinks it's just as good as quality stuff.
as for me having no empathy, you're right. I don't empathize with or comprehend people that use material things to prop up their self-image. The majority of new Porsche owners (or more accurately, lessees) do this.
Furthermore, I'm allowed to think something is stupid. I'm allowed in this country to say so in a public forum. I am not allowed to physically prevent people from being stupid, though.
I have no envy. I'm not a car guy. I have plenty of disposable income and could indeed afford a Porsche (even if it's just a Boxster, aka the car with an asshole). I believe that one gets what one pays for and that one should invest in the best quality things that one can.
I do NOT, however, believe that my level of income or what I own makes me superior to any other human being. That's a matter of character. Anyone who feels that material things are proof of anything has no character whatsoever. The happiest people in the world have nothing.
You can't oppress a class that doesn't feel oppressed.
I almost started a business doing this once. Then I saw Falcon Northwest and Alienware and realized that there wasn't room in the market for another one.
I figured that as PCs became commoditized and as commonplace as your average toaster that the elitists of the world would want some way to stratify PC ownership. Same reason that there are Kias, and there are Porsches. The small-penis crowd needs to validate itself through what it owns.
It's simple. The people that buy pre-tweaked gaming PCs are people that want to play games but don't want to build the machines themselves. Those people DO exist, you know.
Slashdot Mirror
I got all of those in mine. I must have got the latest prototype.
Yes sir, Professor Knuth.
this is one of the most hair-splitting arguments I've ever gotten myself into, but I'll play:
The arguement that they own the signal is spurious at best. To argue that an RF signal is a tangible or intellectual property that is "owned" also gives creedence to tresspass or abandoned property.
Then the RF signal is the media and they own distribution rights to the content encoded in the signal. Just like a CD. If someone throws a CD in your yard, and you don't own a CD player, do you own the music on the CD? No. Legally you may not even have the right to listen to it since you didn't pay for it. Someone did, at some point, but not the actual user of the media (you).
I dont have DirecTV service, nor equipment, yet they are constantly dumping their "property" all over my yard, house, and body. And since I didnt A: ask them to place it there, B: authorize them to place it there, and C: they didnt come to remove it, it could be considered abandoned property.
OK, fine. Build a faraday cage around your yard and house, and be sure to wear your tinfoil suit, to avoid RF pollution.
The storm thing sucks, but a good install can get you a strong enough signal such that only the strongest thunderstorms interrupt service. myself, I'd rather have a good picture 95% of the time than a shitty picture 100% of the time.
What is the difference between recieving NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, WB, etc onto a TV using a simple RF antenna, and doing same with a more complicated parabolic antenna? You are doing the same thing: receiving RF signals. If you stole the reciever and dish from someone else, thats one thing, but if you already BOUGHT the dish/reciever, then its yours.
You own the hardware, but the signal still belongs to DirecTV, unless you know some way to claim ownership of a band in the EM spectrum. Your subscription is a license to decode this signal.
If all you want are UHF and VHF channels, great. Good for you. But if you want more, you have to pay for it. It's called accepting responsibility.
And besides, you have already paid once for what you watch by buying advertised products.
Your point?
You people are too fucking paranoid.
First off, none of the above have anything to do with stealing DirecTV's service. You're comparing multi-use devices (except maybe the bong) to a very specialized piece of equipment.
The RIAA/MPAA subpoenaing your filesystem is different because your PC has more than one use. Same with a DVD burner. A DirecTV reciever has no other use than to convert DirecTV signals. A hacked card has no other use than to steal the signal. If you have both of the above, then you must be a pirate, unless you're that one in 10 million case where you don't use it but you sell it.
I'm usually an anti-big-business super-liberal type, but I don't mind this at all.
Card hackers piss me off. DirecTV service is great. It's worth paying for. You get a hell of a lot more than your average cable service for the same price in both volume of channels and quality of picture.
If you don't want to pay for TV, don't watch it. You'll be better off anyway.
that'll go over like a lead.. uh, um, nevermind
No sarcasm here: this is brilliant. Mod this guy up.
outsourcing is not just a zero sum game, it's a negative sum game. The USA loses more than the economy gains. Not only does the consumer lose his immediate source of income, but when he gets another, it's lower and he'll be more cautious with his spending.
no, just make them play that level all day 6 days a week for a year. 7 would be cruel and unusual.
first time a palm reader ever gave up because they couldn't make out the lines on the palm for all the hair.
No love for the Daewoo Nubira Type R? Hata! I wizzle yo shizzle
If I'm communicating with someone that I know in the real world I consider online communications to be real-world communications.
If I'm communicating with someone that I have never met, I consider that to not be real-world and for the communications themselves to be nothing more than a network game.
When I was a kid I was in the online = real world camp. To put it shortly, it was not good for me. I trusted the wrong people and believed the wrong things and fortunately I came out of it without being killed.
whatever browser you put on it, make sure you set the home page to www.landoverbaptist.com
If your measure is new algorithms and technologies that no-one has ever thought of before then I'd say the advanced degrees are a little more pertinent.
Only because you know more of what people have already thought of. Coming up with things that nobody else has thought of requires creativity. You either have creativity or you don't. No amount of Education will make you creative if you just naturally aren't so.
That said, I have nothing but respect for those who have the fortitude to finish a Ph.D. I certainly don't.
ok, I'll concede that point; the happiest people in the world -want- nothing. I don't run in the kind of millionaire circles where they are both materialistic and have all the material things that they want, so the only people I've met that wanted nothing had nothing to start with.
Yeah, but only from the absolute wrong kind of females for a geeky guy - the golddigging kind that just want to get a ride in your car and even if they stick with you, they're still fucking around behind your back with at least 2 or 3 other guys.
Oh, I'll cry tonight because you don't like me. A slashdotter's opinion of me is so meaningful that it can cause me to change absolutely nothing. In fact, for a cumshit like you I think I'll become even more of an asshole.
Go play with your Porsche hot wheels. Maybe if you blow the salesman for the 242nd time he'll let you take another test drive.
Porsches aren't known for ease of maintenance. High-performance anything takes more work.
Stainless steel sinks are not only of better material but they're easier to maintain, too. It's a win-win situation.
There are a lot, and I mean a LOT of people who never understand this. My stepfather-in-law, for one. He buys the absolute cheapest crap he can find and thinks it's just as good as quality stuff.
as for me having no empathy, you're right. I don't empathize with or comprehend people that use material things to prop up their self-image. The majority of new Porsche owners (or more accurately, lessees) do this.
Furthermore, I'm allowed to think something is stupid. I'm allowed in this country to say so in a public forum. I am not allowed to physically prevent people from being stupid, though.
I have no envy. I'm not a car guy. I have plenty of disposable income and could indeed afford a Porsche (even if it's just a Boxster, aka the car with an asshole). I believe that one gets what one pays for and that one should invest in the best quality things that one can.
I do NOT, however, believe that my level of income or what I own makes me superior to any other human being. That's a matter of character. Anyone who feels that material things are proof of anything has no character whatsoever. The happiest people in the world have nothing.
You can't oppress a class that doesn't feel oppressed.
yeah, I should have said the "my penis in inadequate" crowd, but I was on a roll
I almost started a business doing this once. Then I saw Falcon Northwest and Alienware and realized that there wasn't room in the market for another one.
I figured that as PCs became commoditized and as commonplace as your average toaster that the elitists of the world would want some way to stratify PC ownership. Same reason that there are Kias, and there are Porsches. The small-penis crowd needs to validate itself through what it owns.
It's simple. The people that buy pre-tweaked gaming PCs are people that want to play games but don't want to build the machines themselves. Those people DO exist, you know.
Sure it's not real latin, but it's still funny. Except to an ancient Roman, who wouldn't get the joke. Eh, anyway...