The one problem I see with product placement is in reruns. Once a product is placed into a show, it could be prohibitively difficult to remove or replace the item being advertized. This is all fine for the first run of a show, where Coke pays paramount to put a can of coke on the bridge of the Enterprise. Paramount gets the money, makes the placed ad, and airs show/ad on UPN. Now what happens when TNN buys the rights to reruns of old Star Trek episodes? Does TNN pay Paramount even though the ads are already in the show and they will not be able to make any money? Or is coke forced into a contract where they have to pay fees to anyone who replays the show for eternity?
And what happens when you place a product into a show, and the product proceeds to flop its way out of existance, or is even phased. You then end up with ads for products you can no longer buy: "Go to your neighborhood Ford dealer and test drive the new Aerostar"
Critics say Microsoft is hiding access to its programs, but the fundamental code is still installed on the PC. If the code is still there, developers could take advantage of it over other middleware, they charge
So what they are saying is they would prefer that Microsoft break as many 3rd party applications as possible? If they took out the code to internet explorer, what happens when hundreds of apps try to load the IE browser activeX control, or how about the stuff in media player.
Here in Michigan (and I always thought it was the same everywhere else), every school bus has blinking yellow and red lights. When the bus starts to slow down, the driver flips on the blinking yellow lights. When the bus comes to a complete stop, the driver throws on the red light and you are required to stop. The principle is the same as a trafic light, and you have about 5 seconds to make up your mind which way you are going to do things. As long as you are paying attention, there should be no reason to ever slam on the brakes. In over 10 years, I've never once even come close to getting into an accident in such a situation.
What worse about Grimlock, check out his stats. Somehow I dont remember his intelligence being a 10. Another thing...is it just me, or is practically every one of those things now a "combiner"? Oh well, its better than Pokemon.
Anyone else remember the GDI printers made by HP? Unfortunately I cant, because I have one sitting next to me (1000C). It's served me quite well in the 5 or so years since I bought it, but now that I have a home network I really wish I could TCP/IP share this thing. It also sucks to because if I do something CPU intensive while printing, the printer just comes to a hault (guess it's better than locking up the CPU, but still). These printers were hyped pretty big when they first came out, but I guess nobody really quite like them because HP stopped making these things before too long and reverted back to the regular design.
You obviously have no appreciation for what is involved in the hiermenus package. I have used these in the past (version 3) and played around a bit with their new version 4. I would love to see you recreate what is involved in these menus in 5-10 days, much less 5-10 minutes. Hiermenus has all kinds of options for customizing appearances and layout, and autogeneration of all menus from simple paramater lists, among other things. Most important is how portable their code is. They went to great lengths to make sure these menus work in every browser, even that DHTML monstrosity of a browser known as Netscape 4.
If you are an expert at DHTML, maybe you could recreate a totally rough and basic version of these menus in 30 minutes. But to create something nearly as reusable and customizable as hiermenus, youd be hard pressed to do it in a week.
It seems to be a very common theme around here to put down anyone that tries to make a buck. Its really sad. These people have created a polished development tool, and all you can say is "thats nothing, I could do that". Maybe you could, but from a business standpoint its probably a heck of a lot cheaper to just buy a license.
For the record, I have no affiliation with the creators of hiermenus other than having used it in the past, and I have no incentive for promoting it either way.
How ironic that this was the top story on slashdot this morning. I was already ticked off about the topic because I just received some this morning.
About a month ago, my wife got a spam on her cell phone: [email address here]##Finally yours. DVD Copier
A few days later, I got the exact same messsage and was steaming mad. Just this morning I got a followup message:
[email address here]##Just wanted to follow up with you#Copy & Burn DVD and VHS with CD Burner!! + Bonus package Playstation2 & Dreamcast Backup Software! W
I can deal with email spam (dont like it, but can deal with it). But this is only my second cell phone spam and I'm just furious. The thing that sends me off the edge about it is that its just so obtrusive. With email spam, I deal with it on my own time (when I decide to check my email) but with cell phone spam, Im in the middle of something else and my phone goes off "beep, beep, beep". The thing is, it always kinda startles me when it happens. I have my cell phone pretty much for talking to my wife (she has a cell phone and we have the family plan where we call each other for free) and emergency purposes only. If I KNOW its not my wife calling, then its probably something pretty important....guess not anymore.
Suddenly the 128 bit netscape encryption isn't looking so good (Not that it was before...)
Actually, you are comparing 2 different types of keys: public assymmetric keys, and private symmetric keys. Public assymmetric keys (like the ones talked about here) require a longer key for equal security (when compared to private keys) because some additional information is already known (the public part of the key). This information can be used to break the encryption faster, thus you use larger keys to offset this.
When using 128-bit SSL on a web site, you actually use a 128-bit RC4 key (which is a symmetric private key). In order to exchange the key between client and server, a secure channel is first created using 1024-bit RSA (public) key.
So yes, the 1024 bit part isnt as secure as what this artice talks about (2048-bit keys), but the 128-bit SSL key isnt quite as bad as it sounds.
If you read about the purpose of that email address on the FTC's site you will see that while the FTC is aware of the burden/inconvenience of spam on the user and ISP, their primary focus is on identifying trends in illegal activities (ie: get rich quick schemes and other types of fraud).
While bulk UCE burdens Internet service providers and frustrates their customers, the FTC's main concern with UCE is its widespread use to disseminate false and misleading claims about products and services offered for sale on the Internet. The Commission believes the proliferation of deceptive bulk UCE on the Internet poses a threat to consumer confidence in online commerce and thus views the problem of deception as a significant issue in the debate over UCE.
You dont necessarily have to save all of them for a function call. Either the calling function saves the registers that it currently has values in before the "call" and restores them after it returns, or the called function saves the registers which it intends to overwrite and restores them before executing "return".
On the other hand, for a context switch (switching between threads or processes), yes, all registers will have to be saved.
I dont know about you, but I dont leave bar codes on my underwear, so I doubt I would leave one of these chips on it. Even so, I would question whether or not these tags could survive a trip through the wash cycle...you do wash your underwear, right?
From the article:
Over the Internet, however, identity is notoriously easy to fake
This is also true of the physical world. Its not too difficult to get fake IDs and papers. But the bigger thing is (and I dont know how true this is of other states) here in Michigan, you really dont even have to have any fake ID. All you need to know is the name and address of the person you want to be. When I went and voted a few years back, there was a poster on the wall indicating Michigan laws regarding voting and identity. The gist of it was that the people running the voting booths have no right to verify your identity (they cant even ask you to see your ID or voter registration card). If there was any question as to who you are, you would be required to swear an oath on the spot that you are who you say you are and that you are eligible and registered to vote.
If you don't want to make it available that way, that's your choice--and it's just plain absurd to whine that people dare to actually use the methods in place to see that image
Except that I ran across an instance a few months back where some guy set up a personal web site, linked to some of my copyrighted pictures and made it so they displayed in his page, and then proceeded to place a copyright notice with his name below the picture. I was furios, contacted his webmaster and has his site shut down.
Of course, the funniest part of it was that he also copied another page from my web site...the "About Myself" page. He then proceeded to modify the text (change my name to his, my birthdate to his, etc) and then add in some other choice info about himself and his family. Just by going through the page, I was able to obtain:
His name, his birthdate, his country/city of birth, the date he moved to his current city/country, the date he bacame a citizen of that country, the company he works for, the approximate date he started working there, the name of his wife, the name/ages/sex of his 2 children, his hobbies, and his number of brother/sisters.
Needless to say I had enough info to track him down, let him know how I felt, and make him realize I have enough info about him that its probably not in his best interest to do it again.
Another problem I have with Macrovision is that (supposedly, based upon my little understanding of the subject) introduces errors into the video (and audio?) INTENTIONALLY, errors which the human eye supposedly can't see, but which confuse video inputs on VCR's and other 'video input' devices
Not quite. Video streams have a break in the signal (each frame I believe) that is used for various purposes (closed captions are one, and I think frame synchronization is another). What macrovision does is place occasional spikes in this break. It doesnt effect the audio or visual. The problem with this is that most VCRs have an automatic gain control that adjusts the signal level so you get the best picture. When the AGC sees a spike, it begins to turn down the signal level (making the video dimmer). Then when the spike disappears, the AGC turns the signal back up to "give you the best picture quality".
What I dont know is if Macrovision was created to exploit the AGC (which already existed), or if AGC was added to make Macrovision possible.
I am not exactly sure how they make "big" money on this...maybe there is a side of marketing that I am not thinking about but when is the last time you saw anybody pay for cheat codes?
Well, the codes themselves aren't big money, as (as far as I know) nobody sells just the codes. However, the codes do enable them to sell the hardware (or you could say hardware sales subsidize the code finding efforts). And every code they develop and make available adds one more reason for someone to buy a Game Shark
Looking at this another way, suppose you are play video games and are not opposed to the idea of a game shark. If the Game Shark didnt support any of the games you play, would you buy it? Probably no, but what about if it had codes for a handful of the games you play. Then you might buy it. If it supports every game you play, you are more likely to buy it. But what if it does support new games as they come out. That would make you less likely to buy it. In otherwords, to ensure sales of Game Shark, they need to support as many games as possible, and continue to support new games as they come out. This way they build a loyal following. Then, as new games systems come out every couple of year, they quickly come out with a new product for that system and have millions of instant repeat customers.
I have comcast, and I dont see this written anywhere in the TOS, and Ive been looking at them for a while. I'm reading them here, and I see nothing about VPNs or that I interpret as VPN usage.
Ive been looking at these TOS for a while, becuase a whole lot of crap has been going on with comcast lately. Here are some of the email I've recieved from them lately.
They are changing mail services. This means my address changes from user@mediaone.net to user@comcast.com (or comcast.net, cant remember). No prob, EXCEPT the new addres becomes active Dec 29th, old address is deactive Dec 31s. This means we have 3 days to make the udate to all our online accounts, subscriptions, mailing list, etc. and what 3 days do we get? Sat, Sun, New Years Eve. If I have a problem making this update for one of my accounts, good luck finding someone to help, since most companies will be closed these 3 days.
Furthermore, until mid Jan, we will only have 1 comcast email address. What about those of us now that have 2 or 3 address. We only have 1 until mid Jan. I have an email, my wife has an email, some families have kids with emails. I guess someone in the household get left out in the cold for half a month (luckily for me/my wife, I've already transitioned to my own personal domain with email, so its not an issue for me, but Im sure it is for MANY, MANY people). They wont get email in that time, and what happens when they try to switch over one of their accounts in mid jan, and the system tells them "to confirm your update, we have send an email to your previous address. Please click the link in that email to complete your update".
What else have they told me lately...oh yeah. They send me an email all about how some home pages are going to change, something really minor. Then, burried 5 paragraphs down, they mention that, by the way, there will also be a new acceptable use policy effective Jan 1st, 2002 which "includes new information
on several subjects, including use of bandwidth". Are they going to charge us for excessive downloads or uploads? I tried to look up these changes at the URL I posted above, but I see nothing about bandwidth. It says what I can/cant do, but nothing about how much of it I can do. Im puzzled. Are they getting worried about wireless neighborhood area networks?
What else...oh yeah. Im getting a new modem mailed to me that I have to hook up by end of year. According to them "This new modem will prepare your computer for upcoming Comcast High Speed Internet product enhancements including improved reliability and new features". I talked with some people, and came up with rumors that they are decreasing our upload speed to 128Kbit. I currently get 250Kbit up, and I know people that get almost 400Kbit up. I looked on their site, and nowhere do they mention upload speeds anymore, except on one pricing chart, they list the serivice as "1.5/128K" (1.5Mbit down/128Kbit up). Im afraid this new modem is their attempt to "upgrade" my upload speeds.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about the letter I got through postal mail last week...price goes up $5.
Anyone else find it funny/ironic that, just 2 days ago in the article Photo of First Extra-Solar Planet?, the top rated posting was one stating that Hubble was incapable of making such a discovery, and that we would need a more advanced telescope:
"To be able to see earth like planets at earth like distances from their parent star, would require a much more advanced telescope than Hubble"
I agree with those that say it was Bleemcast that killed Bleem, kinda. Its was actually Sony that killed them, Bleemcast just provoked them. But it is really sad they way they went. Sony may have won, but they did it extremely unfairly. Sony tried to stop them in court, but when the courts ruled in favor of Bleem, and Sony was defeated, they then went on to win the battle unfairly. Last year (when PS2 was extremely popular but in such short demand) Sony went so far as to inform retailers that if they carried Bleemcast, they might just coincidentally find themselves on the wrong end of the PS2 shortage (if you know what they mean). So, first they drained them to the edge of bankruptcy, then they cut off their revenue.
It was kinda funny. Yesterday morning the CEO (I thinks that was his position) of NeuLevel was on the Fox 2 news in Detroit talking about the.biz domains. He was so full of crap, talking about how much.biz can do for companies because it uses new technologies and can "allow business to perform extremely complex, secure transactions", as if its some new TCPIP or encryption protocol. I was laughing at the guy.
Then one of the news anchors asked him how much it would cost to set up a.biz domain, and he all but avoided the subject, saying a bunch of bs and concluding with...contact one of our representatives and they will help you. It was like he was afraid to say.
But the funniest thing was half the time the guy was speaking, it was like he didnt know what to say, as if he didnt even believe in what they were doing. He kept pausing, as if he was thinking "we'll,.biz doesnt really do much for you, but I need to plug it so I can make millions providing a service no one needs. So...what can I make up."
As they have done in some of the previous versions of Delphi, I suspect they do this using unit aliases. In one of the config dialogs, you can specify which units to alias, such as "Dialogs=QDialogs". They have been doing this since at least Delphi 4, maybe even earlier.
I always thought that it was 10 minutes of commercials for every 30 minute show
By coincidence, I was playing Trivial Pursuit genus 4 this last weekend, and one of the questions was haw many minutes of commercial are in each 8 minutes of programming. The answer was 2. thus 25% of the time is commercials.
Now, Im not gonna stand up try to defend the accuracy of their questions/answers, but I would like to think they did at least a little bit of homework.
Also note, we've had this game for a few years, and Im not sure how long before that it came out, so standards may have changed since then.
Since they say the wont help you with a problem if you are running XP, I have to ask...what happens if its THEIR problem.
When I moved into my house last year, I got road runner installed. When the install tech set it up, everything worked fine right off the bat, but he said (since I used the self install option) I would still need to call their tech support and register the serial # and Mac Address of the modem and/or my NIC (cant remember which).
That night I call up their tech support give them the info, they "put it into the computer", and say thank you very much. Everything is fine and dandy.
A day and a half later, suddendly my connection stops working. The modem has a block synch light (so its not the physical cabling), but I cant get any DHCP info (so I have no IP...not quite gonna work very well on the net). After playing around with my system I was sure it wasnt me, so I called them up. I got some tech support idiot who insists its my machine. I tell him everything has been fine and I double checked and I'm positive its their problem, but he doesnt believe me.
him: "Can you do an ipconfig/renew?"
me: "I already did that, but sure...nope dont work"
him: "can you unplug the modem fo 60 seconds?"
me: "Already did that for 5 minutes, but Ill do it again....nope dont work?
After going through a bunch of this type of crap, changing settings, disabling internet connection sharing (which he ASSURED me was the reason I wasnt getting a connection, even though it had worked for more than a day), he finally wants me to uninstall and reinstall my TCPIP driver/NIC drivers.
him: "You are gonna need your windows CD for this. do you have it handy?"
me: "Well, I have it, but I just moved into my house 2 weeks ago and its buried somewhere in a box."
him: "Well can you go look for it?"
me: "Look, Im really pretty sure this problem is on your end"
him: "can you please look for it...Ill wait"
so off I go looking. 5 minutes later I have the CD, go through a bunch of crap with him. finally
me: "nope, dont work"
him: "well, now Im gonna need you to..."
at this point, Ive been talking to this idiot for 45 minutes, continually telling him the problem is on their end. Finally, I reach my limit and YELL at the guy that its their problem.
him: "please hold......(2 minutes later)....ok, Im gonna transfer you to another tech now and he will be able to help you:
When I get this new tech, I tell him the problem and why I think its on their end. So he pulls up my info
tech2: "I dont have any info on your NIC or modem"
me: "I called it in 2 days ago and they entered it"
tech2: "well its not there. Can I have it again please?"
me: "ok here it is....."
tech2: "hmmm, thats funny. your modem is still registered at the previous address."
I basicly spend an hour on the phone trying to convince them its their problem, and I was right. When their tech said he took/entered my info a few days back, he lied. After getting tech 2, I had service restored and was off the phone in 5 minutes. However, what if I had an unsupported OS. What would have happened? It was their fault, but they would have been unable to diagnose the problem and assumed it was my fault.
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The one problem I see with product placement is in reruns. Once a product is placed into a show, it could be prohibitively difficult to remove or replace the item being advertized. This is all fine for the first run of a show, where Coke pays paramount to put a can of coke on the bridge of the Enterprise. Paramount gets the money, makes the placed ad, and airs show/ad on UPN. Now what happens when TNN buys the rights to reruns of old Star Trek episodes? Does TNN pay Paramount even though the ads are already in the show and they will not be able to make any money? Or is coke forced into a contract where they have to pay fees to anyone who replays the show for eternity?
And what happens when you place a product into a show, and the product proceeds to flop its way out of existance, or is even phased. You then end up with ads for products you can no longer buy: "Go to your neighborhood Ford dealer and test drive the new Aerostar"
Critics say Microsoft is hiding access to its programs, but the fundamental code is still installed on the PC. If the code is still there, developers could take advantage of it over other middleware, they charge
So what they are saying is they would prefer that Microsoft break as many 3rd party applications as possible? If they took out the code to internet explorer, what happens when hundreds of apps try to load the IE browser activeX control, or how about the stuff in media player.
Here in Michigan (and I always thought it was the same everywhere else), every school bus has blinking yellow and red lights. When the bus starts to slow down, the driver flips on the blinking yellow lights. When the bus comes to a complete stop, the driver throws on the red light and you are required to stop. The principle is the same as a trafic light, and you have about 5 seconds to make up your mind which way you are going to do things. As long as you are paying attention, there should be no reason to ever slam on the brakes. In over 10 years, I've never once even come close to getting into an accident in such a situation.
What worse about Grimlock, check out his stats. Somehow I dont remember his intelligence being a 10. Another thing...is it just me, or is practically every one of those things now a "combiner"? Oh well, its better than Pokemon.
Anyone else remember the GDI printers made by HP? Unfortunately I cant, because I have one sitting next to me (1000C). It's served me quite well in the 5 or so years since I bought it, but now that I have a home network I really wish I could TCP/IP share this thing. It also sucks to because if I do something CPU intensive while printing, the printer just comes to a hault (guess it's better than locking up the CPU, but still). These printers were hyped pretty big when they first came out, but I guess nobody really quite like them because HP stopped making these things before too long and reverted back to the regular design.
Hey, by placing these addresses on a public site like /., they are likely to get harvested by the spammers....
Not likely. All but the most half-assed of spammers will filter their list to remove *@*.gov, webmaster@*, postmaster@*, abuse@*, root@*, and so on.
You obviously have no appreciation for what is involved in the hiermenus package. I have used these in the past (version 3) and played around a bit with their new version 4. I would love to see you recreate what is involved in these menus in 5-10 days, much less 5-10 minutes. Hiermenus has all kinds of options for customizing appearances and layout, and autogeneration of all menus from simple paramater lists, among other things. Most important is how portable their code is. They went to great lengths to make sure these menus work in every browser, even that DHTML monstrosity of a browser known as Netscape 4.
If you are an expert at DHTML, maybe you could recreate a totally rough and basic version of these menus in 30 minutes. But to create something nearly as reusable and customizable as hiermenus, youd be hard pressed to do it in a week.
It seems to be a very common theme around here to put down anyone that tries to make a buck. Its really sad. These people have created a polished development tool, and all you can say is "thats nothing, I could do that". Maybe you could, but from a business standpoint its probably a heck of a lot cheaper to just buy a license.
For the record, I have no affiliation with the creators of hiermenus other than having used it in the past, and I have no incentive for promoting it either way.
There was a one time $129 setup fee.
How ironic that this was the top story on slashdot this morning. I was already ticked off about the topic because I just received some this morning.
About a month ago, my wife got a spam on her cell phone:
[email address here]##Finally yours. DVD Copier
A few days later, I got the exact same messsage and was steaming mad. Just this morning I got a followup message:
[email address here]##Just wanted to follow up with you#Copy & Burn DVD and VHS with CD Burner!! + Bonus package Playstation2 & Dreamcast Backup Software! W
I can deal with email spam (dont like it, but can deal with it). But this is only my second cell phone spam and I'm just furious. The thing that sends me off the edge about it is that its just so obtrusive. With email spam, I deal with it on my own time (when I decide to check my email) but with cell phone spam, Im in the middle of something else and my phone goes off "beep, beep, beep". The thing is, it always kinda startles me when it happens. I have my cell phone pretty much for talking to my wife (she has a cell phone and we have the family plan where we call each other for free) and emergency purposes only. If I KNOW its not my wife calling, then its probably something pretty important....guess not anymore.
Suddenly the 128 bit netscape encryption isn't looking so good (Not that it was before...)
Actually, you are comparing 2 different types of keys: public assymmetric keys, and private symmetric keys. Public assymmetric keys (like the ones talked about here) require a longer key for equal security (when compared to private keys) because some additional information is already known (the public part of the key). This information can be used to break the encryption faster, thus you use larger keys to offset this.
When using 128-bit SSL on a web site, you actually use a 128-bit RC4 key (which is a symmetric private key). In order to exchange the key between client and server, a secure channel is first created using 1024-bit RSA (public) key.
So yes, the 1024 bit part isnt as secure as what this artice talks about (2048-bit keys), but the 128-bit SSL key isnt quite as bad as it sounds.
If you read about the purpose of that email address on the FTC's site you will see that while the FTC is aware of the burden/inconvenience of spam on the user and ISP, their primary focus is on identifying trends in illegal activities (ie: get rich quick schemes and other types of fraud).
While bulk UCE burdens Internet service providers and frustrates their customers, the FTC's main concern with UCE is its widespread use to disseminate false and misleading claims about products and services offered for sale on the Internet. The Commission believes the proliferation of deceptive bulk UCE on the Internet poses a threat to consumer confidence in online commerce and thus views the problem of deception as a significant issue in the debate over UCE.
You dont necessarily have to save all of them for a function call. Either the calling function saves the registers that it currently has values in before the "call" and restores them after it returns, or the called function saves the registers which it intends to overwrite and restores them before executing "return".
On the other hand, for a context switch (switching between threads or processes), yes, all registers will have to be saved.
I dont know about you, but I dont leave bar codes on my underwear, so I doubt I would leave one of these chips on it. Even so, I would question whether or not these tags could survive a trip through the wash cycle...you do wash your underwear, right?
From the article:
Over the Internet, however, identity is notoriously easy to fake
This is also true of the physical world. Its not too difficult to get fake IDs and papers. But the bigger thing is (and I dont know how true this is of other states) here in Michigan, you really dont even have to have any fake ID. All you need to know is the name and address of the person you want to be. When I went and voted a few years back, there was a poster on the wall indicating Michigan laws regarding voting and identity. The gist of it was that the people running the voting booths have no right to verify your identity (they cant even ask you to see your ID or voter registration card). If there was any question as to who you are, you would be required to swear an oath on the spot that you are who you say you are and that you are eligible and registered to vote.
If you don't want to make it available that way, that's your choice--and it's just plain absurd to whine that people dare to actually use the methods in place to see that image
Except that I ran across an instance a few months back where some guy set up a personal web site, linked to some of my copyrighted pictures and made it so they displayed in his page, and then proceeded to place a copyright notice with his name below the picture. I was furios, contacted his webmaster and has his site shut down.
Of course, the funniest part of it was that he also copied another page from my web site...the "About Myself" page. He then proceeded to modify the text (change my name to his, my birthdate to his, etc) and then add in some other choice info about himself and his family. Just by going through the page, I was able to obtain:
His name, his birthdate, his country/city of birth, the date he moved to his current city/country, the date he bacame a citizen of that country, the company he works for, the approximate date he started working there, the name of his wife, the name/ages/sex of his 2 children, his hobbies, and his number of brother/sisters.
Needless to say I had enough info to track him down, let him know how I felt, and make him realize I have enough info about him that its probably not in his best interest to do it again.
Another problem I have with Macrovision is that (supposedly, based upon my little understanding of the subject) introduces errors into the video (and audio?) INTENTIONALLY, errors which the human eye supposedly can't see, but which confuse video inputs on VCR's and other 'video input' devices
Not quite. Video streams have a break in the signal (each frame I believe) that is used for various purposes (closed captions are one, and I think frame synchronization is another). What macrovision does is place occasional spikes in this break. It doesnt effect the audio or visual. The problem with this is that most VCRs have an automatic gain control that adjusts the signal level so you get the best picture. When the AGC sees a spike, it begins to turn down the signal level (making the video dimmer). Then when the spike disappears, the AGC turns the signal back up to "give you the best picture quality".
What I dont know is if Macrovision was created to exploit the AGC (which already existed), or if AGC was added to make Macrovision possible.
I am not exactly sure how they make "big" money on this...maybe there is a side of marketing that I am not thinking about but when is the last time you saw anybody pay for cheat codes?
Well, the codes themselves aren't big money, as (as far as I know) nobody sells just the codes. However, the codes do enable them to sell the hardware (or you could say hardware sales subsidize the code finding efforts). And every code they develop and make available adds one more reason for someone to buy a Game Shark
Looking at this another way, suppose you are play video games and are not opposed to the idea of a game shark. If the Game Shark didnt support any of the games you play, would you buy it? Probably no, but what about if it had codes for a handful of the games you play. Then you might buy it. If it supports every game you play, you are more likely to buy it. But what if it does support new games as they come out. That would make you less likely to buy it. In otherwords, to ensure sales of Game Shark, they need to support as many games as possible, and continue to support new games as they come out. This way they build a loyal following. Then, as new games systems come out every couple of year, they quickly come out with a new product for that system and have millions of instant repeat customers.
I have comcast, and I dont see this written anywhere in the TOS, and Ive been looking at them for a while. I'm reading them here, and I see nothing about VPNs or that I interpret as VPN usage.
Ive been looking at these TOS for a while, becuase a whole lot of crap has been going on with comcast lately. Here are some of the email I've recieved from them lately.
They are changing mail services. This means my address changes from user@mediaone.net to user@comcast.com (or comcast.net, cant remember). No prob, EXCEPT the new addres becomes active Dec 29th, old address is deactive Dec 31s. This means we have 3 days to make the udate to all our online accounts, subscriptions, mailing list, etc. and what 3 days do we get? Sat, Sun, New Years Eve. If I have a problem making this update for one of my accounts, good luck finding someone to help, since most companies will be closed these 3 days.
Furthermore, until mid Jan, we will only have 1 comcast email address. What about those of us now that have 2 or 3 address. We only have 1 until mid Jan. I have an email, my wife has an email, some families have kids with emails. I guess someone in the household get left out in the cold for half a month (luckily for me/my wife, I've already transitioned to my own personal domain with email, so its not an issue for me, but Im sure it is for MANY, MANY people). They wont get email in that time, and what happens when they try to switch over one of their accounts in mid jan, and the system tells them "to confirm your update, we have send an email to your previous address. Please click the link in that email to complete your update".
What else have they told me lately...oh yeah. They send me an email all about how some home pages are going to change, something really minor. Then, burried 5 paragraphs down, they mention that, by the way, there will also be a new acceptable use policy effective Jan 1st, 2002 which "includes new information on several subjects, including use of bandwidth". Are they going to charge us for excessive downloads or uploads? I tried to look up these changes at the URL I posted above, but I see nothing about bandwidth. It says what I can/cant do, but nothing about how much of it I can do. Im puzzled. Are they getting worried about wireless neighborhood area networks?
What else...oh yeah. Im getting a new modem mailed to me that I have to hook up by end of year. According to them "This new modem will prepare your computer for upcoming Comcast High Speed Internet product enhancements including improved reliability and new features". I talked with some people, and came up with rumors that they are decreasing our upload speed to 128Kbit. I currently get 250Kbit up, and I know people that get almost 400Kbit up. I looked on their site, and nowhere do they mention upload speeds anymore, except on one pricing chart, they list the serivice as "1.5/128K" (1.5Mbit down/128Kbit up). Im afraid this new modem is their attempt to "upgrade" my upload speeds.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about the letter I got through postal mail last week...price goes up $5.
YEAH COMCAST!!!!!!
Anyone else find it funny/ironic that, just 2 days ago in the article Photo of First Extra-Solar Planet?, the top rated posting was one stating that Hubble was incapable of making such a discovery, and that we would need a more advanced telescope:
"To be able to see earth like planets at earth like distances from their parent star, would require a much more advanced telescope than Hubble"
I agree with those that say it was Bleemcast that killed Bleem, kinda. Its was actually Sony that killed them, Bleemcast just provoked them. But it is really sad they way they went. Sony may have won, but they did it extremely unfairly. Sony tried to stop them in court, but when the courts ruled in favor of Bleem, and Sony was defeated, they then went on to win the battle unfairly. Last year (when PS2 was extremely popular but in such short demand) Sony went so far as to inform retailers that if they carried Bleemcast, they might just coincidentally find themselves on the wrong end of the PS2 shortage (if you know what they mean). So, first they drained them to the edge of bankruptcy, then they cut off their revenue.
It was kinda funny. Yesterday morning the CEO (I thinks that was his position) of NeuLevel was on the Fox 2 news in Detroit talking about the .biz domains. He was so full of crap, talking about how much .biz can do for companies because it uses new technologies and can "allow business to perform extremely complex, secure transactions", as if its some new TCPIP or encryption protocol. I was laughing at the guy.
.biz domain, and he all but avoided the subject, saying a bunch of bs and concluding with...contact one of our representatives and they will help you. It was like he was afraid to say.
.biz doesnt really do much for you, but I need to plug it so I can make millions providing a service no one needs. So...what can I make up."
Then one of the news anchors asked him how much it would cost to set up a
But the funniest thing was half the time the guy was speaking, it was like he didnt know what to say, as if he didnt even believe in what they were doing. He kept pausing, as if he was thinking "we'll,
As they have done in some of the previous versions of Delphi, I suspect they do this using unit aliases. In one of the config dialogs, you can specify which units to alias, such as "Dialogs=QDialogs". They have been doing this since at least Delphi 4, maybe even earlier.
I always thought that it was 10 minutes of commercials for every 30 minute show
By coincidence, I was playing Trivial Pursuit genus 4 this last weekend, and one of the questions was haw many minutes of commercial are in each 8 minutes of programming. The answer was 2. thus 25% of the time is commercials.
Now, Im not gonna stand up try to defend the accuracy of their questions/answers, but I would like to think they did at least a little bit of homework.
Also note, we've had this game for a few years, and Im not sure how long before that it came out, so standards may have changed since then.
Since they say the wont help you with a problem if you are running XP, I have to ask...what happens if its THEIR problem.
/renew?"
When I moved into my house last year, I got road runner installed. When the install tech set it up, everything worked fine right off the bat, but he said (since I used the self install option) I would still need to call their tech support and register the serial # and Mac Address of the modem and/or my NIC (cant remember which).
That night I call up their tech support give them the info, they "put it into the computer", and say thank you very much. Everything is fine and dandy.
A day and a half later, suddendly my connection stops working. The modem has a block synch light (so its not the physical cabling), but I cant get any DHCP info (so I have no IP...not quite gonna work very well on the net). After playing around with my system I was sure it wasnt me, so I called them up. I got some tech support idiot who insists its my machine. I tell him everything has been fine and I double checked and I'm positive its their problem, but he doesnt believe me.
him: "Can you do an ipconfig
me: "I already did that, but sure...nope dont work"
him: "can you unplug the modem fo 60 seconds?"
me: "Already did that for 5 minutes, but Ill do it again....nope dont work?
After going through a bunch of this type of crap, changing settings, disabling internet connection sharing (which he ASSURED me was the reason I wasnt getting a connection, even though it had worked for more than a day), he finally wants me to uninstall and reinstall my TCPIP driver/NIC drivers.
him: "You are gonna need your windows CD for this. do you have it handy?"
me: "Well, I have it, but I just moved into my house 2 weeks ago and its buried somewhere in a box."
him: "Well can you go look for it?"
me: "Look, Im really pretty sure this problem is on your end"
him: "can you please look for it...Ill wait"
so off I go looking. 5 minutes later I have the CD, go through a bunch of crap with him. finally
me: "nope, dont work"
him: "well, now Im gonna need you to..."
at this point, Ive been talking to this idiot for 45 minutes, continually telling him the problem is on their end. Finally, I reach my limit and YELL at the guy that its their problem.
him: "please hold......(2 minutes later)....ok, Im gonna transfer you to another tech now and he will be able to help you:
When I get this new tech, I tell him the problem and why I think its on their end. So he pulls up my info
tech2: "I dont have any info on your NIC or modem"
me: "I called it in 2 days ago and they entered it"
tech2: "well its not there. Can I have it again please?"
me: "ok here it is....."
tech2: "hmmm, thats funny. your modem is still registered at the previous address."
I basicly spend an hour on the phone trying to convince them its their problem, and I was right. When their tech said he took/entered my info a few days back, he lied. After getting tech 2, I had service restored and was off the phone in 5 minutes. However, what if I had an unsupported OS. What would have happened? It was their fault, but they would have been unable to diagnose the problem and assumed it was my fault.
Yeah, but they'll have to work 2 weeks of overtime a year to pay for Windows
So, lets see by your figures. Windows XP ranges from $100 (home edition, upgrade) to $300 (professional, full version).
$100 to $300/2weeks = $50 to $150/40 hours = $1.25 to $3.75 per hour
If you are working for those rates, I suggest you look around for a new job...your boss has really got you bent over on this one.