Haha, well, if you actually like the nipple I guess you're stuck. I can't understand why people like them, is it like a cult or something?
I admit that it is an acquired taste, rather than a cult. It takes practice and some getting used to (perhaps even building a small callous on your index finger), but the efficiency of the TrackPoint is just orders of magnitude better than a touchpad. You can get the cursor to anywhere on the screen in a fraction of a second, and you don't have to move your hands from the "asdfjkl;" position on the keyboard. You owned a T23 for 2 years and used it non-stop, and you haven't become a convert to the TrackPoint? How could you have not appreciated it? Everyone I've ever met that "doesn't like" it simply has never tried using it much and can't be bothered learning how.
The fact that you don't have to deal with the frustrating "accidentally brush the touchpad" phenomenon (when all of a sudden you're typing text wherever the cursor happened to be sitting) is just a bonus. I had a ThinkPad as part of going to school last year, it had a touchpad as well as the Trackpoint. Thank heavens the touchpad could be disabled via a config menu. Annoyed the heck out of any classmate or teacher of mine that wanted to use my machine, though!
(BTW, I worked at IBM in the mid-90's when ThinkPads were just starting to be rolled out to employees. Someone in my department came up the name "clitty stick" for the TrackPoint. Much more amusing than "nipple":-)
Sorry, I don't see the distinction. My cable box is a (embedded) computer and a PVR. My cable box can use the guide data sent by the cable company to record shows. Clearly the reason why TiVo/Myth/whatever cannot access cable guide data is political, not technical.
Yes, but does your cable box with PVR allow you to easily skip commercials? Didn't think so!
Of course, there is computer-readable data being sent down to your decoder/PVR. However, the data is not readable by anything but your closed-off cable box. The cable company could send the programming data down the pipe in an openly-readable XML format, but that would enable other solutions than their own to work easily. As you pointed out, this is political (or, more specifically, financial), rather than technical.
My point was that the cable/dish companies have no problem giving programming data that are readable by human eyes (or, to your point, for their own equipment's use). They will not give you programming data that will allow you to easily use MythTV or any other PVR.
My cable box can download guide data from the cable company, but a TiVo/MythTV/whatever can't?
Yup. And the reason why actually makes sense (from the cable/dish company's point of view). The guide data from your digital box is formatted to be easy to read for a human, while the data for TiVo/Myth/whatever must be formatted to be easy to read for a computer.
Humans can use the guide to look up the programs that they want to see. They might also watch the commercials with the programs. This is good for the cable/dish company.
Computers can use its guide data to record programs that its human wants to see. They are also able to automatically remove commercials from the programs. This is bad for the cable/dish company.
Never, ever forget that you are not the broadcasters' primary customer: the advertisers are. Anything that makes it easier to skip ads will not be encouraged, ever.
Up until recently, there was a variant of Mountain Dew in Canada called "Dew Fuel" which was listed as an "energy drink" on its label. It had caffiene (don't remember how much), and I bought it a lot. Then, it disappeared off the shelves. The grocery store manager didn't know why it wasn't on the shelf, made a phone call to his distributor, and was told it was no longer in production. Shit! (This was about 2-3 months ago.)
Okay so this is offtopic and I am replying to a signature, but my daughter watches the song of the Cebu video over and over... and now I see it on slashdot. There is no escape.
Wow, that was quick! I changed the sig only about an hour before your post. Fastest Veggie response, ever!
I cycle through bizarre VeggieTales quotes regularly. I continue to be amazed at how many people notice and comment. Thanks.
Nope. They are exactly what you described them: "solid-state" VCRs. I think you can subscribe to a service with them, but they are absolutely capable of being used stand-alone. If you can program a VCR, you'll have no problems.
As a Canadian whose been watching this since the late 90's, frankly I thought that we'd have reached this stage earlier. The media companies have been pushing the government non-stop: obviously, they are finding that Bev Oda and her Tory friends are more receptive to their message than Shiela Copps was in the Liberal days.
As the Americans have discovered, it is difficult to get rid of crappy laws. The lobbyists know this: they just have to have patience and find the right stooges in power to do their bidding, then they're set.
I prefer a hardware recorder like the VCR. I don't need a fancy scheduler with TV guides like TiVo and Replay.
Simple, then. You go and buy a hardware PVR from Best Buy or Circuit City (or wherever). There are models from Pioneer, Samsung, JVC, etc. (all the usual suspects): when you're ready, read up on the models and choose the one that best suits your needs at that time. As a bonus, you'll probably be able to get one with a DVD recorder for not that much more, so you'll have both options.
I have a customer with several HP Officejet 6110 all-in-one printers. They work perfectly,...
Wow, they're happy with those POSs? I bought one because it was inexpensive for the features I wanted, but I was not impressed with either the hardware or the software.
The unit itself got replaced twice under warranty, and the third is now useful only as a scanner since the print mechanism has broken again. I didn't even use the thing particularly heavily, either. Oh, and the sheet feeder on the scanner can't be trusted to actually grab only one page, so you have to feed the thing one page at a time.
As for the software, what a bloated piece of junk. I think the "basic" driver was a 35MB download from HP! The default install put so much crap on my system it was worth it to just completely uninstall it and start over. Plus the fact that the printer will not allow you to print from a network, and you have a thoroughly shite device.
Sorry for the rant. Please mod down, if you please. I just hate that damn thing.
Right from the beginning, at the speech made by Jobs at MacWorld, he mentioned that the iPhone was going to be sold for $499/$599 with a two-year contract with Cingular (now AT&T). This is on par with other high-end devices on all carriers. They never said that the price was going to be for the unemcumbered unit.
have dvd sales really been hurt that bad by the encryption for dvd being broken years ago?
Quite the opposite: I would not have purchased any DVDs or a DVD player until the copy scheme was broken. I have a small child in my house: you think I let her anywhere near the purchased copies of her movies? She gets the burned copies only.
I gotta say, though: to VHS's credit, those tapes are fairly tough. My daughter can handle the video tapes all she wants. But DVDs are far more fragile: I've had to re-burn "Madagascar" a couple of times for her, and she's really not that rough with the discs.
(Oh, and the fact that DVD Shrink lets me make discs that start playing the movie immediately on inserting the disc into the player is a huge bonus as well. If DVDs were indestructible, this feature makes the process worth it by itself.)
I live in Brazil.... I watched game two of the stanely cup last night Just out of curiosity, are your parents in the US (sending the "VS." feed) or in Canada (the CBC feed). If you got the American broadcast, your parents may have helped to double the ratings they received from the game! Seriously, I didn't think anyone outside of Canada gave a shit about the Stanley Cup, particularly between the Senators and the Ducks!
Funny story about Ovide Mercredi. I had the opportunity to meet him in 1992 (I think) when the Assembly of First Nations had their annual conference on Manitoulin Island, in Northern Ontario. At this time, he was the Grand Chief of the Assembly, and recogizable across the country. I grew up on Manitoulin and was working as a waiter/bartender at the hotel/restaurant where he and his entourage were staying during the conference, in a little town called Gore Bay.
We open up the dining room for dinner early for him and his group (about 10 people), as they had to get to a meeting. I get chosen to serve their table. Hey, it's as close to "celebrity" as I've ever seen in this place, so I consider it somewhat of an honour.
So I introduce myself to the table and run through the spiel. I hand everyone the menus, and then explain the day's "special" (not on the menu). I then explain that all entres come with your choice of pototoes. Now, the kitchen prepared different styles of potatoes: sometimes they were scalloped, or oven roasted, but most often the choices were mashed pototoes or a baked potato. I've been working at this place for a couple of summers now, so the words just flow off my tongue automatically. Plus, I'm a bit nervous, so I'm talking a bit faster than normal. On this afternoon, I say the same thing I've said hundreds of times: "All dinners come with your choice of pototoes: mashed or baked."
Mercredi is in the middle of sipping a glass of water. As I say this, he nearly sprays the water across the table, looks up at me, and blurts out, "What kind of potatoes!?"
Instantly, I (and the rest of the table) realize how the phrase "mashed or baked" can sound if you are being a little rushed!
Naturally, the table explodes with laughter, and I just about kill myself laughing too. They enjoyed the meal, but of course had to make a comment on how "creamy" the mashed potatoes were, and wanted to make sure that they weren't the "mashedorbaked" style of potatoes.:-)
You are thinking about trademarks, not patents (or copyrights, for that matter). There is no obligation on the part of patent or copyright holders to take any action to defend them.
And yet with today's internet connections getting faster, the amount of data that you're allowed to actually *use* is not going up by the same proportion. Consumers with "unlimited" accounts are getting their service scaled back when they overuse their service. Imagine how many more people will be in this predicament once HiDef movies start getting streamed down.
Speed is only half the equation: if ISPs don't stop chopping their customers down for using their services, there will be customers who pay for a movie, then can only watch half before the ISP starts throttling back their connections for overuse. For this type of downloading to become "mainstream", ISPs must start implementing graduated price scales that more accurately reflect their subscribers' usage (ie. reducing prices for light users, increasing prices for heavy users, instead of this fake "unlimited" BS). Otherwise, online distribution of content will never hit critical mass.
(Of course, that may well be the entire point! The content industry would prefer the internet just go away, so they can go back to their cosy old business model.)
The only reason so many people have signed up, is because they think it's the only way to get on MSN Messenger.
Yep, that's the only reason I have one, too. I went back to school, and everyone in my faculty sort "standardized" on MSN Messenger as the way to communicate for social chats and school projects. I have a hotmail address that rejects email now because I never used the account. (Every so often a classmate sends a file to my hotmail account because they see the ID in MSN Messenger. Then they complain that it bounces.)
This is a political tool to get publicity, and get a few ignorant members or a Tory Parliament to bite and draft up a version of the DMCA for Canada.
Exactly what I see, too. All the major network channels are hyping this story for their nightly news programs tonight. "Laying the groundwork" to make sure that the issue is known for the upcoming legislation, and that the industry's side is seen as the reasonable and desirable choice among the uninformed.
We need more guys like Micheal Geist (preferably someone in the radio or television business). Then again, I guess that if someone were to express such a viewpoint, they would be on radio or television very long.
Pick up a Dell laptop with one hand. It's heavy and you can feel it creaking under its own weight. Do the same with an IBM or Apple machine, and you'll feel the difference instantly.
I have only anecdotal evidence (two machines) to base this on, but I have two IBM laptops: a T22 (built in 2000) and a marginally larger R52 (built in 2005). The T22 is still as solid as a single chunk of metal, while the R52 has always been more "creaky". Perhaps IBMs are not as well built as they once were?
The real test is to pick up a laptop by one of its front corners. My T22 does not make a sound when you do this. It is a wonderfully engineered laptop, and durable as hell.
(I hear Apple makes very well-engineered laptops as well. I wish I had one so I could comment:-)
Unless there has been a tremendous upheaval and changes within the MPAA that we haven't heard about, there is *no way* that they genuinely want this. It is obvious that the media industry's desire is for control of the consumers' viewing and listening habits, and permitting "fair use" in the manner described is not what they have in mind. All evidence of their actions for the past 20 years or more points to the contrary.
I think that this is just a feel-good press release statement to publicly demonstrate that they are the good guys, but in the end they will act in their own best interests, not their customers'.
(Sorry, your original debater has given up, but I'll fill in!:-)
So I say, why buy a brand new PC at all? Because your old PC has a fried motherboard and it's not worth the work and aggravation of trying to upgrade it? Especially if you bought a Dell: their market is for people who don't want to muck around with their systems.
For all the supposed problems with Vista I have yet to read a single concrete problem that should prevent an average consumer from bundling Vista with a new PC. Hardware incompatibility, for one. Lots of stuff like printers, scanners, tablets, video cards, and other add-ons that were produced over the last six years will never have Vista drivers written for them. If you don't want to re-purchase a bunch of new peripherals along with replacing your dead computer, then you'll need XP. (Don't forget, the OEM copy of XP purchased with the dead Dell machine will not work with a new one, and even if it did it would be in violation of the licence to do so.)
I'm certain there are application issues that will be an impact on home users, as well. What if you have a lot of work in one of those little family-tree applications you bought at Best Buy a few years ago, that won't work under Vista? I'd think that you'd probably want to have an XP box so you can actually use it.
How could anyone suggest that a new XP license, today, has the same value as a Vista license? Well, for the scenarios I listed above, a Vista licence would be worth $0, since the computer would not work for the purposes the consumers desire. So, yes, an XP licence can have the same value (or greater) to a given person than a Vista licence.
In such a system, any subscriber can become a content originator. To prevent discrimination, providers of content, applications, snd services should be legally separated from providers of bandwidth.
"Should" and "will" have never been further apart.
This dumbing down has a serious negative impact on US competitiveness. Innovators with real broadband can conceive of applications that US innovators wouldn't imagine because of dumbed-down broadband.
No doubt that this statement is true. Unfortunately for us, this argument pales compared to the need for big media to have good results on the next quarterly income statement. For the companies that are responsible our current state of "broadband" (ie. keeping customers as consumers, rather than producers, of content), they really don't care about the competitiveness of the US years down the road: they only want to make as much money as possible *right now*!
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By the way,why is that? Is it not as over-sensitive as others I've tried? I've never had the opportunity to use a Mac.
I admit that it is an acquired taste, rather than a cult. It takes practice and some getting used to (perhaps even building a small callous on your index finger), but the efficiency of the TrackPoint is just orders of magnitude better than a touchpad. You can get the cursor to anywhere on the screen in a fraction of a second, and you don't have to move your hands from the "asdfjkl;" position on the keyboard. You owned a T23 for 2 years and used it non-stop, and you haven't become a convert to the TrackPoint? How could you have not appreciated it? Everyone I've ever met that "doesn't like" it simply has never tried using it much and can't be bothered learning how.
The fact that you don't have to deal with the frustrating "accidentally brush the touchpad" phenomenon (when all of a sudden you're typing text wherever the cursor happened to be sitting) is just a bonus. I had a ThinkPad as part of going to school last year, it had a touchpad as well as the Trackpoint. Thank heavens the touchpad could be disabled via a config menu. Annoyed the heck out of any classmate or teacher of mine that wanted to use my machine, though!
(BTW, I worked at IBM in the mid-90's when ThinkPads were just starting to be rolled out to employees. Someone in my department came up the name "clitty stick" for the TrackPoint. Much more amusing than "nipple"
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgent_Networks
- no entries found for "fogent"
Please return to your regular routine!Unless it's two different patent trolls, I've seen this company's name spelled both ways. Which is right?
Yes, but does your cable box with PVR allow you to easily skip commercials? Didn't think so!
Of course, there is computer-readable data being sent down to your decoder/PVR. However, the data is not readable by anything but your closed-off cable box. The cable company could send the programming data down the pipe in an openly-readable XML format, but that would enable other solutions than their own to work easily. As you pointed out, this is political (or, more specifically, financial), rather than technical.
My point was that the cable/dish companies have no problem giving programming data that are readable by human eyes (or, to your point, for their own equipment's use). They will not give you programming data that will allow you to easily use MythTV or any other PVR.
Yup. And the reason why actually makes sense (from the cable/dish company's point of view). The guide data from your digital box is formatted to be easy to read for a human, while the data for TiVo/Myth/whatever must be formatted to be easy to read for a computer.
Humans can use the guide to look up the programs that they want to see. They might also watch the commercials with the programs. This is good for the cable/dish company.
Computers can use its guide data to record programs that its human wants to see. They are also able to automatically remove commercials from the programs. This is bad for the cable/dish company.
Never, ever forget that you are not the broadcasters' primary customer: the advertisers are. Anything that makes it easier to skip ads will not be encouraged, ever.
Up until recently, there was a variant of Mountain Dew in Canada called "Dew Fuel" which was listed as an "energy drink" on its label. It had caffiene (don't remember how much), and I bought it a lot. Then, it disappeared off the shelves. The grocery store manager didn't know why it wasn't on the shelf, made a phone call to his distributor, and was told it was no longer in production. Shit! (This was about 2-3 months ago.)
Wow, that was quick! I changed the sig only about an hour before your post. Fastest Veggie response, ever!
I cycle through bizarre VeggieTales quotes regularly. I continue to be amazed at how many people notice and comment. Thanks.
Nope. They are exactly what you described them: "solid-state" VCRs. I think you can subscribe to a service with them, but they are absolutely capable of being used stand-alone. If you can program a VCR, you'll have no problems.
As a Canadian whose been watching this since the late 90's, frankly I thought that we'd have reached this stage earlier. The media companies have been pushing the government non-stop: obviously, they are finding that Bev Oda and her Tory friends are more receptive to their message than Shiela Copps was in the Liberal days.
As the Americans have discovered, it is difficult to get rid of crappy laws. The lobbyists know this: they just have to have patience and find the right stooges in power to do their bidding, then they're set.
Simple, then. You go and buy a hardware PVR from Best Buy or Circuit City (or wherever). There are models from Pioneer, Samsung, JVC, etc. (all the usual suspects): when you're ready, read up on the models and choose the one that best suits your needs at that time. As a bonus, you'll probably be able to get one with a DVD recorder for not that much more, so you'll have both options.
Wow, they're happy with those POSs? I bought one because it was inexpensive for the features I wanted, but I was not impressed with either the hardware or the software.
The unit itself got replaced twice under warranty, and the third is now useful only as a scanner since the print mechanism has broken again. I didn't even use the thing particularly heavily, either. Oh, and the sheet feeder on the scanner can't be trusted to actually grab only one page, so you have to feed the thing one page at a time.
As for the software, what a bloated piece of junk. I think the "basic" driver was a 35MB download from HP! The default install put so much crap on my system it was worth it to just completely uninstall it and start over. Plus the fact that the printer will not allow you to print from a network, and you have a thoroughly shite device.
Sorry for the rant. Please mod down, if you please. I just hate that damn thing.
My favourite version of this quote is, "Stephen Harper is so far up George Bush's ass that he can almost see Tony Blair's feet."
Right from the beginning, at the speech made by Jobs at MacWorld, he mentioned that the iPhone was going to be sold for $499/$599 with a two-year contract with Cingular (now AT&T). This is on par with other high-end devices on all carriers. They never said that the price was going to be for the unemcumbered unit.
Quite the opposite: I would not have purchased any DVDs or a DVD player until the copy scheme was broken. I have a small child in my house: you think I let her anywhere near the purchased copies of her movies? She gets the burned copies only.
I gotta say, though: to VHS's credit, those tapes are fairly tough. My daughter can handle the video tapes all she wants. But DVDs are far more fragile: I've had to re-burn "Madagascar" a couple of times for her, and she's really not that rough with the discs.
(Oh, and the fact that DVD Shrink lets me make discs that start playing the movie immediately on inserting the disc into the player is a huge bonus as well. If DVDs were indestructible, this feature makes the process worth it by itself.)
Funny story about Ovide Mercredi. I had the opportunity to meet him in 1992 (I think) when the Assembly of First Nations had their annual conference on Manitoulin Island, in Northern Ontario. At this time, he was the Grand Chief of the Assembly, and recogizable across the country. I grew up on Manitoulin and was working as a waiter/bartender at the hotel/restaurant where he and his entourage were staying during the conference, in a little town called Gore Bay.
:-)
We open up the dining room for dinner early for him and his group (about 10 people), as they had to get to a meeting. I get chosen to serve their table. Hey, it's as close to "celebrity" as I've ever seen in this place, so I consider it somewhat of an honour.
So I introduce myself to the table and run through the spiel. I hand everyone the menus, and then explain the day's "special" (not on the menu). I then explain that all entres come with your choice of pototoes. Now, the kitchen prepared different styles of potatoes: sometimes they were scalloped, or oven roasted, but most often the choices were mashed pototoes or a baked potato. I've been working at this place for a couple of summers now, so the words just flow off my tongue automatically. Plus, I'm a bit nervous, so I'm talking a bit faster than normal. On this afternoon, I say the same thing I've said hundreds of times: "All dinners come with your choice of pototoes: mashed or baked."
Mercredi is in the middle of sipping a glass of water. As I say this, he nearly sprays the water across the table, looks up at me, and blurts out, "What kind of potatoes!?"
Instantly, I (and the rest of the table) realize how the phrase "mashed or baked" can sound if you are being a little rushed!
Naturally, the table explodes with laughter, and I just about kill myself laughing too. They enjoyed the meal, but of course had to make a comment on how "creamy" the mashed potatoes were, and wanted to make sure that they weren't the "mashedorbaked" style of potatoes.
I wonder if he still remembers that afternoon?
Yes.
You are thinking about trademarks, not patents (or copyrights, for that matter). There is no obligation on the part of patent or copyright holders to take any action to defend them.
And yet with today's internet connections getting faster, the amount of data that you're allowed to actually *use* is not going up by the same proportion. Consumers with "unlimited" accounts are getting their service scaled back when they overuse their service. Imagine how many more people will be in this predicament once HiDef movies start getting streamed down.
Speed is only half the equation: if ISPs don't stop chopping their customers down for using their services, there will be customers who pay for a movie, then can only watch half before the ISP starts throttling back their connections for overuse. For this type of downloading to become "mainstream", ISPs must start implementing graduated price scales that more accurately reflect their subscribers' usage (ie. reducing prices for light users, increasing prices for heavy users, instead of this fake "unlimited" BS). Otherwise, online distribution of content will never hit critical mass.
(Of course, that may well be the entire point! The content industry would prefer the internet just go away, so they can go back to their cosy old business model.)
Yep, that's the only reason I have one, too. I went back to school, and everyone in my faculty sort "standardized" on MSN Messenger as the way to communicate for social chats and school projects. I have a hotmail address that rejects email now because I never used the account. (Every so often a classmate sends a file to my hotmail account because they see the ID in MSN Messenger. Then they complain that it bounces.)
Exactly what I see, too. All the major network channels are hyping this story for their nightly news programs tonight. "Laying the groundwork" to make sure that the issue is known for the upcoming legislation, and that the industry's side is seen as the reasonable and desirable choice among the uninformed.
We need more guys like Micheal Geist (preferably someone in the radio or television business). Then again, I guess that if someone were to express such a viewpoint, they would be on radio or television very long.
I have only anecdotal evidence (two machines) to base this on, but I have two IBM laptops: a T22 (built in 2000) and a marginally larger R52 (built in 2005). The T22 is still as solid as a single chunk of metal, while the R52 has always been more "creaky". Perhaps IBMs are not as well built as they once were?
The real test is to pick up a laptop by one of its front corners. My T22 does not make a sound when you do this. It is a wonderfully engineered laptop, and durable as hell.
(I hear Apple makes very well-engineered laptops as well. I wish I had one so I could comment
Unless there has been a tremendous upheaval and changes within the MPAA that we haven't heard about, there is *no way* that they genuinely want this. It is obvious that the media industry's desire is for control of the consumers' viewing and listening habits, and permitting "fair use" in the manner described is not what they have in mind. All evidence of their actions for the past 20 years or more points to the contrary.
I think that this is just a feel-good press release statement to publicly demonstrate that they are the good guys, but in the end they will act in their own best interests, not their customers'.
(Sorry, your original debater has given up, but I'll fill in! :-)
So I say, why buy a brand new PC at all?
Because your old PC has a fried motherboard and it's not worth the work and aggravation of trying to upgrade it? Especially if you bought a Dell: their market is for people who don't want to muck around with their systems.
For all the supposed problems with Vista I have yet to read a single concrete problem that should prevent an average consumer from bundling Vista with a new PC.
Hardware incompatibility, for one. Lots of stuff like printers, scanners, tablets, video cards, and other add-ons that were produced over the last six years will never have Vista drivers written for them. If you don't want to re-purchase a bunch of new peripherals along with replacing your dead computer, then you'll need XP. (Don't forget, the OEM copy of XP purchased with the dead Dell machine will not work with a new one, and even if it did it would be in violation of the licence to do so.)
I'm certain there are application issues that will be an impact on home users, as well. What if you have a lot of work in one of those little family-tree applications you bought at Best Buy a few years ago, that won't work under Vista? I'd think that you'd probably want to have an XP box so you can actually use it.
How could anyone suggest that a new XP license, today, has the same value as a Vista license?
Well, for the scenarios I listed above, a Vista licence would be worth $0, since the computer would not work for the purposes the consumers desire. So, yes, an XP licence can have the same value (or greater) to a given person than a Vista licence.
"Should" and "will" have never been further apart.
No doubt that this statement is true. Unfortunately for us, this argument pales compared to the need for big media to have good results on the next quarterly income statement. For the companies that are responsible our current state of "broadband" (ie. keeping customers as consumers, rather than producers, of content), they really don't care about the competitiveness of the US years down the road: they only want to make as much money as possible *right now*!