If everyone was using root instead of user accounts, all those people you've known who have typed "rm -rf *" or "rm -rf/" as nonroot would have been doing it as root.
You're not seriously advocating that single users should just run as root, are you?
I'd like to add the fact elevators didn't always have light-up buttons labelled for each floor. There used to be a lever to make it go up or down. Stopping at a floor was a skill. It was more convenient to have an operator than have people miss the floor by 3 feet and break their ankles climbing out, or maybe cutting each other in half by accidentally bumping the lever when exiting.
Now there is a much simpler and intuitive interface that anyone can use, so a dedicated operator is not needed (though I hear Congress still has elevator operators so those busy politicians don't have to worry about breaking their nails, or something).
If you had a computer with a set of buttons for each of a few trivial operations available to the user, and those are the only operations, it probably doesn't matter if you run as root or not. Such a system would also suck as a general purpose home computer.
If you're going to do anything beyond trivial actions, and perhaps getting into complex stuff that you don't necessarily understand, its probably best NOT to be running as root.
Think of it as 2 sets of operations:
- the ones that can mess up your stuff - the ones that can mess up the whole system
Both sets have the ability to wipe out your data, but the latter can wipe out other people's data, critical system files, raw hard drives... pretty much screw your data, and your machine.
Both your user account and root have the ability to mess up your stuff. A regular user account typically cannot mess up other accounts' data or the operating system, without using "su" or "sudo" or some other method to escalate privliges.
MacOSX has root separate from the user account. A user can be an "Administrator", which gives the user sudo capability. GIU operations (software installs, editing user accounts, and other system configuration) do a graphical equivalent to sudo, prompting the user for their admin password. Its not that complicated. Its an extra layer of protection, and lets the user know that they're doing something out of the ordinary. Its not that complicated.
Maybe the GPL bits (whatever they are) are unmodified; they use FreeBSD or maybe a stock Linux distribution. If they use GPL tools, they use them unmodified, via the OS package system. By using these tools as-is they can update to new versions at any time (mostly) without having to manage a set of patches.
Their own software can still be proprietary, and distributed on their boxes without source.
I think a broad and general business degree makes an excellent complement to a specialized engineering degree, particularly if you want to remain on the more technical side of the business. A broad education is also a good way to get a feel for which aspects of the business side (tax, financials, etc.) interest you, if any. If they don't, you still have a wealth of knowledge and skills that aren't taught in most engineering programs. You'll be able to communicate with the business-types in their own language.
If it turns out that taxes or asset management really turn your crank, you can always get another degree later, and pursue that route on the job in the meantime.
The submitter does have 2 years experience on top of a CS degree (assuming he has been working as opposed to, say, backpacking around Europe with his liberal arts buddies;). As the MBA program progresses, he will be able to apply that knowledge to his past work experiences and examine them from a business perspective (ie. "Oh!!! So THAT's the real reason my project was dumped!"). It isn't experience WITH an MBA, but it is definitely useful experience.
That gives a competitive edge over someone fresh out of Business School with no "secondary" skill or experience.
Makes sense. With a redefined kilogram, Avogadro is really out of a job, since his number will become useless.
Do you think the new constant will retain the name, or will it be "The New Scientist Constant Relating Atoms to Grams brought to you by BASF, the Chemical Company"?
It will still be a violation to sell software in the United States that infringes on a patent, no matter where the software is developed.
Right, so the US will lose out.
Patents last 17 years. The Mac and Windows have existed only slightly longer than that. Java isn't that old. What does Moore's Law say about 17 years? Does "1-click shopping" really need to be protected until our computers are executing at 4 Terahertz*? It was cool, but not that cool. At this point its a totally silly distinction, but everyone else has to insert an extra page in the checkout process or else risk potential lawsuits from Amazon. How does that foster and promote creativity?
(* 17 years is 204 months, or just over 11 18-month periods in which Moore says CPU power should double, so if they were 2GHz then (and maybe they weren't) they'll be 2048 * as fast, or about 4 THz. And that's still about 10 years from now. How many extra clicks is that?)
17 years might work in other industries, maybe the drug industry. Its chemistry. They have to analyze stuff, and wait for reactions and titrations and shit. Then they have to go through lots of testing and government approvals. It actually takes many years for them to bring something to market. At that point the recipe is out there, so a competitor could get to market and quickly turn a profit while the inventor is still recovering research expenses.
I don't know that 17 year patents are still fair for drugs, but the Google guys have brainfarts that they turn into sample code by the next morning, and could go online in a matter of months. A patent could be approved within a year of conception. But a competitor's efforts to duplicate the feature are more comparable to the effort to create it than in the case of drug development and manufacturing.
There isn't expensive or time-consuming research with costs to recover. These sudden innovations (not inventions!) ARE the competitive advantage on the Internet. If you're the first to do it, you benefit while the others catch up. Everyone improves their website by doing a "View Source" on something they think looks cool. That's both how and why the web works.
Imagine if there had been 17 years from Xerox to Apple to Microsoft or from Netscape to Yahoo to Altavista to Google.
We'd all be dead by now, and just maybe some of our grandchildren would have been the first to book their funeral airfares online. Imagine if Excite, Lycos, Altavista and Yahoo had spent all their time patenting "font face=Arial" then suing each other for the better half of the late 1990's, instead of making the Internet incredibly useful by piggybacking on each others ideas and leapfrogging ahead.
Innovation and creativity foster more innovation and creativity.
Between this and IBM & Sun starting to open up their software patents, this could eventually lead to a change in the US.
For now IBM, Sun, Microsoft, Apple, etc, still have to keep patenting every new line of code, in case the law doesn't turn around (because if they don't, someone else will, and might start causing trouble. Patent things to cover their asses, then release the patents because its all ridiculous (unless, of course, they figure out a way to charge $10/month on one. But i digress).
I hope that after the EU rejects them (please!), the sheer absurdity of our system will outweigh the Patent Lawyer Lobby, and the laws will start to change for the better.
(Not to mention that the EU is made up of many countries with widely varied cultures. Why would they want to adopt a system where a single country could go patent-happy like the US and drag the whole Continent down with them?)
Hear, hear! I've always thought ESR was obnoxious and overrated.
Stepping down to do "ambassadorial" and "outreach" work reminds me of all the CEO's who "stepped down to spend more time with their family", or on "other projects" but would "stay on the board as an advisor" during the dot-com bust.
Its good they finally fired him. Woops. I mean let him step down.
US TV show DVDs sell because the shows were/are popular, and people want to get their favorites to watch over and over again (you know, because you just can't get enough Friends reruns through syndication;). If I'd never seen an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", I wouldn't know that its one of my favorite shows, and I wouldn't want to drop the bucks on the DVD sets.
There's a frikken ton of Anime out there. I get overwhelmed walking down the Anime aisle at Fry's. There's just so much of it, and I have no idea what is what, since I've never seen probably 99.999% of it. I told someone "this is a new genre for me". He asked "what genre?", to which I replied, "uhhh... Anime?;)"
In that sense, the fansubs are filling that gap. Its an inexpensive way to explore the vast collection of Anime that is out there, and get a feel for what you like. It exposes us (where us == all people not in Japan) to much, much more than what is available at video stores. Its incredible market research for the studios.
It seems to me that the fansubs are being fairly responsible with the shows they distribute, taking down shows when asked. If they include a disclaimer, as the parent post says (I haven't seen any fansub videos yet), that's even better.
Do the studios ever use the translations done by the fansubs? I've been watching "Get Backers", and there's some phrases that just aren't right. I get the meaning, and even with no knowledge of Japanese, I can see how the translation went wrong. A thesaurus would do them a world of good, too; they say "trump card" like 15 times an episode.
Before today, when I discovered fansubbing (thank's to the first (ranked) poster giving the definition, since the submitter and editors are useless), I was thinking of re-dubbing with fixed translations. It seemed like the logical thing to do, given that my conversational American English is probably better than that of the average Japanese translator (although, to me, the broken translations are part of the anime charm).
I'm having a hard time finding the link, but a couple of years ago some people were recording and distributing their own DVD commentaries that you could playback while watching the movie, and hear what that person thought of the film, getting another viewer's perspective instead of the director's (and a hell of a run-on sentence).
Perhaps the fansubs could do (or perhaps they do already) something similar, distributing alternate audio soundtracks to play in sync with the DVD once they are released here. That seems to be totally legal, could improve translation quality, and would seem to encourage more people to actually purchase the discs. Seems like a win for everyone.
I'm curious: Have any studios ever used fansub translations on their DVDs?
They've always been wanting people to upgrade to higher tier packages. This is something new for them, and another opportunity to extort^H^H^Hract more money from you.
A monthly PVR fee is absolutely, positively 100% profit for them. A PVR is not a service, its a device. Its a digital cable box with a hard drive and different software.
- they already send out a program guide with digital cable/satellite TV that gets parsed by the box (its especially obvious with sat boxes: program guides have the same info, but look different across different manufacturers' boxes), so nothing new here.
- all the PVR work is done inside your house by the set top box.
Once you have the box in your house and connected to the line, it has the capability to record shows off the cable without Comcast (or whoever) having to do anything at all.
The monthly fee doesn't "cover the costs" of anything to do with a PVR. They flip a bit that turns your box on, and they're done (again, something they already do with regular cable boxes). The only work they might have to do is flipping it back off if you stop paying. Nothing new here.
Tivo's monthly fee is understandable, because they have to generate and distribute their own guide. There are costs associated with that. They actually do something to earn your $10 (or whatever it is now).
The cableco's see people spending $10/month for "PVR service" with Tivo, and figure they can just do the same. They have no associated expenses, so its all profit for them.
Profit is profit. They're all about an extra $10/month, hoever they can get it, and however many times they can manage to pull it off.
Unfortunately he's not in the minority. The Tivo (and ReplayTV) interfaces are both fantastic, and much better than any other commercially available PVR I've seen.
The cable cos aren't be doing the trade-in because their boxes are *better* than Tivo. They're doing it because they want people paying them the extra $10 a month, instead of paying Tivo. They don't really care about the features, because they will be the default option.
They'll give away (well, lease) the boxes, while a Tivo will cost about $1000 for HD. Guess which one will ship more units. Its kind of anti-competitive, which is why they came up with "cable card". Of course none of my TVs or equipment accept cable cards, so that doesn't help me. How about you?
So even with the cable card protectecting them from being called anti-competitive, it still boils down to whether people will buy a $500 box, or take the free one.
Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.
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Yup. Its about marketing the innovations.
I've had ReplayTV ever since it was available. I love it. I prefer it to the Tivo interface, but that's a personal preference, and others are plenty entitled to be wrong.;)
A couple of years ago I got a DishPVR (dish networks), figuring the video quality would be better since it could save the mpeg stream from the satellite instead of going through another round of D->A A->D.
The DishPVR sucked. So bad. It was a glorified VCR with a hard drive instead of a tape. When you picked shows from the channel guide, it would set up time-based recordings, rather than show-based, so if a show moved it would end up recording whatever was put in its place.
Unfortunately , if I had never used a ReplayTV or a Tivo, I might have been impressed. I mean, it beats the hell out of a VCR, and if I was coming from VCR-land (like probably 99% of the potential market), it looks plenty innovative. And its practically free from your Cable or Sat company.
That's what Tivo is up against.
PS - as for your PS, Tivo is becoming more restrictive, perhaps just as restrictive. Thier Tivo-To-Go feature has been ripped to shreds in many articles. It supports the "HBO says you can only keep 'Six Feet Under' episodes for 2 weeks, even if you didn't watch it yet" flag, among other studio-driven annoyances.
Tivo is not alone; as mentioned in one of the articles, ReplayTV's commercial skip and Internet sharing features have been pulled from the latest boxes. Internet Sharing is fabulous if you miss the first episode of a new show.
And commercial skip was a Repetitive-Stress-Injury godsend; it saved me from having to press the "quickskip" button 4 times quickly when the show cut away. We've skipping through commercials on VCRs for 20 years, and all the networks are still around (and then some). I don't get it.
No, actually I do get it. Its the studios that don't get it.
It all depends on the person and ergonomics. I had always thought I was invulnerable to repetitive stress and carpal tunnel. Then we got a "Space Duel" arcade machine at work, and after getting high scores in all modes, my wrists were killing me. It was all buttons, and anytime I played for a while, the pain returned. So I quit playing.
I've never had a pain issue with any other devices: keyboards, mice, trackballs, thumb keyboards (on motorol pagers, blackberries, Sidekick, PDAs), game console controllers, etc., and (like probably many, many other geeks) my ergonomics are horrible. I rest my wrists on the desk. I recline with the keyboard in my lap.
I do sometimes get tired or achy feelings when I get a new device, but not pain. IANAD, but like any new exercise, your body has to get used to it. When you get a new game, its natural to want to play it for, like, 72 hours straight, but overdoing it is how you get hurt.
RSI pain is definitely different than the "good kind" of aching.
Exactly. Its the same reason most articles about PVRs simply refer to them as "Tivo", even when ReplayTV was still a viable competitor (you know, before they were sold to... whoever, i forget... and bent over for the studios).
Microsoft and the Bush Administration seem to be using similar tactics to achieve (or attepmt) their goals: FUD and distraction.
Distract all the people with side issues to keep them from discussing the real issues. Linux security doesn't have accountability. Perhaps. But that's irrelevant. There aren't thousands of compromised Linux machines delivering millions of spam emails every day.
Accountability is nice for pointing fingers and lawyers, but that kind of stuff is after the fact. If your company secrets are stolen because of a flaw in the OS or Browser or Media Player or Service Pack or whatever, accountability won't get them back. Maybe you can sue M$ for damages, and hope the DoJ will slap Bill's wrist a little harder next time, but your secrets are still out there.
See, I'm already wasting my time on this bull, while the M$ developers are still cranking out their code, adding plenty of new "technology" to Longhorn. New code, new bugs. That's just how it goes.
All software has bugs. Developers aren't perfect. Complex systems interact in complex ways. Myth or not, Linux insecurity (since that's really what we're talking about) has yet to cause as much damage worldwide than Windows insecurity.
That is not a myth. That is reality.
Linux code is availble for review; you can read it and see what you're getting (assuming you know how to read code, obviously). If there's a flaw, you can fix it. With Windows, you have to just take their word on it, and look where that's gotten us.
This reminds of the guy in the Bush administration that said something to the effect that "reality-based people" don't have any effect in the "real" world - just all those "faith-based people" in the administration.
That was truly a moment of brilliance for the Bush administration: totally admitting that they are completely out of touch with reality.
But its not just the faith-based people. I'd say Bush is the only, or at least primary, faith-based guy in the bunch. Granted, he's "President", but he's not the only one calling the shots. Cheney seems much more business oriented. He's pretty much a Dick (both in name, and attitude). I have no idea what is motivating the others, but I really think its just Bush doing things in the name of the Lard. And he could, possibly, even be faking it just to keep the religioids on his side.
(As an aside, I don't have anything against religion, or other people practicing or believing in their religion. I'm all for Freedom of Religion, but it has to go both ways. Other people should not be imposing their religion on me.)
When one of those 60,000 viruses, etc, attacks your Windows box, you know exactly who is accountable for the security hole: Microsoft.
But what good has that done any of us? I still see the worms trying to infect my system daily (fortunately I run Apache on FreeBSD, not IIS on Windows). When I visit my relatives with Windows boxes, I have to clean up hundreds of pieces of spyware and adware. Knowing who to point your finger at doesn't stop the thousands (or whatever) of compromised machines from constantly spamming us.
Not to mention M$'s latest announcements limiting security updates to only non-pirated copies. That's a tough call. On the one hand, the pirates get what they deserve; they didn't buy the product, so they are not entitled to support. That's fine.
The problem is that its not just the pirates who are penalized. Having thousands of unpatched Windows machines is bad for everyone. The worms and viruses don't care if its a legal copy or not. They'll infect and add the pirate machines into the spam-cluster. Who is accountable for those, now that MS has washed that one off their hands? I still say Microsoft.
I don't know the history of Open Office in particular, but many big open source projects start off as one person's personal effort. If they become popular, people join in.
Apache, Samba, Emacs, Perl, Python... What's that other one.. The guy did it as a grad school project... Oh yeah.
Linux. Perhaps you've heard of it?
Of course not all basement projects end up as open source. There's plenty of popular proprietary software that had humble beginnings, even Microsoft.
The xbox music import is definitely a killer feature that I wish other consoles would do.
That said, the in-game soundtrack does eventually get old, and my PS2 doesn't have the option to load music, so I can't use my songs will all of my games.
So far my really lame solution has been to play music on my laptop (and its crappy built-in speakers) while I play with the game soundtrack turned off. I really wish my receiver could mix inputs.
It would be kind of cool if the consoles had a line-in jack to hook up another source. Then I could use whatever music player I prefer, but still have some control of the music (volume, at least) from within the game.
Slashdot Mirror
Or if they do that (and SHA-256, and whatever else...) just add a second hash to each packet.
Surely there aren't packets A and B such that
SHA1(A) == SHA1(B) AND MD5(A) == MD5(B)
heh... are there?
This is definitely an easily winnable arms race for our side.
If everyone was using root instead of user accounts, all those people you've known who have typed "rm -rf *" or "rm -rf /" as nonroot would have been doing it as root.
You're not seriously advocating that single users should just run as root, are you?
I'd like to add the fact elevators didn't always have light-up buttons labelled for each floor. There used to be a lever to make it go up or down. Stopping at a floor was a skill. It was more convenient to have an operator than have people miss the floor by 3 feet and break their ankles climbing out, or maybe cutting each other in half by accidentally bumping the lever when exiting.
Now there is a much simpler and intuitive interface that anyone can use, so a dedicated operator is not needed (though I hear Congress still has elevator operators so those busy politicians don't have to worry about breaking their nails, or something).
If you had a computer with a set of buttons for each of a few trivial operations available to the user, and those are the only operations, it probably doesn't matter if you run as root or not.
Such a system would also suck as a general purpose home computer.
If you're going to do anything beyond trivial actions, and perhaps getting into complex stuff that you don't necessarily understand, its probably best NOT to be running as root.
Think of it as 2 sets of operations:
- the ones that can mess up your stuff
- the ones that can mess up the whole system
Both sets have the ability to wipe out your data, but the latter can wipe out other people's data, critical system files, raw hard drives... pretty much screw your data, and your machine.
Both your user account and root have the ability to mess up your stuff. A regular user account typically cannot mess up other accounts' data or the operating system, without using "su" or "sudo" or some other method to escalate privliges.
MacOSX has root separate from the user account. A user can be an "Administrator", which gives the user sudo capability. GIU operations (software installs, editing user accounts, and other system configuration) do a graphical equivalent to sudo, prompting the user for their admin password. Its not that complicated. Its an extra layer of protection, and lets the user know that they're doing something out of the ordinary. Its not that complicated.
Even my parents understand it.
Maybe the GPL bits (whatever they are) are unmodified; they use FreeBSD or maybe a stock Linux distribution. If they use GPL tools, they use them unmodified, via the OS package system. By using these tools as-is they can update to new versions at any time (mostly) without having to manage a set of patches.
Their own software can still be proprietary, and distributed on their boxes without source.
You know, in theory...
I think a broad and general business degree makes an excellent complement to a specialized engineering degree, particularly if you want to remain on the more technical side of the business. A broad education is also a good way to get a feel for which aspects of the business side (tax, financials, etc.) interest you, if any. If they don't, you still have a wealth of knowledge and skills that aren't taught in most engineering programs. You'll be able to communicate with the business-types in their own language.
If it turns out that taxes or asset management really turn your crank, you can always get another degree later, and pursue that route on the job in the meantime.
The submitter does have 2 years experience on top of a CS degree (assuming he has been working as opposed to, say, backpacking around Europe with his liberal arts buddies ;). As the MBA program progresses, he will be able to apply that knowledge to his past work experiences and examine them from a business perspective (ie. "Oh!!! So THAT's the real reason my project was dumped!"). It isn't experience WITH an MBA, but it is definitely useful experience.
That gives a competitive edge over someone fresh out of Business School with no "secondary" skill or experience.
Makes sense. With a redefined kilogram, Avogadro is really out of a job, since his number will become useless.
Do you think the new constant will retain the name, or will it be "The New Scientist Constant Relating Atoms to Grams brought to you by BASF, the Chemical Company"?
Ha!
Use it as your ringtone. Piss off everyone who tries to call you when you never, ever answer.
It will still be a violation to sell software in the United States that infringes on a patent, no matter where the software is developed.
Right, so the US will lose out.
Patents last 17 years. The Mac and Windows have existed only slightly longer than that. Java isn't that old. What does Moore's Law say about 17 years? Does "1-click shopping" really need to be protected until our computers are executing at 4 Terahertz*? It was cool, but not that cool. At this point its a totally silly distinction, but everyone else has to insert an extra page in the checkout process or else risk potential lawsuits from Amazon. How does that foster and promote creativity?
(* 17 years is 204 months, or just over 11 18-month periods in which Moore says CPU power should double, so if they were 2GHz then (and maybe they weren't) they'll be 2048 * as fast, or about 4 THz. And that's still about 10 years from now. How many extra clicks is that?)
17 years might work in other industries, maybe the drug industry. Its chemistry. They have to analyze stuff, and wait for reactions and titrations and shit. Then they have to go through lots of testing and government approvals. It actually takes many years for them to bring something to market. At that point the recipe is out there, so a competitor could get to market and quickly turn a profit while the inventor is still recovering research expenses.
I don't know that 17 year patents are still fair for drugs, but the Google guys have brainfarts that they turn into sample code by the next morning, and could go online in a matter of months. A patent could be approved within a year of conception. But a competitor's efforts to duplicate the feature are more comparable to the effort to create it than in the case of drug development and manufacturing.
There isn't expensive or time-consuming research with costs to recover. These sudden innovations (not inventions!) ARE the competitive advantage on the Internet. If you're the first to do it, you benefit while the others catch up. Everyone improves their website by doing a "View Source" on something they think looks cool. That's both how and why the web works.
Imagine if there had been 17 years from Xerox to Apple to Microsoft or from Netscape to Yahoo to Altavista to Google.
We'd all be dead by now, and just maybe some of our grandchildren would have been the first to book their funeral airfares online. Imagine if Excite, Lycos, Altavista and Yahoo had spent all their time patenting "font face=Arial" then suing each other for the better half of the late 1990's, instead of making the Internet incredibly useful by piggybacking on each others ideas and leapfrogging ahead.
Innovation and creativity foster more innovation and creativity.
Yeah. The FCC typically just responds to complaints. As long as you don't paint a picture of Janet Jackson's nipple on the antenna you should be fine.
Between this and IBM & Sun starting to open up their software patents, this could eventually lead to a change in the US.
For now IBM, Sun, Microsoft, Apple, etc, still have to keep patenting every new line of code, in case the law doesn't turn around (because if they don't, someone else will, and might start causing trouble. Patent things to cover their asses, then release the patents because its all ridiculous (unless, of course, they figure out a way to charge $10/month on one. But i digress).
I hope that after the EU rejects them (please!), the sheer absurdity of our system will outweigh the Patent Lawyer Lobby, and the laws will start to change for the better.
(Not to mention that the EU is made up of many countries with widely varied cultures. Why would they want to adopt a system where a single country could go patent-happy like the US and drag the whole Continent down with them?)
Hear, hear! I've always thought ESR was obnoxious and overrated.
Stepping down to do "ambassadorial" and "outreach" work reminds me of all the CEO's who "stepped down to spend more time with their family", or on "other projects" but would "stay on the board as an advisor" during the dot-com bust.
Its good they finally fired him. Woops. I mean let him step down.
Makes 100% sense.
;). If I'd never seen an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", I wouldn't know that its one of my favorite shows, and I wouldn't want to drop the bucks on the DVD sets.
;)"
US TV show DVDs sell because the shows were/are popular, and people want to get their favorites to watch over and over again (you know, because you just can't get enough Friends reruns through syndication
There's a frikken ton of Anime out there. I get overwhelmed walking down the Anime aisle at Fry's. There's just so much of it, and I have no idea what is what, since I've never seen probably 99.999% of it. I told someone "this is a new genre for me". He asked "what genre?", to which I replied, "uhhh... Anime?
In that sense, the fansubs are filling that gap. Its an inexpensive way to explore the vast collection of Anime that is out there, and get a feel for what you like. It exposes us (where us == all people not in Japan) to much, much more than what is available at video stores. Its incredible market research for the studios.
It seems to me that the fansubs are being fairly responsible with the shows they distribute, taking down shows when asked. If they include a disclaimer, as the parent post says (I haven't seen any fansub videos yet), that's even better.
Do the studios ever use the translations done by the fansubs? I've been watching "Get Backers", and there's some phrases that just aren't right. I get the meaning, and even with no knowledge of Japanese, I can see how the translation went wrong. A thesaurus would do them a world of good, too; they say "trump card" like 15 times an episode.
Before today, when I discovered fansubbing (thank's to the first (ranked) poster giving the definition, since the submitter and editors are useless), I was thinking of re-dubbing with fixed translations. It seemed like the logical thing to do, given that my conversational American English is probably better than that of the average Japanese translator (although, to me, the broken translations are part of the anime charm).
I'm having a hard time finding the link, but a couple of years ago some people were recording and distributing their own DVD commentaries that you could playback while watching the movie, and hear what that person thought of the film, getting another viewer's perspective instead of the director's (and a hell of a run-on sentence).
Perhaps the fansubs could do (or perhaps they do already) something similar, distributing alternate audio soundtracks to play in sync with the DVD once they are released here. That seems to be totally legal, could improve translation quality, and would seem to encourage more people to actually purchase the discs. Seems like a win for everyone.
I'm curious: Have any studios ever used fansub translations on their DVDs?
I dunno. $10 is $10.
They've always been wanting people to upgrade to higher tier packages. This is something new for them, and another opportunity to extort^H^H^Hract more money from you.
A monthly PVR fee is absolutely, positively 100% profit for them. A PVR is not a service, its a device. Its a digital cable box with a hard drive and different software.
- they already send out a program guide with digital cable/satellite TV that gets parsed by the box (its especially obvious with sat boxes: program guides have the same info, but look different across different manufacturers' boxes), so nothing new here.
- all the PVR work is done inside your house by the set top box.
Once you have the box in your house and connected to the line, it has the capability to record shows off the cable without Comcast (or whoever) having to do anything at all.
The monthly fee doesn't "cover the costs" of anything to do with a PVR. They flip a bit that turns your box on, and they're done (again, something they already do with regular cable boxes). The only work they might have to do is flipping it back off if you stop paying. Nothing new here.
Tivo's monthly fee is understandable, because they have to generate and distribute their own guide. There are costs associated with that. They actually do something to earn your $10 (or whatever it is now).
The cableco's see people spending $10/month for "PVR service" with Tivo, and figure they can just do the same. They have no associated expenses, so its all profit for them.
Profit is profit. They're all about an extra $10/month, hoever they can get it, and however many times they can manage to pull it off.
Unfortunately he's not in the minority. The Tivo (and ReplayTV) interfaces are both fantastic, and much better than any other commercially available PVR I've seen.
The cable cos aren't be doing the trade-in because their boxes are *better* than Tivo. They're doing it because they want people paying them the extra $10 a month, instead of paying Tivo. They don't really care about the features, because they will be the default option.
They'll give away (well, lease) the boxes, while a Tivo will cost about $1000 for HD. Guess which one will ship more units. Its kind of anti-competitive, which is why they came up with "cable card". Of course none of my TVs or equipment accept cable cards, so that doesn't help me. How about you?
So even with the cable card protectecting them from being called anti-competitive, it still boils down to whether people will buy a $500 box, or take the free one.
Yup. Its about marketing the innovations.
;)
I've had ReplayTV ever since it was available. I love it. I prefer it to the Tivo interface, but that's a personal preference, and others are plenty entitled to be wrong.
A couple of years ago I got a DishPVR (dish networks), figuring the video quality would be better since it could save the mpeg stream from the satellite instead of going through another round of D->A A->D.
The DishPVR sucked. So bad. It was a glorified VCR with a hard drive instead of a tape. When you picked shows from the channel guide, it would set up time-based recordings, rather than show-based, so if a show moved it would end up recording whatever was put in its place.
Unfortunately , if I had never used a ReplayTV or a Tivo, I might have been impressed. I mean, it beats the hell out of a VCR, and if I was coming from VCR-land (like probably 99% of the potential market), it looks plenty innovative. And its practically free from your Cable or Sat company.
That's what Tivo is up against.
PS - as for your PS, Tivo is becoming more restrictive, perhaps just as restrictive. Thier Tivo-To-Go feature has been ripped to shreds in many articles. It supports the "HBO says you can only keep 'Six Feet Under' episodes for 2 weeks, even if you didn't watch it yet" flag, among other studio-driven annoyances.
Tivo is not alone; as mentioned in one of the articles, ReplayTV's commercial skip and Internet sharing features have been pulled from the latest boxes. Internet Sharing is fabulous if you miss the first episode of a new show.
And commercial skip was a Repetitive-Stress-Injury godsend; it saved me from having to press the "quickskip" button 4 times quickly when the show cut away. We've skipping through commercials on VCRs for 20 years, and all the networks are still around (and then some). I don't get it.
No, actually I do get it. Its the studios that don't get it.
Good thing all the US companies are cutting back on R&D. Maybe now only the Euro's and Asians will get cancer!
Bush Politics 7, Rat Cancer 0
It all depends on the person and ergonomics. I had always thought I was invulnerable to repetitive stress and carpal tunnel. Then we got a "Space Duel" arcade machine at work, and after getting high scores in all modes, my wrists were killing me. It was all buttons, and anytime I played for a while, the pain returned. So I quit playing.
I've never had a pain issue with any other devices: keyboards, mice, trackballs, thumb keyboards (on motorol pagers, blackberries, Sidekick, PDAs), game console controllers, etc., and (like probably many, many other geeks) my ergonomics are horrible. I rest my wrists on the desk. I recline with the keyboard in my lap.
I do sometimes get tired or achy feelings when I get a new device, but not pain. IANAD, but like any new exercise, your body has to get used to it. When you get a new game, its natural to want to play it for, like, 72 hours straight, but overdoing it is how you get hurt.
RSI pain is definitely different than the "good kind" of aching.
Exactly. Its the same reason most articles about PVRs simply refer to them as "Tivo", even when ReplayTV was still a viable competitor (you know, before they were sold to ... whoever, i forget... and bent over for the studios).
The media gets their favorite, and runs with it.
I wasn't quite finished...
Microsoft and the Bush Administration seem to be using similar tactics to achieve (or attepmt) their goals: FUD and distraction.
Distract all the people with side issues to keep them from discussing the real issues. Linux security doesn't have accountability. Perhaps. But that's irrelevant. There aren't thousands of compromised Linux machines delivering millions of spam emails every day.
Accountability is nice for pointing fingers and lawyers, but that kind of stuff is after the fact. If your company secrets are stolen because of a flaw in the OS or Browser or Media Player or Service Pack or whatever, accountability won't get them back. Maybe you can sue M$ for damages, and hope the DoJ will slap Bill's wrist a little harder next time, but your secrets are still out there.
See, I'm already wasting my time on this bull, while the M$ developers are still cranking out their code, adding plenty of new "technology" to Longhorn. New code, new bugs. That's just how it goes.
All software has bugs. Developers aren't perfect. Complex systems interact in complex ways. Myth or not, Linux insecurity (since that's really what we're talking about) has yet to cause as much damage worldwide than Windows insecurity.
That is not a myth. That is reality.
Linux code is availble for review; you can read it and see what you're getting (assuming you know how to read code, obviously). If there's a flaw, you can fix it. With Windows, you have to just take their word on it, and look where that's gotten us.
That was truly a moment of brilliance for the Bush administration: totally admitting that they are completely out of touch with reality.
But its not just the faith-based people. I'd say Bush is the only, or at least primary, faith-based guy in the bunch. Granted, he's "President", but he's not the only one calling the shots. Cheney seems much more business oriented. He's pretty much a Dick (both in name, and attitude). I have no idea what is motivating the others, but I really think its just Bush doing things in the name of the Lard. And he could, possibly, even be faking it just to keep the religioids on his side.
(As an aside, I don't have anything against religion, or other people practicing or believing in their religion. I'm all for Freedom of Religion, but it has to go both ways. Other people should not be imposing their religion on me.)
Even more basic,
accountability != security
When one of those 60,000 viruses, etc, attacks your Windows box, you know exactly who is accountable for the security hole: Microsoft.
But what good has that done any of us? I still see the worms trying to infect my system daily (fortunately I run Apache on FreeBSD, not IIS on Windows). When I visit my relatives with Windows boxes, I have to clean up hundreds of pieces of spyware and adware. Knowing who to point your finger at doesn't stop the thousands (or whatever) of compromised machines from constantly spamming us.
Not to mention M$'s latest announcements limiting security updates to only non-pirated copies. That's a tough call. On the one hand, the pirates get what they deserve; they didn't buy the product, so they are not entitled to support. That's fine.
The problem is that its not just the pirates who are penalized. Having thousands of unpatched Windows machines is bad for everyone. The worms and viruses don't care if its a legal copy or not. They'll infect and add the pirate machines into the spam-cluster. Who is accountable for those, now that MS has washed that one off their hands? I still say Microsoft.
I don't know the history of Open Office in particular, but many big open source projects start off as one person's personal effort. If they become popular, people join in.
Apache, Samba, Emacs, Perl, Python... What's that other one.. The guy did it as a grad school project... Oh yeah.
Linux. Perhaps you've heard of it?
Of course not all basement projects end up as open source. There's plenty of popular proprietary software that had humble beginnings, even Microsoft.
The xbox music import is definitely a killer feature that I wish other consoles would do.
That said, the in-game soundtrack does eventually get old, and my PS2 doesn't have the option to load music, so I can't use my songs will all of my games.
So far my really lame solution has been to play music on my laptop (and its crappy built-in speakers) while I play with the game soundtrack turned off. I really wish my receiver could mix inputs.
It would be kind of cool if the consoles had a line-in jack to hook up another source. Then I could use whatever music player I prefer, but still have some control of the music (volume, at least) from within the game.
Uh, yeah... The good ones, eh?
They spam messageboards. How, exactly, is that avoiding people's frustration?