...if you're a prankster. Get one of those old twelve-foot diameter sattelite dishes, put it on the roof and point it randomly to different buildings and houses. Don't bother hooking it up or anything...
Then see how many people are complaining that your transmitter is making them see double or whatever.
And, having spent half a day reconstructing my sister-in-law's dissertation from a floppy where Word had decided to trash it, I can guarantee that many home users care very much about stability (I've never heard such language from her, before or since).
Then they ought to start making some fscking backups, oughtn't they? No operating system in the world will save a user from their own stupidity.
Ask your sister-in-law how many copies of her house/apt key she has. Then ask her how many copies of her dissertation she made. See if she can make the connection.
And I hope you got at least a nice home-cooked meal for the work you did. I usually charge a case of Anchor Steam. Yes, that's the family rate:)
With XBox in more living rooms them Tivo, this means that Microsoft has a huge platform to launch from if they extend UltimateTV to the XBox.
I can't imagine the XBox has enough horsepower to encode a TV show and play games at the same time - which will cause some interesting problems when Mom's time-shifted episode of Enterprise is scheduled to record while Jr. is playing Kung-Fu Buttmonkeys XXII...
What are some of the "better" features of the ReplayTV?
The commercial skip (too sweet!) and offload-content hack have already been mentioned, but an important difference is that the Replay units (old and new) come out of the box with a "lifetime subscription" to the channel guide service. With Tivo you have to pay more money after you get the unit in order to get the channels. I think Tivo lifetime sub is $250, or you do the $9.99/month thing. Keep the subscription price in mind when comparison shopping.
A couple other features unique to the 4000 series of Replays: You connect to the 'net via broadband (mandatory, not optional) for your guide downloads and software upgrades, this also allows you to share content with other 4000 owners (forget the record the last episode of Buffy? Somebody can send it to you). And you can stream content from one Replay to another within your intranet.
Some people have family ties, kids that they don't want to yank out of school and away from their friends, and other circumstances that make becoming a nomad to chase jobs around the country impossible.
From my reading of the article the author decided to do exactly that (he's not a U.S. citizen if I'm reading between the lines correctly).
The job situation in Silicon Valley sucks such huge tons of festering donkey dick that people by the thousands are swarming in from around the world to get a taste.
It's relative. A job I might concider dismal could be something a million other people would give their eye teeth for.
...I wrote BASICA (aka GW-BASIC) code for a living (and you can wipe that smirk off your face right now, I got paid damned well for it). Because this was an interpreted language and worked within (God help me) 64k of memory, space was at a premium.
There was this 3rd part product that did a bunch of nice things, but one of the options was "compact". It would remove all whitespace outside of literals, jam as many statements on a line as possible, replace long var names with "A0", "A1", "A2" and so on, if desired it would renumber lines from 0 on in increments of 1, etc etc, all in the name of reducing the memory footprint.
It would excrete the most horrific, obfuscated, unreadable, unmaintainable little turd of code you can possibly imagine.
I hope something similar is available for these students:)
I bet this is in reaction to the new 4000 series of Replay PVRs - not only will they stream video over your intranet, but you can "share" records shows with your buddies on the internet. Uh-oh.
Because the Replay can update it's software automagically (as part of the program guide update cycle) I imagine it's just a matter of time until these features are disabled on my Replay:(
In the future piracy of movies will probably be a big deal, but I have trouble feeling sorry for studios willing to shell out $20 million to Julia Roberts so we can go watch a steaming pile of dogshit (like that classic My Best Friend's Wedding).
Just as I'll feel sorry when US legislation mandates ISP implement a surcharge per megabyte of download, with a percentage of that charge going back to the big studios. You'll get all the episodes you want, and you'll pay for them. Win/win all around.
Actually I read it as "Symantec says thev've recieved the first.NET virus they solicited..."
C'mon, if Microsoft released a version of Windows that couldn't be infected, think of how many anti-virus companies would be out of business. There's a strong economic incetive to make sure any predominant platform is "found" to be vulnerable, and as quickly as possible.
A year or two ago I was in the local Radio Shack, and I spotted some 8" floppies on the shelf. Made me stop dead in my tracks, waves of nostalgia washing over me.
Couldn't tell you whether they were hard or soft sectored, though.
Just as I was wondering where to get tapes for it.. Ifind out they just stopped.. ARGH
There must be a pantzillion reels of 9-track tape in the world - I wouldn't be too worried about not being able to find some. You're just in trouble if you want new tape.
I think I mistated my concern - I'm not worried about the cost aspect, but it seemed to me the original poster wanted to go open source to get away from a corporation dictating what the player may and may not do. My point was that you'd have to partner up with someone for the channel guide, so you're still at their mercy.
This is exactly where the market is heading and exactly why an open source PVR/VOD [personal video recorder / video on demand] machine is needed.
Even if you get an open-source standard for the machine and the software, where are you going to get the channel guide info? Remember that you've got to support every silly little cable company, franchise and box from here to Dry Hump, NV.
Seems to me if you wind up buying your guide info you're still going to be in the back pocket of some corp.
This idea has no factual support, but what happens if Tivo adds cable modem support.
That would be my guess - the RePlay 4000 series already has Ethernet support (and the hackers are already figuring out ways to extract the videos from your RePlay to your PC) and in theory has the ability to d/l video via the 'net. I'm not aware of any sites providing video at this moment, however.
Just wait, in a couple of years the new Pr0n viewers of choice will be DVRs. Pay a couple bucks & d/l "Bigguns #14: Attack of the Clones" overnight for later viewing. I can hardly wait!
I remember back in DOS and BBS days someone came out with a "radical new compression" program that people tried and went nuts over. You'd test it, of course: hand it a 400k file (which back then was pretty big:), have it compress it, and you'd get something like a 100 byte archive (wowie!). You'd then delete the original, decompress the archive and SHAZAAM! there's your 400k original file back!
What it was really doing was copying your original file to a hidden directory and embedding the path to the copy in the "archive". Decompressing of course copied the hidden file back. If you were smart enough to find and delete the hidden copy the decompressor would report mysterious Drive C: data errors.
Wish I could remember the name of that hoax...
Not that I'm saying this one is a hoax <cough>
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...if you're a prankster. Get one of those old twelve-foot diameter sattelite dishes, put it on the roof and point it randomly to different buildings and houses. Don't bother hooking it up or anything...
Then see how many people are complaining that your transmitter is making them see double or whatever.
There already is an area like this, It's called the Amish Country, Pennsylvania Dutch, etc.
Actually the Amish have been using cell phones for a while now.
It's likely running on Windows CE, which is actually a LOT stabler than its 9x counterparts.
Talk about damning with faint praise... that's like sayin the Tower of Pisa 2.0 doesn't lean nearly as much as the first one did.
I've got a CE 3.0 device (HP Jornada 720) and HP recommended I do a soft reset at least once a week just to brush the cobwebs out.
And, having spent half a day reconstructing my sister-in-law's dissertation from a floppy where Word had decided to trash it, I can guarantee that many home users care very much about stability (I've never heard such language from her, before or since).
:)
Then they ought to start making some fscking backups, oughtn't they? No operating system in the world will save a user from their own stupidity.
Ask your sister-in-law how many copies of her house/apt key she has. Then ask her how many copies of her dissertation she made. See if she can make the connection.
And I hope you got at least a nice home-cooked meal for the work you did. I usually charge a case of Anchor Steam. Yes, that's the family rate
With XBox in more living rooms them Tivo, this means that Microsoft has a huge platform to launch from if they extend UltimateTV to the XBox.
I can't imagine the XBox has enough horsepower to encode a TV show and play games at the same time - which will cause some interesting problems when Mom's time-shifted episode of Enterprise is scheduled to record while Jr. is playing Kung-Fu Buttmonkeys XXII...
What are some of the "better" features of the ReplayTV?
The commercial skip (too sweet!) and offload-content hack have already been mentioned, but an important difference is that the Replay units (old and new) come out of the box with a "lifetime subscription" to the channel guide service. With Tivo you have to pay more money after you get the unit in order to get the channels. I think Tivo lifetime sub is $250, or you do the $9.99/month thing. Keep the subscription price in mind when comparison shopping.
A couple other features unique to the 4000 series of Replays: You connect to the 'net via broadband (mandatory, not optional) for your guide downloads and software upgrades, this also allows you to share content with other 4000 owners (forget the record the last episode of Buffy? Somebody can send it to you). And you can stream content from one Replay to another within your intranet.
Some people have family ties, kids that they don't want to yank out of school and away from their friends, and other circumstances that make becoming a nomad to chase jobs around the country impossible.
From my reading of the article the author decided to do exactly that (he's not a U.S. citizen if I'm reading between the lines correctly).
The job situation in Silicon Valley sucks such huge tons of festering donkey dick that people by the thousands are swarming in from around the world to get a taste.
It's relative. A job I might concider dismal could be something a million other people would give their eye teeth for.
...I wrote BASICA (aka GW-BASIC) code for a living (and you can wipe that smirk off your face right now, I got paid damned well for it). Because this was an interpreted language and worked within (God help me) 64k of memory, space was at a premium.
:)
There was this 3rd part product that did a bunch of nice things, but one of the options was "compact". It would remove all whitespace outside of literals, jam as many statements on a line as possible, replace long var names with "A0", "A1", "A2" and so on, if desired it would renumber lines from 0 on in increments of 1, etc etc, all in the name of reducing the memory footprint.
It would excrete the most horrific, obfuscated, unreadable, unmaintainable little turd of code you can possibly imagine.
I hope something similar is available for these students
...because they all declared "i" as an integer...
You can record live audio from microphones to MP3.
Archiving live audio directly to a lossy compression format? Wow.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to go write the Great American Novel... on the back of old lunch bags.
Why do people think that illegally copying software is a right?
Why do trolls (BSA included) assume we've been stealing software?
HTH. HAND.
I bet this is in reaction to the new 4000 series of Replay PVRs - not only will they stream video over your intranet, but you can "share" records shows with your buddies on the internet. Uh-oh.
:(
Because the Replay can update it's software automagically (as part of the program guide update cycle) I imagine it's just a matter of time until these features are disabled on my Replay
In the future piracy of movies will probably be a big deal, but I have trouble feeling sorry for studios willing to shell out $20 million to Julia Roberts so we can go watch a steaming pile of dogshit (like that classic My Best Friend's Wedding).
Just as I'll feel sorry when US legislation mandates ISP implement a surcharge per megabyte of download, with a percentage of that charge going back to the big studios. You'll get all the episodes you want, and you'll pay for them. Win/win all around.
Ha, ha. Just kidding. Really.
Eggs. Basket.
Which is easier to keep the wolf out of: one great big basket, or a hundred little ones scattered all over the nation?
Ditto here - and I didn't even get the X10 ad.
Maybe it only happens once every n clicks.
If it was hard to write it should be hard to understand.
No, no - that's why you don't comment. You don't document because written documentation is an admission of failure.
Actually I read it as "Symantec says thev've recieved the first .NET virus they solicited..."
C'mon, if Microsoft released a version of Windows that couldn't be infected, think of how many anti-virus companies would be out of business. There's a strong economic incetive to make sure any predominant platform is "found" to be vulnerable, and as quickly as possible.
Or maybe I'm just paranoid.
Yeh, probably not a reel (sic) environmentally friendly way to dump them, but it gave the Soviet trawlers something to watch.
"What is the American carrier doing, Comrade?"
"Releasing chaff, evidently."
A year or two ago I was in the local Radio Shack, and I spotted some 8" floppies on the shelf. Made me stop dead in my tracks, waves of nostalgia washing over me.
Couldn't tell you whether they were hard or soft sectored, though.
Just as I was wondering where to get tapes for it.. Ifind out they just stopped.. ARGH
There must be a pantzillion reels of 9-track tape in the world - I wouldn't be too worried about not being able to find some. You're just in trouble if you want new tape.
When is somebody going to get the brilliant idea to make a digital video recorder that does not require a phone line and does not have a monthly fee?
Mine arrived a few weeks ago. It from these guys. Check it out.
I think I mistated my concern - I'm not worried about the cost aspect, but it seemed to me the original poster wanted to go open source to get away from a corporation dictating what the player may and may not do. My point was that you'd have to partner up with someone for the channel guide, so you're still at their mercy.
This is exactly where the market is heading and exactly why an open source PVR/VOD [personal video recorder / video on demand] machine is needed.
Even if you get an open-source standard for the machine and the software, where are you going to get the channel guide info? Remember that you've got to support every silly little cable company, franchise and box from here to Dry Hump, NV.
Seems to me if you wind up buying your guide info you're still going to be in the back pocket of some corp.
This idea has no factual support, but what happens if Tivo adds cable modem support.
That would be my guess - the RePlay 4000 series already has Ethernet support (and the hackers are already figuring out ways to extract the videos from your RePlay to your PC) and in theory has the ability to d/l video via the 'net. I'm not aware of any sites providing video at this moment, however.
Just wait, in a couple of years the new Pr0n viewers of choice will be DVRs. Pay a couple bucks & d/l "Bigguns #14: Attack of the Clones" overnight for later viewing. I can hardly wait!
I remember back in DOS and BBS days someone came out with a "radical new compression" program that people tried and went nuts over. You'd test it, of course: hand it a 400k file (which back then was pretty big :), have it compress it, and you'd get something like a 100 byte archive (wowie!). You'd then delete the original, decompress the archive and SHAZAAM! there's your 400k original file back!
What it was really doing was copying your original file to a hidden directory and embedding the path to the copy in the "archive". Decompressing of course copied the hidden file back. If you were smart enough to find and delete the hidden copy the decompressor would report mysterious Drive C: data errors.
Wish I could remember the name of that hoax...
Not that I'm saying this one is a hoax <cough>