There is a lot of complicated math involved in civil engineering; I believe the knowledge required is much more than the knowledge required to program a computer.
One of my best friends in college just finished their masters this weekend. She most definately did not slack off for the last 6 years; I can't count the number of times she pulled all nighters to get things done.
The difference between engineering a bridge and writing software is that all of the major problems with building bridges have been solved. There is a lot of math and a complicated series of steps and tons of engineering work involved, but the problems have been solved. We already know how to build bridges. We may not know the particulars on how to build a bridge that spans 2000 feet and can hold 500 tons, but the basic theory on how to do this is known.
Additionally, the application for civil engineering projects are very well defined. They have a small task that they need to perform.
I think that the most interesting work being done in civil engineering these days is materials research.
Software on the other hand doesn't have all of the problems already solved. We've come a long way in the last decade or two, but we've come far from solving all problems. I think it's safe to say we've solved all of the simple, basic problems, but the more complicated problems still exist.
The other problem with software is the scope. The scope of most software packages today is HUGE.
It involves problems that havn't been solved a 100 times already. And they are non-trivial problems. Sometimes the problems are actually hard to understand -- how do you approach a compression or encryption problem for example.
Another problem with software that makes it hard to compare with civil engineering is that it only takes one mistake to bring the whole thing crashing down; on a bridge, odds are if a bolt is misplaced the bridge will not fall -- there is built in redundancy; this is not a feature possible to have present in software (not unless you write the software 3-5 times, and have an agreement between routines about the result of a function call).
There are tons of differences between traditional engineering and software engineering that makes comparing the two fields difficult if not impossible.
1) 4 25gb IDE drives (it'd actually be more cost effective to get 60gb drives @ $150 each, but I digress)
3) 8x CDR
4) DVD-R drive
5) Zip drive
6) Tape drive (why you use two I dunno...)
7) odd external SCSI devices
Most new mobos have 4 IDE channels on them, 2 or which can be dedicated to a raid config
In channels 1 & 2 install your 40gb drives in a raid-0 config
In channel 3 place your CDR & Zip drive
In channel 4 place your DVDR drive & Tape drive
Get a cheap SCSI card to hook up your scanners and other external devices (IDE can't really be used with external stuff:)).
This isn't as fast as your configuration, but it will be close. Additionally, you get more storage space and it costs a hell of alot less.
If that extra performance means that much to you, and it's worth the extra cost -- that's great, but if cost ever enters the equation IDE setups can come close to that of a decent SCSI setup.
This I do not argue against -- high end scsi drives offer the best performance. However, the article was prasing SCSI drives for being reasonably priced. Which they are not.
Paying $200 for 34gb of storage isn't whant I would consider reasonable. Especially considering I can buy an IDE drive, with similar performance features and twice the storage space, for $150.
I'm not saying either side is right, but frankly, when you're going up against a company which has billions of dollars to throw at marketing telling people "more mhz is good, mkay" there isn't a whole lot you can do.
So I suppose it'd be fair to say my new chip, which is about as fast as a K6/233 but is clocked at 4ghz, is faster than the 2ghz P4?
I don't think so.
What intel has done was make a lethargic chip that is REQUIRED to be clocked at 2ghz to compete with a 1.4ghz Athlon.
Which is more deceptive? Telling the world your 1.4ghz chip is as fast as your compeditors 1.6ghz chip, or allowing the world to believe a that a 1.3ghz P4 performs better than a 1.2ghz Athlon?
The difference between the Cyrix debockle and AMD's scheme is that Cyris "overmarked" the PR ratings on their chip. Their PR233 could barely compare to a P133 in the real world.
While I don't like it, calling a 1.4ghz K7 the equivilent to a P4/1600 is fair; in fact, it's a bit more concervative than I would be (the K7 still romps the P4/2000 in several areas). In that respect, they're not being particularly deceptive.
The fact that a hole exists isn't the problem. The fact that a hole is being exploited actively, and being used to propage software to hundreds of thousands boxes (causing all sorts of bandwidth problem) is a SERIOUS problem. Compounded by the fact that 90% of the people who are currently infected by it WILL NEVER FIX THE PROBLEM THEMSELVES. This has been going on for almost a week now, and it's only getting worse! My server at home is getting hit by this damn thing multiple times per minute! Hell, the after this thing was in the wild for the first 16 hours, I had 355 registered attempts to hit my box with it.
The app you speak of did four things:
* it patched holes
* it left open a new backdoor
* it tried to spread itself
* it told no-one what it did
I'd have no problems with something that patched compromised holes, didn't leave open any backdoors, didn't attempt to spread itself, and told the owner of the box in some fashion what it did. Some would argue that "well, they'll have to wipe the box because who knows what was done by the fix" -- guess what, they should have done that in the first place, because god only knows who else did nasty things before the hole was patched...
Why wouldn't it be criminal? It'd certainly be more criminal than fixing their box -- I didn't have to do anything to gain access to their box; they were actively attempting to gain access to my box.
They could argue "oh, it was code red" and I could argue "yeah, you had it, but you were actually doing things independently too".
And they did click on the link of their own free will.;)
Why not put up a webpage that people can use?
on
Fight Virus With Virus?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Just put up a website on your computer that advertises the ability to automatically clean the CodeRedII virus off of the viewer's system, if present.
All the viewer has to do is click a button at the bottom of the screen.
Just so happens that this particular button sends a request to/default.ida?XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (etc), which then scans the sender's IP and proceeds to start a command session, download the patches, and do whatever else is needed to done to vanquish the worm.
Afterall, they did click on the link, right?:)
Seriously though, if someone wants to get all pissy about you going to their box and fixing their screwup, threatening to sue and the like, I'd just countersue... afterall, they tried to hack your box first.;)
When Mozilla receives n crash reports from a specific page, they don't block you from looking at the URL that crashed the browser.
When Microsoft gets n crash reports from a certain program, they won't allow it to run.
Of course, with Microsoft's dubious history, I'm *sure* that a perfectly good 3rd party application that works just fine won't be blocked... rriiiiggghhttt....
I've actually just started using MIL Lite where I work at. I've actually been rather surprised at how the library is written -- been very easy to wade through, as opposed to other 3rd party software I've been subjected too.
Additionally, support that they provide has been top notch as well. One of their reps actually ended up writing some GNL code to work around a problem we were having (there isn't a mechanism to cancel a grab in progress via MIL).
Their liscensing is expensive, however (as far as I know) you don't need a liscense for each site you deploy software to. The reason WHY it's expensive because
a) it has a small market
b) it's GOOD
c) they spend a lot of money supporting the product
I'm sure tons aerospace companys are now BEGGING for the chance to move there now. Especially with the economic uncertainty present in this country.
Next thing you know they're gonna start taxing airplanes that fly through their airspace, satelites that fly through their orbit, and vehicles that drive on LA roads who's owner resides in a different location.
Idiocy.
Re:A.I.: View at the Matinee price!
on
Review: A.I.
·
· Score: 2
You must have missed the whole "let's see what would happen if we give robots emotions" premise of the movie. Those robots had evolved over the course of 2000 years. They're the only thing left on the planet. They were designed to mimic human emotions. Is it so strange that they would share our fascination with the past?
Re:Pinocchio, Not Star Trek
on
Review: A.I.
·
· Score: 2
Riiight... recommend fast & the furious -- a movie with bad dialog, bad plot, bad fx, really innacurate technical data -- because you couldn't get over the pinnochio parallels and the possibility that mankind might become extinct.
If you ever get a ticket for running a light in this manner, go back to the intersection and time how long the yellow light lasts. There have been more than a few municipalities shortening the length of yellow lights at intersections where they have these camera ticket systems setup.
If you can show that the yellow light didn't last a sufficient amount of time to allow you to either safely clear the intersection or come to a safe stop then the ticket is bogus and ought to be thrown out.
Re:I don't think he understands memory arbitration
on
nVidia nForce
·
· Score: 2
Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but the 'onboard' video card still has ram on it. Probably something like 8 or 16mb or so (maybe 32 if they were nice). Enough for a few framebuffers. The main memory is used to store textures that the video card can't hold. This is the main idea behind AGP that is now conveniently forgotten because cheap and performance are two opposite goals...
I can't speak for Ford, but GM has been working on alternative vehicles for quite awhile now... nothing has made it to market yet (unless you count the EV1), but they have been spending R&D money on it.
Yes, sending out a new release is expensive. That's why the need to get it right the FIRST time, not make a fix, send it out, find bugs, fix the bugs, send out another release, repeat.
Additionally, TiVo is NOT going to be supporting multiple revisions of the software. They can probably get it out to the effected people first, but everyone is going to have it eventually, or there may be problems NEXT time the software is released.
The show nag screen shows a function. What else could it do? You tell me, I dunno what else it's doing. I don't know what other flags it sets, if it's actually integrated into some house keeping code, or anything else of that nature.
Static/global boolean variables... ooh goodie. You still don't know where when or how this needs to be placed in the code, to make sure it's ready by the time it's needed, etc. Of course, you could probably put some JIT setting code everywhere it could be used, but again it's no longer simple...
When was the last time testing brought up a non-obvious bug without doing a full regression test cycle? Wait, these changes are supposed to be simple -- only a line or two, they don't need to do any real testing....
EVERY release of the TiVo software has to be treated like a major release. It's not like it's a simple matter of downloading an updated dll or uninstalling an upgrade like it is on windows. Everyone is stuck with whatever is sucked onto the current box until the next release. That's why the current people with unsubscribed units are stuck! They didn't thouroghly examine the unsubscribed mode of the software, just the bits that do manual recordings! If you think the reaction they got from people who DON'T do much with the box is bad, just wait until 99% of the people responsible actually providing money to TiVo get pissed off.
You didn't bother responding to a few other points I made, so I'll assume that you acknoledged their validity.
You miss a significant point. In the case of a TiVo, you don't rush a fix out to just a few customers, you end up rushing a fix out to ALL CUSTOMERS. The "update" code doesn't check to see if you've got a subscription or not, it just checks to see if there is a new version available and grabs it. I believe they have the ability to send updates to specific TiVo serial numbers or a range of numbers, but they need to know those #'s first.
You also neglect the fact that any 1.3 unit could be unsubbed, which means that it COULD be any unit in existance. It may be a subsample, but you don't know what that subsample of units is.
Your estimate of a "fix" is also overly simplistic at best. You don't know ANYTHING about how the code is designed. You don't know how the ShowNagScreen function is called or what it does. You don't know if it's all over the code, or in specific places, or running off of a timer. You don't know if there are any performance issues with the WasIOnceA13System check. The problem is that the 2.0.1 software isn't a minor change to the old code -- it's a significant change; it isn't as simple as going back through CVS, doing a diff, and combining the code with an if statement around it.
The channel banners completely changed from 1.3 to 2.0.1. You don't know what all is involved in conditionally changing the manual recording description to display the time/date recording information. Recording also changed significantly (in 2.0.1, when you press the record button it takes the contents of the current live buffer and prepends it to the rest of the program, so you get the whole tv show; with an unsubbed unit, the tivo record the first half hour and then stopped with 1.3; with 2.0.1, just enabling the record function would just add the current buffer to the recording list; still doesn't work as intended).
Being a "software engineer", I'm sure you have also at some point changed one line of code that broke a core piece of the software in a non-obvious way.
Now tell me again why they shouldn't bother doing any testing?
Why would you want a 30 second skip when you can fastfoward at 60 times normal speed?
The fast forward at 60x + play + autocorrect means you almost never have to compensate for overshoots found with a 30 second skip. 5 minute commercial breaks last about 2 seconds.
The reason why people like me "leap" to the defense of TiVo is because we've USED the unit and love it. It's not just a glorified vcr with vcr+. It's not just a glorified vcr with a program guide either.
People like you just don't understand the ramifications of what CAN BE DONE with such a device.
The $10/mo isn't just paying for tv program data. It's also paying for the paychecks of the programmers adding new features for the software.
I may also submit that maintaining program guide data is also a non-trivial task -- it requires the ability to organize over 25000 timeslots (that's channel + program + description + peripheral info) per WEEK for every service area in the united states. That means a single person would have to be able to enter 10 shows every minute in a 40 hour work week. I'd expect (optimistically) one entry/verification per minute, so this means there need to be 10 people working on data entry for program data ALONE. And that's just to cover one area. More likely there'd need to be 20 people working to cover all channels aired across the country. Then you need someone to maintain what cable company carries what channel in what area. Let's say you underpay those 20 employees and only pay them $45,000 a year. That's $900,000 a year just to maintain the guide data. With just 200,000 subscribers, half of that $10/mo would be used to pay for the maintenance of guide data. And this doesn't even take into account the cost of distributing that information, nor obtaining the information. And that's a conservative estimate!
The 2.0.1 upgrade added Wishlists, various ways of eliminating repeat recordings, and season pass prioritization/conflict resolution; those are not the only 3 things added with the 2.0.1 release, but they added so much to what the unit is capable of that it's unbelievable.
I can now tell the tivo to record all movies that have Jackie Chan in them (a wishlist recording). It will now record only new Episodes of ER instead of the 20 repeats of the show aired throughout the week. It will now record both Farscape AND the an episode Iron Chef on Friday (as opposed to Farscape OR two episodes of the Iron Chef).
And that's just 3 of the enhancements with the new software. The old software was able to do some pretty kick ass things as well.
So tell me again how $10 a month to maintain the guide data and fund future enhancements to the software is inflated?
This isn't stuff that a simple tv tuner card + software on a pc is capable of.
Slashdot Mirror
The last house my parents bought was new. It came with bugs [defects].
:)
Flipping certain light switches would result in an exception being thrown [circuit breaker being chipped].
There were some graphical glitches in the house rendering [missed paint in a few areas].
One of the bedrooms had a half-assed bug fix [garage roof went through one of the windows; they fixed the problem by cutting the window size in half].
I could go on, but you get the point.
There is a lot of complicated math involved in civil engineering; I believe the knowledge required is much more than the knowledge required to program a computer.
One of my best friends in college just finished their masters this weekend. She most definately did not slack off for the last 6 years; I can't count the number of times she pulled all nighters to get things done.
The difference between engineering a bridge and writing software is that all of the major problems with building bridges have been solved. There is a lot of math and a complicated series of steps and tons of engineering work involved, but the problems have been solved. We already know how to build bridges. We may not know the particulars on how to build a bridge that spans 2000 feet and can hold 500 tons, but the basic theory on how to do this is known.
Additionally, the application for civil engineering projects are very well defined. They have a small task that they need to perform.
I think that the most interesting work being done in civil engineering these days is materials research.
Software on the other hand doesn't have all of the problems already solved. We've come a long way in the last decade or two, but we've come far from solving all problems. I think it's safe to say we've solved all of the simple, basic problems, but the more complicated problems still exist.
The other problem with software is the scope. The scope of most software packages today is HUGE.
It involves problems that havn't been solved a 100 times already. And they are non-trivial problems. Sometimes the problems are actually hard to understand -- how do you approach a compression or encryption problem for example.
Another problem with software that makes it hard to compare with civil engineering is that it only takes one mistake to bring the whole thing crashing down; on a bridge, odds are if a bolt is misplaced the bridge will not fall -- there is built in redundancy; this is not a feature possible to have present in software (not unless you write the software 3-5 times, and have an agreement between routines about the result of a function call).
There are tons of differences between traditional engineering and software engineering that makes comparing the two fields difficult if not impossible.
Yeah, tell me about it ... I figured I'd be safer off using Pricewatch #s instead of what I've seen through experience.
If SCSI drives were $20 more expensive than the same IDE drive, I'd be all over SCSI -- but it's not.
Last time I checked, those pieces of software COULD BE REMOVED if you wanted to.
Try doing that to IE or now WMP in WinXP.
1) 4 25gb IDE drives (it'd actually be more cost effective to get 60gb drives @ $150 each, but I digress)
:)).
3) 8x CDR
4) DVD-R drive
5) Zip drive
6) Tape drive (why you use two I dunno...)
7) odd external SCSI devices
Most new mobos have 4 IDE channels on them, 2 or which can be dedicated to a raid config
In channels 1 & 2 install your 40gb drives in a raid-0 config
In channel 3 place your CDR & Zip drive
In channel 4 place your DVDR drive & Tape drive
Get a cheap SCSI card to hook up your scanners and other external devices (IDE can't really be used with external stuff
This isn't as fast as your configuration, but it will be close. Additionally, you get more storage space and it costs a hell of alot less.
If that extra performance means that much to you, and it's worth the extra cost -- that's great, but if cost ever enters the equation IDE setups can come close to that of a decent SCSI setup.
This I do not argue against -- high end scsi drives offer the best performance. However, the article was prasing SCSI drives for being reasonably priced. Which they are not.
Paying $200 for 34gb of storage isn't whant I would consider reasonable. Especially considering I can buy an IDE drive, with similar performance features and twice the storage space, for $150.
I'm not saying either side is right, but frankly, when you're going up against a company which has billions of dollars to throw at marketing telling people "more mhz is good, mkay" there isn't a whole lot you can do.
So I suppose it'd be fair to say my new chip, which is about as fast as a K6/233 but is clocked at 4ghz, is faster than the 2ghz P4?
I don't think so.
What intel has done was make a lethargic chip that is REQUIRED to be clocked at 2ghz to compete with a 1.4ghz Athlon.
Which is more deceptive? Telling the world your 1.4ghz chip is as fast as your compeditors 1.6ghz chip, or allowing the world to believe a that a 1.3ghz P4 performs better than a 1.2ghz Athlon?
The difference between the Cyrix debockle and AMD's scheme is that Cyris "overmarked" the PR ratings on their chip. Their PR233 could barely compare to a P133 in the real world.
While I don't like it, calling a 1.4ghz K7 the equivilent to a P4/1600 is fair; in fact, it's a bit more concervative than I would be (the K7 still romps the P4/2000 in several areas). In that respect, they're not being particularly deceptive.
There's a small difference here.
The fact that a hole exists isn't the problem. The fact that a hole is being exploited actively, and being used to propage software to hundreds of thousands boxes (causing all sorts of bandwidth problem) is a SERIOUS problem. Compounded by the fact that 90% of the people who are currently infected by it WILL NEVER FIX THE PROBLEM THEMSELVES. This has been going on for almost a week now, and it's only getting worse! My server at home is getting hit by this damn thing multiple times per minute! Hell, the after this thing was in the wild for the first 16 hours, I had 355 registered attempts to hit my box with it.
The app you speak of did four things:
* it patched holes
* it left open a new backdoor
* it tried to spread itself
* it told no-one what it did
I'd have no problems with something that patched compromised holes, didn't leave open any backdoors, didn't attempt to spread itself, and told the owner of the box in some fashion what it did. Some would argue that "well, they'll have to wipe the box because who knows what was done by the fix" -- guess what, they should have done that in the first place, because god only knows who else did nasty things before the hole was patched...
Why wouldn't it be criminal? It'd certainly be more criminal than fixing their box -- I didn't have to do anything to gain access to their box; they were actively attempting to gain access to my box.
;)
They could argue "oh, it was code red" and I could argue "yeah, you had it, but you were actually doing things independently too".
And they did click on the link of their own free will.
Just put up a website on your computer that advertises the ability to automatically clean the CodeRedII virus off of the viewer's system, if present.
/default.ida?XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (etc), which then scans the sender's IP and proceeds to start a command session, download the patches, and do whatever else is needed to done to vanquish the worm.
:)
... afterall, they tried to hack your box first. ;)
All the viewer has to do is click a button at the bottom of the screen.
Just so happens that this particular button sends a request to
Afterall, they did click on the link, right?
Seriously though, if someone wants to get all pissy about you going to their box and fixing their screwup, threatening to sue and the like, I'd just countersue
When Mozilla receives n crash reports from a specific page, they don't block you from looking at the URL that crashed the browser. When Microsoft gets n crash reports from a certain program, they won't allow it to run. Of course, with Microsoft's dubious history, I'm *sure* that a perfectly good 3rd party application that works just fine won't be blocked ... rriiiiggghhttt....
I've actually just started using MIL Lite where I work at. I've actually been rather surprised at how the library is written -- been very easy to wade through, as opposed to other 3rd party software I've been subjected too. Additionally, support that they provide has been top notch as well. One of their reps actually ended up writing some GNL code to work around a problem we were having (there isn't a mechanism to cancel a grab in progress via MIL). Their liscensing is expensive, however (as far as I know) you don't need a liscense for each site you deploy software to. The reason WHY it's expensive because a) it has a small market b) it's GOOD c) they spend a lot of money supporting the product
I'm sure tons aerospace companys are now BEGGING for the chance to move there now. Especially with the economic uncertainty present in this country.
Next thing you know they're gonna start taxing airplanes that fly through their airspace, satelites that fly through their orbit, and vehicles that drive on LA roads who's owner resides in a different location.
Idiocy.
You must have missed the whole "let's see what would happen if we give robots emotions" premise of the movie. Those robots had evolved over the course of 2000 years. They're the only thing left on the planet. They were designed to mimic human emotions. Is it so strange that they would share our fascination with the past?
Riiight ... recommend fast & the furious -- a movie with bad dialog, bad plot, bad fx, really innacurate technical data -- because you couldn't get over the pinnochio parallels and the possibility that mankind might become extinct.
Yeah. But if a yellow light lasts 2 seconds on a road with a speed limit of 50mph, it's pretty obvious that the yellow wasn't long enough.
If you ever get a ticket for running a light in this manner, go back to the intersection and time how long the yellow light lasts. There have been more than a few municipalities shortening the length of yellow lights at intersections where they have these camera ticket systems setup. If you can show that the yellow light didn't last a sufficient amount of time to allow you to either safely clear the intersection or come to a safe stop then the ticket is bogus and ought to be thrown out.
Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but the 'onboard' video card still has ram on it. Probably something like 8 or 16mb or so (maybe 32 if they were nice). Enough for a few framebuffers. The main memory is used to store textures that the video card can't hold. This is the main idea behind AGP that is now conveniently forgotten because cheap and performance are two opposite goals...
I can't speak for Ford, but GM has been working on alternative vehicles for quite awhile now ... nothing has made it to market yet (unless you count the EV1), but they have been spending R&D money on it.
Yes, sending out a new release is expensive. That's why the need to get it right the FIRST time, not make a fix, send it out, find bugs, fix the bugs, send out another release, repeat.
... ooh goodie. You still don't know where when or how this needs to be placed in the code, to make sure it's ready by the time it's needed, etc. Of course, you could probably put some JIT setting code everywhere it could be used, but again it's no longer simple...
....
Additionally, TiVo is NOT going to be supporting multiple revisions of the software. They can probably get it out to the effected people first, but everyone is going to have it eventually, or there may be problems NEXT time the software is released.
The show nag screen shows a function. What else could it do? You tell me, I dunno what else it's doing. I don't know what other flags it sets, if it's actually integrated into some house keeping code, or anything else of that nature.
Static/global boolean variables
When was the last time testing brought up a non-obvious bug without doing a full regression test cycle? Wait, these changes are supposed to be simple -- only a line or two, they don't need to do any real testing
EVERY release of the TiVo software has to be treated like a major release. It's not like it's a simple matter of downloading an updated dll or uninstalling an upgrade like it is on windows. Everyone is stuck with whatever is sucked onto the current box until the next release. That's why the current people with unsubscribed units are stuck! They didn't thouroghly examine the unsubscribed mode of the software, just the bits that do manual recordings! If you think the reaction they got from people who DON'T do much with the box is bad, just wait until 99% of the people responsible actually providing money to TiVo get pissed off.
You didn't bother responding to a few other points I made, so I'll assume that you acknoledged their validity.
You miss a significant point. In the case of a TiVo, you don't rush a fix out to just a few customers, you end up rushing a fix out to ALL CUSTOMERS. The "update" code doesn't check to see if you've got a subscription or not, it just checks to see if there is a new version available and grabs it. I believe they have the ability to send updates to specific TiVo serial numbers or a range of numbers, but they need to know those #'s first.
You also neglect the fact that any 1.3 unit could be unsubbed, which means that it COULD be any unit in existance. It may be a subsample, but you don't know what that subsample of units is.
Your estimate of a "fix" is also overly simplistic at best. You don't know ANYTHING about how the code is designed. You don't know how the ShowNagScreen function is called or what it does. You don't know if it's all over the code, or in specific places, or running off of a timer. You don't know if there are any performance issues with the WasIOnceA13System check. The problem is that the 2.0.1 software isn't a minor change to the old code -- it's a significant change; it isn't as simple as going back through CVS, doing a diff, and combining the code with an if statement around it.
The channel banners completely changed from 1.3 to 2.0.1. You don't know what all is involved in conditionally changing the manual recording description to display the time/date recording information. Recording also changed significantly (in 2.0.1, when you press the record button it takes the contents of the current live buffer and prepends it to the rest of the program, so you get the whole tv show; with an unsubbed unit, the tivo record the first half hour and then stopped with 1.3; with 2.0.1, just enabling the record function would just add the current buffer to the recording list; still doesn't work as intended).
Being a "software engineer", I'm sure you have also at some point changed one line of code that broke a core piece of the software in a non-obvious way.
Now tell me again why they shouldn't bother doing any testing?
Why would you want a 30 second skip when you can fastfoward at 60 times normal speed?
The fast forward at 60x + play + autocorrect means you almost never have to compensate for overshoots found with a 30 second skip. 5 minute commercial breaks last about 2 seconds.
The reason why people like me "leap" to the defense of TiVo is because we've USED the unit and love it. It's not just a glorified vcr with vcr+. It's not just a glorified vcr with a program guide either.
People like you just don't understand the ramifications of what CAN BE DONE with such a device.
The $10/mo isn't just paying for tv program data. It's also paying for the paychecks of the programmers adding new features for the software.
I may also submit that maintaining program guide data is also a non-trivial task -- it requires the ability to organize over 25000 timeslots (that's channel + program + description + peripheral info) per WEEK for every service area in the united states. That means a single person would have to be able to enter 10 shows every minute in a 40 hour work week. I'd expect (optimistically) one entry/verification per minute, so this means there need to be 10 people working on data entry for program data ALONE. And that's just to cover one area. More likely there'd need to be 20 people working to cover all channels aired across the country. Then you need someone to maintain what cable company carries what channel in what area. Let's say you underpay those 20 employees and only pay them $45,000 a year. That's $900,000 a year just to maintain the guide data. With just 200,000 subscribers, half of that $10/mo would be used to pay for the maintenance of guide data. And this doesn't even take into account the cost of distributing that information, nor obtaining the information. And that's a conservative estimate!
The 2.0.1 upgrade added Wishlists, various ways of eliminating repeat recordings, and season pass prioritization/conflict resolution; those are not the only 3 things added with the 2.0.1 release, but they added so much to what the unit is capable of that it's unbelievable.
I can now tell the tivo to record all movies that have Jackie Chan in them (a wishlist recording). It will now record only new Episodes of ER instead of the 20 repeats of the show aired throughout the week. It will now record both Farscape AND the an episode Iron Chef on Friday (as opposed to Farscape OR two episodes of the Iron Chef).
And that's just 3 of the enhancements with the new software. The old software was able to do some pretty kick ass things as well.
So tell me again how $10 a month to maintain the guide data and fund future enhancements to the software is inflated?
This isn't stuff that a simple tv tuner card + software on a pc is capable of.