If you're a software engineer and work for a company that allows you to make a significant changes to the software without going through a testing, verification, and regression cycle then you ought to find a new company to work for, because the one you're working for now most likely releases buggy crap software. Then you've got the time to develop and test an upgrade proceedure that will work on every single variation of every machine in existance.
The 2.0.1 software was in beta testing for at least 4 months alone, probably closer to 6. And believe it or not, it's rock solid.
The unsubscribed TiVo never had an off the shelf way to skip 30 seconds ahead. It was what would be considered, at best, an Easter Egg in the 1.3 software.
Riiight... everyone BUT tivo is allowed to have bugs in their software. When was the last time you used a Microsoft product that didn't screw something up horribly?
Do you HONESTLY think that they're so starved for revenue that the 100 people that bought a TiVo WITHOUT subscribing would change anything? Yeesh...
TiVo is the MODEL of how a good company should be run. They make a cool product that WORKS. They used open source software and released their changes. They arn't out to rule the world. They talk frankly with their customers and own up to their mistakes.
What would you define as "timely"? An hour, a day, a week, a month? No matter how long it takes for them to correct the problem, someone is going to claim that it could be done sooner.
The problem is that fixing this isn't as simple as adding a few lines of code. On top of that, they have to run the software through a LOT of testing to make sure they didn't foobar something else up really bad (and believe it or not, the software running is AMAZINGLY stable; my unit has NEVER crashed). On top of that, an upgrade has to be created which won't turn anyone's machine into a permanant doorstop (ie: current unsubscribed users are experiencing a bug which renders their machine useless to them; however, this can be fixed. An upgrade which hoses the machine to the point where it doesn't function can NEVER be fixed; this isn't a trivial task and the testing/verification for this proceedure takes a LOT of time).
TiVo doesn't make money on the units because THEY DON'T MAKE OR SELL HARDWARE!!! TiVo didn't sell you the unit, Sony or Phillips did.
You don't have to purchase a subscription to the TiVo service for old units that advertised the unit could be used without the service. The new boxes have in nice big words that the TiVo service is REQUIRED for the unit to work.
If you read the statement this article linked to, it's quite obvious what happened.
They went "damn, our bad -- it's not supposed to do that on old units, we'll fix it". It happens. It's not like they woke up one morning and went "hrmm, what's the best way to screw people we don't do business with?"
The new boxes have the phrase "TiVo Service Required" plastered all over the box. The old box said something along the lines that the box was still functional without the service.
That's how this whole mess started. They didn't want to remove the functionality of the old boxes, but did from new boxes. Just so happens that they missed some things in testing because they wern't paying a whole lot of attention to it in the first place.
Re:You're supposed to pay for listings?!
on
TiVo Upgrade Isn't
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· Score: 2
The one touch recording depends on you having guide data.
When your subscription runs out, a message will appear saying "hey, your subscription ran out!". This will appear for ~1 month if I remember right. During this time the tivo still functions and is downloading guide data.
After the month, the TiVo goes into boat anchor mode (ie: the unit is pretty useless; always has been, always will be when in this mode). It stops updating guide data and other related information until the subscription is removed.
After about two weeks your guide data will run out. So what's the point in having the recording function work when it's going to stop working in 2 weeks anyway?
Before you could record a half hour while watching tv. You can no longer do this. Whoppie do. Somehow I fail to see the severity of this loss.
You can still have manual recordings for an arbitrary length on arbitrary channels.
Let's say I write a windows printer driver and GPL it. Using your logic, MS Word would have to be GPL'd, because word could use my printer driver.
This is, obviously, silly.
I have a feeling that another liscense will have to be created for 'interfaces' -- because what we really have here are 3 things:
* code
* libraries/programs
* how to call the code in the library
The GPL covers code and programs pretty well. The LGPL was meant to address libraries. But nothing has ever mentioned the interface to the library; the assumption that the interface is mated to a specific library and only that library is blatently false.
Something that uses an interface to a library is not a derrative work of the interface; it just uses it. Something that implements an interface would be a derrived work from the interface.
From a different angle (some answers I think would be 'yes', others 'no', however I think you'll find that the question is far more subjective than some make it out to be)....is a car a derrivative work of an engine, or does it just use it? Is an engine derrived from gasoline? Is gasoline a derrivative work of crude oil? Is a tranmission a derrivative work of an engine? Or is it a derrative work of the drivetrain? Or is the drivetrain a derrivative work of the tranmission? Is my word processor a derrivative work of the printer drivers it uses to print on? How about the display drivers? What about the fonts? What about the library which renders the fonts on the screen? Is netscape a derriative work of a webserver? What about a gif library? Or a jpeg library? It certainly uses them, but could the browser exist without gifs or jpegs?
Re:What's attractive about a palmtop?
on
Palm In Trouble?
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· Score: 2
Many people see a palm and think "ooh, computer that fits in your hand, how useless"... some people can't shake the thought that it ought to do the same things that an ordinary computer ought to do.
It's not meant for that. Something that size is exceptional for keeping bits of information that would otherwise be floating in a backpack.
It's awesome for keeping track of phone numbers, appointments, notes, frequently accessed information (ex: SCR #'s that you use a lot) keeping a triplog for your car, a financial organizer, storing a grocery list (there is some totally awesome software for this that really makes comparison shopping easy and it can organize items by what row they're in, saving mucho time in the grocery store), or storing a map of an area you are traveling to.
The ability to play a bit of minesweeper or solitare while waiting for something is an additional plus.
You don't use these things at a table where you've got time on your handl; you open it, hit the power buttom, jot something down/look something up and put it back in your pocket within 10 seconds.
It's a very sophisticated organizer, not a computer. Why anyone would want their organizer to play music or watch movies is beyond me.
While having those types defined would be nice, don't fool yourself into thinking that having them would solve a lot of porting problems. Bit ordering is an annoying problem that tends to bite you in the ass when you don't want it too. Especially if your apps go between Intel & non-Intel CPUs.
Nothing annoys me more than the "for (int i=0; iblah; i++)" scope bug (int i should be within the scope of the for loop, not the block of code containing the for loop).
Equally annoying is attempting to do something with templates that cause the compiler to freak out and crash. Once that happens you have to Clean everything and rebuild from scratch, after removing what caused the compiler to freak out (it corrupts files when it crashes like that).
Current VC support for templates is patchy at best. *sigh*
Please, you don't expect me to believe that the halting of some really crappy overdramatic attack adds on Carnahan really had any effect on the outcome of the election?
Being from Missouri myself, I saw his ads so many times I wanted to puke. If he left the ads running he'd have done much worse. I actually would have voted for Ashcroft if he was the same man he was 5+ years ago. But he changed from a person with beliefs to a professional politician.
Right now there are ratings on video games. The "R" equivilent is MA.
I aree with you on the parenting solution; the only way to legislate it would be to make parents responsible for a child's action -- some laws have been passed that do that actually. I think this is absolutely the WRONG way to do things. It disgusts me that there are laws out there like that too (how the hell should another person be responsible for a 3rd parties actions? Some people are just bad).
I don't like the idea of a concealed carry law. If you're packing something like that it ought to be in a holster in plain sight. I also think that it ought to be mandatory to take some sort of training course (or proof that you're proficient in handling a weapon) before purchasing a handgun or rifle.
I don't mind the fact that guns exist in this country. I do mind that they could be in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use one properly, or a person who can't control their impulses (you've seen 'em, driving crazily down the road, shoving people out of the way in lines, etc).
Well, I can tell you one thing, he didn't "lose" my vote due to sympathy for Carnahan's family. It was going to be a close race. I think Carnahan still would have come out on top, but Ashcrofts faux attitude after the accident hurt him a lot.
I'm a product of the first generation of video game children. Been using computers since I was 7. The problem isn't video game violence, it's the inability of a person to separate fantasy from reality. That's a parenting problem. If you are unable to instill any sense of moral values into a person -- that "killing is wrong, don't do it" -- banning a videogame won't "fix" the problem.
I'm tired of people in this country trying to shift their problems onto someone with deep pockets. With the school shootings, everyone is always pointing at tv, video games, movies, parents, anything except THEMSELVES. Someone doesn't just wake up one morning and go "gee, I think I'm going to shoot a bunch of people for no reason today."
And for what it's worth, video games already have ratings on them. Q3a has an MA mark on the box. Walmart won't even sell those games to people under 18. They've had them since the mid 90's.
Maybe he did lose because of sympathy. Personally I think his general attitude after the death of Carnahan had something to do with it.
All I know is that *I* did not vote for the man. I didn't vote for 'Carnahan' out of sympathy, rather an attempt to keep Ashcroft out of any position of power, as I disagree with just about every viewpoint he's had in the last several years as his opinions have shifted from something resembling those of a real person who believes in what he's doing to one who's driven by the political machine and corporate money.
Ironically, had he won he'd be in a position of less power than he is now.
I just found out how much the batteries cost -- it wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought. The whole set costs $3000. I was thinking it'd be along the lines of 10k.
The reason most companies are persuing electrics right now is that fuel cells are still WAAY to expensive to mass produce. There have been some sinificant advances in fuel cell technology over the last decade, bringing the price down from millions per unit to maybe a quarter million dollars. However, I don't see Ford selling many cars at $250k a pop. The price has to get down to $50k before you can even think about making cars based off of it; the only reason you can get away with that price in the mass market is if the car will last 10 years and cost you pennies to maintain.
Insight: 2 engines. Duh. That's why it's called a hybrid. It's actually quite a good idea, and I personally think it'll be the next "wave" of vehicles we'll see on our roads. It has none of the problems associated with a fully electric vehicle, but is 2x more efficient than anything else out there.
Honda is losing money on those cars because the batteries are EXPENSIVE, and they wanted to sell the car at a price people would actually buy it at. For them, it's a technology demonstration...a proof of concept -- a "we were the first, all your base are belong to us" type move.
That would work, if you never wanted to get at the batteries after installing the interior.:)
The body on the car isn't there just to make it look like a car; it's covering the batteries too. They made a mention on their site about how that it isn't a pain to replace any of the batteries should it ever be required.
You can't hide all 1200lbs of that right at the wheels though, even if you tried. For what it's worth they distributed the batteries to produce something like a 45/55 weight ratio, if I recall correctly.
My current car pulls 0.87g's on the skidpad. It is definately enough force to throw you around the car through a turn.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're a software engineer and work for a company that allows you to make a significant changes to the software without going through a testing, verification, and regression cycle then you ought to find a new company to work for, because the one you're working for now most likely releases buggy crap software. Then you've got the time to develop and test an upgrade proceedure that will work on every single variation of every machine in existance.
The 2.0.1 software was in beta testing for at least 4 months alone, probably closer to 6. And believe it or not, it's rock solid.
The unsubscribed TiVo never had an off the shelf way to skip 30 seconds ahead. It was what would be considered, at best, an Easter Egg in the 1.3 software.
Riiight ... everyone BUT tivo is allowed to have bugs in their software. When was the last time you used a Microsoft product that didn't screw something up horribly?
Do you HONESTLY think that they're so starved for revenue that the 100 people that bought a TiVo WITHOUT subscribing would change anything? Yeesh...
TiVo is the MODEL of how a good company should be run. They make a cool product that WORKS. They used open source software and released their changes. They arn't out to rule the world. They talk frankly with their customers and own up to their mistakes.
What would you define as "timely"? An hour, a day, a week, a month? No matter how long it takes for them to correct the problem, someone is going to claim that it could be done sooner.
The problem is that fixing this isn't as simple as adding a few lines of code. On top of that, they have to run the software through a LOT of testing to make sure they didn't foobar something else up really bad (and believe it or not, the software running is AMAZINGLY stable; my unit has NEVER crashed). On top of that, an upgrade has to be created which won't turn anyone's machine into a permanant doorstop (ie: current unsubscribed users are experiencing a bug which renders their machine useless to them; however, this can be fixed. An upgrade which hoses the machine to the point where it doesn't function can NEVER be fixed; this isn't a trivial task and the testing/verification for this proceedure takes a LOT of time).
TiVo doesn't make money on the units because THEY DON'T MAKE OR SELL HARDWARE!!! TiVo didn't sell you the unit, Sony or Phillips did.
You don't have to purchase a subscription to the TiVo service for old units that advertised the unit could be used without the service. The new boxes have in nice big words that the TiVo service is REQUIRED for the unit to work.
If you read the statement this article linked to, it's quite obvious what happened.
They went "damn, our bad -- it's not supposed to do that on old units, we'll fix it". It happens. It's not like they woke up one morning and went "hrmm, what's the best way to screw people we don't do business with?"
What more do you want?
The new boxes have the phrase "TiVo Service Required" plastered all over the box. The old box said something along the lines that the box was still functional without the service.
That's how this whole mess started. They didn't want to remove the functionality of the old boxes, but did from new boxes. Just so happens that they missed some things in testing because they wern't paying a whole lot of attention to it in the first place.
The one touch recording depends on you having guide data.
When your subscription runs out, a message will appear saying "hey, your subscription ran out!". This will appear for ~1 month if I remember right. During this time the tivo still functions and is downloading guide data.
After the month, the TiVo goes into boat anchor mode (ie: the unit is pretty useless; always has been, always will be when in this mode). It stops updating guide data and other related information until the subscription is removed.
After about two weeks your guide data will run out. So what's the point in having the recording function work when it's going to stop working in 2 weeks anyway?
Before you could record a half hour while watching tv. You can no longer do this. Whoppie do. Somehow I fail to see the severity of this loss.
You can still have manual recordings for an arbitrary length on arbitrary channels.
Ok, let's flip the page then.
Let's say I write a windows printer driver and GPL it. Using your logic, MS Word would have to be GPL'd, because word could use my printer driver.
This is, obviously, silly.
I have a feeling that another liscense will have to be created for 'interfaces' -- because what we really have here are 3 things:
* code
* libraries/programs
* how to call the code in the library
The GPL covers code and programs pretty well. The LGPL was meant to address libraries. But nothing has ever mentioned the interface to the library; the assumption that the interface is mated to a specific library and only that library is blatently false.
Something that uses an interface to a library is not a derrative work of the interface; it just uses it. Something that implements an interface would be a derrived work from the interface.
From a different angle (some answers I think would be 'yes', others 'no', however I think you'll find that the question is far more subjective than some make it out to be)....is a car a derrivative work of an engine, or does it just use it? Is an engine derrived from gasoline? Is gasoline a derrivative work of crude oil? Is a tranmission a derrivative work of an engine? Or is it a derrative work of the drivetrain? Or is the drivetrain a derrivative work of the tranmission? Is my word processor a derrivative work of the printer drivers it uses to print on? How about the display drivers? What about the fonts? What about the library which renders the fonts on the screen? Is netscape a derriative work of a webserver? What about a gif library? Or a jpeg library? It certainly uses them, but could the browser exist without gifs or jpegs?
Many people see a palm and think "ooh, computer that fits in your hand, how useless" ... some people can't shake the thought that it ought to do the same things that an ordinary computer ought to do.
It's not meant for that. Something that size is exceptional for keeping bits of information that would otherwise be floating in a backpack.
It's awesome for keeping track of phone numbers, appointments, notes, frequently accessed information (ex: SCR #'s that you use a lot) keeping a triplog for your car, a financial organizer, storing a grocery list (there is some totally awesome software for this that really makes comparison shopping easy and it can organize items by what row they're in, saving mucho time in the grocery store), or storing a map of an area you are traveling to.
The ability to play a bit of minesweeper or solitare while waiting for something is an additional plus.
You don't use these things at a table where you've got time on your handl; you open it, hit the power buttom, jot something down/look something up and put it back in your pocket within 10 seconds.
It's a very sophisticated organizer, not a computer. Why anyone would want their organizer to play music or watch movies is beyond me.
They did bring it up. However they didn't spend much time on it.
He's referring to the honor system.
The /Za flag turns off a lot more than just the for loop scoping "feature." User beware.
No, I'm bitching that Visual Studio DOESN'T scope i to the loop. It's annoying as hell (because as you said, it should).
While having those types defined would be nice, don't fool yourself into thinking that having them would solve a lot of porting problems. Bit ordering is an annoying problem that tends to bite you in the ass when you don't want it too. Especially if your apps go between Intel & non-Intel CPUs.
Nothing annoys me more than the "for (int i=0; iblah; i++)" scope bug (int i should be within the scope of the for loop, not the block of code containing the for loop).
Equally annoying is attempting to do something with templates that cause the compiler to freak out and crash. Once that happens you have to Clean everything and rebuild from scratch, after removing what caused the compiler to freak out (it corrupts files when it crashes like that).
Current VC support for templates is patchy at best. *sigh*
"The fact is, there is no language to explain colours to someone who can not see them. It just can't be done."
;)
As a colorblind person, I can confirm this fact 100%. I don't know how many people have attempted to describe to me what color my shirt is.
It's not any different, but right now I don't think you're required to have a liscense to purchase a gun. You just have to pass a background check.
Please, you don't expect me to believe that the halting of some really crappy overdramatic attack adds on Carnahan really had any effect on the outcome of the election?
Being from Missouri myself, I saw his ads so many times I wanted to puke. If he left the ads running he'd have done much worse. I actually would have voted for Ashcroft if he was the same man he was 5+ years ago. But he changed from a person with beliefs to a professional politician.
Right now there are ratings on video games. The "R" equivilent is MA.
I aree with you on the parenting solution; the only way to legislate it would be to make parents responsible for a child's action -- some laws have been passed that do that actually. I think this is absolutely the WRONG way to do things. It disgusts me that there are laws out there like that too (how the hell should another person be responsible for a 3rd parties actions? Some people are just bad).
I don't like the idea of a concealed carry law. If you're packing something like that it ought to be in a holster in plain sight. I also think that it ought to be mandatory to take some sort of training course (or proof that you're proficient in handling a weapon) before purchasing a handgun or rifle.
I don't mind the fact that guns exist in this country. I do mind that they could be in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use one properly, or a person who can't control their impulses (you've seen 'em, driving crazily down the road, shoving people out of the way in lines, etc).
Well, I can tell you one thing, he didn't "lose" my vote due to sympathy for Carnahan's family. It was going to be a close race. I think Carnahan still would have come out on top, but Ashcrofts faux attitude after the accident hurt him a lot.
I'm a product of the first generation of video game children. Been using computers since I was 7. The problem isn't video game violence, it's the inability of a person to separate fantasy from reality. That's a parenting problem. If you are unable to instill any sense of moral values into a person -- that "killing is wrong, don't do it" -- banning a videogame won't "fix" the problem.
I'm tired of people in this country trying to shift their problems onto someone with deep pockets. With the school shootings, everyone is always pointing at tv, video games, movies, parents, anything except THEMSELVES. Someone doesn't just wake up one morning and go "gee, I think I'm going to shoot a bunch of people for no reason today."
And for what it's worth, video games already have ratings on them. Q3a has an MA mark on the box. Walmart won't even sell those games to people under 18. They've had them since the mid 90's.
Maybe he did lose because of sympathy. Personally I think his general attitude after the death of Carnahan had something to do with it.
All I know is that *I* did not vote for the man. I didn't vote for 'Carnahan' out of sympathy, rather an attempt to keep Ashcroft out of any position of power, as I disagree with just about every viewpoint he's had in the last several years as his opinions have shifted from something resembling those of a real person who believes in what he's doing to one who's driven by the political machine and corporate money.
Ironically, had he won he'd be in a position of less power than he is now.
There's a reason why he lost to a DEAD MAN in his congressional race. That's all I've got to say on that subject. :)
I just found out how much the batteries cost -- it wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought. The whole set costs $3000. I was thinking it'd be along the lines of 10k.
The tzero is actually pretty light -- 2400lbs. Half of that is batteries.
By comparison, the Honda S2000 weighs roughly 2600lbs, and the car I drive weights 3100lbs.
The reason most companies are persuing electrics right now is that fuel cells are still WAAY to expensive to mass produce. There have been some sinificant advances in fuel cell technology over the last decade, bringing the price down from millions per unit to maybe a quarter million dollars. However, I don't see Ford selling many cars at $250k a pop. The price has to get down to $50k before you can even think about making cars based off of it; the only reason you can get away with that price in the mass market is if the car will last 10 years and cost you pennies to maintain.
Insight: 2 engines. Duh. That's why it's called a hybrid. It's actually quite a good idea, and I personally think it'll be the next "wave" of vehicles we'll see on our roads. It has none of the problems associated with a fully electric vehicle, but is 2x more efficient than anything else out there.
Honda is losing money on those cars because the batteries are EXPENSIVE, and they wanted to sell the car at a price people would actually buy it at. For them, it's a technology demonstration...a proof of concept -- a "we were the first, all your base are belong to us" type move.
That would work, if you never wanted to get at the batteries after installing the interior. :)
The body on the car isn't there just to make it look like a car; it's covering the batteries too. They made a mention on their site about how that it isn't a pain to replace any of the batteries should it ever be required.
You can't hide all 1200lbs of that right at the wheels though, even if you tried. For what it's worth they distributed the batteries to produce something like a 45/55 weight ratio, if I recall correctly.
My current car pulls 0.87g's on the skidpad. It is definately enough force to throw you around the car through a turn.