Also might depend on the specific definition of 'lease'.
I've seen that word mean everything from rent, to buy with payments the downpayment being the last one. And several even odder variations.
Problem is the people putting out the content would freak if there wasn't absolute controll over said content. The minute things look like the content could be on more than one device at a time they pull every stop out to pound the partie responsible into a smoldering crater.
Also they stand to make money not just off subscribtions, but upgraded units. "BUY the NEW 44k-zillion unit and get an additional 5 hours record time and new dayglow digital readouts on the front pannel and alarm clock feature!".
The pvr's have one HUGE advantage over what you suggest currently.
You plug in the power cord and a couple others, turn it on, and use it. That's all
Now to do a pc pvr using gpl'd software you have to learn enough to put together a computer sytem, install some VERY un-user-friendly software, then configure it in ways joe user doesn't have the several weeks to learn (rember joe isn't a computer geek just learning a new linux app, he's probably never even dealt with with something outside of a gui).
Perhaps in a few years the game consoles will usurp pvr's place in what they do, but not pc's anytime soon.
I was under the impression that video capture didn't work under Linux except for the older (before the radeon line) AIW's. And for cards that old there is a hacked vid-cap driver for windows that doesn't scramble the image if it detects macrovision.
The linux drivers from ATI did't appear to support it last time I looked, a couple months ago.
At any rate I doubt my card will be an AIW. Not even shure it'll be a ATI card considering how I feel about being mislead in buying the card I currently have.
If you are going to buy a stand-alone video tuner from ati buying an aiw makes more sense than what you suggest unless you get some sort of deal.
One reason is that Ati's tunners (including those on the AIW unfortunately) 'honor' macrovision encoding on tapes. This means that if you want to feed the output of a vcr to your computer (say to watch them, or put them on a dvd so you don't wear out the tapes) then ati is a no-go.
The effect of this 'honoring' of macrovision is that ATI deliberately scrambles the image (at the driver level, though for some pre 8500 AIW's there is an unofficial driver that fixes this) so it looks likes analog cable channel scrambling.
There is at least one Nvidia based card that has a video tuner on it, but I know nothing other than I saw it on a shelf somewhere.
When I got my first AIW I was rather happy with it. Then about a year later I got a much newer unit (9600AIW) and a cheap vcr intending to copy a few of my favorite movies to hard-drive for convience and safty of the originals. That's when I found out all about the macrovision problem.
The thing that really ticks me off is that watching videos on the pc is one reason people buy such things, if they're deliberately going to block that feature for a significant subset of likely uses they should SAY on the package how it's crippled, elsewise I consider it deceptive advertising at least.
Actually it's usually spelled in a more rational language. Of course with the advent of a more rational language making bad spelling and grammar unpossible all the grammer nazi's finally had to seek treatment for thier disease, which turned out after much experimentation and testing it all turned out to be caused by poor nutrition and over-exposure to late night 'infomercials'.
Slashdot itselft is a temporal anomaly of sorts and things like that can happen here.
Don't tell me you fell for the 'dupe' cover story explaining why many front page articles apear to be repeats when they are in fact temporal echos of each other.
Ethics and Morals are indeed two different but related things.
Simular to how Philosophy and Religeon are alike yet different.
Try googling the terms together and checking some online dictionaries and such for a better understanding.
A few simple examples (and likely simple enough to spark some dissagreement/nitpicking correction) would be a company deliberately not making thier software as good as they could reasonably do so that customers have an incentive to buy the next version. This could be called unethical, but it's not necesarrily immoral. However if the software was medical intrument controll software in a life-death situation then it would be immoral to deliberately not remove bugs in it. Though that again is an oversimplistic view of it, and there is overlap and dissagreement on the two terms.
Personally I prefer the original trill^h^h^h^h err collection of three books containing short-stories.
The following books are pretty good too. Though there was something timeless (as in not fixed in any specific time, just happing) about the original three books worth of short stories, except that last one, but I won't spoil the ending.
Let's just say that though they are quite funny (well they do save the world a few times, all without leaving Mike's bar.) they also say a few pretty good things about the basic nature of humans. I just hope thier at least half right about how decent we are inside.
I do like a few ideas I saw in those books, First is paying favors forward. Second is the concept that shared pain is pained lessened and that shared joy is joy magnified. And third is random acts of kindness.
I can't recomend the series highly enough. they are Just google Callahan and Spider Robenson.
You could also see if your isp has the usenet groop, alt.callahans iirc.
Yesterday and tomorrow are still part of todays universe, and that rule applies to a closed system.
You'd no more be in violation than if you moved a space heater 5 feet to the left than if you moved it to.5 seconds ago.
Another way to see it is to consider that we're all moving foward in time at roughly a 1:1 ratio, yet this temporal motion violates no such rule.
Probably thier reasoning, but then with thier lack of experience in self modified type 7 paradoxes I wouldn't expect to realize that you don't have to advertise an event you're going to have previously for time travels.
This only holds for a few specific theories of how time(travel) works.
Sort of a multi line/track switch theory you have for your explanation.
Now try and work it with single-line editing allowed and still explain away the 'paradox' that implies, for extra credit give two paradox solvers.:)
Time Travel is one of the more fun things to consider.
Wish I could remember if anyone fun showed up at this one.
There are lots of 'logical' meeting points, and reasons to meet or not.
In 'There Will be Time' the travelers where all self propelled and there where hints of thier existance being 'desitined' or 'purposefull'.
However Paul Anderson is(was?) one of the more prolific time travel s.f. authors.
Maybe, depends on which theory of time travel holds (from among those allowing it).
Single line no variation holds it your way. Editing allowed and multi line and limited reverse flow causality on the other hand permit some deviation therefrom.
I dunno, it seems to me after the fourth or fifth time visisting the SAME convention it could get borring.
Not to mention making it hard to convice the locals your doing auditions for the next gum comercial when there are as many as 30 copies of some people with a clear age difference in some cases.
The you don't have bad astigmatism. THAT is why I said they would cost me over 150 an eye.
When your astimatism is bad enough soft contacts cease to be an option. All your left with is expensive torric(sp?) lenses that cost a LOT.
Nope, not cookies. I know the difference between cookies, popups trojans worms and viruses and even know the difference between a hacker and a cracker:). (though obviously there where a bunch of those as well, from the usual suspects as well).
Been at this a while, first virus I ever dealt with came via a 5.25" floppy and infected a doss 4.0 system with a 15 meg rll hard-drive.
No offence taken, I've met people who called thier case 'the cpu' or 'the hard drive' and were utterly convinced they downloaded the whole internet and it ran on thier home computer (why else would intell tell them a faster cpu sped up thier internet).
I wish I could remember, it was a comercial package from mcaffee or norton or some such that the customer had purchased a few days before, but waited till I got her system cleaned before installing it.
I mostly remember it because I have a friend or two who watch wrestling (that they quite cheerfully call 'soap opera for men') and I called to warn the one shortly after as he's not very computer literate and it was exacltly the sort of site he'd stop by to see if he could get info on next weeks script or something.
I also remember the number of items because I was having to explain the difference between the various types of malware as well as what a cookie was and so on and pointed to those items in the list 'these are the same ones I just cleaned off your computer'.
Sorry if my memory is a bit vague, this was last winter right around christmass, and with all the new computers people bought then infected over said holiday it kinda blurrs a bit.
Yes at some point you do have to desing the interface to a function, including the gui if it's user function in a gui environment. But you don't start with designing a gui before you know what the code is planned to do. At least that's what I was talking about, his assertion you couldn't do any code work till you had the gui completely designed.
As far the tool/handle thing, that sounds more like a complaint with linux. Windows at least gives you a gui to do things with, in linux there are to many settings and options that should be easily adjusted at the end user level that require unnecessary knowledge of the internal workings and knowing what abscure --code/parm.config to type into/some/hidden/obscurely/named/file.somewhere Which is as bad as the windows registry.
Unfortunately there are alot of spyware programs like you mention, and often the false positives are NOT mistakes, but rather deliberate attempts to goad you into buying thier 'pro' version.
In some cases the 'anti-spyware' uninstalls some spyware, but only to prevent competition with the spyware IT comes with.
AOL's current anti-spyware offering falls into the last category IIRC.
Your best bet for free scanners is likely ad-aware (lavasoft) and Spybot Search and Destroy.
One site I've found that talks about the bad anti-spyware products is http://www.spywarewarrior.com/. Give them a look and see if your using one of the bad products.
Another possible solution is to compromise, put what you can in the contacts and the rest in regular glasses.
This may seem silly as it defeats the 'no glasses' principle of contacts. But the correction done by glasses takes place farther away from the eyes and has side effects that reduce vision acuity in ways contacts don't and the combo seriously mitigates these effects. Also it's likely that the glasses would not be needed most of the time and would be much thinner when needed wich is a plus.
In this case a company computer was known to have been compromised. Though I doubt it's the case here in some situations security means a complete re-format and re-install to make shure company secretes (or customer data, nuke launch codes, whatever) are properly secured.
Also if he's IT taking such drastic action might be a ploy to emphasize to the boss how BAD running IE can be in the corporate situation ("see, you just lost data and had to pay me for hours of work because a known security risk was allowed to continue).
It also just might have been quicker than spending some time on the web to track down the uninstall procedure/program for the particular threat involved. Depends on how up to date the image being used was and such.
Slashdot Mirror
Also might depend on the specific definition of 'lease'.
I've seen that word mean everything from rent, to buy with payments the downpayment being the last one. And several even odder variations.
Mycroft
Problem is the people putting out the content would freak if there wasn't absolute controll over said content. The minute things look like the content could be on more than one device at a time they pull every stop out to pound the partie responsible into a smoldering crater.
Also they stand to make money not just off subscribtions, but upgraded units. "BUY the NEW 44k-zillion unit and get an additional 5 hours record time and new dayglow digital readouts on the front pannel and alarm clock feature!".
Mycroft
The pvr's have one HUGE advantage over what you suggest currently.
You plug in the power cord and a couple others, turn it on, and use it. That's all
Now to do a pc pvr using gpl'd software you have to learn enough to put together a computer sytem, install some VERY un-user-friendly software, then configure it in ways joe user doesn't have the several weeks to learn (rember joe isn't a computer geek just learning a new linux app, he's probably never even dealt with with something outside of a gui).
Perhaps in a few years the game consoles will usurp pvr's place in what they do, but not pc's anytime soon.
Mycroft
I was under the impression that video capture didn't work under Linux except for the older (before the radeon line) AIW's. And for cards that old there is a hacked vid-cap driver for windows that doesn't scramble the image if it detects macrovision.
The linux drivers from ATI did't appear to support it last time I looked, a couple months ago.
At any rate I doubt my card will be an AIW. Not even shure it'll be a ATI card considering how I feel about being mislead in buying the card I currently have.
Mycroft
If you are going to buy a stand-alone video tuner from ati buying an aiw makes more sense than what you suggest unless you get some sort of deal.
One reason is that Ati's tunners (including those on the AIW unfortunately) 'honor' macrovision encoding on tapes. This means that if you want to feed the output of a vcr to your computer (say to watch them, or put them on a dvd so you don't wear out the tapes) then ati is a no-go.
The effect of this 'honoring' of macrovision is that ATI deliberately scrambles the image (at the driver level, though for some pre 8500 AIW's there is an unofficial driver that fixes this) so it looks likes analog cable channel scrambling.
There is at least one Nvidia based card that has a video tuner on it, but I know nothing other than I saw it on a shelf somewhere.
When I got my first AIW I was rather happy with it. Then about a year later I got a much newer unit (9600AIW) and a cheap vcr intending to copy a few of my favorite movies to hard-drive for convience and safty of the originals. That's when I found out all about the macrovision problem.
The thing that really ticks me off is that watching videos on the pc is one reason people buy such things, if they're deliberately going to block that feature for a significant subset of likely uses they should SAY on the package how it's crippled, elsewise I consider it deceptive advertising at least.
Mycroft
Actually it's usually spelled in a more rational language. Of course with the advent of a more rational language making bad spelling and grammar unpossible all the grammer nazi's finally had to seek treatment for thier disease, which turned out after much experimentation and testing it all turned out to be caused by poor nutrition and over-exposure to late night 'infomercials'.
Mycroft
Slashdot itselft is a temporal anomaly of sorts and things like that can happen here.
Don't tell me you fell for the 'dupe' cover story explaining why many front page articles apear to be repeats when they are in fact temporal echos of each other.
Mycroft
Ethics and Morals are indeed two different but related things.
Simular to how Philosophy and Religeon are alike yet different.
Try googling the terms together and checking some online dictionaries and such for a better understanding.
A few simple examples (and likely simple enough to spark some dissagreement/nitpicking correction) would be a company deliberately not making thier software as good as they could reasonably do so that customers have an incentive to buy the next version. This could be called unethical, but it's not necesarrily immoral. However if the software was medical intrument controll software in a life-death situation then it would be immoral to deliberately not remove bugs in it. Though that again is an oversimplistic view of it, and there is overlap and dissagreement on the two terms.
Mycroft
Didn't someone get Quake or Doom to run on a Cave system at some point. Something like 25fps or so?
Mycroft
Personally I prefer the original trill^h^h^h^h err collection of three books containing short-stories.
The following books are pretty good too. Though there was something timeless (as in not fixed in any specific time, just happing) about the original three books worth of short stories, except that last one, but I won't spoil the ending.
Let's just say that though they are quite funny (well they do save the world a few times, all without leaving Mike's bar.) they also say a few pretty good things about the basic nature of humans. I just hope thier at least half right about how decent we are inside.
I do like a few ideas I saw in those books, First is paying favors forward. Second is the concept that shared pain is pained lessened and that shared joy is joy magnified. And third is random acts of kindness.
I can't recomend the series highly enough.
they are Just google Callahan and Spider Robenson.
You could also see if your isp has the usenet groop, alt.callahans iirc.
Mycroft
The sad thing is that it was the same guy 6 times, kept asking where the 'hot past type babes' were.
Mycroft
Yesterday and tomorrow are still part of todays universe, and that rule applies to a closed system. .5 seconds ago.
You'd no more be in violation than if you moved a space heater 5 feet to the left than if you moved it to
Another way to see it is to consider that we're all moving foward in time at roughly a 1:1 ratio, yet this temporal motion violates no such rule.
Mycroft
Well there wasn't when he posted that, but someone ha(s/d) a wierd sense of humour and some spare explosives.
Mycroft
Probably thier reasoning, but then with thier lack of experience in self modified type 7 paradoxes I wouldn't expect to realize that you don't have to advertise an event you're going to have previously for time travels.
Mycroft
This only holds for a few specific theories of how time(travel) works. :)
Sort of a multi line/track switch theory you have for your explanation.
Now try and work it with single-line editing allowed and still explain away the 'paradox' that implies, for extra credit give two paradox solvers.
Time Travel is one of the more fun things to consider.
Wish I could remember if anyone fun showed up at this one.
Mycroft
Except those recruited by the other side.
There are lots of 'logical' meeting points, and reasons to meet or not.
In 'There Will be Time' the travelers where all self propelled and there where hints of thier existance being 'desitined' or 'purposefull'.
However Paul Anderson is(was?) one of the more prolific time travel s.f. authors.
Mycroft
Maybe, depends on which theory of time travel holds (from among those allowing it).
Single line no variation holds it your way.
Editing allowed and multi line and limited reverse flow causality on the other hand permit some deviation therefrom.
Mycroft
I dunno, it seems to me after the fourth or fifth time visisting the SAME convention it could get borring.
Not to mention making it hard to convice the locals your doing auditions for the next gum comercial when there are as many as 30 copies of some people with a clear age difference in some cases.
Mycroft
The you don't have bad astigmatism.
THAT is why I said they would cost me over 150 an eye.
When your astimatism is bad enough soft contacts cease to be an option. All your left with is expensive torric(sp?) lenses that cost a LOT.
Mycroft
Nope, not cookies. I know the difference between cookies, popups trojans worms and viruses and even know the difference between a hacker and a cracker :). (though obviously there where a bunch of those as well, from the usual suspects as well).
Been at this a while, first virus I ever dealt with came via a 5.25" floppy and infected a doss 4.0 system with a 15 meg rll hard-drive.
No offence taken, I've met people who called thier case 'the cpu' or 'the hard drive' and were utterly convinced they downloaded the whole internet and it ran on thier home computer (why else would intell tell them a faster cpu sped up thier internet).
Mycroft
I wish I could remember, it was a comercial package from mcaffee or norton or some such that the customer had purchased a few days before, but waited till I got her system cleaned before installing it.
I mostly remember it because I have a friend or two who watch wrestling (that they quite cheerfully call 'soap opera for men') and I called to warn the one shortly after as he's not very computer literate and it was exacltly the sort of site he'd stop by to see if he could get info on next weeks script or something.
I also remember the number of items because I was having to explain the difference between the various types of malware as well as what a cookie was and so on and pointed to those items in the list 'these are the same ones I just cleaned off your computer'.
Sorry if my memory is a bit vague, this was last winter right around christmass, and with all the new computers people bought then infected over said holiday it kinda blurrs a bit.
Mycroft
Yes at some point you do have to desing the interface to a function, including the gui if it's user function in a gui environment. But you don't start with designing a gui before you know what the code is planned to do. At least that's what I was talking about, his assertion you couldn't do any code work till you had the gui completely designed. /some/hidden/obscurely/named/file.somewhere Which is as bad as the windows registry.
As far the tool/handle thing, that sounds more like a complaint with linux. Windows at least gives you a gui to do things with, in linux there are to many settings and options that should be easily adjusted at the end user level that require unnecessary knowledge of the internal workings and knowing what abscure --code/parm.config to type into
Mycroft
Unfortunately there are alot of spyware programs like you mention, and often the false positives are NOT mistakes, but rather deliberate attempts to goad you into buying thier 'pro' version.
In some cases the 'anti-spyware' uninstalls some spyware, but only to prevent competition with the spyware IT comes with.
AOL's current anti-spyware offering falls into the last category IIRC.
Your best bet for free scanners is likely ad-aware (lavasoft) and Spybot Search and Destroy.
One site I've found that talks about the bad anti-spyware products is http://www.spywarewarrior.com/. Give them a look and see if your using one of the bad products.
Mycroft
Another possible solution is to compromise, put what you can in the contacts and the rest in regular glasses.
This may seem silly as it defeats the 'no glasses' principle of contacts. But the correction done by glasses takes place farther away from the eyes and has side effects that reduce vision acuity in ways contacts don't and the combo seriously mitigates these effects. Also it's likely that the glasses would not be needed most of the time and would be much thinner when needed wich is a plus.
Mycroft
In this case a company computer was known to have been compromised. Though I doubt it's the case here in some situations security means a complete re-format and re-install to make shure company secretes (or customer data, nuke launch codes, whatever) are properly secured.
Also if he's IT taking such drastic action might be a ploy to emphasize to the boss how BAD running IE can be in the corporate situation ("see, you just lost data and had to pay me for hours of work because a known security risk was allowed to continue).
It also just might have been quicker than spending some time on the web to track down the uninstall procedure/program for the particular threat involved. Depends on how up to date the image being used was and such.
Mycroft