"allows you to choose the content by pushing a button. It's my personal opinion that you have control of the TV, therefore you are responsible for what is on it"
This cannot possibly work without the content being regulated. Why? Because if a naked man suddenly appears on screen, you have to see it before you can change the channel or turn away. Damage done. You cannot be responsible for that.
"Perhaps channels should be in control of their own "moral code."
I mostly agree with this. The problem you can't expect tpeople to become an expert on every channel. I have a simple suggestion that'll make your idea work, though. Digital tv is finally making this possible. Fire up your decoder box, and go through a check list of what's allowed and what isn't. If the video is encoded properly, you can watch any channel and have personally configured decency programmed into your tv. Neat, huh? When we get to that point, then I feel it's a good time for the gov't to pull out.
"When the government tells people what they can/cannot say or do, that is censorship."
They're not telling people what they can say or do. They're not telling Janet not to bare her breasts. They're telling her "Don't do it on broadcast television." (Note: It'd be fine on cable tv.) Why is it bad for the government to disallow that, but it is okay for the government to arrest a man for going to Disneyland without wearing any pants? Sorry, but I don't buy this. If the government were preventing people from downloading the unblurred video on the net, then you'd have a legitimate case for calling it censorship. The best you can call it is restriction.
"Last I checked, the constitution is pretty clear that the government "shall make no law" restricting the freedom of speech."
Yes, this is a nice big catch-all we can all use when we decide we don't like what the gov't is doing, isn't it. Except you can't make free-speech everywhere. Beacuse the gov't is bad? No. Like you'd complain if the police arrested protestors knocking on your door. Are they being censored? Stifled? No. They have a means to express themselves, just as Janet does if she really really wants to tell the world a message with her.. uh.. breasts. (Damn that sounds so ridiculous.)
My whole point in this thread has NOTHING to do with whether the FCC is right or wrong. The point is that censorship is not the way to fight this. It is a thoughtless argument that is far too easy to dismiss.
We're not on opposite sides here. I'm trying to help.
"Well of course its limiting free speech, but somebody's got to do it or else we'll have naked boobies at halftime during the superbowl"
I did not say that. I said that it isn't censorship. I was picking on the use of the word.
"I think you're a typical person who think the government should be responsible for your comfort level. To which I can only say "grow up"."
Sorry, but you are wrong. My previous post covers that. Perhaps if you had read it in its entirety?
"why will it harm them to look at somebody else's boobies?"
Not that I am supporting the FCC's decision in this debate, but honestly, when did everybody sudden turn so stupid? A very large portion of Slashdot's viewership are hetero sexual men. When exactly did everybody forget about what makes boobies/melons/hoo-has/honkers/hooters/headlights/ ta-tas/teeters/tweeters/tom-toms/tee-tees so special?
"The FCC was not created to decide when and how "free speech" can be exercised."
I fail to see how what happened is a case of free-speech. Asking for decency during one particular type of broadcast is not the same as supressing free speech or censorship.
I think we do more or less have the same frame of mind (I don't like the gov't dictating what is good or bad, i.e. Vice City), but man, please, don't turn this into free-speech. You'll lose.
"How many colours are you really able to distinguish?"
The palette itself isn't the issue. It's the generic dithering that happens to the source imagery that knocks it down to whatever color depth you can support. Usually this creates highly organized and hard to ingore artifacts. Wanna visual example? Fire up Quake3. Start it in 32-bit mode. 16 million colors + an extra 8 bits of info that I have no idea what they do with. (Insight into this would be appreciated. Depth buffer maybe?) When you fire a rocket, you get nice smooth transparent puffs of smoke. Next, take it into 16-bit mode and do it again. Here you have a pallete of 65k pixels. More than enough to make a pretty smooth picture. However, when you fire the rockets, the transparency suddenly has this hard-to-ignore dithering pattern. If you were to take the same imagery in Photoshop and knock it down to 16-bit, it's doubtful you'd see a difference at all. (Maybe on a pixel-by-pixel comparison...)
I hope that sort of makes sense. If you asked me to theorize as to why the dither pattern is so obvious in real time, I'd say it's probably because Photoshop goes through a LOT of cycles per pixel to make that pretty image. 1/30th/60th of a second probably isn't enough time to do it right. So, in this case, you can potentially have diminished visual quality over an analog set.
"But no, make a 2000$ 40" TV [or whatever it costs] so only a handful of people will buy it [cuz afterall same money on CRT gets you way bigger]."
You can buy a 40" CRT? HTF do you even get that through your front door?
As for the price tag, so it's $2000, bfd. That's a lot cheaper than new displays like this typically are. It's a very common move in the industry to release something at a high price, because the early adopters pay for it. This helps offset their R&D price, even helps figure out what the market is willing to pay for something like this. It is a typical Slashdottian overreaction to assume that the initial price point will forever be the MSRP for these devices. It's amazing that nobody that is recovering from sticker shock ever stops and things "Hey, techno toys get cheaper over time!"
" They've still got development to do. 260,000 colours aren't enough!"
If they develop good dithering hardware, it shouldn't be that noticable. However, I've seen plasma displays that weren't any good at it, so NFI if this will change. Note to the companies that do this sort of work: Solid colors are just that, solid colors, not some pretty sweater looking pattern.
"I'd rather have as small a device as possible on my wrist and have it tell time, if I want higher functions - connect the breakout box."
A little OT, but I always thought it would be cool if I could look at my watch and see the caller ID of who's calling my cell phone. I'm pretty picky about when I actually answer my phone, so if this watch had a "send to voicemail" button, it'd save me from digging into my pocket every time I feel that vibration alert go off. [CUE SELF GRATIFICATION JOKES]
I'm looking forward to battery advances that allow something like a watch to have radio connectivity for a decent amount of time. Can't say I'm all that hindered at the idea of recharging my watch every couple of days, though. Why not? I do that with my cell phone.
"If you can live with the unnecessary, illegal business practices; and convenience means more than a realistic moral base of what's right and wrong-support an empty premise of criminals. I.E. Microsoft. I am saddened by such apathy."
I do not have the evidence, so I am not the one to judge. Nor are you. We elected our gov't for that purpose.
Sorry, no poetry here
on
Spam as Poetry
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Well, I'm sorry, I haven't seen any poetic spam. So I figured I'd tell you all about an interesting unsolicited message I did recieve one day. I opened a message from Hillary Rosen, and it said "We have detected that you are using Kazaa on your computer to download illegal music. Your IP address and ISP account info have been forwarded to the FBI. You can expect a knock on your door within the next two weeks.... We'll settle for $1,000 if you click on this link.."
Yeah, not poetry, sorry. (I won't whine if modded off-topic.) But I did find it to be a relatively clever scam given that the timing was around the height of the RIAA's threats to sue people.
"If joe bob can pickup a car manual and take apart an engine than he surely can follow a step by step FAQ on installing a sound card driver or even compiling his own kernel with all the GUI kernel compiler hacks out there."
Interest level plays a much bigger role in that capability of Joe Bob than you're letting on. Joe Bob loves cars, no biggie. I can use myself as an example. I've worked in Linux before. I more or less understand the fundamentals necessary to pick it up and run with it. The problem is, I'm just not interested in mucking around with conf files etc. Call me spoiled. Installation of a sound card in Windows is put in card, boot up machine, pop CD in, hit OK a couple of times. Sometimes, you need to reboot, and blammo you're done. Dual monitor? no problem. Display properties, Nvidia panel, two or three mouse clicks and I'm up. With good experiences like this, is it really such a shock that I'm not all that interested in a.) hunting down the info/FAQ off the web I need b.) finding the right files, c.) dealing with the troubleshooting issues that arise? I'm not interested. I just want the damn thing to work.
I am envious of the Linux users out there. You guys have some good stuff working in your favor. If I had a stronger interest in programming or something, it'd probably be a fun 'challenge'. But if Windows is doing it for me, and I'm low on both time and interest level in Linux, is it really all that unreasonable that I just keep using it?
..they'll have people that are 'experts' in given fields. Somebody who knows the difference between a PDA and a general computing device with limited resources. Heh.
"Then this isn't an all-artificial movie. The first all-artificial movie will be made by an AI that has no access to any outside materials. Everything until then is just a matter of degree of human involvement."
Oh for crying out loud. At what point did we as geeks decide that nothing's ever good enough? Are our tastes really that sophisticated? If so, then how come we all saw Episode 1 or Matrix Reloaded on opening day?
Slashdot Mirror
"Only if you buy that crap that seeing the human body is somehow "harmful". It's not."
If that's true, then why are there indecency laws that nobody is complaining about?
"allows you to choose the content by pushing a button. It's my personal opinion that you have control of the TV, therefore you are responsible for what is on it"
This cannot possibly work without the content being regulated. Why? Because if a naked man suddenly appears on screen, you have to see it before you can change the channel or turn away. Damage done. You cannot be responsible for that.
"Perhaps channels should be in control of their own "moral code."
I mostly agree with this. The problem you can't expect tpeople to become an expert on every channel. I have a simple suggestion that'll make your idea work, though. Digital tv is finally making this possible. Fire up your decoder box, and go through a check list of what's allowed and what isn't. If the video is encoded properly, you can watch any channel and have personally configured decency programmed into your tv. Neat, huh? When we get to that point, then I feel it's a good time for the gov't to pull out.
"When the government tells people what they can/cannot say or do, that is censorship."
.. breasts. (Damn that sounds so ridiculous.)
They're not telling people what they can say or do. They're not telling Janet not to bare her breasts. They're telling her "Don't do it on broadcast television." (Note: It'd be fine on cable tv.) Why is it bad for the government to disallow that, but it is okay for the government to arrest a man for going to Disneyland without wearing any pants? Sorry, but I don't buy this. If the government were preventing people from downloading the unblurred video on the net, then you'd have a legitimate case for calling it censorship. The best you can call it is restriction.
"Last I checked, the constitution is pretty clear that the government "shall make no law" restricting the freedom of speech."
Yes, this is a nice big catch-all we can all use when we decide we don't like what the gov't is doing, isn't it. Except you can't make free-speech everywhere. Beacuse the gov't is bad? No. Like you'd complain if the police arrested protestors knocking on your door. Are they being censored? Stifled? No. They have a means to express themselves, just as Janet does if she really really wants to tell the world a message with her.. uh
My whole point in this thread has NOTHING to do with whether the FCC is right or wrong. The point is that censorship is not the way to fight this. It is a thoughtless argument that is far too easy to dismiss.
We're not on opposite sides here. I'm trying to help.
"Well of course its limiting free speech, but somebody's got to do it or else we'll have naked boobies at halftime during the superbowl"
/ ta-tas/teeters/tweeters/tom-toms/tee-tees so special?
I did not say that. I said that it isn't censorship. I was picking on the use of the word.
"I think you're a typical person who think the government should be responsible for your comfort level. To which I can only say "grow up"."
Sorry, but you are wrong. My previous post covers that. Perhaps if you had read it in its entirety?
"why will it harm them to look at somebody else's boobies?"
Not that I am supporting the FCC's decision in this debate, but honestly, when did everybody sudden turn so stupid? A very large portion of Slashdot's viewership are hetero sexual men. When exactly did everybody forget about what makes boobies/melons/hoo-has/honkers/hooters/headlights
"But mandating and enforcing decency through unfair fines *IS* the same thing as censorship."
So is it censorship when McDonald's says "please wear pants"?
"The FCC was not created to decide when and how "free speech" can be exercised."
I fail to see how what happened is a case of free-speech. Asking for decency during one particular type of broadcast is not the same as supressing free speech or censorship.
I think we do more or less have the same frame of mind (I don't like the gov't dictating what is good or bad, i.e. Vice City), but man, please, don't turn this into free-speech. You'll lose.
" Why was parent post modded as troll?"
(Score:-1, Offtopic)
*Sigh* You know, it is never off-topic to ask why somebody thought a comment was inflammatory.
Why was parent post modded as troll?
" Don't buy Sony"
I don't like Sony either... but I shouldn't buy Sony because one dude had a problem with them?
...how did you take a career in software development and become a parent?
... I have some seriously high expectations of Q4.
" Imagine a /. mod who does not know the definition of "redundant"."
/. mod who does not know the definition of "redundant".
Imagine a
"I would rather have a nice watch that tells time and lives for more than 1 hour of use. "
Yeah, there's lots of products out there that just don't appeal to everybody. Sucks, donnit?
" This invention will revolutionize the use of pornography. Think about it."
... won't stop motion blurring.. [pant pant]
My... [pant pant]... porn
"How many colours are you really able to distinguish?"
The palette itself isn't the issue. It's the generic dithering that happens to the source imagery that knocks it down to whatever color depth you can support. Usually this creates highly organized and hard to ingore artifacts. Wanna visual example? Fire up Quake3. Start it in 32-bit mode. 16 million colors + an extra 8 bits of info that I have no idea what they do with. (Insight into this would be appreciated. Depth buffer maybe?) When you fire a rocket, you get nice smooth transparent puffs of smoke. Next, take it into 16-bit mode and do it again. Here you have a pallete of 65k pixels. More than enough to make a pretty smooth picture. However, when you fire the rockets, the transparency suddenly has this hard-to-ignore dithering pattern. If you were to take the same imagery in Photoshop and knock it down to 16-bit, it's doubtful you'd see a difference at all. (Maybe on a pixel-by-pixel comparison...)
I hope that sort of makes sense. If you asked me to theorize as to why the dither pattern is so obvious in real time, I'd say it's probably because Photoshop goes through a LOT of cycles per pixel to make that pretty image. 1/30th/60th of a second probably isn't enough time to do it right. So, in this case, you can potentially have diminished visual quality over an analog set.
"But no, make a 2000$ 40" TV [or whatever it costs] so only a handful of people will buy it [cuz afterall same money on CRT gets you way bigger]."
You can buy a 40" CRT? HTF do you even get that through your front door?
As for the price tag, so it's $2000, bfd. That's a lot cheaper than new displays like this typically are. It's a very common move in the industry to release something at a high price, because the early adopters pay for it. This helps offset their R&D price, even helps figure out what the market is willing to pay for something like this. It is a typical Slashdottian overreaction to assume that the initial price point will forever be the MSRP for these devices. It's amazing that nobody that is recovering from sticker shock ever stops and things "Hey, techno toys get cheaper over time!"
In short, lighten up.
" They've still got development to do. 260,000 colours aren't enough!"
If they develop good dithering hardware, it shouldn't be that noticable. However, I've seen plasma displays that weren't any good at it, so NFI if this will change. Note to the companies that do this sort of work: Solid colors are just that, solid colors, not some pretty sweater looking pattern.
"I'd rather have as small a device as possible on my wrist and have it tell time, if I want higher functions - connect the breakout box."
A little OT, but I always thought it would be cool if I could look at my watch and see the caller ID of who's calling my cell phone. I'm pretty picky about when I actually answer my phone, so if this watch had a "send to voicemail" button, it'd save me from digging into my pocket every time I feel that vibration alert go off. [CUE SELF GRATIFICATION JOKES]
I'm looking forward to battery advances that allow something like a watch to have radio connectivity for a decent amount of time. Can't say I'm all that hindered at the idea of recharging my watch every couple of days, though. Why not? I do that with my cell phone.
"Yes, and they investigated and found them guilty. So where's the problem?"
They backed off on the punishment.
"If you can live with the unnecessary, illegal business practices; and convenience means more than a realistic moral base of what's right and wrong-support an empty premise of criminals. I.E. Microsoft. I am saddened by such apathy."
I do not have the evidence, so I am not the one to judge. Nor are you. We elected our gov't for that purpose.
Well, I'm sorry, I haven't seen any poetic spam. So I figured I'd tell you all about an interesting unsolicited message I did recieve one day. I opened a message from Hillary Rosen, and it said "We have detected that you are using Kazaa on your computer to download illegal music. Your IP address and ISP account info have been forwarded to the FBI. You can expect a knock on your door within the next two weeks. ... We'll settle for $1,000 if you click on this link.."
Yeah, not poetry, sorry. (I won't whine if modded off-topic.) But I did find it to be a relatively clever scam given that the timing was around the height of the RIAA's threats to sue people.
"I guess I'll try to WINE this one."
You're gonna try to not an emulator it?
"If joe bob can pickup a car manual and take apart an engine than he surely can follow a step by step FAQ on installing a sound card driver or even compiling his own kernel with all the GUI kernel compiler hacks out there."
Interest level plays a much bigger role in that capability of Joe Bob than you're letting on. Joe Bob loves cars, no biggie. I can use myself as an example. I've worked in Linux before. I more or less understand the fundamentals necessary to pick it up and run with it. The problem is, I'm just not interested in mucking around with conf files etc. Call me spoiled. Installation of a sound card in Windows is put in card, boot up machine, pop CD in, hit OK a couple of times. Sometimes, you need to reboot, and blammo you're done. Dual monitor? no problem. Display properties, Nvidia panel, two or three mouse clicks and I'm up. With good experiences like this, is it really such a shock that I'm not all that interested in a.) hunting down the info/FAQ off the web I need b.) finding the right files, c.) dealing with the troubleshooting issues that arise? I'm not interested. I just want the damn thing to work.
I am envious of the Linux users out there. You guys have some good stuff working in your favor. If I had a stronger interest in programming or something, it'd probably be a fun 'challenge'. But if Windows is doing it for me, and I'm low on both time and interest level in Linux, is it really all that unreasonable that I just keep using it?
..they'll have people that are 'experts' in given fields. Somebody who knows the difference between a PDA and a general computing device with limited resources. Heh.
"Then this isn't an all-artificial movie. The first all-artificial movie will be made by an AI that has no access to any outside materials. Everything until then is just a matter of degree of human involvement."
Oh for crying out loud. At what point did we as geeks decide that nothing's ever good enough? Are our tastes really that sophisticated? If so, then how come we all saw Episode 1 or Matrix Reloaded on opening day?