Multiroom audio without having to install wiring. I've got multiroom at home, between the lounge and the kitchen. Great for parties and such like, but it meant having to install wires between the rooms, hiding these was a long task that involved removing sideboards and putting wiring under the floor where possible. It was worth it, it's great to go between rooms and heart the same song playing.
Wireless solves this. My only question is on syncronisation. With multiroom audio, you need perfect timing, otherwise you'll hear an echo from the other room. With wires this isn't a problem, but as this uses packet data transfer, I'd dare say there was some buffering going on.
Actually I don't take a single side on the Isreal/Palestine issue. I recognize that both sides have perpetrated some pretty despicable things.
My opinion, is that the solution lies in removing Sharon (a war criminal) from power, as well as other extremists on both sides of the line.
Wow! When we first started this discussion, I didn't expect us to agree on much. I couldn't have said it better myself. My only addition is that we should create arms embargos on both sides. Continuing to arm either implies that we are taking sides.
and it really pisses me off when people act like the US deserved 9/11 due to its foreign policy. Maybe you didn't mean to imply this, but speaking as though these terroists are rational people trying to defend their homeland is not proper.
Sure. No one deserves to die, for any reason. I was coming from the standpoint that many people asked "why did they attack us, we have haven't done anything to them!!". This ignorance of our actions frankly pissed me off and has shaken my belief that we live in a free democractic and truthful society. I have lost all respect for a number of news publications for their reporting on the above as well.
It does put us in difficult position though. If the press were to do expose's on why we are hated, the terrorists have essentially won and fufilled their aim. This sets a bad trend, as successful terrorism leads to more successful terrorism. It's pretty much why we are tough in e.g. hostage situations. If you make it easy or successful for them, you'll only encourage others.
The US does do some good things too, try not to forget about that.
Of course, but what makes it hard to differentiate between the good and the bad is that the bad things are generally advertised as "good things", such as the lending of vast sums of money to poor countries. This confusion blurs the difference between the good and the bad and it's all to easy to become cynical about them all.
Finally, on the issue of Iraq: Saddam has to go.
I do agree on some levels with that. It would be hard to argue why he should stay in power, apart from the part that we have no right to make that choice. What my biggest beef with the whole afair is the ways that we are being "persuaded" to go along with it all. Linking Saddam to Al-Qaeda is nonsense, anyone who knows anything about the politics of the middle east knows that it's about as ludicrous as linking Tony Blair to Bin Laden.
If they were honest about it all, I'd probably be on their side and agree to dispose of Saddam. However, the lies and the cheap "dossiers" (which I have read) created to get us on side are bullshit. I especially liked Saddam's response thanking the British Government for giving them the equipment to make many WMD. That's exactly my sense of humor, and had I been in the same positon, I'd have done the same. Actually, thinking about it now, if I were an Iraq decission maker, I'd take this a step further and publicly trash the hipocracy here. They probably are doing this, we just don't know it because the only exposure we get to Saddam are a couple of short clips of him, always holding a gun. Bush is a gun lover I believe, but you never see pictures of him with a gun on the television.
I remember a classic Bill Hicks sketch, where he compared the first gulf war to the scene in a western, where a guy throws a gun at the feet of the other guy. "Pick up the gun", he says. "No, you'll shoot me" replies the goatherder. After some persuasion, the gun is picked up and the first guy shoots the other claiming "he had a gun".
And that pretty much sums up the whole afair. You could power most of the Northern Hemisphere with the rotational energy of Mr Hicks, spinning around in his grave!
There are other reasons as well for my doubts, such as the blind eye we are turning to many other similar dictators, purely on the fact that they do business with us. Have no illusions, the primary goal of a war in Iraq is to improve western business prospects. It's not to free the people and it's not because Saddam could arm terrorists.
. Do you remember when Kofi Anan worked out that deal with him to allow inspectors back in? He never kept up his part of the bargain and he never planned to.
Not quite true, another thing that our leaders have mislead us on. The inspectors were operating for a while, but a few of them were clearly inteligence operatives, who were more interested in finding out where Saddam spent most of his time, clearly for an assassination attempt. That's why they were thrown out of Iraq.
You can't trust someone like that with nuclear weapons.
Yes and no. You can trust a country with them, because the response to them using one is clear...complete destuction and nuclear wasteland of your homeland. The only real danger is with terrorists, and again it's pretty unlikely that Saddam would aid Islamic terrorists, especially as he has spent most of the past 20 years persecuting the Islamic Kurds.
We should be more concerned about the former USSR and some other rogue states that are far more likely to aid or supply terrorists. There's a lot of weapons grade plutonium in the world, and a lot of it is unaccounted for. You don't need to be a nuclear scientest to put a nuke together, just as you don't need to be a gourme chef to follow a recipie
I think that in some cases, the US is justified in overthrowing foreign governments. What isn't justifyable is who they let gain power when they leave.
It's not so much "who they let gain power" as "who they give power to". Most of these coups are planned with a new leader/party in mind. These are the people that are aided in the coup. People like Saddam and Bin Laden. They are a "freedom fighter" when their aims match ours, but they seem to have no qualms about biting the hand that fed them.
The "justification" isn't the only argument. There are also moral issues in each situation, as well as juristrictional ones. For example, say a neighbouring state to the USA was to clearly state that they intend to attack you. That's a valid reason. However, when it's a state quite literally on the other side of the world, you have to question the motives. When that motive involves oil, power or money, you have to tread very carefully.
here's why they hate us: We represent everything they are not. Although we aren't perfect, we strive to grant EVERYONE, including immigrants, equal rights. We don't exclude half the population from full participation in society because of gender.
I'm sorry for you. I would have thought inteligent people (like most on slashdot) would not be believing that.
I don't know where to start picking it apart. OK, firstly, the USA isn't some uber-free super state. If you take a look around the world at the other western nations, you'll see we are all pretty much alike. We don't persecute based on race/religion/gender. Everyone has equal rights. We are prosperous, living comfortable lifes with complete freedom to travel and speak our minds. Again I ask the question; why single out the United States?
People do not plan operations like 9/11 because the are jealous of you! To do something as horrific as that, there has to be real hatred. I used to be like you, I thought they did the whole "freedom and democracy" thing as well. Then, post 9/11 I did ask myself "why?" and I started learning about the history of the Middle East. And you know what, it scared me on two levels. Firstly, I was offended that the west could do such things whilst proclaiming that "we are the good guys". Secondly, that this kind of behaviour is completely unknown by the populations of our countries.
I don't ask a murdering piece of shit why he is what he is.
Fine then, but don't expect me to talk to your leaders, who are also murdering pieces of shit. Remember, your country started this whole mess, by killing their leaders and arming terrorists (sorry, "freedom fighters") to attack them. The death toll caused by the USA in the middle east puts 9/11 in the shade. (Note, I don't believe that it makes it "all right" or justified)
We don't completely ignore science and engineering and concentrate our entire education system on religious studies.
Then why is teaching evolution in schools not allowed? Why do your leaders mention God so often? By the way, the USA is not unique in separating church, state and schooling, but when your ruled by fundamentalist Christians, they're bound to break the rules.
Our very existence, our very success is a constant reminder to them that they are failures.
Ah, so you fell for the "inferiour races" part? You know, what's going on in the USA is very reminicent of the rise of the Nazi's in Germany. They proclaimed that the Jewish people were inferior and jealous of their wealth. They said that the Jewish were a threat to them, and had to be removed for the German peoples safety.
Of course, when the trains came to take them to the death camps, the local population did not know what was going on. As far as they were aware, they were doing "what was good for their country". They presumed that the trains were settling the Jews in another country.
And, that is pretty much what is going on in the USA. The US government has, for the past 20/30 years been messing over the middle eastern states for your own gain. You had no interest in the fates of their peoples when you helped dictators into power. You did not care that the people there were being killed by the thousands. You did not care that they lost the right to free speech and expression.
And when these desparate peoples strike back (much like a cornered animal), then the government of your country lies to you about why they hate you, and continues to persecute them, and aids regimes that do the same. What are the long term goals of this approach? All I can see is that you'll be creating twice as many potential terrorists in the next generation. How would you feel if a foreign power murdered your parents? Would you not try to extract revenge somehow? I think so, going by the "nuke 'em" attitudes after 9/11.
Now that the islamofascists have taken control, they are an intellectual wasteland.
And tonight special star prize question: Which superpower put these psychopathic governments in power? (hint: It's a three-letter acronym)
Unfortunately, I could not moderate you down for being a complete fucking idiot.
I am sorry, but it is clearly you that is the idiot. If you and people like you cannot rise above lies and see what your country is doing to the world, you have no hope. The USA will continue illegally meddling in the political systems of foreign countries, pissing off even more people until terrorists do use a weapon of mass destruction. What is completly tragic is that when that happens, it will work in favour for people like Bush, who will say "I told you so". What's more tragic is that you will believe him.
Finally:
I have a Constitution and a gun, and I'm not afraid to use them
Why would you want to use a gun? Do you like killing? Do you have revenge fanasies? I bet you do, you'd love to put a few rounds of lead in the next arab you see, wouldn't you? People like you don't deserve freedom, all you use it for is to negatively impact other peoples freedom.
After the bombing on Bali I think you have to agree Australia's been targeted as well.
By who? There are a lot of terrorist groups in the world, each with different motives and enemies. On each and every terrorist incident in the past year the media has always asked "are there any links to Al-Qaeda?". I've yet to see any link in this case, other than the fact that they share the same religion. If that's the case and a "valid link", we could make up all kinds of silly stuff, like George W Bush being linked to Charles Manson!
I remember an accident, a train crash if memory serves, where the second question the reporter asked was "is their any suggestion of terrorist involvement?". The media are looking everywhere for their next story (fear and danger sells and gets the ratings), and these "suggestions" plant ideas and preconceptions in everyone's minds without actually saying anything. Ask anyone in the street and they'd probably believe that there was only one organisation responsible for all the recent terrorist incidents.
About the war in Afghanistan, do you not believe the Taliban and Bin Laden were involved at all in the 9/11 attack?
They may have been, it's pretty likely. But Bush is sounding like a child when he says "because! but I can't tell you why". The facts are that this war was being planned prior to 9/11 and it benefited the oil & weapons industries and more importantly, Halliburton. 9/11 was used to get the public behind the war, but the primary aim was not propaganda, but I'm sure that was a side effect. It also solved the desire for blood and revenge. Have a look at the employment history of the people that the US put in power in Afghanistan. Invasions haven't changed much over the years, dispose of the existing government and install your own. It's just worrying when "your own" refers to big business.
Money rules the US and that's why they get involved; at least since the fall of communism before that is another story
Very insightful, I never picked up on the fact that this is merely a replacement for communism. sed s/communism/terrorism/g would probably make many 60s speeches sound up to date. Western society loves to be scared; it's a strange phenomenon. Remember, news shows are driven by ratings and look at what they are using to drag the consumer in. Make sure you stay tuned, because after the commercials there'll be more blood and guts!
US dishes out more cash to needy nations in charity than all other countries combined
They are loans and they cripple their economies for generations. Take a look at the Third World Dept problem, people are dying while I type because of it. Unfortunately, the people of these countries see little of the original loan, as (like in the west) the corrupt officials seem to have holes in their pockets. My country has done a lot of the same, and I am far from proud of it.
accepts more immigrants than all of Western Europe
I disagree with that. Imigration to the US is a lengthy and difficult process. In Europe, imigration is becoming a big issue, especially from the Eastern European countries. Anyone of certain (persecuted) ethnicities is guaranteed to get in. "Asylum Seekers" is a big news item here in the UK.
I've not seen any figures, but on the face of it, I think Europe gets more.
creates more jobs worldwide than any other economy I can think of
Which can be a good thing, but I've always been the opinion that a foreign company has one interest when working in another, the intention is to remove money from that countries economy.:-) OK, there is more to economics than that, e.g. they might aid the creation of an industry that wouldn't have existed. But ultimately this isn't been done "for the good of the people", it's to make money for themselves. A good thing, but I wouldn't be too proud of it from the "helping them out" point of view, more "total world domination":-)
It's an easy target being on top I guess.
Very much so, it's always easy to blame the US, it's like the "little peoples" fear of big business. Big is scary.
However, I question the "being on top" part!;-) In what respect? Seriously...
Many people claim that their country is the best in the world. National pride is all fine and dandy, but its usually self-delusional and backed up with other motives. It also makes it harder to be self-critical, which is an important aspect in a democratic country.
I understand that some US foreign policy is bad and need to be fixed, but that's not an excuse to go around killing a bunch of innocent people
I had to laugh at that one! Part of the problem is that much of these policys have resulted in the deaths of innocent people. Amesty International reckons that our meddling in Iraq has killed over a million people, of which 600,000 were children. You can't get more innocent than that! It's these policies that I am angry with. We are also prepared to "look the other way" if it is beneficial to us, so we ignore Saudi Arabias treatment of women, and make a big deal about the same thing in Afganistan. Even if you exclude Iraq (their leader isn't exactly innocent), the numbers of innocent US civilions killed is tiny compared to the number we've killed from other places.
(note: I myself are not from the USA, I am from the UK, but my country isn't all that different to yours, so I share most of the shame of what the west has done to the world)
We wage war and fund terrorists to achieve our own goals. I wouldn't say that it's "bad and needs to be fixed", it's downright disgraceful and we are about to do it in Iraq again! How many next-generation terrorists is that going to create? For what? Removing WMD? What a load of bullshit, we gave them the weapons and did likewise with many other countries. It doesn't take a genious to see the real goal there, and we are being manipulated into being behind this war. It's digusting!
you have to recognize that there are always going to be a few crazies out there.
Absolutly! There will always be the nutter out there that will grab a gun and go on the rampage, or set a few car bombs and kill a few hundred people. However "a few crazies" cannot plan, arrange and coordinate a tradedy like 9/11. And that's my point! Don't go around making enemies. They will stike back. It's like the school yard bully, going around beating the smaller kids into submission. Sooner or later one will hit back, and that strike could cause lasting damage. Or worse, the smaller kids organise and get together. Global terrorist network? Sound familiar?
Even if the US was to suddenly adopt perfect foreign policies, that every country in the world agrees with, and magically right our past wrongs, there would still be people out there who want to kill others.
Sure, but they won't have the funding and resources available to them just now and as such, they will be less effective and historically, most crazy people kill their own kind, not go over to other countries to do it. US citizens would have nothing to fear in a world like that.
We shouldn't decide our foreign policy based on what is going to result in the least terrorism.
Agreed. It should be done based on what is morally correct, not what gives us either more money or more oil.
We should decide our foreign policy is such a way that we don't turn normal people into terrorists.
Again, agreed. Not overthrowing govenments and arming anyone with a checkbook would be a good start.
The first is bad (you let anyone willing to kill enough civilians have control over US foreign policy).
Absolutely, giving in to terrorists goals is the worst thing you can possibly do, as you'll just set yourself up for more of the same. I have always said that terrorism is counter-productive. Look at most of the small-guy standing up to the big-guy incidents over the years that actually produced any benefit. Martin Luther King. Gandi. Tianamin Square. They all acheived their goals/made their point through non-violent means. If you attack your opponents, they will attack back and nine times out of ten, you will be squashed.
Finally, a country's bad foreign policy does not justify that mass murder of civilians within that country, both in Palestine and in the US, asshole.
Hmm, I thought we were having an adult discussion, so I'll let the personal insult slide. I'm fully in agreement with you, on most of your points though. Murder or mass murder has no excuse. Ever.
What do you mean by mentioning Palestine? Are you refering to the plight of the Palestinion people, or the terrorist activity from them against the Israelis? In essence, it's the same problem as the west are having, one country goes as seriously messes up another, then the smaller battered country strikes back the only way they can. I'm interested in which side you take on this matter though...
Re:Isn't deleting logs an obstruction of justice?
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Cryptome Log Subpoenaed
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Getting off topic here; my original post was to point out the fact that we are attacking the symptoms of a larger problem. Oh well, in for a penny...
9/11 was a direct result of religious whackos hi-jacking planes on suicide missions. Blaming the US is like blaming rape victims for wearing short skirts
Excuse me? Haven't you asked yourself by these terrorists hate America pretty much exclusively? Not Canada, Austrailia, pretty much all of Europe, who all have similar ideals and economic and political to the USA. Why is that? It certainally doesn't tie in with the "freedom and democracy hating" nonsence we are being fed.
All the US wants is for other countries to be free so they'd buy more goods and services
Bin Laden has gone on record stating that his aim is to remove the US troops from Saudi Arabia. The troops there are backing up a dictatorship government, hated by most of the people. Where does this fit in with your "US wants other countries to be free"? Why have they done the opposite in more places than they have created freedom? I understand that you may actually believe that, given that you probably haven't read much history. You really should try to get out of that self-delusional world though. We aren't the good guys are represented in the movies. Sure, if you spend your whole life watching them, growing up with images of our troops liberating people and Bruce Willis saving the world, but the historical facts do not match that image. Remember, the Nazi's used films of the same type with the same purpose.
As for the terrorists, they have no other recourse, if they complain about their country they disappear, get tortured then are never seen again. They want the freedom we take for granted. Unfortunatly, they have gone down the route of terrorism to attempt to achieve that goal.
The Saudi dictatorship was put in place by a military coup supported by the USA. The democratic government was ousted to make way for one that was more willing to work with the US. Note that the Saudi women are treated exactly the same as the Taliban treated them, yet you don't see a call for a war in Saudi Arabia. However, Afganistan is now being controlled by people who used to work with George Bush in a private company, but yeah!, we went there to free the women, right!?! The recent Afgan war was to remove the Taliban because they weren't giving the US concessions on anything, such as the construction of a pipeline to a neighbouring country with vast oil reserves. The Taliban were friendly with the US for a very long time, the top officials were over in Texas and Washington on many occassions. It is only when the contract to build this pipeline went to Argentina instead, that the Taliban suddenly became "evil" in the public eye. The war in Afganistan had been hinted at prior to 9/11, and using that tragedy as propaganda to have this war is downright disgraceful and an insult to the thousands of innocents who lost their lives that day.
Other examples of immoral acts...how about creating Saddam Hussain? Again, a perfectly valid government was dispossed with US assistance to put him in power. The idea was that he would fight Iran, who were not very friendly to the US. He was supplied with weapons, vast amounts of credit and the equipment to make weapons of mass destruction. Again, the idea was that he would attack Iran. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, they asked the US Ambasidor what their opinion was on the matter, to which they were told that "the US has no opinion on that".
I suggest you learn some world history before engaging in these discussions. History is not what happens in movies, nor is the education received in school of much use. You ain't gonna get this stuff from your leaders either, and more worryingly, the media seem to be "ignoring" it.
This is what pisses me off most about the west, but more so the USA. We claim to be bastions of "freedom", "truth", "democracy", but we live in a place where the goverment can look at your web/e-mail usage (remember Nixon? How could you forget that lesson so soon?), politicions openly lie about the causes of these terrorists (so much for "truth") and where the leadership of a country is controlled by how good their advertising campaign was, funded by private individuals who's interests become a part of national policy.
I put it to you that west as we see it is merely an illusion. We are just as regressive as many of these "evil" countries, and the population is led around using hate and fear. Go watch Bowling for Columbine, although it does focus on the issue of firearms, it makes good points on the use of "fear" in the US (the UK is pretty much the same) as well as some US indiscressions that our leaders would rather you didn't know about.
I'm glad that there are people out there with the same thoughts as me, e.g. Michael Moore, the creator of the above film. The one great thing about our society is that myself and others have the freedom to discuss these issues, without fear of reprisal. Well, guess what...with all this new net monitoring trends, that freedom will soon be gone. Right now, this post will probably be getting modded as "interesting" by these spy systems. And I'll bet that in a few years, people will be afraid to speak their minds on these sort of subjects as it will become a permanent entry on their file, which will give them all sorts of problems getting visa as they may have "terrorist tendancies". Sounds a lot like the Soviet Russia system we were brought up to hate.
So, if you want to shoot me down and stick your head in the sand on this stuff, fine. Don't expect me to be happy about your apathy, and don't come asking for help when pretty much all the freedoms you used to enjoy are gone or you have lost a family member with all the violence going on.
look at the man page for GNU's tail and you'll find the "--follow=name" flag.
Unfortunatly, the problem I was working with was on Solaris, where the tail binary is pretty brain-dead. I never thought about checking out the GNU version, but in my case we were trying to make our logs easier to use for folks who would tail it manually, so they'd need to be convinced as well...:-)
LOL, you hit the nail on the head! That's why I know a little about this stuff, from having to work with a brain-dead log tailer!
Re:Isn't deleting logs an obstruction of justice?
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Cryptome Log Subpoenaed
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· Score: 5, Insightful
9/11 was the direct result of a failure by the FBI use properly use the information they already had.
Not it wasn't. 9/11 was a direct result of US foreign policy, most of which the US population is completely obvious to. They don't teach it in school, and there aren't any movies about it, so you can all be forgiven for this lack of knowledge. More so now that Bush has flat out lied to you and said the old classic "they hate freedom and democracy".
The USA (amoung other countries) has started, aided and funded coups and wars that resulted in democratically elected governments being replaced with ruthless dictators. Who do you think got Saddam into power? Then sold him masses of tanks and the equipment to build weapons of mass distruction (the idea being he'd be attacking the Iranians)? Who is aiding Israel in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinions from their own homes? Who put the vicious Saudi government in power, and is defending them right now with your tanks, troops and finances? This is what the terrorists don't like, and they have said this many times.
If you want to stop terrorists attacking you, first learn what is being done in your name around the world, then let your politicions know that you aren't happy with them killing children to secure better access to oil, for the benefit of their corporate "sponsors". It's a much cleaner solution that asking for log file retention.
Because if the application is still running, it won't like it. Also, if there are processes tailing the log file, they will remain open on the original log files file handle, and not the new one when it gets created. By "zero'ing" the log, you erase it's contents without doing anything that could cause harm to other processes.
Log rollover scripts do this, e.g. when "messages" becomes "messages.0". In that case, the original file was copied to "messages.0", then the original was zero'ed.
instead of trying to do something whose only purpose is to allow people to rip off games
You make a very good point, and post some good links. However, you are wrong on the above, there are valid reasons to do this. Check out sourceforge for some X-Box projects, such as media players. Currently, you need to install a mod chip to make use of these. This project would have allowed people to run code of their choosing on a piece of hardware that they legally bought. Quite frankly, I can do what I want with it. (if I owned one). I can open it up, urinate on it, use it as a footstool, run my own code on it, and so on.
However, there is a flip side to this; the most interesting project is the XBox media player. Ironically, most of the content that will be played on it is probably pirated!
the cable Tv companies do not YET collect the viewing demographics and sell them
Quite a bold quote, considering the size of the world!;-) I know that my cable system has the capability to do this, but I've not heard one way or the other on what they are doing with it. My only hope is that's it's got a degree of anonyminity in it, I'm agreed, it it inevitable.
I'm not a nielsen family so my choices dont mean squat to them..
I thought the Nielsen and similar systems were intended to work with demographics? They give the box to a representative sample of the population, then extrapolate that out into the viewing figures. That's how it goes in the UK anyway. I've seen it in action on television, there is a box placed in the room and the family (or single male 20-30 etc) has to keep it informed on who is in the room.
Not an exact science and it surely has a massive margin of error. But it beats having nothing...
The would have to release their own software which wouldn't let you fast forward during the adverts.
Again, I don't understand this argument. There is nothing forcing you to read the adverts in magazines, newspapers, billboards. TV has only been different because that is the way the technology worked. This is no longer the case and they need to get over that fact.
and don't get harrassed by it if I have a ripped vcd or mpeg of it.
Kind of ironic, isn't it. Saying that, I can't imagine anyone saying, "bugger, can't watch it then, better bin it" after seeing the warning on a pirate.
Personally, I bought a hardware DVD player with a chip to disable the "user prohibitions" features. No macrovision (use my VCR to convert the composite out to RF, fed around the house) and of course, multi-region. Bliss!! Moral of the story...research before you buy.:-)
Well to another hardward MPEG2 you shouldn't lose too much.
I disagree with that. You compress then decommpress with a loss of quality. Performing the same process again will not cause you to lose the same "pieces of quality", especially with a physically different encoder and the lossess/changes associated with the analog stage.
Try it with an mp3. Encode, convert to wav and repeat using a different encoder. It sounds baaaaaddd!;-)
Even with the Nielsen box, you can still go an put on the kettle and take a leak. It does give you a rough idea of your audience, which is better than nothing.
Mind you, modern (digial) cable systems can track watch you watch with their two communications. They will surely be observing channel-hopping during commercials, but for every 10 channel-hoppers, there are 1 or 2* people who did watch the commercial.
Nah, because it'd be even easier to just cut out between the first keyframe of the brrak and the last keyfram of the break and reshare.
Sure, but given a choice of the file with thousands of sources and ample bandwidth versuses the one with 3-4 from a couple of cable modems capped at 128k upstream, the "official" version will prevail. You can't control everything, and this seems to be the basic lack of understanding with these corporations.
It's in mpeg2 format (hardware encoder/decoder), and if you go via a capture card, you're going to lose quality and colour balance. Digital transfers all the way please, just get a network card for your TIVO.
I would tend to think that most people who watch recorded shows skip the commercials.
Even if the people watching the shows from a p2p download did watch the commercials, the network still wouldn't get paid for these viewings. They simply have no idea on how many viewers will see it, and have no way to prove it.
To me, all p2p has done is to change the business model. If the networks had any sense, they'd have every show available for download on a popular p2p app, with some major hosting at their end. Then they get to choose the commercials that exist in the de-facto standard download for that episode. And the advertisers will know that, and pay more for the privledge.
Or, you could just bribe politions to change the law in-keeping with current practices, and have no control over a system that is growing larger every day. You can get almost any popular show on p2p now, with no commercials in it, having been stripped out by the person who did the capture.
Yeah, just imagine if you actually had to pay a monthly subscription fee for a dial-up or cable modem/DSL Internet connection. Oh the horrors.
Now wait moment, that's a bullshit argument. Web pages can be provided to the end user for free, that has been clearly proven in the past few years. OK, we get adverts and so on, and annoying popups, but it's a price we are willing to pay to have the worlds largest library at our fingertips.
What we are seeing here are people wanting to charge for websites just because they can and they think they may get money out of it.
The web is one of mankinds greatest creations. Almost as fundamental as the invention of the printing press. Why destroy that just because you want to make a buck?
If a site wants to charge me for viewing it's information, the chances are that there will be plenty of other sites that contain the same or similar information for free. My only exceptions are product support for niche items that are not very common, which I already pay maintainence contracts for, and get far more than just access to certain web pages.
They'd have to have some damn good and unique content if they expect people to pay for it. The current models probably come from people who know little about the internet, other than the fact that you might be able to make money with it.
I hope it doesn't go the way of mobile ring tones though; at one point they were free and practically overnight every free site was shutdown and the only sites available started charging for it. Overcharging to be more precise...yup, it's greed.
Mind control through social engineering? You mean, like scaring people so they agree to do what and watch you want? Sounds familiar...like every news show on television.
Make sure you stay tuned after the commercials, there'll be some real genuine news after that, honest! We promise there will be blood and everything! And then more commercials.
Slashdot Mirror
Multiroom audio without having to install wiring. I've got multiroom at home, between the lounge and the kitchen. Great for parties and such like, but it meant having to install wires between the rooms, hiding these was a long task that involved removing sideboards and putting wiring under the floor where possible. It was worth it, it's great to go between rooms and heart the same song playing.
Wireless solves this. My only question is on syncronisation. With multiroom audio, you need perfect timing, otherwise you'll hear an echo from the other room. With wires this isn't a problem, but as this uses packet data transfer, I'd dare say there was some buffering going on.
Wow! When we first started this discussion, I didn't expect us to agree on much. I couldn't have said it better myself. My only addition is that we should create arms embargos on both sides. Continuing to arm either implies that we are taking sides.
and it really pisses me off when people act like the US deserved 9/11 due to its foreign policy. Maybe you didn't mean to imply this, but speaking as though these terroists are rational people trying to defend their homeland is not proper.
Sure. No one deserves to die, for any reason. I was coming from the standpoint that many people asked "why did they attack us, we have haven't done anything to them!!". This ignorance of our actions frankly pissed me off and has shaken my belief that we live in a free democractic and truthful society. I have lost all respect for a number of news publications for their reporting on the above as well.
It does put us in difficult position though. If the press were to do expose's on why we are hated, the terrorists have essentially won and fufilled their aim. This sets a bad trend, as successful terrorism leads to more successful terrorism. It's pretty much why we are tough in e.g. hostage situations. If you make it easy or successful for them, you'll only encourage others.
The US does do some good things too, try not to forget about that.
Of course, but what makes it hard to differentiate between the good and the bad is that the bad things are generally advertised as "good things", such as the lending of vast sums of money to poor countries. This confusion blurs the difference between the good and the bad and it's all to easy to become cynical about them all.
Finally, on the issue of Iraq: Saddam has to go.
I do agree on some levels with that. It would be hard to argue why he should stay in power, apart from the part that we have no right to make that choice. What my biggest beef with the whole afair is the ways that we are being "persuaded" to go along with it all. Linking Saddam to Al-Qaeda is nonsense, anyone who knows anything about the politics of the middle east knows that it's about as ludicrous as linking Tony Blair to Bin Laden.
If they were honest about it all, I'd probably be on their side and agree to dispose of Saddam. However, the lies and the cheap "dossiers" (which I have read) created to get us on side are bullshit. I especially liked Saddam's response thanking the British Government for giving them the equipment to make many WMD. That's exactly my sense of humor, and had I been in the same positon, I'd have done the same. Actually, thinking about it now, if I were an Iraq decission maker, I'd take this a step further and publicly trash the hipocracy here. They probably are doing this, we just don't know it because the only exposure we get to Saddam are a couple of short clips of him, always holding a gun. Bush is a gun lover I believe, but you never see pictures of him with a gun on the television.
I remember a classic Bill Hicks sketch, where he compared the first gulf war to the scene in a western, where a guy throws a gun at the feet of the other guy. "Pick up the gun", he says. "No, you'll shoot me" replies the goatherder. After some persuasion, the gun is picked up and the first guy shoots the other claiming "he had a gun".
And that pretty much sums up the whole afair. You could power most of the Northern Hemisphere with the rotational energy of Mr Hicks, spinning around in his grave!
There are other reasons as well for my doubts, such as the blind eye we are turning to many other similar dictators, purely on the fact that they do business with us. Have no illusions, the primary goal of a war in Iraq is to improve western business prospects. It's not to free the people and it's not because Saddam could arm terrorists.
. Do you remember when Kofi Anan worked out that deal with him to allow inspectors back in? He never kept up his part of the bargain and he never planned to.
Not quite true, another thing that our leaders have mislead us on. The inspectors were operating for a while, but a few of them were clearly inteligence operatives, who were more interested in finding out where Saddam spent most of his time, clearly for an assassination attempt. That's why they were thrown out of Iraq.
You can't trust someone like that with nuclear weapons.
Yes and no. You can trust a country with them, because the response to them using one is clear...complete destuction and nuclear wasteland of your homeland. The only real danger is with terrorists, and again it's pretty unlikely that Saddam would aid Islamic terrorists, especially as he has spent most of the past 20 years persecuting the Islamic Kurds.
We should be more concerned about the former USSR and some other rogue states that are far more likely to aid or supply terrorists. There's a lot of weapons grade plutonium in the world, and a lot of it is unaccounted for. You don't need to be a nuclear scientest to put a nuke together, just as you don't need to be a gourme chef to follow a recipie
I think that in some cases, the US is justified in overthrowing foreign governments. What isn't justifyable is who they let gain power when they leave.
It's not so much "who they let gain power" as "who they give power to". Most of these coups are planned with a new leader/party in mind. These are the people that are aided in the coup. People like Saddam and Bin Laden. They are a "freedom fighter" when their aims match ours, but they seem to have no qualms about biting the hand that fed them.
The "justification" isn't the only argument. There are also moral issues in each situation, as well as juristrictional ones. For example, say a neighbouring state to the USA was to clearly state that they intend to attack you. That's a valid reason. However, when it's a state quite literally on the other side of the world, you have to question the motives. When that motive involves oil, power or money, you have to tread very carefully.
I'm sorry for you. I would have thought inteligent people (like most on slashdot) would not be believing that.
I don't know where to start picking it apart. OK, firstly, the USA isn't some uber-free super state. If you take a look around the world at the other western nations, you'll see we are all pretty much alike. We don't persecute based on race/religion/gender. Everyone has equal rights. We are prosperous, living comfortable lifes with complete freedom to travel and speak our minds. Again I ask the question; why single out the United States?
People do not plan operations like 9/11 because the are jealous of you! To do something as horrific as that, there has to be real hatred. I used to be like you, I thought they did the whole "freedom and democracy" thing as well. Then, post 9/11 I did ask myself "why?" and I started learning about the history of the Middle East. And you know what, it scared me on two levels. Firstly, I was offended that the west could do such things whilst proclaiming that "we are the good guys". Secondly, that this kind of behaviour is completely unknown by the populations of our countries.
I don't ask a murdering piece of shit why he is what he is.
Fine then, but don't expect me to talk to your leaders, who are also murdering pieces of shit. Remember, your country started this whole mess, by killing their leaders and arming terrorists (sorry, "freedom fighters") to attack them. The death toll caused by the USA in the middle east puts 9/11 in the shade. (Note, I don't believe that it makes it "all right" or justified)
We don't completely ignore science and engineering and concentrate our entire education system on religious studies.
Then why is teaching evolution in schools not allowed? Why do your leaders mention God so often? By the way, the USA is not unique in separating church, state and schooling, but when your ruled by fundamentalist Christians, they're bound to break the rules.
Our very existence, our very success is a constant reminder to them that they are failures.
Ah, so you fell for the "inferiour races" part? You know, what's going on in the USA is very reminicent of the rise of the Nazi's in Germany. They proclaimed that the Jewish people were inferior and jealous of their wealth. They said that the Jewish were a threat to them, and had to be removed for the German peoples safety.
Of course, when the trains came to take them to the death camps, the local population did not know what was going on. As far as they were aware, they were doing "what was good for their country". They presumed that the trains were settling the Jews in another country.
And, that is pretty much what is going on in the USA. The US government has, for the past 20/30 years been messing over the middle eastern states for your own gain. You had no interest in the fates of their peoples when you helped dictators into power. You did not care that the people there were being killed by the thousands. You did not care that they lost the right to free speech and expression.
And when these desparate peoples strike back (much like a cornered animal), then the government of your country lies to you about why they hate you, and continues to persecute them, and aids regimes that do the same. What are the long term goals of this approach? All I can see is that you'll be creating twice as many potential terrorists in the next generation. How would you feel if a foreign power murdered your parents? Would you not try to extract revenge somehow? I think so, going by the "nuke 'em" attitudes after 9/11.
Now that the islamofascists have taken control, they are an intellectual wasteland.
And tonight special star prize question: Which superpower put these psychopathic governments in power? (hint: It's a three-letter acronym)
Unfortunately, I could not moderate you down for being a complete fucking idiot.
I am sorry, but it is clearly you that is the idiot. If you and people like you cannot rise above lies and see what your country is doing to the world, you have no hope. The USA will continue illegally meddling in the political systems of foreign countries, pissing off even more people until terrorists do use a weapon of mass destruction. What is completly tragic is that when that happens, it will work in favour for people like Bush, who will say "I told you so". What's more tragic is that you will believe him.
Finally:
I have a Constitution and a gun, and I'm not afraid to use them
Why would you want to use a gun? Do you like killing? Do you have revenge fanasies? I bet you do, you'd love to put a few rounds of lead in the next arab you see, wouldn't you? People like you don't deserve freedom, all you use it for is to negatively impact other peoples freedom.
By who? There are a lot of terrorist groups in the world, each with different motives and enemies. On each and every terrorist incident in the past year the media has always asked "are there any links to Al-Qaeda?". I've yet to see any link in this case, other than the fact that they share the same religion. If that's the case and a "valid link", we could make up all kinds of silly stuff, like George W Bush being linked to Charles Manson!
I remember an accident, a train crash if memory serves, where the second question the reporter asked was "is their any suggestion of terrorist involvement?". The media are looking everywhere for their next story (fear and danger sells and gets the ratings), and these "suggestions" plant ideas and preconceptions in everyone's minds without actually saying anything. Ask anyone in the street and they'd probably believe that there was only one organisation responsible for all the recent terrorist incidents.
About the war in Afghanistan, do you not believe the Taliban and Bin Laden were involved at all in the 9/11 attack?
They may have been, it's pretty likely. But Bush is sounding like a child when he says "because! but I can't tell you why". The facts are that this war was being planned prior to 9/11 and it benefited the oil & weapons industries and more importantly, Halliburton. 9/11 was used to get the public behind the war, but the primary aim was not propaganda, but I'm sure that was a side effect. It also solved the desire for blood and revenge. Have a look at the employment history of the people that the US put in power in Afghanistan. Invasions haven't changed much over the years, dispose of the existing government and install your own. It's just worrying when "your own" refers to big business.
Money rules the US and that's why they get involved; at least since the fall of communism before that is another story
Very insightful, I never picked up on the fact that this is merely a replacement for communism. sed s/communism/terrorism/g would probably make many 60s speeches sound up to date. Western society loves to be scared; it's a strange phenomenon. Remember, news shows are driven by ratings and look at what they are using to drag the consumer in. Make sure you stay tuned, because after the commercials there'll be more blood and guts!
US dishes out more cash to needy nations in charity than all other countries combined
They are loans and they cripple their economies for generations. Take a look at the Third World Dept problem, people are dying while I type because of it. Unfortunately, the people of these countries see little of the original loan, as (like in the west) the corrupt officials seem to have holes in their pockets. My country has done a lot of the same, and I am far from proud of it.
accepts more immigrants than all of Western Europe
I disagree with that. Imigration to the US is a lengthy and difficult process. In Europe, imigration is becoming a big issue, especially from the Eastern European countries. Anyone of certain (persecuted) ethnicities is guaranteed to get in. "Asylum Seekers" is a big news item here in the UK.
I've not seen any figures, but on the face of it, I think Europe gets more.
creates more jobs worldwide than any other economy I can think of
Which can be a good thing, but I've always been the opinion that a foreign company has one interest when working in another, the intention is to remove money from that countries economy. :-) OK, there is more to economics than that, e.g. they might aid the creation of an industry that wouldn't have existed. But ultimately this isn't been done "for the good of the people", it's to make money for themselves. A good thing, but I wouldn't be too proud of it from the "helping them out" point of view, more "total world domination" :-)
It's an easy target being on top I guess.
Very much so, it's always easy to blame the US, it's like the "little peoples" fear of big business. Big is scary.
However, I question the "being on top" part! ;-) In what respect? Seriously...
Many people claim that their country is the best in the world. National pride is all fine and dandy, but its usually self-delusional and backed up with other motives. It also makes it harder to be self-critical, which is an important aspect in a democratic country.
No, I try to avoid watching TV news, and television in general... ;-)
I had to laugh at that one! Part of the problem is that much of these policys have resulted in the deaths of innocent people. Amesty International reckons that our meddling in Iraq has killed over a million people, of which 600,000 were children. You can't get more innocent than that! It's these policies that I am angry with. We are also prepared to "look the other way" if it is beneficial to us, so we ignore Saudi Arabias treatment of women, and make a big deal about the same thing in Afganistan. Even if you exclude Iraq (their leader isn't exactly innocent), the numbers of innocent US civilions killed is tiny compared to the number we've killed from other places.
(note: I myself are not from the USA, I am from the UK, but my country isn't all that different to yours, so I share most of the shame of what the west has done to the world)
We wage war and fund terrorists to achieve our own goals. I wouldn't say that it's "bad and needs to be fixed", it's downright disgraceful and we are about to do it in Iraq again! How many next-generation terrorists is that going to create? For what? Removing WMD? What a load of bullshit, we gave them the weapons and did likewise with many other countries. It doesn't take a genious to see the real goal there, and we are being manipulated into being behind this war. It's digusting!
you have to recognize that there are always going to be a few crazies out there.
Absolutly! There will always be the nutter out there that will grab a gun and go on the rampage, or set a few car bombs and kill a few hundred people. However "a few crazies" cannot plan, arrange and coordinate a tradedy like 9/11. And that's my point! Don't go around making enemies. They will stike back. It's like the school yard bully, going around beating the smaller kids into submission. Sooner or later one will hit back, and that strike could cause lasting damage. Or worse, the smaller kids organise and get together. Global terrorist network? Sound familiar?
Even if the US was to suddenly adopt perfect foreign policies, that every country in the world agrees with, and magically right our past wrongs, there would still be people out there who want to kill others.
Sure, but they won't have the funding and resources available to them just now and as such, they will be less effective and historically, most crazy people kill their own kind, not go over to other countries to do it. US citizens would have nothing to fear in a world like that.
We shouldn't decide our foreign policy based on what is going to result in the least terrorism.
Agreed. It should be done based on what is morally correct, not what gives us either more money or more oil.
We should decide our foreign policy is such a way that we don't turn normal people into terrorists.
Again, agreed. Not overthrowing govenments and arming anyone with a checkbook would be a good start.
The first is bad (you let anyone willing to kill enough civilians have control over US foreign policy).
Absolutely, giving in to terrorists goals is the worst thing you can possibly do, as you'll just set yourself up for more of the same. I have always said that terrorism is counter-productive. Look at most of the small-guy standing up to the big-guy incidents over the years that actually produced any benefit. Martin Luther King. Gandi. Tianamin Square. They all acheived their goals/made their point through non-violent means. If you attack your opponents, they will attack back and nine times out of ten, you will be squashed.
Finally, a country's bad foreign policy does not justify that mass murder of civilians within that country, both in Palestine and in the US, asshole.
Hmm, I thought we were having an adult discussion, so I'll let the personal insult slide. I'm fully in agreement with you, on most of your points though. Murder or mass murder has no excuse. Ever.
What do you mean by mentioning Palestine? Are you refering to the plight of the Palestinion people, or the terrorist activity from them against the Israelis? In essence, it's the same problem as the west are having, one country goes as seriously messes up another, then the smaller battered country strikes back the only way they can. I'm interested in which side you take on this matter though...
Getting off topic here; my original post was to point out the fact that we are attacking the symptoms of a larger problem. Oh well, in for a penny...
9/11 was a direct result of religious whackos hi-jacking planes on suicide missions. Blaming the US is like blaming rape victims for wearing short skirts
Excuse me? Haven't you asked yourself by these terrorists hate America pretty much exclusively? Not Canada, Austrailia, pretty much all of Europe, who all have similar ideals and economic and political to the USA. Why is that? It certainally doesn't tie in with the "freedom and democracy hating" nonsence we are being fed.
All the US wants is for other countries to be free so they'd buy more goods and services
Bin Laden has gone on record stating that his aim is to remove the US troops from Saudi Arabia. The troops there are backing up a dictatorship government, hated by most of the people. Where does this fit in with your "US wants other countries to be free"? Why have they done the opposite in more places than they have created freedom? I understand that you may actually believe that, given that you probably haven't read much history. You really should try to get out of that self-delusional world though. We aren't the good guys are represented in the movies. Sure, if you spend your whole life watching them, growing up with images of our troops liberating people and Bruce Willis saving the world, but the historical facts do not match that image. Remember, the Nazi's used films of the same type with the same purpose.
As for the terrorists, they have no other recourse, if they complain about their country they disappear, get tortured then are never seen again. They want the freedom we take for granted. Unfortunatly, they have gone down the route of terrorism to attempt to achieve that goal.
The Saudi dictatorship was put in place by a military coup supported by the USA. The democratic government was ousted to make way for one that was more willing to work with the US. Note that the Saudi women are treated exactly the same as the Taliban treated them, yet you don't see a call for a war in Saudi Arabia. However, Afganistan is now being controlled by people who used to work with George Bush in a private company, but yeah!, we went there to free the women, right!?! The recent Afgan war was to remove the Taliban because they weren't giving the US concessions on anything, such as the construction of a pipeline to a neighbouring country with vast oil reserves. The Taliban were friendly with the US for a very long time, the top officials were over in Texas and Washington on many occassions. It is only when the contract to build this pipeline went to Argentina instead, that the Taliban suddenly became "evil" in the public eye. The war in Afganistan had been hinted at prior to 9/11, and using that tragedy as propaganda to have this war is downright disgraceful and an insult to the thousands of innocents who lost their lives that day.
Other examples of immoral acts...how about creating Saddam Hussain? Again, a perfectly valid government was dispossed with US assistance to put him in power. The idea was that he would fight Iran, who were not very friendly to the US. He was supplied with weapons, vast amounts of credit and the equipment to make weapons of mass destruction. Again, the idea was that he would attack Iran. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, they asked the US Ambasidor what their opinion was on the matter, to which they were told that "the US has no opinion on that".
I suggest you learn some world history before engaging in these discussions. History is not what happens in movies, nor is the education received in school of much use. You ain't gonna get this stuff from your leaders either, and more worryingly, the media seem to be "ignoring" it.
This is what pisses me off most about the west, but more so the USA. We claim to be bastions of "freedom", "truth", "democracy", but we live in a place where the goverment can look at your web/e-mail usage (remember Nixon? How could you forget that lesson so soon?), politicions openly lie about the causes of these terrorists (so much for "truth") and where the leadership of a country is controlled by how good their advertising campaign was, funded by private individuals who's interests become a part of national policy.
I put it to you that west as we see it is merely an illusion. We are just as regressive as many of these "evil" countries, and the population is led around using hate and fear. Go watch Bowling for Columbine, although it does focus on the issue of firearms, it makes good points on the use of "fear" in the US (the UK is pretty much the same) as well as some US indiscressions that our leaders would rather you didn't know about.
I'm glad that there are people out there with the same thoughts as me, e.g. Michael Moore, the creator of the above film. The one great thing about our society is that myself and others have the freedom to discuss these issues, without fear of reprisal. Well, guess what...with all this new net monitoring trends, that freedom will soon be gone. Right now, this post will probably be getting modded as "interesting" by these spy systems. And I'll bet that in a few years, people will be afraid to speak their minds on these sort of subjects as it will become a permanent entry on their file, which will give them all sorts of problems getting visa as they may have "terrorist tendancies". Sounds a lot like the Soviet Russia system we were brought up to hate.
So, if you want to shoot me down and stick your head in the sand on this stuff, fine. Don't expect me to be happy about your apathy, and don't come asking for help when pretty much all the freedoms you used to enjoy are gone or you have lost a family member with all the violence going on.
Unfortunatly, the problem I was working with was on Solaris, where the tail binary is pretty brain-dead. I never thought about checking out the GNU version, but in my case we were trying to make our logs easier to use for folks who would tail it manually, so they'd need to be convinced as well... :-)
LOL, you hit the nail on the head! That's why I know a little about this stuff, from having to work with a brain-dead log tailer!
Not it wasn't. 9/11 was a direct result of US foreign policy, most of which the US population is completely obvious to. They don't teach it in school, and there aren't any movies about it, so you can all be forgiven for this lack of knowledge. More so now that Bush has flat out lied to you and said the old classic "they hate freedom and democracy".
The USA (amoung other countries) has started, aided and funded coups and wars that resulted in democratically elected governments being replaced with ruthless dictators. Who do you think got Saddam into power? Then sold him masses of tanks and the equipment to build weapons of mass distruction (the idea being he'd be attacking the Iranians)? Who is aiding Israel in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinions from their own homes? Who put the vicious Saudi government in power, and is defending them right now with your tanks, troops and finances? This is what the terrorists don't like, and they have said this many times.
If you want to stop terrorists attacking you, first learn what is being done in your name around the world, then let your politicions know that you aren't happy with them killing children to secure better access to oil, for the benefit of their corporate "sponsors". It's a much cleaner solution that asking for log file retention.
Log rollover scripts do this, e.g. when "messages" becomes "messages.0". In that case, the original file was copied to "messages.0", then the original was zero'ed.
You make a very good point, and post some good links. However, you are wrong on the above, there are valid reasons to do this. Check out sourceforge for some X-Box projects, such as media players. Currently, you need to install a mod chip to make use of these. This project would have allowed people to run code of their choosing on a piece of hardware that they legally bought. Quite frankly, I can do what I want with it. (if I owned one). I can open it up, urinate on it, use it as a footstool, run my own code on it, and so on.
However, there is a flip side to this; the most interesting project is the XBox media player. Ironically, most of the content that will be played on it is probably pirated!
Which is of zero relevance to most of the world, especially the vast majority of the human population who don't happen live in the USA.
Quite a bold quote, considering the size of the world! ;-) I know that my cable system has the capability to do this, but I've not heard one way or the other on what they are doing with it. My only hope is that's it's got a degree of anonyminity in it, I'm agreed, it it inevitable.
I'm not a nielsen family so my choices dont mean squat to them..
I thought the Nielsen and similar systems were intended to work with demographics? They give the box to a representative sample of the population, then extrapolate that out into the viewing figures. That's how it goes in the UK anyway. I've seen it in action on television, there is a box placed in the room and the family (or single male 20-30 etc) has to keep it informed on who is in the room.
Not an exact science and it surely has a massive margin of error. But it beats having nothing...
Again, I don't understand this argument. There is nothing forcing you to read the adverts in magazines, newspapers, billboards. TV has only been different because that is the way the technology worked. This is no longer the case and they need to get over that fact.
and don't get harrassed by it if I have a ripped vcd or mpeg of it.
Kind of ironic, isn't it. Saying that, I can't imagine anyone saying, "bugger, can't watch it then, better bin it" after seeing the warning on a pirate.
Personally, I bought a hardware DVD player with a chip to disable the "user prohibitions" features. No macrovision (use my VCR to convert the composite out to RF, fed around the house) and of course, multi-region. Bliss!! Moral of the story...research before you buy. :-)
I disagree with that. You compress then decommpress with a loss of quality. Performing the same process again will not cause you to lose the same "pieces of quality", especially with a physically different encoder and the lossess/changes associated with the analog stage.
Try it with an mp3. Encode, convert to wav and repeat using a different encoder. It sounds baaaaaddd! ;-)
Mind you, modern (digial) cable systems can track watch you watch with their two communications. They will surely be observing channel-hopping during commercials, but for every 10 channel-hoppers, there are 1 or 2* people who did watch the commercial.
Note: *Numbers made up
Sure, but given a choice of the file with thousands of sources and ample bandwidth versuses the one with 3-4 from a couple of cable modems capped at 128k upstream, the "official" version will prevail. You can't control everything, and this seems to be the basic lack of understanding with these corporations.
It's in mpeg2 format (hardware encoder/decoder), and if you go via a capture card, you're going to lose quality and colour balance. Digital transfers all the way please, just get a network card for your TIVO.
Even if the people watching the shows from a p2p download did watch the commercials, the network still wouldn't get paid for these viewings. They simply have no idea on how many viewers will see it, and have no way to prove it.
To me, all p2p has done is to change the business model. If the networks had any sense, they'd have every show available for download on a popular p2p app, with some major hosting at their end. Then they get to choose the commercials that exist in the de-facto standard download for that episode. And the advertisers will know that, and pay more for the privledge.
Or, you could just bribe politions to change the law in-keeping with current practices, and have no control over a system that is growing larger every day. You can get almost any popular show on p2p now, with no commercials in it, having been stripped out by the person who did the capture.
Hmmm, let's see, you currently pay nothing for these sites? Why would you want to pay $10? And why would you consider that to be "great"?
It could be worse, you could find your mother in chick-on-chick flicks!
Now wait moment, that's a bullshit argument. Web pages can be provided to the end user for free, that has been clearly proven in the past few years. OK, we get adverts and so on, and annoying popups, but it's a price we are willing to pay to have the worlds largest library at our fingertips.
What we are seeing here are people wanting to charge for websites just because they can and they think they may get money out of it.
The web is one of mankinds greatest creations. Almost as fundamental as the invention of the printing press. Why destroy that just because you want to make a buck?
They'd have to have some damn good and unique content if they expect people to pay for it. The current models probably come from people who know little about the internet, other than the fact that you might be able to make money with it.
I hope it doesn't go the way of mobile ring tones though; at one point they were free and practically overnight every free site was shutdown and the only sites available started charging for it. Overcharging to be more precise...yup, it's greed.
Make sure you stay tuned after the commercials, there'll be some real genuine news after that, honest! We promise there will be blood and everything! And then more commercials.