I didn't know this thing existed, but it looks like it's out-to-TV only. It's not difficult to cheez together a MythBox for ~$500.00, but it'd sure be nice to have some of that slick apple hardware running Myth.
It's got a USB port, and a 40G HDD, so you'd still be at about $500.00 if you added an external USB video encoder (There are has some supported by Myth--Plextor makes 'em IIRC) and boxed up a spare HDD from another computer.
Still, I'd buy one instead of the MicroATX setup I'm eyeballing today.
Just out of college with a BS in a field that's populated only by multi-PhDs and above.
Living in Sacto, CA, I answered a job ad for computer work. This was in Sprint's massive online data center. Here's the gig.
There's this room with a million tapes in it. In the middle of the room are about ten tape readers. Just outside of the tape reader area are offloading areas for tapes done being read. The rest of the room has 10 sections of racks, each with 10 subsections, each containing 5 racks of 2000 tapes.
It was a pretty big room.
There are 4 types of tape transport machines: 1. The tape reader--accepts about dozen tapes in the top, reads the required data & spits the tape out the bottom. 2. Return tape sorter--takes tapes from the bottom of the reader and sorts them by section (1E5) and subsection (1E4) 3. Tape returner--takes a stack of tapes for a subsection (usually about 10 tapes or so), brings them to the appropriate racks and puts them back on the shelf. 4. Tape getter--retrieves from the racks a list of 10 tapes requested by a reader & puts them in the top of the reader.
Machine 1 was some sort of automated tape reader; GOFK what type (it wasn't that sort of degree) Machines 2-4 were off-the shelf H. spaiens.
I was a machine type 3. I lasted a week.
Most new hires last under 3 days. About half never even return to get their paycheck for the 3 days.
so, remember--now matter how dull your job is--it could be worse!
Viacom's complaint is exactly what's stated in the headline--that they CAN'T POSSIBLY track all the content they want taken down. They want to shift the burden of policing to the website operator.
The law: Copyright violator puts material on website without proper rights to do so. Copyright holder complains to website operator. Website operator immediately takes down material, then follows up as appropriate. Courts, whatever follow.
In exchange for certain protections (and they made out like bandits, but it's still not enough), the industry's lobbyists agreed to bear the weight of policing when the DMCA was finally passed in 1998.
What Viacom wants: Website operator is responsible for making sure material in violation of license never appears on their site. If this ever happens, copyright holder gets one biiillllion dollars (well, 1.6, but you get the pinky anyhow). Well, that, or viacom just gets to dictate terms to google when they finally partner up.
As the google/youtube lawyer said this morning on NPR--this is something they should take up in the Congress, not the Courts.
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After working in factories for 15 years, every mechanical engineer I've talked to tells me that plant compressed air is the worst way to use power.
It's the most expensive (in terms of power) to make, and to transmit (what sort of baby-poop do you use when pulling black iron pipe?).
The reason they use it is that the equipment that uses it is cheap to build and maintain compared to its electrical brothers. Count the number of parts in an air cylinder and the number of parts in a linear actuator (ball screw or linear motor) of the same force and stroke.
If someone came up with a way to make compressed air that cheaply, they'd make a lot more money by selling the tech to Toyota than to Toyota's customers.
The few times a year I need lumber, furniture, appliances, etc. I'll have it delivered or rent a truck.
While you're at it, can I have a device that lets me talk to people wherever I am? There's these things called "cell phones", but they seem to be made for playing music and taking pictures.
Cute. Now, lemme see ya get it onto a plane.
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It seems that if an all powerful God did exist, and that God made some sort of statement or directive, that rule would be pretty hard to break. Damned (heh) near impossible to break, actually--if this God was omnipotent.
It seems that we could just look around us and see what rules are not being broken--those would be the word of God.
And if we could see the rule is being broken, well, then it must NOT be the word of God. We'd have to go back and refine our understanding of the word of God to reflect what's actually going on around us.
There would be no need to kill each other over which book had the correct version of the word--we each check our beliefs against the world God had created.
Hmmm...I see you conveniently forgot to paste the next line in the original comment. Here, let me help...
Another way to define morality, of course, would be for the most powerful among us to simply force the rest to toe the line they prefer. I suggest that this is the method applied by your hypothetical paramilitary goons.
In a society governed by the rule of law--one to which which the governed have collectively agreed to submit, it's reasonable to assume that the governed would NOT agree to your proposal of unregulated paramillitary goons.
Eventually, you can catch the people sleeping (read the rest of my comment), and you get to send your goons, but it takes longer.
In a theocracy, however, the goons immediately get to run rampant over the populace. Especially over those individuals who don't worship the right God in the right way.
Until we can all agree on who, exactly, God is, I think I'll leave God in his church, and let man run the government. Of course, I suspect that if we can agree on that, we won't need God or government anymore.
The authors of the article use the (speculative) technology as an agent provocateur to promote discussion. They subject they've chosen to highlight is criminal justice. OK, I'll bite:
In some jurisdictions, you don't prove your innocence. You establish reasonable doubt of your guilt. Should we expect the new standard to be reversed? For practical purposes, I think that it already has been reversed. A trial may determine how bad you take it, but by the time it gets that far, you've already grabbed your ankles.
In some jurisdictions, you can't be compelled to be a witness against yourself. Even assuming that someday it works as presented, what you will have is the ability to accurately determine someone's intentions. Should we expect this standard to be removed? Or, perhaps, re-defined--where your the report of the machine is not your speech, but evidence? To avoid citing the most inflamatory examples, I ask that you look at the privacy and search&seizure issues in the UK and the US today.
In most jurisdictions, the perception and intention of the accused is only an element of the crime, if it's considered at all. Again, if the technology works as it's presented, there will be great incentive to simply define the crime as whatever the machine detects. Simpler for everyone. Justice is whatever society says it is, so there's no problem here. Again, many specific and inflamatory examples can be cited, so please let's just start with the general concepts of "security theatre", "zero tolerance", and profiling.
There are many examples of arbitrary empirical tests that have nothing to do with the actual harm caused by the accused. But, since the tests are empirical, we don't argue with the finding--it's there for everyone to see. It's evidence, not an assertion.
It is so easy to define guilt as the finding of the test. Thing suddenly become very easy, simple, and clear. More importantly, the people making the decision to punish can no longer be held accountable for that decision. This we can argue on the basis of our subjective sense of fairness and justice. Such argument takes discipline, time, and attention. It's messy and loud. It's also how morality can be defined--the coming together of a bunch of different subjective views into a collective agreement of behaviour. Another way to define morality, of course, would be for the most powerful among us to simply force the rest to toe the line they prefer.
We don't need this technology to abandon the concept that power to rule a people should come from those people, only at the discretion of those people.
If they've got a legitimate claim against you, you'd probably know about it.
Did you take company documents with you when you left? Did you have special access to trade secrets, business plans, etc? Did you make any implicit agreement to stick around? For example--If the policy manual says you can submit education expenses (get some license or cert) but you have to stick around for 1 year afterward--you agreed to stick around when you submitted the expenses.
Of course, anybody can sue anybody else for anything, and does it all the time. The issue is not necessarily whether they can win the suit or not--you're probably being set out as an example for any other employees that might be thinking of jumping ship.
Thank you for raising an interesting question on/., but I sincerely hope you're listening the attorney you hired and not just us.
I wanted a usable (f/8-f/11) 500mm telephoto for my film camera, but didn't have $6000 to spend on a high end one. Wound up getting an old Reflex-Nikkor through ebay back when it was still somewhat honest.
My experience was that under the best conditions (bright light, no point sources), everything looks kind of muddy. Other times--ex. shooting geese on a pond--the points of light reflecting off of the waves show up as hundreds of little donuts.
For it's size, the lens in the diagram has a much larger central obstruction--it's almost the whole lens.
Unless there's some funny business going on, I don't expect this to take a decent photo.
Aren't there mechanisms in place to deal with this?
In a situation where FBI has probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, they should still have to present their evidence to a judge and get a warrant. If they don't know who is committing the crime, but they have specific cause, they can provide a specific description of what they're looking for and get a john doe warrant.
Let them rifle through the whole pipeline. But they can't use anything not on the warrant--including for the purpose of getting another warrant.
I suspect that in practice, LEAs try to game the system and get a warrant for anything interesting they might find. It's the judge's job to say "no, you're fishing". And if she's wrong, it's another judge's job to throw out the evidence.
Well, that's what I learned from "Law and Order"--any real lawyers out there?
First--Don't do business with squirrelly people. Remember TANSTAAFL. If you think you can suck the bait off of the hook, go ahead and try. Just remember why they call 'em "suckers".
Second, find the physical address you'd write to if you wanted to terminate the contract. If you're entering into a contract with legitimate folks, this should be easy to find. If it's not, something's wrong.
If they're legit and you want to properly document, then it will cost you about 5 bucks for certified mail & return receipt. Write a letter telling the folks you want to quit/cancel/terminate service, whatever. * Reference the the certified mail item number at the top of the letter. * State the date you want the cancellation to be effective. * State that you want written confirmation of the cancellation. * State the date and method you want confirmation sent. * Cite the terms of the contract that apply. * State again that you want to end the contract.
Fill out certified mail stuff with return receipt requested and take the whole thing to a notary.
Sign the demand letter in front of the notary, have them sign it, and photocopy the result.
Take it to the PO and mail it, then wait for the return receipt.
Check your credit report and follow up as required.
If you need to prove you quit the contract, you've now got proof you requested to quit and they received the request.
My wife wanted an Ipod because it looks good. Got her one. Put all our mp3s on it and reripped all the CDs that we'd converted to.ogg before. BTW, the.ogg files did convert to native apple, without audible loss, but she's a purist and itunes works for what it's meant for.
Videos, too--anything we want--if it's not already in the right format, just use ffmpegx and it fits.
Not seeing the restriction, here.
Oh, and it does look good. She says it sounds good, too; I wouldn't know--she's the musician.
Everytime you get a paycheck that isn't negative, you've sold your labor for a profit. Get over it.
I disagree, though the US IRS tends to support your position (that a person who works for a wage is the same as a business with zero expenses).
Labor is the commodity in which I trade.
I've invested (in the strict sense) a great deal of money and effort into making my labor more valuable.
I sell that labor in to my employer, who in turn sells it to his Clients, for consideration--typically in units of dollars per hour of labor.
Oh, and with respect to your main point--there's nothing wrong with profit per se.
Rent-seeking is a zero sum game. Profit-seeking is not a zero-sum game.
As long as people create something and contribute it to the public good, everybody can profit.
The example in question (Wal-Mart) does some things that offend labor advocates, other taxpayers, their competition, and people who simply don't approve of big business.
Wal-Mart's most obvious contributions are collective bargaining with labor and manufacturing on the behalf of consumers and the distribution of material goods.
But the bottom line of Wal-Mart's moral balance sheet has nothing to do with the innate good or evil of profit.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't know this thing existed, but it looks like it's out-to-TV only.
It's not difficult to cheez together a MythBox for ~$500.00, but it'd sure be nice to have some of that slick apple hardware running Myth.
It's got a USB port, and a 40G HDD, so you'd still be at about $500.00 if you added an external USB video encoder (There are has some supported by Myth--Plextor makes 'em IIRC) and boxed up a spare HDD from another computer.
Still, I'd buy one instead of the MicroATX setup I'm eyeballing today.
Which is just an overly verbose way of saying...
Nice...but will it run linux?
(Sorry, had to do it).
Smart enough to develop the liquid robots.
H. sapiens at least one with fat fingers, apparently
Just out of college with a BS in a field that's populated only by multi-PhDs and above.
Living in Sacto, CA, I answered a job ad for computer work.
This was in Sprint's massive online data center. Here's the gig.
There's this room with a million tapes in it.
In the middle of the room are about ten tape readers.
Just outside of the tape reader area are offloading areas for tapes done being read.
The rest of the room has 10 sections of racks, each with 10 subsections, each containing 5 racks of 2000 tapes.
It was a pretty big room.
There are 4 types of tape transport machines:
1. The tape reader--accepts about dozen tapes in the top, reads the required data & spits the tape out the bottom.
2. Return tape sorter--takes tapes from the bottom of the reader and sorts them by section (1E5) and subsection (1E4)
3. Tape returner--takes a stack of tapes for a subsection (usually about 10 tapes or so), brings them to the appropriate racks and puts them back on the shelf.
4. Tape getter--retrieves from the racks a list of 10 tapes requested by a reader & puts them in the top of the reader.
Machine 1 was some sort of automated tape reader; GOFK what type (it wasn't that sort of degree)
Machines 2-4 were off-the shelf H. spaiens.
I was a machine type 3. I lasted a week.
Most new hires last under 3 days. About half never even return to get their paycheck for the 3 days.
so, remember--now matter how dull your job is--it could be worse!
Oh.
When you get to work, buy the old dude back in the machine shop a cup of coffee.
. html
He can teach you something.
http://www.moglice.com/newsite/pages/straighttalk
http://www.waygrinding.com/
Viacom's complaint is exactly what's stated in the headline--that they CAN'T POSSIBLY track all the content they want taken down.
They want to shift the burden of policing to the website operator.
The law:
Copyright violator puts material on website without proper rights to do so.
Copyright holder complains to website operator.
Website operator immediately takes down material, then follows up as appropriate.
Courts, whatever follow.
In exchange for certain protections (and they made out like bandits, but it's still not enough), the industry's lobbyists agreed to bear the weight of policing when the DMCA was finally passed in 1998.
What Viacom wants:
Website operator is responsible for making sure material in violation of license never appears on their site.
If this ever happens, copyright holder gets one biiillllion dollars (well, 1.6, but you get the pinky anyhow).
Well, that, or viacom just gets to dictate terms to google when they finally partner up.
As the google/youtube lawyer said this morning on NPR--this is something they should take up in the Congress, not the Courts.
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After working in factories for 15 years, every mechanical engineer I've talked to tells me that plant compressed air is the worst way to use power.
It's the most expensive (in terms of power) to make, and to transmit (what sort of baby-poop do you use when pulling black iron pipe?).
The reason they use it is that the equipment that uses it is cheap to build and maintain compared to its electrical brothers.
Count the number of parts in an air cylinder and the number of parts in a linear actuator (ball screw or linear motor) of the same force and stroke.
If someone came up with a way to make compressed air that cheaply, they'd make a lot more money by selling the tech to Toyota than to Toyota's customers.
That's it.
The few times a year I need lumber, furniture, appliances, etc. I'll have it delivered or rent a truck.
While you're at it, can I have a device that lets me talk to people wherever I am?
There's these things called "cell phones", but they seem to be made for playing music and taking pictures.
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Maybe a lawyer looking to make a quick buck?
I'm going to guess that any lawyers involved got their bucks and left.
Oh, and it's only censorship if the bugmit does it.
If you or I (or google) choose to not say something, that's free speech.
Well, tried to, anyhow.
My wife wants a *little* more than a 911 phone in the car (ANY cell phone in the US will dial emergency 911 services, even if it's not subscribed).
So, we have a prepaid phone with TMobile. I think we wind up spending about $5.00/month.
That's about all I'm interested in paying until these idiots clean up their act.
STERN!
For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky.
It seems that if an all powerful God did exist, and that God made some sort of statement or directive, that rule would be pretty hard to break.
Damned (heh) near impossible to break, actually--if this God was omnipotent.
It seems that we could just look around us and see what rules are not being broken--those would be the word of God.
And if we could see the rule is being broken, well, then it must NOT be the word of God.
We'd have to go back and refine our understanding of the word of God to reflect what's actually going on around us.
There would be no need to kill each other over which book had the correct version of the word--we each check our beliefs against the world God had created.
Hmmm...I see you conveniently forgot to paste the next line in the original comment. Here, let me help...
Another way to define morality, of course, would be for the most powerful among us to simply force the rest to toe the line they prefer.
I suggest that this is the method applied by your hypothetical paramilitary goons.
In a society governed by the rule of law--one to which which the governed have collectively agreed to submit, it's reasonable to assume that the governed would NOT agree to your proposal of unregulated paramillitary goons.
Eventually, you can catch the people sleeping (read the rest of my comment), and you get to send your goons, but it takes longer.
In a theocracy, however, the goons immediately get to run rampant over the populace.
Especially over those individuals who don't worship the right God in the right way.
Until we can all agree on who, exactly, God is, I think I'll leave God in his church, and let man run the government.
Of course, I suspect that if we can agree on that, we won't need God or government anymore.
They subject they've chosen to highlight is criminal justice.
OK, I'll bite:
In some jurisdictions, you don't prove your innocence. You establish reasonable doubt of your guilt.
Should we expect the new standard to be reversed?
For practical purposes, I think that it already has been reversed.
A trial may determine how bad you take it, but by the time it gets that far, you've already grabbed your ankles.
In some jurisdictions, you can't be compelled to be a witness against yourself.
Even assuming that someday it works as presented, what you will have is the ability to accurately determine someone's intentions.
Should we expect this standard to be removed? Or, perhaps, re-defined--where your the report of the machine is not your speech, but evidence?
To avoid citing the most inflamatory examples, I ask that you look at the privacy and search&seizure issues in the UK and the US today.
In most jurisdictions, the perception and intention of the accused is only an element of the crime, if it's considered at all.
Again, if the technology works as it's presented, there will be great incentive to simply define the crime as whatever the machine detects.
Simpler for everyone. Justice is whatever society says it is, so there's no problem here.
Again, many specific and inflamatory examples can be cited, so please let's just start with the general concepts of "security theatre", "zero tolerance", and profiling.
There are many examples of arbitrary empirical tests that have nothing to do with the actual harm caused by the accused.
But, since the tests are empirical, we don't argue with the finding--it's there for everyone to see. It's evidence, not an assertion.
It is so easy to define guilt as the finding of the test. Thing suddenly become very easy, simple, and clear. More importantly, the people making the decision to punish can no longer be held accountable for that decision.
This we can argue on the basis of our subjective sense of fairness and justice.
Such argument takes discipline, time, and attention. It's messy and loud.
It's also how morality can be defined--the coming together of a bunch of different subjective views into a collective agreement of behaviour.
Another way to define morality, of course, would be for the most powerful among us to simply force the rest to toe the line they prefer.
We don't need this technology to abandon the concept that power to rule a people should come from those people, only at the discretion of those people.
As we turn our public servants into parents and ourselves into children, the words of Bill Cosby come to mind:
Parents are not interested in justice, they want quiet!
If they've got a legitimate claim against you, you'd probably know about it.
/., but I sincerely hope you're listening the attorney you hired and not just us.
Did you take company documents with you when you left?
Did you have special access to trade secrets, business plans, etc?
Did you make any implicit agreement to stick around?
For example--If the policy manual says you can submit education expenses (get some license or cert) but you have to stick around for 1 year afterward--you agreed to stick around when you submitted the expenses.
Of course, anybody can sue anybody else for anything, and does it all the time.
The issue is not necessarily whether they can win the suit or not--you're probably being set out as an example for any other employees that might be thinking of jumping ship.
Thank you for raising an interesting question on
I wanted a usable (f/8-f/11) 500mm telephoto for my film camera, but didn't have $6000 to spend on a high end one.
Wound up getting an old Reflex-Nikkor through ebay back when it was still somewhat honest.
My experience was that under the best conditions (bright light, no point sources), everything looks kind of muddy.
Other times--ex. shooting geese on a pond--the points of light reflecting off of the waves show up as hundreds of little donuts.
For it's size, the lens in the diagram has a much larger central obstruction--it's almost the whole lens.
Unless there's some funny business going on, I don't expect this to take a decent photo.
Aren't there mechanisms in place to deal with this?
In a situation where FBI has probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, they should still have to present their evidence to a judge and get a warrant.
If they don't know who is committing the crime, but they have specific cause, they can provide a specific description of what they're looking for and get a john doe warrant.
Let them rifle through the whole pipeline. But they can't use anything not on the warrant--including for the purpose of getting another warrant.
I suspect that in practice, LEAs try to game the system and get a warrant for anything interesting they might find. It's the judge's job to say "no, you're fishing". And if she's wrong, it's another judge's job to throw out the evidence.
Well, that's what I learned from "Law and Order"--any real lawyers out there?
While discussing to Harvey Korman's tagline in "Blazing Saddles"
This has always worked for me.
First--Don't do business with squirrelly people.
Remember TANSTAAFL.
If you think you can suck the bait off of the hook, go ahead and try. Just remember why they call 'em "suckers".
Second, find the physical address you'd write to if you wanted to terminate the contract.
If you're entering into a contract with legitimate folks, this should be easy to find. If it's not, something's wrong.
If they're legit and you want to properly document, then it will cost you about 5 bucks for certified mail & return receipt.
Write a letter telling the folks you want to quit/cancel/terminate service, whatever.
* Reference the the certified mail item number at the top of the letter.
* State the date you want the cancellation to be effective.
* State that you want written confirmation of the cancellation.
* State the date and method you want confirmation sent.
* Cite the terms of the contract that apply.
* State again that you want to end the contract.
Fill out certified mail stuff with return receipt requested and take the whole thing to a notary.
Sign the demand letter in front of the notary, have them sign it, and photocopy the result.
Take it to the PO and mail it, then wait for the return receipt.
Check your credit report and follow up as required.
If you need to prove you quit the contract, you've now got proof you requested to quit and they received the request.
YMMV.
My wife wanted an Ipod because it looks good. .ogg before. .ogg files did convert to native apple, without audible loss, but she's a purist and itunes works for what it's meant for.
Got her one.
Put all our mp3s on it and reripped all the CDs that we'd converted to
BTW, the
Videos, too--anything we want--if it's not already in the right format, just use ffmpegx and it fits.
Not seeing the restriction, here.
Oh, and it does look good. She says it sounds good, too; I wouldn't know--she's the musician.
I disagree, though the US IRS tends to support your position (that a person who works for a wage is the same as a business with zero expenses).
Labor is the commodity in which I trade.
I've invested (in the strict sense) a great deal of money and effort into making my labor more valuable.
I sell that labor in to my employer, who in turn sells it to his Clients, for consideration--typically in units of dollars per hour of labor.
Oh, and with respect to your main point--there's nothing wrong with profit per se.
Rent-seeking is a zero sum game. Profit-seeking is not a zero-sum game.
As long as people create something and contribute it to the public good, everybody can profit.
The example in question (Wal-Mart) does some things that offend labor advocates, other taxpayers, their competition, and people who simply don't approve of big business.
Wal-Mart's most obvious contributions are collective bargaining with labor and manufacturing on the behalf of consumers and the distribution of material goods.
But the bottom line of Wal-Mart's moral balance sheet has nothing to do with the innate good or evil of profit.