A bug, yes. These shows weren't supposed to have the flag set. However, the fact that this so-called "feature" was added AT ALL speaks volumes about Tivo's respect for it's users. And it doesn't even work right, as evidenced.
Just because it isn't turned on now doesn't mean it won't be tomorrow. This junk won't be unused for long, that's for damn sure. If I *EVER* start losing shows because I don't watch them within the parameters defined by some batshit insane network exec, my Tivo's are going out the window.
I've read from some Tivo defenders that this was required by Macrovision as part of their new agreements with TV and Hollywood. Well to hell with them! Who the hell says this monopoly of DRM has to be integrated into every device that attaches to a TV? No one.
I hardly watched TV before I got Tivo (way to inconvenient) and I suppose I'll live without it again. Maybe I'll get something done.
Funny thing about speed. My Porsche Carrera gets 28MPG at 115MPH (measured over a three hour period - don't ask where:-). At 70MPH, I get 23MPG. A lot of the speed efficiencies have to do with gearing.
Its like the goal is absolute ignorance of everything not in the Bible.
It really doesn't matter for these kids if they understand the real world or not. In the US, we are (generally) too well off and complete ignorance isn't a barrier to maintaining a decent lifestyle. Hell, look at our current president. Complete ignorance keeps him in office!
I'm getting embarrassed for you, sir. For the love of God, please get some sleep and come back tomorrow with some articles about the pending release of Windows 95 or something.
Anything but more of the shameless pimping of ThinkGeek.
I am not aware of any significant religious group in operation in the United States with any sort of organized, sigificant political clout that has a serious problem with or denies the existance of atoms or galaxies.
You're correct - atoms and galaxies are just fine. It's the fact that those galaxies are older than 6,000 years that gets these loonies' panties in a bunch. Seriously. These people (and I know a few) are completely off the deep end in this respect.
And lunatic fringe? That they are in some respects. Unfortunately, this "fringe" group is having a censorious effect on what is and isn't shown in these theaters. And judging by some recent polls, they may not be as fringe as I'd like to think.
Every digital camera should have bluetooth to allow you to easily send pictures instantly from any Camera/Bluetooth cellphone combo.
Better be Bluetooth 2.0. Using the current standard you'll be waiting minutes for a simple five megapixel image to be moved between your camera and another. Bluetooth is nice - as long as you don't want to move tons of data quickly.
Some sort of medical related degree. Seriously. Medical doctor, a Pharm.D., some sort of biochemistry, etc. These types are in ridiculously high demand and the people I know who have this magic combination love what they do.
It's getting to the point that little medical research can be done without loads of computing power, and being able to combine these two skillsets is a *BIG* win.
Hell - I'm thinking of going back to school to finish off a biochem degree or just move on to the Pharm.D.
I thnk your C example is a little screwed. Besides the painfully obvious multiple syntax problems, the code doesn't demonstrate what you said it does. It actually makes no sense, and won't compile even with semicolons added.
Don't worry - I won't work for you.
The company I work for used to do a lot of business with SCO, and we still get holiday cards and whatnot from them from time to time. This past Christmas, we get a nice generic corporate Happy Holidays!-type thing from them. Except get this -
Cars don't suck because they crash when people drive drunk, the drivers do. Windows doesn't suck when idiots connect it to a high speed network unprotected, the moron using it does.
Yeah, well your car probably doesn't start handing out fifths of vodka and it's keys to every teenager who happens by, either. Your Windows box does.
Not to pick nits, but Celsius scale hasn't been defined by the boiling or freezing point of water for some time. From the all-knowing Wikipedia:
The current official definition of the Celsius sets 0.01C to be at the triple point of water and a degree to be 1/273.16 of the difference in temperature between the triple point of water and absolute zero. This definition ensures that one degree Celsius represents the same temperature difference as one kelvin.
Boiling water can't be used because it depends on pressure and pressure is dependent on temperature, leading to an unsuitable scientific definition.
With ANY type of work done by an outside party, you need to have a clearly defined contract that specifies when payment(s) will be made and under what conditions. This needs to include such "trivial" things such as specifications on exactly what the software is supposed to do and penalties when it doesn't do them. I have been under such contracts (writing the software) and wrote such things (when outsourcing to another company). They're reasonably complicated, long, boring documents. But without them, you get fucked more times than not.
Money is the only thing you can hold over contractor's heads. If you don't use this leverage from the beginning (with a well-worded contract/specification) you WILL be hosed.
And what the hell are you doing paying them before testing is complete? Stuck with a product that is useless? Sounds like you have no business doing any sort of development work. Period. Do you pay your car mechanic when he hands your car back to you in 200 pieces?
If you can create an ActiveX control to format your hard drive, why not one that automatically downloads and installs Firefox, then deletes Internet Explorer? Hell, get rid of Outlook too!
i mean, any operating system is vulnerable to an exploit if it's security infrastructure is sufficiently loose.
The problem is, there aren't many OS's out there that arbitrarily run dangerous code from a web page with no interaction from the user other than visiting the page in question, low security settings or not.
The same people who give me cable boxes that can barely respond to pressing keys on a remote want to speed up their 'net service? How about a damn cable box that actually fucking works?
Or better yet, how about digital channels that actually look better than the "inferior" analog channels?
BTW, do you know what I've found to be most rock solid software from Microsoft? Windows Server 2003. I've got 12 servers with 8-20 terminal server users each running IE (Gasp!) Outlook Express (The Horror!) on an internal network (proxy for mail/web access) that haven't been rebooted since May of last year (yes - they're behind on their security patches) and don't show any signs of stopping.
These machines are pounded day and night, and hold up incredibly well, despite two of them running on the same crap commodity hardware as some of our problematic XP desktops.
As a comparison, according to my stats, I have exactly three XP machines in this office that have had > 2 weeks of uptime, *EVER*.
I have a simple out of the box XP PC, brand new. Nothing else installed, from the factory. Can't run Windows Update to get SP2 because it is "stuck" on downloading a phantom security patch that "installs", reboots, and is magically there upon running Windows Update again. Searching the net, absolutely piles of people are having this exact problem, with various incantations presented to try to make it work.
XP PC, plugged in a USB flash drive for the first time. It installed drivers (for I presume the flash drive?) and wanted to reboot. Never had that happen before (or since), but it's crap.
Have another brand new XP machine from another manufacturer. It drops all the printer configurations every time it reboots. Who knows why?
Same manufacturer, another XP PC - it won't run some standard accounting software. Just crashes because it's "missing" a standard DLL that's present on the machine. Works on all the other PC's from the manufacturer, which are identical. Only difference? Windows Update crashed (not the computer - the software) during an update.
Another white box PC that runs nightly builds of our product. Running Windows 2000, it built a particular tree in 35 minutes. "Updated" to XP, it now takes a little over an hour. (This one isn't running AV or anything. It's not connected to the outside world.)
I move through hundreds of PC's a month, and I see so many random problems with Windows XP it would boggle your little Muppet mind. All the machines above are connected to an internal network, heavily firewalled, running Norton AV, AdAware and are locked down heavily so no additional software can be loaded. No spyware, no viruses, nothing. Just plain random XP shit with marginal functionality.
Garbage? Hardly. by your own admission, you have to spend time educating people and installing software just to protect a crumbling pile of crap. Guess what? I don't have time to fuck with Windows or it's problems. Apparently you do, so you got that going for you.
And don't understand computers? How about a hacker who has multiple extremely active Open Source projects for Linux and Windows whose XP system was brought to it's knees because he opened a directory with ~3000 photos in it? Just opened it. Thumbnail generation caused him a reboot. Shouldn't have, worked the next time. But failed none the less.
And how BIll Gates? He can't even keep two machines running for a damn rigged demo. Reliable my ass. His fucking remote didn't even work.
BTW, I'm no Linux fanboy. Linux sucks ass too for the average user. How the hell are they going to fix something if it breaks? And installing software on most of them is *STILL* a PITA in a lot of cases.
Better off on a Mac? Damn straight. Guess who I don't get calls from because their PC doesn't work anymore? The two people I convinced to buy an Apple.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree 100%. Just send me your name, last three addresses, your SSN, date of birth and your mother's maiden name. Then I'll do the same.
A bug, yes. These shows weren't supposed to have the flag set. However, the fact that this so-called "feature" was added AT ALL speaks volumes about Tivo's respect for it's users. And it doesn't even work right, as evidenced.
Just because it isn't turned on now doesn't mean it won't be tomorrow. This junk won't be unused for long, that's for damn sure. If I *EVER* start losing shows because I don't watch them within the parameters defined by some batshit insane network exec, my Tivo's are going out the window.
I've read from some Tivo defenders that this was required by Macrovision as part of their new agreements with TV and Hollywood. Well to hell with them! Who the hell says this monopoly of DRM has to be integrated into every device that attaches to a TV? No one.
I hardly watched TV before I got Tivo (way to inconvenient) and I suppose I'll live without it again. Maybe I'll get something done.
Why can't you sync iTunes via BlueTooth, since the phone actually has BT? First the mini mouse, now this.
Spoken as someone who has never used Bluetooth. Why don't we just transfer it semaphores, it would be just as fast.
The Sextel Racing Cup.
Funny thing about speed. My Porsche Carrera gets 28MPG at 115MPH (measured over a three hour period - don't ask where :-). At 70MPH, I get 23MPG. A lot of the speed efficiencies have to do with gearing.
Its like the goal is absolute ignorance of everything not in the Bible.
It really doesn't matter for these kids if they understand the real world or not. In the US, we are (generally) too well off and complete ignorance isn't a barrier to maintaining a decent lifestyle. Hell, look at our current president. Complete ignorance keeps him in office!
Check out the listings for Systemax, the parent company of TigerDirect. They own a "Tiger" trademark.
Thanks to Speakeasy, it'll only take 20 years to download this at my house! Suckers!
... Except that it's more of a shuffler than a walker. Still, some cool hacking went into this thing.
In case of a late-night Slashdotting, I've got a copy of the movie stashed temporarily: robo movie
I'm getting embarrassed for you, sir. For the love of God, please get some sleep and come back tomorrow with some articles about the pending release of Windows 95 or something.
Anything but more of the shameless pimping of ThinkGeek.
I am not aware of any significant religious group in operation in the United States with any sort of organized, sigificant political clout that has a serious problem with or denies the existance of atoms or galaxies.
You're correct - atoms and galaxies are just fine. It's the fact that those galaxies are older than 6,000 years that gets these loonies' panties in a bunch. Seriously. These people (and I know a few) are completely off the deep end in this respect.
And lunatic fringe? That they are in some respects. Unfortunately, this "fringe" group is having a censorious effect on what is and isn't shown in these theaters. And judging by some recent polls, they may not be as fringe as I'd like to think.
Every digital camera should have bluetooth to allow you to easily send pictures instantly from any Camera/Bluetooth cellphone combo.
Better be Bluetooth 2.0. Using the current standard you'll be waiting minutes for a simple five megapixel image to be moved between your camera and another. Bluetooth is nice - as long as you don't want to move tons of data quickly.
Some sort of medical related degree. Seriously. Medical doctor, a Pharm.D., some sort of biochemistry, etc. These types are in ridiculously high demand and the people I know who have this magic combination love what they do.
It's getting to the point that little medical research can be done without loads of computing power, and being able to combine these two skillsets is a *BIG* win.
Hell - I'm thinking of going back to school to finish off a biochem degree or just move on to the Pharm.D.
I thnk your C example is a little screwed. Besides the painfully obvious multiple syntax problems, the code doesn't demonstrate what you said it does. It actually makes no sense, and won't compile even with semicolons added. Don't worry - I won't work for you.
"...Could this be the 'egg' in the alternate fuels 'chicken or egg?' scenario?"
If so, that's a damn small egg they've got. Three SUVs and 5 stations? I guess you gotta start somewhere.
The company I work for used to do a lot of business with SCO, and we still get holiday cards and whatnot from them from time to time. This past Christmas, we get a nice generic corporate Happy Holidays!-type thing from them. Except get this -
It came postage due.
I kid you not. It's hanging on the wall.
Cars don't suck because they crash when people drive drunk, the drivers do. Windows doesn't suck when idiots connect it to a high speed network unprotected, the moron using it does.
Yeah, well your car probably doesn't start handing out fifths of vodka and it's keys to every teenager who happens by, either. Your Windows box does.
With ANY type of work done by an outside party, you need to have a clearly defined contract that specifies when payment(s) will be made and under what conditions. This needs to include such "trivial" things such as specifications on exactly what the software is supposed to do and penalties when it doesn't do them. I have been under such contracts (writing the software) and wrote such things (when outsourcing to another company). They're reasonably complicated, long, boring documents. But without them, you get fucked more times than not.
Money is the only thing you can hold over contractor's heads. If you don't use this leverage from the beginning (with a well-worded contract/specification) you WILL be hosed.
And what the hell are you doing paying them before testing is complete? Stuck with a product that is useless? Sounds like you have no business doing any sort of development work. Period. Do you pay your car mechanic when he hands your car back to you in 200 pieces?
If you can create an ActiveX control to format your hard drive, why not one that automatically downloads and installs Firefox, then deletes Internet Explorer? Hell, get rid of Outlook too!
i mean, any operating system is vulnerable to an exploit if it's security infrastructure is sufficiently loose.
The problem is, there aren't many OS's out there that arbitrarily run dangerous code from a web page with no interaction from the user other than visiting the page in question, low security settings or not.
The same people who give me cable boxes that can barely respond to pressing keys on a remote want to speed up their 'net service? How about a damn cable box that actually fucking works? Or better yet, how about digital channels that actually look better than the "inferior" analog channels?
BTW, do you know what I've found to be most rock solid software from Microsoft? Windows Server 2003. I've got 12 servers with 8-20 terminal server users each running IE (Gasp!) Outlook Express (The Horror!) on an internal network (proxy for mail/web access) that haven't been rebooted since May of last year (yes - they're behind on their security patches) and don't show any signs of stopping.
These machines are pounded day and night, and hold up incredibly well, despite two of them running on the same crap commodity hardware as some of our problematic XP desktops.
As a comparison, according to my stats, I have exactly three XP machines in this office that have had > 2 weeks of uptime, *EVER*.
I have a simple out of the box XP PC, brand new. Nothing else installed, from the factory. Can't run Windows Update to get SP2 because it is "stuck" on downloading a phantom security patch that "installs", reboots, and is magically there upon running Windows Update again. Searching the net, absolutely piles of people are having this exact problem, with various incantations presented to try to make it work.
XP PC, plugged in a USB flash drive for the first time. It installed drivers (for I presume the flash drive?) and wanted to reboot. Never had that happen before (or since), but it's crap.
Have another brand new XP machine from another manufacturer. It drops all the printer configurations every time it reboots. Who knows why?
Same manufacturer, another XP PC - it won't run some standard accounting software. Just crashes because it's "missing" a standard DLL that's present on the machine. Works on all the other PC's from the manufacturer, which are identical. Only difference? Windows Update crashed (not the computer - the software) during an update.
Another white box PC that runs nightly builds of our product. Running Windows 2000, it built a particular tree in 35 minutes. "Updated" to XP, it now takes a little over an hour. (This one isn't running AV or anything. It's not connected to the outside world.)
I move through hundreds of PC's a month, and I see so many random problems with Windows XP it would boggle your little Muppet mind. All the machines above are connected to an internal network, heavily firewalled, running Norton AV, AdAware and are locked down heavily so no additional software can be loaded. No spyware, no viruses, nothing. Just plain random XP shit with marginal functionality.
Garbage? Hardly. by your own admission, you have to spend time educating people and installing software just to protect a crumbling pile of crap. Guess what? I don't have time to fuck with Windows or it's problems. Apparently you do, so you got that going for you.
And don't understand computers? How about a hacker who has multiple extremely active Open Source projects for Linux and Windows whose XP system was brought to it's knees because he opened a directory with ~3000 photos in it? Just opened it. Thumbnail generation caused him a reboot. Shouldn't have, worked the next time. But failed none the less.
And how BIll Gates? He can't even keep two machines running for a damn rigged demo. Reliable my ass. His fucking remote didn't even work.
BTW, I'm no Linux fanboy. Linux sucks ass too for the average user. How the hell are they going to fix something if it breaks? And installing software on most of them is *STILL* a PITA in a lot of cases.
Better off on a Mac? Damn straight. Guess who I don't get calls from because their PC doesn't work anymore? The two people I convinced to buy an Apple.