I've seen the systems and they are pathetic in comparison to a £200 tivo. It's like buying a replica ferrari, it may look like a good idea but it doesn't have the performance.
Well, Tivos are not available in all countries, so systems like MythTV provide at least a subset of the functionality of a Tivo, which is better than nothing at all.
Personally, I'm fairly happy with MythTV. It is certainly much more convenient than a VCR for recording (just select the show from the EPG), and the ability to pause live is a great bonus as well.
When Tivos are released in Australia, I will ceratinly consider getting one. But until then, MythTV is good enough for me.
There is a system similar to what you describe at the Exploratorium in S.F. It puts up an image, and tracks where your eyes are looking, then replays what you were looking at. Pretty cool. I was there a year ago or so with my girlfriend, and purposely concentrated on every female in the images (she hit me).
"Purposely" looked at all the chicks huh?
I'm sure that's what you told her, but you don't fool us.
Beatles - Sgt. Peppers, Revolver, The White Album, Abbey Road
If I was going to pay to download the White Album, I'd skip downloading Revolution 9. Everyone I know skips that self-indulgent "sound-collage" when playing the CD anyway. Even the White Album has at least one song that isn't up to par.
However, I agree that you can't listen to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" or "The Wall" properly if you skip any tracks.
When Carmageddon was about to be released in Australia (many years ago), one of our very reactionary current affairs shows got hold of it and started a campaign to get it banned. They constantly claimed that the game was being marketed to young children. Back then, the public assumed that they were the only ones playing computer games.
As expected, Christian groups and "family first" organisations got on the bandwagon, and eventually the game was changed, so that rather than running over people, the aim was to run over "evil zombies". Everyone was happy with this - except the gamers.
This was a bit of anomaly, games aren't usually censored in Australia (the last time I can think of something like this happening was when GTA3 was banned - although the ban was very quickly lifted). The campaign against Carmageddon by the current affairs show was very effective. I remember them having Super Mario Brothers on the screen, and images of smiling children, then suddenly flashing to a scene of people getting mowed down in Carmageddon.
Despite all this, the game ended up selling well (even though it was a crap game). The current affairs show still chalked up another victory against the "evil forces trying to corrupt our children". Unfortunately, these type of right-wing current affairs shows still have occasional fetures on the "evils of computer games", but most people are too busy playing GTA Vice City to notice.
I can remember vividly a few years ago that he published "10 Sex Tips for Geeks" on Valentines day. If you have ever layed eyes on the man, you know that he is the last person you would ever want to be accepting sex tips from.
No, he is the first person you would accept sex tips from, since he claims to be able to channel Pan, the God of Sex.
Here's a quote from his description of his "amazing transformation":
Until I realized, finally, belatedly, what had been happening to me. Until the Great God Pan reached out of my hindbrain and thundered "YOU!" And his gift is music and his chosen instruments the pipes and flutes. And his, too the power of joy; magic so strong that when it flowed out of me, even before I knew what I was doing, it amazed people into awe and incoherence and poetry.
That day I was reborn; from a skinny lame kid with a flute into a shaman and a vessel of the Goat-Foot God, the Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the Horned Lord. And the music was my first power, but not my last.
(And, oh, yes. The first time I handled a set of pan-pipes I could play them. Fluently. Effortlessly. And knew I could before I touched them.)
During the next several months I went through a wrenching re-adjustment of my world-view as I assimilated what I have just related here. There was simply no way it would fit in either the religious categories I'd grown up with or the comfortable, naive materialism I had constructed for myself. I clung to the conviction that I live in a rational, explicable universe -- but the Gods had spoken and after that transforming moment of realization I could no more go back than a butterfly could crawl back into its cocoon.
I knew I wasn't crazy, even by my own rather strict definition of sanity. I was coping pretty well -- in fact, I was becoming a whole human being for the first time in my life. Opening up emotionally. Playing beautiful music. And... um... getting laid. (Well, what do you think happens when you start channelling the freaking God of Sex Himself?:-))
Yes, ESR is not just an egotistical dickhead, he is totally mad as well. You can read more of this crap, as well as his recollections about channelling Thor and forming his own Wiccan cult here.
Kernel hackers is a false term. Anyone who was there when the term "hackers" was invented knows that it refers to unauthorized entry to a computer system.
Ah, so you were a member of the MIT Model Railway Club back in the 1960s when the term "hacker" was invented (and long before networked computers became popular). OK then, thanks for enlightening us all.
Sure, hackers are enthusiasts, however this also includes those who are enthusiastic about writing malicious code.
All this demonstrates is that we need a more specific term to use for malicious hackers. The word "cracker" might not be ideal, but it's certainly better than identifying the small subset of hackers that are malicious with the label of the larger group.
Lost, son. Circa 15 years ago. Woulda helped had we picked a word not already firmly ensconced in both the vernacular (thin biscuit) AND slang (narrow-minded Southern whitey) simultaneously.
Most people outside the US don't use cracker to mean either of the above terms. I know here (in Australia), a cracker is someone who breaks into a safe. So using it to mean someone who breaks into computers makes sense. It's certainly less ambiguous than "hacker", which already has about 30 different meanings.
If you take a look at search usage today--everybody likes to talk about Google, which is fine. They are doing a good job as a company. But for traffic, Yahoo is doing quite well and we are doing quite well.
So, basically what he's saying is that the success of a search engine can be measured by the amount of traffic it generates. This means that all Google has to do to be successful is add some big-ass animated.gifs and banner ads to their site. If they did this their traffic (bandwidth utilization) would skyrocket, and in Mr Ballmer's opinion, they would suddenly be successful.
This law would protect the world from Aussie spam more than it would protect Australia from the worlds spam!
That's basically the idea. The report states that the Australian Government should push for the creation of an international agreement on outlawing spam (i.e. similar to the current international IP agreements).
Introducing domestic anti-spam laws is obviously the first step to achieving this. It would be difficult to convince the international community to introduce similar laws if Australia didn't have them in place themself.
Despite this, until some form of international consensus is reached, these laws are basically just a symbolic gesture.
Except that "root" is a crude euphemism for sex in Australia, which results in some strange looks from people when they look over my shoulder while I'm doing SysAdmin tasks.
Here's a question I've wondered about since I heard about 'Schrodinger's Cat':
Won't the cat be able to observe whether it is (itself) alive or dead?
Of course it won't suddenly realize 'Oops, I'm dead'; but it will certainly be able to tell that it is still alive. Therefore the decision would have to be made while the cat is still in the unopened box, because the cat is constantly 'observing' itself during that time.
Have I got the concept of Schrodinger's Cat totally wrong, or is there something I am missing?
Fine, so you are saying: you don't want free trade. Many countries are saying the same thing. But it is the US and its democratically elected government that is pushing most strongly for free trade.
No, the US government isn't "pushing most strongly for free trade". They've continually rejected free trade agreements from other countries, and given massive subsidies to farmers, while keeping large tarrifs on imports from competing nations.
The Australian Government has been pushing the US Government for years to get a bilateral free trade agreement, and successive US administrations have rejected it. They want to keep their protectionist policies in place as far as their farmers are concerned.
Did you know that Australia filters all printed media. If you want a copy of the NY Times or internation herald tribune it takes an extra 48 hours for them read it and send it off.
No, this is totally incorrect. Printed media is *not* censored in Australia. Not only would the Australian public quickly vote a Government out of office if they they tried this, but it would be infeasible.
Singapore does have a policy similar to this, so maybe that's what you're thinking of. However, their censorship policy is to leave the censoring to the individual retailers.
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I've seen the systems and they are pathetic in comparison to a £200 tivo. It's like buying a replica ferrari, it may look like a good idea but it doesn't have the performance.
Well, Tivos are not available in all countries, so systems like MythTV provide at least a subset of the functionality of a Tivo, which is better than nothing at all.
Personally, I'm fairly happy with MythTV. It is certainly much more convenient than a VCR for recording (just select the show from the EPG), and the ability to pause live is a great bonus as well.
When Tivos are released in Australia, I will ceratinly consider getting one. But until then, MythTV is good enough for me.
There is a system similar to what you describe at the Exploratorium in S.F. It puts up an image, and tracks where your eyes are looking, then replays what you were looking at. Pretty cool. I was there a year ago or so with my girlfriend, and purposely concentrated on every female in the images (she hit me).
"Purposely" looked at all the chicks huh?
I'm sure that's what you told her, but you don't fool us.
Beatles - Sgt. Peppers, Revolver, The White Album, Abbey Road
If I was going to pay to download the White Album, I'd skip downloading Revolution 9. Everyone I know skips that self-indulgent "sound-collage" when playing the CD anyway. Even the White Album has at least one song that isn't up to par.
However, I agree that you can't listen to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" or "The Wall" properly if you skip any tracks.
None of my computers booted straight into Windows until Windows 95, when they forced you to, and then I had it setup for dual boot anyway.
Yep, this was exactly the same for me, although the first command I would type at the DOS prompt would often be "xtgold".
I am yet to see a user interface for file management that even comes close to matching XTree Gold. None of the clones even come close
When Carmageddon was about to be released in Australia (many years ago), one of our very reactionary current affairs shows got hold of it and started a campaign to get it banned. They constantly claimed that the game was being marketed to young children. Back then, the public assumed that they were the only ones playing computer games.
As expected, Christian groups and "family first" organisations got on the bandwagon, and eventually the game was changed, so that rather than running over people, the aim was to run over "evil zombies". Everyone was happy with this - except the gamers.
This was a bit of anomaly, games aren't usually censored in Australia (the last time I can think of something like this happening was when GTA3 was banned - although the ban was very quickly lifted). The campaign against Carmageddon by the current affairs show was very effective. I remember them having Super Mario Brothers on the screen, and images of smiling children, then suddenly flashing to a scene of people getting mowed down in Carmageddon.
Despite all this, the game ended up selling well (even though it was a crap game). The current affairs show still chalked up another victory against the "evil forces trying to corrupt our children". Unfortunately, these type of right-wing current affairs shows still have occasional fetures on the "evils of computer games", but most people are too busy playing GTA Vice City to notice.
I can remember vividly a few years ago that he published "10 Sex Tips for Geeks" on Valentines day. If you have ever layed eyes on the man, you know that he is the last person you would ever want to be accepting sex tips from.
No, he is the first person you would accept sex tips from, since he claims to be able to channel Pan, the God of Sex.
Here's a quote from his description of his "amazing transformation":
Yes, ESR is not just an egotistical dickhead, he is totally mad as well. You can read more of this crap, as well as his recollections about channelling Thor and forming his own Wiccan cult here.
Kernel hackers is a false term. Anyone who was there when the term "hackers" was invented knows that it refers to unauthorized entry to a computer system.
Ah, so you were a member of the MIT Model Railway Club back in the 1960s when the term "hacker" was invented (and long before networked computers became popular). OK then, thanks for enlightening us all.
Sure, hackers are enthusiasts, however this also includes those who are enthusiastic about writing malicious code.
All this demonstrates is that we need a more specific term to use for malicious hackers. The word "cracker" might not be ideal, but it's certainly better than identifying the small subset of hackers that are malicious with the label of the larger group.
Lost, son. Circa 15 years ago. Woulda helped had we picked a word not already firmly ensconced in both the vernacular (thin biscuit) AND slang (narrow-minded Southern whitey) simultaneously.
Most people outside the US don't use cracker to mean either of the above terms. I know here (in Australia), a cracker is someone who breaks into a safe. So using it to mean someone who breaks into computers makes sense. It's certainly less ambiguous than "hacker", which already has about 30 different meanings.
Here's the fulll quote:
If you take a look at search usage today--everybody likes to talk about Google, which is fine. They are doing a good job as a company. But for traffic, Yahoo is doing quite well and we are doing quite well.
So, basically what he's saying is that the success of a search engine can be measured by the amount of traffic it generates. This means that all Google has to do to be successful is add some big-ass animated .gifs and banner ads to their site. If they did this their traffic (bandwidth utilization) would skyrocket, and in Mr Ballmer's opinion, they would suddenly be successful.
This law would protect the world from Aussie spam more than it would protect Australia from the worlds spam!
That's basically the idea. The report states that the Australian Government should push for the creation of an international agreement on outlawing spam (i.e. similar to the current international IP agreements).
Introducing domestic anti-spam laws is obviously the first step to achieving this. It would be difficult to convince the international community to introduce similar laws if Australia didn't have them in place themself.
Despite this, until some form of international consensus is reached, these laws are basically just a symbolic gesture.
Q: What's the difference between a System Administrator and God?
A: God doesn't walk around thinking he's a System Administrator.
I prefer "root" -- no one questions my existence.
Except that "root" is a crude euphemism for sex in Australia, which results in some strange looks from people when they look over my shoulder while I'm doing SysAdmin tasks.
Here's a question I've wondered about since I heard about 'Schrodinger's Cat':
Won't the cat be able to observe whether it is (itself) alive or dead?
Of course it won't suddenly realize 'Oops, I'm dead'; but it will certainly be able to tell that it is still alive. Therefore the decision would have to be made while the cat is still in the unopened box, because the cat is constantly 'observing' itself during that time.
Have I got the concept of Schrodinger's Cat totally wrong, or is there something I am missing?
Fine, so you are saying: you don't want free trade. Many countries are saying the same thing. But it is the US and its democratically elected government that is pushing most strongly for free trade.
No, the US government isn't "pushing most strongly for free trade". They've continually rejected free trade agreements from other countries, and given massive subsidies to farmers, while keeping large tarrifs on imports from competing nations.
The Australian Government has been pushing the US Government for years to get a bilateral free trade agreement, and successive US administrations have rejected it. They want to keep their protectionist policies in place as far as their farmers are concerned.
Did you know that Australia filters all printed media. If you want a copy of the NY Times or internation herald tribune it takes an extra 48 hours for them read it and send it off.
No, this is totally incorrect. Printed media is *not* censored in Australia. Not only would the Australian public quickly vote a Government out of office if they they tried this, but it would be infeasible.
Singapore does have a policy similar to this, so maybe that's what you're thinking of. However, their censorship policy is to leave the censoring to the individual retailers.
Yeah, but the SuperBowl is just a bunch of pansies running around in padded armour, but Lord Of The Rings is .... ummm .... errr ..... OK you win.