Can someone explain why this would be a bad thing?
Because sometimes it's better to accelerate out of a dangerous situation than brake. The last thing I want to happen while I'm overtaking with a lorry heading towards me is the car to decide that I'm breaking the speed limit and to cut the power. Speed limits are there to make the roads safer - enforcing them without regard for the current situation would make the roads much more dangerous (unfortunately, enforcing laws for the sake of enforcing them seems to be a common attitude these days - here in the UK we have more and more speed cameras and "traffic calming" measures despite the fact that in many situations these measures make the road more dangerous by promoting hard braking and requiring people to pull out into oncoming traffic).
This is very similar to a fly by wire system enforcing the flight envelope without access to all of the information - if it's a choice between hitting the ground or exceeding your flight envelope, you don't want the computer denying your choice to do the latter.
And I think this is happening in that a major ISP is offering an add on for in home network support etc - the network equivelent of in home wire maitenence. Should it be an extra fee? Maybe - but I think it is sort of going in that direction, that "We offer support where others don't" and their price is not bad, you'd have to go well over a year with no problems to reach one in home diag by Geek Squad et al. Most users could likely use some help every few months.
I'm not really interested in ISPs providing extra support services (sure, if they want to sell them as extras than fair enough, but I don't want to have to pay for them since I'm never going to use them). What I _do_ want is ISPs to actually provide the support they already claim to provide: 1. When I log a fault, actually answer my ticket in a reasonable amount of time. This means doing something to try and resolve the problem, not just reply with "we'll look into it" and then leave me waiting for weeks. 2. Fix problems when I report them. For example, I have completely given up on using PlusNet's SIP to PSTN gateway because it is broken most of the time and even when it works the calls are as flaky as hell. This has been a problem ever since they introduced the service a couple of years ago - everyone's complaining about it and nothing has been done. 3. Don't try to hide problems from your customers - if I phone up with a problem and it is your fault then damned well tell me so. I've lost track of the number of hours I spent chasing problems which Demon swore blind were on my side of the connection when they knew full well that some critical part of their infrastructure was down.
This extends to other companies as well, such as device manufacturers - I've just gone off on one on UTStarcom's user forums (along with several other customers) because they've basically spent the last year having people complaining about bugs in one of their devices and have done nothing to resolve the (firmware) problems. It seems that these days the life cycle of many devices is so short that the firmware is never stablised - they release a new (buggy) device and within a year they have stopped selling it and replaced it with a new (equally buggy) device and have no interest in fixing the bugs in the older device. Most consumer grade devices seem to be pretty much the same - my cellphone's firmware is unstable as hell, pretty much every wireless router I've used is crap (except my WRT54GL running the OpenWRT firmware).
Also, if everyone else's customer support is crap then you're not going to lose customers by being just as crap.
In general, large companies don't care about customer support because it only affects the customers who are having a problem (a tiny number) and if they lose those few customers it isn't a big deal. In many cases it's probably cheaper to lose the customer than support them.
If you want good support, you're probably best dealing with a small company where losing 1 or 2 customers _does_ matter. This is pretty noticeable with ISPs - whenever I have changed ISP I have gone for a small ISP and their quality of service has been excellent. They have then got bigger and the service has progressively turned to crap.
Fact is, there is still a huge user base out there that hasn't been reached. They are Windows users, lots of them. All I'm saying is maybe there is a reason why they are still on Windows other than the assumption of they being retards?
When did I say anything about retards?
I believe there are a number of factors which keep the majority of home users on Windows (business users are rather different anyway): 1. The machine came with Windows, they have no clue that there is an alternative. Much the same as to many people IE is "the internet", for a lot of people Windows is an integral part of the computer and they have no concept of changing it any more than you would change the tube in your TV. (No, that does not make them retards, it makes them uninformed) 2. It is what they know and they are afraid of change. Even when Microsoft dictates change with an upgrade, the changes between two versions of the same bit of software are perceived to be smaller than the jump between different bits of software (whether or not this is true). 3. They are not interested enough to change - their computer does more or less what they want and they don't want to go to the effort of changing (even if the change would make things better for them in the long run).
The "not running windows software" really shouldn't feature as a reason for a lot of people since most people really don't use their computer for anything that a modern Linux distro doesn't do out of the box anyway. I'm not saying that *no one* needs to run Windows software, I'm saying that a lot of people don't.
Granted, but that makes it all the more bizarre that this mindset is so entrenched in the community. Every time somebody talks about usability they get a severe beating. So naturally, there are not many people still around to keep telling you there may be a problem because nobody wants to hear it anyway.
You get this anywhere - at my old job I more or less gave up with arguing for usability because no one was interested - it afflicts the whole industry, Free software or not.
FWIW, Linus _has_ bashed people on usability grounds - most notably the Gnome developers for their belief that removing commonly used configuration options from the UI and forcing people to edit their equivalent of the Windows registry is a usability improvement.
Somehow, telling users to "get over it" is not exactly the most productive way to go. Pretending something can't be changed because that's the way everybody else does it and because that's the way we've always been doing it... I don't see any potential for growth in this kind of attitude, I'm sorry.
Your original post came across as a "Linux sucks compared to Windows because it does $lots_of_things_windows_also_does". I'm all for improving Linux, but citing these sorts of problems as a reason why Windows is "better" (even though Windows has exactly the same problems) seems the wrong attitude.
I think the main way Linux can get into the mainstream is for it to be shipped as standard on machines (similar to what Dell are doing) *where appropriate*. Obviously shipping it to people who need Windows specific software is just going to piss them off, but there are a large group of users for whom Linux does everything they need as standard. I'm not convinced that further improvements to the software itself are going to push Linux much further into the mainstream at this time.
Usability is a nightmare. The UI is cluttered with useless, confusing icons and half of the functions behind them don't even work properly. But configuration is the worst problem, why is it so hard to make a system architecture and drivers that don't require constant hand holding regarding even the most basic settings?
You're talking about Windows, right?
Second, supporting Windows apps is a huge problem, too. For all intends and purposes Wine just doesn't work, at least not of you don't know how to tweak and trick it into doing the right thing.
But the majority of people don't need Windows apps - they need a web browser and a word processor. These are things that are available for non-windows platforms - the uptake of OS X (before Parallels appeared) should prove this.
At least SuSE comes with XEN, but it's pretty much unusable.
I have no recent experience of SuSE (although I have heard lots of bad stuff about it and for political reasons I wouldn't use it), but Xen under Fedora 7 is quite usable.
Of course it doesn't help that Linus himself is a big antagonist when it comes to making a system that saves the user some time with useful configuration models and efficient UI.
Whether or not you agree with Linus's opinions, he does not control the direction that individual distributions take the userland.
Who has time and energy to spend days setting up his workstation?
For one thing, even if I have to set up a workstation from scratch it doesn't take days. However, these days I tend to just copy my Beryl and Emerald config onto new workstations so there is no real set up to be done. One thing I _am_ sure of though it that if the OS restricted me as much as Windows does I would waste far more time having to deal with a bad unchangable configuration on a daily basis than I do in configuring a workstation _once_. One of the reasons I use Linux is because I can tweak the config to speed up operations I have to do frequently - Windows does not allow this to the same extent.
So when I say that even I am regularly getting discouraged by the obscene amount of hoops Linux/KDE/whatever make their users jump through to get anything done, that should mean something.
Yup, Linux makes people jump through an obscene amount of hoops. Guess what - so does every other OS, get over it.
Only a tiny speck of will start a fatal cancer if inhaled or ingested.
This is true of quite a lot of chemicals, radioactive or not... In fact, most of those chemicals aren't under anywhere near as strict controls as Pu so pose more of a hazard.
How are we going to store the nuclear waste in such a way that no one is hurt by it? Who will guard this facility for a million years? How much will that cost?
How about reprocessing it and reacting it again?
I think that before any new nuclear facility is licensed, its operators should be required to pay in advance for the disposal of its spent fuel.
That would clearly be completely unfeasible - the upfront costs are big enough already. If you had said "before any fuel is placed into storage" then that might be more sane (and might encourage the reprocessing of the fuel so that it wouldn't need to be placed in storage).
Also, you are aware that coal fired power stations dump a lot of radioactive and toxic material directly into the atmosphere aren't you? So you seem to be saying that nuclear power plants must pay for the careful storage of their waste whilst everyone else can just carelessly dump into the atmosphere for free... seems a little unfair huh?
The version to be released in October is supposed to have wireless networking.
Unfortunately it looks like the schedule has slipped and general availability will be Christmas.
Personally, I'm holding out for a UMTS version, although they've given no indication when this is likely to happen. (I've had enough of the crappness of GPRS to last me a life time).
DHCPv6 might also get used to configure other information that is not handled by stateless autoconfig (DNS servers, NTP servers, any of a huge list of other things).
Umm.. isn't that what multicast DNS is for?
As far as I can see, DHCPv6 is a protocol looking for a job since in the IPv6 world DHCP has been superseded by stateless subnet autoconfiguration and DNS. However, no matter how misguided, I don't see the need to use DHCP is a reason to not upgrade to IPv6.
There's a little something called a clutch that makes it pretty safe.
I suspect, being electric, this wouldn't have a clutch.
In fact, the only stupid risk he took was not wearing a helmet. What sort of a dick rides a bike without a helmet?
To be fair, he was attempting a burnout - going over the handlebars at high speed isn't usually a big hazard when you're stationary with the back wheel spinning.
I'm pretty sure that an HR.HDTV pirate XviD compares favorably in quality to a digital signal downrezzed to NTSC.
960x528 at 1.5 Mbps... sounds fantastic (standard definition broadcast quality here in the UK is 720x576 at ~2Mbps (MPEG2), BBC HD is 1440x1080 at 20Mbps (H.264) - BBC HD displayed on my 10 year old 28" standard definition Trinitron is noticably much sharper than the standard definition streams). My experience of HDTV rips from the internet is they suffer significantly more artifacting than the standard definition DVB channels.
HD is defined as 720p, 1080i, and 1080p (and 1080p isn't actually in the HD standard anyway).
I've not yet managed to work out why interlaced modes are even in the standard given that pretty much all HD TVs are progressive technologies (e.g. LCD).
Ok, let's compare. Analogue TV - hrm, the edges look a little fuzzy. HD - wow, that's really sharp, oh wait they moved the camera a little and now it's got big MPEG artifacts the size of my thumbnail
Sounds like your HD broadcaster is trying to use too little bandwidth. I don't get any such artifacts when watching BBC HD.
That said, I have noticed that US imports (e.g. Heros) seem to be much lower quality than the BBC's own programmes - no artifacts, but the picture is significantly more noisy as if they used cheap fisher-price HDTV cameras. It's like the difference between a photo taken on a full frame DSLR and a photo taken on a digital compact with a tiny sensor - the picture is sharp in both cases, but noisy on the compact.
- It only works for 1 tv ( you have to pay more of you want to receive it on more tv's )
Why can't you just plug multiple DVB-T tuners into the same antenna? Sure, if you're using DVB-S you need a multi-LNB and multiple cable runs, but for DVB-T it isn't a problem.
- I have to pay money for each film i want to see later ( as appsosed to just recording it for free )
Why can't you just record it like normal? Either plug your VCR into the analogue output of a DVB-T tuner, or get a PVR or DVD recorder (even build a MythTV system if you want).
- There is no difference in quality , since i only have a regular tv ( the digital signal gets converted back to analog )
That's pretty much untrue - the quality you can get on a reasonable analogue TV being fed by an RGB or S-Video connection is far, far higher than one just using an analogue UHF tuner. In order to transmit over UHF the bandwidth of the luminosity signal is reduced (i.e. reduced resolution) to prevent cross-talk with the colour subcarrier. S-Video separates the luminosity signal and colour subcarrier onto separate physical wires, allowing the luminosity to remain at full resolution. RGB completely removes the multiplexing of colour signals, which is even better.
So why would i pay more , to have less ?
It sounds like your belief that you will get less is based on unfounded assumptions.
If they force the switch , i'll just get everything i need from the internet.
Now you really _will_ be getting less by doing that - even the higher quality videos available over the internet fall far below the quality of DVB channels.
You could, for example, patent a method for increasing the yield of opium plants, but you would not be able to do anything with this in the USA unless you spent a lot of money on lobbying.
Because that kind of thing wouldn't be at all useful in the legal production of medical opiates (morphine, codeine phosphate, etc)....
The reason the general public don't care is coz only a small number of people find out the hard way - the rest are unaffected. Now, you and I may refuse to use these services on ethical grounds, or because we don't want to take the chance of being part of the minority group who actually gets screwed over, but most of the general public don't know and don't care (unless they are one of the few who does get screwed).
The really sucky thing is that sometimes it's really hard to use the alternative services that won't screw you because the popular ones are specifically designed to never interoperate with them. (Example, You can choose to use MSN or XMPP. If all your friends are on MSN then you using XMPP instead isn't going to be much use. Good luck convincing everyone to drop MSN).
I grind my own mirrors because the mirror I make myself is quite a bit better than all but a very few of the ones commercially available. It's quite a bit of fun too.
Can you provide information on how the amateur grinds mirrors? What kind of equipment do you need?
You are being a bit closed minded there. What gives you the right to determine what is "real" or "important"?
Sadly I've seen too many very useful Wikipedia articles being deleted over the years. There seem to be a number of Wikipedia people setting the bar too high for stuff like notability. Wikipedia isn't a paper encyclopedia, we don't need to restrict the content by size.
The most recent example I've seen was the CallWeaver article - now CallWeaver (which is quite a big Free software project) has no Wikipedia presence.
Also, a lot of the AFDs I've seen succeed have appeared to be started by someone with a vendetta against specific projects, organisations, etc. Very sad.
copying and redistributing content delivered over the air requires a bit more work and isn't practically automatic for millions of people.
Completely wrong - I can distribute the DVB-S streams over IP very easily. I already do it within my own home, extending it to other people over the internet would be trivial. The tools already exist to do this.
That's a pretty fine line to walk. Their web content isn't available to people without a computer and Internet connection. Their radio content isn't available to people without something that receives radio. Their television broadcasts aren't available without a receiver and TV or similar. Technically what you usually have to pay for is the hardware, but you certainly can't access all of the BBC's content without paying something for something.
If I want to access the web content I can buy a computer from any number of manufacturers, or make my own. And I can use any of a number of different browsers, or write my own.
If I want to listen to the radio content I can buy a radio from any number of manufacturers, or I can make my own.
If I want to watch TV I can buy a TV from any number of manufacturers, I can buy video recorders from many manufacturers, or I can build my own receiver.
If I want to use the iplayer service I require a specific operating system which is available from a single vendor (Microsoft), and I have a choice of exactly one player program produced by a single vendor (the BBC). There is no chance of me making my own.
As long as you have a significant minority of people doing that, the big content providers are going to fight back, and if they can't do it through the courts because it's too difficult to go after minor infringement, they'll do it technologically as long as they're allowed to.
And this is where the craziness is - content producers would seemingly prefer to piss off their legitimate customers and push them towards using infringing content (whilst not making a significant impact on those who are already infringing), rather than just accepting that sometimes you have to take a loss in some areas in order to make gains in others.
but which came first, the widespread copying or the annoying no-skip Copyright announcements on DVDs?
I couldn't answer that (I rather suspect the widespread copying came _after_ the annoying no-skip stuff - there's been this crap on DVDs since long before a significant number of people had internet connections fast enough to copy DVDs). However, pissing off your _remaining customers_ and driving them towards using the infringing material whilst not making any impact on the people who are actually infringing does not seem sane.
most people have never even heard of BitTorrent
Since the BBC's DRM stuff is supposedly there to stop people sharing the content using P2P apps, your assertion that most people have never heard of them seems to render the need for the DRM completely moot. If noone's using P2P apps, why do we need this DRM any more?
But most people are not geeks. They will take stuff if it's trivially easy to do, but if it becomes even a little difficult, the rate of abuse drops dramatically.
But that's the whole point - introducing DRM does _not_ make it harder for the average person to copy the content (they can still download it from P2P systems just as easily as they have always done), but it _does_ make it harder for the average person to use the legitimate content. It doesn't matter that the average person can't take the content and post it on a P2P system themselves, because someone with the knowhow already did that bit.
the BBC still has contractual commitments to the providers of content it uses
As I have mentioned before, contracts are negotiated. The BBC has negotiated contracts that allow them to distribute content, unencrypted, to the UK over DVB, there is no reason why they cannot negotiate contracts to allow them to distribute unencrypted content to the UK over IP.
However, this comes into conflict with another requirement here, which is that the BBC's other commitments mean it can't just stick Ogg files of all its programmes on a web site for anyone to download.
I have yet to see any reasonable explanation as to why content delivered over IP needs to be DRM'd whilst the same content delivered over PAL, DVB-T, DVB-C and DVB-S can be delivered unencrypted (and the BBC have actively pushed for this).
it dramatically reduces the market for BBC shows abroad.
This is completely bogus - the BBC can filter by IP address to restrict the downloads to UK residents which would lead to a similar state of affairs as their free to air broadcasts.
Firstly, you already pay the licence fee for the existing facilities. It's not going up significantly to support the new offerings, so you're not losing out.
The money doesn't magically appear from somewhere - this is being funded by licence fee money and that means either the licence will need to be increased or the funds are being diverted away from existing facilities.
I should also point out that the licence fee _has_ increased significantly over the past decade, in part to pay for new services such as the digital channels, increased web content, etc.
Secondly, even if you do, it's not intentional. The BBC distributes vast amounts of content in many media, and almost no-one benefits from all of it. Where do you draw the line on how far they must go to be making a reasonable attempt to allow access to those entitled to it?
No, you're right, I don't access all the BBC's content. However, I *could* if I wanted, without being required to buy specific software to do so. The BBC does not artificially prevent certain groups of people from accessing their other content.
it's not your licence fee that is paying for the content. Licence fees represent a surprisingly small part of the BBC's income.
In that case the BBC won't mind if we abolish the licence fee.
(Note: I'm actually pro-licence fee, but if you're going to claim my licence fee doesn't pay for anything then there seems to be no reason for me to pay it)
If you significantly undermine that revenue stream, we won't need to have this conversation in five years
Noone is suggesting the BBC undermine their revenue stream. All I am suggesting is that they provide the content _to the british public_ in an open format over IP. This really is no different to what they are already doing, which is providing the content in an open format over PAL, DVB, DAB, FM and AM.
copyright exists for a reason
Noone is discussing copyright here. The discussion is regarding DRM. If you have DRM you don't need copyright and if you have copyright you don't need DRM.
some other proportionate incentive to support the system instead of screwing it.
How about the content producers not trying to screw over the consumers all the time. At the moment, illegally copied material is _higher quality_ than the legitimately paid for material, because you don't have to deal with DRM, region controls, unskippable content accusing you of being a criminal, etc. Is it any wonder people infringe the copyright?
But the main problem with copyright infringement on-line isn't the hardcore geeks who can circumvent DRM in their sleep, it's the casual copiers.
I think that assertion is just plain wrong. The geeks crack the DRM and post the un-DRM'd versions on bittorrent trackers. You don't need to be a geek to use a torrent client. If you make the average user jump through hoops, you won't do anything to stop the geeks posting the content in unDRM'd format, but you will push the masses to getting the illegal un-DRM'd version instead of the official one.
But using a format for which a player is not available on the platforms used by everyday people would.
Most open formats have players already available for all the major platforms (and quite a few minor ones), so it seems your fear is unfounded.
Maybe you meant that it would be bad to use a format for which there is no *preinstalled* player - well AFAIK you can't play the BBC's iPlayer content with any preinstalled player anyway, that requires you install the iPlayer so they are already breaking this part of your argument.
I don't object to using an open format, I object to your implication that doing so automatically means players will be available for people to listen/view material in that format.
That implication was not my intention. What I meant was that if they used an open format they can go and develop their own player (as they are doing anyway), but those people who are using platforms not supported by that player (or who think the BBC's player sucks) can go write their own player.
In any case, as mentioned above, most of the _current_ open formats *do* have players available for the major platforms. If they released their content using Theora, for example, you could use VLC, mplayer, xine, totem, and any number of other players which are already capable of playing Theora.
Should the BBC provide the content in a format for which players are available for at least Windows? Windows and Mac? Windows, Mac and Linux? Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD? All of the above and a 10-year-old system running OS/2?
The availability of current players is not the issue. The BBC are already developing their own player and I'm not suggesting they stop doing this. What I am suggesting is that they stop dicking around with propriatory stuff and use an open format which would allow third parties to write players too. Third party players are a Good Thing because it means the consumer gets a choice (maybe the BBC player doesn't do everything they want?) and there is a possibility of being able to play content on a platform the BBC doesn't want to write software for themselves.
If players aren't already available for all of the important platforms, should the BBC invest money in developing the missing ones?
But this is exactly what they are having to do _because_ they are using a propriatory system. If they were using an open format then anyone _could_ write a player for any platform. As it is they have prevented third parties from writing a player which means the BBC *must* write their own for each platform or deny a subset of users from using the service.
My point is simply that this is not a straightforward question, and a flippant but oh-so-Slashdot assumption that if we just use a free format then all the problems will go away is naive.
It seems a pretty straightforward question to me. They are using open formats on their other broadcasts (PAL, DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C, DAB, FM, AM) which has allowed a large market of receivers to develop. Why must content delivered over IP be treated so differently?
Sure, using an open format doesn't solve *all* the problems, but it does solve a hell of a lot of them.
I am a licence fee payer, and yet they have imposed artificial technical measures for no good reason which prevent me from accessing this service, that my licence fee has paid for. Since the BBC has a mandate to be platform agnostic, why are they allowed to spend my licence fee in this way? Why can't I get a discount since they are intentionally locking me out of the service?
the BBC doesn't totally own the rights to the material it broadcasts, therefore they have to rely on some form of commercial DRM to appease the Media Gods.
So that's why they put DRM on their DVB streams then? Oh wait... they don't... infact they successfully campaigned for unencrypted DVB streams...
Slashdot Mirror
Can someone explain why this would be a bad thing?
Because sometimes it's better to accelerate out of a dangerous situation than brake. The last thing I want to happen while I'm overtaking with a lorry heading towards me is the car to decide that I'm breaking the speed limit and to cut the power. Speed limits are there to make the roads safer - enforcing them without regard for the current situation would make the roads much more dangerous (unfortunately, enforcing laws for the sake of enforcing them seems to be a common attitude these days - here in the UK we have more and more speed cameras and "traffic calming" measures despite the fact that in many situations these measures make the road more dangerous by promoting hard braking and requiring people to pull out into oncoming traffic).
This is very similar to a fly by wire system enforcing the flight envelope without access to all of the information - if it's a choice between hitting the ground or exceeding your flight envelope, you don't want the computer denying your choice to do the latter.
I can't wait to see people walking around with heat sinks sticking out of their skull. Will they have designer ones? :)
Bah, I'm waiting for the transparent-skull with blue cold-cathode brain lighting mod...
And I think this is happening in that a major ISP is offering an add on for in home network support etc - the network equivelent of in home wire maitenence. Should it be an extra fee? Maybe - but I think it is sort of going in that direction, that "We offer support where others don't" and their price is not bad, you'd have to go well over a year with no problems to reach one in home diag by Geek Squad et al. Most users could likely use some help every few months.
I'm not really interested in ISPs providing extra support services (sure, if they want to sell them as extras than fair enough, but I don't want to have to pay for them since I'm never going to use them). What I _do_ want is ISPs to actually provide the support they already claim to provide:
1. When I log a fault, actually answer my ticket in a reasonable amount of time. This means doing something to try and resolve the problem, not just reply with "we'll look into it" and then leave me waiting for weeks.
2. Fix problems when I report them. For example, I have completely given up on using PlusNet's SIP to PSTN gateway because it is broken most of the time and even when it works the calls are as flaky as hell. This has been a problem ever since they introduced the service a couple of years ago - everyone's complaining about it and nothing has been done.
3. Don't try to hide problems from your customers - if I phone up with a problem and it is your fault then damned well tell me so. I've lost track of the number of hours I spent chasing problems which Demon swore blind were on my side of the connection when they knew full well that some critical part of their infrastructure was down.
This extends to other companies as well, such as device manufacturers - I've just gone off on one on UTStarcom's user forums (along with several other customers) because they've basically spent the last year having people complaining about bugs in one of their devices and have done nothing to resolve the (firmware) problems. It seems that these days the life cycle of many devices is so short that the firmware is never stablised - they release a new (buggy) device and within a year they have stopped selling it and replaced it with a new (equally buggy) device and have no interest in fixing the bugs in the older device. Most consumer grade devices seem to be pretty much the same - my cellphone's firmware is unstable as hell, pretty much every wireless router I've used is crap (except my WRT54GL running the OpenWRT firmware).
Also, if everyone else's customer support is crap then you're not going to lose customers by being just as crap.
In general, large companies don't care about customer support because it only affects the customers who are having a problem (a tiny number) and if they lose those few customers it isn't a big deal. In many cases it's probably cheaper to lose the customer than support them.
If you want good support, you're probably best dealing with a small company where losing 1 or 2 customers _does_ matter. This is pretty noticeable with ISPs - whenever I have changed ISP I have gone for a small ISP and their quality of service has been excellent. They have then got bigger and the service has progressively turned to crap.
Fact is, there is still a huge user base out there that hasn't been reached. They are Windows users, lots of them. All I'm saying is maybe there is a reason why they are still on Windows other than the assumption of they being retards?
When did I say anything about retards?
I believe there are a number of factors which keep the majority of home users on Windows (business users are rather different anyway):
1. The machine came with Windows, they have no clue that there is an alternative. Much the same as to many people IE is "the internet", for a lot of people Windows is an integral part of the computer and they have no concept of changing it any more than you would change the tube in your TV. (No, that does not make them retards, it makes them uninformed)
2. It is what they know and they are afraid of change. Even when Microsoft dictates change with an upgrade, the changes between two versions of the same bit of software are perceived to be smaller than the jump between different bits of software (whether or not this is true).
3. They are not interested enough to change - their computer does more or less what they want and they don't want to go to the effort of changing (even if the change would make things better for them in the long run).
The "not running windows software" really shouldn't feature as a reason for a lot of people since most people really don't use their computer for anything that a modern Linux distro doesn't do out of the box anyway. I'm not saying that *no one* needs to run Windows software, I'm saying that a lot of people don't.
Granted, but that makes it all the more bizarre that this mindset is so entrenched in the community. Every time somebody talks about usability they get a severe beating. So naturally, there are not many people still around to keep telling you there may be a problem because nobody wants to hear it anyway.
You get this anywhere - at my old job I more or less gave up with arguing for usability because no one was interested - it afflicts the whole industry, Free software or not.
FWIW, Linus _has_ bashed people on usability grounds - most notably the Gnome developers for their belief that removing commonly used configuration options from the UI and forcing people to edit their equivalent of the Windows registry is a usability improvement.
Somehow, telling users to "get over it" is not exactly the most productive way to go. Pretending something can't be changed because that's the way everybody else does it and because that's the way we've always been doing it... I don't see any potential for growth in this kind of attitude, I'm sorry.
Your original post came across as a "Linux sucks compared to Windows because it does $lots_of_things_windows_also_does". I'm all for improving Linux, but citing these sorts of problems as a reason why Windows is "better" (even though Windows has exactly the same problems) seems the wrong attitude.
I think the main way Linux can get into the mainstream is for it to be shipped as standard on machines (similar to what Dell are doing) *where appropriate*. Obviously shipping it to people who need Windows specific software is just going to piss them off, but there are a large group of users for whom Linux does everything they need as standard. I'm not convinced that further improvements to the software itself are going to push Linux much further into the mainstream at this time.
Usability is a nightmare. The UI is cluttered with useless, confusing icons and half of the functions behind them don't even work properly. But configuration is the worst problem, why is it so hard to make a system architecture and drivers that don't require constant hand holding regarding even the most basic settings?
You're talking about Windows, right?
Second, supporting Windows apps is a huge problem, too. For all intends and purposes Wine just doesn't work, at least not of you don't know how to tweak and trick it into doing the right thing.
But the majority of people don't need Windows apps - they need a web browser and a word processor. These are things that are available for non-windows platforms - the uptake of OS X (before Parallels appeared) should prove this.
At least SuSE comes with XEN, but it's pretty much unusable.
I have no recent experience of SuSE (although I have heard lots of bad stuff about it and for political reasons I wouldn't use it), but Xen under Fedora 7 is quite usable.
Of course it doesn't help that Linus himself is a big antagonist when it comes to making a system that saves the user some time with useful configuration models and efficient UI.
Whether or not you agree with Linus's opinions, he does not control the direction that individual distributions take the userland.
Who has time and energy to spend days setting up his workstation?
For one thing, even if I have to set up a workstation from scratch it doesn't take days. However, these days I tend to just copy my Beryl and Emerald config onto new workstations so there is no real set up to be done. One thing I _am_ sure of though it that if the OS restricted me as much as Windows does I would waste far more time having to deal with a bad unchangable configuration on a daily basis than I do in configuring a workstation _once_. One of the reasons I use Linux is because I can tweak the config to speed up operations I have to do frequently - Windows does not allow this to the same extent.
So when I say that even I am regularly getting discouraged by the obscene amount of hoops Linux/KDE/whatever make their users jump through to get anything done, that should mean something.
Yup, Linux makes people jump through an obscene amount of hoops. Guess what - so does every other OS, get over it.
Only a tiny speck of will start a fatal cancer if inhaled or ingested.
This is true of quite a lot of chemicals, radioactive or not... In fact, most of those chemicals aren't under anywhere near as strict controls as Pu so pose more of a hazard.
How are we going to store the nuclear waste in such a way that no one is hurt by it? Who will guard this facility for a million years? How much will that cost?
How about reprocessing it and reacting it again?
I think that before any new nuclear facility is licensed, its operators should be required to pay in advance for the disposal of its spent fuel.
That would clearly be completely unfeasible - the upfront costs are big enough already. If you had said "before any fuel is placed into storage" then that might be more sane (and might encourage the reprocessing of the fuel so that it wouldn't need to be placed in storage).
Also, you are aware that coal fired power stations dump a lot of radioactive and toxic material directly into the atmosphere aren't you? So you seem to be saying that nuclear power plants must pay for the careful storage of their waste whilst everyone else can just carelessly dump into the atmosphere for free... seems a little unfair huh?
So waddaya do to restart it when it shuts down and all the lead solidifies?
The version to be released in October is supposed to have wireless networking.
Unfortunately it looks like the schedule has slipped and general availability will be Christmas.
Personally, I'm holding out for a UMTS version, although they've given no indication when this is likely to happen. (I've had enough of the crappness of GPRS to last me a life time).
DHCPv6 might also get used to configure other information that is not handled by stateless autoconfig (DNS servers, NTP servers, any of a huge list of other things).
Umm.. isn't that what multicast DNS is for?
As far as I can see, DHCPv6 is a protocol looking for a job since in the IPv6 world DHCP has been superseded by stateless subnet autoconfiguration and DNS. However, no matter how misguided, I don't see the need to use DHCP is a reason to not upgrade to IPv6.
There's a little something called a clutch that makes it pretty safe.
I suspect, being electric, this wouldn't have a clutch.
In fact, the only stupid risk he took was not wearing a helmet. What sort of a dick rides a bike without a helmet?
To be fair, he was attempting a burnout - going over the handlebars at high speed isn't usually a big hazard when you're stationary with the back wheel spinning.
I'm pretty sure that an HR.HDTV pirate XviD compares favorably in quality to a digital signal downrezzed to NTSC.
960x528 at 1.5 Mbps... sounds fantastic (standard definition broadcast quality here in the UK is 720x576 at ~2Mbps (MPEG2), BBC HD is 1440x1080 at 20Mbps (H.264) - BBC HD displayed on my 10 year old 28" standard definition Trinitron is noticably much sharper than the standard definition streams). My experience of HDTV rips from the internet is they suffer significantly more artifacting than the standard definition DVB channels.
HD is defined as 720p, 1080i, and 1080p (and 1080p isn't actually in the HD standard anyway).
I've not yet managed to work out why interlaced modes are even in the standard given that pretty much all HD TVs are progressive technologies (e.g. LCD).
Ok, let's compare. Analogue TV - hrm, the edges look a little fuzzy. HD - wow, that's really sharp, oh wait they moved the camera a little and now it's got big MPEG artifacts the size of my thumbnail
Sounds like your HD broadcaster is trying to use too little bandwidth. I don't get any such artifacts when watching BBC HD.
That said, I have noticed that US imports (e.g. Heros) seem to be much lower quality than the BBC's own programmes - no artifacts, but the picture is significantly more noisy as if they used cheap fisher-price HDTV cameras. It's like the difference between a photo taken on a full frame DSLR and a photo taken on a digital compact with a tiny sensor - the picture is sharp in both cases, but noisy on the compact.
- It only works for 1 tv ( you have to pay more of you want to receive it on more tv's )
.
Why can't you just plug multiple DVB-T tuners into the same antenna? Sure, if you're using DVB-S you need a multi-LNB and multiple cable runs, but for DVB-T it isn't a problem.
- I have to pay money for each film i want to see later ( as appsosed to just recording it for free )
Why can't you just record it like normal? Either plug your VCR into the analogue output of a DVB-T tuner, or get a PVR or DVD recorder (even build a MythTV system if you want).
- There is no difference in quality , since i only have a regular tv ( the digital signal gets converted back to analog )
That's pretty much untrue - the quality you can get on a reasonable analogue TV being fed by an RGB or S-Video connection is far, far higher than one just using an analogue UHF tuner. In order to transmit over UHF the bandwidth of the luminosity signal is reduced (i.e. reduced resolution) to prevent cross-talk with the colour subcarrier. S-Video separates the luminosity signal and colour subcarrier onto separate physical wires, allowing the luminosity to remain at full resolution. RGB completely removes the multiplexing of colour signals, which is even better.
So why would i pay more , to have less ?
It sounds like your belief that you will get less is based on unfounded assumptions.
If they force the switch , i'll just get everything i need from the internet
Now you really _will_ be getting less by doing that - even the higher quality videos available over the internet fall far below the quality of DVB channels.
The end-user cost of switching to digital is very low, and it frees up valuable spectrum for more efficient use.
And yet, still many people seem to be very opposed to it...
You could, for example, patent a method for increasing the yield of opium plants, but you would not be able to do anything with this in the USA unless you spent a lot of money on lobbying.
Because that kind of thing wouldn't be at all useful in the legal production of medical opiates (morphine, codeine phosphate, etc)....
Oh, no... I say let 'em find out the hard way.
The reason the general public don't care is coz only a small number of people find out the hard way - the rest are unaffected. Now, you and I may refuse to use these services on ethical grounds, or because we don't want to take the chance of being part of the minority group who actually gets screwed over, but most of the general public don't know and don't care (unless they are one of the few who does get screwed).
The really sucky thing is that sometimes it's really hard to use the alternative services that won't screw you because the popular ones are specifically designed to never interoperate with them. (Example, You can choose to use MSN or XMPP. If all your friends are on MSN then you using XMPP instead isn't going to be much use. Good luck convincing everyone to drop MSN).
I grind my own mirrors because the mirror I make myself is quite a bit better than all but a very few of the ones commercially available. It's quite a bit of fun too.
Can you provide information on how the amateur grinds mirrors? What kind of equipment do you need?
Thanks.
You are being a bit closed minded there. What gives you the right to determine what is "real" or "important"?
Sadly I've seen too many very useful Wikipedia articles being deleted over the years. There seem to be a number of Wikipedia people setting the bar too high for stuff like notability. Wikipedia isn't a paper encyclopedia, we don't need to restrict the content by size.
The most recent example I've seen was the CallWeaver article - now CallWeaver (which is quite a big Free software project) has no Wikipedia presence.
Also, a lot of the AFDs I've seen succeed have appeared to be started by someone with a vendetta against specific projects, organisations, etc. Very sad.
copying and redistributing content delivered over the air requires a bit more work and isn't practically automatic for millions of people.
Completely wrong - I can distribute the DVB-S streams over IP very easily. I already do it within my own home, extending it to other people over the internet would be trivial. The tools already exist to do this.
That's a pretty fine line to walk. Their web content isn't available to people without a computer and Internet connection. Their radio content isn't available to people without something that receives radio. Their television broadcasts aren't available without a receiver and TV or similar. Technically what you usually have to pay for is the hardware, but you certainly can't access all of the BBC's content without paying something for something.
If I want to access the web content I can buy a computer from any number of manufacturers, or make my own. And I can use any of a number of different browsers, or write my own.
If I want to listen to the radio content I can buy a radio from any number of manufacturers, or I can make my own.
If I want to watch TV I can buy a TV from any number of manufacturers, I can buy video recorders from many manufacturers, or I can build my own receiver.
If I want to use the iplayer service I require a specific operating system which is available from a single vendor (Microsoft), and I have a choice of exactly one player program produced by a single vendor (the BBC). There is no chance of me making my own.
As long as you have a significant minority of people doing that, the big content providers are going to fight back, and if they can't do it through the courts because it's too difficult to go after minor infringement, they'll do it technologically as long as they're allowed to.
And this is where the craziness is - content producers would seemingly prefer to piss off their legitimate customers and push them towards using infringing content (whilst not making a significant impact on those who are already infringing), rather than just accepting that sometimes you have to take a loss in some areas in order to make gains in others.
but which came first, the widespread copying or the annoying no-skip Copyright announcements on DVDs?
I couldn't answer that (I rather suspect the widespread copying came _after_ the annoying no-skip stuff - there's been this crap on DVDs since long before a significant number of people had internet connections fast enough to copy DVDs). However, pissing off your _remaining customers_ and driving them towards using the infringing material whilst not making any impact on the people who are actually infringing does not seem sane.
most people have never even heard of BitTorrent
Since the BBC's DRM stuff is supposedly there to stop people sharing the content using P2P apps, your assertion that most people have never heard of them seems to render the need for the DRM completely moot. If noone's using P2P apps, why do we need this DRM any more?
But most people are not geeks. They will take stuff if it's trivially easy to do, but if it becomes even a little difficult, the rate of abuse drops dramatically.
But that's the whole point - introducing DRM does _not_ make it harder for the average person to copy the content (they can still download it from P2P systems just as easily as they have always done), but it _does_ make it harder for the average person to use the legitimate content. It doesn't matter that the average person can't take the content and post it on a P2P system themselves, because someone with the knowhow already did that bit.
the BBC still has contractual commitments to the providers of content it uses
As I have mentioned before, contracts are negotiated. The BBC has negotiated contracts that allow them to distribute content, unencrypted, to the UK over DVB, there is no reason why they cannot negotiate contracts to allow them to distribute unencrypted content to the UK over IP.
However, this comes into conflict with another requirement here, which is that the BBC's other commitments mean it can't just stick Ogg files of all its programmes on a web site for anyone to download.
I have yet to see any reasonable explanation as to why content delivered over IP needs to be DRM'd whilst the same content delivered over PAL, DVB-T, DVB-C and DVB-S can be delivered unencrypted (and the BBC have actively pushed for this).
it dramatically reduces the market for BBC shows abroad.
This is completely bogus - the BBC can filter by IP address to restrict the downloads to UK residents which would lead to a similar state of affairs as their free to air broadcasts.
Firstly, you already pay the licence fee for the existing facilities. It's not going up significantly to support the new offerings, so you're not losing out.
The money doesn't magically appear from somewhere - this is being funded by licence fee money and that means either the licence will need to be increased or the funds are being diverted away from existing facilities.
I should also point out that the licence fee _has_ increased significantly over the past decade, in part to pay for new services such as the digital channels, increased web content, etc.
Secondly, even if you do, it's not intentional. The BBC distributes vast amounts of content in many media, and almost no-one benefits from all of it. Where do you draw the line on how far they must go to be making a reasonable attempt to allow access to those entitled to it?
No, you're right, I don't access all the BBC's content. However, I *could* if I wanted, without being required to buy specific software to do so. The BBC does not artificially prevent certain groups of people from accessing their other content.
it's not your licence fee that is paying for the content. Licence fees represent a surprisingly small part of the BBC's income.
In that case the BBC won't mind if we abolish the licence fee.
(Note: I'm actually pro-licence fee, but if you're going to claim my licence fee doesn't pay for anything then there seems to be no reason for me to pay it)
If you significantly undermine that revenue stream, we won't need to have this conversation in five years
Noone is suggesting the BBC undermine their revenue stream. All I am suggesting is that they provide the content _to the british public_ in an open format over IP. This really is no different to what they are already doing, which is providing the content in an open format over PAL, DVB, DAB, FM and AM.
copyright exists for a reason
Noone is discussing copyright here. The discussion is regarding DRM. If you have DRM you don't need copyright and if you have copyright you don't need DRM.
some other proportionate incentive to support the system instead of screwing it.
How about the content producers not trying to screw over the consumers all the time. At the moment, illegally copied material is _higher quality_ than the legitimately paid for material, because you don't have to deal with DRM, region controls, unskippable content accusing you of being a criminal, etc. Is it any wonder people infringe the copyright?
But the main problem with copyright infringement on-line isn't the hardcore geeks who can circumvent DRM in their sleep, it's the casual copiers.
I think that assertion is just plain wrong. The geeks crack the DRM and post the un-DRM'd versions on bittorrent trackers. You don't need to be a geek to use a torrent client. If you make the average user jump through hoops, you won't do anything to stop the geeks posting the content in unDRM'd format, but you will push the masses to getting the illegal un-DRM'd version instead of the official one.
But using a format for which a player is not available on the platforms used by everyday people would.
Most open formats have players already available for all the major platforms (and quite a few minor ones), so it seems your fear is unfounded.
Maybe you meant that it would be bad to use a format for which there is no *preinstalled* player - well AFAIK you can't play the BBC's iPlayer content with any preinstalled player anyway, that requires you install the iPlayer so they are already breaking this part of your argument.
I don't object to using an open format, I object to your implication that doing so automatically means players will be available for people to listen/view material in that format.
That implication was not my intention. What I meant was that if they used an open format they can go and develop their own player (as they are doing anyway), but those people who are using platforms not supported by that player (or who think the BBC's player sucks) can go write their own player.
In any case, as mentioned above, most of the _current_ open formats *do* have players available for the major platforms. If they released their content using Theora, for example, you could use VLC, mplayer, xine, totem, and any number of other players which are already capable of playing Theora.
Should the BBC provide the content in a format for which players are available for at least Windows? Windows and Mac? Windows, Mac and Linux? Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD? All of the above and a 10-year-old system running OS/2?
The availability of current players is not the issue. The BBC are already developing their own player and I'm not suggesting they stop doing this. What I am suggesting is that they stop dicking around with propriatory stuff and use an open format which would allow third parties to write players too. Third party players are a Good Thing because it means the consumer gets a choice (maybe the BBC player doesn't do everything they want?) and there is a possibility of being able to play content on a platform the BBC doesn't want to write software for themselves.
If players aren't already available for all of the important platforms, should the BBC invest money in developing the missing ones?
But this is exactly what they are having to do _because_ they are using a propriatory system. If they were using an open format then anyone _could_ write a player for any platform. As it is they have prevented third parties from writing a player which means the BBC *must* write their own for each platform or deny a subset of users from using the service.
My point is simply that this is not a straightforward question, and a flippant but oh-so-Slashdot assumption that if we just use a free format then all the problems will go away is naive.
It seems a pretty straightforward question to me. They are using open formats on their other broadcasts (PAL, DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C, DAB, FM, AM) which has allowed a large market of receivers to develop. Why must content delivered over IP be treated so differently?
Sure, using an open format doesn't solve *all* the problems, but it does solve a hell of a lot of them.
I am a licence fee payer, and yet they have imposed artificial technical measures for no good reason which prevent me from accessing this service, that my licence fee has paid for. Since the BBC has a mandate to be platform agnostic, why are they allowed to spend my licence fee in this way? Why can't I get a discount since they are intentionally locking me out of the service?
the BBC doesn't totally own the rights to the material it broadcasts, therefore they have to rely on some form of commercial DRM to appease the Media Gods.
So that's why they put DRM on their DVB streams then? Oh wait... they don't... infact they successfully campaigned for unencrypted DVB streams...
using a fair DRM system to prevent things ending up on p2p
Why do we need DRM for IP distribution but not for DVB? I can gateway DVB streams over the internet just as easilly as IP streams...