Why don't the content owners of Ren & Stimpy take a page from Sex and the City, The Sopranos, and The Simpsons and start releasing Ren & Stimpy seasons on DVD? Hell, they even released The Transformers Season 1 on DVD and it seemed to be selling pretty well on Amazon.
Like a lot of people here on Slashdot, I watched Ren & Stimpy as a young teenager and it was the first show that I really enjoyed that I couldn't explain. It was sort of the modern art of Nickelodeon cartoons. There is something there you like and you're not completely sure why because you don't completely get it. But you end up laughing yourself off the couch.
1) With Time Warner, they own the rights to lots of music. 2) They have millions of customers directly connected to their network. It doesn't cost all that much to serve audio within their own network. The main costs of providing bandwidth is all the interconnections to other networks. All they have to do is charge a little extra for the service.
Security is not everything in software you know...
It is in a product called Open Secure Shell.
I do not write code with bugs
on
Pet Bugs?
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I write code and then double and triple check it. I have never written code with a single bug in it; therefore all of my code is superior and secure. In fact, my OpenBSD operating system has never had a root compromise in 6 years!
What? OpenSSH Challenge-response authentication vulnerability you say? Uh... nevermind.
I can't wait until djb decides to write his own ssh. You can say what you want about djb and his personality, but he does know how to write some secure software. Sure, it's not the easiest thing to install and you have to create a boatload of users, but privilege separation has been in qmail since 1.0.0. Theo is getting around to it in v3.3? Never heard of any root compromises from qmail or djbdns. So hopefully this latest hole in OpenSSH has annoyed djb to the point of rolling his own.
1. The latest ReplayTV (4000+) has a Commercial Skip feature. This isn't a 30-second skip button, this is a "hit this button and we will automatically skip every commercial" button.
2. TiVo does have a 30-second skip button, it just isn't enabled by default. See the TiVo FAQ for more info.
3. The 3 major networks (NBC, CBS and ABC/Disney) and TV/Movie content providers such as AOL/Time Warner are investors in TiVo. You don't usually go around suing people you have already given large amounts of money to.
Try the Dish PVR. Only works with the DishTV satellite system, though. They are cheap if you are a new subscriber to Dish and only do the very basic recording tasks, but they don't phone home.
I agree. I think why this one is causing a little more outrage is that:
1) The content is a real show, 30(?) minutes in length where most previous promos were like 1-5 minute spots. Users are now more aware of how much space is not available for them to use. 2) I think this guy in the thread said it was recorded at 10pm, instead of the previous spots that happen in the middle of the night. More chance of it bugging you to change channels when you are actually watching TV. 3) The previous promos were "hidden" in the showcases menu, but now with the new Tivo software, the promos make a new menu item in the main Tivo Central menu. So they are more noticeable.
I still think this is a non-issue personally, but I think these are some reasons why this one is a little more visible.
I don't know. I would say that if they forced you to watch it, then that would be controlling you. They could conceivably do that if they wanted and let's hope that they don't. Those DVDs that force you to watch previews before you can watch the main feature are really annoying.
By your argument, I could become enraged that I was watching "Friends" the other night and a couple minutes into it, they stopped showing me "Friends" and showed me some commercials instead. I OWN my TV and I did not tell my TV that it was OK to show me advertisements. Therefore NBC is controlling me via my television.
You make a decent point in item #2. From one long-time Tivo to a user, may I suggest a hint. I have found that if I am using the Tivo buffer to pause something and watch it delayed and I have the slightest inkling to not lose my buffer, I just hit the record button. This assures me that something like accidently hitting channel-up instead of volume-up won't lose my buffer, something which I have done on more than one occasion. You can easily delete it one the show is over.
I agree with you and don't think this is that big of a deal, but in truth, you can turn off the "suggested" recordings and some people really hate them and do just that. There isn't (yet) a way to turn off (opt-out) of this advertisement being recorded.
Actually I heard in the new 3.0 software (available now for Tivo Series 2, soon for Tivo Series 1) that the skip-to-hashmarks works even with the 30-second skip enabled. The FAQ probably hasn't been updated recently enough to reflect this.
You still have control of the hard drive. If you want to reformat it and blow away the operating system on them, you are completely able to do that. The Tivo just becomes a little less useful afterward.
If you don't pay for the Tivo service or just don't hook your Tivo up to the phone line, then you can stop your Tivo from downloading this content that you don't want on your hard drive. But then you won't get the cool features you bought the Tivo for which is automated recording of shows, guide data, etc.
His point is that if you pay for the Tivo service, you get the Tivo service and all the things that come along with it. Just like you pay for Internet service. If your ISP decides not to route port 80 traffic to you, they have that right, and you have the right to cancel your service if you don't agree with it.
Well it depends a lot on your preference of UI and what features you hold dear. I have a DirecTivo and it rocks. Here is a small breakdown on DirecTivo vs. ReplayTV:
DirecTivo: -Dual Tuners (record 2 shows at once) -Costs $99 for new DirecTV subscribers -Easy to use Interface (Yes, my Linux-running friends, this is a Good Thing) -Direct digital MPEG2 recording straight to disk, results in ONLY high quality recordings which not only look better, but take up less disk space
ReplayTV: -Commerical skip -Local LAN Replay-to-Replay streaming -Internet Video sharing with friends
I would suggest going to a local electronics store and playing with the interfaces and seeing which one you like more. I had my Tivo first so the ReplayTV interface drives me batty. I might feel differently if I had purchased a ReplayTV first, I don't know.
ReplayTV and Tivo both have vibrant online communities (Replay's and Tivo's) where you can find all kinds of information, good and bad, about the various models. The Tivo community is HUGE with literally hundreds of knowledgeable people (including several Tivo employees) contributing hacks and help constantly.
The recording is of the lowest priority, that is, it will only record if nothing else is scheduled to record. It doesn't show up in your Now Playing list, it shows up as an option on your Tivo Central Menu. Check the thread for all the details/complaints.
And what's stopping stations from turning off the commercial-skipping feature through similar bribery?
Oh that already happened years ago. NBC, CBS, and ABC are all early investors in Tivo, the PVR without the 30 second skip. (OK, it has a 30 second skip, but you have to "enable" that feature, it isn't on by default).
And when they go under you thank your chosen diety for the hard-core ReplayTV Hackers like Todd Larason and Lee Thompson who have disassembled the thing into pieces, written up specs for every little thing that it does, and started re-implementing most of its functionality with open-source code. Check out:
For publically availiable specifications/code on all the cool stuff Replay does.
If SonicBlue goes under, then open source guys get together, re-implement the server side of a lot of the stuff that the ReplayTV servers do and you're still up and running, this time for free (maybe).
Same goes for all the Tivo hackers out there working day and night to figure out how these boxes work just in case the day comes when the lights go out.
Um that's not timothy's summary. You will note the article says:
jfengel writes: "... ". So the part in italics is what jfengel submitted. The part that some articles have after the quote-delimited italicized blurb that is not in italics is the editor's comment.
All timothy did was provide the this-ought-to-freak-you-out dept on the top and then magically moved it from the queue onto the frontpage.
The titles of the articles are submitted by the user along with the little italicized blurb. I think the Slashdot authors have the ability to change the title, but I think it is unlikely that timothy actually came up with it.
If this article contained an editorial comment by timothy saying something like "Boy Microsoft sucks! They are morons to have let this happen!" then your post might actually have a point. However:
1) The article has no editorial comments. 2) The user-submitted blurb specifically says that this is only the problem in some manufacturer's configuration, therefore placing blame on the manufacturers, not Microsoft. 3) For those not running XP, this is an amusing article as people with imaginations are able to think up many humurous consequences that might stem from this little problem. 4) For those running XP, it is informative because they might have been seeing these problems and been unaware of what was causing it.
Actually is takes about 6 weeks to get a T-1 if you are lucky. So everytime he gets kicked off his ISP, at least he will have 6 weeks of time offline.
Re:A little bit of perspective...
on
SSSCA Hearing
·
· Score: 2
I agree. If you read this related article at Yahoo from the NYT, it states about this hearing by Senator Hollings:
Senator Ernest F. Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat who is the committee's chairman, called the hearing because of concerns in Congress about the slow adoption of digital television and broadband Internet connections. One reason that has often been cited for the faltering technology is the lack of mainstream entertainment to be found on it.
WTF? The government has nothing better to do than to have hearings on why digital television and broadband Internet connections are being adopted slowly? Hey, I'm a geek and all for digital television and broadband Internet, but why the hell does the government care about the rate of adoption of the latest technologies? This seems like something that should be run by the tech companies out there, not Congress.
Well, on the other hand, I would rather that Congress was wasting their time on stuff like this rather than inventing new ways to take away our civil liberties...
Hey, I'm not saying spam doesn't exist. There is surely tons of spam (Unsolicited Commercial Email) out there, most of which claims not to be spam/UCE. I was just pointing out that there are legitimate companies with legitimate email marketing lists that people actually opt-in to and enjoy receiving. These legitimate companies all hopefully allow you to very easily opt-out any time you want to.
Slashdot Mirror
Why don't the content owners of Ren & Stimpy take a page from Sex and the City, The Sopranos, and The Simpsons and start releasing Ren & Stimpy seasons on DVD? Hell, they even released The Transformers Season 1 on DVD and it seemed to be selling pretty well on Amazon.
Like a lot of people here on Slashdot, I watched Ren & Stimpy as a young teenager and it was the first show that I really enjoyed that I couldn't explain. It was sort of the modern art of Nickelodeon cartoons. There is something there you like and you're not completely sure why because you don't completely get it. But you end up laughing yourself off the couch.
You forget that they are AOL. That means:
1) With Time Warner, they own the rights to lots of music.
2) They have millions of customers directly connected to their network. It doesn't cost all that much to serve audio within their own network. The main costs of providing bandwidth is all the interconnections to other networks. All they have to do is charge a little extra for the service.
Security is not everything in software you know...
It is in a product called Open Secure Shell.
I write code and then double and triple check it. I have never written code with a single bug in it; therefore all of my code is superior and secure. In fact, my OpenBSD operating system has never had a root compromise in 6 years!
What? OpenSSH Challenge-response authentication vulnerability you say? Uh... nevermind.
-Theo de Raadt
I can't wait until djb decides to write his own ssh. You can say what you want about djb and his personality, but he does know how to write some secure software. Sure, it's not the easiest thing to install and you have to create a boatload of users, but privilege separation has been in qmail since 1.0.0. Theo is getting around to it in v3.3? Never heard of any root compromises from qmail or djbdns. So hopefully this latest hole in OpenSSH has annoyed djb to the point of rolling his own.
1. The latest ReplayTV (4000+) has a Commercial Skip feature. This isn't a 30-second skip button, this is a "hit this button and we will automatically skip every commercial" button.
2. TiVo does have a 30-second skip button, it just isn't enabled by default. See the TiVo FAQ for more info.
3. The 3 major networks (NBC, CBS and ABC/Disney) and TV/Movie content providers such as AOL/Time Warner are investors in TiVo. You don't usually go around suing people you have already given large amounts of money to.
Try the Dish PVR. Only works with the DishTV satellite system, though. They are cheap if you are a new subscriber to Dish and only do the very basic recording tasks, but they don't phone home.
I agree. I think why this one is causing a little more outrage is that:
1) The content is a real show, 30(?) minutes in length where most previous promos were like 1-5 minute spots. Users are now more aware of how much space is not available for them to use.
2) I think this guy in the thread said it was recorded at 10pm, instead of the previous spots that happen in the middle of the night. More chance of it bugging you to change channels when you are actually watching TV.
3) The previous promos were "hidden" in the showcases menu, but now with the new Tivo software, the promos make a new menu item in the main Tivo Central menu. So they are more noticeable.
I still think this is a non-issue personally, but I think these are some reasons why this one is a little more visible.
I don't know. I would say that if they forced you to watch it, then that would be controlling you. They could conceivably do that if they wanted and let's hope that they don't. Those DVDs that force you to watch previews before you can watch the main feature are really annoying.
By your argument, I could become enraged that I was watching "Friends" the other night and a couple minutes into it, they stopped showing me "Friends" and showed me some commercials instead. I OWN my TV and I did not tell my TV that it was OK to show me advertisements. Therefore NBC is controlling me via my television.
You make a decent point in item #2. From one long-time Tivo to a user, may I suggest a hint. I have found that if I am using the Tivo buffer to pause something and watch it delayed and I have the slightest inkling to not lose my buffer, I just hit the record button. This assures me that something like accidently hitting channel-up instead of volume-up won't lose my buffer, something which I have done on more than one occasion. You can easily delete it one the show is over.
I agree with you and don't think this is that big of a deal, but in truth, you can turn off the "suggested" recordings and some people really hate them and do just that. There isn't (yet) a way to turn off (opt-out) of this advertisement being recorded.
Actually I heard in the new 3.0 software (available now for Tivo Series 2, soon for Tivo Series 1) that the skip-to-hashmarks works even with the 30-second skip enabled. The FAQ probably hasn't been updated recently enough to reflect this.
You still have control of the hard drive. If you want to reformat it and blow away the operating system on them, you are completely able to do that. The Tivo just becomes a little less useful afterward.
If you don't pay for the Tivo service or just don't hook your Tivo up to the phone line, then you can stop your Tivo from downloading this content that you don't want on your hard drive. But then you won't get the cool features you bought the Tivo for which is automated recording of shows, guide data, etc.
His point is that if you pay for the Tivo service, you get the Tivo service and all the things that come along with it. Just like you pay for Internet service. If your ISP decides not to route port 80 traffic to you, they have that right, and you have the right to cancel your service if you don't agree with it.
Well it depends a lot on your preference of UI and what features you hold dear. I have a DirecTivo and it rocks. Here is a small breakdown on DirecTivo vs. ReplayTV:
DirecTivo:
-Dual Tuners (record 2 shows at once)
-Costs $99 for new DirecTV subscribers
-Easy to use Interface (Yes, my Linux-running friends, this is a Good Thing)
-Direct digital MPEG2 recording straight to disk, results in ONLY high quality recordings which not only look better, but take up less disk space
ReplayTV:
-Commerical skip
-Local LAN Replay-to-Replay streaming
-Internet Video sharing with friends
I would suggest going to a local electronics store and playing with the interfaces and seeing which one you like more. I had my Tivo first so the ReplayTV interface drives me batty. I might feel differently if I had purchased a ReplayTV first, I don't know.
ReplayTV and Tivo both have vibrant online communities (Replay's and Tivo's) where you can find all kinds of information, good and bad, about the various models. The Tivo community is HUGE with literally hundreds of knowledgeable people (including several Tivo employees) contributing hacks and help constantly.
Well, it would also be nice if you could:
1) Opt out of these in the future
2) Manually delete them in case the extra menu item annoys you that much.
The recording is of the lowest priority, that is, it will only record if nothing else is scheduled to record. It doesn't show up in your Now Playing list, it shows up as an option on your Tivo Central Menu. Check the thread for all the details/complaints.
And what's stopping stations from turning off the commercial-skipping feature through similar bribery?
Oh that already happened years ago. NBC, CBS, and ABC are all early investors in Tivo, the PVR without the 30 second skip. (OK, it has a 30 second skip, but you have to "enable" that feature, it isn't on by default).
Really, what they need to do is the same kind of deal as with the DirecTivo boxes. Combine the Digital Cable set-top-box with the Tivo.
They have this. The AT&Tivo. Of couse it only works with AT&T Broadband.
http://attbroadband.tivo.com/get/index.asp
And when they go under you thank your chosen diety for the hard-core ReplayTV Hackers like Todd Larason and Lee Thompson who have disassembled the thing into pieces, written up specs for every little thing that it does, and started re-implementing most of its functionality with open-source code. Check out:
http://www.molehill.org/twiki/bin/view/Replay
For publically availiable specifications/code on all the cool stuff Replay does.
If SonicBlue goes under, then open source guys get together, re-implement the server side of a lot of the stuff that the ReplayTV servers do and you're still up and running, this time for free (maybe).
Same goes for all the Tivo hackers out there working day and night to figure out how these boxes work just in case the day comes when the lights go out.
Um that's not timothy's summary. You will note the article says:
... ". So the part in italics is what jfengel submitted. The part that some articles have after the quote-delimited italicized blurb that is not in italics is the editor's comment.
jfengel writes: "
All timothy did was provide the this-ought-to-freak-you-out dept on the top and then magically moved it from the queue onto the frontpage.
The titles of the articles are submitted by the user along with the little italicized blurb. I think the Slashdot authors have the ability to change the title, but I think it is unlikely that timothy actually came up with it.
Plus, it's a joke. Get over it.
If this article contained an editorial comment by timothy saying something like "Boy Microsoft sucks! They are morons to have let this happen!" then your post might actually have a point. However:
1) The article has no editorial comments.
2) The user-submitted blurb specifically says that this is only the problem in some manufacturer's configuration, therefore placing blame on the manufacturers, not Microsoft.
3) For those not running XP, this is an amusing article as people with imaginations are able to think up many humurous consequences that might stem from this little problem.
4) For those running XP, it is informative because they might have been seeing these problems and been unaware of what was causing it.
Thank you, knee-jerk, come again.
Actually is takes about 6 weeks to get a T-1 if you are lucky. So everytime he gets kicked off his ISP, at least he will have 6 weeks of time offline.
I agree. If you read this related article at Yahoo from the NYT, it states about this hearing by Senator Hollings:
Senator Ernest F. Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat who is the committee's chairman, called the hearing because of concerns in Congress about the slow adoption of digital television and broadband Internet connections. One reason that has often been cited for the faltering technology is the lack of mainstream entertainment to be found on it.
WTF? The government has nothing better to do than to have hearings on why digital television and broadband Internet connections are being adopted slowly? Hey, I'm a geek and all for digital television and broadband Internet, but why the hell does the government care about the rate of adoption of the latest technologies? This seems like something that should be run by the tech companies out there, not Congress.
Well, on the other hand, I would rather that Congress was wasting their time on stuff like this rather than inventing new ways to take away our civil liberties...
Hey, I'm not saying spam doesn't exist. There is surely tons of spam (Unsolicited Commercial Email) out there, most of which claims not to be spam/UCE. I was just pointing out that there are legitimate companies with legitimate email marketing lists that people actually opt-in to and enjoy receiving. These legitimate companies all hopefully allow you to very easily opt-out any time you want to.