Skynet, the end of the world, and the world being overrun with AH-nold robots......Let's hope they run Windows ME, so we have a chance of survival.
They run on 6502 processors and DOS 3.3 formatted 5.25" floppy disks. You can tell by the Read/Write Track Sector assembly code that keeps popping up in their heads-up display.
They price things at $10.99 so that unthinking customers think it's under $10.
I think you mean $9.99.
Actually, I meant "near" instead of "under". As in, someone may balk at paying $11.00 but would accept $10.99. But yes, $9.99 is a more magic number.
They price things at prices like $9.99 because it feels more like $9 than $10.00 even though the facts say otherwise.
I witnessed this stubborn mindset in another situation where a high school teacher wouldn't accept the closer longitude and latitude for a city on a map because it was clear it wasn't quite at the line, even rejecting the correct answer from the answer key. Jerk wasn't even trained to teach geography; he was a fat-ass phys. ed. teacher. Ken Trubey.
Still, even if they got rid of the penny, it still wouldn't end the 9/10 of a cent on a gallon of gasoline (or 8/10 at Donny's Discount Gas).
I think the poster was trying to find a company that recently stopped carrying DLP TVs to strengthen his conclusion (which was obviously made well before writing up this piece) but then couldn't find anyone to fit the bill.
More like an editor did a fact check against the company he did cite and found they still make DLPs, removed the cite, and didn't proofread the results. Or a glitch caused it to drop out of the story.
I saw it on the FireHose yesterday and a manufacturer was named. Unfortunately I don't recall who it was.
the sellers will simply raise the prices by a nickle!
And lose their nineties? They price things at $10.99 so that unthinking customers think it's under $10. They'll either drop it to $10.95 or raise it to $11.95.
Oh, I don't necessarily disagree with the message, only with the manner in which it was expressed. Repeated assertions of key phrases like that just annoy the hell out of me. You'll alienate people less if you write more like a person and less like a pundit.
You mean I can get 1980's "Midnight Madness", the cinematic master piece debut of one Mr. Michael J. Fox, in HD? All 23 times a week?
Actually, no. Most programming is still upconverted and pillarboxed. Its usually only recent movie releases, new original series, and the occasional live sports that are actually in HD, and even that isn't true for all timeslots. And you can't get them in Spanish.
Though lately even the ads on Showtime HD are being stretched to fill the 16:9 frame rather than being pillarboxed or mastered for HD.
Then they should upgrade their HD non-DVR boxes to allow end-user connection of Firewire hubs and drives and/or USB 2.0 hubs and drives to turn them into expandable DVR boxes. They're going to be running the same (mystro) software on all their boxes anyway soon enough.
Meanwhile, I'll be recording the Firewire output of my SA 3250HD box on my Mac to get the new commercials in 1080i HD and 5.1 audio.
a tool of coercion... a tool of violence.... This tool of violence.... This tool of violence.... This tool of violence.... This tool of violence.... This tool of violence....
This tool of violence.... This tool of violence....
Ah yes, proof by repeated assertion. Have you considered a career in political speech-writing? You may have the qualifications to specialize in the crafting of talking points.
I can't imagine that the episode which premiered on TV in primetime on January 14th was released on DVD the following Tuesday.
Oh ho ho, sounds like somebody watched the episode without the commercials! Television thief!
"Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming." -- Jamie Kellner, then chairman and chief executive officer of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a division of Time Warner, April 29, 2002
(Yeah, and people who wear protective body armor are stealing ammunition.)
I could upload a copy of the ad for the DVD that aired during episode 4 to YouTube to prove it to you, but even that might make Fox irrationally upset. (Personally, I think it would be fair use. And further, a work which would itself expire to an unrecoverable state before the expiration of its copyright unconstitutionally enjoys indefinite copyright protection duration.)
A smart uploader including commercials would still exclude localized commercials as they could be used to determine location, or replace them with local ads from another locality to give a wrong impression.
Of course, by releasing before airtime, that would mean there'd be no local commercials (from broadcaster or cable company) inserted. If intact, the national commercials the locals replace would be intact or something else to mark the local ad break.
Interesting though that YouTube has a cap of 10 minutes for regular uploads, allowing longer videos only for people who prove they run a business that produces videos (even if just for software demo videos). And even then, individual videos still can't exceed 100 MB in size.
So Fox is getting upset over very low (sub-VHS) quality copying. Without commercials, that's under 3 hours for 4 episodes at a filesize under 400 MB. That would be worse than VCD quality!
At a 10-minute cap, probably splitting at each break, that's a more reasonable 2 GB for four episodes. But still, if people will go to the trouble of watching twenty clips to see four episodes (I doubt they'd tolerate 36 clips with commercials), perhaps Fox should consider doing repeat airings on FX again. But no, they won't do that; it would piss off their affiliates wanting their piece of the local ad revenue.
Seeing as the episodes in question were the ones made available on DVD the following Tuesday, I'd think the most logical leak would be somewhere in the chain responsible for getting the DVDs made and to the stores in time.
Why do I need 6 ways to connect a TV to a signal (coax cable, RCA plugs, S-video, HDMI, DVI, optical, etc.)?
Actually, I count twelve video sources, but some might consider them reaching or would combine some of them: NTSC via VHF tuner (rabbit ears), NTSC via UHF tuner (loop antenna), NTSC over RF coax (carries VHF and UHF), ATSC tuner (UHF), RF coax to CableCard, Composite, S-Video, Component, VGA, DVI, HDMI, or Firewire/i.Link/IEEE 1384.
And that's the standards in the US. There's PAL and SCART to consider as well.
And then, if audio isn't sent along the same connection, then you get that by Left & Right RCA connections, 5.1 via 6 RCA connections (or more by more), or S/PDIF by RCA or fiber. There used to be the option of getting TV audio via FM frequencies on RF coax, as well as broadcast radio via cable.
There are also sets that take BNC connectors instead of RCA connections, especially RGB over BNC.
I know DNA has been proposed as a storage mechanism before. Since the immense human genome fits inside a cell, wouldn't DNA offer much denser storage?
And have a stray biological virus get in and alter my computer's DNA-based memory?
I wouldn't want to think what the computer would use to alter its DNA-based memory fast enough to be useful, let alone what would happen if it escaped and latched onto an organism.
The original quote was from Freaks (1932), "Gooble gobble, gooble gobble, we accept her, we accept her, one of us, one of us!"
It is a famous quote from the movie Freaks (1932), though you may be more familiar with the other references made to it. (I know I am; I haven't seen the movie, but am now looking to buy it on DVD to get the full context.)
Clams with giant DVD collections they didn't need to pay for.
No, happy clams with DVD collections twice as big as what they paid for, because the second half is made up entirely of backup copies of the first, not needing to buy new copies due to cracks working their way out from the hub or the edges separating causing playback to stop at the layer change.
And maybe a few remixes in one's own private library not for showing in a paid nand/nor public venue.
I'll add what the GP surely meant to imply: "If you buy something it should be yours to do whatever you choose with" in private.
And I'll volunteer that loaning out your backup should be fair use as much as it is with loaning out the original, so long as the two aren't in simultaneous use. Failure to return a loaned backup would be theft only on the part of the person failing to return it, and I should be entitled to make another copy to replace it in cases of theft or damage. And same should be true for loaning out a remix. If the person you loan to starts making copies, doesn't return it, or makes paid or public performances of it, that should be his crime.
It would be similar to there being a law stating you cannot use McDonald's Mayo on a Double Whopper as it was not intended to be used that way.
Still, if you walk into a McDonald's with a Double Whopper they can not only deny you any mayo packets, but also have you and your Double Whopper removed from the premises.
True, there'd be a lot of pause-and-play. I was going to suggest sending it out via the second HDMI port, but the Westinghouse HDTVs I found only had one. And I'm not certain of the feasibility of getting data out via an HDMI input port.
Of course, I could have considered DVI+HDCP in and unencrypted (or encrypted with predetermined known keys) out.
Or hey! just leak the HDCP key out the USB port and intercept the HDMI stream!
If the processor is going to LOAD the data, then it has to have been STOREd somewhere, right?
Not necessarily. Where it came from was in its encrypted state. You then decrypt it inside the register and never store it. This could be done both for the player key and the title key.
Of course, this does also require a way to ensure that the decrypting process is of the highest priority, preempting all others, and cannot be swapped out to memory for as long as the key is in the register.
It could also be in register partially encrypted, perhaps even split in such a way that the pieces cannot be readily recognized as the key (yes, obfuscation), requiring analysis of the application's decryption method to find and reconstitute the key in the proper manner.
True, no DRM on a general purpose computer can be perfect. The idea is to make it infeasible or too inconvenient to defeat. Best if it is also undesirable or otherwise not worth the effort. Consider that DIVX and SACD have yet to be broken.
Meanwhile the makers of the discs don't need to know what software player was exploited. Studios can just choose to revoke all software player keys for their titles as too risky of a platform and put a notice on the packaging of the disks that says they won't play on a computer, with the "Fairly warned be ye, says I," defense against returns.
Hmm, I wonder how long until someone manages to flash rogue firmware into one of those new Westinghouse firmware-updateable-via-USB TVs that takes the HDCP-encrypted HDMI signal in and spits the decrypted HDMI signal out a USB 2.0 port.
Slashdot Mirror
Or at least they run an emulator for them.
They price things at prices like $9.99 because it feels more like $9 than $10.00 even though the facts say otherwise.
I witnessed this stubborn mindset in another situation where a high school teacher wouldn't accept the closer longitude and latitude for a city on a map because it was clear it wasn't quite at the line, even rejecting the correct answer from the answer key. Jerk wasn't even trained to teach geography; he was a fat-ass phys. ed. teacher. Ken Trubey.
Still, even if they got rid of the penny, it still wouldn't end the 9/10 of a cent on a gallon of gasoline (or 8/10 at Donny's Discount Gas).
I think the poster was trying to find a company that recently stopped carrying DLP TVs to strengthen his conclusion (which was obviously made well before writing up this piece) but then couldn't find anyone to fit the bill.
More like an editor did a fact check against the company he did cite and found they still make DLPs, removed the cite, and didn't proofread the results. Or a glitch caused it to drop out of the story.
I saw it on the FireHose yesterday and a manufacturer was named. Unfortunately I don't recall who it was.
the sellers will simply raise the prices by a nickle!
And lose their nineties? They price things at $10.99 so that unthinking customers think it's under $10. They'll either drop it to $10.95 or raise it to $11.95.
what would make even more sense would be getting rid of pennies altogether.
To do that you have to appease Illinois somehow, such as putting Lincoln on the new dollar coin permanently (after the presidents series ends).
Though lately even the ads on Showtime HD are being stretched to fill the 16:9 frame rather than being pillarboxed or mastered for HD.
Then they should upgrade their HD non-DVR boxes to allow end-user connection of Firewire hubs and drives and/or USB 2.0 hubs and drives to turn them into expandable DVR boxes. They're going to be running the same (mystro) software on all their boxes anyway soon enough.
Meanwhile, I'll be recording the Firewire output of my SA 3250HD box on my Mac to get the new commercials in 1080i HD and 5.1 audio.
I prefer Ningis myself, though the banks won't handle currency exchanges of them, treating them as small change they don't want to fiddle with.
Of course, it's also illegal to melt down Ningis for the rubber.
What the heck is BluRay?
One of the members of the Blue Man Group?
Oh ho ho, sounds like somebody watched the episode without the commercials! Television thief!
(Yeah, and people who wear protective body armor are stealing ammunition.)
I could upload a copy of the ad for the DVD that aired during episode 4 to YouTube to prove it to you, but even that might make Fox irrationally upset. (Personally, I think it would be fair use. And further, a work which would itself expire to an unrecoverable state before the expiration of its copyright unconstitutionally enjoys indefinite copyright protection duration.)
Would that mean they'd care if he posted only the commercials?
A smart uploader including commercials would still exclude localized commercials as they could be used to determine location, or replace them with local ads from another locality to give a wrong impression.
Of course, by releasing before airtime, that would mean there'd be no local commercials (from broadcaster or cable company) inserted. If intact, the national commercials the locals replace would be intact or something else to mark the local ad break.
Interesting though that YouTube has a cap of 10 minutes for regular uploads, allowing longer videos only for people who prove they run a business that produces videos (even if just for software demo videos). And even then, individual videos still can't exceed 100 MB in size.
So Fox is getting upset over very low (sub-VHS) quality copying. Without commercials, that's under 3 hours for 4 episodes at a filesize under 400 MB. That would be worse than VCD quality!
At a 10-minute cap, probably splitting at each break, that's a more reasonable 2 GB for four episodes. But still, if people will go to the trouble of watching twenty clips to see four episodes (I doubt they'd tolerate 36 clips with commercials), perhaps Fox should consider doing repeat airings on FX again. But no, they won't do that; it would piss off their affiliates wanting their piece of the local ad revenue.
Seeing as the episodes in question were the ones made available on DVD the following Tuesday, I'd think the most logical leak would be somewhere in the chain responsible for getting the DVDs made and to the stores in time.
Why do I need 6 ways to connect a TV to a signal (coax cable, RCA plugs, S-video, HDMI, DVI, optical, etc.)?
Actually, I count twelve video sources, but some might consider them reaching or would combine some of them: NTSC via VHF tuner (rabbit ears), NTSC via UHF tuner (loop antenna), NTSC over RF coax (carries VHF and UHF), ATSC tuner (UHF), RF coax to CableCard, Composite, S-Video, Component, VGA, DVI, HDMI, or Firewire/i.Link/IEEE 1384.
And that's the standards in the US. There's PAL and SCART to consider as well.
And then, if audio isn't sent along the same connection, then you get that by Left & Right RCA connections, 5.1 via 6 RCA connections (or more by more), or S/PDIF by RCA or fiber. There used to be the option of getting TV audio via FM frequencies on RF coax, as well as broadcast radio via cable.
There are also sets that take BNC connectors instead of RCA connections, especially RGB over BNC.
I know DNA has been proposed as a storage mechanism before. Since the immense human genome fits inside a cell, wouldn't DNA offer much denser storage?
And have a stray biological virus get in and alter my computer's DNA-based memory?
I wouldn't want to think what the computer would use to alter its DNA-based memory fast enough to be useful, let alone what would happen if it escaped and latched onto an organism.
The original quote was from Freaks (1932), "Gooble gobble, gooble gobble, we accept her, we accept her, one of us, one of us!"
It is a famous quote from the movie Freaks (1932), though you may be more familiar with the other references made to it. (I know I am; I haven't seen the movie, but am now looking to buy it on DVD to get the full context.)
Clams with giant DVD collections they didn't need to pay for.
No, happy clams with DVD collections twice as big as what they paid for, because the second half is made up entirely of backup copies of the first, not needing to buy new copies due to cracks working their way out from the hub or the edges separating causing playback to stop at the layer change.
And maybe a few remixes in one's own private library not for showing in a paid nand/nor public venue.
I'll add what the GP surely meant to imply: "If you buy something it should be yours to do whatever you choose with" in private.
And I'll volunteer that loaning out your backup should be fair use as much as it is with loaning out the original, so long as the two aren't in simultaneous use. Failure to return a loaned backup would be theft only on the part of the person failing to return it, and I should be entitled to make another copy to replace it in cases of theft or damage. And same should be true for loaning out a remix. If the person you loan to starts making copies, doesn't return it, or makes paid or public performances of it, that should be his crime.
It would be similar to there being a law stating you cannot use McDonald's Mayo on a Double Whopper as it was not intended to be used that way.
Still, if you walk into a McDonald's with a Double Whopper they can not only deny you any mayo packets, but also have you and your Double Whopper removed from the premises.
One of us. One of us. One of us. One of us.
True, there'd be a lot of pause-and-play. I was going to suggest sending it out via the second HDMI port, but the Westinghouse HDTVs I found only had one. And I'm not certain of the feasibility of getting data out via an HDMI input port.
Of course, I could have considered DVI+HDCP in and unencrypted (or encrypted with predetermined known keys) out.
Or hey! just leak the HDCP key out the USB port and intercept the HDMI stream!
If the processor is going to LOAD the data, then it has to have been STOREd somewhere, right?
Not necessarily. Where it came from was in its encrypted state. You then decrypt it inside the register and never store it. This could be done both for the player key and the title key.
Of course, this does also require a way to ensure that the decrypting process is of the highest priority, preempting all others, and cannot be swapped out to memory for as long as the key is in the register.
It could also be in register partially encrypted, perhaps even split in such a way that the pieces cannot be readily recognized as the key (yes, obfuscation), requiring analysis of the application's decryption method to find and reconstitute the key in the proper manner.
True, no DRM on a general purpose computer can be perfect. The idea is to make it infeasible or too inconvenient to defeat. Best if it is also undesirable or otherwise not worth the effort. Consider that DIVX and SACD have yet to be broken.
Meanwhile the makers of the discs don't need to know what software player was exploited. Studios can just choose to revoke all software player keys for their titles as too risky of a platform and put a notice on the packaging of the disks that says they won't play on a computer, with the "Fairly warned be ye, says I," defense against returns.
Your post is more true than you realize.
Hmm, I wonder how long until someone manages to flash rogue firmware into one of those new Westinghouse firmware-updateable-via-USB TVs that takes the HDCP-encrypted HDMI signal in and spits the decrypted HDMI signal out a USB 2.0 port.
Key has to be decrypted somewhere. Where else do you want to put it?
In a CPU register, such as those found in AltiVec or Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) that are capable of storing 128 bits.