Of course I mused about this when I read the headline.
But there are some important differences. When Iridium was starting, it was basically a "If we build it, they will come" business plan. There were some vague competitors with significant disadvantages like Inmarsat with almost global and very expensive coverage, and world phones that worked in most metro areas internationally and were much cheaper, but Iridium was the first into this new market segment. So Iridium didn't know what their end cost, revenue, and pricing power would be. Today these are largely knowns. If they didn't have a solid business case and contingencies in the event of cost overruns, they are stupid. So they have a much better chance of being successful today.
The GPL is a license to use someone else's code free of charge, but with requirements on how you are allowed to use it, to maintain the community and ecosystem of freely available software. It doesn't "steal" or encumber anyone else's rights, or attempt to usurp the copyrights of 3rd parties.
If you violate the GPL and are caught, you will be required to come into compliance with the GPL in the method of your choosing, which can include stopping distributing your code that also contains GPLed code. The SFLC, FSF, or courts will not be able to terminate or alter the rights of third party code based on it at one time being included with GPL code.
If you don't own all the code that creates your application, or can't obtain a compatible license, plain and simple don't reuse others GPLed code, write it yourself. There is nothing in the GPL that should or can be struck down. It's all about whether the user of the GPL license used it correctly and legally. There exists a version specifically addressing your concern, and it is called the LGPL. Ask the author of that code to move it to LGPL if s/he can.
I never said for the company to sue them. I said to publicly suggest the customer is making defaming statements.
But in your example, one wouldn't say that because it isn't true. The company should come out and say the customer obtained the product outside of normal retail channels and per your warranty agreement, isn't eligible for service.
Though for low value products like a $50 Linksys router that costs the company less than $10 to replace, it might be worth the good publicity and goodwill to replace it as a courtesy. The company probably has the ability to JTAG official firmware onto the product regardless of the level of bricking, and resell the product as recertified anyway.
The examples provided previously are completely congruent and relevant, contrary to your claim they aren't.
If a person uses copyrighted work without paying for it, it is theft of service, the same goes for FOSS. In lieu of monetary payment, the FOSS developer requests and legally requires you to acknowledge the provenance of the code, and provide your changes back to the community. If you can't comply, don't use the code period, develop it from scratch yourself, or legally buy the code. Some FOSS developers (if they didn't use upstream FOSS code) would probably be willing to sell you a commercial license to their code, so you don't have to provide your changes to the community. It has nothing to do with control over a downstream product, other than requiring remuneration for services provided. And claiming otherwise is disingenuous.
No GPL license requires you to provide internal closed source development tools or build environments. If you think different, please show me. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html. Some crazy person could come to you and claim otherwise, but the FSF won't be knocking on your door. The same can be said of closed source tools when some NPE patent troll decides they own IP to a tiny part of a process with plenty of prior art. They're crazy, but they're playing chicken to see who flinches first.
no matter how much tinkerers claim otherwise, the original company still ends up getting the blame when user modifications break the product.
Absolutely not true and I dare you to try to prove otherwise. If you get sent a product without factory firmware on it, it gets disclaimed from warranty. If someone tries to publicly shame you, the sane response would be to release a statement that you usually don't discuss customer information publicly, but the product was returned to you with tinkered software, specifically not allowed for warranty claims, and you believe the customer stating otherwise in public is defamatory to your company.
And my point that I could have explained better is that it isn't an overreaction. If you fail to pay a civil judgment against you (a person), the judge could arrest you for contempt of court if he believes you have the means to pay and are defying him/her, or the plaintiff could put a lien on real property like your home.
In the case of failing to pay a parking ticket, the absolute worst thing they can do is impound and confiscate your car.
Remember we're talking civil law here, not criminal. So "holding them responsible" means paying damages (or, in the case of speeding, fines). And whether or not you like it, that's how the body of law largely works, at least for cars and their owners. So it's not the obscene, outlandish thing that the/. summary makes it out to be to apply the same standard to another area.
Not sure about all states in the US. But I know it is not uncommon here that speeding tickets are a part of criminal law (albeit the lowest misdemeanor possible unless you are going so fast it could be considered reckless endangerment.
I also don't believe I should be responsible civilly for other people's damaging actions, or that damages should be calculated based on some ethereal value thousands of times higher than the real value of the item infringed on. As a community courtesy I provide free wi-fi in my poor inner city neighborhood. I don't hold a gun to anyone's head to connect to my wi-fi and download copyrighted material. It may be how the body of law works in your area, but not so often in the US. So is applying that standard here obscene from a context outside of intellectual property law? No, and we may be slowly moving in that direction, but it would be unusual and controversial.
This is why we have courts, so an impartial, knowledgable person (the judge) can take all the circumstances into account when applying the law.
In the US a panel of your peers makes that decision, unless you opt for a bench verdict. Either way frequently judges and juries or lawmakers here do not understand the full implications of their actions, especially with regard to internet law, and it is not uncommon for a judge to declare s/he thinks the verdict s/he feels compelled to hand down is a travesty of justice but s/he feels like his/her hands are tied. Also judges generally do not correctly instruct juries they have the prerogative to ignore the law when they feel the law is grossly unjust.
Sorry, but you seem to not understand the cultural differences. The US has more of its population in jails by a very wide margin than any european country (in fact, I think only China beats them, world-wide).
I'm sorry, but I don't think you understand our cultural problems in the US and how that relates to the situation in our criminal justice system. You have a point that it is fair to compare the US unfavorably, and there is probably a better way to describe the difference.
But regarding our prison population, it is almost entirely the product of a racist agenda in our drug policy from the early 1900's that is propagated today by histrionic politicians and an ill-informed electorate. If we were to legalize marijuana, and decriminalize most drug use and possession (while possibly requiring treatment), and only put people in jail for drugs when there was a related property or persons crime, then the US would have equal or lower incarceration rates to most western countries. So using that as the sole statistic to paint a picture of the US as being a more authoritarian and police oriented state I think is disingenuous.
The actual difference is not police power, but how we weigh individual rights vs. social responsibility. The US puts the stress on the individual and you have all these "rights" to bear arm, to free speech, etc. etc. that you treasure so much.
Yes, this is quite clear. In many ways I prefer the social responsibility ethic of Europe, that the government should provide a last chance safety net for people in dire need, that we all should pay a little to ensure everyone gets basic health care, etc. But unfortunately I think many European countries in law take that too far, for example by placing blame or responsibility for people's actions on others that were only tangentially involved.
In most countries, the owner is held responsible if the driver can not be identified (and the car hasn't been reported as stolen).
Which is why some commentators already believe that one solution for hotels, etc. will be to identify their hotspot users,
I can see requiring the owner to cooperate in identifying the driver, but I don't agree with holding them responsible. In the case of Wi-Fi, I can see requiring the owner to allow you to inspect the network for evidence of the source of malfeasance, but I don't think the purchaser of the bandwidth should be required to keep records or be responsible for activities that others partake of over their internet connection.
A good example of why not to do this is that teacher who accidentally showed porn to his students because his computer had an unknown to him trojan. A pure reading of a responsibility law would mean he was civilly and criminally responsible for knowing his computer had a trojan, for its downloading of porn, and the display of that porn to minors.
The idea you propose to treat Wi-Fi like car owner responsibility in some countries adds a lot more friction to the experience of using Wi-Fi in places like libraries and coffee shops. It might be acceptable to the populace in a place like Europe, which seems to be swinging towards police state even more than the US.
But I highly doubt it will fly in the US due to our tendency toward libertarian politics, and annoyance at government intrusion into our lives.
I agree about ISPs shouldn't have open port 25. But I vehemently disagree about running an open wi-fi access point. I want to live in a wirelessly connected world. If open Wi-fi was illegal, I'd have to get a cellular data plan, which is still to expensive. I run an open wi-fi access point for my neighbors. And I appreciate it when airports and coffee shops have the same service available for me.
Violating TOS should only result in your service provider closing your account, and possibly actual damages incurred by service provider. But violating TOS shouldn't attach liability to you for actions of others using your service where actual damages aren't provable (ie if they run up your bandwidth bill according to your billing contract then you are responsible, but if they download a copyright song you shouldn't be responsible for ethereal or compensatory damages).
"don't have some magic immunity to being sued if people use your connection."
Claimant should (and generally is in the US) be forced to prove the infringing action to a specific person. So possibly the claimant should be able to have all computers in your house confiscated and searched. But if they can't prove one of those computers in your house actually engaged in copyright infringement, then claimant should lose.
In the US, parking tickets are issued to the car, not the person. So you might not be able to get your car registration renewed, or get it impounded, but you won't go to jail for not paying.
A more relevant comparison would be speeding cameras. The first round of speeding cameras didn't capture a picture of the driver, and there were several cases of tickets being dismissed because law enforcement or the private contractor operating the speed cameras couldn't prove the identity of the driver. Now most speeding cameras that reliably convict drivers take a picture of the driver, or they treat the speed camera tickets like parking tickets above.
Regarding running home processors at full tilt, I agree it is sub-prime. But it is also probably their best available option for high performance computing resources. If a home user was going to leave their computer on anyway, the difference between no CPU load and full load is probably 20 watts. That greatly increases the effective efficiency. Even if people are leaving their computer on when they otherwise wouldn't for F@H, Stanford doesn't have to go out and drop tens of millions of dollars in capital and hundreds of thousands a year for compute resources. They get resources donated from people with sunk capital costs, and individually a small increase in their electric bill. Regarding pollution, a lot of them probably would have been off at night and on anyway during the day. In that case, they are absorbing nuclear base load, and the extra pollution is negligible.
Personally I have a MythTV box on all the time. I run F@H on it as part of the charitable giving I do each year.
Several people on the MythBuntu forum claim to have had no problem with the latest upgrade, but several like me have had problems. I checked again the other day, and I've upgraded from 8.04 through 8.10/9.04/9.10/10.04, and this is the first time I've had significant problems. Others that haven't had problems probably haven't bothered checking the forum or posting, so the visible problem rate has the issue of self-selection.
If you have the ability, I'd suggest cloning your drive (not necessary to clone the recordings folder, just the MythBuntu install) or at least back up your database before upgrade. Going from 9.10 to 10.04 upgrades Myth from 0.22 to 0.23 database schema unless you enabled 0.23 auto-builds in 9.10 already. I think downgrading would be difficult. If you experience problems, you could always just reload your clone, or reinstall 9.10/0.22 and the database backup.
I did not see USA, SciFi, TNT, Lifetime, etc on the list.
On most networks, those are sent in encrypted QAM, so the HDHR can't tune them. Generally cable companies only send OTA channels, and a few things like C-SPAN and Discovery in clear QAM. You'd have to use a cable box and a Hauppauge HD-PVR encoder for e-QAM.
Any analog station you can receive on a TV without a cable box can be recorded by a cheap Hauppauge PVR-150/250/350/500 card and Myth.
I wish there was a tvcard that pretended to be a tv so I could just output the signal from my cable card to my tv card.
There are no real differences between a tuner in a TV and a tuner in a computer TV card. The method media companies try to use to prevent watching TV in ways they don't like is using licensed encryption that is technically illegal to break, easily changed, and not very easy to bypass. So if a computer card company comes to them and asks for the license and encryption keys to produce a product, and the media company doesn't agree with the proposal, they don't hand over the goods.
If I understand you right, and you want to record channels only available on your cable box that contains a CableCard encryption module, and your cable box has component out, the only way to record it with Myth is using a Hauppauge HD-PVR. There are a few Windows solutions that support CableCard encryption if the entire system from motherboard to monitor supports HDCP.
That's cool about you rewriting the DirecTV script. About the only thing I have done is a super trivial PHP fix to the recordings page on a very old version of Knoppmyth so downloading the episode would work, then notifying their forum how to do it.
Component can carry all consumer HD resolutions through 1080p, whatever the cable box will put out. Some cable companies reduce the resolution on cable box component out for some or all programming, based on their contracts with stations and media companies.
I don't think many are disabling it entirely or downsampling OTA stations they carry on only the component out. They want to stay competitive with broadcast, DVD, and Netflix, and component signal is the lowest common denominator for HD playback. Until recently, the ability of a consumer to reencode component signal at HD quality was pretty limited and very expensive.
Before investing in switching, I'd contact my cable company to verify their available cable box has a component out, and they don't do, or rarely do selective output downsampling or disabling. Good luck getting a cable CSR drone to understand that. Better to ask if they ever reduce the HD resolution on the component out or turn it off for some programs. You can't do DRM on component signal other than turning them off or downsampling. If it doesn't work, or they change policy, I'm sure you could sell your HD-PVR on ebay and recover most of the cost.
The only affordable way to do this I know of is the fairly recent Hauppauge HD-PVR http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html. You can get it on Amazon for about $200. It takes a component signal up to 1080i and hardware encodes it into H.264 before passing the stream off to your computer. Seems like Myth users don't seem to have much trouble with it now that it is officially supported.
I have also heard there are HDMI to component converter dongles made unlicensed in China that ignores HDMI HDCP and allows you to watch or record any high def signal you want. If you can find it, I think they run about $100. But I think if the component pushing the HDMI is connected to the internet, DCP could revoke the key and prevent the dongle from working. The Chinese company would then need to break the new key and provide the updated key to you. But I don't know if these dongles are field updateable.
I'd strongly suggest a HDHomeRun for free to air digital or clear QAM cable TV. If that is too expensive, most Hauppauge cards are supported, though the best dual tuner model HVR-2250 isn't much cheaper than a dual tuner HDHR. pcHDTV cards are also well supported, being specifically Linux hardware.
If you want to record encrypted cable and want it HD, the best choice is a Hauppauge HDPVR encoding from your cable box component output. Though that is pricey. If you still need analog cable, the best is to get a Hauppauge PVR-150/250/350/500 card.
Most cards will require you to use a splitter from your wall outlet into their multiple inputs if they are a dual tuner card, or to split them for multiple single tuner cards. If you have a lot of other splitters in your house cable wiring, you may need to get a high quality digital cable TV amplifier. You can get one on eBay for about $30. Tuner cards need a powerful signal. The HVR-2250 is the only dual tuner card I know of that has one input that is split between the tuners internally.
"Last I looked the backup script didn't offer the option to change, e.g. the location of recorded TV shows, so you always need to keep the same paths all the time...".
I believe by default all TV recordings go to/var/lib/mythtv/recordings. I don't see value in granulating them further. So if you decide to put recordings on another disk or in a different location on a subsequent install, the easy way is to just symlink the new location to/var/lib/mythtv/recordings and no database edits are necessary. Now if you are talking about putting other videos in different places, that is probably harder?
"But when there doesn't seem to be an option of "copy all my settings for host X to host Y except for machine/hardware-specific ones" I don't see the point,"
I don't follow I guess. Master backend X database should contain settings for all clients Y,Z,A. So the host settings are already copied for you, just not in your preferred format. I haven't had a good enough reason to do a multiple client install yet. Are you saying that new clients must be configured from the ground up, and the Myth system isn't smart enough to autopopulate global configs, and request only machine specific configs be manually entered on new clients?
"and using mythweb/phpmyadmin for editing a config file is even clunkier than using the UI"
I don't know. I like mythweb good enough. And after dicking with LIRC text configs forever in Nano, I sorely wished I could have been doing it with phpmyadmin or Access. Though for most quick setting changes, it is overkill. The native UI pisses me off because it can't switch back and forth between showing the mouse cursor in the config UI and hiding it in the regular frontend. So I have to blindly fumble around in the config UI until the cursor hits an editable field.
"perfectly simple to have the myth programs parse a text file on startup and insert the data into the DB. This would have saved me no end of problems... Sure, it's simpler for devs but much, much harder for users"
It is just one more step in the process that could go wrong and lead to unintended problems later. Though you make a good argument that machine specific settings should stay on the machine (and perhaps in a text file if there aren't that many) as long as the machine specific settings are correctly categorized.
I bet over half the Myth users aren't doing anything as involved as what you discussed here, so they probably don't care either way. And these are pretty savvy users compared to the average computer user. Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of pain from my Myth install. And listening / second hand relay of some of the dev discussions sounds like they aren't predisposed to really focusing on the end user. But I'm not sure changing what they have done would be the best use of their time.
"why can't myth have a "save my database" and "look in this directory for recordings" import , rather than me having to edit my 450MB MySQL database?"
Don't know the last time you tried, but since at least 0.22, it has exactly this using an included python script. Also I'm no fan of MySQL, but I've never had my database corrupt itself yet, and I've done upgrades every 6 months since MythBuntu 8.10. Wonder if there are other causes?
I imagine the reason for using the database to store confs (besides the fact when you already require one for recording metadata, many devs would probably be inclined to stuff everything in there), is to allow easier setup of multiple backend/frontend systems. The master backend contains all the confs, and other nodes can connect to a known port to retrieve them just like the master backend does, rather than maintaining separate code for the master backend to serve text conf files up to connecting nodes.
There is also the fact it makes developing alternative configuration editors easy. Right now you can edit the confs using the native tool on the local machine, using an included webpage/webserver, or external tools like myphpadmin or Microsoft Access. Also Myth has so damn many settings, that for power users and developers doing additions/debugging, using a database is probably easier to manage than a 1000 line long text file.
Now that I think about it, it sounds like a pretty reasonable idea.
It can record as many channels as you have capture cards. It can even use capture cards on other Myth backends in multiple backend/frontend systems. On some digital multiplexed channels, one card can simultaneously record 2 channels in the same multiplexed stream. It's as good a PVR as you kit it out to be.
Not unless you use a new theme, but it does work better. Though I had a lot of problems in the upgrade from MythBuntu 9.10 to MythBuntu 10.04. Don't know if that was Ubuntu or Myth.
Do you have analog cable, or digital cable that your non-cablecard TV can tune to without a cable box? If so, MythTV can record it. Even if you have to use a cable box, MythTV can record the composite or component out on the way to the TV. There's pretty much no way a cable company can legally prevent you from recording non-encrypted, non-premium channels right now (by law that is required to include free to air TV stations). And there are ways with the cable box to record premium channels.
and then produce electricity sold at market prices,
yes, though there are some regulatory controls about how it is done. But that is not much different than power from nukies, gas, or coal plants
No subsidies involved?
Ahhh... now we get to your point. There are some subsides. But to act like the oil, gas, and coal industries, and the power generating systems that use those inputs isn't also subsidized, is pure intellectual dishonesty. I'm all for not subsidizing wind power, as long as we end all energy harvesting and power generating subsidies at the same time.
Texas understands this probably better than any other institution in the world. It was the largest world oil producer, and one of the first places in the world that oil production plateaued and has now been declining for 30 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Texas_Oil_Production_1935_to_2005.png
It was one of the first places in the world to regulate production to moderate oil prices. It was one of the first governments to have a department that produced reports on reserves and depletion, and served as a model for the creation of OPEC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Commission_of_Texas
The companies and petroleum engineers here first discovered the increasing discovery and production costs of marginal oil finds, and figured out methods to temporarily push down recovery costs. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/OO/doogz.html
We are the cradle of the world oil industry, though our influence has been slowly waning over 20 years. Our success at pushing the limits of oil production probably gave us slightly too optimistic view of its future. There are many better references than I quickly pulled here, but this is what I remember from reading several books on the topic. I do think we have been lax about transitioning out of the oil industry. The oil price shock of the 70's gave us an initial push, but lessons are easily forgotten with time. Our one saving grace is a tendency toward less regulation and free enterprise, so investors, researchers, and inventors come here to commercialize their ideas.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course I mused about this when I read the headline.
But there are some important differences. When Iridium was starting, it was basically a "If we build it, they will come" business plan. There were some vague competitors with significant disadvantages like Inmarsat with almost global and very expensive coverage, and world phones that worked in most metro areas internationally and were much cheaper, but Iridium was the first into this new market segment. So Iridium didn't know what their end cost, revenue, and pricing power would be. Today these are largely knowns. If they didn't have a solid business case and contingencies in the event of cost overruns, they are stupid. So they have a much better chance of being successful today.
The GPL is a license to use someone else's code free of charge, but with requirements on how you are allowed to use it, to maintain the community and ecosystem of freely available software. It doesn't "steal" or encumber anyone else's rights, or attempt to usurp the copyrights of 3rd parties.
If you violate the GPL and are caught, you will be required to come into compliance with the GPL in the method of your choosing, which can include stopping distributing your code that also contains GPLed code. The SFLC, FSF, or courts will not be able to terminate or alter the rights of third party code based on it at one time being included with GPL code.
If you don't own all the code that creates your application, or can't obtain a compatible license, plain and simple don't reuse others GPLed code, write it yourself. There is nothing in the GPL that should or can be struck down. It's all about whether the user of the GPL license used it correctly and legally. There exists a version specifically addressing your concern, and it is called the LGPL. Ask the author of that code to move it to LGPL if s/he can.
I never said for the company to sue them. I said to publicly suggest the customer is making defaming statements.
But in your example, one wouldn't say that because it isn't true. The company should come out and say the customer obtained the product outside of normal retail channels and per your warranty agreement, isn't eligible for service.
Though for low value products like a $50 Linksys router that costs the company less than $10 to replace, it might be worth the good publicity and goodwill to replace it as a courtesy. The company probably has the ability to JTAG official firmware onto the product regardless of the level of bricking, and resell the product as recertified anyway.
If a person uses copyrighted work without paying for it, it is theft of service, the same goes for FOSS. In lieu of monetary payment, the FOSS developer requests and legally requires you to acknowledge the provenance of the code, and provide your changes back to the community. If you can't comply, don't use the code period, develop it from scratch yourself, or legally buy the code. Some FOSS developers (if they didn't use upstream FOSS code) would probably be willing to sell you a commercial license to their code, so you don't have to provide your changes to the community. It has nothing to do with control over a downstream product, other than requiring remuneration for services provided. And claiming otherwise is disingenuous.
No GPL license requires you to provide internal closed source development tools or build environments. If you think different, please show me. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html. Some crazy person could come to you and claim otherwise, but the FSF won't be knocking on your door. The same can be said of closed source tools when some NPE patent troll decides they own IP to a tiny part of a process with plenty of prior art. They're crazy, but they're playing chicken to see who flinches first.
no matter how much tinkerers claim otherwise, the original company still ends up getting the blame when user modifications break the product.
Absolutely not true and I dare you to try to prove otherwise. If you get sent a product without factory firmware on it, it gets disclaimed from warranty. If someone tries to publicly shame you, the sane response would be to release a statement that you usually don't discuss customer information publicly, but the product was returned to you with tinkered software, specifically not allowed for warranty claims, and you believe the customer stating otherwise in public is defamatory to your company.
And my point that I could have explained better is that it isn't an overreaction. If you fail to pay a civil judgment against you (a person), the judge could arrest you for contempt of court if he believes you have the means to pay and are defying him/her, or the plaintiff could put a lien on real property like your home. In the case of failing to pay a parking ticket, the absolute worst thing they can do is impound and confiscate your car.
Yes but sometimes mumsies knows best, like that you'll get a sour stomach by raiding the cookie jar too many times.
Remember we're talking civil law here, not criminal. So "holding them responsible" means paying damages (or, in the case of speeding, fines). And whether or not you like it, that's how the body of law largely works, at least for cars and their owners. So it's not the obscene, outlandish thing that the /. summary makes it out to be to apply the same standard to another area.
Not sure about all states in the US. But I know it is not uncommon here that speeding tickets are a part of criminal law (albeit the lowest misdemeanor possible unless you are going so fast it could be considered reckless endangerment.
I also don't believe I should be responsible civilly for other people's damaging actions, or that damages should be calculated based on some ethereal value thousands of times higher than the real value of the item infringed on. As a community courtesy I provide free wi-fi in my poor inner city neighborhood. I don't hold a gun to anyone's head to connect to my wi-fi and download copyrighted material. It may be how the body of law works in your area, but not so often in the US. So is applying that standard here obscene from a context outside of intellectual property law? No, and we may be slowly moving in that direction, but it would be unusual and controversial.
This is why we have courts, so an impartial, knowledgable person (the judge) can take all the circumstances into account when applying the law.
In the US a panel of your peers makes that decision, unless you opt for a bench verdict. Either way frequently judges and juries or lawmakers here do not understand the full implications of their actions, especially with regard to internet law, and it is not uncommon for a judge to declare s/he thinks the verdict s/he feels compelled to hand down is a travesty of justice but s/he feels like his/her hands are tied. Also judges generally do not correctly instruct juries they have the prerogative to ignore the law when they feel the law is grossly unjust.
Sorry, but you seem to not understand the cultural differences. The US has more of its population in jails by a very wide margin than any european country (in fact, I think only China beats them, world-wide).
I'm sorry, but I don't think you understand our cultural problems in the US and how that relates to the situation in our criminal justice system. You have a point that it is fair to compare the US unfavorably, and there is probably a better way to describe the difference.
But regarding our prison population, it is almost entirely the product of a racist agenda in our drug policy from the early 1900's that is propagated today by histrionic politicians and an ill-informed electorate. If we were to legalize marijuana, and decriminalize most drug use and possession (while possibly requiring treatment), and only put people in jail for drugs when there was a related property or persons crime, then the US would have equal or lower incarceration rates to most western countries. So using that as the sole statistic to paint a picture of the US as being a more authoritarian and police oriented state I think is disingenuous.
The actual difference is not police power, but how we weigh individual rights vs. social responsibility. The US puts the stress on the individual and you have all these "rights" to bear arm, to free speech, etc. etc. that you treasure so much.
Yes, this is quite clear. In many ways I prefer the social responsibility ethic of Europe, that the government should provide a last chance safety net for people in dire need, that we all should pay a little to ensure everyone gets basic health care, etc. But unfortunately I think many European countries in law take that too far, for example by placing blame or responsibility for people's actions on others that were only tangentially involved.
I can see requiring the owner to cooperate in identifying the driver, but I don't agree with holding them responsible. In the case of Wi-Fi, I can see requiring the owner to allow you to inspect the network for evidence of the source of malfeasance, but I don't think the purchaser of the bandwidth should be required to keep records or be responsible for activities that others partake of over their internet connection.
A good example of why not to do this is that teacher who accidentally showed porn to his students because his computer had an unknown to him trojan. A pure reading of a responsibility law would mean he was civilly and criminally responsible for knowing his computer had a trojan, for its downloading of porn, and the display of that porn to minors.
The idea you propose to treat Wi-Fi like car owner responsibility in some countries adds a lot more friction to the experience of using Wi-Fi in places like libraries and coffee shops. It might be acceptable to the populace in a place like Europe, which seems to be swinging towards police state even more than the US.
But I highly doubt it will fly in the US due to our tendency toward libertarian politics, and annoyance at government intrusion into our lives.
No.
Those are of the 18th, 19th and 20th century. Wi-fi / internet access is the only public service new to the 21st century I can think of right now.
Ahhh... Criminalize the victim.
I agree about ISPs shouldn't have open port 25. But I vehemently disagree about running an open wi-fi access point. I want to live in a wirelessly connected world. If open Wi-fi was illegal, I'd have to get a cellular data plan, which is still to expensive. I run an open wi-fi access point for my neighbors. And I appreciate it when airports and coffee shops have the same service available for me.
Violating TOS should only result in your service provider closing your account, and possibly actual damages incurred by service provider. But violating TOS shouldn't attach liability to you for actions of others using your service where actual damages aren't provable (ie if they run up your bandwidth bill according to your billing contract then you are responsible, but if they download a copyright song you shouldn't be responsible for ethereal or compensatory damages).
"don't have some magic immunity to being sued if people use your connection."
Claimant should (and generally is in the US) be forced to prove the infringing action to a specific person. So possibly the claimant should be able to have all computers in your house confiscated and searched. But if they can't prove one of those computers in your house actually engaged in copyright infringement, then claimant should lose.
In the US, parking tickets are issued to the car, not the person. So you might not be able to get your car registration renewed, or get it impounded, but you won't go to jail for not paying.
A more relevant comparison would be speeding cameras. The first round of speeding cameras didn't capture a picture of the driver, and there were several cases of tickets being dismissed because law enforcement or the private contractor operating the speed cameras couldn't prove the identity of the driver. Now most speeding cameras that reliably convict drivers take a picture of the driver, or they treat the speed camera tickets like parking tickets above.
Citation?
I have one. http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Papers
Regarding running home processors at full tilt, I agree it is sub-prime. But it is also probably their best available option for high performance computing resources. If a home user was going to leave their computer on anyway, the difference between no CPU load and full load is probably 20 watts. That greatly increases the effective efficiency. Even if people are leaving their computer on when they otherwise wouldn't for F@H, Stanford doesn't have to go out and drop tens of millions of dollars in capital and hundreds of thousands a year for compute resources. They get resources donated from people with sunk capital costs, and individually a small increase in their electric bill. Regarding pollution, a lot of them probably would have been off at night and on anyway during the day. In that case, they are absorbing nuclear base load, and the extra pollution is negligible.
Personally I have a MythTV box on all the time. I run F@H on it as part of the charitable giving I do each year.
It's a calculated risk.
Several people on the MythBuntu forum claim to have had no problem with the latest upgrade, but several like me have had problems. I checked again the other day, and I've upgraded from 8.04 through 8.10/9.04/9.10/10.04, and this is the first time I've had significant problems. Others that haven't had problems probably haven't bothered checking the forum or posting, so the visible problem rate has the issue of self-selection.
If you have the ability, I'd suggest cloning your drive (not necessary to clone the recordings folder, just the MythBuntu install) or at least back up your database before upgrade. Going from 9.10 to 10.04 upgrades Myth from 0.22 to 0.23 database schema unless you enabled 0.23 auto-builds in 9.10 already. I think downgrading would be difficult. If you experience problems, you could always just reload your clone, or reinstall 9.10/0.22 and the database backup.
Here is my post on the problems I've had http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9287139
Lemme know if you have other questions.
On most networks, those are sent in encrypted QAM, so the HDHR can't tune them. Generally cable companies only send OTA channels, and a few things like C-SPAN and Discovery in clear QAM. You'd have to use a cable box and a Hauppauge HD-PVR encoder for e-QAM.
Any analog station you can receive on a TV without a cable box can be recorded by a cheap Hauppauge PVR-150/250/350/500 card and Myth.
There are no real differences between a tuner in a TV and a tuner in a computer TV card. The method media companies try to use to prevent watching TV in ways they don't like is using licensed encryption that is technically illegal to break, easily changed, and not very easy to bypass. So if a computer card company comes to them and asks for the license and encryption keys to produce a product, and the media company doesn't agree with the proposal, they don't hand over the goods.
If I understand you right, and you want to record channels only available on your cable box that contains a CableCard encryption module, and your cable box has component out, the only way to record it with Myth is using a Hauppauge HD-PVR. There are a few Windows solutions that support CableCard encryption if the entire system from motherboard to monitor supports HDCP.
That's cool about you rewriting the DirecTV script. About the only thing I have done is a super trivial PHP fix to the recordings page on a very old version of Knoppmyth so downloading the episode would work, then notifying their forum how to do it.
Component can carry all consumer HD resolutions through 1080p, whatever the cable box will put out. Some cable companies reduce the resolution on cable box component out for some or all programming, based on their contracts with stations and media companies.
I don't think many are disabling it entirely or downsampling OTA stations they carry on only the component out. They want to stay competitive with broadcast, DVD, and Netflix, and component signal is the lowest common denominator for HD playback. Until recently, the ability of a consumer to reencode component signal at HD quality was pretty limited and very expensive.
Before investing in switching, I'd contact my cable company to verify their available cable box has a component out, and they don't do, or rarely do selective output downsampling or disabling. Good luck getting a cable CSR drone to understand that. Better to ask if they ever reduce the HD resolution on the component out or turn it off for some programs. You can't do DRM on component signal other than turning them off or downsampling. If it doesn't work, or they change policy, I'm sure you could sell your HD-PVR on ebay and recover most of the cost.
The only affordable way to do this I know of is the fairly recent Hauppauge HD-PVR http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html. You can get it on Amazon for about $200. It takes a component signal up to 1080i and hardware encodes it into H.264 before passing the stream off to your computer. Seems like Myth users don't seem to have much trouble with it now that it is officially supported.
I have also heard there are HDMI to component converter dongles made unlicensed in China that ignores HDMI HDCP and allows you to watch or record any high def signal you want. If you can find it, I think they run about $100. But I think if the component pushing the HDMI is connected to the internet, DCP could revoke the key and prevent the dongle from working. The Chinese company would then need to break the new key and provide the updated key to you. But I don't know if these dongles are field updateable.
No problem.
I'd strongly suggest a HDHomeRun for free to air digital or clear QAM cable TV. If that is too expensive, most Hauppauge cards are supported, though the best dual tuner model HVR-2250 isn't much cheaper than a dual tuner HDHR. pcHDTV cards are also well supported, being specifically Linux hardware.
If you want to record encrypted cable and want it HD, the best choice is a Hauppauge HDPVR encoding from your cable box component output. Though that is pricey. If you still need analog cable, the best is to get a Hauppauge PVR-150/250/350/500 card.
Most cards will require you to use a splitter from your wall outlet into their multiple inputs if they are a dual tuner card, or to split them for multiple single tuner cards. If you have a lot of other splitters in your house cable wiring, you may need to get a high quality digital cable TV amplifier. You can get one on eBay for about $30. Tuner cards need a powerful signal. The HVR-2250 is the only dual tuner card I know of that has one input that is split between the tuners internally.
"Last I looked the backup script didn't offer the option to change, e.g. the location of recorded TV shows, so you always need to keep the same paths all the time...".
/var/lib/mythtv/recordings. I don't see value in granulating them further. So if you decide to put recordings on another disk or in a different location on a subsequent install, the easy way is to just symlink the new location to /var/lib/mythtv/recordings and no database edits are necessary. Now if you are talking about putting other videos in different places, that is probably harder?
... Sure, it's simpler for devs but much, much harder for users"
I believe by default all TV recordings go to
"But when there doesn't seem to be an option of "copy all my settings for host X to host Y except for machine/hardware-specific ones" I don't see the point,"
I don't follow I guess. Master backend X database should contain settings for all clients Y,Z,A. So the host settings are already copied for you, just not in your preferred format. I haven't had a good enough reason to do a multiple client install yet. Are you saying that new clients must be configured from the ground up, and the Myth system isn't smart enough to autopopulate global configs, and request only machine specific configs be manually entered on new clients?
"and using mythweb/phpmyadmin for editing a config file is even clunkier than using the UI"
I don't know. I like mythweb good enough. And after dicking with LIRC text configs forever in Nano, I sorely wished I could have been doing it with phpmyadmin or Access. Though for most quick setting changes, it is overkill. The native UI pisses me off because it can't switch back and forth between showing the mouse cursor in the config UI and hiding it in the regular frontend. So I have to blindly fumble around in the config UI until the cursor hits an editable field.
"perfectly simple to have the myth programs parse a text file on startup and insert the data into the DB. This would have saved me no end of problems
It is just one more step in the process that could go wrong and lead to unintended problems later. Though you make a good argument that machine specific settings should stay on the machine (and perhaps in a text file if there aren't that many) as long as the machine specific settings are correctly categorized.
I bet over half the Myth users aren't doing anything as involved as what you discussed here, so they probably don't care either way. And these are pretty savvy users compared to the average computer user. Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of pain from my Myth install. And listening / second hand relay of some of the dev discussions sounds like they aren't predisposed to really focusing on the end user. But I'm not sure changing what they have done would be the best use of their time.
"why can't myth have a "save my database" and "look in this directory for recordings" import , rather than me having to edit my 450MB MySQL database?"
Don't know the last time you tried, but since at least 0.22, it has exactly this using an included python script. Also I'm no fan of MySQL, but I've never had my database corrupt itself yet, and I've done upgrades every 6 months since MythBuntu 8.10. Wonder if there are other causes?
I imagine the reason for using the database to store confs (besides the fact when you already require one for recording metadata, many devs would probably be inclined to stuff everything in there), is to allow easier setup of multiple backend/frontend systems. The master backend contains all the confs, and other nodes can connect to a known port to retrieve them just like the master backend does, rather than maintaining separate code for the master backend to serve text conf files up to connecting nodes.
There is also the fact it makes developing alternative configuration editors easy. Right now you can edit the confs using the native tool on the local machine, using an included webpage/webserver, or external tools like myphpadmin or Microsoft Access. Also Myth has so damn many settings, that for power users and developers doing additions/debugging, using a database is probably easier to manage than a 1000 line long text file.
Now that I think about it, it sounds like a pretty reasonable idea.
It can record as many channels as you have capture cards. It can even use capture cards on other Myth backends in multiple backend/frontend systems. On some digital multiplexed channels, one card can simultaneously record 2 channels in the same multiplexed stream. It's as good a PVR as you kit it out to be.
Not unless you use a new theme, but it does work better. Though I had a lot of problems in the upgrade from MythBuntu 9.10 to MythBuntu 10.04. Don't know if that was Ubuntu or Myth.
Do you have analog cable, or digital cable that your non-cablecard TV can tune to without a cable box? If so, MythTV can record it. Even if you have to use a cable box, MythTV can record the composite or component out on the way to the TV. There's pretty much no way a cable company can legally prevent you from recording non-encrypted, non-premium channels right now (by law that is required to include free to air TV stations). And there are ways with the cable box to record premium channels.
so these windmills are bought at market prices,
yes.
placed on ground bought/leased at market prices
yes
and then produce electricity sold at market prices,
yes, though there are some regulatory controls about how it is done. But that is not much different than power from nukies, gas, or coal plants
No subsidies involved?
Ahhh... now we get to your point. There are some subsides. But to act like the oil, gas, and coal industries, and the power generating systems that use those inputs isn't also subsidized, is pure intellectual dishonesty. I'm all for not subsidizing wind power, as long as we end all energy harvesting and power generating subsidies at the same time.
Texas understands this probably better than any other institution in the world. It was the largest world oil producer, and one of the first places in the world that oil production plateaued and has now been declining for 30 years
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Texas_Oil_Production_1935_to_2005.png
It was one of the first places in the world to regulate production to moderate oil prices. It was one of the first governments to have a department that produced reports on reserves and depletion, and served as a model for the creation of OPEC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Commission_of_Texas
The companies and petroleum engineers here first discovered the increasing discovery and production costs of marginal oil finds, and figured out methods to temporarily push down recovery costs.
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/OO/doogz.html
We are the cradle of the world oil industry, though our influence has been slowly waning over 20 years. Our success at pushing the limits of oil production probably gave us slightly too optimistic view of its future. There are many better references than I quickly pulled here, but this is what I remember from reading several books on the topic. I do think we have been lax about transitioning out of the oil industry. The oil price shock of the 70's gave us an initial push, but lessons are easily forgotten with time. Our one saving grace is a tendency toward less regulation and free enterprise, so investors, researchers, and inventors come here to commercialize their ideas.