CableCARD is dead. (You can tell because it was supposed to be integrated into TVs so that no set-top box would be required at all, but if you go to Best Buy or somewhere you'll find exactly zero TVs that actually have a CableCard slot.) Comcast and the other cablecos did everything in their power to sabotage it, and succeeded. Not only were there tons of "compatibility problems," but the cablecos constantly whined about how it didn't support bullshit like "On Demand." So now there's a "new" cable card standard called "Tru2Way" that's going to be available Real Soon Now (and if you believe it'll ever see the light of day, I've got a bridge to sell you...)
I have Comcast digital cable in Atlanta. Currently, Comcast sends SD (480i) extended basic cable stations (e.g. Discovery) in ClearQAM, albeit on weird frequencies (e.g. channel 103.5 for the afore-mentioned Discovery). The set-top box is allegedly "required" not in order to do any decrypting, but rather merely to translate the channels to their "official" frequencies (e.g. channel 40 instead of 103.5). Now, what they're planning to do is to start encrypting those channels for no good reason.
There are several major problems with what Comcast is doing:
Comcast's boxes are the shittiest piles of garbage on the face of the Earth. When Comcast shut off the analog History Channel I tried them, but after going through three that would work for a while and then flake out I gave up and just did without until I figured out how to tune to History Channel via QAM (channel 82.7, by the way).
It's a blatant money grab: by turning on the encryption, Comcast is instantly forcing everyone to fork over an extra $5 or so per month, per TV (give or take the single "free" box Comcast "generously" "offers" with certain types of accounts).
It's a blatant power grab: with unencrypted QAM, there can be a free market for digital TV tuners (and "digital cable ready" TVs) -- a situation which is intolerable to the fascists running Comcast. This way, they control the only supply of devices that can decode the signals, which means that they can hold features hostage, lock out competitors, etc.
It's fucking absurd to begin with, because there's no legitimate reason whatsoever why I should have to have an extra stupid box with an extra stupid remote (that isn't compatible with my TV, by the way) when my "digital cable-ready" TV is perfectly capable, sans Comcast's meddling, of tuning the damn channels itself!
In other words, the situation that's developing now is exactly like how AT&T used to control telephone equipment 30(?) years ago: it's monopolistic, murderous to technological process, and should not be allowed!
And that brings me to my final point: I really want to do everything I can to stop and/or punish Comcast for this. Is anybody planning to sue over it, and/or do you know of a class-action I can join?
Yeah, except that the content's value for WotLK and especially TBC would have depreciated due to age, and apparently the original game's content is going to be removed altogether.
IMO, there are two problems with construing saying "you're an asshole!" to a cop as defamation:
Unless the cop in question is Assy McGee, it's quite obvious that you're not literally claiming that the cop is an asshole, but rather using the word merely for its connotation of "not nice" -- and that makes it an opinion, whether you explicitly state it as such or not. (And of course, if the cop is Assy McGee, then it's not defamation anyway because it's true!)
Legally, defamation is untruthful communication that damages a person's reputation. But if you're making the accusation to his face, then the issue would be whether you damaged his reputation as evaluated by himself, which makes so little sense that I had a damned hard time finding words to express the concept! And we're not talking about the cop's self-respect here, either -- merely hurting someone's feelings doesn't cut it. Defamation is more than a mere insult; it requires that people believed the false accusation to be true. And the cop obviously isn't going to believe you when you make a false accusation to him about himself!
In order to successfully defame the cop, it would help to make the statement something that could plausibly be construed as a sincere accusation (e.g. say "you are corrupt" instead) and to express it to a third party instead of the cop himself (or at least yell it loud enough for bystanders to hear).
Ditto if I accuse my neighbor of being a prostitute or a burglar.
True, but only if your speech is a genuine accusation. If it's merely an epithet then it doesn't count. It's the difference between yelling "[neighbor] is a whore" to add pizazz to a generalized rant because you happen to be pissed off at the neighbor, and standing at a street corner telling passers-by "my neighbor, [so-and-so], engages in prostitution" in an earnest tone of voice.
He said he wanted real names to be used by everyone, all the time. Demanding that he disclose his info unilaterally, as you just did, completely misses the point because the reciprocity was the important part!
So if you printed something outing the local cops/politicians/etc and billboarded it, and they later tagged it to your printer because it had the same micro-print as a separate letter to your kids' school, or whatever, would the printer manufacturer (HP/Canon/etc) be on the hook if such functionality was not disclosed?
I realize I'm completely failing to address your argument here (and an interesting argument it is!), but practically speaking, you should probably just use a black & white laser printer for that sort of thing...
What you're describing is the effect of minimum-wage laws: when you institute (or raise) a minimum wage, the jobs that paid less don't become better paid, they just go away entirely.
Ideally, a parking lot should be about 85% full, 24 hours a day.
For that to happen, you'd have to re-arrange the zoning so that there'd be people coming and going 24 hours a day. You can't lower the price below "free," and even "free" wouldn't get you 85% utilization in the middle of the night otherwise.
That little magic strip on your Debit or Credit Card doesn't always work. They can wear out or the debit/credit machine can crap out. Imagine filling your car up, going in and finding the machine doesn't work and there is no ATM around... Don't like that analogy? How about a restaurant? You can't pre-pay at a restaurant and as you are eating the machine breaks. You and whoever you are with do not have cash. You are SOL now, aren't you?
No, they (the gas station or restaurant) are SOL if their electronic card reader goes down and they're too stupid to have one of these as a backup. It's not my fault that they can't accept my good-faith attempt at payment! They agreed (via displaying the "VISA" (or whatever) logo sticker) that they would accept payment via credit card; if they want to change their mind then it's their responsibility to quit displaying the sign and/or ensure that people are prepared to pay using some other method before they deliver the product (e.g. seating the restaurant-goers or turning on the gas pump).
It didn't! It's just that the government has issued so many different dollar coins over the years (and, correspondingly, quit issuing them) that everybody who gets one thinks it's a collector's item or something and hordes it instead of keeping it in circulation. Also, the fact that the government continues to print dollar bills (and does so in vastly greater quantities than it mints dollar coins) doesn't help.
The only downside for the city is the increase in pedestrian accidents because people are forced to cross the street (usually mid block) to get to the meter on the other side. And then back again. Most people just jaywalk, and this causes accidents.
Well that's just stupid design: they should have put the meters at the ends of blocks by the crosswalks!
They are simply an update of the classic horse-and-cart that humans have used for 10,000 years, and the reason humans used these carts was because they were great for carrying lots of stuff.
Yeah, but in the horse-and-cart era, the vast majority of traffic was still pedestrian. Only relatively few people rode on horseback, and tended to be either rich or traveling a long distance, and most cart traffic would have been commercial (i.e., equivalent to the modern delivery truck, not the soccer-mom SUV).
Don't believe me? Well I just bought almost a month's worth of groceries. Try carrying 20 bags onto the local subway or bus or walk home. I think I'll keep my horseless cart. Thanks.
Ah, but why did you buy a month's worth of groceries all at once? Could it have been because the grocery store is far enough away that making a trip there is a big deal? If walking were more common, then there would be a convenient grocery store near your house (say, within a half-mile or so) and you could just pop in and grab one day's worth of food on your way home from work. (As a side-effect, you'd probably eat much more fresh food too, instead of the frozen/canned/preserved stuff that must necessarily be making up a big part of your diet now.)
Just because something is "new" doesn't mean it's better than the old system.
Exactly, just like how this jerk's hard-on for the automobile helped lead to the smoggy, sprawl-infested, unwalkable hellholes that we call "modern American cities" today!
Of course, it's kind of the opposite of your parking meter example, since in this case it's the 1920's idea that was bad, and the newnew idea is good.
Otherwise Childs could sue SF farther into bankruptcy than the entire state of CA currently is for wrongful prosecution, imprisonment, etc. Not to mention possible criminal prosecution for the SF officials involved if they lose.
I wish the "justice" system were just enough for that to happen! I hope Childs does manage to accomplish that, but I'm not holding my breath.
This should be a cautionary tale for any IT person.. When things get so bad that you're angry and not making good decisions.. just quit.
The trouble is, he was making good decisions! In fact, "just quitting" really would have been malicious (if he didn't disclose the passwords) or negligent (if he did disclose them). The only correct course of action was the one he took!
The real lesson of this "cautionary tale" is that if you value your freedom, it is not safe to be a government IT administrator at all.
there isn't really much designed for touch beyond handwriting
There isn't really much designed for touch including handwriting. There's not even the equivalent of MS's Tablet Input Panel (with continuous, whole-word handwriting recognition); the best you can do is an on-screen keyboard or Graffiti-style single-character recognition.
I'm no Star Wars apologist (in fact, I'm much more of a Trekkie anyway...), but this is just silly:
The whole point is that he's a robot for the rich and powerful. (Your average nerf herder probably couldn't afford one, nor need to translate from and to six million languages.) Yet he looks like an unfinished contraption thrown together in someone's tool shed.
C3PO is "an unfinished contraption thrown together in someone's tool shed" -- he was built by an 9-year-old slave kid from parts scavenged from a junk yard, for crying out loud!
Given the multitude of different aliens and languages seen just on Tatooine, let alone the rest of the galaxy, it seems reasonable that average people would need a translator a Hell of a lot more often than they do in America.
He couldn't have been that fancy or expensive, since Luke's moisture-farming uncle could afford to buy him! He wasn't even all that major of a purchase, considering Owen and Luke's cavalier attitude in that scene. Apparently, droids are a commodity.
C3PO is only one thing out of a huge list of worn-out and half-broken pieces of technology we see in Star Wars: the Rebels' equipment, the Millennium Falcon, everything on Tatooine, etc. Are his exposed circuits and sticky joints really that much out of place?
Ah; gotcha. In that case, perhaps it's "carrying while intoxicated" that should be prohibited, since being in possession of a weapon is analogous to being in control of dangerous machinery.
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CableCARD is dead. (You can tell because it was supposed to be integrated into TVs so that no set-top box would be required at all, but if you go to Best Buy or somewhere you'll find exactly zero TVs that actually have a CableCard slot.) Comcast and the other cablecos did everything in their power to sabotage it, and succeeded. Not only were there tons of "compatibility problems," but the cablecos constantly whined about how it didn't support bullshit like "On Demand." So now there's a "new" cable card standard called "Tru2Way" that's going to be available Real Soon Now (and if you believe it'll ever see the light of day, I've got a bridge to sell you...)
I have Comcast digital cable in Atlanta. Currently, Comcast sends SD (480i) extended basic cable stations (e.g. Discovery) in ClearQAM, albeit on weird frequencies (e.g. channel 103.5 for the afore-mentioned Discovery). The set-top box is allegedly "required" not in order to do any decrypting, but rather merely to translate the channels to their "official" frequencies (e.g. channel 40 instead of 103.5). Now, what they're planning to do is to start encrypting those channels for no good reason.
There are several major problems with what Comcast is doing:
In other words, the situation that's developing now is exactly like how AT&T used to control telephone equipment 30(?) years ago: it's monopolistic, murderous to technological process, and should not be allowed!
And that brings me to my final point: I really want to do everything I can to stop and/or punish Comcast for this. Is anybody planning to sue over it, and/or do you know of a class-action I can join?
For what it's worth, Kinsey said the same thing.
Yeah, except that the content's value for WotLK and especially TBC would have depreciated due to age, and apparently the original game's content is going to be removed altogether.
IMO, there are two problems with construing saying "you're an asshole!" to a cop as defamation:
In order to successfully defame the cop, it would help to make the statement something that could plausibly be construed as a sincere accusation (e.g. say "you are corrupt" instead) and to express it to a third party instead of the cop himself (or at least yell it loud enough for bystanders to hear).
True, but only if your speech is a genuine accusation. If it's merely an epithet then it doesn't count. It's the difference between yelling "[neighbor] is a whore" to add pizazz to a generalized rant because you happen to be pissed off at the neighbor, and standing at a street corner telling passers-by "my neighbor, [so-and-so], engages in prostitution" in an earnest tone of voice.
In other words, context is important.
He said he wanted real names to be used by everyone, all the time. Demanding that he disclose his info unilaterally, as you just did, completely misses the point because the reciprocity was the important part!
I realize I'm completely failing to address your argument here (and an interesting argument it is!), but practically speaking, you should probably just use a black & white laser printer for that sort of thing...
What you're describing is the effect of minimum-wage laws: when you institute (or raise) a minimum wage, the jobs that paid less don't become better paid, they just go away entirely.
For that to happen, you'd have to re-arrange the zoning so that there'd be people coming and going 24 hours a day. You can't lower the price below "free," and even "free" wouldn't get you 85% utilization in the middle of the night otherwise.
Huh, in that case, I have two questions for the city:
No, they (the gas station or restaurant) are SOL if their electronic card reader goes down and they're too stupid to have one of these as a backup. It's not my fault that they can't accept my good-faith attempt at payment! They agreed (via displaying the "VISA" (or whatever) logo sticker) that they would accept payment via credit card; if they want to change their mind then it's their responsibility to quit displaying the sign and/or ensure that people are prepared to pay using some other method before they deliver the product (e.g. seating the restaurant-goers or turning on the gas pump).
It didn't! It's just that the government has issued so many different dollar coins over the years (and, correspondingly, quit issuing them) that everybody who gets one thinks it's a collector's item or something and hordes it instead of keeping it in circulation. Also, the fact that the government continues to print dollar bills (and does so in vastly greater quantities than it mints dollar coins) doesn't help.
Well that's just stupid design: they should have put the meters at the ends of blocks by the crosswalks!
Yeah, but in the horse-and-cart era, the vast majority of traffic was still pedestrian. Only relatively few people rode on horseback, and tended to be either rich or traveling a long distance, and most cart traffic would have been commercial (i.e., equivalent to the modern delivery truck, not the soccer-mom SUV).
Ah, but why did you buy a month's worth of groceries all at once? Could it have been because the grocery store is far enough away that making a trip there is a big deal? If walking were more common, then there would be a convenient grocery store near your house (say, within a half-mile or so) and you could just pop in and grab one day's worth of food on your way home from work. (As a side-effect, you'd probably eat much more fresh food too, instead of the frozen/canned/preserved stuff that must necessarily be making up a big part of your diet now.)
Exactly, just like how this jerk's hard-on for the automobile helped lead to the smoggy, sprawl-infested, unwalkable hellholes that we call "modern American cities" today!
Of course, it's kind of the opposite of your parking meter example, since in this case it's the 1920's idea that was bad, and the new new idea is good.
And Childs didn't even do that -- from what I read, pretty much everything he did was right!
I wish the "justice" system were just enough for that to happen! I hope Childs does manage to accomplish that, but I'm not holding my breath.
The trouble is, he was making good decisions! In fact, "just quitting" really would have been malicious (if he didn't disclose the passwords) or negligent (if he did disclose them). The only correct course of action was the one he took!
The real lesson of this "cautionary tale" is that if you value your freedom, it is not safe to be a government IT administrator at all.
There isn't really much designed for touch including handwriting. There's not even the equivalent of MS's Tablet Input Panel (with continuous, whole-word handwriting recognition); the best you can do is an on-screen keyboard or Graffiti-style single-character recognition.
Does the total (original game + TBC + WotLK + Cataclysm) cost more than $50? If so, it's too fucking expensive!
The codex was invented long before the Gutenberg printing press.
The thing from a while ago was animated E-ink, not video.
I'm no Star Wars apologist (in fact, I'm much more of a Trekkie anyway...), but this is just silly:
So? It works!
Ah; gotcha. In that case, perhaps it's "carrying while intoxicated" that should be prohibited, since being in possession of a weapon is analogous to being in control of dangerous machinery.