Curiously enough, it seems that the UK is actually ahead of the US for SG-1 and Atlantis at the moment. Last week I had forgotten to set my VCR to record the shows when I went for work, so I did a quick search to see if anyone had put a torrent up yet. To my surprise, there were torrents 5 episodes ahead of what SciFi is currently playing, all recorded from SkyOne.
The university does not own nor operate the apartment building in question. Also, while university students have priority for apartments, it's implied that not all of the residents of this apartment complex are associated with the university. The article mentions that they are sharing Comcast cable. Comcast allows routing over wireless, and will even set it up for you for an additional fee, so they're not in violation of the internet provider's TOS.
In short, the university has banned use of a non-university regulated internet connection on non-university regulated property by people who may or may not even be university students(but probably are). Unless the apartment complex has some clause in the lease that tennants have to obey the whims of the university, I doubt this is legal.
A friend of mine had a living room fire, and I still has some of her Nintendo cartridges that survived. The cases are slightly melted and discolored, but the ones that still physically fit in the Nintendo work great(not the same machine my friend owned. AFAIK that one isn't around anymore)
I don't know how close the fire actually got to his Nintendo, but if it was hot enough to melt the plastic I'd think the guts of those things have to be pretty good. Try doing that with a PS2 game and see what happens.:)
On the subject of dropping laptops, I've got a lifebook that survived a fall from about 5' (while in a lightly padded slip case), when I missed the coat hook.
Later that day, I notice that the laptop isn't closing properly, and all the feet don't touch the feet anymore. It turns out that the laptop landed just right that the magnesium alloy case actually bent to the point where one front corner was 1/4" higher than the other. I placed the laptop on the arm of a chair and pressed hard on the 2 opposing higher corners, and managed to bend it back enough for both corner screen latches to catch. The laptop still doesn't sit right on a table but the electronics and data all survived without incident.
The chance is there though and I for one wouldn't like to be in the position of having to explain it.
I agree entirely. I know that I'd be very embarrassed if I had to explain how I didn't notice the can I packed was made of plastic and had a big hole on the side with a button in it.
Also, the same goes for devices that are constantly updated with new models yearly or biannually (video cards are typical example). Make up some problem with the old one, be "forced" to get the new one as a replacement.
Unfortunately, my local Best Buy won't let you do that, even if the device does have some design flaw that keeps it from working. I bought a mid-priced Toshiba DVD player from them in 2001, and paid 1/3 of the price of the player again for their 4 year service plan. At the time I was told by numerous salespeople that if I experienced problems with the player during the term of the service plan, they would replace it with another player of the same price from their inventory.
Today, the player skips constantly through the second half of every new DVD I buy, but it plays all of my older(single-layer) movies fine. The thing that gets me is that it obviously supports multi-layer disks because it will play them, it just won't play them without skipping. It does not function as a DVD player should. According to Best Buy, the fact that the DVD player will not play most of the DVDs they sell is a design flaw and not their problem, and it is not covered under the service plan.
I explain this to Best Buy reps whenever they try to push their service plans on me, and that I'll just spend the money on a new Gadget X in 2 years or so. Once after explaining this to her, one BB cashier suggested that my service plan covers power surges, so I could still get a new player. Even so, I'm sure that if I sent 110V into the s-video that it would somehow void my (useless) service plan.
Drat, missed a tag, in the auction it's: PANASONIC DVD-S31 DVD RECORDER AND PLAYER POWER CABLE
Not really sure if it's a list, the way they've broken up the player onto 2 lines. Just as easily could be a DVD-S31 DVD, a player, and a cable as a DVD-S31 player power cable
Even in the "pirate everything" community, there's a lot of people saying "Don't download it, go see it in a theater." It's the type of movie that needs to be seen on a large screen, not a computer monitor or small TV.
I agree 100%. I saw it in the theater, and I don't consider any bit of my money to be wasted. I even paid $2 extra to see the midnight show with my friends.
If I'd seen a cam it would have been blurry, low-res, and overexposed(oversaturated? whatever the word is), with crap audio. I likely would have been sorely disappointed, and I wouldn't have felt it was worth my (free) download. When comparing the theater with cams, you really do get what you pay for.
The wording that my college uses is that you aren't allowed to "extend the network infrastructure." That pretty effectively prohibits you from routing anything or connecting more than 1 computer to your network jack (which you couldn't do without a router anyway, since you have to register your MAC addy before you can use the network)
As for setting up a secure WAP, they'd probably be willing to overlook it. Most rules against wireless are because most people don't know how to properly secure a wireless network, and it would let people on the campus network who shouldn't be there. I guess if they really wanted to know if you were on the network with your router, they could enter your room and look at it. I wouldn't be surprised if the paper you need to sign to get a dorm room lets them do that.
I can't remember what the name of the movie was, but I was watching a spy movie where they had one of these equipped in a car as one of his gadgets. I remember being impressed by how feasable and useful it looked. The taillights were LED based, with one of those bars across the entire back of the car for third brake light. It turned into a voice activated scrolling marquee when he spoke into a cb radio style microphone. This was used twice in the movie, once to communicate with the police behind him, and the other to make sarcastic remarks to the bad guys who were chasing him. If you were to actually implement this, it would be pretty easy; the trickiest part would be the voice activation. Personally I'd like to be able to send a message to the guy behind me who's trying to push me to go faster, when I'm already 5mph over.
Up until now, ISPs have been able to hide behind their status as a common carrier for anything illegal that their customers do. They don't monitor, thus, they can't do anything about it. Comcast is admitting their ability and willingness to monitor the types of traffic their customers are producing, and block undesirable traffic.
How long before this gets turned around and smacks Comcast (and their customers) with problems?
166. Although the same economic and safety concerns apply to all telephone solicitation calls received by wireless subscribers, the Commission has determined not to prohibit all live telephone solicitations to wireless numbers. The national do-not-call database will allow for the registration of wireless telephone numbers for those subscribers who wish to avoid live telemarketing calls to their wireless phones. Wireless subscribers thus have a simple means of preventing most live telemarketing calls if they so desire. Moreover, relying on the do-not-call database to control live telephone solicitations recognizes that prohibiting such calls to wireless numbers may unduly restrict telemarketers' ability to contact those consumers who do not object to receiving telemarketing calls and use their wireless phones as either their primary or only phone.
Fair enough... This is actually turning out to be a good read.:)
I just downloaded the TCPA from the FCC web site, curious to know what exactly the wording for cellular restrictions was. I was suprised to find this entry:
160. In the 2002 Notice, the Commission noted that the TCPA permits the Commission to exempt from the restrictions on autodialer or prerecorded message calls, "calls to a telephone number assigned to a cellular telephone service that are not charged to the called party, subject to such conditions as the Commission may prescribe as necessary in the interest of the privacy rights [the TCPA] is intended to protect." In the 1992 TCPA Order, the Commission concluded that calls made by cellular carriers to their subscribers for which the subscribers were not charged do not fall within the prohibitions on autodialers or prerecorded messages.
So what Verizon does was actually legal. That said, I still don't like it.
If you don't like it, don't use it. Similar technology has been in use in Speedway gas stations for a few years now. They give you a little stick that goes on your keychain and you wave it in front of the pump at the gas station to pay for your gas. I'm told that the same speedway pass also works at certain McDonalds that have the readers installed.
The only real difference between this and the MasterCard product is that MasterCard is used in far more locations than SpeedWay prepaid gas cards, so the cards will actually be useful in more locations. Just like the SpeedPass, those who want it because it's got a cool gimick will get one; those who wear tinfoil hats will continue to pay cash.
I'm more interested to know if the system does in fact support games on both terminals at the same time, as the article fails to mention testing anything but office apps.
According to the article, they use a standard Nvidia card for the graphics. AFAIK, current 3d chipsets(excluding CAD cards) will only render on one of the attached monitors at a time.
Remember back when Lexmark was suing 3rd party printer cartridge manufacturers? Didn't they claim that there was a special chip needed for the cartridge to communicate with the printer, and the behavior of this chip was copyrighted so nobody could use it but them?
Now we find the Xerox and Lexmark printers have a compatible chip in them, allowing them to be interchangable? So I'm guessing Lexmark licensed this chip from Xerox... Or maybe Xerox licensed it from Lexmark? Something just seems very strange about that to me.
My experience with Fujitsu was also very pleasurable. About 2 months ago, I had to order a replacement keyboard for my p2046, as my cat had clawed some of the keys off. While I was at it, I ordered some of the other parts that had worn and needed replacement.
Day 1, 2pm, 10 minutes after the damage: Called Fujitsu (5 minute hold time) explained the problem. Since I had bought the laptop on eBay, I had to have them transfer the registration over. The tech explained that they cannot sell parts straight through phone support, but I would get a call from a sales rep within 5 hours.
Day 2, 12:30pm: Having not received the call the day before, I called Fujitsu again (similar wait time as before), and re-explained the situation. The tech immediately forwarded me to a supervisor, who already was briefed on who I was and what I wanted by the time he picked up the phone, which was again a short wait. The sales rep had the same information by the time he picked up 10 minutes later, and had the prices for my model of laptop (discontinued a few months earlier). He said next day shipping was standard, and took my credit card info for processing. Wonderful!
Day 2, 2:00pm: Realized I had forgotten the trackpoint caps in my list of parts. Called Fujitsu again, realizing that it would delay my order if I changed it. They transferred me to the same supervisor as before, who transferred me to the same parts guy as before, who re-opened my order and was able to make the necessary changes. Total call time ~ 15 minutes.
Day 3, 10am: To my surprise, I find a box from Fujitsu in front of my door, containing the parts I had ordered. Installed parts. Happy.
My total? $19 for keyboard, $19 for screen latch, $3 each for rubber feet, $3 for trackpoint cap, $12 shipping. Less than 48 hours from when I first called, I had the laptop fixed. I don't know how it would have been different for a model of laptop that had been longer out of production, but for my out of warranty laptop, they were most excellent.
I had a similar experience. Over christmas, I had the wonderful experience of replacing a hard drive in a friend's machine, and then reinstalling win2k, every app, and reconfiguring everything under the sun to "just right" so she could use it again. Overall, I spent about 15 hours of work at her house, but I doubt that I can log all of that as "work", since much of it was spent either watching TV and waiting for the computer to install something, or waiting for drivers to download over dialup. Fortunately, all of her data was on a second hard drive, so all she lost was her system disk.
As far as my own computers go, the only problem that I remember having in the month of December is crud in the AGP slot intermittantly keeping my video card from initializing any graphics mode. I imagine there were probably little "Opera crashed, open it up again" moments too, but I don't remember any specifics.
This is something I wondered. A 1 gig memory stick costs $600. A 20% tax on this places $120 of your money into the pockets of the record labels, regardless of if you're using the memory stick in your Mp3 player, camera, palm device, or anything else that sony manufactures.
If I've already paid $120 or any other rediculous amount of money to the music labels, for music I didn't pirate, I certainly don't think I would be giving them any more money for overpriced CDs. If they're going to assume that everyone who buys digital media is pirating their music and charge them for it, it only seems fair to actually pirate the music that they've already taxed you for pirating!
Slashdot Mirror
Curiously enough, it seems that the UK is actually ahead of the US for SG-1 and Atlantis at the moment. Last week I had forgotten to set my VCR to record the shows when I went for work, so I did a quick search to see if anyone had put a torrent up yet. To my surprise, there were torrents 5 episodes ahead of what SciFi is currently playing, all recorded from SkyOne.
Would be nice to see fed rats searching for people.
Definitely. I'd much rather be found by a fed rat than an unfed rat.
The assumption that everybody seems to be making is that the university owns the apartments in question. A quick google got me this page: U.T. Dallas has no University owned and operated housing facilities. However, the Waterview Park Apartments are located on the U.T. Dallas campus within easy walking distance to all campus facilities. U.T. Dallas students have priority for available units.
The university does not own nor operate the apartment building in question. Also, while university students have priority for apartments, it's implied that not all of the residents of this apartment complex are associated with the university. The article mentions that they are sharing Comcast cable. Comcast allows routing over wireless, and will even set it up for you for an additional fee, so they're not in violation of the internet provider's TOS.
In short, the university has banned use of a non-university regulated internet connection on non-university regulated property by people who may or may not even be university students(but probably are). Unless the apartment complex has some clause in the lease that tennants have to obey the whims of the university, I doubt this is legal.
Blah should be "her nintendo". Why is it whenever I use the term "my friend" these days I always default to a male pronoun? Maybe I'm just lonely.
A friend of mine had a living room fire, and I still has some of her Nintendo cartridges that survived. The cases are slightly melted and discolored, but the ones that still physically fit in the Nintendo work great(not the same machine my friend owned. AFAIK that one isn't around anymore)
:)
I don't know how close the fire actually got to his Nintendo, but if it was hot enough to melt the plastic I'd think the guts of those things have to be pretty good. Try doing that with a PS2 game and see what happens.
On the subject of dropping laptops, I've got a lifebook that survived a fall from about 5' (while in a lightly padded slip case), when I missed the coat hook.
Later that day, I notice that the laptop isn't closing properly, and all the feet don't touch the feet anymore. It turns out that the laptop landed just right that the magnesium alloy case actually bent to the point where one front corner was 1/4" higher than the other. I placed the laptop on the arm of a chair and pressed hard on the 2 opposing higher corners, and managed to bend it back enough for both corner screen latches to catch. The laptop still doesn't sit right on a table but the electronics and data all survived without incident.
The chance is there though and I for one wouldn't like to be in the position of having to explain it.
I agree entirely. I know that I'd be very embarrassed if I had to explain how I didn't notice the can I packed was made of plastic and had a big hole on the side with a button in it.
Also, the same goes for devices that are constantly updated with new models yearly or biannually (video cards are typical example). Make up some problem with the old one, be "forced" to get the new one as a replacement.
Unfortunately, my local Best Buy won't let you do that, even if the device does have some design flaw that keeps it from working. I bought a mid-priced Toshiba DVD player from them in 2001, and paid 1/3 of the price of the player again for their 4 year service plan. At the time I was told by numerous salespeople that if I experienced problems with the player during the term of the service plan, they would replace it with another player of the same price from their inventory.
Today, the player skips constantly through the second half of every new DVD I buy, but it plays all of my older(single-layer) movies fine. The thing that gets me is that it obviously supports multi-layer disks because it will play them, it just won't play them without skipping. It does not function as a DVD player should. According to Best Buy, the fact that the DVD player will not play most of the DVDs they sell is a design flaw and not their problem, and it is not covered under the service plan.
I explain this to Best Buy reps whenever they try to push their service plans on me, and that I'll just spend the money on a new Gadget X in 2 years or so. Once after explaining this to her, one BB cashier suggested that my service plan covers power surges, so I could still get a new player. Even so, I'm sure that if I sent 110V into the s-video that it would somehow void my (useless) service plan.
Drat, missed a tag, in the auction it's:
PANASONIC DVD-S31 DVD
RECORDER AND PLAYER
POWER CABLE
Not really sure if it's a list, the way they've broken up the player onto 2 lines. Just as easily could be a DVD-S31 DVD, a player, and a cable as a DVD-S31 player power cable
This Auction Includes:
PANASONIC DVD-S31 DVD RECORDER AND PLAYER
POWER CABLE
This Auction Includes
Items Listed Above ONLY.
So for $31 you get the power cable? It doesn't even say you get the player until after "Includes Items Listed Above Only".
Even in the "pirate everything" community, there's a lot of people saying "Don't download it, go see it in a theater." It's the type of movie that needs to be seen on a large screen, not a computer monitor or small TV.
I agree 100%. I saw it in the theater, and I don't consider any bit of my money to be wasted. I even paid $2 extra to see the midnight show with my friends.
If I'd seen a cam it would have been blurry, low-res, and overexposed(oversaturated? whatever the word is), with crap audio. I likely would have been sorely disappointed, and I wouldn't have felt it was worth my (free) download. When comparing the theater with cams, you really do get what you pay for.
The wording that my college uses is that you aren't allowed to "extend the network infrastructure." That pretty effectively prohibits you from routing anything or connecting more than 1 computer to your network jack (which you couldn't do without a router anyway, since you have to register your MAC addy before you can use the network) As for setting up a secure WAP, they'd probably be willing to overlook it. Most rules against wireless are because most people don't know how to properly secure a wireless network, and it would let people on the campus network who shouldn't be there. I guess if they really wanted to know if you were on the network with your router, they could enter your room and look at it. I wouldn't be surprised if the paper you need to sign to get a dorm room lets them do that.
Smoke signals are fine for fixed wireless, but if you want to go mobile you'd be better off if you use this
I can't remember what the name of the movie was, but I was watching a spy movie where they had one of these equipped in a car as one of his gadgets. I remember being impressed by how feasable and useful it looked.
The taillights were LED based, with one of those bars across the entire back of the car for third brake light. It turned into a voice activated scrolling marquee when he spoke into a cb radio style microphone. This was used twice in the movie, once to communicate with the police behind him, and the other to make sarcastic remarks to the bad guys who were chasing him.
If you were to actually implement this, it would be pretty easy; the trickiest part would be the voice activation. Personally I'd like to be able to send a message to the guy behind me who's trying to push me to go faster, when I'm already 5mph over.
Up until now, ISPs have been able to hide behind their status as a common carrier for anything illegal that their customers do. They don't monitor, thus, they can't do anything about it. Comcast is admitting their ability and willingness to monitor the types of traffic their customers are producing, and block undesirable traffic. How long before this gets turned around and smacks Comcast (and their customers) with problems?
Additionally, I found:
:)
166. Although the same economic and safety concerns apply to all telephone solicitation calls received by wireless subscribers, the Commission has determined not to prohibit all live telephone solicitations to wireless numbers. The national do-not-call database will allow for the registration of wireless telephone numbers for those subscribers who wish to avoid live telemarketing calls to their wireless phones. Wireless subscribers thus have a simple means of preventing most live telemarketing calls if they so desire. Moreover, relying on the do-not-call database to control live telephone solicitations recognizes that prohibiting such calls to wireless numbers may unduly restrict telemarketers' ability to contact those consumers who do not object to receiving telemarketing calls and use their wireless phones as either their primary or only phone.
Fair enough... This is actually turning out to be a good read.
I just downloaded the TCPA from the FCC web site, curious to know what exactly the wording for cellular restrictions was. I was suprised to find this entry:
160. In the 2002 Notice, the Commission noted that the TCPA permits the Commission to exempt from the restrictions on autodialer or prerecorded message calls, "calls to a telephone number assigned to a cellular telephone service that are not charged to the called party, subject to such conditions as the Commission may prescribe as necessary in the interest of the privacy rights [the TCPA] is intended to protect." In the 1992 TCPA Order, the Commission concluded that calls made by cellular carriers to their subscribers for which the subscribers were not charged do not fall within the prohibitions on autodialers or prerecorded messages.
So what Verizon does was actually legal. That said, I still don't like it.
If you don't like it, don't use it. Similar technology has been in use in Speedway gas stations for a few years now. They give you a little stick that goes on your keychain and you wave it in front of the pump at the gas station to pay for your gas. I'm told that the same speedway pass also works at certain McDonalds that have the readers installed. The only real difference between this and the MasterCard product is that MasterCard is used in far more locations than SpeedWay prepaid gas cards, so the cards will actually be useful in more locations. Just like the SpeedPass, those who want it because it's got a cool gimick will get one; those who wear tinfoil hats will continue to pay cash.
What do you mean? Don't most /.ers go to the movies alone?
I'm more interested to know if the system does in fact support games on both terminals at the same time, as the article fails to mention testing anything but office apps.
According to the article, they use a standard Nvidia card for the graphics. AFAIK, current 3d chipsets(excluding CAD cards) will only render on one of the attached monitors at a time.
Anyone know how this might work?
Why limit yourself to a campus? Create a giant database of information in different cities and pipe it over cellular.
Now you can just tap your badge and hear "Hello, Onstar"
Remember back when Lexmark was suing 3rd party printer cartridge manufacturers? Didn't they claim that there was a special chip needed for the cartridge to communicate with the printer, and the behavior of this chip was copyrighted so nobody could use it but them?
Now we find the Xerox and Lexmark printers have a compatible chip in them, allowing them to be interchangable? So I'm guessing Lexmark licensed this chip from Xerox... Or maybe Xerox licensed it from Lexmark? Something just seems very strange about that to me.
My experience with Fujitsu was also very pleasurable. About 2 months ago, I had to order a replacement keyboard for my p2046, as my cat had clawed some of the keys off. While I was at it, I ordered some of the other parts that had worn and needed replacement.
Day 1, 2pm, 10 minutes after the damage:
Called Fujitsu (5 minute hold time) explained the problem. Since I had bought the laptop on eBay, I had to have them transfer the registration over. The tech explained that they cannot sell parts straight through phone support, but I would get a call from a sales rep within 5 hours.
Day 2, 12:30pm:
Having not received the call the day before, I called Fujitsu again (similar wait time as before), and re-explained the situation. The tech immediately forwarded me to a supervisor, who already was briefed on who I was and what I wanted by the time he picked up the phone, which was again a short wait. The sales rep had the same information by the time he picked up 10 minutes later, and had the prices for my model of laptop (discontinued a few months earlier). He said next day shipping was standard, and took my credit card info for processing. Wonderful!
Day 2, 2:00pm:
Realized I had forgotten the trackpoint caps in my list of parts. Called Fujitsu again, realizing that it would delay my order if I changed it. They transferred me to the same supervisor as before, who transferred me to the same parts guy as before, who re-opened my order and was able to make the necessary changes. Total call time ~ 15 minutes.
Day 3, 10am:
To my surprise, I find a box from Fujitsu in front of my door, containing the parts I had ordered. Installed parts. Happy.
My total? $19 for keyboard, $19 for screen latch, $3 each for rubber feet, $3 for trackpoint cap, $12 shipping. Less than 48 hours from when I first called, I had the laptop fixed. I don't know how it would have been different for a model of laptop that had been longer out of production, but for my out of warranty laptop, they were most excellent.
I had a similar experience. Over christmas, I had the wonderful experience of replacing a hard drive in a friend's machine, and then reinstalling win2k, every app, and reconfiguring everything under the sun to "just right" so she could use it again. Overall, I spent about 15 hours of work at her house, but I doubt that I can log all of that as "work", since much of it was spent either watching TV and waiting for the computer to install something, or waiting for drivers to download over dialup. Fortunately, all of her data was on a second hard drive, so all she lost was her system disk.
As far as my own computers go, the only problem that I remember having in the month of December is crud in the AGP slot intermittantly keeping my video card from initializing any graphics mode. I imagine there were probably little "Opera crashed, open it up again" moments too, but I don't remember any specifics.
This is something I wondered. A 1 gig memory stick costs $600. A 20% tax on this places $120 of your money into the pockets of the record labels, regardless of if you're using the memory stick in your Mp3 player, camera, palm device, or anything else that sony manufactures.
If I've already paid $120 or any other rediculous amount of money to the music labels, for music I didn't pirate, I certainly don't think I would be giving them any more money for overpriced CDs. If they're going to assume that everyone who buys digital media is pirating their music and charge them for it, it only seems fair to actually pirate the music that they've already taxed you for pirating!