TimeWarner's DVR is decent, and the price is certainly right, but it does have several shortcomings.
1. Lag -- changing channels or bringing up the guide takes way too long.
2. Buggy software -- it will crash on rare occasions, or get screwy and need to be rebooted. Every once in a while when I'm watching something recorded, it cuts away to live TV.
3. There's no way to quickly skip ahead say, an hour. You have to just fast forward for awhile, and it's not fast enough. Also, a 30 second skip ahead would be nice, but I wouldn't expect it from a cable company.
4. When you turn on the box, it may dump you live into something that's currently being recorded. Sucks for recording sports!
Those are a few off the top of my head, but there are others. Of course, I've never used a TiVo so I have no idea how it compares.
Also, for HD aficionados, TimeWarner doesn't have an HD DVR yet. Last I heard, it was supposed to come out in May.
How about the simple argument that planets are gravitationally strong enough to pull themselves into nearly spherical objects, whereas asteroids are not.
This is exactly what is proposed in the article. I don't think moons should be included, though, since their primary orbit is a planet, rather than a star.
I've read that! And it was a light read, but very interesting and highly entertaining as well. It's difficult to imagine not having zero as a number, or the idea of it being controversial, but that's how it actually was.
Yeah -- I've got TW too and I have no idea what the original poster means by not being able to time-shift. It's not as good as a TiVo, but it's a perfectly functional DVR. It's pretty sweet if you've got something like NBA league pass -- you really get your money's worth.
My biggest complaint is the lag between switching channels. They really need to reduce it for us channel surfers.
The other gripe I have is no HD, but the HD one is supposed to come out in May, according to our cable guy. Of course, it's not really worth it until they get ESPN HD.
Look, MS will build units as long as the combination of unit sales income, game sales, and licensing revenue results in a net profit.
A) They are losing money on the XBox, even with games sales and licensing revenue. $176 million last year. Read their last SEC filing.
B) We're talking about just the XBoxes. Since they sell at a unit loss, buying an XBox without games is a loss for MS.
I mean, honestly, how dumb do you think they are?
I don't think they're dumb at all. Even though MS is hemorrhaging cash that it may not make back on the XBox itself, I think the XBox will be important as these consoles morph into consoles/DVRs/media centers.
Microsoft is not producing some random number of XBoxes. They produce them based on demand. Since they are sold at a unit loss, a higher demand will mean a greater loss. Yes, a single person buying an XBox will likely not have a great effect on the final number. But if a lot of people did it, it would.
And this doesn't include the money they make from people buying/renting games to play on their new, shiny unit.
The point of the argument is that you don't buy games. MS sells you a console at a per unit loss, which they expect to make up from game sales. Since you don't buy games, it's a loss.
I did. Perhaps you should too. He says that they compared old versions of Dynix and AIX to Linux, and found that some things had been copied into Linux (see sections 12 and 18). Again, this was the 60 pages they supplied to IBM.
They were ordered to provide with specificity answers to all of IBM's queries, and they didn't.
The court order was to give all evidence that they have. Which they've done. They don't have evidence from recent versions of AIX because they don't have code from recent versions of AIX. That's what he's saying in sections 14 and 15.
The only thing weird/controversial about this is that SCO (still) wants IBM's code for IBM's discovery. Discovery is about showing what you have, not what you could have, so it makes no sense.
This whole thing seems like a non-issue to me. Obviously portions of AIX are in Linux. It's no secret that IBM contributed them. I wish the court would hurry up and get to the question of whether these parts of AIX fall under the AT&T agreement or not. I don't think they do.
That's a poor justification. The same could be claimed of a great deal many pork barrel projects and useless programs. "Look! We're a miniscule fraction of the trillion dollar budget."
The truth is, on an absolute scale, 17 billion is a lot of money, and you could do a lot with it. So the question is, is it worth it?
Re:Ouch for card counters...
on
RFID Casino Chips
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The dealer told us that they will usually let you count cards, even if they know you are doing it, unless you start winning a lot of money.
Even then, they usually won't kick you out. When I was counting cards once, they switched to a new dealer who wouldn't talk to me, and reshuffled after every hand. I got the message and made my exit.
The "honorable rebel" is neither new nor politically daring. They are almost always universally cheered. How many people do you know that *like* the government? How often are films about *embracing* the status quo rather than challenging it?
Even in Star Trek, Kirk and Picard went against the Federation's wishes quite often ("looks like we have to violate the prime directive for the umpteenth time"). Which side were you rooting for?
People look to authority for protection, but people don't like it. Criticizing authority is only politically daring if that authority will repress you for doing so.
The implication, therefore, that people didn't watch Firefly because they disagreed with its anti-government stance is ridiculous. It's more likely that people either didn't know about it or didn't find it compelling enough to watch.
The real answer is that he deserved the Oscar for the first one. TTT was just OK, and while ROTK is better, it has some visible problems (two too many endings, pacing issues, too much cheesy backlighting, too much unwieldy dialogue, etc).
How is this insightful? HDTV is not mandated -- only DTV is mandated.
I would have rathered that money be spend on something worthwhile... TV isn't important enough to warrant me being passed down a huge bill that was mandated by the government. I pay them enough.
Yeah, because the government is forcing you to buy an HDTV, even though you don't consider it worthwhile.
Slashdot Mirror
You shoot the hostage in the leg. No, wait...
Dude, that's awesome! I'm adding you to my friends list.
TimeWarner's DVR is decent, and the price is certainly right, but it does have several shortcomings.
1. Lag -- changing channels or bringing up the guide takes way too long.
2. Buggy software -- it will crash on rare occasions, or get screwy and need to be rebooted. Every once in a while when I'm watching something recorded, it cuts away to live TV.
3. There's no way to quickly skip ahead say, an hour. You have to just fast forward for awhile, and it's not fast enough. Also, a 30 second skip ahead would be nice, but I wouldn't expect it from a cable company.
4. When you turn on the box, it may dump you live into something that's currently being recorded. Sucks for recording sports!
Those are a few off the top of my head, but there are others. Of course, I've never used a TiVo so I have no idea how it compares.
Also, for HD aficionados, TimeWarner doesn't have an HD DVR yet. Last I heard, it was supposed to come out in May.
How about the simple argument that planets are gravitationally strong enough to pull themselves into nearly spherical objects, whereas asteroids are not.
This is exactly what is proposed in the article. I don't think moons should be included, though, since their primary orbit is a planet, rather than a star.
Heh -- not-quite-great minds think alike! (see my above post)
I've read that! And it was a light read, but very interesting and highly entertaining as well. It's difficult to imagine not having zero as a number, or the idea of it being controversial, but that's how it actually was.
less difficult books like James Gleick's Chaos or Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach
If GEB is less difficult, count me out!
Is the Time Warner Cable deal recent? My Time Warner Cable DVR is from Scientific Atlanta.
Actually it's more like RAMBUS has *been* dead ever since DDR / DDR2 became competitive in terms of prices.
I think you mean RDRAM is dead. RAMBUS, the company, is still very much alive thanks to this ruling, which allows them to extort royalties for SDRAM.
Yeah -- I've got TW too and I have no idea what the original poster means by not being able to time-shift. It's not as good as a TiVo, but it's a perfectly functional DVR. It's pretty sweet if you've got something like NBA league pass -- you really get your money's worth.
My biggest complaint is the lag between switching channels. They really need to reduce it for us channel surfers.
The other gripe I have is no HD, but the HD one is supposed to come out in May, according to our cable guy. Of course, it's not really worth it until they get ESPN HD.
Look, MS will build units as long as the combination of unit sales income, game sales, and licensing revenue results in a net profit.
A) They are losing money on the XBox, even with games sales and licensing revenue. $176 million last year. Read their last SEC filing.
B) We're talking about just the XBoxes. Since they sell at a unit loss, buying an XBox without games is a loss for MS.
I mean, honestly, how dumb do you think they are?
I don't think they're dumb at all. Even though MS is hemorrhaging cash that it may not make back on the XBox itself, I think the XBox will be important as these consoles morph into consoles/DVRs/media centers.
Microsoft is not producing some random number of XBoxes. They produce them based on demand. Since they are sold at a unit loss, a higher demand will mean a greater loss. Yes, a single person buying an XBox will likely not have a great effect on the final number. But if a lot of people did it, it would.
And this doesn't include the money they make from people buying/renting games to play on their new, shiny unit.
The point of the argument is that you don't buy games. MS sells you a console at a per unit loss, which they expect to make up from game sales. Since you don't buy games, it's a loss.
Slashdot is influencing the mainstream media? On the one hand, that's pretty cool. But at the same time, that's kind of scary.
Methinks you didn't read the grandparent post, which wanted things that should have been vaporware.
Yes, they have - read the letter.
I did. Perhaps you should too. He says that they compared old versions of Dynix and AIX to Linux, and found that some things had been copied into Linux (see sections 12 and 18). Again, this was the 60 pages they supplied to IBM.
They were ordered to provide with specificity answers to all of IBM's queries, and they didn't.
The court order was to give all evidence that they have. Which they've done. They don't have evidence from recent versions of AIX because they don't have code from recent versions of AIX. That's what he's saying in sections 14 and 15.
The only thing weird/controversial about this is that SCO (still) wants IBM's code for IBM's discovery. Discovery is about showing what you have, not what you could have, so it makes no sense.
This whole thing seems like a non-issue to me. Obviously portions of AIX are in Linux. It's no secret that IBM contributed them. I wish the court would hurry up and get to the question of whether these parts of AIX fall under the AT&T agreement or not. I don't think they do.
They haven't refused. They've complied. Remember the 60 page thing the other day?
SCO is basically saying "Here's what we have without recent copies of AIX. If we had recent copies, we could probably give you more."
That's a poor justification. The same could be claimed of a great deal many pork barrel projects and useless programs. "Look! We're a miniscule fraction of the trillion dollar budget."
The truth is, on an absolute scale, 17 billion is a lot of money, and you could do a lot with it. So the question is, is it worth it?
The dealer told us that they will usually let you count cards, even if they know you are doing it, unless you start winning a lot of money.
Even then, they usually won't kick you out. When I was counting cards once, they switched to a new dealer who wouldn't talk to me, and reshuffled after every hand. I got the message and made my exit.
Mars Polar Lander: $120 Million
;)
MIA
Mars Climate Orbiter: $85 Million
Crashed
Does that count as R&D?
In terms of her use of language, form, depth of charaterisation etc. the 'The Blind Assassin' is technically Atwood's greatest novel so far.
Good lord that book was depressing. It was pretty good though.
Prediction: Television will become solely a preview medium for video on demand.
The "honorable rebel" is neither new nor politically daring. They are almost always universally cheered. How many people do you know that *like* the government? How often are films about *embracing* the status quo rather than challenging it?
Even in Star Trek, Kirk and Picard went against the Federation's wishes quite often ("looks like we have to violate the prime directive for the umpteenth time"). Which side were you rooting for?
People look to authority for protection, but people don't like it. Criticizing authority is only politically daring if that authority will repress you for doing so.
The implication, therefore, that people didn't watch Firefly because they disagreed with its anti-government stance is ridiculous. It's more likely that people either didn't know about it or didn't find it compelling enough to watch.
The real answer is that he deserved the Oscar for the first one. TTT was just OK, and while ROTK is better, it has some visible problems (two too many endings, pacing issues, too much cheesy backlighting, too much unwieldy dialogue, etc).
But FOTK was quite good.
How is this insightful? HDTV is not mandated -- only DTV is mandated.
I would have rathered that money be spend on something worthwhile... TV isn't important enough to warrant me being passed down a huge bill that was mandated by the government. I pay them enough.
Yeah, because the government is forcing you to buy an HDTV, even though you don't consider it worthwhile.
They can only dismiss their own suit, not IBM's countersuit.
If SCO said "we'll dismiss ours if you dismiss yours," IBM would undoubtedly go for it, since IBM's suit is really only defensive.