Oh, excellent! I must have not noticed when they made that change (maybe it was with the CSS?). I've definitely posted comments in years past in plain-text mode instead of html mode that just displayed the raw tags. Since then I've been very careful to not try posting in plain text with html, but now I can again!
While I agree with some of the points you make, some others not so much.
1). You make the point that you prefer to use relevent keywords in the story to be the link to the article, thinking that it "gives the user an idea of what they are clicking". I think it does the opposite. They already know the topic from reading the short paragraph on slashdot, what they want to know is what SOURCE they are clicking. Is it a blog? Is it an article? is it just a link to the MAIN PAGE of a news site? I typically just click all the links on an interesting story, and I'm irritated when half of them are duplicates of eachother or link to www.cnn.com with no story ID, just because CNN was an interesting word.
2). Spelling and Grammar aren't important? Quite often an article will be posted where the grammar is so off that I have to reread it a few times to guess what they meant to say. Sure the non-english speakers just think every word that sounds the same is, but the rest of us actually read the words and have a tough time following it. You say something to the effect of "Spelling and Grammar aren't as important as the article", but in that case, why not correct the errors that clearly detract from the article? If I see an article with the headline that uses the wrong "your", it makes me embarassed to even be reading the page, forget what the article says. If I get a resume with bad grammar, it goes in the garbage. It takes just as much time to write an article correctly as incorrectly, and if you have to read/edit them anyway, why not fix the glaring mistakes?
If you don't want it to be such a pain, why not just have a spell-check? Every other site on the internet has a spell check. It might still miss some of the less-obvious problems, but it will catch typos and similar issues.
While we're at it, why not an "intelligent html" edit mode? I like being able to add links, but I also like being able to hit enter to make a linebreak (I can't tell you how many times I've written a comment, decided to add a link, and then had to go through and add
to every line so that it didn't look like garbage)
Also, see my comment on the spelling/grammar from the last CmdrTaco rant:
I could care less what the name says at the bottom of the short blurb, but here are the things that should be stopped:
Financial Gain: When the submitter posts a review of the book, and the link to the book is one where they make money selling it. Slashdot is a news site, not your personal bookstore.
Incorrect Information: Often the summary INCORRECTLY summarizes the article, fabricating facts that only leads up to even more people saying "RTFA". What is the point of the summary if not to summarize the article?
No Information: When somebody just posts a link to their personal webpage where they wrote about something happening. I don't want to read your blog, I want the ARTICLE!
Grammar and Spelling: How hard is it to spell-check the summary? Some of the articles I've seen are just embarassing.
didn't they have headphones awhile back that would work by sending vibrations directly to the head? I remember them being marketed for swimmers, I think. That would have been a much better use of the wraparound sunglasses - I wouldn't want to have to put things over AND in my ears, I want one or the other.
It's working in the sense that it lights up and makes light sabre noises. It isn't actually powered by The Force and have the ability to cut anything. From looking at it, I'd guess it's a plastic tube with some kind of colored lamps/leds inside.
If you search on eBay for a particular item and find it, your model works - people only care about if the seller they found is reliable and trustworthy.
HOWEVER
A lot of eBay sellers depend on their username / store name as it is the recognizable name and address for their business. (and it is the URL for many). I agree with the URL - they would lose a lot of business and all the effort they put into building up the name.
Consider also that MMORPG economy has become much more tangible in the last few years. People can actually make real money by buying and selling wares on game auction sites. Even character sales! Imagine what a character named CmdrTaco would go for on eBay? He should file a suit against Blizzard for the estimated auction sale and claim that he intended to sell the character.
Back in the day when computers were still expensive enough that every household in America didn't have one (10-15 years ago, I guess?), people learned a LOT more about them. People tolerated older equipment because they didn't want to pay for new equipment. Even now, ask any college kid about their "frankenstein" PC and how much time they put into keeping it running just to have a few extra bucks around for beer.
So in general, when a person has limited money, time becomes a lot less valuable. People are willing to invest their time into something to save a few hundred bucks when they don't have that few hundred bucks sitting around.
I put files in my filing cabinet in the order that the first letter of the file appears in the American English alphabet. Can I patent that business process?
Did you not read my reply? I'm not saying the registry doesn't suck. In fact, I agree, the registry DOES suck. I'm just saying that it is not the problem behind spyware.
As for "you can't write XML to OSX and...", I'm quite sure you're wrong. If it's possible for an application installer to take over file types, add startup items, and etc, it's just as possible for a malicious program to do it. Whether it is in those XML files or elsewhere doesn't matter. Those settings are stored somewhere, and they are changable by an installation program. And there is nothing requiring a program to tell you that it is doing those things, how else would unattended installs and network managed applications work?
File types and startup items and anything else you can come up with (URL handlers, browser toolbars, etc) are all features of the operating system that have to exist. The features and ability to change them is NOT the problem. I could call Adobe Acrobat a malicious program if it were possible for somebody on the internet to install it without my permission. It installs startup items, mucks with filetypes + url handlers, etc. It even installs word macros. The thing that seperates it from spyware is that you have to click on the exeuctable for the Acrobat installer to install it, whereas spyware takes advantage of security holes in the operating system to force a program to start. What the program does after that point is irrelevant - the system is already compromised and will do whatever that program told it to, be it view porn sites or create PDFs.
And yes, I know that Microsoft is abandoning the registry. Do you honestly believe that going from the registry to a different form of configuration storage is going to make a difference? Whatever new method they decide to use, it will have to be possible for legitimate applications to add things to the startup, and thus it will be possible for malicious ones to do the same.
And the registry isn't unorganized and inconsistent?
Somehow, OS X manages without it. Its use of/Library and ~/Library using XML property lists is clean and very manageable.
The point is, organization and consistency are not relevant. I was using the unix method of configuration management as the example of "see? it could be poor and still be perfectly secure"
Complete and utter bullshit. Autostart entires, DSO attacks, and more...malware takes full advantage of the Windows registry to hook itself into Windows. Honestly, I can't believe this got modded up, and if you said the registry has "NOTHING" to do with spyware infection on the more advanced spyware removal forums, you'd get laughed off. Or are apps like Hijack-this just scanning nothing?
Saying that it's the registry's fault that spyware infects PCs is like saying it's the filesystems fault, the harddrive's fault, or the keyboard's fault. Yes, spyware hides in the registry and removing it is all about scanning the registry, but I'm saying you can't blame the registry for it. The computer NEEDS a list of what programs to load on startup somewhere, and in this case, it's the registry. Don't blame the registry for holding the information, blame the security holes for allowing programs to run in the first place and modify the registry.
Wrong. Storing all configuration files all over the system everywhere in one single object introduces the possibility of corruption, of keeping things hidden from the user, and greatly makes it difficult to back things up. When spyware buries something in the registry, you get to dig through regedit to find it. On a UNIX or OS X system, it can't hide itself. It can't set magic values that take over the system.
The registry is in ONE PLACE. That makes it easier to back up and easier to find things, not harder. If I have a problem with a malicious program starting up, I look in the registry. In UNIX, if I have a problem with that, do you have any idea how many places I'd have to check? Hundreds of text files in recursive directories in/etc, all local config files that could be anywhere under ~, either in their own directory prepended with a . or in a subdirectory of another.gnome or similar. And if you think it can't set magic values and hide in there, you are mistaken. The only reason we haven't seen things like that happen is that the type of security holes we see in windows that allow malware to wreak havok haven't been exploited as badly in unix/linux/osx. It's luck, and that's all.
Have you taken a look at OS X? Somehow, it manages with both a registry or software installers (though they're available if you need one for advanced installation options). Honestly, seeing people defend the Windows registry--on Slashdot of all places--is highly amusing. But if you don't believe me, why don't you believe Microsoft? Microsoft is recommending against the use of the registry and wants people to start using XML configuration files, especially for.NET apps.
I'm not saying that the windows registry is a beacon of light in the night. I personally hate it and would like to see something replace it. My point is that the shortcomings of the windows registry are a completely seperate problem. Spyware is not getting in from the registry, it's getting in through security holes and installing itself in the registry. If the registry were XML config files, or whathaveyou, the spyware would be infecting them instead, and you'd have programs like HijackThis scanning those files instead. Same sh1t, different filename.
From the article, it sounds like a lot of these genes are being patented without actually having the use for it. The purpose behind patent law is to allow somebody to share their information with others without fear of losing intellectual ownership. These patents are more like staked claims on land. "I claim this gene for the growth hormone. I don't yet know HOW to do it, but I know this is the gene that will do it, so I'll just claim it before anybody else gets it". Simply knowing what a gene's purpose is should not be enough to grant a patent, IMO. They should be required to actually have information on HOW it is used to be able to patent it as a process.
It's like saying "I patent rubber for use in wheels, because I know wheels should be made of rubber. I'll make no attempt at explaining how to make a wheel or how to use the rubber on the wheel, just that I want to collect money from anybody who says 'rubber' and 'wheel' in the same sentence"
For starters, there are a lot of legitimate uses for silent startup programs. Specialized drivers for hardware, anti-virus/ anti-spyware applications, system security applications. Basically anything that needs to be started on the system before you touch it. If every one of those came with a dialog box and its own icon in the system tray, you'd scream.
At least there are only 6 or 7 places where you can hide those startup programs, think about how many places there are on an average linux system for a program to hide. It's even easier to do on a linux system:
(forgive any slight errors in that command, I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time testing it right now)
There. Now that little program will load on boot with root privs. Replace rc.local with pretty much ANY shell script on the system, and you'll have a silent application start that will be a bear to find.
The problem is not in the registry making it easy for those programs to do that, the problem is that those programs are allowed to make those registry changes without permission. The fact that programs can run at all without your permission, and especially the fact that simply connecting your windows machine to the internet will cause those types of spyware infestations to occur. It's the security holes that are the problem - Once I tell a program that it is allowed to install, I'd like for it to be easy to run on startup - it's those programs that I *didn't* allow to install that are the problem.
(Side note: somebody will probably want to comment on this and say "but in linux, you can't do that without root, so it's better". Well, what's the first thing you do when you want to install a program? "su root". So there ya go. If windows would fix those security holes and make it so that it actually required administrator privs to make changes, we'd be all set.)
ALTERNATIVELY, you may also say something like "but some of those things in windows don't require admin privs to wreak havok!" - well, same in linux. As a normal user, I may not be able to edit rc.local, but I can sure-as-heck add things to.login and screw up whoever was logged in!
The key is preventing windows from installing and running programs that you didn't ask for, through security holes. If you click "yes" to install something, it's allowed to do whatever it wants, but the real problem is in those programs that take advantage of security holes to make it so that you don't need to click yes to install/run. Those holes need to be fixed.
What's wrong with the registry? Sure there are better ways to do it from an end-user point of view, but you can't blame the registry for all of windows problems. All the registry is is a database of configuration options for applications, system, etc. What would you rather have, a mess of unorganized and inconsistent files in/etc and ~/.appname? In either case, the registry has NOTHING to do with spyware infection. It's merely the underlying system that gets edited once a malicious program gets in. SOMETHING has to contain system and application configuration options, and whatever it is will be called a registry. The actual implementation is irrelevant.
Whatever Dvorak would like to see replace it (notice that he didn't make a suggestion for improvement, just that "there has to be something better") will suffer the same problems as the registry if the security holes allowing unauthorized programs to edit it aren't fixed.
I pay around $60 a month for digital cable at the moment (not exact price, since it's a combo package with internet). That $60 gives me the ability to watch TV shows. Now if I want a copy of something I'd like to watch, I need to also go on iTunes and pay $1.99 for it??
How about they let you log in as a cable subscriber and download whatever you want. I've paid for it once, why should I have to pay again? Until they make a single system for this (either pay-per-show for both live watching + recording or monthly fee for unlimited access), I'm going to keep using myth to record the shows I want to watch. If a friend of mine misses one, I have no moral problem setting up a torrent for them. I could have just as easily taped it on VHS and mailed a copy to them.
As much as I don't want to, I'm going to agree with you....
I've been running mythtv for almost a year now, and I use it for all my tv-watching and recording. And ivtv is the weakest link. Everything else about the software works fine, but IVTV is always beta and always crashing. I was expecting it to be a lot better since Hauppauge advertises MythTV and Linux support on their page.
a great idea, except they are going to put it on all the shows you WANT to watch. Feel free to record and distribute all the infomercials and news segments you want, but anything entertaining like a movie or series television program will be flagged as "do not record" or "do not keep recording > 1 week" or something equally totalitarian.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, excellent! I must have not noticed when they made that change (maybe it was with the CSS?). I've definitely posted comments in years past in plain-text mode instead of html mode that just displayed the raw tags. Since then I've been very careful to not try posting in plain text with html, but now I can again!
While I agree with some of the points you make, some others not so much.
4 38339
1). You make the point that you prefer to use relevent keywords in the story to be the link to the article, thinking that it "gives the user an idea of what they are clicking". I think it does the opposite. They already know the topic from reading the short paragraph on slashdot, what they want to know is what SOURCE they are clicking. Is it a blog? Is it an article? is it just a link to the MAIN PAGE of a news site? I typically just click all the links on an interesting story, and I'm irritated when half of them are duplicates of eachother or link to www.cnn.com with no story ID, just because CNN was an interesting word.
2). Spelling and Grammar aren't important? Quite often an article will be posted where the grammar is so off that I have to reread it a few times to guess what they meant to say. Sure the non-english speakers just think every word that sounds the same is, but the rest of us actually read the words and have a tough time following it. You say something to the effect of "Spelling and Grammar aren't as important as the article", but in that case, why not correct the errors that clearly detract from the article? If I see an article with the headline that uses the wrong "your", it makes me embarassed to even be reading the page, forget what the article says. If I get a resume with bad grammar, it goes in the garbage. It takes just as much time to write an article correctly as incorrectly, and if you have to read/edit them anyway, why not fix the glaring mistakes?
If you don't want it to be such a pain, why not just have a spell-check? Every other site on the internet has a spell check. It might still miss some of the less-obvious problems, but it will catch typos and similar issues.
While we're at it, why not an "intelligent html" edit mode? I like being able to add links, but I also like being able to hit enter to make a linebreak (I can't tell you how many times I've written a comment, decided to add a link, and then had to go through and add
to every line so that it didn't look like garbage)
Also, see my comment on the spelling/grammar from the last CmdrTaco rant:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=173521&cid=14
- Financial Gain: When the submitter posts a review of the book, and the link to the book is one where they make money selling it. Slashdot is a news site, not your personal bookstore.
- Incorrect Information: Often the summary INCORRECTLY summarizes the article, fabricating facts that only leads up to even more people saying "RTFA". What is the point of the summary if not to summarize the article?
- No Information: When somebody just posts a link to their personal webpage where they wrote about something happening. I don't want to read your blog, I want the ARTICLE!
- Grammar and Spelling: How hard is it to spell-check the summary? Some of the articles I've seen are just embarassing.
</rant>Sorry, Patent Denied, Fisher Price claims prior art:
Fisher Price Baby Smartronics Computer Learning System
Another
Oakley Thumps here.
didn't they have headphones awhile back that would work by sending vibrations directly to the head? I remember them being marketed for swimmers, I think. That would have been a much better use of the wraparound sunglasses - I wouldn't want to have to put things over AND in my ears, I want one or the other.
really? the script looks like it has Han shooting first in this one. I'd tell the circumstances surrounding this shot, but I don't want to ruin it.
Jeff
(the trumpet)
It's working in the sense that it lights up and makes light sabre noises. It isn't actually powered by The Force and have the ability to cut anything. From looking at it, I'd guess it's a plastic tube with some kind of colored lamps/leds inside.
How much ground did the first 3 movies really cover? You can condense an awful lot into a few well-worded songs...
It is based on last years show (January), but will encompass all of episodes 4, 5, and 6.
If you search on eBay for a particular item and find it, your model works - people only care about if the seller they found is reliable and trustworthy.
HOWEVER
A lot of eBay sellers depend on their username / store name as it is the recognizable name and address for their business. (and it is the URL for many). I agree with the URL - they would lose a lot of business and all the effort they put into building up the name.
Consider also that MMORPG economy has become much more tangible in the last few years. People can actually make real money by buying and selling wares on game auction sites. Even character sales! Imagine what a character named CmdrTaco would go for on eBay? He should file a suit against Blizzard for the estimated auction sale and claim that he intended to sell the character.
I guess once this goes down, I'll have to go back to posting UUencoded files in peoples blogs.
Agreed!
Back in the day when computers were still expensive enough that every household in America didn't have one (10-15 years ago, I guess?), people learned a LOT more about them. People tolerated older equipment because they didn't want to pay for new equipment. Even now, ask any college kid about their "frankenstein" PC and how much time they put into keeping it running just to have a few extra bucks around for beer.
So in general, when a person has limited money, time becomes a lot less valuable. People are willing to invest their time into something to save a few hundred bucks when they don't have that few hundred bucks sitting around.
Why not @google.com? And before you say "well that's for google employees" consider that msn, yahoo, etc already do that.
I put files in my filing cabinet in the order that the first letter of the file appears in the American English alphabet. Can I patent that business process?
Did you not read my reply? I'm not saying the registry doesn't suck. In fact, I agree, the registry DOES suck. I'm just saying that it is not the problem behind spyware.
As for "you can't write XML to OSX and...", I'm quite sure you're wrong. If it's possible for an application installer to take over file types, add startup items, and etc, it's just as possible for a malicious program to do it. Whether it is in those XML files or elsewhere doesn't matter. Those settings are stored somewhere, and they are changable by an installation program. And there is nothing requiring a program to tell you that it is doing those things, how else would unattended installs and network managed applications work?
File types and startup items and anything else you can come up with (URL handlers, browser toolbars, etc) are all features of the operating system that have to exist. The features and ability to change them is NOT the problem. I could call Adobe Acrobat a malicious program if it were possible for somebody on the internet to install it without my permission. It installs startup items, mucks with filetypes + url handlers, etc. It even installs word macros. The thing that seperates it from spyware is that you have to click on the exeuctable for the Acrobat installer to install it, whereas spyware takes advantage of security holes in the operating system to force a program to start. What the program does after that point is irrelevant - the system is already compromised and will do whatever that program told it to, be it view porn sites or create PDFs.
And yes, I know that Microsoft is abandoning the registry. Do you honestly believe that going from the registry to a different form of configuration storage is going to make a difference? Whatever new method they decide to use, it will have to be possible for legitimate applications to add things to the startup, and thus it will be possible for malicious ones to do the same.
Obviously the classes would have to change slightly for internet retailers, mentioning talking fast is sort of moot if this were to go ahead.
So the equivalent would obviously be a typing test!
Or better yet, an eBay-auction-snipe-off!
And the registry isn't unorganized and inconsistent? /Library and ~/Library using XML property lists is clean and very manageable.
/etc, all local config files that could be anywhere under ~, either in their own directory prepended with a . or in a subdirectory of another .gnome or similar. And if you think it can't set magic values and hide in there, you are mistaken. The only reason we haven't seen things like that happen is that the type of security holes we see in windows that allow malware to wreak havok haven't been exploited as badly in unix/linux/osx. It's luck, and that's all.
.NET apps.
Somehow, OS X manages without it. Its use of
The point is, organization and consistency are not relevant. I was using the unix method of configuration management as the example of "see? it could be poor and still be perfectly secure"
Complete and utter bullshit. Autostart entires, DSO attacks, and more...malware takes full advantage of the Windows registry to hook itself into Windows. Honestly, I can't believe this got modded up, and if you said the registry has "NOTHING" to do with spyware infection on the more advanced spyware removal forums, you'd get laughed off. Or are apps like Hijack-this just scanning nothing?
Saying that it's the registry's fault that spyware infects PCs is like saying it's the filesystems fault, the harddrive's fault, or the keyboard's fault. Yes, spyware hides in the registry and removing it is all about scanning the registry, but I'm saying you can't blame the registry for it. The computer NEEDS a list of what programs to load on startup somewhere, and in this case, it's the registry. Don't blame the registry for holding the information, blame the security holes for allowing programs to run in the first place and modify the registry.
Wrong. Storing all configuration files all over the system everywhere in one single object introduces the possibility of corruption, of keeping things hidden from the user, and greatly makes it difficult to back things up. When spyware buries something in the registry, you get to dig through regedit to find it. On a UNIX or OS X system, it can't hide itself. It can't set magic values that take over the system.
The registry is in ONE PLACE. That makes it easier to back up and easier to find things, not harder. If I have a problem with a malicious program starting up, I look in the registry. In UNIX, if I have a problem with that, do you have any idea how many places I'd have to check? Hundreds of text files in recursive directories in
Have you taken a look at OS X? Somehow, it manages with both a registry or software installers (though they're available if you need one for advanced installation options). Honestly, seeing people defend the Windows registry--on Slashdot of all places--is highly amusing. But if you don't believe me, why don't you believe Microsoft? Microsoft is recommending against the use of the registry and wants people to start using XML configuration files, especially for
I'm not saying that the windows registry is a beacon of light in the night. I personally hate it and would like to see something replace it. My point is that the shortcomings of the windows registry are a completely seperate problem. Spyware is not getting in from the registry, it's getting in through security holes and installing itself in the registry. If the registry were XML config files, or whathaveyou, the spyware would be infecting them instead, and you'd have programs like HijackThis scanning those files instead. Same sh1t, different filename.
From the article, it sounds like a lot of these genes are being patented without actually having the use for it. The purpose behind patent law is to allow somebody to share their information with others without fear of losing intellectual ownership. These patents are more like staked claims on land. "I claim this gene for the growth hormone. I don't yet know HOW to do it, but I know this is the gene that will do it, so I'll just claim it before anybody else gets it". Simply knowing what a gene's purpose is should not be enough to grant a patent, IMO. They should be required to actually have information on HOW it is used to be able to patent it as a process.
It's like saying "I patent rubber for use in wheels, because I know wheels should be made of rubber. I'll make no attempt at explaining how to make a wheel or how to use the rubber on the wheel, just that I want to collect money from anybody who says 'rubber' and 'wheel' in the same sentence"
So since one of the patents is the application of a gene in the context of growth hormones....
Does that mean that by growing, I am infringing upon their patent? I should be paying royalties...
For starters, there are a lot of legitimate uses for silent startup programs. Specialized drivers for hardware, anti-virus/ anti-spyware applications, system security applications. Basically anything that needs to be started on the system before you touch it. If every one of those came with a dialog box and its own icon in the system tray, you'd scream.
/etc/rc.d/rc.local
.login and screw up whoever was logged in!
At least there are only 6 or 7 places where you can hide those startup programs, think about how many places there are on an average linux system for a program to hide. It's even easier to do on a linux system:
echo "/usr/hack/program_to_run & \>/dev/null " >>
(forgive any slight errors in that command, I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time testing it right now)
There. Now that little program will load on boot with root privs. Replace rc.local with pretty much ANY shell script on the system, and you'll have a silent application start that will be a bear to find.
The problem is not in the registry making it easy for those programs to do that, the problem is that those programs are allowed to make those registry changes without permission. The fact that programs can run at all without your permission, and especially the fact that simply connecting your windows machine to the internet will cause those types of spyware infestations to occur. It's the security holes that are the problem - Once I tell a program that it is allowed to install, I'd like for it to be easy to run on startup - it's those programs that I *didn't* allow to install that are the problem.
(Side note: somebody will probably want to comment on this and say "but in linux, you can't do that without root, so it's better". Well, what's the first thing you do when you want to install a program? "su root". So there ya go. If windows would fix those security holes and make it so that it actually required administrator privs to make changes, we'd be all set.)
ALTERNATIVELY, you may also say something like "but some of those things in windows don't require admin privs to wreak havok!" - well, same in linux. As a normal user, I may not be able to edit rc.local, but I can sure-as-heck add things to
The key is preventing windows from installing and running programs that you didn't ask for, through security holes. If you click "yes" to install something, it's allowed to do whatever it wants, but the real problem is in those programs that take advantage of security holes to make it so that you don't need to click yes to install/run. Those holes need to be fixed.
What's wrong with the registry? Sure there are better ways to do it from an end-user point of view, but you can't blame the registry for all of windows problems. All the registry is is a database of configuration options for applications, system, etc. What would you rather have, a mess of unorganized and inconsistent files in /etc and ~/.appname? In either case, the registry has NOTHING to do with spyware infection. It's merely the underlying system that gets edited once a malicious program gets in. SOMETHING has to contain system and application configuration options, and whatever it is will be called a registry. The actual implementation is irrelevant.
Whatever Dvorak would like to see replace it (notice that he didn't make a suggestion for improvement, just that "there has to be something better") will suffer the same problems as the registry if the security holes allowing unauthorized programs to edit it aren't fixed.
The value needs to improve a lot more than that.
I pay around $60 a month for digital cable at the moment (not exact price, since it's a combo package with internet). That $60 gives me the ability to watch TV shows. Now if I want a copy of something I'd like to watch, I need to also go on iTunes and pay $1.99 for it??
How about they let you log in as a cable subscriber and download whatever you want. I've paid for it once, why should I have to pay again? Until they make a single system for this (either pay-per-show for both live watching + recording or monthly fee for unlimited access), I'm going to keep using myth to record the shows I want to watch. If a friend of mine misses one, I have no moral problem setting up a torrent for them. I could have just as easily taped it on VHS and mailed a copy to them.
As much as I don't want to, I'm going to agree with you....
I've been running mythtv for almost a year now, and I use it for all my tv-watching and recording. And ivtv is the weakest link. Everything else about the software works fine, but IVTV is always beta and always crashing. I was expecting it to be a lot better since Hauppauge advertises MythTV and Linux support on their page.
At least half-life had a decent plot, albeit a thin one.
a great idea, except they are going to put it on all the shows you WANT to watch. Feel free to record and distribute all the infomercials and news segments you want, but anything entertaining like a movie or series television program will be flagged as "do not record" or "do not keep recording > 1 week" or something equally totalitarian.