Okay now for the back story so fellow Slashdotters are not comfused. I work for a Consumer Electronics Manufacturer, and our device uses Multimedia Memory Cards. Well we had to design our own MMC cards because those produced by SimpleTec fail way too often for our quality controls. Our Techs are always fielding calls about applications closing due to poor memory cards.
How do you put product placement into a period piece without destroying it? Cleopatra never drank Pepsi or Coke... I doubt the Roman Legions had Nike Swooshes on their shields or boots, and well if they did I certainly wouldn't want to see it tried.
Now recently there was an episode of CSI on CBS that did a brilliant job with product placement for the new lexus, it was so subtle it was hardly noticible but well you can't do that in period pieces...
That goes without saying. The fact that something did happen, and wasn't reported until now is the interesting aspect. Granted the NSA wouldn't want us knowing about it's problems. The fact that we know now is very ineresting to me atleast.
Great distro. Infact due to several black outs this summer, my main system is fried. I'm running a 266 with 96 megs of ram running Mandrake 8.0 right now.
This is what the Copywrite laws are for after all. Lucas has the right to defend his claims. Perhaps he should have gone to them and asked them polietly to change the name first before going right to the lawyers. Atleast that's my humble opinion. People resort to Lawyers way to often.
The name Lightsaber is not public domain, and Lucas does have a point. If this product is a colossal failure and starts cutting off arms and legs by mistake, it could cause his franchise to falter. Oh wait Episode I already did that.:)
Your anlogy to a hammer is... Not desirable as you state. I think a better analogy would be the creation of the first lock pick.
It can be used by individuals to get into their house when they get locked out sure. But the vast majority of their uses are done by criminals. Now do you sue the Lockpick manufacturer? or Arrest him? Or do you arrest the person breaking an entering?
Strange how the stories over on Japan's/. seem more like/. stories than what's posted here.
Runestar
How many dot.coms at this site did you work for?
on
Net Cemetery
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· Score: 2
I can see atleast two that I had atleast some affiliation with over the years. Iguide.com was concieved out of the failed News Corp/MCI joint venture I worked for, and ZipLink.com purchased me and the rest of the call center from News Corp. Sigh those were the days..
I was laid off in Nov 2000. I had a gig for a month before the management team decided to cut some costs and the new guy had to go. Well that was me, I'm back on unemployment trying to find a new job, and consequently a new place to live.
I've had to beg for moving expenses from a third party because moving while unemployed is not economical.
I am a technical person. I may not have the certificates or the degrees but sit me down infront of a computer with resources avalible to me and I can find out what's wrong with it's network, its internal issues, and its operating system with little effort.
Any company that doesn't hire me is foolish. I was never in it for the money. Hence I didn't jump my low paying gig until I was laid off and have been pinching pennies, robbing peter to pay paul pretty much since the lay off. Now I admit I was foolish for not saving money but there wasn't alot to save in my books atleast.
My biggest obsticles at this point? First and formost my lack of certifications. Most jobs I see for even Technical support want Certified MCSEs for some god unknown reason. I've tried breaking into the telecom networking houses out there but without the certification they don't seem to want to touch a person. My second biggest obsticle is the lack of programming. What a Technical Support needs to know about coding a GUI interface is beyond me. I can read code just fine and even tweak code to what I want it todo in some cases. I'm not in SillyValley or SillyAlley, but instead in one of the other tech states in the Union.
I'm looking and if I can free up my 401K money that's currently frozen due to the IRS needing to authorize the shutdown of the fund, I will look in other states but as it is right now I don't have the money to relocate, nor are there many companies willing to take the risk of relocating someone.
I've never seen a VCR that you could skip to the begining of something that's being recorded and watch it from the start, while it continued to record, or even switch to another channel while your still watching the first show.
I've never seen a VCR that will allow you to pause live TV while taking a phone call.
I've never seen a VCR that will know if CSI or Seven days are moved days and record on the new days without prompting by the end user.
I never saw a VCR that knew the difference between a first run episode of a show and the countless repeats shown every week.
I never saw a VCR that could resolve conflicts between two recordings by seeing if another episode was available of one show at a later date. This happened this year when I started recording The Sopranos, and sure enough it was interfereing with The X-Files. Tivo knew enough to record the X-files on sunday night, and record the Sopranos on Tuesday night.
I never saw a VCR that said oh hey you might like this let me record it for you.
I never saw a VCR where you could set up wishlists of stuff that you like for posible recording.
Unlike most technologies the Tivo for subscribed customers keeps getting better and better. Can you say that about any other home electronic? Ususally 10 minutes out of the box I'm trying to find ways to work around a problem with the controls or software or setup of a particular unit. God for bid 90 days later it's obsolete.
"HAL". Something like Highly Advanced Lifeform, right?
Well, almost. The answer is given in black and white in Arthur C. Clarke's book of "2001: A Space Odyssey", Chapter 16, which is titled (ahem) "HAL" (note that in this case the book gives a specific answer to a specific question, whereas in situations that are more open to individual interpretation I do not necessarily take solutions out of the book).
Clarke writes:
"Hal (for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, no less) was a masterwork of the third computer breakthrough."
Note that, strictly speaking, HAL is not an acronym in the sense of being formed from the initial letters of separate words. In the film we only see it as "HAL 9000", but it is noticeable that in the book Arthur C. Clarke himself consistently refers to "Hal", not "HAL". So, therefore, do I.
Richard Bullwinkle was Tivo's webmaster, and became much more. He's their online representative on the avsforums. He is the voice of Tivo in the online community. His online name is Tivolutionary.
If god forbid Tivo goes paws up, the first thing that will be done, is Richard Bullwinkle aka Tivolutionary, Tivo's online expert will publicly and dramatically release all of Tivo's secrets atleast to the guide data information. He's stated so publicly on numerous occations. That will help the hackers out tremendously. I'm sure there are enough bright minds in the underground to figure out ways to have tivo dialup through an ISP or via the tivonet card and get the information that tivo needs to continue onward.
Tivolutionary has stated that tivo has a list of people wanting to back them that runs around the block so hopefully this will never happen.
Server to run sendmail, bind, apache, linux etc... Minimum 500 dollars, unless you want to run them on a 486 or something.
Tivo stepped up to the plate and admitted they made a mistake. They've stated that they are working on resolving the mistake but can it take priority over other revenue generating streams? Ofcourse not, they have to work it into their software code. The fact that they were working on a grandfathering system at all is amazing to me. Since non subscribed tivo owners generate ZERO revenue.
I for one applaud Tivo for stepping up to the plate and admitting that this error made it through the cracks and they are planning on getting a resolution. They've even set a timeframe for resolving the issue all together.
No they were not bugs as was stated, it was part of a code change that was to affect NEW boxes shipped with 2.0 only, but that fact got losted in the stream of new code. Sure Tivo has egg on it's face but they are doing something to fix it. Now how many companies do you know who quickly admit they had a problem and are willing to fix it? Especially since it doesn't affect it's revenue generating customers?
Not to mention with a Ultimate TV box you have to have a dish. They don't work for standard cable period. No dish no service your purchase is useless.
Tivo and Replay are the only ones that work Over the air or via cable boxes. At least that's what I know.
Runestar
Re:i believe there is a legal precedent against Ti
on
TiVo Upgrade Isn't
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· Score: 1
Okay you need to get a clue here. The person called tivo, or atleast his device did. It said hello, my name is george What's up Tivo? Tivo said Hey what version are you running george? George replied I'm running version 1.3. Tivo responded first by sending an mail to george's tivo stating it was going to be upgraded. Then the next time the connection happened Tivo was upgraded. That was a full 24 hours later.
This person was warned the upgrade was going to happen. He chose to leave his tivo connected and he lost out on functionality. This is not Tivo going in and forcing an upgrade down this person's throat. He chose to leave his phone line hooked up knowing that Tivo made nightly calls even if he was not subscribed. To obstenively set his clock functionality.
Sure the service is optional, but some of the advanced features are not optional. Setting his clock can be done by hand as has been stated. Any slashdot geek could probably do it with no problem at all. It's just a linux prompt!
recording on the fly? Well guess what that is an option that took a programmer a while to figure out and code. That costs money. Nag screens again they are there for a reason, Tivo does not make money on the stand alone boxes. They've subsidized them and hope to get money back on their investment through the service agreement. Is the box still functional? Yes, could the person have continued to used the service as was without having it dialup? Sure unplug the phone cord. That simple.
He snoozed he lost end of story. The fact that slash dot is paying so much attention to this is rather shameful. For 99% of the paying customers an upgrade to 2.0 is a good thing lots more functunality. Do I feel sorry for those who are too cheap to pay for the service? No.
Lets not forget the other cool features of Tivo that are not mentioned here. First and formost being able to come into a program 1/2 way recorded being able to watch it from the start. How many times have you gotten home from work late only to find your favorite TV show in mid record, and then having to wait for 1/2 hour or more to rewind the tape and watch the show? With tivo you just go into now playing and start watching the recording from the begining WHILE it continues to record the rest of the show for you.
What about if your watching that cool documentary on Linus on TLC and your girlfriend calls. Without a PVR, your stuck doing one of the following. Not paying attention to the show and chatting with your girlfriend. Not paying attention to your girlfriend and watching Linus. Preying you have a video tape in the VCR and preying it's at the right spot and hitting record, then listening to your girl. Asking your girl to call back after the show.
None of those are really options that lead to sucess but with Tivo you got a choice. You can pause the show for upto 30 minutes and chat with your girl. You can hit record, and with 2.0 you'll get the last 30 minutes of the show all recorded together as one program to be watched later. Or if you're using a Tivo correctly you already recorded the show at an earlier viewing and are just watching a recorded episode and just have to hit pause and talk to your girl all you want.
Think of it this way, you and your buds want to watch an event, it could be anything. The latest Antiques roadshow, or maybe an Iron Chef episode, but it's not on when you all get together. No problem for a person with Tivo, cause they've already recorded it and as Emril says BAM! your ready to rock and road.
The upgrade's abilities far outway it's detractions for me atleast. Maybe you have a different idea what you want, but then maybe you don't need a Tivo to begin with, so why did you you buy one?
Slashdot Mirror
So tonight President Obama is going to announce he's sending more troops into Verizon to help quell the fears that this company is too large to fail.
Was the Flash Memory made by Simpletec?
Okay now for the back story so fellow Slashdotters are not comfused. I work for a Consumer Electronics Manufacturer, and our device uses Multimedia Memory Cards. Well we had to design our own MMC cards because those produced by SimpleTec fail way too often for our quality controls. Our Techs are always fielding calls about applications closing due to poor memory cards.
Well I've sent off my letter. Thank you Slashdot and the EFF!
Runestar
I feel sorry for whomever's server that website is running on because now it's crawling like a stuck pig on its way to the slaughterhouse.
Runestar
I was going to ask them both! :)
J/K
Congrats 'Taco and soon to be Mrs Taco!
> or Two Words: Product Placement!
How do you put product placement into a period piece without destroying it? Cleopatra never drank Pepsi or Coke... I doubt the Roman Legions had Nike Swooshes on their shields or boots, and well if they did I certainly wouldn't want to see it tried.
Now recently there was an episode of CSI on CBS that did a brilliant job with product placement for the new lexus, it was so subtle it was hardly noticible but well you can't do that in period pieces...
Runestar
That goes without saying. The fact that something did happen, and wasn't reported until now is the interesting aspect. Granted the NSA wouldn't want us knowing about it's problems. The fact that we know now is very ineresting to me atleast.
Runestar
All of the NSA's comps went down? Y2K? Strange how we are hearing about this now more than a year later...
Runestar
Great distro. Infact due to several black outs this summer, my main system is fried. I'm running a 266 with 96 megs of ram running Mandrake 8.0 right now.
This is what the Copywrite laws are for after all. Lucas has the right to defend his claims. Perhaps he should have gone to them and asked them polietly to change the name first before going right to the lawyers. Atleast that's my humble opinion. People resort to Lawyers way to often.
:)
The name Lightsaber is not public domain, and Lucas does have a point. If this product is a colossal failure and starts cutting off arms and legs by mistake, it could cause his franchise to falter. Oh wait Episode I already did that.
Runestar
Your anlogy to a hammer is ... Not desirable as you state. I think a better analogy would be the creation of the first lock pick.
It can be used by individuals to get into their house when they get locked out sure. But the vast majority of their uses are done by criminals. Now do you sue the Lockpick manufacturer? or Arrest him? Or do you arrest the person breaking an entering?
Runestar
Problem with this is. The cop will have you break the shrink rap, as they woun't accept a licence in anything but it's orginal condition.
Ever been stopped and hand the cop your license and registration in one of those handy carrying cases?
Cop: Please remove the license and Registraiton from the container.
Runestar
Strange how the stories over on Japan's /. seem more like /. stories than what's posted here.
Runestar
I can see atleast two that I had atleast some affiliation with over the years. Iguide.com was concieved out of the failed News Corp/MCI joint venture I worked for, and ZipLink.com purchased me and the rest of the call center from News Corp. Sigh those were the days..
Runestar
Moving may not be possible for some.
I was laid off in Nov 2000. I had a gig for a month before the management team decided to cut some costs and the new guy had to go. Well that was me, I'm back on unemployment trying to find a new job, and consequently a new place to live.
I've had to beg for moving expenses from a third party because moving while unemployed is not economical.
I am a technical person. I may not have the certificates or the degrees but sit me down infront of a computer with resources avalible to me and I can find out what's wrong with it's network, its internal issues, and its operating system with little effort.
Any company that doesn't hire me is foolish. I was never in it for the money. Hence I didn't jump my low paying gig until I was laid off and have been pinching pennies, robbing peter to pay paul pretty much since the lay off. Now I admit I was foolish for not saving money but there wasn't alot to save in my books atleast.
My biggest obsticles at this point? First and formost my lack of certifications. Most jobs I see for even Technical support want Certified MCSEs for some god unknown reason. I've tried breaking into the telecom networking houses out there but without the certification they don't seem to want to touch a person. My second biggest obsticle is the lack of programming. What a Technical Support needs to know about coding a GUI interface is beyond me. I can read code just fine and even tweak code to what I want it todo in some cases. I'm not in SillyValley or SillyAlley, but instead in one of the other tech states in the Union.
I'm looking and if I can free up my 401K money that's currently frozen due to the IRS needing to authorize the shutdown of the fund, I will look in other states but as it is right now I don't have the money to relocate, nor are there many companies willing to take the risk of relocating someone.
Runestar
No it's not a glorified VCR.
I've never seen a VCR that you could skip to the begining of something that's being recorded and watch it from the start, while it continued to record, or even switch to another channel while your still watching the first show.
I've never seen a VCR that will allow you to pause live TV while taking a phone call.
I've never seen a VCR that will know if CSI or Seven days are moved days and record on the new days without prompting by the end user.
I never saw a VCR that knew the difference between a first run episode of a show and the countless repeats shown every week.
I never saw a VCR that could resolve conflicts between two recordings by seeing if another episode was available of one show at a later date. This happened this year when I started recording The Sopranos, and sure enough it was interfereing with The X-Files. Tivo knew enough to record the X-files on sunday night, and record the Sopranos on Tuesday night.
I never saw a VCR that said oh hey you might like this let me record it for you.
I never saw a VCR where you could set up wishlists of stuff that you like for posible recording.
Unlike most technologies the Tivo for subscribed customers keeps getting better and better. Can you say that about any other home electronic? Ususally 10 minutes out of the box I'm trying to find ways to work around a problem with the controls or software or setup of a particular unit. God for bid 90 days later it's obsolete.
Runestar
No no no, according th the Author Clarke that was not the case. As is demonstrated here:
http://www.underview.com/2001/faqs/faqs.html#faqg
"HAL". Something like Highly Advanced Lifeform, right?
Well, almost. The answer is given in black and white in Arthur C. Clarke's book of "2001: A Space Odyssey", Chapter 16, which is titled (ahem) "HAL" (note that in this case the book gives a specific answer to a specific question, whereas in situations that are more open to individual interpretation I do not necessarily take solutions out of the book).
Clarke writes:
"Hal (for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, no less) was a masterwork of the third computer breakthrough."
Note that, strictly speaking, HAL is not an acronym in the sense of being formed from the initial letters of separate words. In the film we only see it as "HAL 9000", but it is noticeable that in the book Arthur C. Clarke himself consistently refers to "Hal", not "HAL". So, therefore, do I.
Richard Bullwinkle was Tivo's webmaster, and became much more. He's their online representative on the avsforums. He is the voice of Tivo in the online community. His online name is Tivolutionary.
Runestar
If god forbid Tivo goes paws up, the first thing that will be done, is Richard Bullwinkle aka Tivolutionary, Tivo's online expert will publicly and dramatically release all of Tivo's secrets atleast to the guide data information. He's stated so publicly on numerous occations. That will help the hackers out tremendously. I'm sure there are enough bright minds in the underground to figure out ways to have tivo dialup through an ISP or via the tivonet card and get the information that tivo needs to continue onward.
Tivolutionary has stated that tivo has a list of people wanting to back them that runs around the block so hopefully this will never happen.
Runestar
Server to run sendmail, bind, apache, linux etc... Minimum 500 dollars, unless you want to run them on a 486 or something.
Tivo stepped up to the plate and admitted they made a mistake. They've stated that they are working on resolving the mistake but can it take priority over other revenue generating streams? Ofcourse not, they have to work it into their software code. The fact that they were working on a grandfathering system at all is amazing to me. Since non subscribed tivo owners generate ZERO revenue.
I for one applaud Tivo for stepping up to the plate and admitting that this error made it through the cracks and they are planning on getting a resolution. They've even set a timeframe for resolving the issue all together.
No they were not bugs as was stated, it was part of a code change that was to affect NEW boxes shipped with 2.0 only, but that fact got losted in the stream of new code. Sure Tivo has egg on it's face but they are doing something to fix it. Now how many companies do you know who quickly admit they had a problem and are willing to fix it? Especially since it doesn't affect it's revenue generating customers?
Runestar
Not to mention with a Ultimate TV box you have to have a dish. They don't work for standard cable period. No dish no service your purchase is useless.
Tivo and Replay are the only ones that work Over the air or via cable boxes. At least that's what I know.
Runestar
Okay you need to get a clue here. The person called tivo, or atleast his device did. It said hello, my name is george What's up Tivo? Tivo said Hey what version are you running george? George replied I'm running version 1.3. Tivo responded first by sending an mail to george's tivo stating it was going to be upgraded. Then the next time the connection happened Tivo was upgraded. That was a full 24 hours later.
This person was warned the upgrade was going to happen. He chose to leave his tivo connected and he lost out on functionality. This is not Tivo going in and forcing an upgrade down this person's throat. He chose to leave his phone line hooked up knowing that Tivo made nightly calls even if he was not subscribed. To obstenively set his clock functionality.
Runestar
Not to mention your using the box outside it's intended audience. Which is the the United State and The UK.
Sure the service is optional, but some of the advanced features are not optional. Setting his clock can be done by hand as has been stated. Any slashdot geek could probably do it with no problem at all. It's just a linux prompt!
recording on the fly? Well guess what that is an option that took a programmer a while to figure out and code. That costs money. Nag screens again they are there for a reason, Tivo does not make money on the stand alone boxes. They've subsidized them and hope to get money back on their investment through the service agreement. Is the box still functional? Yes, could the person have continued to used the service as was without having it dialup? Sure unplug the phone cord. That simple.
He snoozed he lost end of story. The fact that slash dot is paying so much attention to this is rather shameful. For 99% of the paying customers an upgrade to 2.0 is a good thing lots more functunality. Do I feel sorry for those who are too cheap to pay for the service? No.
Lets not forget the other cool features of Tivo that are not mentioned here. First and formost being able to come into a program 1/2 way recorded being able to watch it from the start. How many times have you gotten home from work late only to find your favorite TV show in mid record, and then having to wait for 1/2 hour or more to rewind the tape and watch the show? With tivo you just go into now playing and start watching the recording from the begining WHILE it continues to record the rest of the show for you.
What about if your watching that cool documentary on Linus on TLC and your girlfriend calls. Without a PVR, your stuck doing one of the following. Not paying attention to the show and chatting with your girlfriend. Not paying attention to your girlfriend and watching Linus. Preying you have a video tape in the VCR and preying it's at the right spot and hitting record, then listening to your girl. Asking your girl to call back after the show.
None of those are really options that lead to sucess but with Tivo you got a choice. You can pause the show for upto 30 minutes and chat with your girl. You can hit record, and with 2.0 you'll get the last 30 minutes of the show all recorded together as one program to be watched later. Or if you're using a Tivo correctly you already recorded the show at an earlier viewing and are just watching a recorded episode and just have to hit pause and talk to your girl all you want.
Think of it this way, you and your buds want to watch an event, it could be anything. The latest Antiques roadshow, or maybe an Iron Chef episode, but it's not on when you all get together. No problem for a person with Tivo, cause they've already recorded it and as Emril says BAM! your ready to rock and road.
The upgrade's abilities far outway it's detractions for me atleast. Maybe you have a different idea what you want, but then maybe you don't need a Tivo to begin with, so why did you you buy one?