I gave up on network television around 1982. Now and then I tune in the networks on my set (Arial only, no cable, and when that goes digital it is good bye for good!). What I have seen of late makes me glad of my decision. I do watch television though, My main interest is BBC documentaries (not available by any means in the US except torrents), some Canadian shows (also blocked), Finish TV, some fascinating stuff out of Australia. In other words: the promise TV gave us back in the 1950s; a chance to view our whole world. For pure entertainment I buy DVDs and yes, grab torrents but that is usually of things I recall with fondness from the 1970s. oh and the torrents of shows back then are usually of private VHS recordings in that the originals are sometimes gone (find me the Jim Hutton Ellery Queen PLEASE!!!) or the color balance is ruined with age. I want entertainment, and INFORMATION the current crap is whatever it is but that it is not.
So...now excuse me, I do not think like a legal person, I am just a common dumb citizen subject to the laws of this land and not intellectually capable of making decisions that implement and adjudicate the validity of such law but...
totally fictional scenario here, I mean its not like someone can actually do this...
If I designed and built a receiver that could pick up any and all satellite communication, regardless of band, system, encryption, language, broadcast tech etc and play it out for any and all to hear (sort of a reverse tower of Babel), the resultant box, my design specs, even the idea in my head would be illegal and all (including me) should be locked up with key thrown away.
(sorry, I guess I CAN think like a legal beagle!) During the Dark ages the Church had the only literates so they virtually controlled communications. later, others learned to read and write and for a while, this skill was controlled regulated and even banned by the Church. Welcome to 900AD.
Sorry I have no mod points I would mod this back from flame bait. He's right you know.
Business is business. Yes Yes, one can argue Capitalist/ Monopolist/ Trusts/ even old style Mercantilist but does it matter? Ethics is as useful in business as the traditional bicycle is to the fish. Business is indeed a battle pithy statements from Sun Tzu are heard in board rooms all the time: Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted. Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.
That has little to do with IT and ethics.
Now, in our "profession" the difference is in my opinion "personal honor". As a IT Pro I CAN look at your Email, your web logs, your saved files on the server but I CHOOSE NOT TO. I will review your materials when I am asked to by appropriate authority, or you, or if the job requires. I do not watch soap opera on TV and I do not need titillation at work putting my snoot in where it does not belong and THAT is MY ethics. You can point to written policy, professional standards or whatever. I will stick to my guns and sleep better at night.
I only know of one bit of media that would benifit from a re-release in its original format...Cheech & Chong: BIG BAMBU -those liner notes... ya just can't download art!
Kudzu was the answer to Deep South ground cover the way rabbits were the answer to Australian meat farming. As to bio fuel, Brazil has been running a gasohol program for decades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil Amazing what you can do when you are motivated..
In the same way a string tuned to a harmonic of one string on a musical instrement will vibrate when another strng a octave away is plucked the RFID would "vibrate" when its "harmonic is induced, that is when any source of a frequency that is a harmonic of it is generated. This hapens on purpose when the RFID is scanned and can occur other times when that frequency is generated by a radio, cell phone, micorwave, cosmic rays, or a host of other sources. We know what happens when certain frequencies are induced (in sound, scrape a broken chalk on a chalk board to experience one such), In radio we know that a a intermediate frequency can be made to vibrate from a weak source then be amplified (induced information on the IF on a super hetrodyne circuit for example) and we also know that radio frequencies can be generated used, impressed with information, and used in other ways (microwave oven for example induction near powerlines for another). Now, given this, and given what we KNOW can be a problem and also what we know WE DO NOT KNOW, why on EARTH would anyone want one of these awful things inside their bodies?
"...that the lifetime should be much longer than a typical magnetic hard disk."... I am curious about how that lifetime is determined. As a retro-computist hardwre buff I tinker with old hardware all the time. One example (of many): I have a Apple/// with 5mb (yeah 5mb) ProFILE drive. I think this beast was made in 1981 and it still runs just fine. I have a few slightly older hard drives too. I am not sure how an average lifetime is determined but I actually play with hardware that is over a quarter century old. If a NAND can last that long I will be impressed...
I always used IGDBB instead of TV. IGDBB is a abreviation of a quote from Jubal Hershaw in Hienlein's Stranger in a Strange Land: "Infernal God Damn Babble Box!"
In America; once lawyers get envovled; you loose. Even a "win" means a financial loss no citizen could (nor should have to) bare. The only ones who ever win are the Lawyers from the judge down; it is a phase locked loop that only takes money as an input and outputs...absolutely nothing benifical at all.
While I do agree the DMCA is a travesty of law, and think the whole copyright issue would probably work better using 19th century rules (I am dead serious), I can see how the sci fi writers would use this tool after repeated attempts at other eforts to have their still owned works taken down... with limited or NO success. I think Jerry Pournelle (who btw is a damn good writer; you Rock! Dr. Pournelle) who was one of those who requested this actions sums it up clearly, honestly and completely. I am NOT going to/. his site by posting URL. Do the small work requred to: Google "Chaos Manor" then go read the Friday post on the oldest blog on the interweb.
some while back a totally different aproach then Tivo or the newer DVRS came out and as far as I can see. died. All the systems used a software based on a package called MyIHome. Brands included Neuston, Mumistu, IODATA/AVEL, and, on the Macintosh side Elgato's iHome. All of these are no longer on the market. Some had built in DVD drives, some USB for addition of external hard drives... a few had wireless. These boxes connect to your local network,and stream various media files to your TV. You are limited to the codecs supported (meaning yes to DivX, no to WMV 9) but for standard televison they are absolutely wonderful. Instead of limiting you to the drive on your DVR, you can now stream from any box in the house. Music and photos can also be streamed. Some offer internet connectivity so streamed Video Blogs (Cranky Geeks, DLTV) can also be watched on TV. MythTV is capturing this capability these days but back when, it was already available. I have 2 of these boxes and love the system. I never could figure out why it didn't catch on. The boxes can talk to a streaming server on any platform (including MythTV). Highly recomended. -
Dvorak missed one other point; A few weeks back in San Francisco a CO-LO lost power taking out many many sites. What if your data, your service, your servers resides ONLY AT THAT SITE? You are dead. If you keep stuff local, and staff local, and something dies, it is a matter of a sysadmin, a suitcase loaded with backups and a quick trip to a pre-arranged hot-site. I know, I have participated in enough disaster recovery drills (and one actual disaster). Do you trust YOUR people with your data, your apps, your lifeline, or some nebulous online company? Oh, and yes, Linux IS a viable alternative.
Regardless of the troll source, the point that DX10 being Vista only as a driving force for Vista sales: SO WHAT?
Microsoft makes DX10, Microsoft Makes Vista, and Microsoft makes money, not good feelings, not altruism, but good old MONEY off sales of Vista. Last I saw, XP was a money drain on Microsoft as they no longer sell it but must still support it.
"but all you would have to do is pass a law " -seems to be a solution for so many problems -NOT-
"-making the financial institutions responsible" Anything that costs any corp money gets passed on in the price of their service. Ultimately all you accomplish is giving some new pencil pushers a job counting more money that YOU LOOSE.
The simple way to solve this is what I have done for many many years: when someone asks you for your personal information: LIE. Give them a mis-spelled name, transposed SSN, a zip code in Roswell New Mexico, etc. Only a very very few of the institutions you deal with actually really NEED this information yet all are anal retentive and careless. Never raise a question by refusing the clerk's request, just give them the wrong information. Once your REAL information is lost in a sea of bogus info, the threat to you personally is reduced and you took charge of doing it. Come on people! It only takes a few million of us to throw a monkey wrench in the system.
The tiles are extremely delicate. NASA viewed a lumbering astronaut in a suit ill designed for delicate work, with a tube of superglue and a squeege in the area around the main heat shield of the Shuttle a far greater threat then the small hole.
Some years back I lived in a small rural town that got all TV via cable; mountains blocked access to any broadcast TV. The local cable was horrid with terrible signal, lousy choices and over priced for the few channels we did get. One day the local rural telephone co-op decided to get into the cable TV bizz. They had a fiber line to the regional phone and a dish that could receive TV at the main office. After many trips to the court house for blind dates with the Cable company, they won the right to compete. SUDDENLY the other cable company offered 10 new channels, better signal quality and a lower price. I guess that was what they call synchronicity...couldn't be good old competition...
Slashdot Mirror
"great Artist Steal" but the Blue Screen? THAT is an original...
the news is in wingdings. I typed "aerial" and was corrected by my spellchecker..
I gave up on network television around 1982. Now and then I tune in the networks on my set (Arial only, no cable, and when that goes digital it is good bye for good!). What I have seen of late makes me glad of my decision. I do watch television though, My main interest is BBC documentaries (not available by any means in the US except torrents), some Canadian shows (also blocked), Finish TV, some fascinating stuff out of Australia. In other words: the promise TV gave us back in the 1950s; a chance to view our whole world. For pure entertainment I buy DVDs and yes, grab torrents but that is usually of things I recall with fondness from the 1970s. oh and the torrents of shows back then are usually of private VHS recordings in that the originals are sometimes gone (find me the Jim Hutton Ellery Queen PLEASE!!!) or the color balance is ruined with age. I want entertainment, and INFORMATION the current crap is whatever it is but that it is not.
So...now excuse me, I do not think like a legal person, I am just a common dumb citizen subject to the laws of this land and not intellectually capable of making decisions that implement and adjudicate the validity of such law but...
totally fictional scenario here, I mean its not like someone can actually do this...
If I designed and built a receiver that could pick up any and all satellite communication, regardless of band, system, encryption, language, broadcast tech etc and play it out for any and all to hear (sort of a reverse tower of Babel), the resultant box, my design specs, even the idea in my head would be illegal and all (including me) should be locked up with key thrown away.
(sorry, I guess I CAN think like a legal beagle!)
During the Dark ages the Church had the only literates so they virtually controlled communications. later, others learned to read and write and for a while, this skill was controlled regulated and even banned by the Church. Welcome to 900AD.
Sorry I have no mod points I would mod this back from flame bait. He's right you know.
Business is business. Yes Yes, one can argue Capitalist/ Monopolist/ Trusts/ even old style Mercantilist but does it matter? Ethics is as useful in business as the traditional bicycle is to the fish. Business is indeed a battle pithy statements from Sun Tzu are heard in board rooms all the time:
Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted. Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.
That has little to do with IT and ethics.
Now, in our "profession" the difference is in my opinion "personal honor". As a IT Pro I CAN look at your Email, your web logs, your saved files on the server but I CHOOSE NOT TO. I will review your materials when I am asked to by appropriate authority, or you, or if the job requires. I do not watch soap opera on TV and I do not need titillation at work putting my snoot in where it does not belong and THAT is MY ethics.
You can point to written policy, professional standards or whatever. I will stick to my guns and sleep better at night.
I only know of one bit of media that would benifit from a re-release in its original format...Cheech & Chong: BIG BAMBU -those liner notes... ya just can't download art!
Gentlemen don't read each other's mail.
Henry L. Stimson
Kudzu was the answer to Deep South ground cover the way rabbits were the answer to Australian meat farming. As to bio fuel, Brazil has been running a gasohol program for decades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil Amazing what you can do when you are motivated..
In the same way a string tuned to a harmonic of one string on a musical instrement will vibrate when another strng a octave away is plucked the RFID would "vibrate" when its "harmonic is induced, that is when any source of a frequency that is a harmonic of it is generated. This hapens on purpose when the RFID is scanned and can occur other times when that frequency is generated by a radio, cell phone, micorwave, cosmic rays, or a host of other sources. We know what happens when certain frequencies are induced (in sound, scrape a broken chalk on a chalk board to experience one such), In radio we know that a a intermediate frequency can be made to vibrate from a weak source then be amplified (induced information on the IF on a super hetrodyne circuit for example) and we also know that radio frequencies can be generated used, impressed with information, and used in other ways (microwave oven for example induction near powerlines for another). Now, given this, and given what we KNOW can be a problem and also what we know WE DO NOT KNOW, why on EARTH would anyone want one of these awful things inside their bodies?
http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/A2FAQs8QUICKFIND.h tml
the answer is somewhere here...
Truth! my main word processor (and I am not kidding): Fredwriter.
3D0G
"...that the lifetime should be much longer than a typical magnetic hard disk." ... I am curious about how that lifetime is determined. As a retro-computist hardwre buff I tinker with old hardware all the time. One example (of many): I have a Apple /// with 5mb (yeah 5mb) ProFILE drive. I think this beast was made in 1981 and it still runs just fine. I have a few slightly older hard drives too. I am not sure how an average lifetime is determined but I actually play with hardware that is over a quarter century old. If a NAND can last that long I will be impressed...
I always used IGDBB instead of TV. IGDBB is a abreviation of a quote from Jubal Hershaw in Hienlein's Stranger in a Strange Land: "Infernal God Damn Babble Box!"
Dats dae Beau-te-fool ting 'bout Amurka
Yous don like it? Sos Sue Me!
In America; once lawyers get envovled; you loose. Even a "win" means a financial loss no citizen could (nor should have to) bare. The only ones who ever win are the Lawyers from the judge down; it is a phase locked loop that only takes money as an input and outputs...absolutely nothing benifical at all.
What is truely sad is that we live in an age of tyrany where such a thing is even concievable. Our masters trust us not...
While I do agree the DMCA is a travesty of law, and think the whole copyright issue would probably work better using 19th century rules (I am dead serious), I can see how the sci fi writers would use this tool after repeated attempts at other eforts to have their still owned works taken down... with limited or NO success. I think Jerry Pournelle (who btw is a damn good writer; you Rock! Dr. Pournelle) who was one of those who requested this actions sums it up clearly, honestly and completely. I am NOT going to /. his site by posting URL. Do the small work requred to: Google "Chaos Manor" then go read the Friday post on the oldest blog on the interweb.
We now all know what happend to the old AOL signup disk password generator...
some while back a totally different aproach then Tivo or the newer DVRS came out and as far as I can see. died. All the systems used a software based on a package called MyIHome. Brands included Neuston, Mumistu, IODATA/AVEL, and, on the Macintosh side Elgato's iHome. All of these are no longer on the market. Some had built in DVD drives, some USB for addition of external hard drives... a few had wireless.
These boxes connect to your local network,and stream various media files to your TV. You are limited to the codecs supported (meaning yes to DivX, no to WMV 9) but for standard televison they are absolutely wonderful. Instead of limiting you to the drive on your DVR, you can now stream from any box in the house. Music and photos can also be streamed. Some offer internet connectivity so streamed Video Blogs (Cranky Geeks, DLTV) can also be watched on TV. MythTV is capturing this capability these days but back when, it was already available. I have 2 of these boxes and love the system. I never could figure out why it didn't catch on. The boxes can talk to a streaming server on any platform (including MythTV). Highly recomended.
-
Dvorak missed one other point; A few weeks back in San Francisco a CO-LO lost power taking out many many sites. What if your data, your service, your servers resides ONLY AT THAT SITE? You are dead. If you keep stuff local, and staff local, and something dies, it is a matter of a sysadmin, a suitcase loaded with backups and a quick trip to a pre-arranged hot-site. I know, I have participated in enough disaster recovery drills (and one actual disaster). Do you trust YOUR people with your data, your apps, your lifeline, or some nebulous online company? Oh, and yes, Linux IS a viable alternative.
Regardless of the troll source, the point that DX10 being Vista only as a driving force for Vista sales: SO WHAT?
Microsoft makes DX10, Microsoft Makes Vista, and Microsoft makes money, not good feelings, not altruism, but good old MONEY off sales of Vista. Last I saw, XP was a money drain on Microsoft as they no longer sell it but must still support it.
Actually the problem was all the Macs that were left online by themselves...
"but all you would have to do is pass a law " -seems to be a solution for so many problems -NOT-
"-making the financial institutions responsible" Anything that costs any corp money gets passed on in the price of their service. Ultimately all you accomplish is giving some new pencil pushers a job counting more money that YOU LOOSE.
The simple way to solve this is what I have done for many many years: when someone asks you for your personal information: LIE. Give them a mis-spelled name, transposed SSN, a zip code in Roswell New Mexico, etc. Only a very very few of the institutions you deal with actually really NEED this information yet all are anal retentive and careless. Never raise a question by refusing the clerk's request, just give them the wrong information. Once your REAL information is lost in a sea of bogus info, the threat to you personally is reduced and you took charge of doing it. Come on people! It only takes a few million of us to throw a monkey wrench in the system.
The tiles are extremely delicate. NASA viewed a lumbering astronaut in a suit ill designed for delicate work, with a tube of superglue and a squeege in the area around the main heat shield of the Shuttle a far greater threat then the small hole.
Some years back I lived in a small rural town that got all TV via cable; mountains blocked access to any broadcast TV. The local cable was horrid with terrible signal, lousy choices and over priced for the few channels we did get. One day the local rural telephone co-op decided to get into the cable TV bizz. They had a fiber line to the regional phone and a dish that could receive TV at the main office. After many trips to the court house for blind dates with the Cable company, they won the right to compete. SUDDENLY the other cable company offered 10 new channels, better signal quality and a lower price. I guess that was what they call synchronicity...couldn't be good old competition...