How embarrassing... corrected by an AC. I did my research this time. The 700 MHz spectrum, which includes UHF TV channels 52-69 has been auctioned off to new licensees. Two caveats... only Full Power TV stations must cease broadcasting in this spectrum. Low Power TV stations and Translator stations don't have to stop. Theses stations have not yet been awarded digital channels. (Of course, they may never be awarded them.) So it is unclear how this will be resolved. Second, most of the Full Power stations don't operate in this spectrum anyway.
Aside from that I don't mind that wireless companies will be inconvenienced. Of course, they'll probably use this as an excuse to raise SMS fees again.
No doubt; Powering both a digital and analog station costs a station a lot in electricity. But when the sweeps period comes around (it was moved to March because of the first transition deadline), a 6% or greater decline in viewership is not going to be good for their revenues either. TV ad revenues are way down in this economy. There is plenty of ad inventory (a supply problem) and advertisers aren't going to pay for eyes that aren't there. Sometimes, you have to spend a little money to make some.
Statistics can be confusing. You point out that 94% of the population comprehends. I don't believe that is true. I believe 94% may be ready for the transition, but that certainly doesn't mean they comprehend. A number of studies and surveys indicate that there a major misconceptions among broad segments of the population.
In fact, depending on your source, around 13% of the population watch TV over-the-air. The 6% that are not ready are a subset of the OTA population. The other 87% have cable or satellite and are unaffected. So, in effect, our results are very poor. A little over half of the affected population is ready for the transition. So after all this time spent preparing and educating, our results are 50/50.
I think many people know that February 17th is important. They may not understand why, but they got the date. Your point that changing everything now will add great amounts of confusion is clearly valid. (IMHO)
I find your insensitivity toward the concerns of the elderly and poor to be troubling. I hope for your sake that you will never find yourself in either demographic. Of course, with our economic outlook, we're all going to be poor. So this will be mean that you will need to die young. The fact remains: you either get old or die.
Access to information is an important part of being in a society. In many areas of the country, high speed internet access and cable are simply not available. Television is the only way for many people to stay connected to society and to remain informed. (Especially when you consider that newspapers are an endangered species.)
TV serves to socialize and aculture peoples into a larger society. It also serves a vital role in the dissemination of potentially life saving information in times of war, natural disaster, or severe weather. If a TV transmitter is struck by an ice storm or bomb or hurricane, one only needs to rebuild the transmitter. If an ice storm takes out miles and miles of cable system lines, the challenge to get viewers back online is much larger. TV serves a vital role during times of local and national emergency. (In other words, we just put Wheel of Fortune on TV until we REALLY need to use it.)
Further, broadcast TV serves foreign language speaking populations, remote populations, children (through education programming), and keeps the elderly company. If your grandparents can't have their TV, you might actually need to go spend time with them. In all seriousness, depression is a big problem among the elderly. I think taking away their TV is a big deal.
Of course, your point that people will be even more confused is right on target. I'm not sure that there is any good solution at this late stage. It's unfortunate that we find ourselves in this predicament.
I'm sure that my fellow/.ers will correct me if I am wrong, but I don't believe that the frequencies currently being used for analog television transmission have been auctioned yet. So, they don't yet have new owners which could be compensated. Additionally, the new owners of some of this spectrum is going to be local governments to use for first responders. They aren't paying for this spectrum, they're getting it for free...
Further, Congress can't vote the head of the FCC out. In fact, all FCC commissioners are confirmed by the senate. At this time, there is only an acting chairman, as former Chairman Martin was appointed by Bush and resigned when Obama took office. Obama's choice for FCC chairman has not yet been confirmed.
Most importantly, what would getting rid of the FCC chairman accomplish? Congress passed legislation to transition to digital TV and Congress set the first deadline. The FCC is only acting on Congress' wishes.
The question is: When are YOU going to vote out your elected representatives?
First, I'm not sure the state of the economy should preclude people (including Congress) from addressing other issues. Obviously it is a priority and something that Congress can and should address, but it's not like they have some magic wand that's going to instantly eliminate our challenges.
I use it on business systems that only accept capital letters. It will not convert lower case to capital and if you type in lowercase letters into the system, you get nothing but errors. I would have to tape down my Shift key or suffer a stiff pinky finger. In some applications it has unique properties. For example, in After Effects, it toggles between preview on or off. I use it when I am entering serial numbers that contain numbers and letters. I tap it a couple of times when a system is unresponsive to see if it is still alive. Sometimes I pound on it when I am frustrated. Why? Because it is there and it won't hurt anything.
It is shortsighted to declare a key useless. And arrogant. My suggestion for people who want to eliminate the key:
LEARN TO TYPE.
Then you won't go around accidentally hitting keys whose value you are too ignorant to appreciate.
Seriously... the article doesn't even mention HDTV. I think the media landscape has gotten increasing consfusing for consumers in recent years. I shudder when I see the Bounty commercial that says that the paper towels get the windows "High Definition" clean. My cohorts claim that people know it is a tongue-in-cheek statement, but I claim that people don't know the difference.
Clearly, as the other posters have illustrated, we geeks can't even get it. Taco think digital = HDTV. Digital TV refers to the ATSC method for broadcasting. As the article states, this encompasses many resolution/frequency formats that can be categorized as SDTV, EDTV, and HDTV.
Because of the ways ATSC signals are encoded and transported, they require less electromagnetic bandwidth than analog signals and have a higher signal to noise ratio theoretically allowing for a transmission less prone to interference and degredation.
The truth is, unless you're getting your television with rabbit ears or a BFA (big f*ckin antenna) on your roof, this is about as important to you as the price of tea in Madagascar.
it wasn't all of Chenobyl which failed - just one unit, the other five kept running and are still running today.
Zoyd pointed out that the Chernobyl plant no longer operates. Additionally, according to this entry, there were only 4 reactors.
In fairness to the original poster, there were two additional reactors under construction at the time of the accident but were not finished. And the reactors did continue to operate for a period of time.
The councilman argues that if drug companies were smart, they would "start talking about price reductions now rather than leave themselves open to a long, drawn-out due process review and hearings to determine just compensation."
So the states wouldn't want this to go to trial. They'd very likely lose. Isn't this just blackmail? However, if their argument is that falicious, the drug companies may not be persuaded to do anything and simply fight back.
Such review and hearings, he warns, would expose "just how pervasive the price gouging and profiteering has been."
Drug companies take on huge risk when developing drugs and shouldn't their prices be high enough to cover past and future risks? The total cost of a drug has to include the drug company's failures in R&D, which I would presume are higher than other industries. There is also a possibility for future liability when you find that the drug has nasty side effects (cox-3 inhibitors). On the other hand, they probably are a little too greedy. Besides, isn't it fun to get the juicy details of the inner workings of corporate america and keep consciousless big business in check.
You're not kidding. This is way too much drama over a damn cable.
"Batteries not included."
"Refills sold seperately."
Unbelievable... a cable... represents a large strategy shift at Apple? I don't think so.
When I bought my car from the car dealer, it did not come with my sun visor CD wallet. I had to add that accessory. If you want to listen to a variety of CDs in your car, you really kind of need an efficient storage system. IMHO, anyway. But the car didn't come with the visor CD wallet. Fortunately I was able to add this part quite easily. In fact, I then had a choice of visor CD wallet and saved the dealer from marking the part up 500% and explaining to me how to use it.
My visor CD wallet is pretty much the same as the firewire cable, really, in that neither one is worth bunching one's panties over. They have reduced the cost, and thus the price, by eliminating an accessory used by a minority of users. No fundamental changes to the iPod's functionality or desirability have been made.
I suspect that those folks who would use firewire probably have some cables lying around anyway. They're just mad that they can't add the cable to their spare parts collection - every true geek's wasteland of silicon and metal that you swear you'll use someday but eventually end up throwing away because it's as old as punch cards... and smells funny.
That is copyright infringment no matter what way you look at it.
Well, actually is it trademark infringement depending on how you look at it. I wouldn't say this case is clear cut. I'm sure you've seen many commercials on television that make direct comparisons. Recently, I've seen a commercial that compares Liquid Plumber and Drano. I can't remember who ran the commercial but the advertisers mention both products by name. And advertisements of this nature have gone on for decades.
Sometimes you might be shopping and you'll see a product that says "Compare to Brand X". This isn't trademark infringement. A trademark does not give you exclusive use of a term, it simply prevents others from using your trade likeness to sell their product.
If I had a shipping company called SpedEx, I'd probably be found in violated of FedEx's trademark. But if I had a shipping company called DHL, I could certainly say that I provided an alternative to FedEx. Recall the DHL commercial where the UPS and the FedEx trucks are sitting opposite each other at a train crossing as a train full of DHL trucks sped by.
Further, wouldn't it be dangerous if trademark law made it "illegal" for databases (of which Google is) to connect like entities. If you have a large amount of data, is it wrong to connect like brands so that one can understand their relationship. Because they certainly have a relationship.
If this case were to permeate international trademark law, it would overturn decades of precedent. This type of thing happens all the time. Just yesterday, I purchased "Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner". Upon leaving the checkout, I recieved a coupon for $1 off "The Works Bowl Cleaner". Clearly, "The Works" is paying for a targeted advertisement for me to recieve a coupon when I purchase a competing product.
Would it be okay if a TV station let an advertiser infringe upon a trademark?
If they knowingly did so, then it might be a problem. But can a TV station be held responsible for every commercial? Station traffic managers aren't trademark attorneys. They schedule commercials. The ultimate responsibility should lie with the advertiser. It is the advertiser's message, not the TV station. If I rented you a PA system and you somehow broke some sort of law (say copyright law, by reading a copyright book outloud), should I be held responsible because I provided the means or the forum for you to break the law? I don't think so. Should the ISP be help responsible when you perform something illegal with your connection? I hope not, because then they'll watch everything you do.
I suspect that in the end, this type of advertising will be considered legal and legitimate.
Not only was this story posted on Slashdot over a month ago, it is significantly older than that. Here is a PCWorld article (yes, PCWorld!) that is exactly 1 year old today that talks about this technology attributing it to HP and even calling LightScribe. A little bit ironic? Don't you think.
Slashdot. One year old news. Stuff that used to matter.
I agree. It seems like a company of Intel's stature could come up with something more clever than this. I don't think this would ever make it past a focus group.
Of course, this entire discussion has become free market research for Intel.
Don't go around calling people racists when they are simply trying to have an intellectual discussion pointing out technology's undeniable influence on world economics.
When I spoke of the Chinese I was referring to people who live in China, not people of Chinese ethnicity. So I am not a racist. I was not referring to Chinese-Americans. Again, it's not race, it's geography. And if you read carefully enough, you'd realize I was against large, faceless trans-national corporations underpaying anyone.
And I do not think that people of different races should recieve different pay scales in the same labor market. But it is undeniable fact that people in China make less money than those in the U.S. (again I'm talking about geography and not ethnicity) And by people, I mean people of all colors. If I were allowed to work in China (I can't because I am a U.S. citizen) I'd enjoy a lower standard of living than working in the U.S. even if I were of Chinese ethnicity.
I may be a U.S. citizen but how do you know that I am not myself Chinese-American?
Not at all. I was simply pointing out, although not very clearly, that the Chinese labor market is very cheap and many trans-national corporations are moving manufacturing opertations there. Why? Because there are a lot of Chinese people. And if you combine them with the Indian labor market, people in the Asian labor market are a dime a dozen. Big corporate America can literally work Chinese employess to death. Because there will be more to replace them. Labor in China is cheap for many reasons, but certainly one of them is supply and demand. There is a ready supply of Chinese workers. And because the demand for work exceeds the number of jobs, it is an employer's market. Large corporations can drive down even further the cost of labor. Certainly, global economics are much more complicated than what I am saying here and the Chinese economy is still evolving (arguably the U.S. economy is still evolving, or rather devolving), but I was simply saying that the Western world (not just the U.S.) is losing vast segments of its manufacturing economy because a seemingly endless supply of low-cost Chinese workers. Companies don't place much value on Chinese workers. They just see them as warm bodies. It could be argued that productivity increases for the information worker mean the devaluation of the worker, particularly if less and less skill are required. If google can do your job, then the information worker becomes a warm body that big business no longer needs to pay.
And I don't think that the Chinese deserve their standard of living or lack of value Transnational corporations place on them, but I always try to take care of myself first. So first and foremost, I worry most about my value as an employee.
And I guess I didn't actually say any of this, I merely alluded to it. And please forgive me for any U.S.-centric views. I am merely a product of my horrible environment.
"Like, if I perform a search, and 40% of the returns are the same wikipedia article copied to different sites, it would be nice if the search engine could only show me one (wikipedia)."
Like, I agree. I have done some searches and simply find the same text on page after page. It would be nice if the search engine could provide some sort of heirarchy. It could say here is the authoritative source and here are all the sources that qoute it.
I did say it would be nice, but it really isn't necessary, or it would seem very feasible. What if the authoritative source changed, but the subordinate sources are not updated? It would seem that this would apply to your Wikipedia example. And how could an algorithm determine the parent source?
Yes, it would be nice. But better search is also a detriment. If we are an information economy, as the talking heads on television keep telling us, isn't part of our value as information workers our ability to deal with this information. In the old card catalog days, wasn't a researcher's job to take all of the information that is available and gather and interpret that information in a meaningful way? Isn't that still true of today's information worker? If your CEO can type something into Google and get the answer he wants, do they need you to find the answers for him? If software becomes too intelligent, then doesn't the human mind become obsolete. Frankly, I've always been proud of my ability to parse and understand information and then recapitulate it in a meaningful way.
"Or, like, if I'm searching for some kind of error I got while using Linux. Most of the returns I get will be various old Linux mailing lists, but only some of them will be relevant to my problem."
Well, you've probably got several problems here:
Lack of relevant material due to smaller installed user base. (It will always be easier to find the answer to the Windows problem because more people are having it and writing about it.)
Lack of need to publish material. Linux users are generally not computer illiterate so there isn't much need to write thousands of Linux hand holding articles.
Lack of people searching for and linking to material. This makes Google's relvance ranking somewhat useless.
Of course, all of this could be attributed to poor search criteria. As they say, "garbage in, garbage out." And that takes me back to my previous point. If your CEO can fix his computer with Google, why do they need you?
In the information economy, knowledge is power and money. And if knowledge is easily obtained, then the laws of supply and demand dictate that the value of knowledge decreases. As a freelance video producer, I am watching the devaluation of my services occur as practically every Joe Schmoe can edit video on their home computer. The latest technological innovations have devalued the video/film production industry. The only people still making lots of money are the stars, because the work proactively to protect their value. I don't know why technology/information workers aren't interested in the same. If I buy a faster computer that enables me to produce videos in half the time, then I have also cut my billable hours in half as well.
So, I am all in favor of poor search technology and lazy people. Simply, if I have the patience and the ability to skillfully use technology in ways that others cannot, then I am a valuable commodity. But if anyone can do it, then I'm just like an 18 year old who wants to work for MTV. That's why MTV staffs with interns, because there is an endless supply. If the supply is endless, then you have no value. You're a dime a dozen. You might as well be Chinese.
Can PepsiCo "demand" or "insist" that these bottles be put up first, or are they really at the mercy of the owner once the bottles hit the store?
I think they already do. Everytime I've ever seen anyone in the grocery store stocking Pepsi or Lays (another PepsiCo product) they are stocked by representatives of those companies. With the advent of "big box" retailers (WalMart) and the homogenization of the retail experience, retailers and suppliers enter into big dollar agreements on where there products will be placed and how they will be placed. When I worked for Kmart (several years ago), layouts for the shelves would come from corporate headquartes in Troy, Michigan. You'd recieve diagrams of which products went where and how many facings there would be etc. I'm sure you've noticed a situation where there might be 10 hooks, 9 of which are sparsely populated with Brand X and 1 which is overflowing with Brand Y. Why not take a little of Brand X's space to accomodate the overflow of Brand Y. Well you just can't do that when you have a shelf lease with Brand X. When you notice that they've started to rearrange several ailes of products, it's not because the manager is obsessive-compulsive and wants to have things a certain way, it is because they have to execute the retailers end of the business deal.
In the case of Pepsi, it is certainly in the interest of PepsiCo to get the promotional bottles on the shelf to coincide with the ad campaigns. They're selling poorly flavored sugar water for a huge markup. The idea is to get you addicted to the sugar and caffiene. One way to do this is through promotions. And these promotions definitely boost sales. Otherwise they'd stop doing them. Why do you think McDonald's keeps doing the Monopoly thing? Because it has a positive impact on sales. I'd suspect that the increased sales revenue offsets the cost of the promotion.
While there are exceptions, soda, chips, and bread are all produced within close proximity to their selling location. It just doesn't make sense to import Pepsi from China or transport it even more than 150 miles. So, next time you're at the grocery store or you Walmart Supercenter (evil), notice that a guy in a red uniform stocks the Coke and a guy in a blue uniform stocks the Pepsi. And the Schwebel's guy stocks his bread, but not the Wonder bread.
Since these companies manage their own supply chain all the way up to the point of distribution, concepts like FIFO (First In, First Out) do apply. All of these products are perishable (bread more than Pepsi), and sometimes in slower moving markets and retail locations, they try to sell the products that are closer to expiration before they put out the new stuff.
My understanding from my Copyright Law course: If you have a registered copyright you may seek damages in the remedy of your suit inlcuding things such as actual case damage, devaluation of the work, and punitive damages. However, if your work is not registered, you may not seek a monetary remedy. You are basically limited to preventing the offending party from continuing to use your work.
Correct me if I am wrong... it has been a few years since I had this course. And don't think that I am a lawyer because I took a copyright law course. I took it at an Art school.
Re:Did you have to be under 15 to vote?
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"I wouldn't buy a disc of a crap film even if it came on a 4-disc set in a box designed by Philippe Starck."
So in other words, it's what's on the iside that matters. Not the packaging...
So you wouldn't let Paris Hilton suck your knob? Even if you were really drunk?
(Disclaimer: This post assumes you are a straight man who isn't completely repulsed by skanky hoes.)
If you need more than a few hundred gigs, then you are a theif or a pervert and belong behind bars.
I know you have already been ridiculed, but...
WTF!
I am a freelance video producer. I am currently working on a project that consists of over 200 Gigs. That's in addition to my applications, music, DVR recordings I make with the ATI card, etc.
The largest project I ever worked on required over a Terabyte. And that was just my end of the project.
I'm about to start editing a wedding for a friend. The raw MiniDV footage will occupy nearly 200 gigs itself.
I am also a pervert, and the last time I checked, this was not illegal. It may not be revered, but it is not illegal.
Further, do you agree that the cost of housing these "thieves or perverts" would be worth punishing them for their fairly victimless crimes? Nothing like paying $45,000 a year to house someone who download a few hundred dollars worth of CDs. And even though you may consider these folks the scum of the earth, they may, other than having a nasty BitTorrent habit, be upstanding members of society. You could be sending soccer moms and dads to jail. You'd be breaking up families which would seem to have a much greater detriment to society than a few lost MPAA profits. And we must send the evil little ones to jail for their after school downloading behavior, because that's where we should raise our downloading children, in jails where they can learn to commit real crimes.
It seems to me that any Slashdot post that is shorter than one line and doesn't make you laugh, is as dangerous as a George W. Bush dichotomy. (Of course, geopolitics is as simple as categorizing the individuals and nations of the world as good and evil.) IMHO, people who cannot spell the word thief, or avoid the logical fallacy of oversimplification, should be behind bars.
"they don't allow servers, but they don't seem to mind BitTorrent"
First, in my experience Comcast does not block any ports... at least by default. Now, if we pull out the service/license agreement (I don't have theirs handy, but I've read enough of them), I'm sure it says that you are not allowed to run a web server. So it is against that agreement to run a web server and they could terminate the agreement. But they don't actively prevent you from running a server.
Skipping to another section of any standard ISP agreement, you'll find something prohibiting any sort of illegal activity. (ISP will cooperate with authorities, et cetera) Certainly, most BitTorrent traffic is illegal. But it seems to me that there are two issues preventing them from doing anything about it:
BitTorrent does not conform to a standard port like webservers (port 80). In fact many torrent tracker sites won't allow you connect to their trackers with the standard ports. So BitTorrent traffic could be on virtually any port, making it significantly harder to block.
BitTorrent users are paying customers. Alienating them or terminating their service agreements would result in a significant drop in revenue. As long as the increased costs associated with this traffic do not exceed the revenue generated by these users, you're making money.
Comcast's primary goal is to make money. And it would seem they are pulling down a handfull of change.
And if the broadband business was killing them, I doubt they'd shoot the bandwidth up, just to spite the already beleagured DSL business.
Slashdot Mirror
You missed the memo. Nothing is multi-dimensional or complex. There are ONLY two sides to every issue. And you have side with the home team.
They did not sell the spectrum. They licensed it. Air belongs to the people. You can't really own air. At least not yet.
How embarrassing... corrected by an AC. I did my research this time. The 700 MHz spectrum, which includes UHF TV channels 52-69 has been auctioned off to new licensees. Two caveats... only Full Power TV stations must cease broadcasting in this spectrum. Low Power TV stations and Translator stations don't have to stop. Theses stations have not yet been awarded digital channels. (Of course, they may never be awarded them.) So it is unclear how this will be resolved. Second, most of the Full Power stations don't operate in this spectrum anyway.
Aside from that I don't mind that wireless companies will be inconvenienced. Of course, they'll probably use this as an excuse to raise SMS fees again.
No doubt; Powering both a digital and analog station costs a station a lot in electricity. But when the sweeps period comes around (it was moved to March because of the first transition deadline), a 6% or greater decline in viewership is not going to be good for their revenues either. TV ad revenues are way down in this economy. There is plenty of ad inventory (a supply problem) and advertisers aren't going to pay for eyes that aren't there. Sometimes, you have to spend a little money to make some.
Statistics can be confusing. You point out that 94% of the population comprehends. I don't believe that is true. I believe 94% may be ready for the transition, but that certainly doesn't mean they comprehend. A number of studies and surveys indicate that there a major misconceptions among broad segments of the population.
In fact, depending on your source, around 13% of the population watch TV over-the-air. The 6% that are not ready are a subset of the OTA population. The other 87% have cable or satellite and are unaffected. So, in effect, our results are very poor. A little over half of the affected population is ready for the transition. So after all this time spent preparing and educating, our results are 50/50.
I think many people know that February 17th is important. They may not understand why, but they got the date. Your point that changing everything now will add great amounts of confusion is clearly valid. (IMHO)
I find your insensitivity toward the concerns of the elderly and poor to be troubling. I hope for your sake that you will never find yourself in either demographic. Of course, with our economic outlook, we're all going to be poor. So this will be mean that you will need to die young. The fact remains: you either get old or die.
Access to information is an important part of being in a society. In many areas of the country, high speed internet access and cable are simply not available. Television is the only way for many people to stay connected to society and to remain informed. (Especially when you consider that newspapers are an endangered species.)
TV serves to socialize and aculture peoples into a larger society. It also serves a vital role in the dissemination of potentially life saving information in times of war, natural disaster, or severe weather. If a TV transmitter is struck by an ice storm or bomb or hurricane, one only needs to rebuild the transmitter. If an ice storm takes out miles and miles of cable system lines, the challenge to get viewers back online is much larger. TV serves a vital role during times of local and national emergency. (In other words, we just put Wheel of Fortune on TV until we REALLY need to use it.)
Further, broadcast TV serves foreign language speaking populations, remote populations, children (through education programming), and keeps the elderly company. If your grandparents can't have their TV, you might actually need to go spend time with them. In all seriousness, depression is a big problem among the elderly. I think taking away their TV is a big deal.
Of course, your point that people will be even more confused is right on target. I'm not sure that there is any good solution at this late stage. It's unfortunate that we find ourselves in this predicament.
I'm sure that my fellow /.ers will correct me if I am wrong, but I don't believe that the frequencies currently being used for analog television transmission have been auctioned yet. So, they don't yet have new owners which could be compensated. Additionally, the new owners of some of this spectrum is going to be local governments to use for first responders. They aren't paying for this spectrum, they're getting it for free...
Further, Congress can't vote the head of the FCC out. In fact, all FCC commissioners are confirmed by the senate. At this time, there is only an acting chairman, as former Chairman Martin was appointed by Bush and resigned when Obama took office. Obama's choice for FCC chairman has not yet been confirmed.
Most importantly, what would getting rid of the FCC chairman accomplish? Congress passed legislation to transition to digital TV and Congress set the first deadline. The FCC is only acting on Congress' wishes.
The question is: When are YOU going to vote out your elected representatives?
First, I'm not sure the state of the economy should preclude people (including Congress) from addressing other issues. Obviously it is a priority and something that Congress can and should address, but it's not like they have some magic wand that's going to instantly eliminate our challenges.
Second, how is this a waste of your tax dollars?
I use it on business systems that only accept capital letters. It will not convert lower case to capital and if you type in lowercase letters into the system, you get nothing but errors. I would have to tape down my Shift key or suffer a stiff pinky finger. In some applications it has unique properties. For example, in After Effects, it toggles between preview on or off. I use it when I am entering serial numbers that contain numbers and letters. I tap it a couple of times when a system is unresponsive to see if it is still alive. Sometimes I pound on it when I am frustrated. Why? Because it is there and it won't hurt anything.
It is shortsighted to declare a key useless. And arrogant. My suggestion for people who want to eliminate the key:
LEARN TO TYPE.
Then you won't go around accidentally hitting keys whose value you are too ignorant to appreciate.
Seriously... the article doesn't even mention HDTV. I think the media landscape has gotten increasing consfusing for consumers in recent years. I shudder when I see the Bounty commercial that says that the paper towels get the windows "High Definition" clean. My cohorts claim that people know it is a tongue-in-cheek statement, but I claim that people don't know the difference.
Clearly, as the other posters have illustrated, we geeks can't even get it. Taco think digital = HDTV. Digital TV refers to the ATSC method for broadcasting. As the article states, this encompasses many resolution/frequency formats that can be categorized as SDTV, EDTV, and HDTV.
Because of the ways ATSC signals are encoded and transported, they require less electromagnetic bandwidth than analog signals and have a higher signal to noise ratio theoretically allowing for a transmission less prone to interference and degredation.
The truth is, unless you're getting your television with rabbit ears or a BFA (big f*ckin antenna) on your roof, this is about as important to you as the price of tea in Madagascar.
it wasn't all of Chenobyl which failed - just one unit, the other five kept running and are still running today.
Zoyd pointed out that the Chernobyl plant no longer operates. Additionally, according to this entry, there were only 4 reactors.
In fairness to the original poster, there were two additional reactors under construction at the time of the accident but were not finished. And the reactors did continue to operate for a period of time.
You're right... that's what I meant. I had a feeling something wasn't quite right.
From the Article:
The councilman argues that if drug companies were smart, they would "start talking about price reductions now rather than leave themselves open to a long, drawn-out due process review and hearings to determine just compensation."
So the states wouldn't want this to go to trial. They'd very likely lose. Isn't this just blackmail? However, if their argument is that falicious, the drug companies may not be persuaded to do anything and simply fight back.
Such review and hearings, he warns, would expose "just how pervasive the price gouging and profiteering has been."
Drug companies take on huge risk when developing drugs and shouldn't their prices be high enough to cover past and future risks? The total cost of a drug has to include the drug company's failures in R&D, which I would presume are higher than other industries. There is also a possibility for future liability when you find that the drug has nasty side effects (cox-3 inhibitors). On the other hand, they probably are a little too greedy. Besides, isn't it fun to get the juicy details of the inner workings of corporate america and keep consciousless big business in check.
Nothing to see here...
You're not kidding. This is way too much drama over a damn cable.
"Batteries not included."
"Refills sold seperately."
Unbelievable... a cable... represents a large strategy shift at Apple? I don't think so.
When I bought my car from the car dealer, it did not come with my sun visor CD wallet. I had to add that accessory. If you want to listen to a variety of CDs in your car, you really kind of need an efficient storage system. IMHO, anyway. But the car didn't come with the visor CD wallet. Fortunately I was able to add this part quite easily. In fact, I then had a choice of visor CD wallet and saved the dealer from marking the part up 500% and explaining to me how to use it.
My visor CD wallet is pretty much the same as the firewire cable, really, in that neither one is worth bunching one's panties over. They have reduced the cost, and thus the price, by eliminating an accessory used by a minority of users. No fundamental changes to the iPod's functionality or desirability have been made.
I suspect that those folks who would use firewire probably have some cables lying around anyway. They're just mad that they can't add the cable to their spare parts collection - every true geek's wasteland of silicon and metal that you swear you'll use someday but eventually end up throwing away because it's as old as punch cards... and smells funny.
That is copyright infringment no matter what way you look at it.
Well, actually is it trademark infringement depending on how you look at it. I wouldn't say this case is clear cut. I'm sure you've seen many commercials on television that make direct comparisons. Recently, I've seen a commercial that compares Liquid Plumber and Drano. I can't remember who ran the commercial but the advertisers mention both products by name. And advertisements of this nature have gone on for decades.
Sometimes you might be shopping and you'll see a product that says "Compare to Brand X". This isn't trademark infringement. A trademark does not give you exclusive use of a term, it simply prevents others from using your trade likeness to sell their product.
If I had a shipping company called SpedEx, I'd probably be found in violated of FedEx's trademark. But if I had a shipping company called DHL, I could certainly say that I provided an alternative to FedEx. Recall the DHL commercial where the UPS and the FedEx trucks are sitting opposite each other at a train crossing as a train full of DHL trucks sped by.
Further, wouldn't it be dangerous if trademark law made it "illegal" for databases (of which Google is) to connect like entities. If you have a large amount of data, is it wrong to connect like brands so that one can understand their relationship. Because they certainly have a relationship.
If this case were to permeate international trademark law, it would overturn decades of precedent. This type of thing happens all the time. Just yesterday, I purchased "Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner". Upon leaving the checkout, I recieved a coupon for $1 off "The Works Bowl Cleaner". Clearly, "The Works" is paying for a targeted advertisement for me to recieve a coupon when I purchase a competing product.
Would it be okay if a TV station let an advertiser infringe upon a trademark?
If they knowingly did so, then it might be a problem. But can a TV station be held responsible for every commercial? Station traffic managers aren't trademark attorneys. They schedule commercials. The ultimate responsibility should lie with the advertiser. It is the advertiser's message, not the TV station. If I rented you a PA system and you somehow broke some sort of law (say copyright law, by reading a copyright book outloud), should I be held responsible because I provided the means or the forum for you to break the law? I don't think so. Should the ISP be help responsible when you perform something illegal with your connection? I hope not, because then they'll watch everything you do.
I suspect that in the end, this type of advertising will be considered legal and legitimate.
Not only was this story posted on Slashdot over a month ago, it is significantly older than that. Here is a PCWorld article (yes, PCWorld!) that is exactly 1 year old today that talks about this technology attributing it to HP and even calling LightScribe. A little bit ironic? Don't you think.
Slashdot. One year old news. Stuff that used to matter.
I agree. It seems like a company of Intel's stature could come up with something more clever than this. I don't think this would ever make it past a focus group.
Of course, this entire discussion has become free market research for Intel.
- Don't go around calling people racists when they are simply trying to have an intellectual discussion pointing out technology's undeniable influence on world economics.
- When I spoke of the Chinese I was referring to people who live in China, not people of Chinese ethnicity. So I am not a racist. I was not referring to Chinese-Americans. Again, it's not race, it's geography. And if you read carefully enough, you'd realize I was against large, faceless trans-national corporations underpaying anyone.
And I do not think that people of different races should recieve different pay scales in the same labor market. But it is undeniable fact that people in China make less money than those in the U.S. (again I'm talking about geography and not ethnicity) And by people, I mean people of all colors. If I were allowed to work in China (I can't because I am a U.S. citizen) I'd enjoy a lower standard of living than working in the U.S. even if I were of Chinese ethnicity.I may be a U.S. citizen but how do you know that I am not myself Chinese-American?
Not at all. I was simply pointing out, although not very clearly, that the Chinese labor market is very cheap and many trans-national corporations are moving manufacturing opertations there. Why? Because there are a lot of Chinese people. And if you combine them with the Indian labor market, people in the Asian labor market are a dime a dozen. Big corporate America can literally work Chinese employess to death. Because there will be more to replace them. Labor in China is cheap for many reasons, but certainly one of them is supply and demand. There is a ready supply of Chinese workers. And because the demand for work exceeds the number of jobs, it is an employer's market. Large corporations can drive down even further the cost of labor. Certainly, global economics are much more complicated than what I am saying here and the Chinese economy is still evolving (arguably the U.S. economy is still evolving, or rather devolving), but I was simply saying that the Western world (not just the U.S.) is losing vast segments of its manufacturing economy because a seemingly endless supply of low-cost Chinese workers. Companies don't place much value on Chinese workers. They just see them as warm bodies. It could be argued that productivity increases for the information worker mean the devaluation of the worker, particularly if less and less skill are required. If google can do your job, then the information worker becomes a warm body that big business no longer needs to pay.
And I don't think that the Chinese deserve their standard of living or lack of value Transnational corporations place on them, but I always try to take care of myself first. So first and foremost, I worry most about my value as an employee.
And I guess I didn't actually say any of this, I merely alluded to it. And please forgive me for any U.S.-centric views. I am merely a product of my horrible environment.
Like, I agree. I have done some searches and simply find the same text on page after page. It would be nice if the search engine could provide some sort of heirarchy. It could say here is the authoritative source and here are all the sources that qoute it.
I did say it would be nice, but it really isn't necessary, or it would seem very feasible. What if the authoritative source changed, but the subordinate sources are not updated? It would seem that this would apply to your Wikipedia example. And how could an algorithm determine the parent source?
Yes, it would be nice. But better search is also a detriment. If we are an information economy, as the talking heads on television keep telling us, isn't part of our value as information workers our ability to deal with this information. In the old card catalog days, wasn't a researcher's job to take all of the information that is available and gather and interpret that information in a meaningful way? Isn't that still true of today's information worker? If your CEO can type something into Google and get the answer he wants, do they need you to find the answers for him? If software becomes too intelligent, then doesn't the human mind become obsolete. Frankly, I've always been proud of my ability to parse and understand information and then recapitulate it in a meaningful way.
"Or, like, if I'm searching for some kind of error I got while using Linux. Most of the returns I get will be various old Linux mailing lists, but only some of them will be relevant to my problem."
Well, you've probably got several problems here:
Of course, all of this could be attributed to poor search criteria. As they say, "garbage in, garbage out." And that takes me back to my previous point. If your CEO can fix his computer with Google, why do they need you?
In the information economy, knowledge is power and money. And if knowledge is easily obtained, then the laws of supply and demand dictate that the value of knowledge decreases. As a freelance video producer, I am watching the devaluation of my services occur as practically every Joe Schmoe can edit video on their home computer. The latest technological innovations have devalued the video/film production industry. The only people still making lots of money are the stars, because the work proactively to protect their value. I don't know why technology/information workers aren't interested in the same. If I buy a faster computer that enables me to produce videos in half the time, then I have also cut my billable hours in half as well.
So, I am all in favor of poor search technology and lazy people. Simply, if I have the patience and the ability to skillfully use technology in ways that others cannot, then I am a valuable commodity. But if anyone can do it, then I'm just like an 18 year old who wants to work for MTV. That's why MTV staffs with interns, because there is an endless supply. If the supply is endless, then you have no value. You're a dime a dozen. You might as well be Chinese.
Can PepsiCo "demand" or "insist" that these bottles be put up first, or are they really at the mercy of the owner once the bottles hit the store?
I think they already do. Everytime I've ever seen anyone in the grocery store stocking Pepsi or Lays (another PepsiCo product) they are stocked by representatives of those companies. With the advent of "big box" retailers (WalMart) and the homogenization of the retail experience, retailers and suppliers enter into big dollar agreements on where there products will be placed and how they will be placed. When I worked for Kmart (several years ago), layouts for the shelves would come from corporate headquartes in Troy, Michigan. You'd recieve diagrams of which products went where and how many facings there would be etc. I'm sure you've noticed a situation where there might be 10 hooks, 9 of which are sparsely populated with Brand X and 1 which is overflowing with Brand Y. Why not take a little of Brand X's space to accomodate the overflow of Brand Y. Well you just can't do that when you have a shelf lease with Brand X. When you notice that they've started to rearrange several ailes of products, it's not because the manager is obsessive-compulsive and wants to have things a certain way, it is because they have to execute the retailers end of the business deal.
In the case of Pepsi, it is certainly in the interest of PepsiCo to get the promotional bottles on the shelf to coincide with the ad campaigns. They're selling poorly flavored sugar water for a huge markup. The idea is to get you addicted to the sugar and caffiene. One way to do this is through promotions. And these promotions definitely boost sales. Otherwise they'd stop doing them. Why do you think McDonald's keeps doing the Monopoly thing? Because it has a positive impact on sales. I'd suspect that the increased sales revenue offsets the cost of the promotion.
While there are exceptions, soda, chips, and bread are all produced within close proximity to their selling location. It just doesn't make sense to import Pepsi from China or transport it even more than 150 miles. So, next time you're at the grocery store or you Walmart Supercenter (evil), notice that a guy in a red uniform stocks the Coke and a guy in a blue uniform stocks the Pepsi. And the Schwebel's guy stocks his bread, but not the Wonder bread.
Since these companies manage their own supply chain all the way up to the point of distribution, concepts like FIFO (First In, First Out) do apply. All of these products are perishable (bread more than Pepsi), and sometimes in slower moving markets and retail locations, they try to sell the products that are closer to expiration before they put out the new stuff.
You're almost right.
My understanding from my Copyright Law course: If you have a registered copyright you may seek damages in the remedy of your suit inlcuding things such as actual case damage, devaluation of the work, and punitive damages. However, if your work is not registered, you may not seek a monetary remedy. You are basically limited to preventing the offending party from continuing to use your work.
Correct me if I am wrong... it has been a few years since I had this course. And don't think that I am a lawyer because I took a copyright law course. I took it at an Art school.
"I wouldn't buy a disc of a crap film even if it came on a 4-disc set in a box designed by Philippe Starck."
So in other words, it's what's on the iside that matters. Not the packaging...
So you wouldn't let Paris Hilton suck your knob? Even if you were really drunk?
(Disclaimer: This post assumes you are a straight man who isn't completely repulsed by skanky hoes.)
If you need more than a few hundred gigs, then you are a theif or a pervert and belong behind bars.
I know you have already been ridiculed, but...
WTF!
I am a freelance video producer. I am currently working on a project that consists of over 200 Gigs. That's in addition to my applications, music, DVR recordings I make with the ATI card, etc.
The largest project I ever worked on required over a Terabyte. And that was just my end of the project.
I'm about to start editing a wedding for a friend. The raw MiniDV footage will occupy nearly 200 gigs itself.
I am also a pervert, and the last time I checked, this was not illegal. It may not be revered, but it is not illegal.
Further, do you agree that the cost of housing these "thieves or perverts" would be worth punishing them for their fairly victimless crimes? Nothing like paying $45,000 a year to house someone who download a few hundred dollars worth of CDs. And even though you may consider these folks the scum of the earth, they may, other than having a nasty BitTorrent habit, be upstanding members of society. You could be sending soccer moms and dads to jail. You'd be breaking up families which would seem to have a much greater detriment to society than a few lost MPAA profits. And we must send the evil little ones to jail for their after school downloading behavior, because that's where we should raise our downloading children, in jails where they can learn to commit real crimes.
It seems to me that any Slashdot post that is shorter than one line and doesn't make you laugh, is as dangerous as a George W. Bush dichotomy. (Of course, geopolitics is as simple as categorizing the individuals and nations of the world as good and evil.) IMHO, people who cannot spell the word thief, or avoid the logical fallacy of oversimplification, should be behind bars.
First, in my experience Comcast does not block any ports... at least by default. Now, if we pull out the service/license agreement (I don't have theirs handy, but I've read enough of them), I'm sure it says that you are not allowed to run a web server. So it is against that agreement to run a web server and they could terminate the agreement. But they don't actively prevent you from running a server.
Skipping to another section of any standard ISP agreement, you'll find something prohibiting any sort of illegal activity. (ISP will cooperate with authorities, et cetera) Certainly, most BitTorrent traffic is illegal. But it seems to me that there are two issues preventing them from doing anything about it:
Comcast's primary goal is to make money. And it would seem they are pulling down a handfull of change.
And if the broadband business was killing them, I doubt they'd shoot the bandwidth up, just to spite the already beleagured DSL business.