Can someone please cite the key features that make TiVo so much better than the Comcast offering? I currently use a Motorola 6412 that I lease from Comcast and I am nothing if not pleased with it. All the features work beautifully and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything (once I programmed 30 second skip into the remote, that is). If I had to complain about anything it would be the recording capacity since it is only 120GB.
All hackability and use of open-source software aside, what *user-level* features does TiVo have that the Motorola 6412 or 6208 boxen not have? What am I missing out on?
Yes, since flash is such a bloody excellent tool for the Blind, much like Compact Discs and MP3's are oh-so-useful for the Profoundly Deaf.
Unfortunately, the recourse that this disability activist chose was not a valid one, but I think all companies should be held accountable for making their products and services as accessible to the disabled as possible.
My girlfriend and I get to see one new movie a week, IF the one theatre in the entire city of Dallas with closed-captioning is showing a movie we want to see. The MoPix unit they use costs very little to install, per theatre, but there is only ONE theatre in the entire city, FOUR in the entire STATE!!!
The people at Odeon should be taken to task for not making their site accessible, but the guy that made the copy should also be taken to task for being stupid and violating copyright law.
There are lots of things like this that RFID would be good for... imagine being able to tell the position of you golf ball without having to go looking around for it, or a way to go to a driving range with your OWN balls and get them all back at the end of the day...
Bowling alleys do their get a strike when the head (#1) pin is a different color... they could use RFID so they can accurately track it and set off some reminder so the person knows to collect on their free game and so people don't try to scam the bowling alley out of free games.
Places that rent equipment could actually use decent stuff without having to worry about it walking out. Since the tag is embedded, people wouldn't be able to just yank it off without destroying the intrinsic value of the piece of equipment itself. And the rental place could do an inventory with just a quick wave of a sensor through their shelves. Imagine an ice rink system where blade sharpenings are tracked by RFID and they can go at a moment's notice and pick up any skates that have not had their blades sharpened in 15 days and sharpen them, scan them, and put them back on the shelf. Then, if someone brought back a pair that they said were dull, the counter-biscuit could use a computer to find the theoretically sharpest pair available in a given size.
Slot car racing could be tracked more closely to determine a real winner. Set the RFID in the same relative location in each car (front bumper?) and then track when it crosses a certain point... It should be very easy with simple triangulation. Using that same technology, you could record the entire race and then play it back using a renderer to let racers watch their driving from a cockpit view!
Hell, any sport where tracking the location of an object would be valuable would benefit. Ping pong, shuffleboard (the table-top variety), air hockey... You can make sure people aren't cheating and verify the actions that take place down to the nanometer if you configure your sensors accurately enough.
I'm sure there are other great uses for RFID tags.. prisons. I'd sure love it if they could put an RFID tag in every inbound prisoner and deactivate it permanently when the prisoner leaves. They could know, at a moment's notice, if a prisoner was somewhere they weren't supposed to be. Pets are already implanted with RFID tags to positively identify them if they are found. Military personnel could be implanted with RFID tags and any heat signature that did not correspond with an appropriate RFID signature could be immediately investigated for trespassers/spies... of course, it would have to be deactivated once active service had been terminated...
Think of all the positive uses. RFID is not an EVIL technology. It has some evil applications, tracking purchasing habits, etc... but saying that it is evil in and of itself is about as intelligent as saying that guns are evil.
Seriously? Could this explain the retarded method of communication (OMG, LOL!!!!11) that we see coming out of these Evercrack babies that are spending massive amounts of time in front of these apparently brain damaging machines?
Kids need to get out and get some friggin' sunshine.
As for driving in ways that are prone to rollover; if you drive at highway speeds, you are prone to rollover if you have to avoid any sudden obstacle. Unless you're planning to avoid driving over say, 35 miles an hour, there's not a shitload you can do to actively avoid rollovers other than drive with reasonable caution.
Let's take a moment to understand the physics of what happens when you swerve. I own two vehicles, a 2003 Dodge Ram Quad Cab (very long wheelbase, low tendency to roll) and a 1995 Jeep Wrangler with 5 inches of lift and 33" tires (well, not at the moment, it's going through the change to be even bigger, but that was its configuration the last time I drove it). I learned something in the Jeep that should apply to ALL vehicles.
In most swerve maneuvers (there are, of course, exceptions), it is not the initial swerve that causes the rollover, it is the following course correction. Think about how you swerve. You jerk the wheel one way and then you jerk it the other way so you can continue moving in a straight line. It's that second jerk that puts the vehicle in peril of rollover (particularly sharp turns notwithstanding. Anyone who drives a topheavy vehicle should know better than to make a 45 degree or sharper turn at 55 mph). The first jerk does tend to cause the vehicle to lean, but it is the rebound that is caused by the second jerk that causes the rollover. The first jerk has the momentum of the pull that is partially cancelled out by the springs. However, when you course-correct with that second jerk, the springs are doing that too, so you combine the force of the springs with the force of your pull on the wheel, and POP! you're going over. The simple solution (one that has worked many many many many times in my tall, SWB Jeep) is to perform the course correction in a smooth, controlled manner. This lets the suspension of the vehicle do its work and control the lateral acceleration and deceleration of the vehicle.
I'm sure a physics major can put this into a more scientific perspective.:)
Very nice. Not to mention the fact that real geeks like to have lots of toys to accomplish all their tasks...
I have a phone that I use as... a phone. Sure, it can do calendar, contacts, all kinds of organizer functions, but I use it as a phone. I have an iPod that I use to *gasp* play music. I have a PDA that I use as an organizer. I have a watch that I use to tell time. I have a GBA that I use to play games. I have all these neat little toys, and I LIKE it that way.
I don't want one device that does it all. Not because it's not good... I'm sure the NGAGE^H^H^H^H^H PSP is good at what it does, but I want multiple devices because he who dies with the most toys wins... at least that's how it works for geeks.
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Can someone please cite the key features that make TiVo so much better than the Comcast offering? I currently use a Motorola 6412 that I lease from Comcast and I am nothing if not pleased with it. All the features work beautifully and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything (once I programmed 30 second skip into the remote, that is). If I had to complain about anything it would be the recording capacity since it is only 120GB. All hackability and use of open-source software aside, what *user-level* features does TiVo have that the Motorola 6412 or 6208 boxen not have? What am I missing out on?
Slashdot in the shower! Geocaching in a lake!! PORN IN THE BATHTUB!!!
Yes, since flash is such a bloody excellent tool for the Blind, much like Compact Discs and MP3's are oh-so-useful for the Profoundly Deaf.
Unfortunately, the recourse that this disability activist chose was not a valid one, but I think all companies should be held accountable for making their products and services as accessible to the disabled as possible.
My girlfriend and I get to see one new movie a week, IF the one theatre in the entire city of Dallas with closed-captioning is showing a movie we want to see. The MoPix unit they use costs very little to install, per theatre, but there is only ONE theatre in the entire city, FOUR in the entire STATE!!!
The people at Odeon should be taken to task for not making their site accessible, but the guy that made the copy should also be taken to task for being stupid and violating copyright law.
There are lots of things like this that RFID would be good for... imagine being able to tell the position of you golf ball without having to go looking around for it, or a way to go to a driving range with your OWN balls and get them all back at the end of the day...
Bowling alleys do their get a strike when the head (#1) pin is a different color... they could use RFID so they can accurately track it and set off some reminder so the person knows to collect on their free game and so people don't try to scam the bowling alley out of free games.
Places that rent equipment could actually use decent stuff without having to worry about it walking out. Since the tag is embedded, people wouldn't be able to just yank it off without destroying the intrinsic value of the piece of equipment itself. And the rental place could do an inventory with just a quick wave of a sensor through their shelves. Imagine an ice rink system where blade sharpenings are tracked by RFID and they can go at a moment's notice and pick up any skates that have not had their blades sharpened in 15 days and sharpen them, scan them, and put them back on the shelf. Then, if someone brought back a pair that they said were dull, the counter-biscuit could use a computer to find the theoretically sharpest pair available in a given size.
Slot car racing could be tracked more closely to determine a real winner. Set the RFID in the same relative location in each car (front bumper?) and then track when it crosses a certain point... It should be very easy with simple triangulation. Using that same technology, you could record the entire race and then play it back using a renderer to let racers watch their driving from a cockpit view!
Hell, any sport where tracking the location of an object would be valuable would benefit. Ping pong, shuffleboard (the table-top variety), air hockey... You can make sure people aren't cheating and verify the actions that take place down to the nanometer if you configure your sensors accurately enough.
I'm sure there are other great uses for RFID tags.. prisons. I'd sure love it if they could put an RFID tag in every inbound prisoner and deactivate it permanently when the prisoner leaves. They could know, at a moment's notice, if a prisoner was somewhere they weren't supposed to be. Pets are already implanted with RFID tags to positively identify them if they are found. Military personnel could be implanted with RFID tags and any heat signature that did not correspond with an appropriate RFID signature could be immediately investigated for trespassers/spies... of course, it would have to be deactivated once active service had been terminated...
Think of all the positive uses. RFID is not an EVIL technology. It has some evil applications, tracking purchasing habits, etc... but saying that it is evil in and of itself is about as intelligent as saying that guns are evil.
Seriously? Could this explain the retarded method of communication (OMG, LOL!!!!11) that we see coming out of these Evercrack babies that are spending massive amounts of time in front of these apparently brain damaging machines?
Kids need to get out and get some friggin' sunshine.
As for driving in ways that are prone to rollover; if you drive at highway speeds, you are prone to rollover if you have to avoid any sudden obstacle. Unless you're planning to avoid driving over say, 35 miles an hour, there's not a shitload you can do to actively avoid rollovers other than drive with reasonable caution.
:)
Let's take a moment to understand the physics of what happens when you swerve. I own two vehicles, a 2003 Dodge Ram Quad Cab (very long wheelbase, low tendency to roll) and a 1995 Jeep Wrangler with 5 inches of lift and 33" tires (well, not at the moment, it's going through the change to be even bigger, but that was its configuration the last time I drove it). I learned something in the Jeep that should apply to ALL vehicles.
In most swerve maneuvers (there are, of course, exceptions), it is not the initial swerve that causes the rollover, it is the following course correction. Think about how you swerve. You jerk the wheel one way and then you jerk it the other way so you can continue moving in a straight line. It's that second jerk that puts the vehicle in peril of rollover (particularly sharp turns notwithstanding. Anyone who drives a topheavy vehicle should know better than to make a 45 degree or sharper turn at 55 mph). The first jerk does tend to cause the vehicle to lean, but it is the rebound that is caused by the second jerk that causes the rollover. The first jerk has the momentum of the pull that is partially cancelled out by the springs. However, when you course-correct with that second jerk, the springs are doing that too, so you combine the force of the springs with the force of your pull on the wheel, and POP! you're going over. The simple solution (one that has worked many many many many times in my tall, SWB Jeep) is to perform the course correction in a smooth, controlled manner. This lets the suspension of the vehicle do its work and control the lateral acceleration and deceleration of the vehicle.
I'm sure a physics major can put this into a more scientific perspective.
Very nice. Not to mention the fact that real geeks like to have lots of toys to accomplish all their tasks...
I have a phone that I use as... a phone. Sure, it can do calendar, contacts, all kinds of organizer functions, but I use it as a phone. I have an iPod that I use to *gasp* play music. I have a PDA that I use as an organizer. I have a watch that I use to tell time. I have a GBA that I use to play games. I have all these neat little toys, and I LIKE it that way.
I don't want one device that does it all. Not because it's not good... I'm sure the NGAGE^H^H^H^H^H PSP is good at what it does, but I want multiple devices because he who dies with the most toys wins... at least that's how it works for geeks.