No, but it will prevent trial lawyers from shopping around to find the most incompetent/biased judge to hear their case. Federal judges subscribe to a much higher standard and the new legislation will ensure a more uniform application of the law.
Federal judges are appointed by Presidents and have to be confirmed by the Senate. They are usually of a very high quality. State judges, by comparison, are not usually as highly regarded. Many of them are political appointees or popular electees - not subject to the same level of peer approval required for federal judges.
Look, I'm not arguing that the cable DVR is a better product in the long run. All I'm saying is that Tivo is dying because the cable guys are offering a better product that costs less TODAY. Tivo needs to compete with their offering or it will die.
This doesn't work on the MS DVR boxes that are currently being tried out in Washington. The MSTV infrastructure supports skip, but Comcast made them take out the functionality from the software. It's only a matter of time before Comcast gets the iGuide software to do the same.
$99 is expensive compared to FREE. $13/month is expensive compared to $9.99 a month.
I don't watch American Idol so I can't tell you whether you can fast forward through it, but what I can tell you is that for FREE + $9.99/month, I get a dual-tuner HD DVR box. How much would the same cost with Tivo?
Regardless, the point remains that what's killing Tivo is not the RIAA/MPAA/advertisers/boogeyman, but the fact that their competition is beating them in their offering.
Tivo's problems have nothing to do with the RIAA/MPAA/advertisers. Tivo's problems have everything to do with the fact that cable companies are offering a better product at a cheaper price without requiring you to buy expensive equipment that might become obsolete soon.
Tivo was first to market with their solution but the competitors are now offering a better product (dual tuners, HD) for a lower price. Tivo is failing because it was not able to translate its market-mover advantage and brand recognition into being able to offer a consistently better or cheaper product. If Tivo was always a step ahead or cheaper than what the competitors were able to do, they'd still be successful. Unfortunately for them, their offering has stagnated while the cable companies have beaten them not only in features but also in price.
You're right and you're wrong
on
Can TiVo be Saved?
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· Score: 2, Informative
You're right in that On Demand pretty much sucks. There are hardly any programs that you would actually want to watch - unless if you have HBO, I guess. Also, the VCR-style buttons are very laggy and very annoying to use.
You're wrong in that On Demand is Comcast's answer to TiVO. DVR is Comcast's answer to TiVo. They don't advertise it yet, but if you call Comcast, they will have a DVR box installed in your home soon. For $9.99 a month you get a dual-tuner HD box with a 120GB HD. I've had it for about 2 months now and apart from the non-intuitive remote and the fact that Comcast won't implement or allow the 30-second skip, I haven't found a single thing to complain about with the box. You don't need to buy any expensive equipment and the subscription cost is loser than TiVo for what is a more capable box. That is what will kill TiVo.
Did I mention, it's HIGH Definition? I don't even have an HDTV but the HD signals are so much better than the analog signals that I find myself not wanting to watch any shows on analog anymore.
I know you're trying to be farcical but no legislation is needed. Civil cases can continue against dead defendants and any judgements are awarded against their estate.
The RIAA chose to drop the case but they didn't have to.
This was a civil, not a criminal case. In the event that the RIAA had won the case, any judgement would have been awarded against the defendants estate. You don't need to be alive to be sued in civil court.
The RIAA didn't need to drop the case just because the defendant was dead.
However, this was mostly a PR case. The lawsuite was not filed with the purpose of recovering damages. The real reason they filed the case was as a PR suit to make an example of the person and with the person being dead, the only PR results would have been to make them look like bigger scum than they already do. That's why they withdrew the case.
I've tried a number of services and providers. The bottomline is that, when I'm calling India, AT&T is the only one that gives me any measure of quality and reliability. Using Sprint, MCI and a number of calling card based services, I've had to dial multiple times just to get through and when I have gotten through, the quality has been pretty pathetic - lag, echoes and sound quality.
AT&T gives me clear connections every time and I get through almost every time (I've had some trouble with them the last two weeks)
Onesuite is very cheap but I usually have to dial several times before I can get through if at all.
After I do make the connection, we usually just both get on MSN IM and complete the conversation there for free.
Well, you don't really know EXACTLY what's going on. However, ads are usually sold for shows. So instead of selling advertising time between 8pm and 9pm, they sell advertising for "Friends" which is on between 8pm and 9pm. The more popular shows invite more ads while the less popular ones, i.e. the ones users don't watch as much and therefore don't see the commercials on end up being less in demand. That's what the operators use to determine which shows to keep on and which to axe.
So if Comedy Central has a propensity to show South Park with a lot of expletives, it's possible that advertisers will shirk away because they are afraid of offending their potential customers by sponsoring such a show.
However, I don't think that's the biggest determinant in this case. My guess is this has more to do with the cable company and satellite company. If Comedy Central starts broadcasting expletives during "kids viewing hours", it's likely that cable and satellite subscribers will ask their provider to take Comedy Central off or some such.
I do know that Comedy Central shows uncensored and uncut movies after midnight so it probably has more to do with it being in prime time than anything else.
You have no idea what a TabletPC is, do you? Most TabletPC's out there are basically just laptops with the ability to flip the screen over and lay it flat to make a tablet. So there is nothing you can do with a regular laptop that you can't with a TabletPC.
My comment had nothing to do with which agency was doing the monitoring but everything to do with what was actually done.
I pointed out that it's possible to buy European made cheese in the US, for example - even though that cheese had not been pasteurized. I pointed out what specifically is restricted - which is very different from what you described in the grandparent.
And as for the quote you've referenced, it can be summarized as: The FDA can examine imported food that emits radiation. Wow, what a police state we live in!
The FDA regulates how food is made in the US. However, it does not regulate what food you bring in to the country. I've brought food in, many, many times without problems.
The USDA does regulate what you are bringing in to make sure you don't bring in any fruit or vegetable or basically any product that can be used as a seed. The situation they are trying to prevent is where you plant a weed that grows uncontrollably and destroys a significant amount of crops or other plant life.
You can sell European-made cheese in the US with no problems. That's the reason why OBGyn's tell pregnant women to ensure that any soft cheeses they eat were made in the US.
To make matters worse, they've convinced people here that "ultra-pasturized" means "better",
You mean like the Europeans have convinced their citizens that "Genetically Modified" foods will cause mutations in people who eat them?
The prevision for USA is an economy decline, loss of status regarding its position among all the countries
You don't understand Americans do you? Americans don't care what the rest of the world thinks about them - not because Americans think they are better than the rest of the world, but because they evaluate themselves based on what they themselves think, not based on what others think. Americans don't care to be better than every other country - they only care to be the best they can be.
The Dollar needs to go much lower than it is. With the dollar as high as it is now, imports are too cheap and our exports are too expensive. Our trade deficit is soaring. The dollar is currently propped up by massive buying by the Chinese government.
For the sake of our long term economic well-being, the US dollar needs to fall further. Sure, we won't be able to buy as many luxury BMWs as we used to but that will be because we really cannot afford them.
One of the biggest problems with the current tort system is the cost of the proceedings in and of themselves. In many, many cases, it is far more economical for the insurance company to settle out of court even when the plaintiff has no case.
A couple of true stories I have personal knowledge of: - A friend's girlfriend ate something that gave her food poisoning at a restaurant while traveling. On the flight back, she got violently ill and had to be admitted to a hospital. A few days later, the airline (I believe it was Northwest) called her and offered her $10,000 if she promised not to sue them. This, inspite of the fact that it was not their fault - she hadn't eaten anything on the plane. - A partner in my brother-in-laws real estate firm took a client (a lawyer) out to look at houses. While they were driving, they got into a minor fender bender. 6 months later, the lawyer sued the real estate agent complaining of neck pain - inspite of the fact that a month after the accident the lawyer had fallen in her boat and broken her neck. His insurance company decided not to contest and settled for $150,000.
In both cases, the "plaintiff" was awarded/offered a undeserved large sum of money for something that was not the "defendants" fault. The reason? In most cases the cost of fighting the suit would be more than the settlement offered.
The tort reform we need is expediting the process and costs of tort suits rather than limiting the damages.
Ermm.. I'm probably a lot older and definitely a lot smarter than you. Allawi is a puppet right now as he should be.
Saddam was a Soviet puppet and closely allied to France and China who provided him almost all his support. He was never a US ally except for a brief period when Iraq was losing the Iran-Iraq war where the US provided Iraq with only enough military aid to ensure that the war ended in a stalemate rather than Iran overruning Iraq.
But I suspect you're the kind of idiot who believes what he wants to rather than what the facts suggest.
Think of it. We have soldiers fighting iraqis so we can make them obey Allawi instead of somebody else. That does not seem right to me. If the people of sadr city don't want to be ruled by Allawi and instead want to follow Muqtada why should we care? Better yet why should we kill them just to make them obey allawi?
Finally everything I have read about Allawi seems to indicate that he a pretty brutal guy. Maybe not as bad as Saddam but definately has the makings of a mini Saddam.
Bullshit. Allawi is not some perpetual indefinite leader. He is the temporary leader of the interim government. He was appointed to lead the country towards elections. Once the elections are over, someone who actually represents the Iraqi people will take power. Saddam, without the power wouldn't be Saddam. What made him who he was was the fact that he had absolute power. Without the absolute power, any comparison between Allawi and Saddam is irrelevant.
The US soldiers fighting Al Sadr's militia were not fighting on the basis of some arbitrary whim of Allawi. Sadr was suspected of murder and refused to submit to arrest. His supporters launched an armed insurrection against government troops rather than allow their leader to be arrested. The goal of US soldiers there is to ensure the rule of law and to pave the way towards elections and democratic rule. Al Sadr and his militia became targets because they were roadblocks to both of these.
Shouldn't this be on the politics topic so my filter can catch and discard it since this whole article is just an attempt to draw out more circle-jerk anti-Diebold and anti-Republican comments?
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No, but it will prevent trial lawyers from shopping around to find the most incompetent/biased judge to hear their case. Federal judges subscribe to a much higher standard and the new legislation will ensure a more uniform application of the law.
Another US v/s Rest of the World flamebait thread.
Federal judges are appointed by Presidents and have to be confirmed by the Senate. They are usually of a very high quality. State judges, by comparison, are not usually as highly regarded. Many of them are political appointees or popular electees - not subject to the same level of peer approval required for federal judges.
Look, I'm not arguing that the cable DVR is a better product in the long run. All I'm saying is that Tivo is dying because the cable guys are offering a better product that costs less TODAY. Tivo needs to compete with their offering or it will die.
This doesn't work on the MS DVR boxes that are currently being tried out in Washington. The MSTV infrastructure supports skip, but Comcast made them take out the functionality from the software. It's only a matter of time before Comcast gets the iGuide software to do the same.
$99 is expensive compared to FREE. $13/month is expensive compared to $9.99 a month.
I don't watch American Idol so I can't tell you whether you can fast forward through it, but what I can tell you is that for FREE + $9.99/month, I get a dual-tuner HD DVR box. How much would the same cost with Tivo?
Regardless, the point remains that what's killing Tivo is not the RIAA/MPAA/advertisers/boogeyman, but the fact that their competition is beating them in their offering.
Tivo's problems have nothing to do with the RIAA/MPAA/advertisers. Tivo's problems have everything to do with the fact that cable companies are offering a better product at a cheaper price without requiring you to buy expensive equipment that might become obsolete soon.
Tivo was first to market with their solution but the competitors are now offering a better product (dual tuners, HD) for a lower price. Tivo is failing because it was not able to translate its market-mover advantage and brand recognition into being able to offer a consistently better or cheaper product. If Tivo was always a step ahead or cheaper than what the competitors were able to do, they'd still be successful. Unfortunately for them, their offering has stagnated while the cable companies have beaten them not only in features but also in price.
You're right in that On Demand pretty much sucks. There are hardly any programs that you would actually want to watch - unless if you have HBO, I guess. Also, the VCR-style buttons are very laggy and very annoying to use.
You're wrong in that On Demand is Comcast's answer to TiVO. DVR is Comcast's answer to TiVo. They don't advertise it yet, but if you call Comcast, they will have a DVR box installed in your home soon. For $9.99 a month you get a dual-tuner HD box with a 120GB HD. I've had it for about 2 months now and apart from the non-intuitive remote and the fact that Comcast won't implement or allow the 30-second skip, I haven't found a single thing to complain about with the box. You don't need to buy any expensive equipment and the subscription cost is loser than TiVo for what is a more capable box. That is what will kill TiVo.
Did I mention, it's HIGH Definition? I don't even have an HDTV but the HD signals are so much better than the analog signals that I find myself not wanting to watch any shows on analog anymore.
I know you're trying to be farcical but no legislation is needed. Civil cases can continue against dead defendants and any judgements are awarded against their estate.
The RIAA chose to drop the case but they didn't have to.
This was a civil, not a criminal case. In the event that the RIAA had won the case, any judgement would have been awarded against the defendants estate. You don't need to be alive to be sued in civil court.
The RIAA didn't need to drop the case just because the defendant was dead.
However, this was mostly a PR case. The lawsuite was not filed with the purpose of recovering damages. The real reason they filed the case was as a PR suit to make an example of the person and with the person being dead, the only PR results would have been to make them look like bigger scum than they already do. That's why they withdrew the case.
I've tried a number of services and providers. The bottomline is that, when I'm calling India, AT&T is the only one that gives me any measure of quality and reliability. Using Sprint, MCI and a number of calling card based services, I've had to dial multiple times just to get through and when I have gotten through, the quality has been pretty pathetic - lag, echoes and sound quality.
AT&T gives me clear connections every time and I get through almost every time (I've had some trouble with them the last two weeks)
Onesuite is very cheap but I usually have to dial several times before I can get through if at all.
After I do make the connection, we usually just both get on MSN IM and complete the conversation there for free.
Well, you don't really know EXACTLY what's going on. However, ads are usually sold for shows. So instead of selling advertising time between 8pm and 9pm, they sell advertising for "Friends" which is on between 8pm and 9pm. The more popular shows invite more ads while the less popular ones, i.e. the ones users don't watch as much and therefore don't see the commercials on end up being less in demand. That's what the operators use to determine which shows to keep on and which to axe.
So if Comedy Central has a propensity to show South Park with a lot of expletives, it's possible that advertisers will shirk away because they are afraid of offending their potential customers by sponsoring such a show.
However, I don't think that's the biggest determinant in this case. My guess is this has more to do with the cable company and satellite company. If Comedy Central starts broadcasting expletives during "kids viewing hours", it's likely that cable and satellite subscribers will ask their provider to take Comedy Central off or some such.
I do know that Comedy Central shows uncensored and uncut movies after midnight so it probably has more to do with it being in prime time than anything else.
You have no idea what a TabletPC is, do you? Most TabletPC's out there are basically just laptops with the ability to flip the screen over and lay it flat to make a tablet. So there is nothing you can do with a regular laptop that you can't with a TabletPC.
My comment had nothing to do with which agency was doing the monitoring but everything to do with what was actually done.
I pointed out that it's possible to buy European made cheese in the US, for example - even though that cheese had not been pasteurized. I pointed out what specifically is restricted - which is very different from what you described in the grandparent.
And as for the quote you've referenced, it can be summarized as: The FDA can examine imported food that emits radiation. Wow, what a police state we live in!
Nice troll.
The FDA regulates how food is made in the US. However, it does not regulate what food you bring in to the country. I've brought food in, many, many times without problems.
The USDA does regulate what you are bringing in to make sure you don't bring in any fruit or vegetable or basically any product that can be used as a seed. The situation they are trying to prevent is where you plant a weed that grows uncontrollably and destroys a significant amount of crops or other plant life.
You can sell European-made cheese in the US with no problems. That's the reason why OBGyn's tell pregnant women to ensure that any soft cheeses they eat were made in the US.
To make matters worse, they've convinced people here that "ultra-pasturized" means "better",
You mean like the Europeans have convinced their citizens that "Genetically Modified" foods will cause mutations in people who eat them?
I suspect you're just trolling.
I think the fact that you seem to have confused "pro-Arab" with "anti-American" reveals your own personal bias.
The prevision for USA is an economy decline, loss of status regarding its position among all the countries
You don't understand Americans do you? Americans don't care what the rest of the world thinks about them - not because Americans think they are better than the rest of the world, but because they evaluate themselves based on what they themselves think, not based on what others think. Americans don't care to be better than every other country - they only care to be the best they can be.
The Dollar needs to go much lower than it is. With the dollar as high as it is now, imports are too cheap and our exports are too expensive. Our trade deficit is soaring. The dollar is currently propped up by massive buying by the Chinese government.
For the sake of our long term economic well-being, the US dollar needs to fall further. Sure, we won't be able to buy as many luxury BMWs as we used to but that will be because we really cannot afford them.
Actually, according to John Kerry, it was HIS idea to create the Department of Homeland Security and George Bush opposed it.
That completely aside from the fact that you're a moron and you seem have no idea what the Department of Homeland Security is or what it does.
The DHS does a lot more than fight terrorism.
One of the biggest problems with the current tort system is the cost of the proceedings in and of themselves. In many, many cases, it is far more economical for the insurance company to settle out of court even when the plaintiff has no case.
A couple of true stories I have personal knowledge of:
- A friend's girlfriend ate something that gave her food poisoning at a restaurant while traveling. On the flight back, she got violently ill and had to be admitted to a hospital. A few days later, the airline (I believe it was Northwest) called her and offered her $10,000 if she promised not to sue them. This, inspite of the fact that it was not their fault - she hadn't eaten anything on the plane.
- A partner in my brother-in-laws real estate firm took a client (a lawyer) out to look at houses. While they were driving, they got into a minor fender bender. 6 months later, the lawyer sued the real estate agent complaining of neck pain - inspite of the fact that a month after the accident the lawyer had fallen in her boat and broken her neck. His insurance company decided not to contest and settled for $150,000.
In both cases, the "plaintiff" was awarded/offered a undeserved large sum of money for something that was not the "defendants" fault. The reason? In most cases the cost of fighting the suit would be more than the settlement offered.
The tort reform we need is expediting the process and costs of tort suits rather than limiting the damages.
Ermm.. I'm probably a lot older and definitely a lot smarter than you. Allawi is a puppet right now as he should be.
Saddam was a Soviet puppet and closely allied to France and China who provided him almost all his support. He was never a US ally except for a brief period when Iraq was losing the Iran-Iraq war where the US provided Iraq with only enough military aid to ensure that the war ended in a stalemate rather than Iran overruning Iraq.
But I suspect you're the kind of idiot who believes what he wants to rather than what the facts suggest.
The charges on Al Sadr were trumped up in order to get rid of him. He survived because he has a huge following, we were unable to kill him.
Nope. Sadr murdered al Sistani's dad.
You'd probably like to believe that everyone who opposes America is a saint but that's not the case.
Think of it. We have soldiers fighting iraqis so we can make them obey Allawi instead of somebody else. That does not seem right to me. If the people of sadr city don't want to be ruled by Allawi and instead want to follow Muqtada why should we care? Better yet why should we kill them just to make them obey allawi?
Finally everything I have read about Allawi seems to indicate that he a pretty brutal guy. Maybe not as bad as Saddam but definately has the makings of a mini Saddam.
Bullshit. Allawi is not some perpetual indefinite leader. He is the temporary leader of the interim government. He was appointed to lead the country towards elections. Once the elections are over, someone who actually represents the Iraqi people will take power. Saddam, without the power wouldn't be Saddam. What made him who he was was the fact that he had absolute power. Without the absolute power, any comparison between Allawi and Saddam is irrelevant.
The US soldiers fighting Al Sadr's militia were not fighting on the basis of some arbitrary whim of Allawi. Sadr was suspected of murder and refused to submit to arrest. His supporters launched an armed insurrection against government troops rather than allow their leader to be arrested. The goal of US soldiers there is to ensure the rule of law and to pave the way towards elections and democratic rule. Al Sadr and his militia became targets because they were roadblocks to both of these.
Shouldn't this be on the politics topic so my filter can catch and discard it since this whole article is just an attempt to draw out more circle-jerk anti-Diebold and anti-Republican comments?
He's retiring. Maybe him and the fired employee are working together to sue the Department for wrongful termination?