They mention satellite service in the article, but after (albeit briefly) browsing the German website I can't tell which services it is compatible with. I happen to use Dish PVR, I would love to move to an open source option!
This isn't a replacement for the Dish subscription. Dish is sorta-kinda DVB-compatible - you can use a DVB receiver to pull in some of the Dish Network channels, but only the channels that are unencrypted. Which means that you won't get the channels you're probably most interested in - this box will not get you free HBO or free PPV movies, for example.
And just to round out the picture, DirecTV's feeds are entirely incompatible with DVB, so you won't pull in any DTV channels.
Large US currency now contains a magnetic strip to authenticate its validity.
Two problems with this sentence. One, no, it doesn't. And it never has. Various proposals for such a thing have been floated from time to time, but US currency does not contain a magstripe in any way, shape or form. Perhaps you're thinking instead of the plastic security thread incorporated into new bills since 1990, which has the denomination printed on it. I'm not sure what you mean from your post, but I assure you, removing that thread is far more trouble than it's worth - even if you removed the strip from a $20 bill, you'd wreck the bill in the process, and then you have a thread that you can't do anything with to boot.
One thing most people don't know, though, is that under a suitable UV light, that plastic thread glows different colors, depending on the denomination of the bill. Try it sometime - it's pretty cool;)
And the second problem is with this notion of "large currency". The largest denomination that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing currently produces is the $100 bill. Denominations of $500 and up haven't been issued since 1969, and haven't actually been printed since 1945 - which predates the use of magnetic stripes by a fairly wide margin, I think.
Since this says it interacts with the air, wouldn't the resourceful hacker just setup his environment in a vacuum chamber? If he really wanted to crack the disc without it "expiring"?
Gonna need some fancy cooling in the absence of any air for your system's fans to move around. Maybe this is the first practical use for those liquid-nitrogen overclocked systems;)
That's right - you're paying for the install, it's not "free". The programming cost and equipment cost rolls up whatever amount of money the company pays out to the installers.
Well, yeah. I don't know about Dish, but the fine print for the DTV installation deal says as much - you don't pay up front for the installation, but you agree to a one year commitment to the Total Choice package, and if you cancel service or are disconnected for non-payment before the end of the year, you have to pay a prorated installation fee ($200, IIRC).
It's just another version of a loss-leader - they've been selling the decoder boxes the same way for years now. It's really no different than a game company selling the system at a loss and making it up on game sales.
And it's not a bad deal for most people - aiming the dish can be a real hassle sometimes, and in exchange for a service I was going to buy anyway, I get to avoid hanging my ass out in the breeze for an hour while listening to the TV beep, in favor of a guy coming out who has a signal meter and can aim the dish in 2 minutes flat.
Besides, nothing is forcing you to take advantage of the installation deal - if you're so inclined, you can always DIY...
And how old were you when your parents unchained you from the toilet and released you on an unsuspecting world?
Re:Licensing: licensed VHS to pretty much anyone
on
Sony Kills Betamax
·
· Score: 2
You could not get pornography on Betamax because of the licensing.
Not true. I have a friend who inherited a couple of Beta decks from his brother-in-law a few years ago, along with a few hundred tapes, both prerecorded and home-recorded. And three or four of the prerecorded tapes are extremely shitty early/mid-80's vintage porn titles - I have no idea how common or popular it was, but porn on Beta did exist;)
Let's get one thing straight here... morally Verisign is completely in the clear, and this joker hiding in Mexico is completely to blame. Verisign received a forged letter, which they acted upon. They had no intent to harm the legitimate owner.
I don't think so. The problem here is one of negligence on the part of Verisign, and morally they are very much responsible for the harm that was cased to the rightful owner of sex.com.
Lack of intent doesn't let you off the hook, morally or legally, when we're talking about negligence. Consider this: Suppose I hop into my car knowing full well that the brakes are in dangerously poor condition. And sure enough, they fail as I'm driving, and I slide into a schoolbus and kill the entire load of children.
So, do I get a "get out of jail free" card? After all, I never intended to hurt anyone - I just wanted to drive to the grocery store, right?
Well, of course not. Of course I'm responsible, both legally and morally. My negligence in not acting to avoid an entirely foreseeable and preventable consequence has caused harm to someone else, and I am liable both legally and morally.
And by the same token, Verisign's negligence in not taking simple steps to verify that the transfer request was, in fact, legitimate, makes them partly responsible for the harm to this man, whether they intended to harm him or not...
Sadly, you're arguing what used to be common sense, even here on/. Unfortunately, it's become all too uncommon these days, and I suspect that your karma will pay the price for daring to think for yourself, and (horrors) posting an opinion that runs contrary to the received wisdom.
Nevertheless, yeoman's work on this thread, sir - I salute you. Too bad I have no mod points:^)
Nah, his numbers aren't bad, so much as misapplied - as I pointed out, I was talking about per capita numbers, and he posted total production numbers. Assuming the CIA's numbers are reasonable, and I have no particular reason to doubt them, China's total agricultural GDP is about $675 billion (15% of $4.5 trillion), and the US's about $199 billion (2% of $9.96 trillion). This makes sense, since China has 4 times the population to feed that the US does.
But we can see that China is not as efficient at agricultural production as the US is - based on population, China should have an agricultural GDP of 4 times the US if it were as efficient as the US, with a comparable percentage of the labor force in agriculture in both countries. But China is much less efficient - not only is its agricultural GDP only 3.3 times larger than the US, but China has approximately 50% of its labor force in agriculture, whereas the US has about 2.5% of the labor force in agriculture.
So, his numbers are fine, and you're still right - the US is far more efficient than China at agricultural production. We produce a third of what they do with only about 3.5 million workers in agriculture (2.5% of a labor force of 140 million), and they produce what they do with about 350 million workers (50% of a labor force of 700 million). It takes them literally ten times as many workers to produce three times the agricultural goods that we do. In terms of per-worker agricultural output, the Chinese don't even come close.
Yes, he's an idiot, and probably a criminal, but that doesn't mean he deserves to be raped.
Maybe, but let's start with personal responsibility here. If you have someone who obviously refuses to take even minimal steps to save his own ass from the pokey(!), why shouldn't he be abused for his obviously self-destructive tendencies? I tend to think he's going to deserve exactly what he gets, in the same way that someone who pours a gallon of gas on themselves and then starts striking matches deserves exactly what they're going to get - the consequences of both sets of actions are entirely foreseeable.
In the case of this ass-clown, the consequences that he is increasingly likely to suffer were previously either wholly avoidable, or at least could have been lessened. Instead, he is going out of his way to worsen them. Since most of us don't care to take on the task of saving all the world's morons from themselves, I think the tendency to note natural selection in action is a reasonable one...
Partly it's what Brian said above, and I think it's partly because the service sector in this country consumes physical resources as well. The banking, telecommunications, insurance, and computer industries are all reliant on large amounts of extremely cheap energy to power them - those guys spend all day on the phone and the internet, neither of which are solar-powered;)
But because GDP only measures the market value of final goods, and not the value of intermediate goods, much of the electricity consumed by the service sector doesn't count towards the GDP. If that makes sense - it still has to be produced, because it's used to make other things, but because it is used to make other things, it doesn't count towards GDP. So you have electricity generated that produces some pollution, but contributes nothing towards the GDP, because it isn't a final product in and of itself. And the net effect of all that is to skew the pollution per unit GDP upward by having some pollution produced that doesn't directly add to the bottom line. It does add to it indirectly, of course - this is just an artifact of how we calculate GDP as much as anything else.
I also suspect that the CIA has dumped "transportation" industries (trucking, railway, airlines) into the service sector as well. As the US has a mature and well-developed transport system, it shouldn't surprise us that much of the non-industrial pollution comes from there as well.
Aha, and how much of the worlds population lives in the US??
About 5%. So what?
Where's the point here?
I would have thought that the point was blindingly, glaringly obvious. If I make 25% of the world's pizzas, it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that I consume 25% of the world's pizza dough and sauce. And it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone if I also produce 25% of the world's pizza-making emissions, don't you think?
And if Nick, Jim and Tony come together to make 10% of the world's pizzas amongst themselves, it still shouldn't be a surprise that I consume more than they do, and produce more waste than they do - I make more pizzas than they do, even though there are three of them and only one of me. Get it?
a) it isn't true. China has a GDP of 4.5 trillion, the US 10 trillion.
Keep reading those CIA pages. If I am to be lectured about "per capita pollution", then I reserve the right to compare per capita GDP, as I have done. And the per capita GDP of the US is...ten times larger than that of China. See, apples to apples, my friend.
I am a vocal critic of abuses of state power, engage in minor civil disobedience myself (I used a deCSS-derived program to watch DVDs that I bought on a GNU/Linux computer because I neither want to spend the money on Windows? nor trust it to be spyware-free)
And if that doesn't bring down the system, nothing will, dammit. Go, free radical, go!;)
I know I'm just begging for trouble, but are you going to do this on every thread? It was funny the first few times, and hell, it's still funnier that "Thicke of the Night" ever was (what the hell were you thinking?), but still....
Of course it's meaningful. Why on earth would you expect that the US wouldn't produce more total pollution than other countries when it also produces far more total wealth than other countries?
Of course the US produces about 25% of the world's pollution (and consumes about 25% of the world's resources, BTW) - that's exactly what you should expect when you realize that the US makes about 25% of the world's stuff. How else would you have it be?
Fact is, the US is the world's biggest polluter and energy waster by a LARGE margin.
False. Try looking at per capita CO2 emissions per unit GDP - i.e., how much pollution is produced per unit of stuff created, which is a good measure of efficiency and waste. The US is not the worst offender, by far.
I'd tell you which countries are worse, but that would spoil the joy of discovery for you when you go and look it up for yourself. So, try to guess which countries are worse, and just how much worse they are, and then go look it up.
But the US outputs eight times the CO2 per capita versus China.
Yeah, that sounds bad, until you realize that the per capita GDP of the US is ten times the per capita GDP of China. So if we produce ten times more stuff, but only eight times as much CO2, it really sounds to me like we are remarkably efficient when compared to the Chinese.
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't a replacement for the Dish subscription. Dish is sorta-kinda DVB-compatible - you can use a DVB receiver to pull in some of the Dish Network channels, but only the channels that are unencrypted. Which means that you won't get the channels you're probably most interested in - this box will not get you free HBO or free PPV movies, for example.
And just to round out the picture, DirecTV's feeds are entirely incompatible with DVB, so you won't pull in any DTV channels.
Two problems with this sentence. One, no, it doesn't. And it never has. Various proposals for such a thing have been floated from time to time, but US currency does not contain a magstripe in any way, shape or form. Perhaps you're thinking instead of the plastic security thread incorporated into new bills since 1990, which has the denomination printed on it. I'm not sure what you mean from your post, but I assure you, removing that thread is far more trouble than it's worth - even if you removed the strip from a $20 bill, you'd wreck the bill in the process, and then you have a thread that you can't do anything with to boot.
One thing most people don't know, though, is that under a suitable UV light, that plastic thread glows different colors, depending on the denomination of the bill. Try it sometime - it's pretty cool ;)
And the second problem is with this notion of "large currency". The largest denomination that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing currently produces is the $100 bill. Denominations of $500 and up haven't been issued since 1969, and haven't actually been printed since 1945 - which predates the use of magnetic stripes by a fairly wide margin, I think.
Gonna need some fancy cooling in the absence of any air for your system's fans to move around. Maybe this is the first practical use for those liquid-nitrogen overclocked systems ;)
The people of North Carolina were obviously not prepared to elect a guy named "Foreskin"....
Well, yeah. I don't know about Dish, but the fine print for the DTV installation deal says as much - you don't pay up front for the installation, but you agree to a one year commitment to the Total Choice package, and if you cancel service or are disconnected for non-payment before the end of the year, you have to pay a prorated installation fee ($200, IIRC).
It's just another version of a loss-leader - they've been selling the decoder boxes the same way for years now. It's really no different than a game company selling the system at a loss and making it up on game sales.
And it's not a bad deal for most people - aiming the dish can be a real hassle sometimes, and in exchange for a service I was going to buy anyway, I get to avoid hanging my ass out in the breeze for an hour while listening to the TV beep, in favor of a guy coming out who has a signal meter and can aim the dish in 2 minutes flat.
Besides, nothing is forcing you to take advantage of the installation deal - if you're so inclined, you can always DIY...
And how old were you when your parents unchained you from the toilet and released you on an unsuspecting world?
Not true. I have a friend who inherited a couple of Beta decks from his brother-in-law a few years ago, along with a few hundred tapes, both prerecorded and home-recorded. And three or four of the prerecorded tapes are extremely shitty early/mid-80's vintage porn titles - I have no idea how common or popular it was, but porn on Beta did exist ;)
I don't think so. The problem here is one of negligence on the part of Verisign, and morally they are very much responsible for the harm that was cased to the rightful owner of sex.com.
Lack of intent doesn't let you off the hook, morally or legally, when we're talking about negligence. Consider this: Suppose I hop into my car knowing full well that the brakes are in dangerously poor condition. And sure enough, they fail as I'm driving, and I slide into a schoolbus and kill the entire load of children.
So, do I get a "get out of jail free" card? After all, I never intended to hurt anyone - I just wanted to drive to the grocery store, right?
Well, of course not. Of course I'm responsible, both legally and morally. My negligence in not acting to avoid an entirely foreseeable and preventable consequence has caused harm to someone else, and I am liable both legally and morally.
And by the same token, Verisign's negligence in not taking simple steps to verify that the transfer request was, in fact, legitimate, makes them partly responsible for the harm to this man, whether they intended to harm him or not...
Nevertheless, yeoman's work on this thread, sir - I salute you. Too bad I have no mod points :^)
Whoa there - don't get too far out on that limb, cowboy...
Sorry, just struck me as funny ;)
Skipjack, eh? Is this the RH version with password escrow, then? ;)
I'd personally be rather wary of drawing conclusions about public sentiment based on the Slashdot moderation system. ;)
But we can see that China is not as efficient at agricultural production as the US is - based on population, China should have an agricultural GDP of 4 times the US if it were as efficient as the US, with a comparable percentage of the labor force in agriculture in both countries. But China is much less efficient - not only is its agricultural GDP only 3.3 times larger than the US, but China has approximately 50% of its labor force in agriculture, whereas the US has about 2.5% of the labor force in agriculture.
So, his numbers are fine, and you're still right - the US is far more efficient than China at agricultural production. We produce a third of what they do with only about 3.5 million workers in agriculture (2.5% of a labor force of 140 million), and they produce what they do with about 350 million workers (50% of a labor force of 700 million). It takes them literally ten times as many workers to produce three times the agricultural goods that we do. In terms of per-worker agricultural output, the Chinese don't even come close.
Maybe, but let's start with personal responsibility here. If you have someone who obviously refuses to take even minimal steps to save his own ass from the pokey(!), why shouldn't he be abused for his obviously self-destructive tendencies? I tend to think he's going to deserve exactly what he gets, in the same way that someone who pours a gallon of gas on themselves and then starts striking matches deserves exactly what they're going to get - the consequences of both sets of actions are entirely foreseeable.
In the case of this ass-clown, the consequences that he is increasingly likely to suffer were previously either wholly avoidable, or at least could have been lessened. Instead, he is going out of his way to worsen them. Since most of us don't care to take on the task of saving all the world's morons from themselves, I think the tendency to note natural selection in action is a reasonable one...
But because GDP only measures the market value of final goods, and not the value of intermediate goods, much of the electricity consumed by the service sector doesn't count towards the GDP. If that makes sense - it still has to be produced, because it's used to make other things, but because it is used to make other things, it doesn't count towards GDP. So you have electricity generated that produces some pollution, but contributes nothing towards the GDP, because it isn't a final product in and of itself. And the net effect of all that is to skew the pollution per unit GDP upward by having some pollution produced that doesn't directly add to the bottom line. It does add to it indirectly, of course - this is just an artifact of how we calculate GDP as much as anything else.
I also suspect that the CIA has dumped "transportation" industries (trucking, railway, airlines) into the service sector as well. As the US has a mature and well-developed transport system, it shouldn't surprise us that much of the non-industrial pollution comes from there as well.
About 5%. So what?
Where's the point here?
I would have thought that the point was blindingly, glaringly obvious. If I make 25% of the world's pizzas, it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that I consume 25% of the world's pizza dough and sauce. And it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone if I also produce 25% of the world's pizza-making emissions, don't you think?
And if Nick, Jim and Tony come together to make 10% of the world's pizzas amongst themselves, it still shouldn't be a surprise that I consume more than they do, and produce more waste than they do - I make more pizzas than they do, even though there are three of them and only one of me. Get it?
Keep reading those CIA pages. If I am to be lectured about "per capita pollution", then I reserve the right to compare per capita GDP, as I have done. And the per capita GDP of the US is...ten times larger than that of China. See, apples to apples, my friend.
And if that doesn't bring down the system, nothing will, dammit. Go, free radical, go! ;)
I know I'm just begging for trouble, but are you going to do this on every thread? It was funny the first few times, and hell, it's still funnier that "Thicke of the Night" ever was (what the hell were you thinking?), but still....
Of course the US produces about 25% of the world's pollution (and consumes about 25% of the world's resources, BTW) - that's exactly what you should expect when you realize that the US makes about 25% of the world's stuff. How else would you have it be?
False. Try looking at per capita CO2 emissions per unit GDP - i.e., how much pollution is produced per unit of stuff created, which is a good measure of efficiency and waste. The US is not the worst offender, by far.
I'd tell you which countries are worse, but that would spoil the joy of discovery for you when you go and look it up for yourself. So, try to guess which countries are worse, and just how much worse they are, and then go look it up.
Yeah, that sounds bad, until you realize that the per capita GDP of the US is ten times the per capita GDP of China. So if we produce ten times more stuff, but only eight times as much CO2, it really sounds to me like we are remarkably efficient when compared to the Chinese.
John Daly's massive clearinghouse, Still Waiting for Greenhouse
An article by MIT meteorology professor Richard Lindzen.
There's lots more, but others might want to play.
I'll do a version of the "Imperial March" that'll kick Metallica's ass...
Nah. Rambus has exactly three divisions - the research department, the licensing department, and the extortion...err, legal department... ;)