I think the disc mechanimsm should be handled at a much lower lever than the user would ever touch. This "device" should appear as a single storage medium to the host OS, not as a collection of removable media.
The device should load a directory tree when new media is inserted, so that to the user it is a single "drive" of X capacity (varies depending on the amount on discs inside) that has the following contents. Accessing a directory would cause the device to insert the appropriate disc and send the information. There would be a lag, but no more so than the time it already takes Explorer to refresh when you pop in a new CD.
While the CD feeder is nice for backup, the economics of having a TB of storage for less than $1000 is appealing to me. I would rip every CD and DVD I own and put them all online for myself and my family to access. The originals would go into nice protective boxes in the nice cool. Every TV show I'm ever remotely interested in would be cached and available ondemand (Simpsons marathon night anyone?).
Robert X. Cringley once wrote about what he calls the 10x factor. He said that if a new technology comes out that is 10x better or 10x cheaper than existing capacity, people will stampede to it. The ZIP drive is a perfect example. Relatively inferior, notoriously fussy, bad software support, and ultimately irrelavant, people still stampeded to it because it was at least a 10x jump up from what was commonly available (floppies). When CD burners came out at a much higher price point, people stampeded to them as well.
With average hard drive capacities around 100GB and the largest commmon media around 5GB we are desperate for the next 10x leap. I think this type of device could be it...the other alternative I see is going back to laserdisc (12") size media that would have the capacity to hold probably somewhere around 100GB. One of the two needs to happen, I'm drowning in hard drives.
I think it's crappy the way they market it as a one of those CD servers that you can get from practically anywhere. It's not a CD server. The best CD server is a hard drive of CD images and either Daemon Tools or Nero DriveImage to simulate a hardware CD-ROM drive.
It's crash-free extremely slow online data storage. Perfect for a home media server, which is I believe where the concept first appeared (said Sony DVD/CD changer).
I don't know how durable or sturdy the mechanism is, but I'd imagine it is comparible to the home theater versions and those have no real trouble. The worst case is that a disc gets jammed and the carousel loses placement, in which case you have to dial it back to 0 and then let it reinitialize itself. Probably the newer ones can do an even better job.
My problem with the DVD Changer thing is they are targetting/limiting themselves to a corporate or business environment...one that is much more likely to go out and purchase a CD server or a tape drive. Since this PowerFile product is somewhere inbetween those two products, I can't see it being a top seller at all.
However, for a home media server and especially for the home user to backup large quantities of data that doesn't ever change, or changes very rarely, it is perfect. Why someone doesn't sell a carousel kit that you add your own drive and logic to is beyond me.
Check out PowerFile for a good large size long term backup option.
Pros:
* Gold CD-Rs have a shelf life of several decades so a PowerFile full of gold CD-Rs would give you 160GB of storage that would last longer than you live. I'm not sure what the shelf life of DVD-Rs are but if it's at least ten years, then you can have close to a terabyte of storage. * You can populate the slots as you need them. Start with 50 DVD-Rs and then add more when your data needs increase. * The data stays "online" so you can still access it (unlike with tape) so you can free up some hard drive space by moving stuff you access infrequently * If you use CD-RW or DVD-RW discs then you can perform an incremental backup and save some time
Cons:
* More expensive than they should be...a Sony 300 disc DVD/CD changer only costs $700 yet as soon as you connect anything to a computer it is suddenly a couple grand more * Slow, obviously since it has to spin to the correct disc to access it. However, for sequential operations like backing up (writing one disk after the next) it should work fine. * Software sucks...they actually have the gall to charge extra for the drivers that you access the drive over a network. I'm not sure exactly how but basically you can't change the disc over the network unless you pay extra
What I would dearly love to see is someone like Linksys make a cheapo version of this, but instead of designing it as a stupid fireware component, toss in their little linux flash computer and make it networkable from the start.
OR...maybe someone smart out there can figure out a way to make one of those home theater changers into an ATAPI device that I can wire in directly to my computer, or said linux flash computer.
Is anyone aware of anything close to these PowerFile things, only at a level that is more in line with what they actually are (just a DVD drive with a little robotics to insert and eject discs into a carosel).
The mythological 100GB per disc flouroptical storage medium? Was it all a scam? Did it get killed by patents? Did they run out of money?
You remember Constellation 3D right? You first heard about them in 1999...try searching google for "Constellation 3D" or "C3D" or "Eugene Levich" (the CEO). I see various articles about partnering with this or that, but nothing past 2001. And their website has been offline so long that google doesn't even have it cached.
So...whatever became of this? Is the concept sound? Can someone else resurrect it? Or was it just a lie like the guy who pretended to have the ultimate streaming video codec but in reality ran coax through the power cord?
First of all, change comes to the home builders market about ten years after the decision is first raised. It's only within the last couple years that home builders are defaulting to CAT-5 cable..maybe in a few years we'll have CAT-6e or whatever, but anyway...the point is that people have been telling these developers that they are idiots for giving away last-mile easement rights to the local monopolies.
These developers just assume that they HAVE to do it, or that no one will buy their homes without PacBell/AT&T service (insert your appropriate local monopoly here). This couldn't be further from the truth. One of the deciding factors in choosing where I lived was the availablility of CHOICE. Note I said choice, not alternate carriers.
What happens if you only have an alternative carrier who runs only fiber to the home, and then setups a boilerplate EULA with terms that you don't agree to? The monopolies have to get permission from the Public Utilities Commission before they change any of the long standing rules and regulations. And, in theory, if they tried to do something devious, like charging you extra for modem versus voice calls (which they tried) we can cry loudly to the PUC and get it defeated (which fortunately we did or the Internet might not have grown at the rate that it did).
The best thing a developer could do is lay smurf tubes all over the place and then leasing them to whatever provider is interested in setting up service. Then, fill one set of tubes with fiber infrastructer and lease that to whoever wants to provide service (be it data, video, VoIP, whatever) over that fiber. Free open access to whoever wants it. Heck, the local monopolies might even use one of their business-class subdivisions to provide those kinda of services to home level consumers for once. They might even do it at a price consumers can afford.
But the point is you need choice. Where I live, we have fiber to the home service. But the company went bankrupt and it now my fiber to the home service is being run by the company who purchased them. So far, nothing has changed, but I'm glad that just in case they decide to do somethign stupid...I can always come crawling back to the local monopolies because this development just happens to have wiring for both.
Er, the first purchase was for 1500 systems, the eventual rollout was 6000 systems, so in theory savings were much higher but I seriously doubt it would have gone unnoticed three or four years.
I agree. My first experience with Sigma Designs was consulting for a company and finding out they were purchasing MPEG-1 decoder cards for $200 a pop to play training videos.
This was in 1998. Well after software-based codecs were freely available (Microsoft shipped ActiveMovie with MPEG-1 playback support back when it released Internet Explorer 3.0 somewhere around 1995? 96?)
I did a demo for the deparment head showing two systems side-by-side, one with Signa's REALMagic card and their codec, and the other with Windows Media Player installed. Ironically, the guy picked the software based solution as the "higher quality" solution and said it was worth the extra $200.
Needless to say, when the labels were revealed, they immediately cancelled the pending order for 6000 REALMagic cards, a savings of $300,000.
Sigma Designs seems like a bunch of snakeoil salesmen to me.
How about that Knoppix distro or similar that run completely from CD (or loads from it anyway).
After user is done, reboot and next one gets a fresh clean install. Plus, no data kept, so nothing for "The Man" to subpoena, no privacy to invade/violate.
No, displaying the registrant info is not the primary reason for using whois. Displaying the domain's contact information is the primary reason for WHOIS. As I said earlier, the registrant info doesn't even DISPLAY in WHOIS for global domains, except on.info TLD.
Why isn't/shouldn't the registrant info be displayed? Because it is always out of date. The registrant fields cannot be changed. If your e-mail address or mailing address changes, you can't change the registrant fields. The only way to change it is to "transfer" the domain to yourself and pay an additional $35/whatever fee. ICANN's rules.
Now, all the other contact info, like Owner, Admin, Zone, Tech, Billing can be changed at any time. That is why these fields are the only contact info people should be using. That is why these fields should be the only ones visible.
And regarding billing info, so what BS are you proposing? Only corporations are allowed to own domains? Any private citizen who doesn't feel like putting their home information on a publically accessible database is unworthy to own a domain? As I said earlier, why does anyone even need to talk to the billing contact when the person with authority over the domain is the owner or the admin? And if billing info is key to accountability, why do ICANN rules say not to display it?
Absolutely not. In fact, it's against ICANN's standards for registrars. There was a lot of abuse of billing information back in the early days specifically because people paid with credit cards and had to provide their personal info for the card charge to work. People balked big time at having that kind of information out there.
The only people who need to know the billing info for a domain is the registrar. They need to charge the billing contact. The general public has no need to know who pays for a domain. If you have a tech question/problem, you contact the zone contact or the tech contact. If you have a domain dispute or copyright complaint, you can contact the owner or the admin. No one need to contact the billing contact except the registrar who gets paid by them and they can easily keep that information in a separate database for themselves.
Can anyone explain to me why the WHOIS for Affilias is all screwed up?
A) It's in some funky delimited format that doesn't work for any existing WHOIS parser. I tried adding an.info domain to my CPanel and it couldn't find the nameserver IP buried in all that mess.
B) It displays the registrant info. Nobody needs to know who the registrant is. Nine times out of ten it's some employee that either no longer even works for the company or has no authority to make domain decisions.
C) It displays the billing info. This means your home address if you happen to use a credit card to pay for the domain. Luckily some registrars will substitute their own info for your personal billing info but even then this seems sloppy.
Can someone fill me in on why Affilias can't even seem to get something as trivial as a WHOIS done correctly? And these people want to run.org too?
Oh please. This is been non-news for anyone who bothered to check out FOX's lineup for the coming Fall season:
http://www.fox.com/schedule/schedule_2002.htm
BUT! You'll notice Family Guy is conspicuously absent from that lineup. And they didn't even bother to leave us with a finale! Just sort of vanished halfway through last spring.
The fact is that 99% of the PC customers will want a microsoft OS
Hey buddy, are you sure about this?
I mean...I'm only using Windows because it came free with my computer. Just WHAT IF all computer makers out there sold their PCs as is, with no fluff and preloaded software and OS?
What if JoeConsumer (no relation) walked into a store and saw the retail price for XP? What if it was sitting there right next to Lindows which was 1/3 the price? What if the screenshots looks the same, the feature list looked the same, and hey look, the Lindows one comes with free Office-type software! It's $599 for the Microsoft version!
Granted, a large portion of people want to play games, and well they might need a Microsoft OS, or not, it depends on the game. Granted, a large portion of the people know how to use Windows and want to keep it.
But who is to say that if consumers didn't just automatically get the Microsoft OS for "free" when they bought a computer...they wouldn't want to try something a little more reasonable?
I made no bones about "piggy-backing" on this effort. I believe there are substantial uses for a single repository point for all creative works. I even mention that libraries and schools should be next in line for access.
My point is that we have absolutely zeo chance of getting this without a "poster child" to rally the cause. The media companies themselves can't even create such a system (witness the Pressplay/MusicNet/Napster mess). However, once the system is created, then suddenly it will dawn on the media companies they can charge for access and make a killing (which is historically what has happened for EVERY NEW TECHNOLOGY).
Oh, and what if this spawns several related technologies that revives the demand for telecommunications? Am I supposed to feel guilty if my stocks go up or I get a better job?
Maybe you forgot why we, the society, give TV and radio stations their free bandwidth and demand unencrypted over-the-air access.
You know, reading this plea made me stop and think about something. I'd like to take a moment and throw this out there.
When I read about people who are pretty much trapped in their bodies because of severe illnesses, I wonder what joys they have in their lives. I have a relative with MD and a good friend with MS. For both of them, a good portion of their life is spent with media. Watching TV, watching movies, reading books (although it is difficult unless there is a way to turn pages).
Which brings me to my point/question...why don't these people have simple and easy access to media? Doesn't their life seem filled with enough hardship? Shouldn't we as a society do something for them? If all they have left in their live is audio/visual stimulation, why can't they be free to enjoy it?
We, the society, give copyrights. So why can't we, the society, grant people like this a free pass to copyrighted works. What I'm saying is, why can't people who are unlucky enough to be born/develop these illnesses be given access to a society-sponsored "Universal Jukebox".
Is it really fair to ask these people to pay full price for works the same way people who can earn a wage and will be around 40-50 years to get a sufficient return on their payment? Is it really fair to ask these people to burden themselves or family with constant errands to get new media? Most likely, these people have their hands full with the daily care of the individuals.
At the same time, the creation of a giant Universal Jukebox would be a the ultimate glove to throw down in front of the media companies. How could they possibly protest? On what grounds could they possibly resist this cause?
I think that some Senator or Congressman should propose a law offering anyone "sufficiently incapable of supporting themselves" just this. And I think the law should provide for the infrastructure to build such a Universal Jukebox. We could start with the Library of Congress. Once the Universal Jukebox is there, we can then talk about what else we can do with it (expand this to include schools, libraries for starters).
My first thought would be a whistle attached to a standard orthodontics face-brace. She could talk or breath as normal, or pucker her lips and blow through a whistle located at the corner of her mouth.
Or how about two wires close together that she can touch with the tip of her tongue to close the circuit and sound a buzzer? Or similar but with a light-sensitive sensor.
Sometimes the best story telling isn't about what you say or show, it's about what you DON'T say or show. It lets the viewer's imagination get a workout.
Yes! This is so true. Best example I can think of is "Life is Beautiful" where the guy follows the girl into the greenhouse and then a few moments later a child walks out.
Now, every adult knows what happened is probably hot sweaty sex followed by conception and a hasty wedding so the birthdate works out. But that is a scene you can have a five year old watch and with a straight face tell them they had a "long talk", got married and had a child.
Even though I don't think "Life is Beautiful" is the greatest movie I've ever seen, a lesser director would have shown hot and heavy making out, possibly nudity, maybe even writhing. Which is completely unnecessary in the context of the message that film is trying to present (ironically, also about the Holocaust).
Moment of brutal honesty here, but kids are so starved for sexual input that when their parents aren't around they will dig through the video library, find that 0.2 second breast flash and rewind and watch it over and over again to fuel their sexual fantasy. Not your kids, I'm sure. They never masturbate either, right?
But I have a problem with sticking a sexually gratiuitous moment like that in the middle of a serious and somber drama about the Holocaust. Gee, Speilburg, I'm sure the Germans had orgies, why not go all out and show those?
Yes, I know parents (particularly in the US) are in hardcore denial about their children's sexuality. That's sad, but what about the opposite extreme, like in the 70s when families were making home porno films of their prepubescent kids having sex and then selling them/trading them?
There are very few appropriate sexual outlets for children. I don't think Schindler's List is one of them. If I wanted to deal with my children's sexualty, I would get them a library card and turn them loose in the Physiology or whatever section has books on the subject. Sure, Masters & Johnson has some pretty explicit stuff in it...but these books with the subject in a much more tactful and informative manner. They aren't written to be gratuitous.
Oh please, you call this hypocritical and you don't even understand the difference between the action and the message.
There is a big, big difference in the intent of scenes that depict horrible acts of cruelty and the scene I am talking about. This may be difficult for you to understand but there is even a big, big difference in the intent of other scenes that depict full frontal nudity.
When the soldiers shoot the old one-armed man, that is a horrible act. It is shocking. I don't think young children should see that scene. But then, I don't think young children need to even know about the Holocaust so they can enjoy their damn childhood.
But when they get into junior high school and/or high school and start studying World War II, I think Schindler's List is appropriate and the scene where the old-man is shot, for all it's horror, is not gratuitous. I'm sure it happened all the time. The part where the German officer is shooting randomly at Jews is also not gratuitous. The part where hundreds of people are running around naked is not gratuitous. That's how the inspections happened, and I don't see any problem with my kids seeing that. It's not a sexual message, it's the horrible truth.
But why the behind-the-scenes look at the German officer's sex life? Why do we care that he has a hot topless mistress? What is the point of that? There is none. You know how I know that? Back in 1996 or 1997, they showed Shindler's List on television for the first time, commercial free (sponsored by Chevy maybe?) and almost completely uneditted. You know the only edit they made to that film? A floating fuzz-spot to obscure the nipple of the girl in the scene I am describing. Spielburg himself gave a speach before the airing of the movie talking about the importance of showing the whole truth and horror of the Holocaust. So then why this edit? Because I think that the network (NBC I think?) and Speilburg knew that this scene was gratuitous and had nothing to do with the Holocaust.
Later in the movie, the same German officer (I am too lazy to look up his name, forgive me) confronts the Jewish servant girl in a scene that has a lot of wet-shirts and sexual elements. I don't think it's hypocritical that this scene also doesn't bother me. I'm pretty sure there were a lot of German officers that took advantage of their helpless female Jewish servants. It also is critical in understanding why he ultimately lets Schindler rescue her.
So, I stand by my comments. As a parent, I have a right to choose what messages my children see. "German officers get laid a lot by hot German mistresses" just isn't a message I feel important enough to pass on in light of the other serious and important messages in that film.
Completely untrue...why do you think the studios are in hot water about advertising R rated films to kids under 18?
The "R" rating can be a selling point for certain types of movies. I said certain types. Austin Powers would be cutting out huge portions of its target audience (teens and pre-teens) by getting an R rating. So in that case, yes, they would try to squeek by with PG-13. But movies that have little or no appeal to the teens/pre-teen market (mostly dramas) don't want PG-13 because it's the kiss of death, adults don't want to go to PG-13 movies by themselves. There are many movies that would have been a PG if it were not for one brief totally tangent nude scene or F-word laden speech. I have read more than once tha such scenes are added to garner the rating that matches the desired market.
When I was in college, I saw a student preview of the movie "The War". What I saw was a lot different than what actually came out in theaters months later. What I saw had a lot of swearing and gratitous "boy dabbles in exploring sexuality" type scenes. I think originally, the people who made "The War" were trying to do another "Stand By Me" Based on the feedback from the previews, I believe they didn't think the movie would fly as an R, so they revamped it to make it the PG-13 "boy and his troubled homelife" movie that was released.
Film alternate scenes/dialog that conforms to the different levels of viewership.
That was one of the promises of DVD, we were supposed to have multiple ratings at our fingertips so the kids could see the PG version, the teens could see PG-13 and after the children were tucked in, the adults could see the R version.
That hasn't happened. They apparently don't see a market for it. Well if they don't and some consumers do, why the hell shouldn't they be allowed to pursue it?
All these whiney directors need to do is release an editted version themselves. Or are they going to prevent parents from fast-forwarding that one "bad scene" or muting an expletive-laden tirade?
I don't care how "important" the message in Schindler's List is. The scene where there is a nude woman in the German officer's bed is stimulating and sexual. If I had kids, I would want to skip that scene.
Here's what makes me want to puke on these directors...there are a lot of good good movies out there that had to add a single vile scene so they would be able to get the R rating their marketting folks said would sell better. Wasn't that compromising your artistic integrity?
No, what you are missing is that radio stations are saying that the NAB fees they are already paying should cover them regardless of the transition method (radio or Internet)...which makes sense.
So in a sense, the radio stations say they don't want to be charged twice for the same thing. The FCC license only gives them permission to be on the air, it doesn't have anything to do with what they can play on the air. If it wasn't for the NAB, radio stations would be pretty bleak (probably just all talk shows).
So webcasters are still screwed. Even if the radio stations succeed and get the precident set that stream-only radio-style webcasting doesn't get charged an additional fee...there is still the problem that webcasters can't join the NAB and pay a general royalty tax to gain a compulsary license.
Remember that swarmcast technology that was on Slashdot a while ago? Basically everyone on Slashdot tried downloading some 350MB file of audio clips from a conference and everyone who was downloading was uploading at the same time and so the end result was that the more people who downloaded, the faster the downloads went for everyone.
I'm guessing this is sort of the same kind of deal? How long until we modifies this to share "recipies"?;)
Slashdot Mirror
I think the disc mechanimsm should be handled at a much lower lever than the user would ever touch. This "device" should appear as a single storage medium to the host OS, not as a collection of removable media.
The device should load a directory tree when new media is inserted, so that to the user it is a single "drive" of X capacity (varies depending on the amount on discs inside) that has the following contents. Accessing a directory would cause the device to insert the appropriate disc and send the information. There would be a lag, but no more so than the time it already takes Explorer to refresh when you pop in a new CD.
While the CD feeder is nice for backup, the economics of having a TB of storage for less than $1000 is appealing to me. I would rip every CD and DVD I own and put them all online for myself and my family to access. The originals would go into nice protective boxes in the nice cool. Every TV show I'm ever remotely interested in would be cached and available ondemand (Simpsons marathon night anyone?).
Robert X. Cringley once wrote about what he calls the 10x factor. He said that if a new technology comes out that is 10x better or 10x cheaper than existing capacity, people will stampede to it. The ZIP drive is a perfect example. Relatively inferior, notoriously fussy, bad software support, and ultimately irrelavant, people still stampeded to it because it was at least a 10x jump up from what was commonly available (floppies). When CD burners came out at a much higher price point, people stampeded to them as well.
With average hard drive capacities around 100GB and the largest commmon media around 5GB we are desperate for the next 10x leap. I think this type of device could be it...the other alternative I see is going back to laserdisc (12") size media that would have the capacity to hold probably somewhere around 100GB. One of the two needs to happen, I'm drowning in hard drives.
- JoeShmoe
.
I think it's crappy the way they market it as a one of those CD servers that you can get from practically anywhere. It's not a CD server. The best CD server is a hard drive of CD images and either Daemon Tools or Nero DriveImage to simulate a hardware CD-ROM drive.
It's crash-free extremely slow online data storage. Perfect for a home media server, which is I believe where the concept first appeared (said Sony DVD/CD changer).
I don't know how durable or sturdy the mechanism is, but I'd imagine it is comparible to the home theater versions and those have no real trouble. The worst case is that a disc gets jammed and the carousel loses placement, in which case you have to dial it back to 0 and then let it reinitialize itself. Probably the newer ones can do an even better job.
My problem with the DVD Changer thing is they are targetting/limiting themselves to a corporate or business environment...one that is much more likely to go out and purchase a CD server or a tape drive. Since this PowerFile product is somewhere inbetween those two products, I can't see it being a top seller at all.
However, for a home media server and especially for the home user to backup large quantities of data that doesn't ever change, or changes very rarely, it is perfect. Why someone doesn't sell a carousel kit that you add your own drive and logic to is beyond me.
- JoeShmoe
.
Check out PowerFile for a good large size long term backup option.
Pros:
* Gold CD-Rs have a shelf life of several decades so a PowerFile full of gold CD-Rs would give you 160GB of storage that would last longer than you live. I'm not sure what the shelf life of DVD-Rs are but if it's at least ten years, then you can have close to a terabyte of storage.
* You can populate the slots as you need them. Start with 50 DVD-Rs and then add more when your data needs increase.
* The data stays "online" so you can still access it (unlike with tape) so you can free up some hard drive space by moving stuff you access infrequently
* If you use CD-RW or DVD-RW discs then you can perform an incremental backup and save some time
Cons:
* More expensive than they should be...a Sony 300 disc DVD/CD changer only costs $700 yet as soon as you connect anything to a computer it is suddenly a couple grand more
* Slow, obviously since it has to spin to the correct disc to access it. However, for sequential operations like backing up (writing one disk after the next) it should work fine.
* Software sucks...they actually have the gall to charge extra for the drivers that you access the drive over a network. I'm not sure exactly how but basically you can't change the disc over the network unless you pay extra
What I would dearly love to see is someone like Linksys make a cheapo version of this, but instead of designing it as a stupid fireware component, toss in their little linux flash computer and make it networkable from the start.
OR...maybe someone smart out there can figure out a way to make one of those home theater changers into an ATAPI device that I can wire in directly to my computer, or said linux flash computer.
Is anyone aware of anything close to these PowerFile things, only at a level that is more in line with what they actually are (just a DVD drive with a little robotics to insert and eject discs into a carosel).
- JoeShmoe
.
Erm, fluoroptical, not flouroptical...I think the formal name was Fluorescent Multilayer Disc (FMD)
The mythological 100GB per disc flouroptical storage medium? Was it all a scam? Did it get killed by patents? Did they run out of money?
You remember Constellation 3D right? You first heard about them in 1999...try searching google for "Constellation 3D" or "C3D" or "Eugene Levich" (the CEO). I see various articles about partnering with this or that, but nothing past 2001. And their website has been offline so long that google doesn't even have it cached.
So...whatever became of this? Is the concept sound? Can someone else resurrect it? Or was it just a lie like the guy who pretended to have the ultimate streaming video codec but in reality ran coax through the power cord?
- JoeShmoe
.
First of all, change comes to the home builders market about ten years after the decision is first raised. It's only within the last couple years that home builders are defaulting to CAT-5 cable..maybe in a few years we'll have CAT-6e or whatever, but anyway...the point is that people have been telling these developers that they are idiots for giving away last-mile easement rights to the local monopolies.
These developers just assume that they HAVE to do it, or that no one will buy their homes without PacBell/AT&T service (insert your appropriate local monopoly here). This couldn't be further from the truth. One of the deciding factors in choosing where I lived was the availablility of CHOICE. Note I said choice, not alternate carriers.
What happens if you only have an alternative carrier who runs only fiber to the home, and then setups a boilerplate EULA with terms that you don't agree to? The monopolies have to get permission from the Public Utilities Commission before they change any of the long standing rules and regulations. And, in theory, if they tried to do something devious, like charging you extra for modem versus voice calls (which they tried) we can cry loudly to the PUC and get it defeated (which fortunately we did or the Internet might not have grown at the rate that it did).
The best thing a developer could do is lay smurf tubes all over the place and then leasing them to whatever provider is interested in setting up service. Then, fill one set of tubes with fiber infrastructer and lease that to whoever wants to provide service (be it data, video, VoIP, whatever) over that fiber. Free open access to whoever wants it. Heck, the local monopolies might even use one of their business-class subdivisions to provide those kinda of services to home level consumers for once. They might even do it at a price consumers can afford.
But the point is you need choice. Where I live, we have fiber to the home service. But the company went bankrupt and it now my fiber to the home service is being run by the company who purchased them. So far, nothing has changed, but I'm glad that just in case they decide to do somethign stupid...I can always come crawling back to the local monopolies because this development just happens to have wiring for both.
- JoeShmoe
.
Er, the first purchase was for 1500 systems, the eventual rollout was 6000 systems, so in theory savings were much higher but I seriously doubt it would have gone unnoticed three or four years.
- JoeShmoe
.
I agree. My first experience with Sigma Designs was consulting for a company and finding out they were purchasing MPEG-1 decoder cards for $200 a pop to play training videos.
This was in 1998. Well after software-based codecs were freely available (Microsoft shipped ActiveMovie with MPEG-1 playback support back when it released Internet Explorer 3.0 somewhere around 1995? 96?)
I did a demo for the deparment head showing two systems side-by-side, one with Signa's REALMagic card and their codec, and the other with Windows Media Player installed. Ironically, the guy picked the software based solution as the "higher quality" solution and said it was worth the extra $200.
Needless to say, when the labels were revealed, they immediately cancelled the pending order for 6000 REALMagic cards, a savings of $300,000.
Sigma Designs seems like a bunch of snakeoil salesmen to me.
- JoeShmoe
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How about that Knoppix distro or similar that run completely from CD (or loads from it anyway).
After user is done, reboot and next one gets a fresh clean install. Plus, no data kept, so nothing for "The Man" to subpoena, no privacy to invade/violate.
- JoeShmoe
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No, displaying the registrant info is not the primary reason for using whois. Displaying the domain's contact information is the primary reason for WHOIS. As I said earlier, the registrant info doesn't even DISPLAY in WHOIS for global domains, except on .info TLD.
Why isn't/shouldn't the registrant info be displayed? Because it is always out of date. The registrant fields cannot be changed. If your e-mail address or mailing address changes, you can't change the registrant fields. The only way to change it is to "transfer" the domain to yourself and pay an additional $35/whatever fee. ICANN's rules.
Now, all the other contact info, like Owner, Admin, Zone, Tech, Billing can be changed at any time. That is why these fields are the only contact info people should be using. That is why these fields should be the only ones visible.
And regarding billing info, so what BS are you proposing? Only corporations are allowed to own domains? Any private citizen who doesn't feel like putting their home information on a publically accessible database is unworthy to own a domain? As I said earlier, why does anyone even need to talk to the billing contact when the person with authority over the domain is the owner or the admin? And if billing info is key to accountability, why do ICANN rules say not to display it?
- JoeShmoe
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Absolutely not. In fact, it's against ICANN's standards for registrars. There was a lot of abuse of billing information back in the early days specifically because people paid with credit cards and had to provide their personal info for the card charge to work. People balked big time at having that kind of information out there.
The only people who need to know the billing info for a domain is the registrar. They need to charge the billing contact. The general public has no need to know who pays for a domain. If you have a tech question/problem, you contact the zone contact or the tech contact. If you have a domain dispute or copyright complaint, you can contact the owner or the admin. No one need to contact the billing contact except the registrar who gets paid by them and they can easily keep that information in a separate database for themselves.
- JoeShmoe
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Can anyone explain to me why the WHOIS for Affilias is all screwed up?
.info domain to my CPanel and it couldn't find the nameserver IP buried in all that mess.
.org too?
A) It's in some funky delimited format that doesn't work for any existing WHOIS parser. I tried adding an
B) It displays the registrant info. Nobody needs to know who the registrant is. Nine times out of ten it's some employee that either no longer even works for the company or has no authority to make domain decisions.
C) It displays the billing info. This means your home address if you happen to use a credit card to pay for the domain. Luckily some registrars will substitute their own info for your personal billing info but even then this seems sloppy.
Can someone fill me in on why Affilias can't even seem to get something as trivial as a WHOIS done correctly? And these people want to run
No thank you.
- JoeShmoe
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Oh please. This is been non-news for anyone who bothered to check out FOX's lineup for the coming Fall season:
http://www.fox.com/schedule/schedule_2002.htm
BUT! You'll notice Family Guy is conspicuously absent from that lineup. And they didn't even bother to leave us with a finale! Just sort of vanished halfway through last spring.
Time to fire up the ol' useless web petition.
- JoeShmoe
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The fact is that 99% of the PC customers will want a microsoft OS
Hey buddy, are you sure about this?
I mean...I'm only using Windows because it came free with my computer. Just WHAT IF all computer makers out there sold their PCs as is, with no fluff and preloaded software and OS?
What if JoeConsumer (no relation) walked into a store and saw the retail price for XP? What if it was sitting there right next to Lindows which was 1/3 the price? What if the screenshots looks the same, the feature list looked the same, and hey look, the Lindows one comes with free Office-type software! It's $599 for the Microsoft version!
Granted, a large portion of people want to play games, and well they might need a Microsoft OS, or not, it depends on the game. Granted, a large portion of the people know how to use Windows and want to keep it.
But who is to say that if consumers didn't just automatically get the Microsoft OS for "free" when they bought a computer...they wouldn't want to try something a little more reasonable?
- JoeShmoe
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I made no bones about "piggy-backing" on this effort. I believe there are substantial uses for a single repository point for all creative works. I even mention that libraries and schools should be next in line for access.
My point is that we have absolutely zeo chance of getting this without a "poster child" to rally the cause. The media companies themselves can't even create such a system (witness the Pressplay/MusicNet/Napster mess). However, once the system is created, then suddenly it will dawn on the media companies they can charge for access and make a killing (which is historically what has happened for EVERY NEW TECHNOLOGY).
Oh, and what if this spawns several related technologies that revives the demand for telecommunications? Am I supposed to feel guilty if my stocks go up or I get a better job?
Maybe you forgot why we, the society, give TV and radio stations their free bandwidth and demand unencrypted over-the-air access.
- JoeShmoe
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You know, reading this plea made me stop and think about something. I'd like to take a moment and throw this out there.
When I read about people who are pretty much trapped in their bodies because of severe illnesses, I wonder what joys they have in their lives. I have a relative with MD and a good friend with MS. For both of them, a good portion of their life is spent with media. Watching TV, watching movies, reading books (although it is difficult unless there is a way to turn pages).
Which brings me to my point/question...why don't these people have simple and easy access to media? Doesn't their life seem filled with enough hardship? Shouldn't we as a society do something for them? If all they have left in their live is audio/visual stimulation, why can't they be free to enjoy it?
We, the society, give copyrights. So why can't we, the society, grant people like this a free pass to copyrighted works. What I'm saying is, why can't people who are unlucky enough to be born/develop these illnesses be given access to a society-sponsored "Universal Jukebox".
Is it really fair to ask these people to pay full price for works the same way people who can earn a wage and will be around 40-50 years to get a sufficient return on their payment? Is it really fair to ask these people to burden themselves or family with constant errands to get new media? Most likely, these people have their hands full with the daily care of the individuals.
At the same time, the creation of a giant Universal Jukebox would be a the ultimate glove to throw down in front of the media companies. How could they possibly protest? On what grounds could they possibly resist this cause?
I think that some Senator or Congressman should propose a law offering anyone "sufficiently incapable of supporting themselves" just this. And I think the law should provide for the infrastructure to build such a Universal Jukebox. We could start with the Library of Congress. Once the Universal Jukebox is there, we can then talk about what else we can do with it (expand this to include schools, libraries for starters).
But seriously...why couldn't it happen?
- JoeShmoe
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Can she move her neck? Her mouth? Her tongue?
My first thought would be a whistle attached to a standard orthodontics face-brace. She could talk or breath as normal, or pucker her lips and blow through a whistle located at the corner of her mouth.
Or how about two wires close together that she can touch with the tip of her tongue to close the circuit and sound a buzzer? Or similar but with a light-sensitive sensor.
- JoeShmoe
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Sometimes the best story telling isn't about what you say or show, it's about what you DON'T say or show. It lets the viewer's imagination get a workout.
Yes! This is so true. Best example I can think of is "Life is Beautiful" where the guy follows the girl into the greenhouse and then a few moments later a child walks out.
Now, every adult knows what happened is probably hot sweaty sex followed by conception and a hasty wedding so the birthdate works out. But that is a scene you can have a five year old watch and with a straight face tell them they had a "long talk", got married and had a child.
Even though I don't think "Life is Beautiful" is the greatest movie I've ever seen, a lesser director would have shown hot and heavy making out, possibly nudity, maybe even writhing. Which is completely unnecessary in the context of the message that film is trying to present (ironically, also about the Holocaust).
- JoeShmoe
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Believe it or not, I agree with you.
Moment of brutal honesty here, but kids are so starved for sexual input that when their parents aren't around they will dig through the video library, find that 0.2 second breast flash and rewind and watch it over and over again to fuel their sexual fantasy. Not your kids, I'm sure. They never masturbate either, right?
But I have a problem with sticking a sexually gratiuitous moment like that in the middle of a serious and somber drama about the Holocaust. Gee, Speilburg, I'm sure the Germans had orgies, why not go all out and show those?
Yes, I know parents (particularly in the US) are in hardcore denial about their children's sexuality. That's sad, but what about the opposite extreme, like in the 70s when families were making home porno films of their prepubescent kids having sex and then selling them/trading them?
There are very few appropriate sexual outlets for children. I don't think Schindler's List is one of them. If I wanted to deal with my children's sexualty, I would get them a library card and turn them loose in the Physiology or whatever section has books on the subject. Sure, Masters & Johnson has some pretty explicit stuff in it...but these books with the subject in a much more tactful and informative manner. They aren't written to be gratuitous.
This toss-away scene, in my opinion, was.
- JoeShmoe
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Oh please, you call this hypocritical and you don't even understand the difference between the action and the message.
There is a big, big difference in the intent of scenes that depict horrible acts of cruelty and the scene I am talking about. This may be difficult for you to understand but there is even a big, big difference in the intent of other scenes that depict full frontal nudity.
When the soldiers shoot the old one-armed man, that is a horrible act. It is shocking. I don't think young children should see that scene. But then, I don't think young children need to even know about the Holocaust so they can enjoy their damn childhood.
But when they get into junior high school and/or high school and start studying World War II, I think Schindler's List is appropriate and the scene where the old-man is shot, for all it's horror, is not gratuitous. I'm sure it happened all the time. The part where the German officer is shooting randomly at Jews is also not gratuitous. The part where hundreds of people are running around naked is not gratuitous. That's how the inspections happened, and I don't see any problem with my kids seeing that. It's not a sexual message, it's the horrible truth.
But why the behind-the-scenes look at the German officer's sex life? Why do we care that he has a hot topless mistress? What is the point of that? There is none. You know how I know that? Back in 1996 or 1997, they showed Shindler's List on television for the first time, commercial free (sponsored by Chevy maybe?) and almost completely uneditted. You know the only edit they made to that film? A floating fuzz-spot to obscure the nipple of the girl in the scene I am describing. Spielburg himself gave a speach before the airing of the movie talking about the importance of showing the whole truth and horror of the Holocaust. So then why this edit? Because I think that the network (NBC I think?) and Speilburg knew that this scene was gratuitous and had nothing to do with the Holocaust.
Later in the movie, the same German officer (I am too lazy to look up his name, forgive me) confronts the Jewish servant girl in a scene that has a lot of wet-shirts and sexual elements. I don't think it's hypocritical that this scene also doesn't bother me. I'm pretty sure there were a lot of German officers that took advantage of their helpless female Jewish servants. It also is critical in understanding why he ultimately lets Schindler rescue her.
So, I stand by my comments. As a parent, I have a right to choose what messages my children see. "German officers get laid a lot by hot German mistresses" just isn't a message I feel important enough to pass on in light of the other serious and important messages in that film.
- JoeShmoe
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Completely untrue...why do you think the studios are in hot water about advertising R rated films to kids under 18?
The "R" rating can be a selling point for certain types of movies. I said certain types. Austin Powers would be cutting out huge portions of its target audience (teens and pre-teens) by getting an R rating. So in that case, yes, they would try to squeek by with PG-13. But movies that have little or no appeal to the teens/pre-teen market (mostly dramas) don't want PG-13 because it's the kiss of death, adults don't want to go to PG-13 movies by themselves. There are many movies that would have been a PG if it were not for one brief totally tangent nude scene or F-word laden speech. I have read more than once tha such scenes are added to garner the rating that matches the desired market.
When I was in college, I saw a student preview of the movie "The War". What I saw was a lot different than what actually came out in theaters months later. What I saw had a lot of swearing and gratitous "boy dabbles in exploring sexuality" type scenes. I think originally, the people who made "The War" were trying to do another "Stand By Me" Based on the feedback from the previews, I believe they didn't think the movie would fly as an R, so they revamped it to make it the PG-13 "boy and his troubled homelife" movie that was released.
- JoeShmoe
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Film alternate scenes/dialog that conforms to the different levels of viewership.
That was one of the promises of DVD, we were supposed to have multiple ratings at our fingertips so the kids could see the PG version, the teens could see PG-13 and after the children were tucked in, the adults could see the R version.
That hasn't happened. They apparently don't see a market for it. Well if they don't and some consumers do, why the hell shouldn't they be allowed to pursue it?
All these whiney directors need to do is release an editted version themselves. Or are they going to prevent parents from fast-forwarding that one "bad scene" or muting an expletive-laden tirade?
I don't care how "important" the message in Schindler's List is. The scene where there is a nude woman in the German officer's bed is stimulating and sexual. If I had kids, I would want to skip that scene.
Here's what makes me want to puke on these directors...there are a lot of good good movies out there that had to add a single vile scene so they would be able to get the R rating their marketting folks said would sell better. Wasn't that compromising your artistic integrity?
- JoeShmoe
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No, what you are missing is that radio stations are saying that the NAB fees they are already paying should cover them regardless of the transition method (radio or Internet)...which makes sense.
So in a sense, the radio stations say they don't want to be charged twice for the same thing. The FCC license only gives them permission to be on the air, it doesn't have anything to do with what they can play on the air. If it wasn't for the NAB, radio stations would be pretty bleak (probably just all talk shows).
So webcasters are still screwed. Even if the radio stations succeed and get the precident set that stream-only radio-style webcasting doesn't get charged an additional fee...there is still the problem that webcasters can't join the NAB and pay a general royalty tax to gain a compulsary license.
A silver lining this is not...
- JoeShmoe
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This article says that caffeine may reduce Alzheimers.
However, this article says that alcohol may reduce Alzheimers.
So in other words...the best thing I can do is drink Irish coffee?
- JoeShmoe
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Remember that swarmcast technology that was on Slashdot a while ago? Basically everyone on Slashdot tried downloading some 350MB file of audio clips from a conference and everyone who was downloading was uploading at the same time and so the end result was that the more people who downloaded, the faster the downloads went for everyone.
;)
I'm guessing this is sort of the same kind of deal? How long until we modifies this to share "recipies"?
- JoeShmoe
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