15 years ago your video survailence system was not integrated into your alarm system... Try to dismantle or disrupt modern video systems, and they auto-alert via pager, e-mail, or other method you configure. You can even set them to trigger the building's alarm system.
Of course, VCRs are easy to steal, but the network DVR in the server room is not, unless you thief had a key to the server closet... They can steal the cameras, but the idea is the taping system has to be secure. Also, every camera has to be in the field of view of another, so when they tamper with one, they're on camera doing it...
Also, a theft like that, there had to be fingerprints everywhere! Dis-mounting several cameras, opening several doors, unscrewing bolt-down ties, moving ladders, the cops must have been complete morons not to catch that guy, even if years ago!..and a bank that didn't already have security cameras, and he had that much access? Why didn't he take THE MONEY!?!?!
I like Apple's model better. They have one OS, one price. Everything is included, for home or for business. $149... It's modular in the sense that nothing runs unless you run it, and uninstalling a program is a simple as dragging it's folder to the trash can. Heck, have you installed Office on a mac lately? Put the CD in and it says "Drag this to Applications to install"
OS 7 may choose to go modular, but if it's a sales model, not a feature model, then it will likely fail. I can understand the ability to streamline the performance curve by uninstalling unneeded or unsupported parts of the code, but realistically, the only major differences between Microsoft's Flagship Ultimate OS at more than $350 and their most basic home version at about $150 is 1) business support, 2) media center functionality, 3) a fancy GUI that requires fancy hardware, and 4) some file replication and backup options. Really, for an extra $200, that's all you get...
Just to note, here's a few issues I found with their list: - They say Explorer is more powerful than finder. Are they on crack? Coverflow and the power of Apple's search tools vs thumbnails and desktop search? this is not a comparison... - there are AV tuners and TV recording capabilities for Apple systems (Happauge makes a few as well as others) Windows has no integrated native apps for it, just hardware and 3rd parts software support same as Apple. - Network projector support on Windows is via 3rd party apps only. Same as Apple for which software IS available. - There are a lot of network storage appliances for Apple, including OS X server. Listing Windows Home Server doesn't count as a plus in Microsoft's corner since it's not "out-of-the box" and requires additional software installed by the server to do these things. Vista does NAS no differently than Apple without a real server behind it... They both access network USB the same, though 3rd party drivers or network shares. Apple also supports more than just SMB shares, so I even lean on their side on this a bit, but still call it tied. - Automator is a sync tool when set up. Better yet, configure rsync (included) and sync only delta changed packets instead of whole files... Sure, it requires some know how, and Windows Sync Center is easier to use, but it can't be used on business editions anyway... - Presentation mode? Are they referring to PowerPoint? That's not included in Windows, plus both PowerPoint for Mac 2008 and Keynote do this (and more).
they give Apple 46 points and Vista 41, still in Apple's camp by their count. i'd give apple 6 more, or at least take away Window's advantage in those categories.
Here's a few more they missed: - Automation Features - apple has lots, Windows has a simple task scheduler to lauch batch files... - Price - Clearly in Apple's favor (hardware aside, which by the way in mid and upper range does compete directly with Dell's pricing for Windows PCs. Compare iMac to Dell's shiny new all-in-one.) - Security - Apple wins since Admin access is disable by default and their firewall is superior, plus not a single ITW virus for mac and little or no spyware (might change in the future, but not a concern now) - Voice Control and dictation support - only works on Windows with Office 2007 installed - file preview - opening a file to view it or print it in it's native app is a waste of time. Cover Flow and Quick Look is far superior, a win for Apple... - Updates - goes to M$ on this one. Not only for being predictable, and having more granular controls, but also for documenting what's in the update clearly and making that info easy to find. - Dashboard and Widgets - Windows dashboard sucks and is a memory and resource hog. Apple wins this round, not to even count the sheer volume of apple widgets available.
Well, considdering I have XM, but I listed to my local radio station about 10 times more often, because I want to hear traffic reports, local weather, local events, and god forbid occasionally a DJ speak.
When traveling, i find I listed to the iPod more often than radio.
With a new baby, likely I'll be listening to childrens crap more than my own too.
HD and digital terestrial radio are solid competition to sattelite. With things coming down the pipe from cellphone companies, and their digital networks, don't be surprised if your cell phone (or car stereo itself) could tune into digital music broadcast on chanels from cell towers, even giving you the ability to drive coast to coast and listed to the same station without using sattelite.
This merger allows both companies to combine their contracts, eliminate internal competition, and save a lot of money. They'll also have a more complete offering, and with ala carte billing, many people will likely have lower bills. they also won't be advertising quite so much further lowering costs.
Sure, you may have to buy a new radio when the merger is done, but I'm guessing all you will likely need on some radios is a firmware upgrade, on others, maybe a chip exchanged. I would not hesitate to guess that most of the radios manufactured after the merger process was started (when it got far enough that the 2 boards agreed to it and sought JOD approval) have had the ability to receive all the chanels available from both services and simply need an update when it kicks over. Face it, the units wouldn't have a 3 digit chanel ID (since day 1 in 2002?) if they only supported 99 chanels... My cable box actually only has a 3 digit readout, but I get up to channel 1299. It rebooted one day and *poof* they added 300 more channel slots and reorganized the line-up to make more logical sense. I doubt the reciever in my XM radio was hard locked to a specific subset of frequencies knowing that XM might one day add more chanels on it's own... they should be able to software unlock more channels at will. It would be bad business to tell all your paying subscribers "Hey, we have all this new stuff, and a lower price too, but to use it you need to spend $90 on a new unit, and you have 3 months to change..."
Provide me with a few million investment dollars and I'll see what I can do...
[[[hand extended in anticipation]]]
Truthfully, we'll have something like that eventually, but I'm not holding my breath. Without patent reform, open licensing, and a whole lot ears cleaned of all the shit from being stuck in ass ends so long, we won't see it.
Sad, isn't it? It's really all about money. States that decide they get more highway funds than it will cost them to implement Real ID will implement it, while states that get small amounts of highway funds will oppose it.
True, so true. Except that politicians from that stae won't be able to go to washington to complain about it if the can't board planes without it...
More people with access, yes. Less control over who they are, no. The application interface, who gets to install it, control of logon credentials, etc, will all be handled internally. Besides, as long as the system is secure from outside network access, what do you care if some dumbass at the DMV looks up information HE ALREADY HAS ON YOU TODAY (and risks imprisonment by doing it without proper authority)?
As for speeding tickets, very few states cooperate on tracking points and suspensions. Insurance companies do a fair job, but there are allways ways around that. Heck, almost 1/4th of the drivers in SC have NO INSTURANCE. Points and penalites don't necessarily translate from state to state today, and how points against your license fall off over time differes as well. People who get DUIs and loose licenses change states all the time. even when insurance knows about it, in some states, legall ythey have to insure you anyway, and at state set maximum rates.
My local grocery store has biometric finger scanners at every register. These things are cheap. bars and clubs don't HAVE to install them, they just need a card reader to validate that the information on the front of the card matches what's in the chip. They'll likely get an insurance discount, liquer license discount, or some other benefit to justify the minor cost anyway.
IRS information will CERTAINLY be tied to the ID number, but NOT in the same database. various privacy acts protect people like the police from having access to tax information or other records unless a judge believes that information has an impact on the case against you. The DMV will only have access to your personal ID info, your vehicle and registration info, posibly local property taxes on that vehicle in some states (in a seperate local database). Airport agents will record your passing, and will have access to your passport file, but not your driving records or tax information. They'll be able to identify if there's a warent for your arrest, if you're on a watch list, etc, but other than confirming who you are, they have no reason to access the other information and again, it would be blocked by various privacy acts....and moreso, their systems likely won't even have true access to the database, just a record check on the ID swiped and confirmed. They won't be able to simply look up random people unless they have the ID number of that person. As for political offiliation, well, if you REGISTETRED as a republican, than what are you hiding anyway? You've already given non-screened people access to your address and political affiliation. What do you care if the FBI knows too? If you haven't declared your affiliation, how would they know?
making it illegal to access database information won't stop federal agencies who don't fear prosecution, I agree, but remember, those agencies ALREADY HAVE this information... Changing the type of ID you have has NO IMPACT WHAT SO EVER on their ability to look you up if they want to. If they don't want to, why the fuck would they waste their time???
Data mining this system, well that's also going to happen, but it's not like they don't already do it. Again, if you have ever paid taxes, bought a car, been married, or signed a credit application, they HAVE YOU ON FILE TODAY. This database does not provide them any NEW abilities, other than being able to more quickly have local security personel identify you when you're standing in front of them. The FBI and CIA do what they do completely seperately. Some nut job at the DMV won't be able to mine the database... not unless he's got a
Wether we're talking about employee theft or the night janitor, there's a simple, and relatively inexpensive option, and it's called video survaillence.
Place a few cameras around (even a few fake ones!), connect them to a video hub/DVR. To make employees happy and help them feel reassured that no one is contstantly watching the footage to see who is and who is not working efficiently or whatever, you place the kit inside a closet and place 2 or 3 differnt locks on it and give 1 of those keys to the HR rep or IT guy, one to an upper level VP, and one to a representative of an employee formed comittee. Now for someone to see who swiped a stolen item, these 3 people neet to come together to unlock the door... now no one is poking around the survailence system.... Another good option is giving the key to the closet to IT, but the password to the DVR to an employee relations comittee member. Since the DVRs are member or workgroup devices, not domain systems, IT won't be able to change the password and management can't log on to the system at all (since it's for theft protection, the only occasion they should have to log on is when a theft happens, and employee relations should be involved.
If that's still not good enough for your employees, only put cameras in hallways and near enterances, so they're not under full time survaillence, but if someone swipes something, we should have a good idea of who was in the neighborhood at the time it went missing.
Anything large being stolen will be obvious (monitors, printers, etc). That stuff doesn't belong to you anyway, it belongs to the company, and if you're backing up your data, what do you care?
If you ARE using your own equipment in the office building for work purposes, get HR or your finance department to assure you it's covered under a company insurance policy and then if it walks off, it's still their problem, and you get free replacement kit. For everything else, check with your homeowners or renters insurance policy. You can usually get a rider for a couple bucks a month that covers personal device loss and damage without a deductable. (you do have to file a police report to get a claim, but lets face it, sometimes people see police at your cubicle, and devices mysteriously re-appear...)
I've also been in buildings where security asset tags every item coming in the building (even things like picture frames!). Going in or out of the building becomes a slight pain since you need to go through metal detectors, and security checks, but for some businesses, especially those dealing with large numbers of traveling employees or lots of short term contract labor, it's worth it.
On another note, if you don't trust your fellow employees, seek employment elsewhere or don't bring shiny things to the office...
Well, Steam works, but keep in mind, even big games are only 1-2GB (massive ones may be 4 or 5). Also, you only DL games periodically, tend not to share them often with family, and don't expect to start playing one 5 minutes after clicking download... Also, they have to be installed, which eliminates any traveling options (airport, car, etc) unless you DL'd them in advance. It's just not as convenient as whipping out a disk and inserting it, and the games/movies I use most would already be on my HDD as instaleld/copied items or as virtual disk images.
This is why I say, HD video downloads work from local cable services across broadband chanels, as part of a VoD or rental service. Direct streaming for keeps, not likely a reality. If one assumed that I could start this now, purchase and download a fair number of movies over time (say 1 per month) then in 3 years, I'd need something akin to 1TB just to store those flicks on a single PC (assuming 25GB ea, fairly average for a BD movie with HD audio). If my drive crashed and I had to re-download that, over an 8Mbit connection and assuming maximum throughput, it would take 10.5 days to re-download that content! Even assuming I'd be willing to dedicate 50% of my bandwidth to that, i'd be looking at almost a month to re-download just 36 lost movies. Heck, just to DL a single new movie at 25GB would be 7 hours if my math is right... (25GB X 1024MB X8bits/8Mbit / 60sec / 60min = 7 hours.) "Streaming" a movie over 8Mbit really isn't an option, and 40Mbit connections are not available in the USA yet......and I'm not even talking about how to back up a 1TB data set periodically that's growing at over 250GB per year... and wait until 2011 when 4X HD is a big hit. 100GB per movie? not even if 1TB drives were under $50 would I considder that. Now lets see you Defrag that, or do a virus scan. Call me next week...
What freedom are they taking away from you by replacing one form of ID with a nother one?
They already have all this information about you in the govenment's (IRS) taxpayer database... You already have a drivers license... You already can't enter a federal or state building without one...
By issuing you a universal ID, they're: making it cost less (only 1 organization paying millions for programming, not 51 of them), simplifying state to state communication, reducing insurance fraud, reducing tax fraud, helping reduce Identity theft, and having a better tracking system for criminals who move out of one state into another...
Short of the "big givernment" paranoia option (which honestly, since they already have this data in less secure systems, doesn't change with this new ID), how exactly does this impact your FREEDOM!?!?!
Stupidity is in allowing irrational fears to overcome sound judgement. We have the opportunity to shape this program (it's years out yet), make existing information more secure than it is today, unify and simplify government, save money, and more. The only people who have to fear this system are: people who don't pay taxes, people who commit insurance fraud, and people on the run from the law in one way or another... Sure, there's a risk someone might hack the system, but it's not like they can download the whole database, or even chunks of it, and it's all information that's already available as public records under the Freedom of Information act for anyone who has ever paid property taxes or owns a home!
first, the 14th amendment absolves the federal govenment and states of debts related to wars, but does not line item cities.
Second, This was the civil war, and thus not an "insurrection" of the USA.
Third, this debt was incurred BEFORE the amendment was ratified, but almost 10 years, and was thus at that time expected to be paid.
Now, in the cities defence, at some point a statuate of limitations should have come into play. the city may acknowledge the debt, but after X number of years, the citizen may not have the right to enfore payment if legal action had not already been taken to collect. If the store owner never sued the city to collect, then it's probably far too late to try now...
Digital dsitrubution is NOT a competitor. It is for reneted or short term materials, but lets face it, if my choice is to save $5 or less to download a movie instead of buying the hard copy, or risking loosing the media and also incurring the cost for it's storage.
With physical media I: - can easily loan it to a friend or family member, without wasting blank media or time to burn it. - can move it from system to system in seconds, not hours over a network connection - don't need systems to be compatible for steaming or sharing, a BD player in each room costs about the same as (and will cost less than) the equipment to connect the TV to the network for streaming HD. - Can make electronic copies for backup (wether currently legal or not) - can move it off my hard drives at will without buying media and wasting hours (days) to burn it (If I want to encode it on the computer I can, and in less time than burning a DVD...) - don't have to buy bigger and bigger hard drives and RAID system as my collection grows - don't have to wait DAYS for Antivirus scans to complete, or copying to new drives as my old ones fill up. - don't have to back it up
Digital distribution works fine for music, for which I can have tousands of songs on cheap hard drives, and streaming works great over even the cheapest wireless devices for stereo surround audio. It's easy to maintain and copy when your whole collection is less than 100GB (and that's a BIG collection). When a single HD movie is 20-50GB, it's not easy or cheap to maintain my own collection electronically. heck, even standard definition DVDs are hard to maintain on a sharing network.
On-demand video? yes, digital downloads may very well replace Blockbuster. If an all-you-can-eat subscription was available (netflix size library, digitized in HD, and available to start playing within 5 minutes) and the fee was equivolent to current subscription fees ($15 per month) it might become feasable, but you still can't take it with you unless you download the entire movie before leaving... When I go on vacation, or to a friend's house, I want a few dozen good classic movies with me, and a few new ones to. Even at over 8MB downspeed, I'm looking at typing up my pipe for days to download a weeks worth of movies, and hundreds of GBs to store them on. Also, my laptop, even if it had that much storage, doesn't plug into most hotel TVs...
Digital downloads are strong competition for HBO and other networks. Why pay $12/month per channel when you could pay $20/month and see every movie your hear desires on demand? This I see is where digital downloads will make their mark. They're obviously competition for the rental industry, provided the set top box is part of a service and not several hundred dolars by itself.
The best solution in my mind?...best of both worlds. A set top DVR that can record and play back live HDTV, integrates on on-demand service allowing both per-purchase options as well as monthly all-access subscriptions (hot releases cost a buck or two extra each). Also, instead of a $4 rental, offer a $14 download-to-own option, and for an additional $3 they'll send the original media to you in the mail in a few weeks so you don't have to make backup copies. The set top box should integrate a BD writer so anything you've downloaded (or recorded live) you could burn to your own media. Also integrate it into the network so movies and other content of the DVR can be shared on the network and vice-versa. Also allow an agent to run on a computer so you can not only download movies, but select which PCs they're automatically copied to, like podcasts, so you can keep the most recent, unwatched movies, as well as a few selected favorites, on your laptop and your iPhone without having to copy them there (and waste hours) when you're on the go.
The states do have their own soverign rights. Many of them fought against changing driking laws to 21, many against manditory seat belt laws, many against multiple speed limit changes. Fact is, all the federal government has to do is wave federal highway money in front of them (or threaten to take it away) and the states will bend and take it in the ass. They have over and over and over again...
Facts: - The Real-ID system will be at least as secure (if not more) than the best existing state ID system in place currently. Sure, it will be a big target, but it will also be closely guarded by top security people since it's such a public issue. Access will be restricted to public sector netowrks, not open to the public or common hacking attacks, just like the ATM network and existing police and DMV systems. It will be monitored constantly. Do you think South Carolina has a top notch FBI security team monitoring access to THEIR systems? I can tell you as someone who knows a few former programmers at the for SC state who wrote that system, NO IT CERTAINLY DOES NOT! there have even been breakins at DMV offices where PC, printer, and blank IDs have been stolen since the system requires no direct connection to a secure validation network in order to print IDs.
- Currently, all you have to do if you loose your license in one state is move to another and apply for a licesne there. Too many DUI's? just move and reset. Under Federally issued ID, this will not be possible, and states can protect themselves from repeat bad drivers (driving is a privelidge, not a right, and if you abuse it, we have the right to take it away and make sure you can't get it back, even if you move). This will lower insurance costs across the board.
- Few people in security (professional residential, even bartenders) can be expected to know how to spot fake IDs from every state (There are over 200 legal forms of ID circulating in america). With a single secure ID, we don't have to even look for fake info, we can swipe it, compare a computer screen to information on the ID, and compare the picture to the person, even use a biometric scan as further confirmation. RFID may not be secure, and it may only take a few days for someone to crack the chip in the ID and distribute hardware and software to edit it, but cracking the text printed on the ID will be much tougher. The state of CT has one of the hardest to forge IDs I've ever seen, and I've not seen them all. If REAL-ID takes even a handfull of their tricks, you won't see a lot of these faked (especially if it becomes a federal crime to do so, not a local misdemeanor!)
- Anyone with a valid or fake ID today can sneak into just about any federal building. Real ID will make this more, not less, secure, as fakes will be easier to spot, and real ones that are invalid will be harder to get.
- yes, you information will be accessible by more agencies and organizations than ever before. Most of this will still require a warrent unless it's for entering say a speeding ticket. Your financial information will not be tied to this ID, only your address, ID number, and a few minor details about you. It's no more secure of insecure than your current drivers license, which all of us regularly give photocopies of at will to anyone who askes, right? If you already give this out, who cares if agencies, with strict controls over this information and who it's accessed, have it?
- You can't log onto this database and pull records for large amounts of people. This is an integrated and unique system. To get a record, you have to fill out a query. Even as a hacker, and even if you could get onto an authorised terminal or hack your way in, and even if you had a copy of the client software package used to access this database, at best, you can get a few search results at a time, and only 1 record at a time. Search too much or too long, or try to backdoor the system, and it will know. the database will simply be too big to "steal." all you can do is access it.
Look, if the media contained information that was a matter of national security, then simply have authorized personel maintain and store the media. If you were authorised to maintian the server in the first place, and could access, save, and back-up presidential records, then you were authorised to hold the media in youtr hand, pass it off (using a chan of custody document) to an authorised member of the secret service, military, or other security branch, and they could store that information in a secure facility. If someone really wanted those e-mails, they would have had to 1) know where they were, which by itself would likely require access to low level secure information, 2) break into a hardened facility and kill a lot of marines, 3) locate the item and get out alive before you got killed, and 4) have sufficient technology to read the tapes and hope they're not encrypted in 512 bit...
Of course, this is even easier with hard disks as members drives of a single RIAD 5 unit could be split up and sent to 6 or 8 different locations. You can rebuild 1 or 2 lost drives in a RAID 5 set using algorithms and by identifying data aptterns, but with only 1 or 2 drives out of a 12 or 15 drive stripe, good fucking luck, add even without a 128Bit simple encryption and I'd still call pulling this off an impoissible feat. Why were these drives destroyed? Orders... No way was there existance a national security risk. Information is only dangerous in public hands (if security is breached). Some drives may have failed, or been destroyed for one reason or another, but several years of records? Every copy of every backup during that time? No... This is clearly a conspiracy. the law clearly indicated this information was to be kept.
Except that most religious events are not in fact celebrated because of of the religious holiday. Almost every single event celebrated today was done so due to seasonal activity revolving around the planting or harvesting work. The churches assimilated various celebratory activites that were already in practice long before the church came to town.
People already had celebrations frequently, and for a variety of reasons. These celebrations peaked when work peaked (spring and fall) and the timing of most of these events was typically based around the lunar schedule, first thaw, first frost, solstice, etc. When the church wanted to interest new cultures, they did so generally through celebration, and denoted their own holidays, found similarities of one cultures pratcies to a religios event, and then created the holiday. After a hundred years of practicing the holiday on the day of a particular festival, it simply became known by the name the church provided for it, especially if a large portion of the population had converted.
I would bother to link you to articles about St Valentine, Ishtar (Easter), All Hallows, Yule, St Patrics Day (Spring equinox, AKA rebirth of trees, AKA celebration of all things green) Mother's and Father's Day, Beltane (May Day), and even thanksgiving (the practice and seasonal timing, not necessarily the American reasonings behind the current celebrated date for it) as all being Pagan holidays overtaken by the church, but then, that's what search engines are for...
Even the fact that you go to church on Sundays was an attempt in 321CE when Pope Constantine ordered worship services moved from the Sabbath on Saturday to Sunday so that the pagan ritual of worshiping the Sun God at dawn would be replaced by other practices. He even made it punishable by death 11 years later to worship God on a Saturday to enforce the idea of making Sunday the standard day and thus force pagans to choose one god over the other (since they would not be able to worship both at the same time or same pace).
Check this out, even Christmas Day, December 25th, birthday of Jesus, was placed as the day after the solstice, the first day of the year that began to get longer, grow in light, and hence the birthday celebration for the Sun God since in the original calendar that date was penned by the Cristian church, the 24th was actually the 22nd, the solstice being the 21st.
Well, if it was a real camera, I'd worry about it, but from descriptions, it's little more than a glorified IR sensor. The idea is only for it to be able to discern basic body size and shape so it can, at a simple level using inexpensive sensors and very little CPU power, determine if it's the Mother, Father, or which child who is currently in front of the TV. It's also an idea they're playing with in a lab, not in a production box. Personally, I think it makes a WHOLE lot more sense to put a simple biometric finger scanner in the remote itself (or just a pin number you can enter) than it does to have a camera in the set top box. Of course, then the remote becomes a proprietary (required) device in order to benefit from the convenience of auto-programming favorites and such, but that's not a bad deal if it's a good quality, programable, universal remote.
Also, Comcast doesn't need to know who is in your house... It makes no difference to them in any way. All they care about is what channel you are watching, for how long, and do you fast-forward through commercials. This information is used to sell local and national advertising and to determing viewership of programs. Based on what channels you watch, how many TVs are in your house, and where you live, they have a pretty friggin good idea of how you fit demographically into their ability to sell advertising. they really don't give a shit if it's the wife or husband who watches the food network, either way, that person is obviously interested in food. If that house is in the slums where rent is about $300 a month, they can likely bet you're not interested in commercials about $1000 espresso machines...
They know what time you watch TV, what channels you watch, your demographic, they can usually guess your race, and more based on where you live and your viewing habits. Providing a system for the TV to detect who is who and preset chanel line-ups for them only makes it easier for people to use, and thus addict you to a service you may not be able to get from their competitor. Knowing if it's the wife, husband, or 10 year old boy who's watching porn has NOTHING to do with it.
More over, if any information collected by the box would go back to Comcast, that has to be clearly detailed for the customer, and there must by federal law be an opt-out (or in some states and opt-in) system, and the use of the feedback system can not be legally required as a contract term.
For publically broadcast media, I don't see why this isn't the best idea since sliced bread! the broadcast was already free. They got advertising revenue when it aired.
By distributing it through torrents, they get: - no need to manually encode, produce, and deal with formats of the media. It gets released without DRM and nuts everywhere will recode it for them into a dozen formats. - No real distribution costs, why buy a big pipe when we can use theirs! Push it out to a few hundred people, and millions of copies go out on the net without costing CBC a dime! - Instant advertising figures. Pull up BT, type in the name of the episode, get 47,000 responses, now the advertiser is certain there's 47,000 copies of their ad distributed and they pay up for the added advertising. Bonus revenue for CBC! This also helps get quick and dirty popularity numbers wihtout paying 3rd parties to survey viewers. - It helps push net neutrality in Canada, something the broadcast networks need in order to make IPTV both cheap and reliable. Without net neutrality, broadcasters could pay high fees to have networks provide them IPTV priority bandwidth (or hold their signal hostage by degrading it's priority unless a fee is paid). - Instant fan base FAR beyond their broadcast area, without signing contracts with distributors, without deals with sattelite providers and cable companies, and without putting up new towers, all which extends revenue from advertising.
Apparently she wears nipple caps at all time when in unfamiliar dressing rooms or when dressing and getting makeup and such all done at the same time. At least, that's her story.... Aparently a lot of other actors and musicians do the same when simply wearing a bra doesn't make sense for the outfit/costume.
Efficient government means they are out of your way... Fewer morons running around town, tying up traffic, wasting tax dollars, and tying up courtrooms.
Small government is a myth. You can't both have security, good roads, and clean neighborhoods unless the government is involved.
I'd love to "shrink" our government by reducing paperwork, limiting waste, limiting red tape, and limiting due process, thereby limiting people. I'd also like to take powers away from towns and counties and pass them upstream to states or regions. We have way to many "small" people, without experience and without proper education and traning running towns all across america. It's these little organizations that are far more commonly guilty of invading your privacy or bypassing regulations, and they do it almost without concequences.
Lets put power in the hands of fewer people, but leave strict controls and review processes in place to limit how that power is wielded. I want to keep them out of my family life, and out of my way as much as you do, but I also want the waste, the pork barreling, the stalled processes, the fighting amoung ranks, to stop. We blow as much as 20% of our taxes on wasted processes that could be handled by fewer people more efficiently and with better controls.
Pass some laws to restrict abuse of power, allow politicians to see hard prison time for violating the people's trust, allow cops to go to jail for violating rights, allow people who bribe politicians, legally or otherwise, to suffer similar fates.
Lets pass a "one bill-one law" provision for congress, making it illegal to pad bills with pet projects to get them passed.
Lets eliminate the tax code, tax everyone equally with only a few simple deductions, and treat income as income regardless of how it's earned (stocks, labor, sale of goods, interest earned, capitol gains etc, it's ALL income...)
The best way to make small government is to give it better defined powers and strick limits.
Do we still need 6 disparate divisions of armed forces (Army, Navy, Marines, AF, Coast Guard, National Guard) when it could all be combined and save a TON of money? Why is it still seperated? Tradition... mostly.
OK, since you failed to even try to come up with ideas, here's a few:
1) The robot can run ammo and other equipment back and forth to entrentched or pinned down soldiers. It's (mostly) bullet proof, unlike a person.
2) It can be armed and equipped as an anti-personell walking mine, one that can climb stairs, jump a fence, navigate complex terrian, and more. Give it a coordinate, a proposed route, and a detonator and let it go.
3) It's a MULE. Why have soldiers be burdened by several hundred pounds of gear that they have to drop to be fast on their feet when the mule can just carry it for them. Not useful on long hikes unless it carries it's own fuel refills (it gets 2-3 hours marching time, tops, from what I'm reading).
4) It can be used as a face-to-face communcation platform for interacting with terrorists (via remote video conference)
Again, with the nudity, I did concede that point. You want a setting for it, that's fine. However, dealing with it on live TV is much more difficult. Voice can be handled electronically easy enough, but visuals have to be handled by a human, and humans can't possibly watch every frame and respond fast enough. Getting enough hands on a button to handle this is extremely expensive and is still fallable, and all for 1 case in 8 years (and wether or not it was intentional is still being debated in court, and it wasn't a bare breast it had a nipple cap that otherwise would have passed censors and been permitted on a pre-screened TV program under the rating the Superbowl was assigned).
You can still fine people if you want for intentinal nudity in live TV, but accidental (someone tripping on a dress, a strap breaking, a lucky camera angle, etc) should not be held to such fines. I know many people of many cultures, and though a few have religios rules agains nudity, they're still not ashamed by it. Public nudity and PDA may unacceptable, but showering in the same room at the gym is OK to them just as long as people of the opposite sex don't see...
You're still going to be able to fine people for trying on purpose to bypass the rating system (flashing on live TV on purpose), but as long as there's enough loop time to rate the event in real time, or it's pre-recorded rated TV, it's a non issue anyway. Most TV could easily run on a 2-3 minute loop, giving pleanty of time to respond to issues in live TV. unfortunately, programs like sports have issue with ensuring everyone sees it at the same time to avoid loopholes in gambling and other abuses of it....and don't start talking about outlawing gambling, it's a personal choice like any other, and also outside the powers of the federal government to regulate, so you're not getting it banned nation wide to solve this issue. The risk of seeing a boob in a football game, pretty small, and the NFL is running a 5 second loop now, and does have the money to filter their programming. Other sports (someone got in trouble here in SC at a broadcast high school football game because a streaker got caught on camera and it went out on live TV, oops) may be harder to police...
you're right about your system not needing more than 40 or 50 bits. Problem is, can we resonably expect lazy people to individually set each preference on their own? Especially if we're talking about individualizing content for several family members? Can we expect a rating agent to be able to udnerstand 30 or 40 individual toggles and make sure they assign every one to every 15 seconds of TV? No. Having their finders on a few sliders on a board and being able to react quickly to audio and video inpot is important. Even a 30 minute TV show could take several hours to completely review even with using a few simple sliders. To cross check 30-40 button toggles every 15 seconds, it will take a very long time to accurately rate these programs for air, and live TV gets even harder to keep in line with policy this way... Again, feasability, not completeness of the soution. We can't get it passed and enforced if nobody wants to be responsible for it. People want it simple.
We can trow in a toggle or two to handle regigious sensitive material, but generally, people who take offence to comments about their religion take cursing to be as much if not more serious, so it's covered anyway. Nudity being OK vs. kissing not? I can handle this situation anyway by mentioning that nudity is one category, but adult content is another. You CAN have it both ways. OTOH, I can count on 1 hand the number of people in america that will approve of nudity (beyond simple exposure) that won't approve of kissing.
Even still, as I said, we may need a couple of toggles, and allowing one to force block all nudity even at higher settings, or to allow it at lower settings is OK. Blood content is another obvious one as it can be included in completely non-violent programs, but a lot of
If they suddenly charge you with a crime, which assuming they're charging you it means they have evidence against you, then you request a copy of the warrent, which by current rules you should have already been given. A warrent is a simple 1-2 page document. The paperwork we're asking them to fill out is basically some additional fields on the warrent application detailing how and when they began to suspect you of the crime and the signature on the form certifies the date and time that suspicion was founded.
Everyday people simply need to be aware that if their property is searched, they'll get a copy of a pplication, then later maybe a warrent approval. If they get searched, and the warrent is denied, they have a case, if it gets approved, they don't have a case. Simple.
Again, this only applies to federal authorities, and only to warrents for evidence to be collected for certain serious crimes. They won't be doing this to look for proof of you using drugs... We're still not allowing your local sheriff and his redneck deputies to do this... They still have to follow the current laws. We're talking about giving the FBI, CIA, etc a method for quickly acting on new evidence or leads without the CURRENT paperwork process costing us valuable time. Local cops don't have this same need or urgency in small crime cases because again, we're talking about the power to protect America, not Americans individually.
What this provides is a means for the FBI to collect evidence that may be time sensitive without having to get judge or congressional approval for each little thing in advance. It gives them some legal leniency, as long as they actually fill in a few blanks on a form. The FBI agents themselves likely won't even fill these things out, just some secretary in the home office anyway. By doing this, it keeps them on the streets and out of court rooms until convenient times (and yes, we do need to put some reasonable deadline on that application process, but that might vary based on the type of warrent we're requesting and the type of cover the agent may be under). Instead of having to run obver to the court house a few times a week, now they can be doing legwork, and spend more time in the field. This actually gets us MORE protection, not less, as they can be more efficient with their time and resources. It also allows them wiggle room to collect evidence that IS evidence that may not otherwise be collectible under current laws. the risk is that the agent better damn well be RIGHT about the suspicion because if the warent comes back declined and they don't actually get evidence, his ass is on the line!
That's why i don't support a simple rating system. It's pretty easy for an anonymous stranger to say "that's a nipple" and bump a rating to level 5 for the 15 second block of the program that contains it. The arbitrary rating assigned to the entire program in general is vague, has loopholes, and generally doesn't work because it's subject to a critics eye and an interpretive viewpoint. There are programs on the discovery chanel where the rating is G or PG, but on screen is the graphic display of a live operation, the exposure of internal organs and seeping blood, and nothing in the rating helps to determine that.... the system I propose would.
Here's what I forsee:
You set your ratings in the TV Bios (which it either makes you do or automatically blocks all non- G rated content compeltely) On a high dollar set, you might have individual family member preferences, and the TV might even offer some default profiles for houseguests of varios ages (that you can customize), but for now, lets go with the simple example of a general household rating scale, and assume 4 categories for ratings. You plug in your maximum allowable preference numbers for sexual content, violence, graphic depictions, and adult themes. Also, a toggle for profanity, maybe some other options. When you tune in to a program, if it's within your tolerances the show simply starts (and maybe the ratings flash on screen for a few seconds as a positive feedback system). If your tolerance is exceeded by the rating, here's what you might see instead: 2 squares on a black background. left square (or circle or whatever graphic you like) is divided into sections, each color coded giving the overall rating of the program in each category (with a number displayed on top of the color as a secondary indicator, assisting the color blind). On the right is a second identicle square, but indicating the show's worst 15 second rating for each of the 4 items (not necessarily all in the same 15 second time frame). Somewhere on screen you might also see the color scale itself displayed or some other key describing what you see (or maybe you see that only when you press another button. the color scale colors should also be configuable to assist the color blind...)
Now when you change chanels you can quickly judge that a program has an overall low (light green lets say) sexual content rating, but there's a 15 second segment somehwere in there where apparently there's a bedroomm scene that contains partial or side view nudity and there's also an adult content spike to match. You can decide to push a single botton to tune to the chanel if the overall rating is acceptable, but the peak rating is not (meaning you can watch it, but the 15 second scenes will simply be trimmed or bleeped so you don't see them), or you can enter a personal code on the remote to view the program with no editing at all. If the overall rating is unaceptable (your 6 year old is trying to tune in to a show with an overal adult content rating too high), you'll have to enter your personal code to tune in at all, the whole show is blocked from view.
Comercials played during a program will have independent ratings, and will follow your default ratings for blocking automatically. If you have unblocked a program, commercials that may normally exceed your default rating can be set to optionally be played (using a system configuration toggle), but even these commercials will still be blocked if they exceed the overall ratings that you have unlocked. For example, your default violence limit is to block anything beyond non-lifelike violence. You overrode the current program to allow it to display a few scenes of moderate violence (fist fighting), A commercial comes on for Saw VI, and includes graphic murder violence, this commercial would be blocked even though you are in an obverride mode since you have only approved up to fist fighting on the violence scale by overriding the show. If you entered your master code to disable all blocking, then you'll see every commercial,
I agree with you on "gratuitous" nudity, or nudity inserted as part of a script or planned exposure. I'm talking about accidental nudity. We should not be teaching our children that seeing someone naked is bad. However, if you DO want to tech your children that nudity of any kind is bad, and want to deal with the emotional and relationship issues that will haint them for decades because of it, then I guess you should have that right.
Agreed, it's easy enough to add a different digital bleep for accidental nudity just as it is for language, but then it requires 2 people to be ready to push buttons instead of one. Networks already argue dramatically about the cost of the one person. Also, software can easily enough do the bleeping for us for spoken words instead of a person, but it will be YEARS yet before software can do that for images in live video with enough accuracy to be acceptable and low enough cost to be useable. This also only needs to apply to live TV, but there's a LOT of live TV, and very little of it (what, once in the last 8 years) has included nudity, but there are frequent verbal slips.
Again, i agree that planned, scripted, nudity for the sake of nudity, should be able to be blocked. I also think that, like in almost every other country on earth except the USA, nudity should be permitted in commercials again so long as it is not gratuitous (nudity in a shower comercial, etc) but again shuold have blockable ratings.
As for the rating scales, numbers are easy to understand, and easy to display and understand on TV screen quality and resolution. Complete text descriptions are more difficult. Also, the rating system will be broadcast as an underpinning ID every second or two as part of the signal, and therefore is fairly limited in scope. A string of 8-10 single didgits is easy to bury in a signal and easy to decode by a program. Dozens of toggle items is harder to encode (and easier to screw up!). I suggested a digital rating scale for feasability as much as usability (actually 0-7 makes more sense in binary terms than 0-9, but it was just a suggestion) Also, except for a few toggles which don't fit into a simple scale (blood on/off), most things are fairly progressive. I don't see to many people approving nude sex scenes, but blocking tounge action in kissing, do you? Same goes for violence. Slapstick comedy violence is not going to get blocked while allowing rape scenes to be shown...
Better yet, lets just have commercials be VoD content produced, so the commercials you see will only be shown on your TV X number of times in a given timeframe, and add a button you can click to kill a commercial automatically so it's never shown again, once you've seen it in it's entirety once, including all other ads for the same company and product.
Have a form you can fill out to see only commercials for products you might actually buy, and any products you have not already excluded in advance or dynamically.
Watching 30-60 seconds of black TV during programming will only put me to sleep... SOMETHING needs to be on the TV screen...
Maybe we have the best of both worlds, some commercials built into the feed, and other commercials that are shown when the ones in the feed are being blocked or skipped.
In an effort to make commercial space more vaulable, thus more profitable, thus needing fewer commercials, lets allow feedback information to be Collected. The more they know about you, the fewer commercials you'll see that don;ty interest you. Also, you won't see the same damned commercial 40 times in one week as once they have shown it to everyone once, they don't need to show it again.
First, a new process needs to go into place. 1) FBI or some other agency suspects someone of something, and documents the suspicion, then files for a warrent. 2) they can immediately start basic survailence including phone and internet taps. 3) if deemed a "dire emergency" they can enter the property, arrest citezens, or collect physical evidence, consistent with the scope of any warrent filed, wether approved yet or not. 4) if the warrent is approved, all evidence is legal and therefore admissable, and their actions are justified and legal. 5) if the warrent is declined, evidence that may have been collected is STILL admissable, accepting that it has been colelcted illegally, and the citizen victimized by this can file civil or criminal suit against the agents and the agency to try to prove wrongdoing and potentially collect damages.
They need to be able to snoop. It needs to be public knowledge that they do so. If they actually suspect you, file the paperwork, and find you are actually guilty of something (even if unreleated to the suspicion) you are still guilty. It's not the cop's job to outsnmart you. If you are doing something illegal, it matters not how you are discovered, only that you are. If the cops did something illegal in the process, or did not have sufficient evidence or documented suscipicion with validated connections to crimes, witneses, or other paperwork trail to associate you with the crime, then you're still guilty, but so are they!
Lets limit the scope of survailence to a list of major violent or dangerous crimes that fall under federal jurisdiction, including terorist activity, illegal trading of weapons, production (but not distribution, that's a local law enforement issue) of narcotics, murder for hire, organized crime, serial criminal activity, etc. Lets make sure we can't get wiretaps for things like adultery, gambling, tax evasion, or other non-violent crimes. Lets keep this act in perspective, it's for the protection of America, not Americans. Local cops can still get wire taps for small crimes with a warrent (post approval, not pre-approval as I'm suggesting here).
This legistlation would also help end a lot of court cases where legitimate criminals get away because of invalid evidence. I'm not suggesting tainted or suspicios evidence should be admitted, but valid evidence of a crime, regardless of wether it was legally or illegally collected, is still eveidence. Trust me, cops and lawyers are not going to go around kicking in doors to collect evidence without warrents if the punishment is severe, non-negotiable, and involes prison time in gerneral population. If they do, you'll be found guilty of your crime, but they'll be joining you in prison for doing it. If you're found innocent, and they try to collect evidence illegally and find none, well, if it's local law enforecement and they didn;t have a warrent, then you get a few million bucks; if it's the feds, and they followed paperwork processes and filed for a warrent, even if one wasn't issued, and they have a clear case in court as to why they suspected you of the criminal activity, then you can't sue them. If they didn't file paperwork or didn't follow procedure, then you can sue them. Again, they're not going to be breaking in to see if you've written a few bad checks, we're talking about being suspected of a major crime like trying to build a bom or something...
I also approve of scanning of random e-mail messages sent in and out of the country, and also all e-mail sent to/from known terorist associated addresses (names added to a list with a judges approval). Messages sent within this country to other citizens should not be searched without a warrent (or application for one if justified above). They can have access to my call records all they want, as long as they don't listen in to the calls without filing the right paperwork. Knowing who I call and how often is no more private information than who I send postal mail to. The addresses are on the outsi
All shows have a rating. Problem is, most electronic guides (in the set tob box) either don't show it, don't show it consistently, or some dumbass who keyed in the data got it wrong.
But, the rating is also in the show's broadcast, buried in the signal. It's how the v-chip understands wether or not to block the show. You want control? Simply TURN ON THE V-CHIP....but I want it to go 1 step further. I want the v-chip ratings not just for the show, but cut down to 15 second segments within the show, and I want ratings independent for violence, sex, language, and other content so I can let my kids watch what I deep appropriate, not some ratings comittee. The v-chip should be able to block just video, or just audio, or both, in 10-15 second chuncks, so that my kids can watch a movie, but won't see the sex scene, or so they can watch Law and Order, but won't see the violent murder or bloody corpse, etc.
I also want it set so that foul language (f-bombs) are blocked by default (if I don't specify otherwise), but such that they're still broadcast, and so I can set it so that when I'm watching TV, I don't have to hear bleeps, or cheesy voice-overs. Have you ever tried watching "Casino" on TNT??? It's a joke! Why even other if every 3rd word is silenced or bleeped!?!?!?
The V-Chip 2, as I hope comes out, should be able to tell me each time I change chanels what the rating of the show is, the rating of any item being blocked and why, be able to tell who I am based on a keyed in code or bimetric scan, and remember my preferences, allow me override priveladges at will, and more. heck, you want a REAL system??? Lets integrate a small camera in the TV, and allow it basic facial recognition so it know's who's using the TV and what restrictions I've set for them all by itself. Someone new comes over and it should ask what settings to use or default to my children's preference level unless they know an override code. What's really cool about that is if I'm watching some TV-MA rated show and my 5 year old walks in, the TV can automatically downshift it's ratings on the fly, and block content as necessary.
If I'm the kind of parent who approves of my 14 year old watching porn, that's my choice. If I don't want him playing rated R video games like Silent Hill, the game station's chip should understand the game's rating and refuse to pay it if I've specified that. It can do that for movies, why not games?
The real trick is sporting events and live TV. We can generally rate a football game as PG, and Americal Idol as G, but occasionally someone slips up, a mic is on at the wrong time and a player curses (happens almost every game), or a kid on Idol sings a curse in a Pearl Jam song (happened last season). How do you control that? Well, a 5 second loop like the do for radio seems to work well enough, why not one for TV, as long as the "bleep" is just a signal to the v-chip to do or not do it's thing and not an actual "bleep"? As for the boob slipage... Nudity, accidental or otherwise, in my opinion is completely natural, and should NEVER be censored, only sexual acts should be censored, so accidental nudity on television, in my world, needs no censorship and would not be a concern for a v-chip technology for live TV. I don't expect too many people will get away with stripping down and fucking on a live broadcast of an awards show... At the same time, even kissing should trigger censoship at some level if a parent chooses. Some of the teen and pre-teen programming on TV has FAR more PDA than I would approve of for a 10 year old, yet a lot of it is rated PG...
I want granular control. A rating of 0-9 for sexual content (kissing on lips=1, tounge=2, heavy petting=3, in bed=4, etc... all the way up to Skin-a-max late night soft core porn...) A rating of 0-9 for violence, one for adult situations, toggles for "show blood" "allow smoking" "profane language" Oh, yea, and I want these things to apply to COMMERCIALS too! I don't need questions like "What's erotic mean?" coming from a 6 year old who's watched a G rated program at 3 in the afternoon....
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15 years ago your video survailence system was not integrated into your alarm system... Try to dismantle or disrupt modern video systems, and they auto-alert via pager, e-mail, or other method you configure. You can even set them to trigger the building's alarm system.
..and a bank that didn't already have security cameras, and he had that much access? Why didn't he take THE MONEY!?!?!
Of course, VCRs are easy to steal, but the network DVR in the server room is not, unless you thief had a key to the server closet... They can steal the cameras, but the idea is the taping system has to be secure. Also, every camera has to be in the field of view of another, so when they tamper with one, they're on camera doing it...
Also, a theft like that, there had to be fingerprints everywhere! Dis-mounting several cameras, opening several doors, unscrewing bolt-down ties, moving ladders, the cops must have been complete morons not to catch that guy, even if years ago!
I like Apple's model better. They have one OS, one price. Everything is included, for home or for business. $149... It's modular in the sense that nothing runs unless you run it, and uninstalling a program is a simple as dragging it's folder to the trash can. Heck, have you installed Office on a mac lately? Put the CD in and it says "Drag this to Applications to install"
OS 7 may choose to go modular, but if it's a sales model, not a feature model, then it will likely fail. I can understand the ability to streamline the performance curve by uninstalling unneeded or unsupported parts of the code, but realistically, the only major differences between Microsoft's Flagship Ultimate OS at more than $350 and their most basic home version at about $150 is 1) business support, 2) media center functionality, 3) a fancy GUI that requires fancy hardware, and 4) some file replication and backup options. Really, for an extra $200, that's all you get...
Here's a feature comparison for you:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/27/leopard-vs-vista-feature-chart-showdown/
Just to note, here's a few issues I found with their list:
- They say Explorer is more powerful than finder. Are they on crack? Coverflow and the power of Apple's search tools vs thumbnails and desktop search? this is not a comparison...
- there are AV tuners and TV recording capabilities for Apple systems (Happauge makes a few as well as others) Windows has no integrated native apps for it, just hardware and 3rd parts software support same as Apple.
- Network projector support on Windows is via 3rd party apps only. Same as Apple for which software IS available.
- There are a lot of network storage appliances for Apple, including OS X server. Listing Windows Home Server doesn't count as a plus in Microsoft's corner since it's not "out-of-the box" and requires additional software installed by the server to do these things. Vista does NAS no differently than Apple without a real server behind it... They both access network USB the same, though 3rd party drivers or network shares. Apple also supports more than just SMB shares, so I even lean on their side on this a bit, but still call it tied.
- Automator is a sync tool when set up. Better yet, configure rsync (included) and sync only delta changed packets instead of whole files... Sure, it requires some know how, and Windows Sync Center is easier to use, but it can't be used on business editions anyway...
- Presentation mode? Are they referring to PowerPoint? That's not included in Windows, plus both PowerPoint for Mac 2008 and Keynote do this (and more).
they give Apple 46 points and Vista 41, still in Apple's camp by their count. i'd give apple 6 more, or at least take away Window's advantage in those categories.
Here's a few more they missed:
- Automation Features - apple has lots, Windows has a simple task scheduler to lauch batch files...
- Price - Clearly in Apple's favor (hardware aside, which by the way in mid and upper range does compete directly with Dell's pricing for Windows PCs. Compare iMac to Dell's shiny new all-in-one.)
- Security - Apple wins since Admin access is disable by default and their firewall is superior, plus not a single ITW virus for mac and little or no spyware (might change in the future, but not a concern now)
- Voice Control and dictation support - only works on Windows with Office 2007 installed
- file preview - opening a file to view it or print it in it's native app is a waste of time. Cover Flow and Quick Look is far superior, a win for Apple...
- Updates - goes to M$ on this one. Not only for being predictable, and having more granular controls, but also for documenting what's in the update clearly and making that info easy to find.
- Dashboard and Widgets - Windows dashboard sucks and is a memory and resource hog. Apple wins this round, not to even count the sheer volume of apple widgets available.
Well, considdering I have XM, but I listed to my local radio station about 10 times more often, because I want to hear traffic reports, local weather, local events, and god forbid occasionally a DJ speak.
When traveling, i find I listed to the iPod more often than radio.
With a new baby, likely I'll be listening to childrens crap more than my own too.
HD and digital terestrial radio are solid competition to sattelite. With things coming down the pipe from cellphone companies, and their digital networks, don't be surprised if your cell phone (or car stereo itself) could tune into digital music broadcast on chanels from cell towers, even giving you the ability to drive coast to coast and listed to the same station without using sattelite.
This merger allows both companies to combine their contracts, eliminate internal competition, and save a lot of money. They'll also have a more complete offering, and with ala carte billing, many people will likely have lower bills. they also won't be advertising quite so much further lowering costs.
Sure, you may have to buy a new radio when the merger is done, but I'm guessing all you will likely need on some radios is a firmware upgrade, on others, maybe a chip exchanged. I would not hesitate to guess that most of the radios manufactured after the merger process was started (when it got far enough that the 2 boards agreed to it and sought JOD approval) have had the ability to receive all the chanels available from both services and simply need an update when it kicks over. Face it, the units wouldn't have a 3 digit chanel ID (since day 1 in 2002?) if they only supported 99 chanels... My cable box actually only has a 3 digit readout, but I get up to channel 1299. It rebooted one day and *poof* they added 300 more channel slots and reorganized the line-up to make more logical sense. I doubt the reciever in my XM radio was hard locked to a specific subset of frequencies knowing that XM might one day add more chanels on it's own... they should be able to software unlock more channels at will. It would be bad business to tell all your paying subscribers "Hey, we have all this new stuff, and a lower price too, but to use it you need to spend $90 on a new unit, and you have 3 months to change..."
Provide me with a few million investment dollars and I'll see what I can do...
[[[hand extended in anticipation]]]
Truthfully, we'll have something like that eventually, but I'm not holding my breath. Without patent reform, open licensing, and a whole lot ears cleaned of all the shit from being stuck in ass ends so long, we won't see it.
Sad, isn't it? It's really all about money. States that decide they get more highway funds than it will cost them to implement Real ID will implement it, while states that get small amounts of highway funds will oppose it.
True, so true. Except that politicians from that stae won't be able to go to washington to complain about it if the can't board planes without it...
...and moreso, their systems likely won't even have true access to the database, just a record check on the ID swiped and confirmed. They won't be able to simply look up random people unless they have the ID number of that person. As for political offiliation, well, if you REGISTETRED as a republican, than what are you hiding anyway? You've already given non-screened people access to your address and political affiliation. What do you care if the FBI knows too? If you haven't declared your affiliation, how would they know?
More people with access, yes. Less control over who they are, no. The application interface, who gets to install it, control of logon credentials, etc, will all be handled internally. Besides, as long as the system is secure from outside network access, what do you care if some dumbass at the DMV looks up information HE ALREADY HAS ON YOU TODAY (and risks imprisonment by doing it without proper authority)?
As for speeding tickets, very few states cooperate on tracking points and suspensions. Insurance companies do a fair job, but there are allways ways around that. Heck, almost 1/4th of the drivers in SC have NO INSTURANCE. Points and penalites don't necessarily translate from state to state today, and how points against your license fall off over time differes as well. People who get DUIs and loose licenses change states all the time. even when insurance knows about it, in some states, legall ythey have to insure you anyway, and at state set maximum rates.
My local grocery store has biometric finger scanners at every register. These things are cheap. bars and clubs don't HAVE to install them, they just need a card reader to validate that the information on the front of the card matches what's in the chip. They'll likely get an insurance discount, liquer license discount, or some other benefit to justify the minor cost anyway.
IRS information will CERTAINLY be tied to the ID number, but NOT in the same database. various privacy acts protect people like the police from having access to tax information or other records unless a judge believes that information has an impact on the case against you. The DMV will only have access to your personal ID info, your vehicle and registration info, posibly local property taxes on that vehicle in some states (in a seperate local database). Airport agents will record your passing, and will have access to your passport file, but not your driving records or tax information. They'll be able to identify if there's a warent for your arrest, if you're on a watch list, etc, but other than confirming who you are, they have no reason to access the other information and again, it would be blocked by various privacy acts.
making it illegal to access database information won't stop federal agencies who don't fear prosecution, I agree, but remember, those agencies ALREADY HAVE this information... Changing the type of ID you have has NO IMPACT WHAT SO EVER on their ability to look you up if they want to. If they don't want to, why the fuck would they waste their time???
Data mining this system, well that's also going to happen, but it's not like they don't already do it. Again, if you have ever paid taxes, bought a car, been married, or signed a credit application, they HAVE YOU ON FILE TODAY. This database does not provide them any NEW abilities, other than being able to more quickly have local security personel identify you when you're standing in front of them. The FBI and CIA do what they do completely seperately. Some nut job at the DMV won't be able to mine the database... not unless he's got a
Wether we're talking about employee theft or the night janitor, there's a simple, and relatively inexpensive option, and it's called video survaillence.
Place a few cameras around (even a few fake ones!), connect them to a video hub/DVR. To make employees happy and help them feel reassured that no one is contstantly watching the footage to see who is and who is not working efficiently or whatever, you place the kit inside a closet and place 2 or 3 differnt locks on it and give 1 of those keys to the HR rep or IT guy, one to an upper level VP, and one to a representative of an employee formed comittee. Now for someone to see who swiped a stolen item, these 3 people neet to come together to unlock the door... now no one is poking around the survailence system.... Another good option is giving the key to the closet to IT, but the password to the DVR to an employee relations comittee member. Since the DVRs are member or workgroup devices, not domain systems, IT won't be able to change the password and management can't log on to the system at all (since it's for theft protection, the only occasion they should have to log on is when a theft happens, and employee relations should be involved.
If that's still not good enough for your employees, only put cameras in hallways and near enterances, so they're not under full time survaillence, but if someone swipes something, we should have a good idea of who was in the neighborhood at the time it went missing.
Anything large being stolen will be obvious (monitors, printers, etc). That stuff doesn't belong to you anyway, it belongs to the company, and if you're backing up your data, what do you care?
If you ARE using your own equipment in the office building for work purposes, get HR or your finance department to assure you it's covered under a company insurance policy and then if it walks off, it's still their problem, and you get free replacement kit. For everything else, check with your homeowners or renters insurance policy. You can usually get a rider for a couple bucks a month that covers personal device loss and damage without a deductable. (you do have to file a police report to get a claim, but lets face it, sometimes people see police at your cubicle, and devices mysteriously re-appear...)
I've also been in buildings where security asset tags every item coming in the building (even things like picture frames!). Going in or out of the building becomes a slight pain since you need to go through metal detectors, and security checks, but for some businesses, especially those dealing with large numbers of traveling employees or lots of short term contract labor, it's worth it.
On another note, if you don't trust your fellow employees, seek employment elsewhere or don't bring shiny things to the office...
Well, Steam works, but keep in mind, even big games are only 1-2GB (massive ones may be 4 or 5). Also, you only DL games periodically, tend not to share them often with family, and don't expect to start playing one 5 minutes after clicking download... Also, they have to be installed, which eliminates any traveling options (airport, car, etc) unless you DL'd them in advance. It's just not as convenient as whipping out a disk and inserting it, and the games/movies I use most would already be on my HDD as instaleld/copied items or as virtual disk images.
/8Mbit / 60sec / 60min = 7 hours.) "Streaming" a movie over 8Mbit really isn't an option, and 40Mbit connections are not available in the USA yet... ...and I'm not even talking about how to back up a 1TB data set periodically that's growing at over 250GB per year... and wait until 2011 when 4X HD is a big hit. 100GB per movie? not even if 1TB drives were under $50 would I considder that. Now lets see you Defrag that, or do a virus scan. Call me next week...
This is why I say, HD video downloads work from local cable services across broadband chanels, as part of a VoD or rental service. Direct streaming for keeps, not likely a reality. If one assumed that I could start this now, purchase and download a fair number of movies over time (say 1 per month) then in 3 years, I'd need something akin to 1TB just to store those flicks on a single PC (assuming 25GB ea, fairly average for a BD movie with HD audio). If my drive crashed and I had to re-download that, over an 8Mbit connection and assuming maximum throughput, it would take 10.5 days to re-download that content! Even assuming I'd be willing to dedicate 50% of my bandwidth to that, i'd be looking at almost a month to re-download just 36 lost movies. Heck, just to DL a single new movie at 25GB would be 7 hours if my math is right... (25GB X 1024MB X8bits
What freedom are they taking away from you by replacing one form of ID with a nother one?
They already have all this information about you in the govenment's (IRS) taxpayer database... You already have a drivers license... You already can't enter a federal or state building without one...
By issuing you a universal ID, they're: making it cost less (only 1 organization paying millions for programming, not 51 of them), simplifying state to state communication, reducing insurance fraud, reducing tax fraud, helping reduce Identity theft, and having a better tracking system for criminals who move out of one state into another...
Short of the "big givernment" paranoia option (which honestly, since they already have this data in less secure systems, doesn't change with this new ID), how exactly does this impact your FREEDOM!?!?!
Stupidity is in allowing irrational fears to overcome sound judgement. We have the opportunity to shape this program (it's years out yet), make existing information more secure than it is today, unify and simplify government, save money, and more. The only people who have to fear this system are: people who don't pay taxes, people who commit insurance fraud, and people on the run from the law in one way or another... Sure, there's a risk someone might hack the system, but it's not like they can download the whole database, or even chunks of it, and it's all information that's already available as public records under the Freedom of Information act for anyone who has ever paid property taxes or owns a home!
first, the 14th amendment absolves the federal govenment and states of debts related to wars, but does not line item cities.
Second, This was the civil war, and thus not an "insurrection" of the USA.
Third, this debt was incurred BEFORE the amendment was ratified, but almost 10 years, and was thus at that time expected to be paid.
Now, in the cities defence, at some point a statuate of limitations should have come into play. the city may acknowledge the debt, but after X number of years, the citizen may not have the right to enfore payment if legal action had not already been taken to collect. If the store owner never sued the city to collect, then it's probably far too late to try now...
Digital dsitrubution is NOT a competitor. It is for reneted or short term materials, but lets face it, if my choice is to save $5 or less to download a movie instead of buying the hard copy, or risking loosing the media and also incurring the cost for it's storage.
...best of both worlds. A set top DVR that can record and play back live HDTV, integrates on on-demand service allowing both per-purchase options as well as monthly all-access subscriptions (hot releases cost a buck or two extra each). Also, instead of a $4 rental, offer a $14 download-to-own option, and for an additional $3 they'll send the original media to you in the mail in a few weeks so you don't have to make backup copies. The set top box should integrate a BD writer so anything you've downloaded (or recorded live) you could burn to your own media. Also integrate it into the network so movies and other content of the DVR can be shared on the network and vice-versa. Also allow an agent to run on a computer so you can not only download movies, but select which PCs they're automatically copied to, like podcasts, so you can keep the most recent, unwatched movies, as well as a few selected favorites, on your laptop and your iPhone without having to copy them there (and waste hours) when you're on the go.
With physical media I:
- can easily loan it to a friend or family member, without wasting blank media or time to burn it.
- can move it from system to system in seconds, not hours over a network connection
- don't need systems to be compatible for steaming or sharing, a BD player in each room costs about the same as (and will cost less than) the equipment to connect the TV to the network for streaming HD.
- Can make electronic copies for backup (wether currently legal or not)
- can move it off my hard drives at will without buying media and wasting hours (days) to burn it (If I want to encode it on the computer I can, and in less time than burning a DVD...)
- don't have to buy bigger and bigger hard drives and RAID system as my collection grows
- don't have to wait DAYS for Antivirus scans to complete, or copying to new drives as my old ones fill up.
- don't have to back it up
Digital distribution works fine for music, for which I can have tousands of songs on cheap hard drives, and streaming works great over even the cheapest wireless devices for stereo surround audio. It's easy to maintain and copy when your whole collection is less than 100GB (and that's a BIG collection). When a single HD movie is 20-50GB, it's not easy or cheap to maintain my own collection electronically. heck, even standard definition DVDs are hard to maintain on a sharing network.
On-demand video? yes, digital downloads may very well replace Blockbuster. If an all-you-can-eat subscription was available (netflix size library, digitized in HD, and available to start playing within 5 minutes) and the fee was equivolent to current subscription fees ($15 per month) it might become feasable, but you still can't take it with you unless you download the entire movie before leaving... When I go on vacation, or to a friend's house, I want a few dozen good classic movies with me, and a few new ones to. Even at over 8MB downspeed, I'm looking at typing up my pipe for days to download a weeks worth of movies, and hundreds of GBs to store them on. Also, my laptop, even if it had that much storage, doesn't plug into most hotel TVs...
Digital downloads are strong competition for HBO and other networks. Why pay $12/month per channel when you could pay $20/month and see every movie your hear desires on demand? This I see is where digital downloads will make their mark. They're obviously competition for the rental industry, provided the set top box is part of a service and not several hundred dolars by itself.
The best solution in my mind?
The states do have their own soverign rights. Many of them fought against changing driking laws to 21, many against manditory seat belt laws, many against multiple speed limit changes. Fact is, all the federal government has to do is wave federal highway money in front of them (or threaten to take it away) and the states will bend and take it in the ass. They have over and over and over again...
Facts:
- The Real-ID system will be at least as secure (if not more) than the best existing state ID system in place currently. Sure, it will be a big target, but it will also be closely guarded by top security people since it's such a public issue. Access will be restricted to public sector netowrks, not open to the public or common hacking attacks, just like the ATM network and existing police and DMV systems. It will be monitored constantly. Do you think South Carolina has a top notch FBI security team monitoring access to THEIR systems? I can tell you as someone who knows a few former programmers at the for SC state who wrote that system, NO IT CERTAINLY DOES NOT! there have even been breakins at DMV offices where PC, printer, and blank IDs have been stolen since the system requires no direct connection to a secure validation network in order to print IDs.
- Currently, all you have to do if you loose your license in one state is move to another and apply for a licesne there. Too many DUI's? just move and reset. Under Federally issued ID, this will not be possible, and states can protect themselves from repeat bad drivers (driving is a privelidge, not a right, and if you abuse it, we have the right to take it away and make sure you can't get it back, even if you move). This will lower insurance costs across the board.
- Few people in security (professional residential, even bartenders) can be expected to know how to spot fake IDs from every state (There are over 200 legal forms of ID circulating in america). With a single secure ID, we don't have to even look for fake info, we can swipe it, compare a computer screen to information on the ID, and compare the picture to the person, even use a biometric scan as further confirmation. RFID may not be secure, and it may only take a few days for someone to crack the chip in the ID and distribute hardware and software to edit it, but cracking the text printed on the ID will be much tougher. The state of CT has one of the hardest to forge IDs I've ever seen, and I've not seen them all. If REAL-ID takes even a handfull of their tricks, you won't see a lot of these faked (especially if it becomes a federal crime to do so, not a local misdemeanor!)
- Anyone with a valid or fake ID today can sneak into just about any federal building. Real ID will make this more, not less, secure, as fakes will be easier to spot, and real ones that are invalid will be harder to get.
- yes, you information will be accessible by more agencies and organizations than ever before. Most of this will still require a warrent unless it's for entering say a speeding ticket. Your financial information will not be tied to this ID, only your address, ID number, and a few minor details about you. It's no more secure of insecure than your current drivers license, which all of us regularly give photocopies of at will to anyone who askes, right? If you already give this out, who cares if agencies, with strict controls over this information and who it's accessed, have it?
- You can't log onto this database and pull records for large amounts of people. This is an integrated and unique system. To get a record, you have to fill out a query. Even as a hacker, and even if you could get onto an authorised terminal or hack your way in, and even if you had a copy of the client software package used to access this database, at best, you can get a few search results at a time, and only 1 record at a time. Search too much or too long, or try to backdoor the system, and it will know. the database will simply be too big to "steal." all you can do is access it.
Look, if the media contained information that was a matter of national security, then simply have authorized personel maintain and store the media. If you were authorised to maintian the server in the first place, and could access, save, and back-up presidential records, then you were authorised to hold the media in youtr hand, pass it off (using a chan of custody document) to an authorised member of the secret service, military, or other security branch, and they could store that information in a secure facility. If someone really wanted those e-mails, they would have had to 1) know where they were, which by itself would likely require access to low level secure information, 2) break into a hardened facility and kill a lot of marines, 3) locate the item and get out alive before you got killed, and 4) have sufficient technology to read the tapes and hope they're not encrypted in 512 bit...
Of course, this is even easier with hard disks as members drives of a single RIAD 5 unit could be split up and sent to 6 or 8 different locations. You can rebuild 1 or 2 lost drives in a RAID 5 set using algorithms and by identifying data aptterns, but with only 1 or 2 drives out of a 12 or 15 drive stripe, good fucking luck, add even without a 128Bit simple encryption and I'd still call pulling this off an impoissible feat. Why were these drives destroyed? Orders... No way was there existance a national security risk. Information is only dangerous in public hands (if security is breached). Some drives may have failed, or been destroyed for one reason or another, but several years of records? Every copy of every backup during that time? No... This is clearly a conspiracy. the law clearly indicated this information was to be kept.
Except that most religious events are not in fact celebrated because of of the religious holiday. Almost every single event celebrated today was done so due to seasonal activity revolving around the planting or harvesting work. The churches assimilated various celebratory activites that were already in practice long before the church came to town.
People already had celebrations frequently, and for a variety of reasons. These celebrations peaked when work peaked (spring and fall) and the timing of most of these events was typically based around the lunar schedule, first thaw, first frost, solstice, etc. When the church wanted to interest new cultures, they did so generally through celebration, and denoted their own holidays, found similarities of one cultures pratcies to a religios event, and then created the holiday. After a hundred years of practicing the holiday on the day of a particular festival, it simply became known by the name the church provided for it, especially if a large portion of the population had converted.
I would bother to link you to articles about St Valentine, Ishtar (Easter), All Hallows, Yule, St Patrics Day (Spring equinox, AKA rebirth of trees, AKA celebration of all things green) Mother's and Father's Day, Beltane (May Day), and even thanksgiving (the practice and seasonal timing, not necessarily the American reasonings behind the current celebrated date for it) as all being Pagan holidays overtaken by the church, but then, that's what search engines are for...
Even the fact that you go to church on Sundays was an attempt in 321CE when Pope Constantine ordered worship services moved from the Sabbath on Saturday to Sunday so that the pagan ritual of worshiping the Sun God at dawn would be replaced by other practices. He even made it punishable by death 11 years later to worship God on a Saturday to enforce the idea of making Sunday the standard day and thus force pagans to choose one god over the other (since they would not be able to worship both at the same time or same pace).
Check this out, even Christmas Day, December 25th, birthday of Jesus, was placed as the day after the solstice, the first day of the year that began to get longer, grow in light, and hence the birthday celebration for the Sun God since in the original calendar that date was penned by the Cristian church, the 24th was actually the 22nd, the solstice being the 21st.
Well, if it was a real camera, I'd worry about it, but from descriptions, it's little more than a glorified IR sensor. The idea is only for it to be able to discern basic body size and shape so it can, at a simple level using inexpensive sensors and very little CPU power, determine if it's the Mother, Father, or which child who is currently in front of the TV. It's also an idea they're playing with in a lab, not in a production box. Personally, I think it makes a WHOLE lot more sense to put a simple biometric finger scanner in the remote itself (or just a pin number you can enter) than it does to have a camera in the set top box. Of course, then the remote becomes a proprietary (required) device in order to benefit from the convenience of auto-programming favorites and such, but that's not a bad deal if it's a good quality, programable, universal remote.
Also, Comcast doesn't need to know who is in your house... It makes no difference to them in any way. All they care about is what channel you are watching, for how long, and do you fast-forward through commercials. This information is used to sell local and national advertising and to determing viewership of programs. Based on what channels you watch, how many TVs are in your house, and where you live, they have a pretty friggin good idea of how you fit demographically into their ability to sell advertising. they really don't give a shit if it's the wife or husband who watches the food network, either way, that person is obviously interested in food. If that house is in the slums where rent is about $300 a month, they can likely bet you're not interested in commercials about $1000 espresso machines...
They know what time you watch TV, what channels you watch, your demographic, they can usually guess your race, and more based on where you live and your viewing habits. Providing a system for the TV to detect who is who and preset chanel line-ups for them only makes it easier for people to use, and thus addict you to a service you may not be able to get from their competitor. Knowing if it's the wife, husband, or 10 year old boy who's watching porn has NOTHING to do with it.
More over, if any information collected by the box would go back to Comcast, that has to be clearly detailed for the customer, and there must by federal law be an opt-out (or in some states and opt-in) system, and the use of the feedback system can not be legally required as a contract term.
For publically broadcast media, I don't see why this isn't the best idea since sliced bread! the broadcast was already free. They got advertising revenue when it aired.
By distributing it through torrents, they get:
- no need to manually encode, produce, and deal with formats of the media. It gets released without DRM and nuts everywhere will recode it for them into a dozen formats.
- No real distribution costs, why buy a big pipe when we can use theirs! Push it out to a few hundred people, and millions of copies go out on the net without costing CBC a dime!
- Instant advertising figures. Pull up BT, type in the name of the episode, get 47,000 responses, now the advertiser is certain there's 47,000 copies of their ad distributed and they pay up for the added advertising. Bonus revenue for CBC! This also helps get quick and dirty popularity numbers wihtout paying 3rd parties to survey viewers.
- It helps push net neutrality in Canada, something the broadcast networks need in order to make IPTV both cheap and reliable. Without net neutrality, broadcasters could pay high fees to have networks provide them IPTV priority bandwidth (or hold their signal hostage by degrading it's priority unless a fee is paid).
- Instant fan base FAR beyond their broadcast area, without signing contracts with distributors, without deals with sattelite providers and cable companies, and without putting up new towers, all which extends revenue from advertising.
Apparently she wears nipple caps at all time when in unfamiliar dressing rooms or when dressing and getting makeup and such all done at the same time. At least, that's her story.... Aparently a lot of other actors and musicians do the same when simply wearing a bra doesn't make sense for the outfit/costume.
Efficient government means they are out of your way... Fewer morons running around town, tying up traffic, wasting tax dollars, and tying up courtrooms.
Small government is a myth. You can't both have security, good roads, and clean neighborhoods unless the government is involved.
I'd love to "shrink" our government by reducing paperwork, limiting waste, limiting red tape, and limiting due process, thereby limiting people. I'd also like to take powers away from towns and counties and pass them upstream to states or regions. We have way to many "small" people, without experience and without proper education and traning running towns all across america. It's these little organizations that are far more commonly guilty of invading your privacy or bypassing regulations, and they do it almost without concequences.
Lets put power in the hands of fewer people, but leave strict controls and review processes in place to limit how that power is wielded. I want to keep them out of my family life, and out of my way as much as you do, but I also want the waste, the pork barreling, the stalled processes, the fighting amoung ranks, to stop. We blow as much as 20% of our taxes on wasted processes that could be handled by fewer people more efficiently and with better controls.
Pass some laws to restrict abuse of power, allow politicians to see hard prison time for violating the people's trust, allow cops to go to jail for violating rights, allow people who bribe politicians, legally or otherwise, to suffer similar fates.
Lets pass a "one bill-one law" provision for congress, making it illegal to pad bills with pet projects to get them passed.
Lets eliminate the tax code, tax everyone equally with only a few simple deductions, and treat income as income regardless of how it's earned (stocks, labor, sale of goods, interest earned, capitol gains etc, it's ALL income...)
The best way to make small government is to give it better defined powers and strick limits.
Do we still need 6 disparate divisions of armed forces (Army, Navy, Marines, AF, Coast Guard, National Guard) when it could all be combined and save a TON of money? Why is it still seperated? Tradition... mostly.
OK, since you failed to even try to come up with ideas, here's a few:
1) The robot can run ammo and other equipment back and forth to entrentched or pinned down soldiers. It's (mostly) bullet proof, unlike a person.
2) It can be armed and equipped as an anti-personell walking mine, one that can climb stairs, jump a fence, navigate complex terrian, and more. Give it a coordinate, a proposed route, and a detonator and let it go.
3) It's a MULE. Why have soldiers be burdened by several hundred pounds of gear that they have to drop to be fast on their feet when the mule can just carry it for them. Not useful on long hikes unless it carries it's own fuel refills (it gets 2-3 hours marching time, tops, from what I'm reading).
4) It can be used as a face-to-face communcation platform for interacting with terrorists (via remote video conference)
Again, with the nudity, I did concede that point. You want a setting for it, that's fine. However, dealing with it on live TV is much more difficult. Voice can be handled electronically easy enough, but visuals have to be handled by a human, and humans can't possibly watch every frame and respond fast enough. Getting enough hands on a button to handle this is extremely expensive and is still fallable, and all for 1 case in 8 years (and wether or not it was intentional is still being debated in court, and it wasn't a bare breast it had a nipple cap that otherwise would have passed censors and been permitted on a pre-screened TV program under the rating the Superbowl was assigned).
...and don't start talking about outlawing gambling, it's a personal choice like any other, and also outside the powers of the federal government to regulate, so you're not getting it banned nation wide to solve this issue. The risk of seeing a boob in a football game, pretty small, and the NFL is running a 5 second loop now, and does have the money to filter their programming. Other sports (someone got in trouble here in SC at a broadcast high school football game because a streaker got caught on camera and it went out on live TV, oops) may be harder to police...
You can still fine people if you want for intentinal nudity in live TV, but accidental (someone tripping on a dress, a strap breaking, a lucky camera angle, etc) should not be held to such fines. I know many people of many cultures, and though a few have religios rules agains nudity, they're still not ashamed by it. Public nudity and PDA may unacceptable, but showering in the same room at the gym is OK to them just as long as people of the opposite sex don't see...
You're still going to be able to fine people for trying on purpose to bypass the rating system (flashing on live TV on purpose), but as long as there's enough loop time to rate the event in real time, or it's pre-recorded rated TV, it's a non issue anyway. Most TV could easily run on a 2-3 minute loop, giving pleanty of time to respond to issues in live TV. unfortunately, programs like sports have issue with ensuring everyone sees it at the same time to avoid loopholes in gambling and other abuses of it.
you're right about your system not needing more than 40 or 50 bits. Problem is, can we resonably expect lazy people to individually set each preference on their own? Especially if we're talking about individualizing content for several family members? Can we expect a rating agent to be able to udnerstand 30 or 40 individual toggles and make sure they assign every one to every 15 seconds of TV? No. Having their finders on a few sliders on a board and being able to react quickly to audio and video inpot is important. Even a 30 minute TV show could take several hours to completely review even with using a few simple sliders. To cross check 30-40 button toggles every 15 seconds, it will take a very long time to accurately rate these programs for air, and live TV gets even harder to keep in line with policy this way... Again, feasability, not completeness of the soution. We can't get it passed and enforced if nobody wants to be responsible for it. People want it simple.
We can trow in a toggle or two to handle regigious sensitive material, but generally, people who take offence to comments about their religion take cursing to be as much if not more serious, so it's covered anyway. Nudity being OK vs. kissing not? I can handle this situation anyway by mentioning that nudity is one category, but adult content is another. You CAN have it both ways. OTOH, I can count on 1 hand the number of people in america that will approve of nudity (beyond simple exposure) that won't approve of kissing.
Even still, as I said, we may need a couple of toggles, and allowing one to force block all nudity even at higher settings, or to allow it at lower settings is OK. Blood content is another obvious one as it can be included in completely non-violent programs, but a lot of
If they suddenly charge you with a crime, which assuming they're charging you it means they have evidence against you, then you request a copy of the warrent, which by current rules you should have already been given. A warrent is a simple 1-2 page document. The paperwork we're asking them to fill out is basically some additional fields on the warrent application detailing how and when they began to suspect you of the crime and the signature on the form certifies the date and time that suspicion was founded.
Everyday people simply need to be aware that if their property is searched, they'll get a copy of a pplication, then later maybe a warrent approval. If they get searched, and the warrent is denied, they have a case, if it gets approved, they don't have a case. Simple.
Again, this only applies to federal authorities, and only to warrents for evidence to be collected for certain serious crimes. They won't be doing this to look for proof of you using drugs... We're still not allowing your local sheriff and his redneck deputies to do this... They still have to follow the current laws. We're talking about giving the FBI, CIA, etc a method for quickly acting on new evidence or leads without the CURRENT paperwork process costing us valuable time. Local cops don't have this same need or urgency in small crime cases because again, we're talking about the power to protect America, not Americans individually.
What this provides is a means for the FBI to collect evidence that may be time sensitive without having to get judge or congressional approval for each little thing in advance. It gives them some legal leniency, as long as they actually fill in a few blanks on a form. The FBI agents themselves likely won't even fill these things out, just some secretary in the home office anyway. By doing this, it keeps them on the streets and out of court rooms until convenient times (and yes, we do need to put some reasonable deadline on that application process, but that might vary based on the type of warrent we're requesting and the type of cover the agent may be under). Instead of having to run obver to the court house a few times a week, now they can be doing legwork, and spend more time in the field. This actually gets us MORE protection, not less, as they can be more efficient with their time and resources. It also allows them wiggle room to collect evidence that IS evidence that may not otherwise be collectible under current laws. the risk is that the agent better damn well be RIGHT about the suspicion because if the warent comes back declined and they don't actually get evidence, his ass is on the line!
That's why i don't support a simple rating system. It's pretty easy for an anonymous stranger to say "that's a nipple" and bump a rating to level 5 for the 15 second block of the program that contains it. The arbitrary rating assigned to the entire program in general is vague, has loopholes, and generally doesn't work because it's subject to a critics eye and an interpretive viewpoint. There are programs on the discovery chanel where the rating is G or PG, but on screen is the graphic display of a live operation, the exposure of internal organs and seeping blood, and nothing in the rating helps to determine that.... the system I propose would.
Here's what I forsee:
You set your ratings in the TV Bios (which it either makes you do or automatically blocks all non- G rated content compeltely) On a high dollar set, you might have individual family member preferences, and the TV might even offer some default profiles for houseguests of varios ages (that you can customize), but for now, lets go with the simple example of a general household rating scale, and assume 4 categories for ratings. You plug in your maximum allowable preference numbers for sexual content, violence, graphic depictions, and adult themes. Also, a toggle for profanity, maybe some other options. When you tune in to a program, if it's within your tolerances the show simply starts (and maybe the ratings flash on screen for a few seconds as a positive feedback system). If your tolerance is exceeded by the rating, here's what you might see instead: 2 squares on a black background. left square (or circle or whatever graphic you like) is divided into sections, each color coded giving the overall rating of the program in each category (with a number displayed on top of the color as a secondary indicator, assisting the color blind). On the right is a second identicle square, but indicating the show's worst 15 second rating for each of the 4 items (not necessarily all in the same 15 second time frame). Somewhere on screen you might also see the color scale itself displayed or some other key describing what you see (or maybe you see that only when you press another button. the color scale colors should also be configuable to assist the color blind...)
Now when you change chanels you can quickly judge that a program has an overall low (light green lets say) sexual content rating, but there's a 15 second segment somehwere in there where apparently there's a bedroomm scene that contains partial or side view nudity and there's also an adult content spike to match. You can decide to push a single botton to tune to the chanel if the overall rating is acceptable, but the peak rating is not (meaning you can watch it, but the 15 second scenes will simply be trimmed or bleeped so you don't see them), or you can enter a personal code on the remote to view the program with no editing at all. If the overall rating is unaceptable (your 6 year old is trying to tune in to a show with an overal adult content rating too high), you'll have to enter your personal code to tune in at all, the whole show is blocked from view.
Comercials played during a program will have independent ratings, and will follow your default ratings for blocking automatically. If you have unblocked a program, commercials that may normally exceed your default rating can be set to optionally be played (using a system configuration toggle), but even these commercials will still be blocked if they exceed the overall ratings that you have unlocked. For example, your default violence limit is to block anything beyond non-lifelike violence. You overrode the current program to allow it to display a few scenes of moderate violence (fist fighting), A commercial comes on for Saw VI, and includes graphic murder violence, this commercial would be blocked even though you are in an obverride mode since you have only approved up to fist fighting on the violence scale by overriding the show. If you entered your master code to disable all blocking, then you'll see every commercial,
I agree with you on "gratuitous" nudity, or nudity inserted as part of a script or planned exposure. I'm talking about accidental nudity. We should not be teaching our children that seeing someone naked is bad. However, if you DO want to tech your children that nudity of any kind is bad, and want to deal with the emotional and relationship issues that will haint them for decades because of it, then I guess you should have that right.
Agreed, it's easy enough to add a different digital bleep for accidental nudity just as it is for language, but then it requires 2 people to be ready to push buttons instead of one. Networks already argue dramatically about the cost of the one person. Also, software can easily enough do the bleeping for us for spoken words instead of a person, but it will be YEARS yet before software can do that for images in live video with enough accuracy to be acceptable and low enough cost to be useable. This also only needs to apply to live TV, but there's a LOT of live TV, and very little of it (what, once in the last 8 years) has included nudity, but there are frequent verbal slips.
Again, i agree that planned, scripted, nudity for the sake of nudity, should be able to be blocked. I also think that, like in almost every other country on earth except the USA, nudity should be permitted in commercials again so long as it is not gratuitous (nudity in a shower comercial, etc) but again shuold have blockable ratings.
As for the rating scales, numbers are easy to understand, and easy to display and understand on TV screen quality and resolution. Complete text descriptions are more difficult. Also, the rating system will be broadcast as an underpinning ID every second or two as part of the signal, and therefore is fairly limited in scope. A string of 8-10 single didgits is easy to bury in a signal and easy to decode by a program. Dozens of toggle items is harder to encode (and easier to screw up!). I suggested a digital rating scale for feasability as much as usability (actually 0-7 makes more sense in binary terms than 0-9, but it was just a suggestion) Also, except for a few toggles which don't fit into a simple scale (blood on/off), most things are fairly progressive. I don't see to many people approving nude sex scenes, but blocking tounge action in kissing, do you? Same goes for violence. Slapstick comedy violence is not going to get blocked while allowing rape scenes to be shown...
Better yet, lets just have commercials be VoD content produced, so the commercials you see will only be shown on your TV X number of times in a given timeframe, and add a button you can click to kill a commercial automatically so it's never shown again, once you've seen it in it's entirety once, including all other ads for the same company and product.
Have a form you can fill out to see only commercials for products you might actually buy, and any products you have not already excluded in advance or dynamically.
Watching 30-60 seconds of black TV during programming will only put me to sleep... SOMETHING needs to be on the TV screen...
Maybe we have the best of both worlds, some commercials built into the feed, and other commercials that are shown when the ones in the feed are being blocked or skipped.
In an effort to make commercial space more vaulable, thus more profitable, thus needing fewer commercials, lets allow feedback information to be Collected. The more they know about you, the fewer commercials you'll see that don;ty interest you. Also, you won't see the same damned commercial 40 times in one week as once they have shown it to everyone once, they don't need to show it again.
OK, here's my 2 cents:
First, a new process needs to go into place. 1) FBI or some other agency suspects someone of something, and documents the suspicion, then files for a warrent. 2) they can immediately start basic survailence including phone and internet taps. 3) if deemed a "dire emergency" they can enter the property, arrest citezens, or collect physical evidence, consistent with the scope of any warrent filed, wether approved yet or not. 4) if the warrent is approved, all evidence is legal and therefore admissable, and their actions are justified and legal. 5) if the warrent is declined, evidence that may have been collected is STILL admissable, accepting that it has been colelcted illegally, and the citizen victimized by this can file civil or criminal suit against the agents and the agency to try to prove wrongdoing and potentially collect damages.
They need to be able to snoop. It needs to be public knowledge that they do so. If they actually suspect you, file the paperwork, and find you are actually guilty of something (even if unreleated to the suspicion) you are still guilty. It's not the cop's job to outsnmart you. If you are doing something illegal, it matters not how you are discovered, only that you are. If the cops did something illegal in the process, or did not have sufficient evidence or documented suscipicion with validated connections to crimes, witneses, or other paperwork trail to associate you with the crime, then you're still guilty, but so are they!
Lets limit the scope of survailence to a list of major violent or dangerous crimes that fall under federal jurisdiction, including terorist activity, illegal trading of weapons, production (but not distribution, that's a local law enforement issue) of narcotics, murder for hire, organized crime, serial criminal activity, etc. Lets make sure we can't get wiretaps for things like adultery, gambling, tax evasion, or other non-violent crimes. Lets keep this act in perspective, it's for the protection of America, not Americans. Local cops can still get wire taps for small crimes with a warrent (post approval, not pre-approval as I'm suggesting here).
This legistlation would also help end a lot of court cases where legitimate criminals get away because of invalid evidence. I'm not suggesting tainted or suspicios evidence should be admitted, but valid evidence of a crime, regardless of wether it was legally or illegally collected, is still eveidence. Trust me, cops and lawyers are not going to go around kicking in doors to collect evidence without warrents if the punishment is severe, non-negotiable, and involes prison time in gerneral population. If they do, you'll be found guilty of your crime, but they'll be joining you in prison for doing it. If you're found innocent, and they try to collect evidence illegally and find none, well, if it's local law enforecement and they didn;t have a warrent, then you get a few million bucks; if it's the feds, and they followed paperwork processes and filed for a warrent, even if one wasn't issued, and they have a clear case in court as to why they suspected you of the criminal activity, then you can't sue them. If they didn't file paperwork or didn't follow procedure, then you can sue them. Again, they're not going to be breaking in to see if you've written a few bad checks, we're talking about being suspected of a major crime like trying to build a bom or something...
I also approve of scanning of random e-mail messages sent in and out of the country, and also all e-mail sent to/from known terorist associated addresses (names added to a list with a judges approval). Messages sent within this country to other citizens should not be searched without a warrent (or application for one if justified above). They can have access to my call records all they want, as long as they don't listen in to the calls without filing the right paperwork. Knowing who I call and how often is no more private information than who I send postal mail to. The addresses are on the outsi
All shows have a rating. Problem is, most electronic guides (in the set tob box) either don't show it, don't show it consistently, or some dumbass who keyed in the data got it wrong.
...but I want it to go 1 step further. I want the v-chip ratings not just for the show, but cut down to 15 second segments within the show, and I want ratings independent for violence, sex, language, and other content so I can let my kids watch what I deep appropriate, not some ratings comittee. The v-chip should be able to block just video, or just audio, or both, in 10-15 second chuncks, so that my kids can watch a movie, but won't see the sex scene, or so they can watch Law and Order, but won't see the violent murder or bloody corpse, etc.
But, the rating is also in the show's broadcast, buried in the signal. It's how the v-chip understands wether or not to block the show. You want control? Simply TURN ON THE V-CHIP.
I also want it set so that foul language (f-bombs) are blocked by default (if I don't specify otherwise), but such that they're still broadcast, and so I can set it so that when I'm watching TV, I don't have to hear bleeps, or cheesy voice-overs. Have you ever tried watching "Casino" on TNT??? It's a joke! Why even other if every 3rd word is silenced or bleeped!?!?!?
The V-Chip 2, as I hope comes out, should be able to tell me each time I change chanels what the rating of the show is, the rating of any item being blocked and why, be able to tell who I am based on a keyed in code or bimetric scan, and remember my preferences, allow me override priveladges at will, and more. heck, you want a REAL system??? Lets integrate a small camera in the TV, and allow it basic facial recognition so it know's who's using the TV and what restrictions I've set for them all by itself. Someone new comes over and it should ask what settings to use or default to my children's preference level unless they know an override code. What's really cool about that is if I'm watching some TV-MA rated show and my 5 year old walks in, the TV can automatically downshift it's ratings on the fly, and block content as necessary.
If I'm the kind of parent who approves of my 14 year old watching porn, that's my choice. If I don't want him playing rated R video games like Silent Hill, the game station's chip should understand the game's rating and refuse to pay it if I've specified that. It can do that for movies, why not games?
The real trick is sporting events and live TV. We can generally rate a football game as PG, and Americal Idol as G, but occasionally someone slips up, a mic is on at the wrong time and a player curses (happens almost every game), or a kid on Idol sings a curse in a Pearl Jam song (happened last season). How do you control that? Well, a 5 second loop like the do for radio seems to work well enough, why not one for TV, as long as the "bleep" is just a signal to the v-chip to do or not do it's thing and not an actual "bleep"? As for the boob slipage... Nudity, accidental or otherwise, in my opinion is completely natural, and should NEVER be censored, only sexual acts should be censored, so accidental nudity on television, in my world, needs no censorship and would not be a concern for a v-chip technology for live TV. I don't expect too many people will get away with stripping down and fucking on a live broadcast of an awards show... At the same time, even kissing should trigger censoship at some level if a parent chooses. Some of the teen and pre-teen programming on TV has FAR more PDA than I would approve of for a 10 year old, yet a lot of it is rated PG...
I want granular control. A rating of 0-9 for sexual content (kissing on lips=1, tounge=2, heavy petting=3, in bed=4, etc... all the way up to Skin-a-max late night soft core porn...) A rating of 0-9 for violence, one for adult situations, toggles for "show blood" "allow smoking" "profane language" Oh, yea, and I want these things to apply to COMMERCIALS too! I don't need questions like "What's erotic mean?" coming from a 6 year old who's watched a G rated program at 3 in the afternoon....