Easy. Mandate. All pr0n TLDs must move to xxx domains. If you have a website with nude pix or video, it must be registered with the new TLD by [insert date here]. No exceptions. Any name conflicts between different TLDs (pr0n.com, pr0n.net, etc) should be handled on a first come (npi) first serve basis. No pr0n on other TLDs will be tolerated. Penalties for violation should be stiff. As far as.xxx, anything goes (aside from the obviously illegal), but don't bring it elsewhere. Violators would have their domains revoked and the hosts ordered to take down content. Pr0n sites would eventually be weeded out and the net would be better for it.
Imagine being able to block all pr0n just by blocking a TLD on your kids' computer. And if.xxx ain't enough, add.xx, or even.xxy. Now, if we could do something about the penny stock spam . ..
You are confusing "metabolome" with my favorite sub ingredient, metabologna. You'll find it in your favorite enlightened deli case right next to the transcendental salami. It's a good source of metaprotein. Why settle for any old bologna? This one goes to 11.
Your confusing the GPL/FOSS definition of "free" with the "I didn't have to pay for this" definition. The former refers to distribution of source code, as in "free to modify and distribute". Just because you didn't have to pay for it does not make it free in the FOSS (Free Open Source Software) world.
"If that is not the case, they are adding to the DRM nightmare."
Equating HDDVD/Blu-Ray with DRM is about like saying digital TV is the same as high def. Just because a format/medium is capable of using a certain "feature" does not make the "feature" and the delivery method one in the same. Just as digital TV is capable of delivering both SD and HD, HDDVD/BluRay is capable of delivering DRM or non-DRM content.
I'm old enough to remember the capacity wars between Beta/VHS. The first Beta (B-I) was 90 minutes on an L750 tape and the first VHS (SP) was 120 minutes on a T120. Not to be outdone, Sony created B-II which doubled the recording time to 180 minutes. The problem was B-II was incompatible with the first gen machines. Sony's "solution" was to eliminated B-I (except for playback via a switch on the back of the deck) on all B-II decks. JVC (VHS) followed suit with LP (240 minutes) and the same incompatibility with first gen VHS decks (although LP decks retained SP recording capability).
Sony followed with B-III (4h30m) and JVC with EP (SLP on Matsushita made decks - 6 hour). The only company to maintain recording capability for all speeds was JVC. But both formats shared playback incompatibility on previous generation decks with tapes recorded at the higher capacity, slower tape speeds. After three speed VHS decks became commonplace, content providers started releasing long (over 2 hour) movies in the LP (and occasionally) EP/SLP speeds, leaving anyone who still owned an older deck to either buy multi-tape copies, buy a new VCR, or do without. Sony actively dicouraged releases in B-III speed, claiming inferiority of the longer recording times. (Interesting enough, although it had a slightly better S/N ratio, the B-II speed was actually prone to more crosstalk and flagging than B-III, making B-III much better spec-wise.)
While it makes for good press and scuttlebutt on/. (and I know I am risking flames for this) Betas demise had less to do with pr0n and more to do with JVCs higher initial capacity. Sony's 90 minute capacity was too little for the movie industry. Sony's shortsightedness in assuming people would only use the deck for time-shifting gave JVC the initial edge that Sony was never able to catch up with after the MPAA vs. Sony lawsuit was decided in Sony's favor and the movie industry embraced the VCR.
The bottom line is, JVC's decision to go with a 120 minute initial capacity and maintain it throughout the life of the format at least gave early adopters the ability to play prerecorded content on their decks. But neither company was averse to breaking the compatibility with current decks to increase capacity. I suspect this will be the case with the future HDDVD/BluRay battle. Future gen decks will be backward compatible with the current standard (including BluRay if Sony is smart about it), and the movie industry will most likely release content only in the initial format reserving future higher capacity releases for a time when the higher capacity players have better market penetration. But early adopters will be out of luck if they want to play the new content on their old first-gen decks.
Out of date? Hmmm. . . I'll tell my customers that next time I have one ask why they have burn on their screen. Which is quite frequent. I should clarify. I am a technician. I've done this for 30 years. How about you?
"The USB port is there so that once the Cable companies figure out how to charge for it's use."
And what brings you to this flawed assumption? You're apparently not a tech. The USB port is there so the cableco can program/troubleshoot the box. Period.
SACD never got off the ground because of the price of discs vs the perceived benefits (if you play SACD on an average system, the sound quality is really no better than CD). But IIRC, DVD-A was pretty much killed by industry paranoia after DVD Video was cracked.
Yet another format choice that only iPod fanatics could get excited about. I'm sure Circuit City thought enough people would feel comfortable with server based purchases when it spent millions on the now defunct DIVX DVD. As history showed, though, consumers want to "own" a physical copy of their purchase. The idea that you would have to reverify that you are the legitimate purchaser of content every time you played your disc was not the only thing that turned consumers off. How about portability? Want to play that disc at your friends or relatives house? Not unless you pay again. And then there's the new player required to play the thing. IMHO if MPAA wants to kill sales, then by all means, they should shift distribution to downloadable formats complete with DRM and eliminate those pesky DVDs altogether.
I remember the VHS-Beta format war and the confusion it created. From a technical standpoint, Beta was better but consumers cared as much about the technical specs in video then as they do digital audio now (mp3's anyone?). Why did VHS win? Simply, they made a bigger cassette. 6 hours vs 4.5 hours max recording time. It all came down to capacity. If DVD had had a rival at its inception, it would not have withstood the battle due to lack of recording capability and we would still be watching our movies on tape. Ditto for CDs.
Here, we have a repeat of that scenario complete with all the claims of superiority that go along with it, but without any recording capability. The average consumer could give two shits about DRM or the differences in specs or any claims of superiority in formats. We just want the damn thing to work on any device we choose to play it in. And we want to "own" it in physical form. The day I have to download a movie before I can play it or be reliant on a company staying in business and maintaining purchase records to watch a damn movie is the day I sell all of my video gear.
There is an old addage in the retail world: The confused consumer buys nothing. Most people I know (except one or two hard core videophiles) either don't see or don't care about the increased resolution these formats will bring. DVD looks good enough to them. They already have a DVD player that works and can go to Wal-Mart and buy their movies or rent them from their favorite movie house and be assured that when they get home, they can put it in any DVD player they own and it will play. So let's see. I'm Joe Consumer. I'm presented with a choice. Do I, a)buy a movie in a format unknown to me that may not be available in my chosen format b)download the movie from a video service that is most likely only playable on one device in my home and hope that when my HD crashes the company will still be in business and able to find my purchase records so I can download again (servers do crash, records do get lost) or c)buy a tried and true known physical disc in a format I have been enjoying for years and I know will play? As Mr. Joe, I'll most likely stick with "c" for now.
"Battery fires and rootkits are Slashdot tech news, but not everyday Mom & Pop frontpage news."
Wrong assumption my friend.
My roomie calls me techno. I call him notech. We are on opposite ends of the tech spectrum. He uses it, but knows nothing about the internals, nor does he care to. IOW, he's no/.er. I sometimes tell him of some of the things that are on the tech side. I offered news when both of these issues surfaced. He had already heard about both the rootkit (which he called a Sony virus) and the batteries. From the mainstream news. ..
-- Every time you replaced a headlight you would have to find an updated and signed device driver. If the driver was found not to be DRM compliant, the windshield and stereo would be instructed to go into "lo-res" mode.
-- Every few years, Microsoft would further change the road specification requiring road makers to comply or face the prospect of having no cars on their roads. This would also require you to strip down your car and reinstall everything.
-- Your car would require weekly connection to the internet to verify its authenticity. Depending on the release version, if verification failed you would either be required to pay for your car again before being allowed to continue your journey or a popup window would appear in the lower right corner of your windshield informing you that you are driving an illegal model. Police would be instructed to arrest the driver immediately upon seeing this.
-- Nissan would file a class-action suit against MS claiming copyright infringement on their navigation system. MS would respond with a patch to the road system spec requiring all Nissan owners to install an MS upgrade kit to their vehicle to continue driving on MS roads.
-- Billboards would pop up out of the pavement blocking your field of view requiring you to stop your car and click "X".
'Those are already covered by Ford's existing embedded control systems. What we have here is an excellent example of why Windows is just *not* trusted for "critical systems". Even Ford is showing their lack of trust in Windows by relegating it to non-critical vehicle operations, regardless of how well it is advertised to work.'
Well of *course* they're not going to use Windows instead of proprietary single-application firmware. Windows is a general purpose OS. If you want mission critical, you code for the task at hand. Brakes, I think, qualify as mission critical. Using Windows to control such a priority task makes about as much sense as using a PC for a gaming box. Oh, wait. ..
Slashdot Mirror
Easy. Mandate. All pr0n TLDs must move to xxx domains. If you have a website with nude pix or video, it must be registered with the new TLD by [insert date here]. No exceptions. Any name conflicts between different TLDs (pr0n.com, pr0n.net, etc) should be handled on a first come (npi) first serve basis. No pr0n on other TLDs will be tolerated. Penalties for violation should be stiff. As far as .xxx, anything goes (aside from the obviously illegal), but don't bring it elsewhere. Violators would have their domains revoked and the hosts ordered to take down content. Pr0n sites would eventually be weeded out and the net would be better for it.
Imagine being able to block all pr0n just by blocking a TLD on your kids' computer. And if.xxx ain't enough, add .xx, or even .xxy. Now, if we could do something about the penny stock spam . . .
You are confusing "metabolome" with my favorite sub ingredient, metabologna. You'll find it in your favorite enlightened deli case right next to the transcendental salami. It's a good source of metaprotein. Why settle for any old bologna? This one goes to 11.
[soapbox]
Your confusing the GPL/FOSS definition of "free" with the "I didn't have to pay for this" definition. The former refers to distribution of source code, as in "free to modify and distribute". Just because you didn't have to pay for it does not make it free in the FOSS (Free Open Source Software) world.
[/soapbox]
"If that is not the case, they are adding to the DRM nightmare."
Equating HDDVD/Blu-Ray with DRM is about like saying digital TV is the same as high def. Just because a format/medium is capable of using a certain "feature" does not make the "feature" and the delivery method one in the same. Just as digital TV is capable of delivering both SD and HD, HDDVD/BluRay is capable of delivering DRM or non-DRM content.
I'm old enough to remember the capacity wars between Beta/VHS. The first Beta (B-I) was 90 minutes on an L750 tape and the first VHS (SP) was 120 minutes on a T120. Not to be outdone, Sony created B-II which doubled the recording time to 180 minutes. The problem was B-II was incompatible with the first gen machines. Sony's "solution" was to eliminated B-I (except for playback via a switch on the back of the deck) on all B-II decks. JVC (VHS) followed suit with LP (240 minutes) and the same incompatibility with first gen VHS decks (although LP decks retained SP recording capability).
Sony followed with B-III (4h30m) and JVC with EP (SLP on Matsushita made decks - 6 hour). The only company to maintain recording capability for all speeds was JVC. But both formats shared playback incompatibility on previous generation decks with tapes recorded at the higher capacity, slower tape speeds. After three speed VHS decks became commonplace, content providers started releasing long (over 2 hour) movies in the LP (and occasionally) EP/SLP speeds, leaving anyone who still owned an older deck to either buy multi-tape copies, buy a new VCR, or do without. Sony actively dicouraged releases in B-III speed, claiming inferiority of the longer recording times. (Interesting enough, although it had a slightly better S/N ratio, the B-II speed was actually prone to more crosstalk and flagging than B-III, making B-III much better spec-wise.)
While it makes for good press and scuttlebutt on /. (and I know I am risking flames for this) Betas demise had less to do with pr0n and more to do with JVCs higher initial capacity. Sony's 90 minute capacity was too little for the movie industry. Sony's shortsightedness in assuming people would only use the deck for time-shifting gave JVC the initial edge that Sony was never able to catch up with after the MPAA vs. Sony lawsuit was decided in Sony's favor and the movie industry embraced the VCR.
The bottom line is, JVC's decision to go with a 120 minute initial capacity and maintain it throughout the life of the format at least gave early adopters the ability to play prerecorded content on their decks. But neither company was averse to breaking the compatibility with current decks to increase capacity. I suspect this will be the case with the future HDDVD/BluRay battle. Future gen decks will be backward compatible with the current standard (including BluRay if Sony is smart about it), and the movie industry will most likely release content only in the initial format reserving future higher capacity releases for a time when the higher capacity players have better market penetration. But early adopters will be out of luck if they want to play the new content on their old first-gen decks.
. . .whatever it takes.
Out of date? Hmmm. . . I'll tell my customers that next time I have one ask why they have burn on their screen. Which is quite frequent. I should clarify. I am a technician. I've done this for 30 years. How about you?
You're supposed to change the oil?
And if you don't mind the burn, your good to go.
Now wait just a micron. That's a load of feldercarb and you know it. Now stop playing with your daggot and get to work! Frackin' nugget.
Linux based.
"The USB port is there so that once the Cable companies figure out how to charge for it's use."
And what brings you to this flawed assumption? You're apparently not a tech. The USB port is there so the cableco can program/troubleshoot the box. Period.SACD never got off the ground because of the price of discs vs the perceived benefits (if you play SACD on an average system, the sound quality is really no better than CD). But IIRC, DVD-A was pretty much killed by industry paranoia after DVD Video was cracked.
And this bypasses the need to verify with a subscription service and download content how?
Yet another format choice that only iPod fanatics could get excited about. I'm sure Circuit City thought enough people would feel comfortable with server based purchases when it spent millions on the now defunct DIVX DVD. As history showed, though, consumers want to "own" a physical copy of their purchase. The idea that you would have to reverify that you are the legitimate purchaser of content every time you played your disc was not the only thing that turned consumers off. How about portability? Want to play that disc at your friends or relatives house? Not unless you pay again. And then there's the new player required to play the thing. IMHO if MPAA wants to kill sales, then by all means, they should shift distribution to downloadable formats complete with DRM and eliminate those pesky DVDs altogether.
I remember the VHS-Beta format war and the confusion it created. From a technical standpoint, Beta was better but consumers cared as much about the technical specs in video then as they do digital audio now (mp3's anyone?). Why did VHS win? Simply, they made a bigger cassette. 6 hours vs 4.5 hours max recording time. It all came down to capacity. If DVD had had a rival at its inception, it would not have withstood the battle due to lack of recording capability and we would still be watching our movies on tape. Ditto for CDs.
Here, we have a repeat of that scenario complete with all the claims of superiority that go along with it, but without any recording capability. The average consumer could give two shits about DRM or the differences in specs or any claims of superiority in formats. We just want the damn thing to work on any device we choose to play it in. And we want to "own" it in physical form. The day I have to download a movie before I can play it or be reliant on a company staying in business and maintaining purchase records to watch a damn movie is the day I sell all of my video gear.
There is an old addage in the retail world: The confused consumer buys nothing. Most people I know (except one or two hard core videophiles) either don't see or don't care about the increased resolution these formats will bring. DVD looks good enough to them. They already have a DVD player that works and can go to Wal-Mart and buy their movies or rent them from their favorite movie house and be assured that when they get home, they can put it in any DVD player they own and it will play. So let's see. I'm Joe Consumer. I'm presented with a choice. Do I, a)buy a movie in a format unknown to me that may not be available in my chosen format b)download the movie from a video service that is most likely only playable on one device in my home and hope that when my HD crashes the company will still be in business and able to find my purchase records so I can download again (servers do crash, records do get lost) or c)buy a tried and true known physical disc in a format I have been enjoying for years and I know will play? As Mr. Joe, I'll most likely stick with "c" for now.
FTA: "5) IBM customers revolt. It is happening slower than makes sense, but yes, they are revolting. True."
I agree. IBM customers ARE revolting!What's emacs? Is that one of those Apple computers?
"Battery fires and rootkits are Slashdot tech news, but not everyday Mom & Pop frontpage news."
Wrong assumption my friend.
My roomie calls me techno. I call him notech. We are on opposite ends of the tech spectrum. He uses it, but knows nothing about the internals, nor does he care to. IOW, he's no /.er. I sometimes tell him of some of the things that are on the tech side. I offered news when both of these issues surfaced. He had already heard about both the rootkit (which he called a Sony virus) and the batteries. From the mainstream news. . .
-- Every time you replaced a headlight you would have to find an updated and signed device driver. If the driver was found not to be DRM compliant, the windshield and stereo would be instructed to go into "lo-res" mode.
-- Every few years, Microsoft would further change the road specification requiring road makers to comply or face the prospect of having no cars on their roads. This would also require you to strip down your car and reinstall everything.
-- Your car would require weekly connection to the internet to verify its authenticity. Depending on the release version, if verification failed you would either be required to pay for your car again before being allowed to continue your journey or a popup window would appear in the lower right corner of your windshield informing you that you are driving an illegal model. Police would be instructed to arrest the driver immediately upon seeing this.
-- Nissan would file a class-action suit against MS claiming copyright infringement on their navigation system. MS would respond with a patch to the road system spec requiring all Nissan owners to install an MS upgrade kit to their vehicle to continue driving on MS roads.
-- Billboards would pop up out of the pavement blocking your field of view requiring you to stop your car and click "X".
'Those are already covered by Ford's existing embedded control systems. What we have here is an excellent example of why Windows is just *not* trusted for "critical systems". Even Ford is showing their lack of trust in Windows by relegating it to non-critical vehicle operations, regardless of how well it is advertised to work.'
Well of *course* they're not going to use Windows instead of proprietary single-application firmware. Windows is a general purpose OS. If you want mission critical, you code for the task at hand. Brakes, I think, qualify as mission critical. Using Windows to control such a priority task makes about as much sense as using a PC for a gaming box. Oh, wait. . .
No SUSE?
Maybe Goosa?
eBay
No, no, no. This is so they can strip Sony's rootkit and replace it with their own Zune compatible rootkit.
Everyone knows electronic gadgets run on magic blue smoke. When you let the smoke out, they stop working.