Shoots for a living (profile), 11 Apr 2008 @ 6:20am
Uh, no
When somebody PAYS you to shoot something, it is called "Work for Hire" and the person/entity paying for the production owns all rights to it. Physical possession of the tapes means nothing.
I think Vonage is quietly implementing its patent-workaround. If you look at the Vonage customer message boards, there have been rotating outages for an hour or two in each market, starting about 3 weeks ago.
This would presumably be long enough for them to switch over to the non-infringing technology.
Besides the short outages in the last few weeks, I have had flawless service from Vonage for 2 years now. It's good and it's cheap. 39.95 a month gets me services that would have cost about 150 from Bell!
Angry dude, a lot of very large companies don't own patents. Service providers typically buy gear from manufacturers such as Cisco who own the actual IP. You don't have to buy Boeing just to fly in one of their planes!
I was a Rogers Internet user and long-time fanboy. I convinced many people to switch to Rogers years ago before traffic shaping came along. I was subscribed to the highest, most expensive tier of Rogers cable internet service.
Last month I finally had enough. Since Bittorrents can obviously only be used for evil, Rogers traffic shaping was limiting my download of legitimate, well-seeded Linux distros to 4.5 Kb/s (that's right four and a half kilobits).
Their phone support is either extremely stupid, or is trained to pretend that they have never heard of the concept of traffic shaping. Explaining it to them is like talking to a small child.
When I cancelled last month I was extremely clear that the reason I was cancelling my service after almost 10 years was completely because of their traffic shaping. The phone rep said "I don't see that on my screen, I will just check 'other'" I told her absolutely not, I needed a note placed on my account that clearly indicated they had lost me and my $840 per year because of Rogers idiotic traffic shaping.
Canadian message boards are filled with people dumping Rogers because of this. Rogers users need to know that Rogers internet is ONLY for HTTP traffic. Any other types of connection is obviously being used for criminal purposes and is slowed down to 9600 baud (remember your Commodore 64 modems, kids?).
I am now happily using Bell's new 'fibre to the node' DSL service and I am consistently achieving 12000 Kb/s downloads from good servers, even if I dare to attempt something as ridiculous as downloading a linux distro.
Bell is actually spending money building their network instead of blocking what is allowed down its pipes. They are installing these fibre-optic-fed 'stingers' all over. There are three in my neighbourhood - guaranteeing a maximum 500 metre cable-run and full speed service for any customer.
A note for those cancelling their Rogers internet - you must cancel 30 days in advance and if you are on a Rogers bundle you have (unknowingly) agreed to a contract and they will ding you for cancellation fees!
It's obvious how the telco's will solve the problem.
I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they amend their customer terms of service to include small print like "if any call, even a 'free' one costs us a lot of money, we will make you pay for it, after adding our own mark up."
I should have learned not to buy HP when their mandatory Windows XP firmware upgrade fried my expensive scanner (huge coverup), but I was lured by the idea of a $99 multifunction printer, fax, scanner.
I think I have had enough after a year of:
-only being to fax in low-res like they did in 1980
-expensive ink that needs replacing even when the cartridges are half full
-bloated, crashy drivers
-reinstalling 180 megs of software every time I dared to attempt to scan something
-technical support personel who I am surprised can operate a telephone
I will be one of the first to check out the new Kodak offerings. Even though they handled the whole digital photography thing with their heads buried in the sand (did you know Kodak sold one of the very first publication-quality digital cameras?!?), the ONE thing they know is how to output nice images. Let's see how they do.
What an idiotic article. People have been using a format with much higher resolution than HD for years now. It's called film. Does anyone complain that movie stars look 'too real'?!?
Today's motion picture film has 5 to 10 times the resolution of HD.
You just need to shoot and light it properly and have good makeup artists. (Yes, they have makeup artists on porn shoots.)
Badly shot footage will always look bad, whether it's a home video or an HD porno.
BPL is a useful and viable way, for example, to wire an old hotel for in-room internet without running CAT5. In that situation, the BPL gear is on the 'friendly' side of the transformers.
Trying to route BPL through (or around) huge kilovolt switching stations is another story.
So... not vaporware, but also not the best way to scratch an itch. (Thanks Rob :-)
I have in my possession a WiMax modem which is being offered here in Canada for portable internet service. It gives (initial) speeds of 1.5 Mbit down and 256kbit up, which apparently is scalable to several times that.
The Wimax technology they use is reputed to cover an area 30km wide (18.6 mi) from each tower.
The builders of this network say that is how they will bring broadband to rural areas, and say they will be doing just that in the next 12 months.
We'll see what happens.
Broadband over powerlines will be vaporware for a long time to come. There are technological hurdles to overcome that will cost much more than adding wimax to existing cel towers.
Have you ever disassembled an Epson printer? Underneath where the ink cartridges normally rest when not printing is a nice THICK pad of blotter paper. Mine was literally soaked through with ink. Probably hundreds of dollars worth.
I wonder if that's where all my extra ink was going?
On those rare occasions that I see a dead-tree newspaper (pretty much only on airline flights) I always find it amusing that what I read on paper is the same stuff I read on the interwebs three days ago.
This genius has come up with a way to shave an entire day off of that lag time. Brilliant!
Irridium's bankruptcy and sale for pennies on the dollar was simply how people finance huge projects now.
Spend 5 billion on a project with no prospect of ever breaking even. Get it up and running. Declare bankruptcy. Form a new consortium to buy it back for (in this case) 12 cents on the dollar.
That's how you build a 5 billion dollar system for $600 million. Cool.
The same type of 'financing' is done for large fibre optic installations, and huge buildings such as stadiums.
If you have made any changes to your computer such as a hard drive upgrade or new version of Windows you are locked out of previous versions of Intuit's Quicktax.
I recently tried to open Quicktax 99, which I paid for and registered years ago. It completely prevents me from opening it until I re-register with Intuit! They say I need a page from the manual I threw away 4 years ago to do it! "Oh, you don't have that manual? I'm sorry, you will have to RE-PURCHASE the software."
That's right, I paid and registered 4 years ago, but because of Quicktax's extremely restrictive "copy protection" I have to buy it again if I want to see my 1999 tax return!!! They even told me that their registration database from that far back has been deleted - so they couldn't help me even if they cared.
What if someone needs access to tax calculations years later? What if they are audited and CCRA want's to see forms from previous years?!? What if Intuit/Quicktax goes out of business and can't provide the magic registration codes needed? You're screwed, that's what!
All of Intuit's programs have these extremely restrictive copy-protections built in, and there is a very serious risk that when you need to access historical accounting and tax data you will be locked out of it!!.
What possible piracy value could a tax program from 6 years ago have? Why can't they just unlock everything after a reasonable period of time?
I am all for publishers protecting their rights, but software that essentially self-destructs after it is used is taking it just a little too far. Accounting and tax data are crucial to any business. Software that holds this data for ransom should be outlawed!
I have made my business, as well as those for whom I consult, Intuit-software-free for several years now.
They just DON'T get it, and they don't deserve our business.
I congratulate Techdirt on exposing these sneaky posts. I run a popular site and I do the exact same thing when multiple personalities from the same IP start spamming my board.
Since Ciphertrust claims to be "the global market leader in messaging security, provides layered security solutions to stop inbound and outbound messaging threats", they should take more than a small amount of responsibility for these 'outbound messages' from their IP.
They should buy one of those little boxes that monitors and filters what their employees can post on the Internet. Where can you find those again...?
A company that claims to deal in trust, security and "mitigating corporate liability" should have a MUCH tighter reign on their network users.
I bet techdirt.com will be a permanent part of their corporate firewall very soon. I just hope they don't retaliate by firewalling Techdirt in the products they sell to end users. Wouldn't surprise me.
I make TV commercials for a living. For the last few years we have kept DVR (and even VCR, remember those?) users in mind. There have been many discussions on set about how 'fast forwardable' a given message would be.
Look at advertising trends in the last few years. Many (if not most) commercials now get the message across when played at any speed.
This TechDirt article is the first I have seen that mentions the concentration aspect, which is the key. Who cares if someone only concentrates on your ad for a few seconds? If they get the message our work is done. It's better than having them in the bathroom or making a sandwich and missing it entirely.
So, Bob. You've never exceeded the lawfully posted speed limit? Never made a tape of a CD or (in your case) record album to listen to in the car? Never torn the tag off of a mattress? Never crossed a street somewhere other than the corner? Never let a parking meter expire?
If you have committed any of these "cromes" (sic) you know where you belong.
I really tried to see your point of view, but I couldn't get my head far enough up my ass.
Going back to dial-up would suck for you, but your Telco would come out ahead:
-you would be required to maintain a POTS line to support your dial-up - you could never switch to VOIP
-you could only use negligible bandwidth
-you would be using a slot on gear they paid off at least ten years ago. Pure profit for them.
-you would either have to buy a second phone line or use your cel to make calls while dialed-up. More telco profit.
Switching back to dial-up would be the worst thing you could do.
I am hoping WiMax will cause a revival of free-nets and not-for-profit internet access cooperatives. If the 500 families in my neighbourhood got together and bought a T3 or something and put a WiMax rig on a nearby tall building we could be ISP-free and probably still pay less.
On the post: Next Up On Movie Theaters' List To Remain Relevant: 3D Movies
The real reason for 3D movies?
Certainly 3D is a great way to see a movie (even better for concerts) but the driving force economically is that 3D projection is copy-proof.
On the post: Dear Wal-Mart Executives: You're On Candid Camera... And There's A Big Market For Those Videos
Uh, no
Mall-Wart will crush these guys. End of story.
On the post: Sinking Vonage Ship Throws Captain Overboard
This would presumably be long enough for them to switch over to the non-infringing technology.
Besides the short outages in the last few weeks, I have had flawless service from Vonage for 2 years now. It's good and it's cheap. 39.95 a month gets me services that would have cost about 150 from Bell!
Angry dude, a lot of very large companies don't own patents. Service providers typically buy gear from manufacturers such as Cisco who own the actual IP. You don't have to buy Boeing just to fly in one of their planes!
On the post: Rogers Traffic Shaping Making It Difficult For Users To Use Secure Email
Last month I finally had enough. Since Bittorrents can obviously only be used for evil, Rogers traffic shaping was limiting my download of legitimate, well-seeded Linux distros to 4.5 Kb/s (that's right four and a half kilobits).
Their phone support is either extremely stupid, or is trained to pretend that they have never heard of the concept of traffic shaping. Explaining it to them is like talking to a small child.
When I cancelled last month I was extremely clear that the reason I was cancelling my service after almost 10 years was completely because of their traffic shaping. The phone rep said "I don't see that on my screen, I will just check 'other'" I told her absolutely not, I needed a note placed on my account that clearly indicated they had lost me and my $840 per year because of Rogers idiotic traffic shaping.
Canadian message boards are filled with people dumping Rogers because of this. Rogers users need to know that Rogers internet is ONLY for HTTP traffic. Any other types of connection is obviously being used for criminal purposes and is slowed down to 9600 baud (remember your Commodore 64 modems, kids?).
I am now happily using Bell's new 'fibre to the node' DSL service and I am consistently achieving 12000 Kb/s downloads from good servers, even if I dare to attempt something as ridiculous as downloading a linux distro.
Bell is actually spending money building their network instead of blocking what is allowed down its pipes. They are installing these fibre-optic-fed 'stingers' all over. There are three in my neighbourhood - guaranteeing a maximum 500 metre cable-run and full speed service for any customer.
A note for those cancelling their Rogers internet - you must cancel 30 days in advance and if you are on a Rogers bundle you have (unknowingly) agreed to a contract and they will ding you for cancellation fees!
On the post: FreeConference.com Sues AT&T For Blocked Phone Calls
I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they amend their customer terms of service to include small print like "if any call, even a 'free' one costs us a lot of money, we will make you pay for it, after adding our own mark up."
On the post: HP Pressuring Retailers Not To Sell Cheap Printer Ink
I should have learned not to buy HP when their mandatory Windows XP firmware upgrade fried my expensive scanner (huge coverup), but I was lured by the idea of a $99 multifunction printer, fax, scanner.
I think I have had enough after a year of:
-only being to fax in low-res like they did in 1980
-expensive ink that needs replacing even when the cartridges are half full
-bloated, crashy drivers
-reinstalling 180 megs of software every time I dared to attempt to scan something
-technical support personel who I am surprised can operate a telephone
I will be one of the first to check out the new Kodak offerings. Even though they handled the whole digital photography thing with their heads buried in the sand (did you know Kodak sold one of the very first publication-quality digital cameras?!?), the ONE thing they know is how to output nice images. Let's see how they do.
On the post: Porn Stars Find HD Makes Things Look A Little Too Real
Today's motion picture film has 5 to 10 times the resolution of HD.
You just need to shoot and light it properly and have good makeup artists. (Yes, they have makeup artists on porn shoots.)
Badly shot footage will always look bad, whether it's a home video or an HD porno.
On the post: What To Do When Google Tells People Your Website Is Dangerous?
Google NEVER shows pop-up ads. Ever. Many spyware programs target Google searches however.
See http://www.google.co.uk/help/nopopupads.html
On the post: RIM's Legal Strategy Over Samsung's BlackJack Is A Bust
RIM could own Black* and *berry
Microsoft needs *soft
Google needs goo* and *oogle
3M would get *M and go after everyone who dares use that letter.
Discuss...
On the post: Broadband Over Powerlines: The Technology Of The Perpetual Future...
Trying to route BPL through (or around) huge kilovolt switching stations is another story.
So... not vaporware, but also not the best way to scratch an itch. (Thanks Rob :-)
On the post: Broadband Over Powerlines: The Technology Of The Perpetual Future...
I have in my possession a WiMax modem which is being offered here in Canada for portable internet service. It gives (initial) speeds of 1.5 Mbit down and 256kbit up, which apparently is scalable to several times that.
The Wimax technology they use is reputed to cover an area 30km wide (18.6 mi) from each tower.
The builders of this network say that is how they will bring broadband to rural areas, and say they will be doing just that in the next 12 months.
We'll see what happens.
Broadband over powerlines will be vaporware for a long time to come. There are technological hurdles to overcome that will cost much more than adding wimax to existing cel towers.
On the post: Consumer Association Says Avoid Epson Ink Cartridges
Not only that but...
I wonder if that's where all my extra ink was going?
Nice business practices there.
HP and happy now!
On the post: Latest Plan To Save Newspapers: Let Everyone Else Break News First
On those rare occasions that I see a dead-tree newspaper (pretty much only on airline flights) I always find it amusing that what I read on paper is the same stuff I read on the interwebs three days ago.
This genius has come up with a way to shave an entire day off of that lag time. Brilliant!
On the post: If Your Retailer Doesn't Get To See Your Data, Does It Stop Phishing?
Is it April 1 already?
On the post: For Those Who Absolutely, Positively Need Their Phone To Work In A Hurricane
Spend 5 billion on a project with no prospect of ever breaking even. Get it up and running. Declare bankruptcy. Form a new consortium to buy it back for (in this case) 12 cents on the dollar.
That's how you build a 5 billion dollar system for $600 million. Cool.
The same type of 'financing' is done for large fibre optic installations, and huge buildings such as stadiums.
On the post: Enough With The Useless Enterprise Software Upgrades
Intuit held my taxes ransom!
If you have made any changes to your computer such as a hard drive upgrade or new version of Windows you are locked out of previous versions of Intuit's Quicktax.
I recently tried to open Quicktax 99, which I paid for and registered years ago. It completely prevents me from opening it until I re-register with Intuit! They say I need a page from the manual I threw away 4 years ago to do it! "Oh, you don't have that manual? I'm sorry, you will have to RE-PURCHASE the software."
That's right, I paid and registered 4 years ago, but because of Quicktax's extremely restrictive "copy protection" I have to buy it again if I want to see my 1999 tax return!!! They even told me that their registration database from that far back has been deleted - so they couldn't help me even if they cared.
What if someone needs access to tax calculations years later? What if they are audited and CCRA want's to see forms from previous years?!? What if Intuit/Quicktax goes out of business and can't provide the magic registration codes needed? You're screwed, that's what!
All of Intuit's programs have these extremely restrictive copy-protections built in, and there is a very serious risk that when you need to access historical accounting and tax data you will be locked out of it!!.
What possible piracy value could a tax program from 6 years ago have? Why can't they just unlock everything after a reasonable period of time?
I am all for publishers protecting their rights, but software that essentially self-destructs after it is used is taking it just a little too far. Accounting and tax data are crucial to any business. Software that holds this data for ransom should be outlawed!
I have made my business, as well as those for whom I consult, Intuit-software-free for several years now.
They just DON'T get it, and they don't deserve our business.
On the post: How Not To Respond To Criticism Online
Since Ciphertrust claims to be "the global market leader in messaging security, provides layered security solutions to stop inbound and outbound messaging threats", they should take more than a small amount of responsibility for these 'outbound messages' from their IP.
They should buy one of those little boxes that monitors and filters what their employees can post on the Internet. Where can you find those again...?
A company that claims to deal in trust, security and "mitigating corporate liability" should have a MUCH tighter reign on their network users.
I bet techdirt.com will be a permanent part of their corporate firewall very soon. I just hope they don't retaliate by firewalling Techdirt in the products they sell to end users. Wouldn't surprise me.
On the post: DVR Owners Don't Watch Commercials... But Still Remember Them
Look at advertising trends in the last few years. Many (if not most) commercials now get the message across when played at any speed.
This TechDirt article is the first I have seen that mentions the concentration aspect, which is the key. Who cares if someone only concentrates on your ad for a few seconds? If they get the message our work is done. It's better than having them in the bathroom or making a sandwich and missing it entirely.
On the post: Nation's "Top Cop" Goes For The Hollywood Party Line
If you have committed any of these "cromes" (sic) you know where you belong.
I really tried to see your point of view, but I couldn't get my head far enough up my ass.
On the post: Google, Apple, Yahoo: Call The Telcos' Bluff
Re: back to Dial-up?
-you would be required to maintain a POTS line to support your dial-up - you could never switch to VOIP
-you could only use negligible bandwidth
-you would be using a slot on gear they paid off at least ten years ago. Pure profit for them.
-you would either have to buy a second phone line or use your cel to make calls while dialed-up. More telco profit.
Switching back to dial-up would be the worst thing you could do.
I am hoping WiMax will cause a revival of free-nets and not-for-profit internet access cooperatives. If the 500 families in my neighbourhood got together and bought a T3 or something and put a WiMax rig on a nearby tall building we could be ISP-free and probably still pay less.
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