Comment Re:Mull the Pall in Sherpa Stations.. (Score 1) 542
Well, I don't know of any legal online movie viewing services that has CC included.
Comment Re:Multiple interpretations (Score 1) 542
You mean, $8-10 per month, not per disc you rent, for rentals from Netflix and BlockBuster, and with the way the queues work, if you find it sucks at the first disc, you can just remove the rest of the series from the queue right then, and move something else up in the queue to watch. Also with the watch it now for some of the stuff, you don't even need to wait for the discs to arrive in the mail.
If you were to spend the money you're wasting on bad DVD purchases on subscriptions to Netflix and BlockBuster, you'd end up saving money becuase you'd end up buying fewer bad shows.
Comment Re:Multiple interpretations (Score 5, Insightful) 542
As a result I feel it's necessary to "test drive" media before purchase. With CDs I can get legal samples online, but with TV shows on DVD there is no method except to download it and see if it's any good. It's illegal, but I do it because I don't want to get stuck wasting thousands of dollars on trash.
Other options.
- Netflix. They even happen to have Galactica 1980 on watch it now.
- Reading reviews online.
- Reading reviews in magazines.
- Netflix.
- Asking friends about shows.
- Hulu.
- Youtube (Ok, this one isn't fully legal)
- Blockbuster.
- All the other video rental stores.
- Did I mention Netflix?
I know not everything would be on all the options listed, so there's up to 8 other options, unless you don't have any friends, then there's only up to 7 options.
So don't say the only option you have is to download.
Comment Re:Cell phone jamming technology. (Score 1) 232
You got the flavor wrong.
"Tastes like raspberry, sir."
"Raspberry! There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry!"
"LONESTAR!"
Comment My Password (Score 0, Troll) 435
My slashdot password is "digg sucks shit". And they haven't changed it yet.
Submission + - WARNING: driver updates causing Vista deactivation (apcmag.com)
KrispySausage writes: "After weeks of gruelling troubleshooting, I've finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA — something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation.
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour.
How can this ridiculous situation occur, and what is Microsoft's response... read on."
Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour.
How can this ridiculous situation occur, and what is Microsoft's response... read on."
Submission + - Alberta Researchers Solve Checkers
abscissa writes: It took them almost 18 years, but the solution to checkers has been found. You can't win at checkers unless your opponent makes a mistake! Now all that remains is elusive solution to chess! With more possible ways to play a game of chess than there are electrons in the known universe, it does seem far off. Until then, study your perfect opening books for checkers!
Thin Water Acts Like a Solid 138
Roland Piquepaille writes "What happens when you compress water in a nano-sized space? According to Georgia Tech physicists, water starts to behave like a solid. "The confined water film behaves like a solid in the vertical direction by forming layers parallel to the confining surface, while maintaining it's liquidity in the horizontal direction where it can flow out," said one of the researchers. "Water is a wonderful lubricant, but it flows too easily for many applications. At the one nanometer scale, water is a viscous fluid and could be a much better lubricant," added another one."
Submission + - End of VoIP in the US?
fermion writes: The register is reporting that Vonage can't work around Verizon's VoIP patents. Combined with the judges interpretation of the patents, this seems to indicate that competitive VoIP, at least i the US, is dead. I can see shades of the bad of days when AT&T rented phones at an exorbitant rate and invented a new charge every month.
The only hope appears to be that "According to Paul Derry, from patent experts Venner Shipley, most of Verizon's claims should only apply to companies with servers located in the US, even if services are being offered to US citizens." Perhaps Iceland is to become the server capital of the world.
The only hope appears to be that "According to Paul Derry, from patent experts Venner Shipley, most of Verizon's claims should only apply to companies with servers located in the US, even if services are being offered to US citizens." Perhaps Iceland is to become the server capital of the world.
Should Schools Block Sites Like Wikipedia? 545
Londovir asks: "Recently, our school board made the decision to block Wikipedia from our school district's WAN system. This was a complete block — there aren't even provisions in place for teachers or administrators to input a password to bypass the restriction. The reason given was that Wikipedia (being user created and edited) did not represent a credible or reliable source of information for schools. Should we block sites such as Wikipedia because students may be exposed to misinformation, or should we encourage sites such as Wikipedia as an outlet for students to investigate and determine the validity of the information?"
Satellites Mating Via Robotic Arm 91
Roland Piquepaille writes "The launch of the Orbital Express mission, with its two satellites ASTRO and NextSat, the first one servicing the other, was widely covered a month ago. But what is happening in space now? In 'Robotic satellite servicer rehearsal underway in orbit,' Spaceflight Now reports about the progress done. A week ago, the two satellites were able to link to each other to operate the first transfer of hydrazine fuel from ASTRO's propellant tanks into NextSat. This weekend, ASTRO's ten-foot-long robotic arm is going to be used to move objects to NextSat. But what does it mean for international satellite operators when they need help with their space birds? Will they use a system designed for U.S.'s DARPA? "
3-D Virtual Maps For the Blind 50
Roland Piquepaille writes to let us know about research into producing palpable maps for the blind. Scientific American has the story of Greek researchers who produce 3D "haptic" maps that "use force fields to represent walls and roads so the visually impaired can better understand the layout of buildings and cities." Two separate systems produce haptic output from standard video and from 2D maps. The systems have been tested on a small number of users. Currently the devices that interpret the "force fields" for sight-impaired users are not portable, and so the systems are most appropriate for doing research before, e.g., visiting a new city.
The Virtual Teacher 94
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from Illinois and Florida are developing a networking system which will create virtual representations of real people to improve our knowledge. They will use artificial intelligence and natural language processing software to enable us to interact with these avatars. The goal of the project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is to give us the possibility to interact with these virtual representations as if they were the actual person, complete with the ability to understand and answer questions. We should see the results at the beginning of 2008 — if the researchers succeed."
Vista Failing "Blackboard" College Courses 207
writertype writes "Although Blackboard is used to communicate between students and professors at virtually all of PC Magazine/Princeton Review's top 20 wired colleges, when run under a Vista environment users can see glitches. Moreover, IT departments told PC Mag that if Blackboard is used with Vista plus IE7, students can't communicate via the software. When asked why, Microsoft ... waffled. Blackboard says they'll have a fix in place by summer. Meanwhile, are there any other common college apps that Vista fails to work with?"
Apple TV Already Being Hacked 260
TunesBoy writes "Only a couple of days after being shipped, the Apple TV is already being modified in a variety of ways. A thread at Something Awful discusses installing VLC, and a dedicated site, AppleTVHacks.net, has appeared and is cataloging hacks including a hard-drive upgrade tutorial. Did Apple intend for the Apple TV to be so easy to upgrade and hack?"
