2 years ago I decided that I wanted to view stuff through the BBC's iPlayer, forgetting that most of the good stuff from the BBC makes it here, and what doesn't make it here tends to be the dregs. Anyway, I found an open proxy in the UK and was barely able to get video across it. That was just the starting point. From there I looked at all of the HTTP communications (with Live HTTP Headers) and using FoxyProxy was able to just have certain pieces of data going through the proxy. I narrowed it down to just a few small HTTP communications that were being checked for location, and just proxied those. I got good streaming video after that because the actual video was being served up by Akamai. I wound up being served BBC video content from a server in Arizona.

Given that BBC America has most of the better stuff from the BBC, I haven't bothered messing with that kind of thing in several years.

This kind of thing may not work now, but it's worth checking to see just how much data really does have to be proxied/vpned if you are doing that kind of thing.

The house analogy is much closer to open source. If you find a flaw in the design, such as that thieves figured out how to pry open the windows, then you can't go back and sue the builders. You can however get new locks, add on new security to the house.

Adobe though is more like a landlord who is anal about you making any, even tiny repairs. You aren't allowed to make any changes to the house itself. You find out that thieves have figured out how to pry open the windows. You report this to your landlord, expecting them to make appropriate repairs. They refuse to make reasonable repairs, but tell you that they have a different property for rent, with better secured windows, if you are willing to pay higher rent.

The issue is that since they do not give you the source code to even allow you to make repairs, they should be obligated to make repairs themselves for a decent amount of time.

They initially did try to make the caps really low:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090331_726397.htm

Traffic from Netflix has surpassed traffic from piracy:
http://consumerist.com/2011/05/study-shows-netflix-surpasses-piracy-in-online-traffic.html

After initial public reaction to really low caps, the cable companies did raise the caps to what are currently reasonable rates. But they've also shown no sign of changing those caps. As the quality of the video improves in coming years, it's also going to take up more and more bandwidth. So the higher caps got the public off their back for now, and isn't hurting Netflix at the moment, but it's pretty obvious how this will play out in a few years time.

There are a couple of problems.

Cable companies used to simply be mechanisms to get content created by other companies to users, and they did so through the TV.

As time progressed, the cable companies also began providing Internet access over the cable lines.

The cable companies also changed from simply being mechanisms for transferring the content that others have created, to owning some of those content creating companies as well.

New companies sprung up (such as Netflix) which realized that they could serve content through the internet, and serve it to more devices than just TVs.

This tends to drag on the profitability of Cable TV if people start feeling they have a better costing, reasonable alternative, so customers started dropping cable. Meanwhile, content creating companies not owned by the Cable companies were given a new outlet for distribution, not having to rely essentially on their competitors (the Cable companies) for distribution, possibly at unfair terms.

So around the time that the Netflix user base was really exploding, the Cable companies started putting caps on their Internet service, along with creating their own clones of the services provided by other websites that were now serving up content.

The problem now is that the cable companies seem to be unfairly using the arm of their company that provides internet access in order to artificially help it's Cable TV and content creation arms. By keeping the caps artificially low, they keep people from being able to use the Internet to get their content, pushing people towards their Cable TV. Now, by allowing their own sites to not count towards the cap, they are telling people that they can go back to getting content from the Internet again, but only if it's provided by them.

This is compounded by cable companies being granted local monopolies, so many people don't have a choice than to use these Companies that are trying to limit what content they can receive.

Imagine Walmart buying out USPS/UPS/FedEx. People have to go through Walmart to get anything sent to them. Now imagine Walmart saying that you are now limited to receiving 3 packages per month. This would be terrible for Amazon, a competitor in getting a good number of things to customers. This is now the equivalent of Walmart saying, "You are limited to 3 packages per month, but any packages you receive from us won't count, so order from us!". This has a chilling effect then beyond simply winding up costing customers more. A student is studying WWII. They want to read Mein Kampf. Walmart doesn't like it, so doesn't sell it. They've killed Amazon. You can't get it.

TL;DR- So the issue is that because the Cable companies are controlling several parts of the entertainment business, this is monopolistic behavior that will cost customers more and limit customer options.

The issue is that NASA has become quite politicized. It's suffering because projects are not being decided based upon what are the best engineering options, but by the pork provided. So far, the commercial development has been making large strides, and doing so far more efficiently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Criticism

I find that with Slashdot, the key to getting a high score really has everything to do with posting shortly after a submission is out. Wait until there are more than a handful of comments and your score will likely to be pretty low. This also happens on Reddit, but it doesn't seem like quite to the extent of Slashdot.

Reddit on the other hand tends to suffer more from being more of an echo chamber. On Slashdot, you can more often voice a dissenting opinion and still get modded up, opening up more discussion. On Reddit, you just get downvoted and then ignored. What is really needed is two separate controls: one for giving points for a good, well reasoned or stated (non-troll) post and another for whether you agree with the post or not.

Not necessarily. It sounded like there was a pretty strict NDA in place. I wouldn't be surprised if it was to keep Google from knowing what the alleged infringing patents were, so Google may not have had a chance to really fight this.

"By using this website, you agree that if you are currently holding an elected position, work directly for someone holding an elected position, work as a lobbyist, or are a Supreme Court Justice of the United States, you will immediately resign your position. Furthermore, you agree to never hold an elected position or work as a lobbyist. You also agree to waive any class action lawsuits against this site, and agree that any disagreements over these terms of service will not be argued in a court of law, but will be subject to binding arbitration by an arbitrator selected by the owners of this website."

This isn't a solution until he first figures out how to get this by the politicians that said bankers have bought with said money.

I'm really not sure that I want to be flying on an airline whose chief can't tell the difference between a private hotel room and an airplane with dozens of other people sitting right next to you.

Hmm, if you are going to get a smartphone dock built into your prosthetic, it really ought to be an Android phone.

He has been quite good. There are more talented actors though. The thing with Leonardo DiCaprio though is that he may be the actor with the best judgement in what movies to play in. If you look at his filmography, you notice that he plays in relatively few movies, but those really tend to be smart, well put together movies.

I am kind of hoping that he does play Alan Turing, not necessarily for his acting skills so much, but just because it tells me that the script is likely to have been well done.

IE and Safari. Our logs have indicated a pretty even split in usage among our users between IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari (and no, the Safari users are not all or even a majority coming from mobile devices).

What would break is Javascript. The different browsers have been messing around quite a bit with their Javascript engines in recent years, and there are idiosyncrasies that have to be worked around. What you see as a minor change to how a browser handles a piece of Javascript does in fact mean that major corporate websites could suddenly no longer work for thousands of users.

When you have to support such systems, you want to be able to do testing to make sure that things work. This new scheme means that each and every day you are living under the gun, wondering if today is the day that Mozilla will release a version with a minor tweak that will leave you in a huge mess.

Unfortunately, although I've loved Firefox and have used it for years, I'm about ready to suggest that my organization no longer support it, because it's becoming impossible to realistically test against. The best that such testing can do is say 'It works today, but who knows about tomorrow?', which bosses REALLY don't like.

It is stupid. There is value in a combined service.

I had been a bit annoyed about the price increase and their BS handling of it, but I had gotten over it, and was figuring that I'd just pay a bit more and keep both the DVDs and the streaming (despite probably using the streaming less). It was just easy and already packaged nicely together, where I had my queues together, and if I was interested in a show I could easily see if it was on instant first before trying to get it on DVD. This is destroying that severing that link and destroying that convenience. This is actually making me think now that perhaps I should just drop the streaming part, since I use it less and it's now going to be far less convenient. I am thinking that I should perhaps take this opportunity to look into Amazon's streaming content, as using it would now be just as convenient, and due to their pricing changes, I wouldn't have to pay more to just keep the DVD service.