This will make Omaha unhappy

[elfs]

TiVo, our PVR of choice, and one to which we've made a five-year commitment to keep (the idea being that after five years we'll have amortized the initial purchase cost sufficiently to make it worth buying in the first place) has announced that now, while you fast-forward the TiVo interpreter will put banner ads on the screen.

Combine this with the "new" feature that pay-per-view shows will have hard expiration dates, and the value of a TiVo is plummeting fast. It's almost time to consider building my own Myth and Buffalo system.

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So, Omaha and I were reading this review by bookslut, and we were vaguely amused in that "oh, you're trying to be offensive and amusing at the same time, aren't you?" way by the claim that Cooking Light magazine, our cooking magazine of choice is for "people really into yoga," and that Bon Appetit is for "people frightened by Cooking Light's intended audience."

Hey, I've cooked out of both. I'm tempted to see the mashed potatoes recipe in Gourmet. It's supposed to be fiendishly difficult.

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By now you've all heard that K-Mart is buying Sears, and is rebranding itself as Sears. But if you're not paying attention, you might have missed bigger news: Kraft is selling its Altoids and Lifesavers candy divisions to Wrigleys, the gum people. Kraft believes that the Atkins awareness is killing the candy industry, and Wrigley believes that it can make Lifesavers and Altoids interesting again.

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And a new stupid people report: The Sadie Hawkins dance, especially one where boys and girls are encouraged to dress up in each other's clothes and act out their roles accordingly, has been cancelled in Texas. In it's place, students have been told that they should all wear camoflage.

It's delightful to see the reddest of red states show its objectives so openly and honestly. "No, you should not try and understand the opposite sex. Instead, you should want to kill things."

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Good news even Yamaarashi-chan would love: The gene sequence known as "Sonic The Hedgehog" has been shown to stimulate the growth of cells in the brain, even in older adults, when introduced directly. The only problem right now is turning the mechanism off once it's started: you don't want neuronal crowding to produce brain tissue that doesn't work.

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The U.S. Military is forbidden from attempting to proselytize or otherwise attempt to convert is members, and it is not permitted by law to restrict activities of its members to those of certain beliefs. The U.S. Military may not contract with organizations that discriminate based upon religious beliefs. The Department of Defense, working with the ACLU, has solidified this policy.

As a result, the DoD has informed military commanders tha they or their bases may not officially sponsor Boy Scout troops. (Girl Scout troops are okay.)

Predictably, the usual suspects go apeshit.

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Yay, New Scientist!. The cover article (subscription only, sadly) states the obvious:

We seek intoxication for a simple reason that we are almost too scared to admit--we like it. Intoxication can be fun, sociable, memorable, therapeutic, even mind-expanding. Saying as much in the present climate is not easy, but an increasing number of researchers now argue that unless we're prepared to look beyond the "drug problem" and acknowledge the positive aspects of intoxication, we are seeing only half of the story--like researching sex while pretending it isn't fun.

Wow. I love this quote:

What if our actual brain chemistry evolved to help us survive and reproduce at the cost of giving us false beliefs about the world? If so, it is possible that mind-altering drugs might in fact give us a better, not worse, insight than we have in our so-called normal state.

Comments

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't panic too much about the TiVo stuff. The pop-ups are unobtrusive and only happen if you FF over an ad that has the flag for one. Much like the TiVoMatic 'Press Thumbs Up To Record' stuff only shows up on specific ads today. It isn't just whenever you FF. And they don't take up much of the screen.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

What I want to know is what kind of effect is has on the 30 second fast forward hack that Elf and I use. After all, that causes me to spend about 5 seconds total, really, moving through the sum total ads between show sequences. Even if the entire time has a banner on the screen, I wouldn't scream.

Not too loudly. ;)

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

To the best of my knowledge the 30 second skip is unaffected. If you jump over the ads you also jump over the pop-ups.

[cabrius.livejournal.com]

MythTV has been working fairly well for me, but it was a royal pain to get working in the first place due to various hardware quirks that popped up and performance tweaks that had to be done. A standalone system specifically designed for Myth use would probably have a much easier time, and people are putting together entire distros specifically to support it.

(Though there's no guarantee that Zap2It won't pull their currently-free support for the TV listings or start demanding information or other compensation, either.)

[chgowiz.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that if the current copyright protection bill passes the Senate, it will be illegal to bypass commercials on your DVR/VCR.

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,65704,00.html
http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/hr2391

I'm a little shrill about the whole thing. My Senators seem to not care.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

That's a lawsuit waiting to happen. No one should be able to tell me that I have to watch a stupid ad.

[chgowiz.livejournal.com]

I agree. It's another way the media is desperately trying to keep control over what we use as entertainment. However, the nicely bribed...er.. "appropriately encouraged through campaign contributions" Congress seems ready to hand our rights over to the media.

Should lead to some interesting court battles. The DCMA is only now starting to show cracks. *sigh* All about the dollar.

[wendor.livejournal.com]

Actually you have nothing whatsoever to worry about. Like in all political situations neither side is telling the whole truth.

If you actually read the bill itself it would not make skipping over commercials illegal at all. The bill creates additional exceptions to the current copyright law. The bill as currently amended has language stating that it specifically does not create an exception to the current copyright law for the purpose of allowing the skipping of commercials. But since the courts have already ruled that end users (viewers) fast forwarding over and/or skipping commercials is not a violation of copyright it makes it a moot point whether or not there is an exception saying so.

Since fast forwarding over commercials is not a violation of copyright law, it will have no effect. All it says is that if you add, modify, or delete commercials IN A WAY THAT ALREADY VIOLATES COPYRIGHT LAW you could not defend yourself on the grounds of the new exceptions that would allow you to remove or modify "objectionable content". So you can still fast forward over commercials, but you can't digitally modify them to now advertise your products instead of your competitor's.

It's still a bad bill (for other reasons) and I oppose it, but some folks are trying to drum up extra opposition to it by lying about what it actually says.

[chgowiz.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I read the snippet of the bill that focused on that section and I didn't read it the way you've presented it. Could you provide a link to the whole bill that references that section? Thanks!

[wendor.livejournal.com]

Main page for the various version of the bill is currently here

Version 5 of the bill (H.R.2391.RS) is the current one as of today and the first to include the language of the former H.R.4586 which is the matter at hand. This version is currently here

Section 212 "EXEMPTION FROM INFRINGEMENT FOR SKIPPING AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTENT IN MOTION PICTURES" is the section you are looking for.

The key factors to note are that the bill creates no new law, but instead only modifies Section 110 of title 17, United States Code (US Copyright Law) and 15 U.S.C. 1114 (Trademark Act of 1946) and only modifies them to add exemptions from the current laws already in place.

It adds an eleventh exception to the ten exceptions already in place in Title 17, United States Code Section 110(Limitations on exclusive rights: Exemption of certain performances and displays)
That exemption is :

`(11) the making imperceptible, by or at the direction of a member of a private household, of limited portions of audio or video content of a motion picture, during a performance in or transmitted to that household for private home viewing, from an authorized copy of the motion picture, or the creation or provision of a computer program or other technology that enables such making imperceptible and that is designed and marketed for such use at the direction of a member of a private household, if--

`(A) no fixed copy of the altered version of the motion picture is created by such computer program or other technology; and

`(B) no changes, deletions or additions are made by such computer program or other technology to commercial advertisements, or to network or station promotional announcements, that would otherwise be performed or displayed before, during or after the performance of the motion picture.'

Not being included in an exemption from a law does not automatically make you in violation of the law itself. You have to read the rest of the law (USC Title 17) to see about that. For example, a law against driving stolen cars that includes the text "blue cars are not an exception" does not mean that driving a blue car is illegal. It just means that the rest of the law still applies even if the car is blue. In this case "commercial advertisements" are specifically not covered by the exception to the copyright law, but that doesn't make them illegal, just subject to the rest of the copyright law itself. And fortunately for all of the the US Supreme Court has already ruled on that matter and has said that "time shifting" and "commercial skipping" are both "acceptable use" and therefore not violation of USC Title 17.

[featheredfrog.livejournal.com]

"Hey, I've cooked out of both. I'm tempted to see the mashed potatoes recipe in Gourmet. It's supposed to be fiendishly difficult."

To which of the 173 Gourmet/Epicurious online recipes involving to Mashed Potato are you referring?

Yeesh!

RE: TIVO, Did you see the series of articles in Linux Journal (this spring?) outlining the construction of a custom personalized linux/PVR? system? Of course, you have only until next June to obtain one of the new high-end video cards without the macrovisionflag. Better get shaking. I wish there was enough on broadcast/cable to interest me in making one of these boxen.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

The one that involves baking the potatoes beforehand and prewarming everything before you mix the mash.

As for TiVo, yeah, I've been considering making my own PVR using Myth, but it's still an expensive propositon.