A Tivo Cautionary Tale

[Russ Smith]

The first one is actauylly called Moore's law. He was the founder of Intel and actaully predicted the rate of performance increase which surprising has actaully proven to be realitvly accurate.

The head being generated by the chips getting smaller is actually caused by an effect called Quantum Tunneling. Part of Quantum phtiscs suggests that you cannot actually predict exactly where an elction is (not an accurate description but a good 21st order overview).

The result of this is that there is a certain volume in which an election can be, which means as the size of the ciruouts more statrs to appraoch this scale. An election can actually be on both sides of a gate, the result is current leakage (aka heat).

There seems to be nothing that can be done about this as it is a basic principle of Quantum Mechanics so Moore's law is in trouble a few years out from here. They are going to have to radivly change the approach to electionics to get smaller that this.

Thanks, I knew it came from intel but I couldn't remember the name Moore.

 

[Russ Smith]

I hear this story about HOA's prohibiting installations of satellite disks all too often and people just let it go without a fight, unaware that a law was passed to deal with this issue specifically.

http://www.ccfj.net/FCClaw.htm

an excerpt:

Until January 1, 1997, Homeowner Associations could prohibit a homeowner from putting a satellite dish on his roof. With passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, your local HOA is prohibited from enforcing local laws banning, or even delaying mounting of, a satellite dish that is less than 39 inches (1 meter) in diameter. What's more, they can't even require you to request permission to put the dish on your roof! And once it's up, they can't make you take it down or even move it unless you have either created a safety hazard (which they have to prove to the FCC) or you live in a historic district (listed in the National Register of Historic Places).

Thanks, I'm actually well aware of that, the problem is I'm not the homeowner.

My understanding is that also relates to people renting an apartment, if the install is not permanent and doesn't damage the apartment.

My problem is the guy specifically put in the lease I couldn't attach anything to the townhome without his permission.

Basically I'm quite happy with the place and my intention is to be a good tenant, as I have at my current place for over 10 years. My experience is if you treat peoples property well, they learn to trust you and then you can ask for something else. I started out quite seriously focusing on places I could get Directv but we quickly settled in on one area and for whatever reason everyone there has Dish, not Directv.

 

[jerryp]

I think the point he was making is that if the only reason your landlord (I love loaded terms like that) is against the installation of the DTV dish is the home owners association, then he has nothing to worry about.

Pointing that out to him might change his mind allow you to put up your dish.

And CardinalMike, I was going to do the same thing with my laptop. I was going to go a little further and edit out the commercials with Final Cut Pro. I literally have a T1 to my apartment so I was even considering throwing up a web server to hostify the completed games but I am pretty sure my boss and the NFL would be quite upset at that.

 

[bigredjane]

Tivo and DVR-

I received a Tivo for Xmas and I have Cox Digital Cable, when I tried to install the Tivo I got a terrible picture and asked them to take it off and sent my gift back. In the meantime Cox told me that Tivo was incompatible with their Digtal Cable Network, and that they came out with an answer with their own DVR, so I had them install their new box and it's just like Tivo. Now I know what all the noise is about. I love it!! I watch my favorites , in my real time and It's great, fast fowarding those commercials is great. It is a hard drive, and will hold up to 50 hours in the list before you have to either tape it to a VCR tape or erase it. I'ts great!