"Backup" Forums

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Consumers have a way of rewarding well behaving companies and punishing ill behaved companies.

That would be great, if it were true. Companies, just like republics, are generally built by the population they serve. In our case (the US), it's a population that often doesn't purchase or vote in their own best interest, instead relying on a "gut" feeling or "faith" rather than rational thought -- impulse purchase and reactionary voting.

Your statement of "More government regulation - almost always bad" is evidence of this reactionary rather than rational thinking. Some regulation is bad, especially when it has been formed by corporations in order to thwart competition. But to resort to the position that most regulation is bad, with no evidence to back the statement up (show me percentages of good vs. bad regulation, for example), does nothing but spread FUD.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by brainbone

That would be great, if it were true. Companies, just like republics, are generally built by the population they serve. In our case (the US), it's a population that often doesn't purchase or vote in their own best interest, instead relying on a "gut" feeling or "faith" rather than rational thought -- impulse purchase and reactionary voting.

Your statement of "More government regulation - almost always bad" is evidence of this reactionary rather than rational thinking. Some regulation is bad, especially when it has been formed by corporations in order to thwart competition. But to resort to the position that most regulation is bad, with no evidence to back the statement up (show me percentages of good vs. bad regulation, for example), does nothing but spread FUD.

There can't possibly be that much regulation. Comcast was able to purchase NBC/Universal. I still can't believe that happened. Now ATT is buying tmobile? I's only going to get worse from here. I can see it now: FOX/NBC/CBS/ABC/Comcast/Disney/DirecTV VS Dish Network/Google/Sony/BMG/everyone else.

[pdessart]

The real problem is that what regulation remains has evolved from keeping corporate interests in check to facilitating the amassing of more and more money and power.

"We now rejoin our original topic, already in progress..."

I'd like to come up with a way to archive all of what's here to date. I agree that there are probably legalities preventing a wholesale reposting of this entire forum elsewhere, but a personal copy... Having said that, I'm sure that trying to crawl 100% of the forum and save it all would raise all sorts of red flags. If only we had a way to divvy it up. Hmmm...

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by pdessart

The real problem is that what regulation remains has evolved from keeping corporate interests in check to facilitating the amassing of more and more money and power.

"We now rejoin our original topic, already in progress..."

I'd like to come up with a way to archive all of what's here to date. I agree that there are probably legalities preventing a wholesale reposting of this entire forum elsewhere, but a personal copy... Having said that, I'm sure that trying to crawl 100% of the forum and save it all would raise all sorts of red flags. If only we had a way to divvy it up. Hmmm...

The wealth of knowledge that would be amassed would be quite significant if we could pull it off. There are just so many random issues that have come up over the years that a single thread 5 years old have fixed. It would be quite impossible to accumulate all of that information. We simply don't know everything we'd need to look for.

Having said all that. I'm more than willing to handle the often hated Windows direct show side of the client install walk-through or whatever is being proposed.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by pdessart

I'd like to come up with a way to archive all of what's here to date. I agree that there are probably legalities preventing a wholesale reposting of this entire forum elsewhere, but a personal copy... Having said that, I'm sure that trying to crawl 100% of the forum and save it all would raise all sorts of red flags. If only we had a way to divvy it up. Hmmm...

I don't think crawling the forum would set off any red flags. This is, after all, what Google and other search engines do.

Converting the crawled data into another forum's DB will be the more difficult part, but shouldn't be that tough -- all depends on how ugly you want the results to be.

I think it's probably worth the trouble to automate creation of:

1) users for the scraped posts
2) forum structure
3) posts and threads (of course).

However, the main obstacle is legality. Mirroring the forums through scraping is technically possible -- but without permission from Google, where are you going to host it? Certainly not in the US.

What will set off red flags is PMing existing forum members to notify them of their "new account", with instruction on how to gain access to it.

[flavius]

We could simply ask Google for permission.

[brainbone]

Thinking it through further, couldn't one just add a link in the 'mirror', pointing back to the original SageTV forum post, and the just call the 'mirror' a cached copy in our new search engine?

[pdessart]

Originally Posted by brainbone

Thinking it through further, couldn't one just add a link in the 'mirror', pointing back to the original SageTV forum post, and the just call the 'mirror' a cached copy in our new search engine?

That actually sounds like a very good idea. We just set up a cache, like any of many caches which exist throughout the Internet (but which we're usually unaware of since they function transparently), and as long as the original forum is up the cache remains a read-only copy. If the original ever goes offline, we have the cached copy as of the last day the original existed.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by brainbone

That would be great, if it were true. Companies, just like republics, are generally built by the population they serve. In our case (the US), it's a population that often doesn't purchase or vote in their own best interest, instead relying on a "gut" feeling or "faith" rather than rational thought -- impulse purchase and reactionary voting.

Your statement of "More government regulation - almost always bad" is evidence of this reactionary rather than rational thinking. Some regulation is bad, especially when it has been formed by corporations in order to thwart competition. But to resort to the position that most regulation is bad, with no evidence to back the statement up (show me percentages of good vs. bad regulation, for example), does nothing but spread FUD.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...tory?track=rss

If you knew me personally you'd know I am anything but reactionary.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...tory?track=rss

If you knew me personally you'd know I am anything but reactionary.

Glad I don't live in CA. That's just dumb.

[speck55]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Glad I don't live in CA. That's just dumb.

Did you read any of the other ridiculous legislation in the "related articles"? I did. Now I will give you that CA has had some pretty ridiculous laws on the books for quite some time, and somehow wound up with Arnold as their governor (someone explained it to me, but just as I wrapped my head around the concept of just how that came to be, my brain started hurting and imploded).

Anyways, then you have Wisconsin. One of two states with no provision for concealed carry, yet the last in the country to lower the BAC limit from .10 to .08, and I think the last in the country to actually REQUIRE auto liability insurance. (June of last year, I think). Add onto that a state-wide smoking ban, in ANY public place (I could open an establishment called "Come Get Cancer" EXPLICITLY FOR smoking cigarettes, and it would not be legal to do so), while tacking on another couple of bucks a pack in taxes, and putting up state-sanctioned, automated, lottery ticket vending machines IN SUPERMARKETS with no provision for enforcing the legal age requirement, several years after banning cigarette vending machines in places like bars).

THAT, folks, is a REALLY mixed up state.

EDIT: And it should be noted the state-wide smoking ban in ANY PUBLIC place, even walking down the sidewalk I paid for with my property taxes, was snuck in as a budget item. No referendum, no public input. It wasn't even its own bill.

[speck55]

Originally Posted by brainbone

That would be great, if it were true. Companies, just like republics, are generally built by the population they serve. In our case (the US), it's a population that often doesn't purchase or vote in their own best interest, instead relying on a "gut" feeling or "faith" rather than rational thought -- impulse purchase and reactionary voting.

Your statement of "More government regulation - almost always bad" is evidence of this reactionary rather than rational thinking. Some regulation is bad, especially when it has been formed by corporations in order to thwart competition. But to resort to the position that most regulation is bad, with no evidence to back the statement up (show me percentages of good vs. bad regulation, for example), does nothing but spread FUD.

Let's start the day that gold no longer backed our currency. We can move forward from there, in any of thousands of directions you like.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by speck55

and somehow wound up with Arnold as their governor (someone explained it to me, but just as I wrapped my head around the concept of just how that came to be, my brain started hurting and imploded).

Haven't you seen Demolition Man? That movie was prophecy. In the movie there was a discussion about Arnold being president.

Stallone: "Hold it! The Schwarzenegger Library?"
Bullock: "Yes, the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library. Wasn't he an actor?"
Stallone: "Stop! He was President?"
Bullock: "Yes. Even though he was not born in this country, his popularity at the time caused the 61st Amendment…"

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...tory?track=rss

But did that bill make it to law?

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by speck55

Let's start the day that gold no longer backed our currency. We can move forward from there, in any of thousands of directions you like.

Tell me, exactly, how backing a capitalistic, value based economy's currency with gold has _any_ benefit??? How about we back it with Uranium? Aluminum? Lead?

Think it through. Gold backed currency solves nothing.

[shadymg]

Hey guys, haven't forgotten about this thread. We're working on making this a reality and should be there soon. I'll post again when it's live. Thanks!

[shadymg]

and we are live at MissingRemote.com!

We started with 5 sub-categories, but of course we can expand it out as more SageTV users migrate over there.

if anyone has created some of the more popular posts here, if they want to throw them over there I'm sure that would help the transition.

If there's anything else you think we need during the transition, don't hesitate to post there as well.

Thanks,
Mike Garcen
MissingRemote.com

[Brent]

I see no reason for any alternative forums at this point.

If there is any change of support from Jeff i would change my tune, but. Thus far there definitely isnt. As before, this is the best place to get help and support for your SageTV setup. And it continues to maintain a great deal of valuable info here.

The forum administration and monitoring continues to be supported as well.

[pdessart]

Originally Posted by Brent

I see no reason for any alternative forums at this point.

If there is any change of support from Jeff i would change my tune, but. Thus far there definitely isnt. As before, this is the best place to get help and support for your SageTV setup. And it continues to maintain a great deal of valuable info here.

The forum administration and monitoring continues to be supported as well.

Except (as we saw with the SageTV store) this could go dark overnight with no warning. It would be a shame to lose the years of accumulated knowledge and lose touch with the forum members. If Google (of course, Jeff would have to instigate this - and he probably has zero (or negative) incentive) were to spin off the forum hosting to a neutral party then I'd feel confident in their continuation. Otherwise...

[Brent]

Originally Posted by pdessart

Except (as we saw with the SageTV store) this could go dark overnight with no warning. It would be a shame to lose the years of accumulated knowledge and lose touch with the forum members. If Google (of course, Jeff would have to instigate this - and he probably has zero (or negative) incentive) were to spin off the forum hosting to a neutral party then I'd feel confident in their continuation. Otherwise...

I'll say this. If that were to happen, yes I could see the need. But that hasn't happened. I know the info on these forums has been "backed up" and in that situation could be restored elsewhere. I do not see that happening though - especially without warning. I'll reach out to Jeff to ask for more warning just in case.