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A peek inside the famous Disney vault: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/disney-vault-vt/27139/

Sexist answer: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/sexual-harassment/258532/

More Balanced Answer: I think it's an example of setting rules for the few bad cases. Most girls would find it flattering if a guy asked her out, took no for an answer, and went back to work. They find it less flattering when no one can talk about circuits because they're staring at her chest, or constantly try to impress her in annoying ways, or just refuse to leave her alone. In a field where most of the employees are male, you're assured a fair number of assholes, even if the overall percentage of them is low. So we set rules to keep everyone in line.

Is that why Chuck was having poor ratings and almost got canceled forever (it got lucky for season 3 renewal!)? [grin]

'Besides, GE has no link that I'm aware of to the DeLorean Motor Company that I'm aware of.'

Can't see it on the company chart, but I think it fits in somewhere between the Sheinhardt Wig Company ('Not Poisoning Rivers Since 1997') and AHP Chanagi Party Meats of Pyongyang, N. Korea:

http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/images/placeholder/GE_OrgChart.jpg

http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/exclusives/30R_GEWigChart.pdf

'Besides, GE has no link that I'm aware of to the DeLorean Motor Company that I'm aware of.'

Can't see it on the company chart, but I think it fits in somewhere between the Sheinhardt Wig Company ('Not Poisoning Rivers Since 1997') and AHP Chanagi Party Meats of Pyongyang, N. Korea:

http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/images/placeholder/GE_OrgChart.jpg

http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/exclusives/30R_GEWigChart.pdf

More appropriate as a Law & Order episode :)

If the customer you service is NOT a geek then nice trumps competence most of the time. Nick Burns is funny but I have had more people thank me for "helping" them (they still had the problem when I left but I calmly and politely explained the problem to them is layman's terms) than getting in fixing the problem and getting out.

One thing to consider is that advertisers are already adapting to the use of DVRs. Yes, they still have commercials, but there is also a considerable amount of product placement. Consider the NBC show "Chuck" and its Subway product placement. Before the "Save Chuck" campaign even started, Subway maintained that this was their best product placement/commercial deal in years. It was well placed and quite amusing.

And guess who saw it. It wasn't just the old fogies who refuse to move into the modern age, but also the younger generation with our newfangled DVRs and PCs.

This is why having ALL of the ratings is important. Just because DVRs exclude most of the commercials, that doesn't mean that these viewers aren't important to the show's advertisers. The advertisers would just have to push into new ways of advertising outside of the standard commercial.

PS. I'll gladly sacrifice 2 minutes an episode to gain the 58 minutes of hilarity that is Chuck.

PPS. I know that the episode isn't really an hour long and that a bunch of time is cut out for commercials, but that's not the point.

here we call them FELONIES!

You sound like a Stiffly Stifferson to me, I don't like Stiffly Stiffersons, I want to tie them up and prank them with a tire iron in my basement http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/pranksters/2704/

If you look beyond the "technology industry", it is easy to find companies that have operated for decades giving free content to customers.

Google's model of giving people free content and making money on advertising is nearly a century old. Look at network TV. Look at radio. Look at free newspapers. These have been around forever.

What, you mean The Computer Guy: Nick Burns "You're Welcome!" isn't enough? :-)
--
The missing 5th fundamental force is consciousness.

filipinos laugh at the unintended linguistic joke

balut

althoug, using the word for something that is half-duck half-egg, is a pretty good metaphor for this polymorphous device

For some reason parent's post reminded me a lot of the TV show Chuck.

How about a Beowulf Cluster of Woombas?

I think there are several poor business decisions that the company made in the past 10 years or so that can explain why they failed. Starting with their venture into the DIVX fiasco (hint: if your "partner" in a business venture is a law firm, it's probably one to avoid). They probably could have recovered after they finally killed DIVX, if it wasn't for also deciding to get out of the major appliances business. Talk about pure stupidity there -- you see, most major appliances customers are older people, homeowners, with money, and while they're buying that refrigerator or dishwasher today, in six months, they'll probably be looking for a new wide screen television or laptop. Getting rid of appliances just eliminated a huge segment of the market, and lots of sales!

Mistake #3 was just simply not figuring out your basic store structure. After I left the company, every time I walked into the store, I swear to God, they had a new format and arrangement! I could never find anything! If you can't figure out something as simple as this, you're doomed. Going along with this, Firedog was simply at least three years too late in responding to the Geek Squad -- Best Buy won that one easily.

The final nail in the coffin (and I'm sure this has already been stated in this thread somewhere, but I'll put it here just for my own completeness) is firing all of their experienced salespeople and replacing them with non-commissioned, inexperienced, Wal-Mart-esque, clerks. I do understand that ultimately, they had to ditch the commissioned model, simply because of the change in the marketplace. But they went about it totally wrong -- a better solution would be to take advantage of the high turnover rate in retail as it is, and just not hire new commissioned salespeople, and grandfather the experienced ones, who can then be a huge resource to the newer salespeople in teaching them the ropes.

So, it's sad to see them go, but not surprising based on their business decisions of the past 10 years. I did learn a lot from working there back in the 90s, especially regarding computers, installations, and technology in general, so I thank them for that. In the meantime, I guess I'll get my electronics from Newegg or TigerDirect. At least until some new entrepreneur decides to open up a Buy More,... ;-)

Six minute video, don't need to watch it all, but be sure to catch the last 45 seconds.

In the year 2000...

Try this site: http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/

I bet he'll be outbid by NBC.

don't worry, you can still watch the highlights or if you're in the USA they're here OT: Why do the US media sites rank the medal table different from everyone else?

Let's just do this the right way: Rank by athelete.

#1 - Michael Phelps

#2 - Who cares...

don't worry, you can still watch the highlights or if you're in the USA they're here

OT: Why do the US media sites rank the medal table different from everyone else?

Perhaps this video of Mr Clinton will show you the problem with the warlords and food distribution.
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/play.shtml?mea=2871

...but the plural of "medium" is "media", not "mediums".

That depends entirely on the type of medium you're talking about. ;)

Apparently he was loaded
(three mini-sketches after the car ad)

But does it stop bullets?

Man, if the strike is over too soon then the new reality shows will get killed.

I mean, aren't you dying to see My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad?

It debuts on February 18th! Don't miss it, kids!

For those who need an introduction to Huckabee outside of a debate, you may wish you check out Jay Leno's episode on January 2nd:

http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/video/episodes.shtml

About 1/3rd of the show in, there is a Jib Jab cartoon and then Huckabee's part in the show finally starts. I have to admit that in the 10 minutes that followed, I found myself backtracking on my quick judgment on Huckabee. Also, his explanation on the fair tax system furthered my desire to lean in that direction.

American Gladiators was on for what, 5 or 6 years?

American Gladiators
AMERICAN GLADIATORS IS BACK!

The NO-HOLDS-BARRED hit competition series returns to prime-time television, with hosts Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali!

NBC is relaunching the classic competition series "American Gladiators" and is currently auditioning CONTENDERS and GLADIATORS for our upcoming premiere season.

We are looking for weekend warrior types that are BIG, bad, and athletic. If you think you have the heart, skills, and desire to COMPETE then we want to see you at THE GLADIATOR ARENA!

Or...

You could watch season 2 for FREE via the NBC website. No Netflix or $$$ required. NBC offered season 1 up until just before the start of season 2, so I would guess this season will be the same deal.

Concerning your first question, your link is not what the article is referencing. Your link works with most browsers (with the performance variations you described).

Go here: http://www.nbc.com/Video/#downloading ....for the NBC download service being discussed.

FWIW, the expanded FAQ does state that they expect mac support early in 2008.

"
Q: Are there plans to support the Macintosh operating system?
A: NBC Direct's video playback and security (Digital Rights Management) are built for the Microsoft Windows(TM) operating system. They don't currently run on other systems, such as Apple Macintosh(TM) or Linux(TM). However, if your Apple computer runs on an Intel Core Duo(TM) processor, you can set up Apple's(TM) "Boot Camp" software to install and run Microsoft Windows XP(TM) on your computer along with Mac OS X(TM).

Full Mac support is expected to be available in the first part of 2008.
"

http://www.nbc.com/Video/faq.shtml#downloading

I tried to leave feedback on their feedback link. Except it is just a survey of what you watch. I ended up reporting a video playback problem on their Technical Support link to let them know I wouldn't be installing software specific to one website.

to follow up - i think the original poster may have confused this with the abc streams, which i have not been able to run on linux, but the nbc player works just fine:

http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/video/episodes.shtml
(this works fine)

vs

http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing ...

"Our new video player is only available for:
Windows 2000/XP/Vista - Internet Explorer, Firefox
Mac - Firefox, Safari
To watch, please download the appropriate browser."

"PC (requires Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player 10)."
You have to download an exe installer even in IE7. Are you sure you're talking about the video download service, not streaming? It's NBC Direct Beta, about 1/2 way down this page: http://www.nbc.com/Video/

Is this what they're talking about:

http://www.nbc.com/Chuck/video/episodes.shtml

Quality is crap in fullscreen, even though there's a 2" margin on each side of the screen in that mode. It played a 30 second ad for "Scrubbing Bubbles" shower cleaner before letting me watch it (fine with me). I then tested the use case of "I missed the last part of this show" and tried to get toward the end. This resulted in the ad playing again, twice.

Good luck competing with BitTorrent on that. It would take 30 minutes to BitTorrent an HD version of that show, transcoded into a 350MB XVID file in 480p quality. The file would be entirely free of commercials of any kind.

If they want to make this work, they need to offer shows for download in an unencrypted format. Feel free to play a 30 second or even minute-long video ad before allowing the download of a show. Feel free to add commercial breaks to the file. Feel free to require registration and include your zip code, such that local ads can be provided. But don't try to enforce any special player requirements, DRM, or mandatory commercial watching. Don't make me watch it in a web browser, or with a border around it (each additional inch of TV screen is exponentially more expensive). Make sure the video is at least 480p.

Do this and you won't have anyone downloading the ad-free version of a show on BitTorrent/p2p.

Link to the site itself since TFS doesn't include one.

You want flash games? YOU GOT 'EM!
I have probably a gig of flash games I've downloaded to my computer. A lot of it is crap, actually. But there are several that are quite addictive and I thought I would share.

Most of these you can grab and save locally. Since I had most of these saved, I just Googled for the game names and linked the first or second or third result that came up. Most I checked to make sure the site would load without popups and teh game was still there and would load. I included the name in case the result doesn't work as it should (such as a site getting slashdotted! - I could have used coral cache [.nyud.net] on these, but I was unsure if it'd work with the flash files as well. So, if one doesn't work, you can always Google the name. :p

Also, if you saved the flash files locally, you can also download a standalone flash player, courtesy of Adobe, so that you can play the games on your home PC as well. Standalone debug versions are apparently available for Mac, Linux and Windows.

Below is a list of some games I thought I'd share with y'all. Some have probably been mentioned (n, dice wars), but those that were in the main article (portal flash version) I've skipped.

Unreal - http://www.armorgames.com/games/unrealflash_popup.html

Unreal 2007 (Newer version of above) - http://www.addictinggames.com/unrealflash2007.html

Tactics Core (isometric turn-based rpg fighter) - http://www.ugoplayer.com//games/tacticscore.html

Tactics 100 (Newer version of above) - http://www.gamebrew.com/games/blogs/tactics100/play.php

The Batman: Cobblepot Captor (side scroller) - http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/batman.html

Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman (side scroller) - http://www.arcadestreet.com/play-batman-mystery-of-the-batwoman.htm

Russian Affairs (side scroller) - http://russian-affairs.freeonlinegames.com/
Space Bounty (side scroller) - http://www.diggygames.com/play-4434-Space_Bounty.html
The Professionals II (side scroller) - http://www.flasharcade.com/shooting-games/the-professionals-ii-game.html

http://neave.com/games/ (which includes cool old school games like Space Invaders, Tetris, Asteroids, Snake, Frogger, Simon Says, Tic-tac-toe, and... Hexxagon ? )

Tetris (Kind of like Tetris Grand Master, from what I can tell) - http://www.gdward.plus.com/site/flash/tetris/

Bubble Shooter - http://absolutist.com/online/bubbles/

PacXon - http://www.addictinggames.com/pacxon.html

Deal or No Deal - http://www.nbc.com/Deal_or_No_Deal/game/flash.shtml

Plumber - http://www.2flashgames.com/f/f-1082.htm

Bunch - http://www.miniclip.com/games/bunch/en/

Tanks - http://www.2dplay.com/tanks/tanks-play.htm

n game - http://www.harveycartel.org/metanet/n.html

Dice Wars (Risk) - http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/dice/dice.html

You can email jeff.zucker@nbc.com or jeff.zucker@nbcuni.com to complain.

[ igb wrote:] You Americans and your Crazy Laws....I'm constantly astounded by the shambles the US gets into because...

To hook up a couple of Labrador retrievers?

Don't flame me--I actually own one and trust me they have a LOT of more excess energy to spare compared to a cow! But, of course, that would be mean and if you really want to create a win-win situation, it would be to hook the electrical grid up to the treadmills used on The Biggest Loser and supply the whole damn city!

On the surface this sounds like one great big practical joke of a story. But I don't know if I'm impressed or disappointed at the lack of cow flatulence jokes.

So if I have a bunch of servers in a trailer and an ethernet cable sticking out of the door, I'm violating this patent?

I'm sorry, but white trash nerds have been doing this for a long time.

nbc offers many of its most popular shows for streaming from nbc.com
for heroes the url is http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/video/episodes.shtml/

NBC currently allows you to watch episodes free online after they air in exchange for watching a couple of ads. http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/video/episodes.shtml

This is better than free how?

(does the above link not work in France?)

The prophets of 1970 said:
-We would be out of oil by now
-Our forests would be gone by now(Remember those commercials - the one with the little girl walking with her grandfather that were wearing gas masks and they were in a dry river bed and she says "Grandaddy, what was it like to have trees?")
-The ozone hole will get larger and eventually allow kill 80% of life on the planet
-Mercury poison will kill all the fish (Fictional movie about it)

People like me who have been through this crap before are now cynical. Are there some serious environmental concerns? Sure, but it doesn't match the propaganda. The upcoming breed of kids are taking it for hook, line and sinker.
Along the same lines but different category, Uri Geller has a whole new audience to fool now and the kids today will probably think that he was some sort of magician like that other loser, Chris Angel. Uri Geller was a fake and no one will remember.

Google maps is the best. True that, double true!

I'm not sure why you used Heroes, as it's a bad example--being not only available for free over broadcast, but even officially available online.

And/or watching it for free on nbc.com. If I recall correctly, new episodes were aired on their site the day after being aired on television.

I don't really understand what NBC would stand to gain from differential pricing schemes anyway; did they want to in fact charge more than $2 a show? I recall someone doing the calculation that showed they were making approx. $0.64 per viewer in advertising revenue (on average) from standard OTA broadcasts, and I don't think apple's cut could be more than half - so where did the dispute lie?

Here is what I sent:

Dear NBC,

I choose not to own a television, and highly enjoy purchasing the shows that I want to watch from your network on iTunes for my convenience, because they are commercial free, affordably priced, and the DRM restrictions, while I completely disagree with them, are at least somewhat bearable.

If you add your shows to nbc.com at a higher price, and/or with ads, and am unable to download them to watch at my convenience, you guarentee I will never watch any of your shows.

I know that I'm not the only one that has this preference.

Good luck! My wallet will do its talking elsewhere.

Andrew