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Obligatory comic: How we debate the pronounciation of...

My friend, allow me to introduce you to Japanese honeybees, insects for whom a 1 degree C difference is a matter of life and death

https://theoatmeal.com/blog/fi...

What do you mean "when"?

Labour has never had value. People don't care about how much effort something takes. People don't care how many years of experience you need to build up in order to accomplish said thing. In a world where people treat the Dunning Kruger effect as a personal accomplishment, it can be very difficult for people to see the value in your skills.

This is particularly notable for people in the computer industry (not to mention any kind of design field). "But my teenage nephew can do that in a fraction of the time, and all for a bag of cheetos!"

The Oatmeal has a great example of this: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/...

https://theoatmeal.com/static/...

MORE Democrat support then Republican

than

"Hey, that Stan Lee thing seems interesting."
"Oh, not available. :-("
"I wonder if there is a torrent...."

Obligatory Link: I tried to watch Game of Thrones and this is what happened.

I don't know of an XKCD link, sorry about that.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/g...

All these different producers need to stop thinking that THEIR offer is the only thing anyone could ever want.

Buy now, it's 20 percent faster clock for clock then previous generation chips!

than

Reminds me of that Oatmeal cartoon: guy happily spends hundred of $ on an iPad without thinking, then agonises over the purchase of an app that costs less than a cup of shitty coffee. Why won’t you pay for apps, is it a matter of principle? If you feel there are no apps worth even a cent, you’re probably not looking hard enough. Or at all.

I know you will, and trust me, I thought deep and hard about this, but even though I read and cherished all your love letters and emails begging me to stay, in the end I just had to do what is best for me. Believe me, this was not as hard for me as it was for you but eventually it would happen. It's better to have done it while I still had some sanity left.

You are very welcome to visit any time you want, though, but I'm guessing you won't. And that is one of the reasons why I had to leave: you are too close-minded and wouldn't let me grow, learn, improve and be happy. I know you mean well and that deep down you think you're doing the right thing and that there's nothing wrong with your closed world. I wish I could show you. I wish you would listen. I wish you could change. But I know you won't. And that's OK, I forgive you.

XXX,
borfast

PS - Don't forget to feed jeff and stroke his head, he loves it and it makes him happy.
PPS - http://theoatmeal.com/comics/b...

Courtesy of The Oatmeal, a good list of what to do for legal TV shows:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/g...

'tis rude not to link to the original source:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/o...

Obligatory Reference: The Oatmeal on Game of Thrones- http://theoatmeal.com/comics/g...

I get what you're saying - sort of use it as publicity for something else. But on the other hand, it's not far off this, which seems like a way for cheapskates to get stuff for nothing.

Virtually all of Tesla's "inventions" were completely impractical (and no, not "ahead of his time"), whereas Edison's inventions were made for the market.

You're right...The transistor, Radio, Radar, AC are all so impractical /s
What Edison was good at was selling other people's inventions (AKA made for the market)

It's obvious you read the books Edison or his estate had a hand in crafting. While a bit tongue-in-cheek TheOatmeal does a decent job of chronicling The exploits of Edison and Tesla. Edison was an ass by most accounts. I mean he tortured and killed animals to discredit Tesla FFS! This isn't speculation. He held public demonstrations in which he subjected animals to AC to demonstrate how dangerous it is. All so he could sell his DC power plants (which Tesla helped him create). Had he succeeded we would all be living with a power plant on every other city block.

Thanks grammar Nazi !

I forgot to consult my Oatmeal cheat sheet :-/

then that would cost them

than

Why working at home is both awesome and horrible - The Oatmeal

I know everyone will be impressed that I know how to make an HTML link. Such technical knowledge!

Hey! TARGET="_blank" works on Slashdot now. Didn't maybe 2 years ago.

This Oatmeal Comic might be a good place to start.

Facebook and VPN's have too much to loose if their brand is tarnished.

10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling

they did not stop using BitTorrent to pirate movies and TV shows that were not included in the offering.

...duh? And that's from years ago, when Game of Thrones started.

They can ramble all they want about things like Hulu or Netflix, but even with relatively-cheap services Hollywood still treats convenience like the plague. The show or movie you want to watch isn't available with your preferred service, or it is but is device restricted, or it is but only part of it (like one season out of seven in a TV series), or it is but you have to wait at least 24 hours after the live airing to watch it. There is a demand, but giant media corporations refuse to offer supply, and they complain when an alternative one is found.

Just because something is cheap does not mean it is good. And the more segmented streaming services get, the more people will turn to alternative sources for the entertainment they want; I expect that two or three services is the limit for most people, and as more studios start launching their own offering the consumer becomes more choosy about what they subscribe to.

Not all entertainment is equal, either in quality or in individual preference. Just because you gave someone free access to Jersey Shore season 3 doesn't stop them from wanting to watch Mr. Robot.

And they were cleverer and funnier, too. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/g...

but its loosing it hand over fist

Lose: opposite of win. Loose: not tight

I exclusively telecommuted to a job in another state for a year and a half and set foot in the office once during that period. There were several challenges. First everyone else was in the office which inhibited my ability to navigate political currents. I was cut out of a lot of that political back and forth. I am naturally an introvert, but frankly, the The Oatmeal nails the good, bad and ugly of telecommuting. I basically felt like a hermit and socially isolated. I began to get cabin fever after several months and ultimately decided for my mental health, I needed to start going into the office again. We do still have some telecommuting flexibility at my new job, but it's a once-in-a-while-because-the-plumber-is-coming kind of thing. In short, telecommuting is great and should be part of every employers tool-set, but so should meeting together in an office. It is often more efficient for collaborative tasks just as sequestering yourself at home can be. Blanket bans and usage of exclusively one style of work or the other are short sighted, limiting and ultimately unhealthy. You have to do both every once in a while.

Maybe we need a "vaping mask" that can be used in public. It would seal around mouth and nose, and filter exhalations. That would address the problem.

I'm thinking this might be an acceptably inexpensive solution. Saran wrap or packing tape come to mind as well.

I generally use "SJW" as a marker indicating that the writer or speaker has turned off their brain, and the amygdala has taken over.

As an author, yes, I would like to be paid when my works are distributed.

The problem is that Google wanted to distribute the work from authors for free.

I do know that the idea that people should be paid for their work is controversial on /., where many commentators believe that information-- meaning other peoples' work-- should be free, and authors should be happy to starve, because, hey, it's exposure.

Well, actually, isn't the problem that they want to sell it / use it for commercial purposes? If Google simply wanted to put this on the web for absolutely free, with no links to anything else, couldn't they?

Google is the most valuable company in the world. They may want to distribute others peoples work for free, but they themselves plan to make a huge profit from doing so.

It's merely the authors who don't get paid.

...if the bad guys use this stolen data and mess up your credit score.

Referencing, my primary "go to" grammar resource, it seems to case #2

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/i...

Don't link to the NYT fucker. Aside from being a leftist piece of trash,

I've heard a lot of right-leaning people complain about the New York Times. I haven't, however, seen any evidence that they aren't a good source of information.

they limit the number of articles they allow you to see each month.

It's bad enough that millennial assholes think that it's a crime if everything on the internet is not free, free, free. Reporters shouldn't be paid, they should work for the love of it. (and for the "exposure").

But now, when the New York Times actually is giving away their content for free, the millennial assholes are complaining that they are not getting enough content for free.

Snowflakes have gotta bitch about something.... :/

It's bad enough that millennial assholes think that it's a crime if everything on the internet is not free, free, free. Reporters shouldn't be paid, they should work for the love of it. (and for the "exposure").

But now, when the New York Times actually is giving away their content for free, the millennial assholes are complaining that they are not getting enough content for free.

Wait, what? Someone (anonymous) with no self-identification whatsoever complains about NYT and you somehow lump that person with millennials and proceeds to bash the entire group. You could have replaced millennials with another and it would have made just as little sense. But it's fashionable to bash millennials and blame them for everything so you got upvoted. Mods need to do a better job at moderating.

Don't link to the NYT fucker. Aside from being a leftist piece of trash,

I've heard a lot of right-leaning people complain about the New York Times. I haven't, however, seen any evidence that they aren't a good source of information.

they limit the number of articles they allow you to see each month.

It's bad enough that millennial assholes think that it's a crime if everything on the internet is not free, free, free. Reporters shouldn't be paid, they should work for the love of it. (and for the "exposure").

But now, when the New York Times actually is giving away their content for free, the millennial assholes are complaining that they are not getting enough content for free.

It'll sort itself out. If people find it annoying to subscribe to every movie studio's streaming service, then they'll see a drop in overall revenue and will be forced to reintroduce their libraries to consolidated streaming services like Netflix. If people don't think it's too much hassle to subscribe to every movie studio's streaming service, then this will become the new norm and Netflix will die out (well, probably not since they're working hard to become their own studio).

From an end viewer's perspective, this means if you would prefer Disney's library be available on Netflix, then you shouldn't subscribe to Disney's new service. That way you send them a message that you don't like the change. As for what to do in the interim, The Oatmeal had a relevant comic.

Disney is a bit of a unique case though. They're gambling that kids begging for Disney movies will be able to override the parents' rational decision not to subscribe to Disney's streaming service after they pull their library from Netflix. They're probably right.

What it's like to own an Apple product - The Oatmeal

Seems wiser to stick to a cellular phone which the foolish call "dumb". ;)

As a dispassionate outside observer I have to say that your comic is a truly fascinating visualisation of what goes on in the brains of angry Slashdot posting cellar dwelling Google fanboys when they obsess about the way they think Apple users live their lives, here is what happens when they wake up one morning and start obsessing about Microsoft for a change: http://www.penny-arcade.com/co...

What it's like to own an Apple product - The Oatmeal

Seems wiser to stick to a cellular phone which the foolish call "dumb". ;)

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/legos

Here, get educated courtesy of the Oatmeal.

I'd bet 95% of politicians are not tech-savvy. They tend to be older individuals, and also come from backgrounds not dependent in tech. There are exceptions, but most of them aren't tech savvy.

That doesn't mean it can't be explained to them: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net...

You just need to explain in denominations of 50 and 100, that's all.

I'd bet 95% of politicians are not tech-savvy. They tend to be older individuals, and also come from backgrounds not dependent in tech. There are exceptions, but most of them aren't tech savvy.

That doesn't mean it can't be explained to them: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net...

"this engine of growth is threatened by the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order, which would put federal bureaucrats in charge of engineering the Internet's infrastructure."

What a load of doublespeak bollocks.

Either the person who wrote that is lying or they have no idea what the Internet is.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net...

Fix the obscene amount of gasoline, here's some motivation for you in comic form:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/t...

If a show is available on-demand, viewers won't be able to skip ads, even if they recorded the episode on DVR

Stuff like this is what drives people to use bittorrent - why pay for content if you have to sit through the ads anyway?

Obligatory TheOatmeal:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/g...

ObOatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/pl/senio...

It's hard to believe that nobody has posted this yet. An obligatory comic about the movie theater experience:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/movie_theater_layout

I take my kids to movies in theaters and we always do 3D which is fun.

Otherwise, they need to update the configuration of theaters to enhance the experience.

I suggest they use the Oatmeal's suggestions:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/m...

"Into the Dome Motherfucker!"

For the life of me, I can't fathom why anyone would want to live in a big city. Every perk I hear touted, I can beat. It's quiet, I have a yard, and I have more spending money that the saps choking on smog.

I'd like to take a crack at this.

We have major league sports teams. Of course, if you don't like sports, that's not a selling point for you. We have symphony orchestra and museums if you like the artsy side of things. We have restaurants that are fancier that Wendy's. We have pizza places that aren't just Papa John's. We also have Asian restaurants that only serve Japanese food or only serve Thai food and so on. Check out the Oatmeal cartoon on Asian food in a small town here :
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/a...
That's where you live.

But actually the best argument against the small town lifestyle is that in many small towns there's only maybe one major employer and you're lucky enough to work for them in IT. What happens when they go out of business? What happens if they lay you off because they need to save money by either replacing you with offshore IT or just eliminating your position? You end up like so many others - you won't leave your town, but you can't find any other IT work to do. Ever read about those IT workers who got laid 2+ years ago and still can't find a job? That's what happens in small towns.

I know everyone wants to back the little guy, but Netflix is actually recreating the very monopolies we are trying to break-up:

The common complaint about cable was that they bundled everything together. You had to pay a monthly fee, you couldn't pick your channels a la carte, and if you wanted to watch "Game Of Thrones" you had to subscribe to HBO and pay monthly, even for just one show. In addition, nobody liked having to pay for cable TV & internet both, since it felt like the same service from the same company. Then to make matters worse, you had to buy HBO on cable just to stream the show on HBO's web site, which made no sense. (HBO might have fixed this, but the same goes for other channels, and sporting events.) This drove piracy mainstream.

But the bigger issue is that telecommunications companies are buying out content providers. This merging is dangerous, because a telecom company controlling say, a media news outlet, can't be unbiased. And there is nothing to stop them from offering certain content on their networks only.

Netflix threatened to break that all up. I could buy my internet from anyone, subscribe to Netflix, and have so much content we didn't need cable TV. We no longer paid for TV "channels" we didn't need. But then Amazon Prime came along, and then we needed to buy Netflix + Amazon. Oh, and buy Hulu for your TV watching. So now, we need to again buy all these services in order to have access to a full catalog of content. We are back to premium TV channels again. But at least we gained our a la carte stations!

But if Amazon and Netflix start to offer exclusive content, we get back to the media companies (Amazon, Netflix) being content providers too. I want to watch just one show, and I have to subscribe to Netflix. I's the HBO Game-of-thrones scenario all over again.

The solution is, and has been for 40+ years, to break apart the monopolies. We must separate content delivery companies from content creating companies. That no longer just means the telecom monopolies shouldn't be content providers, but it also means the streaming companies can't be content creators, and transitively, the telecom can't be either one. This gets us back to the ideal world where we choose our telecom company, choose our streaming service, and choose our content - all separately. Every streaming service should be able to provide all content, or nearly all of it. Competition comes back, we no longer have the zero-rating problem..

So cheer Netflix's success, but be careful what you wish for. At the present rate, we will all be paying $50/month for all these streaming services just to get the content we need.

P.S. We also need to stop each streaming service provider from using their own protocol. You bought a Roku box last year huh? Well, you can't access the newest coolest streaming service because they didn't make a firmware update for that service. If 20 years ago, you told people that their TV or cable-box needed a firmware update every time a new channel came-out, they would be attacking the telecom companies with pitchforks. Yet that is happening today and people accept it.

And normal Joe's call it "bullshit that pisses ya off and sends you straight to TPB" ala the classic oatmeal strip.

AAMOF the ONLY DRM I've seen that doesn't piss people off and actually gets shit right? Steam. It has offline mode so you can still play your games if your connection goes tits up, and the platform actually does things FOR the consumer instead of simply being a tool for big corps to use against the user. It keeps all your games updated, gives creators of games an easy way to support modders and an easy way for players to use mods with Steam workshop, gives you chat,hassle free matchmaking, its convenient as hell which is what the media companies never seem to grasp, people want CONVENIENCE.

But instead the big corps will shit all over it in their endless greed and fuck it up, they always do. Hell we have a perfect example with MSFT and PlaysForSure. They had a great ecosystem with tons of shops you could buy and rent from, devices at every price point from sub $10 to over $400 that worked with it, both major and minor players supporting it....then MSFT got fucking greedy and killed it for their shitty iPod clone and in less than 2 years completely wiped out every inch they had gained in the market and had nothing to show for it besides a warehouse full of shit brown Zunes.

So don't worry fellow geeks, they will shit all over this thing as they always do. they will have the content split among a dozen different places, half of which won't play nice with the other half and ALL charging too much, it won't work worth a piss with any mobile that is older than 5 minutes ago, and it'll go the way of SecuROM and RMA files because if its one thing we've seen is true of big media? Its owned by a bunch of old farts that have ZERO clue what the consumers want.

World-wide distribution on day #1. No more scratched, third-hand, celluloid reels. Better screens, better projectors, better sound. 3D projection on applicable movies.

At the end of the day it's just a dark room full of chairs with a screen at the front. What else is there to innovate Mr. Hastings?

Oh, yeah, one thing: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/m...

Not widely implemented yet.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

Sure that's funny and all, but how do I find the site for "Impossibly proportioned girls that want to date your testicles!"? I've been searching for that my whole life!

This.

And to add to this that a lot of content that is available on US Netflix is not available outside the US, even on Netflix. So if publishers are going to try to lock down their content, they can expect pirates.

I believe Gabe Newel, Brad Wardell (Of Stardock) as well as whoever is in charge of CD Projekt Red (GOG) have all said something along the lines of "pirates are just unserved customers".

  In order for me to pay for some shows in the UK I need to wait for them to come out on DVD... that misses a huge window of opportunity for the vendor as I'm not going to wait six months for that to happen when I can just download them for free. Sure I feel a little bad for it... but then I think, fuck it, I tried to give them my money and they didn't want it. Hell, some shows dont even make it here on DVD.