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They're repos

They are? For fuck's sake!

Obligatory Oatmeal: How To Use An Apostrophe

Similar numbers apply to agriculture (fertilizers, pesticides), open air power lines, automobiles, and - of course - domestic and feral cats.

How much do cats actually kill?

I see your BTAF's guide to the apostrophe and raise you one Oatmeal guide to using the apostrophe.

Sorry it's not an oblig xkcd, but I think an oblig Oatmeal counts

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

Not knowing how to use an apostrophe has nothing to do with grammar, it has to do with basic literacy.

Too true.

Here's a memorable guide to proper apostrophe usage. Also, IMO all of these guides should literally be required reading for anyone wishing to post to teh interwebs (in English, that is).

Not knowing how to use an apostrophe has nothing to do with grammar, it has to do with basic literacy.

Too true.

Here's a memorable guide to proper apostrophe usage. Also, IMO all of these guides should literally be required reading for anyone wishing to post to teh interwebs (in English, that is).

*G - capitalize the first letter of a sentence.
*O - capitalize proper nouns.
*comma between "supporter" and "twit" - Lrn2clauses.
*R - capitalize proper nouns.
*You're - THIS was written specifically for YOU. Yes, you personally.

~~~~ Your Friendly Neighborhood Grammar Nazi.

I stopped there, because I know there are too many people that will cling to measuring everything in feetsies & gerbil penises in the US to ever move to metric.

*applause*

Btw, why does slashdot show me signed in on main page but not on posts?!?

I stopped there, because I know there are too many people that will cling to measuring everything in feetsies & gerbil penises in the US to ever move to metric.

I've just decided to start using metric now, and let everyone else do the converting. If someone asks for the temperature, I tell it to them in Celsius, and I tell them directions in kilometers.
If they're going to cling to the past, I'm going to let them to the converting, not me.

Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m)

Really? What would cause this.

Well, it's due to the fact that there is two measurement systems in the world today. There's metric and there's imperial, which works by making ambiguous associations with tangible objects.

Oblig: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/c_word

The Oatmeal is now my hero. This is friggin sweet!

Remember, this is not his first act of Geek heroism. http://theoatmeal.com/sopa

Oatmeal,

I suspect you are a slashdotter and are reading this now. you have a special gift my friend, and I do not mean mitichlorians. You have the power to affect real nerd-wizard change in the world of muggles.

Peace out, bro

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

Edison?

Actually there are a ton of fan sites still talking about how the Newton was great but that Jobs HAD to kill the Newton because he already had the idea for the iPod/iPad. If you refuse to believe your lying eyes? that's fine by me but I'd point out there is ONLY ONE OTHER PRODUCT that gets people literally camping out and even hiding in dumpsters trying to get one on release....and that is the Air Jordan.

Now are you gonna sit there and tell me how the Jordans are insanely good products? Or are you gonna accept its fashion that makes it uncool to be having last year's Jordans on your feet just as its uncool to be carrying last year's iPad?

What I wouldn't give to be a reporter standing in front of one of those lines on release day, i'd kill to hear a reporter talk to these people and ask them questions like "What makes this product better than the one in your hand? What does the new one do that the one in your hand don't?" because you and i BOTH know they would have NO answer to that, in the end it'd be because its just like this cartoon, kinda sad even the cartoonist can see it but you can't. Still got that little niggler on your shoulder telling you that you paid too much? Don't worry go to some of the fan sites and they'll drown out that little niggler talking about what an incredible device the iFoo 6 is over the iFoo 5 which is inferior in every way.

Relevant oatmeal

Ah, this made me think of this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/incredible_photos I do use my phone to snap pics when I am out and about, but I also have a Canon 5D with an array of L series lenses. I do not expect my phone to be my vacation picture taker.

Thought this might answer http://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off

That is why this cartoon totally nails the "Apple experience" because what they sell is just the perfect everything, size, form factor, screen...until the sales go down then the NEXT version is the perfect everything. Other companies have tried this and failed but this is why I always gave Jobs and his RDF credit, that man could take the same spin that countless others had tried and he could turn it into pure gold. I mean give the man credit, he could sell AC units at the north pole and end up with a waiting list, the man had serious skills.

Of course it don't look like Cook is gonna be able to keep it up, even reviewers that glossed over the "Ur holding it wrong" iPhone 4 mess were just "meh" about iPhone 5 so we'll have to see if Cook can get a Jobs style buzz going but frankly Steve Jobs was so damned good at his job they can probably coast for the next 5 years and still make a mint, just on the buzz and branding Jobs built. He was THAT good.

What about "the popularity of Justin Bieber"?

That's a damned good question, and it leads to another: how many Justin Biebers could you take in a fight?

Edison wasn't an inventor. He was a capitalist who stole things from other people.

I read it once on the oatmeal so it must be true.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

Try using iOS 5 in your shiny new iPhone 5 for sale since next Friday.

What? I think I need to brush up on my Douglas Adams, that sentence is written in a tense I'm not familiar with.

Your comment appears to suggest that iPhone 4 users will be forced to upgrade to the iPhone 5, and that no other option exists. I know we're knee deep in fanbois here, but owners of previous iPhone versions have multiple options available to them:

• don't buy latest iPhone on release day, keep using current
• don't upgrade OS on old iPhone, keep using current
• change to Android phone and get Google goodness native

Seriously, the upgrade isn't mandatory...

Oh please! What is the ONLY other mass product you see people standing in line and paying above retail to get their hands on yearly? Why that would be...drumroll for effect...Air Jordans.

Look I have NO problem against fashion I've been known to indulge in fashionable purchases from time to time myself. If the product makes you happy? Who cares if it is fashion!

But at least have the BALLS to admit that its all fashion and personal preference, instead of jumping through insane logic hoops trying to "prove" that Apple's 45%+ markup on products makes them a "good value" because its bullshit.

I personally like Pepsi, ford trucks, Asus notebooks, Samsung hard drives and Asrock motherboards. Do you see me coming up with logic hoops to "prove" they are "better" and the other products "worse" because of my choice? Nope its a personal preference.

Personally I think the reason Appleites can't give up the logic hoops is there is a doubt there. there is a little niggling doubt sitting on their shoulder whispering "Its not worth this much" and rather than just accept that you don't care you have to make logic hoops to jump through to justify that purchase. Want to see a comic that NAILS the iPad mindset? Here you go, enjoy. Funny that even the cartoonist knows its fashion but you still don't.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

You could at least link to the original source:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally

What Bill Nye is really talking about, without saying it outright, is religion in general. He is calling out indoctrination by catechism.

More apt is panel #4 of this cartoon.

This is a fundamental aspect of many religions and is most commonly associated with Catholicism, though is also popular in many evangelical Christian churches.

  -chill-

If they want my money, why don't they take it? Just today, I went online to shop for ebooks. to have something to read during an upcoming trip. More than half of my purchases failed: "This e-book can only be sold in the following countries: [US]". Well, FU, I'll just take my business to the Pirate Bay then. Hey, waddayaknow? No DRM, no restrictions. Same for movies. Availability of movie content outside the USA in a non-streaming form that allows format shifting doesn't exist. Again, screw you MPAA, I am off to the Pirate Bay. It's not the ethical thing to do, but looking at your own business models and levels of cluelessness, I am not feeling very charitable today.

Music however is different, and the only reason it is different is because the record companies got dragged kicking and screaming into the modern age, in part by piracy (and in no small part because of the likes of Apple). I see no reason whatsoever to pirate music anymore, and I haven't done so in over a decade: iTunes, Spotify and other legal sources have my music needs well covered. And I am not the only one, so yes, I do hope that content providers are taking note. I have some money burning in my pocket, just for you guys. If the big studios offered their movies online, downloadable in a variety of formats, I'd be all over it. With e-books, I try getting them from a legal shop first, perhaps try using Paypal using a bogus US address... but if that fails I'll hit TPB.

I think if he got the attention the media gives to celebrities today, people would see more of the crazier part of his personality (which could distract from his accomplishments). The Oatmeal describes it in detail.

I do hope that artists of the future choose to distribute their music via means they can control and directly benefit from, rather than broker everything through these greedy dinosaurs.
The Oatmeal illustrated it perfectly... theoatmeal.com/comics/music_industry

Yeah man. Was this it? Infographic.....translates to what? Information picture?

A picture is worth a zillion words herp a derp a derp!!!

I love how they try to keep your attention by putting a BUT! that spans the entire screen.

Yeah, it's retarded

Face it. The Internet is a septic tank. A ticking time bomb of sewage and methane.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/north_south_korea

1. Make episodes available, globally, on day #1, both to air and download. It's not like you have to ship reals of film anymore; the whole world is just an Internet file transfer away.
2. Recognise that some people might not have access to reliable cable when they want to view, and make off-line viewing possible.
3. Make them easy to download based on having a valid account, not from being in a given location.
4. Don't insist downloaders have a cable subscription also (is this just HBO Go doing this?). See points #2 & #3.
5. You can charge a premium for downloads for the first few days (week?), reducing the price when the next episode airs or the DVDs etc. ship.
6. Get non-English (or whatever language the show was shot in) sub-titled/dubbed versions out as soon as they are available.
7. Be realistic about pricing - you are competing with free but not strictly legal. Incentivize; pay up front for the season rather than per-episode, get a discount. Offer discounts on the box-sets (there's no middleman, so why not?). How much will depend on the show, but even GoT isn't going to be able to get away with a cost of more than a couple of dollars per epsiode before too many people head for the Torrents.
8. Feel free to fingerprint downloads so you can tie them back to an account and sue the ass off anyone who uploads their downloads to the 'Net at large. Just make that clear in the ToS and on the download page.

HBO can pretty much do all of that, today, with the infrastructure they have for HBO Go, today, albeit with a considerable amount of additional bandwidth provision being required if it doesn't work. So, why not? It's all additional revenue that they weren't going to be getting before, so does the math really work out such that the offsets in losses from people who decide HBO Go is all they need and dump their cable subscriptions will cost HBO more than all of the GLOBAL audience that they reach for no significant extra outlay? Or can't they make it work with overseas distributors? What's wrong with telling them "We'll be making GoT Season #4 available globally to air and online to HBO Go subscribers in English from the end of March 2013, so you might want to arrange any dubbing/subtitling you want and arrange your local scheduling accordingly." Seriously, I can't figure out why they are not already doing this, unless it really is that they are short sighted idiots who still haven't realised that the world changed for them about a decade ago and they'd better get with the times. Can someone fill me in, please?

Right, so live performances and ticket sales and merchandising. We hear that tired rhetoric all the time about music. Let's apply it to movies and TV. People obviously want the content or they wouldn't pirate it. But if we don't at least try to get people to pay for it there won't be any movies or TV series for us to play on our digital devices or watch on our TVs. People seem to want the diversion / entertainment, but too many are just cheap and won't pay. For sure, a lot of the problem is also availability. Make no mistake - the content producers need to fix that. I've gone through this on many different series (such as Eureka - where I could get episodes from SyFy but only the newest couple, and anything older was $1.99 from Amazon and $1.99 is way too much for 40 minutes of entertainment). It is often very like what Matthew Inman shows here http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones. However a lot more is pirated than just the "hard to get" shows. Things that are on Netflix or Hulu are pirated too - and not just by the people up above in the thread who want to watch on a train with a spotty 3G connection. It is hard to solve but I think the producers need to start working the solution by making their stuff available online at a price comparable to what they get for each show out of cable (I guarantee you that they don't get $1.99 each time I watch a show or my cable bill would be a lot higher).

This pretty much sums up the problem with HBO and the other premium content channels...

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

obligatory link to The Oatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/computers

That fist zerohedge graphic is literally the dumbest thing ever cast into pixels!

Looks like someone has literally never visited I Can Has Cheezburger?

I am probably one of the least technically inclined people codewise to visit and post on the Slashdots, but I have done my fair share of websight design throughout the years and I end up doing everything back-end in Notepad++. The design I do in whatever image editor is suitable, then I assemble the pieces in Notepad++ afterwards. I have also used Notepad++ when doing PHP and creating and maintaining simple image galleries and so on. When given the choice I have done things hand coded and pushed it through the W3C and as soon as it is validated and tested in a whole lot of browsers I give it back to the client and run for the hills.

Between this and the lawyer that was behind theOatmeal vs FunnyJunk I'm getting this funny impression that lawyers outside silicon valley are actually pretty nice people.

I must be getting brainwashed. Where's my tinfoil hat?

"Ah, the joys of owning an iDevice. You have to constantly plan ahead financially for when the next version comes out."

So in all of technology, only Apple users ever upgrade?

Statistics don't lie.

The average PC owner upgrades every four years.

All Apple has to do is invent a new marketing phrase like "retina display" and suddenly iDevice owners are divided into two groups. The "haves" and the "have nots".

We've all seen The Sad in the eyes of the Apple have nots. This comic captures it.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/movie_theater_layout

Relevant: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/movie_theater_layout

It was a chance to upgrade!

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

The gridded layout!

I suppose that Megan means that Wikipedia is too liney.
The comic also addresses "graphics popping out everywhere or things dancing across the screen" :)
Better just ignore her.

"People lease cars for 3 years and move on to a new one, it's commonly accepted practice."

I preferred to pay off my houses. I still drive older vehicles but dry my tears with the deeds to my land.

You don't need to be well-off to have disposable income if you don't piss away what you have.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

Maybe this will help:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/atheism

Makes perfect sense, I thought.

(OMG!) If this is real, than this (bang, pow!) would be amazing! Paul

And not a dime of it is going to the people who made the thing you're looking for.

That's their own fault.

Content providers refuse to accept money for the service that the customers want, while The Pirate Bay provides a superior service for free.