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CD-R Prices Could Triple This Summer
Suppafly writes: "According to this story at pcworld.com cd-r media prices are going to skyrocket once the surplus of CD-R media is used up and companies return to having a shortage. 'Consumers ... can expect discs to sell for about 35 to 40 cents at retail.' This doesn't sound good for those of us who backup damn near everything to CD-R." Some spares couldn't hurt, either way.
I recall in 1990 CDRs were $20/disc. And these were the 63-minute CDRs, the only kind there were at the time. Anyone who says copying DVDs will never be worth it due to high media cost needs to be bashed over the head with Moore's law yet again. Before you know it, we'll be buying spindles of 100 dual layered DVD-Rs for $25 at CompUsa.
You can get 4.7GB DVD-Rs Generals for $8.00 from www.apple.com The burner costs $1,000 - I expect prices will drop when all the warez puppies ditch CDR for DVDR. -- http://www.dvdwriters.co.uk
Honestly, American soldiers have had it better than soldiers in almost any other country seriously involved in the last century's wars (Switzerland being one notable exception.) Unless you hark back to the civil war, I hardly think you can attribute our affluence entirely to the sacrifice of American soldiers' lives...
Remember the iOpener fiasco? It's not pretty when 100 pale and grub-like Slashdotteres decend on a helpless store. Some, upon hearing that were no more iOpeners available took to re programming the display electronics - I'm sure there is a VCR in the local Best Buy that is flashing l33t .
For reference: In Western Europe we pay:
~$0.75 for a CD-R (DFL 1.75 in NL)
~$4.25 for a gallon of gas (DFL 2.70/liter in NL)
I would die for your American prices...
Then join your nation's military. How do you think America gets cheap gas? Here's a clue-Kuwait!
Also, who's military protects Tiawan? Americas! Maybe not directly, but America trains them and sells them arms. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who gets preferential trade status.
Get your ass enlisted today!
Huh? 128MB chips can be had for well under $100. Anything over 80 cents per meg is a ripoff.
...will the price of an Eminem CD at Sam Goody be MORE than $16.99 this summer?
OK, so there's a lot of surplus, and they aren't making a whole lot from it all. Solution? Report it's all running out, and prices will "skyrocket" (35 cents a cdr isn't that high, c'mon, last time I bought them anything under a buck was great). So people go out and buy a lot, thus creating their shortage. Nice work.
Then again, this could be even worse for them, people buy a whole lot, and then don't need any more for a couple years, and then they drop to nothing because there's no demand... ;-)
OK OK enough conspiracy theories... ;-)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
But you should take the Ecrix PR with a grain of salt. Unlike the "legacy" standards DLT and SLR, the VXA drives don't even do read-after-write. The "unbeatable value" obviously comes by sacrificing security. Legacy, my ass...
Thanks, but I will stick to my SLR drives. This technology has been around for more than ten years and has an excellent track record. Going with the newest and coolest is deadly in data security.
"So, I guess the moral is, if you see any "free after rebate" deals, take advantage of them because they won't be around long. Race you to Best Buy!"
Me: "I'd like to buy this spindle of CD-Rs, please."
Best Buy Cashier: "OK. I see that these have an instant rebate, so the price is only $2 today."
Me: "Cool."
Cashier: "However, with our convenient CD-R protection plan, for the low cost of only $35, we'll provide you with a replacement if your purchase should be found defective for any reason."
Me: "uhm...wait a second..." Cashier: "We also highly recommend these special CD-R cleaning cloths, available for only $19.95...you can't clean CD-R's any other way, you know..." Me: "wha? cleaning cloths? I don't think..." Cashier: "...and don't forget these special CD-R labelling pens, only $7.50, which are guaranteed to work with your new CD-Rs." Me:"Hold on just one second now..." Cashier: "better not to argue, sir. See the cameras? They're watching...ok then, your total comes to $70 after tax...sir? sir?"
Sound of car tires peeling in parking lot...
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
I remember when discs were selling for more like $5.
I worked for a multimedia company '93-'95. They paid ~$15 per CD, ended up with a lot of skeet (CDs make *lousy* coasters), and burned them on an $8,000 machine. Life these days is good (and soon we'll have widespread burnable DVDs, and it'll get even better...)
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Try duplicating Apple Tech Library CDs (on 3 burners at a time on a PPC Debian box, no less), since my workplace became approved to do Apple service work in-house, which took about 3 spindles worth (~150 CDs) to make all the necessary duplicates for 8 sets.
(Yes Virginia, there really are legal uses for CD burners!)
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
HD prices are now around .30 cents a meg. I bought a Quantum 40GIG UltraATA100 7200RPM AS40 drive (very very nice drive, quite, and FAST, rivals the IBM 75GXPs to be the best IDE drives) for $129 at Frys (they had them for 124 a week later). At $129 for 40gigs, thats .30 cents a meg about, or $2.03 dollars to store what you can store on a cd for 30 cents. It is just a choice you gotta make. Cheaper or convience.
Jeff Knox
> As a side note, too many people who've never learned economics confuse
> demand with quantity demanded
*sigh*
Unfortunately, so do many taking economics courses . . . I drill it through them. I ask the question again and again. I call on random people to explain the difference. Still, come test time . . .
I'm not bothered by those who have trouble learning. It's those that *refuse* to learn that bug the daylights out of me . . .
hawk, econ professor
my new workstation will be u160 scsi, but we'll be tossing in 3x40G in raid-5 instead of a tape. I'll need 3 disks to fail to lose any data . . .
The next step seems to be using those warm swap front panel disk cages and just using hard drives as tape . . .
hawk
Still, I won't be happy until unleaded is back below $1/Gallon (yes, I'm one of*those* people
hawk
there's only a handful of cities in the US dense enough for public transportation to be a practical alternative--SF, NY, Chicago, uhh . . . there must be a couplemore . . .
In many (most?) cities/towns, both the total cost *and* the energy consumed are *higher* on a per rider basis.
Too get people in to mass transportation for other than ideological reasons the system needs to meet at least one of these:
1) It's actually more convenient or faster than driving
2) The individual trip costs less than gas
3) mass transit supplemented with taxi and/or car rental costs less than the total cost of car ownership.
hawk
sissy
I bicycled through the iowa winters, including heavy snow, rain, and days where I needed to swap sunglasses every mile because they had developed too much ice from my breath.
Ice, however, is another matter. That stuff *hurts*, and is how I broke the second helmet. Then again, one day when I had my wife drop me due to ice, when I stepped out of the car onto the curb, I discovered that *it* was covered in a sheet of ice (IIt was painted under the ice, so it wansn't obvious).
> Bicycle vs. Phoenix Summer.
Wimp!
It was Vegas, not Phoenix (OK, so that's about 5F cooler on average). The quack said my cholesterol was high, so to get aerobic exercise. The second evening, someoen didn't want to wait for a light, hit me, and sent me flying 20 feet. *that* hurt a lot more than ice (but my homeowners insurance replaced my laptop sfreen and the first helmet I broke). The bicycle landed on top of me, and I'm still using it . . .
hawk
I love my crown victoria, but unlessi's icy I take a bicycle.
When I closed down my practice to go to grad school, we sold the second car. THis was because we'd be living cdloser than I could park
at my visiting professor gig last year, it was actually *faster* to bike than drive--I had to cdircumnavigate the campus with the car, and could take a straight line in by bicycle. (and bicycles tend to be faster than bus, too . .
I'm not against mass trnasit (though I still regret voting for the
hawk
Anyone who has only been there in the last five years has never seen a bus from the former system . . .
It's a simple problem of physics:
Bicycle vs. vintage Beetle.
Bicycle vs. Honda Accord.
Bicycle vs. Suburban.
Bicycle vs. Chicago Winter.
Bicycle vs. Phoenix Summer.
Besides, current tech has quite a bit to offer in terms of powered petrol and non-petrol solutions still.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I would say even if you use 300 CD-R's a year, $30 for a spindle of 100 is probably not going to hit you all that hard in the wallet. We are talking about $90 a year. If it became $300 for a spindal of 100 disks you might change your habits, but $30 or even $45 probably not. (Ofcourse you might but in general most people won't)
Erlang Developer and podcaster
It's the 300% tax in those countries that jacks prices up.
So instead of bitching that we have it cheap, why aren't you bitching that your own governments are extorting you blind with taxes making up well over 2/3 of the price of the item being taxed?
USB CD-R burner most likely. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
anyone who has ever tried to drive down the Las Vegas strip in the past 5 years can tell you that that system could not be described as a "functional private system".
You can walk the length of the strip and back faster than you can drive a block.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
There are certain areas in the US where $6 US is not an uncommon price for bottled beer. (Chicago, Orlando, New York City, San Francisco)
Of course, run out the the grocer across the street and pick up a case for $1.50/bottle.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If only the US would tax fuel at that rate, and use the funds to build roads, so we decrease the demand for roads, but increase the supply, causing traffic problems to go down, so lazy dishonest fat ugly stupid evil real estate developers can build more strip malls and tract housing. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I would die for your American prices...
Several of our soldiers have.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
Yeah, I'm happy when they are under $1 per CD. I don't use them so often that that hurts my budget.
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
When I got my first CD R/W a 3-pack cost $39.
I'm not gonna lose sleep over this one.
Gas we've been sliding on for awhile compared to the Europeans, although it does hurt to put $45/tank in the Blazer and $33 in the car.
Now the price of good tequila, THAT's a problem.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Well, for one thing, I'm an artist and lossless high-DPI scan files take up a LOT of room...
</shameless_plug>...
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
$0.28 for an 80 minute CD-R (in 100 silver spindles)
:) It's expensive, but not that expensive - I fill my car for about UKP35 ($50ish).
I've always found I get about a 30-50% failure rate on those spindles too, enough to make it worth extra for branded disks... making them about $0.80 each to avoid having to reburn the stupid things.
GBP 75.9 per litre surely 0.759
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
nope, I know what a buffer underflow looks like - this is with a P3-500 and more recently a TBird 1Ghz system, Yamaha SCSI CRW-824 & 2Mb buffer.
With branded disks both systems are quite happy to write while I compile & debug DC stuff in the foreground. These disks are so cruddy you can more or less see through them, and in a couple of cases rub the foil off with your fingers. They're are sold as own-brand disks through PC World (UK equivalent of CompUSA, roughly).
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I remember hearing people tell me how DRAM was going to go back to the moon and to buy quickly. I also remember hearing that spot DRAM prices hit a new low today. Hohum.
The US *did* sign the Kyoto agreement. Bush just retracted that signature. If that is not a legal precedent of major consequence, what is?
If you would actively watch the progress bar for ten minutes, then I highly agree. But I doubt most people do that, the burning process will continue just as fine when you're doing something else.
that makes little sense as 95% of the cdr's are made in your half of the world. I would say some heavy Govt TAXATION is involved. Just like the RIAA would like to get here...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Get somthing with density and reliabilty to backup that much data. have you EVER successfully restored 157 CD's ? If it is important enough to go thru all that effort get the correct equipment.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
>If you NEED to back up data, hard drives are >VERRRY cheap, and high capacity tape drives are >cheap as well.
You might be thinking hard drives are cheap, but
only until you buy the first couple, or three or
four... I can't imagine using them for daily or
weekly archival backups and still calling them
"cheap" especially compared to CDR.
And since when are "high capacity tape drives" CHEAP? Cheap ones still cost over a grand, and
the media are certainly not cheap. Especially
not cheap like CDR. Where the drives are maybe
$60.00.
On the other hand, are there any backup systems that use CDR effectively? Scenario: I have a
40 gig drive and a spindle of CDR's. I want a restorable copy of this drive, partition table, boot sector, and all filesystems. All I want to
do is change CD's when prompted. They don't have
to be ISO9660 discs, just have to be restorable to the raw device. A multi-volume tar seems like
the way to go.
Show me a better backup method for the home user,
I'm all ears. $800 tape drives aren't even in the same realm as $50 CD writers. $20 tapes??
Sure, the professional user needs a robotic DLT system to backup their Netapps. So we're into
half-milliondollar fileservers and fifty-thousand dollar tape machines.
What's in between for, e.g., my mom?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I haven't had any problems, and I have a spindle which is almost two years old. Still burns fine. Just avoid AZO media and go with cyanine (decent) or phtalocyanine (much better) and it should be just fine.
You kids have it so easy.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
CompUSA had them for $15 for 100 on the weekend
in Grand Rapids Michigan.
The funny thing is that we get less frisbies
with those than the Imation CDs which are
much more expensive.
Where did you learn your maths?
There is 3.79 litres to a gallon.
CDs have around 15 each in 100 qty for
several weeks.
At 30 or more it's a rippoff.
Isn't that mostly taxes that you are paying
for? Before taxes the prices shouldn't be a
great deal different that the before taxes
US prices. We do have local oil but we buy
a lot at world prices in Mexico, Canada,
Venezuella and the middle east.
A 3x price hike on CDRs seems like it would make the price difference that much less for buying your favorite linux distribution on CD.
But then again, that might defeat the purpose of free software.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
It appears to me that pricing on CDR disks has been greatly effected by its relation to the dollar. Prices continued to fall until one disk was less than a dollar. When someone is concidering to buy a CDR disc and see that the price is 99 cents, they think, "How cheap! Thats under a dollar!" The price drops. They buy another CDR disc thinking, "Only 20 cents! Thats under a dollar!" The price goes back up. They buy a third disc thinking, "Only 40 cents! Thats under a dollar!" Its kind of like the nine tenths of a cent added on to a gallon of gas. Most people concider such small numbers to be meaningless. The same factor could be at work on computer prices, only operating at the $1,000 mark.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Hmm time for the token Australian.
.. thats about US$1.50-$2
:P
CD-R's are about 75c-$1.00 depending on volume/supplier/etc (A$)
Petrol is around $1/L in most places. Don't know how that works out to furlongs per hogshead or whatever you use in the US
- Chuq
No good, it's not hot swap. Also no good unless I outfit every computer I need to put data onto with a socket for this thing, and am willing to reboot it every time I want to do so.
Hey, I just downloaded a nifty Star Wars fan movie; it's about 100 megs. I'll send you a hard drive with it on ! Not too likely.
That's not a good deal. I've been buying Imations for $10 a spindle (50). Of course, that's after rebate. Last month I got a spindle of 50 Maxells for NEGATIVE $3 (after rebate). I'd be more than happy to have that price tripled.
Yea, I got a spool of 50 12 speed TDK 700MB discs for $10 from Staples a while ago, with the rebate (and yes, it came in the mail for those rebate nay-sayers out there).
.. don't just be a smartass and say 'duh, 650 or 700MB' .. I know you can get more on there. ;>
.. let me know of your maximum capacity CD-R burns!
One question: How much can you fit on a 650MB or 700MB CD-R?
Is there a place that collates information gathered on this stuff, so people can check brands and REAL capacities so they know that they can cram on more data to a CD if they need to? If not, I think I'm going to start to do so, so please
So far I've only tried TDK 700MB and 650MB discs and I've only written a few CD-Rs, with 701MB and 652MB as the capacities I've had on the discs without problems, not exactly 'pushing the envelope', so I'm interested to learn of other people's findings.
--
Delphis
Delphis
CD-ROM drives have been known to fail in such a way that the laser stays on while the motor does not. After a few days, maybe a week of that, the plastic on the CDR starts to bubble.
;> Though backing up your valuable CDs is a good plan too.
A simple workaround of the problem is to not keep a CD in your CD-ROM drive if it's not being used
--
Delphis
Delphis
Dunno why but I always seem to buy TDK products. :> Audio tapes to VHS cassettes to CD-Rs. Never had a problem with any of them, so that's probably the reason why.
The TDK-Europe website wouldn't come up, but www.tdk.com (TDK US) did. Can't seem to find any manufacturing facts on that website though.
--
Delphis
Delphis
Make Slackware-current CDs for friends...
-Tom
Oh, you mean you actually pay full retail for the things instead of waiting for rebates? Silly boy.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I'll do you one better. MicroCenter was recently selling bulk 8X CD-R media at $8.99 for a 50-pack. That comes out to a whopping 18 cents per disk. Odds are, I won't be needing to buy any more disks for about two years.
World Beach List, my latest project.
You mean AOL is going to stop sending me free skeet?!?
World Beach List, my latest project.
Agreed. I work 80 miles from my home, and there is NO existing mass transit of ANY type running between the two. If there was, I'd use it. But there isn't, so I burn about five gallons of gas a day commuting back and forth. And no, I CAN'T do anything about it right away. I live in a city with 18%+ unemployment, no jobs in my field, and an insufficient client base to strike out on my own. Luckily, I'll be moving closer to where I work in about nine more months.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
The best part is that they have labels on them with weird graphics and little or no text. I did one today with a cropped picture of a mohawk-haired Robert DeNiro from Taxi Driver and the text "WE ARE THE PEOPLE" (the "candidate's" slogan from the movie). I imagine that most get thrown away.
I should start putting a track at the end of the disc that has "thanks for listening to me. email me at..." to see if anyone does listen.
I just make disposable music. In order to avoid clutter in the car, I only carry 10 CDs at a time. They're all copies or mixes made from CDs or MP3s on the computer. When I get sick of them I pitch them in the trash (or leave them on the driver's side window of other cars in parking garages...) and make new ones. At $0.17/ea I hardly feel guilty; a pack of gum provides less enjoyment per dollar.
Even at $0.51/ea I wouldn't feel guilty. I'm old enough to remember when a 10 pack of quality cassettes was $25. Sure they were reusable, but I seldom reused them. Even at $50/100, CD-Rs are a major bargain.
I guess all us people will have to get used to paying the same price for CD-R media that we used to pay 4 months ago... the horror!!!
--
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Most of my CDR's go towards trying out different versions of iso-based unux or unix-like OS install discs.
Debian, Progeny Debian, Solaris 8, FreeBSD 4.0,1,2,3... Telemetry Linux...
Because
1) Collector stuff - They aren't cheap enough or big enough to hold the collector stuff.
2) Windows Software - I can't imagine storing Windows software on CDRoms. Of course it will get outdated. It's not worth the CD-R Media. Most of the best Windows software is free. And the stuff that isn't free can be downloaded and cracked/patched/serialed with the utils on the web. Or by watching where the registry entries are stored and modifying those.
3) Music Leech - CD-R media is too small. Most of the music leeches would need 15-30 of these things. It would almost make more sense just to RAID two large, cheap drives for them. At least they'd be easily available.
rhadc
I just finished burning all 200 episodes of Sailor Moon onto 11 CDs...got them off my hard drive, at long last. I only have a few gigs, I need that space! :) I've also burned a couple fansubbed episodes of the new Transformers series, Car Robots to CD, so I can take and show them to people.
I've also archived about 450 megs in textual logs generated by a private roleplaying chatserv I frequent (and felt guilty about "wasting" 200 megs of space, if you can believe it :). I also have plans to master some personal mix CDs, maybe do a few copies of them for friends. I'll also make some personal MP3 CD-ROMs for playing at the school computer lab, since they capped my cable connection to a point where I can no longer stream them from home.
I'm not sure what else I'll do with them. Download more video eps and burn them, perhaps archive all my Webscription and other e-books . . . maybe I'll even back up my hard drive.
It's kind of sad, in a way. Now that hard drives with dozens of gigs are affordable, 650 megs doesn't seem quite so big anymore.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Develop a car that runs on old, useless CD-R's?...
>I would die for your American prices...
Well, if you insist...
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
3.74 litres in a US Gallon :)
You mean several *Iraqi* soldiers have, and a few of *our* soldiers have ;)
The only thing I can't figure out is why they're called "CD-R", Compact Disc Readable?
Um, "CD Recordable"? You have to admit that "CDW" sounds like you have a mouth full of oatmeal.
Reservoir Zig
Congratulations! You just figured out how the stock market works.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I remember...let's see...back in the summer of '94 when CD-R's were upwards of $10 a piece *in bulk*.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball
Well, given I already pay 50 - 65 cents a disk (central PA), I'll welcome a raise in price to 40 cents. Now, if the article is just badly worded, and its a 35 - 40 cent increase *shrug* buck a CD isn't that bad for semi-perm storage.
-- Sapere aude.
(I'd like to add, btw, that abstaining from driving actually brings an improvement in one's standard of living, not the reverse.)
--
You're a suburbanite.
Most US cities weren't designed to accomodate traffic either.
--
You're a suburbanite.
BTW IT takes about 1.2 gb to store a years worth of moderated pictures for only one newsgroup. On some newsgroups its closer to 200mg a month. That's how much prOn is out there.
At work we use about 30 cd's a day for 4 track audio recording. Soon we will be using more.
Besides since cd-r's got so cheap its like, "failed burn? - so what, pop another cd in the bbq" 30 cents will still only get you a phone call, but a cd gets you 10hr of music
make Linux, not Microsoft. sin(beast) = -0.809016994374947424102293417182819
I remember paying about $12 in 1983 for a box of 10 Fuji 5 1/4" floppies, capacity 180 kilobytes each. That was for a Commodore 1541 floppy drive. Of course you would want to slice a notch in the side of each disk to make it work double sided, doubling the capacity to 360K.
So about 3x10^0 dollars per megabyte, versus 3x10^-4 dollars per megabyte for today's Comp-USA CDR spindle purchase. Mmmm... four orders of magnitude price drop...
No no no... Canadians are paying a levy on every CD and basically magnetic media that can hold music. The levy is payed by the manufacturer or the importater. The stores care only if their profit margin is percentage based, which is doubtfull for such a comodity item. The new levy was to come in effect in march if I am not mistaken. Anyways: check it out for yourself
Well... #2 doesn't really apply. Oh, it used to, back in the day when I could use it.
:) I've got like 8 boxes of them in my closet. I have absolutely no practical use for them anymore, but dammit!!!! I might NEED them someday and I'll just hate myself if I got rid of them.
:)
And #3 is slightly off. I don't download music from napster. I use usenet instead.
And #1. I never never NEVER NEVER *N*E*V*E*R*!!!!!
lend out my CD's to anyone. Anyone is free to come over here and copy them to their hearts content, but the CD's stay here. There is a mystery CD I made once, put a whole bunch of cool stuff on it. Lent it to a friend like 3 years ago. And he's STILL looking for it. Something along the lines of "I lent it to someone and he lent it to someone and that someone's phone got disconnected so we can't get ahold of him....."
But a packrat I am. It hurts to delete anything, unless I know I can easily get it again. I still have copies of all the files from my old BBS days, still preserved (probably not very well) on 3 1/2 inch floppies, and even some on 5 1/4 HD floppies (remember those??
However, I will be the first to admit that its truely pathetic that of all the music I have archived, I've only ever listened to about 1/4 of it, and if I someday got the urge to play all of it, end to end, without ever repeating a song, it would take a solid 6 months at this point to go through all of it. And since I accumulate music faster than I can listen to it, this cycle is unlikely to change. But don't expect me to stop saving all of it.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I guess if gas was more expensive in US it would be easier for you people to sign the Kyoto agreement:)
"you people"... heh, you can only blame slightly less than the majority of us.
Even taking into account exchange rates, 80c per CD is still cheaper than retail here. Retail here can range from $1.20-$2.50AU per CD!!
You Americans have got it lucky!
do you export gas or do you export petrol? since i am an american who doesnt own a car i look forward to expensive gas prices. people around here need to be smacked around and start using public transportation.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
What, you think city buses run on happy thoughts instead of diesel??
no but they are more efficient that the one SUV per person attitude that is prevalent here in the us.
here in the big city the busses go to most offices. if only the people who needed cars used them then gas prices would be reasonable for those who lived outside of the public transportation relm.
i grew up in a relatively small city with no public transportation (20k people). my bicycle could get me pretty much anywhere in the city in about 20-25 minutes-my bicycle runs pretty well on happy thoughts.
it just comes down to how much you want to pay for convenience. our entire culture here in the us is based on convenience. it's nice to see the populace smacked around by the reality commonly expirenced by the rest of the world. driving a car isnt a right, it's a luxury. people here get used to things and then get all up in arms when it isnt there anymore.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
i dont doubt that the mass transit in the us is at capacity. when speaking of europe i was thinking that since they were more orientated toward public transportation their concern for safety is probably a bit more focused. personally i've never felt unsafe on public transportation here in the us. i've even slept on the floor at grand central station. i realize that is purely anecdotal, and i know of no statistics for crimes associated with public transportation.
:)
as for capacity. out refineries are at capacity right now. we could either increase production (build more refineries) or we could reduce the consumption (alternatives forms of transportation, more efficient cars, etc.). either of these options would take time and money. i dont know which is better from an economic perspective, but i think both should be considered.
also i dont damn the automobile. i'm one of those silly people who think that people kill people and not guns. so i hold people responsible for the gridlock, wasteful driving, and selecting huge monolithic suv's-not the boxes they control.
i also concede that there are people whose needs are not met by public transportation and other methods. i feel that they are a small fraction of the driving populace. if only those who had a need for a car used them then the gas problem would have less of an impact.
naturally all of this is purely speculation
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
while bringing the rest of the world up to our standards is a nice sentiment, it is a goal that is not feasibly achievable. leveling the standard of living on a global basis would require us to lower ours while the others raise.
as i mentioned before, if
those who could use public transportation did
those who could use alternative forms of transportation did
then those who needed cars would be able to use them as inexpensive transportation. because most americans consider driving around in their cars to be some sort of right the gas prices will continue to climb until you are forced to either
fork out a substantial amount of money for gas
move closer to work
find a job closer
get a more fuel efficient car (if you dont already have one>
or walk to 22 miles to work.
i really think americans are very childish about this sort of thing.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
your sister isn't safe with a bigox like you to protect her? sorry i couldnt help myself. for what it's worth public transportation is very prevalent in europe. i personally dont have evidence for this but i am under the impression that travel there is very safe. this comes from talking to my friends who have lived there (both male and female). perhaps some europeans could comment on this.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Yeah, but now I'm glad that they've moved from cardboard sleeves to Amray DVD cases. Just pull the jacket, and voila! Instant replacement DVD cases.
--Carlos V.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm making mix CDs as favors for my upcoming wedding. Still have about 30 more to burn, too.
Oops, shouldn't have said anything. Now the RIAA is going to infiltrate my wedding.
"If anyone has any reason why this man and this woman should not be married, let them speak now or forever hold their peace."
"I object! They're MUSIC PIRATES!! Cuff 'em, boys!"
No. Don't belittle them.
What, you think city buses run on happy thoughts instead of diesel??
And why the hell should I use public transportation? So I can only go where the city government thinks I need to go. What happens if I need to go where city buses don't go (like my office, for instance).
Public transportation is fine if you live in large cities. However, for those of us that live in the rest of the US, public transportation is not an option. I'll continue driving my car, paying $1.80/gallon, and I'll continue to bitch about the price of gas. But I won't stop driving, the alternative is even worse.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
So, just because the rest of the world doesn't have the luxuries we have here, we should get rid of it? How about air conditioning? clean bathrooms? FOOD!?
You give up your computer, your house, and start eating nothing but rice and drinking river water, and I'll start walking the 22 miles to work.
Instead of reducing ourselves to their level, why not bring the rest of the world up to our standards?
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Pure speculation but, I wonder if the price you pay for an Audio CD is going to go up too. I can see the RIAA blaming Napster, Aimster, and the rising cost of blank CD's as justification for raising prices.
Yeah I know, I'm paranoid.
-- This space intentionally left blank.
34.99 or 24.99 after rebate for a 100 pack of verbatium 80 Min CDRs...They've been running the same special once every two months.
Good stuff too, i've got some verbatiums 5+ years old that are still holding up.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
Maybe 72, when Opec cut America off.
I think there was one in the Carter years too, that had even/odd days, you could buy gas depending on the last number of your license plate and the day of the month. If you had a vanity plate, you were SOL for being a vain bastard.
Earlier, during WWII there was gas rationing, with families given an A, B or C coupon to tell how many gallons of gas a week they could buy (maybe 5, 10 or 15).
Supposedly, in some bunkers in Arizona there are gas ration coupons printed during the Carter years.
George
Yes, I can back up to about 50 CD roms if I wanted to, but anyone that does it knows that it is a huge pain in the ass.
If you NEED to back up data, hard drives are VERRRY cheap, and high capacity tape drives are cheap as well.
Unless of course you mean backing up your MP3s to an audio CD. But you don't mean that, do you?
So anyway, 30 cents, 80 cents, $1, this is a non issue - CD-Rs started out at $25 or so each. What I want to know is when I ought to buy RAM to take best adventage of that market glut.
+++ ATH0 +++
You forget, us Americans *deserve* cheap and unlimited fuel. It's our God given *right*, nay, a *responsibility*, to burn tons of energy carefree. You Europeans sacrificed it when you turned your back on manifest destiny at the Atlantic.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
35-40 cents is high?
I remember when discs were selling for more like $5.
-Ross
CompUSA generic brand. Last week I got 50 Memorex from CompUSA for $14.99 and a $10 rebate.. so 10 cents a cd
Yeah, but with no power in California, what good is pr0n on CD-R?
Gas is going to $3.00 per gallon 'cuz all the environmentalists who opposed power plant construction in CA will be sitting in their SUVs, idling the engine to run the air conditioning during the rolling blackouts.
If you want pr0n, better start stocking up on AC inverters, hard drives, and flat screens!
Nothing. All I have to do tell you to go out and buy me a CD-RW disk or I'll release two kilos of cyanide into the air, and we'll see which of us can hold his breath the longest.
(Aaw shit, all I've got is this lump of coal sitting in a nitrogen-enriched atmosphere. Well, no point holding our breaths... but if it's a small enough room, maybe the partial pressure of oxygen in the room will drop to the point that we'd still be better off having you go out and buy me a CD-RW :-)
40 gig HD 10X faster then the burner, cdr's 10x cheaper per gig then the harddrive... All depends on what's important to you...
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
OK, so what's the first thing you do when you hear there's going to be a shortage, or a big price rise in something you like? You go stock up. How many people thought immediately of buying a couple of 100-packs?
At pc-world.com, what do you see? Banner ads... from stores that sell CDRs. Funny, that.
We've been paying about that ($A0.70-0.80) for 700 MB media recently, and commenting on how damn cheap it is! What is the current price like in the US?
- Daniel
Hey,
.. ooh ooh .. I think I found Windows 95 beta 666
There's nothing wrong with being a packrat
--
microsoft, it's what's for dinner
bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
it's a sig, wtf?
Time to be the old,weird guy.
I remember, dimly, when gas was as low as 16 cents per gallon, with the average cost around 24 cents. My dad spazzed out when we went to northern Wisconsin (I grew up in La Crosse, WI.) in 1974/5 and gas was an astonishing 48 cents per gallon!! I was paying 35 cents per gallon when I was 19, wayyyyyy back in 1979. The first gas crunch hit us, when, 1983? We really need to get off our collective asses and find a decent alternative to gasoline. Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions.
When I started buying CD-R media, it was around $5 to $6 per disc. I'm still going to go and buy a couple of hundred at current prices though.
Dive Gear
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
Crap. Is everything tripling in price? Electricity, Natural Gas, Gasoline, and now CD-R media?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
In my case data isn't amassed quickly. Instead, it has accreted slowly like a stalagtite. I have over fifteen years of data on CD-R, and there are still 400K Mac diskettes I haven't copied yet.
Here's a couple from '85:
maczip212212000.list:TN.020.Server 13K WORD MACA 2/9/1985 4:43 PM
maczip312212000.list:System 124K ZSYS MACS 4/8/1985 6:01 PM
Wow, a whole operating system in 124K. Too bad it only supports one button mice.
I keep track of everything with flat text files that I can grep (or point htgrep at for a web-enabled search). The big list of files is about 15Mb.
sarah:$ grep "[\/|-]1985" filelist.html | wc -l
33
sarah:$ grep "[\/|-]1990" filelist.html | wc -l
2005
sarah:# grep "[\/|-]1995" filelist.html | wc -l
13263
sarah:$ grep "[\/|-]2000" filelist.html | wc -l
61748
From '85 to '94 it's mostly MIDI and Sound Designer I audio files. After that it's all 3D objects and textures, Director files, and digital video. Sorry, no pr0n.
sarah:$ grep -i \.3ds filelist.html | wc -l
30568
sarah:$ grep -i \.tga filelist.html | wc -l
42872
Also, I remember that '42 Slack distro. IIRC, it was nicknamed "Victory Slack" and came on olive drab diskettes. They gave them out for free if you bought a $50 War Bond or collected more than 100 lbs. of scrap metal.
k.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
What we really need are HUGE and cheap cdchangers.
Pop 100-200cd's into one tower box and let the robotic arm do the work.
--
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Needs some work in the interface (I'm a programmer not a UI developer) but check out www.BarChord.com Our motto is 'Music on the artists terms' -- because we'd like to think we offer a very variable terms that accomodate what artists want individually (and as a group).
Rod Taylor
Btw gas is expensive here, though not as extreme as in the rest of Europe (DFL 2.05 per liter).
Anyway, I know how CDs are generally constructed, but I'm tellin' ya, the silver stuff is falling off. I'll send you one if you give me your address. They're seriously crappy media.
---
This isn't the kind of thing you want to archive to. So you gotta buy brand name media, which are ALREADY like $0.40 per disc in bulk. So, my question is, what happens to those? It's not gonna be $1 for a decent CDR again is it?
---
I will give you my firstborn male for those northern exposure episodes....
Stop whining...
Here in Central Europe we're paying:
$0.30 for the cheapest CD-R's (1.20zl)
$3.00 for a galon of gas (3.50zl/l)
Except that the average monthly salary is aprox. $400 (1600zl) after taxes and a lot lower ($250) in more rural parts of the country.
Imagine if your entire monthly salary would buy you 1000 CD-Rs.
jedrek
This week at CompUSA you can get a 100 pack for $14. Head over to pricewatch and see 100 for $15, 50 for $5. That's no more than .15 each ;)
This submission wasn't very well thought out.
;)
1) What kind of CD-R maker stockpiles blank CDs to drive prices down and then allows stockpiles to run out? CD-Rs are not in limited supply or production and its a commodity market. If one supplier does this, the others will step up production and undercut him.
2) If ALL the manufacturers do this, its anti-competitive activity and its illegal. Memory chip companies had excuses when production materials were in short supply and their were problems abroad in chip making factories (didn't one major plant burn down in Southeast asia?). CD makers have no major disasters forcing them all to raise prices.
3) Someone mentioned oil. Yes we are facing some oil price increases which is used to make CDs, but then the article is short sighted in that anything that REMOTELY involves the purchase of oil will go up in cost. Many of our daily costs will go up and its not isolated to CD-Rs.
4) 35 cents???? Okay could someone recheck with this person and ask if he just badly worded this post? 35 cents as many people have noted is a deal. Does he mean 35 cost to produce? 35 to buy (if so where the hell is he buying them so cheap?)? An additional 35 cents in price? What what what?
5) Where the hell did he get his sources? Does he work for Verbatim?
6) I said he a lot because I'm lazy and neither checked if the poster mentioned their gender nor did I want to modify my post to be Politically correct. If this person is a she I apologize for being a lazy half assed american.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Dude, you forgot pr0n. ;-)
So what's next one ? PCs ? Sugar ? Beer packs ? Give us a break, nobody cares about such bullshit, future will prove you wrong man.
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
I usually buy Sony's @ 12.99CAD for a 10 pack, or spindle's of 50 for $25.. at best they're $0.50 each.. how do prices triple and still stay under $0.50USD?
a gallon is 3.785 liters
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
Does anybody know if the blank media tax applies to the CD-Rs in question? I know it applies to CD-Rs marked as "audio CD-Rs", but I dunno about everything else.
-----
How else can I stick to the Man. I pirate his music, rip his movies, burn his tv shows, and oh nothing like having Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0-6.0. And so what if I download everyfile I can find, I'm backing it up for postarity.
Seriously though, I know one person who is all 3 of those things you describe. He has over 300 CD-Rs burned, so those people exist out there. He has so many failed burns that we play frisbee with them or pop them in the microwave.
_________________
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
CD-Rs are way too cheap as it is, as a matter of fact I pretty much refuse to buy them unless they're free after rebate. Chances are that you won't have to wait but a week or two to find some sort of deal like that.
And I find myself using CD-RW disks much more anymore, even though CD-Rs are practically free I still have a problem throwing them away after burning something for just one use. CD-RWs are perfectly suited for backing stuff up week after week.
So, I guess the moral is, if you see any "free after rebate" deals, take advantage of them because they won't be around long. Race you to Best Buy!
Well, I go through a lot of CDR's now that I have a PC set up as a PVR in the living room. Even at really low (about VHS EP) quality, DivX;-) still only gets a little less than 3 hours on a disc. That's a lot of music videos though.
;)
That, and when you start doing a lot of multitrack audio recording, 80 minutes turns into like 8 minutes. Plus if you're using cheap CD's to back up your audio projects, you really need a backup of the backup
Between CD-R's at $0.30 each, and gas at three bucks a gallon, it looks like a gloomy summer ahead for Joe American Consumer and Pr0n Hound.
Too expensive to drive to the beach and too expensive to back up all that pr0n. And with cable rates going up... we might have to start talking to each other or something.
TomatoMan
-- http://frobnosticate.com
This is, after all, from the same people who successfully predicted the now skyrocketing price of RAM!!! ;)
Minimum wage? We don't have that, but most people won't work much for less than what they get from the public welfare system (social security) for being poor.
Kiwaiti
Member of the Legion Of Microsoft Haters
You ALL pay too much. I bought a 200 pack of those noname "Prime Peripherals" CDR's off Ebay and they work great. For only $35, plus shipping. ended up $43. And these were 80 min, 16x not just some lame 74 min ones.
"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
-Legion
So DVD movies cost about $1.00 now instead of $0.50? (Including labels and envelopes). Hell, it costs more to rent one from Blockbuster!
5-10 copies of the Gig [1-2 CDs each] for use by the band members to improve future performances.
So are you trying to tell me that the Gig can be anywhere from about 500 to 1500 Megs? What happened to standards!
> Several of our soldiers have.
And I always thought it was the environment which had to pay for the low gas prices...
--------------------------------------
4) pr0n
5) anime
Personally, I my pr0n is on 1 CD, mostly .jpg files from the BBS times. And I must have about 200 anime cds. And you are correct: I don't have time to watch them, and I still have to copy about 150 more from my friends. I'm seriously considering learning japanese, just to watch anime while I code.
--
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
CDRs are great I suppose for burning the latest insert-your-favorite-OS-here ISO images, but they are a bit small for backup purposes, in these days of 180GB hard drives.
Anyone have a clue when DVDR prices are going to come down to a level where they can compete on a $/GB basis with CDRs?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Philips have given legal notice last week to all the large US retailers, of manufacturers who are not paying the royalty fee to Philips. Philips obviously is hoping that all the retailers will fall to their knees and therefore help Philips police the royalty payment schema and demand "royalty paid" certificates for all CDR's entering stores.
Yes, the retailers will cave in instead of fighting a legal battle with Philips. For every CDR you buy, or CDRW, or CD Burner or CD-ROM, you can rest assured that some of your hard earned cash is going into Philips pocket.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
It's almost cheaper to just buy a mag. Haaaah.
I just came back from my local computer store and would you belive it if I told you that I didn't find a SINGLE CD-R? I was told by the salesman that a bunch of geeks were here not too long ago and took them all.
Hmm. Must be Slashdot readers. Next time I am checking Slashdot posting every 1 minute.
---------------
Sig
abbr.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
For reference: In Western Europe we pay:
~$0.75 for a CD-R (DFL 1.75 in NL)
~$4.25 for a gallon of gas (DFL 2.70/liter in NL)
I would die for your American prices...
<grub> Reading
It's a self-fulfilling news story.
--
Of course, Europe is great. Well, from Germany on west it is anyway. It's full of first world countries. But, the USA is still more wealthy, by any measure, including average quality of living.
Finally, yes, I suppose WWI and WWII (or, as a history prof I had liked to call it, "the Second 30 Years' War") did set Europe back, it didn't "help" the US. Economic growth feeds upon itself, and the richer the world is, the faster indiviual countries become richer. So, without the world wars, EVERYONE would be richer and better off. And after almost 60 years, I think we can safely say that the war years have been made up for. It's not like we're blaming the Civil War for any of our problems, and that was less than 90 years ago.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
We better switch to your superior socialist form of government real quick, huh?
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Hey, I'd sign right now if they'd let me.
The price is definitely going down though. Oversupply seems like a reasonable explanation.
I'm planning to buy 50 soon; that should be enough for a year. Nick.
How about bicycle?
Need a website host? Try out http://WebQualityHost.net
I used to do that. Then I realized I was waisting 1h30m per day commuting. So I sold my house in the burbs and moved downtown. Now I can bike to work, and my wife can walk to work. Life is good w/o a commute. :)
Need a website host? Try out http://WebQualityHost.net
How about a business that distributes their product via cd?
what if you have a power surcharge that burn all your computer? What if you have a flood that flood all your hardweare? what if someone steal your computer...? What if yuouHD broke up and loose all the data? HD are not a good solution to efficient and secure backup, removable hardware will only be the best for this, that's why Tape or CD are still one of the better solution...
Ummm, something doesn't add up...
82.5 (Canadian Cents per Liter) * 3.785 (Liters per Gallon) = 3.13 (Canadian Dollars per Gallon)
According to the Universal Currency Calculator, $3.13 Canadian equals $2.02 US.
Guess what! That's what I just paid right here in the middle of Michigan, USA.
I'll give you a kilo of carbon and nitrogen. How much would it cost you to make one CD-RW disk?
Copies and copies of demo CDs for my band. Cheap, DIY CD replication is a godsend for small indie musicians with no money. Instead of spending $100-$500 for a few hundred demo discs, we can pull it off for about $100. Plus, we can make exactly as many as we need; no extras piling up, no shortages, and we can change the content any time we want.
The convenience + low $$$ lets us give them away to fans who can't afford a dollar to cover our costs.
CDRs RULE!
Plugging your band on Slashdot RULES!
If you're not wasted, the day is.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
I remember when 3 1/2 inch floppy disk prices rose in the summer. The reason is that people who store these things in warehouses have to cool the warehouses in order to prevent the plastic from warping.
Could it be that the CDR storage requirements are the same as for the floppies? If this is the case stock up on them before spring has sprung.
dzimmerm
Jumping to correct solutions slowly is better than jumping to incorrect solutions quickly.
A couple years ago, I purchased several hundred CDRs at Fry's one night, and I got this attitude from the woman at the checkout counter... that I was mass copying music, software, etc.
I had recently put together a cdrom-based catalogue for the company where I work. I ended up doing it because I was the only guy who both had a cd writer (at home) and cared enough to put a bit of time into it.
Some company was supposed to duplicate the disc for us, but they dropped the ball. I never did find out if they couldn't do it or were just late.
There was a major trade show going on, and a few of our sales guys were going to head out to the show the next morning, and they need a big pile of cdroms to take with them.
The cleck at Fry's was a bit embarrased to learn that there actually are some legitimate uses for a big pile of CDRs.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
With $5 you would be in Norway?
I know of people who have upwards of 3000 CD-Rs. This is normal. Check the link in my sig.
Everytime I read this since 3 years "ohhhh the prices are going to JUMP hurry hurry, big tax comming, blablabla" people panic, buy the inventory of the companies at current price, and guess what? after that, the sales are almost dead because everybody jam packed a reserve, and they have to lower the prices because of the demand.
:), hmm that was about 4 years ago hehe.. oh well.
There's enough competition now, and it costs next to nothing to produce CD-Rs, wake up people, it's always the same story.
I remember when CD-Rs were costing 20$ each and my 1st writer costed me 2K$, and I wanted to get a big reabate if I'd buy 1000 CD-R and the 3M rep. told me there's no way these thing would ever touch 1$ each
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
My p0rn^B^B^B^B *cof* *cof* educational imagery collection has been higly improved because of that.
In some places like supermarkits and music stores you can easily pay 3 times that already.
.50 a piece. The only time you can get them for a realy good price is by going to the F word and getting a spool there,
I went to W word last week and spent $12.95 on 25 CDRs. Thats still
$30 for 50 CDRW.
I have already decided I am only going to use cds for music anyway because to backup 19 gig of mp3's on cdrom is just not as efficiant or as a spare harddrive.
A 4x burner can not compare to the speed of a 40 gig harddrive.
Ascii artist &
Now I'll feel like I'm hitting them even harder when I take stacks of them and throw them away. Spammers!
I've actually seen people putting ads in our want ads at work because they just couldn't bring themselves to throw a perfectly good cd away. You'd be suprised, but to the clueless, its a good campaign. Especially with the clueless obviously being their target market.
One blank CD-R is enough to hold a 1-hour episode...
Similar use here, except I encode shows for Realplayer since I watch most of my TV while at the computer. I can easily put 6 hours on a disk at a quality that's fine for me.
New business model: offset the high cost of CD-Rs (and CD-RWs) by letting AOL and others imprint their logos on them. Or have free ones that have a session already burned with AOL software.
Cool, now maybe AOL will stop sending me trial cds. They used to send nice, reusable floppies. Gee, if this trend continues, they might have to start sending trial zip disks.
this was back in '95 or so, when blanks were well over $10 ea. didn't complain then, bought in high quantity even then ("here's my Jackson - how many cdr's can I get for that? really? cool, I'll take 2 cdr's then, please.")
...less than a Washington per disc, now. Awww - poor babies - life is too rough for you, I can tell.
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
What sucks even more is blank CD-Rs have a horrible shelf life. After sitting a few months, half the blanks just burn coasters. Probably have to store them in the fridge to keep them fresh.
I know what you are talking about. Once I bought a bunch of "bare" disks. So bare some of them even stuck together. When I tried to separate them the recording layer was pealed off the base. When I put them in my cd-r, ECDC almost always failed on test burn and reported error. I had to try it again, some times again and again for ECDC to do a success test burn and once the test burn is passed it just burns all the way thru.
I found a solution later, i.e. sticking a lable to it before burning. It really worked very well, though economically it doesn't make sense (each self-adhesive label cost about $0.30).
I never bought any disk without protection layer from then.
This is great, now all the STORES get slashdotted.
Almost as good as telling everyone that we're going to run out of gas in about three weeks, "GO GET SOME BEFORE ITS GONE KIDS!".
Klowner
watch me get modded down..
I've given up on CDRW myself. My Yamaha CRW8824 is installed as an external SCSI device and isn't directly supported by MacOS 9.1 (needs a separate driver). I don't trust it to be bootable, and my internal CD-ROM won't read CDRW, so I just don't bother.
/Brian
I can say this about TDK -- a CDR is a CDR, but the writing surface on a TDK 650 CDR is the prettiest of any on the market :-)
Actually, TDK is the brand I'm using right now, but as a general rule I'll go for pretty much any branded CDR (don't trust the unbranded ones). I'm debating whether to buy Kodak or a spindle of black Memorexes for my next media restock...
/Brian
Environmental treaties, such as the Kyoto Agreement, typically make gas and other consumer prices more expensive, not less. You just keep signing those treaties, but don't start wondering why your gas prices keep going up.
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
Most of the comments I see thus far relate to the alleged supply and demand of CD-Rs. The real reason the prices are going up is the royalty tax that RIAA and others paid American politicians to levy! Wake up, people, we've been through this before. Stock up now and avoid this tax!
Burn copies of Live Concerts.
I'm a part time sound engineer in a small venue, we have about 1 gig per week and we routinely record them [unless asked not to]. From a single live recording we generally produce
5-10 copies of the Gig [1-2 CDs each] for use by the band members to improve future performances.
If some songs have come out well we then produce
10-100 copies of the best songs of the Gig for promotional & sale use.
Buying CD's in Jewel cases it works out at around $1.50 per disc to produce once you factor in the cost of high quality blanks, CD writers, hard disks & duds. [A CD writer lasts me between 100 - 1000 burns before it starts to get flaky].
This is all done on a 16 speed writer with better than average quality media for reliability.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
And I'm proud of it.
...I kept a mirror of it, and of so much else. I also store my favorite television programs, because VHS tape degrades so very quickly. No piracy, though.
Data has a way of disapearing sometimes, and I want to maintain its accessibility to me. A good contemporary example is the amazing video compression software FIASCO, which has recently been yanked from distribution due to some unexplained patent concerns.
---
---
the pen is mightier then the sword. the sword is mightier then the court. the court is mightier then the pen.
Ok. Don't like CDR? Say WORM. Rolls off the tongue easier, even if it is a _little_ incorrect.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Besides, on public transportation, it's alot easier to get: 1) robbed 2) raped 3) stabbed 4) assaulted with smelly odors Face it, aside from collisions, you are much safer in your car, and I'd much prefer my mother of sister drive at night than ride public transportation. Maybe safety is also a luxury.
Don't forget that European cities are much older than cities in the US. They were not designed to accommodate automobile traffic. As much as I hate traffic gridlock, stupid drivers, and superfluous driving in general, you cannot damn the automobile outright. Not only that, the US mass transit system is at capacity. (Sorry, I can't cite the reference since I heard it on the radio).
Then again, 30-mile commutes are rediculous.
Whenever CompUSA sells 100 CDR's for $15, i'm there like johnny-on-the-spot! I think that any cd-burning geek worth his/her salt has probably already managed to squirrel away at least 200 discs! (I know I have).
thelocust[dot]org
CD-ROM drives have been known to fail in such a way that the laser stays on while the motor does not. After a few days, maybe a week of that, the plastic on the CDR starts to bubble.
I am holding a cooked piece of media in my hand right now. Oh, it's a CDRW. Same difference. Fortunately, it just had legally ripped MP3s on it, so I can recreate it. Lesson: always backup your irreplaceable CD media.
Think thats bad???? While petrol is pretty damn cheap here (i'm tooyoung to drive so i don't give a flying fuck) CD-Rs are MUCH mroe expensive here, around a DOLLAR, and with our dollar so dman lwo they are going up and up, be happy iwth what you've got and the fact currany markets can't fuck your currancy so much you nca't afford to travel.
Fuji CD-Rs are made for Fuji by TAIYO YUDEN. Taiyo Yuden manufactured CD-Rs are the only CD-R blanks that are worth it nowadays.
99.999% of all Taiwanese CD-Rs are crap. And yes, Imation is made in Taiwan.
----
http://www.msgeek.org/
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
----
http://www.msgeek.org/
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Well, no.
Draw a graph, label the left side "Quantity Demanded", label the bottom "Price". Draw a straight horizontal line across somewhere above the horizontal axis. This is what I was describing (my apologies if it wasn't clear). As price changes, quantity demanded does not. This is what I believe is the case around the $0.25-0.75 price range.
As someone pointed out, "inelastic demand" was the term I was looking for - it's been a little while since I've had an Econ class, forgot about that term until now.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
I'm not a bit surprised to read about this surplus of CD-Rs - I wondered how they became so cheap between 1999-2000. This tripled price of CD-Rs probably won't affect quantity demanded much.
As a side note, too many people who've never learned economics confuse demand with quantity demanded Demand of these CD-Rs will remain the same if the only factor that changes is the price - the demand curve simply determines how many CD-Rs will be purchased at a given price. My personal opinion is that the demand curve is rather flat (on a quantity vs price graph) around the current price range.
Prices may double, triple, whatever, but I still find a 50 CD-R spindle at $15-25 a bargain. Besides, shouldn't we be saving plastic and backing up on CD-RW anyway? According to the article, CD-RW prices will remain stable - perhaps CD-RWs will become even more common in a year.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
funny, I would die for your 4-6 weeks paid vacation, your real health care system, your knowledge that your tax money goes to support human beings, not fatass corporations and military campaigns for cheap oil. all those things that you're starting to lose in your rush to Americanize.
Wow!! Slashdot finally gets its own paradox!
(you know... story posted -> panic created -> surplus depleted -> artificial shortage created -> self-fulfilling condition!!!)
When I grow up, I want to have Christopher Walken hair.
Actually I searched for a label but I can`t find it anywhere. Where should it be ?
thanks.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
A 4x burner is so, so ... ten minutes ago :-). I just bought a 16x burner and a spindle of 100 16x CD-Rs. I deliver my software products to my customers on them, so I burn quite a few.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
And I always thought it was the environment which had to pay for the low gas prices... Touché!
The last time I burned a CD was SuSE 7.1 last month. Before that? Probably Slackware sometime in 1942.
I never could get the ration coupons for CD-Rs during the war. Guess I just wasn't important enough. *sniff*
--
Freeper Logic
Ah...a white knight to my rescue!
Blarf.
CD-R Prices Could Triple This Summer
what? are they made from oil?
Blarf.
Wow...I guess I haven't bought CD-Rs in a while, because last time I did they were running about $1 a disk. 35 to 40 cents at retail (which means they'll be cheaper than that elsewhere) sounds perfectly fine to me. :-)
Does anybody know where we can find out how CD-Rs are manufactured? Where can we buy a machine to do it? I'd fix this shortage price increase
You've got to love it when a one-line comment about pr0n is modded up as insightful!
So you're a karma whore, eh? For the right price, I'll be a karma pimp...
SIG: HUP
Well move to the U.S and you just might do that .. now how many guns were there per person again ?
I'm just glad I live in Finland. And I dont have to thank Allmighty God for that.
GeoKone.NET
Yeah, but c'mon....they're Canadian Dollars...so that's really like 50 cents and a bottlecap.
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
In related news, the price of Clay Pigeons is expected to return to normal. Charlton Heston of the Shotgun Association of America stated at a press conference, "Our recent sources of cheap plastic clay pigeons are expected to dry up. We will be returning to clay clay pigeons."
Keeping
> What do you guys use your CDR's for?
Maybe to backup all those AOL cd's ??
My fav brand is TDK. Never had a CD-R that didn't work or lose data with that brand. Last time I bought some (I burn quite rarely, max 2 CD's / month, but my sister is a big consumer) it was 0.6$ per CD (spindle of 50 CDs). Quite expensive compared to the 0.15$ as stated in some comments, but at least I know they work well.
(Prices I state are for Europe...)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Are you sure about the "cheapshit Taiwanese generic" products of TDK? ;-)
I don't think so: I happen to live in the country that hosts the European Headquarters of TDK. Go and look for some facts. Look at the bottom of the page: "Production Sites".
And yes, of course, I also buy TDK because it supports local employment. So call me a nationalist
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
We (americans) have a lot further to drive to get anywhere.
Most of us pay for our own health care, and our own retirement. We in the IT sector work 60 hours per week 50-52 weeks per year.
So there is a reason you pay more.
That's great unless you drive 45 miles one way to work like I do....
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Man...I moved out of the city for a reason...also my fiance and I carpool together, and it's a good time for us to talk & hang out (and she can vent about the morons she works with on the way home)
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
CDRs cost around 60c a piece in Finland. The funny thing is, about 20c of the price goes directly to local equivalent of AARC (Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies), which charges licencing fees for each CDR (or cassette or MP3-player..) sold. They charge twice as much for audio-CDRs.
The fee is ridiculously high and unjustified in general.
Finland has fourth largest relative amount of civilian handguns in the world.. So..
I'm a Finn myself, but clearly not as proud of it as you are.
Too late. Some friends and I just purchased 600 in bulk at $.15 each. All your CDR are belong to us!
..Thats ridiculous.
..Oh. And what about:
Why not carry on with your comparisons:
Vintage Beetle vs. Suburban
Suburban vs. M1 Tank
Motorcycle vs. Blue Whale dropped from great height
Pedestrian vs. Everything else?
Or where you never ever ever going to get out of that car?
(flaps arms around)
*buck* *buck* *buck* *Bucawck!*
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
Vices - what I lack in originality, I make up for in volume.
I have an extensive library of recorded TV episodes on VHS, for one thing. One blank CD-R is enough to hold a 1-hour episode or two 30-minute episodes that I can then play in my DVD player.
So... I use them for Dr. Who, M*A*S*H, Homicide, Northern Exposure...
Plus, all my home movies have now been copied to CD-R for play on the selfsame DVD player.
I've gone through about 2 100-CD spindles this year... enough to fill one large-size CD wallet with my favorite viewing.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
My local CompUSA had a sale I couldn't resist - 100 CD-Rs for the low, low price of $14.95. I snapped up two of them with the cash I had on me, and it looks like I had good foresight now that I hear about this.
As I was checking out, the clerk mentioned to me an interesting fact: The pallet that had the CD-Rs on them was stacked 6' high. When I got there, there was nothing left except the sign advertising the $14.95 sale. The shelves were crammed full of bulk CD-Rs matching the sale.
Now I have 200 CD-Rs. I don't back up porn, warez, or MP3z, I hardly have 5 GB of my 20 GB drive filled, so what do I do with these CD-Rs?
Sell them for an enormous profit when the time comes that CD-Rs are ridiculously expensive, of course.
Trying to extend the /. effect to retailers ?
Life is good w/o a commute. :)
:)
Life's even better when your employer pays for it (University of Pittsburgh.)
I drive 10 minutes to the Park'n'Ride, spend an hour on the bus one way with my radio, and leave the road rage, potholes, and piss-poor parking to the Port Authority of Allegheny County.* Anyone who's driven on our wonderful Pittsburgh-area roads knows exactly what I mean.
And it's even cheaper than moving 6 miles to Allegheny County and quadrupling my taxes.
Now, to get back on-topic...
I submit that CD-Rs are getting more expensive because of a request from the RIAA & MPAA. Full-length albums, and hours of MP3s, are being burned and easily passed around.
Full-length movies are being burned on CD, thus undercutting the DVD market.
This is all speculation (read: conspiracy theory), so take it with a mega-grain of salt.
*-that's probably the most alliterative clause I've ever written.
Thus sprach DrQu+xum.
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
back in MY day, My burner was a JVC-2010 2 speed that I paid $899 for the bare drive in a plain box at NCA in sunnyvale. Blanks were between $11.00 and $13.00 each.. I now have an original Kodak PCD Writer 200R that was used for photo CD's and had an original MSRP of $4999.00 in 1992.
Central PA? Well, i live in Williamsport, more northcentral, but kmart sells 30 packs of Memorex (Ritek) 80min CDRs for $9.99
Honestly, 40 cents for a blank CDR is still a good deal. It would only make a difference to the people who buy hordes of CDRs. And to these people, I have a question:
:) What do you guys use your CDR's for? Or did I nail it on the head? The last time I burned a CD was SuSE 7.1 last month. Before that? Probably Slackware sometime in 1942.
What on earth do you use all these CDRs for? Seriously, how can you amass so much data so quickly that you need spindles atop spindles of them? =)
I have some theories:
1) Packrat. This person loves collecting everything. TV episodes, movies, software. Obviously this person doesn't actually do anything with these CDRs other than lend them out to people who make copies and do the same thing.
2) Rampant Windows pirate. This person makes illegal copies of Windows software and carries all the CDs around in a black CD-binder/case thing. Need some outdated version of Photoshop? He's your man.
3) Music Leech. All of this person's blanks go to hold the massive amounts of Napster downloads. Obviously this person does not have a long enough lifespan to listen to all of the audio acquired.
Ok enough jokes
Because, if the rest of the world followed your standards it would take about a year until we had polluted so much that the pole caps melted and, well, people in your coast cities wouldn't have an office to drive to anymore (not to mention your gas prices once the entire American economy foundation is drowned in water).
just call aol and microsoft...i'm sure they wouldn't min sending you a few frisbees advertising their online service....
3) mass transit supplemented with taxi and/or car rental costs less than the total cost of car ownership.
Here, our local Mass Transit system charges $65 for a 3-month pass, or $260/year. That's less than my insurance for my car for 6 months. In addition, all faculty and staff at the local college can ride for free (for the students it comes out of our student fees, a few bucks a term). A lot of local companies also pay a small amount per person and all their workers can ride for free.
My dad rides the bus every day in Portland ($595/year for a pass see www.tri-met.org) even though he owns a car. Why? because it's cheaper than paying for parking in downtown portland.
Just because you own a car doesn't mean it's best to use it for commuting, etc. But sometimes it does make the most sense. I do believe a lot more people should ride mass transit, but they're too lazy (I am often in this category, of course, I walk to work now).
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
ah, they use liters, hence having to convert to gallons, to make an appropriate comparison to U.S. prices....dipshit.
This summer there will be a shortage of Carbon and Nitrogen molecules joined together with a double bond.
Does this sound likely?
If there is no shortage of the raw materials, then why would there be a shortage of final product?
Without more explanation, this story must be considered to be lacking in foundation.
Note that the story says the royalties have gone down.
Bush's education improvements were
The article implied that there was already an over-capacity of factories. CDs are cheap because the equipment that produces them is automatic
I should have said that the cyanide bond is a single bond.
Bush's education improvements were
CD-R blanks are made with cyanine dyes, not cyanide, as I said earlier. The materials are cheap. The article implies that there are plenty of CD-making machines. The article says that the royalties have dropped. There is therefore no reason to predict that CD-R prices will rise.
If you want to find out what kind of dyes your CD-R blanks use, there is a program that supplies this information, and manufacturer and capacity. The program is free. To get it:
1) Go to http://www.cdpage.com/
2) Click on Software Archives
3) Click on CD-R Identifier. The program will download.
Unzip the archive and run the program. Click on the UPPER icon to display information about your CD-R. The CD-R does not need to be blank.
Bush's education improvements were
Actually yeah. Plastic more or less = oil. I imagine that isn't the cause for the shortage though :)
yah, I've got to admit, those Amray DVD cases are pretty nice... and useful.
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I was really annoyed when AOL started sending me CDs rather than floppies because I can't use the CDs for anything but coasters, and now I have plenty of coasters.
Why can't they start sending me CD-RWs, at least I could use those. Especially now, since I'll actually have to pay for them. AOL-Time/Warner should consider it a PR expense. Most of the people who gripe about AOL would stop complaining if AOL was supplying them with CD-RWs.
And now in these harsh economic times when the price of CR-Rs is going through the roof... (I'll have to check my couch for lost change).
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I'm going to sound like grandpa ("When I was your age, I had to walk 4 miles in the snow just to get to the bus stop..."), but I can easily recall paying $0.50 per 1.44MB floppy!
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
... or perhaps this is merely some ploy to raise demand in CD-r's the company has planned. I know i'm going to go buy one metric fuc*load as soon as possible ;)
Maybe this'll put a damper on the flood of AOL discs that keep coming my way.
If Godzilla did not exist, man would have had to create him.
It is the best way to store them long term.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Awww man, now what am I gonna use for target practice and frisbees.
pricewatch.com
www.pricewatch.com
gotta love those sites that do that...
Shameless Self Promotion : Webhosting at Blender Networks.
Here in Finland, and elsewhere in EU gas costs 1.2$ /liter.
I guess if gas was more expensive in US it would be easier for you people to sign the Kyoto agreement:)
That said, gas prices have actually decreased by something like 40%+ over the past decades, when indexed for inflation. It's probably about time we see them go back up...
Bitch and moan all you want - .40 - even a dollar is cheap - especially considering the price per megabyte.
~$4.25 for a gallon of gas (DFL 2.70/liter in NL)
In the UK:
The giggle is that we import CD-R's but export gasoline. What's with that?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Since when is this high? I bought 100 bottom of the barrel, green ink cd-rs on clearannce from compusa for 30 bucks (thats thirty cents a pop for the math challanged) and I thought that was a great deal. If cd-r's are gonna skyrocket to 35 cents, show me where you're getting yours!
-- Nerds on toast in the new millenium
No, CD-RW is a pointless technology. Discs don't always play in other drives, drives are usually slower/more expensive, as is media.
Time to go pick up a whole bunch before the hoarders get to them. Oh, wait...
Ok. Well I'm not European, but I am married to one and I've spent a significant time living there, Around 18 months in three countries, Austria, the Netherlands, and Spain.
For all their bluster and talk about the environment, the reason why Europeans don't drive cars to work is due to money. It costs over a thousand dollars to get a license, car prices are outrageous, not to mention gasoline. Oh yeah, you also usually have to buy or rent a parking spot in front of your own apartment. But if they can afford it, they buy automobiles. I'm speaking in generalities of course.
Oh, and I still didn't like public transportation. My 40 minute bus commute in Amsterdam would be cut down to 10 minutes if I could catch a ride with a coworker. The 50 minute bus ride to church actually had a 10 minute loop in the route. (again, 10 minutes by car). One night while returning from a movie on the metro (kind of a subway) a woman lit up meth pipe two feet from me. There was all sorts of weird stuff like that all the time, and plus getting accosted at the stations.
Someone else I knew got mugged right after he got off the bus
I was just in Spain last week, and one bus we rode on had a nice urine/tobacco smell.
Now I bet some Euro-dude is going to get all upset and say just how trashy America is, but oh well, my wife prefers it here, and that is all that matters to me.
And guess what... here in Britain we pay $6 for a gallon of petrol (about 80p/litre). And one of our major political parties has just launched its election campaign, promising to cut petrol tax to.... 73p/litre (or thereabouts).
Oh, and we pay 4.50 ukp for a pack of smokes (although many go to France to buy them).
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
In denmark new taxes was added to CD-Rs in the beginning of this year. The taxes, about 30 -40 % dont remember anymore, was announced half a year before. Effects was that all shops that carried CD-Rs bought ALOT of them before the taxes was added. So many, that the prices now are lower than ever. They are 60% of the prices before the tax was added. Of course when the stores stock of cds are emtptied the prices might skyrocket. So what will this bring? Propably shortterm low prices, and then some really high prices
There isn't much like the scent of a fresh harddisk
What are prices now? 35-40 cents seems about right in my area (except for the lucky ones that come with the surprise, its free rebate that isn't labelled on the outside). How many of these things do you really need? It takes me 6 months to burn through a spool of 50 or so... including all the porn and (some) music..
Maybe you should order from Germany then. An 80 min cdr costs 0,70 DM at www.snogard.de.
Wait a minute... I found some spare change in my couch. Forget what I just said.
...CD-RW would be a bit more appropriate?
TODO: Something witty here...
Lets see .30 for a blank CD or $30.00 for a tape.... hmmmmmm...
http://www.englishfirst.org
That's all well and good, but FireWire ports aren't anywhere near as universal on computers as CD-ROM drives (or USB for that matter or DVD-ROM drives, for that matter). While it'd be useful for the latest and greatest in computing, it's not going to work on the 6-year-old P-90 I plan on putting in my a/v setup, and it's not going to work on 4-year-old 233 MMX I intend to turn into a proxy server.
Well, as history as shown us, gas prices are always easy to solve: Bomb Iraq. But who do you beat up to improve CD-R prices? Malaysia?
And even if you do intend to use removable HDDs as your archiving system, they're still a bit more fragile than optical disks. If you drop a CD off of a two story building, unless you're dropping it onto shear granite in Point Barrow, Alaska in the middle of February, odds are it will still work. CDs aren't anywhere near as sensitive to static discharge or EM, either. And even if the info on the platters are still OK, you could still fry a chip on the controller.
Continuing along that thread, hard drives by defintion have more points of failure. It is both the medium and the mechanism to read it; CD and CD-ROM drive in one. Not only do you have to worry about how volatile the information is on the platters, but the fact that every time you power it up, it spins itself closer to mechanical failure. If it moves, it WILL break. The more it moves, the sooner it will break. So sayeth the second law of thermodynamics. If your CD-ROM drive dies, you can get a new one, borrow a friend's, scavenge an old one, et cetera. Your CDs will be fine. If your HDD dies, you're stuck with paying out the ass to a manufacturer or a specialist to get your data out of the drive.
Yes, CD-Rs write a heck of a lot slower than an HDD, but it's not meant to be anywhere near as dynamic as an HDD. The concept is to know what you want to hang on to beforehand, and then put it on the CD where you'll have it for a decade or two. You may change hard drives, you may change computers, but you'll still have the information.
And last but not least, when was the last time you tried moving a hard disk from one computer to another?
At any rate, I think CD-Rs are probably the best option for archiving/backing-up data among all the options available. Everything else you might use (be it magnetic tape, proprieatary magnetic media, or DVD-RAM) require a proprietary drive to read and write. Odds are, you'll be out of luck hardware-wise if you want to read it from another computer. A CD-R, on the other hand, can be read by just about any computer manufactured in the past decade or so. It might as well be a floppy disk it's so universal.
The article makes no mention of the type of CDR, 74 min or 80 min. 6 months ago 80 min were harder to find and much more expensive then 74 min. Now 80 min our commonplace and in the 25 - 35 cent range. Will they go up alot? Most of these cheapie 5 - 10 cent CDRs are cheaply manufactured, and my Sega wont read them anyways :(
I'd say that was realistic enough. See also "England last autumn".
They're prettier than AOL CDs. You get what you pay for.
This, though many people over here might complain about it, it probably a good thing...
In Ireland, our public transport system could be good, but for the fact that the government doesn't put money into it. Still, at least it's not as bad as the US one.
The worst thing which happened to the Irish PTS was getting rid of the trams. People thought at the time that not that everybody could get cars that the trams wouldn't be needed. We know better now. Projects are starting, with Luas in Dublin being the first. Hopefully the Cork city tram system will be re-established.
I don't like trolls and mod against me if you like, but I'd prefer if you'd reply.
You didn't like the dutch PTS? My god, but it's nice! Ok, Amsterdam's not the best example, Rotterdam's nicer, but still...
Spain's a bit crappy in that regard in fairness. It is still a rather poor country by European standards.
Not being stroppy or anything, jsut straightening things out. BTW, I don't have a car, don't want one, but might be forced to get one for travelling outside the city to clients in the country and suchforth...
I don't like trolls and mod against me if you like, but I'd prefer if you'd reply.
Can't disagree with you at all. It's easy to forget what is actually hidden in the taxes we pay. It would be good idea if the records of where all the money was going though...
:-(
BTW, we europeans in the IT sector work at least the same. I for one typically work 90 hours a week. So much for having a social life
I don't like trolls and mod against me if you like, but I'd prefer if you'd reply.
More likely you're doing something wrong, i.e. underflowing the write buffer to the CDR during the write process. Are you running a lot of other processes on a slowish ( less than 200 MHz) processor while writing? I agree, and don't use any no-brand media any more, but the cheap brand-name spindles I have had no problems with. I had my worst luck with the CompUSA generics, but that was back on my 1998-era 2x6 Mitsumi drive.
It looks like the only CDR media that is affected is cheapshit taiwanese generic media. I've always avoided those garbage brands, they have serious problems with quality and storage life. I only use Sony or Taiyo Yuden brands, I last paid $25 for a spindle of 50 Sonys, the article says Sony and Taiyo Yuden are unaffected by the price rise since they are not in the royalties renegotiation that is the main reason for the price rise.
That's the proper way to describe your "relatively flat" demand curve.
in Iraq they pay like 17 cents a gallon
UPI WarezWire
With the price of CDR media getting close to $0.0061538461538 per megabyte the entire warez economy is showing signs of going into a slump.
The warez economy had been on the upswing as a side effect of the crash of the dot-coms because many employees were given illegal copies of the companies' software as severance.
Economists speculate that the upswing in the warez economy may also have been due to many more dot-commers left with a few weeks of broadband connections previously used to telecommute and no income to buy legitimate software.
With the bad news about CDR pricing on the horizon investors are taking profits from their holdings high-tech stocks associated with warez like MP3.com, hotline.com and Napster. Said one investor "D00Z! 17'S T1ME T0 BA1L! TH3 3L33T M0N3Y 1S 1N B0NDZ!"
President Bush reaffirmed his hands off policy towards the CDR market. Spelling out that there would be no price freezes in CDR the president addressed a gathering of WAR3Z kids and said "WATZ Y0U WAN7 A HAND0U7? LAM3RZ!"
Ram prices tend to change every day, as of late (the last few months) they've been on the decline price wise. A quick checkup at pricewatch.com can keep you updated at the current prices fairly accurately and if you want SharkyExtreme keeps up a weekly memory pricewatch whicch can be found at http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/prices/weekl y_memory/
and Digitial Web 3D also carries a similar section
http://www.dw3d.com/hreview/fridayprice/index.html
the nice thing about sharky though is that they usually give advice on whether or not they think memory is worth buying which from what I understand is what you're looking for.
"Just tell em Large Marge sent ya." -Large Marge, (the Ghost)
America Online announced that they would have to cut back on the number of promotional discs sent out to current AOL customers while increasing the number sent to broadband and Linux users.
Is it just me or does this just seem like a way for the CD-RW companies to sell a shit load more than they normally would. Now everyone is going to run to the store to get their CDs before summer hits. I smell money under the table...