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NPR's Car Talk Dumping RealMedia
olcrazypete writes: "Click and Clack are apparently fed up with Real Networks. They have switched to Windows Media Player format. 'Why? Because, for a long time, we've had tons of complaints about RealNetworks. And the one that ticks us off the most is the perceived trickery they use to sell their premium products. This is just our opinion, mind you, but it's shared by enough of our listeners, that we
finally decided to take action.' The whole story is here . My favorite line: 'It stinks so much that it even makes Microsoft look good by comparison. That's something, huh?'"
An off-topic post defending NPR--often accused of being biased toward the left for various valid and invalid reasons--is modded up as "Insightful" as of this post.
Meanwhile, a post I wrote this morning defending FoxNews--often accused of being biased toward the right for various valid and invalid reasons--is modded down as "Off-topic."
Difference in ideologies?
I feel that their news is the best and least biased around because they are non-profit, they don't have to worry about keeping one side or the other happy.
That doesn't even make sense. If a private station must worry about not offending sides, that would give it even more incentive to be non-biased.
NPR gets major contributions from left-leaning entrepeneurs. They recently received several million dollars, which is more than they receive in taxpayer dollars yearly, which makes one wonder why we still have to pay for them to be on the air when they don't need us to keep them afloat.
"That show is way left of Stalin, which is not unusual for NPR."
Why is it that when someone has an opinion that is more than one step short of outright facism in this country now they are assumed to be far out there commies? I kinda got preturbed that around 2001 I went from a moderate Republican to a commie hippy liberal and didn't change any of my opinions.
Can't say I haven't change at all since realizing what was going on. Ever since being alienated by the current assholes in power, I actually started listening to what other people had to say.
What exactly is this piece of wisdom based on?
I notice that, apart from the movie trailers that Apple has set up a Pimp/Ho relationship with the studios to get hold of, almost everything of any real (pun) interest is available in Windows Media or RealPlayer streaming formats.
I know this because I made a point of not installing any crappy extra software (e.g. RealPlayer/Quicktime) on my machine for a long time, but eventually I folded and got RealPlayer because so much was offered in RP and I was sick of media player. So far I have not felt the need to get Quicktime, and there are very few things I can't watch despite my bereftness of annoying Apple software.
Incidentally, PC users who like iTunes *seriously* need to look at Winamp 5, personally I think it does virtually everything iT does but has a lot more flexibility and is actually designed to run in the Windows environment in terms of the GUI, functionality etc. Plus the visualisation packages are wayyyy cooler.
Read Pynchon.
If you read here long enough or hang with any specific group of tech type people in the real world, you would find out what frustrations and experience individuals have with MS or any company for that matter. Wether you agree with their individual opinions on what bothers them is up to you. There is no one thing that MS does that everyone here does not like (although there are trends). Slashdot readers and posters can not be globbed under one set of general dislikes and likes. Bottom line, people have been dealing with MS for years in many capacities (administration, end users, tech support, purchasing, development, integration, competing products etc...), they have formed an opinion on the company based on past experience. There is no bulleted list that someone could post that describes what an individual likes and dislikes about MS that would apply to everyone.
I work with people that administer MS networks very well, they have very little to complain about with MS, oddly enough, every one of them has NEVER used anything else and probably don't know what CLI means either.. You can take that either way.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Hmm... a post about RealPlayer in a discussion about RealPlayer... that's REALLY offtopic. What was I thinking. Fuckin mods... if I had my gun I'd show them...[mutters]
Read Pynchon.