I saw Nightmare Before Christmas (filmed in 2D) in 3D. However, I can't comment on how good it was because I don't tend to be able to see the effect. It just doesn't work for me, instead it becomes blurry. There will be one or two shots in any 3D film where I can see it, and they tend to be the cheesy gimmicks. The Terminator one at Universal Studios worked the best for me so far, but that's probably because it was 100% gimmick (so is the Muppet Show one, but that doesn't work as well for me somehow). I didn't bother to see Avatar because the only reason in my mind to see it was for the 3D, and I'm not going to waste my money if it doesn't work for me.
Anyway, I *did* manage to get the effect a couple times in Nightmare Before Christmas, and was actually impressed with how seamlessly they were able to add depth. Rather astonishing really. I imagine it's easier to manipulate animation (even stop-motion as in that film) than it is to manipulate live-action, though, especially in Star Wars where there are a lot of details on the screen most of the time.
In any case, I sincerely doubt even George Lucas would go for this if it weren't feasible to make it work decently. A botched 3D version is not the same thing as crappy movies - people will still pay to see new Star Wars movies however bad, but they won't pay to see 3D versions of the ones they've already seen if they hear the 3D version sucks.
I definitely agree that this is a great opportunity to re-do stuff from the prequels. Re-doing the originals was a travesty, but the prequels are actually crying out for it. In fact it seems like the best way to add 3D would be to re-render basically everything but the actors, since most of it was green-screen work, and if you're going to do that you might as well change things:)
According to an article someone else posted above - http://www.spacedaily.com/news/buran-00a.html - you may be referring to a theme park company selling their prototype-Buran-turned-ride. They say it was a publicity stunt and that they don't have the legal right to sell it, even though they own it and operate it as a ride.
I think your point is valid but it's also kind of funny - it seems like your problem is not CFLs being more expensive, it's with them being broken. Perhaps you should look into a solution that eliminates (or greatly reduces) breakage - different lamps, mounting locations, etc.:)
I appreciate your story and I'm happy for you, that you've been able to be successful in that manner.
However, perhaps you don't appreciate the position young people (such as myself) are in today. It's a lot harder to get started along a path such as yours than it seems to have been then. I currently can't just start working doing something I like or am good at, be it fixing TVs or computers or doing whatever else. There are huge barriers of entry for *everything*.
Yep, you can get a new job based on experience rather than education. In your case, you had the opportunity to get experience in lower-level positions, and use that experience to move up. In my case, I can't get that experience. The only realistic option is to continue going to school and hope to get an entry-level position based on my degree(s), certifications, whatever. Meanwhile I've been more than capable of doing this type of entry-level stuff for years, but it's impossible to get those jobs without experience or education. And yes, I *have* actually tried:)
It's impossible to get a foot in the door right now without experience, but it's impossible to get experience without already having experience! It's a catch-22 and as far as I can tell (from my perspective as a recent graduate who can't find a job) it's destroying any chances of most people of my generation becoming anywhere near as successful as you were.
I agree with your assessment of dorpus. Seems he completely missed the point (not that I've been there myself).
Regarding Uniqlo, though, the thing that's "revolutionary" about them is not that they are cheap but that they are cheap *and actually quite stylish*, with decent quality to boot. They're becoming *hugely* popular in the few places outside of Japan where they've opened shop. They sell very good clothes for cheap.
In other words, they're not the Salvation Army of Japan. Besides the fact that a lot of people who are into nice clothing shop at Salvation Army, because you can find good stuff there, Uniqlo is very popular and I expect they'll only increase in popularity as they expand in the west (being able to order things online would be a great start...)
I was wondering about that last time I was on Long Island... Hicksville is named after a guy named Elias Hicks. I didn't find Hempstead that humorous, but Hempstead is an English place name. I thought of the Donovan song "Hampstead Incident" when I saw the name - Hampstead is in London, but there are a couple of Hempsteads elsewhere in England.
That said, I do find Long Island place names pretty ridiculous overall, but if you look them up there's never really anything particularly interesting about the names. Ronkonkoma, for example, where I stayed with a friend who lives there, comes from a Native American word.
They're generally whatever standard digital version is available... I buy vinyl records (occasionally) for the same reason as the AC - I like the large physical format, and the alternative is to rip the CD because I don't like paying for digital-only things.
I do have a record player and use it sometimes with my records, but generally I listen to mp3s. What I generally do instead of getting the free mp3 download (which isn't always offered - only some labels do this) is to just find it on piratebay or wherever. Not that there's usually anything wrong with the quality of the official download, but it's just easier than navigating the record company website and typing in a code!
My system is apparently capable of playing the DX11 mode (which has nicer graphics and animated leaders), because that's what I played at first. Then I started getting weird artifacts and so forth, to the point where the artifacts blocked the whole screen (except the 2D UI) and then it froze when I went to save the game so I could restart (the save luckily did go through). I think it's just buggy. I assume that's what other people are having problems with too. I suppose if you really have a top-notch system (mine isn't) you'll have less of a problem, but I bet the glitches will still show up eventually.
The DX9 version might seem better even without the bugs because the animation and graphics are simplified and sped up. In this type of game you don't *really* need amazing graphics after admiring them for a little while.
Each civilization has unique buildings and unit(s) in 5 too, not sure what's in the demo but that shouldn't be a reason for you not to get it. The unique units in particular have been quite important and effective in my experience in 5 (I'm on my third "standard" game). The unique building for Russia didn't help me very much (a Krepost, which is supposed to be a military thing), but the one for Siam was great - it's a Wat, which is the Thai word for Temple, but in the game it provides a *huge* boost to Science. I built one in most of my cities and won a scientific victory around 2025 or so, while also spending a lot of resources fending off Montezuma, Bismark, and Elizabeth all at once. The unique military units give a big advantage in whichever particular period the unit applies to. Really, I don't think this aspect is changed much from 4, because all those things were true then too.
Also I seem to recall the "wider range of civs" only came after the expansion packs for 4. I was impressed with the list of civs in 5, including new ones not in 4 or the expansion packs.
Also, civ 4 I'd say is worse if you're into the military aspect, which I'm not. However, once you get used to it, the added military complexity in 5 isn't hard to handle and enables interesting and useful tactics which don't take much micromanaging or anything. If you do like the military stuff, the simple fact that you can't build a huge stack of units and roll across other civs should be enough to make you happy - you have to be a little more strategic. Also, once you get a navy you can do a lot of interesting things, like blockade shipping lanes and so on.
I haven't decided which version is actually more fun, yet, because I haven't played 5 enough. It's definitely different, but not so much that I think you should just stick with 4 if you're happy with it. The changes are mostly good, so far. I think it's a better game overall... but whether that means it's more fun, I'm not sure. I haven't tried it in multiplayer yet, either.
The AI seems quite different than in IV, and the diplomacy they offer to me is a lot more involved than I ever got from them before. They frequently ask for ridiculously one-sided deals (in their favor), but I hardly got any diplomacy from them in IV (besides declaring war/peace).
I haven't played it enough to judge how much they're cheating, but it doesn't seem so bad. I often feel like the AI cheats because they build units and expand much quicker than I do, but then I play against another person who does the same thing, and I realize that I just suck:)
This aspect seems to be getting overblown. I thought it would involve more micro-managing than it actually does. There's a little bit more involved because you can't build a death-stack of units and just tell it to go do something, but other things have been simplified to compensate for that. Now you tend to end up with a lot fewer units in general (no stacking means that if you had as many units as before the map would be completely covered with them), cities can defend themselves quite effectively so you don't need to station a stack of units on each city that's under attack, and unit-on-unit battles are more realistic and take several turns to complete.
Terrain seems a lot more important than before as well, making for some interesting situations. Make no mistake, you have to manage military units more than you did previously, but the unit balance is such that it's basically the same as you did before, except now you just use one unit instead of a stack.
I got the game yesterday (played it for about ten hours which is why I didn't comment on this story yesterday...) and I was really impressed with the music. I played as Siam and the music was Thai classical music, and it was really well done. I have spent a lot of time in Thailand, and my girlfriend is Thai. I heard very similar music in Thailand on several occasions and it was really nice to hear it in-game (not that I would listen to it outside of certain contexts, but it's great for the game).
That said, I was hoping for more culture-specific touches, like different looks for the civilizations (cities and other buildings, and units). There are unique units for most civilizations and that's good, but I wish they'd do more along these lines because all the civilizations basically look the same.
Also, I chose the "Earth" map type and it started me out along a river with a big meander that looked suspiciously like the real-life river Bangkok is built along, which I thought was impressive (since I was playing as Siam), but once I had more of the map visible I realized it put me in what would better be described as Eurasia, above the "Himalayas". A little disappointed there as well, but can't really fault it since I believe it's just random placement:)
BS - it's the "westernization" of games (and movies and so on) that is at least partially to blame for making people not interested. When they watch an Asian movie with a terrible English dub, that's all they think about - turns it into a joke. Same thing with games if they do a ham-fisted "westernization" - even just a bad dub, again, can ruin it completely.
There are games that are essentially just translated from the original Japanese, and they're plenty popular. The parent's example of the Katamari series is an excellent one (if you've played any of them, you'll know they're chock-full of Japanese cultural stuff, most of which makes no sense to anyone else, but the games are still fun), and there's the Dead or Alive series (they leave in the Japanese dialog as an option, presumably because they realize the English dialog is so terrible), Fatal Frame series (again lots of cultural stuff) and more...
I believe I did the best buy instore pickup twice, but I can only remember what one of them was. It was quite a while ago - haven't bought anything from best buy in years. I hate going in there.
However, I had a good experience with the instore pickup. I paid for something they said they had in stock... a $15 PC gamepad. Why I thought it would be a good idea to pay for it online instead of just picking it up from the shelf, I'm not sure... but when I got there, it turned out they didn't actually have any in stock. Instead, they gave me the $25 version for no extra charge. Not what I was expecting from a place like that.
Now that most of their competitors are gone (CompUSA, Circuit City, other regional/local stores), they've only gotten worse. They're basically the only store in that category around Western New York, where I grew up and am currently living (in my mom's basement, so to speak).
When I lived in California it was great because of Fry's. Fry's sucks in a lot of ways too, but at least they have a huge selection and usually good prices (you have to be careful but at least it's worth checking there, unlike best buy).
If you live in the US as you indicate, you should realize that having a car is basically a necessity. Poor people who live in dense cities with good public transportation where cars aren't necessary is one thing... except dense cities with good transportation are too expensive for poor people to live in, and most of the US is not a dense city with good transportation, anyway.
They're still poor despite having cars because they probably spend most of their money (besides what they need for food and so on) on gas, maintenance, and loan payments for their car. But if they didn't, they wouldn't be richer for it, they'd be stuck with no way to get to a job, making their situation worse.
Even in third world and developing countries, a lot of people have cars or other vehicles, if they actually need them. In most places it's not as important to have them as in the US, but a lot of people still need them, even poor people (speaking from experience from living in Thailand, and not in the relatively wealthy Bangkok, for a while).
Well, "we" are angry about it. That is, people who read slashdot and/or other such sites. No one else seems to care, and it boggles the mind why. Well, since you're usually stuck in a contract, you get a free phone upgrade every two years, and I guess people like that - and yes you'd get a new phone if you switched carriers.
I bought an unlocked Nexus One while Google was still selling them, but you saw how that turned out - they stopped offering them. There's no market incentive to offer this in the US except to geeks.
By the way we *can* switch carriers and keep our phone number. And they don't really care if you have an unlocked phone or you're able to unlock it - you can take it and use it on any carrier (except the CDMA carriers which don't use sim cards). However, they've conveniently decided to use different 3G frequencies, so if you're interested in 3G you have to stick with the carrier your phone is designed for.
Anyway I know you're being sarcastic but just in case, one thing that might not be clear is that generally carriers have exclusive access to specific phones. You can *only* get this phone from Sprint, and it's a nice little success of marketing that people refer to the phone with Sprint in the name, I guess.
When I was a kid I remember one of my parents telling me about people flashing their lights on the highway (I-90 thruway in NY) to warn of upcoming hidden police cars, I guess because I noticed someone doing it and asked why. Since that day, though, I don't think I've ever seen anyone do it again, and I've done a lot of highway driving (for my age anyway - driven across the US about five times, and lots of driving in between and at either end). I decided to do it once when I spotted a police car on the opposite side, but I think the people going the same way I was thought I was signaling them instead or indicating that I had a problem or something. Hard to tell since it doesn't seem to be a universal speed trap signal anymore.
Is it regional? Are there still places where this signal is common knowledge? I ask because the slashdot department line mentions this, and I haven't heard of it since I was a kid, as I said.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but if you're in the fast lane and someone is going faster than you, the right thing to do is to move over if you can and let them pass. The other guy's an asshole, yes, but by not moving out of his way you can only make it worse, and that makes you an asshole too.
Laws vary by location, but generally it's considered that the "fast lane" isn't the lane you use when you're going over the speed limit, it's the lane you use for passing. Assuming we're not talking heavy traffic (or southern California), you should never just be cruising along in the fast/passing lane... if you're not actively passing someone, stick to one of the "slow" lanes.
The other guy could pass you on the right, but that's usually illegal and a much more dangerous situation. Moving out of the way is as much a safety thing as a not-being-an-asshole thing.
I know I shouldn't feed an anonymous troll but that's bullshit. Speed traps as you seem to define them are reasonable - those are when police cars sit on the highway in plain sight and pull over people going unsafely fast or otherwise driving recklessly. The rest of us define speed traps as the ones where the police set up camp in a place where people are guaranteed to be speeding because either the speed limits are set too low or change without being marked changed (as in the parent's example) or for other reasons.
I got a speeding ticket a few years ago for going slightly faster than traffic flow (which was already about 10 over the limit)... because I was passing a line of trucks, and was at the bottom of a *huge* hill where everyone inadvertently speeds up - which is right where the police car was waiting. That's a speed trap, and the police set up in those areas to make money, plain and simple. If they were doing their job of keeping the road safe by pulling over people who are actually driving dangerously, no one would complain about them.
It's true that there are assholes who drive balls to the wall every fucking day, as you eloquently put it, and those people should be pulled over. One doesn't have to be that kind of driver to find major reasons to complain about speed traps, though.
Sometimes after you've already used a couple mod points in a thread, you come across something that's +5 Insightful, yet you know is maliciously incorrect. People are replying to it as if the person was correct (they're +5 insightful must be right).
What do you do? Some people get mod points more than others... if someone only gets five points once every other month or so, at best, are they going to throw them all away by commenting in the thread? What chance does their comment even have of getting read, since a few people have replied already? Better to mod down and hope that either other people with mod points or people who are commenting pick up on it and realize the guy's wrong.
On the other hand, this is a great situation if other people who have replied to the +5 insightful yet wrong guy also realize the guy's wrong, because then you can mod those people up. But it doesn't always work that way.
I'm not saying it's the right way to use the system, but that's a common situation. You sometimes see people say "I'm giving up my mod points because you're so wrong", but you have to imagine most of the time they just down-mod instead. I often choose to use mod points in threads on a subject I know about rather than something I don't, which makes sense, but those are the threads where I'm most likely to have something to say as well; it's a bit of a conflict. I have some mod points now and was thinking of modding up a couple posts in here, but decided to respond to you... and the article is "old" enough that I'll probably not get modded up (or even read by anyone) so it's a wasted opportunity;)
Slashdot Mirror
FYI, modern Mac keyboards (I'm typing on a MBP) have both "return" and "enter" printed on the key, and "return" is printed in larger type.
I saw Nightmare Before Christmas (filmed in 2D) in 3D. However, I can't comment on how good it was because I don't tend to be able to see the effect. It just doesn't work for me, instead it becomes blurry. There will be one or two shots in any 3D film where I can see it, and they tend to be the cheesy gimmicks. The Terminator one at Universal Studios worked the best for me so far, but that's probably because it was 100% gimmick (so is the Muppet Show one, but that doesn't work as well for me somehow). I didn't bother to see Avatar because the only reason in my mind to see it was for the 3D, and I'm not going to waste my money if it doesn't work for me.
Anyway, I *did* manage to get the effect a couple times in Nightmare Before Christmas, and was actually impressed with how seamlessly they were able to add depth. Rather astonishing really. I imagine it's easier to manipulate animation (even stop-motion as in that film) than it is to manipulate live-action, though, especially in Star Wars where there are a lot of details on the screen most of the time.
In any case, I sincerely doubt even George Lucas would go for this if it weren't feasible to make it work decently. A botched 3D version is not the same thing as crappy movies - people will still pay to see new Star Wars movies however bad, but they won't pay to see 3D versions of the ones they've already seen if they hear the 3D version sucks.
I definitely agree that this is a great opportunity to re-do stuff from the prequels. Re-doing the originals was a travesty, but the prequels are actually crying out for it. In fact it seems like the best way to add 3D would be to re-render basically everything but the actors, since most of it was green-screen work, and if you're going to do that you might as well change things :)
According to an article someone else posted above - http://www.spacedaily.com/news/buran-00a.html - you may be referring to a theme park company selling their prototype-Buran-turned-ride. They say it was a publicity stunt and that they don't have the legal right to sell it, even though they own it and operate it as a ride.
I think that's the joke - the irony is that the song isn't actually about irony. Or something like that.
I think your point is valid but it's also kind of funny - it seems like your problem is not CFLs being more expensive, it's with them being broken. Perhaps you should look into a solution that eliminates (or greatly reduces) breakage - different lamps, mounting locations, etc. :)
Do you think Apple would go after someone who renamed the Pad Thai in their restaurant ThaiPad?
I appreciate your story and I'm happy for you, that you've been able to be successful in that manner.
However, perhaps you don't appreciate the position young people (such as myself) are in today. It's a lot harder to get started along a path such as yours than it seems to have been then. I currently can't just start working doing something I like or am good at, be it fixing TVs or computers or doing whatever else. There are huge barriers of entry for *everything*.
Yep, you can get a new job based on experience rather than education. In your case, you had the opportunity to get experience in lower-level positions, and use that experience to move up. In my case, I can't get that experience. The only realistic option is to continue going to school and hope to get an entry-level position based on my degree(s), certifications, whatever. Meanwhile I've been more than capable of doing this type of entry-level stuff for years, but it's impossible to get those jobs without experience or education. And yes, I *have* actually tried :)
It's impossible to get a foot in the door right now without experience, but it's impossible to get experience without already having experience! It's a catch-22 and as far as I can tell (from my perspective as a recent graduate who can't find a job) it's destroying any chances of most people of my generation becoming anywhere near as successful as you were.
I agree with your assessment of dorpus. Seems he completely missed the point (not that I've been there myself).
Regarding Uniqlo, though, the thing that's "revolutionary" about them is not that they are cheap but that they are cheap *and actually quite stylish*, with decent quality to boot. They're becoming *hugely* popular in the few places outside of Japan where they've opened shop. They sell very good clothes for cheap.
In other words, they're not the Salvation Army of Japan. Besides the fact that a lot of people who are into nice clothing shop at Salvation Army, because you can find good stuff there, Uniqlo is very popular and I expect they'll only increase in popularity as they expand in the west (being able to order things online would be a great start...)
I was wondering about that last time I was on Long Island... Hicksville is named after a guy named Elias Hicks. I didn't find Hempstead that humorous, but Hempstead is an English place name. I thought of the Donovan song "Hampstead Incident" when I saw the name - Hampstead is in London, but there are a couple of Hempsteads elsewhere in England.
That said, I do find Long Island place names pretty ridiculous overall, but if you look them up there's never really anything particularly interesting about the names. Ronkonkoma, for example, where I stayed with a friend who lives there, comes from a Native American word.
They're generally whatever standard digital version is available... I buy vinyl records (occasionally) for the same reason as the AC - I like the large physical format, and the alternative is to rip the CD because I don't like paying for digital-only things.
I do have a record player and use it sometimes with my records, but generally I listen to mp3s. What I generally do instead of getting the free mp3 download (which isn't always offered - only some labels do this) is to just find it on piratebay or wherever. Not that there's usually anything wrong with the quality of the official download, but it's just easier than navigating the record company website and typing in a code!
My system is apparently capable of playing the DX11 mode (which has nicer graphics and animated leaders), because that's what I played at first. Then I started getting weird artifacts and so forth, to the point where the artifacts blocked the whole screen (except the 2D UI) and then it froze when I went to save the game so I could restart (the save luckily did go through). I think it's just buggy. I assume that's what other people are having problems with too. I suppose if you really have a top-notch system (mine isn't) you'll have less of a problem, but I bet the glitches will still show up eventually.
The DX9 version might seem better even without the bugs because the animation and graphics are simplified and sped up. In this type of game you don't *really* need amazing graphics after admiring them for a little while.
Each civilization has unique buildings and unit(s) in 5 too, not sure what's in the demo but that shouldn't be a reason for you not to get it. The unique units in particular have been quite important and effective in my experience in 5 (I'm on my third "standard" game). The unique building for Russia didn't help me very much (a Krepost, which is supposed to be a military thing), but the one for Siam was great - it's a Wat, which is the Thai word for Temple, but in the game it provides a *huge* boost to Science. I built one in most of my cities and won a scientific victory around 2025 or so, while also spending a lot of resources fending off Montezuma, Bismark, and Elizabeth all at once. The unique military units give a big advantage in whichever particular period the unit applies to. Really, I don't think this aspect is changed much from 4, because all those things were true then too.
Also I seem to recall the "wider range of civs" only came after the expansion packs for 4. I was impressed with the list of civs in 5, including new ones not in 4 or the expansion packs.
Also, civ 4 I'd say is worse if you're into the military aspect, which I'm not. However, once you get used to it, the added military complexity in 5 isn't hard to handle and enables interesting and useful tactics which don't take much micromanaging or anything. If you do like the military stuff, the simple fact that you can't build a huge stack of units and roll across other civs should be enough to make you happy - you have to be a little more strategic. Also, once you get a navy you can do a lot of interesting things, like blockade shipping lanes and so on.
I haven't decided which version is actually more fun, yet, because I haven't played 5 enough. It's definitely different, but not so much that I think you should just stick with 4 if you're happy with it. The changes are mostly good, so far. I think it's a better game overall... but whether that means it's more fun, I'm not sure. I haven't tried it in multiplayer yet, either.
The AI seems quite different than in IV, and the diplomacy they offer to me is a lot more involved than I ever got from them before. They frequently ask for ridiculously one-sided deals (in their favor), but I hardly got any diplomacy from them in IV (besides declaring war/peace).
I haven't played it enough to judge how much they're cheating, but it doesn't seem so bad. I often feel like the AI cheats because they build units and expand much quicker than I do, but then I play against another person who does the same thing, and I realize that I just suck :)
This aspect seems to be getting overblown. I thought it would involve more micro-managing than it actually does. There's a little bit more involved because you can't build a death-stack of units and just tell it to go do something, but other things have been simplified to compensate for that. Now you tend to end up with a lot fewer units in general (no stacking means that if you had as many units as before the map would be completely covered with them), cities can defend themselves quite effectively so you don't need to station a stack of units on each city that's under attack, and unit-on-unit battles are more realistic and take several turns to complete.
Terrain seems a lot more important than before as well, making for some interesting situations. Make no mistake, you have to manage military units more than you did previously, but the unit balance is such that it's basically the same as you did before, except now you just use one unit instead of a stack.
I got the game yesterday (played it for about ten hours which is why I didn't comment on this story yesterday...) and I was really impressed with the music. I played as Siam and the music was Thai classical music, and it was really well done. I have spent a lot of time in Thailand, and my girlfriend is Thai. I heard very similar music in Thailand on several occasions and it was really nice to hear it in-game (not that I would listen to it outside of certain contexts, but it's great for the game).
That said, I was hoping for more culture-specific touches, like different looks for the civilizations (cities and other buildings, and units). There are unique units for most civilizations and that's good, but I wish they'd do more along these lines because all the civilizations basically look the same.
Also, I chose the "Earth" map type and it started me out along a river with a big meander that looked suspiciously like the real-life river Bangkok is built along, which I thought was impressive (since I was playing as Siam), but once I had more of the map visible I realized it put me in what would better be described as Eurasia, above the "Himalayas". A little disappointed there as well, but can't really fault it since I believe it's just random placement :)
BS - it's the "westernization" of games (and movies and so on) that is at least partially to blame for making people not interested. When they watch an Asian movie with a terrible English dub, that's all they think about - turns it into a joke. Same thing with games if they do a ham-fisted "westernization" - even just a bad dub, again, can ruin it completely.
There are games that are essentially just translated from the original Japanese, and they're plenty popular. The parent's example of the Katamari series is an excellent one (if you've played any of them, you'll know they're chock-full of Japanese cultural stuff, most of which makes no sense to anyone else, but the games are still fun), and there's the Dead or Alive series (they leave in the Japanese dialog as an option, presumably because they realize the English dialog is so terrible), Fatal Frame series (again lots of cultural stuff) and more...
I believe I did the best buy instore pickup twice, but I can only remember what one of them was. It was quite a while ago - haven't bought anything from best buy in years. I hate going in there.
However, I had a good experience with the instore pickup. I paid for something they said they had in stock... a $15 PC gamepad. Why I thought it would be a good idea to pay for it online instead of just picking it up from the shelf, I'm not sure... but when I got there, it turned out they didn't actually have any in stock. Instead, they gave me the $25 version for no extra charge. Not what I was expecting from a place like that.
Now that most of their competitors are gone (CompUSA, Circuit City, other regional/local stores), they've only gotten worse. They're basically the only store in that category around Western New York, where I grew up and am currently living (in my mom's basement, so to speak).
When I lived in California it was great because of Fry's. Fry's sucks in a lot of ways too, but at least they have a huge selection and usually good prices (you have to be careful but at least it's worth checking there, unlike best buy).
I'm not sure what you mean since I don't use Mail.app, but Thunderbird on OS X is rather "creative" counting unread messages as well.
I also only started using them after going to Asia (four non-continuous months in Thailand over the past year), kind of funny how that works :)
If you live in the US as you indicate, you should realize that having a car is basically a necessity. Poor people who live in dense cities with good public transportation where cars aren't necessary is one thing... except dense cities with good transportation are too expensive for poor people to live in, and most of the US is not a dense city with good transportation, anyway.
They're still poor despite having cars because they probably spend most of their money (besides what they need for food and so on) on gas, maintenance, and loan payments for their car. But if they didn't, they wouldn't be richer for it, they'd be stuck with no way to get to a job, making their situation worse.
Even in third world and developing countries, a lot of people have cars or other vehicles, if they actually need them. In most places it's not as important to have them as in the US, but a lot of people still need them, even poor people (speaking from experience from living in Thailand, and not in the relatively wealthy Bangkok, for a while).
Well, "we" are angry about it. That is, people who read slashdot and/or other such sites. No one else seems to care, and it boggles the mind why. Well, since you're usually stuck in a contract, you get a free phone upgrade every two years, and I guess people like that - and yes you'd get a new phone if you switched carriers.
I bought an unlocked Nexus One while Google was still selling them, but you saw how that turned out - they stopped offering them. There's no market incentive to offer this in the US except to geeks.
By the way we *can* switch carriers and keep our phone number. And they don't really care if you have an unlocked phone or you're able to unlock it - you can take it and use it on any carrier (except the CDMA carriers which don't use sim cards). However, they've conveniently decided to use different 3G frequencies, so if you're interested in 3G you have to stick with the carrier your phone is designed for.
Anyway I know you're being sarcastic but just in case, one thing that might not be clear is that generally carriers have exclusive access to specific phones. You can *only* get this phone from Sprint, and it's a nice little success of marketing that people refer to the phone with Sprint in the name, I guess.
When I was a kid I remember one of my parents telling me about people flashing their lights on the highway (I-90 thruway in NY) to warn of upcoming hidden police cars, I guess because I noticed someone doing it and asked why. Since that day, though, I don't think I've ever seen anyone do it again, and I've done a lot of highway driving (for my age anyway - driven across the US about five times, and lots of driving in between and at either end). I decided to do it once when I spotted a police car on the opposite side, but I think the people going the same way I was thought I was signaling them instead or indicating that I had a problem or something. Hard to tell since it doesn't seem to be a universal speed trap signal anymore.
Is it regional? Are there still places where this signal is common knowledge? I ask because the slashdot department line mentions this, and I haven't heard of it since I was a kid, as I said.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but if you're in the fast lane and someone is going faster than you, the right thing to do is to move over if you can and let them pass. The other guy's an asshole, yes, but by not moving out of his way you can only make it worse, and that makes you an asshole too.
Laws vary by location, but generally it's considered that the "fast lane" isn't the lane you use when you're going over the speed limit, it's the lane you use for passing. Assuming we're not talking heavy traffic (or southern California), you should never just be cruising along in the fast/passing lane... if you're not actively passing someone, stick to one of the "slow" lanes.
The other guy could pass you on the right, but that's usually illegal and a much more dangerous situation. Moving out of the way is as much a safety thing as a not-being-an-asshole thing.
I know I shouldn't feed an anonymous troll but that's bullshit. Speed traps as you seem to define them are reasonable - those are when police cars sit on the highway in plain sight and pull over people going unsafely fast or otherwise driving recklessly. The rest of us define speed traps as the ones where the police set up camp in a place where people are guaranteed to be speeding because either the speed limits are set too low or change without being marked changed (as in the parent's example) or for other reasons.
I got a speeding ticket a few years ago for going slightly faster than traffic flow (which was already about 10 over the limit)... because I was passing a line of trucks, and was at the bottom of a *huge* hill where everyone inadvertently speeds up - which is right where the police car was waiting. That's a speed trap, and the police set up in those areas to make money, plain and simple. If they were doing their job of keeping the road safe by pulling over people who are actually driving dangerously, no one would complain about them.
It's true that there are assholes who drive balls to the wall every fucking day, as you eloquently put it, and those people should be pulled over. One doesn't have to be that kind of driver to find major reasons to complain about speed traps, though.
Sometimes after you've already used a couple mod points in a thread, you come across something that's +5 Insightful, yet you know is maliciously incorrect. People are replying to it as if the person was correct (they're +5 insightful must be right).
What do you do? Some people get mod points more than others... if someone only gets five points once every other month or so, at best, are they going to throw them all away by commenting in the thread? What chance does their comment even have of getting read, since a few people have replied already? Better to mod down and hope that either other people with mod points or people who are commenting pick up on it and realize the guy's wrong.
On the other hand, this is a great situation if other people who have replied to the +5 insightful yet wrong guy also realize the guy's wrong, because then you can mod those people up. But it doesn't always work that way.
I'm not saying it's the right way to use the system, but that's a common situation. You sometimes see people say "I'm giving up my mod points because you're so wrong", but you have to imagine most of the time they just down-mod instead. I often choose to use mod points in threads on a subject I know about rather than something I don't, which makes sense, but those are the threads where I'm most likely to have something to say as well; it's a bit of a conflict. I have some mod points now and was thinking of modding up a couple posts in here, but decided to respond to you... and the article is "old" enough that I'll probably not get modded up (or even read by anyone) so it's a wasted opportunity ;)