Bingo. They simply can't keep up. Eventually the entire network is going to be government owned. And honestly, I'd rather pay taxes to get the best internet service in the world rather than deal with some piss poor Pennsylvania company whose motto happens to be 'feel lucky that our overly expensive service happens to work today.'
Plus a lot of cable companies like Comcast built their networks on the cheap and mishmashed them together so keeping them updated would take money. As a result, they don't want to spend more than they have to so they simply start blaming a few convenient scapegoats and then buy some time so they can keep grabbing money before it's time to sell.
This brings up a good point, and that point is maybe we shouldn't have various businesses controlling what is seen by the populace. After dealing with Comcast for ten years and watching them slowly turn their commercials into glorified propaganda with obvious disinformation about AT&T and the various Dish-based companies, it's obvious that the last thing we need is a bunch of companies with an agenda that are controlling what people see and hear.
What needs to be done is to create a government-owned network for television. No more cable systems, no more paying for cable stations that also rely on ad revenue. Take down the Big Four Networks and finally give all those tiny cable channels free reign to air as well. The last thing any citizen of America should be doing is paying for channels and considering the danger involved with corporations like Comcast can do when they spread disinformation, I'd rather have the networks and everything be in the hands of people I can vote out of office instead of some monopoly who deals more in obfuscation than actually running an actual business.
And the FCC needs to go as well. They no longer have a real purpose since most of the censoring they do is on account of some 200 people who constantly call to bitch and whine to push their own agendas as well.
Nonsense.
The PS2 has a wide library of games that Sony is more than willing to forget to market their misguided and badly handled PS3. There are still a lot of cheap yet fun games coming out for the PS2 and they should go ahead and market it for as long as possible. $20 for a PS2 game is still one heck of a deal in my eyes, and if they get cheaper as the system is eventually phased out, the better. But to dump it outright? Come on, that's just spite over a badly handled rollout of its successor.
Well said. If anything, ISPs are doing this to excuse that some of them (starts with Com, ends with Cast) liked to buy up networks on the cheap and then try to mesh them together into a cohesive whole that sometimes works. They'd love legislation that gives them the right not to upgrade and instead operate under the illusion of being this fast service only if you don't use it. What a crock!
The only beautiful thing about this 'plan' of theirs is that people will eventually get smart to it and eventually leave. I know I did when they pulled that crap on me, and others will do the same as well.
I'd back this. Comcast was ditching people who used their connections to the fullest because of 'abuse' and now they're doing this? Chances are they're just being cheap with their products and are blaming their customers for that, knowing that since they're the 'only game in town' with their commercials that they could get away with it.
Even less reason to use them, in my opinion. If anything, this is shotty management coupled with pathetic workmanship on maintaining their network. I get the feeling that they're going to be sold in a few years since they can't manage to keep their customers happy. Also, why are they now outsourcing their helpdesk workers?
One thing I noticed when Comcast made me a DSL customer is that despite the boasting of speeds and such, my DSL in my rural town (6 mbps, but I usually see 5.3 mbps of that) seems much faster than Comcast in almost every regard. My cable was clear as a bell as well, so I'm not getting where DSL sucks on a general basis. So far AT&T has been good to me speed wise.
Honestly, this whole 'DSL CABLE!' thing seems a bit like Comcast propaganda at its best. That, or AT&T is trying to make headways in my area.;)
Rockstar was faced with an injustice because politicians are trying to use it as a gold standard for how 'bad' games are today. Nobody accusing Rockstar of 'corrupting youth' even believes that nonsense. Rockstar wants to make a game for adults to play that deals with adult themes. Various overbearing parents simply don't want to tell their children no, or want to explain why this game should not be played by them. Politicos want to make some big yet pointless issue to grandstand on. Nowhere in this spectrum is the voice of people who actually buy the games for themselves and enjoy them being heard. In fact, my right to play the type of games I want to play is being suppressed because of the potential harm that might befall some kid...who shouldn't be watching this game due to the rating and shouldn't have the money to play such a game.
The problem here is that Rockstar isn't even given a choice here. The AO Rating is a semi-legal way to stop retailers from carrying the game. They are being blackmailed into making a game that fits people who would not play it in the first place. This is wrong. And bringing children that should not even be playing the game into it is a cheap appeal to emotion. Using this system, Rockstar has no real way to win here, which is what various people with an axe to grind want, simply because a game they will never play upsets their ideas of reality. How that is considering right is far, far beyond any logic I have encountered.
I agree completely. I find it shocking that American society tells young people one thing, and then turns on them without hesitation under the pathetic guise of 'having to suffer.' The condescension in this assumption is so incredibly vile that it's no wonder a lot of younger people are giving up on the American Dream and basically working for less and spending less.
And exactly what is wrong with getting a better wage after college? Isn't that the selling point? I don't see how it's unrealistic to spend five to six figures for a degree and expect something better than normal. How is that unrealistic?
Agreed. Sony is trying to cover themselves after the PS3 debacle. I thought they were being foolish when they were dropping hardware backwards compatibility. Apparently now they're either waiting to see if they can add it in cheaply or see how everything goes. Right now, I'm guessing that if Blu-Ray doesn't take off, they'll simply go back and bring out a $300 PS2 Upgrade that can keep the backwards compatibility and move forward into Next Gen.
I'm glad that the PS2 will be around for about three more years. Maybe now we can get a few more classic PS2 games out of this...a San Andreas Stories release, maybe? Please, Rockstar??
This is probably the new way that work is going to defined in the United States. One of the main complaints in IT that I've found is the excess of hours for minimal pay that one gets. Eventually, nearly anything is going to be outsourced simply due to the lack of pay that one gets if one sticks wtih a company for any extended period of time. While it'll definitely affect the economy if all of us go into a self-employment situation--basically guaranteeing that we'll have a government-run health care system of some sort--it'll probably be better in the long run for the workers who get more control over their destiny as opposed to companies who'll have to end up paying a fair wage, unless they really want someone getting paid a tiny amount doing crappy work for a company they have no real vested interest in.
Well, I'm a fan of the free market approach to an extent, but what we have here with Comcast is definitely a monopoly. What we need is a government-built and supported network of which several providers can use to provide service. If we can have a serious competition going on through various vendors to both boost the network speeds/lower latency and cost, then we'll be set to go. But just as we shouldn't let the government have free reign, we should definitely not have companies having free reign. After all, that's how Comcast spread to be the ineffectual giant it is today: by buying up networks and then letting them rot purposely because they weren't in any danger of going out of business.
(by the way, love your site!)
Indeed. In fact, shouldn't there be another Hit and Run game? I remember having tons of fun with that but it was way too vehicle-based. If they could really do a GTA ripoff with it, then that would be the best game ever.
Damn straight. More competition is needed, and what we need is some real restructuring of our networks and some companies who can supply more speed and keep their hands off the content. And Comcast is too cheap and stupid to do either of those.
I say bring on the competition.
The only good news I see here is that I might be able to score a bigger hard drive for my 360 soon and not spend an obscene amount of money on it. Bring down the prices! I need some gigs for my demos!
Or rather, they don't want to make the mistake Sony made with the PS3 with the economy having trouble. Nobody who makes a realistic amount of money a year is going to blow $600 on a glorified media player/game system. $400 for a gaming system is a big purchase, but at least it's only a video game system which will be around for a few years. Nobody wants to spend the better part of a grand on the next Betamax player that happens to have a few non-exclusive games.
A download would work well, but I prefer to have something in my paws that I could justify spending the cash on. Now, if Rockstar could set up a patch to restore the gore in the disc and keep a record of that, then that would work wonderfully. Of course, this could be circumvented, but then it would be the parents' fault for not locking down the Xbox/PS3 properly.
Of course, this could also be rectified by making it available online to purchase via credit card, hence making the card holder liable (and hopefully cutting out most of the whining parents for game companies to raise their kids).
Bring on the dogs of war. I'd love to see how Comcast justifies kicking off 'heavy users.' That alone screams volumes, especially with the real lack of bandwidth caps that Comcast notes about and doesn't freely share.
I'm not normally a fan of lawyers, but I say bankrupt the company.
I get that feeling too. When you call them nowadays to report a problem or change service, their call center's automated system has no problem with directing you to comcast.net (which is odd if you have a major problem) or simply hanging up on you. To add insult to injury, they have been advertising for more workers in my state for their call centers. I'm guessing that due to crappy service and horrible pay, nobody is taking them up on their offer.
Comcast is circling the bowl. I wonder how long it'll take before they go bankrupt and hand over their operations to a decent provider. As it stands, AT&T DSL around here is a better bargain and without throttled connections.
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In my case, my lines in my hundred year old house were wonky for dialup but get good DSL connections (5.3 mbps on a 6mbps).
Bingo. They simply can't keep up. Eventually the entire network is going to be government owned. And honestly, I'd rather pay taxes to get the best internet service in the world rather than deal with some piss poor Pennsylvania company whose motto happens to be 'feel lucky that our overly expensive service happens to work today.'
Plus a lot of cable companies like Comcast built their networks on the cheap and mishmashed them together so keeping them updated would take money. As a result, they don't want to spend more than they have to so they simply start blaming a few convenient scapegoats and then buy some time so they can keep grabbing money before it's time to sell.
This brings up a good point, and that point is maybe we shouldn't have various businesses controlling what is seen by the populace. After dealing with Comcast for ten years and watching them slowly turn their commercials into glorified propaganda with obvious disinformation about AT&T and the various Dish-based companies, it's obvious that the last thing we need is a bunch of companies with an agenda that are controlling what people see and hear. What needs to be done is to create a government-owned network for television. No more cable systems, no more paying for cable stations that also rely on ad revenue. Take down the Big Four Networks and finally give all those tiny cable channels free reign to air as well. The last thing any citizen of America should be doing is paying for channels and considering the danger involved with corporations like Comcast can do when they spread disinformation, I'd rather have the networks and everything be in the hands of people I can vote out of office instead of some monopoly who deals more in obfuscation than actually running an actual business. And the FCC needs to go as well. They no longer have a real purpose since most of the censoring they do is on account of some 200 people who constantly call to bitch and whine to push their own agendas as well.
Nonsense. The PS2 has a wide library of games that Sony is more than willing to forget to market their misguided and badly handled PS3. There are still a lot of cheap yet fun games coming out for the PS2 and they should go ahead and market it for as long as possible. $20 for a PS2 game is still one heck of a deal in my eyes, and if they get cheaper as the system is eventually phased out, the better. But to dump it outright? Come on, that's just spite over a badly handled rollout of its successor.
Agreed. I'm typing this from a business Optiplex right now and despite some use-related issues, they've been good as gold.
Well said. If anything, ISPs are doing this to excuse that some of them (starts with Com, ends with Cast) liked to buy up networks on the cheap and then try to mesh them together into a cohesive whole that sometimes works. They'd love legislation that gives them the right not to upgrade and instead operate under the illusion of being this fast service only if you don't use it. What a crock! The only beautiful thing about this 'plan' of theirs is that people will eventually get smart to it and eventually leave. I know I did when they pulled that crap on me, and others will do the same as well.
I'd back this. Comcast was ditching people who used their connections to the fullest because of 'abuse' and now they're doing this? Chances are they're just being cheap with their products and are blaming their customers for that, knowing that since they're the 'only game in town' with their commercials that they could get away with it. Even less reason to use them, in my opinion. If anything, this is shotty management coupled with pathetic workmanship on maintaining their network. I get the feeling that they're going to be sold in a few years since they can't manage to keep their customers happy. Also, why are they now outsourcing their helpdesk workers?
One thing I noticed when Comcast made me a DSL customer is that despite the boasting of speeds and such, my DSL in my rural town (6 mbps, but I usually see 5.3 mbps of that) seems much faster than Comcast in almost every regard. My cable was clear as a bell as well, so I'm not getting where DSL sucks on a general basis. So far AT&T has been good to me speed wise. Honestly, this whole 'DSL CABLE!' thing seems a bit like Comcast propaganda at its best. That, or AT&T is trying to make headways in my area. ;)
Rockstar was faced with an injustice because politicians are trying to use it as a gold standard for how 'bad' games are today. Nobody accusing Rockstar of 'corrupting youth' even believes that nonsense. Rockstar wants to make a game for adults to play that deals with adult themes. Various overbearing parents simply don't want to tell their children no, or want to explain why this game should not be played by them. Politicos want to make some big yet pointless issue to grandstand on. Nowhere in this spectrum is the voice of people who actually buy the games for themselves and enjoy them being heard. In fact, my right to play the type of games I want to play is being suppressed because of the potential harm that might befall some kid...who shouldn't be watching this game due to the rating and shouldn't have the money to play such a game. The problem here is that Rockstar isn't even given a choice here. The AO Rating is a semi-legal way to stop retailers from carrying the game. They are being blackmailed into making a game that fits people who would not play it in the first place. This is wrong. And bringing children that should not even be playing the game into it is a cheap appeal to emotion. Using this system, Rockstar has no real way to win here, which is what various people with an axe to grind want, simply because a game they will never play upsets their ideas of reality. How that is considering right is far, far beyond any logic I have encountered.
I agree completely. I find it shocking that American society tells young people one thing, and then turns on them without hesitation under the pathetic guise of 'having to suffer.' The condescension in this assumption is so incredibly vile that it's no wonder a lot of younger people are giving up on the American Dream and basically working for less and spending less. And exactly what is wrong with getting a better wage after college? Isn't that the selling point? I don't see how it's unrealistic to spend five to six figures for a degree and expect something better than normal. How is that unrealistic?
Agreed. Sony is trying to cover themselves after the PS3 debacle. I thought they were being foolish when they were dropping hardware backwards compatibility. Apparently now they're either waiting to see if they can add it in cheaply or see how everything goes. Right now, I'm guessing that if Blu-Ray doesn't take off, they'll simply go back and bring out a $300 PS2 Upgrade that can keep the backwards compatibility and move forward into Next Gen. I'm glad that the PS2 will be around for about three more years. Maybe now we can get a few more classic PS2 games out of this...a San Andreas Stories release, maybe? Please, Rockstar??
Exactly. I'm getting tired of these welfare stereotypes. What's next, more 'low to middle income families' getting several welfare checks per day?
He can have a rating scale of 'how much this ticks my dad off.'
This is probably the new way that work is going to defined in the United States. One of the main complaints in IT that I've found is the excess of hours for minimal pay that one gets. Eventually, nearly anything is going to be outsourced simply due to the lack of pay that one gets if one sticks wtih a company for any extended period of time. While it'll definitely affect the economy if all of us go into a self-employment situation--basically guaranteeing that we'll have a government-run health care system of some sort--it'll probably be better in the long run for the workers who get more control over their destiny as opposed to companies who'll have to end up paying a fair wage, unless they really want someone getting paid a tiny amount doing crappy work for a company they have no real vested interest in.
Well, I'm a fan of the free market approach to an extent, but what we have here with Comcast is definitely a monopoly. What we need is a government-built and supported network of which several providers can use to provide service. If we can have a serious competition going on through various vendors to both boost the network speeds/lower latency and cost, then we'll be set to go. But just as we shouldn't let the government have free reign, we should definitely not have companies having free reign. After all, that's how Comcast spread to be the ineffectual giant it is today: by buying up networks and then letting them rot purposely because they weren't in any danger of going out of business. (by the way, love your site!)
Indeed. In fact, shouldn't there be another Hit and Run game? I remember having tons of fun with that but it was way too vehicle-based. If they could really do a GTA ripoff with it, then that would be the best game ever.
Damn straight. More competition is needed, and what we need is some real restructuring of our networks and some companies who can supply more speed and keep their hands off the content. And Comcast is too cheap and stupid to do either of those. I say bring on the competition.
The only good news I see here is that I might be able to score a bigger hard drive for my 360 soon and not spend an obscene amount of money on it. Bring down the prices! I need some gigs for my demos!
Or rather, they don't want to make the mistake Sony made with the PS3 with the economy having trouble. Nobody who makes a realistic amount of money a year is going to blow $600 on a glorified media player/game system. $400 for a gaming system is a big purchase, but at least it's only a video game system which will be around for a few years. Nobody wants to spend the better part of a grand on the next Betamax player that happens to have a few non-exclusive games.
A download would work well, but I prefer to have something in my paws that I could justify spending the cash on. Now, if Rockstar could set up a patch to restore the gore in the disc and keep a record of that, then that would work wonderfully. Of course, this could be circumvented, but then it would be the parents' fault for not locking down the Xbox/PS3 properly. Of course, this could also be rectified by making it available online to purchase via credit card, hence making the card holder liable (and hopefully cutting out most of the whining parents for game companies to raise their kids).
Bring on the dogs of war. I'd love to see how Comcast justifies kicking off 'heavy users.' That alone screams volumes, especially with the real lack of bandwidth caps that Comcast notes about and doesn't freely share. I'm not normally a fan of lawyers, but I say bankrupt the company.
I get that feeling too. When you call them nowadays to report a problem or change service, their call center's automated system has no problem with directing you to comcast.net (which is odd if you have a major problem) or simply hanging up on you. To add insult to injury, they have been advertising for more workers in my state for their call centers. I'm guessing that due to crappy service and horrible pay, nobody is taking them up on their offer. Comcast is circling the bowl. I wonder how long it'll take before they go bankrupt and hand over their operations to a decent provider. As it stands, AT&T DSL around here is a better bargain and without throttled connections.
Well, saying 'Sony is being a big baby about the exclusive content' might be a bit too bridge-burning...
I can see it now: "A-a-a-and instead of getting a Ferrari, I had to settle for a BEAMER! Oh, the humanity!"