This happened for Blizzcon tickets as well. The number of tickets are limited, and Blizzard sells the tickets for a reasonable price (far less than any other convention I've ever been to). The thousands of tickets typically sell out in 2-3 seconds, less than the amount of time it takes to click a drop-down menu. Then, a few minutes later, you'd see hundreds of the tickets on eBay for 10x the original purchase price.
They switched last year to a system where the original orderer and payer needs to show up in person, has to fill out a form to transfer tickets, and so forth. I'm not sure if that actually cut down on scalping or not.
I mean, what are the technical details of this? How would you scan and monitor and report on every parking space? That sounds like it would require a massive capital expenditure. They would rightly see it as a waste of money.
Now consider if this is a good use of police resources, in a city that can't scrape up the bum shit fast enough.
Given that faster turnover of parking spaces usually means more parking fees to city coffers, this may be one of the few issues that the police do care about.
You aren't selling the space. You are selling information that the spot will be available at a certain time.
But it won't be, or at least it's not guaranteed to be. What if someone shows up right before the person with the winning bid does? The 'winner' isn't entitled to the space, because the original parker didn't own the spot to begin with.
Clearly; the price for parking spaces is too low. Meters should charge much more at peak time.
And then local businesses will be up in arms because they'll lose customers who can't get parking or don't want to pay for it. And the city leaders will be accused of fostering a hostile business environment, some stores will move, etcetc..
Driveways are fine. You could get a lot of parking by requiring residents use their garages for car parking though rather than as a storage shed or work center or... anything not having to do with vehicle storage. Instead, residents clog the streets with street parking.
Let's say out of a $100 monthly cable bill, $25 goes to non-content costs, $50 goes to content, and $25 is profit. That suggests the minimum bill in an a la carte plan might be around $50, which would preserve the current profit level. Then the cable company can sell channels at cost plus and the new system would be more profitable than the current system even with a lower average bill.
"Preserving the current profit level" is not their highest goal. Would the average person watch more, less, or about the same amount of television if they could buy channels a la carte? Probably about the same. Are they paying $100/month for this? Yes they are. So why could the cable companies charge less than $100/month for the same content that consumers are paying that price for now?
Remember, you charge what someone is willing to pay, not what something costs. Things like "operating at a loss" aside.
Around here there are some parking lots with incredibly narrow spaces. Backing in for every other spot is really the only way for drivers of adjacent cars to have comfortable room to get out.
I don't know anyone with a DVR who channel surfs anymore. Myself, my husband, my parents, my friends -- none of us have channel surfed to see what's on in years. The only surfing we do now is the TV listing to see what we might want to record for later viewing.
Given the sheer amount of programs waiting on my DVR (that I probably won't be able to get to), why would I click up/down in hopes of stumbling across something interesting? I already have 100 hours of stuff I KNOW is interesting, that seems much more likely to be worthwhile.
Don't know about him, but for me my ISP is a local DSL company. They partnered with Direct TV, but I chose the cable company regardless. Cable company for cable, local DSL for Internet access.
The stupid shit is that if I want to stream HBO, I HAVE to have a cable subscription. Even if I don't have cable. Even if the bits being streamed don't go over Comcast's network at any point. In this day that just feels damned archaic.
Did you know most fraternity hazing is consensual? And harmless? It's just a few bad actors who require you drink, say, gallons of water or something truly hazardous.
"Hazing," as a term is too generic and vague to be useful.
The then-government of Saudi Arabia supported their favorite in-country
FTFY.
Both were accurate. The terrorists were heavily funded by Saudis, but the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan gave Bin Laden direct aid and shelter after the Sep 11th attacks.
it's not a child. If we could ask that question, then it wouldn't be a discussion.
A two-month baby couldn't answer that question either. Does that mean it would be fine to kill it should it become inconvenient? If not, then where is the line drawn, and why, morally, should it be drawn there? That's why the pro/anti-abortion sides will never be able to, because neither side will agree on where that line gets drawn.
It isn't complex at all. A woman should be able to have an abortion is she want s to and YOU should not be able to shove your belief down their throats. Simple.
Part of the law comes down to the notion that it protects the weak from the strong, or punishes the strong if they attack the weak. So perhaps it should not 'just' be the mother's choice whether she wants to harm another. I believe society in general has a stake in deciding whether mothers can kill their children. There's a lot more involved than just her personal choice or her body. Right now the laws are somewhat inconsistent. After all, if a fetus is not a living organism worthy of protection, then why should there be laws punishing a guy extra for hitting a pregnant woman? Why punish a mother for drinking and smoking during pregnancy? What would you be trying to protect that isn't worthy of the protection that eliminating abortion would provide?
Myself, I haven't actually decided, so I'm doing a bit of devil's advocating here. It's an issue entirely full of grey area. The only point where I'm clear is if a pregnancy resulted from a non-consensual act, otherwise I'm eternally unsure.
I blame those who give the orders and those who carry out the orders. And I especially despise the wimps in our Chair Force for risking nothing more than a fender bender in doing their evil deeds.
When you go after someone to kill them, you go after them to kill them. You don't go to give them a "fighting chance" or die with honor or to see the person who is going to blow them up. They are to die, period.
You are seriously suggesting we put aircraft pilots in harm's way to deliver a missile personally? Isn't that a bit irresponsible?
There are things that states can be allowed to do that the federal government is not. You can be opposed to federal control and in favor of state health care systems and not be a hypocrite.
The regional pawn shop chain in my area has a 2 DVDs for $2 on Tuesday special
Yeah, but often you get what you pay for. I used to buy a lot of previously-viewed DVDs, but got sick of finding out halfway through watching that the scratched on the DVD made it unwatchable on my equipment. It stuns me how careless people get with those things.
I have looked at Elephants dream [elephantsdream.org] and Big Buck Bunny [bigbuckbunny.org] in different formats. When I played them next to each other, I could notice a differnce between 1080 and the rest. However when running in random mode fullscreen, it was extremely hard to know if I was running 480, 720 or 1080. 480 was noticable when I realy payed attention. 720 and 1080 was more guessing then reality.
But quality isn't just the resolution, it's the bitrate and compression algorithm as well. A higher-bitrate 720p stream can look far better than a poorly-compressed 1080p stream. Blu-Rays look fantastic on the big screen, but I can't say the same for even high-quality streams.
Slashdot Mirror
Typical ticket scalping!
This happened for Blizzcon tickets as well. The number of tickets are limited, and Blizzard sells the tickets for a reasonable price (far less than any other convention I've ever been to). The thousands of tickets typically sell out in 2-3 seconds, less than the amount of time it takes to click a drop-down menu. Then, a few minutes later, you'd see hundreds of the tickets on eBay for 10x the original purchase price.
They switched last year to a system where the original orderer and payer needs to show up in person, has to fill out a form to transfer tickets, and so forth. I'm not sure if that actually cut down on scalping or not.
How?
I mean, what are the technical details of this? How would you scan and monitor and report on every parking space? That sounds like it would require a massive capital expenditure. They would rightly see it as a waste of money.
Now consider if this is a good use of police resources, in a city that can't scrape up the bum shit fast enough.
Given that faster turnover of parking spaces usually means more parking fees to city coffers, this may be one of the few issues that the police do care about.
You aren't selling the space. You are selling information that the spot will be available at a certain time.
But it won't be, or at least it's not guaranteed to be. What if someone shows up right before the person with the winning bid does? The 'winner' isn't entitled to the space, because the original parker didn't own the spot to begin with.
Clearly; the price for parking spaces is too low. Meters should charge much more at peak time.
And then local businesses will be up in arms because they'll lose customers who can't get parking or don't want to pay for it.
And the city leaders will be accused of fostering a hostile business environment, some stores will move, etcetc..
Driveways are fine. You could get a lot of parking by requiring residents use their garages for car parking though rather than as a storage shed or work center or... anything not having to do with vehicle storage. Instead, residents clog the streets with street parking.
Let's say out of a $100 monthly cable bill, $25 goes to non-content costs, $50 goes to content, and $25 is profit. That suggests the minimum bill in an a la carte plan might be around $50, which would preserve the current profit level. Then the cable company can sell channels at cost plus and the new system would be more profitable than the current system even with a lower average bill.
"Preserving the current profit level" is not their highest goal. Would the average person watch more, less, or about the same amount of television if they could buy channels a la carte? Probably about the same. Are they paying $100/month for this? Yes they are. So why could the cable companies charge less than $100/month for the same content that consumers are paying that price for now?
Remember, you charge what someone is willing to pay, not what something costs. Things like "operating at a loss" aside.
Around here there are some parking lots with incredibly narrow spaces. Backing in for every other spot is really the only way for drivers of adjacent cars to have comfortable room to get out.
You watch a lot of Discovery Networks, without the flagship Discovery Channel...
I can't think of anything on Discovery worth watching outside of Mythbusters. :-(
- Local affiliate for Revolution TV show
I don't know what that is, is this something you should be getting free over the airwaves?
It's an ok show, 9pm Wednesdays on NBC. NBC itself should be free over the air, and you can also watch that particular show on Hulu for free.
News flash! Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own a Television.
I don't know anyone with a DVR who channel surfs anymore. Myself, my husband, my parents, my friends -- none of us have channel surfed to see what's on in years. The only surfing we do now is the TV listing to see what we might want to record for later viewing.
Given the sheer amount of programs waiting on my DVR (that I probably won't be able to get to), why would I click up/down in hopes of stumbling across something interesting? I already have 100 hours of stuff I KNOW is interesting, that seems much more likely to be worthwhile.
Perhaps you should sit back, re-evaluate your life, and perhaps realize that trolling is not the best use of your time.
Don't know about him, but for me my ISP is a local DSL company. They partnered with Direct TV, but I chose the cable company regardless. Cable company for cable, local DSL for Internet access.
The stupid shit is that if I want to stream HBO, I HAVE to have a cable subscription. Even if I don't have cable. Even if the bits being streamed don't go over Comcast's network at any point. In this day that just feels damned archaic.
Did you know most fraternity hazing is consensual? And harmless? It's just a few bad actors who require you drink, say, gallons of water or something truly hazardous.
"Hazing," as a term is too generic and vague to be useful.
The then-government of Saudi Arabia supported their favorite in-country
FTFY.
Both were accurate. The terrorists were heavily funded by Saudis, but the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan gave Bin Laden direct aid and shelter after the Sep 11th attacks.
You cannot understand a political ideal if you only approach it from a negative direction
I wish I had mod points for this (and hadn't already commented, naturally).
it's not a child. If we could ask that question, then it wouldn't be a discussion.
A two-month baby couldn't answer that question either. Does that mean it would be fine to kill it should it become inconvenient? If not, then where is the line drawn, and why, morally, should it be drawn there? That's why the pro/anti-abortion sides will never be able to, because neither side will agree on where that line gets drawn.
It isn't complex at all. A woman should be able to have an abortion is she want s to and YOU should not be able to shove your belief down their throats. Simple.
Part of the law comes down to the notion that it protects the weak from the strong, or punishes the strong if they attack the weak. So perhaps it should not 'just' be the mother's choice whether she wants to harm another. I believe society in general has a stake in deciding whether mothers can kill their children. There's a lot more involved than just her personal choice or her body. Right now the laws are somewhat inconsistent. After all, if a fetus is not a living organism worthy of protection, then why should there be laws punishing a guy extra for hitting a pregnant woman? Why punish a mother for drinking and smoking during pregnancy? What would you be trying to protect that isn't worthy of the protection that eliminating abortion would provide?
Myself, I haven't actually decided, so I'm doing a bit of devil's advocating here. It's an issue entirely full of grey area. The only point where I'm clear is if a pregnancy resulted from a non-consensual act, otherwise I'm eternally unsure.
It is NOT what the people want. It is what will sell to the largest voting block
True, it panders to the only people who matter -- the people who vote.
I blame those who give the orders and those who carry out the orders. And I especially despise the wimps in our Chair Force for risking nothing more than a fender bender in doing their evil deeds.
When you go after someone to kill them, you go after them to kill them. You don't go to give them a "fighting chance" or die with honor or to see the person who is going to blow them up. They are to die, period.
You are seriously suggesting we put aircraft pilots in harm's way to deliver a missile personally? Isn't that a bit irresponsible?
Oh, you mean those videos with laughably large cocks and not a single non-augmented breast?
Mmmmm, aww yeah, that's the good stuff.
There are things that states can be allowed to do that the federal government is not.
You can be opposed to federal control and in favor of state health care systems and not be a hypocrite.
Best way ever to acquire movies on DVD.
ehhh....
The regional pawn shop chain in my area has a 2 DVDs for $2 on Tuesday special
Yeah, but often you get what you pay for. I used to buy a lot of previously-viewed DVDs, but got sick of finding out halfway through watching that the scratched on the DVD made it unwatchable on my equipment. It stuns me how careless people get with those things.
I have looked at Elephants dream [elephantsdream.org] and Big Buck Bunny [bigbuckbunny.org] in different formats. When I played them next to each other, I could notice a differnce between 1080 and the rest. However when running in random mode fullscreen, it was extremely hard to know if I was running 480, 720 or 1080. 480 was noticable when I realy payed attention. 720 and 1080 was more guessing then reality.
But quality isn't just the resolution, it's the bitrate and compression algorithm as well. A higher-bitrate 720p stream can look far better than a poorly-compressed 1080p stream. Blu-Rays look fantastic on the big screen, but I can't say the same for even high-quality streams.
What gives here - downloadable media most certainly does not have DRM, my torrent client says otherwise!
That's nice, but that's not what anyone else refers to by "streaming."
But I can see myself torrenting FAR more in the future than I do now.
Your good-quality torrents came from Blu-Rays.