Not to mention that if the boxes are anything like the sattelite boxes, the little smartcard in the box determines what channels you can access (hence the drama with the sattelite smartcards). Now, if you had full control over the box's hardware, how difficult could it be to rig something up that grabs any channel you want it to?
Obviously you haven't used a 2.4GHz phone near a wireless router. Interference happens even with very modern devices, and these planes are from decades ago...
Exactly. The people who sign up for the list are likely the same people who don't answer the phone when they see "Out Of Area" on their caller ID, or hang up after they hear the little pause after answering the phone.
The telemarketing companies should be THANKFUL, because this cuts down on their costs a LOT - They need substantially less people to place outgoing calls (less money going towards wages), they make less calls (less money spent on bills), and their successful call rates should go up quite a bit (increased efficiency).
Telemarketers aren't typically the most logical people, though, so they see the numbers all as lost sales.
It makes NO sense. Honestly, should Joe Average have to try and figure out how to download a browser and media player? Especially without a browser there in the first place to go look for what they want? What if they don't have internet access? How are they going to get programs to play any media then?
Bundling these products is GOOD FOR THE CONSUMER. People who know how and want something else can go out and download other browsers or media players. People who don't have the knowledge to do that can use the ones pre-installed. Why is this such a problem?
The answer is NOT to bundle someone ELSE'S software with Windows. Sure, some people might like it, but why should one company be forced to promote someone else's product? Would it be fair to make McDonald's sell Burger King's food just because they're the most successful and it's "unfair" to BK? How would you feel if (insert Linux distribution here) became the #1 OS and they were forced to bundle IE with it to be fair to Microsoft? Sure, you could say "I could just install something else...", but that's exactly what you can do now!
This shouldn't be a problem. People always have a choice. They can always go out and get what they want. If they're not knowledgeable enough to do that, then they're not knowledgeable enough to go get something in the first place, hence the bundling.
Not everyone has Konq or whatever other browser lets you block the cookies that you don't want and accept others. Not eveyone wants to download a third party application to do that either.
Errr, nearly everyone has IE, which lets you do that exact same thing. You can set it to block cookies, then when they're blocked, a little icon appears in the lower right. Double clicking on the icon will let you set which blocked cookies you want to allow.
... because god knows plot can't exist in a game with good graphics!
This argument is horrible. Go back and play some of those "great" games that you remember from back then and you'll see how shallow the plots actually are. I recently went back and played FF3(6) again, and I couldn't even finish it - It just couldn't grab my attention anymore. Now compare it to something like Suikoden 3 which has an incredibly engrossing storyline told in a great manner.
Companies are putting a LOT more emphasis on plot nowadays (heh, in fact, Squaresoft is basically putting ALL the emphasis on plot! (see FFX)). The reason we think they're not is that we're becoming older and we need a LOT more to keep our attention. When I was 14 and playing FF3, it completely overwhelmed me, but now it can't keep my interest at all.
It won't work, and for the same reason that people don't switch over from IE. Outlook/IE is the default. It's what came with their computer and they're just too lazy/actually like it/uninformed/used to it to change over.
Even if it is significantly better, it's not likely to gain much of a hold.
$630, not including monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and this system will run basically anything you throw at it. (I have basically the exact same system, with PC133 instead of the DDR RAM, and I can run any game I've run across in 1600X1200 full detail)
I forgot to mention that, according to this person, you should compress all files on your C drive (smaller files run faster)
I've been curious about this for a while with the on-the-fly compression that NTFS has. Since disk access is so damn slow, and processor speeds are blazingly fast nowadays, is it possible that by decreasing the file size, you could actually be increasing performance?
Since it only has to load a certain percentage of the initial file size, then very quickly decompress it into memory, it seems logical, but something about it just doesn't seem right... Obviously it wouldn't work well with some files (already compressed files, etc), but what about files that you get a 50% reduction out of?
Speaking of potential mishaps, here's a phrase that apparently the airlines simply made up: near miss. They say that if two planes almost collide it's a near miss. Bullshit, my friend. It's a near hit! A collision is a near miss.
[WHAM! CRUNCH!]
"Look, they nearly missed!"
"Yes, but not quite."
You joke, but it's oh so true. This room used to be FREEZING during the wintertime, but ever since I got my nice new computer, it's been toasty in here.
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Not to mention that if the boxes are anything like the sattelite boxes, the little smartcard in the box determines what channels you can access (hence the drama with the sattelite smartcards). Now, if you had full control over the box's hardware, how difficult could it be to rig something up that grabs any channel you want it to?
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Obviously you haven't used a 2.4GHz phone near a wireless router. Interference happens even with very modern devices, and these planes are from decades ago...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Not to mention the minor little detail that you don't have to die to get 'em.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Exactly! The potential revenue earned by those few buyers would be offset greatly by the increases in efficiency elsewhere.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Exactly. The people who sign up for the list are likely the same people who don't answer the phone when they see "Out Of Area" on their caller ID, or hang up after they hear the little pause after answering the phone.
The telemarketing companies should be THANKFUL, because this cuts down on their costs a LOT - They need substantially less people to place outgoing calls (less money going towards wages), they make less calls (less money spent on bills), and their successful call rates should go up quite a bit (increased efficiency).
Telemarketers aren't typically the most logical people, though, so they see the numbers all as lost sales.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Yes, because no matter how ridiculous the lawsuit is, if it's against someone you don't like, it's perfectly fine!
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Yes, because for them to know that you have the MP3s, you have to be sharing them, which is the illegal part.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's a well known fact that "shipped" != "bought"
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Lik-Sang sells them for around $30, I believe.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
The difference is I can remove Konqueror and replace it with Mozilla or replace the various KDE-installed media players with xine or mplayer...
... and in Windows you can install Firebird and Sasami2k. What's the difference?
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Hey! A voice of reason!
It makes NO sense. Honestly, should Joe Average have to try and figure out how to download a browser and media player? Especially without a browser there in the first place to go look for what they want? What if they don't have internet access? How are they going to get programs to play any media then?
Bundling these products is GOOD FOR THE CONSUMER. People who know how and want something else can go out and download other browsers or media players. People who don't have the knowledge to do that can use the ones pre-installed. Why is this such a problem?
The answer is NOT to bundle someone ELSE'S software with Windows. Sure, some people might like it, but why should one company be forced to promote someone else's product? Would it be fair to make McDonald's sell Burger King's food just because they're the most successful and it's "unfair" to BK? How would you feel if (insert Linux distribution here) became the #1 OS and they were forced to bundle IE with it to be fair to Microsoft? Sure, you could say "I could just install something else...", but that's exactly what you can do now!
This shouldn't be a problem. People always have a choice. They can always go out and get what they want. If they're not knowledgeable enough to do that, then they're not knowledgeable enough to go get something in the first place, hence the bundling.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Not everyone has Konq or whatever other browser lets you block the cookies that you don't want and accept others. Not eveyone wants to download a third party application to do that either.
Errr, nearly everyone has IE, which lets you do that exact same thing. You can set it to block cookies, then when they're blocked, a little icon appears in the lower right. Double clicking on the icon will let you set which blocked cookies you want to allow.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Maybe they'll actually have to fill the albums with good songs now, instead of two good ones and a bunch of filler.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
1) They're trying to scare people, cause they can't really do shit to detect maphack actually
Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Detecting it can be as simple as scanning the process list for d2maphack.exe.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
... because god knows plot can't exist in a game with good graphics!
This argument is horrible. Go back and play some of those "great" games that you remember from back then and you'll see how shallow the plots actually are. I recently went back and played FF3(6) again, and I couldn't even finish it - It just couldn't grab my attention anymore. Now compare it to something like Suikoden 3 which has an incredibly engrossing storyline told in a great manner.
Companies are putting a LOT more emphasis on plot nowadays (heh, in fact, Squaresoft is basically putting ALL the emphasis on plot! (see FFX)). The reason we think they're not is that we're becoming older and we need a LOT more to keep our attention. When I was 14 and playing FF3, it completely overwhelmed me, but now it can't keep my interest at all.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I saw a cop on one on Santa Monica Blvd.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I've had a Yahoo accound for years that I never use to sign up for anything, and I haven't gotten ONE spam mail yet.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I remember when I was a kid and saw an ad for a 540MB hard drive and thought to myself, "How on earth would it be possible to fill that up?".
Now I have single files that are larger than that.
Imagine a nice 3200x2400 lossless-compression movie. Or being able to store all your MP3s in lossless-compression audio.
By 2010, 1.5TB isn't going to seem nearly as large as it does now.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It won't work, and for the same reason that people don't switch over from IE. Outlook/IE is the default. It's what came with their computer and they're just too lazy/actually like it/uninformed/used to it to change over.
Even if it is significantly better, it's not likely to gain much of a hold.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Buh? What on EARTH are you talking about? NWN Will run INCREDIBLY on a $1000 PC. It's been a while since you priced components, hm?
ECS K7S5A Motherboard - ~$50
Athlon XP 1800+ - ~$80
GeForce 4 TI4200 - ~$150
512MB (quality) DDR RAM - ~$150
HD - ~$100
CD-ROM - ~$20
Case - ~$50
Speakers - ~$30
$630, not including monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and this system will run basically anything you throw at it. (I have basically the exact same system, with PC133 instead of the DDR RAM, and I can run any game I've run across in 1600X1200 full detail)
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I forgot to mention that, according to this person, you should compress all files on your C drive (smaller files run faster)
I've been curious about this for a while with the on-the-fly compression that NTFS has. Since disk access is so damn slow, and processor speeds are blazingly fast nowadays, is it possible that by decreasing the file size, you could actually be increasing performance?
Since it only has to load a certain percentage of the initial file size, then very quickly decompress it into memory, it seems logical, but something about it just doesn't seem right... Obviously it wouldn't work well with some files (already compressed files, etc), but what about files that you get a 50% reduction out of?
-- Dr. Eldarion --
No, you can't put the blame on Linux, but you can still chalk it up as another reason Linux would suck as a desktop machine for an average user.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
(although "near hits" would be more accurate)
Gotta love George Carlin:
Speaking of potential mishaps, here's a phrase that apparently the airlines simply made up: near miss. They say that if two planes almost collide it's a near miss. Bullshit, my friend. It's a near hit! A collision is a near miss.
[WHAM! CRUNCH!]
"Look, they nearly missed!"
"Yes, but not quite."
-- Dr. Eldarion --
You joke, but it's oh so true. This room used to be FREEZING during the wintertime, but ever since I got my nice new computer, it's been toasty in here.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
(Obligatory reply saying parent is generalizing and how not everybody on Slashdot has the same viewpoints)
-- Dr. Eldarion --