I haven't read this new proposal, and don't doubt that it has NEW features/capabilities.
But it has been UNTRUE that you are "required" to get a cable company's box, for around a decade now at least. (I used "cable ready" devices before that, and yes, had all analog equipment. At one point, I could even get HBO through my cable company with no box, but that was long long ago.)
You can get a cable card, and use it in whatever box you have. For example, Tivos, and there have been cable card tuners for PCs for a long time now.
Well, like I said, at least on a Tivo, you CAN turn off the feature. Demand better features/usability by buying products that do what you want. (i.e. don't just put up with the crappy cable box..)
But I repeat myself -- I'm still kind of amazed you're actually watching the SB at a party, and not hitting the remote at all for 2 hours?.....and to prevent channel changes, obviously RECORD the program, even if you're watching it caught up to live.
Even older Tivos, which admittedly didn't save much power, at LEAST would turn off the video outputs (AND avoid any EAS alerts which can ruin your recordings -- unfortunately this is required by Cable Labs).
Current Tivos DO save energy, if you have that pref turned on.. they power down the drives (and turn off the video outputs).. and of course they wake up properly for your scheduled recordings.
Plus, over the long term, you'll likely save money. (No, I don't work there, and I have a bunch to complain about Tivos too.. But they're far far far "less bad" than the alternatives.)
You may think CableCards "failed" (past tense), but they're working as well as they have in anything in Tivos. (I'm not claiming the error messages that Cable Cards put out aren't somewhat obtuse.. but that's generally fixed ONCE by calling your cable company and getting the cable card authorized for that device.)
Every time I've used a cable DVR, they're horrible. There are PLENTY of things I personally wish Tivos would do that they don't, but they're still orders and orders of magnitude better than anything else. (Before >2 tuner Tivos came out many years ago, I briefly thought of using some Windows Media Center box with cablecard tuners... but nowadays WMC is obsoleted.)
Also, there can't be any traffic on the road because vehicles will block the sunlight, greatly reducing the amount of electricity generated.
While there are many reasonable (possible?) complaints about this, this doesn't seem like it's necessarily a valid one.
Unless your road has bumper to bumper traffic the whole time the sun is out, I suspect a HUGE percentage of the road is uncovered and would have sunlight hitting it.
Plus, if this is on top of the existing road and really is strong, I wonder how long it would last. I'm always curious about potholes. Could you spent 10X as much for the roadway but have it last 20X as long?
It's $795 for all of the various sign fonts in the family, and that's assuming you have a single computer where they create signs. If your state has between 86 and 90 computers that can do that, then it's over $10,000. That's obviously not a ton of money when you're talking about government, but it still adds up.
Can you give a citation? The summary only directly quotes the article
Jurisdictions that adopt Clearview must purchase a standard license for type, a one-time charge of between $175 (for one font) and $795 (for the full 13-font typeface family) and up, depending on the number of workstations.
It does say "depending on the number of workstations", but it does NOT say "$795 per workstation".
This is the same reason why games are region locked with slightly varying content between regions.
Do you mean consoles? I thought that the current generation (I'm counting PS4, Xbox One, Wii U) weren't _all_ region locked. I'm actually not sure if any of them are. I thought the Wii U _wasn't_, I'm less sure of the others.
And then it became greedy bastards like Wizards of the Coast who tried to decree like they'd invented the whole damned thing in a vacuum, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Huh? They bought TSR in 1997 [cite wikipedia], long after D&D had been popular.
So why should it be my responsibility that they're not "so disciplined"? (I started investing in my 401k from my very first contract in my early 20s.)
Go compare the average life expectancy to the age that Social Security started at. It was intended for VERY VERY VERY elderly people. I think many of us would be less against it if you GREATLY increased the age requirement (which also could reduce the tax taken out -- but really, let me opt out).
The issue has never been about GMO itself, its been about how GMO is used.
That's only your opinion.
Lots of people want ALL GMOs labelled. Why would they want them labelled if the only problem was "how GMO is used"? They want GMOs labelled due to (alleged) health concerns, with no scientific basis.
I try to avoid consuming anything related to GMO's
You do realize that if you eat anything with corn in it (which is a LOT of stuff), you likely are eating GMOs, right?
crops exposed to gylphosate (Patented in 1960's as a descaling agent for steam boilers)
non-sequitur. What does the patent of something have to do with anything? (I can answer my own question: You're trying to scare people by correlating "really strong/powerful cleanser" with "unhealthy" with absolutely no scientific basis.)
Do you know you're ingesting chlorine atoms daily!?!? and they're absolutely required for your survival?
So it doesn't run all night and day when you're asleep or gone, wasting your money (and energy)?
BTW, yes, I admit _I_ am running mine that way.. I manually am turning it on and off of heat mode. But even that minor inconvenience is one of those things I'll probably crack the manual of the thermostat to fix..
I cut our cable about a year ago with the price reached $100 a month. We watched about 4 or 5 of the 100 or so channels. Never looked back. Haven't seen a commercial since.
OK, I can't honestly say I *haven't* seen a commercial.. But cutting the cord has absolutely nothing to do with not seeing commercials. It's been easy to avoid commercials with DVRs for >15 years, and with VCRs for easily a decade before that.
(...and nowadays, DISH has some automatic commercial skipping, and Tivo has a newly released, but I think it's currently still being rolled out--I have it--, commercial-skipping feature for a specific set of shows/channels.. I get it on a LOT of shows. You have to hit a key on the remote at the beginning of the commercial break, but that's still better than 30 second skipping through it. I've only seen it mess up seriously ONCE (jump way into the program).)
I'd gladly pay for a DVR-less On Demand-like system, if it were commercial free. Heck, I'd pay MORE than regular cable for the commercial free version. Yes, I know about Hulu's recent commercial free option, but the # of back episodes apparently varies and you don't know when a show is going to expire. I accept/understand that licensing deals change, so I'd hopefully be able to (optionally) sort a specific series/season BY EXPIRATION, so I would make sure to watch that one before it expires. I'd also like something I admit relatively few probably would want, is play-faster-than-realtime. I've done it with podcasts as long as it's been there, and used to do it with an external hard drive/dvd recorder. Tivo finally added QuickMode, which is only 30% faster, but still useful for talk shows & news shows. (I watch other things in VLC on my iPad at close to 2x.. game shows, etc.)
I would expect something as simple as a thermostat to be "not complex" in the first place.
Not complex _user interface wise_, or not complex _functionality wise_?
If you mean the latter, then just get a regular ancient thermostat that just has on/off/heat controls.
I don't have a Nest, I think they're way too expensive PLUS I don't walk past it often enough to make it any 'smarter'. Having a nicer UI than the barebones electronic thermostat (but not for $250) would be good. Even something with a reasonable UI to set on/off/temp times. It seems about as complex (in a bad way) as sprinkler timers. Thankfully, the drought has solved that issue for me (stopped watering lawn). I realize the software is more complex, but even when these devices have like 3 buttons and a tiny alphanumeric display with relatively few places, it seems like someone could make a somewhat better UI than "turn the dial really quickly" which seems to be a common paradigm on sprinkler controllers.
So I disagree with you about the "not complex" issue, but they obviously SHOULD test it more and make it more fault tolerant.
Example being that a lot of people thought Betamax was far superior to VHS, but in the end, VHS won.
You have to be more specific. People thought Betamax was far superior in picture quality to VHS.
But picture quality wasn't the only important issue. The oft cited examples given for VHS's dominance are initial longer recording time and availability of porn.
As for the former, that's still an issue nowadays. Even with a huge drive in my Tivo, I still record _some_ things in SD (mostly nowadays non-prime time shows, I have finally moved most of them to HD recordings)... just to be able to record more stuff (and yes, I *have* gone back and watched years old stuff and caught up).
And for every one child shooting themselves or a neighbors child there are dozens of cases where a gun in the house saved a child's life. If I was at my home system I could give you links to several reports to back that up, if you want links just google "homeowner defends with gun"
Umm, that google result would in no way back up the one -> dozens assertion you are making. It would result in *SINGLE* instances of defenses happening.
I don't think anyone is blaming Webkit for anything.
This subthread is: http://news.slashdot.org/comme... Yes, I know they said Safari specifically, but what they really were meaning to blame was WebKit...
I haven't gotten a subscription, but you *do* get free full games (that work as long as your subscription lasts) every month. Usually one or more of the highest caliber games. (So yes, you might already own them.)
Sony has been doing it for several years, and even though Microsoft had the more "required" subscription (even to use things like Netflix until the past year or two), MS only started the free game thing in earnest within the past year, IIRC.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't read this new proposal, and don't doubt that it has NEW features/capabilities.
But it has been UNTRUE that you are "required" to get a cable company's box, for around a decade now at least. (I used "cable ready" devices before that, and yes, had all analog equipment. At one point, I could even get HBO through my cable company with no box, but that was long long ago.)
You can get a cable card, and use it in whatever box you have. For example, Tivos, and there have been cable card tuners for PCs for a long time now.
Well, like I said, at least on a Tivo, you CAN turn off the feature. Demand better features/usability by buying products that do what you want. (i.e. don't just put up with the crappy cable box..)
But I repeat myself -- I'm still kind of amazed you're actually watching the SB at a party, and not hitting the remote at all for 2 hours?.. ...and to prevent channel changes, obviously RECORD the program, even if you're watching it caught up to live.
Then get a better "cable box".
Even older Tivos, which admittedly didn't save much power, at LEAST would turn off the video outputs (AND avoid any EAS alerts which can ruin your recordings -- unfortunately this is required by Cable Labs).
Current Tivos DO save energy, if you have that pref turned on.. they power down the drives (and turn off the video outputs).. and of course they wake up properly for your scheduled recordings.
Plus, over the long term, you'll likely save money.
(No, I don't work there, and I have a bunch to complain about Tivos too.. But they're far far far "less bad" than the alternatives.)
Wow, you must not have seen any horrible GUI implementations!
That's a "reasonable" one, IMHO.. I'll be FFing or at least pausing much more frequently than that.. or asleep, when I want it to turn off by itself.
Umm, that's not rolling back. It's a tradeoff.
You may think CableCards "failed" (past tense), but they're working as well as they have in anything in Tivos. (I'm not claiming the error messages that Cable Cards put out aren't somewhat obtuse.. but that's generally fixed ONCE by calling your cable company and getting the cable card authorized for that device.)
Every time I've used a cable DVR, they're horrible. There are PLENTY of things I personally wish Tivos would do that they don't, but they're still orders and orders of magnitude better than anything else. (Before >2 tuner Tivos came out many years ago, I briefly thought of using some Windows Media Center box with cablecard tuners... but nowadays WMC is obsoleted .)
While there are many reasonable (possible?) complaints about this, this doesn't seem like it's necessarily a valid one.
Unless your road has bumper to bumper traffic the whole time the sun is out, I suspect a HUGE percentage of the road is uncovered and would have sunlight hitting it.
Plus, if this is on top of the existing road and really is strong, I wonder how long it would last. I'm always curious about potholes. Could you spent 10X as much for the roadway but have it last 20X as long?
Can you give a citation? The summary only directly quotes the article
It does say "depending on the number of workstations", but it does NOT say "$795 per workstation".
It separates from sodium in your body, AFAIK.
Yes, I was making a stupid "logic" leap, just like the people who spout on about "chemicals" being by definition bad.
Do you mean consoles? I thought that the current generation (I'm counting PS4, Xbox One, Wii U) weren't _all_ region locked. I'm actually not sure if any of them are. I thought the Wii U _wasn't_, I'm less sure of the others.
Huh? They bought TSR in 1997 [cite wikipedia], long after D&D had been popular.
So why should it be my responsibility that they're not "so disciplined"? (I started investing in my 401k from my very first contract in my early 20s.)
Go compare the average life expectancy to the age that Social Security started at. It was intended for VERY VERY VERY elderly people. I think many of us would be less against it if you GREATLY increased the age requirement (which also could reduce the tax taken out -- but really, let me opt out).
That's only your opinion.
Lots of people want ALL GMOs labelled. Why would they want them labelled if the only problem was "how GMO is used"? They want GMOs labelled due to (alleged) health concerns, with no scientific basis.
You do realize that if you eat anything with corn in it (which is a LOT of stuff), you likely are eating GMOs, right?
non-sequitur. What does the patent of something have to do with anything? (I can answer my own question: You're trying to scare people by correlating "really strong/powerful cleanser" with "unhealthy" with absolutely no scientific basis.)
Do you know you're ingesting chlorine atoms daily!?!? and they're absolutely required for your survival?
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic...
So it doesn't run all night and day when you're asleep or gone, wasting your money (and energy)?
BTW, yes, I admit _I_ am running mine that way.. I manually am turning it on and off of heat mode. But even that minor inconvenience is one of those things I'll probably crack the manual of the thermostat to fix..
OK, I can't honestly say I *haven't* seen a commercial.. But cutting the cord has absolutely nothing to do with not seeing commercials. It's been easy to avoid commercials with DVRs for >15 years, and with VCRs for easily a decade before that.
(...and nowadays, DISH has some automatic commercial skipping, and Tivo has a newly released, but I think it's currently still being rolled out--I have it--, commercial-skipping feature for a specific set of shows/channels.. I get it on a LOT of shows. You have to hit a key on the remote at the beginning of the commercial break, but that's still better than 30 second skipping through it. I've only seen it mess up seriously ONCE (jump way into the program).)
I'd gladly pay for a DVR-less On Demand-like system, if it were commercial free. Heck, I'd pay MORE than regular cable for the commercial free version. Yes, I know about Hulu's recent commercial free option, but the # of back episodes apparently varies and you don't know when a show is going to expire. I accept/understand that licensing deals change, so I'd hopefully be able to (optionally) sort a specific series/season BY EXPIRATION, so I would make sure to watch that one before it expires. I'd also like something I admit relatively few probably would want, is play-faster-than-realtime. I've done it with podcasts as long as it's been there, and used to do it with an external hard drive/dvd recorder. Tivo finally added QuickMode, which is only 30% faster, but still useful for talk shows & news shows. (I watch other things in VLC on my iPad at close to 2x.. game shows, etc.)
Not complex _user interface wise_, or not complex _functionality wise_?
If you mean the latter, then just get a regular ancient thermostat that just has on/off/heat controls.
I don't have a Nest, I think they're way too expensive PLUS I don't walk past it often enough to make it any 'smarter'. Having a nicer UI than the barebones electronic thermostat (but not for $250) would be good. Even something with a reasonable UI to set on/off/temp times. It seems about as complex (in a bad way) as sprinkler timers. Thankfully, the drought has solved that issue for me (stopped watering lawn). I realize the software is more complex, but even when these devices have like 3 buttons and a tiny alphanumeric display with relatively few places, it seems like someone could make a somewhat better UI than "turn the dial really quickly" which seems to be a common paradigm on sprinkler controllers.
So I disagree with you about the "not complex" issue, but they obviously SHOULD test it more and make it more fault tolerant.
You have to be more specific. People thought Betamax was far superior in picture quality to VHS.
But picture quality wasn't the only important issue. The oft cited examples given for VHS's dominance are initial longer recording time and availability of porn.
As for the former, that's still an issue nowadays. Even with a huge drive in my Tivo, I still record _some_ things in SD (mostly nowadays non-prime time shows, I have finally moved most of them to HD recordings)... just to be able to record more stuff (and yes, I *have* gone back and watched years old stuff and caught up).
That's hilarious!
He used to rave about how he loved the Clintons and how Bill's treatment was totally unfair..
Now he's saying exactly the opposite, AND CLAIMING HE'S NOT A HYPOCRITE.
That's totally Newspeak!
(BTW, I like(d) him on "The Apprentice" and will watch him there when he eventually slinks back to it...)
Umm, that google result would in no way back up the one -> dozens assertion you are making. It would result in *SINGLE* instances of defenses happening.
This subthread is:
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
Yes, I know they said Safari specifically, but what they really were meaning to blame was WebKit...
What about even if it PREVENTS air pollution (and health effects from breathing that) because gas/oil weren't burned?
The perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good.
Because you are getting this in addition to what the subscription previously contained.
They're full games.. If you finish the game, _most_ people don't go back and play them again.
You're not paying for the game itself specifically, you're paying for the subscription.
You're being incredibly nitpick (which is a good thing usually), but it is clear what I mean.
If you get a sample of food at Costco, does that count as "not free" because you have to pay for a Costco membership?
I haven't gotten a subscription, but you *do* get free full games (that work as long as your subscription lasts) every month. Usually one or more of the highest caliber games. (So yes, you might already own them.)
Sony has been doing it for several years, and even though Microsoft had the more "required" subscription (even to use things like Netflix until the past year or two), MS only started the free game thing in earnest within the past year, IIRC.
I don't think most people even get the allusion. I had to think about it for a few seconds.. (I've never seen it, but have heard about it.)