Have you ever tried to read Middle English? What about old English? Language will always change over time, but the more that people like you are sticklers for good grammar, the more likely it is that people in 600 years will be able to effortlessly read our very familiar language.
Security in the UK is more of a hassle than in the US, and in France and Germany it's much worse. The general experience in airport terminals is much worse in the European train station-based terminals, in which you can't start walking the 5-20 minutes (at Heathrow) to your gate until about 45 minutes before your flight, which is then always late due to delayed boarding.
And no, I don't think that cell phones bans on planes in some countries will keep international business out of them.
I've had this idea for a long time, too. My modification is to leave low-beams unpolarized but polarize high-beams, and then instead of making the windows polarizing filters, which would make the road itself and everything else seem darker, just do the rear-view mirror. This would protect you pretty well from the glare of a driver behind you while at the same time letting that driver use high beams to better see the road.
People with cell phones have friends, and even people "in the middle of nowhere" in America see a lot of people every day. Even if there were no one else around, fashion-based decisions are about overcoming personal insecurities, and maybe seeing the iPhone every morning makes the user feel important or special in some way.
Yes, it's a hole down which you can throw money, but so are a lot of other things, and this hole has as good a chance as any of giving a placebonic sense of fulfillment.
People buy shirts for $400. People buy purses for $2000. It's a fashion statement. It's to the taste of those people who buy it, and if it makes them happy, good for them.
"The rich bastards who own the corporations really rule the world, but they're working hard to quell a counter-revolution."
I personally think that in most case the corporations themselves rule the world. In a lot of cases corporations aren't directly controlled by a few people - they move in a direction defined by dozens, hundreds, or thousands of individuals. Unlike a nation, which is generally dedicated at least nominally to serving people, a corporation is dedicated to serving itself.
I think that corporations act as belligerent entities, alien intelligences that reside in a distributed network in the minds of the influential people within them. I think that we've essentially created AIs without realizing it, and they're specifically programmed to serve themselves.
Don't set yourself up by saying that statistics say one thing, but anecdotal evidence says another.
Also, prices of mid-range and smaller sets have been decreasing steadily since the introduction of HDTV, while the quality of the sets has improved continuously. A couple decades ago tv tech wasn't moving forward at the rate it is today: prices weren't dropping this fast and quality was comparatively stagnant.
Probably not well given the much higher data density. I stopped using optical media for storage in the late 90s when hard drives became very cheap and fancy gold CDs I'd burned a couple years before started showing a 10% failure rate.
The average person laughs at the idea of buying an iphone. The average person has a tv. The average person has a car. The average (American) person does not have a $400 phone.
Media is controlled by corporations, and lawmakers are largely influenced by corporations. So the corporations wanted to make the DMCA and they told the lawmakers to make it happen. Then they had the media not make a big deal about it, so there was no significant public reaction, and thus the law easily passed without most of America even noticing.
It's scary how predominant this process is in American politics. About the only positive thing I can say is that at least it's not as bad as China, where a single party directly controls both media and politics, with no need to even pretend otherwise. If/when the New York Times ever starts to sound like the Xinhua News Agency, I'm done with this country.
QuantumG: The point, which was pointed out in many posts before yours, is that the company is reselling the material. That obviously puts it in a different legal context. Furthermore, OF COURSE you can have one law for students and another for companies. A vast subset of law works exactly like that.
Before getting all worked up, stop for a second and think about what you're saying. radl33t called you a clown, but that didn't mean he wasn't exactly correct and that you weren't patently incorrect.
Yeah, I wish it were impossible to do any modification of any electronic device. You make a great argument for it. Imagine how cool it would be if we couldn't install programs on our PCs. You've got me psyched about this. LET'S DO IT!
The only problem I have with NPR classifying some of the horrible things the US has been doing lately as war crimes is that we're not officially at war, because the president wanted to avoid having to 1) get permission from congress and 2) obey the Geneva conventions. It's a pretty silly excuse, though, saying that the Geneva conventions don't apply because we're fighting terrorists, not a waging war.
That's like getting around anti-hate crime legislation by saying that you killed all those people because you liked them, not because you hated them. Stupid, stupid, rhetorical nonsense.
All of these social networking sites are popular because they let people play the high school socialization game at any stage in life, and they make it very public. Now you don't just become popular - everyone can see how popular you are. It's a minigame for life, or at least for the lives of rather dull people.
I played a game set up at Fry's about 15 years ago in which the player controls his character by biofeedback. It was a skiing game, I think. It pretty much worked for me, but not for a friend of mine who tried it at the same time. I agree that it sounds like this technology is trying to catch up with the state of the art from 1993.
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Which is almost exactly how the telecom industry operates.
As you imply, the best hope for the American economy relative to the Euro economy is for republicans to lose power.
Reagan never had a theory in his life. Cheney and pals ran that puppet presidency just like they run this one.
It sounds like you're describing the US government, clearly criminal by several measures of international law.
"The real question here is, how much would the necessary bribe be, and who is corrupt enough in the EU Commission to push this through for MSFT?"
Outrageously huge, and everyone.
Have you ever tried to read Middle English? What about old English? Language will always change over time, but the more that people like you are sticklers for good grammar, the more likely it is that people in 600 years will be able to effortlessly read our very familiar language.
Kudos.
The music industry didn't drop its prices when reproduction became nearly free.
Security in the UK is more of a hassle than in the US, and in France and Germany it's much worse. The general experience in airport terminals is much worse in the European train station-based terminals, in which you can't start walking the 5-20 minutes (at Heathrow) to your gate until about 45 minutes before your flight, which is then always late due to delayed boarding.
And no, I don't think that cell phones bans on planes in some countries will keep international business out of them.
I've had this idea for a long time, too. My modification is to leave low-beams unpolarized but polarize high-beams, and then instead of making the windows polarizing filters, which would make the road itself and everything else seem darker, just do the rear-view mirror. This would protect you pretty well from the glare of a driver behind you while at the same time letting that driver use high beams to better see the road.
The light from the sun is mostly green, and accordingly our eyes have evolved to pick up green particularly well.
People with cell phones have friends, and even people "in the middle of nowhere" in America see a lot of people every day. Even if there were no one else around, fashion-based decisions are about overcoming personal insecurities, and maybe seeing the iPhone every morning makes the user feel important or special in some way.
Yes, it's a hole down which you can throw money, but so are a lot of other things, and this hole has as good a chance as any of giving a placebonic sense of fulfillment.
People buy shirts for $400. People buy purses for $2000. It's a fashion statement. It's to the taste of those people who buy it, and if it makes them happy, good for them.
Seconded. The GP has the timeline wrong. Standalone units are still up $60 on Amazon and Pricegrabber since HD-DVD's demise.
Brilliant post.
I do think, however, that the personality you describe by definition is one of stupidity.
"The rich bastards who own the corporations really rule the world, but they're working hard to quell a counter-revolution."
I personally think that in most case the corporations themselves rule the world. In a lot of cases corporations aren't directly controlled by a few people - they move in a direction defined by dozens, hundreds, or thousands of individuals. Unlike a nation, which is generally dedicated at least nominally to serving people, a corporation is dedicated to serving itself.
I think that corporations act as belligerent entities, alien intelligences that reside in a distributed network in the minds of the influential people within them. I think that we've essentially created AIs without realizing it, and they're specifically programmed to serve themselves.
His point was to refute the original post, which specifically deals with disc sales, not player sales.
Don't set yourself up by saying that statistics say one thing, but anecdotal evidence says another.
Also, prices of mid-range and smaller sets have been decreasing steadily since the introduction of HDTV, while the quality of the sets has improved continuously. A couple decades ago tv tech wasn't moving forward at the rate it is today: prices weren't dropping this fast and quality was comparatively stagnant.
Probably not well given the much higher data density. I stopped using optical media for storage in the late 90s when hard drives became very cheap and fancy gold CDs I'd burned a couple years before started showing a 10% failure rate.
The average person laughs at the idea of buying an iphone. The average person has a tv. The average person has a car. The average (American) person does not have a $400 phone.
Media is controlled by corporations, and lawmakers are largely influenced by corporations. So the corporations wanted to make the DMCA and they told the lawmakers to make it happen. Then they had the media not make a big deal about it, so there was no significant public reaction, and thus the law easily passed without most of America even noticing.
It's scary how predominant this process is in American politics. About the only positive thing I can say is that at least it's not as bad as China, where a single party directly controls both media and politics, with no need to even pretend otherwise. If/when the New York Times ever starts to sound like the Xinhua News Agency, I'm done with this country.
QuantumG: The point, which was pointed out in many posts before yours, is that the company is reselling the material. That obviously puts it in a different legal context. Furthermore, OF COURSE you can have one law for students and another for companies. A vast subset of law works exactly like that.
Before getting all worked up, stop for a second and think about what you're saying. radl33t called you a clown, but that didn't mean he wasn't exactly correct and that you weren't patently incorrect.
Yeah, I wish it were impossible to do any modification of any electronic device. You make a great argument for it. Imagine how cool it would be if we couldn't install programs on our PCs. You've got me psyched about this. LET'S DO IT!
The only problem I have with NPR classifying some of the horrible things the US has been doing lately as war crimes is that we're not officially at war, because the president wanted to avoid having to 1) get permission from congress and 2) obey the Geneva conventions. It's a pretty silly excuse, though, saying that the Geneva conventions don't apply because we're fighting terrorists, not a waging war.
That's like getting around anti-hate crime legislation by saying that you killed all those people because you liked them, not because you hated them. Stupid, stupid, rhetorical nonsense.
All of these social networking sites are popular because they let people play the high school socialization game at any stage in life, and they make it very public. Now you don't just become popular - everyone can see how popular you are. It's a minigame for life, or at least for the lives of rather dull people.
I played a game set up at Fry's about 15 years ago in which the player controls his character by biofeedback. It was a skiing game, I think. It pretty much worked for me, but not for a friend of mine who tried it at the same time. I agree that it sounds like this technology is trying to catch up with the state of the art from 1993.