Sorry, but that's some horrible logic. It doesn't matter if the person you're talking to can see if you need to focus more or not - it takes a fraction of a second to say "Hang on" or just simply not frakking respond. As for the hands issue - the post you're quoting was saying that HANDS FREE phones are bad because talking = distraction.
I refuse to drive a manual and before I had a car with bluetooth built-in, I just simply only answered the phone in an emergency (like being lost and needing directions) and then I'd drop it in my lap if I was on anything but a straight road without stoplights / stop signs.
I'd rather just ban dingbats who aren't capable of realizing that it's a matter of stupid people not paying attention to what they're doing instead of blaming it on "evil distractions". As the saying goes, "Every time you try to make something idiot-prof, the world makes a better idiot".
If it's the act of having a conversation, then we definitely need to ban communication between passengers in vehicles.
As for reaction times? Car and Driver tested that a year or two ago - they took a guy in his mid-20's and a guy in his mid-40's and had them drive a course with no distractions, then while holding a phone and talking, then while drunk, then while drunk and holding a phone. Their results? Obviously the reaction times kept getting worse, but the surprising thing was that even drunk and holding a phone while talking, the guy in his 20's STILL had a better reaction time than the guy in his 40's did while stone sober without a phone - so the real lesson is that people over 40 shouldn't be allowed to drive, period (if you want to use reaction times).
Hell, it's not even about holding the phone - it's about being too stupid to realize that driving takes precedence over everything else and to say "Hang on" or even just drop the damn phone when necessary to focus on driving.
Uh, no. Apple is suing several different companies that manufacture Android phones (try reading the articles that come on Slashdot sometime - it's mentioned every couple days). As for Samsung? Their phones look like essentially every other damn phone out there - but Apple wanted to sue them, so they went with the bogus "it's a rectangular shape with rounded edges" (you mean like 99% of cell phones?) crap. I suppose next they'll sue every manufacturer of Android tablets for copying the iPad because they're "shaped like a tablet". Profit is irrelevant when Apple's market share has barely budged in around a year - it's gone up a total of something like.3 or.4%, whereas each quarter Android keeps seeing growth of around 6%. Android went from non-existent to the number one cell phone OS in only three years, and Apple knows that they can't compete because they refuse to make different products - they make the same unoriginal product over and over until people move on.
Seriously, your "facts" aren't even close to reality - you should try harder next time Troll and make it at least somewhat believable.
A few individual companies suing each other over patent disputes is one thing. When Apple is going out and suing ANYONE who has anything to do with an Android phone (which is raping the iPhone in sales and market share), that's using litigation over innovation. As for innovative products? I'm not sure what you're talking about when they make minor improvements to hardware without adding new features (usually - they did finally put a front facing camera on) and copying OS features from other mobile OS's..... I had an iPhone a couple years ago when it was the best and most innovative thing out there - now it's not, so I moved on. If Windows Phone 7 turns into the best mobile OS with the best hardware next year, I'll ditch Android for WP7. I'm not a fanboy - I go with who's producing the best product for the best price. Sadly, Apple fails on both counts - but I blame that on Lord Jobs arrogance in knowing that he can literally sell dog shit with an Apple sticker on it (iShit) and fanboys will pay hundreds of dollars for this (literally) useless piece of shit. Why innovate when your core customer base is so religiously devoted to you that they will always unquestionably buy anything you tell them to?
Actually, we could easily get rid of the TSA (and make inroads on the DHS) if people just flat out refused to fly until they were gone. The air travel industry would collapse in no time since they're already heavily in debt and would demand that the government cut the shit or they'd implode and have to be bailed out (which citizens would bring out the torches and pitchforks on anyone who supported bailing them out when the government caused the boycott that lead to their collapse).
If they truly wanted to catch evil doers and people hellbent on destroying our way of life, they'd put every politician in the country on their watchlist.
You know, for how much people on Slashdot want to proclaim that they're so vastly more intelligent, it's shocking how few people on here have ever studied Economics. Yes, goods coming in would be more expensive due to tariffs - which means that we'd have fewer goods coming in, which means less selection as well as higher prices due to decreased competition (meaning that you'll be able to buy less on top of having fewer items to pick from). It's NOT complicated - compare the selection at stores and price as a percentage of income for most goods and you'll see that back when we had less trade (like you desire) people had a vastly lower quality of life than we have now.
You may want to turn society back to a more primitive time, but those of us who bother to learn the slightest thing about what we're talking about have no desire to go back to the not-as-good-as-you-want-to-pretend old days.
Eh, partially true. We have no say in who runs in primaries and even then, the party can overrule the decision for who runs for office, then we have a whopping two choices (which are usually 98% the same) for who to vote for. It's pretty much a big con job to provide the masses with a sense of control so that they don't rebel.
What can I say, I get excited to see assholes get what they deserve - regardless of the situation. It's a shame that you don't have any emotions involved in seeing justice be served.
OK, first off it was a joke. Secondly, given Apple's behavior lately, it's looking like that joke is turning into a reality. Like Schmidt said, it's sad that Apple is resorting to bogus lawsuits to block their competitors from selling their products instead of competing by innovating and creating a superior product.
Possibly, but I'd argue not likely. It's a wonderful market for Sprint to maintain - be the only US carrier to provide unlimited data and not rape your customers for tethering fees (those stupid enough to pay for tethering packages are a bonus, but don't punish the ones smart enough to get around it). I already know a good dozen people who switched from Verizon to Sprint and with the horrific data plans Verizon is changing to, I'm sure that number will increase. Sprint just needs to make sure to take advantage of this and advertise the hell out of their superior data plans.
Oh, you're absolutely right. However, considering what a bunch of assholes Apple is being, I get a warm tingly feeling every time another company tells Apple to go fuck themselves.
Sprint doesn't seem to care if you tether for free. I think that's why they just added the $10 "premium data fee" as a "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" kind of deal. I tether on 4G as much as possible because Sprint doesn't monitor your 4G usage, but I've also done quite a bit of tethering on 3G (as have friends) and Sprint hasn't done a thing about it.
Yea, because the current plan of a massively unbalanced budget is such a great idea....
On another note, I'm really curious to see how this affects S&P - now that investors know that they're willing to make rating decisions about personal emotions and not cold hard facts, investors could stop trusting S&P entirely.
Wow, what a bunch of bullshit. I'm sorry that you don't respect your rights or your wallet. I'm sorry that you bend over and take in the ass from companies who want to tell you that you no longer own your property. However, all your bullshit isn't going to change the fact that DRM means you're fucked. Oh, and if you don't believe me that a company would turn off servers, just look at EA genius. They turned off their servers for multiplayer for sports games less than a year after the game came out to try to force people to buy the new version.
People like you are why the good game companies have almost all died out and why gaming as a hobby is rapidly reaching the point of imploding due to punishing customers.
Wow, that's some pretty sad arguments there. Then there's the fact that you're unable to understand the difference between copy protection and DRM.
So, lets get started, shall we? Copy protection is a means of preventing illegal copies of a game while not interfering with the owners use of the game or infringing their right to resell their property. The olden days of checking to make sure the disc was in the drive and matching a serial key during installation were copy protection. You could resell the game if you wanted (and the new owner could sell it and so on). You could also install the game on as many of your personal computers as you wanted and you could still install and play the game even if the company no longer supported the game or even went bankrupt and ceased to exist. DRM on the other hand violates all of that.
DRM means that you can only install the game as long as they say so - if you bought a new computer each year and installed the game on your new systems too many times, your ability to install the game you paid for is revoked. If the company goes bankrupt, you can no longer install the game. Hell, if they decide that they want to try to force you to buy Cool Game 2012, they just have to turn off the activation server for Cool Game 2011 and you can no longer install your game, or play it if it requires a persistent connection to their server to play, ever again. Your game you paid good money for is now just an expensive coaster. DRM also revokes your ability to resell games (in most cases) by tying it to one and only one account. DRM also causes frequent problems for paying customers, such as activation server issues preventing people who just bought a game at launch to be unable to install it for several days - other DRM requires each account on the same physical computer to use a separate license, thus for games with low activation counts (I believe it was Bioshock that had a limit of three), installing it once on a family computer and each person playing under their own account on that same computer means you can never reinstall the game. The best you can do is call the company and beg them to let you use the product that you paid $60 for.
Tell me, how is it good for you for a game to require you to connect to their server (which may or may not be operational and which you may or may not have an internet connection to get to) to install and to prevent you from being able to ever resell an item that you no longer want?
You may enjoy flushing your money down the toilet on crap that DRM'd games that can be bricked in a split second. Those of us who work hard for our money don't want to piss it away on garbage, nor do we want to pay someone to punish us.
Oh, and FYI, in your beloved Steam's EULA they state that if they remove a game or go bust they MIGHT give you an offline version of the game or that they MIGHT give you a refund, but basically, you're just going to be fucked. DRM only exists because foolish people are willing to take it in the ass from corrupt businesses. If you stopped buying, the DRM would vanish quite quickly....the same goes for the DLC bullshit - stop buying DLC and they'll stop removing items from the game to resell you as DLC.
One last thing:
Oh, look, it asked a server if you were allowed to install the game. The horror!
Because it's my goddamn game that I bought. Why the fuck should I have to ask permission to install it? Do you think it's OK for you to have to contact your car manufacturer for permission to start up your car? What about the company that built your home - should you have to ask permission to enter your own home? Your inability to comprehend basic property rights is astounding.
New Vegas does not have any sort of rootkit. It requires Steam, even if you buy it in the store, like Half-Life.
Which is exactly why I did not purchase New Vegas, despite wanting to. What you don't seem to realize is that Steam IS DRM. Just because it's not as bad as some forms of DRM doesn't change that it's still bad. As such, nothing from Steam will ever touch my computer.
And you obviously do all the work yourself (which I applaud), but most people won't and will be paying more for parts and $90 an hour for labor. If you factored that in, your 88 Bronco would probably have cost at LEAST $6,000 by now (likely more). Hell, most places will charge you around $900 for doing both sets of brakes (which is why I always do my own).
You're also forgetting the fact that a lot of people like having something that's in good condition, and are willing to pay extra for that.
It all depends on what car you buy and how long you drive it. If you spend $16,000 on a new car and drive it for 10 years, it will cost less than buying a $10,000 used car and driving it for 10 years since there's much fewer repair costs (not to mention if you buy something like a Kia or Hyundai, you get a 10 year/100,000 mile warranty) and it'll be much less hassle. Then, when you go to get a replacement car after 10 years, your car will still be worth something to trade in or sell privately and apply that money towards the next car, thus further lowering the cost of ownership.
Not to mention a new car isn't going to come pre-scratched and likely already needing some work done.
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Sorry, but that's some horrible logic. It doesn't matter if the person you're talking to can see if you need to focus more or not - it takes a fraction of a second to say "Hang on" or just simply not frakking respond. As for the hands issue - the post you're quoting was saying that HANDS FREE phones are bad because talking = distraction.
I refuse to drive a manual and before I had a car with bluetooth built-in, I just simply only answered the phone in an emergency (like being lost and needing directions) and then I'd drop it in my lap if I was on anything but a straight road without stoplights / stop signs.
I'd rather just ban dingbats who aren't capable of realizing that it's a matter of stupid people not paying attention to what they're doing instead of blaming it on "evil distractions". As the saying goes, "Every time you try to make something idiot-prof, the world makes a better idiot".
If it's the act of having a conversation, then we definitely need to ban communication between passengers in vehicles.
As for reaction times? Car and Driver tested that a year or two ago - they took a guy in his mid-20's and a guy in his mid-40's and had them drive a course with no distractions, then while holding a phone and talking, then while drunk, then while drunk and holding a phone. Their results? Obviously the reaction times kept getting worse, but the surprising thing was that even drunk and holding a phone while talking, the guy in his 20's STILL had a better reaction time than the guy in his 40's did while stone sober without a phone - so the real lesson is that people over 40 shouldn't be allowed to drive, period (if you want to use reaction times).
Hell, it's not even about holding the phone - it's about being too stupid to realize that driving takes precedence over everything else and to say "Hang on" or even just drop the damn phone when necessary to focus on driving.
Seriously, your "facts" aren't even close to reality - you should try harder next time Troll and make it at least somewhat believable.
A few individual companies suing each other over patent disputes is one thing. When Apple is going out and suing ANYONE who has anything to do with an Android phone (which is raping the iPhone in sales and market share), that's using litigation over innovation. As for innovative products? I'm not sure what you're talking about when they make minor improvements to hardware without adding new features (usually - they did finally put a front facing camera on) and copying OS features from other mobile OS's..... I had an iPhone a couple years ago when it was the best and most innovative thing out there - now it's not, so I moved on. If Windows Phone 7 turns into the best mobile OS with the best hardware next year, I'll ditch Android for WP7. I'm not a fanboy - I go with who's producing the best product for the best price. Sadly, Apple fails on both counts - but I blame that on Lord Jobs arrogance in knowing that he can literally sell dog shit with an Apple sticker on it (iShit) and fanboys will pay hundreds of dollars for this (literally) useless piece of shit. Why innovate when your core customer base is so religiously devoted to you that they will always unquestionably buy anything you tell them to?
Actually, we could easily get rid of the TSA (and make inroads on the DHS) if people just flat out refused to fly until they were gone. The air travel industry would collapse in no time since they're already heavily in debt and would demand that the government cut the shit or they'd implode and have to be bailed out (which citizens would bring out the torches and pitchforks on anyone who supported bailing them out when the government caused the boycott that lead to their collapse).
If they truly wanted to catch evil doers and people hellbent on destroying our way of life, they'd put every politician in the country on their watchlist.
You know, for how much people on Slashdot want to proclaim that they're so vastly more intelligent, it's shocking how few people on here have ever studied Economics. Yes, goods coming in would be more expensive due to tariffs - which means that we'd have fewer goods coming in, which means less selection as well as higher prices due to decreased competition (meaning that you'll be able to buy less on top of having fewer items to pick from). It's NOT complicated - compare the selection at stores and price as a percentage of income for most goods and you'll see that back when we had less trade (like you desire) people had a vastly lower quality of life than we have now.
You may want to turn society back to a more primitive time, but those of us who bother to learn the slightest thing about what we're talking about have no desire to go back to the not-as-good-as-you-want-to-pretend old days.
We got to elect our own government
Eh, partially true. We have no say in who runs in primaries and even then, the party can overrule the decision for who runs for office, then we have a whopping two choices (which are usually 98% the same) for who to vote for. It's pretty much a big con job to provide the masses with a sense of control so that they don't rebel.
What can I say, I get excited to see assholes get what they deserve - regardless of the situation. It's a shame that you don't have any emotions involved in seeing justice be served.
OK, first off it was a joke. Secondly, given Apple's behavior lately, it's looking like that joke is turning into a reality. Like Schmidt said, it's sad that Apple is resorting to bogus lawsuits to block their competitors from selling their products instead of competing by innovating and creating a superior product.
Possibly, but I'd argue not likely. It's a wonderful market for Sprint to maintain - be the only US carrier to provide unlimited data and not rape your customers for tethering fees (those stupid enough to pay for tethering packages are a bonus, but don't punish the ones smart enough to get around it). I already know a good dozen people who switched from Verizon to Sprint and with the horrific data plans Verizon is changing to, I'm sure that number will increase. Sprint just needs to make sure to take advantage of this and advertise the hell out of their superior data plans.
Wait.............I thought Apple WAS a patent troll company that just occasionally sells some Samsung hardware? =p
Oh, you're absolutely right. However, considering what a bunch of assholes Apple is being, I get a warm tingly feeling every time another company tells Apple to go fuck themselves.
Quite true. I had a rooted Evo 4G for a year and tether on my Evo 3D all the time with no consequences.
Sprint doesn't seem to care if you tether for free. I think that's why they just added the $10 "premium data fee" as a "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" kind of deal. I tether on 4G as much as possible because Sprint doesn't monitor your 4G usage, but I've also done quite a bit of tethering on 3G (as have friends) and Sprint hasn't done a thing about it.
Not true. Many workplaces require your phone to be on their VPN in order to access email (for security reasons).
Yea, because the current plan of a massively unbalanced budget is such a great idea....
On another note, I'm really curious to see how this affects S&P - now that investors know that they're willing to make rating decisions about personal emotions and not cold hard facts, investors could stop trusting S&P entirely.
Wow, what a bunch of bullshit. I'm sorry that you don't respect your rights or your wallet. I'm sorry that you bend over and take in the ass from companies who want to tell you that you no longer own your property. However, all your bullshit isn't going to change the fact that DRM means you're fucked. Oh, and if you don't believe me that a company would turn off servers, just look at EA genius. They turned off their servers for multiplayer for sports games less than a year after the game came out to try to force people to buy the new version.
People like you are why the good game companies have almost all died out and why gaming as a hobby is rapidly reaching the point of imploding due to punishing customers.
Wow, that's some pretty sad arguments there. Then there's the fact that you're unable to understand the difference between copy protection and DRM.
So, lets get started, shall we? Copy protection is a means of preventing illegal copies of a game while not interfering with the owners use of the game or infringing their right to resell their property. The olden days of checking to make sure the disc was in the drive and matching a serial key during installation were copy protection. You could resell the game if you wanted (and the new owner could sell it and so on). You could also install the game on as many of your personal computers as you wanted and you could still install and play the game even if the company no longer supported the game or even went bankrupt and ceased to exist. DRM on the other hand violates all of that.
DRM means that you can only install the game as long as they say so - if you bought a new computer each year and installed the game on your new systems too many times, your ability to install the game you paid for is revoked. If the company goes bankrupt, you can no longer install the game. Hell, if they decide that they want to try to force you to buy Cool Game 2012, they just have to turn off the activation server for Cool Game 2011 and you can no longer install your game, or play it if it requires a persistent connection to their server to play, ever again. Your game you paid good money for is now just an expensive coaster. DRM also revokes your ability to resell games (in most cases) by tying it to one and only one account. DRM also causes frequent problems for paying customers, such as activation server issues preventing people who just bought a game at launch to be unable to install it for several days - other DRM requires each account on the same physical computer to use a separate license, thus for games with low activation counts (I believe it was Bioshock that had a limit of three), installing it once on a family computer and each person playing under their own account on that same computer means you can never reinstall the game. The best you can do is call the company and beg them to let you use the product that you paid $60 for.
Tell me, how is it good for you for a game to require you to connect to their server (which may or may not be operational and which you may or may not have an internet connection to get to) to install and to prevent you from being able to ever resell an item that you no longer want?
You may enjoy flushing your money down the toilet on crap that DRM'd games that can be bricked in a split second. Those of us who work hard for our money don't want to piss it away on garbage, nor do we want to pay someone to punish us.
Oh, and FYI, in your beloved Steam's EULA they state that if they remove a game or go bust they MIGHT give you an offline version of the game or that they MIGHT give you a refund, but basically, you're just going to be fucked. DRM only exists because foolish people are willing to take it in the ass from corrupt businesses. If you stopped buying, the DRM would vanish quite quickly....the same goes for the DLC bullshit - stop buying DLC and they'll stop removing items from the game to resell you as DLC.
One last thing:
Oh, look, it asked a server if you were allowed to install the game. The horror!
Because it's my goddamn game that I bought. Why the fuck should I have to ask permission to install it? Do you think it's OK for you to have to contact your car manufacturer for permission to start up your car? What about the company that built your home - should you have to ask permission to enter your own home? Your inability to comprehend basic property rights is astounding.
New Vegas does not have any sort of rootkit. It requires Steam, even if you buy it in the store, like Half-Life.
Which is exactly why I did not purchase New Vegas, despite wanting to. What you don't seem to realize is that Steam IS DRM. Just because it's not as bad as some forms of DRM doesn't change that it's still bad. As such, nothing from Steam will ever touch my computer.
I'd like to see them look at the correlation between a game having DRM (or the severity of the DRM) and the amount of copies pirated.
And you obviously do all the work yourself (which I applaud), but most people won't and will be paying more for parts and $90 an hour for labor. If you factored that in, your 88 Bronco would probably have cost at LEAST $6,000 by now (likely more). Hell, most places will charge you around $900 for doing both sets of brakes (which is why I always do my own).
You're also forgetting the fact that a lot of people like having something that's in good condition, and are willing to pay extra for that.
It all depends on what car you buy and how long you drive it. If you spend $16,000 on a new car and drive it for 10 years, it will cost less than buying a $10,000 used car and driving it for 10 years since there's much fewer repair costs (not to mention if you buy something like a Kia or Hyundai, you get a 10 year /100,000 mile warranty) and it'll be much less hassle. Then, when you go to get a replacement car after 10 years, your car will still be worth something to trade in or sell privately and apply that money towards the next car, thus further lowering the cost of ownership.
Not to mention a new car isn't going to come pre-scratched and likely already needing some work done.
That's why when I didn't vote for Obama, a coworker said "But we need change!" and I said "Yes, we do - just not the kind of change he's selling".
Which is exactly why I despise both parties. They both want to take away your rights, just in different ways.