The point was that cutting the MS "tax" out of the machine price usually doesn't save much, because the big players like Hp-Compaq and Dell pay very little for Windows.
No, they just charge you hand over fist for marketing, adverts, radio ads, magazine ads, product placements, promotional material, website, website designers, graphical designers, directors for TV commericals, the catering service for those TV commericals (by union rules, all commerical actors get catering on the set, at least in my state they do. ^_^ ), the makeup artist for the actors for the TV commericals;
the sound mixing guy for the TV commericals, the sound mixing guy for the radio commericals, the fee to put up the roadside billboards, the painter for the billboards, the design team for the billboards the marketing research study performed prior to designing the bill boards, the secretary to the manager in charge of the research study group that is formed prior to the design of the bilboard;
err, and lots lots more.
That is what you are paying for when you buy a major brand name PC.
Any old joe with 5 or more licenses can call up microsoft.com sign up for an "eOpen" licensing program. Under that license you can get Windows XP Home for less than $130 a copy.
Consumer, not OEM,not reseller.
I know the Enterprise licensees get Windows XP for around $90 a copy. And that I think requires only 500 licenses.
Repeat.
After that you start negotiatining. A fairly decent sized OEM in my area gets Windows XP Home for $80 a seat.
Notice, under MS licensing policy OEMs have to sell Windows and ONLY Windows on home PCs, or else they pay an inflated price (or was it not get the license at all. . . hmm, just an inflated price IIRC)
Obviously an OEM that concentrates in barely 'alternative' markets like this one would not want to get stuck in a licensing deal with MS.
How come when someone posts unimpressive, uninteresting, tiresome blogs about their day at work/school/home, they receive an abundance of comments for that blog, but when someone posts a real good thought-provoking blog, the number of comments left for it barely even exceeds zero? Do people feel intimidated?
Actualy this is the premise that trolls use.
If you piss people off, they will respond to you in droves.
On the other hand if you manage to gradualy build up an argument and convince your readership that you are correct;
well heck, what is left to be said? You win, case closed. ^_^
[walmart.com] is the Microtel PCs Without Windows category and the first PC there boasts Windows XP Home Edition.
Click on more info, notice it says under more info that Windows is not included.
Some lackey made a typo on the main listings page.
Bleh.
Notice this 'higher end' model also has an LCD shown in its preview photo even though no monitor is included at all? The assumption being of course that with a high end PC of course an LCD would be what is used. . . . Heh.
Hmm, actualy that ain't a half bad comp, heh, HDs small, but. . ..
You may be right about the Microsoft tax. Although, that doesn't knock *that* much off the price, does it?
Depends on the OEM; for a small time dealer (and IIRC whoever is providing these to Walmart are small time dealers, compared to Dell that is) a hundred at least.
Tape leads to stretching, stretching leads to degredation, degredation leads to blocky artifacts, blocky artifacts lead to nothing. At least with analog tape, when it wears you still have some semblance of a picture. I think my JVC Digital Camcorder is great but I am still looking for a good way to store that digital video somewhere that's cheap and NOT tape. I think the next big format will be hard drives. Just swap it in to the bay and watch amazingly high quality digital video and sound. Cost? $80 per movie and eventually lower. These things are getting so cheap, they are almost disposable.
Problem: HDs are very sensitive to movement. The second you are jostled, skipped frames at best, fucked up HD at worst.:(
Motion dampers might help a bit, but that would signifigently increase the price of the HDs.
:(
Now memory cards on the other hand. . . .:)
(actualy this isn't/that much/ of a problem with laptop HDs, but it is still not all that good of a situation, IBMs microdrives are rather sturdy, but even so I could not trust them to the same level that I trust a nice solid state device. ^_^ )
Good software shouldn't need a manual. The manual should be inside in the help pages, in context-sensitive help, and simply in the overall intuitiveness of the user interfaces.
nice theory, but remember that everybody 'thinks' that they write good software, so PLEASE do jnot spread this belief around.:P
Ugh, I hate it when installers crash. How the f*ck does software get out the door when the installer gives a divide by 0 error??
One more reason as to why I use Photoshop. . . . (Ok granted not an option if you are on an alternative OS but. . ..)
Actualy it is THE reason that I use Photoshop;
Kick ass interface.:)
Though some dildohead seems to have let somebody from the Illustrator Dev Team onto the Photoshop Dev Team and the results are showing up and more with each successive version. . . . ugh.
Illustartor is another one of those "So bad its painful" programs, even WITH the manual there to help you, it is a PAIN in the ass to use because NOTHING is obvious, crud like the two different arrow pointers, or stuff NEVER selecting how it should, ugh. All by design too. . ..
:(
Photoshop 6 (I have yet to try 7, looks like crap from all the Adobe.com screenshots of it, yeesh, interface looks WAAAY to jazzed up) is actualy BETTER at doing vector modeling then Illustrator is.
I spent over TWO HOURS just _TRYING_ to do something in Illustrator (rather simple something too, VERY simple in fact) and then proceeded to give up and spend about, oh, all of TEN MINUTES doing it in Photoshop 6. . ..
I would say that a 1500 page book with 1000 pages of information is well worth it if it allows the reader to remember 750 pages of actual information VS a 1000 page pure information book that the reader can remember MAYBE 500 pages max from
Jokes and Gags make for good memorable content for your brain to draw upon when you are trying to remember how to do something or how something works.
Many Cram Courses rely on dirty limericks to allow students to memorize patterns quickly, and the best books on anything that I have read have at least some humor in them.
Hell that is why on any given day I could read through a few thousand pages of Asimov talking about almost ANYTHING but damned if I could do the same reading for a textbook even in a topic I am interested in.
My logic textbook has SOME humor in the logical examples, but the actual writing is so bone dry as to make reading it straight through (or even for one chapter. . ..) painful.
There are two chapters where the author lets up, and they are an absolute blast to read, easy to remember material from, lots of readily applicable examples pop into the readers mind when needed. Too bad the entire book is not written that way.
I have seen many simular guides, but never one with all of the information in one place and so well written.
(well hell, I have taken COURSES in the topic that didn't communicate information as well as the guide did, LOL! Though granted having taken those courses is probebly what helped allow me to understand all of the guide. . ..)
Hmm, on a related note, did Blizzard Entertainment Notepads (steno-book sized, you know, just flip paper pads) ship with Warcraft 2? Because if not, I seriously wonder where I got this one from, LOL!
, they're aimed at the barely-bigger-than-a-home-projector multiplexes.
Some of the newer multiplexes have screens that are about the same size (if not the same size. . ..) as ones you can buy from consumer electronics shops now . . . .:(
I only go to the Cinerama now days, Thank You Paul Allen.:) (bill gates may suck but Paul Allen kicks ass.:):):) )
I remember one copy of another of Corel Paint that included a little mini-book like thing that was basically a complete description of the entire printing industry that went all the way from base color theory (all of them, yah!) to how to take care of half-tone printing press problems.
I still use the thing as an occasional reference, very nice pack-in.
Now that particular version of Corel Paint on the other hand. . . . sucked. Big time. Apparently it has gotten better since then (heh) but I am not going to spend more $$$ finding out. . . . ickies. Awful nasty program::shivers:: one of the few programs that is darn nearly physically painful to use. . . .
...but doesn't the Internet -need- some form of governance? It's been said on here before: the only force that can really act against spam is the government.
Actually a LACK of a government would have the same effect.
Think of this scenario;
Some bright ass gets the idea to start up a massive Spam campaign, so he gets a dual channel ISDN line (Business DSL, whatever) installed to his house through his local Telco, pays for his IPs and his mailing software and. . ..
sends out assloads of mail to a few hundred thousand recipients. Or even more.
A few of those recipients get pissed off.
They track the spammers location down, they find out his Telco, they break into the Telco's database, they get his address,
I am sure you can work it on out from there. (Yah, Hia, Mr Spammer Dude, you are being arrested for 10 felony drug charges and for killing your ex-wife. . . . ^_^ )
Currently real life governments tend to fuck this up a bit, you do anything like that and you would be in assloads of trouble.
Which is good AND bad, good because it helps to keep innocent people from accruing an FBI file every time they get into a flaming match with the wrong dude online (though hopefully anybody capable of the thought necessary to get anybody else in serious enough shit would be smart enough to realize that abusing that power is not a good thing to do and would not do it), but bad because;
well;
hell;
Mr Spammer Dude really should have a "Peer to Peer" meeting with JailCell453_Buba.:)
Germany never invaded the US; if it had, the response would have been umpteen times larger than when Japan did.
Uh, no, actualy. You see if the libbers had gotten control after WWI (if they had existed then even, thankfuly they didn't in their current form!) then we would not have HAD an active military of any even half decent sorts.
Response? What response. . ..
They would have landed on the east coast, it would have been over in hours. Sucky.
So? That doesn't make sticking our nose where it doesn't belong right. What is right must always be done, regardless of the results.
Some of us believe that it is THE RESULT that defines what is right.
Thus doing proper deeds is so that proper result may come about.
Now quite frankly saving innocent lives is the proper thing in my book to do ANYWAYS;
bah fuck it I got an idea.
How about we let a bunch of big guy guys with huge ass dicks go after your ass?
You can scream for help, but don't worry, none of us within hearing range will give a fuck about what is happening to you.
Hey I got an even BETTER idea, how about we let these guys with big dicks go after YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY.
But we still won't GIVE A FUCK because hey now, that wouldn't be right under your libber policy. Or even if we did care, hey, 'isn't our business.'
Lets say we stick you on a cruiseline in international waters and let your entire family start getting assfucked.
Hope you don't mind if everybody else ignores your pleas for help.
Ok what if instead of just your family it is everybody on your block? Your neighborhood? At what point does the rape looting and pilaging become 'ok' to accept for you?
1) We have no place fighting wars that do not result from a direct attack on the US
2) In a free society, freedom-loving individuals would be more than willing to defend their liberty
3) Any nation the size of ours that can't find enough volunteers to defend itself among its populace probably doesn't deserve to exist anyway
We would all be speaking german by now if you nutbags had been in control during WWII, Amen the isolationits where shutup before things went even futher down the tube.
Shit tens of thousands of innocent people likely died because we waited to get involved in WWII, how could you dare suggest that we ever set ourselves up to make the same mistake again?
3) Any nation the size of ours that can't find enough volunteers to defend itself among its populace probably doesn't deserve to exist anyway
Goal of a republic is to let smart people runthings because the general populas is to stupid to know WTF to do.
I perfer not to risk MY life on the choices of people who I don't trust to drive and talk on a cellphone at the same time.
Re:Slashdot: News for thieves. Like ethics matter.
on
What Free Cable?
·
· Score: 1
What about me? I pay almost $100 a month (was ~$200 but cut some stuff back), I feel perfectly justified splitting the line and getting another expanded basic line feed.
Heck, cable co's have been making public this knowledge for, err, lets see;
AGES now.
Before even cable modems existed you could run down to your local Radioshack and buy a splitter and get basic cable on any other cable ready TV just by running the split line to it from the main feed.
Yeesh.
Now repeat after me the advertising lines used for Cable Modems:
"Internet over the Cable TV lines you already have."
Say it again.
"Internet over the Cable TV lines you already have."
Hmm, same lines, same connection, err, DUH.
Yeesh.
Talk about the obvious.
Doesn't cost the cable companies a penny, and a few of them have even advertised it as a freebie (doesn't cost them jack, RF transmission is already sent, beh).
I myself watch TV on my computer thanks to a $20 TV in card (you people paying in the hundreds are getting horribly ripped off. Once again, repeat after me "Generic BT chipset, Generic BT chipset." ) and a cheapo line splitter I found in one of the multitudes of drawers around the house.
People start dying by the millions overseas in a full blown war, we run out of willing recruits.
No draft program, hey guess what
WE LOSE THE FUCKING WAR
Of courese the libbers would have us just not fight in any wars to begin with, which is EQUALY stupid, just letting tyrants run around and conquer the world means that sooner or latter you will be fucked, especialy if you let all of your potential allies be defeated first. . .
companies shouldn't be such dickheads about sucking every last dollar from their customers and should actually aim for customer SATISFACTION and not customer BRAINWASHING, which are two COMPLETELY different things.
Hint: If you have ever setup a DOS network and thought to yourself how nice and easy it was and how well suited for the task DOS is, then you have been brainwashed.:P On the flip side, if you have ever thought to yourself that downloading and compiling source was a great way to do all software installations that is highly convenient, then you have been brainwashed.
Only if it's compulsory military service. If one voluntarily chooses to join the military, then one voluntarily accepts the strict regime that accompanies it, and the rights of no individual have been violated.
First war comes along and we are all fucked, nice idea there buddy.
::runs after eyes as they start to roll out of his head::
And computers are for computing? "Do not play games on them! Only use them to perform calculations!" Right? You're a true visionary!
Hey jackass, guess what, that is what they ARE being used for.
It just so happens to be faster and easier to have a computer keep track of all of the various numbers in a DnD game and do the math for them then it is to do it by hand.
The pretty little graphics that accompy everything are just extra frills.
Same with board games or math or such, the computre is used as an AID to something else.
Eventualy they spread out into broad based wide spectrum multipurpose tools; ok great; now we have computers, and hopefuly soon they will be able to make breakfast (err, or maybe hopefuly not!)
But a CellPHONE is exactly that, A SPECIALIZED TOOL DESIGNED FOR ONE PURPOSE Shoving more features into it then it was originaly designed for ends up:
A: Driving your price up higher then if you redesigned a tool from the ground up for the desired purposes
B: Makes the user interface suck
and
C: Reduces overall maximum product potential
Which all SUCK.
People pay HUNDREDS of dollars for a cell phone with VERY BASIC and low level PDA functions when it would be easier to get a small cheapish PDA and glue a cheap cellphone on to the back of it (not over the battery casing!) and have all of your problems solved at once.
But noooo, people have to continue to act STUPID.
Not to mention that now I will have to put up with some ASSHOLE having even MORE bleeps and bloops going from their phones during class.
May I give a quick Amen to the proffesors out there who auto-boot anybody STUPID enough to bring a cellphone into class?
Like of them said;
"You ever heard the expression 'Treat every gun like a loaded gun'? Well I have the same rule of cellphones, 'treat every cell phone like it is on'. No cellphone is ever really off, so to prevent any troules just do not bring them into my classroom at all."
Slashdot Mirror
The point was that cutting the MS "tax" out of the machine price usually doesn't save much, because the big players like Hp-Compaq and Dell pay very little for Windows.
No, they just charge you hand over fist for marketing, adverts, radio ads, magazine ads, product placements, promotional material, website, website designers, graphical designers, directors for TV commericals, the catering service for those TV commericals (by union rules, all commerical actors get catering on the set, at least in my state they do. ^_^ ), the makeup artist for the actors for the TV commericals;
the sound mixing guy for the TV commericals, the sound mixing guy for the radio commericals, the fee to put up the roadside billboards, the painter for the billboards, the design team for the billboards the marketing research study performed prior to designing the bill boards, the secretary to the manager in charge of the research study group that is formed prior to the design of the bilboard;
err, and lots lots more.
That is what you are paying for when you buy a major brand name PC.
Enjoy
Any old joe with 5 or more licenses can call up microsoft.com sign up for an "eOpen" licensing program. Under that license you can get Windows XP Home for less than $130 a copy.
Consumer, not OEM,not reseller.
I know the Enterprise licensees get Windows XP for around $90 a copy. And that I think requires only 500 licenses.
Repeat.
After that you start negotiatining. A fairly decent sized OEM in my area gets Windows XP Home for $80 a seat.
Notice, under MS licensing policy OEMs have to sell Windows and ONLY Windows on home PCs, or else they pay an inflated price (or was it not get the license at all. . . hmm, just an inflated price IIRC)
Obviously an OEM that concentrates in barely 'alternative' markets like this one would not want to get stuck in a licensing deal with MS.
How come when someone posts unimpressive, uninteresting, tiresome blogs about their day at work/school/home, they receive an abundance of comments for that blog, but when someone posts a real good thought-provoking blog, the number of comments left for it barely even exceeds zero? Do people feel intimidated?
Actualy this is the premise that trolls use.
If you piss people off, they will respond to you in droves.
On the other hand if you manage to gradualy build up an argument and convince your readership that you are correct;
well heck, what is left to be said? You win, case closed. ^_^
[walmart.com] is the
.
Microtel PCs Without Windows category and the first PC there boasts Windows XP Home Edition.
Click on more info, notice it says under more info that Windows is not included.
Some lackey made a typo on the main listings page.
Bleh.
Notice this 'higher end' model also has an LCD shown in its preview photo even though no monitor is included at all? The assumption being of course that with a high end PC of course an LCD would be what is used. . . . Heh.
Hmm, actualy that ain't a half bad comp, heh, HDs small, but. . .
beh
Annnyways.
Oh wait thats it.
You may be right about the Microsoft tax. Although, that doesn't knock *that* much off the price, does it?
Depends on the OEM; for a small time dealer (and IIRC whoever is providing these to Walmart are small time dealers, compared to Dell that is) a hundred at least.
Tape leads to stretching, stretching leads to degredation, degredation leads to blocky artifacts, blocky artifacts lead to nothing. At least with analog tape, when it wears you still have some semblance of a picture. I think my JVC Digital Camcorder is great but I am still looking for a good way to store that digital video somewhere that's cheap and NOT tape. I think the next big format will be hard drives. Just swap it in to the bay and watch amazingly high quality digital video and sound. Cost? $80 per movie and eventually lower. These things are getting so cheap, they are almost disposable.
:(
:)
/that much/ of a problem with laptop HDs, but it is still not all that good of a situation, IBMs microdrives are rather sturdy, but even so I could not trust them to the same level that I trust a nice solid state device. ^_^ )
Problem: HDs are very sensitive to movement. The second you are jostled, skipped frames at best, fucked up HD at worst.
Motion dampers might help a bit, but that would signifigently increase the price of the HDs.
:(
Now memory cards on the other hand. . . .
(actualy this isn't
Good software shouldn't need a manual. The manual should be inside in the help pages, in context-sensitive help, and simply in the overall intuitiveness of the user interfaces.
:P
nice theory, but remember that everybody 'thinks' that they write good software, so PLEASE do jnot spread this belief around.
Ugh, I hate it when installers crash. How the f*ck does software get out the door when the installer gives a divide by 0 error??
One more reason as to why I use Photoshop. . . . (Ok granted not an option if you are on an alternative OS but. . . .)
:)
.
.
Actualy it is THE reason that I use Photoshop;
Kick ass interface.
Though some dildohead seems to have let somebody from the Illustrator Dev Team onto the Photoshop Dev Team and the results are showing up and more with each successive version. . . . ugh.
Illustartor is another one of those "So bad its painful" programs, even WITH the manual there to help you, it is a PAIN in the ass to use because NOTHING is obvious, crud like the two different arrow pointers, or stuff NEVER selecting how it should, ugh. All by design too. . .
:(
Photoshop 6 (I have yet to try 7, looks like crap from all the Adobe.com screenshots of it, yeesh, interface looks WAAAY to jazzed up) is actualy BETTER at doing vector modeling then Illustrator is.
I spent over TWO HOURS just _TRYING_ to do something in Illustrator (rather simple something too, VERY simple in fact) and then proceeded to give up and spend about, oh, all of TEN MINUTES doing it in Photoshop 6. . .
Ick.
The author obviously needs to use better puns. :)
I would say that a 1500 page book with 1000 pages of information is well worth it if it allows the reader to remember 750 pages of actual information VS a 1000 page pure information book that the reader can remember MAYBE 500 pages max from
Jokes and Gags make for good memorable content for your brain to draw upon when you are trying to remember how to do something or how something works.
.) painful.
Many Cram Courses rely on dirty limericks to allow students to memorize patterns quickly, and the best books on anything that I have read have at least some humor in them.
Hell that is why on any given day I could read through a few thousand pages of Asimov talking about almost ANYTHING but damned if I could do the same reading for a textbook even in a topic I am interested in.
My logic textbook has SOME humor in the logical examples, but the actual writing is so bone dry as to make reading it straight through (or even for one chapter. . .
There are two chapters where the author lets up, and they are an absolute blast to read, easy to remember material from, lots of readily applicable examples pop into the readers mind when needed. Too bad the entire book is not written that way.
Wait, I can tell you that it was with Corel Paint 8, was the complete suite of Draw + Paint.
Sorry, it was a pack in. ^_^
.)
I have seen many simular guides, but never one with all of the information in one place and so well written.
(well hell, I have taken COURSES in the topic that didn't communicate information as well as the guide did, LOL! Though granted having taken those courses is probebly what helped allow me to understand all of the guide. . .
Hmm, on a related note, did Blizzard Entertainment Notepads (steno-book sized, you know, just flip paper pads) ship with Warcraft 2? Because if not, I seriously wonder where I got this one from, LOL!
, they're aimed at the barely-bigger-than-a-home-projector multiplexes.
.) as ones you can buy from consumer electronics shops now . . . . :(
:) (bill gates may suck but Paul Allen kicks ass. :) :) :) )
Some of the newer multiplexes have screens that are about the same size (if not the same size. . .
I only go to the Cinerama now days, Thank You Paul Allen.
I remember one copy of another of Corel Paint that included a little mini-book like thing that was basically a complete description of the entire printing industry that went all the way from base color theory (all of them, yah!) to how to take care of half-tone printing press problems.
::shivers:: one of the few programs that is darn nearly physically painful to use. . . .
I still use the thing as an occasional reference, very nice pack-in.
Now that particular version of Corel Paint on the other hand. . . . sucked. Big time. Apparently it has gotten better since then (heh) but I am not going to spend more $$$ finding out. . . . ickies. Awful nasty program
...but doesn't the Internet -need- some form of governance?
.
:)
It's been said on here before: the only force that can really act against spam is the government.
Actually a LACK of a government would have the same effect.
Think of this scenario;
Some bright ass gets the idea to start up a massive Spam campaign, so he gets a dual channel ISDN line (Business DSL, whatever) installed to his house through his local Telco, pays for his IPs and his mailing software and. . .
sends out assloads of mail to a few hundred thousand recipients. Or even more.
A few of those recipients get pissed off.
They track the spammers location down, they find out his Telco, they break into the Telco's database, they get his address,
I am sure you can work it on out from there. (Yah, Hia, Mr Spammer Dude, you are being arrested for 10 felony drug charges and for killing your ex-wife. . . . ^_^ )
Currently real life governments tend to fuck this up a bit, you do anything like that and you would be in assloads of trouble.
Which is good AND bad, good because it helps to keep innocent people from accruing an FBI file every time they get into a flaming match with the wrong dude online (though hopefully anybody capable of the thought necessary to get anybody else in serious enough shit would be smart enough to realize that abusing that power is not a good thing to do and would not do it), but bad because;
well;
hell;
Mr Spammer Dude really should have a "Peer to Peer" meeting with JailCell453_Buba.
Germany never invaded the US; if it had, the response would have been umpteen times larger than when Japan did.
.
Uh, no, actualy. You see if the libbers had gotten control after WWI (if they had existed then even, thankfuly they didn't in their current form!) then we would not have HAD an active military of any even half decent sorts.
Response? What response. . .
They would have landed on the east coast, it would have been over in hours. Sucky.
So? That doesn't make sticking our nose where it doesn't belong right. What is right must always be done, regardless of the results.
Some of us believe that it is THE RESULT that defines what is right.
Thus doing proper deeds is so that proper result may come about.
Now quite frankly saving innocent lives is the proper thing in my book to do ANYWAYS;
bah fuck it I got an idea.
How about we let a bunch of big guy guys with huge ass dicks go after your ass?
You can scream for help, but don't worry, none of us within hearing range will give a fuck about what is happening to you.
Hey I got an even BETTER idea, how about we let these guys with big dicks go after YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY.
But we still won't GIVE A FUCK because hey now, that wouldn't be right under your libber policy. Or even if we did care, hey, 'isn't our business.'
Lets say we stick you on a cruiseline in international waters and let your entire family start getting assfucked.
Hope you don't mind if everybody else ignores your pleas for help.
Ok what if instead of just your family it is everybody on your block? Your neighborhood? At what point does the rape looting and pilaging become 'ok' to accept for you?
1) We have no place fighting wars that do not result from a direct attack on the US
2) In a free society, freedom-loving individuals would be more than willing to defend their liberty
3) Any nation the size of ours that can't find enough volunteers to defend itself among its populace probably doesn't deserve to exist anyway
We would all be speaking german by now if you nutbags had been in control during WWII, Amen the isolationits where shutup before things went even futher down the tube.
Shit tens of thousands of innocent people likely died because we waited to get involved in WWII, how could you dare suggest that we ever set ourselves up to make the same mistake again?
3) Any nation the size of ours that can't find enough volunteers to defend itself among its populace probably doesn't deserve to exist anyway
Goal of a republic is to let smart people runthings because the general populas is to stupid to know WTF to do.
I perfer not to risk MY life on the choices of people who I don't trust to drive and talk on a cellphone at the same time.
What about me? I pay almost $100 a month (was ~$200 but cut some stuff back), I feel perfectly justified splitting the line and getting another expanded basic line feed.
Heck, cable co's have been making public this knowledge for, err, lets see;
AGES now.
Before even cable modems existed you could run down to your local Radioshack and buy a splitter and get basic cable on any other cable ready TV just by running the split line to it from the main feed.
Yeesh.
Now repeat after me the advertising lines used for Cable Modems:
"Internet over the Cable TV lines you already have."
Say it again.
"Internet over the Cable TV lines you already have."
Hmm, same lines, same connection, err, DUH.
Yeesh.
Talk about the obvious.
Doesn't cost the cable companies a penny, and a few of them have even advertised it as a freebie (doesn't cost them jack, RF transmission is already sent, beh).
I myself watch TV on my computer thanks to a $20 TV in card (you people paying in the hundreds are getting horribly ripped off. Once again, repeat after me "Generic BT chipset, Generic BT chipset." ) and a cheapo line splitter I found in one of the multitudes of drawers around the house.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Care to explain how?
Yeesh, are you THAT stupid?
People start dying by the millions overseas in a full blown war, we run out of willing recruits.
No draft program, hey guess what
WE LOSE THE FUCKING WAR
Of courese the libbers would have us just not fight in any wars to begin with, which is EQUALY stupid, just letting tyrants run around and conquer the world means that sooner or latter you will be fucked, especialy if you let all of your potential allies be defeated first. . .
The solution is quite simple;
:P On the flip side, if you have ever thought to yourself that downloading and compiling source was a great way to do all software installations that is highly convenient, then you have been brainwashed.
Don't shoot anybody over file format rights;
and;
companies shouldn't be such dickheads about sucking every last dollar from their customers and should actually aim for customer SATISFACTION and not customer BRAINWASHING, which are two COMPLETELY different things.
Hint: If you have ever setup a DOS network and thought to yourself how nice and easy it was and how well suited for the task DOS is, then you have been brainwashed.
After all, all those things are funded by "stolen" money and built by the society.
Oh hell he should go one step further then that,
Do not use anything that has EVER had government research used to contribute to its design, development, or creation.
I do hope you like the Amish way of life, though even they have rules as to what a person must contribute to society.
Only if it's compulsory military service. If one voluntarily chooses to join the military, then one voluntarily accepts the strict regime that accompanies it, and the rights of no individual have been violated.
First war comes along and we are all fucked, nice idea there buddy.
::runs after eyes as they start to roll out of his head::
Uh, they where original intended for doing ballistics CALCULATIONS. (amongst other things)
Not currently playing FPSs they are still doing that; just with weird physics.
::Grins::
And computers are for computing? "Do not play games on them! Only use them to perform calculations!" Right? You're a true visionary!
Hey jackass, guess what, that is what they ARE being used for.
It just so happens to be faster and easier to have a computer keep track of all of the various numbers in a DnD game and do the math for them then it is to do it by hand.
The pretty little graphics that accompy everything are just extra frills.
Same with board games or math or such, the computre is used as an AID to something else.
Eventualy they spread out into broad based wide spectrum multipurpose tools; ok great; now we have computers, and hopefuly soon they will be able to make breakfast (err, or maybe hopefuly not!)
But a CellPHONE is exactly that, A SPECIALIZED TOOL DESIGNED FOR ONE PURPOSE Shoving more features into it then it was originaly designed for ends up:
A: Driving your price up higher then if you redesigned a tool from the ground up for the desired purposes
B: Makes the user interface suck
and
C: Reduces overall maximum product potential
Which all SUCK.
People pay HUNDREDS of dollars for a cell phone with VERY BASIC and low level PDA functions when it would be easier to get a small cheapish PDA and glue a cheap cellphone on to the back of it (not over the battery casing!) and have all of your problems solved at once.
But noooo, people have to continue to act STUPID.
Not to mention that now I will have to put up with some ASSHOLE having even MORE bleeps and bloops going from their phones during class.
May I give a quick Amen to the proffesors out there who auto-boot anybody STUPID enough to bring a cellphone into class?
Like of them said;
"You ever heard the expression 'Treat every gun like a loaded gun'? Well I have the same rule of cellphones, 'treat every cell phone like it is on'. No cellphone is ever really off, so to prevent any troules just do not bring them into my classroom at all."
Love that policy.