>>>Consumer Reports clearly created this article to sell copies rather than push factual information.
Alex Jones is that you?
Put down the weed, we don't need any more conspiracy theories. Given CR's almost 100 year history, I don't think they deliberately slam or promote products just to sell magazines. They examine products and give them a fair review, both pros and cons. Only a Fanboi in love with an inanimate object would be so stupid as to malign a respected magazine like Consumer Reports .
>>>I had a very tasty pig murdered for my Cuban sandwich just yesterday. Strange, but I don't feel guilty about it.
I executed some wheat, sugar cane, and coconuts, and baked their carcasses into a donut. I don't feel guilty about murdering these things either. It's either eat or die.
I like that pile of crap. It allowed me to relocate and connect with old high school and college classmates. I also learned about the reunion through facebook
Well my parents use rabbit ears/loop antenna and they can't get anything further than 20 miles.
That's just 5 stations (versus the 20 I get with a CM4228) Even those stations inside that radius sometimes drop out for my parents. When the FCC set the power limits on DTV, they assumed everyone would have a 30 foot high antenna. They never tested (or cared) about indoor antenna reception, so now indoor antennas are almost worthless.
>>>Awww, it's ok commodore... don't be afraid to use your own username when trying to defend yourself.
I never am. Why are you? You're hiding behind Anon. Coward instead of using your real name, so you're the one who is afraid. Also I already shot down this guy :
>>>nothing's more pathetic than a libertarian whining about a free public service he enjoys is about to be cut off.
Libertarians consider the airwaves, just like the air itself, to be the Property of the People not the corporations. Libertarians consider the giving of channels 25-83 for cellphone companies - to be locked up behind ~$100/month paywalls - basically theft of the People's common property.
>>>Something that's been around for 60+ years because of a vision of being able to sell those air waves.. well, that just screams foul.
Not really. Radio and TV stations provide a useful service (news, weather, entertainment) but they also have expenses they need to pay. They could charge a fee to every person but it was determined that having sponsorship (ads) made more sense.
Also they don't get those airwaves for free - each station pays about $100,000. That may not sound like much but when you multiply by 10,000 TV stations, it's a lot of money flowing into the People's Treasury year-after-year.
And there are restrictions on that license. TV stations are expected to provide X number of hours for educational programming each week, televised debates for politicians, emergency broadcasts for weather or other disasters, and so on.
>>>why are they always against government having any powers to regulate corporations?
They aren't. In a Libertarian world corporations wouldn't even exist, because they would never have been granted a license. No need to "regulate" something that was never created in the first place.
Companies would still exist of course but they'd be proprietorships where the owner would have full liability for the actions of his company. So for example if a car blowing-up, then the owner & his managers/engineers would be liable for 3rd degree manslaughter. Or neglect. Depends what the prosecutor charged them with.
No golden parachutes or immunity. .
>>>could it, perhaps, be that Libertarianism is just a propaganda branding exercise for corporate interests?
No it seems more likely you just don't know what you're talking about. Hopefully my paragraphs above helped inform you about what the Libertarians really think, and erased the false facts from your mind.
Re:Not end to anything, rather, start of rapid cha
on
The End of Free
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· Score: 1
>>>I dunno what device you're looking at, but the most expensive PDA I've ever owned (brand new, top-of-the-line model at the time) cost me $530US unlocked.
"cost includes yearly fee" for the internet connection
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
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· Score: 1
>>>1080i is 1920x1080/2 = 1920x540 resolution.
Oh look. He hasn't taken basic math yet.;-) Yes interlaced tv sends 1920x540 images, but they are overlapped (odd lines first; then even lines) to be perceived as 1920x1080. It's the same way our eyes perceive a 24 frame film as continuous motion.
ALSO: There are a lot of sets that convert the 1080i/60 into 1080p/30 so there's no real difference in quality.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
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· Score: 1
>>>"Free" TV is paid for by advertising dollars, whose costs are factored into every product you buy
Then stop buying products. Then Free TV truly will be free for you. Of course you do still need food, but you can buy from local farmers/stores that don't advertise on the set.
Besides over in the UK people pay ~$300 per year to support ad-free TV, but has it stopped the ads? Nope. The companies still run them and still include the cost in the prices, so UK citizens are basically paying twice - the fee plus the ad dollars .
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
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· Score: 1
>>>>>Free TV is not dead. Get a $20 antenna... >> >>/irony
Think of it as an installation fee like cable and satellite and internet companies charge, but instead of paying $60-100 a month you pay $0.00 each month for service.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
>>>DIVX becoming DivX (only the name survived)
Two separate companies.. Not related in any way.
Re:I Disagree with Some Parts of This Article
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
Okay this is the third one of my posts modded -1 troll or -1 flamebait.
DEAR MODERATORS:
Clicking -1 is not how you say "I disagree." The method of saying I disagree is to click reply and SAY "I disagree". Your job is not to mod people's posts into invisibility (0) or (-1). Your job is not censorship. It's also in the moderation rules, if you bother to read them.
>>>You do realize that the cost of all that advertising gets passed along to you through higher prices.
Yeah but I also realize I do very little shopping, so most of the burden is borne by those who are wealthy and spend a lot (like Paris Hilton or your company's boss). Also it's not as if advertising would suddenly stop. Over in England people pay ~$300 per year to support TV, and yet they still get bombarded with ads for products. So then they are essentially paying twice - Once through the fee and again through higher prices to support ads.
Sorry but I don't see the connection to Bush. If this is some vague reference to the war, I now take this opportunity to remind you that Obama has made the war even larger than it was (sent more troops/spent more money). These men are two halves of the same asshole.
>>>>the kid will do nothing but Facebook or Half Life all day.
Precisely. Back in the 70s and 80s having a computer meant learning to program, or learning basic office skills (word processing), otherwise it just sat there. But nowadays handing-out a computer is like having-out a television. It's used for entertainment not learning.
Ach, why bother? In about 100 billion years all the stars will run out of fuel, and there will be nothing left but glowing embers (red dwarfs). The 'verse will be so dark you won't even be able to see, and any humans still left alive will be clinging to the embers like flies on poo, just waiting for the inevitable extinction. So why even bother to try? We're all doomed.
"It's depressing just thinking about it." - Marvin the Robot
"Bitness" wasn't a big deal in the 80s (before the Super Nintendo v. Sega Genesis wars). I didn't even know what "ST" meant until I read it on wikipedia, because Atari never advertised it publicly. It simply didn't exist as a marketing bullet prior to the 90s.
In any case all those 68000 machines ran 32 bit software. The IBM PC had to go through a 16-to-32 bit transition* but the Macs, Amigas, and STs did not. They had been running 32 bit since the beginning of their lives (1984-85). A 32-bit Quadra Mac could run code from the original 68000 Mac with virtually no problems.
* * One example of this transition is that 16-bit code won't multitask. Windows 95/98 used to put it into a separate DOS window all by itself. If that DOS window crashed, it froze the whole system. I don't know how Windows NT handles 16 bit code; maybe Microsoft fixed that flaw.
>>>So what makes the Amiga 32-bit and the Genesis 16-bit?
Sega's marketers were stupid? (shrug). The 68000 inside the earliest Amigas, Macs, and Genesis/Megadrives was a 32 bit CPU sitting on a 16 bit external bus. In that respect it's no different than the 80386's budget version which was also a 32 bit CPU sitting on a 16 bit die.
You'll note that Amigas and Macs never had to go through a 16-to-32 bit transition like IBM PCs did. They were already running 32 bit software from the start.
Microsoft's never been a market leader. Other companies like Atari, Commodore, and Apple did the innovating while Microsoft just rode on the coattails of the popular IBM PC, and copied the other guys' ideas (5-10 years later) over to Windows. It doesn't appear Microsoft ever had the ability to be inventive, and it doesn't look they will ever gain that ability.
To expect MS to produce a Wonder Tablet of the future is like expecting a mule to get pregnant .
>>>I can easily say that I find reading a book the most comfortable form to read from.
I believe you. The problem is whether or not the masses would agree, and buy the two-screen Courier. I suspect not, especially since most people in the desired demographic 15-35 grew up with single screen reading.
As for the comfort of actual books, the 800 page tome I'm reading now (Best Science Fiction of the Year, 11th edition, 1993) is anything but comfortable. I wish I could find an electronic version so I could read it on my PC or an e-reader.
I've determined that warming-and-cooling are natural events. Just like the previous global warming periods of 3000-2000 BC (Egyptian golden age) and 300-1300 AD (Roman era and Feudal era). It was so warm they were growing wine upto Hadrian's Wall, and Greenland was actually green. Unless you think those events were caused by Caesar and his buds running-round in their SUVs, releasing lots of CO2, and warming everything up?
That's an indication that global warming can be natural, and I suspect the current warming spell is too. After all it began in 1850 - long before the automobile appeared.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>Consumer Reports clearly created this article to sell copies rather than push factual information.
Alex Jones is that you?
Put down the weed, we don't need any more conspiracy theories. Given CR's almost 100 year history, I don't think they deliberately slam or promote products just to sell magazines. They examine products and give them a fair review, both pros and cons. Only a Fanboi in love with an inanimate object would be so stupid as to malign a respected magazine like Consumer Reports
.
>>>we all know better than to feed trolls
Yeah we should round them up and gas them. Damn Trolls don't deserve the right to free speech. Or life. Let's gas some KKK members too.
.
>>>But Apple gets called out on it.
Yeah. Because they are acting like Saddam Hussein (censoring what people can or can not say).
>>>I had a very tasty pig murdered for my Cuban sandwich just yesterday. Strange, but I don't feel guilty about it.
I executed some wheat, sugar cane, and coconuts, and baked their carcasses into a donut. I don't feel guilty about murdering these things either. It's either eat or die.
>>>So if someone draws "motherf*cker" on your car and you are getting it removed, it is censorship?
Of course it is.
I'm pretty tyrannical when it comes to my own property.
I like that pile of crap. It allowed me to relocate and connect with old high school and college classmates. I also learned about the reunion through facebook
Well my parents use rabbit ears/loop antenna and they can't get anything further than 20 miles.
That's just 5 stations (versus the 20 I get with a CM4228) Even those stations inside that radius sometimes drop out for my parents. When the FCC set the power limits on DTV, they assumed everyone would have a 30 foot high antenna. They never tested (or cared) about indoor antenna reception, so now indoor antennas are almost worthless.
>>>Awww, it's ok commodore... don't be afraid to use your own username when trying to defend yourself.
I never am. Why are you? You're hiding behind Anon. Coward instead of using your real name, so you're the one who is afraid. Also I already shot down this guy
:
>>>nothing's more pathetic than a libertarian whining about a free public service he enjoys is about to be cut off.
Libertarians consider the airwaves, just like the air itself, to be the Property of the People not the corporations. Libertarians consider the giving of channels 25-83 for cellphone companies - to be locked up behind ~$100/month paywalls - basically theft of the People's common property.
>>>Something that's been around for 60+ years because of a vision of being able to sell those air waves.. well, that just screams foul.
Not really. Radio and TV stations provide a useful service (news, weather, entertainment) but they also have expenses they need to pay. They could charge a fee to every person but it was determined that having sponsorship (ads) made more sense.
Also they don't get those airwaves for free - each station pays about $100,000. That may not sound like much but when you multiply by 10,000 TV stations, it's a lot of money flowing into the People's Treasury year-after-year.
And there are restrictions on that license. TV stations are expected to provide X number of hours for educational programming each week, televised debates for politicians, emergency broadcasts for weather or other disasters, and so on.
>>>why are they always against government having any powers to regulate corporations?
They aren't. In a Libertarian world corporations wouldn't even exist, because they would never have been granted a license. No need to "regulate" something that was never created in the first place.
Companies would still exist of course but they'd be proprietorships where the owner would have full liability for the actions of his company. So for example if a car blowing-up, then the owner & his managers/engineers would be liable for 3rd degree manslaughter. Or neglect. Depends what the prosecutor charged them with.
No golden parachutes or immunity.
.
>>>could it, perhaps, be that Libertarianism is just a propaganda branding exercise for corporate interests?
No it seems more likely you just don't know what you're talking about. Hopefully my paragraphs above helped inform you about what the Libertarians really think, and erased the false facts from your mind.
>>>I dunno what device you're looking at, but the most expensive PDA I've ever owned (brand new, top-of-the-line model at the time) cost me $530US unlocked.
"cost includes yearly fee" for the internet connection
>>>1080i is 1920x1080/2 = 1920x540 resolution.
Oh look. He hasn't taken basic math yet. ;-) Yes interlaced tv sends 1920x540 images, but they are overlapped (odd lines first; then even lines) to be perceived as 1920x1080. It's the same way our eyes perceive a 24 frame film as continuous motion.
ALSO: There are a lot of sets that convert the 1080i/60 into 1080p/30 so there's no real difference in quality.
>>>"Free" TV is paid for by advertising dollars, whose costs are factored into every product you buy
Then stop buying products. Then Free TV truly will be free for you. Of course you do still need food, but you can buy from local farmers/stores that don't advertise on the set.
Besides over in the UK people pay ~$300 per year to support ad-free TV, but has it stopped the ads? Nope. The companies still run them and still include the cost in the prices, so UK citizens are basically paying twice - the fee plus the ad dollars
.
>>>>>Free TV is not dead. Get a $20 antenna... /irony
>>
>>
Think of it as an installation fee like cable and satellite and internet companies charge, but instead of paying $60-100 a month you pay $0.00 each month for service.
>>>DIVX becoming DivX (only the name survived)
Two separate companies.. Not related in any way.
Okay this is the third one of my posts modded -1 troll or -1 flamebait.
DEAR MODERATORS:
Clicking -1 is not how you say "I disagree." The method of saying I disagree is to click reply and SAY "I disagree". Your job is not to mod people's posts into invisibility (0) or (-1). Your job is not censorship. It's also in the moderation rules, if you bother to read them.
SIGNED,
SLASHDOTTERS
>>>You do realize that the cost of all that advertising gets passed along to you through higher prices.
Yeah but I also realize I do very little shopping, so most of the burden is borne by those who are wealthy and spend a lot (like Paris Hilton or your company's boss). Also it's not as if advertising would suddenly stop. Over in England people pay ~$300 per year to support TV, and yet they still get bombarded with ads for products. So then they are essentially paying twice - Once through the fee and again through higher prices to support ads.
>> If your a bush-ite, that'd be the wording.
Sorry but I don't see the connection to Bush. If this is some vague reference to the war, I now take this opportunity to remind you that Obama has made the war even larger than it was (sent more troops/spent more money). These men are two halves of the same asshole.
>>>>the kid will do nothing but Facebook or Half Life all day.
Precisely. Back in the 70s and 80s having a computer meant learning to program, or learning basic office skills (word processing), otherwise it just sat there. But nowadays handing-out a computer is like having-out a television. It's used for entertainment not learning.
>>>If only we'd had more time.
Ach, why bother? In about 100 billion years all the stars will run out of fuel, and there will be nothing left but glowing embers (red dwarfs). The 'verse will be so dark you won't even be able to see, and any humans still left alive will be clinging to the embers like flies on poo, just waiting for the inevitable extinction. So why even bother to try? We're all doomed.
"It's depressing just thinking about it." - Marvin the Robot
"Bitness" wasn't a big deal in the 80s (before the Super Nintendo v. Sega Genesis wars). I didn't even know what "ST" meant until I read it on wikipedia, because Atari never advertised it publicly. It simply didn't exist as a marketing bullet prior to the 90s.
In any case all those 68000 machines ran 32 bit software. The IBM PC had to go through a 16-to-32 bit transition* but the Macs, Amigas, and STs did not. They had been running 32 bit since the beginning of their lives (1984-85). A 32-bit Quadra Mac could run code from the original 68000 Mac with virtually no problems.
*
* One example of this transition is that 16-bit code won't multitask. Windows 95/98 used to put it into a separate DOS window all by itself. If that DOS window crashed, it froze the whole system. I don't know how Windows NT handles 16 bit code; maybe Microsoft fixed that flaw.
>>>So what makes the Amiga 32-bit and the Genesis 16-bit?
Sega's marketers were stupid? (shrug). The 68000 inside the earliest Amigas, Macs, and Genesis/Megadrives was a 32 bit CPU sitting on a 16 bit external bus. In that respect it's no different than the 80386's budget version which was also a 32 bit CPU sitting on a 16 bit die.
You'll note that Amigas and Macs never had to go through a 16-to-32 bit transition like IBM PCs did. They were already running 32 bit software from the start.
>>>"full" is actually five bars.
That's it? Jeez. My 5-year-old Nokia has 7 bars. Clearly a superior product. "/engage smug mode" - Kryten
Eh... (shrugs)
Microsoft's never been a market leader. Other companies like Atari, Commodore, and Apple did the innovating while Microsoft just rode on the coattails of the popular IBM PC, and copied the other guys' ideas (5-10 years later) over to Windows. It doesn't appear Microsoft ever had the ability to be inventive, and it doesn't look they will ever gain that ability.
To expect MS to produce a Wonder Tablet of the future is like expecting a mule to get pregnant
.
>>>I can easily say that I find reading a book the most comfortable form to read from.
I believe you. The problem is whether or not the masses would agree, and buy the two-screen Courier. I suspect not, especially since most people in the desired demographic 15-35 grew up with single screen reading.
As for the comfort of actual books, the 800 page tome I'm reading now (Best Science Fiction of the Year, 11th edition, 1993) is anything but comfortable. I wish I could find an electronic version so I could read it on my PC or an e-reader.
Done.
I've determined that warming-and-cooling are natural events. Just like the previous global warming periods of 3000-2000 BC (Egyptian golden age) and 300-1300 AD (Roman era and Feudal era). It was so warm they were growing wine upto Hadrian's Wall, and Greenland was actually green. Unless you think those events were caused by Caesar and his buds running-round in their SUVs, releasing lots of CO2, and warming everything up?
That's an indication that global warming can be natural, and I suspect the current warming spell is too. After all it began in 1850 - long before the automobile appeared.