>With a lian-li case, arctic silver compound, an SLK800 heatsink and 7 80mm fans it still runs at 58C.
Wow! After reading that I will never buy arctic silver compound, an SLK800 heatsink, or a lian-li case ever again. Using the stock fan and a $25 case (no fans), and the world's most garbage PSU known to man my Athlon 2000 runs at about 45 degrees C.:-)
>At least Microsoft never said (to my knowledge) "Our OS comes with games built in," referring to Solitare and Minesweeper (and whatever else comes with XP now).
>You can't just put a cheap splitter in and expect it to work.
No, but they do make satellite splitters. If it says "xx to 2450 Mhz" and "Power Passing One Port" on it, it's probably good. Of course, it'll only pass half the channels (whatever is the presently selected polarization by the master [power passing] port).
You've probably not seen them because the only time they seem to come in handy is when the installer is setting up a cheap-ass single output dish.;-)
>"Hate speech" only refers to speech that is intended to incite violence against individuals or groups.
"Hate speech" which incites violence, such as the bible, for a true example.
As an atheist, I really shouldn't care, but as someone who believes that only in a society where people don't have to discuss their true feelings (not matter what they might be) behind closed doors can we begin to make progress towards ethical and decent conduct, I have to say censoring the bible and emebllishments on it is just plain wrong.
Otherwise we will end up with secret societies (KKK) that remain outside government radar and do far more illegal and unethical things than uttering offensive language.
>Fact: The stretch of the 401 between Windsor and Chatham was known as "Death Alley" just a few short years ago. The entire length of the 401 is currently in the process of being upgraded over the next few years, largely as a result of "Death Alley".
Fact: That section of highway was developed in 1930, before it was Highway 401. Also fact: Few cars could reach 100 km/h in that era.
I'm talking about the most used part of the 401, the MacDonald-Cartier Freeway part, not the ancient Highway 98 stretch. That part clearly needs fixing, but is detritus from old years, not part of the new (and safe at high speeds) 401.
>Based on this fact, I find your assertion that this road was designed for speeds over 140 km/h to be quite unlikely to say the least.
Then, perhaps you aren't a road designer? I'm not either, but for a road designer to create a road safe at only 87% of the intended speed limit is definitely illegal, and to create a road not safe at 121% of the intended speed limit is clearly negligent.
>Furthermore, with the way a lot of people drive these days, more enforcement is sorely needed. If budgets don't allow for more policing, then photo radar suits me fine.
So, it's okay to have a driver driving poorly for over 2 weeks without them even knowing they are, and, more importantly, to only assess a monetary fine and no record, points, endorsements, or loss of license no matter how poorly they are driving (even if they are doing 320 km/h)? Because that's how photoradar works. It won't assess points, and it is unlikely insurance will even find out about a ticket. In other words, if you are monied, it's a license to speed, since the cops won't be patrolling, and there's a maximum speed the cameras can be used to catch, also.
>Don't like it? Don't speed.
Did you know that speeding is one of the very least likely ways to cause severe property damage and injury? You can check it out in the Ontario safety report.
The most dangerous, IMHO, action a driver can do is improper lane changes. Having spoken with members of the trucking industry (nice having a shop on a popular trucking route!:-) I can tell you that is the singlemost dangerous thing they encounter on the roads, apart from danger number 2: People who enter a 100 km/h highway at 80 km/h. You'll also find Young Drivers and many other safe driving organizations agree: A small amount of speeding is only a tiny factor in poor driving.
Lastly, the police encourage people on the 401 to do faster than the speed limit. They have ticketed people doing 100 km/h on that highway before, and have explained in the October wheels of the Toronto Star that they'll be doing it again if you are caught doing under 110 km/h in the fast lane.
Overall, it is far more dangerous to lane change without acceleration (cutting people off) and extremely dangerous to slow an entire highway down due to nerves.
So, without the support of the police, driving associations, and history on your side, *WHY* do you feel that speeding on the 401 is a bad idea? It seems that you are the only person in Canada with that feeling. 85% of drivers on the 401 drive at over 110 km/h, and that's the entire 401, not just "Death Alley".
Basically, when even the police disagree with you, you're probably going to be found wrong (and ticketed).
>Seems like the NDP actually did have their head screwed on straight, it's just that the media hated them.
The media hated them because they were a cash grabbing government who wasted everyone's money.
The Liberals intend to follow in the NDP's footsteps.
"Ontario could re-deploy photo radar on its highways to raise badly needed funds, Premier Dalton McGuinty suggested on Wednesday"
"I have long been a supporter of photo radar," the premier told reporters on his way into a cabinet meeting. "It's a revenue generator, absolutely."
Fact: The original legislated speed of the 401 was 115 km/h prior to a gas conservation act passing in the 70s and lowering the speed of the highway to 100 km/h. It is absolutely safe at that speed. This means that the designers of the highway designed it to accomodate speeds of over 140 km/h, if they have any sense at all (they do).
Photo radar has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with squeezing pocket books.
Oh, second fact: Photo radar during the Rae-era caused 401 speed to decrease, on average, from 99 km/h to 97 km/h, IIRC.
Third fact: Photo Radar has absolutely NOTHING to to do with safety whatsoever, admits Premier Dalton.
Last fact: Photo Radar, when re-implimented, will have so little to do with public safety, it is likely it will be the same as running a red light with a camera attached. Which means it will be listed as a minor moving violation no matter how serious the infraction (even, say, 100 km/h over the limit) without the possibility of losing ones license or even gaining demerit points. Safety is the last thing from the minds of anyone implementing photo radar.
>The best way to implement photo radar would be to have it as a supplement to catch the most grievous violators.
Why? Even at the more conservative value it did as good a job as the "Buckle Up For Safety" signs. ie: Nothing of value.
>Rae days happened so all public-sector employees could keep their jobs. Massive layoffs followed the removal of these unpaid days off.
Also, Rae days caused public unrest and massive Ontario-wide wildcat sympathy strikes. Why the hell should someone keep their job if they aren't needed? Get rid of them the way everyone else does: Lay them off. It was a bad idea all around. It meant the government couldn't do house cleaning of lazy bastards, and they would provide less service at the same cost to consumers. If I did that sort of stuff I'd be out of business faster than you can imagine.
BTW: I'm not joking about the price increases. As our store uses electricity for heating and cooling, and as we have to use the 407 (where rates will also be increasing) and because we are using the 401 to transport goods (which will be cash-cowed to death) prices in my shop will raise by a minimum of 15% over the next 12 months to meet break-even rates.
RCMP? Bah! They're *WAY* too busy arresting people for competing with them on pirate US Television and bringing their own personal Mary Jane to deal with something as unimportant and piddly as a few million dollars and sliming the government with egg-on-the-face.
>My thoughts are that this is definately part of the Liberal scandal, and not to restate this, but it's very important someone cleans up Canadian politics, and IMHO, that is the NDP.
LOL! Look at the great things they did for Ontario! Rae days and photo radar! Please, TAX ME MORE so that I can RAISE PRICES.
>so in essence, there is no difference from using the IP from a source for your own benefit and selling it to make money for yourself....YOU are still benefiting in both instances
For yourself, yes.
But it is totally different if you are misrepresenting a pirated product as either an original or your personal production. When you do that, the purchasers were CLEARLY interested in buying the "real thing", and would have bought it. You have obviously deprived the creators of money they deserved.
However, if you post MP3s to Usenet, it is unclear if the downloaders of said music were interested in purchasing it and pirated it instead, and it is equally unclear if they are downloading it to sample prior to purchasing the album.
That's the difference. In the first case, you can show a guaranteed loss, in the second case, it's almost impossible. Which is why #1 is copyright violation, fraud and misrepresentation rolled together, and #2 is just simple copyright violation.
It's like the difference between Robbery and Break & Enter. With the first, there's proof of stolen goods and personal damage (the people physically harmed, and the missing goods), also tresspass and physical damage of property -- with the second you can only prove tresspass and a broken window/door lock.
>There are fuckwits in any community. There are smart people in any community. It's called a normal distribution.
Hey, I don't disagree all that much. However, it's been my experience (check my post history... although only the past 24 doesn't help) that 90% of people using Macs resort to "Troll" or "Moron" namecalling within 1 - 2 posts. That's sad, and I just hope the curve's bent out of shape by slashdot.:-S
Or, it could be that my posts provoke certain people. That's more likely. Oh well... C'est la vie.
>However, why the heck does the Mac need to come into the mainstream?
It doesn't have to, but there's users like me, who would be happy to switch from windows, if for an alternative that's as unproprietary as PCs. Mac has a lot going for it, IMHO, but there's enough missing (for me) that I can't switch.
That's a *LOT* of broadcast power. And with the Turbocoding (soon to be 8PSK) used on 105/121, that's twice the bang for the buck. Not to mention the option of 7/8 FEC over straight 5/6 QPSK FEC (all that DirecTV supports), they have much more to play with. They can squeeze a bit out of the failing transponders by setting the FEC to 1/2.
>Some things are fairly well provable. Such as size or weight comparisons. That's not a matter of opinion. It falls into the realm of fact.
That may be. However, if you were demanding such an exacting comparison, it's your responsibility to list the exact dimensions expected. I can show many websites, each listing different weights and sizes for the iPod -- partly because size and weight of the iPod have varied during development, and partly because they haven't professionals measuring the devices.
It's a lot like the manager saying "I want software that like Simply Accounting, with similar Invoicing, Point of Sale, and UPC abilities" and blowing their stack when the result is a website that does all those things because "It isn't exactly what I wanted!".
>People are not omniscient, and telling them "This is really serious software! Don't put any bugs in this one, now!" doesn't make a whit of difference to their fallibility.
Perhaps not, but the big difference is that ethics will make it difficult to find a programmer who will do a rush job on a medical device, whereas it's easy to find a programmer who'd do a rush job on a video game. I could definately live with having created a crappy product that annoyed someone. I would find it much more devastating to have killed many people due to an decision not to say "I Quit!".
You know what would be even cooler? Not having night blindness!
Does Apple even *bother* to read usability studies anymore? Is style *all* they can do now? YUCK. White display at night? How much of a worse idea can you get? It'd be tough. Maybe next Apple will adopt the Playskool (tm) Windows XP GUI?
>Oh, and it's 4-bit instead of 2-bit (I don't have a Zen so I can't confirm that it's 2-bit, but it looks that way to me). Cool.
Awesome! So... it looks like a gameboy then. I always loved it when I couldn't read my high score because the author chose to use a grey colour. Oh wait, did I say loved?
I meant that I hated that. Whoops.
As far as 104 vs. 128 lines, I'd go with night vision over 19% more display. And I'd go for the lighter product. Which isn't the iPod.
A valid personal opinion. Personally, I like the chrome look of devices far more than the new "hip" white look (Even so far as to have a 1970's stereo on my desk right now). More importantly, it'll still look reasonably nice after being dropped on the ground, or otherwise scratched, being brushed metal, whereas an iPod is likely to have black marks and visible scratches, which would make it look particularly unstylish.
No. Do Apple zealots always use ad-hominem attacks like that one right off the bat? Pathetic.
>I didn't even mention Quality
Good idea not to when you're lucky to get a 2 years from an iPod battery (which is sealed, and therefore renders the unit defective and non-user-serviceable -- ie: Broken).
>Surely you can do better than that?
Okay, here's one that is lighter and within a few percent of the iPod's size. With more space, a metal case, removable li-ion battery, and WMA support, to boot. Did I mention the nicely backlit display? Wow!
>Walk into a Store and tell them you might just run linux unless you get a deal on Windows... the answer you get back is "Go Ahead"... so unless your a business you have nothing to do but pay the "fine"(for being stupid enough to let the powers that be let MS get away with their monopoly)
That's because the margin at your local retail computer store on windows is about $20. How much do you expect to be able to bargain them down by? $1? $2?
Here's what I pay for a copy of windows XP Home: $117.00 CDN Here's what I sell it for, with a big system: $134.99 CDN And here's the price for it with a shitbox: $139.99 CDN
I simply don't bargain on that kind of margin (which is average for here). Yup, I'll just say "Sorry, we won't make a profit at your price." and I'll sit down at my desk and read slashdot. Probably should do something more useful, but hell, slashdot's more fun.
>I know dozens of guys around here, Finland, that do 24/7 leeching on their dsl's or cable modems - with no problems at all since that's how the service was sold to them.
That's excellent. That being said, it's extremely difficult to get a reasonably priced internet connection in North America that isn't in some form limited (either rate limited or bandwidth limited). I myself pay $170 CDN monthly for unlimited bandwidth the same speed as this service, and when I ask other ISPs about it, they unanimously explain at that price it's actually below cost.
Perhaps it's time for me to re-evaluate european internet access. In North America we've heard so many horror stories about European telecom companies ripping customers off that, well, we just *assume* internet access there should be much more expensive than it is here. It seems I'm incorrect on that, and for that I'm sorry.
Uhhhh... how exactly isn't this already done? I know there's a reason why CFC laden Flux Spray is expensive, and it *isn't* because the raw materials are expensive...
This is standard for most ISPs. At least, unlike certain others, they are being upfront about the limits. No ISP can afford a 24x7 leech @ $40 monthly.
Other ISPs, who either don't want to kick users, or weren't upfront about their limits will find other methods to "fix" the problem users.
>But the real question is, do you know many doctors that treat their patients with anger and frustration whenever they think that the patient is an idiot? Not many huh?
Go watch Aricle 99 and then tell me that again with a straight face.
Slashdot Mirror
>With a lian-li case, arctic silver compound, an SLK800 heatsink and 7 80mm fans it still runs at 58C.
:-)
Wow! After reading that I will never buy arctic silver compound, an SLK800 heatsink, or a lian-li case ever again. Using the stock fan and a $25 case (no fans), and the world's most garbage PSU known to man my Athlon 2000 runs at about 45 degrees C.
>At least Microsoft never said (to my knowledge) "Our OS comes with games built in," referring to Solitare and Minesweeper (and whatever else comes with XP now).
;-)
Wanna bet?
>You can't just put a cheap splitter in and expect it to work.
;-)
No, but they do make satellite splitters. If it says "xx to 2450 Mhz" and "Power Passing One Port" on it, it's probably good. Of course, it'll only pass half the channels (whatever is the presently selected polarization by the master [power passing] port).
You've probably not seen them because the only time they seem to come in handy is when the installer is setting up a cheap-ass single output dish.
>"Hate speech" only refers to speech that is intended to incite violence against individuals or groups.
"Hate speech" which incites violence, such as the bible, for a true example.
As an atheist, I really shouldn't care, but as someone who believes that only in a society where people don't have to discuss their true feelings (not matter what they might be) behind closed doors can we begin to make progress towards ethical and decent conduct, I have to say censoring the bible and emebllishments on it is just plain wrong.
Otherwise we will end up with secret societies (KKK) that remain outside government radar and do far more illegal and unethical things than uttering offensive language.
>Fact: The stretch of the 401 between Windsor and Chatham was known as "Death Alley" just a few short years ago. The entire length of the 401 is currently in the process of being upgraded over the next few years, largely as a result of "Death Alley".
:-) I can tell you that is the singlemost dangerous thing they encounter on the roads, apart from danger number 2: People who enter a 100 km/h highway at 80 km/h. You'll also find Young Drivers and many other safe driving organizations agree: A small amount of speeding is only a tiny factor in poor driving.
Fact: That section of highway was developed in 1930, before it was Highway 401. Also fact: Few cars could reach 100 km/h in that era.
I'm talking about the most used part of the 401, the MacDonald-Cartier Freeway part, not the ancient Highway 98 stretch. That part clearly needs fixing, but is detritus from old years, not part of the new (and safe at high speeds) 401.
>Based on this fact, I find your assertion that this road was designed for speeds over 140 km/h to be quite unlikely to say the least.
Then, perhaps you aren't a road designer? I'm not either, but for a road designer to create a road safe at only 87% of the intended speed limit is definitely illegal, and to create a road not safe at 121% of the intended speed limit is clearly negligent.
>Furthermore, with the way a lot of people drive these days, more enforcement is sorely needed. If budgets don't allow for more policing, then photo radar suits me fine.
So, it's okay to have a driver driving poorly for over 2 weeks without them even knowing they are, and, more importantly, to only assess a monetary fine and no record, points, endorsements, or loss of license no matter how poorly they are driving (even if they are doing 320 km/h)? Because that's how photoradar works. It won't assess points, and it is unlikely insurance will even find out about a ticket. In other words, if you are monied, it's a license to speed, since the cops won't be patrolling, and there's a maximum speed the cameras can be used to catch, also.
>Don't like it? Don't speed.
Did you know that speeding is one of the very least likely ways to cause severe property damage and injury? You can check it out in the Ontario safety report.
The most dangerous, IMHO, action a driver can do is improper lane changes. Having spoken with members of the trucking industry (nice having a shop on a popular trucking route!
Lastly, the police encourage people on the 401 to do faster than the speed limit. They have ticketed people doing 100 km/h on that highway before, and have explained in the October wheels of the Toronto Star that they'll be doing it again if you are caught doing under 110 km/h in the fast lane.
Overall, it is far more dangerous to lane change without acceleration (cutting people off) and extremely dangerous to slow an entire highway down due to nerves.
So, without the support of the police, driving associations, and history on your side, *WHY* do you feel that speeding on the 401 is a bad idea? It seems that you are the only person in Canada with that feeling. 85% of drivers on the 401 drive at over 110 km/h, and that's the entire 401, not just "Death Alley".
Basically, when even the police disagree with you, you're probably going to be found wrong (and ticketed).
>Seems like the NDP actually did have their head screwed on straight, it's just that the media hated them.
The media hated them because they were a cash grabbing government who wasted everyone's money.
The Liberals intend to follow in the NDP's footsteps.
"Ontario could re-deploy photo radar on its highways to raise badly needed funds, Premier Dalton McGuinty suggested on Wednesday"
"I have long been a supporter of photo radar," the premier told reporters on his way into a cabinet meeting. "It's a revenue generator, absolutely."
Fact: The original legislated speed of the 401 was 115 km/h prior to a gas conservation act passing in the 70s and lowering the speed of the highway to 100 km/h. It is absolutely safe at that speed. This means that the designers of the highway designed it to accomodate speeds of over 140 km/h, if they have any sense at all (they do).
Photo radar has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with squeezing pocket books.
Oh, second fact: Photo radar during the Rae-era caused 401 speed to decrease, on average, from 99 km/h to 97 km/h, IIRC.
Third fact: Photo Radar has absolutely NOTHING to to do with safety whatsoever, admits Premier Dalton.
Last fact: Photo Radar, when re-implimented, will have so little to do with public safety, it is likely it will be the same as running a red light with a camera attached. Which means it will be listed as a minor moving violation no matter how serious the infraction (even, say, 100 km/h over the limit) without the possibility of losing ones license or even gaining demerit points. Safety is the last thing from the minds of anyone implementing photo radar.
>The best way to implement photo radar would be to have it as a supplement to catch the most grievous violators.
Why? Even at the more conservative value it did as good a job as the "Buckle Up For Safety" signs. ie: Nothing of value.
>Rae days happened so all public-sector employees could keep their jobs. Massive layoffs followed the removal of these unpaid days off.
Also, Rae days caused public unrest and massive Ontario-wide wildcat sympathy strikes. Why the hell should someone keep their job if they aren't needed? Get rid of them the way everyone else does: Lay them off. It was a bad idea all around. It meant the government couldn't do house cleaning of lazy bastards, and they would provide less service at the same cost to consumers. If I did that sort of stuff I'd be out of business faster than you can imagine.
BTW: I'm not joking about the price increases. As our store uses electricity for heating and cooling, and as we have to use the 407 (where rates will also be increasing) and because we are using the 401 to transport goods (which will be cash-cowed to death) prices in my shop will raise by a minimum of 15% over the next 12 months to meet break-even rates.
RCMP? Bah! They're *WAY* too busy arresting people for competing with them on pirate US Television and bringing their own personal Mary Jane to deal with something as unimportant and piddly as a few million dollars and sliming the government with egg-on-the-face.
>My thoughts are that this is definately part of the Liberal scandal, and not to restate this, but it's very important someone cleans up Canadian politics, and IMHO, that is the NDP.
LOL! Look at the great things they did for Ontario! Rae days and photo radar! Please, TAX ME MORE so that I can RAISE PRICES.
>so in essence, there is no difference from using the IP from a source for your own benefit and selling it to make money for yourself....YOU are still benefiting in both instances
For yourself, yes.
But it is totally different if you are misrepresenting a pirated product as either an original or your personal production. When you do that, the purchasers were CLEARLY interested in buying the "real thing", and would have bought it. You have obviously deprived the creators of money they deserved.
However, if you post MP3s to Usenet, it is unclear if the downloaders of said music were interested in purchasing it and pirated it instead, and it is equally unclear if they are downloading it to sample prior to purchasing the album.
That's the difference. In the first case, you can show a guaranteed loss, in the second case, it's almost impossible. Which is why #1 is copyright violation, fraud and misrepresentation rolled together, and #2 is just simple copyright violation.
It's like the difference between Robbery and Break & Enter. With the first, there's proof of stolen goods and personal damage (the people physically harmed, and the missing goods), also tresspass and physical damage of property -- with the second you can only prove tresspass and a broken window/door lock.
Spammers are like roaches. If you squash one, they don't go near that area until it's washed up.
With some luck, this'll send them into hiding for a while.
>There are fuckwits in any community. There are smart people in any community. It's called a normal distribution.
:-S
Hey, I don't disagree all that much. However, it's been my experience (check my post history... although only the past 24 doesn't help) that 90% of people using Macs resort to "Troll" or "Moron" namecalling within 1 - 2 posts. That's sad, and I just hope the curve's bent out of shape by slashdot.
Or, it could be that my posts provoke certain people. That's more likely. Oh well... C'est la vie.
>However, why the heck does the Mac need to come into the mainstream?
It doesn't have to, but there's users like me, who would be happy to switch from windows, if for an alternative that's as unproprietary as PCs. Mac has a lot going for it, IMHO, but there's enough missing (for me) that I can't switch.
>This may change with the launch of Dish's next satellite.
Dish has always had the upper hand on capacity. Here's the list of DirecTV satellites (via lyngsat):
101 - DirecTV 1R/2/4S
110 - DirecTV 6
119 - DirecTV 5
I don't know where DirecTV 7S is, it isn't listed.
And DishNetwork run satellites:
61.5 - EchoStar 3
105 - AMC 2
110 - EchoStar 6/8
119 - EchoStar 7
121 - EchoStar 9
148 - EchoStar 1/2
151 - EchoStar 4
That's a *LOT* of broadcast power. And with the Turbocoding (soon to be 8PSK) used on 105/121, that's twice the bang for the buck. Not to mention the option of 7/8 FEC over straight 5/6 QPSK FEC (all that DirecTV supports), they have much more to play with. They can squeeze a bit out of the failing transponders by setting the FEC to 1/2.
>Some things are fairly well provable. Such as size or weight comparisons. That's not a matter of opinion. It falls into the realm of fact.
That may be. However, if you were demanding such an exacting comparison, it's your responsibility to list the exact dimensions expected. I can show many websites, each listing different weights and sizes for the iPod -- partly because size and weight of the iPod have varied during development, and partly because they haven't professionals measuring the devices.
It's a lot like the manager saying "I want software that like Simply Accounting, with similar Invoicing, Point of Sale, and UPC abilities" and blowing their stack when the result is a website that does all those things because "It isn't exactly what I wanted!".
>People are not omniscient, and telling them "This is really serious software! Don't put any bugs in this one, now!" doesn't make a whit of difference to their fallibility.
Perhaps not, but the big difference is that ethics will make it difficult to find a programmer who will do a rush job on a medical device, whereas it's easy to find a programmer who'd do a rush job on a video game. I could definately live with having created a crappy product that annoyed someone. I would find it much more devastating to have killed many people due to an decision not to say "I Quit!".
>White backlit.
You know what would be even cooler? Not having night blindness!
Does Apple even *bother* to read usability studies anymore? Is style *all* they can do now? YUCK. White display at night? How much of a worse idea can you get? It'd be tough. Maybe next Apple will adopt the Playskool (tm) Windows XP GUI?
>Oh, and it's 4-bit instead of 2-bit (I don't have a Zen so I can't confirm that it's 2-bit, but it looks that way to me). Cool.
Awesome! So... it looks like a gameboy then. I always loved it when I couldn't read my high score because the author chose to use a grey colour. Oh wait, did I say loved?
I meant that I hated that. Whoops.
As far as 104 vs. 128 lines, I'd go with night vision over 19% more display. And I'd go for the lighter product. Which isn't the iPod.
>that person's an idiot
That brings me to question #2: Do apple zealots normally consider everyone with a differing opinion, or anyone who is slightly mistaken an "idiot"?
A bit less vitriol, and a bit more co-operation would certainly help bring the Mac into the mainstream, IMHO.
>but it's nowhere near as stylish
A valid personal opinion. Personally, I like the chrome look of devices far more than the new "hip" white look (Even so far as to have a 1970's stereo on my desk right now). More importantly, it'll still look reasonably nice after being dropped on the ground, or otherwise scratched, being brushed metal, whereas an iPod is likely to have black marks and visible scratches, which would make it look particularly unstylish.
>This is a troll right?
No. Do Apple zealots always use ad-hominem attacks like that one right off the bat? Pathetic.
>I didn't even mention Quality
Good idea not to when you're lucky to get a 2 years from an iPod battery (which is sealed, and therefore renders the unit defective and non-user-serviceable -- ie: Broken).
>Surely you can do better than that?
Okay, here's one that is lighter and within a few percent of the iPod's size. With more space, a metal case, removable li-ion battery, and WMA support, to boot. Did I mention the nicely backlit display? Wow!
>Can you point me to such a product?
$129.99 @ 20 GB.
Of course they can't DUPLICATE the iPod exactly, that would be illegal.
Awesome. For those of us on a budget, can you point me to a new Mac selling for $650 US?
Just wondering, because with a $350 premium, I'd expect to find one at that price.
>Walk into a Store and tell them you might just run linux unless you get a deal on Windows... the answer you get back is "Go Ahead"... so unless your a business you have nothing to do but pay the "fine"(for being stupid enough to let the powers that be let MS get away with their monopoly)
That's because the margin at your local retail computer store on windows is about $20. How much do you expect to be able to bargain them down by? $1? $2?
Here's what I pay for a copy of windows XP Home: $117.00 CDN
Here's what I sell it for, with a big system: $134.99 CDN
And here's the price for it with a shitbox: $139.99 CDN
I simply don't bargain on that kind of margin (which is average for here). Yup, I'll just say "Sorry, we won't make a profit at your price." and I'll sit down at my desk and read slashdot. Probably should do something more useful, but hell, slashdot's more fun.
>take a look around will you?
:-)
I do try, but I can't read Finnish!
>I know dozens of guys around here, Finland, that do 24/7 leeching on their dsl's or cable modems - with no problems at all since that's how the service was sold to them.
That's excellent. That being said, it's extremely difficult to get a reasonably priced internet connection in North America that isn't in some form limited (either rate limited or bandwidth limited). I myself pay $170 CDN monthly for unlimited bandwidth the same speed as this service, and when I ask other ISPs about it, they unanimously explain at that price it's actually below cost.
Perhaps it's time for me to re-evaluate european internet access. In North America we've heard so many horror stories about European telecom companies ripping customers off that, well, we just *assume* internet access there should be much more expensive than it is here. It seems I'm incorrect on that, and for that I'm sorry.
Uhhhh... how exactly isn't this already done? I know there's a reason why CFC laden Flux Spray is expensive, and it *isn't* because the raw materials are expensive...
This is standard for most ISPs. At least, unlike certain others, they are being upfront about the limits. No ISP can afford a 24x7 leech @ $40 monthly.
Other ISPs, who either don't want to kick users, or weren't upfront about their limits will find other methods to "fix" the problem users.
>But the real question is, do you know many doctors that treat their patients with anger and frustration whenever they think that the patient is an idiot? Not many huh?
Go watch Aricle 99 and then tell me that again with a straight face.