Obligatory anti-Speakeasy post
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802.11 RF Amp
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· Score: 1
I've posted my woes about Speakeasy before, so I won't beat a dead horse. However, just a quick recap -- nightly outtages, billing snafus, unhelpful customer service, malicious tech support (waiting until my modem was out of warranty to diagnose my nightly outtages as a modem problem, even though the modem did that from day one), and more. Sure, I can and do run my own servers, and the tech support guys don't shit a brick when I tell them how I have my network setup (it's convoluted, involving a software bridge, a switch, a hub (I'd prefer a switch here, but I had the hub on hand), an AP, and quite a few computers and appliances). They also give me a lot for my money, and I'd be hard-pressed to find a DSL service that provides me exactly what I need as Speakeasy does. However, they're far from perfect.
To all Slashgeeks who are able: If you have a choice, go with SpeakEasy -- you might regret it, but you'll never know unless you try, right?
I guess that wasn't so "anti-Speakeasy" after all. Moral of the story: "Buyer beware."
Technically, NWN for Linux is not vaporware, according to the definition:
New software that has been announced or marketed but has not been produced.
"Produced" and "released" are not the same thing. I'm sure there are beta testers inside and out of Bioware that will tell you that the Linux client does exist. It's simply not released yet. Vaporware is a product that has been announced and marketed, but hasn't even been produced/developed (ie, Duke Nukem Forever -- switching engines so many times, it's hard to believe they have anything at all that even remotely resembles a game).
I suppose the work went into TFC for Half-Life, but still, they wanted to call it TF2.
Doubtful. TFC was initially created as a proof of concept for the Half-Life mod SDK. It was also a pretty close translation of the original TF for Quake (they screwed up a bunch of stuff, like letting the HWGuy walk while shooting, and totally f'ing over canalzon with the should've-been-aborted map cz2). TFC shared almost nothing in common with the ideas that were tossed around for TF2 (two-man gunner teams on fixed-position turrets, requiring a gunner and an ammo-feeder; medics with absolutely no offensive capabilities; a WW2-ish setting, etc).
I'll be able to "upgrade" to DRM for only the price of a new TV? Excellent! What am I waiting for?
Well, when the price of a good HD-compat TV starts around $1500-$2000, a couple hundred dollars is a good deal. Which would you rather do, buy a good TV now for $2000, enjoy it now, and spend $400 to upgrade it in two years, or spend $2000 on a TV now, enjoy it, and spend $2000 on a new TV to "upgrade" in two years? There's always the option not to buy a TV now, but that doesn't help the people that have already bought TVs.
Of course you can get a TV for a couple hundred dollars, but it's not going to be a good one, and it's certainly not going to be HD-compatible, much less HD-ready.
I'm really annoyed w/recent changes in the cable system moving premium channels to digital only. I don't think that cable systems should be allowed to do that. That's DOUBLE charging for HBO. Although w/the recent "slips" by the censors (Cher anyone?) maybe regular-old cable will end up carrying much the same content as HBO... We can always hope.
Huh? I don't know what you pay for cable, but adding HD channels to my current digital cable subscription (okay, "channel" singular, but they're supposed to be getting more...) only costs another ~$4/mo for the HD receiver. Maybe I'm overpaying on the digital subscription (just under $50/mo), but how am I being double-charged for HBO? Rather than getting one analog (yeah, I know, the "digital" cable stuff can look worse than analog due to compression, but whatever) channel of HBO, I get 10 (actually 11, if you count the HD channel, though that's the same as the main non-HD channel, so I just don't count the latter) channels of HBO, plus 10 total channels of STAR and ACT, and other stuff (TechTV, G4, some others). I could get 10 channels of Showtime and Cinemax, too, if there were anything on those I'd care to watch. I feel I'm getting a good deal for my money (maybe I'm not, but I feel that way), and now that AT&T have finally started rolling out HD channels, it's just getting better.
If you don't get any enjoyment from the extra channels, then don't get a subscription with them. Nobody said you have to subscribe to everything your cable provider offers. I hear basic+local channels is exceedingly cheap.
The article isn't clear on this but this would also mean screwing over current HDTV customers, since they do not have an integral decoder...
Not all HDTV or HD-compatible TV owners will be screwed. If you bought a Mitsubishi, then you can upgrade for only a few hundred dollars (Mitsubishi is supposed to have an upgrade unit out soon that will add firewire, an internal decoder, etc to current HD-compatible sets, and I'd be surprised if the same thing or similar won't be available for the HD-ready sets).
Then again, by the time this is all implemented (say, roughly 5 years), it'll be time to buy a new set anyway. The current HD-ready and HD-compatible set owners are not your mom and pop that buy a set and keep it for 20 years (well, okay, except for my parents -- but they got a good deal on their current HD set after their previous non-HD one of 15 years blew up from a lightning strike).
As a "news site," how liable is Slashdot for posting this story should it turn out to be total fiction? There was apparently zero editorial checking, and since the story isn't there, you have to wonder if it ever was. Did some Slashdot editor just see a cool story and "OK" the submission? If that's the typical way things get done, it's awfully unethical.
Until you can prove a direct correlation between something like a major dip in Sony stock and this story on Slashdot, I don't think Slashdot is liable for anything. Oh my, did I just stick up for the Slashdot editors? Crap. Anyway, you're 100% correct -- the editors should have at least followed the link (when the link is to a page that doesn't exist, don't post the story. end of... story). Failing that, they should've realized that any legitimate story on this would've at least linked to a more reputable source (cnnfn, yahoo, even msnbc), either without the consoletalk link or along side it.
My prediction is that this will get blamed on the editors seeing the Two Towers today. The movie was so damned long, they were probably half asleep by the time they got back to "work".
What is your email, noone@nowhere.net? If so, I apologize for all of the mailing lists I've signed you up for in the past...;)
And here I was thinking that he's the real bob@dole.com...
It'd be interesting to see the various different "throwaway" e-mail addresses people use when they don't actually have to get e-mail confirmation (for those that require I actually receive/read an e-mail, I've got an entire domain with near infinite throwaway accounts). Personally, I'm a big fan of bob@dole.com, then dob@bole.com, and finally teve@torbes.com. Anybody else have any other interesting ones?
Some idiot signed up for a passport account and gave them a dummy e-mail address that he just made up. Unfortunately it happens to be for a mailbox that I've used for years. The MS "welcome to.NEt passport" letter doesn't even give you an option to tell them that this address was subscribed in error and to take ou off their lists. I've tried sending e-mails to addresses of real people there, but everything has been ignored. I continue to get crap from them as a result of this bogus sign-up, and can't get rid of them.
What's the problem? The passport account is under your e-mail address, which means it's yours. Go to the Passport main site, follow the links to get the password for that account either mailed to you or reset (Follow the Member Services link, then "I forgot my password", follow the on-screen instructions), then login, go to Member Services, and close the account (the "Close my.NET Passport account" link). Done.
Hypocrites. Every day, you put up new articles (okay, well, you're supposed to, and this isn't about duplicate posts....). That means that every new story is a fresh beginning. If you're going to be morally opposed to registration sites (free or otherwise, though one can certainly understand on the pay sites -- maybe 5% of your readership will go pay for the registration, and the rest will turn the thread into an offtopic Slashdot bashfest), then do it right. Just because you've linked to the NYT in the past doesn't mean you have to link there in the future. Alternatively, because you link to the NYT, and the LAT has the same setup (free registration), you could easily link to them with the exact same disclaimer.
My point? Being "grandfathered in" really doesn't make any sense here. But then, I never expect consistency from the editorial staff. Sigh.
Actually, the FPS grandaddy would have to be Wolfenstein 3D.
Actually, you're not quite right, either. The real FPS grandaddy is actually Hovertank, with Catacomb 3D coming shortly after that. Catacomb 3D evolved from Hovertank's engine, and Wolf3D evolved from Catacomb's.
Now, I'm sure you can find some other first-person shooting game prior to 1991 if you really dig (Battlezone, perhaps?), but that's the history of the FPS and id.
When the rising up of the Quality Posts is upon Us
I shall post as required, but I am unable to cause posts to rise, for the Powers That Be deem me unsuitable for moderation points. The bastards.
Re:This is a summary?
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Decentralization
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Remember, this is Slashdot. It's not the editors' jobs to make sure that the story summaries actually summarize the story. Really, why should we know what the story is about, when we could click on the link to find out and generate revenue for the target site (assuming that site hasn't already been slashdotted, in which case it's impossible to have any idea what the story is about)? Really, come on! Editors doing editorial duties? What are you going ask for next, that they use a spell checker? Or that they actually read their own site to make sure they don't duplicate stories?
Remember, Slashdot is just Rob's personal site that happens to enjoy a large audience. Or so the line goes when someone has a gripe with the way it's run. To parrot the trolls, if you don't like it, leave. (I don't subscribe to that view, as it's a downward spiral leaving slashdot with nothing but first posters and trolls, but hey, if that's what they want...)
And now for the karma whoring -- That wooshing noise is the sound of a thousand moderators clicking "troll" and/or "flamebait" (guaranteed to get me modded up to at least +4).
And I'll give the token thumbs down for Speakeasy. I started with them almost a year and a half ago, with a 1.5/384 ADSL line that was supposed to be $90/mo, but due to a three-month billing snafu and a major reworking of their ADSL offerings, by the time they actually started billing me (mind you, I was getting service the entire time), that $90/mo line was suddenly $250/mo, plus back charges. Needless to say, I had no written proof that the line should have been $90/mo, and they weren't going to budge, so we met in the middle -- they dropped the charges for that line, and I upgraded to the more expensive 768kbps SDSL.
Now, fast forward a year to this past November. During my entire time on the SDSL plan, I had been suffering near nightly DSL outages. The first 5 or 6 times this happened, I did call Speakeasy, but the outages were intermittent and short, so they could never track anything down. Also, the power button on my modem never worked -- the modem was always on (which is fine, but this will factor in shortly). Finally, last month, just after the one-year anniversary of my SDSL account and the expiring of my modem's warranty, Speakeasy suddenly decided that my modem was bad and needed to be replaced. (see the correlation with the power button above? The modem was bad since the day I got it, but it worked enough for me not to realize, and Speakeasy figured they'd string me along until I would have to pay for another modem...)
To make a long story short, it took me several days and three customer support reps, but I finally got them to agree to give me the new modem for free since there was more than enough documentation on my account in the form of trouble tickets that prove the modem was bad at least as long ago as last February. So now my SDSL doesn't go down every other night, but it'll be interesting to see how they try to screw me next year...
There is a distinct lack of input methods for high definition video signals (or even low-definition, progressive-scan, widescreen signals like ATSC) for PCs, and one can only assume that it's because of DRM issues (firewire, USB2, and even AGP 8x should have more than enough bandwidth even for 1080i high definition streams). I made an attempt at building my own PVR (hey, why not, eh?), but the thing that made me finally give up the ghost on it was when my cable provider finally brought HDTV to my area (okay, so there was the whole overscan issue, and the inability to get a decent 1080i modeline for my video card and TV, but even had I figured out either or both of those, I still would've ended up SOL because I can't take HD video input). I wish I had a PVR, but when it comes down to it, I'll choose the Sopranos in High Definition over the ability to record the Sopranos. Give me both, and I'll happily pay!
I don't know who needs to get their heads out of their asses, but whoever it is, please do so! You've got a very good market of upscale, early adopters willing to spend good money for this kind of service. Capitalize! I'd be all over a TiVO that handled HD signals (1080i preferably, but I'd suffer with 480p) on component inputs (since I get my HD over cable, and not OTA, the HD tuners out there are useless), let me time shift and record, and cost < $1000, and I'm sure many others out there would be as well.
From what I've read, the X-box is nothing more than a PIII PC with some mods to make it "different".
If you believe that, then you'll also believe that the Nintendo GameCube is nothing more than a PowerPC computer with some mods to make it "different".
A console is more than the sum of its parts. The PS2 uses Rambus memory. The Dreamcast used an SH4 (I think -- or was it SH3?) processor. Even the original NES used a standard Motorola processor. The XBox uses a Pentium 3. The GameCube uses a PowerPC. And so on. All of these consoles use standard, commodity hardware that has also been used in other computers and embedded hardware. Big deal.
For some reason, companies seem to think that they have a right to control the phone you paid for. Think of it as "Palladium Light" and a bad sign of things to come.
Your best bet: don't waste time or money on such phones. If it comes with such features, don't use them. If customers send a signal now that they want control of the digital devices they paid for, maybe this insanity can be nipped in the bud.
Chances are, you didn't pay for that cell phone you're using. Few people do. Handsets are heavily discounted to get people to buy into contracts, and I would wager that 90%+ of all cell phone-using people took advantage of that. So, as with your cable box (which you also didn't buy), you really don't own that phone at all.
And before you jump in saying that you did buy your handset, let me just say that yes, you can do that. No, very few people ever do. You're not in the majority of consumers on that point.
Re:why waste money...
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Equilibrium
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually it's called phonetics.
I disagree. "Ur" (pronounced "ur") is not phonetically equal to "you're" (yew-ur) or even "your" (yore). "2" is not a phonetic symbol, it's a number. Same goes for "4". And while we're at it, "u" is just a letter (pronounce it phoneticaly and you get "uh" or "oo").
I agree with the AC -- it's called "being a fucking illiterate". There once was a time when children would lose points for misspelling words, especially simple ones like "you", "your", "you're", "to", "too", "two", etc (depending on the grade level, they may or may not have lost points for using the incorrect word, since that kind of thing isn't easy to grasp in first grade). These days, kids are lucky to be able to read by the time they graduate high school. I guess all of these similar-sounding, different-spelling, different-meaning words are just too difficult for today's kids (not necessarily homonyms, though I guess they can be difficult too).
Bah. Ferdinand Porsche designed, built, and sold transportation (guess where Volkswagen got its start?) and armor (yes, there was a Porsche-designed tank) to the Nazi military machine. Does that mean Porsche the company is bad? Should you not want a Porsche? BMW provided engines for the Luftwaffe, and after the war were no longer allowed to make airplane engines, so they turned to cars. Should you not buy a BMW now because of that?
Pretty much any German, Italian, or Japanese company that's been around since WWII will have done something to support the war effort at the time. Is that a reason to boycott them now? I think not.
And as far as China and censorship goes, how are they any different than France (except in severity), who don't allow any searches, auctions, etc on Nazi memorabilia?
(And before anybody gets it in their head, let me just state outright that I'm not a Nazi sympathizer. I'm simply making a point.)
Do you know what the meaning of ASSULT RIFLE means?
No clue. But I know what "assault rifle" means. Is that what you meant?
But for all intensive purposes
The quote is "for all intents and purposes", not "intensive purposes". I could maybe see how a purpose could be "of, relating to, or characterized by intensity", but I really don't think that's what you meant.
Slashdot Mirror
I've posted my woes about Speakeasy before, so I won't beat a dead horse. However, just a quick recap -- nightly outtages, billing snafus, unhelpful customer service, malicious tech support (waiting until my modem was out of warranty to diagnose my nightly outtages as a modem problem, even though the modem did that from day one), and more. Sure, I can and do run my own servers, and the tech support guys don't shit a brick when I tell them how I have my network setup (it's convoluted, involving a software bridge, a switch, a hub (I'd prefer a switch here, but I had the hub on hand), an AP, and quite a few computers and appliances). They also give me a lot for my money, and I'd be hard-pressed to find a DSL service that provides me exactly what I need as Speakeasy does. However, they're far from perfect.
To all Slashgeeks who are able: If you have a choice, go with SpeakEasy -- you might regret it, but you'll never know unless you try, right?
I guess that wasn't so "anti-Speakeasy" after all. Moral of the story: "Buyer beware."
Worst website EVAR.
Technically, NWN for Linux is not vaporware, according to the definition:
"Produced" and "released" are not the same thing. I'm sure there are beta testers inside and out of Bioware that will tell you that the Linux client does exist. It's simply not released yet. Vaporware is a product that has been announced and marketed, but hasn't even been produced/developed (ie, Duke Nukem Forever -- switching engines so many times, it's hard to believe they have anything at all that even remotely resembles a game).
Doubtful. TFC was initially created as a proof of concept for the Half-Life mod SDK. It was also a pretty close translation of the original TF for Quake (they screwed up a bunch of stuff, like letting the HWGuy walk while shooting, and totally f'ing over canalzon with the should've-been-aborted map cz2). TFC shared almost nothing in common with the ideas that were tossed around for TF2 (two-man gunner teams on fixed-position turrets, requiring a gunner and an ammo-feeder; medics with absolutely no offensive capabilities; a WW2-ish setting, etc).
Well, when the price of a good HD-compat TV starts around $1500-$2000, a couple hundred dollars is a good deal. Which would you rather do, buy a good TV now for $2000, enjoy it now, and spend $400 to upgrade it in two years, or spend $2000 on a TV now, enjoy it, and spend $2000 on a new TV to "upgrade" in two years? There's always the option not to buy a TV now, but that doesn't help the people that have already bought TVs.
Of course you can get a TV for a couple hundred dollars, but it's not going to be a good one, and it's certainly not going to be HD-compatible, much less HD-ready.
Huh? I don't know what you pay for cable, but adding HD channels to my current digital cable subscription (okay, "channel" singular, but they're supposed to be getting more ...) only costs another ~$4/mo for the HD receiver. Maybe I'm overpaying on the digital subscription (just under $50/mo), but how am I being double-charged for HBO? Rather than getting one analog (yeah, I know, the "digital" cable stuff can look worse than analog due to compression, but whatever) channel of HBO, I get 10 (actually 11, if you count the HD channel, though that's the same as the main non-HD channel, so I just don't count the latter) channels of HBO, plus 10 total channels of STAR and ACT, and other stuff (TechTV, G4, some others). I could get 10 channels of Showtime and Cinemax, too, if there were anything on those I'd care to watch. I feel I'm getting a good deal for my money (maybe I'm not, but I feel that way), and now that AT&T have finally started rolling out HD channels, it's just getting better.
If you don't get any enjoyment from the extra channels, then don't get a subscription with them. Nobody said you have to subscribe to everything your cable provider offers. I hear basic+local channels is exceedingly cheap.
Not all HDTV or HD-compatible TV owners will be screwed. If you bought a Mitsubishi, then you can upgrade for only a few hundred dollars (Mitsubishi is supposed to have an upgrade unit out soon that will add firewire, an internal decoder, etc to current HD-compatible sets, and I'd be surprised if the same thing or similar won't be available for the HD-ready sets).
Then again, by the time this is all implemented (say, roughly 5 years), it'll be time to buy a new set anyway. The current HD-ready and HD-compatible set owners are not your mom and pop that buy a set and keep it for 20 years (well, okay, except for my parents -- but they got a good deal on their current HD set after their previous non-HD one of 15 years blew up from a lightning strike).
Until you can prove a direct correlation between something like a major dip in Sony stock and this story on Slashdot, I don't think Slashdot is liable for anything. Oh my, did I just stick up for the Slashdot editors? Crap. Anyway, you're 100% correct -- the editors should have at least followed the link (when the link is to a page that doesn't exist, don't post the story. end of ... story). Failing that, they should've realized that any legitimate story on this would've at least linked to a more reputable source (cnnfn, yahoo, even msnbc), either without the consoletalk link or along side it.
My prediction is that this will get blamed on the editors seeing the Two Towers today. The movie was so damned long, they were probably half asleep by the time they got back to "work".
And here I was thinking that he's the real bob@dole.com ...
It'd be interesting to see the various different "throwaway" e-mail addresses people use when they don't actually have to get e-mail confirmation (for those that require I actually receive/read an e-mail, I've got an entire domain with near infinite throwaway accounts). Personally, I'm a big fan of bob@dole.com, then dob@bole.com, and finally teve@torbes.com. Anybody else have any other interesting ones?
What's the problem? The passport account is under your e-mail address, which means it's yours. Go to the Passport main site, follow the links to get the password for that account either mailed to you or reset (Follow the Member Services link, then "I forgot my password", follow the on-screen instructions), then login, go to Member Services, and close the account (the "Close my .NET Passport account" link). Done.
Hypocrites. Every day, you put up new articles (okay, well, you're supposed to, and this isn't about duplicate posts ....). That means that every new story is a fresh beginning. If you're going to be morally opposed to registration sites (free or otherwise, though one can certainly understand on the pay sites -- maybe 5% of your readership will go pay for the registration, and the rest will turn the thread into an offtopic Slashdot bashfest), then do it right. Just because you've linked to the NYT in the past doesn't mean you have to link there in the future. Alternatively, because you link to the NYT, and the LAT has the same setup (free registration), you could easily link to them with the exact same disclaimer.
My point? Being "grandfathered in" really doesn't make any sense here. But then, I never expect consistency from the editorial staff. Sigh.
Actually, you're not quite right, either. The real FPS grandaddy is actually Hovertank, with Catacomb 3D coming shortly after that. Catacomb 3D evolved from Hovertank's engine, and Wolf3D evolved from Catacomb's.
Now, I'm sure you can find some other first-person shooting game prior to 1991 if you really dig (Battlezone, perhaps?), but that's the history of the FPS and id.
I shall post as required, but I am unable to cause posts to rise, for the Powers That Be deem me unsuitable for moderation points. The bastards.
Remember, this is Slashdot. It's not the editors' jobs to make sure that the story summaries actually summarize the story. Really, why should we know what the story is about, when we could click on the link to find out and generate revenue for the target site (assuming that site hasn't already been slashdotted, in which case it's impossible to have any idea what the story is about)? Really, come on! Editors doing editorial duties? What are you going ask for next, that they use a spell checker? Or that they actually read their own site to make sure they don't duplicate stories?
Remember, Slashdot is just Rob's personal site that happens to enjoy a large audience. Or so the line goes when someone has a gripe with the way it's run. To parrot the trolls, if you don't like it, leave. (I don't subscribe to that view, as it's a downward spiral leaving slashdot with nothing but first posters and trolls, but hey, if that's what they want ...)
And now for the karma whoring -- That wooshing noise is the sound of a thousand moderators clicking "troll" and/or "flamebait" (guaranteed to get me modded up to at least +4).
And I'll give the token thumbs down for Speakeasy. I started with them almost a year and a half ago, with a 1.5/384 ADSL line that was supposed to be $90/mo, but due to a three-month billing snafu and a major reworking of their ADSL offerings, by the time they actually started billing me (mind you, I was getting service the entire time), that $90/mo line was suddenly $250/mo, plus back charges. Needless to say, I had no written proof that the line should have been $90/mo, and they weren't going to budge, so we met in the middle -- they dropped the charges for that line, and I upgraded to the more expensive 768kbps SDSL.
Now, fast forward a year to this past November. During my entire time on the SDSL plan, I had been suffering near nightly DSL outages. The first 5 or 6 times this happened, I did call Speakeasy, but the outages were intermittent and short, so they could never track anything down. Also, the power button on my modem never worked -- the modem was always on (which is fine, but this will factor in shortly). Finally, last month, just after the one-year anniversary of my SDSL account and the expiring of my modem's warranty, Speakeasy suddenly decided that my modem was bad and needed to be replaced. (see the correlation with the power button above? The modem was bad since the day I got it, but it worked enough for me not to realize, and Speakeasy figured they'd string me along until I would have to pay for another modem ...)
To make a long story short, it took me several days and three customer support reps, but I finally got them to agree to give me the new modem for free since there was more than enough documentation on my account in the form of trouble tickets that prove the modem was bad at least as long ago as last February. So now my SDSL doesn't go down every other night, but it'll be interesting to see how they try to screw me next year ...
Come play with the big boys! Anything less than 46" (16:9, no less) is not worth watching.
Hear hear!
There is a distinct lack of input methods for high definition video signals (or even low-definition, progressive-scan, widescreen signals like ATSC) for PCs, and one can only assume that it's because of DRM issues (firewire, USB2, and even AGP 8x should have more than enough bandwidth even for 1080i high definition streams). I made an attempt at building my own PVR (hey, why not, eh?), but the thing that made me finally give up the ghost on it was when my cable provider finally brought HDTV to my area (okay, so there was the whole overscan issue, and the inability to get a decent 1080i modeline for my video card and TV, but even had I figured out either or both of those, I still would've ended up SOL because I can't take HD video input). I wish I had a PVR, but when it comes down to it, I'll choose the Sopranos in High Definition over the ability to record the Sopranos. Give me both, and I'll happily pay!
I don't know who needs to get their heads out of their asses, but whoever it is, please do so! You've got a very good market of upscale, early adopters willing to spend good money for this kind of service. Capitalize! I'd be all over a TiVO that handled HD signals (1080i preferably, but I'd suffer with 480p) on component inputs (since I get my HD over cable, and not OTA, the HD tuners out there are useless), let me time shift and record, and cost < $1000, and I'm sure many others out there would be as well.
Uh ... I was trying to make my post readable by the Star Trek crowd. Yeah, that's it. Yeah ...
Hint: Try running your post through a spelling checker, so you don't sound like a moron as well.
If you believe that, then you'll also believe that the Nintendo GameCube is nothing more than a PowerPC computer with some mods to make it "different".
A console is more than the sum of its parts. The PS2 uses Rambus memory. The Dreamcast used an SH4 (I think -- or was it SH3?) processor. Even the original NES used a standard Motorola processor. The XBox uses a Pentium 3. The GameCube uses a PowerPC. And so on. All of these consoles use standard, commodity hardware that has also been used in other computers and embedded hardware. Big deal.
You hired a homeless man to steal checks from your wife? No wonder you got screwed.
(Hint: Next time, try using decent setence structure to not confuse your point.)
Chances are, you didn't pay for that cell phone you're using. Few people do. Handsets are heavily discounted to get people to buy into contracts, and I would wager that 90%+ of all cell phone-using people took advantage of that. So, as with your cable box (which you also didn't buy), you really don't own that phone at all.
And before you jump in saying that you did buy your handset, let me just say that yes, you can do that. No, very few people ever do. You're not in the majority of consumers on that point.
I disagree. "Ur" (pronounced "ur") is not phonetically equal to "you're" (yew-ur) or even "your" (yore). "2" is not a phonetic symbol, it's a number. Same goes for "4". And while we're at it, "u" is just a letter (pronounce it phoneticaly and you get "uh" or "oo").
I agree with the AC -- it's called "being a fucking illiterate". There once was a time when children would lose points for misspelling words, especially simple ones like "you", "your", "you're", "to", "too", "two", etc (depending on the grade level, they may or may not have lost points for using the incorrect word, since that kind of thing isn't easy to grasp in first grade). These days, kids are lucky to be able to read by the time they graduate high school. I guess all of these similar-sounding, different-spelling, different-meaning words are just too difficult for today's kids (not necessarily homonyms, though I guess they can be difficult too).
Bah. Ferdinand Porsche designed, built, and sold transportation (guess where Volkswagen got its start?) and armor (yes, there was a Porsche-designed tank) to the Nazi military machine. Does that mean Porsche the company is bad? Should you not want a Porsche? BMW provided engines for the Luftwaffe, and after the war were no longer allowed to make airplane engines, so they turned to cars. Should you not buy a BMW now because of that?
Pretty much any German, Italian, or Japanese company that's been around since WWII will have done something to support the war effort at the time. Is that a reason to boycott them now? I think not.
And as far as China and censorship goes, how are they any different than France (except in severity), who don't allow any searches, auctions, etc on Nazi memorabilia?
(And before anybody gets it in their head, let me just state outright that I'm not a Nazi sympathizer. I'm simply making a point.)
No clue. But I know what "assault rifle" means. Is that what you meant?
The quote is "for all intents and purposes", not "intensive purposes". I could maybe see how a purpose could be "of, relating to, or characterized by intensity", but I really don't think that's what you meant.
Goodbye karma!