You say that like there are people who care about their communities in those neighborhoods....
People either left already and sold their place to be used as an empty investment chip, or they're waiting to do so and the last thing they want is anyone devaluing what they're sitting on - which random arsons might do.
Or the rare third option is that takes place in Shaugnessy or one of the other tony neighborhoods with the houses in the 10s of millions instead of just millions. And if you started burning an empty house in those areas, all of the VPD would be tasked with hunting you to the ends of the earth.
> If Southern California is anything like Seattle or Vancouver, those ranchers being sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars over the asking price aren't being bought by people who intend to live in them, they're being bought by people who intend to build some form of multi-family dwellings;
Incorrect at least in most cases in Vancouver. In Vancouver those ranchers are being bought by people who intend to hold onto them for a couple of years like a stock certificate and then sell them on to someone else again, making a 20-30% profit in the process. Which is part of the reason the rental market is so screwed up here.
> 'showrooming' his employer. Internet vendors, not having to pay commish will almost always have the best price
Some day we will be trading inconveniences and costs. Already starting to see it. With companies like Wayfair, it's practically impossible to get a feel for what their products are like in reality, so while it's nice they have free shipping, if that couch you order from them isn't comfortable or clashes with the rug or whatever and you want to exchange it, you still need to box it back up and arrange shipping back. How much of your time will be eaten by that? And if it's a straight return, you pay shipping.
Many times I don't mind going to a brick and mortar store for something when I can pick it up/sit on it and then walk out the door with it. Even if it means a premium over online, I get it today, and I know if there's a problem it won't be a massive production to deal with.
> I heavily research most everything I buy and already know what I want when I come in to the store.
Great, you, I and many people like us all do that. What about the other 90% of the population? Many people buy many things they know little or nothing about in part because they have no idea how to do that research themselves. That's the segment of the market that salespeople are useful for. And many of those salespeople are experts in the application of their product, especially in niche stores. You walk into a high end store looking for a suit, the salesperson is going to be able to tell you what will look better on you than you will, guaranteed.
> If Tesla can sell the same hardware at different price points and still make a profit then the higher price point is simply profiteering.
Is it? Is it really? Is it not possible that Tesla can sell that lower price point car at the price it can because the cost is partly offset by the full range buyers? By your logic if I made a thing that cost me $9 and I sold it for $10 partly limited in some way and fully open at $20 for the "high end" version that was unlimited, then on the high end model I am profiteering to the tune of $11 per unit and am a bad person and should probably be lined up against a wall or something. But what if I then shared that I sell 2500 $10 units a month and 300 $20 units a month, and my staff costs on top of the $9 material and build cost are $3000/month. So what's the solution? Market research has shown that if I have just the premium model as the only model and sell it for $12, I won't sell 2800 units a month any more, I'll be moving 1000 if I'm lucky. So I'm supposed to work for free? My investors are supposed to get nothing?
Pricing in tiers like this is a highly complex subject and way more nuanced than "ZOMG - ripoff!" binary responses. There are some people who wouldn't have been able to afford a Tesla at all if the software limited battery pack wasn't an option, so it works to create more options for people. Same with iPhones for example. Apple could just make one size and say "$1000 on the table right now, or no iPhone for you." But they don't because they want additional market penetration across all classes of consumer.
I agree! Let's outlaw it. So, how is that 30% jump in the price of economy... oops I mean "no longer economy" airline seats working out for you? With everyone on the airplane now paying the same price per square inch, those business class travelers are saving a ton too! Only a 20% premium over the lowest ticket now.
You act like they're the first people to do this. Spoiler alert: They're not.
Many companies make a thing on a single assembly line because it's less expensive then running two or more lines, and then artificially limit its capabilities when a version of it is sold as a lower-end model. See Intel, nVidia and others. And IBM. Not sure if they still do it, but one of their old mainframes had a ton of processors under the hood no matter which model you bought, but many were locked off. If you wanted to upgrade you paid IBM their truckload of lucre and they sent out a tech with a pair of wirecutters who would then open the case and cut a few strategically placed wires inside and voila! Extra processors.
> They clearly weren't incompetent at insider trading....
Actually they were. They got caught. They did the insider trading version of vastly upgrading your homeowner insurance policy the day before you set your house on fire to collect the insurance.
And the wingnut alarmists think that the next president will bring it in. It still has to go through the Commission, the council and then parliament. Which it won't. Several groups already have this in their crosshairs and are making noise about it. Not to mention ECHR - who literally yesterday gave a ruling that your employer has to notify you of monitoring of your work email - would torpedo it in an instant.
>Folks have been whining about how automation will destroy our civilization tomorrow . . . since about when it started, back in the 1700's. That tomorrow never seems to come
That's because there has always been some new job to move people onto. The problem with general purpose automation like we're starting to see is that many of those new jobs will *also* be done by machines instead of the displaced humans. These aren't your father's robots in a car factory that are designed to do 14 welds on a frame precisely and changing to a different frame takes weeks of calibrations to get the line re-set and passing QC. These are robots or AI programs that will take new instructions and sort out the fuzzy logic needed to be productive in seconds.
> We need a way to spread the wealth out a little more evenly.
Not likely any time soon in the US, especially with the Republicans in office. Houston's still under water and they're trying to push more tax cuts for the rich. The US's future under automation is going to look a lot more like Rio de Janeiro of the present unless some dramatic political change is enacted.
I don't buy components for work from a mail order place, I have a hardware guy who runs his own company and he delivers after he picks it up from his reseller's warehouse in town - the same warehouses that supply all those mail order shops. When I get hard drives from him I am usually getting them in bulk (10+) and each are still in the styrofoam racking that he got from the warehouse when he picks them up.
But for one offs or home use you are correct, better packaging means longer lived parts with moving components as a general rule.
And how much is your peace of mind worth? Or your time spent cleaning up after that Seagate drive blows up on you?
Good components cost more up front, but save you time and energy over their lifespan. I'm IT for a satellite office of a US multinational and unlike the parent company our workstations, dev servers and datacenter servers are all spec'd and scratchbuilt by me with decent components instead of being cheap and cheerful mass purchased crap from the 2nd lowest bidder. As a result my equipment failure rate is about 1/10th that of my US counterparts. It costs a little more up front, but the back end savings in time and productivity are definitely worth it.
You do realize that Nintendo has buckets of cash so if they wanted to produce more SNES (assuming their preferred manufacturing partners have capacity) they'd just throw money at it and it would be done, there's no need to "starve" the Switch production?
And if it did somehow come down to a choice between making Switches or SNES classics, anyone with two brain cells to rub together would of course choose the Switch. SNES classic is a little one-time toy like the NES classic. Growing the Switch install base quickly is top priority for long term health of the company. More Switches = more developers publishing for Switch = more games sold = more royalties for Nintendo on every Switch game sold. Why make $20 off a SNES classic once when you can make $40 off a Switch at sale, than another $2-$5 every time that Switch owner buys another game?
>Do we really need grocery store slashvertisements?
One of the biggest tech companies on the planet that literally revolutionized online buying has moved into grocery space and decides to cut prices dramatically for a "premium" market segment and you don't think there's a tech interest angle there?
I know you're going for a laugh, but this shit shouldn't be joked about. Yes Kim Dotcom is a bit of a twat, but his rights still need to be respected and enforced. To paraphrase a wise man - rights must apply equally to everyone or they mean nothing.
A lack of other features. At the core of it, there's almost no functional difference for the casual consumer between a Samsung 60" 4K TV and an LG, Sony or (fill in manufacturer here) 60" 4K TV. There are styling differences and a few other differences that most non-videophiles don't care about all that much, and a few things like HDR that only click for people when they see it for themselves, but for the most part a TV is a TV these days. Pick the size and 1080p or 4K, pick the cheapest price and off you go.
As a result, manufacturers tried to differentiate with smart TVs to charge more money for the same panels. The Smart TVs offered the convenience of watching streaming apps without needing a separate device (and another remote), so the manufacturers saw this as a new battleground. Problem is that adding apps to a TV was a relatively easy process as most TV makers weren't going to go out and reinvent the wheel, instead using modified OSs already out there (Android, WebOS, Tizen, Roku, etc). This meant that the Smart TV battle was a very short one with no winners and now we're back to square one where the consumer just wants a TV of a given size and resolution AND with all the apps, and buys the cheapest one that looks good to them in the showroom.
Which leads to a new problem with app/firmware updates, like we see in the parent article. But that's a whole different kettle of fish that is more about sloppy QA, the absurd "patch patch patch" mindset for *appliances*, etc.
"The team had been working on isometric helicopter sim Desert Strike for EA"
There are several ways I'd describe that game, simulation doesn't make it on that list. That's like calling your old slot racer kit a driving simulator.
Could have been Ford Canada. They're assholes. Friend of mine had the infamous Focus ignition cylinder problem that Ford USA was doing replacements on free of charge. For him in Canada? That'll be $1000...
You know, having children does benefit the childless as well. Or would you like to live in an area where everyone chose to be childless and now that everyone's retired there's no staff for... well.. anything? No hospital staff, cops, restaurant workers, store workers, etc. Just look at Japan and their oncoming worker-to-retired ratio slow motion train wreck.
That's one of the reasons that responsible governments understand people having children is vital to society's health and encourage the choice to do so with services and financial incentives. Other governments... not so much.
> Would love to hear how this is or is not a slippery slope towards censorship. Thanks.
Easy. This is domain registration that was cancelled by Google, NOT root server level restriction which a lot of commenters here seem to think is where it's being rejected. There are LOTS of domain registrars, if one won't serve you, go to another that will. Registrars rejecting domain registration is nothing new. Godaddy's rejected domain registrations for adult oriented domains before, the people who tried to register those just went to another registrar. If these neo-Nazi jackasses go through this entire list:
While I'm sure they do, high volume sounds outside of the audible frequency range probably wasn't one of the things that are swept for. All in all this makes very little sense to be done intentionally, as there's literally nothing to gain from it. I'd go with what others are suggesting - that this is probably caused by some poorly maintained or malfunctioning piece of equipment.
Slashdot Mirror
You say that like there are people who care about their communities in those neighborhoods....
People either left already and sold their place to be used as an empty investment chip, or they're waiting to do so and the last thing they want is anyone devaluing what they're sitting on - which random arsons might do.
Or the rare third option is that takes place in Shaugnessy or one of the other tony neighborhoods with the houses in the 10s of millions instead of just millions. And if you started burning an empty house in those areas, all of the VPD would be tasked with hunting you to the ends of the earth.
> If Southern California is anything like Seattle or Vancouver, those ranchers being sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars over the asking price aren't being bought by people who intend to live in them, they're being bought by people who intend to build some form of multi-family dwellings;
Incorrect at least in most cases in Vancouver. In Vancouver those ranchers are being bought by people who intend to hold onto them for a couple of years like a stock certificate and then sell them on to someone else again, making a 20-30% profit in the process. Which is part of the reason the rental market is so screwed up here.
Sure, but what's the alternative? People buying shit at random and hoping for the best?
> 'showrooming' his employer. Internet vendors, not having to pay commish will almost always have the best price
Some day we will be trading inconveniences and costs. Already starting to see it. With companies like Wayfair, it's practically impossible to get a feel for what their products are like in reality, so while it's nice they have free shipping, if that couch you order from them isn't comfortable or clashes with the rug or whatever and you want to exchange it, you still need to box it back up and arrange shipping back. How much of your time will be eaten by that? And if it's a straight return, you pay shipping.
Many times I don't mind going to a brick and mortar store for something when I can pick it up/sit on it and then walk out the door with it. Even if it means a premium over online, I get it today, and I know if there's a problem it won't be a massive production to deal with.
> I heavily research most everything I buy and already know what I want when I come in to the store.
Great, you, I and many people like us all do that. What about the other 90% of the population? Many people buy many things they know little or nothing about in part because they have no idea how to do that research themselves. That's the segment of the market that salespeople are useful for. And many of those salespeople are experts in the application of their product, especially in niche stores. You walk into a high end store looking for a suit, the salesperson is going to be able to tell you what will look better on you than you will, guaranteed.
> If Tesla can sell the same hardware at different price points and still make a profit then the higher price point is simply profiteering.
Is it? Is it really? Is it not possible that Tesla can sell that lower price point car at the price it can because the cost is partly offset by the full range buyers? By your logic if I made a thing that cost me $9 and I sold it for $10 partly limited in some way and fully open at $20 for the "high end" version that was unlimited, then on the high end model I am profiteering to the tune of $11 per unit and am a bad person and should probably be lined up against a wall or something. But what if I then shared that I sell 2500 $10 units a month and 300 $20 units a month, and my staff costs on top of the $9 material and build cost are $3000/month. So what's the solution? Market research has shown that if I have just the premium model as the only model and sell it for $12, I won't sell 2800 units a month any more, I'll be moving 1000 if I'm lucky. So I'm supposed to work for free? My investors are supposed to get nothing?
Pricing in tiers like this is a highly complex subject and way more nuanced than "ZOMG - ripoff!" binary responses. There are some people who wouldn't have been able to afford a Tesla at all if the software limited battery pack wasn't an option, so it works to create more options for people. Same with iPhones for example. Apple could just make one size and say "$1000 on the table right now, or no iPhone for you." But they don't because they want additional market penetration across all classes of consumer.
I agree! Let's outlaw it. So, how is that 30% jump in the price of economy... oops I mean "no longer economy" airline seats working out for you? With everyone on the airplane now paying the same price per square inch, those business class travelers are saving a ton too! Only a 20% premium over the lowest ticket now.
You act like they're the first people to do this. Spoiler alert: They're not.
Many companies make a thing on a single assembly line because it's less expensive then running two or more lines, and then artificially limit its capabilities when a version of it is sold as a lower-end model. See Intel, nVidia and others. And IBM. Not sure if they still do it, but one of their old mainframes had a ton of processors under the hood no matter which model you bought, but many were locked off. If you wanted to upgrade you paid IBM their truckload of lucre and they sent out a tech with a pair of wirecutters who would then open the case and cut a few strategically placed wires inside and voila! Extra processors.
> They clearly weren't incompetent at insider trading....
Actually they were. They got caught. They did the insider trading version of vastly upgrading your homeowner insurance policy the day before you set your house on fire to collect the insurance.
And the wingnut alarmists think that the next president will bring it in. It still has to go through the Commission, the council and then parliament. Which it won't. Several groups already have this in their crosshairs and are making noise about it. Not to mention ECHR - who literally yesterday gave a ruling that your employer has to notify you of monitoring of your work email - would torpedo it in an instant.
>Folks have been whining about how automation will destroy our civilization tomorrow . . . since about when it started, back in the 1700's. That tomorrow never seems to come
That's because there has always been some new job to move people onto. The problem with general purpose automation like we're starting to see is that many of those new jobs will *also* be done by machines instead of the displaced humans. These aren't your father's robots in a car factory that are designed to do 14 welds on a frame precisely and changing to a different frame takes weeks of calibrations to get the line re-set and passing QC. These are robots or AI programs that will take new instructions and sort out the fuzzy logic needed to be productive in seconds.
> We need a way to spread the wealth out a little more evenly.
Not likely any time soon in the US, especially with the Republicans in office. Houston's still under water and they're trying to push more tax cuts for the rich. The US's future under automation is going to look a lot more like Rio de Janeiro of the present unless some dramatic political change is enacted.
I don't buy components for work from a mail order place, I have a hardware guy who runs his own company and he delivers after he picks it up from his reseller's warehouse in town - the same warehouses that supply all those mail order shops. When I get hard drives from him I am usually getting them in bulk (10+) and each are still in the styrofoam racking that he got from the warehouse when he picks them up.
But for one offs or home use you are correct, better packaging means longer lived parts with moving components as a general rule.
And how much is your peace of mind worth? Or your time spent cleaning up after that Seagate drive blows up on you?
Good components cost more up front, but save you time and energy over their lifespan. I'm IT for a satellite office of a US multinational and unlike the parent company our workstations, dev servers and datacenter servers are all spec'd and scratchbuilt by me with decent components instead of being cheap and cheerful mass purchased crap from the 2nd lowest bidder. As a result my equipment failure rate is about 1/10th that of my US counterparts. It costs a little more up front, but the back end savings in time and productivity are definitely worth it.
You do realize that Nintendo has buckets of cash so if they wanted to produce more SNES (assuming their preferred manufacturing partners have capacity) they'd just throw money at it and it would be done, there's no need to "starve" the Switch production?
And if it did somehow come down to a choice between making Switches or SNES classics, anyone with two brain cells to rub together would of course choose the Switch. SNES classic is a little one-time toy like the NES classic. Growing the Switch install base quickly is top priority for long term health of the company. More Switches = more developers publishing for Switch = more games sold = more royalties for Nintendo on every Switch game sold. Why make $20 off a SNES classic once when you can make $40 off a Switch at sale, than another $2-$5 every time that Switch owner buys another game?
You do realize both systems use entirely different components and production lines, right? So shutting one line down won't make any more of the other.
>Do we really need grocery store slashvertisements?
One of the biggest tech companies on the planet that literally revolutionized online buying has moved into grocery space and decides to cut prices dramatically for a "premium" market segment and you don't think there's a tech interest angle there?
I know you're going for a laugh, but this shit shouldn't be joked about. Yes Kim Dotcom is a bit of a twat, but his rights still need to be respected and enforced. To paraphrase a wise man - rights must apply equally to everyone or they mean nothing.
A lack of other features. At the core of it, there's almost no functional difference for the casual consumer between a Samsung 60" 4K TV and an LG, Sony or (fill in manufacturer here) 60" 4K TV. There are styling differences and a few other differences that most non-videophiles don't care about all that much, and a few things like HDR that only click for people when they see it for themselves, but for the most part a TV is a TV these days. Pick the size and 1080p or 4K, pick the cheapest price and off you go.
As a result, manufacturers tried to differentiate with smart TVs to charge more money for the same panels. The Smart TVs offered the convenience of watching streaming apps without needing a separate device (and another remote), so the manufacturers saw this as a new battleground. Problem is that adding apps to a TV was a relatively easy process as most TV makers weren't going to go out and reinvent the wheel, instead using modified OSs already out there (Android, WebOS, Tizen, Roku, etc). This meant that the Smart TV battle was a very short one with no winners and now we're back to square one where the consumer just wants a TV of a given size and resolution AND with all the apps, and buys the cheapest one that looks good to them in the showroom.
Which leads to a new problem with app/firmware updates, like we see in the parent article. But that's a whole different kettle of fish that is more about sloppy QA, the absurd "patch patch patch" mindset for *appliances*, etc.
"The team had been working on isometric helicopter sim Desert Strike for EA"
There are several ways I'd describe that game, simulation doesn't make it on that list. That's like calling your old slot racer kit a driving simulator.
Could have been Ford Canada. They're assholes. Friend of mine had the infamous Focus ignition cylinder problem that Ford USA was doing replacements on free of charge. For him in Canada? That'll be $1000...
Fuck Ford.
I have no trouble believing the story. Ford is involved after all.
You know, having children does benefit the childless as well. Or would you like to live in an area where everyone chose to be childless and now that everyone's retired there's no staff for... well.. anything? No hospital staff, cops, restaurant workers, store workers, etc. Just look at Japan and their oncoming worker-to-retired ratio slow motion train wreck.
That's one of the reasons that responsible governments understand people having children is vital to society's health and encourage the choice to do so with services and financial incentives. Other governments... not so much.
> Would love to hear how this is or is not a slippery slope towards censorship. Thanks.
Easy. This is domain registration that was cancelled by Google, NOT root server level restriction which a lot of commenters here seem to think is where it's being rejected. There are LOTS of domain registrars, if one won't serve you, go to another that will. Registrars rejecting domain registration is nothing new. Godaddy's rejected domain registrations for adult oriented domains before, the people who tried to register those just went to another registrar. If these neo-Nazi jackasses go through this entire list:
https://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accredited-list.html
and still can't get it registered anywhere, then maybe you have a point. Somehow I really doubt they've tried.
While I'm sure they do, high volume sounds outside of the audible frequency range probably wasn't one of the things that are swept for. All in all this makes very little sense to be done intentionally, as there's literally nothing to gain from it. I'd go with what others are suggesting - that this is probably caused by some poorly maintained or malfunctioning piece of equipment.