If you don't like the type of game past Final Fantasy games have been, then please don't pretend that you can say anything objective about them. There is nothing wrong with a linear story line. Many of us enjoy that type of game. If you don't then go play one of the millions of other games out there that don't, and end up being massive slash fests instead.
Also, in a preemptive response to the inevitable "Final Fantasy games invented the need for a strategy guide" comments: Shut up! Just because you're too dumb to figure out how to do things in the game without the guide, or you're too lazy to take notes while you play so you can actually remember the important details and figure things out on your own doesn't mean the strategy guide is *required*.
It amazes me that people think like this and then wonder why the adventure genre dried up./me dons asbestos clothing....
I don't have my bill in front of me, but I live in eastern mass. The base regulated rate set about 10 years back is $0.11, and there's a fixed percentage that they're allowed to add each year that adds another $0.10 and there's some taxes, delivery fees... It all adds up. The electric company is Keyspan, which you may notice is at the top of the list you linked to.
Yes, I know. It's rediculous, but the cost of living here isn't the second highest in the country for no reason.
I run my A7M266-D, with 2 Athlon MP 1800+ processors, plugged into a Kill-A-Watt meter. All signs point to it being cheaper to buy a dual opteron over the not so long term simply for the power saving features at idle. I figure that the new machine would pay for itself in less than a year. I'll be buying as soon as there are new opterons readily available so the price on the old ones will be low.
Perhaps you should try being captian not-so-obvious and look and see how much it costs to leave that dual Athlon MP, which uses about the same amount of power at idle as at full utilization, on all the time. Also, if you don't need the capacity, why did you buy it in the first place?
If you think that a G5 is easier to maintain than a rackmount, you really have never touched a rack mount unit.
Up until about a month ago I worked for a linux clustering company. I've worked with upwards of 50 different styles of rackmount computers ranging from 1/3U to 8U designs. I've also had a PowerMac G4 cluster (4 nodes, dual 500Mhz CPUs). Let me tell you that being rackmount doesn't make a system easier to maintain than a Mac. Sure, some rackmount systems are a joy to work on. Most aren't. The ones that are aren't cheap or 1U, either. In fact I've never seen a 1U system that I would prefer to service over my PowerMac. Top of the line IBM Xseries, Dell, and HP machines included.
If you think any old rackmount machine is easier to maintain than any recent PowerMac, you really have never touched a modern Mac.
Well, this is the best of 2003, and I know that I got my first copy of Fluxx in 1999. It wasn't even the first edition. It not being new probably has something to do with it not being on this list.
Tapes are not as reliable as you think; I've had more than my fair share of DLT tapes go bad.
Therefore you may as well use an even less reliable medium? I'm sorry, but if you're backing up to drives, and you want to keep even just a few weeks of changes you're going to have to swap disks. Drop a disk when you're going to swap it in for a restore and you're done. There's no way around it. It's a fatal flaw in the "hard drives for backups" system. You'll learn the hard way eventually.
THese places already have problems. Cell phone companies allow you to move out of your area code and keep your phone number. I've done it myself.
Besides, when you deal with a business that tells you you can't possibly live where you say after you tell them your phone number, it's fun to tell them that their system is broken and make them figure out how to fix it.
Tapes are guaranteed to survive a bumpy truck ride off site, and the time you accidentally drop it. You also don't have to worry about wether your tape will spin up after sitting unused on the shelf for a few years. You get no such guarantees with a hard drive.
If your data is worth anything to you, or you have any interest in archiving, hard drives are a poor choice for backups.
In a top-loading machine like the PSX or Cube, you can wipe the lens off in about ten seconds. With a PS2, it's a matter of finding a microscopic phillips-head screwdriver and voiding your warranty.
In a PS2 it's a matter of buying a $2 lens cleaning disc. You can get one practically anywhere. An audio CD version works just fine. I've cleaned mine that a few times. If your lens gets dirty during the extremely short warranty period, then you have bigger problems. Try cleaning the room you keep you system in. I would hardly consider it Sony's fault if your PS2 stops working because you're a slob.
Ummm, no. First off, a rate is a measure of one thing with respect to another. Sony's failure rate would be the same if they sold 200 PS2's.
The point was the quantity of broken PS2s is due to the quantity sold. The failure percentage is almost certainly quite low. If it were't there'd be an uproar (forum posts by the same few 100 or so whiners in the internet does not constitute an uproar), and Sony would be loosing boatloads of money. I know dozens of PS2 owners. I know one person who's had a problem. That person has had a problem 3 times. I've also noticed that most people online who complain about PS2 disc read errors claim to have had the problem multiple times. This says to me that either repared units are more likely to fail, or more likely, people who's PS2's fail treat their unit in a manner that causes it. Since nobdy will ever admit (or possibly even realize) that they are their stupidity is the cause of their problems, we may never know which is the real situation.
Ok, take all that into account, and then tell me why they deserve $400-$1000/hour. That doesn't even take into account that when they're done they own the pictures!
I'm sorry, but $5000 for a wedding photographer is too much. I don't care who they are.
NVIDIA's multi head drivers still suck under linux. I average one X server crash a month on my TwinView setup. ATI's linux drivers have no such problem.
If you want stability (under linux anyway) ATI is the best bet.
Sell 20 million of something and find out how many problems get reported on the internet. Seriously, if the failure rate is.1% you are still going to have a lot of angry forum posts.
They have a high return rate, because they have a high sale rate.
(For the record, my PS2 for launch day is still working. I'm on cube #3)
Why isn't it being used today given it would be cheaper than high-tension lines.
Funny how it's easy to be right when you get to decide what is "given". If your logic doesn't lead you to the generally accepted conclusion, double check your assumptions. Sometimes you may find you're right after all, but usually you won't.
To be fair, you can't tell if something has historical signifigance until it has become history. This speech wouldn't be quoted today had we failed to reach the moon, or had the Soviets beat us there. Similarly, things set into motion by the current president will not play out until years after his term is up, and only then will we know which of his speeches may be considered historic.
It's doubtful that any will rank up there with this speech though. Arguably, none of the seven presidents after Kennedy and before George W. Bush made a speech that was both positive, and turned out to be this universally quoted. He was a rare man at in power at an exciting time of our history, and that combination doesn't come up very often.
If you are the only one it's because you're the only one wh hasn't seen the extended versions. The original theatrical version was passable at best. The extended version is actually worth watching.
Yes, it's that much better.
I don't see how that become revenue maximization.... Everybody I know skipped the original theatrical DVD of The Two Towers because of how good the Fellowship extended cut was. I don't know anybody who is buying both.
You're taking free speech too literally. Obviously you've never seen sombody (or been) taken away for causing a public disturbance. Free speech isn't, and shouldn't be, absolute. Advertisers shouldn't have the right to pop whatever they want up on my computer screen any more than you should have the right to scream out loudly, obnoxiously, and continually in a public (or private and not belonging to you) space.
In the US, the first amendment uses the words "freedom of speech", but in no way defines speech, and in the same sentence limits the right of assembly with the term "peaceably". It could easily be argued (and has been in some cases) that certain things aren't considered "speech" depending on which definition you choose (there are 6 or more definitions depending on which dictionary you happen to look in), and that some things which are speech aren't considered protected under certain circumstances (i.e. you have the right to convey a message, but not necicarily in every forum and in any manner).
Outside the US there are many places where freedom of speech is not available, whether you're human or not.
This all manages to be the case independant of how much money you have.
I have, while following mapquest directions, ended up at an underpass where the next step was to get on the highway overhead.... Unfortuantaly there wasn't an enterance to said highway for miles in either direction. I figured that this was some poor algorithmic decision, but now that I know there's some obvoiusly malicious human entering intersection data I'm even more annoyed!
Though you didn't say it, I assume you imply that one of these GOP groups is acting hypocritically when you say: "I hate hypocrites.". Let's explore that:
hypocrite
n : a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he does not hold [syn: {dissembler}, {phony}, {phoney}, {pretender}]
For these groups to be hypocrites, the assumption has to hold that they were falsely in favor of voting irregulatities then, but oppose them now. I think you give these politicians too much credit for thought. They were in favor of winning, and used irregularities as a political tool (both sides, the Demorcatic side cared just as little about the technicality of irregularities beyond their potential to manipulate the election in their favor as the republican side). They still care about winning, hence there is no contradiction, and no hypocracy.
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't like the type of game past Final Fantasy games have been, then please don't pretend that you can say anything objective about them. There is nothing wrong with a linear story line. Many of us enjoy that type of game. If you don't then go play one of the millions of other games out there that don't, and end up being massive slash fests instead.
/me dons asbestos clothing....
Also, in a preemptive response to the inevitable "Final Fantasy games invented the need for a strategy guide" comments: Shut up! Just because you're too dumb to figure out how to do things in the game without the guide, or you're too lazy to take notes while you play so you can actually remember the important details and figure things out on your own doesn't mean the strategy guide is *required*.
It amazes me that people think like this and then wonder why the adventure genre dried up.
I don't have my bill in front of me, but I live in eastern mass. The base regulated rate set about 10 years back is $0.11, and there's a fixed percentage that they're allowed to add each year that adds another $0.10 and there's some taxes, delivery fees... It all adds up. The electric company is Keyspan, which you may notice is at the top of the list you linked to.
Yes, I know. It's rediculous, but the cost of living here isn't the second highest in the country for no reason.
I pay $0.29/kwh
I run my A7M266-D, with 2 Athlon MP 1800+ processors, plugged into a Kill-A-Watt meter. All signs point to it being cheaper to buy a dual opteron over the not so long term simply for the power saving features at idle. I figure that the new machine would pay for itself in less than a year. I'll be buying as soon as there are new opterons readily available so the price on the old ones will be low.
Perhaps you should try being captian not-so-obvious and look and see how much it costs to leave that dual Athlon MP, which uses about the same amount of power at idle as at full utilization, on all the time. Also, if you don't need the capacity, why did you buy it in the first place?
If you think that a G5 is easier to maintain than a rackmount, you really have never touched a rack mount unit.
Up until about a month ago I worked for a linux clustering company. I've worked with upwards of 50 different styles of rackmount computers ranging from 1/3U to 8U designs. I've also had a PowerMac G4 cluster (4 nodes, dual 500Mhz CPUs). Let me tell you that being rackmount doesn't make a system easier to maintain than a Mac. Sure, some rackmount systems are a joy to work on. Most aren't. The ones that are aren't cheap or 1U, either. In fact I've never seen a 1U system that I would prefer to service over my PowerMac. Top of the line IBM Xseries, Dell, and HP machines included.
If you think any old rackmount machine is easier to maintain than any recent PowerMac, you really have never touched a modern Mac.
By the way, Longhorn does exist, inasmuch as leaked builds can be found on the Internet.
Remember what the early Detroit and Memphis betas looked like? Whatever is out there now won't look much like what will be released in 3 years.
Well, this is the best of 2003, and I know that I got my first copy of Fluxx in 1999. It wasn't even the first edition. It not being new probably has something to do with it not being on this list.
Tapes are not as reliable as you think; I've had more than my fair share of DLT tapes go bad.
Therefore you may as well use an even less reliable medium? I'm sorry, but if you're backing up to drives, and you want to keep even just a few weeks of changes you're going to have to swap disks. Drop a disk when you're going to swap it in for a restore and you're done. There's no way around it. It's a fatal flaw in the "hard drives for backups" system. You'll learn the hard way eventually.
THese places already have problems. Cell phone companies allow you to move out of your area code and keep your phone number. I've done it myself.
Besides, when you deal with a business that tells you you can't possibly live where you say after you tell them your phone number, it's fun to tell them that their system is broken and make them figure out how to fix it.
Tapes are guaranteed to survive a bumpy truck ride off site, and the time you accidentally drop it. You also don't have to worry about wether your tape will spin up after sitting unused on the shelf for a few years. You get no such guarantees with a hard drive.
If your data is worth anything to you, or you have any interest in archiving, hard drives are a poor choice for backups.
In a top-loading machine like the PSX or Cube, you can wipe the lens off in about ten seconds. With a PS2, it's a matter of finding a microscopic phillips-head screwdriver and voiding your warranty.
In a PS2 it's a matter of buying a $2 lens cleaning disc. You can get one practically anywhere. An audio CD version works just fine. I've cleaned mine that a few times. If your lens gets dirty during the extremely short warranty period, then you have bigger problems. Try cleaning the room you keep you system in. I would hardly consider it Sony's fault if your PS2 stops working because you're a slob.
Ummm, no. First off, a rate is a measure of one thing with respect to another. Sony's failure rate would be the same if they sold 200 PS2's.
The point was the quantity of broken PS2s is due to the quantity sold. The failure percentage is almost certainly quite low. If it were't there'd be an uproar (forum posts by the same few 100 or so whiners in the internet does not constitute an uproar), and Sony would be loosing boatloads of money. I know dozens of PS2 owners. I know one person who's had a problem. That person has had a problem 3 times. I've also noticed that most people online who complain about PS2 disc read errors claim to have had the problem multiple times. This says to me that either repared units are more likely to fail, or more likely, people who's PS2's fail treat their unit in a manner that causes it. Since nobdy will ever admit (or possibly even realize) that they are their stupidity is the cause of their problems, we may never know which is the real situation.
Ok, take all that into account, and then tell me why they deserve $400-$1000/hour. That doesn't even take into account that when they're done they own the pictures!
I'm sorry, but $5000 for a wedding photographer is too much. I don't care who they are.
Do you really need somebody to tell you how to think?
Disc read errors.
NVIDIA's multi head drivers still suck under linux. I average one X server crash a month on my TwinView setup. ATI's linux drivers have no such problem.
If you want stability (under linux anyway) ATI is the best bet.
They developed disc read errors. It's $10 more to get a refurb than to have it repaired.... I bought the extended warranty on the third one.
Sell 20 million of something and find out how many problems get reported on the internet. Seriously, if the failure rate is .1% you are still going to have a lot of angry forum posts.
They have a high return rate, because they have a high sale rate.
(For the record, my PS2 for launch day is still working. I'm on cube #3)
6 hours is not enough battery, ok fine.
WHen are you ever away from a power source ad listening to music continually for 6 hours? This is unlikely to be an issue for most people.
iPod is expensive, duh.
Compared to the cost of the music required to fill it, the iPod is dirt cheap.
Oh, you obtain your music in an unsavory manner? Well who needs you then?
Why isn't it being used today given it would be cheaper than high-tension lines.
Funny how it's easy to be right when you get to decide what is "given". If your logic doesn't lead you to the generally accepted conclusion, double check your assumptions. Sometimes you may find you're right after all, but usually you won't.
To be fair, you can't tell if something has historical signifigance until it has become history. This speech wouldn't be quoted today had we failed to reach the moon, or had the Soviets beat us there. Similarly, things set into motion by the current president will not play out until years after his term is up, and only then will we know which of his speeches may be considered historic.
It's doubtful that any will rank up there with this speech though. Arguably, none of the seven presidents after Kennedy and before George W. Bush made a speech that was both positive, and turned out to be this universally quoted. He was a rare man at in power at an exciting time of our history, and that combination doesn't come up very often.
If you are the only one it's because you're the only one wh hasn't seen the extended versions. The original theatrical version was passable at best. The extended version is actually worth watching.
Yes, it's that much better.
I don't see how that become revenue maximization.... Everybody I know skipped the original theatrical DVD of The Two Towers because of how good the Fellowship extended cut was. I don't know anybody who is buying both.
Humans have free speech
You're taking free speech too literally. Obviously you've never seen sombody (or been) taken away for causing a public disturbance. Free speech isn't, and shouldn't be, absolute. Advertisers shouldn't have the right to pop whatever they want up on my computer screen any more than you should have the right to scream out loudly, obnoxiously, and continually in a public (or private and not belonging to you) space.
In the US, the first amendment uses the words "freedom of speech", but in no way defines speech, and in the same sentence limits the right of assembly with the term "peaceably". It could easily be argued (and has been in some cases) that certain things aren't considered "speech" depending on which definition you choose (there are 6 or more definitions depending on which dictionary you happen to look in), and that some things which are speech aren't considered protected under certain circumstances (i.e. you have the right to convey a message, but not necicarily in every forum and in any manner).
Outside the US there are many places where freedom of speech is not available, whether you're human or not.
This all manages to be the case independant of how much money you have.
Are you surprised? They're still selling it (and in huge quantities I might add). Why would they give it away for free?
I have, while following mapquest directions, ended up at an underpass where the next step was to get on the highway overhead.... Unfortuantaly there wasn't an enterance to said highway for miles in either direction. I figured that this was some poor algorithmic decision, but now that I know there's some obvoiusly malicious human entering intersection data I'm even more annoyed!
Though you didn't say it, I assume you imply that one of these GOP groups is acting hypocritically when you say: "I hate hypocrites.". Let's explore that:
hypocrite
n : a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he does not hold [syn: {dissembler}, {phony}, {phoney}, {pretender}]
For these groups to be hypocrites, the assumption has to hold that they were falsely in favor of voting irregulatities then, but oppose them now. I think you give these politicians too much credit for thought. They were in favor of winning, and used irregularities as a political tool (both sides, the Demorcatic side cared just as little about the technicality of irregularities beyond their potential to manipulate the election in their favor as the republican side). They still care about winning, hence there is no contradiction, and no hypocracy.