I'm still not sure how that is an invalid contract. Like the GP poster, I detest the practices of mobile providers. Are you saying that the 'early termination fee' should be directly related to the phone MSRP and/or prorated? I think that makes some sense.
I'd rather be able to pay full price for a phone now and less on service, but that will never happen. Years ago my 1 year contract with Verizon expired and they called and asked me to renew it. I politely declined and asked if they had a non contract rate that was any cheaper. The rep said they didn't, but I was free to pay my contract rate as long as I liked (without a new contract). I'd still be with Verizon if they weren't (at least back then) the worst when it came to locking down phone features.
The towers aren't a problem. Or they just wouldn't be there. Mainly because everyone would be at risk for all cancer. That's too much of a risk because if people are being paid off to allow this stuff, they have to find a 'safe' non-cell signal area to live.
Also, I'm reasonably certain that cell phone transmitter towers are omnidirectional considering I can make phone calls from a plane.
Last. Your cell phone has both an omnidirectional antennae and transmitter. Ever notice how you don't have to point your phone at a tower? The controversy is whether or not that concentration of waves right next to your head is a real hazard or not.
Bluetooth uses ultra low power transmission radio. No where near the output of a cell phone.
I have pretty much the same gripes. The graphics, too, were overrated. For being an 'free to play any way' style game there were too many situations where being one class was a clear disadvantage. Mages aged faar too quickly (beyond reason). And yes. The story was about as lame as it gets. They seemed to have built the plot around a working game.
Oh, and the interface which is apparently now fixed was a huge pain in the ass. You had to go through far too many menus to, say, eat an apple, or show an expression. And the quick lists did too little to fix that..
However, I did finish the game because I had to. If I'm going to pay money for a game I'm going to finish it.
Well, first of all does she look like one? Turn people into newts (for short periods of time)? Weigh the same as a duck? Flammable? If you answered yes to the either of the second two, then it's safe to burn her. Good day.
Crunchy chicks.. that was the quickest way to becoming evil. The very quickest. That or slaughtering villagers. But then you can't walk through the town without having to wade through the blood of infinite guards and that is a hassle. I thought, "Hey, infinite EXP!!!" But they keep sending tougher guards and you get crap for EXP.. LAME!
Unfortunately it's the method by which motion is measured that was patented. Potentiometers are good, but this patent says a lot about 'pressure sensors' and shows a lot of pictures with holes and springs. While I do agree that Patent Trolling, and those whose negligence allows it, should carry stiff punishment (at least including reimbursement of legal costs and fees, and surrender of patents, among other fines), you'd have to go another route with this one. The patent in question is pretty specific. This patent seems to be the one in question (props to Rhalin for digging that up).
Buuut that patent was filed in 2001, not 1996. So perhaps it is a different patent. I haven't a clue how the GCN or the Wii analogues work. None of mine have broken so they haven't been deconstructed. Yet. I have taken apart an N64 controller and I understand there was a complete redesign after that. (so the controllers would last longer than a few months)
Armstrong has another patent out there filed in 1998. This one seems to describe the R3/L3 from Dual Shock controllers as well as depressing the analogues of the XBox controllers. We'll probably see more trolling on this one. Even though both the Dual Shock controller was in production before the application.
He does have a point. If it's 10 on 1 and you've been training, there is a good chance that you'll be able to take down one or two of the 'weakest links' and be able to high-tale it out of there. On the other hand, if they're similarly trained (IE you don't have enough of an edge) you're probably boned unless you get lucky. At my studio we do try to do a lot of 3 to 1 fights.
And you're right. They're nothing compared to the real thing. Nothing at all. Two of our students learned this the hard way when they went up against the wrong people, quite separate occurrences, and landed in the hospital. The first one was dumb enough to get into a four on one. The four had weapons (bludgeons and the like). The other hadn't had much training at all and was too arrogant for his own good.
After almost 5 years of training and some focused open hand vs weapon training I'm still not confident that I'd make it out of a situation like that. But I try to remain humble, and know my limits. So I doubt that situation would happen. I'm definitely smart enough to not instigate it!
I've been training for almost 5. I've pulled muscles and been in PT a few times. I started when I was 22. My flexibility was always good, my strength, endurance, speed and skill have all seen dramatic increases. It's become part of me now. In my 5 years I've seen students come and go from all age groups.
We emphasis training to the best of your ability. Everyone should understand that their bodies have limits. Every one of the limits can be pushed a bit. Even if you hit a wall, you have other limits to push. That's all we ask. And we train hard. There are a few 40+ year olds that have been training for a few years and they know they're never going to leap into the air like the young guys. Who knows, maybe they will. They understand that concept. Don't compare your ability to other's ability. Compare your ability today with yesterday, last month, last year. Sounds like you have. But why give up?
I haven't a clue where you trained, or with who, but I'm sure that some knowledge was imparted upon you. Don't let that die.
In regards to a 'fair fight' I try to explain to our students that training must always be tempered with humility. This is a double edge sword. One, students learn respect for themselves and others. Two, students learn that showboating and pride cannot help them in 'fair fights'. It actually makes their situation far worse. If you don't advertise what you know and you'll have at least that edge. I don't want anyone to know my ability who would need to know it (IE the mugger, the jerk with a chip on his shoulder..). It makes me that much more effective. I also know that I'm not that great at sparring, buuut I can take a lot of punishment... and I have learned this from being not that great at sparring.
Good point, but I'm not sure that in this situation there would be 'no room for super villains' if Batman was not around. I think what you have there is organized crime, law, and the super villains. The difference can be one of scope, statistics, or just shock value.
On one hand you have a place full of crime, when 24/7 you could be mugged or murdered and nobody would care, where you lived your whole life in fear. The only way to move up is creating your own power within the bad (because it is everywhere). On the other hand is a world where organized crime is all but vanquished. You can feel free to try to thrive as a good person. You still have to watch out for super villains... and when they're on a spree, everyone is possibly in trouble, but is there really a net difference? Hopeless, lifeless existence, and the possibility that a psychopath will endanger 10,000 lives... or an existence with hope, life, and the possibility that a psychopath who loves toying with a hero is going to hold you and 10,000 other people hostage.
Batman may have incised the psychopaths in particular, but most of the other criminals were already there. People just didn't pay as much attention.
That's just another possibility. I have seen the movie and absolutely loved it. And this is one of the themes throughout.
There are plenty of used satellite dishes on Craigslist and such for $20-50. Just pick up one of those and do as in TFA. Sure, you may not get a whole mile out of the deal, but if you can direct that at a nice neighbor's house...?
I'm an American and I would so much rather see everything in Metric. I think the main reason this is in the old, crappy system is not because it's written 'for us' or whatever, but because of the year it happened. Though I would think that the guys collecting the data would use metric anyway...
And don't forget that those 50GB Blu-Ray DVD's are going to be chalk-full of FMV. Pretty much everyone seems to be making their games and then, when they see room left on disc, filling it with FMV, or cut-scenes. So 360 owners will be both screwed and pissed when they open their 6 DVD thick game case...
The only reason I never liked multiple discs is because that's just more discs that could get lost or scratched.
But that's not by Squenix. Xenosaga was made by Monolith Studios (Namco). Xenggears, however, was a Square product. For me, gears is one of my top 5 RPG's of all time. And I've never been able to beat it (the final boss fight is a PITA).
Now, I've ranted about Saga a few times. And the game basically IS cut scenes. I hated it for that... Gears has its share of cut scenes (which, for its time were a real treat), but what gets annoying about Gears is the long monologues you get to read. And the sound effect of that crystal necklace really gets on my nerves. But the story in Gears is amazing. Totally worth playing through.
To be perfectly fair, if you were to buy a PS3 you would be buying a media format that you would indeed be using. PS3 games are put on Blu-Ray discs. Plain and simple. Much in the same way as back in cartridge days. You make a choice to buy a system with whatever media storage you want... provided it is available.
So, while your argument most definitely stands about M$ making you buy ludicrously overpriced storage, Sony does not make you buy anything 'unnecessary'. Overpriced? Perhaps... But it certainly is required to have a Blu-Ray drive on a PS3. Saying they 'make' you buy a Blu-Ray player is akin to saying they 'make' you buy the power adapter, or the Cell Processor it contains.
And if you think the HDD on the 360 are bad, check out their memory cards. At that price you'd have to spend $2000 for the same space as the 20GB HDD. Compare that with 8GB SD memory prices. At current flash memory rates you would need only spend about $60 for 20GB. How's that for getting shafted?!
In Minnesota the Stillwater Lift bridge spans the St. Croix between MN and WI. It was stuck open recently due to a computer malfunction. I did some digging to try to find why back then and it turns out they had just upgraded to Vista and the console locked up for about four hours. I don't think it crashed or froze because of Vista, just because the bridge is old and Vista choked on data it wasn't expecting. Can't find much about it now, though.
I guess back then it would have been difficult to notice. If you were using that 75Mhz beast for nothing but floating point processes it would produce about one error every 117 seconds. I'm sure there are/were a lot of applications (not standard users) that would have really been affected by the flaw. Add in multiple core servers and you could have some pretty hefty issues.
Pretty crazy that these days an error like that would rear its ugly head ever 3-4 seconds (Folding@Home or SETI?).
This is why every carrier pretty much gives you free calls between their systems. AT&T calls is "mobile to mobile" or something like that. Basically they no longer double charge you for in-network calls and told the FCC it's just too derned expensive to find out if the other carrier is charging. Greasing palms for loopholes, I suppose.
I'm not sure this works in this situation. When you lease a car you're merely paying the expected depreciation of the vehicle over the time of the lease (plus charges and interest, where they make their millions). The vehicle is still owned by the dealer and they get to fix everything for you (unless you're dumb enough to lease beyond the warranty) Plus, they get to hose you on the price of the vehicle if you keep it, or really screw over the next guy.
As far as leasing tower time goes, they're just using the hardware and all that is included.
I tried the link, but all it did was lead me to this page where some jerk set up a recursive link and now I'm all out of system RAM from all the tabs...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm thinking that if:
Wiimote + TV = Bad news
then
Wiimote + TV + Beer = VERY bad news, but seemed like a good idea and was hilarious at the time.
I'm still not sure how that is an invalid contract. Like the GP poster, I detest the practices of mobile providers. Are you saying that the 'early termination fee' should be directly related to the phone MSRP and/or prorated? I think that makes some sense.
I'd rather be able to pay full price for a phone now and less on service, but that will never happen. Years ago my 1 year contract with Verizon expired and they called and asked me to renew it. I politely declined and asked if they had a non contract rate that was any cheaper. The rep said they didn't, but I was free to pay my contract rate as long as I liked (without a new contract). I'd still be with Verizon if they weren't (at least back then) the worst when it came to locking down phone features.
I got it. You'd have my +1:Funny, if I had one.
When we have a perfectly good system already? We're going to need some really big flags, a couple of long poles. And a good telescopes.
The towers aren't a problem. Or they just wouldn't be there. Mainly because everyone would be at risk for all cancer. That's too much of a risk because if people are being paid off to allow this stuff, they have to find a 'safe' non-cell signal area to live.
Also, I'm reasonably certain that cell phone transmitter towers are omnidirectional considering I can make phone calls from a plane.
Last. Your cell phone has both an omnidirectional antennae and transmitter. Ever notice how you don't have to point your phone at a tower? The controversy is whether or not that concentration of waves right next to your head is a real hazard or not.
Bluetooth uses ultra low power transmission radio. No where near the output of a cell phone.
I have pretty much the same gripes. The graphics, too, were overrated. For being an 'free to play any way' style game there were too many situations where being one class was a clear disadvantage. Mages aged faar too quickly (beyond reason). And yes. The story was about as lame as it gets. They seemed to have built the plot around a working game.
Oh, and the interface which is apparently now fixed was a huge pain in the ass. You had to go through far too many menus to, say, eat an apple, or show an expression. And the quick lists did too little to fix that..
However, I did finish the game because I had to. If I'm going to pay money for a game I'm going to finish it.
Well, first of all does she look like one?
Turn people into newts (for short periods of time)?
Weigh the same as a duck?
Flammable?
If you answered yes to the either of the second two, then it's safe to burn her. Good day.
Crunchy chicks.. that was the quickest way to becoming evil. The very quickest. That or slaughtering villagers. But then you can't walk through the town without having to wade through the blood of infinite guards and that is a hassle. I thought, "Hey, infinite EXP!!!" But they keep sending tougher guards and you get crap for EXP.. LAME!
Unfortunately it's the method by which motion is measured that was patented. Potentiometers are good, but this patent says a lot about 'pressure sensors' and shows a lot of pictures with holes and springs. While I do agree that Patent Trolling, and those whose negligence allows it, should carry stiff punishment (at least including reimbursement of legal costs and fees, and surrender of patents, among other fines), you'd have to go another route with this one. The patent in question is pretty specific. This patent seems to be the one in question (props to Rhalin for digging that up).
Buuut that patent was filed in 2001, not 1996. So perhaps it is a different patent. I haven't a clue how the GCN or the Wii analogues work. None of mine have broken so they haven't been deconstructed. Yet. I have taken apart an N64 controller and I understand there was a complete redesign after that. (so the controllers would last longer than a few months)
Armstrong has another patent out there filed in 1998. This one seems to describe the R3/L3 from Dual Shock controllers as well as depressing the analogues of the XBox controllers. We'll probably see more trolling on this one. Even though both the Dual Shock controller was in production before the application.
He does have a point. If it's 10 on 1 and you've been training, there is a good chance that you'll be able to take down one or two of the 'weakest links' and be able to high-tale it out of there. On the other hand, if they're similarly trained (IE you don't have enough of an edge) you're probably boned unless you get lucky. At my studio we do try to do a lot of 3 to 1 fights.
And you're right. They're nothing compared to the real thing. Nothing at all. Two of our students learned this the hard way when they went up against the wrong people, quite separate occurrences, and landed in the hospital. The first one was dumb enough to get into a four on one. The four had weapons (bludgeons and the like). The other hadn't had much training at all and was too arrogant for his own good.
After almost 5 years of training and some focused open hand vs weapon training I'm still not confident that I'd make it out of a situation like that. But I try to remain humble, and know my limits. So I doubt that situation would happen. I'm definitely smart enough to not instigate it!
I've been training for almost 5. I've pulled muscles and been in PT a few times. I started when I was 22. My flexibility was always good, my strength, endurance, speed and skill have all seen dramatic increases. It's become part of me now. In my 5 years I've seen students come and go from all age groups.
We emphasis training to the best of your ability. Everyone should understand that their bodies have limits. Every one of the limits can be pushed a bit. Even if you hit a wall, you have other limits to push. That's all we ask. And we train hard. There are a few 40+ year olds that have been training for a few years and they know they're never going to leap into the air like the young guys. Who knows, maybe they will. They understand that concept. Don't compare your ability to other's ability. Compare your ability today with yesterday, last month, last year. Sounds like you have. But why give up?
I haven't a clue where you trained, or with who, but I'm sure that some knowledge was imparted upon you. Don't let that die.
In regards to a 'fair fight' I try to explain to our students that training must always be tempered with humility. This is a double edge sword. One, students learn respect for themselves and others. Two, students learn that showboating and pride cannot help them in 'fair fights'. It actually makes their situation far worse. If you don't advertise what you know and you'll have at least that edge. I don't want anyone to know my ability who would need to know it (IE the mugger, the jerk with a chip on his shoulder..). It makes me that much more effective. I also know that I'm not that great at sparring, buuut I can take a lot of punishment... and I have learned this from being not that great at sparring.
Good point, but I'm not sure that in this situation there would be 'no room for super villains' if Batman was not around. I think what you have there is organized crime, law, and the super villains. The difference can be one of scope, statistics, or just shock value.
On one hand you have a place full of crime, when 24/7 you could be mugged or murdered and nobody would care, where you lived your whole life in fear. The only way to move up is creating your own power within the bad (because it is everywhere). On the other hand is a world where organized crime is all but vanquished. You can feel free to try to thrive as a good person. You still have to watch out for super villains... and when they're on a spree, everyone is possibly in trouble, but is there really a net difference? Hopeless, lifeless existence, and the possibility that a psychopath will endanger 10,000 lives... or an existence with hope, life, and the possibility that a psychopath who loves toying with a hero is going to hold you and 10,000 other people hostage.
Batman may have incised the psychopaths in particular, but most of the other criminals were already there. People just didn't pay as much attention.
That's just another possibility. I have seen the movie and absolutely loved it. And this is one of the themes throughout.
There are plenty of used satellite dishes on Craigslist and such for $20-50. Just pick up one of those and do as in TFA. Sure, you may not get a whole mile out of the deal, but if you can direct that at a nice neighbor's house...?
So, you need some sort of fail-safe device.. or an arch nemesis who lives next-door (and store the oil under that house). Problem solved.
I'm an American and I would so much rather see everything in Metric. I think the main reason this is in the old, crappy system is not because it's written 'for us' or whatever, but because of the year it happened. Though I would think that the guys collecting the data would use metric anyway...
And don't forget that those 50GB Blu-Ray DVD's are going to be chalk-full of FMV. Pretty much everyone seems to be making their games and then, when they see room left on disc, filling it with FMV, or cut-scenes. So 360 owners will be both screwed and pissed when they open their 6 DVD thick game case...
The only reason I never liked multiple discs is because that's just more discs that could get lost or scratched.
But that's not by Squenix. Xenosaga was made by Monolith Studios (Namco). Xenggears, however, was a Square product. For me, gears is one of my top 5 RPG's of all time. And I've never been able to beat it (the final boss fight is a PITA).
Now, I've ranted about Saga a few times. And the game basically IS cut scenes. I hated it for that... Gears has its share of cut scenes (which, for its time were a real treat), but what gets annoying about Gears is the long monologues you get to read. And the sound effect of that crystal necklace really gets on my nerves. But the story in Gears is amazing. Totally worth playing through.
To be perfectly fair, if you were to buy a PS3 you would be buying a media format that you would indeed be using. PS3 games are put on Blu-Ray discs. Plain and simple. Much in the same way as back in cartridge days. You make a choice to buy a system with whatever media storage you want... provided it is available.
So, while your argument most definitely stands about M$ making you buy ludicrously overpriced storage, Sony does not make you buy anything 'unnecessary'. Overpriced? Perhaps... But it certainly is required to have a Blu-Ray drive on a PS3. Saying they 'make' you buy a Blu-Ray player is akin to saying they 'make' you buy the power adapter, or the Cell Processor it contains.
And if you think the HDD on the 360 are bad, check out their memory cards. At that price you'd have to spend $2000 for the same space as the 20GB HDD. Compare that with 8GB SD memory prices. At current flash memory rates you would need only spend about $60 for 20GB. How's that for getting shafted?!
In Minnesota the Stillwater Lift bridge spans the St. Croix between MN and WI. It was stuck open recently due to a computer malfunction. I did some digging to try to find why back then and it turns out they had just upgraded to Vista and the console locked up for about four hours. I don't think it crashed or froze because of Vista, just because the bridge is old and Vista choked on data it wasn't expecting. Can't find much about it now, though.
They do. But they have a tax that is similar. More of a fruit tax of some kind...
I guess back then it would have been difficult to notice. If you were using that 75Mhz beast for nothing but floating point processes it would produce about one error every 117 seconds. I'm sure there are/were a lot of applications (not standard users) that would have really been affected by the flaw. Add in multiple core servers and you could have some pretty hefty issues.
Pretty crazy that these days an error like that would rear its ugly head ever 3-4 seconds (Folding@Home or SETI?).
Apparently behavioral modification is only for dogs.
You're just not using the shock collar correctly. Try bumping it up a setting or three.
Do you also pay for receiving calls?
This is why every carrier pretty much gives you free calls between their systems. AT&T calls is "mobile to mobile" or something like that. Basically they no longer double charge you for in-network calls and told the FCC it's just too derned expensive to find out if the other carrier is charging. Greasing palms for loopholes, I suppose.
I'm not sure this works in this situation. When you lease a car you're merely paying the expected depreciation of the vehicle over the time of the lease (plus charges and interest, where they make their millions). The vehicle is still owned by the dealer and they get to fix everything for you (unless you're dumb enough to lease beyond the warranty) Plus, they get to hose you on the price of the vehicle if you keep it, or really screw over the next guy.
As far as leasing tower time goes, they're just using the hardware and all that is included.
I tried the link, but all it did was lead me to this page where some jerk set up a recursive link and now I'm all out of system RAM from all the tabs...