I fail to see how, in a system that has been pared to the bone and running
probably [bolding by me] about as
efficiently as it's going to, how in the world introducing a profit motive, therefore slicing the
pie ever further, is going to save money!
"Probably" is the key, is not it?
Somehow, the US system is cranking along nicely and the horror stories like those
depicted in this movie are just that -- stuff of
fiction. For the poor there are many charities,
which are more efficient in funds dispersing and less corruption prone than any government can be.
If there are 100 hospital beds and 150 patients
equilly needing them, no matter how you cut it, 50 patients are going to be without the hospital care. Selling the care to the highest bidder (no
matter how terrible it sounds) is simply the most efficient way to ensure, there will be 50 more beds the next time. It is not the only way to
ensure that, of course. It is just the most efficient and self-sustaining way. Money is a better long-term incentive than a government regulation, that's for sure... Even if the government action may look more appealing in the
short term...
Liberal minded and government trusting australians were happy to learn, the government
is taking good care of them. A few
responded with outrage and demanded more regulation of the government -- by the government.
(Not exactly trolling or flaimbaiting here. A
few times before, an Aussi or two would rise to
teach the americans about the beauty of the government regulation -- on this very forum.)
Oh yea. The price of rentals in New York have nothing to with too many people and not enough
places to live. If the govt simply lifted their regulations everybody in new york would be paying
$200.00 per month for those luxury suites.
If the government regulations were lifted, the
prices would've gone down. If I can not charge what I want from this tenant, I'll have to spread
it over the others. Most likely -- the new ones.
That's why you are hit the most, when moving from one place to another.
The landlord has to set the higher price in advance because
he/she will have to fill out too many forms to
increase it the next year, if he wants to. And you also have to
pay for all the tenant.net subscribers living in
the same building, who know every way to weasel
out of paying the market price.
Not enough places to live? Of course! What's
the incentive to build/renovate in this over-regulated city? The city, where rent-control was introduced in 1943, as a temporary measure, is its own
hostage now -- repealing the rent control costs too many votes.
City of Westchester, MA was hit with this problem -- no appartments. Why, was the question? There are, roughly, just as many homes, and not
that many more people?.. The answer -- it has gradually become next to impossible to evict a tenant, so many retired owners of two-family
houses, who used to rent before, gradually withdraw from the market. The risk of getting an
unruly tenant in your upstairs appartment did not
rise, but the danger, such a mishap would bring,
inreased too far to outweight the benefits.
"At the price set by the government? I come from the country, where this was the case, and as a result there was no milk in the stores."
Hey Mr. Clueless man. In most states (maybe even all) the price of milk is regulated. Did you
know that? Dairy farming is also subsidized did you know that? Perhaps you ought to do some
research first before blathering your liberterian drivel.
I did the research. My "drivel" is quite founded. In here, government regulations help formers.
They can raise the milk prices -- it is illegal,
in fact, to to charge too little!
It is also illegal to advertise a particular brand
of milk -- in Massachusetts, for example. Only the
general "It does a body good" is allowed there.
Stores can not even publish coupons for a particular brand of milk.
So, I guess, I'm not as clueless, huh? Make sure the dog does not eat your
homework again...
Why do they get such protection? There are more
of them, than there are those, who noticably suffer from it. We all
do, but we don't realize it.
Same with the tenants vs. landlords. Their
votes are equal, and even though it is the
landlord's damn property, a whole bunch of
people pretend, the tenants are somehow entitled
to control it beyond the lease terms.
What's your problem with libertarianism, anyway? Take the quiz.
May be, you'll find a hidden libertarian inside you:-)
In.au you can only increase rents once per year, and only if the fixed term of the lease agreement has expired.
Well, naturally, you can not change the terms
half-way through.
You also can not increase the rent by an unfair amount. What's unfair? If
the tenant thinks it's unfair then someone from the Office of Fair Trading comes along and
makes that decision.
Terrible! So you trust this "Office of Fair
Trading" more than you trust your own ability to
find a decent appartment at a decent price? To
each his own, I guess... Why can you charge what
you wish for a car, a stereo, or a pair of shoes,
but for an appartment? Then, again, may be, this
"Office of Fair Trading" controls prices on all
those things too in Australia...
Now getting back on-topic. What you have just demonstrated is that goverment regulation, when not well thought out (aka the New York rental market) is a BAD thing. But goverment regulation which is well thought out (aka the.au rental market) is a good thing.
Actually, a whole bunch of wheenies
think the government should regulate even more in
here. According to them, the government regulation
is good, there just should be more of it.
On the other hand, we only know, that in Australia things are tipsy-turvy, from you. I'd
venture a guess, that a number of people in.au
think otherwise, and can offer horror stories of
"Fair Trade" employess.
Let's see an Australian wondering, why this sort
of things are not government regulated and require
all this pricey legal procedings instead...
After all, it is so much easier to pay taxes to
support the additional government machinery and
then you just file a few forms and have your
problem resolved by a government employee! And you can even appeal a decision you don't like -- to the employes's boss...
Hey, if I'm killed in a car accident due to a poorly manufactured car, how do I vote with my
dollar then?
So, you'd prefer to have to call the hypothetical "Federal Car Quality Enforcement" office in that unfortunate case?
Neither way will give you absolutely best cars.
But the competition of a free market gives you
better cars. Choosing the one,
that will not kill you too easily is left up to
you.
Those, where the consumer has no choice: gas,water,sewer,electicity!($$$),gasoline
(Wondering off-topic a bit further.) Right. And to improve gas, water, and other things, they need to be de-nationalized. Properly,
though, not like they tried to do in California;)
(I'm surprised to see gasoline listed there. Here, in US, oil product market seems quite competetive...)
So if a landlord is allowed to increase rents whenever he wants, discriminates against minories,
never fix a broken hot water system all without goverment regulations do you think they won't?
Of course they will!
May be, they'd do it to you -- in return for all the hatred you just exposed. But generally --
no. They'll go broke if they do.
If car manufactores were allowed to build shit/dangerious cars without regulation, would they? Of course they would!
This is too stupid to deserve serious refutal.
You are taking the wrong side of a very old debate, and you are doing a disservice to side
you are taking.
Have you heard of free market?
You know, the most efficient basis for economy,
that's known so far...
It is not "living under a bridge", that's an
alternative. It is moving out and renting from a
decent landlord.
The cars you buy are decent not because the
government regulates their quality, and not because corporate execs are angels, but because
the manufacturers compete with
each other. Making bad cars is just bad business.
If you don't like a software's EULA -- you
get someone else's software. If there is nobody
else -- well, than there is no way to make it then, otherwise. This may not be perfect, but the
government involvement is worse -- just look at tax code, for example:-)
Now, the AG's action is right, IMHO. It would've been better, if a private party sued
Network Assosiates (like that professor suing
over DMCA), but this is good enough. AG is not
writing any new law, and he is not aiming to
regulate. His goal is to get a particular wrong
righted -- based on an already existing law --
and I root for him.
Oh right, I was under the impression you voted for your government every 4 years.
Pathetic anonymous troll. I can switch from McAfee to Symantec several times a day -- not once every 4
years.
Besides, as we both know, the laws don't change
every four years in this country. We like stability here, you know, and we pride ourselves with the system of checks and balances, so the
biggest trouble with the government is when some corporation goes bust or when a president is cought
lying in a sexual harassment case...
Regulating even more things by
the government, things that are perfectly within the domain of already existing laws, would extend the nasty trend, which
should be reversed. But neither the extension nor
the reversal is going to happen
immediately (or even withing four years).
NO! The government regulation is much worst than
any company can do. You can always change the company. You can install FreeBSD and free yourself
from Microsoft. You can switch to Symantec if you
don't like McAffee. But changing government is a lot harder.
This case is a good example of the system working.
The government already regulates real estate
leases in New
York. And because of that the
housing is notoriously expensive and of low quality. Do you want your milk-man to be obligated
to sell you dairy? At the price set by the government? I come from the country, where this
was the case, and as a result there was no
milk in the stores.
I can go on and on, but I'll be
modded up as a trolling flaimbait if I do. So I'll
get back on topic. No government regulation, please. Thanks for your time.
Verizon has been offering this for ages now. It is
slow (like a 19.2 modem, I think), but that's the
most CDDA network can do, supposedly. Always on,
permanent IP address.
With Verizon's new network (3G) it will, probably get
faster eventually.
What's the big deal? That it is Intel making the hardware (and pushing the smaller guys out
in the process)?
May be, Intel will offer open-source drivers
for this hardware, though. Because Verizon only
claims to support Windows and Mac (surprise!) with
the hardware it offers from some obscure vendors.
This same country has insisted for a while, that
AIDS (the disease) is not caused by the HIV (the virus) -- contrary to the established opinion world over.
So, now they claim "Open Source" is better, huh?
Well, they are just lunatics down there...
Re:wrong topic
on
Arguing A.I.
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"A robot becomes human when you can't tell the difference any more".
Arguably, that's exactly when a human becomes
robot...
The only acceptable method for adding anyone to a
mailing list is the double opt-in:
Until I ask to be added -- don't contact me.
When I ask -- presume it was not me and e-mail me a confirmation request.
Only, when such a request comes back affirmative can you add me.
DMA, which wants to spam you, does not need to invent its own
guidelines. They are already there -- by people, who know more about the
Internet and e-mail, than, perhaps, the entire DMA
put together...
In essence, is not this the same as file compression? The amount of information is the same
(for those, who remember, what Bit is). It is just, that the usual one character per byte is awfully wastefull. Which is why the various compressors are so effective.
Add a modern data transfer protocol and you may
get some start up money:-)
The US is just as guilty as China or Saudi-Arabia in this one.
Wrong. Although the US has its shortcomings, the orders of magnitude of the "guilt" are drasticly
different.
In the times of its worst human rights violations, or information suppressing, the US
never aproached those by China or USSR. Not sure
about Saudi Arabia, though...
The other poster complaining about the women's
rights in SA is also wrong. Although they are far
from being equal to men, they have access to education
and health care -- unlike in the Taliban state (whatever is left of it).
Besides, there are already passports. Use Occam's razor and
realize, that passports are already all, that this
"ID card" wants to be. Including being optional...
Having only been alive since 1978, I won't pretend to know everything about the
Israel/Palestine conflict
Well, let me give you some bits. I don't know,
what one's age has to do with this -- not like
books, etc. are not available....
but it seems like one reasonable
demand on Israel is that they withdraw from the occupied territories in Palestine, immediately and completely.
Good, so you know, those territories are
occupied. They were occupied during military
operations. Operations, which were purely defensive -- Israel was attacked by neighboring
Arab countries several times since its creation
in 1948.
It seems only reasonable to me, that an attacked country wants to keep some of the land
it occupied while fighting off an aggression. At
least -- for a while -- until the attacker sincerely says: "sorry". They have my recognition
of the right to do what they please with the
land...
Well, that's about
as acceptable as it would be for the US to go occupy BC, Sonora, and Chihuahua because
we didn't like Mexican immigration policy or something.
If Great Britain -- the Canada's Sovereign --
will start using British Columbia to attack United States, I'm sure BC will quickly get invaded by
US -- with loud support from the enlightened of
the world. Immigration policy, on the other hand,
is a civil matter...
But this is a state that occupies other nations' internationally recognized territories
Only to defend itself -- everybody would. Including US in Afghanistan in 2001 or, say,
in Sicily in 1944...
and is willing to summarily execute foreign nationals without providing evidence
of guilt of any crime, let alone a trial
Israel first asks the foreign-nation-wannabe (PLO) to arrest and extradite them for trial. When they
fail -- like Taliban failed to extradite bin Laden
-- Israel hunts them and kills them -- like US is hunting bin Laden.
Interestingly enough, the crimes attributed to
this "executed" people are never disputed -- even
by the harshest critics of Israel... The country
is fighting a war. Those you call
"executed" are, in fact, its enemy's army... Imagine every Japanese soldier brought to trial
prior to being shot by a marine charging the beach.
As for negotiations with Arabs -- how do you
suggest a negotiation with someone, who continues to
publicly state, that his ultimate goal is your
demolition, destruction, removal?.. And not just
publicly -- for the cheap popular support. That's
why all negotion are dying so far -- after every
concession, Israel asks: "Ok, is that it?" And the
answer is always: "Yeah, for now..." "So, what do
you want?" "Errr, we want all your land, we want
your capital to be our capital, we don't want you
to be there at all..."
The violence started the day that
Sharon forced his way into the Mosque on the temple mount.
Well, when I visited the mosque in question,
I did not have to force my way. Not at all. It
is (definitely, was) open for visitors... Why
should Mr. Sharon have been excluded?
Face it, this was just a pretext for Arafat et
al to start violence -- the rest of the world was
becoming convinced, they are not decent people
during last year's negotiations...
The trouble with this negotiations -- be it with Arafat or Islamic Jihad or whoever is that
they refuse to aknoweldge Israel's right
to exist. They will take whatever they
can now, but will not rest until Israel is no
more... Or until they are put to rest, so to speak.
And every maniac in the Middle East is trying
to somehow bring Israel onto agenda. Remember when
Saddam Hussein fired missiles at Israel -- to rally up support for his occupation of a fellow
Muslim country?
Re: Bombing Sicily to get rid of the Mafia
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 1
bombing the afghans is like bombing sicily to get rid of the mafia...
No. It would've been the same if the government of
Sicily (and/or Italy) refused to prosecute and/or
extradite the mafiozos.
Note that all this recent Palestinian violence started when Ariel Sharon came to power.
This is a LIE. The violence started last September, when Mr. Sharon was an
opposition leader. He "came to power" (or was democraticly elected) several
months later (in February?) -- when the said violence showed
the Israelis how inefficient the peaceful policies
of the previous leaders were.
Rip out the HDDs, boot of the network. Rip the fan off the CPU, and use a bigger heatsink (this
is fine for virtually all the original pentium series. You can easily build a power supply without
fans. Problems solved:-)
That's just what the people, who brought you
the player in subject did for you. And you can buy
the results of their labor for $300. Even if all
the parts were free for you, I don't see how you
can manage to do this yourself in less than a day.
Even if the result is just as good as their unit,
your time must be worth more than $300/8hours =
$37.50/hour. In the US that is...
Slashdot Mirror
"Probably" is the key, is not it?
Somehow, the US system is cranking along nicely and the horror stories like those depicted in this movie are just that -- stuff of fiction. For the poor there are many charities, which are more efficient in funds dispersing and less corruption prone than any government can be.
If there are 100 hospital beds and 150 patients equilly needing them, no matter how you cut it, 50 patients are going to be without the hospital care. Selling the care to the highest bidder (no matter how terrible it sounds) is simply the most efficient way to ensure, there will be 50 more beds the next time. It is not the only way to ensure that, of course. It is just the most efficient and self-sustaining way. Money is a better long-term incentive than a government regulation, that's for sure... Even if the government action may look more appealing in the short term...
Liberal minded and government trusting australians were happy to learn, the government is taking good care of them. A few responded with outrage and demanded more regulation of the government -- by the government.
(Not exactly trolling or flaimbaiting here. A few times before, an Aussi or two would rise to teach the americans about the beauty of the government regulation -- on this very forum.)
If the government regulations were lifted, the prices would've gone down. If I can not charge what I want from this tenant, I'll have to spread it over the others. Most likely -- the new ones. That's why you are hit the most, when moving from one place to another. The landlord has to set the higher price in advance because he/she will have to fill out too many forms to increase it the next year, if he wants to. And you also have to pay for all the tenant.net subscribers living in the same building, who know every way to weasel out of paying the market price.
Not enough places to live? Of course! What's the incentive to build/renovate in this over-regulated city? The city, where rent-control was introduced in 1943, as a temporary measure, is its own hostage now -- repealing the rent control costs too many votes.
City of Westchester, MA was hit with this problem -- no appartments. Why, was the question? There are, roughly, just as many homes, and not that many more people?.. The answer -- it has gradually become next to impossible to evict a tenant, so many retired owners of two-family houses, who used to rent before, gradually withdraw from the market. The risk of getting an unruly tenant in your upstairs appartment did not rise, but the danger, such a mishap would bring, inreased too far to outweight the benefits.
I did the research. My "drivel" is quite founded. In here, government regulations help formers. They can raise the milk prices -- it is illegal, in fact, to to charge too little! It is also illegal to advertise a particular brand of milk -- in Massachusetts, for example. Only the general "It does a body good" is allowed there. Stores can not even publish coupons for a particular brand of milk.
So, I guess, I'm not as clueless, huh? Make sure the dog does not eat your homework again...
Why do they get such protection? There are more of them, than there are those, who noticably suffer from it. We all do, but we don't realize it.
Same with the tenants vs. landlords. Their votes are equal, and even though it is the landlord's damn property, a whole bunch of people pretend, the tenants are somehow entitled to control it beyond the lease terms.
What's your problem with libertarianism, anyway? Take the quiz. May be, you'll find a hidden libertarian inside you :-)
Well, naturally, you can not change the terms half-way through.
Terrible! So you trust this "Office of Fair Trading" more than you trust your own ability to find a decent appartment at a decent price? To each his own, I guess... Why can you charge what you wish for a car, a stereo, or a pair of shoes, but for an appartment? Then, again, may be, this "Office of Fair Trading" controls prices on all those things too in Australia...
Actually, a whole bunch of wheenies think the government should regulate even more in here. According to them, the government regulation is good, there just should be more of it.
On the other hand, we only know, that in Australia things are tipsy-turvy, from you. I'd venture a guess, that a number of people in .au
think otherwise, and can offer horror stories of
"Fair Trade" employess.
Let's see an Australian wondering, why this sort of things are not government regulated and require all this pricey legal procedings instead...
After all, it is so much easier to pay taxes to support the additional government machinery and then you just file a few forms and have your problem resolved by a government employee! And you can even appeal a decision you don't like -- to the employes's boss...
So, you'd prefer to have to call the hypothetical "Federal Car Quality Enforcement" office in that unfortunate case?
Neither way will give you absolutely best cars. But the competition of a free market gives you better cars. Choosing the one, that will not kill you too easily is left up to you.
(Wondering off-topic a bit further.) Right. And to improve gas, water, and other things, they need to be de-nationalized. Properly, though, not like they tried to do in California ;)
(I'm surprised to see gasoline listed there. Here, in US, oil product market seems quite competetive...)
May be, they'd do it to you -- in return for all the hatred you just exposed. But generally -- no. They'll go broke if they do.
This is too stupid to deserve serious refutal. You are taking the wrong side of a very old debate, and you are doing a disservice to side you are taking.
Have you heard of free market? You know, the most efficient basis for economy, that's known so far...
It is not "living under a bridge", that's an alternative. It is moving out and renting from a decent landlord.
The cars you buy are decent not because the government regulates their quality, and not because corporate execs are angels, but because the manufacturers compete with each other. Making bad cars is just bad business.
If you don't like a software's EULA -- you get someone else's software. If there is nobody else -- well, than there is no way to make it then, otherwise. This may not be perfect, but the government involvement is worse -- just look at tax code, for example :-)
Now, the AG's action is right, IMHO. It would've been better, if a private party sued Network Assosiates (like that professor suing over DMCA), but this is good enough. AG is not writing any new law, and he is not aiming to regulate. His goal is to get a particular wrong righted -- based on an already existing law -- and I root for him.
Pathetic anonymous troll. I can switch from McAfee to Symantec several times a day -- not once every 4 years.
Besides, as we both know, the laws don't change every four years in this country. We like stability here, you know, and we pride ourselves with the system of checks and balances, so the biggest trouble with the government is when some corporation goes bust or when a president is cought lying in a sexual harassment case...
Regulating even more things by the government, things that are perfectly within the domain of already existing laws, would extend the nasty trend, which should be reversed. But neither the extension nor the reversal is going to happen immediately (or even withing four years).
NO! The government regulation is much worst than any company can do. You can always change the company. You can install FreeBSD and free yourself from Microsoft. You can switch to Symantec if you don't like McAffee. But changing government is a lot harder.
This case is a good example of the system working.
The government already regulates real estate leases in New York. And because of that the housing is notoriously expensive and of low quality. Do you want your milk-man to be obligated to sell you dairy? At the price set by the government? I come from the country, where this was the case, and as a result there was no milk in the stores.
I can go on and on, but I'll be modded up as a trolling flaimbait if I do. So I'll get back on topic. No government regulation, please. Thanks for your time.
With Verizon's new network (3G) it will, probably get faster eventually.
What's the big deal? That it is Intel making the hardware (and pushing the smaller guys out in the process)?
May be, Intel will offer open-source drivers for this hardware, though. Because Verizon only claims to support Windows and Mac (surprise!) with the hardware it offers from some obscure vendors.
This same country has insisted for a while, that AIDS (the disease) is not caused by the HIV (the virus) -- contrary to the established opinion world over.
So, now they claim "Open Source" is better, huh? Well, they are just lunatics down there...
Arguably, that's exactly when a human becomes robot...
- Until I ask to be added -- don't contact me.
- When I ask -- presume it was not me and e-mail me a confirmation request.
- Only, when such a request comes back affirmative can you add me.
DMA, which wants to spam you, does not need to invent its own guidelines. They are already there -- by people, who know more about the Internet and e-mail, than, perhaps, the entire DMA put together...It is not "The Ukraine". It is "Ukraine", damn it. "The France"? "The Russia"?
In essence, is not this the same as file compression? The amount of information is the same
(for those, who remember, what Bit is). It is just, that the usual one character per byte is awfully wastefull. Which is why the various compressors are so effective.
Add a modern data transfer protocol and you may :-)
get some start up money
Wrong. Although the US has its shortcomings, the orders of magnitude of the "guilt" are drasticly different.
In the times of its worst human rights violations, or information suppressing, the US never aproached those by China or USSR. Not sure about Saudi Arabia, though...
The other poster complaining about the women's rights in SA is also wrong. Although they are far from being equal to men, they have access to education and health care -- unlike in the Taliban state (whatever is left of it).
Besides, there are already passports. Use Occam's razor and realize, that passports are already all, that this "ID card" wants to be. Including being optional...
Well, let me give you some bits. I don't know, what one's age has to do with this -- not like books, etc. are not available....
Good, so you know, those territories are occupied. They were occupied during military operations. Operations, which were purely defensive -- Israel was attacked by neighboring Arab countries several times since its creation in 1948.
It seems only reasonable to me, that an attacked country wants to keep some of the land it occupied while fighting off an aggression. At least -- for a while -- until the attacker sincerely says: "sorry". They have my recognition of the right to do what they please with the land...
If Great Britain -- the Canada's Sovereign -- will start using British Columbia to attack United States, I'm sure BC will quickly get invaded by US -- with loud support from the enlightened of the world. Immigration policy, on the other hand, is a civil matter...
Only to defend itself -- everybody would. Including US in Afghanistan in 2001 or, say, in Sicily in 1944...
Israel first asks the foreign-nation-wannabe (PLO) to arrest and extradite them for trial. When they fail -- like Taliban failed to extradite bin Laden -- Israel hunts them and kills them -- like US is hunting bin Laden.
Interestingly enough, the crimes attributed to this "executed" people are never disputed -- even by the harshest critics of Israel... The country is fighting a war. Those you call "executed" are, in fact, its enemy's army... Imagine every Japanese soldier brought to trial prior to being shot by a marine charging the beach.
As for negotiations with Arabs -- how do you suggest a negotiation with someone, who continues to publicly state, that his ultimate goal is your demolition, destruction, removal?.. And not just publicly -- for the cheap popular support. That's why all negotion are dying so far -- after every concession, Israel asks: "Ok, is that it?" And the answer is always: "Yeah, for now..." "So, what do you want?" "Errr, we want all your land, we want your capital to be our capital, we don't want you to be there at all..."
Well, when I visited the mosque in question, I did not have to force my way. Not at all. It is (definitely, was) open for visitors... Why should Mr. Sharon have been excluded?
Face it, this was just a pretext for Arafat et al to start violence -- the rest of the world was becoming convinced, they are not decent people during last year's negotiations...
The trouble with this negotiations -- be it with Arafat or Islamic Jihad or whoever is that they refuse to aknoweldge Israel's right to exist. They will take whatever they can now, but will not rest until Israel is no more... Or until they are put to rest, so to speak.
And every maniac in the Middle East is trying to somehow bring Israel onto agenda. Remember when Saddam Hussein fired missiles at Israel -- to rally up support for his occupation of a fellow Muslim country?
No. It would've been the same if the government of Sicily (and/or Italy) refused to prosecute and/or extradite the mafiozos.
Nice try, though, very catchy...
This is a LIE. The violence started last September, when Mr. Sharon was an opposition leader. He "came to power" (or was democraticly elected) several months later (in February?) -- when the said violence showed the Israelis how inefficient the peaceful policies of the previous leaders were.
Wait, a commercial license for Qt is not available? What are you purchasing here, then?
That's just what the people, who brought you the player in subject did for you. And you can buy the results of their labor for $300. Even if all the parts were free for you, I don't see how you can manage to do this yourself in less than a day. Even if the result is just as good as their unit, your time must be worth more than $300/8hours = $37.50/hour. In the US that is...
I wish it could also play
BTW, do we know, what's the OS inside it? Can run SETI, I'm sure -- while nobody is listening...