The vast majority of people don't even have an HDTV.
It's not so "vast" anymore. I think 30% of US households have an HDTV now, and it's increasing pretty rapidly. 70% being SD-only households is a lot but it's ever shrinking.
And the current players may be "cheap" for you, but they won't really be "cheap" for most people until you can get a player for $30.
I bought my Toshiba HD-DVD player for $99. The $30 cheap DVD player probably costs more than that in the long run. I'm willing to bet that a person would have to buy more than three of those $30 players over the lifetime of my one player to cover the device failures. Based on my experience with my parent's DVD players, I'd be right.
I drive cars but completely agree with you. I could have sworn that there were studies that showed that people with safety features tended to drive more recklessly. I know people that got stuck more often when they got 4WD trucks when they didn't get stuck as much when they only drove 2WD trucks. In other words, 4WD seems to be the trick to getting people out of situations that they wouldn't have gotten into if they didn't have it.
I've heard of prospective employers looking online to see how the person behaves. But once hired, I don't know about whether they look up what the employees do. Most of the cases I've heard about involve information being brought to their attention, like a porn actress career of a teacher, when it's discovered.
I think it gets into pig-headed-ness, and I think it's unfortunate that you are willing to kowtow to it to the point that you're willing to fire people over a narrow-minded client's prejudices. We all have to work with and for people that don't have the same beliefs as our own. If it's a real performance issue, then fine, but the suggestion that someone that believes a different religion isn't going to do a good job on the work is quite pig-headed.
You might as well really take that final step and be willing to fire people for being the "wrong" race too, you get a client that doesn't like asians and won't work with asians and think that they'll do a poor job, why not just fire the asian? Why not? Your business is more important than someone's job.
While your response is technically a correct response, it missed the context. The discussion was about off-hour activities. Have you stopped using a company's products or services because of what one of their employees did in their off-time?
Religion, race, ethnicity, sex (a.k.a. gender) and such are protected, you can't legally be fired for these grounds. However, sexuality is not protected, which is a problem for gays.
Now finding whether someone really was fired for any of these reasons is pretty tough, such accusations are too easily countered as "poor job performance". Take a look at the prosecutor firings ordered by the White House for example. The only reason they were fired was for not dropping investigations of Republicans, claims of poor performance weren't backed up and were countered with glowing job reviews on the part of the DOJ. I don't think any of those prosecutors got their jobs back.
I still can't find any info on the number of copies of the program "iTunes". I think the copies also counts re-downloads and updates too, but I don't think it's too difficult to believe that there's a couple hundred million actively used copies of iTunes.
A problem I have with much of your argument is that you're saying that the company only has to pay for your work but you're basically saying that it's fine for the company to act as if they own you around the clock, that's what it boils down to. That's kind of a vicious bargain if you ask me. I understand that there are limits, but your interpretation of where the limits are look to be quite one-sided.
The dials don't need to be so huge. Why the dial is so big but the diagram explaining the dials need to be so small, I don't know. My mom's old unit has slightly smaller dials but they're easier to use because they're arranged in the same pattern as the burners.
A refrigerator shouldn't need a manual to explain which way a temperature dial goes colder. It only requires one or two words printed near the dial. Why suggest pulling out a manual for such a trivial task? I really can't think of any compelling reason that a kitchen appliance should require a manual, they're not that complex, they should just be properly labelled.
With regards to DVD / TV remotes, they should stick to buttons that 95% of the owners would actually use, and tell the remaining 5% to sod off, because the remaining 5% are control freaks that ruin things for everyone else. Either that or put the functions on the screen display, there's little reason A-B repeat needs to be on the remote. My Panasonic is just like that, it has no functions on the remote that I would consider to be bullet point fodder.
Those that only format-shift their collections are probably not going to be caught. If the RIAA tries to do another computer-sniffing program, I don't think that would be accepted as evidence as it's a warrantless search. So I guess we need to keep an eye out for legislation authorizing warrantless searches for copyright infringement.
There are ideas that sexual reproduction arose as a response to disease. Every individual having a different genetic combination slows down the effectiveness of any given strain. That's a good defense as a virus can mutate a lot quicker than larger organisms can.
I've never really understood this sort of thing, it's really a lame joke at best.
If you had completely "ordinary" interests and had no interest in anything that's different, does that mean you have a really big unit? It just seems like this sort of joke is part of a semi-conscious attempt to homogenize people by mocking others that happen to like or own unusual things.
He's sounding more like the McCarthy of video games. McCarthy made outlandish claims and his claims very quickly became ever more outlandish. Thankfully Thompson's influence is considerably lower.
A lot of this is already known to science. There is a family that (I think) has a prion disease such that if a family member gets it, they stay awake until they die a few months later - and it sounds like a very horrible death too.
This sort of thing looks just like the same kind of "quick fix", I'm really skeptical of this one too. IIRC, most of our self-repair functions happen when we sleep, so this probably has long-term implications that won't be caught in an 18 month trial.
This smells a lot like the "wizards" fad from a few years ago. No thank you. Even though the similarity may only be only in how it's hyped, it seems poorly considered and all that. Might as well beat us all over the head with "Clippy".
Neither products are intended for the techie market. People like my parents use computers until there unbearable for basic tasks, the last retired computer was nine years old. By then, both the screen and the system are very obsolete.
The problem is that it's punishing the wrong people. Sure, it's a judgement against the US, but the US isn't any more of a homogenous aggregation than many other countries. The entertainment industries are at best loosely affiliated with the gambling industry.
That would be like a judge punishing your sister for something that you did. Sure, you're related, but that doesn't make the punishment fit the crime.
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The vast majority of people don't even have an HDTV.
It's not so "vast" anymore. I think 30% of US households have an HDTV now, and it's increasing pretty rapidly. 70% being SD-only households is a lot but it's ever shrinking.
And the current players may be "cheap" for you, but they won't really be "cheap" for most people until you can get a player for $30.
I bought my Toshiba HD-DVD player for $99. The $30 cheap DVD player probably costs more than that in the long run. I'm willing to bet that a person would have to buy more than three of those $30 players over the lifetime of my one player to cover the device failures. Based on my experience with my parent's DVD players, I'd be right.
The way I like to present it to people is that stopping is the biggest problem and AWD/4WD doesn't improve on that.
I drive cars but completely agree with you. I could have sworn that there were studies that showed that people with safety features tended to drive more recklessly. I know people that got stuck more often when they got 4WD trucks when they didn't get stuck as much when they only drove 2WD trucks. In other words, 4WD seems to be the trick to getting people out of situations that they wouldn't have gotten into if they didn't have it.
I've heard of prospective employers looking online to see how the person behaves. But once hired, I don't know about whether they look up what the employees do. Most of the cases I've heard about involve information being brought to their attention, like a porn actress career of a teacher, when it's discovered.
I think it gets into pig-headed-ness, and I think it's unfortunate that you are willing to kowtow to it to the point that you're willing to fire people over a narrow-minded client's prejudices. We all have to work with and for people that don't have the same beliefs as our own. If it's a real performance issue, then fine, but the suggestion that someone that believes a different religion isn't going to do a good job on the work is quite pig-headed.
You might as well really take that final step and be willing to fire people for being the "wrong" race too, you get a client that doesn't like asians and won't work with asians and think that they'll do a poor job, why not just fire the asian? Why not? Your business is more important than someone's job.
In my view, both situations are equally devolved.
While your response is technically a correct response, it missed the context. The discussion was about off-hour activities. Have you stopped using a company's products or services because of what one of their employees did in their off-time?
Religion, race, ethnicity, sex (a.k.a. gender) and such are protected, you can't legally be fired for these grounds. However, sexuality is not protected, which is a problem for gays.
Now finding whether someone really was fired for any of these reasons is pretty tough, such accusations are too easily countered as "poor job performance". Take a look at the prosecutor firings ordered by the White House for example. The only reason they were fired was for not dropping investigations of Republicans, claims of poor performance weren't backed up and were countered with glowing job reviews on the part of the DOJ. I don't think any of those prosecutors got their jobs back.
Here's a surprise for me: three billion songs sold as of July 07.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/07/31itunes.html
I still can't find any info on the number of copies of the program "iTunes". I think the copies also counts re-downloads and updates too, but I don't think it's too difficult to believe that there's a couple hundred million actively used copies of iTunes.
A problem I have with much of your argument is that you're saying that the company only has to pay for your work but you're basically saying that it's fine for the company to act as if they own you around the clock, that's what it boils down to. That's kind of a vicious bargain if you ask me. I understand that there are limits, but your interpretation of where the limits are look to be quite one-sided.
The dials don't need to be so huge. Why the dial is so big but the diagram explaining the dials need to be so small, I don't know. My mom's old unit has slightly smaller dials but they're easier to use because they're arranged in the same pattern as the burners.
DVD players with enough controls on the face to use the menu are often hard to use in that manner anyway.
A refrigerator shouldn't need a manual to explain which way a temperature dial goes colder. It only requires one or two words printed near the dial. Why suggest pulling out a manual for such a trivial task? I really can't think of any compelling reason that a kitchen appliance should require a manual, they're not that complex, they should just be properly labelled.
With regards to DVD / TV remotes, they should stick to buttons that 95% of the owners would actually use, and tell the remaining 5% to sod off, because the remaining 5% are control freaks that ruin things for everyone else. Either that or put the functions on the screen display, there's little reason A-B repeat needs to be on the remote. My Panasonic is just like that, it has no functions on the remote that I would consider to be bullet point fodder.
Those that only format-shift their collections are probably not going to be caught. If the RIAA tries to do another computer-sniffing program, I don't think that would be accepted as evidence as it's a warrantless search. So I guess we need to keep an eye out for legislation authorizing warrantless searches for copyright infringement.
How about iTunes? Apple has distributed maybe half a billion copies of it now.
Maybe it's a Microsoft program that rips a CD while you play it, I've seen a program do that without me asking.
There are ideas that sexual reproduction arose as a response to disease. Every individual having a different genetic combination slows down the effectiveness of any given strain. That's a good defense as a virus can mutate a lot quicker than larger organisms can.
I've never really understood this sort of thing, it's really a lame joke at best.
If you had completely "ordinary" interests and had no interest in anything that's different, does that mean you have a really big unit? It just seems like this sort of joke is part of a semi-conscious attempt to homogenize people by mocking others that happen to like or own unusual things.
He's sounding more like the McCarthy of video games. McCarthy made outlandish claims and his claims very quickly became ever more outlandish. Thankfully Thompson's influence is considerably lower.
A lot of this is already known to science. There is a family that (I think) has a prion disease such that if a family member gets it, they stay awake until they die a few months later - and it sounds like a very horrible death too.
Here's a link to the story I heard about.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6503414
This sort of thing looks just like the same kind of "quick fix", I'm really skeptical of this one too. IIRC, most of our self-repair functions happen when we sleep, so this probably has long-term implications that won't be caught in an 18 month trial.
This smells a lot like the "wizards" fad from a few years ago. No thank you. Even though the similarity may only be only in how it's hyped, it seems poorly considered and all that. Might as well beat us all over the head with "Clippy".
The Dell comes with a TV tuner.
A TV tuner for the Mac can be bought for $99 or less, and I think that price includes HDTV too.
Neither products are intended for the techie market. People like my parents use computers until there unbearable for basic tasks, the last retired computer was nine years old. By then, both the screen and the system are very obsolete.
The problem is that it's punishing the wrong people. Sure, it's a judgement against the US, but the US isn't any more of a homogenous aggregation than many other countries. The entertainment industries are at best loosely affiliated with the gambling industry.
That would be like a judge punishing your sister for something that you did. Sure, you're related, but that doesn't make the punishment fit the crime.
And no, constantly pushing the channel buttons is not interaction.
Clicking mouse buttons is somehow on a whole different level?
I think one major problem is that people over commit themselves or allow themselves to get overcommited to too much crap.