If, on the other hand, it is worth something to you, you might want to send them something to encourage them to continue making music.
What is the band willing to pay *me* to download their album? They owe me four stadium beers. These wankers were the opening act for R.E.M. in 1996, and they were so awful, I had to drink heavily in order to tolerate the noise and ego until the headliner came out.
I believe that this was a temporary surge because of the new (January 07) requirement to have a passport to visit Canada and Mexico. Things appear to have returned to normal. For those of you who are considering applying, here's a current comparison: I submitted my passport application on June 22 this year. I did not pay an expedite fee. I had the document in my hands on August 1 (two days short of six weeks).
This gives me an excuse to go out and buy a CD I can expect to be decent, supporting a good artist AND tweaking the RIAA's nose simultaneously.
It's not the RIAA (or the UK equivalent) that's protesting. It's the Entertainment Retailers Association, which stands to lose their "cut" of the profits arising from the sale of the CD's. I know the article saya "music industry," but it's not the usual part of the music industry that we all hate so much. It's the middle-men, whining.
It benefits the chamber of commerce. More daylight after normal 9-5 working hours means more people will go out shopping. The last time this was tried (in 1986 or so), the golf industry made an extra $200 million in income.
or, alternatively: three more weeks with LESS sunlight BEFORE work actually do something (run, bike,...) is all that matters. And I've been robbed.
Who cares if it's sunny after work? Daylight when I wake up is a lot more important.
Name a CD that had 15 tracks that were worth having.
Just off the top of my head?
The Beatles: "Abbey Road" (of the 17 tracks on the album, I'd call "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and "Oh! "Darling" not quite worth having. Yes, as short as they are, I still think "The End" and "Her Majesty" are better songs).
The Clash: "London Calling (yeah, it was 2 LP's, but it sold at the single album price and it's always fit on a single CD).
Love and Rockets: Express (the 2001 re-master)
They Might Be Giants: Apollo 18
Given time, I'm sure I cold come up with more, but here's a good start for you.
My hard drive crashed. I have to install Windows 3.1 from floppy, then upgrade to Windows 95, then upgrade that to Windows 2000, then upgrade that to XP and finally upgrade to Vista. I'll be finished in a couple of days."
Not that different from the current situation. My wife's XP machine regulaly trashes hard drives. I have to start from her HP recovery disc, install it, then install 35 "critical updates" before it realizes that Service Pack 2 is out there. Then I install SP2, and 65 more critical updates.
That's just about right. Two tons, at an average weight of 160 lbs comes out to 25 people. I'd venture to say that there are probably just about 25 people who use AND like Windows.
Different story at my local Target. I drove my son over at 6 am, anticipating the 7 am "ticket hand-out." We were #32 of 42, and #42 arrived at 6:58. We secretly mocked the geeks at the front of the line who had arrived 24 hours earlier.
I heard a story on NPR perhaps a couple of years ago about a group of people who were creating brand new 78 rpm records of current music. The reason was for preservaton because a 78 RPM records is apparently extrememly easy to play even without much technology.
Actually it pretty much *is* moot. My wife has a Win XP machine, and I've had to restore her system TWICE. On both occasions, the "license restoration" of protected WMP content from back-ups failed. I went back to the vendors to get new licenses the first time, and burned the stuff we cared about as audio CD's. When the restoration failed the SECOND time, I just deleted the music files and set her up with an iTunes account.
I think it's a shame the extended version of the film didn't go down the 6 DVD route.
I don't know about your copies of the extended editions, but mine have each film spanning two DVD's. I'm sure that the breaks aren't in exactly the same places that JRRT placed them, but still...
Tho actually, I'm left handed, and I couldn't imagine using a mouse with my left hand. I've tried before, and it just feels totally awkward. I assume that I would get used to it if I just did it long enough, but I've never felt, for any reason, that it would be beneficial for me to do so. So, my advice to left handed people whining about scrollbars - just give in and use your right hand, whiner.:)
But the OP isn't whining about a mouse; [s]he is whining about a touchscreen. So it's not just a convenience, because using your left hand on a right-side scrollbar blocks the view. I'm also a lefty who has always moused right-handed, but I still handle a stylus with my left. Thankfully, PalmOS has some wonderful left-side hacks, and it hasn't causet me a problem, but if I ware working on a tablet PC, I'd be jumping up and down, screaming for the OS developer to accommodate an opposite-side scrollbar. What do they do for Hebrew and Farsi localizations?
Even the questions you list can easily, even subconsciously, be skewed to favour Apple.
Possibly. But even as much as I hate Microsoft's products when they're working properly, I had to admit that the most pleasant AND satisfying phone call to tech support I've ever had was when Word for Mac "broke" on me. I spent all of 45 seconds on hold, and the support engineer fixed my problem in a little over a minute. (Although, I should be ashamed to admit that it was the typical MacOS 9 problem that got fixed by simply deleting the proper Preference file).
All that Consumer Report's quality survey shows is that people using Apple's products are happy having made the "alternative" choice. Choosing Apple's products represents a lifestyle choice ("I am going to be different"), whereas choosing a PC does not.
You appear to have a faulty understanding of the CU survey. It is not a subjective "lifestyle choice" survey that asks questions like "On a scale from 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with your purchase?" and those kind of warm-fuzzy questions. It asks completely objective questions like "How many hardware failures have you had in the last year?" "How much time did you spend on the phone getting tech support?" "How long did it take for the repair?"
And, as others have said, Apple has consistently ranked as #1 for the last decade.
I have noticed that sometimes in the middle of the night you get WORSE speeds than at other times of the day. I assume part of the problem is that at that time of the night many systems on the internet are being maintained and/or backed up.
[gp]> Being able to download tracks you want and keep for as long as you want for under a buck seems like a good deal to me.
You obviously don't think long term. I do. I have old LPs, I have twenty year old CDs and all of it is still accessable and I expect it to still be accessable in some form after I am dead and gone. I have serious doubts whether anything from iTMS will survive anywhere like that long.
The music you download from iTMS will survive as long as the rest of your record collection, as long as you maintain it with an equivalent level of care and maintenance (regular back-ups, temperature- and humidity-controlled storage). If you've got LP's, you know the drill. Just extend the paradigm.
But most of all I object to iTMS and the other online music stores for more basic reasons. I object to paying high prices for low quality.
I call BS on this one. If you actually own LP's, you are likely to remember that the cost of a 45 rpm single in 1979 was about $1. For that price, you got two songs, in pretty lousy quality. That 1979 dollar would cost you $2.77 today, so 99 cents for a single song is actually 38% CHEAPER than the vinyl equivalent. And, I would argue, of at least the same sound quality.
If I am going to buy music I expect CD quality (after all, the CD is based on thirty year old tech) as a minimum standard
If you are unwilling to compromise on the "quality" of the medium, then you get exactly what is being sold on compact disc. Which validates the point of TFA.
When most people see an Apple they tend to assume the owner is one or more of a) yuppie scum, b) smelly hippie, c) gay and almost certainly d) an Apple zealot.
Don't flatter yourself. Just because that's your opinion, don't think that you represent "most people." When most people see an Apple, they tend to assume that the owner is interested in accomplishing the task they have at hand, minimizing interference by the computing hardware and software (including spyware, virii, etc.). I, as an Apple customer, have been willing to pay a *slight* premium (you need to check out the market before you throw around the "overpriced" claim) for the computer to get out of my way, and I appreciate every penny that apple has thrown into R&D to make that possible.
Sitting here with moderator points this morning, I was really torn. I could have just pulled the "Flamebait" dropdown, but I'm hoping that you'll take these comments to heart.
See? That's where I disagree. It's the end user of the software who needs to have access to this information. And Microsoft SHOULD be forcing developers to post this information in the little "System Requirements" box, right next to processor speed, RAM and video requirements, so that we can make an informed purchase.
Getting the Windows logo does require that your app run as non-admin, or you have to document what admin feature it needs and why.
and WHERE is that supposed to be documented, pray tell? It's not on the package, or anywhere else you can find befoe you break a seal and "agree" to the EULA. I had one of those aneurysm moments on the phone with Sierra Online's tech support when they told me to just let my 12-year-old son run as Admin when he wants to play "Empire Earth."
Tickets will only be issued in a persons name and ONLY that person can use them!
Tom Petty's fan club just did this very thing, and they didn't need Homeland Security. They have cancelled thousands of tickets to upcoming shows that were bought by fan club members, and then re-sold to brokers/scalpers (more references here and here. As a matter of fact, their new policy is that the tickets can now only be picked up at will-call just before the show, with ID and the credit card on which the purchase was charged. No amazing new technology involved.
$50 means I can buy them for random people on the internet too.
If you recall, US$50 was the "closeout" price on the Dreamcast. I'm sure that plenty of people bought spares to save and give. I know I did. And heck, I'm still playing games on it.
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I believe that this was a temporary surge because of the new (January 07) requirement to have a passport to visit Canada and Mexico. Things appear to have returned to normal. For those of you who are considering applying, here's a current comparison: I submitted my passport application on June 22 this year. I did not pay an expedite fee. I had the document in my hands on August 1 (two days short of six weeks).
It benefits the chamber of commerce. More daylight after normal 9-5 working hours means more people will go out shopping. The last time this was tried (in 1986 or so), the golf industry made an extra $200 million in income.
or, alternatively: three more weeks with LESS sunlight BEFORE work actually do something (run, bike, ...) is all that matters. And I've been robbed.
Who cares if it's sunny after work? Daylight when I wake up is a lot more important.
- The Beatles: "Abbey Road" (of the 17 tracks on the album, I'd call "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and "Oh! "Darling" not quite worth having. Yes, as short as they are, I still think "The End" and "Her Majesty" are better songs).
- The Clash: "London Calling (yeah, it was 2 LP's, but it sold at the single album price and it's always fit on a single CD).
- Love and Rockets: Express (the 2001 re-master)
- They Might Be Giants: Apollo 18
Given time, I'm sure I cold come up with more, but here's a good start for you.I remember that. It used to identify the Beatles' "Revolver" as some Japanese album. Now I understand the fix. Thanks.
That's just about right. Two tons, at an average weight of 160 lbs comes out to 25 people. I'd venture to say that there are probably just about 25 people who use AND like Windows.
Different story at my local Target. I drove my son over at 6 am, anticipating the 7 am "ticket hand-out." We were #32 of 42, and #42 arrived at 6:58. We secretly mocked the geeks at the front of the line who had arrived 24 hours earlier.
...they name it the Velvet Comet.
Actually it pretty much *is* moot. My wife has a Win XP machine, and I've had to restore her system TWICE. On both occasions, the "license restoration" of protected WMP content from back-ups failed. I went back to the vendors to get new licenses the first time, and burned the stuff we cared about as audio CD's. When the restoration failed the SECOND time, I just deleted the music files and set her up with an iTunes account.
And, as others have said, Apple has consistently ranked as #1 for the last decade.
Sitting here with moderator points this morning, I was really torn. I could have just pulled the "Flamebait" dropdown, but I'm hoping that you'll take these comments to heart.
See? That's where I disagree. It's the end user of the software who needs to have access to this information. And Microsoft SHOULD be forcing developers to post this information in the little "System Requirements" box, right next to processor speed, RAM and video requirements, so that we can make an informed purchase.