Yeah and I was told a year ago by their executive offices that there'd be a tool released by Verizon "in 3-4 weeks" to go in via the data cable and upload progs and ringtones without GetItNow.
Ya know, I've made that same argument countless times. But you know what I realized?
Many (most?) people simply can not tell the difference. Frankly I don't think giving them all $1,000,000 stereos would make much difference. It's exactly the same as monitor refresh rates. Less than 85Hz drives me nuts. But if I jump back and forth between 60Hz and 100Hz on my girlfriend's computer, she tells me she doesn't see any difference. I'll never understand it, but there ya go.
It's not that they haven't tried, it's not that they're deaf. They just don't hear those artifacts. I don't know why it is, but, as much as it hurts my ears to say it, 128kbps really is enough for most people. Not only that, but ignorance is bliss. If it sounds good then what's the problem? I *wish* I could go back to listening to 128kbps. I'd love to listen to streaming audio at work, but I can't find any decent stations that are 160kbps+ that play something other than techno.
For me, even when I had my crappy Ford Escort with massive road noise, a $40 head, and stock speakers, a CD burned from 128kbps mp3 would drive me absolutely nuts to the point where I couldn't stand to listen to it. A 192 from the same stuff? That's fine. I'm no audiophile, analog interference doesn't bother me, bad live recordings don't bother me, and poor studio work doesn't bother me. But 128k compression artifacts just make me feel like there's a baby alien about to pop out thru my ears.
Heh possibly. In fairness, I wouldn't do that now and, well, these guys had it coming. My friend had a gender-neutral name and was constantly getting guys ICQing him pictures of some big wang saying "I hope I'm not being too forward!" or "I'm into clamps and whips, wanna cyber?"
Well, the old Back Orriface or Net somethingorother could, although only one person at a time.
A friend of mine would use that and mess with people (only those who assumed he was a female and hit on him over icq - and would then accept his "self-extracting jpeg"). It had a mode where you could force an image to block everything else on the screen until a reboot. He'd wait until whoever was on the computer left and plaster the goatse.cx guy up on the screen. Good times.
As I said, of course I don't own the copyright, copyright is specifically protected under various federal laws. That's what the FBI warnings say. That's not an agreement or contract there it's nothing more than a warning reminding you of the law. There doesn't need to be an FBI warning for that to be illegal. Those things are just to scare people away from infringing in the first place. 100% different from an EULA which presents itself as an agreement.
No matter how much the distributors want to, you just *can't* append terms after the deal's done. The only way one side can revise the terms of a contract after it's been executed is if both sides agree to that beforehand (and even then that may be illegal in some states...but IANAL)
So if you didn't agree to something else before you bought the CD, then you're not obligated to do anything except abide by what's in Title 17 of the US Code...
Yeah MC's a decent place. I live in Silicon Valley, the land where Fry's dominates, but I still find myself going to MC when I don't want a hassle.
Hell, I was putting together a computer the other day and the motherboards at MC were cheaper than Fry's. And there's *never* a line at the return counter. And the employees don't have that creepy vibe like the Fry's ones do. I swear to god, that place is run by pod people or they all have brain slugs or *something*.
Funny, I didn't see that on the box and the store didn't tell me that before the exchange of money for the goods. Once the exchange takes place, that box is mine, the CD is mine, including all the little reflective bits on it.
Now, of course I didn't buy the copyright so I can't distribute it (that's adequately covered by laws, no EULA required to tell you that)
But repeat after me: ELUAs ARE NOT THE LAW
People act as if they could pick up a piece of trash on the ground, and if it has fine print saying they've agreed to pay someone $1,000,000 that they're bound by it. Because, you know, it's in fine print and uses the word "shall".
You simply cannot be bound by terms after the contract is executed (unless you both agree those terms can be changed). If you walk into a store and give them cash and they give you a product, that's a contract and the transaction is *done*.
If Blockbuster didn't have any signs indicating they were a rental location, didn't make you sign a document outlining the terms before getting a card, and didn't tell you that you had to return it before taking your money, then any reasonable person could assume that they did, in fact, own that playstation and movie. And if they got home to find that DVD they *bought* put up a message saying they had to return it in three days, they'd be under no obligation to actually return it. That was never a condition of the sale.
Now, of course things are different in the case of MSDN subscriptions or something, where you agree to a massive document *before* you give them money and *before* they give you CDs. Why is that? Because they're selling to large organizations who have legal teams who know the difference between a legal and enforcable contract and an unenforcable list or requests.
Yeah, military healthcare blows. You get what you pay form I'm an Air Force brat. My dad was an officer, but not a pilot (a missileman)
My mom or I could be bleeding to death in that damn lobby all day because the Colonel's wife or any pilot's wife waltzes in with a stuffy nose and gets all of us peons bumped back an hour.
I mean, when we were stationed at Edwards (a flight test base) I could totally understand the pilot himself getting preferential treatment over support people. I mean the whole base existed for them anyway. But it pisses me off to no end that the same extends to dependents. A pilot's wife shouldn't get service faster than me any more than I should get serviced before a sicker Airman's kid. That's just not right.
But the healthcare's not worth having anyway. You gotta love the fine folks at the Grand Forks AFB hospital who had no idea that my mom was carrying twins until...SURPRISE! THERE'S TWO!
Just one of the many reasons I chose not to be a 3rd generation officer...of course now I'm damn glad I didn't...
I'll believe it when I see it. My mom's comcast digital cable box doesn't even have s-video output and only shows half an hour at a time in the guide. And picture quality looks as bad as OTA.
Last time I visited my dad a couple years ago in Virigina the date stamp on the bottom of his box was 1984 and he went thru one every couple months as they died. Not even composite out on that thing, just RF. And everyone always looked green. They said they'd upgrade in "about 6 months" ever since I lived out there as a kid in 1988. Maybe they finally did, he's since moved to Adelphia land which is at least slightly better.
When I moved out of San Jose for the penninsula a couple years ago, they still had an A/B selector switch on their cable. Maybe they still do. Again, "in about 6 months" for the 6 years I lived there. This was in the heart of Silicon Valley!
Of course, this is why I flat out refuse to use cable again and stick with satellite. *resists the urge to go on a rant arguing for eliminating cable monopolies*
Of course when comparing DirecTV and Dish Network I found that Dish's PVR didn't even have a season pass equivilent. Screw that, that's the best feature of the TiVo. Who the hell wants to pause live TV? With a TiVo I don't think I watched live TV more than a couple times.
Re:as long as spyware actually does something
on
The Spyware Inferno
·
· Score: 1
Or just go straight to the source. http://www.nws.noaa.gov. I sure as hell don't use weather.com anymore since they started using flash ads.
Re:so you're too lazy to fight
on
Vive La Loafing!
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
You took the words right out of my mouth. It's not that the French are born to be slackers. It's that we Americans are born to be workaholics.
Frankly, very few of us do important enough work that if we put in 35 hour weeks instead of 80 the world would collapse in on itself. I mean, I take pride in what I do, but come on.
Heh I know I've seen FGF but I've repressed all memories of it. I don't think I can recall a single scene.
But you're the first mention of "The Passion..." I've seen. I hadn't thought of that, but for me that was probably the worst recent movie I've seen. That South Park episode was right, I paid $9 to see a snuff film. That was the frist time I really felt like I'd wasted my money and two hours of my life. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Sounds like a good use to me. I'd never send her ass a dollar, but if there are suckers out there dumb enough to pay, then why the hell not? In retrospect maybe I should've registered SendAlexToCollege.com a few years back so I wouldn't be paying off student loans for the next 10 years.
I guess instead I'll have to start HelpAlexBuyAnOverpricedBayAreaHouse.com.
Hmm got 75wpm here using four fingers. Man, if I could use all the rest, I'd be unstopable. UNSTOPABLE! At least, if I wanted to be a legal secretary anyway...
Well seeing how I never use audio or video, gaim's the better client for me simply because it can auto-save transcripts and doesn't have flash ads. Although I wish they'd implement a decent scroll-back history feature like ICQ. I can't count the number of times with Windows AIM where I've accidently closed a window full of flight information or something and have to try to get it again somehow.
Actually, I *really* wish that all my friends had just stuck with ICQ instead of jumping to AIM (which was faster at the time), but what can you do...
Hmm IANAL and I'm in the US, but I believe out here (at least in California) it takes longer than 6 months and requires the squatter to pay property taxes. And I don't think it works if you tell them to leave (and if I could afford to have a house sitting around without having to rent it out, I could get somebody to drive by every 6 months to see if there's someone living inside)
Besides, I think if I saw my property taxes were strangely getting paid on their own, I think I'd notice...
Sure it was bad parenting. The parents raised the kid to be so irresponsible as to think it's a good idea to play with a loaded firearm. It's the same as if the kid snuck into the garage and sawed off his hand because he was messing around and using a chainsaw in one hand and holding the board with the other. Most reasonable people would realize this is a bad idea and wouldn't blame the saw.
Bullets don't kill you if someone doesn't pull the trigger.
My grandpa's had a box of.45 ACP ammo sitting in his kitchen as long as I've been alive and I don't think any of them has ever jumped out of the box and shot anyone. *checks self* nope, no bullet holes in me.
I'm no gun nut, don't own one, don't need one (but I'm in no position to say that nobody needs one - just don't point it at me, please), but I'll never blame the gun unless it magically jumps off the table, points itself and fires. And that would be a neat trick indeed.
Ouch! I still can't see how anyone could possibly stand to drive (or walk in the summer for any length of time) without a nice pair of polarized sunglasses. Ok, polarization is optional. I love it even though it makes it a pain in the ass to read my nav system's LCD screen if I'm not at the right angle.
The sun on the road is bad enough on regular days, but those times when it rained the night before and the sun's up in the morning and it's so bright you can't see the lane markers at all? Or in a place where it snows? Without some kind of glare reduction? My vision's turning purple and I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.
Makes me want to run home and put on my snowboarding goggles:)
Leave the gun in the office. Who cares. Of course if there are kids around you'd best put a lock on it and if they're older, ideally by then daddy's taught them how to handle one without shooting themselves or others.
I mean my dad had guns when I was growing up, but when I was young they were locked up and by the time I was old enough to have access to evil marijuana I sure as hell knew better than to point a firearm at anything I didn't want to put a hole in.
No kidding. This guy takes annoying to levels I never knew existed.
What's so goddamn hard about working in a team and making that little leap of logic that says that being friendly is a good thing for you and your career? Being annoying makes people not like you. If people don't like you, you're not going to advance and if people actively DISLIKE you, you're going to be pretty high on the list when layoffs come around. That's something that seems like common knowledge for most people, but there's a certain percentage that just doesn't seem to get it.
I mean I'm not the most social person in the world, but I at least attempt to be friendly to coworkers. It's a lot easier to fire the arrogant bastard hiding in his cube than the guy who says "good morning, how was your weekend?" Back when I did IT work, knowing a little about everyone and asking the moms how the kid was doing, etc. would go a long way towards keeping things working smoothly. That alone's a good thing, but it also made it that much more likely for them to tell my boss "hey, that new guy's doing a good job", which is a *really* good thing. Of course some people are dicks and there's always one or two people who'll still try to treat you like their servant, but most people are reasonable to you if you're reasonable with them.
It's fine if you don't have all the same interests, but no need to hate people because they like football or something. I mean I think basketball is the most god-awful boring sport around, but if I get invited to a friends' place to watch the playoffs I'll show up to hang out and to have some nachos and beer.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah and I was told a year ago by their executive offices that there'd be a tool released by Verizon "in 3-4 weeks" to go in via the data cable and upload progs and ringtones without GetItNow.
Don't believe a thing those guys say...
Ya know, I've made that same argument countless times. But you know what I realized?
Many (most?) people simply can not tell the difference. Frankly I don't think giving them all $1,000,000 stereos would make much difference. It's exactly the same as monitor refresh rates. Less than 85Hz drives me nuts. But if I jump back and forth between 60Hz and 100Hz on my girlfriend's computer, she tells me she doesn't see any difference. I'll never understand it, but there ya go.
It's not that they haven't tried, it's not that they're deaf. They just don't hear those artifacts. I don't know why it is, but, as much as it hurts my ears to say it, 128kbps really is enough for most people. Not only that, but ignorance is bliss. If it sounds good then what's the problem? I *wish* I could go back to listening to 128kbps. I'd love to listen to streaming audio at work, but I can't find any decent stations that are 160kbps+ that play something other than techno.
For me, even when I had my crappy Ford Escort with massive road noise, a $40 head, and stock speakers, a CD burned from 128kbps mp3 would drive me absolutely nuts to the point where I couldn't stand to listen to it. A 192 from the same stuff? That's fine. I'm no audiophile, analog interference doesn't bother me, bad live recordings don't bother me, and poor studio work doesn't bother me. But 128k compression artifacts just make me feel like there's a baby alien about to pop out thru my ears.
But that's just me.
Heh. When typing to some guy thru notepad, pretending to be his suddenly conscious computer he typed back "if you're really my computer then fuck me!"
*open cd-rom tray*
"Please insert dick"
He went offline and never came back...
The devil must be your father.
Heh possibly. In fairness, I wouldn't do that now and, well, these guys had it coming. My friend had a gender-neutral name and was constantly getting guys ICQing him pictures of some big wang saying "I hope I'm not being too forward!" or "I'm into clamps and whips, wanna cyber?"
Well, the old Back Orriface or Net somethingorother could, although only one person at a time.
A friend of mine would use that and mess with people (only those who assumed he was a female and hit on him over icq - and would then accept his "self-extracting jpeg"). It had a mode where you could force an image to block everything else on the screen until a reboot. He'd wait until whoever was on the computer left and plaster the goatse.cx guy up on the screen. Good times.
Meta Kernel
Way faster than the stock stuff on my 48gx. Too bad the 128kB memory cards were so goddamn expensive so I didn't get it for a long time.
As I said, of course I don't own the copyright, copyright is specifically protected under various federal laws. That's what the FBI warnings say. That's not an agreement or contract there it's nothing more than a warning reminding you of the law. There doesn't need to be an FBI warning for that to be illegal. Those things are just to scare people away from infringing in the first place. 100% different from an EULA which presents itself as an agreement.
No matter how much the distributors want to, you just *can't* append terms after the deal's done. The only way one side can revise the terms of a contract after it's been executed is if both sides agree to that beforehand (and even then that may be illegal in some states...but IANAL)
So if you didn't agree to something else before you bought the CD, then you're not obligated to do anything except abide by what's in Title 17 of the US Code...
Yeah MC's a decent place. I live in Silicon Valley, the land where Fry's dominates, but I still find myself going to MC when I don't want a hassle.
Hell, I was putting together a computer the other day and the motherboards at MC were cheaper than Fry's. And there's *never* a line at the return counter. And the employees don't have that creepy vibe like the Fry's ones do. I swear to god, that place is run by pod people or they all have brain slugs or *something*.
Funny, I didn't see that on the box and the store didn't tell me that before the exchange of money for the goods. Once the exchange takes place, that box is mine, the CD is mine, including all the little reflective bits on it.
Now, of course I didn't buy the copyright so I can't distribute it (that's adequately covered by laws, no EULA required to tell you that)
But repeat after me: ELUAs ARE NOT THE LAW
People act as if they could pick up a piece of trash on the ground, and if it has fine print saying they've agreed to pay someone $1,000,000 that they're bound by it. Because, you know, it's in fine print and uses the word "shall".
You simply cannot be bound by terms after the contract is executed (unless you both agree those terms can be changed). If you walk into a store and give them cash and they give you a product, that's a contract and the transaction is *done*.
If Blockbuster didn't have any signs indicating they were a rental location, didn't make you sign a document outlining the terms before getting a card, and didn't tell you that you had to return it before taking your money, then any reasonable person could assume that they did, in fact, own that playstation and movie. And if they got home to find that DVD they *bought* put up a message saying they had to return it in three days, they'd be under no obligation to actually return it. That was never a condition of the sale.
Now, of course things are different in the case of MSDN subscriptions or something, where you agree to a massive document *before* you give them money and *before* they give you CDs. Why is that? Because they're selling to large organizations who have legal teams who know the difference between a legal and enforcable contract and an unenforcable list or requests.
Dunno if that ever got passed, but I know my copy of the ATA-6 spec at work has a note that they're now referred to as "drive 0" and "drive 1"
Yeah, military healthcare blows. You get what you pay form I'm an Air Force brat. My dad was an officer, but not a pilot (a missileman)
My mom or I could be bleeding to death in that damn lobby all day because the Colonel's wife or any pilot's wife waltzes in with a stuffy nose and gets all of us peons bumped back an hour.
I mean, when we were stationed at Edwards (a flight test base) I could totally understand the pilot himself getting preferential treatment over support people. I mean the whole base existed for them anyway. But it pisses me off to no end that the same extends to dependents. A pilot's wife shouldn't get service faster than me any more than I should get serviced before a sicker Airman's kid. That's just not right.
But the healthcare's not worth having anyway. You gotta love the fine folks at the Grand Forks AFB hospital who had no idea that my mom was carrying twins until...SURPRISE! THERE'S TWO!
Just one of the many reasons I chose not to be a 3rd generation officer...of course now I'm damn glad I didn't...
I'll believe it when I see it. My mom's comcast digital cable box doesn't even have s-video output and only shows half an hour at a time in the guide. And picture quality looks as bad as OTA.
Last time I visited my dad a couple years ago in Virigina the date stamp on the bottom of his box was 1984 and he went thru one every couple months as they died. Not even composite out on that thing, just RF. And everyone always looked green. They said they'd upgrade in "about 6 months" ever since I lived out there as a kid in 1988. Maybe they finally did, he's since moved to Adelphia land which is at least slightly better.
When I moved out of San Jose for the penninsula a couple years ago, they still had an A/B selector switch on their cable. Maybe they still do. Again, "in about 6 months" for the 6 years I lived there. This was in the heart of Silicon Valley!
Of course, this is why I flat out refuse to use cable again and stick with satellite. *resists the urge to go on a rant arguing for eliminating cable monopolies*
Of course when comparing DirecTV and Dish Network I found that Dish's PVR didn't even have a season pass equivilent. Screw that, that's the best feature of the TiVo. Who the hell wants to pause live TV? With a TiVo I don't think I watched live TV more than a couple times.
Or just go straight to the source. http://www.nws.noaa.gov. I sure as hell don't use weather.com anymore since they started using flash ads.
You took the words right out of my mouth. It's not that the French are born to be slackers. It's that we Americans are born to be workaholics.
Frankly, very few of us do important enough work that if we put in 35 hour weeks instead of 80 the world would collapse in on itself. I mean, I take pride in what I do, but come on.
OH MY GOD! THINK OF THE CHILDREN! WON'T SOMEBODY PUHLEEEEZE THINK OF THE CHILDREN???
Just because somebody's set of morals is different from yours doesn't necessarily make them wrong.
Heh I know I've seen FGF but I've repressed all memories of it. I don't think I can recall a single scene.
But you're the first mention of "The Passion..." I've seen. I hadn't thought of that, but for me that was probably the worst recent movie I've seen. That South Park episode was right, I paid $9 to see a snuff film. That was the frist time I really felt like I'd wasted my money and two hours of my life. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Sounds like a good use to me. I'd never send her ass a dollar, but if there are suckers out there dumb enough to pay, then why the hell not? In retrospect maybe I should've registered SendAlexToCollege.com a few years back so I wouldn't be paying off student loans for the next 10 years.
I guess instead I'll have to start HelpAlexBuyAnOverpricedBayAreaHouse.com.
Hmm got 75wpm here using four fingers. Man, if I could use all the rest, I'd be unstopable. UNSTOPABLE! At least, if I wanted to be a legal secretary anyway...
Well seeing how I never use audio or video, gaim's the better client for me simply because it can auto-save transcripts and doesn't have flash ads. Although I wish they'd implement a decent scroll-back history feature like ICQ. I can't count the number of times with Windows AIM where I've accidently closed a window full of flight information or something and have to try to get it again somehow.
Actually, I *really* wish that all my friends had just stuck with ICQ instead of jumping to AIM (which was faster at the time), but what can you do...
Possibly because some of us are fundementally opposed to pre-paying royalties when buying media that may or may not be used to violate copyrights?
Why should the **AA members get any money at all if I use DVDs to backup my data?
Hmm IANAL and I'm in the US, but I believe out here (at least in California) it takes longer than 6 months and requires the squatter to pay property taxes. And I don't think it works if you tell them to leave (and if I could afford to have a house sitting around without having to rent it out, I could get somebody to drive by every 6 months to see if there's someone living inside)
Besides, I think if I saw my property taxes were strangely getting paid on their own, I think I'd notice...
Sure it was bad parenting. The parents raised the kid to be so irresponsible as to think it's a good idea to play with a loaded firearm. It's the same as if the kid snuck into the garage and sawed off his hand because he was messing around and using a chainsaw in one hand and holding the board with the other. Most reasonable people would realize this is a bad idea and wouldn't blame the saw.
.45 ACP ammo sitting in his kitchen as long as I've been alive and I don't think any of them has ever jumped out of the box and shot anyone. *checks self* nope, no bullet holes in me.
Bullets don't kill you if someone doesn't pull the trigger.
My grandpa's had a box of
I'm no gun nut, don't own one, don't need one (but I'm in no position to say that nobody needs one - just don't point it at me, please), but I'll never blame the gun unless it magically jumps off the table, points itself and fires. And that would be a neat trick indeed.
I have never worn sunglasses before.
:)
Ouch! I still can't see how anyone could possibly stand to drive (or walk in the summer for any length of time) without a nice pair of polarized sunglasses. Ok, polarization is optional. I love it even though it makes it a pain in the ass to read my nav system's LCD screen if I'm not at the right angle.
The sun on the road is bad enough on regular days, but those times when it rained the night before and the sun's up in the morning and it's so bright you can't see the lane markers at all? Or in a place where it snows? Without some kind of glare reduction? My vision's turning purple and I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.
Makes me want to run home and put on my snowboarding goggles
Leave the gun in the office. Who cares. Of course if there are kids around you'd best put a lock on it and if they're older, ideally by then daddy's taught them how to handle one without shooting themselves or others.
I mean my dad had guns when I was growing up, but when I was young they were locked up and by the time I was old enough to have access to evil marijuana I sure as hell knew better than to point a firearm at anything I didn't want to put a hole in.
Conclusion: Poor parenting kills.
No kidding. This guy takes annoying to levels I never knew existed.
What's so goddamn hard about working in a team and making that little leap of logic that says that being friendly is a good thing for you and your career? Being annoying makes people not like you. If people don't like you, you're not going to advance and if people actively DISLIKE you, you're going to be pretty high on the list when layoffs come around. That's something that seems like common knowledge for most people, but there's a certain percentage that just doesn't seem to get it.
I mean I'm not the most social person in the world, but I at least attempt to be friendly to coworkers. It's a lot easier to fire the arrogant bastard hiding in his cube than the guy who says "good morning, how was your weekend?" Back when I did IT work, knowing a little about everyone and asking the moms how the kid was doing, etc. would go a long way towards keeping things working smoothly. That alone's a good thing, but it also made it that much more likely for them to tell my boss "hey, that new guy's doing a good job", which is a *really* good thing. Of course some people are dicks and there's always one or two people who'll still try to treat you like their servant, but most people are reasonable to you if you're reasonable with them.
It's fine if you don't have all the same interests, but no need to hate people because they like football or something. I mean I think basketball is the most god-awful boring sport around, but if I get invited to a friends' place to watch the playoffs I'll show up to hang out and to have some nachos and beer.