I used to work with a guy who said this happened with an old 88mb SyQuest cartridge drive. If you've never seen one of these disc cartridges, they're basically a 5.25" diameter 1/4" thick slab of heavy stuff (probably silicon, but I'm not sure) spinning in a translucent plastic cart. I don't know what the rotation speed of the disc is, but I do know it makes disturbing whiney sounds when it spins up.
Anyhow, this guy I worked with said that the retention pin which holds the disc in place in the drive had worn down, and the disc worked its way out of the drive. Apparently, the thing slid out far enough to fire itself out of the drive and destroy the plastic casing, and then ricochet off a couple walls before landing in the middle of the room spinning like crazy.
If I could get it for a reasonable price without making a year-long commitment, I'd give it some thought. But the fact that they're trying to lock me into a long-term commitment in order to make their numbers leads me to believe that they think I'll get bored with their service after a month or two, and I'm not going to play that game.
If they were confident in their product, they wouldn't force me to make a commitment. Forcing a commitment makes sense if they were to have, say, given me a phone that they need to recoup the costs of, but for just flipping a bit in their database I'm not willing to make a commitment to them.
Best Buy and Wherehouse will only accept exchange in kind.
Now, I'm lucky in that there's a superb record store near me called Good Records, and that coupled with a few very very good used record stores near me have given me access to lots of great music.
I don't understand how the scenario you describe is any different from the music business today.
It's not hard to imagine that the smaller labels could band together and offer their own service on their own terms. It would be far easier for the smaller labels to compete against the big 5 on the Internet than on the shelves at Wherehouse Music and Best Buy (or their retail analogs there in that weird country where y'all use units of weight as units of currency. : )
No, you're not depriving content distributers of the revenue that they are "entitled" to: You are forcing them to provide a quality product, instead of a slickly-marketed one.
If I buy a stereo, take it home, and it sounds like ass, I can take it back. If I buy a CD, take it home, and find out the only good tracks are the two singles I heard on the radio, I'm screwed. That business model only works if the customers are forced to be ignorant (IE by limiting their exposure to a new band to the two singles that are "free" to listen to).
I don't care if it's illegal. (I happen to think that it is not) I will not pay $20 for a CD that some marketroid packed with crap because they wanted to save some "good" songs for the next disc. Not going to happen anymore, especially since I've got a superb alternative.
And no, I don't have options for cable modem providers. I can't get cable modem service at all. And, as far as DSL goes, my options are 1) Covad.net (since they successfully forced everybody else out of the market) or somebody reselling covad.net's service at a higher price.
That's a monopoly.
Monopolies are NOT a joke. If I have a monopoly on steel, it's not really OK for me to say "Well, you can buy my steel or you can not use steel!" Or, at least, that's what the anti-trust laws say.
The problem is that the broadband providers are changing the deal after the contract is signed. Decreasing the available services without my agreement is Not OK.
And, again, monopolies MUST be made to follow a different (and much stricter) set of rules than companies that are participating in open, free markets.
The public CAN tell a company what to do, when "what do do" involves "following antitrust laws".
But, doesn't that assume that your data should in fact look like a bell curve? I mean, if you know that ahead of time, why bother taking the data? Isn't the point of gathering the information figuring out how your audience does NOT look like a Gaussian distribution?
I mean, the way the article read to me, the surveyors figured that they couldn't get accurate data, so they just had a computer make some up. I can not understand how this is useful.
(Now, I admit that I am rather aggressively ignorant about statistics...I think the entire field of study is complete bullshit.)
Nobody said anything about p2p, and nobody has to justify anything to you.
The reason we call them "rights" is because they are not open to discussion. I am free to express myself, and it is not OK for people to deny me that right. Doesn't matter if I'm using my broadband account to host my little web page, or to play Quake...you don't get to decide what I do.
And as far as your codicil that everyone is wrong in someone's eyes, I guess you must be right...cuz you sure are wrong about everything else.
This is a concept I ran across in some aero industry publication about three or four years ago. The math is so far beyond my ken, I can't even think about it for very long without getting a great big headache. However, the principle is pretty straightforward. Computationally hideous, but straightforward.
If you're a lot better at math than me, you might get something out of this paper on the subject of manifold orbits.
Now, I don't know if NASA or CNN came up with this idea of a "space freeway", but I think it's just a pretty stupid way to try to explain things to people. People aren't that stupid. Take some time to make an explanation and skip the stupid metaphors.
I'm also faintly annoyed that this is billed as a NASA innovation. It's been the major thrust of orbital mechanics for a decade, and I'm sure the NASA people have contributed, but it's NOT their "discovery".
Preferably as uninformed as possible, right? Just pick a name you like?
The poster was asking whether there were issues relevant to/. involving senators from Nebraska. Sounds like a pretty germane question, and the right place to ask it.
Yup. To make it mo' bettah, any time you carry a significant amount of cash, the DEA can sieze it without due process on the assumption that you're dealing drugs. Good luck getting it back.
But why do I have to commit to 3 months or a year of paying them money? Why can't I just use it for a month? Because they're counting on me running out of things I want to download before my contract runs out.
Same thing happened to me with NetFlix, and I'm REALLY glad I didn't have a usage contract with them...
The reason it's called "waste heat" is because it's really hard to do anything useful with it. Trust me. The laws of thermodynamics (particularly that entropy part) are stacked against you.
Yes, it is possible to get energy from waste heat...the efficiencies are just so incredibly low that it's rarely worth it.
Wow. I'm glad I don't know anything about the "mystique of celluloid". I'm also glad I can't hear the difference between a well-done LP and CD. I can't afford that sort of discerning sensitivity. : )
I had just the opposite complaint. The film print I saw was HIDEOUS...looked like a poorly-compressed DVD. I saw no jaggies, and the colors were far far far more detailed on the digital copy. For instance, when Obi Wan was in the Kamino office, the room had very clearly visible pearlescent effects on the digital copy, and looked whiter-than-white on the film copy.
I think there were some serious issues going from digital to film print...but the digital master seemed OK to me.
They're called "hollowpoint bullets", and they do a very good job of stopping inside your intended target. And turning said target into a very very unhappy (and dead) individual. Hydrostatic shock bad.
And I don't want to fly on an airplane that could be depressurized by a 9mm hole. I mean, if it took out a window, MAYBE, but a tango standing in the aisle's head is going to be far from any window.
Pretty much, yes. Carrying tools and misusing tools are two different things.
Showing an ID at the airport is the thin end of the wedge. The forces at work here won't stop until they can monitor each of our locations, 24x7. Do you think it is possible to run a free society under constant surveillance? Do you think it's appropriate to treat innocent civilians as suspected terrorists?
You can not prevent a terrorist who is prepared to sacrifice his own life from doing something horrible, without a totally unacceptable level of security.
I do not have a right to safety. I DO have a right to freedom from illegal search and seizure.
Slashdot Mirror
I used to work with a guy who said this happened with an old 88mb SyQuest cartridge drive. If you've never seen one of these disc cartridges, they're basically a 5.25" diameter 1/4" thick slab of heavy stuff (probably silicon, but I'm not sure) spinning in a translucent plastic cart. I don't know what the rotation speed of the disc is, but I do know it makes disturbing whiney sounds when it spins up.
Anyhow, this guy I worked with said that the retention pin which holds the disc in place in the drive had worn down, and the disc worked its way out of the drive. Apparently, the thing slid out far enough to fire itself out of the drive and destroy the plastic casing, and then ricochet off a couple walls before landing in the middle of the room spinning like crazy.
Apocryphal? Maybe. But amusing nonetheless.
but see, that's my point. They feel they have to beat me with a 50% stick to let me buy the music the way they want to. I decline to let them.
I will have music on my terms, or not at all. That's fine with me.
If I could get it for a reasonable price without making a year-long commitment, I'd give it some thought. But the fact that they're trying to lock me into a long-term commitment in order to make their numbers leads me to believe that they think I'll get bored with their service after a month or two, and I'm not going to play that game.
If they were confident in their product, they wouldn't force me to make a commitment. Forcing a commitment makes sense if they were to have, say, given me a phone that they need to recoup the costs of, but for just flipping a bit in their database I'm not willing to make a commitment to them.
The GPL is an attempt to use a corrupt system against itself. In a world without intellectual property, the GPL would be irrelevant.
So you're making a straw-man argument.
Best Buy and Wherehouse will only accept exchange in kind.
Now, I'm lucky in that there's a superb record store near me called Good Records, and that coupled with a few very very good used record stores near me have given me access to lots of great music.
I don't understand how the scenario you describe is any different from the music business today.
It's not hard to imagine that the smaller labels could band together and offer their own service on their own terms. It would be far easier for the smaller labels to compete against the big 5 on the Internet than on the shelves at Wherehouse Music and Best Buy (or their retail analogs there in that weird country where y'all use units of weight as units of currency. : )
Yes, and you apply $14.90 of leverage to break the outdated business model that oppresses artists and takes advantage of customers.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
No, you're not depriving content distributers of the revenue that they are "entitled" to: You are forcing them to provide a quality product, instead of a slickly-marketed one.
If I buy a stereo, take it home, and it sounds like ass, I can take it back. If I buy a CD, take it home, and find out the only good tracks are the two singles I heard on the radio, I'm screwed. That business model only works if the customers are forced to be ignorant (IE by limiting their exposure to a new band to the two singles that are "free" to listen to).
I don't care if it's illegal. (I happen to think that it is not) I will not pay $20 for a CD that some marketroid packed with crap because they wanted to save some "good" songs for the next disc. Not going to happen anymore, especially since I've got a superb alternative.
Not at the time I signed it, it didn't.
And no, I don't have options for cable modem providers. I can't get cable modem service at all. And, as far as DSL goes, my options are 1) Covad.net (since they successfully forced everybody else out of the market) or somebody reselling covad.net's service at a higher price.
That's a monopoly.
Monopolies are NOT a joke. If I have a monopoly on steel, it's not really OK for me to say "Well, you can buy my steel or you can not use steel!" Or, at least, that's what the anti-trust laws say.
The problem is that the broadband providers are changing the deal after the contract is signed. Decreasing the available services without my agreement is Not OK.
And, again, monopolies MUST be made to follow a different (and much stricter) set of rules than companies that are participating in open, free markets.
The public CAN tell a company what to do, when "what do do" involves "following antitrust laws".
Huh? OK, this sounds really interesting, but I haven't the faintest clue how the data would be meaningful. Would you mind walking me through it?
This isn't data mining this is data-making-up. : )
But, doesn't that assume that your data should in fact look like a bell curve? I mean, if you know that ahead of time, why bother taking the data? Isn't the point of gathering the information figuring out how your audience does NOT look like a Gaussian distribution?
I mean, the way the article read to me, the surveyors figured that they couldn't get accurate data, so they just had a computer make some up. I can not understand how this is useful.
(Now, I admit that I am rather aggressively ignorant about statistics...I think the entire field of study is complete bullshit.)
Nobody said anything about p2p, and nobody has to justify anything to you.
The reason we call them "rights" is because they are not open to discussion. I am free to express myself, and it is not OK for people to deny me that right. Doesn't matter if I'm using my broadband account to host my little web page, or to play Quake...you don't get to decide what I do.
And as far as your codicil that everyone is wrong in someone's eyes, I guess you must be right...cuz you sure are wrong about everything else.
This is a concept I ran across in some aero industry publication about three or four years ago. The math is so far beyond my ken, I can't even think about it for very long without getting a great big headache. However, the principle is pretty straightforward. Computationally hideous, but straightforward.
a as .pdf
If you're a lot better at math than me, you might get something out of this paper on the subject of manifold orbits.
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~koon/presentations/
Now, I don't know if NASA or CNN came up with this idea of a "space freeway", but I think it's just a pretty stupid way to try to explain things to people. People aren't that stupid. Take some time to make an explanation and skip the stupid metaphors.
I'm also faintly annoyed that this is billed as a NASA innovation. It's been the major thrust of orbital mechanics for a decade, and I'm sure the NASA people have contributed, but it's NOT their "discovery".
Preferably as uninformed as possible, right? Just pick a name you like?
/. involving senators from Nebraska. Sounds like a pretty germane question, and the right place to ask it.
The poster was asking whether there were issues relevant to
So cut him/her some slack.
Yup. To make it mo' bettah, any time you carry a significant amount of cash, the DEA can sieze it without due process on the assumption that you're dealing drugs. Good luck getting it back.
e -R ights.html
More:
http://www.libertarianworld.com/Property-Seizur
http://www.geocities.com/rab_cdg1/jones.htm
But why do I have to commit to 3 months or a year of paying them money? Why can't I just use it for a month? Because they're counting on me running out of things I want to download before my contract runs out.
Same thing happened to me with NetFlix, and I'm REALLY glad I didn't have a usage contract with them...
The reason it's called "waste heat" is because it's really hard to do anything useful with it. Trust me. The laws of thermodynamics (particularly that entropy part) are stacked against you.
Yes, it is possible to get energy from waste heat...the efficiencies are just so incredibly low that it's rarely worth it.
Wow. I'm glad I don't know anything about the "mystique of celluloid". I'm also glad I can't hear the difference between a well-done LP and CD. I can't afford that sort of discerning sensitivity. : )
I had just the opposite complaint. The film print I saw was HIDEOUS...looked like a poorly-compressed DVD. I saw no jaggies, and the colors were far far far more detailed on the digital copy. For instance, when Obi Wan was in the Kamino office, the room had very clearly visible pearlescent effects on the digital copy, and looked whiter-than-white on the film copy.
I think there were some serious issues going from digital to film print...but the digital master seemed OK to me.
YMMV.
They're called "hollowpoint bullets", and they do a very good job of stopping inside your intended target. And turning said target into a very very unhappy (and dead) individual. Hydrostatic shock bad.
And I don't want to fly on an airplane that could be depressurized by a 9mm hole. I mean, if it took out a window, MAYBE, but a tango standing in the aisle's head is going to be far from any window.
Pretty much, yes. Carrying tools and misusing tools are two different things.
Showing an ID at the airport is the thin end of the wedge. The forces at work here won't stop until they can monitor each of our locations, 24x7. Do you think it is possible to run a free society under constant surveillance? Do you think it's appropriate to treat innocent civilians as suspected terrorists?
Yup.
You can not prevent a terrorist who is prepared to sacrifice his own life from doing something horrible, without a totally unacceptable level of security.
I do not have a right to safety. I DO have a right to freedom from illegal search and seizure.
Nope. Reality is the place where these issues have already been decided. The only option for freedom-minded people is to go elsewhere and start again.
I'm all for Mars. Who's with me?