Do you not know when you go to buy iTunes that they only work on iPods?
Music bought from the iTunes Music Service work on computers running iTunes software. So, unless you want to call a computer running iTunes an iPod, you are mistaken. Getting that music from iTunes into an mp3 player that is not an iPod is inconvenient, but not impossible. There will be a slight loss in quality.
Suggesting that Fight Club carries homoerotic themes is not to say the movie is about homosexuality. Many of the film's most important scenes involve half-naked, sweating men in close contact with each other. The contact is violent and a "legitimate" equivalent for the close contact men and women have in the film.
A clear example of a homoerotic theme present in the movie is the subplot where the unnamed narrator ("Jack") becomes jealous of Tyler Durden's relationship with Angel Face. While beating Angel Face's face to a bloody pulp, the narrator confesses
I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn't screw to save its species. I wanted to open the dump valves on oil tankers and smother all the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted to breathe smoke.
These images are partially veiled sexual references, "Panda that wouldn't screw"; "open the [. ..] valves [. ..] and smother"; and "I wanted to breathe smoke". Of course these images mean other things, too: reckless abandon, species suicide, environmental destruction, etc. But they also can be read sexually. (You, willtsmith, might say "they are susceptible to sexual projection.")
The final proof comes after Angel Face is carried away and Durden (lighting a cigarette) asks the narrator, "Where'd you go, psycho boy?" and the narrator explains "I felt like destroying something beautiful." In other words, the male narrator reacts to the blond man's beauty by beating the beautiful man up. This scene from the film directly links homoeroticism and male-on-male violence.
My guess is that the idea of sexuality being present in this film gets your panties in a wad, which is reasonable considering the film is also about macho men who in no way would be gay. But, really, it's OK. Just because sexual themes are present in these scenes of hypermasculine violence doesn't mean your wrestling buddies want to bugger you, not all of them anyways.
Please tell me how. I have a medium-sized Movable Type install, and I'd like to run WordPress.
Movable Type can run on Postgresql. Create an installation of Movable Type using Postgresql. Export the posts from your MySQL Movable Type installation and import them into your Postgresql Movable Type installation.
If it's a question of moving to WordPress, there are many who have made the switch before you and some have even suppliedinstructions.
If what you're really looking for is a one-click method to make the shift, maybe you should reconsider your future in IT.
Presuming we accept that "Wallace's Second Anti-GPL Suit" is an actor in this situation (the grammatical subject of the sentence), the sentence is grammatically correct. On the other hand, in English we usually speak of suits "being dismissed" or the plaintiff in the suit "losing." So, in this case the sentence is grammatically correct but the idiom is a bit off. Suits don't lose; plaintiffs (or defendants) lose.
So you will pay an extra $400 for approximately 0.17Ghz faster speed, 20GB more space and a black finish to look cool?
This "ridiculous" price differential happened because Apple understands its market. These things are going to fly off the shelves like food in a famine.
I personally am resisting the shift to Intel because a fairly wide array of software I depend on will run poorly (if at all) in Rosetta. Plus, I'm poor. Still, my high-debt budget is twitching for more since this announcement, mostly because I want the black one.
That's a fairly well-researched reply and you deserve to be moderated much more highly than you have been.
Regarding your optimism, I want to say that I hope you're right. If Whorley's conviction turns on the fact that his activities were done in public, so to speak, as opposed to in his private domicile, I in principle might agree that Whorley has broken the law according to its letter and that the 30 November 2005 ruling against him does rely on precedent.
Where I don't agree is in the specifics of the conviction. Presuming Whorley was using computers to transport obscene comics, convicting him for public distribution and/or viewing is a legal contortion at best. The article is vague about which law was used to prosecute Whorley. The article to which I originally linked states "[Whorley is] the first person convicted under a 2003 federal law that criminalizes the production or distribution of drawings or cartoons showing the sexual abuse of children." So, Whorley's conviction does not appear to have anything to do with the venue in which Whorley obtained and/or distributed the cartoons in question.
While the report lacks crucial detail (it's barely more than a blurb), it does indicate that the law under which he was convicted is about the existence and transmission of cartoons, which regardless of the vile content is still, as others have remarked, a thought crime.
I don't think Whorley or his ilk are the best arguments for the importance and necessity of free speech, but Whorley's plight is of particular concern because the material he has been convicted of downloading was concocted from imagination. They were cartoons. In other words, Whorley has been jailed for what can only be seen as pure speech. Whether the current administration really is interested in protecting society from child pornographers is irrelevant. Whorley's successful conviction and extraordinary sentencing set the precedent that pure expression (which may have harmed no one) can be found illegal.
We live in dangerous times and I worry that it won't be long before critics of the US government and/or political opponents of the powerful find themselves in straits similar to Whorley's.
I can virtually guarantee you that almost none of those references are actually meant in a derogatory-to-homosexuals connotation
The negative meaning of the word "gay" depends on an underlying ideological assumption that homosexuality is negative. In common American English, it hinges upon the stereotype of gay males as effeminate and so "wimpy," "ineffective," "uninspiring," and "frivolous."
Every time someone uses "gay" as a way of dismissing or derogating something, an ideological link between male homosexuality and reprehensibility is exploited and reinforced. This ideological linkage is more obvious when, for example, someone calls an obviously straight male a "fag." That's how most degrading language works. Think about words like "cocksucker," "cunt," "asshole," etc. None of those are literal. They gather their force from deep cultural beliefs about what is good and bad.
Naming something "gay" to indicate it sucks depends, in American English, on cultural homophobia and, in my opinion, is the sign of a shallow mind.
This just in: yes...yes, I see, yes...it has been confirmed that a Mac fanboy is...stuck in Windows world on his Apple laptop.
I'm a Mac user who like other Mac users in a recent thread doesn't really know much about Windows. I love OS (UNI)X and have several Apple machines. Many hardened Windows/Linux users would probably identify me as a "Mac fanboy." I worried about the transition to Intel, so I'm not sure I would disagree.
That said, I get the BIGGEST KICK out of the beta testers of Mac Boot Camp who are whining. I wouldn't be laughing so hard if their data got destroyed and left them with an unusable machine, though I would be likely to blame them for not backing up their data. What rocks about this is the unbridled irony of Mac lovers forced into Windows on their laptops. OMG ROFLMAO!!!!
Of course, I probably can expect my webserver to die violently as a result of such freely flowing schadendfreude.
Actually, I think what's being said around Apple is "If you can't join them, beat them." Many people here are focused on the "war" between Mac OS and Microsoft, forgetting that Apple is mostly a hardware company and Microsoft is mostly a software company. Recall that Microsoft developed software for Macintosh first (MS Word) before porting it to MS DOS/Windows.
Apple's Boot Camp is a knife in the hearts of other hardware makers: Dell, Gateway, HP, Sony. The belief (warranted or not) that Apple has the best computer hardware bar none is widespread and even formerly independent Alienware is going to have a hard time competing with a top-of-the-line quad core Intel machine from Apple.
With Apple Boot Camp, Microsoft will keep making the money from Windows bundling and sales it always has (Apple Boot Camp also solidifies Microsoft's Office stronghold), and Apple will continue making money from hardware sales. The possible change under Apple Boot Camp is that Microsoft may increase its sales, especially among Mac OS diehards who won't touch PCs. I worked in a PC shop from 1997-2001 and I cannot stand Microsoft Windows. However, I would purchase a university-provided license to dual boot Windows Vista. I'm betting there are at least a few hundred thousand Mac users just like me.
Dell now has real reason to be worried as they can't survive on that razor-thin margin without huge volume, and I'm betting sales of Apple hardware are going to spike very soon.
How is saying that AOL and Hotmail are too much of a pain in the ass to deal with a lie?
My bad. when I read this:
Explain that hotmail wants to charge missionaries $2000 (or whatever) in order to accept their mail, start a letter writing campaign, etc.
I thought the GGP post (to this one) was talking about missionaries as in proselytizers for Christianity. I didn't think it was a metaphor. Stupid me. Carry on.
The obvious solution is to refuse to add hotmail or AOL addresses to the mailing list.
I run class mailing lists and initially I thought yours a great idea. Then I thought about how many of my students forward their university email to the AOL and hotmail accounts they've been using since they were 15. Telling lies to users will only make them disregard other things you say. Why not tell user the truth and (as I do) ask AOL and Hotmail users to check their junk mail folders?
Your jokes are funny because, like all good jokes, they reveal something truthful in a slanting way (to paraphrase a certain New England poet).
A number of posts prior to yours argue that Ballmer was joking about brainwashing his kids. I can believe he was joking, but his joke reveals a disturbing if not chilling kind of truth. In particular, if Ballmer is the kind of man who can be moved to swear and break things around employees over whom he has authority, it is a better than even bet that he does the same (and more) around his loved ones.
Psychologically speaking (from an inexpert point of view), Ballmer is an authority figure who uses intimidation and force to obtain what he wants. If he cannot obtain what he wants, he expresses himself in violent outbursts. Ballmer, in my opinion, is a dangerous man, and I am betting that in 15 years one of his children will write a memoir that reveals what we already suspect about one of Microsoft's most powerful executives.
Apple engineers, if you're reading this, please start working on your DOM model & Javascript.
In the past, my university's IT departments were models of Windows-centric ignorance regarding Mac OS X and Unix-workalikes. That's since changed and when I call about a network problem and tell them that I'm running OS X, they take my reports seriously rather than asking me to reboot my computer.
This last term (Winter quarter) my university introduced web-based grade submission. I pointed Safari at the website and was peremptorily notified that my browser (Safari 2.0.3) was not supported for not having a coherent DOM.
Apple does a lot of things right, especially as regards standards. But why does Apple choose to screw up so royally with something as important to developers as the DOM? This, really, is egg on Apple's face.
Even those who don't care about booklets and cover art might care about a disc with a spiffy spine that they can spot on a shelf, rather than a slew of unmarked cases.
I use lots of digital computer media, iPod-owning, FastDVD Copy-using, World of Warcraft-playing mediaphile that I am. But, I also keep all my CDs and tend to buy from half.com and rip rather than purchase from iTunes. (128 kpbs AAC is junk, I want to be able to convert to futuer formats, and I use the originals as assets in media [e.g. movies] I produce myself.)
With regard to my personal DVD collection which I use for both research and entertainment, I was running into a bit of a problem with unmarked cases. Last week (of 6 March 2006), I started searching for open source front ends for MySQL media asset tracking. Let's just say I'll be glad when some of these developers get their alphas beyond planning stage. It took me 3 days to figure out the right key words to Google, but I finally came across commercial closed-source software that pulls data from iMDB and Amazon using keyword searches, UPC codes, ISBN numbers, and scanned bar codes. (Not Delicious Monster, but very similar.)
The software I found costs $18 for DVDs and $18 for books. They also write software for games and CDs, with discounts for buyers who purchase more than one package. The software all have iTunes-like interfaces, and they provide not just the perfect complement to unmarked DVDs but also to commercial DVDs. It is a thousand times more convenient to be able to search my collection according to director, writer, year, title, cast, etc. Heck, I can even search and sort according to place purchased/acquired, borrower and many other criteria.
Try that with physical-only media.
I like physical media, but physical media just can't do the things digital media can and, one day soon, digital media will do everything physical media can.
So during the debut of the thing, it's entirely possible that him buying the machine could hurt them worse than not buying it (since he has no control to keep everyone from buying his unit).
All you will do is create artificial scarcity by buying just after debut, hence increasing the value of the thing. That hardcore gamer you're talking about? You can't tell me with a straight face that such a one is not going to buy when availability improves, and I assure you availability will improve despite your buyer negligibly (if at all) diminishing the sales of PS3 games.
Use this to project a fake doorway onto walls and watch your victims slam into walls, ala Bugs Bunny.
Bugs Bunny cartoons do not feature advanced technology whereas Roadrunner cartoons do. So what really would happen is that you would project a fake doorway onto the wall, your intended victim would walk up to the wall, open the door, walk through the doorway and close the door behind. Astounded, you'd run to the door only to slam into the brick wall, a la Wile E. Coyote.
Yeah, you go ahead and protest them by going and renting 12 movies a month from BlockBuster at $4 a pop.
I don't do Blockbuster. I have a local (university) library. Twice a month I might rent from the local chain for $3. I buy movies from half.com. All of those places give me what I expect. In my experience, Netflix doesn't work as advertised. This is apart from my distrust of them. So, it isn't a boycott. I just believe Netflix behaves unethically and I wasn't interested in paying $240 per year for a service that in some months would send me zero DVDs.
It seems like the complaints - at least in this person's case - only go one way: the return direction.
Exactly. It would have been different if I were losing DVDs coming as well as going, but that wasn't happening. Only when I mailed them back to Netflix did they somehow get "lost." I don't rule out the USPS, but the one-way postal sinkhole made me suspect Netflix more than the postal carriers.
damn post office lost 15 or so in a couple months)
I have a post above talking about my experience with DVDs lost in the USPS system. Not to rehash, the short version is: the USPS almost never loses mail and if it is "losing" mail on a regular basis you can GUARANTEE that the USPS Postal inspector would be very curious to hear your story.
Your postal inspector might be a very unsexy bureaucrat but let me tell you, he or she DOES NOT fuck around. Write a letter to your Postal Inspector explaining that your DVDs are getting "lost". The problem will be cleared up, whether it is the USPS's fault or Blockbuster.
People who actually pay for instead of download their movies get screwed over?
You've been modded funny, but your humor is actually very insightful. In 2006, those who pay for a service are exactly the people who will get screwed over when there is a free alternative. The degree of screwing varies according the nature of the company, but everything from DRM'd music files to encumbered computer hardware to dongled production software to you-name-it--paying customers are treated poorly by the very companies who need them.
I guess "screwing over people who watch a lot of movies" is one of their "improvements" that they've made.
I'd like to gently disagree with the article and with the parent poster because this is something, I believe, that Netflix has been doing since day one. I'm guessing, though, that now they either have a auditable trail (e.g. software) or for other reasons they are formalizing throttling frequent renters.
In 2002 I began a Netflix subscription which back in those days came in one all-you-can-watch for about $20.00 (iirc). I watch movies sometimes three at a go because it is a professional interest of mine and, well, I love film. So, for my first couple of months, I was watching maybe 12 films a month.
My third month or so, I stopped getting DVDs. I checked my queue and discovered they'd not received the DVDs I returned. After 2 weeks, I reported the DVDs missing even though, by gum, I knew I had sent them back. My queue resumed and when I returned the 5 DVDs within one week of viewing them the USPS mysteriously failed to deliver those, too. While considering reporting these lost DVDs to the US Postmaster, I came across an article in WIRED explaining how Netflix loses money on frequent renters: "Some subscribers rent twenty or more. (Which is a problem: Netflix loses money on postage for households that rent more than five a month.)" (emphasis added).
That told me all I needed to know and I cancelled my Netflix subscription. Occam's razor is here inadequate since it would suggest that the DVDs were in fact getting lost in the mail. But I had been using the USPS for objects large and small for 20 years by that point and not a single piece of mail had ever been lost either coming to or going from me. And I'm supposed to believe that somehow, of all the mail I send, that only my DVDs to Netflix get lost?
Netflix is a company like any other in that it wants to make a profit. However, in 2002 they engaged (I believe) in unethical business practices to protect their bottom line rather than, for example, simply billing renters for postage overages. Netflix will never get any of my money ever again and when Internet distribution finally kills them, I probably won't care enough to tell this story again.
Slashdot Mirror
Music bought from the iTunes Music Service work on computers running iTunes software. So, unless you want to call a computer running iTunes an iPod, you are mistaken. Getting that music from iTunes into an mp3 player that is not an iPod is inconvenient, but not impossible. There will be a slight loss in quality.
Suggesting that Fight Club carries homoerotic themes is not to say the movie is about homosexuality. Many of the film's most important scenes involve half-naked, sweating men in close contact with each other. The contact is violent and a "legitimate" equivalent for the close contact men and women have in the film.
A clear example of a homoerotic theme present in the movie is the subplot where the unnamed narrator ("Jack") becomes jealous of Tyler Durden's relationship with Angel Face. While beating Angel Face's face to a bloody pulp, the narrator confesses
These images are partially veiled sexual references, "Panda that wouldn't screw"; "open the [. . .] valves [. . .] and smother"; and "I wanted to breathe smoke". Of course these images mean other things, too: reckless abandon, species suicide, environmental destruction, etc. But they also can be read sexually. (You, willtsmith, might say "they are susceptible to sexual projection.")
The final proof comes after Angel Face is carried away and Durden (lighting a cigarette) asks the narrator, "Where'd you go, psycho boy?" and the narrator explains "I felt like destroying something beautiful." In other words, the male narrator reacts to the blond man's beauty by beating the beautiful man up. This scene from the film directly links homoeroticism and male-on-male violence.
My guess is that the idea of sexuality being present in this film gets your panties in a wad, which is reasonable considering the film is also about macho men who in no way would be gay. But, really, it's OK. Just because sexual themes are present in these scenes of hypermasculine violence doesn't mean your wrestling buddies want to bugger you, not all of them anyways.
Movable Type can run on Postgresql. Create an installation of Movable Type using Postgresql. Export the posts from your MySQL Movable Type installation and import them into your Postgresql Movable Type installation.
If it's a question of moving to WordPress, there are many who have made the switch before you and some have even supplied instructions.
If what you're really looking for is a one-click method to make the shift, maybe you should reconsider your future in IT.
Presuming we accept that "Wallace's Second Anti-GPL Suit" is an actor in this situation (the grammatical subject of the sentence), the sentence is grammatically correct. On the other hand, in English we usually speak of suits "being dismissed" or the plaintiff in the suit "losing." So, in this case the sentence is grammatically correct but the idiom is a bit off. Suits don't lose; plaintiffs (or defendants) lose.
This "ridiculous" price differential happened because Apple understands its market. These things are going to fly off the shelves like food in a famine.
I personally am resisting the shift to Intel because a fairly wide array of software I depend on will run poorly (if at all) in Rosetta. Plus, I'm poor. Still, my high-debt budget is twitching for more since this announcement, mostly because I want the black one.
Color me a victim of techno-capital.
I don't know what you men by "ghosting." Not a flame, just curious.
Regarding your optimism, I want to say that I hope you're right. If Whorley's conviction turns on the fact that his activities were done in public, so to speak, as opposed to in his private domicile, I in principle might agree that Whorley has broken the law according to its letter and that the 30 November 2005 ruling against him does rely on precedent.
Where I don't agree is in the specifics of the conviction. Presuming Whorley was using computers to transport obscene comics, convicting him for public distribution and/or viewing is a legal contortion at best. The article is vague about which law was used to prosecute Whorley. The article to which I originally linked states "[Whorley is] the first person convicted under a 2003 federal law that criminalizes the production or distribution of drawings or cartoons showing the sexual abuse of children." So, Whorley's conviction does not appear to have anything to do with the venue in which Whorley obtained and/or distributed the cartoons in question.
While the report lacks crucial detail (it's barely more than a blurb), it does indicate that the law under which he was convicted is about the existence and transmission of cartoons, which regardless of the vile content is still, as others have remarked, a thought crime.
I don't think Whorley or his ilk are the best arguments for the importance and necessity of free speech, but Whorley's plight is of particular concern because the material he has been convicted of downloading was concocted from imagination. They were cartoons. In other words, Whorley has been jailed for what can only be seen as pure speech. Whether the current administration really is interested in protecting society from child pornographers is irrelevant. Whorley's successful conviction and extraordinary sentencing set the precedent that pure expression (which may have harmed no one) can be found illegal.
We live in dangerous times and I worry that it won't be long before critics of the US government and/or political opponents of the powerful find themselves in straits similar to Whorley's.
The negative meaning of the word "gay" depends on an underlying ideological assumption that homosexuality is negative. In common American English, it hinges upon the stereotype of gay males as effeminate and so "wimpy," "ineffective," "uninspiring," and "frivolous."
Every time someone uses "gay" as a way of dismissing or derogating something, an ideological link between male homosexuality and reprehensibility is exploited and reinforced. This ideological linkage is more obvious when, for example, someone calls an obviously straight male a "fag." That's how most degrading language works. Think about words like "cocksucker," "cunt," "asshole," etc. None of those are literal. They gather their force from deep cultural beliefs about what is good and bad.
Naming something "gay" to indicate it sucks depends, in American English, on cultural homophobia and, in my opinion, is the sign of a shallow mind.
I'm a Mac user who like other Mac users in a recent thread doesn't really know much about Windows. I love OS (UNI)X and have several Apple machines. Many hardened Windows/Linux users would probably identify me as a "Mac fanboy." I worried about the transition to Intel, so I'm not sure I would disagree.
That said, I get the BIGGEST KICK out of the beta testers of Mac Boot Camp who are whining. I wouldn't be laughing so hard if their data got destroyed and left them with an unusable machine, though I would be likely to blame them for not backing up their data. What rocks about this is the unbridled irony of Mac lovers forced into Windows on their laptops. OMG ROFLMAO!!!!
Of course, I probably can expect my webserver to die violently as a result of such freely flowing schadendfreude.
Actually, I think what's being said around Apple is "If you can't join them, beat them." Many people here are focused on the "war" between Mac OS and Microsoft, forgetting that Apple is mostly a hardware company and Microsoft is mostly a software company. Recall that Microsoft developed software for Macintosh first (MS Word) before porting it to MS DOS/Windows.
Apple's Boot Camp is a knife in the hearts of other hardware makers: Dell, Gateway, HP, Sony. The belief (warranted or not) that Apple has the best computer hardware bar none is widespread and even formerly independent Alienware is going to have a hard time competing with a top-of-the-line quad core Intel machine from Apple.
With Apple Boot Camp, Microsoft will keep making the money from Windows bundling and sales it always has (Apple Boot Camp also solidifies Microsoft's Office stronghold), and Apple will continue making money from hardware sales. The possible change under Apple Boot Camp is that Microsoft may increase its sales, especially among Mac OS diehards who won't touch PCs. I worked in a PC shop from 1997-2001 and I cannot stand Microsoft Windows. However, I would purchase a university-provided license to dual boot Windows Vista. I'm betting there are at least a few hundred thousand Mac users just like me.
Dell now has real reason to be worried as they can't survive on that razor-thin margin without huge volume, and I'm betting sales of Apple hardware are going to spike very soon.
That's why the hallucinogens are for.
How is saying that AOL and Hotmail are too much of a pain in the ass to deal with a lie?
My bad. when I read this:
I thought the GGP post (to this one) was talking about missionaries as in proselytizers for Christianity. I didn't think it was a metaphor. Stupid me. Carry on.
The obvious solution is to refuse to add hotmail or AOL addresses to the mailing list.
I run class mailing lists and initially I thought yours a great idea. Then I thought about how many of my students forward their university email to the AOL and hotmail accounts they've been using since they were 15. Telling lies to users will only make them disregard other things you say. Why not tell user the truth and (as I do) ask AOL and Hotmail users to check their junk mail folders?
Your jokes are funny because, like all good jokes, they reveal something truthful in a slanting way (to paraphrase a certain New England poet).
A number of posts prior to yours argue that Ballmer was joking about brainwashing his kids. I can believe he was joking, but his joke reveals a disturbing if not chilling kind of truth. In particular, if Ballmer is the kind of man who can be moved to swear and break things around employees over whom he has authority, it is a better than even bet that he does the same (and more) around his loved ones.
Psychologically speaking (from an inexpert point of view), Ballmer is an authority figure who uses intimidation and force to obtain what he wants. If he cannot obtain what he wants, he expresses himself in violent outbursts. Ballmer, in my opinion, is a dangerous man, and I am betting that in 15 years one of his children will write a memoir that reveals what we already suspect about one of Microsoft's most powerful executives.
Apple engineers, if you're reading this, please start working on your DOM model & Javascript.
In the past, my university's IT departments were models of Windows-centric ignorance regarding Mac OS X and Unix-workalikes. That's since changed and when I call about a network problem and tell them that I'm running OS X, they take my reports seriously rather than asking me to reboot my computer.
This last term (Winter quarter) my university introduced web-based grade submission. I pointed Safari at the website and was peremptorily notified that my browser (Safari 2.0.3) was not supported for not having a coherent DOM.
Apple does a lot of things right, especially as regards standards. But why does Apple choose to screw up so royally with something as important to developers as the DOM? This, really, is egg on Apple's face.
Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking about doing, working for free for the US government
If you're not employed by the federal government and you live and work in the United States, you already do.
Even those who don't care about booklets and cover art might care about a disc with a spiffy spine that they can spot on a shelf, rather than a slew of unmarked cases.
I use lots of digital computer media, iPod-owning, FastDVD Copy-using, World of Warcraft-playing mediaphile that I am. But, I also keep all my CDs and tend to buy from half.com and rip rather than purchase from iTunes. (128 kpbs AAC is junk, I want to be able to convert to futuer formats, and I use the originals as assets in media [e.g. movies] I produce myself.)
With regard to my personal DVD collection which I use for both research and entertainment, I was running into a bit of a problem with unmarked cases. Last week (of 6 March 2006), I started searching for open source front ends for MySQL media asset tracking. Let's just say I'll be glad when some of these developers get their alphas beyond planning stage. It took me 3 days to figure out the right key words to Google, but I finally came across commercial closed-source software that pulls data from iMDB and Amazon using keyword searches, UPC codes, ISBN numbers, and scanned bar codes. (Not Delicious Monster, but very similar.)
The software I found costs $18 for DVDs and $18 for books. They also write software for games and CDs, with discounts for buyers who purchase more than one package. The software all have iTunes-like interfaces, and they provide not just the perfect complement to unmarked DVDs but also to commercial DVDs. It is a thousand times more convenient to be able to search my collection according to director, writer, year, title, cast, etc. Heck, I can even search and sort according to place purchased/acquired, borrower and many other criteria.
Try that with physical-only media.
I like physical media, but physical media just can't do the things digital media can and, one day soon, digital media will do everything physical media can.
So during the debut of the thing, it's entirely possible that him buying the machine could hurt them worse than not buying it (since he has no control to keep everyone from buying his unit).
All you will do is create artificial scarcity by buying just after debut, hence increasing the value of the thing. That hardcore gamer you're talking about? You can't tell me with a straight face that such a one is not going to buy when availability improves, and I assure you availability will improve despite your buyer negligibly (if at all) diminishing the sales of PS3 games.
Use this to project a fake doorway onto walls and watch your victims slam into walls, ala Bugs Bunny.
Bugs Bunny cartoons do not feature advanced technology whereas Roadrunner cartoons do. So what really would happen is that you would project a fake doorway onto the wall, your intended victim would walk up to the wall, open the door, walk through the doorway and close the door behind. Astounded, you'd run to the door only to slam into the brick wall, a la Wile E. Coyote.
Yeah, you go ahead and protest them by going and renting 12 movies a month from BlockBuster at $4 a pop.
I don't do Blockbuster. I have a local (university) library. Twice a month I might rent from the local chain for $3. I buy movies from half.com. All of those places give me what I expect. In my experience, Netflix doesn't work as advertised. This is apart from my distrust of them. So, it isn't a boycott. I just believe Netflix behaves unethically and I wasn't interested in paying $240 per year for a service that in some months would send me zero DVDs.
It seems like the complaints - at least in this person's case - only go one way: the return direction.
Exactly. It would have been different if I were losing DVDs coming as well as going, but that wasn't happening. Only when I mailed them back to Netflix did they somehow get "lost." I don't rule out the USPS, but the one-way postal sinkhole made me suspect Netflix more than the postal carriers.
damn post office lost 15 or so in a couple months)
I have a post above talking about my experience with DVDs lost in the USPS system. Not to rehash, the short version is: the USPS almost never loses mail and if it is "losing" mail on a regular basis you can GUARANTEE that the USPS Postal inspector would be very curious to hear your story.
Your postal inspector might be a very unsexy bureaucrat but let me tell you, he or she DOES NOT fuck around. Write a letter to your Postal Inspector explaining that your DVDs are getting "lost". The problem will be cleared up, whether it is the USPS's fault or Blockbuster.
People who actually pay for instead of download their movies get screwed over?
You've been modded funny, but your humor is actually very insightful. In 2006, those who pay for a service are exactly the people who will get screwed over when there is a free alternative. The degree of screwing varies according the nature of the company, but everything from DRM'd music files to encumbered computer hardware to dongled production software to you-name-it--paying customers are treated poorly by the very companies who need them.
I guess "screwing over people who watch a lot of movies" is one of their "improvements" that they've made.
I'd like to gently disagree with the article and with the parent poster because this is something, I believe, that Netflix has been doing since day one. I'm guessing, though, that now they either have a auditable trail (e.g. software) or for other reasons they are formalizing throttling frequent renters.
In 2002 I began a Netflix subscription which back in those days came in one all-you-can-watch for about $20.00 (iirc). I watch movies sometimes three at a go because it is a professional interest of mine and, well, I love film. So, for my first couple of months, I was watching maybe 12 films a month.
My third month or so, I stopped getting DVDs. I checked my queue and discovered they'd not received the DVDs I returned. After 2 weeks, I reported the DVDs missing even though, by gum, I knew I had sent them back. My queue resumed and when I returned the 5 DVDs within one week of viewing them the USPS mysteriously failed to deliver those, too. While considering reporting these lost DVDs to the US Postmaster, I came across an article in WIRED explaining how Netflix loses money on frequent renters: "Some subscribers rent twenty or more. (Which is a problem: Netflix loses money on postage for households that rent more than five a month.)" (emphasis added).
That told me all I needed to know and I cancelled my Netflix subscription. Occam's razor is here inadequate since it would suggest that the DVDs were in fact getting lost in the mail. But I had been using the USPS for objects large and small for 20 years by that point and not a single piece of mail had ever been lost either coming to or going from me. And I'm supposed to believe that somehow, of all the mail I send, that only my DVDs to Netflix get lost?
Netflix is a company like any other in that it wants to make a profit. However, in 2002 they engaged (I believe) in unethical business practices to protect their bottom line rather than, for example, simply billing renters for postage overages. Netflix will never get any of my money ever again and when Internet distribution finally kills them, I probably won't care enough to tell this story again.