I agree. The people who have accepted these things at my workplace have lost a lot of their personal time. Because the two executives in our department have no other life they think anyone else they can reach doesn't have one either.
In some cases its the employer doing the chaining, just do your best to avoid it. for some reason email seems to indicate more availability than just a phone
It is also about perceived anomynity. One common thread amount posters on websites such as/., deal sites, and others. I would never trade with ya'll except with every term in writing and double checked.
Talk about dishonest people. Many think nothing of taking advantage of an error in pricing, after all its just an evil business. Many think of a bazillion reasons to justify their theft. Many openly acknowledge their theft or attempt there of.
Just what in the hell has gotten into people that makes them think that its okay to steal when someone else makes a mistake? It was obvious to ANYONE ordering that the DVD sets were not supposed to be free, so I have no pity on them should Amazon want the money back.
To reinterate, I would not knowningly associated with many of the people I converse with on the net. Worse, this same bunch wonders why the country is in the state it is.
I have one of these scanners on my laptop. Its great. I have a nice complex password for access that I can skip simply by scanning a finger. I like the convienence. Do I think its anymore secure? Not in the least.
Its better for me that using a usb key or such, I am not going to lose my finger
is that many people want the government to have even more control over our lives, mainly health care and retirement. Look, this is the FBI, if they cannot keep track of sensitive data how in hell can we trust another government organization to do better?
The problem with government entities is that Congress never writes laws that punish them. Corporations sure, if a corporation lost "sensitve customer data" you can be sure of howls in Congress and a rash of new laws punishing "evil" corporations. When its the government they turn their heads.
Accountability is the one thing the government has always lacked and the one thing they seem to want from everyone else, you, me, and any other non-government entity.
They should be held to higher standards than ANY corporation, school, or private organization. We entrust them with our lives, shouldn't they be required to prove they can handle that trust?
Honestly, unless you just want to see the world of Middle Earth in graphics form I would suggest skipping this MMORPG interpetation of it.
Highs: Landscapes and landscape features are nicely done.
Water reflectivity encompasses all drawn items
Quest system. The idea is to flood you with them. Some are new variations of FED-EX others are same old stuff, but its an alternative
No Mages... uh
Traits. The idea was good..
Lows: ALL, and I mean ALL, indoor areas are INSTANCED. This means if you want to enter a building you instance to do so. Even if this means just going in to complete a quest with no more than a click of a dialog.
NPCs use a different animation engine from PCs, hence they are lifeless and dull. Eyes that don't blink, no facial movement, etc. Some do some animated scripts, but only with other NPCs.
Quest system. The idea is to flood you with them. Yet its really the same old stuff repackaged.
Traits, think Talents from WOW but more random. This is where the grind is. Some examples, trying to gain one trait required me to kill literally hundereds of slugs, yes slugs. It seemed all traits were gained this way.
Magic. They simply renamed it. Don't for a minute believe there are not mages and priests in this game. Loremasters are mages pure and simple. They throw fireballs.
Animation system, combat system is boring. Animations don't even take into account parries and dodges so even though the game said you parried its not drawn. Combats can also take place with a sizable distance between combatants making it look silly.
User Interface. Still Turbine's worst suit. They can't code a UI to save their lives. It looks like each part was done by a different team. Some look very "period" - meaning belonging to a fantasy game, while others look like a PDA from Half Life.
Remember first and foremost that this is Turbine. They love to make promises, they just take forever to deliver them or they don't. They also are on record as being the first game company to permit Automated Combat Macros, they also released a major expansion to a game only to announce shutdown 3 months later, and they still haven't delivered half of what they promised for DDO.
Oh, to top it off, those who pre-order get into beta. Nothing unusual there, except this time they can take their beta characters from that beta into release to get a jump on the rest of the people.
Pass. Its LOTR in name only, more like AC2 with hobbits
where has someone legally revealed a problem such as what this law will address that has been mistreated by the courts? Its one thing to make people worried, its a whole 'nuther thing to back it up.
In other words, I get so tired of this "implied knowledge" that people have getting rated insightful when all they are doing is hearsay. Give us links so your accusation has basis.
first with the current music Apple probably has a short list of people it has to do transactions with. They are also probably granted some indeminity from problems arising from music they sell provided its from the labels.
with indie music comes a lot of questions. how much can Apple charge before they are considered to be exploiting? how much does Apple spend on bandwidth per song, this figures into #1. who does Apple contract with for payment should the artist want money? How much will it cost to maintain all those contracts, because thats essentially what they are. who guarantees to Apple the music they sell is really the property of the artist selling it?
there are many risks and costs associated with indie music. it would probably take a middleman to make it viable to Apple. Someone like an RIAA that isn't evil for the Indie's could make the presence of this music on iTunes much more likely
My cousin does this manually, using pictures of job sites and items on known size, to estimate needs.
$99 is nothing. If it can save material purchased for a big job it will most likely pay for itself instantly, not counting all the time saved photographing and measuring that is now with manual processing afterward.
Identifying who you scanned. sure you can scan an iris without their knowledge but unless you have the pattern stored how will you know who it is? Perhaps do it at a register and match it to the card/id used? That would be underhanded to say the least.
Storage, how much space per pattern? What is the speed of comparison to a large database? Something that is quick enough to focus ads (for the minority report fans) would require serious processing power.
I could see it in small settings, say a business who needs a less instrusive means of security. Scan all your employees and only let them in, if accompanied by those who cannot be matched then don't admit to sensitive areas. However in the general public setting, costs for equipment to store millions of scans and process them fast enough to be meaningful is still aways off.
I get so tired about hearing how wal-mart supposedly abuses their employees. Look, I know people who work there and they don't have any qualms. Some are students working there (because 24hr operations offer flexibility) and others just because they don't look elsewhere.
While people love to rant about the items Wal-Mart sells how do these same people explain the grocery sections? Same brands as the big supermarkets at significantly lower prices. Heck I can find similar names in their department side of the operation as I can at the mall and save money.
Which brings me back to the online experience. Customer service isn't the real issue, its ease of use, selection, and then cost which will make or break their service. Other than end user billing issues the downloading side shouldn't be that big of a problem. I don't think that the majority of users out there have sufficient bandwidth for high quality downloads.
Why should Wal-Mart get into this? Easy, because it has such a low cost of operation. Pay for bandwidth, the servers, and that is a lot less than a B&M existance. They will still have lots of DVD in their stores but when people finally give up buying DVDs Wal-Mart probably hopes to be established enough to get that business.
I still don't see why people think Apple's service is that great. iTunes is good, but the series and movies are not the quality I would pay for, especially at the price some of the offerings are. A friend told me that the XBOX service is the best way to go but I doubt I will buy a 360 just for movie downloads.
So Wal-Mart gives us a new option. The more the merrier. The free market is a much better decider than other approaches. If Wal-Mart succeeds then they will do so because they deserve it. If they fail, that also is their fault as well.
instead of having no sale. The real money is in the games and add-ons after they sell the console. Sure it might hurt them more near term, but not getting into the living room will cost them more down the road.
of course since you can still buy PS2s many might opt that route if they don't like WII or XBOX360
Yes because it convinced many that they had "Adult Attention Deficit Disorder" which isn't real or whatnot but rakes in big bucks (ritalin ftw)
No, because hospitals are more dangerous to your health than any drug ad. So what if people think they need something, if they don't trust their doctor they should get a new one.
first off, define what that means? Does it require a force feed back controller?
Sorry, but the gaming industry blaming wal-mart for their inability to offer "adult themed" games is like a crazy uncle claiming that he suffered a heart attack because you stubbed your toe"
Adult themed means : We don't really have a game but lots of titties and ass shots will make up for it, if that don't top it off we will even offer simulated sex.
Sorry, Wal-Mart is only 12-15% of the retail industry at most, the games are being made because no one is going to risk the money. Does gamestop offer them? Perhaps a behind the counter section?
I can just imagine some basement living geek going to wal-mart to buy Blackmale Little Lisa Linux, they don't have the guts to seek out real girls, how could they handle a crowded store and buy something like that?
is because its drawing what you cannot see. Dial down your distance and it should mostly evaporate. you will also need to set it back outdoors unless you can live with it
though from moderation its obvious the mentality at/. would believe it. If Jobs did the same would be ok? Does the fact he doesn't cause Apple any issues?
Gates is associated with Microsoft and the halo effect of his charity will rub off. The big thing people here forget is most people don't care about what OS they use. They don't give a flip about the business issues. To them PCs are just another appliance, an aggravating one at times, but nothing more. Also, the majority will never have a problem with their machine.
Money can buy you notoriety. It can buy you face time and fame. It cannot buy you respect. You earn it by your actions, just because one his actions is charity at a level not seen in ages should not begrudge him the respect for doing it. Unlike the hollywood types he doesn't go looking for TV time to laud him for holding a dirty baby in some village. And unlike hollywood types many people seem his as real person
because for all the work we do it won't amount to a hill of beans if China doesn't play along. Go look at many of their cities, they look even worse than the US did at its height for pollution.
Hell, their only fix for good air during the Olympics will be to ban cars and shutdown nearby industries.
Still got to love this comment on his blog:)
"There is sufficient biomass energy to replace motor fuel and then some... if the energy is not wasted. "
Well duh. Thats the problem with his whole page, its all stuck on a BIG bunch of IFs.
but the biggest problem is turing grain crops into fuel, there are just so many uses for grain crops in everyday products that a slight increase in their pricing because of competition with fuels could force consumer prices up, masking the true cost of these new forms of power creation.
didn't you see all that class warfare the last election cycle, about those people who won lifes lottery (the work hard, makes great money, etc) and therefor they should be taxed for it!!!
thats the mentality of it now. the politicians have for so long beat it into people's heads that everything needs to be taxed, and after all if its a lottery or such, its only fair to tax that too.
Face it, people will not wake up. Nothing you have is safe from the tax man. In my state we pay ad volarem (sp) taxes on automobiles we already paid sales tax on! Your house, gone if you don't pay taxes, after all you don't own the land its own or even the house itself in this day an age as any government can take it for tax purposes. They can even raise your taxes and you have to fight them to get them back inline, trouble is they make it so you give up as it will cost more to fight than to give in.
Don't worry, they will tell us they will have to raise taxes on businesses, as corporations are very evil. Too bad they are tax collectors as no business pays a dime it didn't get from us. Same for making contest offering companies to pay the tax, it will simply come out of someone else's pocket.
I think the best example was all the heartache caused over Oprha's gift of cars that one year. How many didn't take possession of the car because of taxes or loss of benefits?
and there are many people out there who have a good amount of disposable income.
these same people don't want to waste time farming in some contrived system (ie WOW's overpriced mounts which essentially require grinding) and instead play and experience the world they subscribed too.
See, the game is about adventure and seeing stuff, not killing the same mob and such over and over and over and over and over and over to gain enough gold to see the world. Game designers create this problem because they don't think things through. If you put prices on items that are only obtainable by those who spend their lives online someone will make it their business to give those other people their time back, for a price.
Sorry, but considering some of the auctions I just went a search for versus the time people claim it takes to earn its silly to waste your online time on farming it. For the most part if you have a family which limits time for luxuries like MMORPGs then a few bucks to keep pace with your buddies is nothing. Hell it beats smokes, beer, and drugs, why complain about it. Its their money.
Or is it only acceptable to waste money on widescreen tvs, luxury cars, and mansions?
Hell telling people not to do this is like inviting every crook and wannabe to do so, hell now even the dumb ones will know about it.
Just make them out of something worth less than 1c, hell it doesn't even have to be a long term item... plastics should work fine. I would go ceramics but I bet they would break too easily.
this is the only option short of buying a new set many users have. Over the air ? How many people do you know who actually do that and have HDTVs? I can't recall the last time I saw one let alone met anyone using over the air TV.
The Satellite service I have offers a DVR with HD Ability for a rate far cheaper than anything I can get from TIVO and if it breaks they will replace it. Also, since my TV isn't capable of receiving/interpeting HD on its own this single device covers both my needs (that and it can service another TV in my house via a RF remote is great too)
its a requirement that subdivisions have sidewalks on one side of the street, they must also put them in on the road the connect to for a short distance both ways.
Some of the larger (2000-5000 home) subdivisions have sidewalks on both sides that are large and wide and they use them to connect to various functions within the subdivision.
Where you find the lack of sidewalks is usually in older subdivisions or those put up by small builders who either built too few homes to be subject to regulation or just ignored it (and yes you can get away with ignoring some regulations like sidewalks by completing the subdivision and just up and leaving)
As to them leading to a heavier lifestyle? Well considering the issue of lots of retired people moving out into them to get away from the hustle and bustle I can see it. They are in their later years and many aren't looking for strenous activity. As for kids, fat kids exist everywhere, its up to parents to give them real alternatives instead of leaving them to a gamebox and tv.
the deal here is that while "techies" may know how to get around the DRM you cannot easily integrate an iPod without using iTunes and you cannot easily use iTunes with another MP3 player.
The problem becomes, whats in it for Apple? I think now that the iPod is so successful that there is little risk allowing iTunes to work with other players, other than the support issues that the other players just foul up iTunes. Same goes for the reverse, allowing the iPod to be easily integrated to other Music managers. This requires that their DRM be available for anyone else to incorporate.
Frankly if I were in these governments I would just make all companies use the same standard. Its bad enough consumers deal with DRM, let alone 10 different shades of it.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. The people who have accepted these things at my workplace have lost a lot of their personal time. Because the two executives in our department have no other life they think anyone else they can reach doesn't have one either.
In some cases its the employer doing the chaining, just do your best to avoid it. for some reason email seems to indicate more availability than just a phone
It is also about perceived anomynity. One common thread amount posters on websites such as /., deal sites, and others. I would never trade with ya'll except with every term in writing and double checked.
Talk about dishonest people. Many think nothing of taking advantage of an error in pricing, after all its just an evil business. Many think of a bazillion reasons to justify their theft. Many openly acknowledge their theft or attempt there of.
Just what in the hell has gotten into people that makes them think that its okay to steal when someone else makes a mistake? It was obvious to ANYONE ordering that the DVD sets were not supposed to be free, so I have no pity on them should Amazon want the money back.
To reinterate, I would not knowningly associated with many of the people I converse with on the net. Worse, this same bunch wonders why the country is in the state it is.
Look in the mirror
I have one of these scanners on my laptop. Its great. I have a nice complex password for access that I can skip simply by scanning a finger. I like the convienence. Do I think its anymore secure? Not in the least.
Its better for me that using a usb key or such, I am not going to lose my finger
is that many people want the government to have even more control over our lives, mainly health care and retirement. Look, this is the FBI, if they cannot keep track of sensitive data how in hell can we trust another government organization to do better?
The problem with government entities is that Congress never writes laws that punish them. Corporations sure, if a corporation lost "sensitve customer data" you can be sure of howls in Congress and a rash of new laws punishing "evil" corporations. When its the government they turn their heads.
Accountability is the one thing the government has always lacked and the one thing they seem to want from everyone else, you, me, and any other non-government entity.
They should be held to higher standards than ANY corporation, school, or private organization. We entrust them with our lives, shouldn't they be required to prove they can handle that trust?
Honestly, unless you just want to see the world of Middle Earth in graphics form I would suggest skipping this MMORPG interpetation of it.
Highs:
Landscapes and landscape features are nicely done.
Water reflectivity encompasses all drawn items
Quest system. The idea is to flood you with them. Some are new variations of FED-EX others are same old stuff, but its an alternative
No Mages... uh
Traits. The idea was good..
Lows:
ALL, and I mean ALL, indoor areas are INSTANCED. This means if you want to enter a building you instance to do so. Even if this means just going in to complete a quest with no more than a click of a dialog.
NPCs use a different animation engine from PCs, hence they are lifeless and dull. Eyes that don't blink, no facial movement, etc. Some do some animated scripts, but only with other NPCs.
Quest system. The idea is to flood you with them. Yet its really the same old stuff repackaged.
Traits, think Talents from WOW but more random. This is where the grind is. Some examples, trying to gain one trait required me to kill literally hundereds of slugs, yes slugs. It seemed all traits were gained this way.
Magic. They simply renamed it. Don't for a minute believe there are not mages and priests in this game. Loremasters are mages pure and simple. They throw fireballs.
Animation system, combat system is boring. Animations don't even take into account parries and dodges so even though the game said you parried its not drawn. Combats can also take place with a sizable distance between combatants making it look silly.
User Interface. Still Turbine's worst suit. They can't code a UI to save their lives. It looks like each part was done by a different team. Some look very "period" - meaning belonging to a fantasy game, while others look like a PDA from Half Life.
Remember first and foremost that this is Turbine. They love to make promises, they just take forever to deliver them or they don't. They also are on record as being the first game company to permit Automated Combat Macros, they also released a major expansion to a game only to announce shutdown 3 months later, and they still haven't delivered half of what they promised for DDO.
Oh, to top it off, those who pre-order get into beta. Nothing unusual there, except this time they can take their beta characters from that beta into release to get a jump on the rest of the people.
Pass. Its LOTR in name only, more like AC2 with hobbits
where has someone legally revealed a problem such as what this law will address that has been mistreated by the courts? Its one thing to make people worried, its a whole 'nuther thing to back it up.
In other words, I get so tired of this "implied knowledge" that people have getting rated insightful when all they are doing is hearsay. Give us links so your accusation has basis.
first with the current music Apple probably has a short list of people it has to do transactions with. They are also probably granted some indeminity from problems arising from music they sell provided its from the labels.
with indie music comes a lot of questions.
how much can Apple charge before they are considered to be exploiting?
how much does Apple spend on bandwidth per song, this figures into #1.
who does Apple contract with for payment should the artist want money?
How much will it cost to maintain all those contracts, because thats essentially what they are.
who guarantees to Apple the music they sell is really the property of the artist selling it?
there are many risks and costs associated with indie music. it would probably take a middleman to make it viable to Apple. Someone like an RIAA that isn't evil for the Indie's could make the presence of this music on iTunes much more likely
My cousin does this manually, using pictures of job sites and items on known size, to estimate needs.
$99 is nothing. If it can save material purchased for a big job it will most likely pay for itself instantly, not counting all the time saved photographing and measuring that is now with manual processing afterward.
specifically about implementing something this.
Identifying who you scanned. sure you can scan an iris without their knowledge but unless you have the pattern stored how will you know who it is? Perhaps do it at a register and match it to the card/id used? That would be underhanded to say the least.
Storage, how much space per pattern? What is the speed of comparison to a large database? Something that is quick enough to focus ads (for the minority report fans) would require serious processing power.
I could see it in small settings, say a business who needs a less instrusive means of security. Scan all your employees and only let them in, if accompanied by those who cannot be matched then don't admit to sensitive areas. However in the general public setting, costs for equipment to store millions of scans and process them fast enough to be meaningful is still aways off.
because if you aren't you sure do imitate one.
I get so tired about hearing how wal-mart supposedly abuses their employees. Look, I know people who work there and they don't have any qualms. Some are students working there (because 24hr operations offer flexibility) and others just because they don't look elsewhere.
While people love to rant about the items Wal-Mart sells how do these same people explain the grocery sections? Same brands as the big supermarkets at significantly lower prices. Heck I can find similar names in their department side of the operation as I can at the mall and save money.
Which brings me back to the online experience. Customer service isn't the real issue, its ease of use, selection, and then cost which will make or break their service. Other than end user billing issues the downloading side shouldn't be that big of a problem. I don't think that the majority of users out there have sufficient bandwidth for high quality downloads.
Why should Wal-Mart get into this? Easy, because it has such a low cost of operation. Pay for bandwidth, the servers, and that is a lot less than a B&M existance. They will still have lots of DVD in their stores but when people finally give up buying DVDs Wal-Mart probably hopes to be established enough to get that business.
I still don't see why people think Apple's service is that great. iTunes is good, but the series and movies are not the quality I would pay for, especially at the price some of the offerings are. A friend told me that the XBOX service is the best way to go but I doubt I will buy a 360 just for movie downloads.
So Wal-Mart gives us a new option. The more the merrier. The free market is a much better decider than other approaches. If Wal-Mart succeeds then they will do so because they deserve it. If they fail, that also is their fault as well.
happens when someone else down the road comes up with gear using the name as well, if not a phone what about accessories.
I am curious what goes down then.
and your giving the LOTR people way too many ideas
instead of having no sale. The real money is in the games and add-ons after they sell the console. Sure it might hurt them more near term, but not getting into the living room will cost them more down the road.
of course since you can still buy PS2s many might opt that route if they don't like WII or XBOX360
Yes because it convinced many that they had "Adult Attention Deficit Disorder" which isn't real or whatnot but rakes in big bucks (ritalin ftw)
No, because hospitals are more dangerous to your health than any drug ad. So what if people think they need something, if they don't trust their doctor they should get a new one.
first off, define what that means? Does it require a force feed back controller?
Sorry, but the gaming industry blaming wal-mart for their inability to offer "adult themed" games is like a crazy uncle claiming that he suffered a heart attack because you stubbed your toe"
Adult themed means : We don't really have a game but lots of titties and ass shots will make up for it, if that don't top it off we will even offer simulated sex.
Sorry, Wal-Mart is only 12-15% of the retail industry at most, the games are being made because no one is going to risk the money. Does gamestop offer them? Perhaps a behind the counter section?
I can just imagine some basement living geek going to wal-mart to buy Blackmale Little Lisa Linux, they don't have the guts to seek out real girls, how could they handle a crowded store and buy something like that?
is because its drawing what you cannot see. Dial down your distance and it should mostly evaporate. you will also need to set it back outdoors unless you can live with it
though from moderation its obvious the mentality at /. would believe it. If Jobs did the same would be ok? Does the fact he doesn't cause Apple any issues?
Gates is associated with Microsoft and the halo effect of his charity will rub off. The big thing people here forget is most people don't care about what OS they use. They don't give a flip about the business issues. To them PCs are just another appliance, an aggravating one at times, but nothing more. Also, the majority will never have a problem with their machine.
Money can buy you notoriety. It can buy you face time and fame. It cannot buy you respect. You earn it by your actions, just because one his actions is charity at a level not seen in ages should not begrudge him the respect for doing it. Unlike the hollywood types he doesn't go looking for TV time to laud him for holding a dirty baby in some village. And unlike hollywood types many people seem his as real person
because for all the work we do it won't amount to a hill of beans if China doesn't play along. Go look at many of their cities, they look even worse than the US did at its height for pollution.
:)
Hell, their only fix for good air during the Olympics will be to ban cars and shutdown nearby industries.
Still got to love this comment on his blog
"There is sufficient biomass energy to replace motor fuel and then some... if the energy is not wasted. "
Well duh. Thats the problem with his whole page, its all stuck on a BIG bunch of IFs.
but the biggest problem is turing grain crops into fuel, there are just so many uses for grain crops in everyday products that a slight increase in their pricing because of competition with fuels could force consumer prices up, masking the true cost of these new forms of power creation.
didn't you see all that class warfare the last election cycle, about those people who won lifes lottery (the work hard, makes great money, etc) and therefor they should be taxed for it!!!
thats the mentality of it now. the politicians have for so long beat it into people's heads that everything needs to be taxed, and after all if its a lottery or such, its only fair to tax that too.
Face it, people will not wake up. Nothing you have is safe from the tax man. In my state we pay ad volarem (sp) taxes on automobiles we already paid sales tax on! Your house, gone if you don't pay taxes, after all you don't own the land its own or even the house itself in this day an age as any government can take it for tax purposes. They can even raise your taxes and you have to fight them to get them back inline, trouble is they make it so you give up as it will cost more to fight than to give in.
Don't worry, they will tell us they will have to raise taxes on businesses, as corporations are very evil. Too bad they are tax collectors as no business pays a dime it didn't get from us. Same for making contest offering companies to pay the tax, it will simply come out of someone else's pocket.
I think the best example was all the heartache caused over Oprha's gift of cars that one year. How many didn't take possession of the car because of taxes or loss of benefits?
Governments make most corporations look sane.
and there are many people out there who have a good amount of disposable income.
these same people don't want to waste time farming in some contrived system (ie WOW's overpriced mounts which essentially require grinding) and instead play and experience the world they subscribed too.
See, the game is about adventure and seeing stuff, not killing the same mob and such over and over and over and over and over and over to gain enough gold to see the world. Game designers create this problem because they don't think things through. If you put prices on items that are only obtainable by those who spend their lives online someone will make it their business to give those other people their time back, for a price.
Sorry, but considering some of the auctions I just went a search for versus the time people claim it takes to earn its silly to waste your online time on farming it. For the most part if you have a family which limits time for luxuries like MMORPGs then a few bucks to keep pace with your buddies is nothing. Hell it beats smokes, beer, and drugs, why complain about it. Its their money.
Or is it only acceptable to waste money on widescreen tvs, luxury cars, and mansions?
Hell telling people not to do this is like inviting every crook and wannabe to do so, hell now even the dumb ones will know about it.
Just make them out of something worth less than 1c, hell it doesn't even have to be a long term item... plastics should work fine. I would go ceramics but I bet they would break too easily.
this is the only option short of buying a new set many users have. Over the air ? How many people do you know who actually do that and have HDTVs? I can't recall the last time I saw one let alone met anyone using over the air TV.
The Satellite service I have offers a DVR with HD Ability for a rate far cheaper than anything I can get from TIVO and if it breaks they will replace it. Also, since my TV isn't capable of receiving/interpeting HD on its own this single device covers both my needs (that and it can service another TV in my house via a RF remote is great too)
already have legislation either pending or introduced into their current sessions that will effectively nix this tripe.
Yet I would not rely on a Democrat controlled Congress to rid us of it, if anything they will morph it and we will be stuck again
its a requirement that subdivisions have sidewalks on one side of the street, they must also put them in on the road the connect to for a short distance both ways.
Some of the larger (2000-5000 home) subdivisions have sidewalks on both sides that are large and wide and they use them to connect to various functions within the subdivision.
Where you find the lack of sidewalks is usually in older subdivisions or those put up by small builders who either built too few homes to be subject to regulation or just ignored it (and yes you can get away with ignoring some regulations like sidewalks by completing the subdivision and just up and leaving)
As to them leading to a heavier lifestyle? Well considering the issue of lots of retired people moving out into them to get away from the hustle and bustle I can see it. They are in their later years and many aren't looking for strenous activity. As for kids, fat kids exist everywhere, its up to parents to give them real alternatives instead of leaving them to a gamebox and tv.
the deal here is that while "techies" may know how to get around the DRM you cannot easily integrate an iPod without using iTunes and you cannot easily use iTunes with another MP3 player.
The problem becomes, whats in it for Apple? I think now that the iPod is so successful that there is little risk allowing iTunes to work with other players, other than the support issues that the other players just foul up iTunes. Same goes for the reverse, allowing the iPod to be easily integrated to other Music managers. This requires that their DRM be available for anyone else to incorporate.
Frankly if I were in these governments I would just make all companies use the same standard. Its bad enough consumers deal with DRM, let alone 10 different shades of it.