So if this is just an issue with the ITMS, then it will probably not affect my choice to buy an Apple.
It isn't. It will affect the playback of all Blu-Ray discs and most video download services on the Mac. A bigger problem is the relatively limited choice of media managers on MacOS. Out of the box, iTunes will DRM all your ripped music and iTunes really doesn't play nice with media players other than iPods.
Of course, since MS has created a market where most OEM created cheap, ugly, non functional, and generally useless machines, there options are few and far between.
Note the word "most". The fact is, you can buy nearly identical hardware to the MacBooks (the only Apple systems worth duplicating) for less from several manufacturers. Windows XP and Vista run just fine on MacBooks. I really don't understand the value of having a very limited selection of hardware.
The wii is an upgraded Gamecube. The motherboard is very similar, it uses the same chips with higher clocks, the GPU has the same features with 2 more rendering pipes, the SDK is extremely similar, etc.
You said so yourself:
It's architecturally nearly identical to a Gamecube, but that does not make it a gamecube.
No, it makes it an upgraded or OVERCLOCKED GameCube.
Want to save energy? Turn your PC system off at night unless you've got a giant download, are running a server, or some other valid reason to have it on.
Frequent power cycles reduce the MTBF for computers. The more you power cycle a desktop or laptop the shorter period of time it will last until a major hardware failure. This is one of the big reasons (the other is shock) that laptops don't last as long as desktops.
In the end, power cycling your desktop might cost you MORE money because it will lead to premature equipment failures.
And because women can't be the instruments of societal pressures and contribute to their own oppression.
I'd just like to focus on this "self-hating Jews" comment.
If the statement above is true, isn't the CONCEPT of feminism completely wrong? If women are in fact he instruments of their own oppression, and more importantly they're the SOURCE of the ideas behind the oppression, how can this ever be corrected without removing women's ability to think? And if women are the source of the ideas how can we even be sure it IS "oppression"?
The problem you're running into is that some women will obviously CHOOSE to be "oppressed". You might argue that those women are uninformed, but NOBODY is perfectly informed about all issues. So in any scenario you look at all women will never be "equal" because some will CHOOSE traditional lifestyles.
What does it indicate, that jobs with any power attached to them are overwhelmingly male-dominated?
This is a key point. Job and salary parity are really a red herring. I don't hear any feminists complaining that 95% of construction workers are male or that 95% of registered nurses are female because those jobs don't give the people that have them lots of POWER. What feminists are really asking for is more POWER. More political seats, more top-flight business positions, more money for the same work, more benefits, etc.
What they fail to grasp is the sacrifices these people made to acquire that POWER. Like family. Most top-flight CEOs and politicians essentially have no family life to speak of. They may be married and have kids, but they never see them. The vast majority of women, for inherent psychological reasons, find this unacceptable. So most women ARE NOT SUITED FOR these kinds of positions. It's the same reason there aren't a lot of female astronauts.
Women that ARE willing to abandon family life do pretty well in these positions. Look at former Carly Fiorina and Secretary Rice.
Here is GameStop's printed return policy off of Gamestop.com:
Returns to GameStop.com Return to Help Center
Returned product(s) must be in the original packaging and include any manuals, cabling and accessories in saleable condition. We reserve the right to limit returns to unopened or defective products. Defective product(s) will be replaced with a like item, upon return. Terms and conditions of manufacturer's warranty apply to defective video games systems and computer hardware after 30 days.
We do not accept returns of:
* Any product(s) returned more than 30 days from the date on the packing slip.
* Any product(s) that has been opened (taken out of its plastic wrap).
* Any product(s) not in its original condition.
* Any product(s) that is damaged, played, or is missing parts.
* Any product(s) that were sold as part of a bundle, unless the bundle is returned complete.
Please do not send us product(s) that do not meet the return criteria listed above, as we do not issue refunds for non-qualifying items and cannot return the items to you.
1, Those used games are warrantied for 30 days by default.
Lies. I can't get GameStop to accept returns on anything used. One time I bought a used game, I was looking at the game AT THE COUNTER and saw a big scratch, and a return was refused.
2. Those used games are also warrantied for a full refund within 7 days.
See above. What you're saying contradicts the printed return policy for GameStop. GameStop will not give you cash money for any return (without court order) as far as I can tell.
3. We HAVE to buy your used games if they're in good enough condition and for a console we still sell.
This is technically true, but Gamestop will give you as little as $0.15 (that's 15 CENTS) for some games. At that rate dozens of copies of Madden wouldn't cost a store very much.
And with each subsequent release in a sports-based franchise, the previous iteration becomes instantly worthless to the customer and is thus sold to us, resulting in an ever-expanding spot in the racks occupied by the creatively titled (Sports Franchise) 03.
So why not just put a couple copies of Madden on the shelf and stick the rest in a box in the back? This is what every GameStop I've seen does for EVERY used game where they have lots of copies. Hell, for new games there is ALWAYS only one copy on the shelf and more are grabbed from the back.
Also, we actually offer a year warranty for our games.
For a fee. And it's useless. What happens if you buy a new copy of Fallout 3, get the extended warranty, and then go into GameStop 6 months later with a scratched disk? Nothing. They'll tell you "scratched discs aren't covered", which is true. The extended warranty at GameStop is a pure scam that covers nothing. Ditto for the warranties on consoles.
What's the "good reason" for GameStop's illegal return policy?
In most states you have 30 days to return anything you buy at retail no matter what. That is THE LAW. GameStop has a return policy that says you're not allowed to return anything used, no matter what, and they will not give you your money back on new games, just another copy if they happen to have one. They won't let you return ANYTHING for cash. This is completely illegal in the State of California and in many other states.
Critically, they often won't accept returns of merchandise that is defective.
For example, most of the Guitar Hero World Tour drum kits are defective. Gamestop won't accept returns on World Tour, no matter what. Another example is Blue Dragon. The crappy packaging scratched up the discs, but Gamestop would not accept a return on Blue Dragon, no matter what.
I've has to sue Gamestop/EB Games twice over this crap.
For the record, Gamecrazy is only marginally better. There really aren't any other specialty game retailers around here.
If anyone knows of a specialty game retailer other than Gamestop and Gamecrazy in San Jose I'd love to hear about it.
Marketing managers in general tend to panic whenever they run into a negative article in a mainstream publication. It doesn't mean anything.
The big concern about Vista before launch, and it's critical to the "Vista Capable" lawsuit, was that the OEMs didn't have their shit together. Despite years of extra time, many hardware manufacturers didn't have drivers ready and some (notably Creative) told Microsoft that using the new toolkit was too difficult and they would just release broken drivers for Vista. MS broke down and reluctantly wrote their own drivers for these devices. And lots and lots of others.
Worse, entry-level systems didn't have DirectX 9 cards (due to OEMs dragging their feet) and couldn't run Aero at launch. Vista Basic wasn't supposed to exist at all. Vista Basic and Vista Capable were something the OEMs insisted on because their $500 boxes couldn't really run Vista in January 2007.
Blame MS all you want but they gave the driver kit to the OEMs almost 8 years ago (Vista drivers are basically Windows Server 2003 drivers, they both use WDF). Betas were available to the OEMs nearly 2 years before launch. And in 8 years they couldn't get anything done. In many cases (80%?) all they had to do was change ONE LINE of code. I personally modified XP drivers for use in Vista, and yeah, I really just had to change one line of code.
"Do cops get a percentage cut of any drug money they capture?" Not exactly -- legally, anyway -- but...
Legally, in many jurisdictions, they do. The proceeds from seized cash and goods (like cars) go directly to the department and then directly to the salaries of the police. Bonuses are granted for officers that seize more stuff.
It seems to me that you are making a very fine distinction between "required to carry an ID card" and "required to identify yourself to a police officer". California law is virtually identical to the Nazi Germany laws that required citizens to carry identifying papers. If you didn't have your papers, the Gestapo would detain you until your identity was confirmed. Most people in the world used to consider this oppressive and totalitarian.
The last two are highly addictive and there is a reason they are banned because people misuse them.
People misuse a lot of things. But the War on Drugs is about racism, pure and simple. Opium was banned, initially, only for Chinese. Why? Because white workers complained that opium allows the chinks to work harder so it was "unfair". Don't take my word for it, look it up. Marijuana? Marijuana was the drug of the Mexicans and white politicians claimed that Mexicans would use marijuana and go on crime sprees. White politicians also accused blacks of using marijuana and raping white women. Cocaine? Same deal. Look up "negro cocaine fiends". Again, don't take my word for it. Look up the actual statements made by the actual Congressmen who passed laws like the Narcotics Act. Look at the statements by Anslinger, the man behind the system we have today.
People would stop their cars in the middle of the street to make drug deals. I shit you not.
I briefly lived in East Palo Alto when it was the murder capital of the USA, at that time there were sandwich boards on the corner advertising pot, crack cocaine, and meth. The dealers had all agreed on common pricing to avoid arguments and turf fighting. Next to the sandwich boards stood Crips visibly holding weapons. This was to encourage patrons not to try to rob the dealers. The cops were all in on it.
During the same time I also knew several prominent political figures and socialites in Los Altos and Palo Alto that were dealing large volumes of cocaine.
Who do you think made more money?
None of this is an argument for making it illegal. The demand EXISTS. As long as there is demand (and there ALWAYS will be) people will meet it. Either you do it legal, or you create massive organized crime problems. There ARE NO OTHER OPTIONS. Organized crime practically took over the country during Prohibition and drug cartels literally run Central and South America. In 2001, opium production was at an all-time low because the Taliban was eradicating the opium fields. We defeated the Taliban and promptly handed Afghanistan over to the drug dealers who increased opium production 500 times. Opium is now pretty much the sole export of Afghanistan making up, conservatively, 80% of the Afghan economy. This has led to a massive increase in heroin addiction in China.
Relative to the current iron-clad control of the PRC, the Ching dynasty WAS loosely controlled. Rebellions were constant due to the unpopularity of the Manchu dynaasty who were seen as "foreigners" by the majority Han Chinese (trivia: The Han have ruled China for less than 500 years of it's history.)
The "death of a thousand cuts" is probably fictional. You simply can't keep someone alive for 3 days cutting chinks off them with no medical attention. The article you cited confirms that "Slow slicing" probably only took 15 minutes. And this was a rare punishment reserved for traitors.
The fact they meted out some brutal punishments simply puts them in the same category as the Europeans, Africans, etc. The Czars were pretty oppressive too. That doesn't mean that Western democracy won't "work" in Russia.
The Aztecs were WAY worse. The full-time job of 1 in 5 Aztecs was the processing of human flesh for consumption. Repeat, CONSUMPTION. That means 20% of the Aztec population, thousands of people, day in and day out were torturing, murdering, and ultimately EATING thousands of people. And these people committed no crimes whatsoever. They were either military prisoners of war or civilian slaves. No society, before or since, had practiced cannibalism on the scale of the Aztecs. If you you look at the timeline the Aztecs slaughtered and consumed WAY more people than the Nazis killed in concentration camps.
And remember the Romans slaughtered thousands of people in incredibly barbaric ways for mere entertainment. At least the Aztecs were motivated by religion, deranged though it may be.
BTW, Using "Q" for "Ch" is a crazy idea cooked up by the PRC. The correct Wade-Giles would be Ching or Ch'ing.
1) Turn on the FS on iPodB (an option when it is plugged into PCB)
So it's impossible. What you're saying is that unless you have access to BOTH the PCs the iPods are synced to you can't transfer music at all. If you need access to BOTH PCs, why bother? Just move the files PC to PC.
This is clearly seems deliberate to me. Apple really doesn't want you to share music.
Um, the problem definitely existed seven years ago when this feature was first unveiled, and as a solution it definitely worked.
No it didn't. I had an original Rio PMP300, and MP3Man, the first MP3 players ever made and neither had this problem (they didn't do any metadata though). I had an original Archos and it didn't have this problem, and it was a slow HD-based player AND did metadata and on-the-fly playlists.
Since it was a mass storage device it also meant the filesystem could not contain anything other than straight ASCII (and limited at that), so the files HAD to be mangled if the file had apostrophes, diacriticals, etc.
This makes no sense at all. The filesystem most MP3 players use is FAT32, iPods (I think) originally used HFS+, now they use FAT32. FAT32 supports almost exactly the same character set as NTFS (the only possible 3rd filesystem here) so the filenames on your PC SHOULD work on the iPod, just as they do on EVERY OTHER MP3 PLAYER. Special characters and Unicode are meant to be handled in the metatdata, the ID3 tags. There is simply no need to mangle the filenames and metadata into ASCII gibberish for "performance" and there never was.
Where did it insert hash data?
Into the tags. Last time I imported MP3 files into iTunes the song, artist, and album names in the ID3 tags were replaced with random ASCII strings (which I assume is hash data). Album art was stripped too.
Still the reason drug users are looked down upon is because 90% of drug dealers are nefarious and commit other crimes as well.
Drug dealers are looked down upon due to racist propaganda. Cindy McCain was a drug dealer but she's not what you envision when the phrase "drug dealer" is spoken, is it? You envision a young black man, probably a gang member because you've bought into the propaganda.
The REALITY is that the average "drug dealer" is a 20-30 middle-class white suburbanite who holds another day job.
Marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc. are illegal solely due to racism.
Government control of everything is and always has been the norm, even before the communists.
You weren't around before the Communists. All of those people are dead now.
Before the Communists, China was very loosely managed by the Ching Dynasty. Tibet, Manchuria, and numerous other territories were essentially independent. This is not to say that China has had a tradition of liberty and free expression. Far from it.
But that's no reason to defend the PRC as being somehow "normal". Most of the Chinese I know are from Hong Kong and Taiwan and they definitely feel oppressed by the PRC.
And BTW, just where in the United States is it illegal not to have ID on you?
California. In California a peace office has the right to detain you indefinitely until he can "confirm your identity". If you are not carrying state-issued ID on your person you are required to provide contact information for someone ELSE who can confirm your identity with legal documents. You can be thrown into local jail until that person contacts the police. If you have no ID and refuse to provide contact details you are thrown in jail until you provide contact information. Eventually, you're put in state prison.
The assumption is that most people who have no ID and refuse to provide contact information are illegal aliens, so any Hispanic who does this is usually sent to Mexico. For whites and blacks it's assumed they're trying to evade an outstanding warrant. There are apparently a number of unnamed prisoners floating around the California prison system.
The 4th Amendment isn't different in different states. NOBODY other than a "peace officer", a government employee, can search you without your express permission. If you refuse, no private security guard can legally search you under any circumstances. This includes the scenario where he has video tape of you busting into a jewelery cabinet and can actually SEE the stuff you stole sticking out of your pants.
What he CAN do is detain you until the police get there. That's not a "search". He is not allowed to gather evidence. Literally the ONLY special authority that security guards have is that they can detain people until the police get there IF they committed a crime. If they person they're holding DIDN'T commit a crime then it's kidnapping and the guard can get 25 years in prison. This is why guards almost always have videotape before they detain someone.
Now, in practice, teenagers stealing CDs and professional shoplifting rings probably aren't going to put up a big legal fuss about being detained for shoplifting. But store security is usually very careful towards anyone they think might sue, especially anyone elderly. I know a bit about shoplifting rings, and a lot of them are made up of little old ladies because they know the store security isn't going to harass them even if they're caught red-handed.
What you have here is not a violation of any rights, they weren't going to search purses and handbags (although some stores do - but they clearly post that they reserve the right). It's implied consent when you shop at a store like that, and if you don't like it, don't go back.
Wrong. A retail outlet can't put up a sign saying "We reserve the right to ass rape you." and then ass rape you when you walk into the store.
Store security staff have no right to search you. At all. Under ANY circumstances. You can, and should, walk right by those idiots asking to check your bag. Remember, ONLY police officers have the right to touch you without your permission.
That includes shoplifting. CASE LAW has it that if a store security guard thinks you are shoplifting he may call the police and detain you until they arrive. Technically, he can't search you, but some guards may do it anyway assuming the shoplifter won't put up a big stink about it (usually they don't). However, if that guard starts harassing someone who ISN'T shoplifting he's automatically in the wrong and stores have been sued for large sums of money for having security staff arbitrarily harassing customers. Look up "shopping while black". Judges have granted awards to black plaintiffs simply because security staff was LOOKING at them in stores.
Smart store security doesn't even consider touching a customer in any way unless they have the shoplifting on video.
One of the problems with Vista was hardware upgrades.
Absolutely correct. Vista had a lot of problems at launch mainly due to the fact that hardware manufacturers had been making rapid design changes to motherboards that limited their upgradability due to changes in the socket design, plus they were going through the AGP to PCI Express transition, plus embedded DirectX 9 capable cards were not yet ready, which meant that anyone buying a NEW PC at launch to run Vista couldn't really use embedded video.
These factors meant that old systems couldn't be upgraded to run Vista and that even some new systems couldn't run Vista and couldn't be upgraded to do so (because they were super cheap and had no PCI Express slots). This wasn't MS' fault per se, a AGP 4X card running DirectX 9, 2GB of DDR, and a 1000 mHz single-core CPU would have done just fine, but the market didn't evolve in that way.
The only people I see pretending to be drooling over MS's second-rate eye candy are the pundits that they're bribing with cash and free equipment
Second rate compared to what? Are you seriously going to argue that Quartz has more features than DWM? Really?
Even before launch there were themes and effects for DWM that were dramatically more sophisticated than anything Quartz could handle. You can do full 3D objects in DWM, like a window to can rotate with multiple "sides", or 3D animated window elements. Flip 3D is a good example of what you can do.
I haven't heard many complaints that Aero wasn't ambitious ENOUGH.
I was raised in a Christian household and I'm sick of hearing about the evils of Hollywood this, the evils of rock and roll that, DC being a pit of slime because people haven't accepted Jesus into their hearts.
The people that say things like this are cowards and posers. They don't really care about values or religion at all (certainly not as much as MONEY and popular entertainment). If they did they would adopt REAL Christian values and join a REAL Christian community, like the Mennonites or Quakers. They don't because REAL Christianity requires belief and sacrifice. You can't be rich and be a Christian. You can't be a solder or use violence and be a Christian. You actually need to spend time in prayer and engage in charity.
It's a lot easier just to complain about everyone else being "immoral" than to actually follow Christian ideals yourself.
Actually, I was explaining WHY we aren't seeing a lot of Vista in the corporate world. Sites haven't upgraded their images yet. Most sites are still using Server 2003 and Exchange 2003 too. Upgrading takes a while in the corporate world, always has. Echange 2007, Server 2008 and Vista are all trickling in. Many sites are looking to roll out Server 2008 and Vista at the time and that was the plan LONG BEFORE Vista launched. Expect to see a lot of sites upgrade NEXT YEAR, despite the economic downturn. Though with a quick release of Windows 7, many sites might wait for that.
The point is, they're NOT abandoning Windows for Linux. They're sticking with XP and waiting on Vista or maybe waiting for Windows 7 assuming it ships quickly enough. I've seen more adoption of MacOS, largely because the laptop hardware is very compelling and recent versions of MacOS intergrate with Active Directory a lot better.
You don't construct arguments of aesthetics based on logic, but by appealing to authorities. Playing a shitload of Bemani games makes me more qualified to judge Bemani controllers than others who haven't. Experience matters. And yeah, having pro experience also helps. RedOctane and Harmonix both went to pro guitar and drum players for help with their controllers.
So grab those files in iTunes (since you already have it up), drag it to the desktop or into the filesystem of the second iPod you want to own those files. We are talking files, right?
Um, how do I do this?
1) I have iPodA plugged into PCA synced to the library on PCA. 2) I have iPodB, synced to PCB. 3) I plug iPodB into PCA, iTunes asks me if I want to sync iPodB to PCA's library. If I say Yes, it overwrites iPodB with the library on PCA. If I say No, iPodB doesn't appear in iTunes and I can't add files or do anything. 4) Adding files to the filesystem of iPodB doesn't seem to add them to the library. And on the Touch and iPhones you can't even access the filesystem to do this. This isn't a problem for other musicphones.
The mangling of filenames is actually a feature called a hash table and was implemented with iPod 1.0, where all the files were stored into a fixed number of directories and subdirectories. It essentially mean you could search the iPod with no more than 2 directories accesses and 10 files searched.
I know this "feature" is supposed to make searching faster, but it solves a problem that doesn't exist. Searching works just fine on other MP3 players that don't mangle the filenames.
And iTunes fucked up all the ID3 tags of my MP3s as well by inserting hash data. That completely fucks up MY metadata.
Look, iTunes makes interoperability with other MP3 players very difficult by mangling the filenames and metadata. It's just a fact. Whether it's a deliberate anti-competitive move or just stupidity is another questions.
Microsoft have the precise number of Vista machines in the wild - it's the number hitting the Windows Update servers.
Actually, no. MS can't necessarily track the number of systems hitting corporate Windows Server Update Servers, and that's a big chunk of MS' sales. Licenses shipped is a much better metric for that reason. Some shops/individuals ARE downgrading to XP largely because they don't want to upgrade their images. The same thing happened with 2K. Eventually, they'll get around to it. I don't see the corporate world abandoning Windows for Linux en masse.
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So if this is just an issue with the ITMS, then it will probably not affect my choice to buy an Apple.
It isn't. It will affect the playback of all Blu-Ray discs and most video download services on the Mac. A bigger problem is the relatively limited choice of media managers on MacOS. Out of the box, iTunes will DRM all your ripped music and iTunes really doesn't play nice with media players other than iPods.
Of course, since MS has created a market where most OEM created cheap, ugly, non functional, and generally useless machines, there options are few and far between.
Note the word "most". The fact is, you can buy nearly identical hardware to the MacBooks (the only Apple systems worth duplicating) for less from several manufacturers. Windows XP and Vista run just fine on MacBooks. I really don't understand the value of having a very limited selection of hardware.
The wii is an upgraded Gamecube. The motherboard is very similar, it uses the same chips with higher clocks, the GPU has the same features with 2 more rendering pipes, the SDK is extremely similar, etc.
You said so yourself:
It's architecturally nearly identical to a Gamecube, but that does not make it a gamecube.
No, it makes it an upgraded or OVERCLOCKED GameCube.
Want to save energy? Turn your PC system off at night unless you've got a giant download, are running a server, or some other valid reason to have it on.
Frequent power cycles reduce the MTBF for computers. The more you power cycle a desktop or laptop the shorter period of time it will last until a major hardware failure. This is one of the big reasons (the other is shock) that laptops don't last as long as desktops.
In the end, power cycling your desktop might cost you MORE money because it will lead to premature equipment failures.
And because women can't be the instruments of societal pressures and contribute to their own oppression.
I'd just like to focus on this "self-hating Jews" comment.
If the statement above is true, isn't the CONCEPT of feminism completely wrong? If women are in fact he instruments of their own oppression, and more importantly they're the SOURCE of the ideas behind the oppression, how can this ever be corrected without removing women's ability to think? And if women are the source of the ideas how can we even be sure it IS "oppression"?
The problem you're running into is that some women will obviously CHOOSE to be "oppressed". You might argue that those women are uninformed, but NOBODY is perfectly informed about all issues. So in any scenario you look at all women will never be "equal" because some will CHOOSE traditional lifestyles.
What does it indicate, that jobs with any power attached to them are overwhelmingly male-dominated?
This is a key point. Job and salary parity are really a red herring. I don't hear any feminists complaining that 95% of construction workers are male or that 95% of registered nurses are female because those jobs don't give the people that have them lots of POWER. What feminists are really asking for is more POWER. More political seats, more top-flight business positions, more money for the same work, more benefits, etc.
What they fail to grasp is the sacrifices these people made to acquire that POWER. Like family. Most top-flight CEOs and politicians essentially have no family life to speak of. They may be married and have kids, but they never see them. The vast majority of women, for inherent psychological reasons, find this unacceptable. So most women ARE NOT SUITED FOR these kinds of positions. It's the same reason there aren't a lot of female astronauts.
Women that ARE willing to abandon family life do pretty well in these positions. Look at former Carly Fiorina and Secretary Rice.
Here is GameStop's printed return policy off of Gamestop.com:
Returns to GameStop.com Return to Help Center
Returned product(s) must be in the original packaging and include any manuals, cabling and accessories in saleable condition. We reserve the right to limit returns to unopened or defective products. Defective product(s) will be replaced with a like item, upon return. Terms and conditions of manufacturer's warranty apply to defective video games systems and computer hardware after 30 days.
We do not accept returns of:
* Any product(s) returned more than 30 days from the date on the packing slip.
* Any product(s) that has been opened (taken out of its plastic wrap).
* Any product(s) not in its original condition.
* Any product(s) that is damaged, played, or is missing parts.
* Any product(s) that were sold as part of a bundle, unless the bundle is returned complete.
Please do not send us product(s) that do not meet the return criteria listed above, as we do not issue refunds for non-qualifying items and cannot return the items to you.
1, Those used games are warrantied for 30 days by default.
Lies. I can't get GameStop to accept returns on anything used. One time I bought a used game, I was looking at the game AT THE COUNTER and saw a big scratch, and a return was refused.
2. Those used games are also warrantied for a full refund within 7 days.
See above. What you're saying contradicts the printed return policy for GameStop. GameStop will not give you cash money for any return (without court order) as far as I can tell.
3. We HAVE to buy your used games if they're in good enough condition and for a console we still sell.
This is technically true, but Gamestop will give you as little as $0.15 (that's 15 CENTS) for some games. At that rate dozens of copies of Madden wouldn't cost a store very much.
And with each subsequent release in a sports-based franchise, the previous iteration becomes instantly worthless to the customer and is thus sold to us, resulting in an ever-expanding spot in the racks occupied by the creatively titled (Sports Franchise) 03.
So why not just put a couple copies of Madden on the shelf and stick the rest in a box in the back? This is what every GameStop I've seen does for EVERY used game where they have lots of copies. Hell, for new games there is ALWAYS only one copy on the shelf and more are grabbed from the back.
Also, we actually offer a year warranty for our games.
For a fee. And it's useless. What happens if you buy a new copy of Fallout 3, get the extended warranty, and then go into GameStop 6 months later with a scratched disk? Nothing. They'll tell you "scratched discs aren't covered", which is true. The extended warranty at GameStop is a pure scam that covers nothing. Ditto for the warranties on consoles.
What's the "good reason" for GameStop's illegal return policy?
In most states you have 30 days to return anything you buy at retail no matter what. That is THE LAW. GameStop has a return policy that says you're not allowed to return anything used, no matter what, and they will not give you your money back on new games, just another copy if they happen to have one. They won't let you return ANYTHING for cash. This is completely illegal in the State of California and in many other states.
Critically, they often won't accept returns of merchandise that is defective.
For example, most of the Guitar Hero World Tour drum kits are defective. Gamestop won't accept returns on World Tour, no matter what. Another example is Blue Dragon. The crappy packaging scratched up the discs, but Gamestop would not accept a return on Blue Dragon, no matter what.
I've has to sue Gamestop/EB Games twice over this crap.
For the record, Gamecrazy is only marginally better. There really aren't any other specialty game retailers around here.
If anyone knows of a specialty game retailer other than Gamestop and Gamecrazy in San Jose I'd love to hear about it.
Marketing managers in general tend to panic whenever they run into a negative article in a mainstream publication. It doesn't mean anything.
The big concern about Vista before launch, and it's critical to the "Vista Capable" lawsuit, was that the OEMs didn't have their shit together. Despite years of extra time, many hardware manufacturers didn't have drivers ready and some (notably Creative) told Microsoft that using the new toolkit was too difficult and they would just release broken drivers for Vista. MS broke down and reluctantly wrote their own drivers for these devices. And lots and lots of others.
Worse, entry-level systems didn't have DirectX 9 cards (due to OEMs dragging their feet) and couldn't run Aero at launch. Vista Basic wasn't supposed to exist at all. Vista Basic and Vista Capable were something the OEMs insisted on because their $500 boxes couldn't really run Vista in January 2007.
Blame MS all you want but they gave the driver kit to the OEMs almost 8 years ago (Vista drivers are basically Windows Server 2003 drivers, they both use WDF). Betas were available to the OEMs nearly 2 years before launch. And in 8 years they couldn't get anything done. In many cases (80%?) all they had to do was change ONE LINE of code. I personally modified XP drivers for use in Vista, and yeah, I really just had to change one line of code.
"Do cops get a percentage cut of any drug money they capture?" Not exactly -- legally, anyway -- but ...
Legally, in many jurisdictions, they do. The proceeds from seized cash and goods (like cars) go directly to the department and then directly to the salaries of the police. Bonuses are granted for officers that seize more stuff.
It seems to me that you are making a very fine distinction between "required to carry an ID card" and "required to identify yourself to a police officer". California law is virtually identical to the Nazi Germany laws that required citizens to carry identifying papers. If you didn't have your papers, the Gestapo would detain you until your identity was confirmed. Most people in the world used to consider this oppressive and totalitarian.
The last two are highly addictive and there is a reason they are banned because people misuse them.
People misuse a lot of things. But the War on Drugs is about racism, pure and simple. Opium was banned, initially, only for Chinese. Why? Because white workers complained that opium allows the chinks to work harder so it was "unfair". Don't take my word for it, look it up. Marijuana? Marijuana was the drug of the Mexicans and white politicians claimed that Mexicans would use marijuana and go on crime sprees. White politicians also accused blacks of using marijuana and raping white women. Cocaine? Same deal. Look up "negro cocaine fiends". Again, don't take my word for it. Look up the actual statements made by the actual Congressmen who passed laws like the Narcotics Act. Look at the statements by Anslinger, the man behind the system we have today.
People would stop their cars in the middle of the street to make drug deals. I shit you not.
I briefly lived in East Palo Alto when it was the murder capital of the USA, at that time there were sandwich boards on the corner advertising pot, crack cocaine, and meth. The dealers had all agreed on common pricing to avoid arguments and turf fighting. Next to the sandwich boards stood Crips visibly holding weapons. This was to encourage patrons not to try to rob the dealers. The cops were all in on it.
During the same time I also knew several prominent political figures and socialites in Los Altos and Palo Alto that were dealing large volumes of cocaine.
Who do you think made more money?
None of this is an argument for making it illegal. The demand EXISTS. As long as there is demand (and there ALWAYS will be) people will meet it. Either you do it legal, or you create massive organized crime problems. There ARE NO OTHER OPTIONS. Organized crime practically took over the country during Prohibition and drug cartels literally run Central and South America. In 2001, opium production was at an all-time low because the Taliban was eradicating the opium fields. We defeated the Taliban and promptly handed Afghanistan over to the drug dealers who increased opium production 500 times. Opium is now pretty much the sole export of Afghanistan making up, conservatively, 80% of the Afghan economy. This has led to a massive increase in heroin addiction in China.
Relative to the current iron-clad control of the PRC, the Ching dynasty WAS loosely controlled. Rebellions were constant due to the unpopularity of the Manchu dynaasty who were seen as "foreigners" by the majority Han Chinese (trivia: The Han have ruled China for less than 500 years of it's history.)
The "death of a thousand cuts" is probably fictional. You simply can't keep someone alive for 3 days cutting chinks off them with no medical attention. The article you cited confirms that "Slow slicing" probably only took 15 minutes. And this was a rare punishment reserved for traitors.
The fact they meted out some brutal punishments simply puts them in the same category as the Europeans, Africans, etc. The Czars were pretty oppressive too. That doesn't mean that Western democracy won't "work" in Russia.
The Aztecs were WAY worse. The full-time job of 1 in 5 Aztecs was the processing of human flesh for consumption. Repeat, CONSUMPTION. That means 20% of the Aztec population, thousands of people, day in and day out were torturing, murdering, and ultimately EATING thousands of people. And these people committed no crimes whatsoever. They were either military prisoners of war or civilian slaves. No society, before or since, had practiced cannibalism on the scale of the Aztecs. If you you look at the timeline the Aztecs slaughtered and consumed WAY more people than the Nazis killed in concentration camps.
And remember the Romans slaughtered thousands of people in incredibly barbaric ways for mere entertainment. At least the Aztecs were motivated by religion, deranged though it may be.
BTW, Using "Q" for "Ch" is a crazy idea cooked up by the PRC. The correct Wade-Giles would be Ching or Ch'ing.
1) Turn on the FS on iPodB (an option when it is plugged into PCB)
So it's impossible. What you're saying is that unless you have access to BOTH the PCs the iPods are synced to you can't transfer music at all. If you need access to BOTH PCs, why bother? Just move the files PC to PC.
This is clearly seems deliberate to me. Apple really doesn't want you to share music.
Um, the problem definitely existed seven years ago when this feature was first unveiled, and as a solution it definitely worked.
No it didn't. I had an original Rio PMP300, and MP3Man, the first MP3 players ever made and neither had this problem (they didn't do any metadata though). I had an original Archos and it didn't have this problem, and it was a slow HD-based player AND did metadata and on-the-fly playlists.
Since it was a mass storage device it also meant the filesystem could not contain anything other than straight ASCII (and limited at that), so the files HAD to be mangled if the file had apostrophes, diacriticals, etc.
This makes no sense at all. The filesystem most MP3 players use is FAT32, iPods (I think) originally used HFS+, now they use FAT32. FAT32 supports almost exactly the same character set as NTFS (the only possible 3rd filesystem here) so the filenames on your PC SHOULD work on the iPod, just as they do on EVERY OTHER MP3 PLAYER. Special characters and Unicode are meant to be handled in the metatdata, the ID3 tags. There is simply no need to mangle the filenames and metadata into ASCII gibberish for "performance" and there never was.
Where did it insert hash data?
Into the tags. Last time I imported MP3 files into iTunes the song, artist, and album names in the ID3 tags were replaced with random ASCII strings (which I assume is hash data). Album art was stripped too.
Still the reason drug users are looked down upon is because 90% of drug dealers are nefarious and commit other crimes as well.
Drug dealers are looked down upon due to racist propaganda. Cindy McCain was a drug dealer but she's not what you envision when the phrase "drug dealer" is spoken, is it? You envision a young black man, probably a gang member because you've bought into the propaganda.
The REALITY is that the average "drug dealer" is a 20-30 middle-class white suburbanite who holds another day job.
Marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc. are illegal solely due to racism.
Government control of everything is and always has been the norm, even before the communists.
You weren't around before the Communists. All of those people are dead now.
Before the Communists, China was very loosely managed by the Ching Dynasty. Tibet, Manchuria, and numerous other territories were essentially independent. This is not to say that China has had a tradition of liberty and free expression. Far from it.
But that's no reason to defend the PRC as being somehow "normal". Most of the Chinese I know are from Hong Kong and Taiwan and they definitely feel oppressed by the PRC.
And BTW, just where in the United States is it illegal not to have ID on you?
California. In California a peace office has the right to detain you indefinitely until he can "confirm your identity". If you are not carrying state-issued ID on your person you are required to provide contact information for someone ELSE who can confirm your identity with legal documents. You can be thrown into local jail until that person contacts the police. If you have no ID and refuse to provide contact details you are thrown in jail until you provide contact information. Eventually, you're put in state prison.
The assumption is that most people who have no ID and refuse to provide contact information are illegal aliens, so any Hispanic who does this is usually sent to Mexico. For whites and blacks it's assumed they're trying to evade an outstanding warrant. There are apparently a number of unnamed prisoners floating around the California prison system.
Laws are different in different states.
The 4th Amendment isn't different in different states. NOBODY other than a "peace officer", a government employee, can search you without your express permission. If you refuse, no private security guard can legally search you under any circumstances. This includes the scenario where he has video tape of you busting into a jewelery cabinet and can actually SEE the stuff you stole sticking out of your pants.
What he CAN do is detain you until the police get there. That's not a "search". He is not allowed to gather evidence. Literally the ONLY special authority that security guards have is that they can detain people until the police get there IF they committed a crime. If they person they're holding DIDN'T commit a crime then it's kidnapping and the guard can get 25 years in prison. This is why guards almost always have videotape before they detain someone.
Now, in practice, teenagers stealing CDs and professional shoplifting rings probably aren't going to put up a big legal fuss about being detained for shoplifting. But store security is usually very careful towards anyone they think might sue, especially anyone elderly. I know a bit about shoplifting rings, and a lot of them are made up of little old ladies because they know the store security isn't going to harass them even if they're caught red-handed.
What you have here is not a violation of any rights, they weren't going to search purses and handbags (although some stores do - but they clearly post that they reserve the right). It's implied consent when you shop at a store like that, and if you don't like it, don't go back.
Wrong. A retail outlet can't put up a sign saying "We reserve the right to ass rape you." and then ass rape you when you walk into the store.
Store security staff have no right to search you. At all. Under ANY circumstances. You can, and should, walk right by those idiots asking to check your bag. Remember, ONLY police officers have the right to touch you without your permission.
That includes shoplifting. CASE LAW has it that if a store security guard thinks you are shoplifting he may call the police and detain you until they arrive. Technically, he can't search you, but some guards may do it anyway assuming the shoplifter won't put up a big stink about it (usually they don't). However, if that guard starts harassing someone who ISN'T shoplifting he's automatically in the wrong and stores have been sued for large sums of money for having security staff arbitrarily harassing customers. Look up "shopping while black". Judges have granted awards to black plaintiffs simply because security staff was LOOKING at them in stores.
Smart store security doesn't even consider touching a customer in any way unless they have the shoplifting on video.
One of the problems with Vista was hardware upgrades.
Absolutely correct. Vista had a lot of problems at launch mainly due to the fact that hardware manufacturers had been making rapid design changes to motherboards that limited their upgradability due to changes in the socket design, plus they were going through the AGP to PCI Express transition, plus embedded DirectX 9 capable cards were not yet ready, which meant that anyone buying a NEW PC at launch to run Vista couldn't really use embedded video.
These factors meant that old systems couldn't be upgraded to run Vista and that even some new systems couldn't run Vista and couldn't be upgraded to do so (because they were super cheap and had no PCI Express slots). This wasn't MS' fault per se, a AGP 4X card running DirectX 9, 2GB of DDR, and a 1000 mHz single-core CPU would have done just fine, but the market didn't evolve in that way.
The only people I see pretending to be drooling over MS's second-rate eye candy are the pundits that they're bribing with cash and free equipment
Second rate compared to what? Are you seriously going to argue that Quartz has more features than DWM? Really?
Even before launch there were themes and effects for DWM that were dramatically more sophisticated than anything Quartz could handle. You can do full 3D objects in DWM, like a window to can rotate with multiple "sides", or 3D animated window elements. Flip 3D is a good example of what you can do.
I haven't heard many complaints that Aero wasn't ambitious ENOUGH.
Maybe because it wasn't particularly important?
They didn't spend any time on Cindy McCain's painkiller addictions either.
I was raised in a Christian household and I'm sick of hearing about the evils of Hollywood this, the evils of rock and roll that, DC being a pit of slime because people haven't accepted Jesus into their hearts.
The people that say things like this are cowards and posers. They don't really care about values or religion at all (certainly not as much as MONEY and popular entertainment). If they did they would adopt REAL Christian values and join a REAL Christian community, like the Mennonites or Quakers. They don't because REAL Christianity requires belief and sacrifice. You can't be rich and be a Christian. You can't be a solder or use violence and be a Christian. You actually need to spend time in prayer and engage in charity.
It's a lot easier just to complain about everyone else being "immoral" than to actually follow Christian ideals yourself.
Actually, I was explaining WHY we aren't seeing a lot of Vista in the corporate world. Sites haven't upgraded their images yet. Most sites are still using Server 2003 and Exchange 2003 too. Upgrading takes a while in the corporate world, always has. Echange 2007, Server 2008 and Vista are all trickling in. Many sites are looking to roll out Server 2008 and Vista at the time and that was the plan LONG BEFORE Vista launched. Expect to see a lot of sites upgrade NEXT YEAR, despite the economic downturn. Though with a quick release of Windows 7, many sites might wait for that.
The point is, they're NOT abandoning Windows for Linux. They're sticking with XP and waiting on Vista or maybe waiting for Windows 7 assuming it ships quickly enough. I've seen more adoption of MacOS, largely because the laptop hardware is very compelling and recent versions of MacOS intergrate with Active Directory a lot better.
You don't construct arguments of aesthetics based on logic, but by appealing to authorities. Playing a shitload of Bemani games makes me more qualified to judge Bemani controllers than others who haven't. Experience matters. And yeah, having pro experience also helps. RedOctane and Harmonix both went to pro guitar and drum players for help with their controllers.
So grab those files in iTunes (since you already have it up), drag it to the desktop or into the filesystem of the second iPod you want to own those files. We are talking files, right?
Um, how do I do this?
1) I have iPodA plugged into PCA synced to the library on PCA.
2) I have iPodB, synced to PCB.
3) I plug iPodB into PCA, iTunes asks me if I want to sync iPodB to PCA's library. If I say Yes, it overwrites iPodB with the library on PCA. If I say No, iPodB doesn't appear in iTunes and I can't add files or do anything.
4) Adding files to the filesystem of iPodB doesn't seem to add them to the library. And on the Touch and iPhones you can't even access the filesystem to do this. This isn't a problem for other musicphones.
The mangling of filenames is actually a feature called a hash table and was implemented with iPod 1.0, where all the files were stored into a fixed number of directories and subdirectories. It essentially mean you could search the iPod with no more than 2 directories accesses and 10 files searched.
I know this "feature" is supposed to make searching faster, but it solves a problem that doesn't exist. Searching works just fine on other MP3 players that don't mangle the filenames.
And iTunes fucked up all the ID3 tags of my MP3s as well by inserting hash data. That completely fucks up MY metadata.
Look, iTunes makes interoperability with other MP3 players very difficult by mangling the filenames and metadata. It's just a fact. Whether it's a deliberate anti-competitive move or just stupidity is another questions.
Microsoft have the precise number of Vista machines in the wild - it's the number hitting the Windows Update servers.
Actually, no. MS can't necessarily track the number of systems hitting corporate Windows Server Update Servers, and that's a big chunk of MS' sales. Licenses shipped is a much better metric for that reason. Some shops/individuals ARE downgrading to XP largely because they don't want to upgrade their images. The same thing happened with 2K. Eventually, they'll get around to it. I don't see the corporate world abandoning Windows for Linux en masse.