I'm pretty sure Radio Shack will take your used alkaline batteries. Or any electronics store for that matter.
They'll take your cup from Orange Julius, too, but it doesn't mean that they will recycle it. I've seen Radio Shack employees throw handfuls of batteries into the trash, so make sure that your store actually participates in a battery recycling program before handing them batteries.
National US retail stores participating in a battery recycling program include: Ameritech, Batteries Plus, Best Buy, Cellular One, Cingular, Circuit City, GTE Wireless, Home Depot, Orchard Supply, Radio Shack, Sears, Target, WalMart, and Wireless Zone. Again, make sure that the pimply faced kid behind the register knows how to recycle batteries and isn't just tossing them in the trash.
do you know of anyone who will accept batteries for recyclying or safe disposal?
A better question is whether the company is actually recycling the batteries. I saw that one person recommended dropping dead alkalines off at Radio Shack, but I've seen Radio Shack employees throw fistfuls of dead batteries in the trash. I'm sure that they'd love to lure you into the store on a regular basis with the promise of recycling batteries, but will they recycle them? I don't know.
There is a firm called Toxco which recycles alkaline batteries (as well as lithium and other types). They have a rather short page of companies that use battery recycling services (Radio Shack is not on their list). You might contact them (see their contact page) and ask if they have customers that accept alkaline batteries for recycling.
As to "safe disposal", there is no such thing for alkaline batteries. You can't dispose of 2 billion batteries per year without an environmental impact.
Many advertise as "no mercury added", others as "mercury free", and still others say '99.x% mercury free.' But, regardless of that, you obviously recognize that 2 billion batteries per year going into U.S. landfills is an ecological disaster.
Recyclable batteries do not last nearly as long as non-recyclables... at least the ones I use.
The better NiMH AA-size rechargeable batteries are rated at 2100-2200mah. An alkaline AA Energizer is rated 2850mah, meaning that it has about 1.3x the capacity. But there is more to it than that. NiMH batteries work far better than alkaline batteries in power intensive applications. A NiMH battery maintains a high and consistent voltage during most of its discharge. An alkaline battery's voltage drops rapidly when used in a power intensive applications such as digital camera. In that kind of application, the NiMH batteries last far longer than alkalines.
Where alkalines have a big advantage is in things like smoke detectors and remote controls. A NiMH battery will "self-discharge" in 1-2 months while an alkaline battery will last for years with no load.
Also, be careful not to confuse NiCads with NiMH batteries. The two are drastically different in capacity. A typical AA NiCad has a capacity of 700mah, 1/3 the capacity of a modern AA NiMH cell.
A 9V engergizer giving out 625 mah would provide 3750 mah if converted to 1.5v (or what an AA runs at).
It's not being "converted" to anything. It's producing 9 volts. The entire circuit is two 9v batteries in parallel (thus producing 9V) in series with two 1.5 volt cells in series, producing 12V total ( 9V + 1.5V + 1.5V).
Each of those 9V batteries consists of six 625mah 1.5V cells in series. Each of the six cells is just smaller than a standard AAAA battery. If you put them in series (like they do in 9V batteries), you multiply voltage times six (6 x 1.5), and the mah rating remains 625mah.
The first problem with the battery pack is that it is grossly unbalanced. He shows alkaline batteries in it, so let's cruise on over to www.energizer.com and get some specs. A 9V Energizer has 625mah while AA Energizers have 2850mah capacity. Parallel the two 9V and you are only up to 1250mah, which means that the two 9V batteries will be dead before the AA cells are even half of the way used up.
Next, he is using expensive and environmentally harmful alkaline batteries rather than NiMH rechargeables. According to the EPA, Americans throw away 2 billion non-rechargeable batteries per year -- almost all of which end up in landfills. The single largest source of mercury in garbage is alkaline and button cell batteries. He took an iPod that had a battery pack that could be recharged for about a year and a half and made an alkaline pack that has to be thrown away every ten hours! It's projects like the one described here that make me think that the feds should ban all non-rechargeable batteries bigger than button cells.
Since the iPod would run on anything from 8-30V, he would have been a lot smarter to use 8 AA NiMH batteries in a case like this or this.
Hey needle-dick, I have posted nothing anonymously in this thread. You're just too much of a fucktard to recognize that multiple people hate you and that I'm just one of them.
What he wrote was It's the systematic destruction of our gaming history. It may be important to him, but calling it "our gaming history" is a bit presumptuous.
I'm curious how old you are?
42
Or to put it more simply - did you ever own a SNES?;)
No. I went right from the arcade games to the computer games. I never really did the console thing (with the exception of a Vectrex). But, despite never having been into consoles, I can still recognize what has real historical significance. How the author could be "shocked" that people threw away old boxes and manuals for SNES/N64/Genesis games is a mystery to me.
This is also why the 1980 KE-55 Toyota Corolla will always be one of the greatest cars in history. Because it was my first.
Then you might be "shocked" to learn this: There are people who have thrown away owners' manuals, sales brochures, test reports, and even window stickers from 1980 Toyota Corollas. See, that's where I have a problem with the author's comments. You get that the 1980 Toyota Corolla has a place in your heart, but you probably don't really expect the rest of the world to treasure them like Faberge eggs.
No, it becomes part of the past. I'm sure some guy named Bob put lug nuts on a Ford Escort once, but that doesn't mean that he's part of automotive history.
If Mr. Gamerdad thinks game boxes from the early to mid-90s are important, so be it for him. If they aren't to you (and for that matter used game retailers and customers), so be that as well.
That's fine, but Gamerdad is proclaiming it "shocking" that game retailers and customers don't share his beliefs about the importance of the boxes and documentation.
But don't mis-define history for us, please.
It's not me who is misdefining "history." Gamerdad wrote "It's the systematic destruction of our gaming history." No, it's just people throwing out old boxes and manuals.
I mentally emphasized the Japanese instead of the rest of it. After all, there's plenty of American companies mass marketing games, but you specifically mentioned Japanese. Yes, the Sega and Nintendo are Japanese companies, but I don't see how that's relevant.
I was referring to the cultural difference between the original visionary inventors and the anything-for-profit mentality of many Japanese firms.
My issue is that you assume that the SNES is the Preparation H and not the Polio vaccine. It doesn't have to be an either or issue; it's more likely something in between.
It probably is somewhere in-between. But I just don't view SNES as something that rises to the level of importance that justifies treasuring game manuals and boxes. No, it should not be ignored or written off, but neither should it be enshrined.
Now that it's apparent your intent was otherwise, I can see that I might have been a bit rash.
And that just got you on my "friends" list -- regardless of our differences of opinion.
Save your self-righteous rants for somewhere else.
Why? Because you don't like the competition?
When does something become history? In 5 years, will the SNES be part of history? How about 10? Surely at least in another 20 years, you'd have to classify the Genesis and SNES as 'history.'
Something doesn't become "history" just by being old. For something to have historical significance, it has to break new ground, change society, or otherwise have a profound impact on the world in which we live. Pong fits that description. SNES does not. You don't seem to understand the difference between "history" and "nostalgia."
You're probably too old to appreciate all of videogame history, anyway. I consider myself lucky to have gotten into video gaming when I did -- old enough to appreciate the real classics, young enough that I'm not afraid of new things. (sorry, cheap shot)
I used to spend my lunch hours in the early 80's playing video games in arcades. And last night I spent my evening playing the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo. It is because of my age that I can recognize the difference between something that's truly historical versus something that's simply out-of-production. I know why the MITS Altair 8800 personal computer is an important part of history while the Canon CAT is not. I know why Wolfenstien 3D and Doom are classic video games while Anachronox never will be. You don't need to apologize for recognizing that I'm older than you -- just for being so prejudiced as to think that anyone over 30 is "afraid of new things."
Um, what? Just because it's Japanese, suddenly it's not gaming history?
That's not something that I said or implied.
Is it just not old enough to be history? In case you didn't notice, the SNES and Genesis are a good two console generations in the past. The SNES was released (in the US) in 1991, and the Genesis is even older. If those consoles aren't game history, then what are they?
They are just outdated gaming consoles. For something to have historical significance, it needs to be more than just out-of-production. It needs to have broken new ground. It needs to have been a pioneering or revolutionary effort. The N64, SNES, and Genesis don't fit the definition of historical.
I guess we should just ignore the last 200 or so years of US History, too. After all, all the important stuff happened in the 1770's, right? Everyone should just study the founding fathers and then skip right to the present; nothing important happened in between, after all.
You need to get a sense of what's important. Of course you teach kids about the Wright brothers, but you don't wax poetic about the development of the Cessna 140a. You have lessons about the invention of the Polio vaccine, but you don't spend class time teaching about the development of Preparation H. You teach kids about the Ford Model A and Model T and how they changed our society, but you don't have lessons about the Dodge Omni and the Chevy Cavalier.
Maybe you're just trolling, but I have the sinking suspicion that you're actually serious, which scares me.
What scares me is that you actually can't recognize the difference between historical technology and technology which is just outdated.
P.S. The very fact that you would mark me as a "Foe" simply because you disagree with something I wrote speaks volumes about you.
Maybe you are referring to home Pong. But, that was 1975.
I was referring to the home version of Pong, which was released by Atari in 1976. The story was about home video consoles and games, so I tried to limit my comments to those. Sorry for not writing more clearly.
With SNES games, I can sort of understand that the deterioration of cardboard would leave you with just the cartridge and the manual eventually, but apparently the stores are now just throwing out the manual if the box is torn/useless. Even Genesis cartridges, sold in those hard shell boxes, are rarely found in their original packaging anymore. It's the systematic destruction of our gaming history."
SNES, Genesis, and N64 (mentioned earlier) have about as much to do with "gaming history" as Chevy Chevettes have to do with automotive history. The oldest among them, the Sega Genesis, came out in 1989 with a Motorola 68000 CPU. The SNES came out in 1991 while the N64 came out in 1996!
If you want real video gaming history worth saving, then look to the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972 as the first home video game. Then there is the Fairchild Channel F, which was released in 1976 and the first video game system to use cartridges. In 1977, the wildly successful Atari 2600 was released, Atari's first cartridge-based video game console. And let's not forget the Vectrex of 1982, the first and only home video game using vector graphics which it displayed on its own monitor.
Video gaming history isn't about a bunch of johnny-come-lately Japanese executives who sought to get rich with slickly packaged, mass market products. It's about pioneers like Ralph Baer, who, in 1967 prototyped what would become the Magnavox Odyssey. It's about visionaries wile Nolan Bushnell who founded Atari and conceived Pong in 1976.
Termites are consumers, we are customers. Unless you start making this distinctions, there is no reason for the companies to treat you this way.
While I appreciate and agree with your sentiment, the term "customer" implies a relationship with a single merchant. For example: "I am a Best Buy customer." "Consumer", on the other hand, is a more generic term that refers to someone who purchases from multiple merchants. An example: "I am a high-end audio consumer."
P.S. Sorry that your post got modded back down as "offtopic." It was not off-topic at all.
Anyway, I'm sure you know that Class Action lawsuits rarely have a good outcome for the class...usually they get a $5 coupon for some product the company makes, while the lawyers get millions.
The important point is that it costs the losing company millions. That's how we discourage false and misleading advertising.
I don't know the specifics of this case but there are some key points that we, as consumers, should consider.
When does a product review become advertising? I purchased a Cendyne CD-ROM drive after reading a review linked-to on their web page. That review revealed that the drive was actually a Lite-On. What I received was a Benq(Acer), a far less desirable drive. Is it fair for Cendyne to link to a review, knowing that the product reviewed is not even close to the same as the product that they ship?
Suppose Microsoft were to hand out pre-release review copies of Office which included support for importing OpenOffice.org files -- even though they knew that the import feature would not be shipped. Would the reviews of those pre-release copies be advertising? I think so.
If a software publisher touts a feature to reviewers and the press, then they should be legally obligated to either provide that feature or to prominently label the package to indicate that the feature is not present.
I've looked over the posts that were modded down and concur that most of them were undeserved. You'll get no argument there. But posting in your journal a complaint about it only encourages further abuse.
Thank you for taking the time to read the posts in question. I have not been mod-bombed since putting that entry there. The reason for posting that in the journal was to point out how it is an act of intellectual cowardice to mod-bomb someone rather than debate them. And you will note that, in response to that journal entry, someone else modded four of the five posts back up. I wanted to frustrate the person who mod-bombed me and take away any satisfaction it gave them. I wanted them to realize that they threw away their mod points and I hope that it discourages them from doing that again -- to anyone.
If you e-mailed the editors and they didn't agree to overturn the moderation, then I'd respect a post respectfully disagreeing with the editors. As it is, though, your journal comes off as whining, when you haven't, to my knowledge, used the measures available to you to question the moderation, yet complain about it.
Slashdot has over 750,000 registered users. The editors don't have time to deal with complaints about moderations every time a user feels slighted. That's what the meta-moderation is designed to solve in the longer term (by weeding out those who abuse the moderation system).
As for letting people post in your journal, you have 218 friends. Chances are, some of them will read your journal as well as some random people.
And it's also likely that others would post abusive messages in it. Why purposely turn on comments and invite that kind of problem? The comments default to off for a reason.
My journal is a place for me to publish my thoughts, analogous to a book. Like most Slashdot users, I don't choose to let others post in my journal. If you want to run your own journal as a discussion area, you are obviously free to do so.
Again, if there's too much abuse in your journal, I'd suggest contacting the editors and asking them for their assistance in curtailing the abuse.
I don't think that it's fair to ask Rob Malda or any of the editors to get involved with deleting individual comments posted to journals. What do they do when the person is posting anonymously from a dial-up account with a dynamic IP? Write long e-mails of complaint to the person's ISP? If Slashdot had several thousand users, that might be reasonable, but when there are three quarters of a million registered and many more unregistered, it's just not practical or reasonable to expect that kind of individual attention. Suppose that each registered user complained an average of once per year. That would be over 2,000 complaints per day and that's just not practical.
I am perfectly willing to discuss this in a civil manner and listen to your disagreements.
My issue with you is your arrogance about you that you seem like you can't possibly be wrong.
I have strongly held beliefs and convictions -- but I'm willing to debate them fairly.
All I'm asking for is if you're going to use your journal to call people cowards, that you give them a chance to not be cowardly and to counter your claims.
When someone chooses five posts by me in multiple threads and mods them all down, that's intellectual cowardice. If they didn't have the decency to debate me fairly in public, why do you feel that should I allow them to post in my journal, probably anonymously and with no accountability? Why should I let them fill my journal with vulgarities and insults? There's a reason that comments are disabled by default in journals.
And yes, 66 foes is a lot.
So is 218 friends. Over three times as many people marked me as friend than as foe. If George Bush had that kind of approval rating, he'd be ecstatic.
No, it means you know you're wrong and are afraid of being confronted about it.
I'm here. Confront me. What do you have to say?
You've already demonstrated your penchant for using vulgarities and resorting to name calling. Why would I let you make that a part of my journal? Explain that to me.
It seems like you've made quite a few enemies here.
I've got 218 people who have marked me as "friend" and 66 who have marked me as "foe." Sounds like a good ratio to me.
It wouldn't have anything to do with you acting like you're about 12 years old, now would it?
You're the one who's resorted to playground-level name calling, so it's you who's acting childish.
Isn't it funny how you ignore the part about being a coward because you don't let people post in your journal? You know it's true.
I'm not going to let some little fucktard like you screw up my journal. You have something to say? Write it in your own journal. Oh, that's right. You're an anonymous pussy so you don't have a journal. HAHAHAHA!!!
Just because you don't see a point to something doesn't mean that there isn't a good reason for it.
Yes it does.
You're just an arrogant prick and believe that whatever you think is true, no matter how wrong it is, just has to be the way things are.
If you think I'm wrong, then provide an intelligent argument to counter my claims. Otherwise, go back to jerking off to anime.
I also like that you are so unwilling to accept the possibility that you might be wrong that you will respond to anything and everything just to prove that you're right and everyone else is clueless.
You proved yourself clueless by not having a coherent argument to counter my post.
You're an annoying asshat, and have absolutely zero credibility. Begone.
I have far more credibility than you ever will, fucktard (see the +1 Karma bonus?). Try logging on and posting like you were a man instead of the little anonymous coward pussy you are.
A substantial proportion of these "apps" are shopping-list makers and such..
Maybe that's because normal people have recognized that something with a 3" diagonal screen and handwriting input isn't a personal computer.
I have no doubt that dipshits will continue to port Linux to handhelds. Then they will want more RAM to support it. Then they will want a faster CPU so that it's almost as responsive as a 1997 Palm. Then they will want to add more flash to it to store bloated Linux X-Windows apps. They they will bitch about the battery life not being long enough. Then manufacturers will add internal Lithium-Ion rechargeable batteries to provide the power. Then the Linux-on-handhelds dipshits will whine on Slashdot about the batteries being non-standard and not user-replaceable. And normal users will reject the Linux handhelds as being too expensive, too large, too heavy, and not user-friendly.
Not every solution requires a nail -- even if you really like using hammers.
If you need sugjestions I would recomend Farenhite 451 or for a longer title take a look at Crime and Punishment.
If you're going to pretend to be an intellectual, you might try learning to spell the titles of the books you are recommending (i.e., "Fahrenheit 451"). You could also try spelling "suggestions" and "recommend" properly and you could use commas where they are required.
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I'm pretty sure Radio Shack will take your used alkaline batteries. Or any electronics store for that matter.
They'll take your cup from Orange Julius, too, but it doesn't mean that they will recycle it. I've seen Radio Shack employees throw handfuls of batteries into the trash, so make sure that your store actually participates in a battery recycling program before handing them batteries.
National US retail stores participating in a battery recycling program include: Ameritech, Batteries Plus, Best Buy, Cellular One, Cingular, Circuit City, GTE Wireless, Home Depot, Orchard Supply, Radio Shack, Sears, Target, WalMart, and Wireless Zone. Again, make sure that the pimply faced kid behind the register knows how to recycle batteries and isn't just tossing them in the trash.
do you know of anyone who will accept batteries for recyclying or safe disposal?
A better question is whether the company is actually recycling the batteries. I saw that one person recommended dropping dead alkalines off at Radio Shack, but I've seen Radio Shack employees throw fistfuls of dead batteries in the trash. I'm sure that they'd love to lure you into the store on a regular basis with the promise of recycling batteries, but will they recycle them? I don't know.
There is a firm called Toxco which recycles alkaline batteries (as well as lithium and other types). They have a rather short page of companies that use battery recycling services (Radio Shack is not on their list). You might contact them (see their contact page) and ask if they have customers that accept alkaline batteries for recycling.
As to "safe disposal", there is no such thing for alkaline batteries. You can't dispose of 2 billion batteries per year without an environmental impact.
Many advertise as "no mercury added", others as "mercury free", and still others say '99.x% mercury free.' But, regardless of that, you obviously recognize that 2 billion batteries per year going into U.S. landfills is an ecological disaster.
Recyclable batteries do not last nearly as long as non-recyclables... at least the ones I use.
The better NiMH AA-size rechargeable batteries are rated at 2100-2200mah. An alkaline AA Energizer is rated 2850mah, meaning that it has about 1.3x the capacity. But there is more to it than that. NiMH batteries work far better than alkaline batteries in power intensive applications. A NiMH battery maintains a high and consistent voltage during most of its discharge. An alkaline battery's voltage drops rapidly when used in a power intensive applications such as digital camera. In that kind of application, the NiMH batteries last far longer than alkalines.
Where alkalines have a big advantage is in things like smoke detectors and remote controls. A NiMH battery will "self-discharge" in 1-2 months while an alkaline battery will last for years with no load.
Also, be careful not to confuse NiCads with NiMH batteries. The two are drastically different in capacity. A typical AA NiCad has a capacity of 700mah, 1/3 the capacity of a modern AA NiMH cell.
A 9V engergizer giving out 625 mah would provide 3750 mah if converted to 1.5v (or what an AA runs at).
It's not being "converted" to anything. It's producing 9 volts. The entire circuit is two 9v batteries in parallel (thus producing 9V) in series with two 1.5 volt cells in series, producing 12V total ( 9V + 1.5V + 1.5V).
Each of those 9V batteries consists of six 625mah 1.5V cells in series. Each of the six cells is just smaller than a standard AAAA battery. If you put them in series (like they do in 9V batteries), you multiply voltage times six (6 x 1.5), and the mah rating remains 625mah.
The first problem with the battery pack is that it is grossly unbalanced. He shows alkaline batteries in it, so let's cruise on over to www.energizer.com and get some specs. A 9V Energizer has 625mah while AA Energizers have 2850mah capacity. Parallel the two 9V and you are only up to 1250mah, which means that the two 9V batteries will be dead before the AA cells are even half of the way used up.
Next, he is using expensive and environmentally harmful alkaline batteries rather than NiMH rechargeables. According to the EPA, Americans throw away 2 billion non-rechargeable batteries per year -- almost all of which end up in landfills. The single largest source of mercury in garbage is alkaline and button cell batteries. He took an iPod that had a battery pack that could be recharged for about a year and a half and made an alkaline pack that has to be thrown away every ten hours! It's projects like the one described here that make me think that the feds should ban all non-rechargeable batteries bigger than button cells.
Since the iPod would run on anything from 8-30V, he would have been a lot smarter to use 8 AA NiMH batteries in a case like this or this.
Hey needle-dick, I have posted nothing anonymously in this thread. You're just too much of a fucktard to recognize that multiple people hate you and that I'm just one of them.
By the way, you don't have balls.
It's important in their gaming history.
;)
What he wrote was It's the systematic destruction of our gaming history. It may be important to him, but calling it "our gaming history" is a bit presumptuous.
I'm curious how old you are?
42
Or to put it more simply - did you ever own a SNES?
No. I went right from the arcade games to the computer games. I never really did the console thing (with the exception of a Vectrex). But, despite never having been into consoles, I can still recognize what has real historical significance. How the author could be "shocked" that people threw away old boxes and manuals for SNES/N64/Genesis games is a mystery to me.
This is also why the 1980 KE-55 Toyota Corolla will always be one of the greatest cars in history. Because it was my first.
Then you might be "shocked" to learn this: There are people who have thrown away owners' manuals, sales brochures, test reports, and even window stickers from 1980 Toyota Corollas. See, that's where I have a problem with the author's comments. You get that the 1980 Toyota Corolla has a place in your heart, but you probably don't really expect the rest of the world to treasure them like Faberge eggs.
I knew that thing was too small to be a thumb.
Something becomes part of history just by being.
No, it becomes part of the past. I'm sure some guy named Bob put lug nuts on a Ford Escort once, but that doesn't mean that he's part of automotive history.
If Mr. Gamerdad thinks game boxes from the early to mid-90s are important, so be it for him. If they aren't to you (and for that matter used game retailers and customers), so be that as well.
That's fine, but Gamerdad is proclaiming it "shocking" that game retailers and customers don't share his beliefs about the importance of the boxes and documentation.
But don't mis-define history for us, please.
It's not me who is misdefining "history." Gamerdad wrote "It's the systematic destruction of our gaming history." No, it's just people throwing out old boxes and manuals.
I mentally emphasized the Japanese instead of the rest of it. After all, there's plenty of American companies mass marketing games, but you specifically mentioned Japanese. Yes, the Sega and Nintendo are Japanese companies, but I don't see how that's relevant.
I was referring to the cultural difference between the original visionary inventors and the anything-for-profit mentality of many Japanese firms.
My issue is that you assume that the SNES is the Preparation H and not the Polio vaccine. It doesn't have to be an either or issue; it's more likely something in between.
It probably is somewhere in-between. But I just don't view SNES as something that rises to the level of importance that justifies treasuring game manuals and boxes. No, it should not be ignored or written off, but neither should it be enshrined.
Now that it's apparent your intent was otherwise, I can see that I might have been a bit rash.
And that just got you on my "friends" list -- regardless of our differences of opinion.
Save your self-righteous rants for somewhere else.
Why? Because you don't like the competition?
When does something become history? In 5 years, will the SNES be part of history? How about 10? Surely at least in another 20 years, you'd have to classify the Genesis and SNES as 'history.'
Something doesn't become "history" just by being old. For something to have historical significance, it has to break new ground, change society, or otherwise have a profound impact on the world in which we live. Pong fits that description. SNES does not. You don't seem to understand the difference between "history" and "nostalgia."
You're probably too old to appreciate all of videogame history, anyway. I consider myself lucky to have gotten into video gaming when I did -- old enough to appreciate the real classics, young enough that I'm not afraid of new things. (sorry, cheap shot)
I used to spend my lunch hours in the early 80's playing video games in arcades. And last night I spent my evening playing the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo. It is because of my age that I can recognize the difference between something that's truly historical versus something that's simply out-of-production. I know why the MITS Altair 8800 personal computer is an important part of history while the Canon CAT is not. I know why Wolfenstien 3D and Doom are classic video games while Anachronox never will be. You don't need to apologize for recognizing that I'm older than you -- just for being so prejudiced as to think that anyone over 30 is "afraid of new things."
Um, what? Just because it's Japanese, suddenly it's not gaming history?
That's not something that I said or implied.
Is it just not old enough to be history? In case you didn't notice, the SNES and Genesis are a good two console generations in the past. The SNES was released (in the US) in 1991, and the Genesis is even older. If those consoles aren't game history, then what are they?
They are just outdated gaming consoles. For something to have historical significance, it needs to be more than just out-of-production. It needs to have broken new ground. It needs to have been a pioneering or revolutionary effort. The N64, SNES, and Genesis don't fit the definition of historical.
I guess we should just ignore the last 200 or so years of US History, too. After all, all the important stuff happened in the 1770's, right? Everyone should just study the founding fathers and then skip right to the present; nothing important happened in between, after all.
You need to get a sense of what's important. Of course you teach kids about the Wright brothers, but you don't wax poetic about the development of the Cessna 140a. You have lessons about the invention of the Polio vaccine, but you don't spend class time teaching about the development of Preparation H. You teach kids about the Ford Model A and Model T and how they changed our society, but you don't have lessons about the Dodge Omni and the Chevy Cavalier.
Maybe you're just trolling, but I have the sinking suspicion that you're actually serious, which scares me.
What scares me is that you actually can't recognize the difference between historical technology and technology which is just outdated.
P.S. The very fact that you would mark me as a "Foe" simply because you disagree with something I wrote speaks volumes about you.
Maybe you are referring to home Pong. But, that was 1975.
I was referring to the home version of Pong, which was released by Atari in 1976. The story was about home video consoles and games, so I tried to limit my comments to those. Sorry for not writing more clearly.
With SNES games, I can sort of understand that the deterioration of cardboard would leave you with just the cartridge and the manual eventually, but apparently the stores are now just throwing out the manual if the box is torn/useless. Even Genesis cartridges, sold in those hard shell boxes, are rarely found in their original packaging anymore. It's the systematic destruction of our gaming history."
SNES, Genesis, and N64 (mentioned earlier) have about as much to do with "gaming history" as Chevy Chevettes have to do with automotive history. The oldest among them, the Sega Genesis, came out in 1989 with a Motorola 68000 CPU. The SNES came out in 1991 while the N64 came out in 1996!
If you want real video gaming history worth saving, then look to the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972 as the first home video game. Then there is the Fairchild Channel F, which was released in 1976 and the first video game system to use cartridges. In 1977, the wildly successful Atari 2600 was released, Atari's first cartridge-based video game console. And let's not forget the Vectrex of 1982, the first and only home video game using vector graphics which it displayed on its own monitor.
Video gaming history isn't about a bunch of johnny-come-lately Japanese executives who sought to get rich with slickly packaged, mass market products. It's about pioneers like Ralph Baer, who, in 1967 prototyped what would become the Magnavox Odyssey. It's about visionaries wile Nolan Bushnell who founded Atari and conceived Pong in 1976.
Termites are consumers, we are customers .
Unless you start making this distinctions, there is no reason for the companies to treat you this way.
While I appreciate and agree with your sentiment, the term "customer" implies a relationship with a single merchant. For example: "I am a Best Buy customer." "Consumer", on the other hand, is a more generic term that refers to someone who purchases from multiple merchants. An example: "I am a high-end audio consumer."
P.S. Sorry that your post got modded back down as "offtopic." It was not off-topic at all.
Anyway, I'm sure you know that Class Action lawsuits rarely have a good outcome for the class...usually they get a $5 coupon for some product the company makes, while the lawyers get millions.
The important point is that it costs the losing company millions. That's how we discourage false and misleading advertising.
I don't know the specifics of this case but there are some key points that we, as consumers, should consider.
When does a product review become advertising? I purchased a Cendyne CD-ROM drive after reading a review linked-to on their web page. That review revealed that the drive was actually a Lite-On. What I received was a Benq(Acer), a far less desirable drive. Is it fair for Cendyne to link to a review, knowing that the product reviewed is not even close to the same as the product that they ship?
Suppose Microsoft were to hand out pre-release review copies of Office which included support for importing OpenOffice.org files -- even though they knew that the import feature would not be shipped. Would the reviews of those pre-release copies be advertising? I think so.
If a software publisher touts a feature to reviewers and the press, then they should be legally obligated to either provide that feature or to prominently label the package to indicate that the feature is not present.
I've looked over the posts that were modded down and concur that most of them were undeserved. You'll get no argument there. But posting in your journal a complaint about it only encourages further abuse.
Thank you for taking the time to read the posts in question. I have not been mod-bombed since putting that entry there. The reason for posting that in the journal was to point out how it is an act of intellectual cowardice to mod-bomb someone rather than debate them. And you will note that, in response to that journal entry, someone else modded four of the five posts back up. I wanted to frustrate the person who mod-bombed me and take away any satisfaction it gave them. I wanted them to realize that they threw away their mod points and I hope that it discourages them from doing that again -- to anyone.
If you e-mailed the editors and they didn't agree to overturn the moderation, then I'd respect a post respectfully disagreeing with the editors. As it is, though, your journal comes off as whining, when you haven't, to my knowledge, used the measures available to you to question the moderation, yet complain about it.
Slashdot has over 750,000 registered users. The editors don't have time to deal with complaints about moderations every time a user feels slighted. That's what the meta-moderation is designed to solve in the longer term (by weeding out those who abuse the moderation system).
As for letting people post in your journal, you have 218 friends. Chances are, some of them will read your journal as well as some random people.
And it's also likely that others would post abusive messages in it. Why purposely turn on comments and invite that kind of problem? The comments default to off for a reason.
My journal is a place for me to publish my thoughts, analogous to a book. Like most Slashdot users, I don't choose to let others post in my journal. If you want to run your own journal as a discussion area, you are obviously free to do so.
Again, if there's too much abuse in your journal, I'd suggest contacting the editors and asking them for their assistance in curtailing the abuse.
I don't think that it's fair to ask Rob Malda or any of the editors to get involved with deleting individual comments posted to journals. What do they do when the person is posting anonymously from a dial-up account with a dynamic IP? Write long e-mails of complaint to the person's ISP? If Slashdot had several thousand users, that might be reasonable, but when there are three quarters of a million registered and many more unregistered, it's just not practical or reasonable to expect that kind of individual attention. Suppose that each registered user complained an average of once per year. That would be over 2,000 complaints per day and that's just not practical.
I am perfectly willing to discuss this in a civil manner and listen to your disagreements.
My issue with you is your arrogance about you that you seem like you can't possibly be wrong.
I have strongly held beliefs and convictions -- but I'm willing to debate them fairly.
All I'm asking for is if you're going to use your journal to call people cowards, that you give them a chance to not be cowardly and to counter your claims.
When someone chooses five posts by me in multiple threads and mods them all down, that's intellectual cowardice. If they didn't have the decency to debate me fairly in public, why do you feel that should I allow them to post in my journal, probably anonymously and with no accountability? Why should I let them fill my journal with vulgarities and insults? There's a reason that comments are disabled by default in journals.
And yes, 66 foes is a lot.
So is 218 friends. Over three times as many people marked me as friend than as foe. If George Bush had that kind of approval rating, he'd be ecstatic.
No, it means you know you're wrong and are afraid of being confronted about it.
I'm here. Confront me. What do you have to say?
You've already demonstrated your penchant for using vulgarities and resorting to name calling. Why would I let you make that a part of my journal? Explain that to me.
It seems like you've made quite a few enemies here.
I've got 218 people who have marked me as "friend" and 66 who have marked me as "foe." Sounds like a good ratio to me.
It wouldn't have anything to do with you acting like you're about 12 years old, now would it?
You're the one who's resorted to playground-level name calling, so it's you who's acting childish.
Isn't it funny how you ignore the part about being a coward because you don't let people post in your journal? You know it's true.
I'm not going to let some little fucktard like you screw up my journal. You have something to say? Write it in your own journal. Oh, that's right. You're an anonymous pussy so you don't have a journal. HAHAHAHA!!!
Dipshits?
Yes.
Just because you don't see a point to something doesn't mean that there isn't a good reason for it.
Yes it does.
You're just an arrogant prick and believe that whatever you think is true, no matter how wrong it is, just has to be the way things are.
If you think I'm wrong, then provide an intelligent argument to counter my claims. Otherwise, go back to jerking off to anime.
I also like that you are so unwilling to accept the possibility that you might be wrong that you will respond to anything and everything just to prove that you're right and everyone else is clueless.
You proved yourself clueless by not having a coherent argument to counter my post.
You're an annoying asshat, and have absolutely zero credibility. Begone.
I have far more credibility than you ever will, fucktard (see the +1 Karma bonus?). Try logging on and posting like you were a man instead of the little anonymous coward pussy you are.
I counted three "bahs" in your one post. Are you posting on Slashdot or practicing sheep pick-up lines?
A substantial proportion of these "apps" are shopping-list makers and such..
Maybe that's because normal people have recognized that something with a 3" diagonal screen and handwriting input isn't a personal computer.
I have no doubt that dipshits will continue to port Linux to handhelds. Then they will want more RAM to support it. Then they will want a faster CPU so that it's almost as responsive as a 1997 Palm. Then they will want to add more flash to it to store bloated Linux X-Windows apps. They they will bitch about the battery life not being long enough. Then manufacturers will add internal Lithium-Ion rechargeable batteries to provide the power. Then the Linux-on-handhelds dipshits will whine on Slashdot about the batteries being non-standard and not user-replaceable. And normal users will reject the Linux handhelds as being too expensive, too large, too heavy, and not user-friendly.
Not every solution requires a nail -- even if you really like using hammers.
If you need sugjestions I would recomend Farenhite 451 or for a longer title take a look at Crime and Punishment.
If you're going to pretend to be an intellectual, you might try learning to spell the titles of the books you are recommending (i.e., "Fahrenheit 451"). You could also try spelling "suggestions" and "recommend" properly and you could use commas where they are required.