Wait, you need the Live Membership just to use Netflix?
Hard as it is to believe in this day and age, yes. To get Netflix (and pretty much any other online service), you need to be a Live Gold member (or whatever they're calling it now). So in addition to the $7/month you pay Netflix, you've got to kick MS another $5 just for the privilege of using your Xbox One to do what pretty much every other device under the sun will do for free. Google "xbox one paywall" for the details.
P.S. I like This Week in Tech too - which is, I presume, what your name references.
Yep. Been a Leo Laporte fan going back to the ZDTV days.
It means that MS seems to assume that everyone with an Xbox has Attention Deficit Disorder, and so has loaded every fucking square inch of their GUI with increasingly flashy and annoying advertisements.
Actually, I was a Xbox fanboy for the previous two generations. But I'm heavily leaning toward the PS4 this time. With the exception of not including a IR input (damn you blutooth-only remote!!) Sony seems to be making all the right moves this time, and MS seems to be making all the wrong ones.
Sony is $100 cheaper, has better hardware muscle for games (allowing for higher resolution and framerates), has a nice new controller, has that GREAT new "Share" feature, and is focused heavily on the games.
MS has an annoying overlay for my cable box which I will never use (an IR blaster, seriously??), still requires a $60/year Live membership to access even basic stuff like Netflix and Hulu (no thanks, MS, my Roku lets me do it for free and it's quieter and has a better interface), a mandatory always-on camera and mic that creeps me the fuck out, and seems to treat gaming as an afterthought. Plus I've gotten more and more annoyed by their add-heavy interface in recent years.
Hey, it's the classic scientific method: Form a hypothesis, observe the evidence and/or conduct experiments then collect data, and if said data/evidence doesn't match your hypothesis then alter the experiment or means of observing until it does. Now THAT'S empiricism!!
Hard to believe how ahead of their time Sears was on one hand, and how unbelievably myopic on the other. In the early 20th century, you could order a HOUSE from the Sears catalog. They would ship it in by train as a kit. A fucking HOUSE! Yet along comes the internet, and they completely missed its implications. Here is a company that *specialized* in having people in the boondocks order shit from a large catalog selection, and shipping it to them (and had been doing it for over 100 years). And they take one look at the internet and say "Eh, no opportunity there." Just amazing.
Proof positive that you can get so locked into a certain mentality of how things are done that even the slightest attempt to step outside of that conventional thinking can completely elude you.
I couldn't believe it when I installed some software from Sourceforge a while back and ended up with a malware toolbar in my browser (that was a huge PITA to remove, no less). At first I thought it was a mistake, that I *must* have gotten it from somewhere else. Then when I heard similar stories from others and realized it was intentional, just a cheap money grab--I knew the Sourceforge I once knew and trusted could never be trusted by me (or supported) ever again. Sad day.
Anyone remember that South Park episode where all the YouTube stars were bragging about how much they were worth in THEORETICAL dollars? That's what I think of every time I hear about bitcoin's supposed value. Yes, a bitcoin is now worth 400 theoretical dollars.
I'm a geek who has tried cutting the cord several times now. And it's still just not there. It's better than it once was, but there is still a lot more that you CAN'T get than you can. And even the stuff you can get still comes with a lot of caveats, costs, and weird compromises.
Cutting the cord right now is fine if you're okay with accepting whatever content happens to be there. But it sucks if you're the kind of person who hears about a specific show and wants to watch *that* show (and not wait a year or more to do it). There are just too many shows that I like that either aren't available at all or would cost me $3 an episode to watch.
The problem is that too many manufacturers got addicted to the phat cash they made during the transition from SDTV to HDTV, and thought the gravy train was going to last forever. So the last few years have been one attempt after another (120Hz, "Smart" TV's, 3D, 4K, etc.) to recapture that magic (and those profits). They're not satisfied making the modest money they made during the later SD era, with people occasionally replacing worn-out or broken TV's. They want the BIG MONEY they made in the early-mid oughts when everybody was running out to buy a new big-screen HDTV.
I've been going to Blockbusters here since the 90's (as recently as just a few weeks ago, actually), and very rarely had any of those experiences. Maybe I just happen to live near some exceptionally good franchises, but their service and selection blew the shit out of the old mom&pops here. I think if anything is getting romanticized in people's memories, it's the mom&pops.
The Blockbusters in my area were very large stores, with many, many shelves of titles--including plenty of indies and smaller stuff (though not as many copies as they would stock of the big stuff, but more than enough). What you're describing actually sounds like most of the old mom&pop stores that Blockbuster pushed out here (a few shelves for newer stuff with blockbuster movies only, a bunch more shelves of older mainstream stuff, and almost no indies). Blockbuster here was easily the best place to find indie and smaller movies. Only one old mom&pop here ever had indies, and it was a little shithole that would usually only buy one copy of everything.
As an indie fan, I still remember the first time I walked into a Blockbuster here and found that they had the latest John Sayles movie in stock. That was the greatest shit since sliced bread to me.
It's funny, but Blockbuster in my area was about about the *only* store where you could find indies. The others were too small, and just carried the latest blockbuster stuff. The only other store around here that had any indies was one near the local college, but it was a dirty shithole with surly staff, a haphazard selection, and only one copy of everything.
Redbox has all the "latest videos", which to most people, colloquially means "all the latest Hollywood fare".
They do release new indie and smaller titles too. Not every new DVD is some Avengers movie.
Expecting the market to support thousands of stores nationwide to rent indie videos at absurdly high prices is unrealistic.
Blockbuster's prices were exactly the same as Amazon's for an HD movie ($4). And with Blockbuster, you got better video quality (blu-ray blows away Amazon's HD quality), some extra features (though increasingly rare with those lousy rental discs, unfortunately). And many of Blockbuster's newer titles were 5-day rentals too (as opposed to the 48-hour window with Amazon). So, hardly "absurdly high prices."
I say it again: something was lost with the death of Blockbuster. Online streaming may be more convenient, but it's definitely not better. Now maybe someday, with increases in bandwidth (allowing for better video quality) and if they start throwing in extra features, online streaming will catch up. But for now, it's a real loss for a lot of us.
Perhaps you think the West should just cede its technological dominance
Putting aside the fact that I don't see any other cultures in the world lining up to spend tens of billions on a new super-super-collider, you know what's going to be even worse than the West ceding its "technological dominance"? All the dollars in my bank account turning to dust when the U.S. government goes bankrupt, because we couldn't LIVE WITHIN OUR MEANS!!
My father owned several patents years ago, ran a business for years based on them. He is retired now (and of course those patents are long expired)
The problem is that copyrights, unlike patents, NEVER expire anymore. Not in the U.S. anyway, and the U.S. is all that fucking counts (because the rest of your pussy leaders will damn well do what the U.S. Government tells them to OR ELSE!)
Yes, because we wasted a shitload of money on some other shit we can't afford makes it okay to waste a significantly smaller shitload of money on *this* shit we can't afford. "Yes honey, I know I put this Porsche on the credit card....But it's a lot cheaper than the Lamborghini I put on the credit card last month!"
The selection is Redbox is a joke compared to Blockbuster. Blockbuster carried a lot of smaller, older, and indie titles that Redbox would never carry in a million years. Redbox is great if you're looking to rent a copy of the latest superhero-movie-of-the-moment, not so great if you're looking for the latest indies (which Blockbuster would usually carry at least a few copies of).
Yeah, now all they need is a shit-ton of tax dollars out of a government already $18 trillion in debt (and growing by $1 trillion a year). No problemo!! Fuck it, let's build a bunch of new Aircraft Carriers and jets while we're at it!! The party will never end, right?
Slashdot Mirror
Wait, you need the Live Membership just to use Netflix?
Hard as it is to believe in this day and age, yes. To get Netflix (and pretty much any other online service), you need to be a Live Gold member (or whatever they're calling it now). So in addition to the $7/month you pay Netflix, you've got to kick MS another $5 just for the privilege of using your Xbox One to do what pretty much every other device under the sun will do for free. Google "xbox one paywall" for the details.
P.S. I like This Week in Tech too - which is, I presume, what your name references.
Yep. Been a Leo Laporte fan going back to the ZDTV days.
It means that MS seems to assume that everyone with an Xbox has Attention Deficit Disorder, and so has loaded every fucking square inch of their GUI with increasingly flashy and annoying advertisements.
Even a Linux *magazine* ends up a hopeless mire of competing distros.
Actually, I was a Xbox fanboy for the previous two generations. But I'm heavily leaning toward the PS4 this time. With the exception of not including a IR input (damn you blutooth-only remote!!) Sony seems to be making all the right moves this time, and MS seems to be making all the wrong ones.
Sony is $100 cheaper, has better hardware muscle for games (allowing for higher resolution and framerates), has a nice new controller, has that GREAT new "Share" feature, and is focused heavily on the games.
MS has an annoying overlay for my cable box which I will never use (an IR blaster, seriously??), still requires a $60/year Live membership to access even basic stuff like Netflix and Hulu (no thanks, MS, my Roku lets me do it for free and it's quieter and has a better interface), a mandatory always-on camera and mic that creeps me the fuck out, and seems to treat gaming as an afterthought. Plus I've gotten more and more annoyed by their add-heavy interface in recent years.
Hey, it's the classic scientific method: Form a hypothesis, observe the evidence and/or conduct experiments then collect data, and if said data/evidence doesn't match your hypothesis then alter the experiment or means of observing until it does. Now THAT'S empiricism!!
Hard to believe how ahead of their time Sears was on one hand, and how unbelievably myopic on the other. In the early 20th century, you could order a HOUSE from the Sears catalog. They would ship it in by train as a kit. A fucking HOUSE! Yet along comes the internet, and they completely missed its implications. Here is a company that *specialized* in having people in the boondocks order shit from a large catalog selection, and shipping it to them (and had been doing it for over 100 years). And they take one look at the internet and say "Eh, no opportunity there." Just amazing.
Proof positive that you can get so locked into a certain mentality of how things are done that even the slightest attempt to step outside of that conventional thinking can completely elude you.
Nothing they could ever say or do will ever win me back. When you install malware on my system, we're done--for good.
I couldn't believe it when I installed some software from Sourceforge a while back and ended up with a malware toolbar in my browser (that was a huge PITA to remove, no less). At first I thought it was a mistake, that I *must* have gotten it from somewhere else. Then when I heard similar stories from others and realized it was intentional, just a cheap money grab--I knew the Sourceforge I once knew and trusted could never be trusted by me (or supported) ever again. Sad day.
Anyone remember that South Park episode where all the YouTube stars were bragging about how much they were worth in THEORETICAL dollars? That's what I think of every time I hear about bitcoin's supposed value. Yes, a bitcoin is now worth 400 theoretical dollars.
I'm a geek who has tried cutting the cord several times now. And it's still just not there. It's better than it once was, but there is still a lot more that you CAN'T get than you can. And even the stuff you can get still comes with a lot of caveats, costs, and weird compromises.
Cutting the cord right now is fine if you're okay with accepting whatever content happens to be there. But it sucks if you're the kind of person who hears about a specific show and wants to watch *that* show (and not wait a year or more to do it). There are just too many shows that I like that either aren't available at all or would cost me $3 an episode to watch.
The problem is that too many manufacturers got addicted to the phat cash they made during the transition from SDTV to HDTV, and thought the gravy train was going to last forever. So the last few years have been one attempt after another (120Hz, "Smart" TV's, 3D, 4K, etc.) to recapture that magic (and those profits). They're not satisfied making the modest money they made during the later SD era, with people occasionally replacing worn-out or broken TV's. They want the BIG MONEY they made in the early-mid oughts when everybody was running out to buy a new big-screen HDTV.
I've been going to Blockbusters here since the 90's (as recently as just a few weeks ago, actually), and very rarely had any of those experiences. Maybe I just happen to live near some exceptionally good franchises, but their service and selection blew the shit out of the old mom&pops here. I think if anything is getting romanticized in people's memories, it's the mom&pops.
The Blockbusters in my area were very large stores, with many, many shelves of titles--including plenty of indies and smaller stuff (though not as many copies as they would stock of the big stuff, but more than enough). What you're describing actually sounds like most of the old mom&pop stores that Blockbuster pushed out here (a few shelves for newer stuff with blockbuster movies only, a bunch more shelves of older mainstream stuff, and almost no indies). Blockbuster here was easily the best place to find indie and smaller movies. Only one old mom&pop here ever had indies, and it was a little shithole that would usually only buy one copy of everything.
As an indie fan, I still remember the first time I walked into a Blockbuster here and found that they had the latest John Sayles movie in stock. That was the greatest shit since sliced bread to me.
The government funds itself using Monopoly game money along with the capability to print as much as they want when needed.
You just keep telling yourself that.
It's almost more depressing to watch someone even try at this point.
It's funny, but Blockbuster in my area was about about the *only* store where you could find indies. The others were too small, and just carried the latest blockbuster stuff. The only other store around here that had any indies was one near the local college, but it was a dirty shithole with surly staff, a haphazard selection, and only one copy of everything.
Why not just spend the money breaking windows? Think of all the people who would be employed fixing them!
Redbox has all the "latest videos", which to most people, colloquially means "all the latest Hollywood fare".
They do release new indie and smaller titles too. Not every new DVD is some Avengers movie.
Expecting the market to support thousands of stores nationwide to rent indie videos at absurdly high prices is unrealistic.
Blockbuster's prices were exactly the same as Amazon's for an HD movie ($4). And with Blockbuster, you got better video quality (blu-ray blows away Amazon's HD quality), some extra features (though increasingly rare with those lousy rental discs, unfortunately). And many of Blockbuster's newer titles were 5-day rentals too (as opposed to the 48-hour window with Amazon). So, hardly "absurdly high prices."
I say it again: something was lost with the death of Blockbuster. Online streaming may be more convenient, but it's definitely not better. Now maybe someday, with increases in bandwidth (allowing for better video quality) and if they start throwing in extra features, online streaming will catch up. But for now, it's a real loss for a lot of us.
Perhaps you think the West should just cede its technological dominance
Putting aside the fact that I don't see any other cultures in the world lining up to spend tens of billions on a new super-super-collider, you know what's going to be even worse than the West ceding its "technological dominance"? All the dollars in my bank account turning to dust when the U.S. government goes bankrupt, because we couldn't LIVE WITHIN OUR MEANS!!
My father owned several patents years ago, ran a business for years based on them. He is retired now (and of course those patents are long expired)
The problem is that copyrights, unlike patents, NEVER expire anymore. Not in the U.S. anyway, and the U.S. is all that fucking counts (because the rest of your pussy leaders will damn well do what the U.S. Government tells them to OR ELSE!)
They have to put on a nice show that they're doing something, or someone back home may actually catch on to the fraud.
Yes, because we wasted a shitload of money on some other shit we can't afford makes it okay to waste a significantly smaller shitload of money on *this* shit we can't afford. "Yes honey, I know I put this Porsche on the credit card....But it's a lot cheaper than the Lamborghini I put on the credit card last month!"
The selection is Redbox is a joke compared to Blockbuster. Blockbuster carried a lot of smaller, older, and indie titles that Redbox would never carry in a million years. Redbox is great if you're looking to rent a copy of the latest superhero-movie-of-the-moment, not so great if you're looking for the latest indies (which Blockbuster would usually carry at least a few copies of).
Yeah, now all they need is a shit-ton of tax dollars out of a government already $18 trillion in debt (and growing by $1 trillion a year). No problemo!! Fuck it, let's build a bunch of new Aircraft Carriers and jets while we're at it!! The party will never end, right?
How about we call it the GFMP (Giant Fucking Money Pit)?