But, now I'm moving again. Just a few blocks. So I'm having my account moved to a different address and phone #, same modem, same ISP, etc. Simple. This time, however, I've been screwed. I got an original due-date for activation on 04/26. 04/27 rolled around and I called to verify the activation had been done. Turns out the 04/26 date was bogus, and they claim to have no way to find out who did the order. Now the due date is 05/15.
If my experience counts - you are probably boned. I moved about six miles on 8/29/2000
and got the run around that you are now getting. 5/15 is very optimistic. 8 months
later and I still have no dsl and haven't since 8/29. I give up. I'm stopping
at the cable tv office on my way home too see about a cable modem.
I'd be happy to boycott them. Most of hte anime companies do not, but the only list of companies I see on the mpaa's website says members "include"
Walt Disney Company;
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc.;
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.;
Paramount Pictures Corporation;
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.;
Universal Studios, Inc.; and
Warner Bros.
hmm... I've got a near mint Serdar Argic in a drawer somewhere. the huge iron-on type graphic doesn't breathe making it almost unwearable unless it's cold out.
Pity my wife gave the entire box of purple "WONK!" shirts to goodwill a while back. Damn, they were ugly
Well, yeah. I wouldn't want one personally and I suspect I'm in the majority. Right now my DVD player is the only thing I have ever gets a 5.1 signal, but that won't be true a year from now. I'd much rather have the decoder be in the receiver where it can decode multiple sources.
The only reason I could see getting a player with its own 5.1 decoder is if you already had a really high end "5.1 ready" receiver and didn't want to replace it. But, now that you have it you may be able to pick up what was a $1000 "ready" receiver 2 years ago for ~$200 if you look hard enough.
Interconnects only seem to matter if they are the limiting factor. You say you can't see the difference between the SVHS plug and the component video though? Me Either. The TV may not be good enough (or large enough) to show the difference, maybe the difference just isn't evident on the interlaced DVD signal (FWIW, I would have bought a progressive scan player for that TV) but you would see it when you feed it an HDTV signal.
You paid extra for a dvd player with a 5.1 decoder. This means you can get a good "5.1 ready" receiver. They are being discontinued by most mfg's so you can pick up good quality for quite cheap. spend the $$ you save on better speakers for now.
That's an asinine complaint. It's a good thing that the candidates did not craft some specially concocted set of answers for Slashdot.
Do you want to be pandered to?
==================
No, I just want them to answer the questions.
These pasted together Bush answers are keyword responses.
if (keyword=religion) {
spew about how much candidate loves Jesus;
}
else if (keyword = encryption) {
spew about harvesting marketing data from kids;
}
Bleah! Don't pander to the audience, but read the question and the answer the question that was actually asked or you look like (even more of a) moron.
I don't like Bush, but I also don't have any desire to limit access to the presidency to only those that could qualify for a security clearance. That would, for instance prohibit a communist party candidate since he is a communist pary member. Hardly constitutional
that's chaired by Hyde. Aside from being owned by special interests he's quite possibly the dumb dirt stupidest person in national office. Every time I hear him open his mouth I'm truly appaled.
so, what you are implying by your flame is
that you can indeed speak hindi, mandarin,
or other languages extremely poorly and still
be understood? That has not been my experience.
From my reading in linguistics and semantics this is one of the key reasons for the development of english based pidjin dialects.
As for spanglish, I live in L.A. I hear it all the time. There is a fair body of spanish words that are incorporated into common everyday usage. If your linguistics 101 course teaches otherwise it is wrong.
I don't think English is widespread because it is the language of the (current) World Empire, though that is certainly a factor. It is widespread because it can be learned really badly and still be understandable.
Others have commented that english is terrible because its pronunciation, grammar, etc are not logical. That's true, but because of that we have adapted to people using them incorrectly. A native Hindi speaker can learn a little English and when in doubt use Hindi grammar and people will understand him. Likewise he can learn the basic rules of pronunciation (the ones with all the exeptions) use them and pronounce it like Hine when in doubt. He will have a funny accent but will be understood.
Turn that picture around. If a native english speaker learns/speaks hindi as poorly as the stereotypical 7-11 employee and the result isn't a funny accent - it's completely incomprehensible.
Ditto for Mandarin.
Spanish is actually a good second place (particularly Mexican spanish) as a language that you can mangle and still be understood. It also has the advantage (in this context) of having a smaller number of confusing synonyms. But, well the are not the language of the current world empire, so english incorporates a lot of words into spanglish creoles rather than using a base of proper castillian spanish.
I'll bet I'm not the only one that gets confused when someone asks that question. 1st, I work there - 90% of my work is with computers other than the one I'm sitting in front of (Internet, intranet, extranet, whatever). Meanwhile the boxes at home are aDSL'ed and "on" 24x7. Does this mean "I" am on 10(work)+24(home) hours a day?
If I'm watching Canadian TV on the computer via net is that "tv time" or antisocial net time? 2 of the computers at home are connect to the DSL - does that mean I'm on the net 48 hours a day? If we don't count all the time the boxen are connected then how about all the time email is being downloaded or checked? When I'm across the room and the box says "You've Got Mail" (Actually Barbera Eden "Master, I've got mail for you.")? Does it only count when I actually physically check it? Is the only net use that they really want to measure the time spent typing one-handed into IRC?
Basically I think the question is a bad one. Really bad. Meaningless. If you start a study with meaningless questions the bets that is ever coming out the other end is meaningless answers.
the well written motley fool article will probably be the first wall street, and the stockholders of the big media companies will ever hear of this. This is a very good thing. a few years ago these guys were ignored by TPTB, but they are read by financial people now. they get quoted in financial circles the way slashdot gets quoted (and is unoformly read by) the tech journalists.
Long range this may be the turning point between where the Great Unwashed thinks cracking css is crimal and where they think it's obvious that MPAA is in the wrong.
hmmm..... maybe that's what Gold and Appel are really up to. Anderson and Celine are just floating the "resort" idea to confuse the rubes.
You'd have to buy it from the russians outright to remove their sovreignity but think about it. Satellite access to anyone that points a dish at it - no lines to cut.
insidious how it slowly invades the vernacular, isn't it? Irritating yet oddly amusing - the way Serdar Argic was amusing (and yes, I do still have my "Sceaming Down the Wires Tour" T-shirt)
If that local station is selling locally targeted advertising (e.g., state lotto, local franchise specific ads, Ritas waterice, etc.), then the advertising is essentially useless out of the region
Useless? If that's all the ads are maybe, but there's no downside for the advertiser. The fact that a few people in Thailand now know that I'm the Buffalo NY King of Pillow Slipcovers does me no harm, who knows, maybe I'll expand someday? so it's either good or it's harmless - never bad.
In your last sentence, do you mean licensee (local affiliate station) or licenser (The plantiffs: Fox universal, etc)?
hmm.. yea rereading it, it's confusing - sorry. I meant licenser in the context you put it. but look at your example, Fox Universal. Fox sells eyeballs, Universal sells content. when they merged together they though they had compimentary businesses. Perhaps they were wrong and need to rethink what they really do and how they make $$.
In either case, I haven't thought of all the issues, but i'm sure there are more.
Testify, brother! Couldn't agree more. I write from LA - home of all the IP attorneys (actually Santa Clarita, home of most stunt men and camera truck operators). I'm caught here between the rights of the owners of the IP and the fact that they put out in the ether, where it speeds towards the cosmos at 186,00 miles per second despite the efforts of the attorneys.
If I get an antennae that will pick up local broadcasts 3000 miles away is that wrong? No. If I can make such an antennae for $0.50 and sell them to everyone in the world? I kick the wind out of these same companies and they will try to sue me into the ground, but they seem to be clearly wrong.
Where is this? Somewhere in between. I lean a little to the way Canadian law handles it, but it's a wobbler.
) I think this is nothing but an attack from an uber-nich-feminazi organization against a group that has no reason to market to them
sorry. Read, for instance, their TR4 review. If they had the agenda you ascribe they would just flamed it and not actually reviewed the game. they seem to understand that it's fiction and that all game characters are characitures.
And actually an interesting site, it goes in my bookmarks. The author also states that (I assume) she canceled her subscription to the gaming mag. Can't blame her, lame is lame. Being male I can't really speak to the female market aspect but a mag with tons of ads that speak to 12 year old boys and only 12 year old boys sounds like a waste of time (unless you are a 12 year old boy in which case it's maybe Hot Grits)
If these folks want to extend their market beyond little boys they are going to have to do better than this.
It would seem as if you believe, that, since it is being rebroadcast over the internet it is OK. Let us imagine for a second that instead of being rebroadcast over the internet, it is rebroadcast on another TV station, only this TV station doesn't have to pay anything (like ICrave). Now how many TV stations do you think are going to pay the producers?
Maybe you were caught up in your point, that or you do not understand the station's revenue model. The viewer is not the customer, the advertiser is (discounting for the moment non-commercial broadcasters). By doing what you say the real effect on the broadcaster is that more people see the commercials. That's a Good Thing. If I were an advertiser it would make me particularly want to broadcast ads via Buffalo etc) stations. particularly if I want to target the geekish early adopter type that has a high speed net connections at this point in time.
From their own selfish point of view I can't understand why every radio/tv station does not simulcast over the net. Eyeballs are eyeballs. the NY CBS affiliate probably has agreements not to compete with the LA CBS affiliate in the LA market or they all would. None the less if someone like icrave does it for me it's my (the NY affiliate) best interest to let them get away with it and sell it to my customer as an additional reason to place ads with me.
you argument makes sense (though I still don't agree) from the point of view of the content licensee. If I sell the NY affiliate the right to broadcast my movie I don't want it showing up in France where it's still int he theatres.
but those who approach english as a second language DO tend to be discriminated against online -
This is true. The simple reason, of course, is that it can be hard to tell the difference between awkward use of a language that one doesn't know very well from someone who isn't thinking straight. IF I have to write a message in german (which I half know) it's going to be 1/2 kindergarten language and 1/2 babelfish. Someone reading it that doesn't know that would assume I'm a moron. So, yes, I would add a footnote asking to pardon my pidheon.
The english-language centric nature of the net is something that we (/.)can't change. It will probably only increase despite the growing influx of non-native speakers. Most of them leared some english in school and english has the odd distinction of being the language that can be most horribly mangled and still be understood. If anyone remembers the PBS documentary "The Story of English" this was one of its key insights.
I remember the 1989 Carnegie Hall version. I don't remember it in any detail, but I remember it kicked butt. We are not talking a trivial film composer here.
Slashdot Mirror
I just had a horrible vision of Taco and Hemos
running around Tokyo dressed as Digiko and Rabi-en-Rose.
But, now I'm moving again. Just a few blocks. So I'm having my account moved to a different address and phone #, same modem, same ISP, etc. Simple. This time, however, I've been screwed. I got an original due-date for activation on 04/26. 04/27 rolled around and I called to verify the activation had been done. Turns out the 04/26 date was bogus, and they claim to have no way to find out who did the order. Now the due date is 05/15.
If my experience counts - you are probably boned. I moved about six miles on 8/29/2000 and got the run around that you are now getting. 5/15 is very optimistic. 8 months later and I still have no dsl and haven't since 8/29. I give up. I'm stopping at the cable tv office on my way home too see about a cable modem.
I'd be happy to boycott them. Most of hte anime companies do not, but the only list of companies I see on the mpaa's website says members "include"
Walt Disney Company;
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc.;
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.;
Paramount Pictures Corporation;
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.;
Universal Studios, Inc.; and
Warner Bros.
Is there a complete list of members anywhere?
dozens of them. I'll bet the rest of the veterans of the HMS #poopdeck can come up with a complete set amongst us.
garyr (owner of probably the only car still sporting a DV/X bumper sticker)
hmm... I've got a near mint Serdar Argic in a drawer somewhere. the huge iron-on type graphic doesn't breathe making it almost unwearable unless it's cold out.
Pity my wife gave the entire box of purple "WONK!" shirts to goodwill a while back. Damn, they were ugly
>dvd players with 5.1 harder to find.
Well, yeah. I wouldn't want one personally and I suspect I'm in the majority. Right now my DVD player is the only thing I have ever gets a 5.1 signal, but that won't be true a year from now. I'd much rather have the decoder be in the receiver where it can decode multiple sources.
The only reason I could see getting a player with its own 5.1 decoder is if you already had a really high end "5.1 ready" receiver and didn't want to replace it. But, now that you have it you may be able to pick up what was a $1000 "ready" receiver 2 years ago for ~$200 if you look hard enough.
Interconnects only seem to matter if they are the limiting factor. You say you can't see the difference between the SVHS plug and the component video though? Me Either. The TV may not be good enough (or large enough) to show the difference, maybe the difference just isn't evident on the interlaced DVD signal (FWIW, I would have bought a progressive scan player for that TV) but you would see it when you feed it an HDTV signal.
garyr
You paid extra for a dvd player with a 5.1 decoder. This means you can get a good "5.1 ready" receiver. They are being discontinued by most mfg's so you can pick up good quality for quite cheap. spend the $$ you save on better speakers for now.
I'll have to watch the Utena movie again to make up for it.
That's an asinine complaint. It's a good thing that the candidates did not craft some specially concocted set of answers for Slashdot.
Do you want to be pandered to?
==================
No, I just want them to answer the questions.
These pasted together Bush answers are keyword responses.
if (keyword=religion) {
spew about how much candidate loves Jesus;
}
else if (keyword = encryption) {
spew about harvesting marketing data from kids;
}
Bleah! Don't pander to the audience, but read the question and the answer the question that was actually asked or you look like (even more of a) moron.
I don't like Bush, but I also don't have any desire to limit access to the presidency to only those that could qualify for a security clearance. That would, for instance prohibit a communist party candidate since he is a communist pary member. Hardly constitutional
that's chaired by Hyde. Aside from being owned by special interests he's quite possibly the dumb dirt stupidest person in national office. Every time I hear him open his mouth I'm truly appaled.
so, what you are implying by your flame is
that you can indeed speak hindi, mandarin,
or other languages extremely poorly and still
be understood? That has not been my experience.
From my reading in linguistics and semantics this is one of the key reasons for the development of english based pidjin dialects.
As for spanglish, I live in L.A. I hear it all the time. There is a fair body of spanish words that are incorporated into common everyday usage. If your linguistics 101 course teaches otherwise it is wrong.
I don't think English is widespread because it is the language of the (current) World Empire, though that is certainly a factor. It is widespread because it can be learned really badly and still be understandable.
Others have commented that english is terrible because its pronunciation, grammar, etc are not logical. That's true, but because of that we have adapted to people using them incorrectly. A native Hindi speaker can learn a little English and when in doubt use Hindi grammar and people will understand him. Likewise he can learn the basic rules of pronunciation (the ones with all the exeptions) use them and pronounce it like Hine when in doubt. He will have a funny accent but will be understood.
Turn that picture around. If a native english speaker learns/speaks hindi as poorly as the stereotypical 7-11 employee and the result isn't a funny accent - it's completely incomprehensible.
Ditto for Mandarin.
Spanish is actually a good second place (particularly Mexican spanish) as a language that you can mangle and still be understood. It also has the advantage (in this context) of having a smaller number of confusing synonyms. But, well the are not the language of the current world empire, so english incorporates a lot of words into spanglish creoles rather than using a base of proper castillian spanish.
garyr
I'll bet I'm not the only one that gets confused when someone asks that question. 1st, I work there - 90% of my work is with computers other than the one I'm sitting in front of (Internet, intranet, extranet, whatever). Meanwhile the boxes at home are aDSL'ed and "on" 24x7. Does this mean "I" am on 10(work)+24(home) hours a day?
If I'm watching Canadian TV on the computer via net is that "tv time" or antisocial net time? 2 of the computers at home are connect to the DSL - does that mean I'm on the net 48 hours a day? If we don't count all the time the boxen are connected then how about all the time email is being downloaded or checked? When I'm across
the room and the box says "You've Got Mail" (Actually Barbera Eden "Master, I've got mail for you.")? Does it only count when I actually physically check it? Is the only net use that they really want to measure the time spent typing one-handed into IRC?
Basically I think the question is a bad one. Really bad. Meaningless. If you start a study with meaningless questions the bets that is ever coming out the other end is meaningless answers.
>I grew up reading Science Fiction of the type of
>Heinlein, Asimov, etc.. VERY wordy authors..
>>Damn right! and very good at it.
But you can't beat Bujold for a ripping yarn.
the well written motley fool article
will probably be the first wall street,
and the stockholders of the big media
companies will ever hear of this. This is
a very good thing. a few years ago these
guys were ignored by TPTB, but they are read
by financial people now. they get quoted
in financial circles the way slashdot gets
quoted (and is unoformly read by) the tech
journalists.
Long range this may be the turning point between
where the Great Unwashed thinks cracking css
is crimal and where they think it's obvious that
MPAA is in the wrong.
I, for one, was very glad to see this.
garyr
hmmm..... maybe that's what Gold and Appel
are really up to. Anderson and Celine are
just floating the "resort" idea to confuse
the rubes.
You'd have to buy it from the russians outright
to remove their sovreignity but think about it.
Satellite access to anyone that points a dish
at it - no lines to cut.
garyr
insidious how it slowly invades the vernacular,
isn't it? Irritating yet oddly amusing -
the way Serdar Argic was amusing (and yes, I do still have my "Sceaming Down the Wires Tour"
T-shirt)
If that local station is selling locally targeted advertising (e.g., state lotto, local franchise specific ads, Ritas waterice, etc.), then the advertising is essentially useless out of the region
Useless? If that's all the ads are maybe, but there's no downside for the advertiser. The fact that a few people in Thailand now know that I'm the Buffalo NY King of Pillow Slipcovers does me
no harm, who knows, maybe I'll expand someday? so it's either good or it's harmless - never bad.
In your last sentence, do you mean licensee (local affiliate station) or licenser (The plantiffs: Fox universal, etc)?
hmm.. yea rereading it, it's confusing - sorry.
I meant licenser in the context you put it. but
look at your example, Fox Universal. Fox sells
eyeballs, Universal sells content. when they
merged together they though they had compimentary businesses. Perhaps they were wrong and need to
rethink what they really do and how they make $$.
In either case, I haven't thought of all the issues, but i'm sure there are more.
Testify, brother! Couldn't agree more. I write
from LA - home of all the IP attorneys (actually
Santa Clarita, home of most stunt men and camera
truck operators). I'm caught here between the rights of the owners of the IP and the fact that they put out in the ether, where it speeds towards
the cosmos at 186,00 miles per second despite the efforts of the attorneys.
If I get an antennae that will pick up local broadcasts 3000 miles away is that wrong? No. If I can make such an antennae for $0.50 and sell
them to everyone in the world? I kick the wind out of these same companies and they will try to sue me into the ground, but they seem to be clearly wrong.
Where is this? Somewhere in between. I lean a little to the way Canadian law handles it, but it's a wobbler.
garyr
) I think this is nothing but an attack from an uber-nich-feminazi organization against a group that has no reason to market to them
sorry. Read, for instance, their TR4 review. If they had the agenda you ascribe they would just flamed it and not actually reviewed the game. they seem to understand that it's fiction and that all game characters are characitures.
garyr
And actually an interesting site, it goes in
my bookmarks. The author also states that
(I assume) she canceled her subscription to the
gaming mag. Can't blame her, lame is lame.
Being male I can't really speak to the female
market aspect but a mag with tons of ads that
speak to 12 year old boys and only 12 year old
boys sounds like a waste of time (unless you
are a 12 year old boy in which case it's maybe
Hot Grits)
If these folks want to extend their market
beyond little boys they are going to have to do better than this.
And that's all I have to say about that.
garyr
It would seem as if you believe, that, since it is being rebroadcast over the internet it is OK. Let us imagine for a second that instead of being rebroadcast over the internet, it is rebroadcast on another TV station, only this TV station doesn't have to pay anything (like ICrave). Now how many TV stations do you think are going to pay the producers?
Maybe you were caught up in your point, that or you do not understand the station's revenue model. The viewer is not the customer, the advertiser is (discounting for the moment non-commercial broadcasters). By doing what you say the real effect on the broadcaster is that more people see the commercials. That's a Good Thing. If I were an advertiser it would make me particularly want to broadcast ads via Buffalo etc) stations. particularly if I want to target the geekish early adopter type that has a high speed net connections at this point in time.
From their own selfish point of view I can't understand why every radio/tv station does not simulcast over the net. Eyeballs are eyeballs. the NY CBS affiliate probably has agreements not to compete with the LA CBS affiliate in the LA market or they all would. None the less if someone like icrave does it for me it's my (the NY affiliate) best interest to let them get away with it and sell it to my customer as an additional reason to place ads with me.
you argument makes sense (though I still don't agree) from the point of view of the content licensee. If I sell the NY affiliate the right to broadcast my movie I don't want it showing up in France where it's still int he theatres.
but those who approach english as a second language DO tend to be discriminated against online -
This is true. The simple reason, of course, is that it can be hard to tell the difference between awkward use of a language that one doesn't know very well from someone who isn't thinking straight. IF I have to write a message in german (which I half know) it's going to be 1/2 kindergarten language and 1/2 babelfish. Someone reading it that doesn't know that would assume I'm a moron. So, yes, I would add a footnote asking to pardon my pidheon.
The english-language centric nature of the net is something that we (/.)can't change. It will probably only increase despite the growing influx of non-native speakers. Most of them leared some english in school and english has the odd distinction of being the language that can be most horribly mangled and still be understood. If anyone remembers the PBS documentary "The Story of English" this was one of its key insights.
See this wired link
I remember the 1989 Carnegie Hall
version. I don't remember it in any detail,
but I remember it kicked butt. We are not
talking a trivial film composer here.
but then I like Milton Babbit too.
garyr
she was totally hot in "White Cargo" (an otherwise terrible movie) but who knew she
was a thinker? you'd never know from her
film roles.
"That's Hedley!"
garyr