Being an introverted egomaniac asshole is not a disease. It's not a disorder. It's a buzzword, as you actually pointed out.
For the 0.0001% of the population that is truly and utterly incapable of emoting to any other human being, I apologize and you have my deepest sympathies. To the rest of you who use a crutch like Asperger's as your defense for not being remotely civilized - grow up.
The profit doesn't come from some company who shrewdly warehoused all this vintage stuff 30 years ago in pristine condition. No one does that, no one claims that as a good profit making gesture. Your comic example is exactly right, but you entirely miss the point:
The profit comes when you discover this stuff 30 years later, in good condition, by chance - and everyone else threw theirs out. Not that you stored it personally, yourself, all this time.
Incidentally, you can rent climate controlled storage space large enough for a computer system for maybe $5/month. $60/yr * 30 yrs - $1800. Much less than $10,000. You'd be stupid to, because no one knows what will be rare and valuable in 30 years time.
In short, your rant was more of a "well, no shit sherlock" kind of post.
This biggest problem with this theory is that it does not explain why hive death has started now. We have had more than a critical mass of cell phones for years now
Not quite.
You see, last year I finally was voluntold to carry a cellphone for work purposes. I had held out for years, but finally had to give in. I did my best, folks, but my phone was the tipping point.
They're not weight sensors. They're electromagnetic induction sensors that pick up the presence of a large chunk of metal overtop of them. Bicycles, of course, don't trigger them. Neither in many cases do motorcycles.
Money doesn't guarantee a movie will be good, but it does heavily indicate the movie won't be appallingly bad.
Except for Van Helsing. Sadly, I watched the entire thing because of a promise - trying to disprove a comment of "this movie has no redeeming value whatsoever"; I didn't think it was possible to spend $200 million and not have SOMETHING worth seeing.
I spent the last 90 minutes of that atrocity thinking up unique and interesting ways to gouge out my eyeballs.
You can always spot the younger Slashdotters in these threads. "OMG how could you possibly need that much music? It would take 5-10 years of reasonable listening to hear it all!!!".
Kids, some of us have been listening to music for several decades. 100GB of music might seem like a lot when you've been into it for 3 years. Not so when you've been into it for 30.
Hell, I can plow through 100GB of reasonably-encoded mp3s (say 1000 albums at MOST) in just under a year, between listening at home, work, and in the car. Which means that I've have heard every single one of those songs 20some times by now. No thanks, I prefer a little more variety:)
Your problem, good friend, is that you think of "power" in terms of graphical performance.
I'd say the PS3/360 are VASTLY underpowered compared to the Wii - power being defined by an easy, intuitive, FUN interface. A cross-platform game on all 3 systems will sell far more on the more powerful system, I agree. That system being the Wii.
Witnessing the last 4 months, the market so far agrees with me.
I just flew on a bunch of different planes in the past week, and a couple of them had the control tower chatter actually broadcast on one of the channels of the in-flight entertainment system.
It was actually pretty cool to hear the various airplanes yak with the tower. O'hare is a busy airport (to say the least), and it was astounding to listen to them juggle all the incoming planes. What was particularly funny was listening to them berate our pilot - the guy mumbled a bit, so the flight number kept getting cut off. The tower had to repeatedly ask him to repeat, and eventually they started making fun of him. Things like "well, this particular pilot doesn't feel he's important enough to respond to us". Tres droll.
Also cool was listening to the tower give directions (turn left, etc) and feel the plane immediately respond. All in all, it sounded pretty much exactly like it does on TV/movies. I'm sure if there were any actual flight emergencies, it would have been broadcast for the passengers to hear - unless there's some protocol to shut that channel down when things go amiss - which would just alert passengers to a problem anyway.
Then you need to look a bit further for insurance coverage.
Hell, with modern Comprehensive homeowner coverage, you can claim stuff you LOST. As in, misplaced and you just cannot find it anymore.
Note: things may be different in the UK. Plus, this house was a rental property, which typically DOES have a forced-entry clause. However, for your average homeowner in North America, theft coverage doesn't usually contain a forced-entry clause.
It sure would be nice if Nintendo would grab some brains and realize that the Wii has PARENTAL CONTROLS.
Yeesh, open it up for us adults if we so choose, and let this friend code nonsense exist only on locked-down machines.
I love my Wii dearly, but I'm almost certainly never going to use it for multiplayer anything if I have to go through the hoops involved just to transfer Miis right now.
More fuel to the fire is the endless number of arbitrary limitations MS uses all over the place. 32(?) GB limit for a FAT32 partition? 64k row/256 column limit in Excel? Not technical limitations. Just reasons to have to upgrade to the newest versions.
I've always found that quote particularly funny as no matter what, I've ran into one or more of these issues with every version of Windows yet. Not a single one of them actually a real technological limitation, just some arbitrary number chosen for some arcane reason years ago and since enforced by marketing who saw the ability to offer an "upgrade" in a few years' time.
Not that a response to an AC is likely to get read, but oh well...
Why is that smug? ANYONE can get renter's insurance. Anyone. If you choose not to deal with the expense, that's understandable. I've had my years where the $200/year just isn't worth it for the $2,000 in stuff I own. I also didn't make out like it wasn't my fault that I was uninsured when something hapened.
FYI you can get renter's insurance when you sublet from your parents. Or even just live with them for free. In fact, in some jurisdictions it's a good idea to do so, as once you hit a certain age, claims become "interesting" unless you're specifically named on their policy. As you aluded, you also have the "they don't want to claim for my stuff" factor, which sadly is an issue with many parents.
Second FYI: if you're only being offered insurance that doesn't cover off-premises theft, you aren't looking around enough. There may be limits on it, especially out of a car (the idea is that people are smart enough not to leave thousands of dollars of stuff in the back seat), but it's pretty damn common coverage.
Insurance is available for just about everything, everyone, in just about any situation - it just might cost a bit more than you'd think.
More like selling water from the lake. It's free for the taking, practically infinite - yet companies make a killing selling it in bottles. That's because they add value to the product (filtering and packaging), and make it convenient for the end user. Yet we're all still free to drink our water for nothing.
The music industry could learn a lot from the bottled water industry.
To add to this, I can't count the number of times where I've been at work in the evening/weekend, and some important piece of data (phone number, file name from some bizarre problem a week ago, you name it) was written down on a scrap of paper, and driving back home was NOT an option.
30 second phone call to the S.O., complete directions down to the colour of the paper, approximate size, location, what's on top of or underneath it, which side of the paper it's written on, what other scribbles are around it (my handwriting leaves a lot to be desired). Really freaks out my co-workers to hear a call like that:)
As the AC said, INCO has done a heck of a clean-up job in the past 3 decades. The comment about moon rovers was true - in 1969. NASA hasn't built a moon rover in decades anyway, which shows just how old this info is.
I last drove through Sudbury in the mid 90s. The trees do get noticably shorter the closer you get to the smelter, but the 'dead zone' is history.
I actually took this story half-seriously until reading your comment. With disinformation like that, I think we can all dismiss this as.. well, stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
The word "chemical" is now so widely misused that I get into really interesting conversations with people.
One being that water is not a "chemical" because it isn't bad for you (water intoxication issues aside).
Ignorance indeed.
Oh dear god...
Being an introverted egomaniac asshole is not a disease. It's not a disorder. It's a buzzword, as you actually pointed out.
For the 0.0001% of the population that is truly and utterly incapable of emoting to any other human being, I apologize and you have my deepest sympathies. To the rest of you who use a crutch like Asperger's as your defense for not being remotely civilized - grow up.
The profit doesn't come from some company who shrewdly warehoused all this vintage stuff 30 years ago in pristine condition. No one does that, no one claims that as a good profit making gesture. Your comic example is exactly right, but you entirely miss the point:
The profit comes when you discover this stuff 30 years later, in good condition, by chance - and everyone else threw theirs out. Not that you stored it personally, yourself, all this time.
Incidentally, you can rent climate controlled storage space large enough for a computer system for maybe $5/month. $60/yr * 30 yrs - $1800. Much less than $10,000. You'd be stupid to, because no one knows what will be rare and valuable in 30 years time.
In short, your rant was more of a "well, no shit sherlock" kind of post.
This biggest problem with this theory is that it does not explain why hive death has started now. We have had more than a critical mass of cell phones for years now
Not quite.
You see, last year I finally was voluntold to carry a cellphone for work purposes. I had held out for years, but finally had to give in. I did my best, folks, but my phone was the tipping point.
For more fun, copy and paste the line of "text" from within Notepad, into something like Excel - or even Firefox's address bar.
Is that Cantonese?
They're not weight sensors. They're electromagnetic induction sensors that pick up the presence of a large chunk of metal overtop of them. Bicycles, of course, don't trigger them. Neither in many cases do motorcycles.
And they're all primates. Maybe the next Ubuntu will be code-named "Happy Human"? :)
Which would be worse, and even less likely...
Money doesn't guarantee a movie will be good, but it does heavily indicate the movie won't be appallingly bad.
Except for Van Helsing. Sadly, I watched the entire thing because of a promise - trying to disprove a comment of "this movie has no redeeming value whatsoever"; I didn't think it was possible to spend $200 million and not have SOMETHING worth seeing.
I spent the last 90 minutes of that atrocity thinking up unique and interesting ways to gouge out my eyeballs.
And IE7's not compatible with anything - it all works out in the end.
Thanks, folks, I'll be here all night! Check out our loose slots!
I'd volunteer that your little script is by definition a trojan. Certainly would be delivered by one, at the very least.
when's the last time you heard of a bunch of non-geeks getting together and throwing a party to play video games?
The mid to late 1970s.
Nintendo wasn't kidding when they code-named it the "Revolution".
You can always spot the younger Slashdotters in these threads. "OMG how could you possibly need that much music? It would take 5-10 years of reasonable listening to hear it all!!!".
:)
Kids, some of us have been listening to music for several decades. 100GB of music might seem like a lot when you've been into it for 3 years. Not so when you've been into it for 30.
Hell, I can plow through 100GB of reasonably-encoded mp3s (say 1000 albums at MOST) in just under a year, between listening at home, work, and in the car. Which means that I've have heard every single one of those songs 20some times by now. No thanks, I prefer a little more variety
Your problem, good friend, is that you think of "power" in terms of graphical performance.
I'd say the PS3/360 are VASTLY underpowered compared to the Wii - power being defined by an easy, intuitive, FUN interface. A cross-platform game on all 3 systems will sell far more on the more powerful system, I agree. That system being the Wii.
Witnessing the last 4 months, the market so far agrees with me.
I remember! I remember!
Those cartoons sucked! Those cartoons sucked!
Right, Herc? Right, Herc?
(insert random flute noises)
I just flew on a bunch of different planes in the past week, and a couple of them had the control tower chatter actually broadcast on one of the channels of the in-flight entertainment system.
It was actually pretty cool to hear the various airplanes yak with the tower. O'hare is a busy airport (to say the least), and it was astounding to listen to them juggle all the incoming planes. What was particularly funny was listening to them berate our pilot - the guy mumbled a bit, so the flight number kept getting cut off. The tower had to repeatedly ask him to repeat, and eventually they started making fun of him. Things like "well, this particular pilot doesn't feel he's important enough to respond to us". Tres droll.
Also cool was listening to the tower give directions (turn left, etc) and feel the plane immediately respond. All in all, it sounded pretty much exactly like it does on TV/movies. I'm sure if there were any actual flight emergencies, it would have been broadcast for the passengers to hear - unless there's some protocol to shut that channel down when things go amiss - which would just alert passengers to a problem anyway.
Then you need to look a bit further for insurance coverage.
Hell, with modern Comprehensive homeowner coverage, you can claim stuff you LOST. As in, misplaced and you just cannot find it anymore.
Note: things may be different in the UK. Plus, this house was a rental property, which typically DOES have a forced-entry clause. However, for your average homeowner in North America, theft coverage doesn't usually contain a forced-entry clause.
It sure would be nice if Nintendo would grab some brains and realize that the Wii has PARENTAL CONTROLS.
Yeesh, open it up for us adults if we so choose, and let this friend code nonsense exist only on locked-down machines.
I love my Wii dearly, but I'm almost certainly never going to use it for multiplayer anything if I have to go through the hoops involved just to transfer Miis right now.
More fuel to the fire is the endless number of arbitrary limitations MS uses all over the place. 32(?) GB limit for a FAT32 partition? 64k row/256 column limit in Excel? Not technical limitations. Just reasons to have to upgrade to the newest versions.
I've always found that quote particularly funny as no matter what, I've ran into one or more of these issues with every version of Windows yet. Not a single one of them actually a real technological limitation, just some arbitrary number chosen for some arcane reason years ago and since enforced by marketing who saw the ability to offer an "upgrade" in a few years' time.
Not that a response to an AC is likely to get read, but oh well...
Why is that smug? ANYONE can get renter's insurance. Anyone. If you choose not to deal with the expense, that's understandable. I've had my years where the $200/year just isn't worth it for the $2,000 in stuff I own. I also didn't make out like it wasn't my fault that I was uninsured when something hapened.
FYI you can get renter's insurance when you sublet from your parents. Or even just live with them for free. In fact, in some jurisdictions it's a good idea to do so, as once you hit a certain age, claims become "interesting" unless you're specifically named on their policy. As you aluded, you also have the "they don't want to claim for my stuff" factor, which sadly is an issue with many parents.
Second FYI: if you're only being offered insurance that doesn't cover off-premises theft, you aren't looking around enough. There may be limits on it, especially out of a car (the idea is that people are smart enough not to leave thousands of dollars of stuff in the back seat), but it's pretty damn common coverage.
Insurance is available for just about everything, everyone, in just about any situation - it just might cost a bit more than you'd think.
More like selling water from the lake. It's free for the taking, practically infinite - yet companies make a killing selling it in bottles. That's because they add value to the product (filtering and packaging), and make it convenient for the end user. Yet we're all still free to drink our water for nothing.
The music industry could learn a lot from the bottled water industry.
They told me I had to file that under homeowners insurance... which I don't have... because I don't have a home... I have an apartment.
:)
Renter's contents insurance has been available for decades.
You're free to not purchase it (hey, many renters don't own much), but don't make out like you couldn't have had insurance
Otherwise I agree with your point completely. It's a good question, and has actually come up in insurance claims similar to yours.
Absolutely.
:)
To add to this, I can't count the number of times where I've been at work in the evening/weekend, and some important piece of data (phone number, file name from some bizarre problem a week ago, you name it) was written down on a scrap of paper, and driving back home was NOT an option.
30 second phone call to the S.O., complete directions down to the colour of the paper, approximate size, location, what's on top of or underneath it, which side of the paper it's written on, what other scribbles are around it (my handwriting leaves a lot to be desired). Really freaks out my co-workers to hear a call like that
Assuming that manufacturers should only cater to the majority is just about the most obvious example of groupthink.
Your post is kind of funny in that you use the exact thing you're complaining about to complain about the very same thing.
As the AC said, INCO has done a heck of a clean-up job in the past 3 decades. The comment about moon rovers was true - in 1969. NASA hasn't built a moon rover in decades anyway, which shows just how old this info is.
.. well, stupid.
I last drove through Sudbury in the mid 90s. The trees do get noticably shorter the closer you get to the smelter, but the 'dead zone' is history.
I actually took this story half-seriously until reading your comment. With disinformation like that, I think we can all dismiss this as