Oh yeh, because thousands of people are going to be interested in the fact that on monday I bought three pints of milk, yet I bought another six pints the day after.
Late reply I know, but this statement makes me wonder if you even read what I posted. You might want to check that out again there, chief.
I never said THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WOULD WATCH YOU. I said that you should distrust the EXACT percentage of those who potentially COULD watch you as you would distrust people among those you regularly interact with. And THESE people have access to a lot more information about you than any ONE person ever could. If, in the event someone in this organization WANTED to watch you, for whatever reason (perhaps you pissed off either an employee or someone who KNOWS an employee) they could know your entire routine - name even one individual in your entire life that could do this without following you around all day for weeks.
I can't believe the three responses I got for that post - it's like you responded to the issue itself and how you felt about that, and you didn't even give a rat's ass about actually responding to what I wrote. Great job.
I agree with your response to the other post, but then you say this:
Either you are an idiot or a criminal, or a combination of both if you think this effects you in any way.
Is objectivity a thing of the past? Are you OK with not considering the arguments of your opposition in any way whatsoever?
Relying on the trustworthiness of surveillance in public places means relying on the trustworthiness of "the government". This would be a fairly easy decision to make if the government was, say, one or two guys. You'd look at the guys, what they've said, how they've behaved, and you'd either trust them or you wouldn't. The government, however, is made up of thousands of people, all of whom now have access to some pretty personal information about you.
What personal information? Well, if there's a camera on every public street, you can pretty easily be tracked at every location you go to. Tuesday 6:15 - you go to the grocery store. 6:45 - you go out to dinner. At the same restaurant you usually frequent. 7:30 - you hit your favorite local bar (you appear to be an alcoholic). 1:15 A.M. - head home. You appear to walk through a dark alley to get from your car to your apartment.
Do you want hundreds or thousands of people to know your exact routine? Doesn't that freak you out AT ALL? Like I said, you don't have to be an idiot to think this is a bad situation - all you have to believe is that the government employs a percentage of sociopaths who would misuse this information that is comparable to the general populace.
You're exactly right - they aren't rare at all for the most part. It should be pretty easy to check if something you own is worth anything or is ever going to be after it's ten freaking years old already.
Take the Apple II or the Mac Plus for instance. We're talking about a couple of the most popular models of computers of all times. There are hundreds of thousands of these things sitting in storage closets in universities and schools and even people's basements. These aren't exactly fringe products we're talking about.
I had one of the later Performas when I was a senior in high school (Performa 640CD) that had a 68LC040 processor. I was kind of annoyed because I was under the (mistaken) impression that it would have a regular 68040 - a surprising number of programs either refused to run or ran like absolute shit because of the missing FPU. I had a tech or two tell me that Apple was still soldering their processors to their motherboards, but I didn't really believe them so I ripped that fucker right out of there and put in the real deal. PROBLEM SOLVED. (Unfortunately at a price of $135 - Apple's processors were NOT cheap).
I loved that Mac with the fucking DOS card in it and everything. I've never bought another Mac since - because I got all Linux obsessed and shit while I was in college, but I still have pretty fond memories of that machine. I'm pretty sure the ex-wife and I donated it to Goodwill.
Jesus I'm getting all teary eyed with the nostalgia here.
P.S. that sounds like a GREAT deal you got at the auction.
My University has inventory auctions. I bought a Mac Plus when I was living off campus during college because I could get one for $5 and I was like why the hell not, right?
I was one of only two or three people to bid on one. The auctioneer then opened up bidding on the whole table. Some poor guy bought a table of about 100 of these things for $5. Not $5 each, FIVE DOLLARS FOR THE TABLE. His wife came in and he told her what he'd bought and she looked PISSED OFF.
Every auction I have been to they have had another table full of old macs like that. I suppose the one on Ebay gets a high price because it's in such nice shape, but in general, these machines really aren't worth anything, especially if they've been sitting gathering dust in a closet for ten years.
Yes, what you say makes sense, but you also have to consider that it can be at times very difficult to drift off to sleep while consciously thinking about something. I don't tend to think about anything when I'm falling asleep - it's like hey, this pillow feels allright, hey I'm pretty tired, and then I'm out, within thirty seconds.
Every time I've tried to sort of control the "last thought I had before I fell asleep" I've been to self aware and have noticed I was falling asleep, which of course wakes you the hell back up.
Incidentally though, if one of your last thoughts as you fall asleep is that you will wake up after every dream, it actually works, in my experience. It's the only way I can ever remember any dreams I've had.
That is exactly why the doomsayer author of this article is wrong. People SUCH AS THE AUTHOR HIMSELF are willing to shell out $50-$60 for a boxed title with no subscription fee rather than have anything to do with monthly charges and so forth. If the major game companies banded together and all went with subscriptions, someone else could start a game company and market their products as being *SUBSCRIPTION FREE*. The major companies, however, are not likely stupid enough to abandon a large market segment for no reason at all. You don't get to be on top of a market by making poor decisions.
The ONLY way that regular games could ever stop being produced is if hardly anyone were interested in them anymore. It could happen, but if it did, very few people would be complaining about it, and they would sound like OLD CURMUDGEONS.
That would be decided on a case by case basis, and although the WIPO is pretty well known for being corporate-friendly in such cases, it certainly would be taken into account.
To have your domain removed for cybersquatting, the WIPO must decide that you have NO legitimate claim to the domain - that you are in fact using it just to make money off of someone else's good name and/or extorting that person into buying the domain from you at a high price. If YOU were named JRR Tolkien it is very unlikely that that would be your motivation in registering it.
I'm sorry, but if you write: CONTAINS RADEON 9200 on the side of something or in an advertisement and it does not in fact CONTAIN RADEON 9200, you are lying to people. Can this be explained in any simpler terms? I DON'T THINK SO.
AMD labels their processors with a number - CONSUMERS attach meaning to that number, i.e. as you said:
people mindlessly assume it equals some Pentium clock speed
The number is somewhat misleading, but then again, AMD doesn't hold your hand down that path by TELLING you that their chip runs at the clock speed when it does in fact not do so. Ignorant customers will make incorrect assumptions.
If the company making the laptop claimed that a particular video chip was in there and they simply LIED about it, that's a whole hell of a lot worse.
Oddly enough, the Supreme Court's decision regarding obscenity states something about being determined by local standards, implying that the federal government is supposed to keep its hands off of such things.
Wow. Did you just call Microsoft's upgrades TO THEIR OWN PRODUCT a "government granted monopoly"? Here are some followup questions for you:
1. How does not allowing other companies to update YOUR OWN software that YOU created and started a business on constitute a monopoly? Hint: This is not the usually argued reason that MS is considered a monopoly. Hint 2: Look up monopoly in the dictionary at some point.
2. If you're satisfied that it DOES in fact constitute a monopoly, in what way is that "government granted"?
I like how you and about fifty other people so far think that RedHat is different because they have a smaller market share. How about this instead? Neither RedHat nor MS should support five year old software. There's a simple reason for this: in software terms, five years is an insanely long time, and continuing to update what in these terms is essentially archaic would be the financial equivalent of taking all of your money, putting it in a big pile, and lighting it on fire.
Everyone keeps harping on how Win98 still suits people's needs: you are missing the important point that NO IT DOES NOT. It fails to suit one very important need that everyone who is connected to the net has: it will not be protected against future viruses that people write. If anyone wants this very important feature from now on, they will have to get some software that is not from the stone age. Thank you.
The general consensus of Slashdot is usually obvious to anyone who has read it for any length of time. Often times, witty one liners or sometimes even the entire introductory paragraph of a story will contain the opinion of the editor who posted it or the reader who submitted it. These opinion lines tend to fall in a specific direction on all issues.
Yes, you can find counter examples. Good for you. Almost anyone with any sort of objectivity, however, is able to view things IN A GENERAL SENSE and realize the kind of mentality that makes up an environment they are living/reading/posting/whatever in.
In this case, the posted article states several things that they believe are wrong with MS cutting off support for Windows 98. I have no problem with this interjection of opinion, let's be clear on that - but the article submitter, Via_Patrino has made it clear what he thinks about this issue. Most posts agree with him so far in the discussion. Most posters on Slashdot in general will support ANY anti Microsoft argument, and take ANY opportunity whatsoever that they can find to bash MS for something.
If you really don't agree with me, I have no idea what website you've been reading for the past 5 years.
I'm also from Nebraska, and I guarantee you that more people are listening to local and/or indie music around here than I've ever seen before, so I think you're absolutely right.
It would be nice to see a sales study done by some music store chains rather than by the RIAA, who do not really encompass the entirety of CD sales that are going on out there.
Give me a fucking break. The guy who originally bashed liberals for not wanting to ban the game was wrong, and so are you. Both Democrats and Republicans commonly call for censorship on issues such as this one. Some Democrats and Republicans also are AGAINST censorship on these issues. This sort of thing crosses party lines.
Idealistically, the most far left opinion typically would ALWAYS support the ban of this game in any case. If you don't think I'm correct, try reading Adbusters or some Green Party literature sometime - their party platform's anti-corporate agenda holds that the entertainment industry is brainwashing the youth of America, and that they should be held accountable and CONTROLLED BY THE STATE.
Republicans typically SHOULD be against banning a video game, but they have irritating religious tendencies that interfere with their correct political thinking in 90% of their decisions. Thus, they often simply go with their gut and make stupid choices.
The libertarian party is the ONLY party whose entire belief system ensures that they would never support some crap like this. In general they are overly idealistic; however, for you to say that they are not in fact libertarian - that makes me wonder how much you know about anything.
I agree that their replacement plan seems pretty decent now - it's designed the way it's designed, they've got a relatively decent service price, etc. If I had tons of spare cash laying around, I'd probably think about getting one, but portable mp3 players are on my low priority list as it turns out.
I see what you're getting at, but there's no error here from where I'm standing.
I wasn't surprised that people in the forum we're referring to rushed to defend Apple despite the fact that they engineered the device in question in such a way that the average consumer would be unable to replace the battery, and had no program in place to do the work themselves until it was too late for the guy in the article.
It does, however, disturb me. Why anyone would think that's just perfectly fine and that it doesn't reflect badly on Apple in any way, I just have no idea. It really was either very shortsighted or an intentional attempt to get consumers to buy more iPods (which I doubt) but either way it wasn't good customer service.
Generally speaking, when ad hominens start being thrown at you, it's the other guy's argument that's in trouble.
GENERALLY SPEAKING, you're being kind of annoying and this isn't the fucking debate class, chief.
And yes, we do know that Apple had no battery replacement plan in place because they TOLD the guy in the aforementioned article that he should BUY A NEW IPOD because it would be too difficult/expensive to replace the battery. As you pointed out, no one expects a battery to last forever, but people DO expect battery powered products to have some method of replacing the battery so that said product does not simply become a heap of junk at the end of 2 years. This is an entirely reasonable expectation, although I agree in as much as there is no way anyone will be able to sue Apple over this.
The fact that you think that I always only think the negative of Apple makes me wonder if you read my post. I SAID right in there that I didn't think this was indicative at all of their general business practices. Most of the Apple detractors on Slashdot wouldn't even give them that much credit.
Hey, I appreciate the response, and I probably will go check out the things you suggested. See, I'm not always a cranky bastard.
CN selling it as an action series was EXACTLY what was wrong with it for me. If they had indicated what it was actually like, I simply would not have watched it. I understand that different people like different things.
As for the stylized animated emoticons (as they basically are) - I hate that kind of thing. You know, there was a point where things like that were really creative, but they've become a cliche that in my opinion drags anime as a whole down - I have probably really enjoyed 5% of the anime I have seen because these types of things are so overused - I guess I just don't feel that for instance a picture of a water droplet is a proper depiction of the unease or embarassment of a character although I know, as you mentioned, that this is in fact what they are getting at. In other words, I think it is a rather cheap "conveyance" of an emotion without going to the trouble of actually conveying said emotion.
Unfortunately for you I am willing to discuss this at length as I think way too much about this when I'm drunk.
I do like to watch anime other than on CN, but I've pretty much stopped buying any DVDs unless I know ahead of time that it's going to be good. Too many bad experiences I suppose. I liked X though I think its plot is worse than some soap operas I've seen as far as complexity and coherence. I've enjoyed Urusei and Cowboy Bebop quite a bit. All of these are really straight forward and I don't have to wonder what kind of crazy shit is going to happen in the next scene - I know Urusei is going to be completely silly or pseudo-romantic. They are not going to pull some shit I wasn't expecting. I know exactly what Bebop will do next (not plot wise at all but as far as the TYPE of thing that will happen). In RK and Trigun I had to hold my breath waiting for the type of thing I wanted and hoping that something slapsticky wouldnt interrupt my suspense. A good comparison would be a Jackie Chan martial arts movie. You sit there for an hour waiting for him to kick some ass and he is too busy making silly faces at the camera.
Apple really dropped the ball on the battery deal. Everyone drops the ball now and again - it's not indicative of Apple necessarily as a buisness in an overall sense. What CAN be generalized in this situation, however, is that people like you will always, in every possible situation, always believe that Apple is in the right, and refuse to ever think that they could do something stupid and/or unscrupulous, EVER. Your post above is a textbook example of this. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Thanks, I might have to take a look at those. The TV series does have its moments from what I've seen, just not enough that it was able to hold my interest for very long.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yeh, because thousands of people are going to be interested in the fact that on monday I bought three pints of milk, yet I bought another six pints the day after.
Late reply I know, but this statement makes me wonder if you even read what I posted. You might want to check that out again there, chief.
I never said THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WOULD WATCH YOU. I said that you should distrust the EXACT percentage of those who potentially COULD watch you as you would distrust people among those you regularly interact with. And THESE people have access to a lot more information about you than any ONE person ever could. If, in the event someone in this organization WANTED to watch you, for whatever reason (perhaps you pissed off either an employee or someone who KNOWS an employee) they could know your entire routine - name even one individual in your entire life that could do this without following you around all day for weeks.
I can't believe the three responses I got for that post - it's like you responded to the issue itself and how you felt about that, and you didn't even give a rat's ass about actually responding to what I wrote. Great job.
I agree with your response to the other post, but then you say this:
Either you are an idiot or a criminal, or a combination of both if you think this effects you in any way.
Is objectivity a thing of the past? Are you OK with not considering the arguments of your opposition in any way whatsoever?
Relying on the trustworthiness of surveillance in public places means relying on the trustworthiness of "the government". This would be a fairly easy decision to make if the government was, say, one or two guys. You'd look at the guys, what they've said, how they've behaved, and you'd either trust them or you wouldn't. The government, however, is made up of thousands of people, all of whom now have access to some pretty personal information about you.
What personal information? Well, if there's a camera on every public street, you can pretty easily be tracked at every location you go to. Tuesday 6:15 - you go to the grocery store. 6:45 - you go out to dinner. At the same restaurant you usually frequent. 7:30 - you hit your favorite local bar (you appear to be an alcoholic). 1:15 A.M. - head home. You appear to walk through a dark alley to get from your car to your apartment.
Do you want hundreds or thousands of people to know your exact routine? Doesn't that freak you out AT ALL? Like I said, you don't have to be an idiot to think this is a bad situation - all you have to believe is that the government employs a percentage of sociopaths who would misuse this information that is comparable to the general populace.
You're exactly right - they aren't rare at all for the most part. It should be pretty easy to check if something you own is worth anything or is ever going to be after it's ten freaking years old already.
Take the Apple II or the Mac Plus for instance. We're talking about a couple of the most popular models of computers of all times. There are hundreds of thousands of these things sitting in storage closets in universities and schools and even people's basements. These aren't exactly fringe products we're talking about.
I had one of the later Performas when I was a senior in high school (Performa 640CD) that had a 68LC040 processor. I was kind of annoyed because I was under the (mistaken) impression that it would have a regular 68040 - a surprising number of programs either refused to run or ran like absolute shit because of the missing FPU. I had a tech or two tell me that Apple was still soldering their processors to their motherboards, but I didn't really believe them so I ripped that fucker right out of there and put in the real deal. PROBLEM SOLVED. (Unfortunately at a price of $135 - Apple's processors were NOT cheap).
I loved that Mac with the fucking DOS card in it and everything. I've never bought another Mac since - because I got all Linux obsessed and shit while I was in college, but I still have pretty fond memories of that machine. I'm pretty sure the ex-wife and I donated it to Goodwill.
Jesus I'm getting all teary eyed with the nostalgia here.
P.S. that sounds like a GREAT deal you got at the auction.
My University has inventory auctions. I bought a Mac Plus when I was living off campus during college because I could get one for $5 and I was like why the hell not, right?
I was one of only two or three people to bid on one. The auctioneer then opened up bidding on the whole table. Some poor guy bought a table of about 100 of these things for $5. Not $5 each, FIVE DOLLARS FOR THE TABLE. His wife came in and he told her what he'd bought and she looked PISSED OFF.
Every auction I have been to they have had another table full of old macs like that. I suppose the one on Ebay gets a high price because it's in such nice shape, but in general, these machines really aren't worth anything, especially if they've been sitting gathering dust in a closet for ten years.
Yes, what you say makes sense, but you also have to consider that it can be at times very difficult to drift off to sleep while consciously thinking about something. I don't tend to think about anything when I'm falling asleep - it's like hey, this pillow feels allright, hey I'm pretty tired, and then I'm out, within thirty seconds.
Every time I've tried to sort of control the "last thought I had before I fell asleep" I've been to self aware and have noticed I was falling asleep, which of course wakes you the hell back up.
Incidentally though, if one of your last thoughts as you fall asleep is that you will wake up after every dream, it actually works, in my experience. It's the only way I can ever remember any dreams I've had.
That is exactly why the doomsayer author of this article is wrong. People SUCH AS THE AUTHOR HIMSELF are willing to shell out $50-$60 for a boxed title with no subscription fee rather than have anything to do with monthly charges and so forth. If the major game companies banded together and all went with subscriptions, someone else could start a game company and market their products as being *SUBSCRIPTION FREE*. The major companies, however, are not likely stupid enough to abandon a large market segment for no reason at all. You don't get to be on top of a market by making poor decisions.
The ONLY way that regular games could ever stop being produced is if hardly anyone were interested in them anymore. It could happen, but if it did, very few people would be complaining about it, and they would sound like OLD CURMUDGEONS.
That would be decided on a case by case basis, and although the WIPO is pretty well known for being corporate-friendly in such cases, it certainly would be taken into account.
To have your domain removed for cybersquatting, the WIPO must decide that you have NO legitimate claim to the domain - that you are in fact using it just to make money off of someone else's good name and/or extorting that person into buying the domain from you at a high price. If YOU were named JRR Tolkien it is very unlikely that that would be your motivation in registering it.
I'm sorry, but if you write: CONTAINS RADEON 9200 on the side of something or in an advertisement and it does not in fact CONTAIN RADEON 9200, you are lying to people. Can this be explained in any simpler terms? I DON'T THINK SO.
AMD labels their processors with a number - CONSUMERS attach meaning to that number, i.e. as you said:
people mindlessly assume it equals some Pentium clock speed
The number is somewhat misleading, but then again, AMD doesn't hold your hand down that path by TELLING you that their chip runs at the clock speed when it does in fact not do so. Ignorant customers will make incorrect assumptions.
If the company making the laptop claimed that a particular video chip was in there and they simply LIED about it, that's a whole hell of a lot worse.
OMG... ROTFLMAO ;)
Jesus, I am going to build a baseball bat out of legos and bash that fucker's skull in if he says LOL just ONE more god damn time.
Let's get those free speech loving Democrats such as Tipper Gore back in power again. They LOVE protecting our rights
Oddly enough, the Supreme Court's decision regarding obscenity states something about being determined by local standards, implying that the federal government is supposed to keep its hands off of such things.
What's the name of your band? Just curious.
:
Ever read this site?
Star City Scene
Wow. Did you just call Microsoft's upgrades TO THEIR OWN PRODUCT a "government granted monopoly"? Here are some followup questions for you:
1. How does not allowing other companies to update YOUR OWN software that YOU created and started a business on constitute a monopoly?
Hint: This is not the usually argued reason that MS is considered a monopoly.
Hint 2: Look up monopoly in the dictionary at some point.
2. If you're satisfied that it DOES in fact constitute a monopoly, in what way is that "government granted"?
I like how you and about fifty other people so far think that RedHat is different because they have a smaller market share. How about this instead? Neither RedHat nor MS should support five year old software. There's a simple reason for this: in software terms, five years is an insanely long time, and continuing to update what in these terms is essentially archaic would be the financial equivalent of taking all of your money, putting it in a big pile, and lighting it on fire.
Everyone keeps harping on how Win98 still suits people's needs: you are missing the important point that NO IT DOES NOT. It fails to suit one very important need that everyone who is connected to the net has: it will not be protected against future viruses that people write. If anyone wants this very important feature from now on, they will have to get some software that is not from the stone age. Thank you.
The general consensus of Slashdot is usually obvious to anyone who has read it for any length of time. Often times, witty one liners or sometimes even the entire introductory paragraph of a story will contain the opinion of the editor who posted it or the reader who submitted it. These opinion lines tend to fall in a specific direction on all issues.
Yes, you can find counter examples. Good for you. Almost anyone with any sort of objectivity, however, is able to view things IN A GENERAL SENSE and realize the kind of mentality that makes up an environment they are living/reading/posting/whatever in.
In this case, the posted article states several things that they believe are wrong with MS cutting off support for Windows 98. I have no problem with this interjection of opinion, let's be clear on that - but the article submitter, Via_Patrino has made it clear what he thinks about this issue. Most posts agree with him so far in the discussion. Most posters on Slashdot in general will support ANY anti Microsoft argument, and take ANY opportunity whatsoever that they can find to bash MS for something.
If you really don't agree with me, I have no idea what website you've been reading for the past 5 years.
I'm also from Nebraska, and I guarantee you that more people are listening to local and/or indie music around here than I've ever seen before, so I think you're absolutely right.
It would be nice to see a sales study done by some music store chains rather than by the RIAA, who do not really encompass the entirety of CD sales that are going on out there.
What if the .torrent file was part of the virus process? Wouldn't it then require no central website?
This is, of course, ignoring the fact that most people do not have bittorrent on their machine.
Give me a fucking break. The guy who originally bashed liberals for not wanting to ban the game was wrong, and so are you. Both Democrats and Republicans commonly call for censorship on issues such as this one. Some Democrats and Republicans also are AGAINST censorship on these issues. This sort of thing crosses party lines.
Idealistically, the most far left opinion typically would ALWAYS support the ban of this game in any case. If you don't think I'm correct, try reading Adbusters or some Green Party literature sometime - their party platform's anti-corporate agenda holds that the entertainment industry is brainwashing the youth of America, and that they should be held accountable and CONTROLLED BY THE STATE.
Republicans typically SHOULD be against banning a video game, but they have irritating religious tendencies that interfere with their correct political thinking in 90% of their decisions. Thus, they often simply go with their gut and make stupid choices.
The libertarian party is the ONLY party whose entire belief system ensures that they would never support some crap like this. In general they are overly idealistic; however, for you to say that they are not in fact libertarian - that makes me wonder how much you know about anything.
I agree that their replacement plan seems pretty decent now - it's designed the way it's designed, they've got a relatively decent service price, etc. If I had tons of spare cash laying around, I'd probably think about getting one, but portable mp3 players are on my low priority list as it turns out.
I see what you're getting at, but there's no error here from where I'm standing.
I wasn't surprised that people in the forum we're referring to rushed to defend Apple despite the fact that they engineered the device in question in such a way that the average consumer would be unable to replace the battery, and had no program in place to do the work themselves until it was too late for the guy in the article.
It does, however, disturb me. Why anyone would think that's just perfectly fine and that it doesn't reflect badly on Apple in any way, I just have no idea. It really was either very shortsighted or an intentional attempt to get consumers to buy more iPods (which I doubt) but either way it wasn't good customer service.
Generally speaking, when ad hominens start being thrown at you, it's the other guy's argument that's in trouble.
GENERALLY SPEAKING, you're being kind of annoying and this isn't the fucking debate class, chief.
And yes, we do know that Apple had no battery replacement plan in place because they TOLD the guy in the aforementioned article that he should BUY A NEW IPOD because it would be too difficult/expensive to replace the battery. As you pointed out, no one expects a battery to last forever, but people DO expect battery powered products to have some method of replacing the battery so that said product does not simply become a heap of junk at the end of 2 years. This is an entirely reasonable expectation, although I agree in as much as there is no way anyone will be able to sue Apple over this.
The fact that you think that I always only think the negative of Apple makes me wonder if you read my post. I SAID right in there that I didn't think this was indicative at all of their general business practices. Most of the Apple detractors on Slashdot wouldn't even give them that much credit.
Hey, I appreciate the response, and I probably will go check out the things you suggested. See, I'm not always a cranky bastard.
CN selling it as an action series was EXACTLY what was wrong with it for me. If they had indicated what it was actually like, I simply would not have watched it. I understand that different people like different things.
As for the stylized animated emoticons (as they basically are) - I hate that kind of thing. You know, there was a point where things like that were really creative, but they've become a cliche that in my opinion drags anime as a whole down - I have probably really enjoyed 5% of the anime I have seen because these types of things are so overused - I guess I just don't feel that for instance a picture of a water droplet is a proper depiction of the unease or embarassment of a character although I know, as you mentioned, that this is in fact what they are getting at. In other words, I think it is a rather cheap "conveyance" of an emotion without going to the trouble of actually conveying said emotion.
Unfortunately for you I am willing to discuss this at length as I think way too much about this when I'm drunk.
I do like to watch anime other than on CN, but I've pretty much stopped buying any DVDs unless I know ahead of time that it's going to be good. Too many bad experiences I suppose. I liked X though I think its plot is worse than some soap operas I've seen as far as complexity and coherence. I've enjoyed Urusei and Cowboy Bebop quite a bit. All of these are really straight forward and I don't have to wonder what kind of crazy shit is going to happen in the next scene - I know Urusei is going to be completely silly or pseudo-romantic. They are not going to pull some shit I wasn't expecting. I know exactly what Bebop will do next (not plot wise at all but as far as the TYPE of thing that will happen). In RK and Trigun I had to hold my breath waiting for the type of thing I wanted and hoping that something slapsticky wouldnt interrupt my suspense. A good comparison would be a Jackie Chan martial arts movie. You sit there for an hour waiting for him to kick some ass and he is too busy making silly faces at the camera.
P.S. Sorry about the late, long reply.
Apple really dropped the ball on the battery deal. Everyone drops the ball now and again - it's not indicative of Apple necessarily as a buisness in an overall sense. What CAN be generalized in this situation, however, is that people like you will always, in every possible situation, always believe that Apple is in the right, and refuse to ever think that they could do something stupid and/or unscrupulous, EVER. Your post above is a textbook example of this. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Thanks, I might have to take a look at those. The TV series does have its moments from what I've seen, just not enough that it was able to hold my interest for very long.