I've bought nothing but Taiyo Yuden discs for the past 2 years, and have the learned the hard way that they aren't any better. Many discs that I've burned over the past 2 years have become unreadable in as little as 6 months. These discs were stored in jewel cases, in a drawer, and handled carefully (not used as a frisbee or coaster).
I've even tried burning at lower speeds, (i.e., burning at 16x even though the discs are supposed to support 32 or 48x) thinking that maybe this would give better stability, but no such luck.
The cost of CR-Rs has dropped enormously over the past couple of years, to the point where even "premium" brands like Taiyo Yuden can be had for 30 cents (or less). And now we see why -- just like hard drives, the decrease in price is more the result of a reduction in quality than an increase in technology.
I'm all for fighting spam, but so far, there are 3 problems:
First, there seems to be this naive belief among politicians that if they pass an anti-spam law, spammers will actually obey it. The majority of spammers have little regard for the law and their entire business model is based on deception and other activities of questionable legality. Any anti-spam laws will be ignored (and tied up in the courts by legal challenges).
Second, is enforcement. You can write all the laws you want, but they are meaningless if not enforced. If I am deluged by spam that violates an anti-spam law, who do I complain to? Who will investigate my complaint and take appropriate action - all the way through to prosecution? If you think about this for a minute, you quickly realize that *MEANINGFUL* enforcement of anti-spam laws will take a lot of resources -- i.e., it will be very expensive.
And finally, there's the international nature of the internet. Routing spam through a mail server in a foreign country is trivial. The only likely outcome of anti-spam legislation is that spammers will use foreign servers for their e-mail and websites.
"The study, which monitored the mental-health changes of 25,000 Japanese high-tech workers over three years, found that employees who worked five hours or more in front of a computer were more prone to depression and anxiety."
Yes, it's true. If you spend several hours at a computer doing menial work that you hate, overseen by a boss you hate (and vice-versa) then you'll most likely become bitter, anxiety ridden and depressed.
On the other hand, I spend several hours a day sitting at a computer doing a job that I love and I'm not the least bit depressed. In fact, I look forward to going to work every day.
People had lousy jobs that sucked and made them depressed long before computers were invented. Let's quit blaming computers for all of society's ills.
>> I don't run calendar program though. I refuse to have something running all the time that isn't a necessary system-level service. They just waste cpu/memory 99.9% of the time
Your CPU is idle 99% of the time, so what's the difference?
I never realized how thoroughly people have been brainwashed till a few months ago when a friend bought his first computer.
He was asking me a lot of questions about IE and Outlook Express and when I answered "I really don't know -- I've never used those programs" he said to me "Oh... I thought you *HAD* to use them".
This is the problem with the whole "is there life elsewhere in the universe" debate. I call it the "Star Trek Syndrome". People have gotten so used to movies and TV shows where space ships go zooming all over the galaxy that they have lost any understanding of the enormous distances involved.
There probably are planets out there with intelligent life -- maybe lots of them -- but they are so far away that it is impossible to have any contact with them. You can debate all you want about whether or not there's life out there, but you can't change the math.
If we could build a spacecraft capable of a speed of 16 Million Miles per Hour (which we can't -- that speed is far, far beyond any technology we have or have even dreamed of) you could reach Pluto in a few days, but it would take 360 years to reach that system that is only "a quick 90 light years away". Even trying to communicate via radio -- we would send a message and it would be at least 180 years before we got a reply.
There's an answer that could virtually wipe out P2P music swapping, but the record companies are so blinded by greed that they will never see it.
Ever since recorded music first came into existance there is one thing that consumers have wanted and the record companies have steadfastly refused to deliver:
The ability to purchase exactly the songs you want and only the songs you want. At various times you've been able to buy singles in various formats (45 rpm, CD, cassette) but even then, the record companies dictated which songs were available.
The answer is amazingly simple: Put every song in existance on-line in one central location for download at a reasonable price (25 cents per song or less) in standard mp3 format with no DRM crap. This would be enormously successful and would generate huge revenue.
But the record companies will never agree to this and never even allow it to enter their minds. They are still locked into the mindset of "why should we let people buy one song for a quarter when we can force them to buy an entire CD for $18".
Despite all the moaning and gnashing of teeth over the GIF patent, every graphics program produced over the past 15 years, including many shareware programs, has included GIF support. The end result was that people were able to continue creating, editing and using GIF files and the average person never even noticed a problem.
There are no legitimate "privacy concerns"
on
Walmart to Push RFID
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Just one more example of the rampant ignorance that is becoming more pervasive in our society. No matter how many times it is pointed out that RFID tags have a very small range and nobody can drive by your house and scan everything you own, people continue to rant against RFID tags.
Yes, the Microsoft bashing/conspiracy theories get a little out of hand sometimes, but consider... SCO threatens to sue anyone using Linux. Microsoft, who has made its dislike of Linux well known, immediately jumps in to sign a licensing agreement with SCO.
You don't have to be a tin-foil-hat conspiracy nut to see an obvious connection there.
That your music sucks? Just because you recorded it (no mater how hard you think you worked and no matter how good you think it is) doesn't mean anyone else likes it.
I've always thought that a lot more work and research should be done on weather control. Things like floods, snow storms and hurricanes cost us Billions of dollars every year. Even if you can't eliminate them, if you could partially disperse or diminish them, the savings would be well worth it.
A chess playing computer proves nothing -- chess is the perfect game for a computer: Small board, each piece has very limited and strictly defined movements. At any given moment, the computer can quickly compute every possible move and counter-move.
And in fact, that's what human chess players do. Look at the world's greatest chess players -- the "Grand Masters". When they play against each other, most of their matches end in a draw. That's because there are no trick plays or suprise moves in chess, and the match is almost always decided by who screws up first.
The (stupid and unworkable) idea of taxing e-mail in order to stop Spam has been proposed a zillion times, but still remains stupid and unworkable. There are so many things wrong with this idea it's hard to know where to start, but I guess the most fundamental flaw is that making people pay a penny per e-mail would require the ability to properly identify the sender of each and every e-mail. If that was possible, we would have stopped the Spammers already and no tax would be needed.
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I've been running various versions of Windows for years and have had ZERO problems with viruses.
1. Don't use Internet Explorer or Outlook Express (I use Netscape and Mozilla)
2. Use a firewall (the free version of Kerio)
3. Run anti-virus program.
4. Don't click on suspicious attachments
Over the past several years I've only received 2 or 3 virus-infected e-mails and my AV program took care of them.
I dislike Microsoft as much as the next guy, but the real problem is users who are so stupid and lazy they shouldn't be allowed near a computer.
>> "Two words: Taiyo Yuden"
I've bought nothing but Taiyo Yuden discs for the past 2 years, and have the learned the hard way that they aren't any better. Many discs that I've burned over the past 2 years have become unreadable in as little as 6 months. These discs were stored in jewel cases, in a drawer, and handled carefully (not used as a frisbee or coaster).
I've even tried burning at lower speeds, (i.e., burning at 16x even though the discs are supposed to support 32 or 48x) thinking that maybe this would give better stability, but no such luck.
The cost of CR-Rs has dropped enormously over the past couple of years, to the point where even "premium" brands like Taiyo Yuden can be had for 30 cents (or less). And now we see why -- just like hard drives, the decrease in price is more the result of a reduction in quality than an increase in technology.
Question: why gamers would want to continue playing MMORPGs over long periods of time.
Answer: becasue they are losers with no life who have nothing better to do in their parent's basement.
>> "13$ a month is more than fair to watch tv on their own schedule, as opposed to having to sit down at prime time"
Gee, I've been doing that with my VCR since 1984.
I'm all for fighting spam, but so far, there are 3 problems:
First, there seems to be this naive belief among politicians that if they pass an anti-spam law, spammers will actually obey it. The majority of spammers have little regard for the law and their entire business model is based on deception and other activities of questionable legality. Any anti-spam laws will be ignored (and tied up in the courts by legal challenges).
Second, is enforcement. You can write all the laws you want, but they are meaningless if not enforced. If I am deluged by spam that violates an anti-spam law, who do I complain to? Who will investigate my complaint and take appropriate action - all the way through to prosecution? If you think about this for a minute, you quickly realize that *MEANINGFUL* enforcement of anti-spam laws will take a lot of resources -- i.e., it will be very expensive.
And finally, there's the international nature of the internet. Routing spam through a mail server in a foreign country is trivial. The only likely outcome of anti-spam legislation is that spammers will use foreign servers for their e-mail and websites.
He beats me less than 50 percent of the time.
"The study, which monitored the mental-health changes of 25,000 Japanese high-tech workers over three years, found that employees who worked five hours or more in front of a computer were more prone to depression and anxiety."
Yes, it's true. If you spend several hours at a computer doing menial work that you hate, overseen by a boss you hate (and vice-versa) then you'll most likely become bitter, anxiety ridden and depressed.
On the other hand, I spend several hours a day sitting at a computer doing a job that I love and I'm not the least bit depressed. In fact, I look forward to going to work every day.
People had lousy jobs that sucked and made them depressed long before computers were invented. Let's quit blaming computers for all of society's ills.
So he bangs her a couple of times and gets steady work out of it. Are you so totally GAY that you are repulsed by that?
Yahoo forks out $1.6 Billion in funny money for a worthless dot-bomb.
Someone should tell Yahoo that it's not 1999 anymore. How long before we see Yahoo on the front page of F***edCompany?
>> I don't run calendar program though. I refuse to have something running all the time that isn't a necessary system-level service. They just waste cpu/memory 99.9% of the time
Your CPU is idle 99% of the time, so what's the difference?
Netscape 6 was a horrible piece of crap. Netscape 7.0 and 7.1 are quite good -- once you delete all the AOL crap they install.
But you're still better off with Mozilla or Opera.
I never realized how thoroughly people have been brainwashed till a few months ago when a friend bought his first computer.
... I thought you *HAD* to use them".
He was asking me a lot of questions about IE and Outlook Express and when I answered "I really don't know -- I've never used those programs" he said to me "Oh
>> This system is a quick 90 light years away.
This is the problem with the whole "is there life elsewhere in the universe" debate. I call it the "Star Trek Syndrome". People have gotten so used to movies and TV shows where space ships go zooming all over the galaxy that they have lost any understanding of the enormous distances involved.
There probably are planets out there with intelligent life -- maybe lots of them -- but they are so far away that it is impossible to have any contact with them. You can debate all you want about whether or not there's life out there, but you can't change the math.
If we could build a spacecraft capable of a speed of 16 Million Miles per Hour (which we can't -- that speed is far, far beyond any technology we have or have even dreamed of) you could reach Pluto in a few days, but it would take 360 years to reach that system that is only "a quick 90 light years away". Even trying to communicate via radio -- we would send a message and it would be at least 180 years before we got a reply.
Works fine with Windows ... Doesn't work with Linux? And the problem is ... ?
There's an answer that could virtually wipe out P2P music swapping, but the record companies are so blinded by greed that they will never see it.
Ever since recorded music first came into existance there is one thing that consumers have wanted and the record companies have steadfastly refused to deliver:
The ability to purchase exactly the songs you want and only the songs you want. At various times you've been able to buy singles in various formats (45 rpm, CD, cassette) but even then, the record companies dictated which songs were available.
The answer is amazingly simple: Put every song in existance on-line in one central location for download at a reasonable price (25 cents per song or less) in standard mp3 format with no DRM crap. This would be enormously successful and would generate huge revenue.
But the record companies will never agree to this and never even allow it to enter their minds. They are still locked into the mindset of "why should we let people buy one song for a quarter when we can force them to buy an entire CD for $18".
>> Get the pr0n industry to use PNG, and it'll gain widespread acceptance.
RA!!
oops. wrong board.
PNG never took off because GIF never went away.
Despite all the moaning and gnashing of teeth over the GIF patent, every graphics program produced over the past 15 years, including many shareware programs, has included GIF support. The end result was that people were able to continue creating, editing and using GIF files and the average person never even noticed a problem.
Just one more example of the rampant ignorance that is becoming more pervasive in our society. No matter how many times it is pointed out that RFID tags have a very small range and nobody can drive by your house and scan everything you own, people continue to rant against RFID tags.
WinAmp 2.92? I'm using WinAmp 3.0c -- am I in the future or something?
Yes, the Microsoft bashing/conspiracy theories get a little out of hand sometimes, but consider ... SCO threatens to sue anyone using Linux. Microsoft, who has made its dislike of Linux well known, immediately jumps in to sign a licensing agreement with SCO.
You don't have to be a tin-foil-hat conspiracy nut to see an obvious connection there.
That your music sucks? Just because you recorded it (no mater how hard you think you worked and no matter how good you think it is) doesn't mean anyone else likes it.
I've always thought that a lot more work and research should be done on weather control. Things like floods, snow storms and hurricanes cost us Billions of dollars every year. Even if you can't eliminate them, if you could partially disperse or diminish them, the savings would be well worth it.
" I have to ask why more ISPs aren't implementing systems such as the excellent Open Source Tagged Mail Delivery Agent (TMDA) strategy?"
Most ISPs are lazy and incompetant and only interested in collecting your money. The rest are in bed with the spammers.
A chess playing computer proves nothing -- chess is the perfect game for a computer: Small board, each piece has very limited and strictly defined movements. At any given moment, the computer can quickly compute every possible move and counter-move.
And in fact, that's what human chess players do. Look at the world's greatest chess players -- the "Grand Masters". When they play against each other, most of their matches end in a draw. That's because there are no trick plays or suprise moves in chess, and the match is almost always decided by who screws up first.
The (stupid and unworkable) idea of taxing e-mail in order to stop Spam has been proposed a zillion times, but still remains stupid and unworkable. There are so many things wrong with this idea it's hard to know where to start, but I guess the most fundamental flaw is that making people pay a penny per e-mail would require the ability to properly identify the sender of each and every e-mail. If that was possible, we would have stopped the Spammers already and no tax would be needed.