AOL has been nothing but trouble for me. Cox decided to not fix a broken cable trunk for about a month, so I used one of my old AOL "free 700 hour" CD's to sign up.
It was fine and all, but the moment the cable services were up, I decided to cancel my AOL account. The first rep told me, fine - we'll stop charging the account - if you want to start again for 45 days, we'll give the rest of that month free.
Thinking the ads were right and AOL did offer good CS, I forgot about the whole issue. Two weeks later, I got a call from AOL begging me to sign up. I said no - I cancelled because I don't really like AOL's service, and please don't call me again.
The next day I get a call from Michigan asking me to sign up. I reply that I had already asked them to stop calling me, and asked for a name and company.
I got that fine, and was going to report them to the FCC. But, I got busy and forgot. The next day, THE SAME PEOPLE CALLED ME AGAIN, and I just lost it. After yelling at one girl for about 20 minutes, I immediately went to the FCC and reported that I was being harassed by AOL.
Turns out that AOL uses proxy companies to do their calling, and their customer databases aren't always kept up to date. Since they "had no record" of me telling them to not call, there was nothing I could do.
We could always look at what is really good for the artist, and what is really good for the label. Take a band like Radiohead. If you download one of their CD's like Amnesiac, and send them even $2-$3, they wind up with more money than if you had bought the CD (I think it would be fine at something like $5.00). They get even more on top if you buy a ticket to their show (and maybe a t-shirt or something). However, with this model, the record company looses all of it's profit margin, and it's only elgible for repayment of marketing and signing advances. It's no wonder the RIAA isn't after the right of artists to get paid, but rather the industry's out-dated business model to survive.
That the gamecube was meant to play games and only play games. The DVD players (redundant, but bears repeating) on consoles, like the PS2 were low grade, and trying to control a movie from a console controller sucked beyond belief.
I actually rather respect Nintendo's decision to not include a DVD player, and to instead include high quality sound. That allows the system to be WAY cheaper than the others.
Re:Bad side of globalization
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 1
Well, peace if that bully in Israel would stop the acts of war against the palestinians.
Do you mean that bully whose tourism minister was gunned down outside a hotel? The same one whose country was willing to give away vast tracts of land for a palestinian state, but instead got the intifada? Gimme a break - Israel is as much a victim of terror as all of us in DC and NYC.
I think the biggest problem with the anti-globalization movement is its own protests. Every time a protest is planned, cities have to beef up their police forces because a lot of the protesters take it as an excuse to party and wreck the place!
In governments where leaders are elected (like the US and the EU) there is absolutely ZERO excuse for violent protest - because you have the right to be heard. Just because people don't care doesn't mean you have the "right" to attack police officers and break store windows.
The biggest folly of all, though is the inate cowardice of many of these same protesters. They know that at least some prominent politicians favor them in western democracies, so they don't fear a backlash - but where were they in Shanghai? Terrified of the police response to a protest supposedly in China's best interest! If they're afraid to really stand up to enemies of the people like the government of China, then as far I'm concerned, their movement will be stuck as an annoyance, rather than a legitimate political gripe.
Ya know what, though? Our government has no (that's ZERO) obligation to treat foreign nationals the same as it treats citizens. We have extended those same curtesies to non-citizen students and workers, but there is no reason to continue that. I find that action not unreasonable at all, considering that at least two of the hijackers were here on expried STUDENT VISAS, and in the past 5 years, 16,000 "students" were let into this country from official state sponsors of terrorism. This lapse is hideous, because the most common demographic for an terrorist is: Arabic Male, mid-20's to mid-30's. It's easy to see how the government would be getting nervous at letting that exact same demographic into our country from nations that have devoted themselves to our destruction (Iran, Syria, Palestine and Iraq come to mind).
Am I the only one whose browser (IE 5.5) crashes when loading the videos? There is no mention on the website about plug ins or anything (it's entirely possible I'm a retard), so I'm kind of stumped. I want to see those videos, dammit!
An even more interesting question is this: If Apple is now selling its own MP3 player, does that mean it's going to stop selling 3rd party players? Right now on their website, when you try to buy one of their computers, you're given the option to buy a Creative Nomad or a Rio 600. Are they gonna stop that, and demand that buyers buy only the Apple MP3 device?
Fourth amendment rights can be abrogated in certain places. Schools, for one, conduct random drug searches in kids' lockers. I think at places of work, warantless searches can be made on people, as long as it isn't a government agent (FBI, et. al) conducting the search. If your company wants to search you, I believe (I'm not sure here) they have every right to, because the thinking is that if you don't like it, you can always go work somewhere else.
I can maybe see the logic in that, but it doesn't make much sense from the outset.
So, once people can buy tiny TV's and make them project perfectly well onto large screens, does this mean that the consumer electronics industry will have to readjust itself? Or does anyone think that there will be lawsuits from industry groups and lobbyists to try to block this kind of thing?
Just compare all the gunshot killings here and in Europe. We have more per day than many of them do in a year
False analogy. The U.S. has a much larger population than any individual European country - i.e. Germany is about the size of Michigan, etc. If you compare the shooting deaths in all of Europe (pop about 300 mil) to the shooting deaths in all of the U.S. (pop about 280 mil) you'll see that the murder rate is essentially the same - regardless of gun control laws.
In fact, places with heavy gun control, like France and England, actually have a higher per capita rate of gun related crime than places with concealed weapons laws like Texas.
I sincerely apologize - I was thinking of "Bullet the Blue Sky" and got the two confused. You're totally right, of course.
For the rest of it, ClearChannel obviously thought people would freak out if they heard "What a Wonderful World" inbetween body counts and reports about more buildings collapsing. Think just a bit here.
"Sunday, Bloody Sunday" was written when U2 was visiting Libya and they saw the US bomb the living hell out of Khadafi. They thought we were being "unjust" to bomb a country that just had its own government agents bomb a dance club in Germany. It's not anti-terrorism, it's anti-United States, and I think that's also why they decided to not play any Rage songs. Rage Against the Machine has said it hates Capitalism, and the US (yet they sell all their records through Capitalism and the US...another story, though...)
This is just a company trying to be sensitive to people who have had their lives shattered by hate-filled people, and playing songs about plane crashes, death, strife, et. al doesn't help these people deal with their grief at all.
Occaisonally, it's OK to be sensitive to what other people feel.
So, basically, the message is "Don't try to fight us - you'll be slapped?"
That's not a good message at all. It should either be: Don't even try cause you can't break through (which is crap) or Don't even try because we'll use our lawyers to grind you into a financial and legal pulp.
Neither of these are very helpful to the government, or to industry...
What a wishy-washy end to a case that could have set some important precedents and lessons...
The reason I said it sucks is because I found them ultimately frustrating (I'm speaking from Myst I and II). It was just a bunch of slide shows leading up to extraordinarily complex puzzles to solve (and rediculously small windows for watching videos). I guess it was just the level of the puzzles that got to me (I was like 12 at the time) - I didn't get using different bases for numbers, or using a tape recorder to remember the specific sequence of tone required to unlock a door 25 static screens away...it seemed pointless after a while.
Did you consider any of the Myst series? Those can engage the eye candy requirement, and also help them develop complex problem solving skills...that is, if they understand different bases and number theory:-)...
Well, look at Red Hat. They're selling a free operating system, and they're making a profit, and their stock isn't doing anything special. This actually surprises me more than Apple's performance.
Once again - it is expectations, not profits that drive stocks. Traders still don't believe Red Hat is making money. Just like traders don't think Apple can escape the Tech bomb.
It's nothing new to be sued over a parody. Large corporations are always testing the limits of how they can stop their trademarks from being used in ways they don't like.
All I can say is that this is great news. I have to give mad props to B5 for having a planned story arc BEFORE the series was ever aired - it prevented some of the ludicrous plot holes that sometimes popped up star trek.
Plus, Battlestar Galactica was one of the best shows from the 70's! I wonder if they will all have the same hair, or those golf carts that went TWO miles per hour! Seriously, though - BG was like Voyager done overall WAY better with a smaller budget. Let's hope that happens again
At my company we are probably slightly understaffed, so actually getting time free has become the issue. We're in a DoD Mentor/Protege program, so SAIC picks up the cost of classes and whatnot. Otherwise, the IT managers are VERY open to training and improving everyone's skill set - it gets them more contracts.
The problem is that it's always a trade off. It's always going to be a compromise between security and ease of use.
Honestly, if people want to use windoze on their home PC's, whatever. It's their choice.
What gets me is the government choosing to use windoze as well. At least the NSA wised up and switched to Linux. But we have here Navy folks basing their OS choice on ease of use instead of stability or security features. Am I the only one who is a bit scared about that?
I would much rather pay for sailors to learn how to use a secured *nix if that means their fucking ship won't have a systems crash in the middle of a fight. The trade off in this case is not worth it.
Slashdot Mirror
AOL has been nothing but trouble for me. Cox decided to not fix a broken cable trunk for about a month, so I used one of my old AOL "free 700 hour" CD's to sign up.
It was fine and all, but the moment the cable services were up, I decided to cancel my AOL account. The first rep told me, fine - we'll stop charging the account - if you want to start again for 45 days, we'll give the rest of that month free.
Thinking the ads were right and AOL did offer good CS, I forgot about the whole issue. Two weeks later, I got a call from AOL begging me to sign up. I said no - I cancelled because I don't really like AOL's service, and please don't call me again.
The next day I get a call from Michigan asking me to sign up. I reply that I had already asked them to stop calling me, and asked for a name and company.
I got that fine, and was going to report them to the FCC. But, I got busy and forgot. The next day, THE SAME PEOPLE CALLED ME AGAIN, and I just lost it. After yelling at one girl for about 20 minutes, I immediately went to the FCC and reported that I was being harassed by AOL.
Turns out that AOL uses proxy companies to do their calling, and their customer databases aren't always kept up to date. Since they "had no record" of me telling them to not call, there was nothing I could do.
I hate AOL.
We could always look at what is really good for the artist, and what is really good for the label. Take a band like Radiohead. If you download one of their CD's like Amnesiac, and send them even $2-$3, they wind up with more money than if you had bought the CD (I think it would be fine at something like $5.00). They get even more on top if you buy a ticket to their show (and maybe a t-shirt or something). However, with this model, the record company looses all of it's profit margin, and it's only elgible for repayment of marketing and signing advances. It's no wonder the RIAA isn't after the right of artists to get paid, but rather the industry's out-dated business model to survive.
Actually, the article said 500 billion, NOT 500 million billion tons of ice. The two numbers certainly make a world a difference.
Technically, you ARE violating the DMCA, regardless of its constitutional value.
That the gamecube was meant to play games and only play games. The DVD players (redundant, but bears repeating) on consoles, like the PS2 were low grade, and trying to control a movie from a console controller sucked beyond belief.
I actually rather respect Nintendo's decision to not include a DVD player, and to instead include high quality sound. That allows the system to be WAY cheaper than the others.
Well, peace if that bully in Israel would stop the acts of war against the palestinians.
Do you mean that bully whose tourism minister was gunned down outside a hotel? The same one whose country was willing to give away vast tracts of land for a palestinian state, but instead got the intifada? Gimme a break - Israel is as much a victim of terror as all of us in DC and NYC.
I think the biggest problem with the anti-globalization movement is its own protests. Every time a protest is planned, cities have to beef up their police forces because a lot of the protesters take it as an excuse to party and wreck the place!
In governments where leaders are elected (like the US and the EU) there is absolutely ZERO excuse for violent protest - because you have the right to be heard. Just because people don't care doesn't mean you have the "right" to attack police officers and break store windows.
The biggest folly of all, though is the inate cowardice of many of these same protesters. They know that at least some prominent politicians favor them in western democracies, so they don't fear a backlash - but where were they in Shanghai? Terrified of the police response to a protest supposedly in China's best interest! If they're afraid to really stand up to enemies of the people like the government of China, then as far I'm concerned, their movement will be stuck as an annoyance, rather than a legitimate political gripe.
Ya know what, though? Our government has no (that's ZERO) obligation to treat foreign nationals the same as it treats citizens. We have extended those same curtesies to non-citizen students and workers, but there is no reason to continue that. I find that action not unreasonable at all, considering that at least two of the hijackers were here on expried STUDENT VISAS, and in the past 5 years, 16,000 "students" were let into this country from official state sponsors of terrorism. This lapse is hideous, because the most common demographic for an terrorist is: Arabic Male, mid-20's to mid-30's. It's easy to see how the government would be getting nervous at letting that exact same demographic into our country from nations that have devoted themselves to our destruction (Iran, Syria, Palestine and Iraq come to mind).
Am I the only one whose browser (IE 5.5) crashes when loading the videos? There is no mention on the website about plug ins or anything (it's entirely possible I'm a retard), so I'm kind of stumped. I want to see those videos, dammit!
An even more interesting question is this: If Apple is now selling its own MP3 player, does that mean it's going to stop selling 3rd party players? Right now on their website, when you try to buy one of their computers, you're given the option to buy a Creative Nomad or a Rio 600. Are they gonna stop that, and demand that buyers buy only the Apple MP3 device?
Fourth amendment rights can be abrogated in certain places. Schools, for one, conduct random drug searches in kids' lockers. I think at places of work, warantless searches can be made on people, as long as it isn't a government agent (FBI, et. al) conducting the search. If your company wants to search you, I believe (I'm not sure here) they have every right to, because the thinking is that if you don't like it, you can always go work somewhere else.
I can maybe see the logic in that, but it doesn't make much sense from the outset.
So, once people can buy tiny TV's and make them project perfectly well onto large screens, does this mean that the consumer electronics industry will have to readjust itself? Or does anyone think that there will be lawsuits from industry groups and lobbyists to try to block this kind of thing?
Just compare all the gunshot killings here and in Europe. We have more per day than many of them do in a year
False analogy. The U.S. has a much larger population than any individual European country - i.e. Germany is about the size of Michigan, etc. If you compare the shooting deaths in all of Europe (pop about 300 mil) to the shooting deaths in all of the U.S. (pop about 280 mil) you'll see that the murder rate is essentially the same - regardless of gun control laws.
In fact, places with heavy gun control, like France and England, actually have a higher per capita rate of gun related crime than places with concealed weapons laws like Texas.
I sincerely apologize - I was thinking of "Bullet the Blue Sky" and got the two confused. You're totally right, of course.
For the rest of it, ClearChannel obviously thought people would freak out if they heard "What a Wonderful World" inbetween body counts and reports about more buildings collapsing. Think just a bit here.
dude -
"Sunday, Bloody Sunday" was written when U2 was visiting Libya and they saw the US bomb the living hell out of Khadafi. They thought we were being "unjust" to bomb a country that just had its own government agents bomb a dance club in Germany. It's not anti-terrorism, it's anti-United States, and I think that's also why they decided to not play any Rage songs. Rage Against the Machine has said it hates Capitalism, and the US (yet they sell all their records through Capitalism and the US...another story, though...)
This is just a company trying to be sensitive to people who have had their lives shattered by hate-filled people, and playing songs about plane crashes, death, strife, et. al doesn't help these people deal with their grief at all.
Occaisonally, it's OK to be sensitive to what other people feel.
So, basically, the message is "Don't try to fight us - you'll be slapped?"
That's not a good message at all. It should either be: Don't even try cause you can't break through (which is crap) or Don't even try because we'll use our lawyers to grind you into a financial and legal pulp.
Neither of these are very helpful to the government, or to industry...
What a wishy-washy end to a case that could have set some important precedents and lessons...
Get ready for the "marketing geniuses" to take advantage of this...by having new windows pop up right when you move your mouse to the back button...
Anyone else up for using keyboard shortcuts now?
The reason I said it sucks is because I found them ultimately frustrating (I'm speaking from Myst I and II). It was just a bunch of slide shows leading up to extraordinarily complex puzzles to solve (and rediculously small windows for watching videos). I guess it was just the level of the puzzles that got to me (I was like 12 at the time) - I didn't get using different bases for numbers, or using a tape recorder to remember the specific sequence of tone required to unlock a door 25 static screens away...it seemed pointless after a while.
Did you consider any of the Myst series? Those can engage the eye candy requirement, and also help them develop complex problem solving skills...that is, if they understand different bases and number theory :-)...
Well, look at Red Hat. They're selling a free operating system, and they're making a profit, and their stock isn't doing anything special. This actually surprises me more than Apple's performance.
Once again - it is expectations, not profits that drive stocks. Traders still don't believe Red Hat is making money. Just like traders don't think Apple can escape the Tech bomb.
It's nothing new to be sued over a parody. Large corporations are always testing the limits of how they can stop their trademarks from being used in ways they don't like.
All I can say is that this is great news. I have to give mad props to B5 for having a planned story arc BEFORE the series was ever aired - it prevented some of the ludicrous plot holes that sometimes popped up star trek.
Plus, Battlestar Galactica was one of the best shows from the 70's! I wonder if they will all have the same hair, or those golf carts that went TWO miles per hour! Seriously, though - BG was like Voyager done overall WAY better with a smaller budget. Let's hope that happens again
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Honestly, if people want to use windoze on their home PC's, whatever. It's their choice.
What gets me is the government choosing to use windoze as well. At least the NSA wised up and switched to Linux. But we have here Navy folks basing their OS choice on ease of use instead of stability or security features. Am I the only one who is a bit scared about that?
I would much rather pay for sailors to learn how to use a secured *nix if that means their fucking ship won't have a systems crash in the middle of a fight. The trade off in this case is not worth it.