There's ads? (Turns off Proxomitron)..oh yeah..whaddya know! (turns on Proxomitron)
Its kinda funny, I run Mozilla, so for me it would be a simple Right-Click and block images from this server. And I do this on quite a few of the sites I visit, but not/. Not to mention that I also tend to keep a HOSTS file for blackholeing servers I never want to talk to. I have come to the conclusion that I am willing to view the ads in a website, as long as they are not annoying. To me this seems to be a good comprimise, I don't mind seeing banner ads, even ones with some animation don't bother me, though I do kill animated images after 1 loop, but these ones that flash bright yellow and red, or just plain do everything to try and draw my attention away from what I am doing bug the hell out of me, so I refuse to view them and usually block any images from that server. Plus, pop-ups/unders are simply right out, never will I willing disable the pop-up blocking feature in Mozilla. I don't mind companies trying to advertise to me, and since I understand that ads are where a lot of websites make their money, I am willing to view the ads in exchange for the sites content, but once a site goes out and annoys me with its ads, that's it, I will then become a leech and just take the content without giving them back anything. Is it right, probably not, but I personally view it as them breaking the basic comprimise, I get your content and you get your ad money, annoying me is not part of the bargin.
Actually, depending on the game, I prefer having some sort of HUD. Especially in those games which involve some sort of flight/space/mech simulation, I find a good HUD is able to give you a ton of data. Of course, I don't have a projection TV, so I don't have the possible burn-in problem you do, besides which, are you really going to be playing long enough for something to burn in?
Alright, you have now been elected to place a bag of flaming dog shit of his door step every night around midnight, and then ring the door bell. Or, assuming he has a fence, you can simply chuck the bag like a gernade at his front door, the weaker the bag, the better (might also recommend getting the bag wet first).
Re:Some Interesting New Products...
on
Powered by Blood
·
· Score: 1
Ya, the BMI thing really seems to be a load of bull. Last time I looked at it, I was supposed to be somewhere in the 180 range, or so, don't remeber exactly at the moment and currently I stand 6'3". Now, on the other hand, I've had a skin fold test which put me as having too much fat, (pushing 20%) which I believe, but if you worked the numbers about 220 pounds of me was bone and muscle. Now, in order to get down to this magical BMI thingy, I would not only have to shed every ounce of fat on my body, which might be ok, but I tend to believe that having a little is healthy, but I would also have to drop 40 pounds of muscle, which I am quite sure is not healthy.
By the same token, immoral!=wrong "Wrong" isn't necessarily used in a moral sense, it can pertain to the law too, and that's all I meant. That was actually the reason I said it is wrong "for the time being".
I guess that's one of the problems with language, it has a bad tendancy to lead to confusion. The reason I pointed this out, was that, in context, I came to the conclusion that you meant wrong as in immoral. I would say that there is some need for care in picking the right words for a discussion like this where both the legality and morality of an action play heavily in the conversation, the word "wrong" is kind of ambiguious, and I really dislike bluring the line between law and morality, too many people do that these days, and I find it a bit frightening.
This sounds like me. I happened to be at a Virgin Megastore looking at CD's this weekend. Specifically, I was looking to replace a Simon and Garfunkle CD I had stolen a few years back. Now, maybe its just me, but I would think that a CD containing a collection of songs that was put out before I was born would be a bit cheaper than a CD by a current band, something about the whole supply and demand economics thingy. Well, I found the one I was looking for, flipped it over to look at the price and nearly keeled over from shock, they wanted $19 for the thing. The only thing that I could think was, "give me a break, that's outragous for this". Sure, I like some of their stuff, but I'll be damned if I'll pay $19 for it. I promptly put it back on the shelf (it took a bit of self control not to just chuck it over my sholder). Now, at this point, I decided just for the heck of it to thumb through the rest of the CD's on that shelf, and happened to find the exact same CD with a special $10 sticker. Seems the store was having a sale of some sort and everything that was stickered was on sale for $10. So, I grabbed that copy and took it to the front of the store and bought it, $10 was about what I was willing to pay for it.
Now, maybe its just me, but every time I go and look at CD's I am staggered by the price they are trying to charge for these things. Truth is, I don't listen to much new music, I don't like it, and I would have thought that CD's of older music would have come down a bit in price, the producers are no longer spending money promoting those bands, so why the high price? I know for a fact that the high price of CD's has lost the RIAA et al. about a dozen sales from me this year, and I don't think I am alone. Now I should say here that I don't download the songs either, I just make do without. If they are really that concerned about dropping sales, you would think they would consider lowing prices just a bit on the older stuff, it might just drive a few sales.
The govenment is only able to mandate what is punishable by itself, and what is not. It does not, and should never try, to dictate morals. While I realize that a lot of people base their sense of wrong and right on what is illegal and legal, there is no reason to expect that anyone else will. Remeber, morals are like religion, everyone has, and is entitled to their own views. The place of law is to step in when those views create an unresolvable conflict. Basically, you're more than welcome to view things, as right and wrong, from the perspective of the current law, but please don't try and force such beliefs on the rest of us.
But it includes processing. If the disposable film camera is $5, that means you have to find a place that will develop it for $6 including the CD. I don't know of anywhere to get film developed that cheaply.
Agreed, it will probably be cheaper in the long run, the question is, are people smart enough to figure that out? Unfortunatly, a lot of people seem to only understand the upfront costs of an item, and don't factor in the costs that will hit them later. This whole scheme is the reason that inkjet printers sell for $50 and the refills for $30, the printer is a loss, but they rape you on the ink. Personally, I'll wait until I can buy a color laser printer. I think this product might run afoul of the same logic, or lack thereof, in people; they will buy the $5 camera because its cheaper then later pay the $10 processing fee and still not put $5 and $10 together to get $15 vs $11. Maybe I'm just overly cynical about this, but how else does one explain Compaq being in business as long as they have?
Get those kids used to the fact that everything they do will be under a government microscope.
Will kids that grow up in a situation like this mind at all that it doesnt really end when they leave HS for the 'real world'?
While this may have been intended as a joke, I think there is a bit of truth in this. If you want to get a society used to something, you start by indoctrinating the children. There was a reason the Nazi's started up a Hitler's Youth program. Its eaiser to manipulate children than adults, and when those children become adults, they are already programmed and ready to do your bidding. Not to say that this is anywhere near the level of Hitler's Youth, but the method is the same.
Sorry, bit of a typo there. Though I still stand by my assertion polygraph tests are junk science. If you haven't done so, I would recommend reading
The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (PDF), its a good read and very informative about polygraph tests and the like. Polygraphs are just the moden day version of a mystic. They don't do anything in and of themselves, they only convince people to confess, and are great for destroying someone's credibility because the media believes in them.
Stop right there. You have just described the whole "science" of polography. The only reason it sticks around is there is enough money being pumped into it, that the purveyors of this snake oil can keep lots of people convinced that it works. The only thing it is useful for is convincing weak minded idiots that you actually have a way to see inside their heads, and get them to confess. Other than that, it is total bunk.
The only other game that I respect Wizards/Hasbro/whatever for is Call of Cthulhu. Now that's a fun game.
Roborally, don't forget Roborally. This has got to be one of the best board games ever made. Mind you, I don't think it was a WOTC original, but they do own the license to it now. No other game offers the sheer joy of watching your opponent finish out his registers after you bump him a square or two on the first phase, especially on the can crusher map.
Not to mention that these sorts of things can be a real danger to birds in the area. Imagine that one of these stations is placed in an area where an endangered bird lives. Now what happens to that bird if it flies between the mirrors and the tower some time close to noon? I happen to live close enough to have seen Solar Two on several occasions, and I know for fact that the concentrated sunlight around the tower is enough to create two free foating bright spots in the sky (actually, I would guess that it is a ring but you can only see the spots which are orthagonal to you). These things are going to kill endangered birds by the hundreds.
Moreover, by placing masses of these mirrors across the planet it will raise the albedo of the planet and will create massive global cooling. We will slip into a new ice age, crops will be destroyed, large areas of the planet will become uninhabitable. Mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together!
For those that have reached this point but failed to realize it, this is intended as a joke, laugh. Afterall, I'm sure the enviromental lobby will think up some better reason to ban these things.
I think the solution to this sort of thing would be some person comming up with a way to replicate a replicator in pieces, which can be plugged together like lego's. Once one person gets a hold of one of these, he can give one to all his friends/co-workers, they can then pass them along and so on until the artificial scarcity collapses. At that time the only thing that will be important is the control on the designs themselves, and if those can be shared and downloaded to the unit then I expect we would see it done. It will probably be illegal to do so, but no one will care. Though I expect that a good number of people are going to get nailed in court to try and stop it, I just don't think it will happen.
Ahh, there's the difference. I'm going through a DSL ISP chage (I want to put my own mail server up), my new ISP charged me with a $125 setup fee. If it wasn't for the desire to set up my server I would have stayed with my current ISP, after seeing that requirement. As it is, I simply rubbed my sore ass after the raping and got about the change over. Still, its difficult to swallow such a fee, just to be able to pay a different company for the same thing.
Oh come now, that game is just good wholesome fun.
Here's my reasoning: We all get pissed off from time to time and really feel a need to vent. Games like Deception 1&2 are simply an outlet for this sort of thing. Its like a much more interactive version of punching a pillow, the intention is still the same, to get our frustration out, and relieve stress. Sure, in the context of the game we are killing people in horrible, albiet entertaining, ways; but maybe that is part of the enjoyment of the game, to do, in a virtual way, soemthing that we would never do to someone in real life, but really wish we could. For example, my previous boss was an absolute pain in the ass. But given his position, and my personal morals, I wouldn't ever actually hurt the guy. But, you can sure bet that I saw his face every once in a while on the virtual chacters as I flung them into a death fan, and juggled their corpse.
To me, games are an outlet for feelings that we have no good way to express in the real world. But we need to always understand the distiction between a game and reality, if you ever have trouble making this distinction, turn the power off and seek psychological help.
Also, I would say that online MMORPG's are a bit different of a beast. In those games you are actually interacting with other "real" people. These games start off with that whole fantasy/reality line a bit blurred anyhow, though I can see a place for evil players in such games. The problem is that most people take this to an extreme and ruin the game experience for everyone else. I kind of like the system that was developed on UO eventually, there are two identical worlds, one where PvP was allowed, and one where it wasn't. Funny thing I noticed, the non-PvP world seemed crowded, and while I didn't venture over there much, the PvP world seemed much less crowded. Maybe it was just my perception, but I think the majority type of player in UO just want to play around in a fantasy realm and not worry about being killed but some PK who had either spent tons of time working a chacter up, and/or macroed the character up.
So to make a point in this rambling, I don't think there is any reason to feel bad about mutilating a bunch of bits. However, in an MMORPG, keep in mind that there is a real person on the other side that you might just be ruining the game for.
$50!!! That's insane. In Canada I pay about $20/month (first 4 months, then I move because I'm at University and keep starting my 4 months again). Even the full price is like $30 something. Canadian!!!
Sorry, dumb question here but, don't they charge a setup fee each time you do that, or is that just something they pull on us here in the US?
Ya, he missed on the name. Its called Predatory Pricing, and it tends to get companies in trouble. Especially when that company has a monopoly. Wrong name or not though, he has a point. If a company has a monopoly and then uses that position to drive out all competition by lowering prices below their cost, this is a bad thing, and illegal.
Ya, this was my thought. They are basically saying, let's kill off the one reason most people are adopting broadband. As it currently sits, there are only two real reasons that a person would have to get broadband.
1. High speed songs/movies/porn. Sure, a legal way to get these wouldn't hurt, but right now P2P is the best way to get this stuff. This is most of your broadband users, in my experience.
2. Getting a damn good ping on Enemy Territory or other online games. Much smaller group of people.
Other than those reasons, I don't know of anyone (outside a business) that would have a reason to justify the cost of broadband. At a cost of $40-$50, I just don't see a lot of people needing to get their email that much faster. But then, I'm not some industry hired shill^H^H^H^H^H analyst.
I may be alone in this, but I think that the more of these suits they bring the better. It would be great if they could get a hold of a sue every single file sharer out there.
Now, there is a method to my madness, this would be good, because it might just piss off enough people, or just enough of the right people, to actually get something done about the screwed up copyright laws we have at the moment. So, as far as I am concerned, bring it on RIAA, send more threatening letters, start more suits, go piss off all of your customers. You are only digging the foundation out from under yourselves.
In the end, I agree with you that mandatory voting is dumb - but it is one of our smallest problems
I don't think I would mind mandatory voting, if, and only if, we had a "no confidence" vote on the ballot. Such that, if you didn't like any of the choices presented to you, you could vote to have a whole new slate of candidates put up(e.g. if the "no confidence" choice won, all of the parties have to put up new people and we try again.) God knows I would have voted that way back in 2000.
Well, if you're going to go to that much trouble to get your rocks off, might as well go all the way and go to Nevada, once you get outside Clark County (think Las Vegas), prostitution is legal. And believe me, when you are inside Vegas, they advertise well enough to make sure you know where to get some, or maybe it was just like that during Comdex a few years back, I swear I was underage and they still tried to hand me fliers on every corner.
You are probably right, though it wasn't really entrapment what I was trying getting at, it was intended as a metaphor, and a bad choice I guess. My question was ment to be: if I am downloading a song from a person how has the right to distribute it, and they have willingly made it available for download, am I really infringing on their copyright? They have the right to distribute, made it available, and I downloaded it.
I have yet to see a video game prompt a war, genocide, mass murder, or torture and be called good while its being done. If you ever want anything that will get a lot of people to take a break from reality religion is the way to go. Regular opiates only work on one person at a time, religion works on thousands at once.
Sorry, I was trying to talk in general but for some examples:
Robotech: Crystal Dreams - this is one of my personal bitches, the expected release of this game got me to buy an N64. Release dates slipped, and then changed to a when its done date, it died in development.
Duke Nukem (delayed) Forever - unless something changes soon, this title is looking to release about three days after the messiah returns.
I am sure there are more out there, but I don't feel like devoting the time to it at the moment. I will admit, some companies have managed to pull this off, but it still strikes me as an ideology which is problematic at best.
Slashdot Mirror
There's ads? (Turns off Proxomitron)..oh yeah..whaddya know! (turns on Proxomitron)
/. Not to mention that I also tend to keep a HOSTS file for blackholeing servers I never want to talk to. I have come to the conclusion that I am willing to view the ads in a website, as long as they are not annoying. To me this seems to be a good comprimise, I don't mind seeing banner ads, even ones with some animation don't bother me, though I do kill animated images after 1 loop, but these ones that flash bright yellow and red, or just plain do everything to try and draw my attention away from what I am doing bug the hell out of me, so I refuse to view them and usually block any images from that server. Plus, pop-ups/unders are simply right out, never will I willing disable the pop-up blocking feature in Mozilla. I don't mind companies trying to advertise to me, and since I understand that ads are where a lot of websites make their money, I am willing to view the ads in exchange for the sites content, but once a site goes out and annoys me with its ads, that's it, I will then become a leech and just take the content without giving them back anything. Is it right, probably not, but I personally view it as them breaking the basic comprimise, I get your content and you get your ad money, annoying me is not part of the bargin.
Its kinda funny, I run Mozilla, so for me it would be a simple Right-Click and block images from this server. And I do this on quite a few of the sites I visit, but not
Actually, depending on the game, I prefer having some sort of HUD. Especially in those games which involve some sort of flight/space/mech simulation, I find a good HUD is able to give you a ton of data. Of course, I don't have a projection TV, so I don't have the possible burn-in problem you do, besides which, are you really going to be playing long enough for something to burn in?
Alright, you have now been elected to place a bag of flaming dog shit of his door step every night around midnight, and then ring the door bell. Or, assuming he has a fence, you can simply chuck the bag like a gernade at his front door, the weaker the bag, the better (might also recommend getting the bag wet first).
Ya, the BMI thing really seems to be a load of bull. Last time I looked at it, I was supposed to be somewhere in the 180 range, or so, don't remeber exactly at the moment and currently I stand 6'3". Now, on the other hand, I've had a skin fold test which put me as having too much fat, (pushing 20%) which I believe, but if you worked the numbers about 220 pounds of me was bone and muscle. Now, in order to get down to this magical BMI thingy, I would not only have to shed every ounce of fat on my body, which might be ok, but I tend to believe that having a little is healthy, but I would also have to drop 40 pounds of muscle, which I am quite sure is not healthy.
By the same token, immoral!=wrong "Wrong" isn't necessarily used in a moral sense, it can pertain to the law too, and that's all I meant. That was actually the reason I said it is wrong "for the time being".
I guess that's one of the problems with language, it has a bad tendancy to lead to confusion. The reason I pointed this out, was that, in context, I came to the conclusion that you meant wrong as in immoral. I would say that there is some need for care in picking the right words for a discussion like this where both the legality and morality of an action play heavily in the conversation, the word "wrong" is kind of ambiguious, and I really dislike bluring the line between law and morality, too many people do that these days, and I find it a bit frightening.
This sounds like me. I happened to be at a Virgin Megastore looking at CD's this weekend. Specifically, I was looking to replace a Simon and Garfunkle CD I had stolen a few years back. Now, maybe its just me, but I would think that a CD containing a collection of songs that was put out before I was born would be a bit cheaper than a CD by a current band, something about the whole supply and demand economics thingy. Well, I found the one I was looking for, flipped it over to look at the price and nearly keeled over from shock, they wanted $19 for the thing. The only thing that I could think was, "give me a break, that's outragous for this". Sure, I like some of their stuff, but I'll be damned if I'll pay $19 for it. I promptly put it back on the shelf (it took a bit of self control not to just chuck it over my sholder). Now, at this point, I decided just for the heck of it to thumb through the rest of the CD's on that shelf, and happened to find the exact same CD with a special $10 sticker. Seems the store was having a sale of some sort and everything that was stickered was on sale for $10. So, I grabbed that copy and took it to the front of the store and bought it, $10 was about what I was willing to pay for it.
Now, maybe its just me, but every time I go and look at CD's I am staggered by the price they are trying to charge for these things. Truth is, I don't listen to much new music, I don't like it, and I would have thought that CD's of older music would have come down a bit in price, the producers are no longer spending money promoting those bands, so why the high price? I know for a fact that the high price of CD's has lost the RIAA et al. about a dozen sales from me this year, and I don't think I am alone. Now I should say here that I don't download the songs either, I just make do without. If they are really that concerned about dropping sales, you would think they would consider lowing prices just a bit on the older stuff, it might just drive a few sales.
The govenment is only able to mandate what is punishable by itself, and what is not. It does not, and should never try, to dictate morals. While I realize that a lot of people base their sense of wrong and right on what is illegal and legal, there is no reason to expect that anyone else will. Remeber, morals are like religion, everyone has, and is entitled to their own views. The place of law is to step in when those views create an unresolvable conflict. Basically, you're more than welcome to view things, as right and wrong, from the perspective of the current law, but please don't try and force such beliefs on the rest of us.
But it includes processing. If the disposable film camera is $5, that means you have to find a place that will develop it for $6 including the CD. I don't know of anywhere to get film developed that cheaply.
Agreed, it will probably be cheaper in the long run, the question is, are people smart enough to figure that out? Unfortunatly, a lot of people seem to only understand the upfront costs of an item, and don't factor in the costs that will hit them later. This whole scheme is the reason that inkjet printers sell for $50 and the refills for $30, the printer is a loss, but they rape you on the ink. Personally, I'll wait until I can buy a color laser printer. I think this product might run afoul of the same logic, or lack thereof, in people; they will buy the $5 camera because its cheaper then later pay the $10 processing fee and still not put $5 and $10 together to get $15 vs $11. Maybe I'm just overly cynical about this, but how else does one explain Compaq being in business as long as they have?
Get those kids used to the fact that everything they do will be under a government microscope.
Will kids that grow up in a situation like this mind at all that it doesnt really end when they leave HS for the 'real world'?
While this may have been intended as a joke, I think there is a bit of truth in this. If you want to get a society used to something, you start by indoctrinating the children. There was a reason the Nazi's started up a Hitler's Youth program. Its eaiser to manipulate children than adults, and when those children become adults, they are already programmed and ready to do your bidding. Not to say that this is anywhere near the level of Hitler's Youth, but the method is the same.
Sorry, bit of a typo there. Though I still stand by my assertion polygraph tests are junk science. If you haven't done so, I would recommend reading The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (PDF), its a good read and very informative about polygraph tests and the like. Polygraphs are just the moden day version of a mystic. They don't do anything in and of themselves, they only convince people to confess, and are great for destroying someone's credibility because the media believes in them.
That's a crock of shit.
Stop right there. You have just described the whole "science" of polography. The only reason it sticks around is there is enough money being pumped into it, that the purveyors of this snake oil can keep lots of people convinced that it works. The only thing it is useful for is convincing weak minded idiots that you actually have a way to see inside their heads, and get them to confess. Other than that, it is total bunk.
The only other game that I respect Wizards/Hasbro/whatever for is Call of Cthulhu. Now that's a fun game.
Roborally, don't forget Roborally. This has got to be one of the best board games ever made. Mind you, I don't think it was a WOTC original, but they do own the license to it now. No other game offers the sheer joy of watching your opponent finish out his registers after you bump him a square or two on the first phase, especially on the can crusher map.
Not to mention that these sorts of things can be a real danger to birds in the area. Imagine that one of these stations is placed in an area where an endangered bird lives. Now what happens to that bird if it flies between the mirrors and the tower some time close to noon? I happen to live close enough to have seen Solar Two on several occasions, and I know for fact that the concentrated sunlight around the tower is enough to create two free foating bright spots in the sky (actually, I would guess that it is a ring but you can only see the spots which are orthagonal to you). These things are going to kill endangered birds by the hundreds.
Moreover, by placing masses of these mirrors across the planet it will raise the albedo of the planet and will create massive global cooling. We will slip into a new ice age, crops will be destroyed, large areas of the planet will become uninhabitable. Mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together!
For those that have reached this point but failed to realize it, this is intended as a joke, laugh. Afterall, I'm sure the enviromental lobby will think up some better reason to ban these things.
I think the solution to this sort of thing would be some person comming up with a way to replicate a replicator in pieces, which can be plugged together like lego's. Once one person gets a hold of one of these, he can give one to all his friends/co-workers, they can then pass them along and so on until the artificial scarcity collapses. At that time the only thing that will be important is the control on the designs themselves, and if those can be shared and downloaded to the unit then I expect we would see it done. It will probably be illegal to do so, but no one will care. Though I expect that a good number of people are going to get nailed in court to try and stop it, I just don't think it will happen.
Ahh, there's the difference. I'm going through a DSL ISP chage (I want to put my own mail server up), my new ISP charged me with a $125 setup fee. If it wasn't for the desire to set up my server I would have stayed with my current ISP, after seeing that requirement. As it is, I simply rubbed my sore ass after the raping and got about the change over. Still, its difficult to swallow such a fee, just to be able to pay a different company for the same thing.
Oh come now, that game is just good wholesome fun.
Here's my reasoning: We all get pissed off from time to time and really feel a need to vent. Games like Deception 1&2 are simply an outlet for this sort of thing. Its like a much more interactive version of punching a pillow, the intention is still the same, to get our frustration out, and relieve stress. Sure, in the context of the game we are killing people in horrible, albiet entertaining, ways; but maybe that is part of the enjoyment of the game, to do, in a virtual way, soemthing that we would never do to someone in real life, but really wish we could. For example, my previous boss was an absolute pain in the ass. But given his position, and my personal morals, I wouldn't ever actually hurt the guy. But, you can sure bet that I saw his face every once in a while on the virtual chacters as I flung them into a death fan, and juggled their corpse.
To me, games are an outlet for feelings that we have no good way to express in the real world. But we need to always understand the distiction between a game and reality, if you ever have trouble making this distinction, turn the power off and seek psychological help.
Also, I would say that online MMORPG's are a bit different of a beast. In those games you are actually interacting with other "real" people. These games start off with that whole fantasy/reality line a bit blurred anyhow, though I can see a place for evil players in such games. The problem is that most people take this to an extreme and ruin the game experience for everyone else. I kind of like the system that was developed on UO eventually, there are two identical worlds, one where PvP was allowed, and one where it wasn't. Funny thing I noticed, the non-PvP world seemed crowded, and while I didn't venture over there much, the PvP world seemed much less crowded. Maybe it was just my perception, but I think the majority type of player in UO just want to play around in a fantasy realm and not worry about being killed but some PK who had either spent tons of time working a chacter up, and/or macroed the character up.
So to make a point in this rambling, I don't think there is any reason to feel bad about mutilating a bunch of bits. However, in an MMORPG, keep in mind that there is a real person on the other side that you might just be ruining the game for.
$50!!! That's insane. In Canada I pay about $20/month (first 4 months, then I move because I'm at University and keep starting my 4 months again). Even the full price is like $30 something. Canadian!!!
Sorry, dumb question here but, don't they charge a setup fee each time you do that, or is that just something they pull on us here in the US?
You, sir, are the victim of a monopoly.
You noticed?
Ya, he missed on the name. Its called Predatory Pricing, and it tends to get companies in trouble. Especially when that company has a monopoly. Wrong name or not though, he has a point. If a company has a monopoly and then uses that position to drive out all competition by lowering prices below their cost, this is a bad thing, and illegal.
Ya, this was my thought. They are basically saying, let's kill off the one reason most people are adopting broadband. As it currently sits, there are only two real reasons that a person would have to get broadband.
1. High speed songs/movies/porn. Sure, a legal way to get these wouldn't hurt, but right now P2P is the best way to get this stuff. This is most of your broadband users, in my experience.
2. Getting a damn good ping on Enemy Territory or other online games. Much smaller group of people.
Other than those reasons, I don't know of anyone (outside a business) that would have a reason to justify the cost of broadband. At a cost of $40-$50, I just don't see a lot of people needing to get their email that much faster. But then, I'm not some industry hired shill^H^H^H^H^H analyst.
I may be alone in this, but I think that the more of these suits they bring the better. It would be great if they could get a hold of a sue every single file sharer out there.
Now, there is a method to my madness, this would be good, because it might just piss off enough people, or just enough of the right people, to actually get something done about the screwed up copyright laws we have at the moment. So, as far as I am concerned, bring it on RIAA, send more threatening letters, start more suits, go piss off all of your customers. You are only digging the foundation out from under yourselves.
In the end, I agree with you that mandatory voting is dumb - but it is one of our smallest problems
I don't think I would mind mandatory voting, if, and only if, we had a "no confidence" vote on the ballot. Such that, if you didn't like any of the choices presented to you, you could vote to have a whole new slate of candidates put up(e.g. if the "no confidence" choice won, all of the parties have to put up new people and we try again.) God knows I would have voted that way back in 2000.
Well, if you're going to go to that much trouble to get your rocks off, might as well go all the way and go to Nevada, once you get outside Clark County (think Las Vegas), prostitution is legal. And believe me, when you are inside Vegas, they advertise well enough to make sure you know where to get some, or maybe it was just like that during Comdex a few years back, I swear I was underage and they still tried to hand me fliers on every corner.
You are probably right, though it wasn't really entrapment what I was trying getting at, it was intended as a metaphor, and a bad choice I guess. My question was ment to be: if I am downloading a song from a person how has the right to distribute it, and they have willingly made it available for download, am I really infringing on their copyright? They have the right to distribute, made it available, and I downloaded it.
I have yet to see a video game prompt a war, genocide, mass murder, or torture and be called good while its being done. If you ever want anything that will get a lot of people to take a break from reality religion is the way to go. Regular opiates only work on one person at a time, religion works on thousands at once.
Sorry, I was trying to talk in general but for some examples:
Robotech: Crystal Dreams - this is one of my personal bitches, the expected release of this game got me to buy an N64. Release dates slipped, and then changed to a when its done date, it died in development.
Duke Nukem (delayed) Forever - unless something changes soon, this title is looking to release about three days after the messiah returns.
I am sure there are more out there, but I don't feel like devoting the time to it at the moment. I will admit, some companies have managed to pull this off, but it still strikes me as an ideology which is problematic at best.