I won't even get into the conversation that more and more these days, you have to almost speak fucking Spanish in the US.....just to get anything done.
-Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak
I had a similar situation where I was pulled over for supposedly doing 50 in a 35 zone. The problem was, it was on a surface street during rush hour, and if anyone there was going over 30 at the time it would have been a miracle (or a flying car). The judge didn't care, and it was the cop's word against mine, so of course I lost.
It seems like every time I'm shopping for a TV or other electronic component I have to deal with the fact that Best Buy, Fry's, Target, and five other retailers already have "different" versions of what I want. Is the KDL32EX520 the same as the KDL32EX523? Or is it the same as the KDL32EX52ba, which I read a great review for on CNet? Oh wait, KMart has a KDL32HX520 for $100 cheaper. But is that the same model, or does it have the cheaper version of the back-light from Taiwan that is more likely to fail?
It's just going to get tougher if they succeed.
I applaud them having their own lines of clothes, pottery, dog collars, and linens if that helps differentiate them. But I'd like to read a couple trusted reviews before I drop $1000 on a TV, and if I can't find a review of that KDL32EM521 you have in your store, I'm going elsewhere. I don't mind driving to a couple places before spending a bundle.
The funny from my perspective is that in a decade as an AT&T customer, first just long distance, then wireless, I always got great customer service from them. The problem was when I bought my house the reception was terrible and I couldn't get cell calls in my own living room or even in my driveway. Oh yeah, and dropped calls were fairly common.
I hated leaving the good customer service but I ended up switching to Verizon because their coverage in central CA is much better than AT&T. I almost never drop calls now and customer service is at least not bad. However I'm also paying about $10 more per month for the same plan I had with AT&T.
So, if AT&T raises their prices to be even closer to Verizon's in this area they will definitely lose lots of customers.
Maybe their plan is to raise prices, lose business, go bankrupt (resulting in one less choice for consumers), and then say "See! We told you denying the merger would be bad for competition!"
At the very end of the video she points out that this model (2nd gen) has no windshield wipers, headlamps, or climate control. But they are looking to add that stuff for the 3rd gen model so it will be "all weather". It seems to me that by the time they add all the crap to it that a normal car has, it won't be any cheaper than buying a SMART car. Sure you can spin it around and park it more easily, but with the range and speed tradeoffs it hardly seems like a good business model.
Sort of the point I was making is that accurate predictions are notoriously difficult because it's hard to imagine disruptive technologies and where they will take us. Sure, we could have giant fruits and super-fast ocean liners, but we don't, for a variety of reasons.
I wonder if that wasn't the case 100 years ago. I was more amused by the idea that baby toys would be more like dumbbells. instead we went the other way and they are now all designed to strengthen the brain instead of the body. Imagine if all our babies were like this kid: http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2009/04/real-life-mutant-baby-is-super-strong
That's what I said. We already have GM crops that can feed everyone. I want something new from the promise of science.
And just to address your snarky point about Monsanto, the real reason people starve in Africa isn't because of greedy corporations. It's because of greedy governments and warlords that interfere with distribution and don't maintain roads and distribution systems properly, as well as frequent war and crappy growing conditions.
No no, that's a "Grapple", which rhymes with maple. I believe they are apples injected with grape juice for extra flavor. I want a grape the size of my fist!:-D
In 1900 some predictions were made by "most learned and conservative minds in America" about what life would be like in 100 years. Now that it's a decade past that deadline, let's take a look at how they fared:
Interestingly, they got some of them right. But these were mostly about the spread of technology that already existed at the consumer level, and all good futurists know that predicting price drops in manufactured conveniences is usually a safe bet.
Some of my favorites (with a few of my comments):
- Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling. (Ha!) - There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises. (Ha!) - No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams. - Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. - There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second. -...coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper. Every river or creek with any suitable fall will be... making electricity. - Hot and Cold Air from Spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath. Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished. Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls. (They sort of got the end result right, but not the means) - Vegetables Grown by Electricity. In cold weather he will place heat-conducting electric wires under the soil of his garden and thus warm his growing plants. Electric currents applied to the soil will make valuable plants grow larger and faster, and will kill troublesome weeds. - Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh. They will be carried with the electric current applied without pain to the outside skin of the body. - There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. - To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days.
Prophets always make the same predictions: we'll have better versions of
I keep waiting for all this "frankenfood" the Luddites promise I'll see, but all we get are more resiliant, disease and pest resistant crops that have the potential to feed the starving, etc etc.
Where are my grapples (grapes the size of apples)? Where is my chocolate flavored bananas that grow in a temperate environment? Where is the wheat I can bake into a pizza crust that has all my RDA vitamins along with a weight-loss ingreiant?
Your explanation matches what I assumed to be happening. While I know you were mainly replying to JDean, my question still stands. How does the coating repel water from electrical contacts without preventing the connection from being made? If it allows electrons through then water inside would still short out the circuits. If it doesn't let electrons through then it prevents you from connecting it to anything external. Maybe their expensive process involves them masking off the exposed contacts so they are't coated. But then I'd think the contacts would be prone to corrosion from water.
How could you coat the interior of a microSD card slot that's covered with a loose-fitting cover and make it waterproof? If the nano-coating doesn't conduct electricity then any card you insert won't make contact with the contacts. If it does conduct, then it's useless as a waterproofing seal over electronics. The same would seem to hold true for any earphone plug or charging port, right?
The hardware is different. I don't know if that justifies the price difference, but if it doesn't make it more expensive to build you would think they'd just incorporate the changes into the XBox version to save them money on manufacturing, but it doesn't sound like they will.
This all seems like a moot point since they extended the ability to use the XBox version on PCs by 3 years. What are you complaining about?
The higher price is aimed at developers who actually intend to sell their products. MS won't get a cut of that like they do XBox games, so they have to make it up on the front end. MS also gives really cheap versions of their software to students. You don't hear professional app developers complaining about paying full price though, right? Because they are going to make money off their work, unlike students doing homework. MS is basically doing the same thing here, offering a cheaper alternative to hobbyists and charging full price for professionals.
Unfortunately they did it in backwards order, so instead of grateful posts from poor hobbyists for getting a "cheaper" version, we get hateful posts from idiots about getting a "more expensive" version.
I've read about similar results from fecal transplants to replace colon flora. If I understand it correctly, there are actually doctors that will "reset" your colon flora by giving you a high dose of antibiotics and then basically stick someone else's poop up your butt. I'm sure it's more scientific than that, but it supposedly repopulates your colon with different flora and the people that have undergone the procedure swear it made them lose weight or recover from other problems, etc.
We already knew politicians from IL suck, given the long track record of graft and corruption and governors in prison. A 2008 MSNBC report called Illinois "the Land of Greased Palms”.
Why do you think it's so easy for spies to steal your cell phone data? You see it on shows like Chuck and 24 all the time! Spies all have a magical device that plugs into any cell phone and downloads all the data in exactly as long as it takes for the phone's owner to almost get back from the bathroom, giving them just enough time to put it back where it belongs.
How could they do that if Apple (i.e. every evil phone maker) wasn't providing them with a back door?
That's why I always carry a dummy phone with decoy data on it while my bluetooth headset is secretly connected to my real phone, which is hidden in my shoe!
I wasn't talking about how much you'd like LotRo or DDO, but your contention that F2P games have a much higher level of "vulgarity, abuse and griefing - as well as outright cheating" and that you end up being tempted to "pay to win". In my experience, games that already had a strong community (like these two) don't end up in massive decline when they go free. And in LotRo's case at least, there isn't really a "pay to win" issue because the stuff you can buy is either cosmetic or things you can also get by just playing. None of it gives you a huge advantage over the cheaper players.
I suspect you are talking more about the asian-style "MMOs" that start out free and are designed to get you hooked and then frustrated, which is an entirely different class. I just thought I'd point out that you were casting your aspersions unnecessarily wide.
Slashdot Mirror
If you haven't seen the movie "The Final Cut", it's sort of like this (although not mandatory). Kinda cool.
Geez, WTF?
I won't even get into the conversation that more and more these days, you have to almost speak fucking Spanish in the US.....just to get anything done.
-Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak
Is it ironic that your own sig makes fun of you?
Did anyone else read this and think it meant the band, The B-52's? I mean, Fred Schneider is looking kind of old, but geeze.
I had a similar situation where I was pulled over for supposedly doing 50 in a 35 zone. The problem was, it was on a surface street during rush hour, and if anyone there was going over 30 at the time it would have been a miracle (or a flying car). The judge didn't care, and it was the cop's word against mine, so of course I lost.
I assume it's because they are not savages
It seems like every time I'm shopping for a TV or other electronic component I have to deal with the fact that Best Buy, Fry's, Target, and five other retailers already have "different" versions of what I want. Is the KDL32EX520 the same as the KDL32EX523? Or is it the same as the KDL32EX52ba, which I read a great review for on CNet? Oh wait, KMart has a KDL32HX520 for $100 cheaper. But is that the same model, or does it have the cheaper version of the back-light from Taiwan that is more likely to fail?
It's just going to get tougher if they succeed.
I applaud them having their own lines of clothes, pottery, dog collars, and linens if that helps differentiate them. But I'd like to read a couple trusted reviews before I drop $1000 on a TV, and if I can't find a review of that KDL32EM521 you have in your store, I'm going elsewhere. I don't mind driving to a couple places before spending a bundle.
'nuff said.
The funny from my perspective is that in a decade as an AT&T customer, first just long distance, then wireless, I always got great customer service from them. The problem was when I bought my house the reception was terrible and I couldn't get cell calls in my own living room or even in my driveway. Oh yeah, and dropped calls were fairly common.
I hated leaving the good customer service but I ended up switching to Verizon because their coverage in central CA is much better than AT&T. I almost never drop calls now and customer service is at least not bad. However I'm also paying about $10 more per month for the same plan I had with AT&T.
So, if AT&T raises their prices to be even closer to Verizon's in this area they will definitely lose lots of customers.
Maybe their plan is to raise prices, lose business, go bankrupt (resulting in one less choice for consumers), and then say "See! We told you denying the merger would be bad for competition!"
At the very end of the video she points out that this model (2nd gen) has no windshield wipers, headlamps, or climate control. But they are looking to add that stuff for the 3rd gen model so it will be "all weather". It seems to me that by the time they add all the crap to it that a normal car has, it won't be any cheaper than buying a SMART car. Sure you can spin it around and park it more easily, but with the range and speed tradeoffs it hardly seems like a good business model.
It should say "Outgoing CRTC Head Says Technology Is Eroding Canadian Xenophobia"
As with France and the American South, "loss of Culture" is code for nationalistic prejudice and/or racism.
I see the mixing of cultures as a good thing.
Sort of the point I was making is that accurate predictions are notoriously difficult because it's hard to imagine disruptive technologies and where they will take us. Sure, we could have giant fruits and super-fast ocean liners, but we don't, for a variety of reasons.
I wonder if that wasn't the case 100 years ago. I was more amused by the idea that baby toys would be more like dumbbells. instead we went the other way and they are now all designed to strengthen the brain instead of the body. Imagine if all our babies were like this kid: http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2009/04/real-life-mutant-baby-is-super-strong
That's what I said. We already have GM crops that can feed everyone. I want something new from the promise of science.
And just to address your snarky point about Monsanto, the real reason people starve in Africa isn't because of greedy corporations. It's because of greedy governments and warlords that interfere with distribution and don't maintain roads and distribution systems properly, as well as frequent war and crappy growing conditions.
No no, that's a "Grapple", which rhymes with maple. I believe they are apples injected with grape juice for extra flavor. I want a grape the size of my fist! :-D
In 1900 some predictions were made by "most learned and conservative minds in America" about what life would be like in 100 years. Now that it's a decade past that deadline, let's take a look at how they fared:
http://www.yorktownhistory.org/homepages/1900_predictions.htm
Interestingly, they got some of them right. But these were mostly about the spread of technology that already existed at the consumer level, and all good futurists know that predicting price drops in manufactured conveniences is usually a safe bet.
Some of my favorites (with a few of my comments):
- Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling. (Ha!) ...coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper. Every river or creek with any suitable fall will be ... making electricity.
- There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises. (Ha!)
- No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams.
- Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless.
- There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.
-
- Hot and Cold Air from Spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath. Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished. Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls. (They sort of got the end result right, but not the means)
- Vegetables Grown by Electricity. In cold weather he will place heat-conducting electric wires under the soil of his garden and thus warm his growing plants. Electric currents applied to the soil will make valuable plants grow larger and faster, and will kill troublesome weeds.
- Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh. They will be carried with the electric current applied without pain to the outside skin of the body.
- There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated.
- To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days.
Prophets always make the same predictions: we'll have better versions of
I keep waiting for all this "frankenfood" the Luddites promise I'll see, but all we get are more resiliant, disease and pest resistant crops that have the potential to feed the starving, etc etc.
Where are my grapples (grapes the size of apples)? Where is my chocolate flavored bananas that grow in a temperate environment? Where is the wheat I can bake into a pizza crust that has all my RDA vitamins along with a weight-loss ingreiant?
And god dangit, where are my real booberries?
Your explanation matches what I assumed to be happening. While I know you were mainly replying to JDean, my question still stands. How does the coating repel water from electrical contacts without preventing the connection from being made? If it allows electrons through then water inside would still short out the circuits. If it doesn't let electrons through then it prevents you from connecting it to anything external. Maybe their expensive process involves them masking off the exposed contacts so they are't coated. But then I'd think the contacts would be prone to corrosion from water.
If only they hadn't network the voting machines the cylons wouldn't have won all the elections and outlawed humans!
How could you coat the interior of a microSD card slot that's covered with a loose-fitting cover and make it waterproof? If the nano-coating doesn't conduct electricity then any card you insert won't make contact with the contacts. If it does conduct, then it's useless as a waterproofing seal over electronics. The same would seem to hold true for any earphone plug or charging port, right?
And that's exactly why the TV makers want the opposite. You aren't buying new TVs often enough.
The hardware is different. I don't know if that justifies the price difference, but if it doesn't make it more expensive to build you would think they'd just incorporate the changes into the XBox version to save them money on manufacturing, but it doesn't sound like they will.
This all seems like a moot point since they extended the ability to use the XBox version on PCs by 3 years. What are you complaining about?
The higher price is aimed at developers who actually intend to sell their products. MS won't get a cut of that like they do XBox games, so they have to make it up on the front end. MS also gives really cheap versions of their software to students. You don't hear professional app developers complaining about paying full price though, right? Because they are going to make money off their work, unlike students doing homework. MS is basically doing the same thing here, offering a cheaper alternative to hobbyists and charging full price for professionals.
Unfortunately they did it in backwards order, so instead of grateful posts from poor hobbyists for getting a "cheaper" version, we get hateful posts from idiots about getting a "more expensive" version.
I've read about similar results from fecal transplants to replace colon flora. If I understand it correctly, there are actually doctors that will "reset" your colon flora by giving you a high dose of antibiotics and then basically stick someone else's poop up your butt. I'm sure it's more scientific than that, but it supposedly repopulates your colon with different flora and the people that have undergone the procedure swear it made them lose weight or recover from other problems, etc.
Wired wrote about it too, but I haven't read that specific article yet: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/fecal-transplants-work/
We already knew politicians from IL suck, given the long track record of graft and corruption and governors in prison. A 2008 MSNBC report called Illinois "the Land of Greased Palms”.
Why do you think it's so easy for spies to steal your cell phone data? You see it on shows like Chuck and 24 all the time! Spies all have a magical device that plugs into any cell phone and downloads all the data in exactly as long as it takes for the phone's owner to almost get back from the bathroom, giving them just enough time to put it back where it belongs.
How could they do that if Apple (i.e. every evil phone maker) wasn't providing them with a back door?
That's why I always carry a dummy phone with decoy data on it while my bluetooth headset is secretly connected to my real phone, which is hidden in my shoe!
I wasn't talking about how much you'd like LotRo or DDO, but your contention that F2P games have a much higher level of "vulgarity, abuse and griefing - as well as outright cheating" and that you end up being tempted to "pay to win". In my experience, games that already had a strong community (like these two) don't end up in massive decline when they go free. And in LotRo's case at least, there isn't really a "pay to win" issue because the stuff you can buy is either cosmetic or things you can also get by just playing. None of it gives you a huge advantage over the cheaper players.
I suspect you are talking more about the asian-style "MMOs" that start out free and are designed to get you hooked and then frustrated, which is an entirely different class. I just thought I'd point out that you were casting your aspersions unnecessarily wide.