I don't know of any other company that has tried and failed more times to set its own monopoly in some form of media. Any discerning nerd avoids Sony products like the plague because they undoubtedly go against any set standard.
The ones I know about: - betamax - mini-disc (though it eventually opened up to other manufacturers after it was old technology) - Playstation/Playstation 2 (ya, most video game systems aren't compatible with other manufacturers.. but this is still an example) - Memory-stick (wtf.. we have compact flash, smart media, secure digital.. but Sony somehow thinks they'll be the standard)
I'm sure there's a few I'm forgetting. Sony is a damn frustrating company. If they just adopted and backed a new standard instead of always trying to monopolize, we would have standards adopted significantly faster. Sony is a huge company.
Tuxter is right. The government shouldn't be rolling out our new communications lines unless they're going to be free (as in roads), maintained by the governmet...
I hate the goddamn monopolies in my area. I have a cable company (Cox) that blocks my school's (UF) football games on channels that I already pay for in order to put them on pay per view. People in nearby cities get all the games for free. I have a phone company that says 'all circuits are full' half the time I pick up my phone to dial out. My utilities company (power and water in one) charged me a $200 fee because I paid my bill late one month. They said they will give me back my $200 when I quit using their service.
Where competition opens up, rates go down. We need less legislation protecting monopolies. If a company cannot survive on its own, then it deserves to die. In the same way it's unnatural to keep a total human vegetable alive on life support for years, it's unnatural to prop a company that our laws treat as a person once it's already proven to be dying.
I have ADD and I definitely do much better under pressure. If I don't load myself down with hours each semester, I get crappy grades. But, if I take way too many hours and never have enough time to possibly get all the homework done, I get better grades. I gotta have my time always allocated.. Otherwise I'm just completely unproductive.
For me, a little stress feels good. If I don't have anything to stress over, it feels like I'm not getting anything done.
THERE'S MORE: "The Justice Department has asked an appellate court to keep its arguments secret for a case in which privacy advocate John Gilmore is challenging federal requirements to show identification before boarding an airplane," the Washington Post reports.
They're probby hoping the terrorists won't think of whatever ingenius exploitation of satellite images that they themselves thought first.. Instead, they should publicize the arguments and then fix the exploit. Otherwise, the government will end up like Microsoft and be forced to fix the exploit after it has been exploited.
Perhaps another reason they feel it is necessary to shove shit down the throat of the public is that the public is becoming too powerful! The public is used to seeing satellite images. Now, they must taketh away?
Something tells me this will just make bitorrent stronger.. You'll have big media even linking to torrents. "Hurricane Jeebus is ravaging Florida. Click here for satellite torrent link."
I'll watch it if it's free. But why should I pay to see a film that I know is only meant to change my mind? Moore profits off liberals like Jesse Jackson profits off blacks.
The film should not be called a documentary. I believe the proper term is satire, though I am unsure. I just can't understand how this film could be called a documentary. When I watch the cute lil' animals roam across the desert, that is a documentary. When I watch a film made by a liberal nutjob who says our President is the most evil man in America, I can't help but feel it's wrong to call it a documentary.
Although, it seems today that is almost perfectly fine to present the news completely one-sided. I'll admit, I'm a Republican that watches Fox. Though, I watch CNN too... and even read Michael Moore's articles. I just haven't agreed with anything I have ever heard Michael Moore say. He would blame metal for any murder involving a gun.
This sadly reminds me of something that actually happened to my buddy.
Without any previous charges or arrests, my buddy was once arrested for resisting arrest. He kept asking 'What am I being arrested for?' and the officer kept saying, 'You are resisting arrest.'
ST:TNG was too softly and soapy (it even had the evil twin sister kinda stuff), Deep Space 9 became a true soap, going away from the 1 hour episodes into an neverending story with returning cast members. Dynasty in space. Voyager never stopped whining. Enterprise is so bad I didn't even watch past ep3. And I am very forgiving to ST.
So, IYO, was flawed, DS9 was flawed, Voyager was flawed, Enterprise sucks... and you are very forgiving to Star Trek?
Sorry, but 22 (and still going) seasons of the new stuff verses 3 seasons of the old stuff says that you just don't like anything but the original series. How is that forgiving to Star Trek?
IMO, the new series IS Star Trek. TOS was just a start on the whole concept. The new stuff is that concept PERFECTLY AND FLAWLESSLY executed.
They charge for roaming at random. They add fees that were never discussed. They sign you into a 2-year contract and charge you $200 to get out of it when your service wasn't ever reliable.
Tmobile has screwed me over so many times it isn't funny. I have had 3 different days where I could place or receive no calls. All three days happened to be times where I was trying to coordinate events that involved people travelling. Needless to say, I had a lot of people pissed at me. During the blackout in New York, my brother's and my Tmobile phones would not work while everyone around us were talking on their cell phones. When we tried to access the other networks and force our phones to roam, they would allow emergency calls only.
For about a month of my contract, only half the calls could be completed. Oh ya, Tmobile also guarantees nothing about calls being made inside. So, I can't use my cell phone in my own home.
This isn't just Tmobile, though. I had a contract with Sprint. During the first week of the contract, I had trouble getting good service and my calls were getting dropped. They assured me I had 14 days without fee. Then, they sent me a bill for $235. Then, I called them and had $200 removed. They sent me another bill for $35. I also called and had that removed. Then, they sent me to collections for $235. I was able to settle for $0. I wonder how many people ended up paying that $235 or even the $35.
They have confusing minute plans. Tmobile assured my brother that he had free nights and weekends with his $35/month plan. Then, after recklessly using his phone as a camp counselor after 9pm on weekdays, he got a bill for $450. It turns out that he needed a $39/month plan to get the free nights part of the free nights and weekends. Tmobile also kindly let him know that nothing they ever say is contractual - only what is in fine print.
I could seriously bitch about cell phone companies all day. I heard Sprint is making something like $230million this year in fees for saving peoples' old cell phone numbers. That is bullshit. The entire goddamn industry has put fees for every damn thing.
At least when you buy a car, it generally works. There is no cell phone service that works everywhere - and there is no such thing as a cell phone customer who never gets dropped calls (unless they never really use their phones.)
I can't wait until Microsoft comes out with the next Xbox.. so I can have a media center pc running linux, recording all my shows, and playing bootleg games for $200 - all while pissing off Microsoft.
I agree about the need for a login standard. Having a universal login would be useful for people running around with PDAs in and out of wifi areas. If someone keeps the PDA on 'wifi standby' the PDA could automatically login when a wifi network is seen and download the latest email, voicemail, porn, etc.
This would work kind of like the Tmobile network. Whenever you are in network, you receive your calls. However, most of the time, you will see the calls you missed..
This is ridiculous. They don't have a 'likely to commit a murder' database.. or a 'likely to rape young women' database.. unless those people have already committed crimes. Now, we can be likely to commit a crime yet still be someone that has never commited a crime.
I'm sick of what the government has done in the spirit of 'fighting terrorism.' Terror is the least of my worries. Ya, 9/11 was horrible.. but it isn't worth giving up our way of life to prevent. I'm more likely to be struck by lighting while being bitten by a shark than to die from an act of terror.
These 'preventative' databases are stupid. American Citizens should not be subject to a 'likely to commit terror' database without ever having done something wrong. Some of the most patriotic people are also the most criticizing of the US.. Should they be on the database?
If there are 120,000 people on the list, shouldn't there have been more acts of terrorism in the US?
IMO, there's bigger problems on which to focus. Why fix the windshield wipers when the brakes aren't working?
Good! My penis never got any larger. Horny wives never had sex with me. My prescriptions for Xanax never arrived. My cheap version of Windows XP wouldn't activate. My home loans never came through. Michelle's page made just for me had 900,000 visits and I'm beginning to think she is cheating on me...
They're all scammers - a bunch of spamming scammers they are!!
In Windows, the different icons and color schemes don't vary too much. Some programs have stupid icons - but most have fairly neat icons and artwork.
However, in Linux IMO, it's not the case. Some icons and artwork looks amazing while others look absolutely horrible. After dabbling with linux a few times, I really can't stand how the different schemes of different programs don't seem to fit together too well. In Mandrake 10 (last Linux I've used), there were whole different styles of icons.. like, Open Office had it's own set that were X pixels by Y colors in Z-bit color.. while Random Mandrake Prog had icons A pixels by B colors in C-bit color.
I am starting to think that I would rather just have an entire OS that didn't use Icons. Instead, it would be only labeled buttons.
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I don't know of any other company that has tried and failed more times to set its own monopoly in some form of media. Any discerning nerd avoids Sony products like the plague because they undoubtedly go against any set standard.
The ones I know about:
- betamax
- mini-disc (though it eventually opened up to other manufacturers after it was old technology)
- Playstation/Playstation 2 (ya, most video game systems aren't compatible with other manufacturers.. but this is still an example)
- Memory-stick (wtf.. we have compact flash, smart media, secure digital.. but Sony somehow thinks they'll be the standard)
I'm sure there's a few I'm forgetting. Sony is a damn frustrating company. If they just adopted and backed a new standard instead of always trying to monopolize, we would have standards adopted significantly faster. Sony is a huge company.
I'll start worrying when one entity controls all the illegal downloads..
Tuxter is right. The government shouldn't be rolling out our new communications lines unless they're going to be free (as in roads), maintained by the governmet...
I hate the goddamn monopolies in my area. I have a cable company (Cox) that blocks my school's (UF) football games on channels that I already pay for in order to put them on pay per view. People in nearby cities get all the games for free. I have a phone company that says 'all circuits are full' half the time I pick up my phone to dial out. My utilities company (power and water in one) charged me a $200 fee because I paid my bill late one month. They said they will give me back my $200 when I quit using their service.
Where competition opens up, rates go down. We need less legislation protecting monopolies. If a company cannot survive on its own, then it deserves to die. In the same way it's unnatural to keep a total human vegetable alive on life support for years, it's unnatural to prop a company that our laws treat as a person once it's already proven to be dying.
typical Microsoft bug..
That would get really annoying. I had Janet's boob on my Replay TV for a month.. for some reason, it never got old and I showed all my friends.
Who says I should only have 48 hours to view Janet's funny disgusting boob?
I have ADD and I definitely do much better under pressure. If I don't load myself down with hours each semester, I get crappy grades. But, if I take way too many hours and never have enough time to possibly get all the homework done, I get better grades. I gotta have my time always allocated.. Otherwise I'm just completely unproductive.
For me, a little stress feels good. If I don't have anything to stress over, it feels like I'm not getting anything done.
Now my car is going to tell me that my penis is too small... and to think, I bought my car to compensate!
THERE'S MORE: "The Justice Department has asked an appellate court to keep its arguments secret for a case in which privacy advocate John Gilmore is challenging federal requirements to show identification before boarding an airplane," the Washington Post reports.
They're probby hoping the terrorists won't think of whatever ingenius exploitation of satellite images that they themselves thought first.. Instead, they should publicize the arguments and then fix the exploit. Otherwise, the government will end up like Microsoft and be forced to fix the exploit after it has been exploited.
Perhaps another reason they feel it is necessary to shove shit down the throat of the public is that the public is becoming too powerful! The public is used to seeing satellite images. Now, they must taketh away?
Something tells me this will just make bitorrent stronger.. You'll have big media even linking to torrents. "Hurricane Jeebus is ravaging Florida. Click here for satellite torrent link."
So who do I vote for if I support nuclear warfare?
How the fuck does parent get moderated to troll? This post should be moderated to troll.. But the parent is definitely not a troll.
Come on mods..
I'll watch it if it's free. But why should I pay to see a film that I know is only meant to change my mind? Moore profits off liberals like Jesse Jackson profits off blacks.
The film should not be called a documentary. I believe the proper term is satire, though I am unsure. I just can't understand how this film could be called a documentary. When I watch the cute lil' animals roam across the desert, that is a documentary. When I watch a film made by a liberal nutjob who says our President is the most evil man in America, I can't help but feel it's wrong to call it a documentary.
Although, it seems today that is almost perfectly fine to present the news completely one-sided. I'll admit, I'm a Republican that watches Fox. Though, I watch CNN too... and even read Michael Moore's articles. I just haven't agreed with anything I have ever heard Michael Moore say. He would blame metal for any murder involving a gun.
This sadly reminds me of something that actually happened to my buddy.
Without any previous charges or arrests, my buddy was once arrested for resisting arrest. He kept asking 'What am I being arrested for?' and the officer kept saying, 'You are resisting arrest.'
Looks like your funny comment was moderated by a script kiddie who took it seriously...
So, IYO, was flawed, DS9 was flawed, Voyager was flawed, Enterprise sucks... and you are very forgiving to Star Trek?
Sorry, but 22 (and still going) seasons of the new stuff verses 3 seasons of the old stuff says that you just don't like anything but the original series. How is that forgiving to Star Trek?
IMO, the new series IS Star Trek. TOS was just a start on the whole concept. The new stuff is that concept PERFECTLY AND FLAWLESSLY executed.
They charge for roaming at random. They add fees that were never discussed. They sign you into a 2-year contract and charge you $200 to get out of it when your service wasn't ever reliable.
Tmobile has screwed me over so many times it isn't funny. I have had 3 different days where I could place or receive no calls. All three days happened to be times where I was trying to coordinate events that involved people travelling. Needless to say, I had a lot of people pissed at me. During the blackout in New York, my brother's and my Tmobile phones would not work while everyone around us were talking on their cell phones. When we tried to access the other networks and force our phones to roam, they would allow emergency calls only.
For about a month of my contract, only half the calls could be completed. Oh ya, Tmobile also guarantees nothing about calls being made inside. So, I can't use my cell phone in my own home.
This isn't just Tmobile, though. I had a contract with Sprint. During the first week of the contract, I had trouble getting good service and my calls were getting dropped. They assured me I had 14 days without fee. Then, they sent me a bill for $235. Then, I called them and had $200 removed. They sent me another bill for $35. I also called and had that removed. Then, they sent me to collections for $235. I was able to settle for $0. I wonder how many people ended up paying that $235 or even the $35.
They have confusing minute plans. Tmobile assured my brother that he had free nights and weekends with his $35/month plan. Then, after recklessly using his phone as a camp counselor after 9pm on weekdays, he got a bill for $450. It turns out that he needed a $39/month plan to get the free nights part of the free nights and weekends. Tmobile also kindly let him know that nothing they ever say is contractual - only what is in fine print.
I could seriously bitch about cell phone companies all day. I heard Sprint is making something like $230million this year in fees for saving peoples' old cell phone numbers. That is bullshit. The entire goddamn industry has put fees for every damn thing.
At least when you buy a car, it generally works. There is no cell phone service that works everywhere - and there is no such thing as a cell phone customer who never gets dropped calls (unless they never really use their phones.)
I can't wait until Microsoft comes out with the next Xbox.. so I can have a media center pc running linux, recording all my shows, and playing bootleg games for $200 - all while pissing off Microsoft.
I agree about the need for a login standard. Having a universal login would be useful for people running around with PDAs in and out of wifi areas. If someone keeps the PDA on 'wifi standby' the PDA could automatically login when a wifi network is seen and download the latest email, voicemail, porn, etc.
This would work kind of like the Tmobile network. Whenever you are in network, you receive your calls. However, most of the time, you will see the calls you missed..
I have a Pentium 100.. but it features EIGHT fans!
until they master jumping around while strafing and shooting..
I am not impressed until I see one jump+crouch and scream 'I pwn j00!'
Maybe Peru could start the new fad of turning 'pedigrees' into intellectual property.. It is bound to happen sooner or later with animals.
I would rather the #1 duty of the Federal Government be to protect individual freedom..
Without freedom, there's nothing to live for - who cares about national security?
This is ridiculous. They don't have a 'likely to commit a murder' database.. or a 'likely to rape young women' database.. unless those people have already committed crimes. Now, we can be likely to commit a crime yet still be someone that has never commited a crime.
I'm sick of what the government has done in the spirit of 'fighting terrorism.' Terror is the least of my worries. Ya, 9/11 was horrible.. but it isn't worth giving up our way of life to prevent. I'm more likely to be struck by lighting while being bitten by a shark than to die from an act of terror.
These 'preventative' databases are stupid. American Citizens should not be subject to a 'likely to commit terror' database without ever having done something wrong. Some of the most patriotic people are also the most criticizing of the US.. Should they be on the database?
If there are 120,000 people on the list, shouldn't there have been more acts of terrorism in the US?
IMO, there's bigger problems on which to focus. Why fix the windshield wipers when the brakes aren't working?
Good! My penis never got any larger. Horny wives never had sex with me. My prescriptions for Xanax never arrived. My cheap version of Windows XP wouldn't activate. My home loans never came through. Michelle's page made just for me had 900,000 visits and I'm beginning to think she is cheating on me...
They're all scammers - a bunch of spamming scammers they are!!
In Windows, the different icons and color schemes don't vary too much. Some programs have stupid icons - but most have fairly neat icons and artwork.
However, in Linux IMO, it's not the case. Some icons and artwork looks amazing while others look absolutely horrible. After dabbling with linux a few times, I really can't stand how the different schemes of different programs don't seem to fit together too well. In Mandrake 10 (last Linux I've used), there were whole different styles of icons.. like, Open Office had it's own set that were X pixels by Y colors in Z-bit color.. while Random Mandrake Prog had icons A pixels by B colors in C-bit color.
I am starting to think that I would rather just have an entire OS that didn't use Icons. Instead, it would be only labeled buttons.