T-Mobile told me that company discounts didn't apply to Even More Plus plans. If there's some way to get them, please share.
My first bill hasn't come in yet, but the Business purchase dept over the phone said it would work. Likewise the T-Mobile shop execs where I actually took care of it said the same thing.
Then again I won't find out until I get the bill. Even then, it's only 12% off 59.99... not exactly large change.
Perhaps different companies have different policies? I know some companies get more than 12%
Are you outside AT&T's 3G network? Or does the Nexus One just not support 3G on AT&Ts network?
I would consider the Nexus One instead of my current Nokia E71 but switching carriers just isn't an option for me. I have 5 lines on a 2 year plan with AT&T, so if I were to switch carriers I'm looking at $1k+ in ETF's right off the bat.
AT&T and T-Mobile use different 3G frequencies. You can use the Nexus One on the AT&T network (w/ AT&T SIM) but you'll be stuck with Edge. I tried it to confirm.
I'm switching from AT&T to T-Mobile, assuming I enjoy my Nexus One + T-Mobile enough. Just in case I'm keeping my AT&T account this month.
However the T-Mobile coverage by me is looking a little spottier than I'd like.
So, if I decide to cancel the T-Mobile I don't have to pay an ETF with the "More" account. So I'll just lose the first month of T-Mobile ($51 USD) and the restocking fee on the Nexus One (about $45-50) since I payed for the unsubsidized model.
I wouldn't want to use the Nexus One on AT&T as, like you said, it would be slow as heck with Edge and Id be paying a fair amount.
"While it's not likely that a smart phone user is going to draw a lot of lines, the test does give some indication of which phones are most likely to properly respond to clicking on a link in a Web browser." I don't suppose they considered instead testing which phones properly respond to clicking on links in Web browsers?
That's harder to test reliably.
Is the user used to a particular device? I'm noticing different systems have different learning curves for aiming.
I'm used to my iPhone 3Gs that I got at release. It took a few days to get accustomed to typing/licking but afterward I was able to use that like a champ. I have big fingers, but once I learned where to click I can click on even small web links.
Recently I tried using a Nexus One and I'm kind of starting at square one such as when I first tried the iPhone. Using my "iPhone training" it looks like I'm aiming a little off on the y-axis. If I try clicking a link, I'm actually clicking the link above it.
Plus with the used method you're at least focusing on the phone itself, all-be-it a mix of hardware and painting application. Going your suggested way, the human factor winds up being too much of a variable.
There are other things that would make it difficult that I don't feel like listing, or can't even think of.
In short, this test could've been done in a more scientific way. But simply saying "have someone try clicking on links and typing between the different machines" isn't much better than what they posted. At least here they demonstrated the tracking
Looking at the Seattle map one interesting thing stands out for me. The rentals in the zip code of Seattle University seems completely different then everywhere else. What is interesting that ' pseudo intellectual' movies that you would think would be more popular, Milk, Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, are relatively low in this area of learning, while mindless movies, Role Models, House Bunny, where the most popular.
I don't find it odd.
It's just anecdotal, but after a stressful day/week of courses and exams I found myself wanting to unwind and relax with a fun and mindless flick instead of a high quality film.
Don't get me wrong, I would still enjoy cerebral movies back then but not as frequently as a silly comedy or mindless action flick.
A mindless entertainment was a good way to unwind, plus you could watch it and laugh together with friends.
---------------
I guess it's somewhat like my reading habits. I enjoy reading and do it fairly often now, likewise I read a fair amount back in high school.
However in college I was already reading every day for multiple hours for my various courses, so the last thing I after I put down my textbook was pick up yet another book.
A more analogous slam would have been The Blind Side. I can't for the life of me figure out why people consistently pay to see Sandra Bullock movies. Sure, she's hot. But her movies are also consistently crap. Look at her list of movies here. There's not even one worth watching. But yet they always make money.
Well Demolition Man is on that list, and I love that movie. It's just about the only Stallone movie I enjoy, heck the only one I can even sit through. The cheese, fights, one-liners; it's a decent flick. And her role in it was decent.
Beyond that, some of her chick flicks are alright. They're the kind of chick flicks I can sit through and enjoy, instead of struggling to appear interested.
Out of the wiki list, I can find a handful of films that I enjoy (or enjoy well enough).
There are video driver issues with the 27" iMac. People get a black screen after it tries to use the stock ATI drivers. The workaround is to either use NTFS-3G to delete the %windir%\system32\drivers\ATI*.SYS files and reboot, or just boot into a safe mode command prompt and do it. Once your on the desktop, you can install ATI's drivers without issue.
There are also Magic Mouse driver issues (read: no driver). Although many people can get them working with old driver packages, they tend to be jerky, unusable, or just plain borked.
Or...
Plug in an external monitor for the install. Everything works fine, though the last 1/4 of the install will have to treat the external monitor as the primary display.
Everything runs well, and the instant you perform a Windows Update the correct ATI drivers are loaded.
AFAIK (in the UK at least), with a contract, you're paying x per month, and you're tied in for a contract of usually about 18 months. That 18x comes out to more than the cost of the phone. For example, look at the HTC Magic from Vodafone Total: 720 GBP which is obviously more than the cost of the phone. Or am I missing something that's US-specific?
Pretty much, you're right.
I read some past threads on either Slashdot or elsewhere that had people reporting that they were able to successfully renegotiate their contract with customer service when the contract was up for this specific reason, but I'd never met anyone in person that's done that.
In the US you get tied to a contract, but you're typically paying the same price whether-or-not you subsidize the phone. So you're paying the same monthly fee whether you're using a new subsidized phone or an old phone or an unlocked phone you picked up from eBay.
On the other hand, if you get yourself a nice handset (perhaps a smart phone) for a good deal on a manufacturer's site and you force yourself to use it for a couple of years (such as 2 contract lengths) then you might win out since the subsidies don't cover the full cost of the nicer phones and I recall seeing sales/deals on SonyEriccson.com
... The second is the provider sponsored phone where one pays the cost of the phone via a contract. The price ceiling in the US is effectively set for this by Apple at around $200.
I believe I saw some subsidized smart phones that were at-or-around 200 USD before the iPhone came out. I know definitely before the 3Gs came out, but only vaguely remember some from before the regular iPhone so I might be mistaken. It was probably AT&T or Verizon since T-Mobile likes to act on the cheap.
Perhaps some BlackBerries or some of the Motorola ones.
Given the choice I'd rather buy a full priced unlocked and unrestricted phone directly from the manufacturer, which is why I used to like buying them from Sony-Ericcson's online store.
If I buy a device and it doesn't break, is the extended warranty useless?
Plus, some electronics stores (usually smaller ones) will write you a check for some or all of the warranty cost if you didn't need it through its lifetime.
My parents bought a TV from a smaller electronics store (not a chain) and got the warranty which they wound up not using, and I think it was a little cheaper than if they're purchased the warranty from a chain.
At the end of the period the store sent them a check for 50% of the price.
With Apple you have the serial stamped on the hardware and inside the magic ROM thingie. Take it to the store and they'll punch it in and make the necessary repairs. And they try to fuck you over like the BestBuys of the world do, or ask you to "restore from Tiger" when Snow Leopard is the new cool thing.
I just dropped off my almost 3-year old MacBook Pro to the Apple store a few days ago. The asked which OS I had installed on it and had no problem with the fact that Snow Leopard (the latest OS from around 2009) was installed. They just wanted to know which OS they had to dive into.
They asked if I changed any hardware "recently," and I said no (original RAM and harddrive). Had I replaced something non-user replaceable (like the HDD on the MacBook Pro) then I'm sure they might have made a fuss.
In the end it's either the CPU or motherboard that's fried, so they had to ship it out to. I only had about 3 months left on the Apple Care.
If the unschooled person hears something more than the lyrics, it's usually only the highest and lowest pitches at any given moment (the relationship between the bass and melody). All that western harmony in the middle spectrum is really lost on them. That's what my music cognition friends have to say about it, anyway.
I wouldn't considered myself really "schooled" in music. I played an instrument for 8 years during my pre-college days, but it was nothing special.
But I'm in the exact opposite, I listen to the music's melody and harmony and almost ignore the lyrics entirely. I admit that I don't have the grasp of the complexity as someone truly schooled in music, but I don't listen to the lyrics much save for a few singers.
Heck, I used to laugh at myself because there were a few rap songs with decent music that I liked as a kid and I never even bothered knowing the words. Yet someone else will say "but the lyrics are the whole point of a rap."
Microsoft has done much more than prevent access to the service. These are other features that have been blocked:
* Cannot install games to the HDD * Cannot use Windows Media Centre extender * Cannot access netflix rentals * Cannot download game updates and extra content that are used in offline play
I'll admit items 1 and 2 (HDD installs and Media Center) are pretty bad. I wasn't aware, and if true that sucks.
But items 3 and 4 are kind of petty as they are part of the network. That's like saying "Verizon didn't just kick me off the Internet but cut off my ability to get email, stopped me from updating Windows, and stopped me from accessing Netflix."
lesson plans are generally not produced at school, typically they are created off the clock at home.
That's not true, most courses in the US use canned lesson plans that the district pays a small fortune to obtain. My father is a school administrator (and has been for districts large and small) and I can tell you a significant portion of the budget goes to buying lesson plans*. Look into it and you'll learn that "entrepreneurs" have been making a lot of money off of educating your children.
* On a slightly unrelated note, some districts even have policies that tell teachers they may not deviate from the lesson plans. I even know teachers that have been fired over this issue.
I think perhaps there's a difference between "Syllabus" and "Lesson Plan."
A syllabus typically outlines what topics the teacher is going to cover. IE, Q1 we'll cover the Colonial America, in Q2 the American Revolution, in Q3 post-revolution America, in Q4 the Civil War. Though usually a little more granular like the sub-topics (Declaration of Independence, Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin, etc).
And yes, the Syllabus isn't just thought up on a whim. It's agreed upon and researched to make sure that the teacher isn't just going rogue and deciding to teach them that Nixon was framed and other propoganda. But even with a syllabus, textbook, and tests/quizzes you can only go so far, you still need to present the info to the students and keep them interested.
The lesson plans though, those are up to the teachers. How do they state the facts / information to keep the students interested. Perhaps a game, an activity, a specific project, etc.
My senior year High School history teacher had a decent method. Once every 2 weeks we'd have a Jeopardy-like competition, the room would be broken into 2 groups and we'd answer questions covering the last 2 weeks of material. We weren't graded by this (that came in the form of REALY quizzes and tests) but the winning team would get a prize (something small like a +2% on a quiz or something).
It was fun and encouraged us to remember the material. That was something he started doing himself and not dictated by the school. Though he might've had to run it by them to make sure they'd approve.
Heck, even in college teachers would go about their own way of doing things. One professor might be dry and simply read from the book, while another teaching the same course number might mix it up a bit to keep things interesting. Perhaps a physics demonstration or some plain-speaking real-life anlogies.
A good software guy can buy a house in the suburbs, not too far from the office and maybe drive a Lexus. These guys lived in Manhattan and drove $100k+ cars, probably had a couple..
Houses in the suburb can be pretty expensive. By me, in a mediocre neighborhood (middle-middle class) you're still talking 500k for a 2-3 bedroom house in the suburbs. Heck, 1 bedroom condos are often 275k.
Then they did a terrible job copying OSX. Windows 7 is still clunky, slow, and unstable. It's nothing like OSX at all.
I threw Win7 onto my MacBook Pro via BootCamp for work reasons and it's running fine. Heck, I even managed to get the 64-bit version running on it without any issues.
I've had no crashes and it feels a little speedier than Vista. So far it's looking like it's not a bad release.
Now I don't get the OSX and Win7 comparison, they don't look that much alike.
I have heard claims from police that about 80% of people they convict confess in one way or another. Your best bet is to smile, be polite, and refuse to talk about anything related to what you were doing or why. Remember, nothing you say to a police officer can help you in court (ever!). Also, the fact that you were willing to discuss A but not B CAN be used against you (while refusing to discuss anything cannot)
So if you have ever in your life done anything that you don't want to have to answer questions about, don't talk at all to start, about anything.
-Steve
The thing about speeding is, you usually KNOW you were speeding. Either while you were doing it or the instant you saw the police lights behind you.
I agree that perhaps stating exactly how fast you thought you were going is probably not the way to go. But denying it or being a jerk will probably hurt you more than not.
I'm not a social person (quite the opposite in fact) and yet my polite demeanor got me out of 2 tickets.
I've been pulled over 3 times for speeding. One time a PBA card got me out of it.
The other 2 times polite conversation and joking got me 1 warning and 1 "driving without a seatbelt" ticket instead. The seatbelt ticket was still a fine, but didn't count against my insurance.
Both times, sheepishly admitting that "yeh, sorry I guess I let it get away from me" helped me. I guess they're used to jerks trying to deny or back-pedal so apologetic niceness is probably a breath of fresh air.
My problem with HDMI is the port design itself. I had a Tivo HD using an HDMI cable and I unplugged it maybe a dozen or so times in under a year.
One of the times I guess I wound up killing the Tivo's socket and couldn't fix it.
There are a lot of horror stories out there about that. Too tight of a cable or cable gets moved to the side a little while moving some equipment around and pretty soon your thing can become toast.
Personally I like the old DVI/VGA way of doing things. Usually the worst you can do is screw up the pins on a cable which is no big deal... annoying but no big deal. Even the Component/RCA plugs aren't that bad, though I've had friends with too tight plug/cable combos yanking the whole thing out of their TV.
There's no real way around the human factor in this. I've seen drivers who two-foot drive. I've seen drivers who, when they're presented with a scary situation, take their hands off the wheel and cover their eyes. I've been in the car when a driver's panic reaction was to flail madly at the pedals with her feet and see-saw the wheel---in that case, the car rolled. While the floor mats can create a problem, and while Toyota could fix it by mounting them a little bit higher, you'll never truly idiot-proof a car until the car drives itself.
The solution to the likes of this are systems like stability control, ABS, Volvo or Nissan's Lane Departure Control and Mercedes' and Lexus' Pre-Safe crash mitigation systems: keep the car on-course and stable, allow the driver to maintain control and, if a crash is imminent, apply full braking force, tighten the seatbelts and pre-charge the airbags. Oh, and call 911.
I had a problem with the throttle-by-wire on my '06 Cadillac.
After I'd owned it for a few months, the engine throttle/power would start fluxuating heavily upon acceleration. IE, alternating between 1k and 4k RPM every second.
It took them forever to diagnose the problem; they had the car for a total of 9-12 days and refused to believe it was mechanical or electrical. They thought it was user error. The sad thing is, it was VERY reproducable yet they refused to acknowledge it. So long as you drove the thing before the temp-gauge normalized at 1/2 way you could do it 100% of the time; so from a cold start you had 5-10 minutes to reproduce it.
On the last time they looked it at (which if they failed would qualify as lemon law) they had an engineer from the headquarters come. He found that the accelerator was faulty and sending bad signals. Apparently it would just start sending bad data to the computer. They replaced the accelerator and it was all fixed.
9-12 days in the shop spread over a month, and it was only under the threat of "lemon law" did they acknowledge there was a problem.
Who on earth thinks drinking coffee while driving could ever be a good idea?
How do you change gear?
I agree with the sentiment: if you're driving a car that should be the only thing you're doing. No drinking (even non-alcoholic), no gaming, no texting, etc. The most I'll do is use my OnStar phone (press 1 button on the rear-view mirror and the rest is voice controlled) and even then only if it's absolutely necessary and only for a few seconds for a quick "I'm running late start the meeting without me" or "I'm going to the grocery, text me what you need."
As to gears...
I think changing gears a cultural / regional thing.
My friends in Europe tell me that most cars on the road there are manual / standard transmissions.
However here in the US I'd say a majority of cars have automatic. Some popular cars here don't even offer a standard transmission, which is often reserved for both performance cars and cheaper cars. With an automatic one only needs 1 foot and 1 hand to drive.
You can't buy a cell phone without a built-in camcorder nowadays...
The cell phone video would also have solved your immediate problem - record her harassing you, then phone the police to report it. Amazingly enough, people tend to run away when you start videoing them acting 5t00p1d.
I guess the video recorder on the cellphone would solve the "100% proof" to ensure the right owner was punished. Though acting quick enough to record the actual act would be tough, and that jerk would've probably filmed me being near the scene and run to the actual doodie and said "See, HE's the one."
As far as further confrontation, it was escalating pretty heavily on her end and I could feel my blood boiling at her reaction and statements. The last thing I wanted to do was give her an excuse.
Considering her reaction and state of mind, even taking a step forward to try to talk rationally could've been seen as "OMG HES GONNA ATTACK ME WITH HIS DOG!"
At that point, it was best to curse her out and walk away. Had she started following me then I would've wipped out the phone and called the local police.
Slashdot Mirror
T-Mobile told me that company discounts didn't apply to Even More Plus plans. If there's some way to get them, please share.
My first bill hasn't come in yet, but the Business purchase dept over the phone said it would work. Likewise the T-Mobile shop execs where I actually took care of it said the same thing.
Then again I won't find out until I get the bill. Even then, it's only 12% off 59.99... not exactly large change.
Perhaps different companies have different policies? I know some companies get more than 12%
Are you outside AT&T's 3G network? Or does the Nexus One just not support 3G on AT&Ts network?
I would consider the Nexus One instead of my current Nokia E71 but switching carriers just isn't an option for me. I have 5 lines on a 2 year plan with AT&T, so if I were to switch carriers I'm looking at $1k+ in ETF's right off the bat.
AT&T and T-Mobile use different 3G frequencies. You can use the Nexus One on the AT&T network (w/ AT&T SIM) but you'll be stuck with Edge. I tried it to confirm.
I guess I should've been clearer in my post.
I'm switching from AT&T to T-Mobile, assuming I enjoy my Nexus One + T-Mobile enough. Just in case I'm keeping my AT&T account this month.
However the T-Mobile coverage by me is looking a little spottier than I'd like.
So, if I decide to cancel the T-Mobile I don't have to pay an ETF with the "More" account. So I'll just lose the first month of T-Mobile ($51 USD) and the restocking fee on the Nexus One (about $45-50) since I payed for the unsubsidized model.
I wouldn't want to use the Nexus One on AT&T as, like you said, it would be slow as heck with Edge and Id be paying a fair amount.
See, that's why I went with the T-Mobile Even More Plus plan.
No 2-year contract, and no early termination fee.
Then again that meant I had to pay full price for my Nexus One... around $550.
I'm still deciding whether I'm going to keep it or stick with AT&T, and I still have 1.5 weeks to decide and return it.
Granted I'll still be about about $90-$100 if I return it. 51.99 from my T-Mobile plan (via company discount) and 40-50 for the restocking fee.
A canadian animation that took place in
I agree on the sentiment...
But it was inside a Computer, not a game console. The "User" just happened to like playing the occasional game.
I believe they said it out right in an episode, plus one day they were all impatiently waiting for a new upgrade.
Then again I could be wrong.
Fun series. They continued via a Comic a little later, but I hadn't heard of a revitalization.
"While it's not likely that a smart phone user is going to draw a lot of lines, the test does give some indication of which phones are most likely to properly respond to clicking on a link in a Web browser." I don't suppose they considered instead testing which phones properly respond to clicking on links in Web browsers?
That's harder to test reliably.
Is the user used to a particular device? I'm noticing different systems have different learning curves for aiming.
I'm used to my iPhone 3Gs that I got at release. It took a few days to get accustomed to typing/licking but afterward I was able to use that like a champ. I have big fingers, but once I learned where to click I can click on even small web links.
Recently I tried using a Nexus One and I'm kind of starting at square one such as when I first tried the iPhone. Using my "iPhone training" it looks like I'm aiming a little off on the y-axis. If I try clicking a link, I'm actually clicking the link above it.
Plus with the used method you're at least focusing on the phone itself, all-be-it a mix of hardware and painting application. Going your suggested way, the human factor winds up being too much of a variable.
There are other things that would make it difficult that I don't feel like listing, or can't even think of.
In short, this test could've been done in a more scientific way. But simply saying "have someone try clicking on links and typing between the different machines" isn't much better than what they posted. At least here they demonstrated the tracking
Looking at the Seattle map one interesting thing stands out for me. The rentals in the zip code of Seattle University seems completely different then everywhere else. What is interesting that ' pseudo intellectual' movies that you would think would be more popular, Milk, Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, are relatively low in this area of learning, while mindless movies, Role Models, House Bunny, where the most popular.
I don't find it odd.
It's just anecdotal, but after a stressful day/week of courses and exams I found myself wanting to unwind and relax with a fun and mindless flick instead of a high quality film.
Don't get me wrong, I would still enjoy cerebral movies back then but not as frequently as a silly comedy or mindless action flick.
A mindless entertainment was a good way to unwind, plus you could watch it and laugh together with friends.
---------------
I guess it's somewhat like my reading habits. I enjoy reading and do it fairly often now, likewise I read a fair amount back in high school.
However in college I was already reading every day for multiple hours for my various courses, so the last thing I after I put down my textbook was pick up yet another book.
A more analogous slam would have been The Blind Side. I can't for the life of me figure out why people consistently pay to see Sandra Bullock movies. Sure, she's hot. But her movies are also consistently crap. Look at her list of movies here. There's not even one worth watching. But yet they always make money.
Well Demolition Man is on that list, and I love that movie. It's just about the only Stallone movie I enjoy, heck the only one I can even sit through. The cheese, fights, one-liners; it's a decent flick. And her role in it was decent.
Beyond that, some of her chick flicks are alright. They're the kind of chick flicks I can sit through and enjoy, instead of struggling to appear interested.
Out of the wiki list, I can find a handful of films that I enjoy (or enjoy well enough).
There are video driver issues with the 27" iMac. People get a black screen after it tries to use the stock ATI drivers. The workaround is to either use NTFS-3G to delete the %windir%\system32\drivers\ATI*.SYS files and reboot, or just boot into a safe mode command prompt and do it. Once your on the desktop, you can install ATI's drivers without issue.
There are also Magic Mouse driver issues (read: no driver). Although many people can get them working with old driver packages, they tend to be jerky, unusable, or just plain borked.
Or...
Plug in an external monitor for the install. Everything works fine, though the last 1/4 of the install will have to treat the external monitor as the primary display.
Everything runs well, and the instant you perform a Windows Update the correct ATI drivers are loaded.
AFAIK (in the UK at least), with a contract, you're paying x per month, and you're tied in for a contract of usually about 18 months. That 18x comes out to more than the cost of the phone. For example, look at the HTC Magic from Vodafone Total: 720 GBP which is obviously more than the cost of the phone. Or am I missing something that's US-specific?
Pretty much, you're right.
I read some past threads on either Slashdot or elsewhere that had people reporting that they were able to successfully renegotiate their contract with customer service when the contract was up for this specific reason, but I'd never met anyone in person that's done that.
In the US you get tied to a contract, but you're typically paying the same price whether-or-not you subsidize the phone. So you're paying the same monthly fee whether you're using a new subsidized phone or an old phone or an unlocked phone you picked up from eBay.
On the other hand, if you get yourself a nice handset (perhaps a smart phone) for a good deal on a manufacturer's site and you force yourself to use it for a couple of years (such as 2 contract lengths) then you might win out since the subsidies don't cover the full cost of the nicer phones and I recall seeing sales/deals on SonyEriccson.com
... The second is the provider sponsored phone where one pays the cost of the phone via a contract. The price ceiling in the US is effectively set for this by Apple at around $200.
I believe I saw some subsidized smart phones that were at-or-around 200 USD before the iPhone came out. I know definitely before the 3Gs came out, but only vaguely remember some from before the regular iPhone so I might be mistaken. It was probably AT&T or Verizon since T-Mobile likes to act on the cheap.
Perhaps some BlackBerries or some of the Motorola ones.
Given the choice I'd rather buy a full priced unlocked and unrestricted phone directly from the manufacturer, which is why I used to like buying them from Sony-Ericcson's online store.
If I buy a device and it doesn't break, is the extended warranty useless?
Plus, some electronics stores (usually smaller ones) will write you a check for some or all of the warranty cost if you didn't need it through its lifetime.
My parents bought a TV from a smaller electronics store (not a chain) and got the warranty which they wound up not using, and I think it was a little cheaper than if they're purchased the warranty from a chain.
At the end of the period the store sent them a check for 50% of the price.
With Apple you have the serial stamped on the hardware and inside the magic ROM thingie. Take it to the store and they'll punch it in and make the necessary repairs. And they try to fuck you over like the BestBuys of the world do, or ask you to "restore from Tiger" when Snow Leopard is the new cool thing.
I just dropped off my almost 3-year old MacBook Pro to the Apple store a few days ago. The asked which OS I had installed on it and had no problem with the fact that Snow Leopard (the latest OS from around 2009) was installed. They just wanted to know which OS they had to dive into.
They asked if I changed any hardware "recently," and I said no (original RAM and harddrive). Had I replaced something non-user replaceable (like the HDD on the MacBook Pro) then I'm sure they might have made a fuss.
In the end it's either the CPU or motherboard that's fried, so they had to ship it out to. I only had about 3 months left on the Apple Care.
If the unschooled person hears something more than the lyrics, it's usually only the highest and lowest pitches at any given moment (the relationship between the bass and melody). All that western harmony in the middle spectrum is really lost on them. That's what my music cognition friends have to say about it, anyway.
I wouldn't considered myself really "schooled" in music. I played an instrument for 8 years during my pre-college days, but it was nothing special.
But I'm in the exact opposite, I listen to the music's melody and harmony and almost ignore the lyrics entirely. I admit that I don't have the grasp of the complexity as someone truly schooled in music, but I don't listen to the lyrics much save for a few singers.
Heck, I used to laugh at myself because there were a few rap songs with decent music that I liked as a kid and I never even bothered knowing the words. Yet someone else will say "but the lyrics are the whole point of a rap."
Oh well.
Microsoft has done much more than prevent access to the service. These are other features that have been blocked:
* Cannot install games to the HDD
* Cannot use Windows Media Centre extender
* Cannot access netflix rentals
* Cannot download game updates and extra content that are used in offline play
I'll admit items 1 and 2 (HDD installs and Media Center) are pretty bad. I wasn't aware, and if true that sucks.
But items 3 and 4 are kind of petty as they are part of the network. That's like saying "Verizon didn't just kick me off the Internet but cut off my ability to get email, stopped me from updating Windows, and stopped me from accessing Netflix."
No, but I'm pretty sure there's a legal right to modify your hardware as you see fit...
But to complete the circle....
There's a legal right to use that modified hardware on their network?
I'm not saying I totally agree with it, but a lot of posters are saying "I can do whatever I want to the hardware I purchased."
Yes, do whatever you want to your hardware. Just don't expect a company to provide you a separate service.
Now if MS actually bricked the units then have at them.
I will admit, perhaps I myself am having problems defining "lesson plans."
My example with the HS history teacher had a counter-part that used completely different methods.
My example with college Physics professors happens all of the time.
Perhaps different districts or communities have different restrictions?
That's not true, most courses in the US use canned lesson plans that the district pays a small fortune to obtain. My father is a school administrator (and has been for districts large and small) and I can tell you a significant portion of the budget goes to buying lesson plans*. Look into it and you'll learn that "entrepreneurs" have been making a lot of money off of educating your children.
* On a slightly unrelated note, some districts even have policies that tell teachers they may not deviate from the lesson plans. I even know teachers that have been fired over this issue.
I think perhaps there's a difference between "Syllabus" and "Lesson Plan."
A syllabus typically outlines what topics the teacher is going to cover. IE, Q1 we'll cover the Colonial America, in Q2 the American Revolution, in Q3 post-revolution America, in Q4 the Civil War. Though usually a little more granular like the sub-topics (Declaration of Independence, Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin, etc).
And yes, the Syllabus isn't just thought up on a whim. It's agreed upon and researched to make sure that the teacher isn't just going rogue and deciding to teach them that Nixon was framed and other propoganda. But even with a syllabus, textbook, and tests/quizzes you can only go so far, you still need to present the info to the students and keep them interested.
The lesson plans though, those are up to the teachers. How do they state the facts / information to keep the students interested. Perhaps a game, an activity, a specific project, etc.
My senior year High School history teacher had a decent method. Once every 2 weeks we'd have a Jeopardy-like competition, the room would be broken into 2 groups and we'd answer questions covering the last 2 weeks of material. We weren't graded by this (that came in the form of REALY quizzes and tests) but the winning team would get a prize (something small like a +2% on a quiz or something).
It was fun and encouraged us to remember the material. That was something he started doing himself and not dictated by the school. Though he might've had to run it by them to make sure they'd approve.
Heck, even in college teachers would go about their own way of doing things. One professor might be dry and simply read from the book, while another teaching the same course number might mix it up a bit to keep things interesting. Perhaps a physics demonstration or some plain-speaking real-life anlogies.
A good software guy can buy a house in the suburbs, not too far from the office and maybe drive a Lexus. These guys lived in Manhattan and drove $100k+ cars, probably had a couple. .
Houses in the suburb can be pretty expensive. By me, in a mediocre neighborhood (middle-middle class) you're still talking 500k for a 2-3 bedroom house in the suburbs. Heck, 1 bedroom condos are often 275k.
Then they did a terrible job copying OSX. Windows 7 is still clunky, slow, and unstable. It's nothing like OSX at all.
I threw Win7 onto my MacBook Pro via BootCamp for work reasons and it's running fine. Heck, I even managed to get the 64-bit version running on it without any issues.
I've had no crashes and it feels a little speedier than Vista. So far it's looking like it's not a bad release.
Now I don't get the OSX and Win7 comparison, they don't look that much alike.
I have heard claims from police that about 80% of people they convict confess in one way or another. Your best bet is to smile, be polite, and refuse to talk about anything related to what you were doing or why. Remember, nothing you say to a police officer can help you in court (ever!). Also, the fact that you were willing to discuss A but not B CAN be used against you (while refusing to discuss anything cannot)
So if you have ever in your life done anything that you don't want to have to answer questions about, don't talk at all to start, about anything.
-Steve
The thing about speeding is, you usually KNOW you were speeding. Either while you were doing it or the instant you saw the police lights behind you.
I agree that perhaps stating exactly how fast you thought you were going is probably not the way to go. But denying it or being a jerk will probably hurt you more than not.
I'm not a social person (quite the opposite in fact) and yet my polite demeanor got me out of 2 tickets.
I've been pulled over 3 times for speeding. One time a PBA card got me out of it.
The other 2 times polite conversation and joking got me 1 warning and 1 "driving without a seatbelt" ticket instead. The seatbelt ticket was still a fine, but didn't count against my insurance.
Both times, sheepishly admitting that "yeh, sorry I guess I let it get away from me" helped me. I guess they're used to jerks trying to deny or back-pedal so apologetic niceness is probably a breath of fresh air.
My problem with HDMI is the port design itself. I had a Tivo HD using an HDMI cable and I unplugged it maybe a dozen or so times in under a year.
One of the times I guess I wound up killing the Tivo's socket and couldn't fix it.
There are a lot of horror stories out there about that. Too tight of a cable or cable gets moved to the side a little while moving some equipment around and pretty soon your thing can become toast.
Personally I like the old DVI/VGA way of doing things. Usually the worst you can do is screw up the pins on a cable which is no big deal... annoying but no big deal. Even the Component/RCA plugs aren't that bad, though I've had friends with too tight plug/cable combos yanking the whole thing out of their TV.
There's no real way around the human factor in this. I've seen drivers who two-foot drive. I've seen drivers who, when they're presented with a scary situation, take their hands off the wheel and cover their eyes. I've been in the car when a driver's panic reaction was to flail madly at the pedals with her feet and see-saw the wheel---in that case, the car rolled. While the floor mats can create a problem, and while Toyota could fix it by mounting them a little bit higher, you'll never truly idiot-proof a car until the car drives itself.
The solution to the likes of this are systems like stability control, ABS, Volvo or Nissan's Lane Departure Control and Mercedes' and Lexus' Pre-Safe crash mitigation systems: keep the car on-course and stable, allow the driver to maintain control and, if a crash is imminent, apply full braking force, tighten the seatbelts and pre-charge the airbags. Oh, and call 911.
I had a problem with the throttle-by-wire on my '06 Cadillac.
After I'd owned it for a few months, the engine throttle/power would start fluxuating heavily upon acceleration. IE, alternating between 1k and 4k RPM every second.
It took them forever to diagnose the problem; they had the car for a total of 9-12 days and refused to believe it was mechanical or electrical. They thought it was user error. The sad thing is, it was VERY reproducable yet they refused to acknowledge it. So long as you drove the thing before the temp-gauge normalized at 1/2 way you could do it 100% of the time; so from a cold start you had 5-10 minutes to reproduce it.
On the last time they looked it at (which if they failed would qualify as lemon law) they had an engineer from the headquarters come. He found that the accelerator was faulty and sending bad signals. Apparently it would just start sending bad data to the computer. They replaced the accelerator and it was all fixed.
9-12 days in the shop spread over a month, and it was only under the threat of "lemon law" did they acknowledge there was a problem.
Who on earth thinks drinking coffee while driving could ever be a good idea?
How do you change gear?
I agree with the sentiment: if you're driving a car that should be the only thing you're doing. No drinking (even non-alcoholic), no gaming, no texting, etc. The most I'll do is use my OnStar phone (press 1 button on the rear-view mirror and the rest is voice controlled) and even then only if it's absolutely necessary and only for a few seconds for a quick "I'm running late start the meeting without me" or "I'm going to the grocery, text me what you need."
As to gears...
I think changing gears a cultural / regional thing.
My friends in Europe tell me that most cars on the road there are manual / standard transmissions.
However here in the US I'd say a majority of cars have automatic. Some popular cars here don't even offer a standard transmission, which is often reserved for both performance cars and cheaper cars. With an automatic one only needs 1 foot and 1 hand to drive.
You can't buy a cell phone without a built-in camcorder nowadays...
The cell phone video would also have solved your immediate problem - record her harassing you, then phone the police to report it. Amazingly enough, people tend to run away when you start videoing them acting 5t00p1d.
I guess the video recorder on the cellphone would solve the "100% proof" to ensure the right owner was punished. Though acting quick enough to record the actual act would be tough, and that jerk would've probably filmed me being near the scene and run to the actual doodie and said "See, HE's the one."
As far as further confrontation, it was escalating pretty heavily on her end and I could feel my blood boiling at her reaction and statements. The last thing I wanted to do was give her an excuse.
Considering her reaction and state of mind, even taking a step forward to try to talk rationally could've been seen as "OMG HES GONNA ATTACK ME WITH HIS DOG!"
At that point, it was best to curse her out and walk away. Had she started following me then I would've wipped out the phone and called the local police.