While I can easily see it being false, it's possible to be true. They specifically state the only sampled BRICK AND MORTAR stores. Most people I know that purchase from B&M stores buy the cheap PCs that are on sale that week.
Think of it this way... B&M stores typically don't offer much customization, or don't offer it easily. So when you want to buy an expensive rig you're probably going to want to customize it a little: tweak the CPU, select the RAM, go for a smaller HD, go for a different Video Card, etc. This sends most "expensive" computer shoppers to the websites so they can customize and get exactly what they want.
How often does it make the news (particularly nationally) when some guy's TV shorts out and ignites, or a car battery explodes.
Well, fair's fair - Apple make the news everytime there's a rumour going around that the next version of the Iphone might include a feature, that's already been in other phones for the last three years anyway.
Eh, define "news." Yeh, blog sites like MacRumors might post something the instant there's a rumor about something and sites like slashdot make pick those up and run with them every now and then. But I don't consider that "making the news."
Apple only really makes the "news" when they release new products, since it happens with such less frequency than Dell or Toshiba. And that's usually because they announce their new releases at a big shiny conference surrounded by tons of cameras.
Apple isn't some magical company without any faults; they suffer the same QC problems that companies like Dell face. I had an known and annoying problem with my MacBook Pro that took them about a year to patch.
However, contrary to what people think, I've never met an Apple fan in real life that thinks Apple is as shiny as other people think. IE, nothing along the lines of "Apple can do no wrong" or "Apple is perfect." They simply like Apple's overall product offerings: OS+case+features. Now, posters on Slashdot and MacRumors are another story.
The problem with A La Carte is the affect on everyone else for price and/or availability. I'm not against a la carte, but it would have consequences.
For price Offer a la carte pricing and you break the bulk rate plan either on the consumer side, perhaps the Cable company's side as well. Which is fine until you start adding up the items at which point the price saving might not be as large as you think. Those 10-20 cables channels might cost you as much as 70-channels-worth from the old plan.
For content This part is kind of a paradox: limited freedom giving you more choices.
The reason we get some of the channels is simply because they are all bundled together when the Networks sell them to the Cable companies. The networks either force the issue, or entice them with some price breaks (so the cable companies pay less-per-channel and have more content to show).
Now, let's say A La Carte was offered. A lot of those smaller channels would be ignored by the general public (let's say the Military Channel or Smithsonian Channel). But some people still want those channels! So either the price for those channels goes up, or the Cable company drops the channels because not enough people are subscribing to make it worthwhile to get from the Network.
I'd rather see product placement i.e. Truman Show than 20 minutes of ads per hour.
Sometimes I agree. Every now and then there's an episode of something free of commercials with product placements. Shows like 24 and Leverage have done it and the main thing was they'd have a couple of glam-shots of the car/watch/etc they were pitching as well as 1-2 throw-away lines about how cool a car was or its features.
Now, when they do the above AND have normal commercial breaks it gets frustrating.
$8.99/mo is a pretty good deal to bypass Hulu ads. Not to mention the Watch Instantly content library. Oh, and there's something about DVDs too.
I don't mind the Hulu ads. Over a half-hour show it's only what... 4 commercial breaks 15-30 seconds a piece? Now if they increased it to more-than-one per break or something I might stop using it as much (save for stuff I can't find on TV anymore) but for now it's comfortable.
Would I be willing to pay each month for only getting no commercials? No, not unless they also offered another couple of features like higher-res and more content.
If I really wanted, I could probably give up Cable and rely on Hulu + iTunes/Amazon + Netflix for 90% of my viewing habits. The one thing stopping me is a well-integrated solution to bring Hulu to the TV besides setting up a separate PC and that I don't know how well Hulu looks on a 42" compared to broadcast.
Read the article. The long report they talk about says that 15 were reported. That's 15 out of 175,000,000 (175 million).
Cars, computers, flippin' aircraft... I'd imagine a lot of products have catastrophic failures (such as sparks or fires) 1 in 11.6 million times. How often does it make the news (particularly nationally) when some guy's TV shorts out and ignites, or a car battery explodes.
And to clarifiy my position, I didn't jump down Sony's or Dell's or Apple's throat when their laptop batteries were causing major problems either. Though it's obviously good to know, as so many were affected, the most that can be said is that it was the battery manufacturers.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the US have naval submarines that are powered by nuclear reactors. And aren't those subs often docked near populated ports, San Diego for example. Thus, we have already accepted the risk of having nuclear power in populated areas, so it seems odd to be afraid of adding a few civilian nuclear reactors that are not in highly populated areas.
Agreed. It's mostly irrational fear.
I could see where one would trust a reactor that was built FOR the military and operated BY highly trained military personnel. Too many civilian projects and products get hit by lowest-bidder disasters.
Hell, in my opinion (and I do have an iphone) the app store already has *too many* apps, and the quality on the ones there aren't quite high enough for my liking.
I can't blame anyone for thinking all of the apps on the store are bunk.
On one hand I've downloaded and purchased some nice apps from the store. They're of high quality, much higher than I expected on a mobile device, and I am quite pleased. I avoid junk apps and only grab what I need/desire and looks of good quality.
On the other hand, there are a LOT of apps on the store and many of them appear to be useless or poor.
Here in the US, my state makes it against the law to drive while using the cellphone (without a hands-free device) as a primary offense. IE, if a cop sees you using a cellphone he can pull you over and give you a ticket for it.
Until a little over a year ago that wasn't the case. I believe before that they could only ticket you for using you using a cellphone if they pulled you over for something else such as speeding.
Even before the law changed I wouldn't use a phone while driving without hands-free. And even then, I'd only use it for quick no-thought conversations along the lines of "I'm going to be late today" or "I'm going out to dinner tonight, don't wait up" or "I'm going to the grocery store later, text me anything you want me to pick up."
He'd rented a sound system for 17 friends in a field? Well, I'm not going to judge before all the facts are in, but it seems a little excessive.
Renting one kind of makes sense.
At a party, particularly at night, you'd want some sort of music.
It's outside, so do you really want to bring your home sound system? What if it rains? what if it falls?
Heck I don't even have a sound system, merely my PC setup as well as my TV system so i wouldn't have anything to bring.
The most someone would probably want to lug around of their own is a little boom box type of stereo but those aren't really going to do much in an open field with 17+ people chatting away.
I don't know. But it's interesting to think that people watching the DVDs 1000 years from now will probably find our speech as odd and different as we find Beowulf now...
Yeh, they'll find it odd how we call it Christmas instead of XMas. How we saw Ask instead of Aks. And these rain forests we keep talking about.
So Apple has a virtual monopoly on portable media players, and they're using their monopoly to harm their competitors. Sounds like a job for the DoJ to me.
Apple is evil, and I can't understand why geeks like them so much. They're notorious for protecting their interests above anybody else's with absolutely zero regard for the consumer.
I don't see how.
It would be one thing if Apple said "The Pre cannot sync with iTunes," but that's not what happened here.
They're saying "Aha! The Pre is pretending to be an iPod so we're going to stop that." If you read even the early part of the article you'd see that Palm was trying to trick iTunes into giving it access.
There's nothing stopping Palm from using the established methods for it to access content via the XML data Apple provides.
If you resort to trickery, you shouldn't be surprised when a parent company cuts you off. Especially when there are approved methods of doing something.
Okay, this only holds true IF we are truly biological machines with advanced programming. If we actually do have a soul, then this whole idea goes out the window (and a whole lot of other, much bigger problems come in).
I don't see how the soul comes into play here.
Correct me if I'm wrong (I have ZERO medical background), but throughout the years there have been examples of conditioned responses and hypnotism. Then there is shock therapy and some drugs to help wipe some thoughts and memories, and let's not forget about sleepwalking and sleepdriving.
If a person gets amnesia, does that mean the soul has left the body? If a person sleepwalks due to a personal problem or a medication reaction, does that mean during that time there is no soul? etc
Given enough time and advancement, who's to say that in 100 years that either a combination of the above couldn't take control of a person and wipe their memory afterwards. Especially once we start wiring hackable devices into our nervous system.
Replace bike with car... if a car decides to cut across quickly without a blinker across 1 or 2 lanes without warning or signaling don't you consider him a jerk? If a car decides to drive into oncoming traffic do you call him a jerk (or even crazy)? If a car starts weaving around all over the road for no reason do you consider him a jerk (if not drunk)?
It's one thing if I'm on a quiet back road, I don't mind the cyclist not following the rules or signaling or whatever. I just slow down and deal.
But if on a 40-50mph road (64-80kph), especially multi-lane roads, then a cyclist really should get his act together. Cutting across lanes without signaling/looking, weaving around, riding into ONCOMING TRAFFIC (at those speeds), how is that not acting like a jerk.
Your problem with jerks is that you have to be very careful of them? Being very careful should be your default behavior as a driver.
And I am. As I mentioned earlier, I'm already careful and give lots of room to regular cyclists.
Replace bike with car... if a car decides to cut across quickly without a blinker across 1 or 2 lanes without warning or signaling don't you consider him a jerk? If a car decides to drive into oncoming traffic do you call him a jerk (or even crazy)? If a car starts weaving around all over the road for no reason do you consider him a jerk (if not drunk)?
It's one thing if I'm on back roads, I don't mind if a biker isn't doing all of the signals and maybe has some fun or liberties.
But if I'm on a 40-50mph road (64-80kph) then a cyclist that does the above is definitely a jerk.
It's not because I'm "inconvenienced" by having to slow down or pay closer attention. It's because a jerk cyclist (instead of a regular cyclist) becomes a major danger to himself at my expense.
At least if a car cuts me off at 50mph there's a good chance with today's cars that there will be little-to-no-injuries. If the guy's in a bicycle, it's pretty much a game-ender at that point.
You're confused with cars. Bikes don't take up a lot of space, don't go very fast, don't kill people through carelessness. In general, bicycles are very undemanding. They just want to share the road. It's the car drivers who want the road all for themselves and andanger other traffic that dares to enter their domain.
True, bikes don't take up a lot of space and don't directly harm other people and the truly good ones are smart about it: they signal, pay attention when nearing an intersection / parking lot / etc, ride on the side of the road or in a bike lane, etc. I have no problem when there's a smart cyclist around, and though I give him extra room and pay more attention, I have NO problem with them on the road.
However for every smart and safe cyclist I also see 1-2 jerk cyclists. The jerks ride their bikes on fast roads without a shoulder and don't signal while drifting to the other side of a fast multi-lane road so they can make a turn later... all without wearing a helmet. My favorite was this Monday when a jerk was riding against traffic on a 50 MPH road without a shoulder (yes, I'm being serious... none of the cars around me knew wtf was going on) and wasn't wearing a helmet.
The problem with the jerks is, I as a driver have to be VERY careful around them... more-so than a smart cyclist or even a flippin' 12-year-old on a BMX. They're erratic, don't pay attention, and don't know the rules and common courtesy an experienced cyclist knows. And god forbid the jerk leaves the bike lane and drifts in front of me without signaling and I hit him, besides ending a human life (or severely maiming them) my family's would probably be financially ruined with lawsuits.
I think the jerks are multiplying, as they used to be a rarity and rode on the weekends or away from commuter roads. It must be the economy and price of gas; inexperienced people deciding to ride their bikes to work, dusting off their bikes for the first time in 10 years, and thinkiit's just fine to hop on the road and do whatever they want.
So I have no problem with cyclists in general, just when a jerk makes things unsafe for himself and everyone else.
I'm surprised it took this long for the news to hit Slashdot's main page, it's already a few days old yet it's the kind of thing that we nerds definitely consider "news." Sites BluesNews reported on the initial Lan issue on the 29th and has been feeding details since then.
Personally I don't mind that much, I haven't attended a LAN party is years. However I can definitely see how this will anger SCORES of people.
Eh, no matter what electronic product you have there are going to be batches of bad products. This batch got a lousy battery, this a bad speaker, another went through a flawed machine for sealing, etc. They sold a million within the first day or weekend, and how many people are complaining?
I picked one up (my first iPhone) the other day and haven't had a problem with it. While I notice the temp increase while playing a game, it's "just" noticable. Not uncomfortable, not obvious, not "too warm" etc. I also know a number of people that picked one up and haven't had any problems with them.
That was my thought, are kids today really that spoiled rotten? I mean when I was a kid we got to choose between cassettes and records then later cassettes and CDs. But, I don't recall any of my friends ever speaking so derisively of the turntables.
Perhaps it's because I'm quite bright, but apart from the metal switch, I never had any of those questions when I first picked up a tape deck.
I think part of the reason you had little trouble was the contemporary "general knowledge" of the time. You learned tapes had double sides, because at the very least you saw an adult flip the tape around and there was usually writing on both sides. You saw it being used, you heard you parents (or whoever) talk about the device, etc. Even if you don't recall someone specifically stating "Now Sam, remember the tape has two sides so when you reach the end you need to flip it" you learned it from somewhere.
The kid is 13 - to put that in perspective he was only 10 in 2006, only 5 in 2001, and 3 in 2009. By the time he was old enough to fiddle with stuff the CD had pretty much long-surpassed the cassetteand I am not surprised that a kid born around that time was unfamiliar with the old cassette player. At this point portable cassette players were relics in your older brother's closet or in the drawer next to your parents' old photo albums. The only time he might have had frequent access to cassette players was the one in his car, and if his parents were well-off then perhaps not even then.
I can't blame the kid for not knowing these things, nor can I blame a young Java programmer scratching his head looking at COBOL code. However I do find it odd that a 13-year-old kid could write such a well worded report. Back in my day my grammar and writing skills were far better than they are today, but I don't recall writing like that at 13.
All great until they no longer have it on their site or they decide that they are not making enough money and pull the plug. Then what are you going to do? Mythtv can still have it on a terabyte disk recorded legally (and you do know Mythtv can have as many tuners as you like right? half a dozen, no problem).
Fine, when they start pulling the content I care about or pull Hulu all-together then I'll worry. When things change, I'll change with them.
But MythTv still doesn't solve everything. As I said, recording isn't they best option if you want something dated or something you didn't think of recording. And renting is something a hassle, as in my case the rental places near me have very poor TV selections, and Netflix requires waiting at least 2 days.
Yes I'm aware of MythTv's abilities. But it still comes down to me needing to buy or build the rig, configure it, etc. And it still doesn't let me watch Buck Rogers since nobody airs that show anymore.
For now I'd rather throw an old laptop onto my HDTV and watch the occasional old show on Hulu that way. Between my DVR and Fios OnDemand I don't normally need rely on Hulu for recent / new shows.
Why settle for a bunch of DRM streaming that they will pull the run out from under you at any time. Most of the content is available to be recorded or you can rent. Either it will not have commercials or MythTV will automatically skip them. You get to pick what happens.
The big thing is: any content you want, whenever you want, free and legal. While Cable's network OnDemand feature combats this, it's less comprehensive than Hulu.
It has a large catalog of older stuff that I cannot find (or easily find) on current Cable / Fios to record. If I'm suddenly in the mood to watch a mini-marathon of "Buck Rogers," "The A-Team" or SciFi's "The Invisible Man" I can just hop onto Hulu and view it legally. If I want to rent, then I'd have to rely on Netflix (since the Blockbusters near me don't have that stuff) and thus have to wait 2-3 days to watch it. At which point, maybe the urge has passed or I don't have the free time anymore.
It also saves some hassle on recording. Instead of waiting for the channel to air my favorite episode of "Stargate SG-1" (Window of Opportunity) so I can record it, I can watch it now. Or with a standard DVR I can record 2 shows at once, but sometimes there's a 3rd or 4th show on at the same time and they don't repeat later or might not be available on Fios OnDemand. At which point I hope onto Hulu and legally watch that 3rd or 4th show. Sure I can get another DVR or setup a MythTv box to handle the OtA content but that's more money and work than I'd like, when the content is available, free, and legal.
The DRM doesn't bother me, and neither does the 15/30/60 second commercial every 10-15minutes. However it's free, legal, and offers a LOT of content that I like
Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices. This article tries to re-inject a sense of fear. Its like saying "OK so the vacuum cleaner is good at cleaning the floor. But does it paint the garage? No? Well back to cleaning the floor with a mop then"
Surely we deserve a more rational debate? Sacrifices are needed but sophistry will not persuade anyone.
Poor analogy. Unless I'm reading things incorrectly, tour analogy is trying to join 2 separate things (clean floors, painted garages) while their issue is trying to join 2 symptoms of the same problem.
If I'm reading it correctly: they're trying to use Geo-Engineering to solve one of the main concerns of greenhouse emissions: global warming. However the increased greenhouse emissions are also causing the acidity issue in the ocean due to the carbon in the atmosphere getting absorbed.
A better analogy might be:
There's this dark spot of rot on the wall of our house. We are going to sand it down and apply a new anti-fungal paint to the wall so it looks nice and so the spot doesn't get visibly bigger.
However, this doesn't address the problem that the rot is starting to eat away at the wood underneath, and if left untreated we'll have both structural and health problems.
That's not to say sanding and painting is a bad idea, but by simply taking care of one symptom of the rot we aren't addressing other less obvious symptoms.
When Apple releases a new OS and says it's not compatible with the old, there's a huge line to suck Steve Jobs' ****. "Support of legacy software has made Windows a bloated piece of shit. Apple's so smart."
When Microsoft makes a similar change people whine about all the hassles they'll have to go through.
As a personal user I wouldn't mind if Microsoft decided to pull an Apple and cut off support for all of their legacy stuff. I don't really use much legacy software anymore, and am just about done with PC gaming. If it would streamline the OS and remove some bugs, I'm all for it and would applaud them instead of criticize.
However I can see why businesses aren't happy: many rely on old custom legacy systems. They have websites setup for IE 6, rely on legacy era (ie DOS) applications for obscure equipment, some Sales admin/entry software that can only work on certain environments, etc. And hardware, they don't just have to worry about workstations but external devices (like scales, sensors, lab equipment, etc) that might only work with a DOS-based program through an old COM port.
In short, businesses have a LOT of specialized software that they need to keep running and cannot replace and thus want things to stay status-quo, and I can't really blame them. If upgrading their PCs and OS means spending hundreds of thousands (if not millions) on new software and hardware, you can imagine that they'd like to sit just where they are.
I just went into the DMV to renew my license and it was expensive and rigorous.
I went last month - it cost $24 to renew my license. I had to wait around 20 minutes before it was my turn, and getting my identification in order was a snap since I already had a Passport..
Slashdot Mirror
While I can easily see it being false, it's possible to be true. They specifically state the only sampled BRICK AND MORTAR stores. Most people I know that purchase from B&M stores buy the cheap PCs that are on sale that week.
Think of it this way... B&M stores typically don't offer much customization, or don't offer it easily. So when you want to buy an expensive rig you're probably going to want to customize it a little: tweak the CPU, select the RAM, go for a smaller HD, go for a different Video Card, etc. This sends most "expensive" computer shoppers to the websites so they can customize and get exactly what they want.
But it can also be cherry-picking data.
And thats 87.94%, get your facts straight :-)
How often does it make the news (particularly nationally) when some guy's TV shorts out and ignites, or a car battery explodes.
Well, fair's fair - Apple make the news everytime there's a rumour going around that the next version of the Iphone might include a feature, that's already been in other phones for the last three years anyway.
Eh, define "news." Yeh, blog sites like MacRumors might post something the instant there's a rumor about something and sites like slashdot make pick those up and run with them every now and then. But I don't consider that "making the news."
Apple only really makes the "news" when they release new products, since it happens with such less frequency than Dell or Toshiba. And that's usually because they announce their new releases at a big shiny conference surrounded by tons of cameras.
Apple isn't some magical company without any faults; they suffer the same QC problems that companies like Dell face. I had an known and annoying problem with my MacBook Pro that took them about a year to patch.
However, contrary to what people think, I've never met an Apple fan in real life that thinks Apple is as shiny as other people think. IE, nothing along the lines of "Apple can do no wrong" or "Apple is perfect." They simply like Apple's overall product offerings: OS+case+features. Now, posters on Slashdot and MacRumors are another story.
The problem with A La Carte is the affect on everyone else for price and/or availability. I'm not against a la carte, but it would have consequences.
For price
Offer a la carte pricing and you break the bulk rate plan either on the consumer side, perhaps the Cable company's side as well. Which is fine until you start adding up the items at which point the price saving might not be as large as you think. Those 10-20 cables channels might cost you as much as 70-channels-worth from the old plan.
For content
This part is kind of a paradox: limited freedom giving you more choices.
The reason we get some of the channels is simply because they are all bundled together when the Networks sell them to the Cable companies. The networks either force the issue, or entice them with some price breaks (so the cable companies pay less-per-channel and have more content to show).
Now, let's say A La Carte was offered. A lot of those smaller channels would be ignored by the general public (let's say the Military Channel or Smithsonian Channel). But some people still want those channels! So either the price for those channels goes up, or the Cable company drops the channels because not enough people are subscribing to make it worthwhile to get from the Network.
I'd rather see product placement i.e. Truman Show than 20 minutes of ads per hour.
Sometimes I agree. Every now and then there's an episode of something free of commercials with product placements. Shows like 24 and Leverage have done it and the main thing was they'd have a couple of glam-shots of the car/watch/etc they were pitching as well as 1-2 throw-away lines about how cool a car was or its features.
Now, when they do the above AND have normal commercial breaks it gets frustrating.
$8.99/mo is a pretty good deal to bypass Hulu ads. Not to mention the Watch Instantly content library. Oh, and there's something about DVDs too.
I don't mind the Hulu ads. Over a half-hour show it's only what... 4 commercial breaks 15-30 seconds a piece? Now if they increased it to more-than-one per break or something I might stop using it as much (save for stuff I can't find on TV anymore) but for now it's comfortable.
Would I be willing to pay each month for only getting no commercials? No, not unless they also offered another couple of features like higher-res and more content.
If I really wanted, I could probably give up Cable and rely on Hulu + iTunes/Amazon + Netflix for 90% of my viewing habits. The one thing stopping me is a well-integrated solution to bring Hulu to the TV besides setting up a separate PC and that I don't know how well Hulu looks on a 42" compared to broadcast.
Read the article. The long report they talk about says that 15 were reported. That's 15 out of 175,000,000 (175 million).
Cars, computers, flippin' aircraft... I'd imagine a lot of products have catastrophic failures (such as sparks or fires) 1 in 11.6 million times. How often does it make the news (particularly nationally) when some guy's TV shorts out and ignites, or a car battery explodes.
And to clarifiy my position, I didn't jump down Sony's or Dell's or Apple's throat when their laptop batteries were causing major problems either. Though it's obviously good to know, as so many were affected, the most that can be said is that it was the battery manufacturers.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the US have naval submarines that are powered by nuclear reactors. And aren't those subs often docked near populated ports, San Diego for example. Thus, we have already accepted the risk of having nuclear power in populated areas, so it seems odd to be afraid of adding a few civilian nuclear reactors that are not in highly populated areas.
Agreed. It's mostly irrational fear.
I could see where one would trust a reactor that was built FOR the military and operated BY highly trained military personnel. Too many civilian projects and products get hit by lowest-bidder disasters.
Hell, in my opinion (and I do have an iphone) the app store already has *too many* apps, and the quality on the ones there aren't quite high enough for my liking.
I can't blame anyone for thinking all of the apps on the store are bunk.
On one hand I've downloaded and purchased some nice apps from the store. They're of high quality, much higher than I expected on a mobile device, and I am quite pleased. I avoid junk apps and only grab what I need/desire and looks of good quality.
On the other hand, there are a LOT of apps on the store and many of them appear to be useless or poor.
The good ones just get lost in the noise.
Here in the US, my state makes it against the law to drive while using the cellphone (without a hands-free device) as a primary offense. IE, if a cop sees you using a cellphone he can pull you over and give you a ticket for it.
Until a little over a year ago that wasn't the case. I believe before that they could only ticket you for using you using a cellphone if they pulled you over for something else such as speeding.
Even before the law changed I wouldn't use a phone while driving without hands-free. And even then, I'd only use it for quick no-thought conversations along the lines of "I'm going to be late today" or "I'm going out to dinner tonight, don't wait up" or "I'm going to the grocery store later, text me anything you want me to pick up."
He'd rented a sound system for 17 friends in a field? Well, I'm not going to judge before all the facts are in, but it seems a little excessive.
Renting one kind of makes sense.
At a party, particularly at night, you'd want some sort of music.
It's outside, so do you really want to bring your home sound system? What if it rains? what if it falls?
Heck I don't even have a sound system, merely my PC setup as well as my TV system so i wouldn't have anything to bring.
The most someone would probably want to lug around of their own is a little boom box type of stereo but those aren't really going to do much in an open field with 17+ people chatting away.
I don't know. But it's interesting to think that people watching the DVDs 1000 years from now will probably find our speech as odd and different as we find Beowulf now...
Yeh, they'll find it odd how we call it Christmas instead of XMas. How we saw Ask instead of Aks. And these rain forests we keep talking about.
Funny, I'd read this elsewhere and wondered why I hadn't seen it on slashdot.
So Apple has a virtual monopoly on portable media players, and they're using their monopoly to harm their competitors. Sounds like a job for the DoJ to me.
Apple is evil, and I can't understand why geeks like them so much. They're notorious for protecting their interests above anybody else's with absolutely zero regard for the consumer.
I don't see how.
It would be one thing if Apple said "The Pre cannot sync with iTunes," but that's not what happened here.
They're saying "Aha! The Pre is pretending to be an iPod so we're going to stop that." If you read even the early part of the article you'd see that Palm was trying to trick iTunes into giving it access.
There's nothing stopping Palm from using the established methods for it to access content via the XML data Apple provides.
If you resort to trickery, you shouldn't be surprised when a parent company cuts you off. Especially when there are approved methods of doing something.
Okay, this only holds true IF we are truly biological machines with advanced programming. If we actually do have a soul, then this whole idea goes out the window (and a whole lot of other, much bigger problems come in).
I don't see how the soul comes into play here.
Correct me if I'm wrong (I have ZERO medical background), but throughout the years there have been examples of conditioned responses and hypnotism. Then there is shock therapy and some drugs to help wipe some thoughts and memories, and let's not forget about sleepwalking and sleepdriving.
If a person gets amnesia, does that mean the soul has left the body?
If a person sleepwalks due to a personal problem or a medication reaction, does that mean during that time there is no soul?
etc
Given enough time and advancement, who's to say that in 100 years that either a combination of the above couldn't take control of a person and wipe their memory afterwards. Especially once we start wiring hackable devices into our nervous system.
And why are they jerks?
Replace bike with car... if a car decides to cut across quickly without a blinker across 1 or 2 lanes without warning or signaling don't you consider him a jerk? If a car decides to drive into oncoming traffic do you call him a jerk (or even crazy)? If a car starts weaving around all over the road for no reason do you consider him a jerk (if not drunk)?
It's one thing if I'm on a quiet back road, I don't mind the cyclist not following the rules or signaling or whatever. I just slow down and deal.
But if on a 40-50mph road (64-80kph), especially multi-lane roads, then a cyclist really should get his act together. Cutting across lanes without signaling/looking, weaving around, riding into ONCOMING TRAFFIC (at those speeds), how is that not acting like a jerk.
Your problem with jerks is that you have to be very careful of them? Being very careful should be your default behavior as a driver.
And I am. As I mentioned earlier, I'm already careful and give lots of room to regular cyclists.
Replace bike with car... if a car decides to cut across quickly without a blinker across 1 or 2 lanes without warning or signaling don't you consider him a jerk? If a car decides to drive into oncoming traffic do you call him a jerk (or even crazy)? If a car starts weaving around all over the road for no reason do you consider him a jerk (if not drunk)?
It's one thing if I'm on back roads, I don't mind if a biker isn't doing all of the signals and maybe has some fun or liberties.
But if I'm on a 40-50mph road (64-80kph) then a cyclist that does the above is definitely a jerk.
It's not because I'm "inconvenienced" by having to slow down or pay closer attention. It's because a jerk cyclist (instead of a regular cyclist) becomes a major danger to himself at my expense.
At least if a car cuts me off at 50mph there's a good chance with today's cars that there will be little-to-no-injuries. If the guy's in a bicycle, it's pretty much a game-ender at that point.
Bicyclists are a scourge on the roads.
You're confused with cars. Bikes don't take up a lot of space, don't go very fast, don't kill people through carelessness. In general, bicycles are very undemanding. They just want to share the road. It's the car drivers who want the road all for themselves and andanger other traffic that dares to enter their domain.
True, bikes don't take up a lot of space and don't directly harm other people and the truly good ones are smart about it: they signal, pay attention when nearing an intersection / parking lot / etc, ride on the side of the road or in a bike lane, etc. I have no problem when there's a smart cyclist around, and though I give him extra room and pay more attention, I have NO problem with them on the road.
However for every smart and safe cyclist I also see 1-2 jerk cyclists. The jerks ride their bikes on fast roads without a shoulder and don't signal while drifting to the other side of a fast multi-lane road so they can make a turn later... all without wearing a helmet. My favorite was this Monday when a jerk was riding against traffic on a 50 MPH road without a shoulder (yes, I'm being serious... none of the cars around me knew wtf was going on) and wasn't wearing a helmet.
The problem with the jerks is, I as a driver have to be VERY careful around them... more-so than a smart cyclist or even a flippin' 12-year-old on a BMX. They're erratic, don't pay attention, and don't know the rules and common courtesy an experienced cyclist knows. And god forbid the jerk leaves the bike lane and drifts in front of me without signaling and I hit him, besides ending a human life (or severely maiming them) my family's would probably be financially ruined with lawsuits.
I think the jerks are multiplying, as they used to be a rarity and rode on the weekends or away from commuter roads. It must be the economy and price of gas; inexperienced people deciding to ride their bikes to work, dusting off their bikes for the first time in 10 years, and thinkiit's just fine to hop on the road and do whatever they want.
So I have no problem with cyclists in general, just when a jerk makes things unsafe for himself and everyone else.
I'm surprised it took this long for the news to hit Slashdot's main page, it's already a few days old yet it's the kind of thing that we nerds definitely consider "news." Sites BluesNews reported on the initial Lan issue on the 29th and has been feeding details since then.
Personally I don't mind that much, I haven't attended a LAN party is years. However I can definitely see how this will anger SCORES of people.
Eh, no matter what electronic product you have there are going to be batches of bad products. This batch got a lousy battery, this a bad speaker, another went through a flawed machine for sealing, etc. They sold a million within the first day or weekend, and how many people are complaining?
I picked one up (my first iPhone) the other day and haven't had a problem with it. While I notice the temp increase while playing a game, it's "just" noticable. Not uncomfortable, not obvious, not "too warm" etc. I also know a number of people that picked one up and haven't had any problems with them.
That was my thought, are kids today really that spoiled rotten? I mean when I was a kid we got to choose between cassettes and records then later cassettes and CDs. But, I don't recall any of my friends ever speaking so derisively of the turntables.
Perhaps it's because I'm quite bright, but apart from the metal switch, I never had any of those questions when I first picked up a tape deck.
I think part of the reason you had little trouble was the contemporary "general knowledge" of the time. You learned tapes had double sides, because at the very least you saw an adult flip the tape around and there was usually writing on both sides. You saw it being used, you heard you parents (or whoever) talk about the device, etc. Even if you don't recall someone specifically stating "Now Sam, remember the tape has two sides so when you reach the end you need to flip it" you learned it from somewhere.
The kid is 13 - to put that in perspective he was only 10 in 2006, only 5 in 2001, and 3 in 2009. By the time he was old enough to fiddle with stuff the CD had pretty much long-surpassed the cassetteand I am not surprised that a kid born around that time was unfamiliar with the old cassette player. At this point portable cassette players were relics in your older brother's closet or in the drawer next to your parents' old photo albums. The only time he might have had frequent access to cassette players was the one in his car, and if his parents were well-off then perhaps not even then.
I can't blame the kid for not knowing these things, nor can I blame a young Java programmer scratching his head looking at COBOL code. However I do find it odd that a 13-year-old kid could write such a well worded report. Back in my day my grammar and writing skills were far better than they are today, but I don't recall writing like that at 13.
All great until they no longer have it on their site or they decide that they are not making enough money and pull the plug. Then what are you going to do? Mythtv can still have it on a terabyte disk recorded legally (and you do know Mythtv can have as many tuners as you like right? half a dozen, no problem).
Fine, when they start pulling the content I care about or pull Hulu all-together then I'll worry. When things change, I'll change with them.
But MythTv still doesn't solve everything. As I said, recording isn't they best option if you want something dated or something you didn't think of recording. And renting is something a hassle, as in my case the rental places near me have very poor TV selections, and Netflix requires waiting at least 2 days.
Yes I'm aware of MythTv's abilities. But it still comes down to me needing to buy or build the rig, configure it, etc. And it still doesn't let me watch Buck Rogers since nobody airs that show anymore.
For now I'd rather throw an old laptop onto my HDTV and watch the occasional old show on Hulu that way. Between my DVR and Fios OnDemand I don't normally need rely on Hulu for recent / new shows.
Why settle for a bunch of DRM streaming that they will pull the run out from under you at any time. Most of the content is available to be recorded or you can rent. Either it will not have commercials or MythTV will automatically skip them. You get to pick what happens.
The big thing is: any content you want, whenever you want, free and legal. While Cable's network OnDemand feature combats this, it's less comprehensive than Hulu.
It has a large catalog of older stuff that I cannot find (or easily find) on current Cable / Fios to record. If I'm suddenly in the mood to watch a mini-marathon of "Buck Rogers," "The A-Team" or SciFi's "The Invisible Man" I can just hop onto Hulu and view it legally. If I want to rent, then I'd have to rely on Netflix (since the Blockbusters near me don't have that stuff) and thus have to wait 2-3 days to watch it. At which point, maybe the urge has passed or I don't have the free time anymore.
It also saves some hassle on recording. Instead of waiting for the channel to air my favorite episode of "Stargate SG-1" (Window of Opportunity) so I can record it, I can watch it now. Or with a standard DVR I can record 2 shows at once, but sometimes there's a 3rd or 4th show on at the same time and they don't repeat later or might not be available on Fios OnDemand. At which point I hope onto Hulu and legally watch that 3rd or 4th show. Sure I can get another DVR or setup a MythTv box to handle the OtA content but that's more money and work than I'd like, when the content is available, free, and legal.
The DRM doesn't bother me, and neither does the 15/30/60 second commercial every 10-15minutes. However it's free, legal, and offers a LOT of content that I like
Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices. This article tries to re-inject a sense of fear. Its like saying "OK so the vacuum cleaner is good at cleaning the floor. But does it paint the garage? No? Well back to cleaning the floor with a mop then"
Surely we deserve a more rational debate? Sacrifices are needed but sophistry will not persuade anyone.
Poor analogy. Unless I'm reading things incorrectly, tour analogy is trying to join 2 separate things (clean floors, painted garages) while their issue is trying to join 2 symptoms of the same problem.
If I'm reading it correctly: they're trying to use Geo-Engineering to solve one of the main concerns of greenhouse emissions: global warming. However the increased greenhouse emissions are also causing the acidity issue in the ocean due to the carbon in the atmosphere getting absorbed.
A better analogy might be:
There's this dark spot of rot on the wall of our house. We are going to sand it down and apply a new anti-fungal paint to the wall so it looks nice and so the spot doesn't get visibly bigger.
However, this doesn't address the problem that the rot is starting to eat away at the wood underneath, and if left untreated we'll have both structural and health problems.
That's not to say sanding and painting is a bad idea, but by simply taking care of one symptom of the rot we aren't addressing other less obvious symptoms.
When Apple releases a new OS and says it's not compatible with the old, there's a huge line to suck Steve Jobs' ****. "Support of legacy software has made Windows a bloated piece of shit. Apple's so smart."
When Microsoft makes a similar change people whine about all the hassles they'll have to go through.
As a personal user I wouldn't mind if Microsoft decided to pull an Apple and cut off support for all of their legacy stuff. I don't really use much legacy software anymore, and am just about done with PC gaming. If it would streamline the OS and remove some bugs, I'm all for it and would applaud them instead of criticize.
However I can see why businesses aren't happy: many rely on old custom legacy systems. They have websites setup for IE 6, rely on legacy era (ie DOS) applications for obscure equipment, some Sales admin/entry software that can only work on certain environments, etc. And hardware, they don't just have to worry about workstations but external devices (like scales, sensors, lab equipment, etc) that might only work with a DOS-based program through an old COM port.
In short, businesses have a LOT of specialized software that they need to keep running and cannot replace and thus want things to stay status-quo, and I can't really blame them. If upgrading their PCs and OS means spending hundreds of thousands (if not millions) on new software and hardware, you can imagine that they'd like to sit just where they are.
I just went into the DMV to renew my license and it was expensive and rigorous.
I went last month - it cost $24 to renew my license. I had to wait around 20 minutes before it was my turn, and getting my identification in order was a snap since I already had a Passport..
Hardly expensive or rigorous.