then you get sued, end of story. Yes, you might be, but you shouldn't be.
Why shouldn't I be allowed to create an original work about the content of someone else's original work? Rowling has stated that she doesn't have a problem with him publishing a Potter Encyclopedia, but that too much of its content (a majority) is taken straight from her books, word-for-word. She stated that if he were to re-write it to remove her actual text then she would let it go.
Assuming that is true then I kind of support that, and I'm not even a fan. It's one thing to write something about someone else's work, but it's another if a large chunk is just copied/pasted from that other work (even if it's an encyclopedia).
Can someone detail why a good working implementation of normal maps/directions does not suffice?
StreetView has a couple of uses, mostly centered sampling that "last mile" of a complicated trip to look for landmarks denoting the turns.
Planning for trips at night, in case streets aren't well-lit to read signs. Big problem in many suburbs.
Planning for trips where street signs are missing or in need of repair, and intersections are close together.
Before I got my GPS, there were several neighborhoods that were a complete pain to find my way through with a map+tripometer if I wasn't familiar with the area. Sure I'd get there, but I might miss turn every now and then.
This was usually at night when it was harder to read signs on poorly lit streets, but also some poor street signs.
With a very full StreeView, one could prepare for the drive and write down "This turn is near the white picket fence and that turn has the mailbox at the corner."
Personally, I like the ordinary map view over the satellite view; it's cleaner and easier to read. But I could see sampling out the turns via StreetView for your last mile of the trip be handy if you don't have a GPS.
I believe there's a caveat between OEM Vista and Retail Vista. OEM Vista becomes tied to the motherboard, while Retail lets you transfer to a new PC. So if you ever need to replace the motherboard due to damage you're out of luck. You can probably try calling Microsoft but I don't know if that will work 100% of the time.
Plus I believe Retail Vista comes w/ both 32-bit and 64-bit versions while OEM comes with either one or the other.
It's true, remotely accessing a PC w/ RDP will kick out the user.
However I believe that's why XP has Remote Assistance, it works similar but the local user can accept the connection request and watch the remote user move the mouse around to fix it. I think the 2 users can even swap control of mouse/keyboard amongst themselves.
Well, not a standard plugin per-se. But some GPS units are compatible with traffic systems like XM Traffic. I have one in mine and it's pretty useful if I have a long drive and I have to re-route around traffic. It shows you the location of accidents, the start of construction, and how congested a stretch of highway is.
So I'd imagine that XM could simply put a traffic icon there that looks like a policecar, though that would still take a software update.
If you plug one hole in a sieve, will it hold water?
Agreed. Firefox won't make it uncrackable, OS X has some other security bugs and FireFox isn't perfect either. They just stopped at the first major one they found (which happened to involve Safari).
However I'd imagine using only FireFox would (at the very least) remove that 1 major hole they found. Of course it would probably create a bunch more.
If someone wants to pretend to be me, fine. They can't get away with it for very long. I don't use credit, so any debts incurred wouldn't be my problem
You do realize that not having a credit card doesn't protect you. In fact, you might be more vulnerable. If they start charging on your credit card you can notice it in time, inform the company, and not be bothered by debt collectors.
The bad thing is when someone assumes your identity and gets a credit card issued to them in your name, or worse yet takes out a loan in your name (it happens). Then when they start generating huge bills and debt or neglect to pay back the loan, the credit card company thinks it's you and start pestering you. And sometimes they set it up so YOU don't get notified so you have no way of knowing that you owe a $100k mortgage until they repo your house.
The annoying thing about being a victim of identity theft is a) you are who you say you are b) convincing the debt collectors it wasn't YOU but someone else on a spending spree c) catching it in time
Just because you think you're safe, that doesn't mean you are. I'm not fear mongering, it's just something everyone should watch out for, whether-or-not they currently have credit cards, debt, loans, etc.
And really. Why would a passenger vessel capable of hopping between stars in the blink of an eye have manufacturing centers? Or fuel refineries? Or food production capabilities.
You make a good point about the medicines and such, which is why I'm surprised they didn't mention it when the President was willing to take natural herbs for her disease. They instead flipped out. They did address it in one episode, where a specific group of people got sick. Instead of taking the drug now and saving the rest if the disease came back, they refused at first and they had to use almost all of it to stop this 1 instance. And the doctors were ticked.
Your key point is valid, they're running out of "stuff" and it isn't addressed enough. But we've seen them create "some" of the essentials on the show.
Ore processing ship, we saw it making fuel.
That makes sense, send ship to mine asteroid belt, this way comes back hauling load of fuel instead of bulky rock
Munitions.
We've seen the assembly lines where they build and pack the bullets using (I'm guessing) previously mentioned mined material.
In the "Scar" episode, they were supposedly mining a belt to build more fighters (not the Stealth ship, ordinary ship).
We've seen them salvage water from polar caps and algae for food on random planets. Perhaps it's happened more than once?
I think we heard about them fermenting different types of liquor in an episode (besides moonshine).
There's probably more, but it's been a while since I've seen the episodes.
It's hard to believe that many people would buy a laptop without an optical drive.
I have no trouble envisioning many people buying it, but a majority probably would not want one. Your situation (entertaining the kids) is just that, your situation. I know parents that travel with their kids, some let them play with their laptop while other would laugh at the idea.
Personally, I could see myself getting one if I didn't already have a laptop and if I traveled more. For example: desktop (or laptop) for home, and this sleek thing for traveling. I don't watch DVDs much traveling, I'd rather read a book or play a portable game (DS or PSP).
Heck, even at home I don't use my optical drive that often, and on the road even less. So I can see some nice uses for it for the right person.
That's not to say I'll buy one. I think my next purchase will be a desktop.
I mean for crying out loud, who brought 20th century trucks from Old Caprica to New Caprica?
I don't find it hard to believe. They had a bunch of ships in their rag-tag fleet. There was probably a lot in those cargo bays that didn't seem useful at the time but were kept anyway. Certain kinds of farming equipment, automobiles, etc. Maybe it was a garbage ship, maybe something being delivered to poor farmers, etc.
They probably didn't dump it in space because maybe they felt: a) it might come in handy one day b) they might need to salvage the components (or just metal) for something else down the line
When you have limited resources you tend to keep what you have "just in case." And the assembly lines we've seen were all very low-tech, so you might as well keep around some other low-tech in case you need a fan belt, alternator, gears, etc.
Bingo. Also, I should mention that Apple DRM is unimportant anyway, since they already sell non-DRM version of most (all?) of their iTMS material. So why are we still fighting DRM? Oh, that's right, because we want everything to cost us nothing.
Unless I missed something, only the "iTunes Plus" songs are DRM-free. Their "Plus" songs take up a very small percentage of their catalog. I've purchased maybe 2 hundred songs from them since they started, and I could only convert maybe 5-6 of them to "Plus" editions while hardly any of my recent searches reveal Plus songs. Granted my percentage is only anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt.
I don't mind the DRM since I either listen on my computer, a burnt CD, or my iPod nano. And I use Midis as my cellphone ringtons. So I don't feel the restrictions as much as someone that has an iRiver or Zune player or uses their phone.
I'm not saying Apple is flawless or iTunes is perfect, I'll probably start trying some other legal alternatives (like Amazon) this year. But I don't see why people are surprised Apple is trying to stop people from circumventing their DRM.
I realize that a bunch of these people complaining might honestly want to use their music legitimately on their Celhphone or non-Apple MP3 player. But I have to wonder what percentage of them are legitimate complainers and those that want to share music with family/friends/the world.
So that's what they've been going wrong. Instead of dressing it in a dark cape with sunglasses, they want bright knitwear or a techie jumpsuit.
Funny, but a my post stated I was saying if they take special steps to make it look like a "stealth" satellite (black paint, no lights, odd shape, etc) then once it's found it will be pretty obvious that something is up.
Where-as if they just made it look indistinguishable from all of the other civilian satellites out there, then you'd never know for sure what kind if is (not 100% anyway). Heck, maybe even paint company logos on it or "NOAA" (National Weather Service) to throw them off.
I don't know what spy satellites look like, but I imagine they coud:
Make it look like an ordinary weather/GPS/comm satellite.
Go all out in trying to hide it
Encase it in the same material as the stealth bombers (radar)
Paint it black
Remove all blinking lights
The problem with the second option is that it would be even more expensive, and watchful eyes could still see it as it passes by a bright moon. And then there would be little doubt as to what kind of satellite they were looking at.
So sans a Star-Trek-style Cloaking Device, it will always be detectable at some leve. So they might as well just make it look like some random satellite so there's always a question as to what kind it is.
They survived Windows Me and they already announced (leaked) the next OS is on the way sooner than thought
I agree that they aren't going anywhere: they're too big, too rich, and too many people/companies use their wares.
But what you suggest is not a fair analogy. Window Me was never meant to be a business OS, just a cheap consumer OS with media and gaming being primary factors. Windows 2000 was their business OS and that did well in the corporate world during the whole Me fiasco.
Vista is like their Windows XP: an OS for both corporate and casual users. So if it's failing in both markets then Microsoft is going to feel the hurt.
So, assuming that they didn't just skip the design, manufacturing and testing phase, you'll have to quantify "well" for your argument to hold. If they have shipped 50,000 of these systems (I have no idea) and 2 of them are technically 'not up to spec', then can the manufacturer be blamed for negligence?
Where safety's concerned, certain products have a fuzzy line and some are crystal clear. This one falls into fuzzy, and personally in this situation I don't know if I'd go through with it. But I can see why someone would.
Let's say I purchase a new car, and after a week of proper usage either the brakes fail or the rear differential freezes while I'm on the highway which results in a bad accident. After investigation it's found that a manufacturing defect amplified a major design flaw resulting in a major error. Perhaps I'm the first of many, perhaps others occurred and nobody connected the dots, it doesn't matter.
Should the the responsible company (Ford, AC Delco, whoever) be exempt because they shrugged their shoulders and said they did their best? Or because I'm only #2 out of 50,000 cars? I'm not saying should they be sued, that's a judgment call on the wronged party, but is it unreasonable to consider a lawsuit? It's their responsibility to make a safe car, and if there turns out to be a flaw that negates the safety they should address it. A penalty shouldn't be out of line, if for no other reason than to ensure that they take more care in the future.
While we don't know all of the facts, this could turn out to be a similar situation. But the safety of an electronic consumer device that's typically made to be on 24/7 and in many environments should be made reliable.
I purchased 1-2 movies for the HD-DVD player, both wound up being the hybrid discs. Likewise a good percentage of the HD-DVD movies I get from NetFlix are hybrid as well.
I was going to sit out the HD war, until one side won. I was "hoping" BluRay would win, but only after the prices dropped.
But then Heroes came out on HD-DVD. At the time the entry-level Toshiba was dirt cheap and I had a gift card so I figured "why not." Unfortunately 3/4 of my NetFlix queue is DVD-only.
After all of the HD-DVD pull-out news I decided to bite the bullet and get a PS3 (since I also wanted to play some of those games). So now I'm covered for both.
Any high electric-use device is "likely" to cause an electrical fire.
It depends. If the fire came from having too many devices plugged into a wall outlet via ordinary splitter cables or the machines were covered in a layer of dust, then it is a stupid lawsuit.
However if the fire was caused by a faulty component or design, then I'd say they're within their right to sue. I'm not saying they'll win, but depending on the cause I'd say it's OK.
It's the duty of these companies to make sure their electronic products are up to snuff. They need to be designed well, manufactured well, and each one needs to go through testing before going out the door. Any modern electronic device is not "likely" to cause a fire, far from it. Any modern mass-produced electronic device should have a low chance of setting ablaze as long as it's used to spec.
Sure, you can say where there's current there's potential for destruction. But it's the responsibility of these companies to keep their products safe within a tolerable limit.
To play devil's advocate, it's possible (and likely) that two siblings get treated differently, especially if they're not twins.
He's your younger brother, you played a role in his development while there's a chance you didn't have an older brother to play a role in yours. Parents do not make up the raising environment alone, and a 2nd/3rd/4th child may easily experience different raising styles because of the older siblings.
Parents can have completely different raising styles between children, I've seen it first-hand. One example (though not the only)
The first is raised strictly
The second is more lax, since they feel they didn't need to be "as" strict on the first
The third is the most strict of all because the family realized they were too leniant on the second
etc
Maybe one brother has one personality while the other has a completely different
Unfortunately there's a lot to consider with that like terrain and weather. A lot of it is environmental, but some of it is personal preference. I think once you get closer to 5 miles, some of the points below mean less.
Are the roads between home and work friendly for biking?
Is it a hilly commute?
What's the weather like in the area?
Depending on the hills, does your company have a place to clean freshen up before you sit at your desk? (shower, etc)
If I have meetings every day/morning, do I want to risk even a slight injury or sweat too much?
I live 10 miles away and toy with the idea. Unfortunately between the roads (bad drivers) and the terrain (2 large/steep hills between here and there) I always decide against it.
I used to have a real job that was 5 miles away with practically no hills. It was perfect for biking and was planning on biking every sunny day once I was finished with my degree. Unfortunately I was still in college and needed to drive immediately from work to a night class every day. By the time I was done with school we moved to the further site.
I often have the reverse luck. If I go at the wrong time, checking luggage can suck. I've sat in lines at the curb as well as even longer inside. Then leaving your destination? Forget about it... I've waited 20-30 minutes for my bag to come out the chute, and still hear of the occasional tale of losing luggage.
Meanwhile, how long does it truly take for someone to put their bag through the scanner? They'd still make you waddle through without your shoes, belt, wallet, etc. Putting that bag through the scanner doesn't really add any time. Granted it is annoying waiting in the plane's aisle for someone to try to fit their obviously not carry-on bags into the overhead, but I don't see that too often.
If I'm staying for long enough I'll check a bag with most of my clothes, but I'll still take a backpack as a carry-on. But if I'm only there for a few days (as is often the case) then it's not worth to check the bag since I have compact carry-on luggage that that easily fits my clothes into it.
I can't tell if you're trying to be cute, or are asking a valid question. Here in the US we're used to our policy being: 1 piece of carry-on luggage, but 2 if the second is a laptop bag or a garment bag. So we can usually bring 2 pieces on the plane with us is we have a laptop bag.
I personally keep my laptop in a small laptop backpack along with everything I absolutely need: phone numbers, map, extra cash, etc. I also put a set of casual clothes in there just in case (usually very thin pants, a T-shirt, etc). I've also done this with the mini laptop briefcases as well. Then I bring a regular carryon with my real clothes and what-not.
In my opinion unless you want HD, bandwidth is now second to storage in terms of problems. This is doubly-so if you're talking about replacing Discs (as the parent mentions). So I'll stick with Discs for now (thank you).
I have a 20Mbit Fiber connection for a decent price that I could afford to upgrade even further (but I won't). 20MBit is pretty nice for downloading movies, though I might prefer 50+MBit for true HD downloads.
Anyhow, the problem with purchasing online is now leaning towards storage. Let's say I purchase some Unbox movies on my Tivo HD, I'm filling up my valuable storage. After a while I'd need to setup external storage, copy to other media, or sacrifice the old for the new. With optical discs (or some other new individual media) I just have to get another DVD rack to keep the new stuff.
Hard Dricves aren't expensive, but complicated. How does one legally back up copyrighted purchased content? Sure, iTunes is no big deal but what about Tivo? You can't (legally/easily) grab copyrighted stuff from there to backup and you can only expand the storage so much. I'd imagine other boxes work the same.
So unless "service box X" lets me download and backup the movies somehow legally, easy, and cheap, or I can re-download my purchases at later time for free, I think I'll pass on the replacement. I'll still download, but I'll buy discs too.
I recall that being the first thing I checked, but I'd already taken out the game.
The second thing I did was power down everything for about 1/2 hour to cool down. I was playing a game just before I first started so I thought maybe it was still running hot, but that didn't help either. I tried various things throughout the day and just gave up.
Yeh, the new setup is nicer. The only 2 things I really liked about the 360 setup were: - 360 + HD-DVD player only took up 1 set of component inputs (I only have 2) - The HD-DVD unit was just about free
Odd. I get updates frequently on Live, and it's in an as well ventilated area as you can get for being near a TV.
I have a foot free on the Top, Left, and Right. The back has 1.5 - 2 feet.
It's sitting in an entertainment unit, but a completely open one. It's just has 4 legs making the frame and glass shelves; no walls or doors.
Like I mentioned in a later post it is a very early one, just 1-2 months after release. I know a few friends of mine have loud units as well (even when not on load) but none of them had the HD-DVD unit so I couldn't compare. And they lived too far out to try bringing the HD-DVD unit to their house to test.
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Assuming that is true then I kind of support that, and I'm not even a fan. It's one thing to write something about someone else's work, but it's another if a large chunk is just copied/pasted from that other work (even if it's an encyclopedia).
- Planning for trips at night, in case streets aren't well-lit to read signs. Big problem in many suburbs.
- Planning for trips where street signs are missing or in need of repair, and intersections are close together.
Before I got my GPS, there were several neighborhoods that were a complete pain to find my way through with a map+tripometer if I wasn't familiar with the area. Sure I'd get there, but I might miss turn every now and then.This was usually at night when it was harder to read signs on poorly lit streets, but also some poor street signs.
With a very full StreeView, one could prepare for the drive and write down "This turn is near the white picket fence and that turn has the mailbox at the corner."
Personally, I like the ordinary map view over the satellite view; it's cleaner and easier to read. But I could see sampling out the turns via StreetView for your last mile of the trip be handy if you don't have a GPS.
I believe there's a caveat between OEM Vista and Retail Vista. OEM Vista becomes tied to the motherboard, while Retail lets you transfer to a new PC. So if you ever need to replace the motherboard due to damage you're out of luck. You can probably try calling Microsoft but I don't know if that will work 100% of the time.
Plus I believe Retail Vista comes w/ both 32-bit and 64-bit versions while OEM comes with either one or the other.
It's true, remotely accessing a PC w/ RDP will kick out the user.
However I believe that's why XP has Remote Assistance, it works similar but the local user can accept the connection request and watch the remote user move the mouse around to fix it. I think the 2 users can even swap control of mouse/keyboard amongst themselves.
Well, not a standard plugin per-se. But some GPS units are compatible with traffic systems like XM Traffic. I have one in mine and it's pretty useful if I have a long drive and I have to re-route around traffic. It shows you the location of accidents, the start of construction, and how congested a stretch of highway is.
So I'd imagine that XM could simply put a traffic icon there that looks like a policecar, though that would still take a software update.
However I'd imagine using only FireFox would (at the very least) remove that 1 major hole they found. Of course it would probably create a bunch more.
You do realize that not having a credit card doesn't protect you. In fact, you might be more vulnerable. If they start charging on your credit card you can notice it in time, inform the company, and not be bothered by debt collectors.
The bad thing is when someone assumes your identity and gets a credit card issued to them in your name, or worse yet takes out a loan in your name (it happens). Then when they start generating huge bills and debt or neglect to pay back the loan, the credit card company thinks it's you and start pestering you. And sometimes they set it up so YOU don't get notified so you have no way of knowing that you owe a $100k mortgage until they repo your house.
The annoying thing about being a victim of identity theft is
a) you are who you say you are
b) convincing the debt collectors it wasn't YOU but someone else on a spending spree
c) catching it in time
Just because you think you're safe, that doesn't mean you are. I'm not fear mongering, it's just something everyone should watch out for, whether-or-not they currently have credit cards, debt, loans, etc.
Your key point is valid, they're running out of "stuff" and it isn't addressed enough. But we've seen them create "some" of the essentials on the show.
- Ore processing ship, we saw it making fuel.
- Munitions.
- In the "Scar" episode, they were supposedly mining a belt to build more fighters (not the Stealth ship, ordinary ship).
- We've seen them salvage water from polar caps and algae for food on random planets. Perhaps it's happened more than once?
- I think we heard about them fermenting different types of liquor in an episode (besides moonshine).
There's probably more, but it's been a while since I've seen the episodes.That makes sense, send ship to mine asteroid belt, this way comes back hauling load of fuel instead of bulky rock
We've seen the assembly lines where they build and pack the bullets using (I'm guessing) previously mentioned mined material.
I have no trouble envisioning many people buying it, but a majority probably would not want one. Your situation (entertaining the kids) is just that, your situation. I know parents that travel with their kids, some let them play with their laptop while other would laugh at the idea.
Personally, I could see myself getting one if I didn't already have a laptop and if I traveled more. For example: desktop (or laptop) for home, and this sleek thing for traveling. I don't watch DVDs much traveling, I'd rather read a book or play a portable game (DS or PSP).
Heck, even at home I don't use my optical drive that often, and on the road even less. So I can see some nice uses for it for the right person.
That's not to say I'll buy one. I think my next purchase will be a desktop.
I don't find it hard to believe. They had a bunch of ships in their rag-tag fleet. There was probably a lot in those cargo bays that didn't seem useful at the time but were kept anyway. Certain kinds of farming equipment, automobiles, etc. Maybe it was a garbage ship, maybe something being delivered to poor farmers, etc.
They probably didn't dump it in space because maybe they felt:
a) it might come in handy one day
b) they might need to salvage the components (or just metal) for something else down the line
When you have limited resources you tend to keep what you have "just in case." And the assembly lines we've seen were all very low-tech, so you might as well keep around some other low-tech in case you need a fan belt, alternator, gears, etc.
Unless I missed something, only the "iTunes Plus" songs are DRM-free. Their "Plus" songs take up a very small percentage of their catalog. I've purchased maybe 2 hundred songs from them since they started, and I could only convert maybe 5-6 of them to "Plus" editions while hardly any of my recent searches reveal Plus songs. Granted my percentage is only anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt.
I don't mind the DRM since I either listen on my computer, a burnt CD, or my iPod nano. And I use Midis as my cellphone ringtons. So I don't feel the restrictions as much as someone that has an iRiver or Zune player or uses their phone.
I'm not saying Apple is flawless or iTunes is perfect, I'll probably start trying some other legal alternatives (like Amazon) this year. But I don't see why people are surprised Apple is trying to stop people from circumventing their DRM.
I realize that a bunch of these people complaining might honestly want to use their music legitimately on their Celhphone or non-Apple MP3 player. But I have to wonder what percentage of them are legitimate complainers and those that want to share music with family/friends/the world.
Funny, but a my post stated I was saying if they take special steps to make it look like a "stealth" satellite (black paint, no lights, odd shape, etc) then once it's found it will be pretty obvious that something is up.
Where-as if they just made it look indistinguishable from all of the other civilian satellites out there, then you'd never know for sure what kind if is (not 100% anyway). Heck, maybe even paint company logos on it or "NOAA" (National Weather Service) to throw them off.
- Make it look like an ordinary weather/GPS/comm satellite.
- Go all out in trying to hide it
- Encase it in the same material as the stealth bombers (radar)
- Paint it black
- Remove all blinking lights
The problem with the second option is that it would be even more expensive, and watchful eyes could still see it as it passes by a bright moon. And then there would be little doubt as to what kind of satellite they were looking at.So sans a Star-Trek-style Cloaking Device, it will always be detectable at some leve. So they might as well just make it look like some random satellite so there's always a question as to what kind it is.
But what you suggest is not a fair analogy. Window Me was never meant to be a business OS, just a cheap consumer OS with media and gaming being primary factors. Windows 2000 was their business OS and that did well in the corporate world during the whole Me fiasco.
Vista is like their Windows XP: an OS for both corporate and casual users. So if it's failing in both markets then Microsoft is going to feel the hurt.
Where safety's concerned, certain products have a fuzzy line and some are crystal clear. This one falls into fuzzy, and personally in this situation I don't know if I'd go through with it. But I can see why someone would.
Let's say I purchase a new car, and after a week of proper usage either the brakes fail or the rear differential freezes while I'm on the highway which results in a bad accident. After investigation it's found that a manufacturing defect amplified a major design flaw resulting in a major error. Perhaps I'm the first of many, perhaps others occurred and nobody connected the dots, it doesn't matter.
Should the the responsible company (Ford, AC Delco, whoever) be exempt because they shrugged their shoulders and said they did their best? Or because I'm only #2 out of 50,000 cars? I'm not saying should they be sued, that's a judgment call on the wronged party, but is it unreasonable to consider a lawsuit? It's their responsibility to make a safe car, and if there turns out to be a flaw that negates the safety they should address it. A penalty shouldn't be out of line, if for no other reason than to ensure that they take more care in the future.
While we don't know all of the facts, this could turn out to be a similar situation. But the safety of an electronic consumer device that's typically made to be on 24/7 and in many environments should be made reliable.
I purchased 1-2 movies for the HD-DVD player, both wound up being the hybrid discs. Likewise a good percentage of the HD-DVD movies I get from NetFlix are hybrid as well.
I was going to sit out the HD war, until one side won. I was "hoping" BluRay would win, but only after the prices dropped.
But then Heroes came out on HD-DVD. At the time the entry-level Toshiba was dirt cheap and I had a gift card so I figured "why not." Unfortunately 3/4 of my NetFlix queue is DVD-only.
After all of the HD-DVD pull-out news I decided to bite the bullet and get a PS3 (since I also wanted to play some of those games). So now I'm covered for both.
It depends. If the fire came from having too many devices plugged into a wall outlet via ordinary splitter cables or the machines were covered in a layer of dust, then it is a stupid lawsuit.
However if the fire was caused by a faulty component or design, then I'd say they're within their right to sue. I'm not saying they'll win, but depending on the cause I'd say it's OK.
It's the duty of these companies to make sure their electronic products are up to snuff. They need to be designed well, manufactured well, and each one needs to go through testing before going out the door. Any modern electronic device is not "likely" to cause a fire, far from it. Any modern mass-produced electronic device should have a low chance of setting ablaze as long as it's used to spec.
Sure, you can say where there's current there's potential for destruction. But it's the responsibility of these companies to keep their products safe within a tolerable limit.
- Are the roads between home and work friendly for biking?
- Is it a hilly commute?
- What's the weather like in the area?
- Depending on the hills, does your company have a place to clean freshen up before you sit at your desk? (shower, etc)
- If I have meetings every day/morning, do I want to risk even a slight injury or sweat too much?
I live 10 miles away and toy with the idea. Unfortunately between the roads (bad drivers) and the terrain (2 large/steep hills between here and there) I always decide against it.I used to have a real job that was 5 miles away with practically no hills. It was perfect for biking and was planning on biking every sunny day once I was finished with my degree. Unfortunately I was still in college and needed to drive immediately from work to a night class every day. By the time I was done with school we moved to the further site.
I often have the reverse luck. If I go at the wrong time, checking luggage can suck. I've sat in lines at the curb as well as even longer inside. Then leaving your destination? Forget about it... I've waited 20-30 minutes for my bag to come out the chute, and still hear of the occasional tale of losing luggage.
Meanwhile, how long does it truly take for someone to put their bag through the scanner? They'd still make you waddle through without your shoes, belt, wallet, etc. Putting that bag through the scanner doesn't really add any time. Granted it is annoying waiting in the plane's aisle for someone to try to fit their obviously not carry-on bags into the overhead, but I don't see that too often.
If I'm staying for long enough I'll check a bag with most of my clothes, but I'll still take a backpack as a carry-on. But if I'm only there for a few days (as is often the case) then it's not worth to check the bag since I have compact carry-on luggage that that easily fits my clothes into it.
I can't tell if you're trying to be cute, or are asking a valid question. Here in the US we're used to our policy being: 1 piece of carry-on luggage, but 2 if the second is a laptop bag or a garment bag. So we can usually bring 2 pieces on the plane with us is we have a laptop bag.
I personally keep my laptop in a small laptop backpack along with everything I absolutely need: phone numbers, map, extra cash, etc. I also put a set of casual clothes in there just in case (usually very thin pants, a T-shirt, etc). I've also done this with the mini laptop briefcases as well. Then I bring a regular carryon with my real clothes and what-not.
I'm not a Clinton fan be she wasn't that far behind Obama. Obama was at 38%, Edwards was at 30%, and Clinton was 29%.
I'd say the top 3 Democrats were pretty close. Sure, Obama won but it wasn't a landslide.
Personally I haven't formed a strong enough opinion on any of them, but Clinton isn't looking like my first choice.
In my opinion unless you want HD, bandwidth is now second to storage in terms of problems. This is doubly-so if you're talking about replacing Discs (as the parent mentions). So I'll stick with Discs for now (thank you).
I have a 20Mbit Fiber connection for a decent price that I could afford to upgrade even further (but I won't). 20MBit is pretty nice for downloading movies, though I might prefer 50+MBit for true HD downloads.
Anyhow, the problem with purchasing online is now leaning towards storage. Let's say I purchase some Unbox movies on my Tivo HD, I'm filling up my valuable storage. After a while I'd need to setup external storage, copy to other media, or sacrifice the old for the new. With optical discs (or some other new individual media) I just have to get another DVD rack to keep the new stuff.
Hard Dricves aren't expensive, but complicated. How does one legally back up copyrighted purchased content? Sure, iTunes is no big deal but what about Tivo? You can't (legally/easily) grab copyrighted stuff from there to backup and you can only expand the storage so much. I'd imagine other boxes work the same.
So unless "service box X" lets me download and backup the movies somehow legally, easy, and cheap, or I can re-download my purchases at later time for free, I think I'll pass on the replacement. I'll still download, but I'll buy discs too.
I recall that being the first thing I checked, but I'd already taken out the game.
The second thing I did was power down everything for about 1/2 hour to cool down. I was playing a game just before I first started so I thought maybe it was still running hot, but that didn't help either. I tried various things throughout the day and just gave up.
Yeh, the new setup is nicer. The only 2 things I really liked about the 360 setup were:
- 360 + HD-DVD player only took up 1 set of component inputs (I only have 2)
- The HD-DVD unit was just about free
Odd. I get updates frequently on Live, and it's in an as well ventilated area as you can get for being near a TV. I have a foot free on the Top, Left, and Right. The back has 1.5 - 2 feet. It's sitting in an entertainment unit, but a completely open one. It's just has 4 legs making the frame and glass shelves; no walls or doors. Like I mentioned in a later post it is a very early one, just 1-2 months after release. I know a few friends of mine have loud units as well (even when not on load) but none of them had the HD-DVD unit so I couldn't compare. And they lived too far out to try bringing the HD-DVD unit to their house to test.