For all those entrepreneurs who were innovative enough to come up with the original idea of doing [something] on the internet, this represents the next revolution to come out of their R&D parks.
We're members of three credit unions, having kept open our accounts from college in another state, then added a joint account here in Austin at one credit union and recently, when we refinanced our home then I bought a car, at another.
The best thing in Austin is that all the credit unions are members of a shared network, so all credit union ATMs from any credit union in town are free to all credit union members. It makes their ATM network rival the size of any major bank, at least while in the local area.
I really can't say enough good things about United Heritage Credit Union. They offer interest rates on mortgages and auto loans that are as much as 2 points less than any national bank (and a point and a half less than my other local credit union), have multiple convenient locations in town, and even pay as of now more interest on checking accounts than HSBC does on their internet savings accounts. Plus they don't charge for anything or have silly rules like a fee if you don't have an automated direct deposit.
If you have access to the Blizzcon feed via DirectTV or the internet, there is an extensive interview with Felicia Day and accompanying video regarding the background, making, and future of the Guild.
It's around 5:45 PM in the Saturday feed. It's in a filler time that many people who bought the package might not have watched.
Alas for the majority of us, she talks about how so much of the needed resources are loaned to her from friends and other kind people who want her to succeed. While that's all well and good, that can't be counted on as a viable business model. (Almost any business can be profitable if it can acquire most or all of its resources for free and convert them into a product to sell.)
I think they're smoking the wads of cash they rake in from WoW, and they don't want to restrict said cash flow by providing a method for cracked versions of the game to play together without an internet connection.
It seems to me that they could solve this with a handshake that set up of the game over Battle.net, but then allowed the majority of the game data to flow directly between the computers. Unless of course there's some other flaw in this that I can't see.
Will this lead to lower rates for Pandora? From the summary they sound like a similar service, yet the fact they aren't being sued implies to me that they've "paid up" at the higher, interactive rate.
I give Pandora referrer credit for every song I buy from Amazon or iTunes, but since Pandora can't track referrer income to particular uses, I still get hit up to pay their RIAA-tax subscription money or GTFO their service each month. I know Pandora has to do it to survive, but if this ruling lowers their rates maybe they can do away with the audio ads or raise the monthly cap.
Financial success has nothing to do with it. X-Men III was a financial success, but that doesn't mean Brett Rattner should ever be allowed near a movie set again.
How do you know they didn't tell the buyer to fuck off as well, and then try to just pocket the money?
Since I see just as many stories of them siding with bad sellers as I do bad buyers, I'd bet that they use any dispute as an excuse to just keep the cash.
The same problem happens all over the U.S. already, though, through policies enacted by the "enraged public":
- In Texas, legislators are paid around $30k per year, but can't hold a regular job during lege years. I think you have to be self-employed, independently wealthy, or retired to run and hold office.
- Across the country, term limits force someone who perhaps left their actual job to immediately start looking for another job. Of course, many companies won't want to hire a regular 8-to-5 grunt who just happened to have been a state senator first, because the person will just leave again. And that assumes the person, after two, four, or six years or longer in the government has the technical skills to return to their old profession.
- Not to mention that campaigning today requires nearly full-time work from the candidates anyway, which again means they have to be self-employed in a business that mostly runs itself (i.e. law partner, insurance agent), or be independently wealthy, or already be a politician.
The summary is that the election system is designed to allow, for the most part, only certain types into office. Regular people who need a job to pay their bills can't and won't be able to run for and hold office.
We were with Hertz. Our car was reserved in the mid-range "green" (i.e. diesel) line and I think the Vectra was technically in the same line. It just wasn't the car we'd specifically been told would be available when we arrived.
I really wanted the BMW because I was planning to buy one this year, and I wanted a chance to play with a diesel on the Autobahn before I put down the money for one. I ended up getting a gasoline version a few months ago instead, since they (still) haven't put out a diesel convertible in the U.S. (The guy at BMW Welt in Munich said I should just keep asking my local dealer so they'd get enough requests to bring it to the U.S.)
Next time I go to Germany, I won't pre-buy a car rental. There was a company advertising all over the airport (I don't recall the name, their ads were orange) that offered a price roughly twice what I paid Hertz, but would let me rent a 645ci. I'd happily just pay that next time.
There can be some action, but it can't be the central part of the story. District 9 has a great sci-fi first half, and then a mostly-action second half. There's little in the second half besides CGI quality that differentiates it from a half-dozen other action films that feature aliens, none of which are pure sci fi.
When we went to Germany last year, the rental company stuck us with an Opel Vectra station wagon. (It's a GM product if you're not familiar.) The electronics sucked, the interior was cheap and breaking, but I have [b]no complaints[/b] about the quality of the diesel engine or the manual transmission. The car was suitably powerful to play on the Autobahn, yet still got over 35 MPG during the course of a two-week driving tour of Germany and Austria.
(The rental company wouldn't let us take it over ~130MPH. =( We were supposed to have a BMW 335D but it was "not available" when we arrived.)
I think it's unfair to imply that any artist should be forced to allow his work to be used by anyone at any time in whatever way they deem necessary including ways that profit the person(s) doing the re-interpreting/re-imagining of the art.
If the music should be in the public domain, as the early works of the Beatles should be by now, then it's totally fair that the artist should be "forced" to "allow" his work to be used in any way imaginable.
If the artist wanted to control his work forever, he should have kept it in a little trunk in his attic.
Which is also very likely false. Money just doesn't flow in that way. On the other hand, it seems likely that most automated money processing machines have been in contact with contaminated bills. And I expect that those machines aren't regularly thoroughly cleaned and contaminate all subsequent bills, which in turn contaminate subsequent machines.
"Traces" has no definition above one molecule (or could be even less if you're into holistic medicine/grin). One bill handled with coke-covered hands or used to snort could contaminate tens of thousands of other bills with "traces" of coke.
... for the banks or vendors or anywhere else with automated machines that spread dust from one bill all over their equipment and any subsequent bills ever processed.
Moon is real sci-fi, whereas most "SyFy" (used as a derogatory term) is action with aliens at best. District 9 is more sci-fi than most action films, but falls somewhere in the middle.
Moon, by the way, aired at SXSW 2009 in Austin in March. Plenty of us Americans know how to appreciate real sci-fi.
The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, doesn't show ads before the movie, using the time to instead show tangentially-related interesting or funny video. For District 9, the pre-film reel included: 1. A Halo live-action short. 2. Alive in Joburg, the short upon which District 9 was based. 3. The Alien Nation trailer.
I think it was a good introduction for the non-geeks in the crowd to the history of the genre.
If we're talking about good old-fashioned hard sci-fi, I might suggest that it's the only sci-fi movie of 2009.
No, Moon is the only sci-fi movie of 2009. District 9 was really good, but it still features far too much head-popping action to qualify as pure sci-fi.
When I was young I lived in a nice little town called Pleasantville, Iowa.
I've now lived in Texas for almost half my life and married a native Texan, but despite that and the fact that I was born in Illinois and lived a quarter of my life in Louisiana, I still consider myself an Iowan. It's a state you can get attached to.
Slashdot Mirror
Arthur Dent agrees
Of course if you are Sockington the cat you do in fact have 1.1 million people interested in the things your owner pretends you say.
For all those entrepreneurs who were innovative enough to come up with the original idea of doing [something] on the internet, this represents the next revolution to come out of their R&D parks.
And they say that fundamental research is dead.
We're members of three credit unions, having kept open our accounts from college in another state, then added a joint account here in Austin at one credit union and recently, when we refinanced our home then I bought a car, at another.
The best thing in Austin is that all the credit unions are members of a shared network, so all credit union ATMs from any credit union in town are free to all credit union members. It makes their ATM network rival the size of any major bank, at least while in the local area.
I really can't say enough good things about United Heritage Credit Union. They offer interest rates on mortgages and auto loans that are as much as 2 points less than any national bank (and a point and a half less than my other local credit union), have multiple convenient locations in town, and even pay as of now more interest on checking accounts than HSBC does on their internet savings accounts. Plus they don't charge for anything or have silly rules like a fee if you don't have an automated direct deposit.
If you have access to the Blizzcon feed via DirectTV or the internet, there is an extensive interview with Felicia Day and accompanying video regarding the background, making, and future of the Guild.
It's around 5:45 PM in the Saturday feed. It's in a filler time that many people who bought the package might not have watched.
Alas for the majority of us, she talks about how so much of the needed resources are loaned to her from friends and other kind people who want her to succeed. While that's all well and good, that can't be counted on as a viable business model. (Almost any business can be profitable if it can acquire most or all of its resources for free and convert them into a product to sell.)
Sort of like how summary execution for murderers has stopped all killings here in Texas?
I think they're smoking the wads of cash they rake in from WoW, and they don't want to restrict said cash flow by providing a method for cracked versions of the game to play together without an internet connection.
It seems to me that they could solve this with a handshake that set up of the game over Battle.net, but then allowed the majority of the game data to flow directly between the computers. Unless of course there's some other flaw in this that I can't see.
Will this lead to lower rates for Pandora? From the summary they sound like a similar service, yet the fact they aren't being sued implies to me that they've "paid up" at the higher, interactive rate.
I give Pandora referrer credit for every song I buy from Amazon or iTunes, but since Pandora can't track referrer income to particular uses, I still get hit up to pay their RIAA-tax subscription money or GTFO their service each month. I know Pandora has to do it to survive, but if this ruling lowers their rates maybe they can do away with the audio ads or raise the monthly cap.
Financial success has nothing to do with it. X-Men III was a financial success, but that doesn't mean Brett Rattner should ever be allowed near a movie set again.
How do you know they didn't tell the buyer to fuck off as well, and then try to just pocket the money?
Since I see just as many stories of them siding with bad sellers as I do bad buyers, I'd bet that they use any dispute as an excuse to just keep the cash.
The same problem happens all over the U.S. already, though, through policies enacted by the "enraged public":
- In Texas, legislators are paid around $30k per year, but can't hold a regular job during lege years. I think you have to be self-employed, independently wealthy, or retired to run and hold office.
- Across the country, term limits force someone who perhaps left their actual job to immediately start looking for another job. Of course, many companies won't want to hire a regular 8-to-5 grunt who just happened to have been a state senator first, because the person will just leave again. And that assumes the person, after two, four, or six years or longer in the government has the technical skills to return to their old profession.
- Not to mention that campaigning today requires nearly full-time work from the candidates anyway, which again means they have to be self-employed in a business that mostly runs itself (i.e. law partner, insurance agent), or be independently wealthy, or already be a politician.
The summary is that the election system is designed to allow, for the most part, only certain types into office. Regular people who need a job to pay their bills can't and won't be able to run for and hold office.
We were with Hertz. Our car was reserved in the mid-range "green" (i.e. diesel) line and I think the Vectra was technically in the same line. It just wasn't the car we'd specifically been told would be available when we arrived.
I really wanted the BMW because I was planning to buy one this year, and I wanted a chance to play with a diesel on the Autobahn before I put down the money for one. I ended up getting a gasoline version a few months ago instead, since they (still) haven't put out a diesel convertible in the U.S. (The guy at BMW Welt in Munich said I should just keep asking my local dealer so they'd get enough requests to bring it to the U.S.)
Next time I go to Germany, I won't pre-buy a car rental. There was a company advertising all over the airport (I don't recall the name, their ads were orange) that offered a price roughly twice what I paid Hertz, but would let me rent a 645ci. I'd happily just pay that next time.
There can be some action, but it can't be the central part of the story. District 9 has a great sci-fi first half, and then a mostly-action second half. There's little in the second half besides CGI quality that differentiates it from a half-dozen other action films that feature aliens, none of which are pure sci fi.
Thank you for arguing my position so eloquently
When we went to Germany last year, the rental company stuck us with an Opel Vectra station wagon. (It's a GM product if you're not familiar.) The electronics sucked, the interior was cheap and breaking, but I have [b]no complaints[/b] about the quality of the diesel engine or the manual transmission. The car was suitably powerful to play on the Autobahn, yet still got over 35 MPG during the course of a two-week driving tour of Germany and Austria.
(The rental company wouldn't let us take it over ~130MPH. =( We were supposed to have a BMW 335D but it was "not available" when we arrived.)
On the other hand, I found a new appreciation for songs like the Smashing Pumpkin's Cherub rock because they were included in Guitar Hero.
I think it's unfair to imply that any artist should be forced to allow his work to be used by anyone at any time in whatever way they deem necessary including ways that profit the person(s) doing the re-interpreting/re-imagining of the art.
If the music should be in the public domain, as the early works of the Beatles should be by now, then it's totally fair that the artist should be "forced" to "allow" his work to be used in any way imaginable.
If the artist wanted to control his work forever, he should have kept it in a little trunk in his attic.
Which is also very likely false. Money just doesn't flow in that way. On the other hand, it seems likely that most automated money processing machines have been in contact with contaminated bills. And I expect that those machines aren't regularly thoroughly cleaned and contaminate all subsequent bills, which in turn contaminate subsequent machines.
"Traces" has no definition above one molecule (or could be even less if you're into holistic medicine /grin). One bill handled with coke-covered hands or used to snort could contaminate tens of thousands of other bills with "traces" of coke.
... for the banks or vendors or anywhere else with automated machines that spread dust from one bill all over their equipment and any subsequent bills ever processed.
Moon is real sci-fi, whereas most "SyFy" (used as a derogatory term) is action with aliens at best. District 9 is more sci-fi than most action films, but falls somewhere in the middle.
Moon, by the way, aired at SXSW 2009 in Austin in March. Plenty of us Americans know how to appreciate real sci-fi.
It was not bad shakey-cam, not at all. I say this as someone nauseated by Cloverfield. In District 9 it just didn't bother me.
The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, doesn't show ads before the movie, using the time to instead show tangentially-related interesting or funny video. For District 9, the pre-film reel included:
1. A Halo live-action short.
2. Alive in Joburg, the short upon which District 9 was based.
3. The Alien Nation trailer.
I think it was a good introduction for the non-geeks in the crowd to the history of the genre.
If we're talking about good old-fashioned hard sci-fi, I might suggest that it's the only sci-fi movie of 2009.
No, Moon is the only sci-fi movie of 2009. District 9 was really good, but it still features far too much head-popping action to qualify as pure sci-fi.
Yes. Which means that if you and your wife both have iPhones and share an iTunes account, you should both have the app for the price of one.
When I was young I lived in a nice little town called Pleasantville, Iowa.
I've now lived in Texas for almost half my life and married a native Texan, but despite that and the fact that I was born in Illinois and lived a quarter of my life in Louisiana, I still consider myself an Iowan. It's a state you can get attached to.