That's all well and good, until my daughter thinks, after taking the insides out of her "mummy bear", that she should try the same thing on the family dog!
I definately remember the classic arcade games... I remember as a teenager (in the 80s) there was a pizza parlor a few blocks from my house that had a small arcade attached to it. I'd go in there after school, blow a few bucks (and a few hours), and have a great time, plus keeping me out of trouble.
Yes, "Dave & Busters" is a chain, I've been to one of them a couple of times. The thing that gets me about D&Bs, is when you go to the "classic" section of D&Bs, and the old arcade games (which always cost a quarter) are up to 50 cents...
I will admit though, whoever came up with the idea of a card-system for paying for these games (at D&Bs you get a card like a credit card, and you can go up to either a counter and pay someone to put more money on the card, or you can go to the automated machines to do it) is a genius.
From a game-player's standpoint, no more worries about having enough quarters. Just drop $20 onto the card, and go for awhile.
From the owner's standpoint, as the games no longer take quarters, but instead just take "credits" off of a card, it's MUCH easier to convince game players to spend more money per game (somehow spending 3 or 4 credits on a game doesn't sound too bad, while spending nearly a dollar for a single game is a little pricey).
It's not baloney. We just have to tell all the asswipes with $300K homes that, so sorry, they're only worth $100K... and less.
Yeah, and then watch the lucky middle-class family with a new $100K home, as the value of their home drops to $30K. Never mind that they still own $90K (or more) to the bank on it.
Bankruptcy, here we come!
TiVo's software and subscription service is at the heart of its digital video recorders, which can store television shows on a hard drive and pause live broadcasts. The company has been facing competition from Sonicblue's ReplayTV set-top box, Microsoft's UltimateTV service for satellite networks and other developing DVR technologies.
Sonicblue and it's ReplayTV went out of business a little while ago (due in no small part to being run out of business because of it's controversial "commercial skip" feature).
Microsoft's UltimateTV was also discontinued about 2 years ago.
This leaves just TIVO to do as they wish, with their only competition people privately building Linux (or similar) boxes to do essentially the same thing.
[cynic]
We're lucky to be seeing any of these enhancements...
[/cynic]
You should pay the tax of wherever you buy a product from.
Except for that little concept "no taxation without representation"...
For example, if I order something from a web site based (physically) in the state of California (and for the record I do not live in that state), then I would need to pay taxes to the state of California, but would not have the right to vote for things in the state of California (such as, oh, let's say, a governor's race)?
Sounds good to me. The only people who have a problem with this are people who steal, which is most likely people who are unemployed, which is most likely Linux users (i.e. YOU)
Just wait until they decide to use the "broadcast bit" to no longer allow people to record shows off of TV (after all, when people record shows, they then have the ability to fast-forward or even skip the commercials).
Not only that, but the broadcast networks have known for a long time that certain nights/times are better timeslots than others. If people start consistantly recording shows (either via a DVR like Tivo or the equivalent of HDTV VCRs), they might just watch a show in OTHER than their intended timeslot! [gasp!]
When CDs came out, they cost seventeen 1983-dollars. Now they cost seventeen 2003-dollars. I'm guessing that compared to the cost of groceries, a 2003-dollar is worth about half of a 1983-dollar.
That may be true, but you're not taking into account how much the price of technology has plummetted in the last 20 years.
Back then, a CD burner was thousands of dollars (if not more). The blank media itself was several dollars.
Back up to today, you can get a cheap CD-R burner for under $100. You can get CD-R media for (sometimes) as little as 25 cents apiece.
In 1983, a good chunk of the price of a $17.00 CD represented the actual production cost (possibly as much as 25%, but I admit, I do not know the numbers for certain, but when you consider the price of the burner and the price of the media).
Now it's considerably lower (if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say under 5%, maybe even as low as 1-2% of the price).
So their costs have come down in the last 20 years, but prices (with the exception of the one company forced to drop their prices) have remained the same. Gee, I wonder where all that extra money went?
Pass the savings on to the consumer? Nahhh, why do that, when they'd rather just pass it to our own executives/stockholders.
No one really needs one of these
Oh I wouldn't say that... There's been the occasion when I wanted to make some blended drinks either out tailgating, or out on a boat/boat slip.
when a candidate video for America's Funniest Animal Crotch Bites comes across their desk, and the protagonist is howling in front of the camera in his Nike hat, the studio calls up Nike and says, "For $x, we'll leave this logo in, y'dig?"
You never know, they might be doing exactly that, and it could be that they're asking so much $x that (in this example) Nike tells them to blow it out their ear.;)
Shhhhh! Don't let the government hear you say that!! The government thinks that it's the PEOPLE that are there to protect the rights of the GOVERNMENT, not the other way around!;)
I have already spent the greater part of a thousand dollars on music this year. I am sure my value to the RIAA will far exceed $12,000 if I come near life expectancy.
I don't know about you, but if I had to pay the RIAA $12,000 and get nothing for my money, I'd be MUCH more inclined to "claim" the free downloads of their music, as I'd (obviously) already paid them for it anyways.
humor me here for a second. what legal things can you (would you) download from kazaa? favorite distro iso's maybe, if the ftp server is Slashdotted or something. I honestly can't think of anything legal I'd go to kazaa to get.
MP3s from independant artists who use downloading as free advertising (and who authorize downloads)
Downloads of shareware programs that could (potentially) be a faster download than from the original host
Old versions of shareware programs that are no longer available otherwise
Movie previews/trailers advertising movies coming out soon
So I guess anyone with the name "Commodore" on their web page will have to change it to "Commode-door" instead.
There, THAT should make Tulip happy! Right?;)
The problem with going after the company for whom product(s) are advertised (in the spam), is that it would be too easy to find that system abused.
For example, let's say that I'm unhappy with a business transaction I have with I_Make_Widgets.com. If I know that the spam law is going to get the advertiser (instead of the spammer), all I need to do is send out a million (or so) unsolicited e-mails (especially if I manage to change the return address and hide who sent it as best as I can), and that company is virtually guaranteed it will get LOTS of complaints about the spam.
Think back to all the times you used your salaried status to come in late, take a long lunch, and leave early while the hourly personnel marched to the 8-hr / day drumbeat.
I'm a salaried employee at a company with a very strict work-schedule. I need to be in at a certain time, I can't leave before a certain time, and I'm only allowed exactly an hour at lunch. Assuming I take the whole hour, and I don't get in one minute late (I would get in trouble for it anyways), and I don't leave one minute early (I'd also get in trouble), that's 8 hours right there.
I don't have the luxury (even though I'm a salaried employee) to come in late, leave early, or even take a long lunch...
In fact, my last three salaried positions had those type of requirements in place. It seemed to me to be the idea "you must be here for the 8 hours day (9 if you include lunch) that we dictate, and if we want you to work extra, guess your "home" life will have to take the hit", but woe is me if I decide to leave early (even during a week when I may have worked a 10 hour day prior).
I don't like this idea one bit, for a variety of reasons (yes, some are repeats of what's already been posted, I just felt like consolidating):
1) Free mailing lists (of which I'm on a few), which have already been mentioned
2) This won't affect non-U.S. spammers
3) It'd be tough to tax a spammer you cannot even find, and we cannot seem to track down spammers today!
4) Sending e-mails from work (especially personal ones) - generally most employers look the other way with regards to sending personal e-mails (and I use that to keep in touch with friends, or even make plans with them). If the company is suddenly paying money per e-mail, you can be sure that looking the other way is a practice that will stop, and quickly.
Here's my prediction...
1) AT&T Broadband/Comcast will try to convince the general public that this change will be a good thing, using the logic: "it's only fair that those who use the service more should pay more, and those that use it less would pay less".
2) Once the general public is convinced, they will announce that the current pricing scheme (which is for un-capped transfers) will be the "low cost" end of their scale, and that people who barely use their broadband will still pay this price (not saving them a dime)
3) Anyone who uses over the cap they set (which will probably be low, in the interest of generating more revenue for them) will pay EXTREME per-megabyte charges.
And considering that in many areas, there is NO choice between cable-modem companies, and that DSL isn't available everywhere either, they will have a captive audience. These unfortunate customers who have no alternatives for broadband, find themselves making the decision of either paying inflated prices (for equal or even lesser service), or doing without broadband altogether.
Dude, what the *&^% is up with all of these mergers?! What ever happened to those precious anti-trust laws? I swear, by this time next year we all going to be paying some sort of bill to Microsoft Comcast Broadband (an SBC AOL Time Warner Company).
Anti-trust laws? Naw, those are obsolete and out of date... Just ask Bill Gates!
;)
Well, if I can no longer spend my hard-earned money on CDs that will play on the various CD players around my house (including, I might add, the one in my computer), guess I'll have to resort to just downloading the songs instead from whatever Napster-clone I decide to use at the time...
And all this time I thought they WANTED us to be buying their CDs... Sheesh!
This is the thing that bugs me about this type of "study"...
They have two years (so they claim) worth of data that they ASSUME is due to the CRT, and nothing else...
But my experience has been that people who look at a CRT all day also tend to have other things in common. They (generally) also sit all day. They (generally) sit in close proximity to a computer. Heck, they even (usually) work with those new-fangled devices, called a keyboard and a mouse.;)
But none of those are to blame for what they've seen, it MUST be the CRT.
But do they have "control" cases, where people are sitting at a desk, with a computer (and mouse and keyboard) that DOESN'T have a monitor (a CRT)? Not terribly likely.
One thing that I did, mostly in case the installer messed something up on my system, is I did a full backup just before the installer came
(and in this case, I basically just made an image of my C: drive with Drive Image, and stored that on another partition).
Then, when the guy left, I simply restored from that backup.
No muss, no fuss.
Bear in mind, as "loud" as our planet is, we've only been broadcasting signals into space (i.e. radio, tv, etc.) for less than 100 years.
Considering that radio waves travel considerably slower than the speed of light, even our earliest signals are at most 100 light-years away. Most likely only a fraction of that.
And there really aren't a whole lot of stars within that 100 light-years radius. Consider that the nearest is over 4 light-years distant. Even if there IS life in that star system (which is unlikely), the chances are, they might not have been "listening" for radio waves coming from our little planet. Remember, space is a pretty big place.
Not only that, but a radio signal travelling across 4 light-years would be INCREDIBLY weak.
Slashdot Mirror
That's all well and good, until my daughter thinks, after taking the insides out of her "mummy bear", that she should try the same thing on the family dog!
I definately remember the classic arcade games... I remember as a teenager (in the 80s) there was a pizza parlor a few blocks from my house that had a small arcade attached to it. I'd go in there after school, blow a few bucks (and a few hours), and have a great time, plus keeping me out of trouble.
Yes, "Dave & Busters" is a chain, I've been to one of them a couple of times. The thing that gets me about D&Bs, is when you go to the "classic" section of D&Bs, and the old arcade games (which always cost a quarter) are up to 50 cents...
I will admit though, whoever came up with the idea of a card-system for paying for these games (at D&Bs you get a card like a credit card, and you can go up to either a counter and pay someone to put more money on the card, or you can go to the automated machines to do it) is a genius.
From a game-player's standpoint, no more worries about having enough quarters. Just drop $20 onto the card, and go for awhile.
From the owner's standpoint, as the games no longer take quarters, but instead just take "credits" off of a card, it's MUCH easier to convince game players to spend more money per game (somehow spending 3 or 4 credits on a game doesn't sound too bad, while spending nearly a dollar for a single game is a little pricey).
Sonicblue and it's ReplayTV went out of business a little while ago (due in no small part to being run out of business because of it's controversial "commercial skip" feature).
Microsoft's UltimateTV was also discontinued about 2 years ago.
This leaves just TIVO to do as they wish, with their only competition people privately building Linux (or similar) boxes to do essentially the same thing.
[cynic] We're lucky to be seeing any of these enhancements... [/cynic]
Except for that little concept "no taxation without representation"...
For example, if I order something from a web site based (physically) in the state of California (and for the record I do not live in that state), then I would need to pay taxes to the state of California, but would not have the right to vote for things in the state of California (such as, oh, let's say, a governor's race)?
Just wait until they decide to use the "broadcast bit" to no longer allow people to record shows off of TV (after all, when people record shows, they then have the ability to fast-forward or even skip the commercials).
Not only that, but the broadcast networks have known for a long time that certain nights/times are better timeslots than others. If people start consistantly recording shows (either via a DVR like Tivo or the equivalent of HDTV VCRs), they might just watch a show in OTHER than their intended timeslot! [gasp!]
That may be true, but you're not taking into account how much the price of technology has plummetted in the last 20 years.
Back then, a CD burner was thousands of dollars (if not more). The blank media itself was several dollars.
Back up to today, you can get a cheap CD-R burner for under $100. You can get CD-R media for (sometimes) as little as 25 cents apiece.
In 1983, a good chunk of the price of a $17.00 CD represented the actual production cost (possibly as much as 25%, but I admit, I do not know the numbers for certain, but when you consider the price of the burner and the price of the media).
Now it's considerably lower (if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say under 5%, maybe even as low as 1-2% of the price).
So their costs have come down in the last 20 years, but prices (with the exception of the one company forced to drop their prices) have remained the same. Gee, I wonder where all that extra money went?
Pass the savings on to the consumer? Nahhh, why do that, when they'd rather just pass it to our own executives/stockholders.
No one really needs one of these Oh I wouldn't say that... There's been the occasion when I wanted to make some blended drinks either out tailgating, or out on a boat/boat slip.
when a candidate video for America's Funniest Animal Crotch Bites comes across their desk, and the protagonist is howling in front of the camera in his Nike hat, the studio calls up Nike and says, "For $x, we'll leave this logo in, y'dig?" You never know, they might be doing exactly that, and it could be that they're asking so much $x that (in this example) Nike tells them to blow it out their ear. ;)
Shhhhh! Don't let the government hear you say that!! The government thinks that it's the PEOPLE that are there to protect the rights of the GOVERNMENT, not the other way around! ;)
- MP3s from independant artists who use downloading as free advertising (and who authorize downloads)
- Downloads of shareware programs that could (potentially) be a faster download than from the original host
- Old versions of shareware programs that are no longer available otherwise
- Movie previews/trailers advertising movies coming out soon
Just to name a few, off the top of my head...So I guess anyone with the name "Commodore" on their web page will have to change it to "Commode-door" instead. There, THAT should make Tulip happy! Right? ;)
The problem with going after the company for whom product(s) are advertised (in the spam), is that it would be too easy to find that system abused. For example, let's say that I'm unhappy with a business transaction I have with I_Make_Widgets.com. If I know that the spam law is going to get the advertiser (instead of the spammer), all I need to do is send out a million (or so) unsolicited e-mails (especially if I manage to change the return address and hide who sent it as best as I can), and that company is virtually guaranteed it will get LOTS of complaints about the spam.
I don't like this idea one bit, for a variety of reasons (yes, some are repeats of what's already been posted, I just felt like consolidating): 1) Free mailing lists (of which I'm on a few), which have already been mentioned 2) This won't affect non-U.S. spammers 3) It'd be tough to tax a spammer you cannot even find, and we cannot seem to track down spammers today! 4) Sending e-mails from work (especially personal ones) - generally most employers look the other way with regards to sending personal e-mails (and I use that to keep in touch with friends, or even make plans with them). If the company is suddenly paying money per e-mail, you can be sure that looking the other way is a practice that will stop, and quickly.
Alt-F4 with that window "active" will usually close the window (same as clicking the X in the corner, especially if you can't reach the corner).
Here's my prediction... 1) AT&T Broadband/Comcast will try to convince the general public that this change will be a good thing, using the logic: "it's only fair that those who use the service more should pay more, and those that use it less would pay less". 2) Once the general public is convinced, they will announce that the current pricing scheme (which is for un-capped transfers) will be the "low cost" end of their scale, and that people who barely use their broadband will still pay this price (not saving them a dime) 3) Anyone who uses over the cap they set (which will probably be low, in the interest of generating more revenue for them) will pay EXTREME per-megabyte charges. And considering that in many areas, there is NO choice between cable-modem companies, and that DSL isn't available everywhere either, they will have a captive audience. These unfortunate customers who have no alternatives for broadband, find themselves making the decision of either paying inflated prices (for equal or even lesser service), or doing without broadband altogether.
Anti-trust laws? Naw, those are obsolete and out of date... Just ask Bill Gates!
Well, if I can no longer spend my hard-earned money on CDs that will play on the various CD players around my house (including, I might add, the one in my computer), guess I'll have to resort to just downloading the songs instead from whatever Napster-clone I decide to use at the time... And all this time I thought they WANTED us to be buying their CDs... Sheesh!
This is the thing that bugs me about this type of "study"... They have two years (so they claim) worth of data that they ASSUME is due to the CRT, and nothing else... But my experience has been that people who look at a CRT all day also tend to have other things in common. They (generally) also sit all day. They (generally) sit in close proximity to a computer. Heck, they even (usually) work with those new-fangled devices, called a keyboard and a mouse. ;)
But none of those are to blame for what they've seen, it MUST be the CRT.
But do they have "control" cases, where people are sitting at a desk, with a computer (and mouse and keyboard) that DOESN'T have a monitor (a CRT)? Not terribly likely.
One thing that I did, mostly in case the installer messed something up on my system, is I did a full backup just before the installer came (and in this case, I basically just made an image of my C: drive with Drive Image, and stored that on another partition). Then, when the guy left, I simply restored from that backup. No muss, no fuss.
Bear in mind, as "loud" as our planet is, we've only been broadcasting signals into space (i.e. radio, tv, etc.) for less than 100 years. Considering that radio waves travel considerably slower than the speed of light, even our earliest signals are at most 100 light-years away. Most likely only a fraction of that. And there really aren't a whole lot of stars within that 100 light-years radius. Consider that the nearest is over 4 light-years distant. Even if there IS life in that star system (which is unlikely), the chances are, they might not have been "listening" for radio waves coming from our little planet. Remember, space is a pretty big place. Not only that, but a radio signal travelling across 4 light-years would be INCREDIBLY weak.