Re:Why people watch movies..
on
Daemon
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· Score: 1
Sure, if they needed to make that point though, they could have done it in so many better ways than trying to invent some impossible tech that's so ridiculous that even complete tech morons groaned at it.
Re:Why people watch movies..
on
Daemon
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· Score: 1
Yea! I agree that they were trying to make a political statement here - which is completely out of context of the movie.
It's also an example of fitting in some new technology in a sinister way like they like to do in movies. While cell phones aren't exactly new, the fact that nearly everyone has one is.
Re:Why people watch movies..
on
Daemon
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· Score: 1
You take my comment out of context. When I said "makes the whole thing cheezy" I meant to say "makes that aspect of the story cheezy." The movie would have been perfectly fine without that gimmick, and they could have use any number of other ways to find the villain. I didn't hate Batman but I didn't think it was the movie of the year. I liked Spider Man II more.
Re:Why people watch movies..
on
Daemon
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· Score: 1
I think that most of the comments around here seem to indicate that us tech folks are perfectly capable of ignoring the really bad use of technology in shows and movies. Hence the term "cringe" - you cringe at the use of the tech but you still watch.
There's times, though, when it's just plain aweful and it CAN wreck the story. Like the Batman movie that for some reason everyone's drooling about - the cell phone radar thing? Ohh, c'mon. I know the story is fiction but it's supposed to be grounded in reality and that's just too much. They could have easily just used something else that actually COULD exist and it wouldn't have made the whole thing so cheezy.
It's not nitpicking. Nitpicking is saying "Ohh that movie was awful because you could see a difference in the shadow between cuts." However, saying "ohh that show is horrible because they lifted all of their incriminating data off of a hard drive platter that has been melted down with an incinerator; they put it into a machine which spits out fully viable data that is modeled in 3D space with names like "DELETED VIDEO FILE OF ME KILLING AMY."
No, I don't assume many things. I actually did research on this very subject not long ago because a friend was in a somewhat similar situation. I spoke to a lawyer, I read credit law, and I spoke to a representative from Equifax.
YOU assume I know nothing about what I'm talking about.
German law, who knows, sure. I never claimed I knew what German law was, and I did say previously "In the US.." but I know, you didn't read the whole thread. It's okay, I expect that from ignorant posters. No worries.
Ohh, I'm sure these places exist, but they're so far and few between that it's next to impossible to find them, their stock is horrible, and their prices are usually very high.
Not to mention, most of the small stores around HERE seem to have horribly high prices on everything, not the other way around. Try to buy a mid-level car stereo from one of the car audio shops.. good luck finding a decent price on one.
One type of small store place that seems to do OK are photo shops - digital cameras, lenses, etc. They're usually way overpriced too, but at least you can find high end gear at a store.
I like to touch and feel something expensive before I buy it, and you just can't do that online.
Tweeter was expensive for a lot of things, but it was usually because they carried higher end equipment. And, if you could get one of their "last year" models, you'd get a KILLER deal.
I got a Yamaha RX-V2700 receiver (which they originally sold for $1700) for $600 floor model unit. The thing is fucking sweet - it's powerful as all hell, can play music from Internet radio (which it automatically pulls lists from somewhere out there) and music from any uPnP music source on your network. It is a full 7.1 system with three HDMI inputs and a load of other inputs. It has a really good scaler (DVDO) and supports input/output at 1080P. It also has two sub-zones which can be controlled independently of the master zone. The RX-V2700 gets excellent audio fidelity test reviews and even comes with a little microphone you put in the middle of the room so that the unit can run an automatic 7.1 speaker calibration (levels, notches, delays, etc.)
Sorry to ramble on. This is such a kickass receiver and I got it from Tweeter for a steal. You'll never be able to do that at Best Buy. You'll be lucky to get 10% off on a busted up, beat on floor model with no remote control.
Tweeter was only the only place you could get some specialty car stereo stuff at retail, such as the crap you put in your doors to dampen rattles and soundproof your cab.
Well, I wouldn't say that's WHY Obama won. He didn't promise free health care, free internet, or free welfare.
He promised more affordable health care, more accessible high-speed internet (read: to areas of our country without high speed internet; which you would PAY for) and he mentioned that he wants to put people on welfare to work.
But, I can see how someone that didn't pay attention to any of his speeches, plans, or ideas could think that (read: someone that gets all his news from Rush Limbaugh.)
I don't think it's the goal of every store to tailor to the lowest common demoninator consumer by offering cheap (read: crappy) stuff at cheap prices, while offering their employees low salaries and even lower benefits.
WalMart has a known history of bullying manufacturers into giving them special deals and moving into communities that don't want them, while pushing out all of the competition.
Not everyone is out to screw everyone for the mighty dollar. Some people actually want to offer a good product at a decent price, while treating their employees well. Most companies fall somewhere in the middle.
People within my circle of friends and family don't like to shop at WalMart. We all avoid it whenever possible (which is basically always.) However, there's a lot of people that just don't give a shit about anything or they're ignorant to the true cost of a place like WalMart.
Fortunately around here, we have plenty of choices. That's not true in many parts of the country.
I don't know about that. People don't buy clothes, groceries, and garden tools online very often. They also don't buy furniture or kitchen wares online.
The majority of WalMart's product offering is not electronics.
Besides, I like to buy things at stores when the price difference isn't big between store and online. I like the ability to get the item immediately, and I like the low hassle returns to a local store rather than shipping something back to the online vendor. I also like the ability to show up at the store and raise hell if something goes wrong, versus calling someone on the phone.
That's one of the problems. What other companies, besides WalMart, can get a manufacturer like HP or Sony create "cheap" versions of their products solely for them? Nobody~
You buy an HP printer at WalMart, and it's probably got plastic parts instead of metal, slower processors, and cheaper motors. It won't last as long as the same printer purchased at another store.
They do the same thing with many other products.
I don't like shopping at WalMart either. I do go sometimes to get a specific item when I have to but otherwise I will always prefer someone else. In New England, we have so much choice of places to shop that WalMart just isn't as big around here. It's still very popular with low income people though - noted by the abundance of trash in the parking lot and the fact that English is the second language when you walk in the door.
Thee used to be some Office Depot's around here.. they all closed.
Staples is still around, but they don't sell TV's.
There's a reason to buy equipment at stores: Sometimes you need it now, want it now, or only have cash to buy it with.
It's also nice to be able to return something at the store immediately and get a refund without having to go through the hassle of boxing, shipping, and waiting for payment.
What kind of place do you live where there's any "Mom and Pop" television stores? Maybe you have that choice but besides a small hardware store or two, you can't find any independent electronics retailers in all of New England.
It's not a question of adapting. WalMart has so much purchasing power that they can bully the service centers into offering WalMart customers rock bottom prices for servicing their products.
WalMart is a dangerous company. They can put other business out of business because they can sell for lower prices than anyone else could ever afford to do, because WalMart is so huge and is the only choice of shopping places in many parts of the country.
Yea okay glad I'm not the only one that noticed Circuit City prices being better than Best Buy for the majority of their items. That, and at least around here the staff at the three local Circuit City stores were always a lot more accommodating and friendly than Best Buy.
I didn't find that to be true. Not in the last few years, anyways.
I've purchased a lot of stuff from Circuit City in the last few years because their staff was always nicer and their prices were always a few percent less. If not, they'd match it and I'd buy from Circuit City on a price match over Best Buy.
This really sucks. CompUSA gone, and now Circuit City. No more Tweeter..
Best Buy bites, and it's going to suck when I want to buy a TV next time. It already sucks when I need to buy some computer part or something quickly, because since CompUSA went under, Best Buy and Circuit City pretty much stopped carrying computer components.
Naa, I don't buy it. I couldn't give someone a blank CD and then afterwords say "You owe me $50" (where you obviously wouldn't pay me) and then report that to a credit agency.
Even if I gave you the CD and you KNEW I wanted $50 for it later I couldn't report that to a credit agency alone.
This kind of question comes up from land lords a lot. Nothing would please a land lord more than being able to hang "I'll ruin your credit" over their tenants heads. There's no direct way to do it.
Only a registered company that lends credit or is responsible to collecting debts (a collection agency) can potentially report something on your credit. Even then, they must meet legal requirements and pay fees to the credit agencies to have the ability to submit entries to consumer credit reports.
So, if I really wanted to screw you over the $50 I can send the debt to a collection agency (whom will take a cut of whatever they collect) and they could potentially report that to your credit. Of course, this would be far down the road and you'd have plenty of notice before that ever happened.
Any disputed charges will also not show up on credit. So, if this company decided to try everything to collect their $95, they could send the "debt" to a collection agency, whom would have to take you to court and then WIN a settlement before you'd have any negative marks. This particular debt would get thrown out far before that could ever happen.
Collection agencies also don't typically report things to credit just to be bastards. Most (if not all, at least in the US) of them can ONLY report "Debt paid" or "Debt paid in full" because there would be too much abuse of peoples' credit if they could keep putting negative marks on your credit until your credit was useless for the next decade. That's why collection agency employees are such assholes on the phone - that's the only power they have. Being pricks and annoying you. Once you have a debt that went to collections the damage has already been done - your line of credit went so far past due that you will have a derogatory item on your credit report. That wouldn't happen here because this is not a reported line of credit, it's an agreement to purchase something. It's not the same.
Companies can't just send in credit marks for no good reason, and individuals can't do it at all. My stance on this remains the same - this is a scam (just like many of those "sponsored links" on google trying to sell you Firefox) and would never see the light of day if they decided to push it in court.
Of course, we don't know the EXACT circumstances here. If this person gave a credit card number or checked a box that said "You agree to be billed for this download at a later date" then it changes things a bit. I'd still not pay it though, and see what happened. You'd have plenty of time to decide to pay anything long before this landed on your credit report.
There ARE laws protecting the consumer from this type of thing.
How would this be a credit thing? There was no credit check, no credit agreement, no credit what-so-ever. There's no way it could be a negative mark on her credit because there was no credit involved.
The worst that can happen here is she gets taken to small claims court.
NO credit damage! Do you not understand what credit is?
Just don't pay them, don't answer the e-mails, and hopefully she didn't provide a phone number. If she did, perhaps the phone company can put a block on that number.
They'll go away. If they don't they'll have to take her to a small claims type court, and that will cost them money. She won't lose this case. She can say that she never downloaded it and it was someone else that did (I sort of doubt this company would get a subpoena for the ISP to get her IP address information..) or she could say the software was listed as free.
I doubt it would go to court.. these people are just slimeballs looking for easy dollars, not hard dollars.
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Sure, if they needed to make that point though, they could have done it in so many better ways than trying to invent some impossible tech that's so ridiculous that even complete tech morons groaned at it.
Yea! I agree that they were trying to make a political statement here - which is completely out of context of the movie.
It's also an example of fitting in some new technology in a sinister way like they like to do in movies. While cell phones aren't exactly new, the fact that nearly everyone has one is.
You take my comment out of context. When I said "makes the whole thing cheezy" I meant to say "makes that aspect of the story cheezy." The movie would have been perfectly fine without that gimmick, and they could have use any number of other ways to find the villain. I didn't hate Batman but I didn't think it was the movie of the year. I liked Spider Man II more.
I think that most of the comments around here seem to indicate that us tech folks are perfectly capable of ignoring the really bad use of technology in shows and movies. Hence the term "cringe" - you cringe at the use of the tech but you still watch.
There's times, though, when it's just plain aweful and it CAN wreck the story. Like the Batman movie that for some reason everyone's drooling about - the cell phone radar thing? Ohh, c'mon. I know the story is fiction but it's supposed to be grounded in reality and that's just too much. They could have easily just used something else that actually COULD exist and it wouldn't have made the whole thing so cheezy.
It's not nitpicking. Nitpicking is saying "Ohh that movie was awful because you could see a difference in the shadow between cuts." However, saying "ohh that show is horrible because they lifted all of their incriminating data off of a hard drive platter that has been melted down with an incinerator; they put it into a machine which spits out fully viable data that is modeled in 3D space with names like "DELETED VIDEO FILE OF ME KILLING AMY."
And I love it when you quote the most insignificant points of my post, but leave the actual point making parts alone.
You're a true Internet posting hero!
No, I don't assume many things. I actually did research on this very subject not long ago because a friend was in a somewhat similar situation. I spoke to a lawyer, I read credit law, and I spoke to a representative from Equifax.
YOU assume I know nothing about what I'm talking about.
German law, who knows, sure. I never claimed I knew what German law was, and I did say previously "In the US.." but I know, you didn't read the whole thread. It's okay, I expect that from ignorant posters. No worries.
And Staples no longer offers that warranty because they couldn't get any repair chains or repair outsourcing companies to agree to it.
Walmart can force them to agree, or they can get them to agree because they offer so much more volume (even though the margins are so much lower.)
All of this cheap cheap cheap gets the consumer cheap cheap cheap products and services, though.
Ohh, I'm sure these places exist, but they're so far and few between that it's next to impossible to find them, their stock is horrible, and their prices are usually very high.
Not to mention, most of the small stores around HERE seem to have horribly high prices on everything, not the other way around. Try to buy a mid-level car stereo from one of the car audio shops.. good luck finding a decent price on one.
One type of small store place that seems to do OK are photo shops - digital cameras, lenses, etc. They're usually way overpriced too, but at least you can find high end gear at a store.
I like to touch and feel something expensive before I buy it, and you just can't do that online.
Tweeter was expensive for a lot of things, but it was usually because they carried higher end equipment. And, if you could get one of their "last year" models, you'd get a KILLER deal.
I got a Yamaha RX-V2700 receiver (which they originally sold for $1700) for $600 floor model unit. The thing is fucking sweet - it's powerful as all hell, can play music from Internet radio (which it automatically pulls lists from somewhere out there) and music from any uPnP music source on your network. It is a full 7.1 system with three HDMI inputs and a load of other inputs. It has a really good scaler (DVDO) and supports input/output at 1080P. It also has two sub-zones which can be controlled independently of the master zone. The RX-V2700 gets excellent audio fidelity test reviews and even comes with a little microphone you put in the middle of the room so that the unit can run an automatic 7.1 speaker calibration (levels, notches, delays, etc.)
Sorry to ramble on. This is such a kickass receiver and I got it from Tweeter for a steal. You'll never be able to do that at Best Buy. You'll be lucky to get 10% off on a busted up, beat on floor model with no remote control.
Tweeter was only the only place you could get some specialty car stereo stuff at retail, such as the crap you put in your doors to dampen rattles and soundproof your cab.
Well, I wouldn't say that's WHY Obama won. He didn't promise free health care, free internet, or free welfare.
He promised more affordable health care, more accessible high-speed internet (read: to areas of our country without high speed internet; which you would PAY for) and he mentioned that he wants to put people on welfare to work.
But, I can see how someone that didn't pay attention to any of his speeches, plans, or ideas could think that (read: someone that gets all his news from Rush Limbaugh.)
Dipshit.
I don't believe that.
I don't think it's the goal of every store to tailor to the lowest common demoninator consumer by offering cheap (read: crappy) stuff at cheap prices, while offering their employees low salaries and even lower benefits.
WalMart has a known history of bullying manufacturers into giving them special deals and moving into communities that don't want them, while pushing out all of the competition.
Not everyone is out to screw everyone for the mighty dollar. Some people actually want to offer a good product at a decent price, while treating their employees well. Most companies fall somewhere in the middle.
People within my circle of friends and family don't like to shop at WalMart. We all avoid it whenever possible (which is basically always.) However, there's a lot of people that just don't give a shit about anything or they're ignorant to the true cost of a place like WalMart.
Fortunately around here, we have plenty of choices. That's not true in many parts of the country.
I don't know about that. People don't buy clothes, groceries, and garden tools online very often. They also don't buy furniture or kitchen wares online.
The majority of WalMart's product offering is not electronics.
Besides, I like to buy things at stores when the price difference isn't big between store and online. I like the ability to get the item immediately, and I like the low hassle returns to a local store rather than shipping something back to the online vendor. I also like the ability to show up at the store and raise hell if something goes wrong, versus calling someone on the phone.
Stores ain't going nowhere, my friend.
That's one of the problems. What other companies, besides WalMart, can get a manufacturer like HP or Sony create "cheap" versions of their products solely for them? Nobody~
You buy an HP printer at WalMart, and it's probably got plastic parts instead of metal, slower processors, and cheaper motors. It won't last as long as the same printer purchased at another store.
They do the same thing with many other products.
I don't like shopping at WalMart either. I do go sometimes to get a specific item when I have to but otherwise I will always prefer someone else. In New England, we have so much choice of places to shop that WalMart just isn't as big around here. It's still very popular with low income people though - noted by the abundance of trash in the parking lot and the fact that English is the second language when you walk in the door.
Judgments don't always go on credit. They sometimes can. For an amount as small as this, it might not. Lots of variable here.
The keyword here though is "if" - IF you win a judgment. In this particular case, that's a very big IF.
Thee used to be some Office Depot's around here.. they all closed.
Staples is still around, but they don't sell TV's.
There's a reason to buy equipment at stores: Sometimes you need it now, want it now, or only have cash to buy it with.
It's also nice to be able to return something at the store immediately and get a refund without having to go through the hassle of boxing, shipping, and waiting for payment.
What kind of place do you live where there's any "Mom and Pop" television stores? Maybe you have that choice but besides a small hardware store or two, you can't find any independent electronics retailers in all of New England.
1965 called, they want their main street back.
It's not a question of adapting. WalMart has so much purchasing power that they can bully the service centers into offering WalMart customers rock bottom prices for servicing their products.
WalMart is a dangerous company. They can put other business out of business because they can sell for lower prices than anyone else could ever afford to do, because WalMart is so huge and is the only choice of shopping places in many parts of the country.
Yea okay glad I'm not the only one that noticed Circuit City prices being better than Best Buy for the majority of their items. That, and at least around here the staff at the three local Circuit City stores were always a lot more accommodating and friendly than Best Buy.
I didn't find that to be true. Not in the last few years, anyways.
I've purchased a lot of stuff from Circuit City in the last few years because their staff was always nicer and their prices were always a few percent less. If not, they'd match it and I'd buy from Circuit City on a price match over Best Buy.
This really sucks. CompUSA gone, and now Circuit City. No more Tweeter..
Best Buy bites, and it's going to suck when I want to buy a TV next time. It already sucks when I need to buy some computer part or something quickly, because since CompUSA went under, Best Buy and Circuit City pretty much stopped carrying computer components.
Naa, I don't buy it. I couldn't give someone a blank CD and then afterwords say "You owe me $50" (where you obviously wouldn't pay me) and then report that to a credit agency.
Even if I gave you the CD and you KNEW I wanted $50 for it later I couldn't report that to a credit agency alone.
This kind of question comes up from land lords a lot. Nothing would please a land lord more than being able to hang "I'll ruin your credit" over their tenants heads. There's no direct way to do it.
Only a registered company that lends credit or is responsible to collecting debts (a collection agency) can potentially report something on your credit. Even then, they must meet legal requirements and pay fees to the credit agencies to have the ability to submit entries to consumer credit reports.
So, if I really wanted to screw you over the $50 I can send the debt to a collection agency (whom will take a cut of whatever they collect) and they could potentially report that to your credit. Of course, this would be far down the road and you'd have plenty of notice before that ever happened.
Any disputed charges will also not show up on credit. So, if this company decided to try everything to collect their $95, they could send the "debt" to a collection agency, whom would have to take you to court and then WIN a settlement before you'd have any negative marks. This particular debt would get thrown out far before that could ever happen.
Collection agencies also don't typically report things to credit just to be bastards. Most (if not all, at least in the US) of them can ONLY report "Debt paid" or "Debt paid in full" because there would be too much abuse of peoples' credit if they could keep putting negative marks on your credit until your credit was useless for the next decade. That's why collection agency employees are such assholes on the phone - that's the only power they have. Being pricks and annoying you. Once you have a debt that went to collections the damage has already been done - your line of credit went so far past due that you will have a derogatory item on your credit report. That wouldn't happen here because this is not a reported line of credit, it's an agreement to purchase something. It's not the same.
Companies can't just send in credit marks for no good reason, and individuals can't do it at all. My stance on this remains the same - this is a scam (just like many of those "sponsored links" on google trying to sell you Firefox) and would never see the light of day if they decided to push it in court.
Of course, we don't know the EXACT circumstances here. If this person gave a credit card number or checked a box that said "You agree to be billed for this download at a later date" then it changes things a bit. I'd still not pay it though, and see what happened. You'd have plenty of time to decide to pay anything long before this landed on your credit report.
There ARE laws protecting the consumer from this type of thing.
Either that was a clever joke or you're one of them =)
How would this be a credit thing? There was no credit check, no credit agreement, no credit what-so-ever. There's no way it could be a negative mark on her credit because there was no credit involved.
The worst that can happen here is she gets taken to small claims court.
NO credit damage! Do you not understand what credit is?
Holy shit! Another person on Slashdot that doesn't understand sarcasm. Unbelievable!
Just don't pay them, don't answer the e-mails, and hopefully she didn't provide a phone number. If she did, perhaps the phone company can put a block on that number.
They'll go away. If they don't they'll have to take her to a small claims type court, and that will cost them money. She won't lose this case. She can say that she never downloaded it and it was someone else that did (I sort of doubt this company would get a subpoena for the ISP to get her IP address information..) or she could say the software was listed as free.
I doubt it would go to court.. these people are just slimeballs looking for easy dollars, not hard dollars.