Oh hell yeah, I pay for content too. I have a subscription to Experts-Exchange, Oreilly Safari, etc. But that's because that information is extremely useful to me and therefore worth the money I pay them. Is a news article or an article about the top 10 firefox add ons going to be worth a subscription? No. I'll get this info elsewhere because of competition and abundance of popular information like that. To be honest, the article in itself is advertisement for those add-ons (bad press is good press)
The micropayment thing would piss me off. Like the stupid cell providers charging for ring tones (with a time limit!!). Look, I understand they need revenue for expenditures and profit. Perhaps you are right and it is more precise to say that I like to block annoying ads and not the small ads like in gmail (which have been useful sometimes).
That's my point. It isn't my problem to come up with a "winning" solution. If I can skip the ads, than I will. Let the marketing geniuses come up with a solution to that (let's hope it's not a legislative solution). I didn't mention Tom Cruise. If you WTFM, Minority report predicted a very intrusive way to market products (iris scanning for personalized ads on a wall screen).
Adblock and Adblock Plus
Obviously, we have some bias when it comes to ad-blocking extensions.......But if everyone blocked ads, how would sites such as ours continue to offer content free of charge?
You know, I can give them the same answer I would for a dvr skipping commercials: Because I can and I will, that's why I use Adblock Plus. Its fantastic and does it's job. I despise commercials and ads. I'm sorry it creates revenue for you but that's not my problem. Are they really asking us to deliberately look at ads just for their financial benefit? You either need to be witty/interesting/funny or trick me into seeing your ad, you don't get my eyeballs that easily. I would like to seek products that I want and that's the point in which I would like relevant products to come and seek me. Not randomly. If ads work and create revenue, great. But don't tell us to allow personal annoyances for your financieal gain. As for their content being "free" because of ads. Well, if they made me register and pay for their content, what are the chances I would (hint: 0%). So what we end up with is this technical cat and mouse game. Hopefully consumers win and we don't end up in the universe of Minority Report.
I understood your point. The reference to amigos was for the most part an attempt at humor(since it wasn't modded so, I guess the attempt was in vain), for the next to the most part a jab at the GP for being contradictory in his language, in essence agreeeing with your point without really saying so since its really off topic. Since your off topic I guess I am now REALLY off topic.
Have you ever looked at your check in a restaurant and noticed...What do you do?...
Well, a lot of the times a server might have left that something off on purpose. Most often its a drink (if you're drinking a lot) or an appetizer. Its usually a "consolation" for something that they screwed up on (your food was late, your steak was undercooked, etc) so that you don't dock them on their tip. It's a wink wink nudge nudge kind of arrangement that is most likely condoned by the manager (depending on the manager's style). Now if the manager's style is very strict with the books, they will charge you for everything and then comp a few things. This is an explicit "i'm sorry for screwing up you're meal"-sort-of communication.
So next time you want to go back to the server and say "you forgot to charge me" think about how the whole meal went down.
dammit, I had mod points yesterday. Wish I had them for your post...
This is the key. I am INTERESTED in the content, but that's it. If I have to jump through hoops to get it in a format of my choosing, then I'll find other ways to watch it. There are a TON of ways to get the content I want. To be honest I can do without the cable TV, because if I really try, I can find everything I want via the web. If I can't, then well, there is a ton of other content that will grab my short attention span. I love "The Office". I love talking about it with my coworkers and recreating the funny stuff in our own office (someone put my freakin' stapler in a jello mold for god's sake!). But if I lost bit torrent, cable, and they DRM'ed the shit out of the media they sold it on, I really could do without it.
This super inflated sense of "I gotta have it" is created by the *iaa's. We don't NEED it. It's fun, but I don't "demand" it.
In other words. Fuck DRM. I don't want there shit SO BAD that I would subject myself to the hoops they would like me to jump through.
To me, Zahn's trilogy IS the 3rd trilogy. If you haven't read his Star Wars books (here is a book that he cowrote with your boy Stackpole) I highly recommend them.
I think his point was that the original linked BLog did not cite any reference to where he got his info. He just "said it"....therefore it happened. (He didn't say, "I was at the reception (what reception?) sponsored by the DC Bar Association or the DC Bar Association sponsored event transcripts said "blabla"..)
Anybody remember this movie? These robots remind me of the spider robots Gene Simmons used to battle Tom Selleck. Interestingly, when I looked it up at IMDB, I find out that Michael Crichton Directed and Wrote that POS movie. Well, POS to todays standards.
I've gotten so used to farm raised salmon that when I tried wild salmon recently, I found that I didn't like it at all. So, the bring on the corn-fed salmon. As AB would say, its "good eats".
Unfortunately there are those of us that suffer from Packrat-itus. For some reason I have inboxes saved from 1995. It is fun going through that email and looking at the the relationships I had with people, what was going on in my life then (the minutia, not the big salient events, that's what my long term memory is for). As for all of the digital media (pics/porn/vids/movies/etc), sometimes there are moments when you can look through that stuff randomly and find a gem you enjoy. I think that's what causes the packrat mentality, you know there is a gem in there somewhere, so we'll brute force it and just keep the whole trash heap.
Jeez, I sound like a homeless guy with a rusty shopping cart.
Also, someone happened to be capturing the session onto video? I don't think it was leeroy's screen that was being captured because when he ran in, the viewpoint didn't follow him (unless that's a camera feature in WoW). However, you see the mouse click on a bunch of the creatures inside before he ran in. I believe it was staged too. But that doesn't take away how funny it is.
Look. I'm trying to justify not buying a display that does 1080p. Every artifact you just described I see with my new 1080i capable Sony HDTV (aliasing big time, blurring during hard panning, not sure wtf "judder" is.) So now I can no longer revel in the fact that "1080p isn't THAT much better" and continue on my way to wishing that I got the latest and greatest. Except the latest and greatest was $2k more. So I guess I shouldn't feel that bad. Although I connected my laptop via the VGA connector and played a movie off the HDD and it looked WAY better than off of my "Progressive Scan" DVD player via Component connectors. I think that now is a good time to invest in an HTPC.
If I understand correctly, 1080p (or progressive) displays all scan lines with one pass at 30hz and 1080i (interlaced) displays even or odd scan lines with one pass at 60hz (giving an effective 30 hz). According to the HDTV Primer, it doesn't sound like 1080p gives you THAT much better performance than 1080i except to reduce flicker (I don't notice it in my new HDTV display that only goes to 1080i).
From the HDTV Primer:
What is 1080p?
The terms 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i were never formally defined. Yet they are universally understood. But 1080p is anything but unambiguous. There are at least three conflicting, very different meanings currently in common usage:
1. 1080 progressive at 30 frames per second is one of the 18 formats. This 1080p is (or could be) in use every day. The same applies to 1080p24.
2. If 1080p is to 1080i what 480p is to 480i then 1080p is 60 frames per second. Monitors that can do this are rare. There are no 1080p60 sources.
3. When the maker of a digital display finds a way to improve upon 1080i he will usually say his display does 1080p. The improvement is usually some way to reduce flicker.
You should refrain from using the term 1080p when referring to the receiver or the monitor interface since this usage is ambiguous. Instead use 1080p30, etc.
Usually 1080p just means flicker reduction. Some time in the future motion adaptive processing will likely become available. In this process a computer in the receiver turns a 30 frames/sec image into a true 60 frames/sec image (1080p60). The motion vectors (described below) are used for creating the missing frames. This is probably the best hope for eliminating the jumpiness that currently plagues 1080i. Monitors will need a 1080p60 interface format, but some monitors will benefit from 1080p48 or 1080p72. Rather than introducing 3 new monitor interface formats, the receivers will probably be integrated with the monitors, eliminating the monitor interface.
Funny, I just watched "Shindig" last night. In the dueling scene, they were outside but under the shade of some large trees. I don't know the rules for Vampires in Whedon's universe so I don't know if that supports your theory or not.
Now my thoughts: Whedon definitely made the "Companions" very alluring and mysterious. They had this great political power or is it an upper hand (in "Shindig" she rotorts to the guy who Mal beats in the duel "It doesn't work like that! You will never have the services of another Companion ever again" (big time paraphrase)? In the begining of that episode, she was in a filthy bar filled with shady folks sitting up on a stool looking very regal. One would think that would be very bad place for a hot upper class woman to be sitting, and she was very relaxed with no worries. Does this mean she's got some upper hand (super weapon, powers, just being a certified companion makes people lay off?) or does it mean that she is relaxed when Mal is around to protect her or does it mean she isn't very bright? Probably not the last one.
Anyway, she was an interesting character with a lot of potential for where it could go (I never thought about your suggestion before which goes to show that potential) and she will make a great Wonder Woman if Whedon decideds to cast her.
I agree with what you're saying. I hate NPCs, I hate talking to them, I hated the whole "training" aspect of Galaxies.
On that note, why not put money into hiring "professional" role players with special access to the game. Maybe a REAL storm trooper recruiter who tells you to goto X planet at X time where you meet a real person playing the storm trooper sargent and from that point on you go through basic training and end up on a star destroyer, etc, etc. Hire PEOPLE to interact with the players. That would be fun. Hell, outsource this work to India if you have too. Have a warehouse full of these people on PCs roaming the servers, role playing multiple "official" characters and interacting with the people in the game. I think if I were to go see Vader, and it was a Vader who actually interacted with me, it would be that much more exciting rather what they had in the current game.
ah..I see....this must be the deleted dialog from the Vader cryout scene.
Vader (whining/breathing/jamesEarlJonesish): "Where's Padme?"
Emporer: Uh..you snapped her neck dude...she's dead...
Vader (screaming): NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You think?
I have run into the embossed/carbon copy scheme recently:
Buying beer on the golf course when I forgot cash. It's a life saver. The cart girl takes my card rolls a carbon copy of it, I sign, she gets tipped, I get tipsy and play like $hit. Great fun!
Slashdot Mirror
That's why I mentioned it. My attitude towards ads can only make the marketing guys want to tighten their grip on my eyeballs even more.
Oh hell yeah, I pay for content too. I have a subscription to Experts-Exchange, Oreilly Safari, etc. But that's because that information is extremely useful to me and therefore worth the money I pay them. Is a news article or an article about the top 10 firefox add ons going to be worth a subscription? No. I'll get this info elsewhere because of competition and abundance of popular information like that. To be honest, the article in itself is advertisement for those add-ons (bad press is good press)
The micropayment thing would piss me off. Like the stupid cell providers charging for ring tones (with a time limit!!). Look, I understand they need revenue for expenditures and profit. Perhaps you are right and it is more precise to say that I like to block annoying ads and not the small ads like in gmail (which have been useful sometimes).
That's my point. It isn't my problem to come up with a "winning" solution. If I can skip the ads, than I will. Let the marketing geniuses come up with a solution to that (let's hope it's not a legislative solution). I didn't mention Tom Cruise. If you WTFM, Minority report predicted a very intrusive way to market products (iris scanning for personalized ads on a wall screen).
Adblock and Adblock Plus
Obviously, we have some bias when it comes to ad-blocking extensions.......But if everyone blocked ads, how would sites such as ours continue to offer content free of charge?
You know, I can give them the same answer I would for a dvr skipping commercials: Because I can and I will, that's why I use Adblock Plus. Its fantastic and does it's job. I despise commercials and ads. I'm sorry it creates revenue for you but that's not my problem. Are they really asking us to deliberately look at ads just for their financial benefit? You either need to be witty/interesting/funny or trick me into seeing your ad, you don't get my eyeballs that easily. I would like to seek products that I want and that's the point in which I would like relevant products to come and seek me. Not randomly. If ads work and create revenue, great. But don't tell us to allow personal annoyances for your financieal gain.
As for their content being "free" because of ads. Well, if they made me register and pay for their content, what are the chances I would (hint: 0%). So what we end up with is this technical cat and mouse game. Hopefully consumers win and we don't end up in the universe of Minority Report.
I understood your point. The reference to amigos was for the most part an attempt at humor(since it wasn't modded so, I guess the attempt was in vain), for the next to the most part a jab at the GP for being contradictory in his language, in essence agreeeing with your point without really saying so since its really off topic. Since your off topic I guess I am now REALLY off topic.
Mods be kind.
"The infamous El Guapo."
What does that mean? "In-famous"?
In-famous is when you're more than famous.
This man El Guapo is not just famous, he's in-famous.
Have you ever looked at your check in a restaurant and noticed...What do you do?...
Well, a lot of the times a server might have left that something off on purpose. Most often its a drink (if you're drinking a lot) or an appetizer. Its usually a "consolation" for something that they screwed up on (your food was late, your steak was undercooked, etc) so that you don't dock them on their tip. It's a wink wink nudge nudge kind of arrangement that is most likely condoned by the manager (depending on the manager's style). Now if the manager's style is very strict with the books, they will charge you for everything and then comp a few things. This is an explicit "i'm sorry for screwing up you're meal"-sort-of communication.
So next time you want to go back to the server and say "you forgot to charge me" think about how the whole meal went down.
-- Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
You didn't just come from one of those groups did you?
Oh I don't know...Picasa is pretty easy to use and its free.
dammit, I had mod points yesterday. Wish I had them for your post... This is the key. I am INTERESTED in the content, but that's it. If I have to jump through hoops to get it in a format of my choosing, then I'll find other ways to watch it. There are a TON of ways to get the content I want. To be honest I can do without the cable TV, because if I really try, I can find everything I want via the web. If I can't, then well, there is a ton of other content that will grab my short attention span. I love "The Office". I love talking about it with my coworkers and recreating the funny stuff in our own office (someone put my freakin' stapler in a jello mold for god's sake!). But if I lost bit torrent, cable, and they DRM'ed the shit out of the media they sold it on, I really could do without it. This super inflated sense of "I gotta have it" is created by the *iaa's. We don't NEED it. It's fun, but I don't "demand" it. In other words. Fuck DRM. I don't want there shit SO BAD that I would subject myself to the hoops they would like me to jump through.
To me, Zahn's trilogy IS the 3rd trilogy. If you haven't read his Star Wars books (here is a book that he cowrote with your boy Stackpole) I highly recommend them.
Heir to the Empire (Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Vol. 1)
Dark Force Rising (Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Vol. 2)
The Last Command (Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Vol. 3)
I think his point was that the original linked BLog did not cite any reference to where he got his info. He just "said it"....therefore it happened. (He didn't say, "I was at the reception (what reception?) sponsored by the DC Bar Association or the DC Bar Association sponsored event transcripts said "blabla"..)
Anybody remember this movie? These robots remind me of the spider robots Gene Simmons used to battle Tom Selleck. Interestingly, when I looked it up at IMDB, I find out that Michael Crichton Directed and Wrote that POS movie. Well, POS to todays standards.
I don't want to sound like the comic book guy....
Too late.
Worst. Not-wanting-to-sound-like-comic-book-guy-Post. Ever.
I've gotten so used to farm raised salmon that when I tried wild salmon recently, I found that I didn't like it at all. So, the bring on the corn-fed salmon. As AB would say, its "good eats".
Unfortunately there are those of us that suffer from Packrat-itus. For some reason I have inboxes saved from 1995. It is fun going through that email and looking at the the relationships I had with people, what was going on in my life then (the minutia, not the big salient events, that's what my long term memory is for). As for all of the digital media (pics/porn/vids/movies/etc), sometimes there are moments when you can look through that stuff randomly and find a gem you enjoy. I think that's what causes the packrat mentality, you know there is a gem in there somewhere, so we'll brute force it and just keep the whole trash heap.
Jeez, I sound like a homeless guy with a rusty shopping cart.
I think it's a misnomer in any case. He should have named himself BadMetaphorGuy. He can't even put together an analogy without 'like' or 'as'. Loser.
Also, someone happened to be capturing the session onto video? I don't think it was leeroy's screen that was being captured because when he ran in, the viewpoint didn't follow him (unless that's a camera feature in WoW). However, you see the mouse click on a bunch of the creatures inside before he ran in. I believe it was staged too. But that doesn't take away how funny it is.
Look. I'm trying to justify not buying a display that does 1080p. Every artifact you just described I see with my new 1080i capable Sony HDTV (aliasing big time, blurring during hard panning, not sure wtf "judder" is.) So now I can no longer revel in the fact that "1080p isn't THAT much better" and continue on my way to wishing that I got the latest and greatest. Except the latest and greatest was $2k more. So I guess I shouldn't feel that bad. Although I connected my laptop via the VGA connector and played a movie off the HDD and it looked WAY better than off of my "Progressive Scan" DVD player via Component connectors. I think that now is a good time to invest in an HTPC.
If I understand correctly, 1080p (or progressive) displays all scan lines with one pass at 30hz and 1080i (interlaced) displays even or odd scan lines with one pass at 60hz (giving an effective 30 hz). According to the HDTV Primer, it doesn't sound like 1080p gives you THAT much better performance than 1080i except to reduce flicker (I don't notice it in my new HDTV display that only goes to 1080i).
From the HDTV Primer:
What is 1080p?
The terms 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i were never formally defined. Yet they are universally understood. But 1080p is anything but unambiguous. There are at least three conflicting, very different meanings currently in common usage:
1. 1080 progressive at 30 frames per second is one of the 18 formats. This 1080p is (or could be) in use every day. The same applies to 1080p24.
2. If 1080p is to 1080i what 480p is to 480i then 1080p is 60 frames per second. Monitors that can do this are rare. There are no 1080p60 sources.
3. When the maker of a digital display finds a way to improve upon 1080i he will usually say his display does 1080p. The improvement is usually some way to reduce flicker.
You should refrain from using the term 1080p when referring to the receiver or the monitor interface since this usage is ambiguous. Instead use 1080p30, etc.
Usually 1080p just means flicker reduction. Some time in the future motion adaptive processing will likely become available. In this process a computer in the receiver turns a 30 frames/sec image into a true 60 frames/sec image (1080p60). The motion vectors (described below) are used for creating the missing frames. This is probably the best hope for eliminating the jumpiness that currently plagues 1080i. Monitors will need a 1080p60 interface format, but some monitors will benefit from 1080p48 or 1080p72. Rather than introducing 3 new monitor interface formats, the receivers will probably be integrated with the monitors, eliminating the monitor interface.
Funny, I just watched "Shindig" last night. In the dueling scene, they were outside but under the shade of some large trees. I don't know the rules for Vampires in Whedon's universe so I don't know if that supports your theory or not.
Now my thoughts: Whedon definitely made the "Companions" very alluring and mysterious. They had this great political power or is it an upper hand (in "Shindig" she rotorts to the guy who Mal beats in the duel "It doesn't work like that! You will never have the services of another Companion ever again" (big time paraphrase)? In the begining of that episode, she was in a filthy bar filled with shady folks sitting up on a stool looking very regal. One would think that would be very bad place for a hot upper class woman to be sitting, and she was very relaxed with no worries. Does this mean she's got some upper hand (super weapon, powers, just being a certified companion makes people lay off?) or does it mean that she is relaxed when Mal is around to protect her or does it mean she isn't very bright? Probably not the last one.
Anyway, she was an interesting character with a lot of potential for where it could go (I never thought about your suggestion before which goes to show that potential) and she will make a great Wonder Woman if Whedon decideds to cast her.
I don't know...is this hot? think not.
I agree with what you're saying. I hate NPCs, I hate talking to them, I hated the whole "training" aspect of Galaxies.
On that note, why not put money into hiring "professional" role players with special access to the game. Maybe a REAL storm trooper recruiter who tells you to goto X planet at X time where you meet a real person playing the storm trooper sargent and from that point on you go through basic training and end up on a star destroyer, etc, etc. Hire PEOPLE to interact with the players. That would be fun. Hell, outsource this work to India if you have too. Have a warehouse full of these people on PCs roaming the servers, role playing multiple "official" characters and interacting with the people in the game. I think if I were to go see Vader, and it was a Vader who actually interacted with me, it would be that much more exciting rather what they had in the current game.
Nooooooooo!
You think?
ah..I see....this must be the deleted dialog from the Vader cryout scene.
Vader (whining/breathing/jamesEarlJonesish): "Where's Padme?"
Emporer: Uh..you snapped her neck dude...she's dead...
Vader (screaming): NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You think?
I have run into the embossed/carbon copy scheme recently:
Buying beer on the golf course when I forgot cash. It's a life saver. The cart girl takes my card rolls a carbon copy of it, I sign, she gets tipped, I get tipsy and play like $hit. Great fun!