Region encoding is the biggest bullshit ever. I moved from Canada to Germany, brought my DVDs over, and my friends can't play them because of region encoding. Great. And they wonder why people download? Fuck you MPAA.
DVD copying has been trivial for many years now with DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter. I'm sure there's already other programs out there that are even easier to use.
Re:Non-Tech Percent of Web Traffic from Chrome
on
Google Chrome, Day 2
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I'm using Chrome right now, and so far, no issues. Actually, I really like it. When plugins are developed for Chrome, I can see myself using this as my primary browser. I did notice that gmail runs faster in Chrome. Also, the comic is quite entertaining for a geek...
Also, isn't there an anti-trust issue here? It seems to me that there was collusion between Bell and Telus, who both decided to charge exactly the same amount for incoming text messages, at around the same time. Are Bell and Telus the same company?
The real problem is that the Cellular companies are pretty much a monopoly. It's the Government's fault for not allowing foreign competition and allowing all the wireless companies to merge. This issue is a clear sign for the government that competition is badly needed and we have no one to blame except the moron officials who allow monopolies. Bell, Telus, and Rogers are in the business of making money, and they are able to do this by reducing service and increasing fees.
Also, the USD has dropped very quickly against the Euro. The Euro price hasn't gone up, so the companies are milking the difference as much as they can. Soon pressures will force the prices to become closer. The same is happening in Canada.
I think this IS in the public interest. With a unified service, you don't have to choose between the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB, etc, since they will all be on one service. Also, it's not a monopoly. It's competing against regular free (and shitty) radio. Think about it. After they merge, they can't just charge more money and reduce service. People will just cancel and listen to regular radio or their own music players. That's their competition. The biggest opposition against the merger was the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), which represents regular radio. Isn't it strange that the competition was against the merger? I think that's a good indication that this was a good move.
Seriously, how could the SSD manufacturers not know that one of Vista requirements were: Thrash the hard disk for no reason at some random point in time yielding no apparent benefits.
This technology is already implemented in Germany. When you drive through a city, you will see parking signs with the the number of spaces left in a given parking lot. I don't drive here (in Germany), so I don't even know how useful it actually is.
I'm using Vista, and it's great! It's missing a few features that XP had that I wish Vista had, such as copying and moving files in a reasonable amount of time... Seriously, if I wasn't so lazy, I would upgrade to XP from this pre-installed Vista crap... What a piece of garbage... What kind of OS has trouble moving and copying files!? Bullshit...
If you don't let them merge, both might go under, and you will have no commercial-free radio at all. Think about this scenario: Suppose they merge and obtain this "monopoly" and raise their prices by 2-fold. Will people be forced to pay up? No. They will probably lose 90% of their subscribers because they will just cancel and go back to listening to shitty radio, or their MP3 players. Now think of what will happen when they lower their prices because by merging, they will lower their costs per subscriber. More people will switch to satellite radio, and the shitty terrestrial stations will be losing listeners like crazy. They will be forced to improve their programming or go bankrupt. Now this is a win-win situation in my eyes. Radio is shit, and we need satellite to survive to force them to improve.
I think this is a pretty big concern. We have been told to buy these bulbs, but really not instructed on how to safely dispose of them. Most people don't even know that there's anything dangerous inside these bulbs, and will probably throw them away without even knowing about it. This just damages our environment even further, regardless of how small it is. The first time I bought one of these, I noticed on the packaging that that they contained mercury. When one of them burned out, I was quite shocked that I could not find any information on where to dispose of it. This is a real failure with our government, which should force companies to somehow properly dispose of hazardous products. You can't expect companies to do it. Corporations are designed to make as much money as possible, so it's reasonable to expect that they will not incur the cost of disposal if they don't have to. I eventually took it to the hazardous waste disposal site, but I'm not even sure if they dispose of things properly.
It was a long time ago since I've used IE as my main browser. I think Yahoo messenger installs a toolbar or two. I wouldn't be surprised if Real Player installed a toolbar. Maybe the DivX codec. It's usually these small tools and programs I install that put all this crap on. I don't think it's too inconceivable to understand how this happens to non-techies. In the recent years, I now only stick to open source software, and it works without any bullshit.
Or not allowing any website or program to install all these components and toolbars onto your browser... The main reason for me switching to Firefox was that it wouldn't get cluttered with all these bullshit toolbars (and tabbed browsing of course). I'm not even sure how they get there, but they always do, and it pisses me off. Firefox only has components that I install myself. I'm never greeted with a new toolbar.
So you think that Beethoven and Bach grew up learning music for money? I think they got paid as a result of being great composers. They would have been great composers whether they got paid or not.
The writer of this article has his head up his ass. The only thing troubled are the big music companies. This guy claims that people will just stop making music because it will no longer be profitable... Is that why Bach and Beethoven wrote music? What will stop is the creation of music for profit, like the Britney Spears and American Idol singers. Music is way overpriced anyway. $10 or $15 for a CD is not reasonable (particularly in poorer countries, where legit CDs are the same price as in the west). The market will choose what the correct price of music is. Not the record companies. If that means the end of the Britney Spears, then I think we're better off. I predict that when the big record companies finally collapse, we will see more diversity in music at a lower price. I don't care if this means the end of rich music execs and millionaire pop stars.
Maybe this is a good thing. I don't want my neighbour leeching my wireless internet AND my wireless power! Besides, I think a practical application of this would be as a laptop dock with no electrical connection. Place your laptop on the charging pad, and your laptop will start charging without having to plug in!
I already have. I live in a small town and my commute is 9 minutes. But every time I go to Toronto to visit family, traffic on the freeway there is death...
That's something I would gladly give up if it meant not sitting in traffic for hours because all the moron drivers are ogling the accident on the other side of the freeway. Automated driving will decrease accidents, travel time, and save on gas. Imagine if you had to pay only $10/month on insurance, and you could drink yourself silly at the bar and have your car drive you home. Sure, going 100mph on the interstate in Arizona is fun, but traffic is not.
Good point. My company is a software development house, which uses everything Microsoft (even Visual SourceSafe!!!). And my company hasn't even considered moving anyone to Vista. Unfortunately, I got downgraded to Office 2007...
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Region encoding is the biggest bullshit ever. I moved from Canada to Germany, brought my DVDs over, and my friends can't play them because of region encoding. Great. And they wonder why people download? Fuck you MPAA.
DVD copying has been trivial for many years now with DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter. I'm sure there's already other programs out there that are even easier to use.
I'm using Chrome right now, and so far, no issues. Actually, I really like it. When plugins are developed for Chrome, I can see myself using this as my primary browser. I did notice that gmail runs faster in Chrome. Also, the comic is quite entertaining for a geek...
If this is just a trademark, then what's the big deal? Everyone will just use another name.
Also, isn't there an anti-trust issue here? It seems to me that there was collusion between Bell and Telus, who both decided to charge exactly the same amount for incoming text messages, at around the same time. Are Bell and Telus the same company?
The real problem is that the Cellular companies are pretty much a monopoly. It's the Government's fault for not allowing foreign competition and allowing all the wireless companies to merge. This issue is a clear sign for the government that competition is badly needed and we have no one to blame except the moron officials who allow monopolies. Bell, Telus, and Rogers are in the business of making money, and they are able to do this by reducing service and increasing fees.
English is racing against the United States. Who's winning though?
Also, the USD has dropped very quickly against the Euro. The Euro price hasn't gone up, so the companies are milking the difference as much as they can. Soon pressures will force the prices to become closer. The same is happening in Canada.
I didn't know we were at war with the country Critical Thinking. Are we winning?
I think this IS in the public interest. With a unified service, you don't have to choose between the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB, etc, since they will all be on one service. Also, it's not a monopoly. It's competing against regular free (and shitty) radio. Think about it. After they merge, they can't just charge more money and reduce service. People will just cancel and listen to regular radio or their own music players. That's their competition. The biggest opposition against the merger was the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), which represents regular radio. Isn't it strange that the competition was against the merger? I think that's a good indication that this was a good move.
I bet their customers aren't chanting "Yahoo!" over this.
Seriously, how could the SSD manufacturers not know that one of Vista requirements were: Thrash the hard disk for no reason at some random point in time yielding no apparent benefits.
This technology is already implemented in Germany. When you drive through a city, you will see parking signs with the the number of spaces left in a given parking lot. I don't drive here (in Germany), so I don't even know how useful it actually is.
In Soviet America, Internet surfs you!
I'm using Vista, and it's great! It's missing a few features that XP had that I wish Vista had, such as copying and moving files in a reasonable amount of time... Seriously, if I wasn't so lazy, I would upgrade to XP from this pre-installed Vista crap... What a piece of garbage... What kind of OS has trouble moving and copying files!? Bullshit...
If you don't let them merge, both might go under, and you will have no commercial-free radio at all. Think about this scenario: Suppose they merge and obtain this "monopoly" and raise their prices by 2-fold. Will people be forced to pay up? No. They will probably lose 90% of their subscribers because they will just cancel and go back to listening to shitty radio, or their MP3 players. Now think of what will happen when they lower their prices because by merging, they will lower their costs per subscriber. More people will switch to satellite radio, and the shitty terrestrial stations will be losing listeners like crazy. They will be forced to improve their programming or go bankrupt. Now this is a win-win situation in my eyes. Radio is shit, and we need satellite to survive to force them to improve.
I think this is a pretty big concern. We have been told to buy these bulbs, but really not instructed on how to safely dispose of them. Most people don't even know that there's anything dangerous inside these bulbs, and will probably throw them away without even knowing about it. This just damages our environment even further, regardless of how small it is. The first time I bought one of these, I noticed on the packaging that that they contained mercury. When one of them burned out, I was quite shocked that I could not find any information on where to dispose of it. This is a real failure with our government, which should force companies to somehow properly dispose of hazardous products. You can't expect companies to do it. Corporations are designed to make as much money as possible, so it's reasonable to expect that they will not incur the cost of disposal if they don't have to. I eventually took it to the hazardous waste disposal site, but I'm not even sure if they dispose of things properly.
It was a long time ago since I've used IE as my main browser. I think Yahoo messenger installs a toolbar or two. I wouldn't be surprised if Real Player installed a toolbar. Maybe the DivX codec. It's usually these small tools and programs I install that put all this crap on. I don't think it's too inconceivable to understand how this happens to non-techies. In the recent years, I now only stick to open source software, and it works without any bullshit.
Or not allowing any website or program to install all these components and toolbars onto your browser... The main reason for me switching to Firefox was that it wouldn't get cluttered with all these bullshit toolbars (and tabbed browsing of course). I'm not even sure how they get there, but they always do, and it pisses me off. Firefox only has components that I install myself. I'm never greeted with a new toolbar.
So you think that Beethoven and Bach grew up learning music for money? I think they got paid as a result of being great composers. They would have been great composers whether they got paid or not.
The writer of this article has his head up his ass. The only thing troubled are the big music companies. This guy claims that people will just stop making music because it will no longer be profitable... Is that why Bach and Beethoven wrote music? What will stop is the creation of music for profit, like the Britney Spears and American Idol singers. Music is way overpriced anyway. $10 or $15 for a CD is not reasonable (particularly in poorer countries, where legit CDs are the same price as in the west). The market will choose what the correct price of music is. Not the record companies. If that means the end of the Britney Spears, then I think we're better off. I predict that when the big record companies finally collapse, we will see more diversity in music at a lower price. I don't care if this means the end of rich music execs and millionaire pop stars.
Maybe this is a good thing. I don't want my neighbour leeching my wireless internet AND my wireless power! Besides, I think a practical application of this would be as a laptop dock with no electrical connection. Place your laptop on the charging pad, and your laptop will start charging without having to plug in!
I already have. I live in a small town and my commute is 9 minutes. But every time I go to Toronto to visit family, traffic on the freeway there is death...
That's something I would gladly give up if it meant not sitting in traffic for hours because all the moron drivers are ogling the accident on the other side of the freeway. Automated driving will decrease accidents, travel time, and save on gas. Imagine if you had to pay only $10/month on insurance, and you could drink yourself silly at the bar and have your car drive you home. Sure, going 100mph on the interstate in Arizona is fun, but traffic is not.
Good point. My company is a software development house, which uses everything Microsoft (even Visual SourceSafe!!!). And my company hasn't even considered moving anyone to Vista. Unfortunately, I got downgraded to Office 2007...