I almost want them to sell show-based subscriptions. Or allow me to donate money to the show balance.
I am worried that the fact that I religiously watch a few particular shows is not counted in the
rating of the show and that might lead it to die. Perhaps if people could pay for subscriptions,
we could have saved Firefly before it got canceled!
Of course I would probably want a view without ads if I am going to pay money for a subscription...
If you're going to "adjust" your objective findings, based on some bizarre assumption that a certain percentage of people will lie about file sharing, then why do a survey at all if not to create mathematical/sciency-sounding smoke and mirrors?
If my memory serves, statisticians have invented a way to work around a "biased" (i.e. embarrassing) question where people are likely to lie. The system is very simple -- you ask the recipient to flip a coin and change their answer depending on the outcome. That allows you to extract the correct population mean (since the error is known to be 50%), but you can't tell what the true answer of the surveyed person is. If anyone in that company had taken a course of statistics (and wanted right answers), they could easily work around the "people lie about file-sharing" problem.
The right thing for Drew to do is shut the fuck up, be grateful for a loophole in the law, change her name, and move far away.
I was going to moderate here, but you pushed me to answer. Mind you, I think this woman should be punished. But you are still wrong. There is no loophole in the law. She was charged for some bullshit crime that was at best tangentially related to what she actually did (violating TOS). Someone who didn't do anything bad (i.e. practical joke with no bad consequences) could be charged for the same thing.
If we want her to go to jail (which she should) we should find a law that she violated. Violating TOS and misrepresenting yourself online is not a jail-able crime, I would hope. If what she did is not a crime, perhaps we should make it a crime, but in that case she will walk.
This is the cost of doing business with eBay, and is a major reason why eBay is on the decline.
eBay is on decline? Has netcraft confirmed it? If you are selling something you basically have two venues
to do so -- eBay or Amazon. That's where people go first and that's what google returns. Where do you buy
things -- craigslist?? I don't like eBay, but it is both cheaper to buy there and there is plenty of stuff
simply unavailable outside of eBay. And once you are stuck with eBay you are stuck with paypal which is now fully
integrated.
Tesla Motors lives off government money and makes toys. Funding research to make toys is one thing, but now we are funding manufacturers.
What are you talking about?? Tesla Motors does not live off government money. GM and AIG do. Tesla Motors borrowed money from the government. And now that it is turning profits the chances of it paying the money back are higher than ever. That's what bailout should do -- lend money to companies that are viable and will even pay that money back! (As opposed to the companies that will use up the money and go bankrupt (GM) or continue sucking money down without being useful (AIG)).
I would be content with just having the psych treatment. Why this person decided to do this is kind of important.
No, no, no. He might be in need of a psych. treatment, but maybe so are you for thinking he should be
forced into one by a judge. There is no crime in pushing the limits of the law, just in breaking the law!
If he didn't break the law he should be left the fuck alone. Regardless of how sick he is. How are you
justifying what you just wrote??
Make the punishment fit the crime.
You can start by telling me what his crime is. Keeping in mind that disgusting you or me is not a crime.
Hell, I'd even be cool with more commercials in their shows to keep it free for me.
I, however, would rather pay than have even more commercials. They should really offer a choice as
long as they don't expect both a pay and commercials. I would pay a monthly fee or maybe per
episode subscription (as long as I can re-watch it) if I could remove the commercials and thus
support a good service. I had always wondered if the revenue from online adverts is much lower than
that from TV commercials? I hope they start monitoring the viewership closely and maybe consider
the subscription income when dropping TV shows? I am concerned that me watching a few shows
religiously does not reflect in their publicly known ratings.
Fox have now acknowledged their mistake in cancelling Firefly
Sadly, it is not all about the quality of the show. Firefly is a much, much better show than Dollhouse. But... Dollhouse is a LOT cheaper to make. I've seen discussions about how cheap it is (and that apparently it was kept on the assumption that the costs would lowered further). Firefly, however, did not skimp on special effects (I think I remember reading that each episode cost at least 1M). Fox could have a dozen shows like Dollhouse on the budget of Firefly and that is what they are clearly doing.
Personally, I stopped watching it halfway through the pilot because I thought it was cheesy and stupid
Consider giving it another chance - try to get through 2 or 3 episodes and see if you reconsider. I've had people tell me that for the first episode or two they thought "WTF??" and then they got into it. I have also read that Whedon wanted to open with some other episode (possibly #3, not sure) but instead was forced to write a more "action-packed" pilot which is what you saw. It was never meant to be the pilot or possibly not even meant to be an episode at all.
And no, I won't post any links.:) Go find them yourselves you pervs.
And now I am not going to moderate here... Tell me - how are people who use personal services "pervs"? Prostitution
is (mostly) illegal in US, but how does that make someone who's paying for sex with a consenting adult a pervert??
Are you kidding? Starcraft is remembered more for its multiplayer than for its story.
Perhaps by you. I have played multi-player SC, but except for the fact that it was fun I can't
remember anything else.
But I'll remember the story for a long time. Heck, my laptop's name is Tassadar!
Look, you open up a public forum and you're going to hear horror stories about each major carrier and stories of wonderful service about each major carrier. Because it's all just a bunch of random personal anecdotes, it doesn't mean anything.
I disagree. I think this actually goes well beyond random anecdotes and there is a clear pattern. Over many, many years, USPS has never lost a piece of mail or a package (except for a few rebate letters, btw, but I am pretty sure these are suspect). Not for me, not for anyone in my family, not for anyone I know.
On top of that, my father runs a business that involves mailing a lot of books and software all over the world and, again, domestically USPS never loses anything. FedEx and USPS aren't quite so cool - they might or might not lose your package. Although these are personal anecdotes, I think the combined number of data points runs into many, many thousands.
I find it funny how much a penis really bothers people.
Indeed. I have read several reviews before seeing the movie and they all spent a full paragraph talking about blue swinging schlongs throughout the movie. I expected that Dr. Manhattan had bludgeoned several people with his penis, or that it had some speaking scenes. In reality there are a couple of shots that briefly show full frontal nudity. Maybe reviewers were shown some un-edited version of the movie?
Talk about scraping the bottom for story submissions. Are we going to start getting updates to see whether Marley & Me was worth it too?
I am going to assume that you are (somewhat) serious despite the Funny mods. My understanding is that this movie is a very unique experiment because it is
R-rated unlike just about any other superhero movie (Spiderman, X-Men, etc.)
Almost 3 hours unlike most movies out there (limits the # of showtimes per day in a theater)
Has no A-star actors - I can't think of any other 100M+ blockbuster that has no major star in it
Is based on a relatively obscure cult comic (Most people have at least heard of Hulk or Spiderman)
If this movie is deemed a success, that gives hopes for just about any other comic/story to become a film. If it is deemed a failure (or moderate success), all we are going to see is Keanu Reeves in Spiderman VIII.
Every time this comes up I feel the need to correct it. IANAL, but I think I understand the difference.
RIAA is bringing civil suits against all those victims. Innocent until proven guilty motto only applies to criminal lawsuits. A civil lawsuit is a 50/50 decision and victory is handed to the party that shows to be at least 51% in the right. Regardless of whether two different parties are people, or one of the parties is big and evil corporation.
And finally the Democrats held Congress for two years; did anything improve? Nope.
You might recall that Democrats did not actually hold Congress majority. They had a majority
in the House and they essentially had nothing on Congress (50+1 indep is NOT majority).
My impression was that republicans were able to stop just about everything Democrats tried
pretty easily, because they had a bare majority assuming not a single person defected.
Not that I am defending Democrats, but I've seen some attempts to improve things which were
easily blocked.
or a start it's not anonymous by it's very nature - they WANT you to contact them and know who they are.
You would think so... many of them advertise as referrers (have the damn referrer ID in the link), so they don't want you to contact them, just to click and pass their mostly anonymous referrer ID to the seller.
And then there's the stock pump and dump schemes that don't want you to contact them.
*continues to use DVD Shrink for free anyway since it has no DRM*
You are missing the point of the lawsuit. You do know that DVDShrink is no
longer being developed or hosted due to the legal threat to the authors?
(DMCA or some such).
I am assuming that if the lawsuit is successful, maybe DVDShrink authors will
come out of the hiding?
many people don't want to use a crappy (as many phone cameras are) phone camera to take a picture and then download it via a USB cable into their computer,
You are absolutely correct. In addition, many people don't want to find a cable that would transfer this data (I bought my phone specifically because it has a proper mini-USB port, but not all do) and many people don't want to pay $20-$40 for a software that lets you talk to your phone, because it would *not* show up as a USB device...
Take movie players (DVD, BluRay, whatever). Does any of those allow you to copy your discs? No. Would you like to? Sure.
Exactly! Or, to pick something less arcane, do DVD players allow me to skip DVD commercials and anti-copy warning? Also, no.
Is there some DVD seal of approval that is withheld if my DVD doesn't say (X) when I press fast forward during some commercials and all of the "though shalt not infringe" warnings??
And is there a law that goods/services need to be sold at razor thin margins? I am as pissed off as the next guy that they rob parents using teenager fad (my sister) of sending 10 messages per minute... but the market price is set by demand...?
Next thing you'll tell me is that it does not cost almost $1.99 to send that ringtone to my phone?
My opinion of J. K. Rowling used to be highly favorable. It has changed due to her pursuit of this mean-spirited lawsuit.
I find it interesting that you seem more incensed about this than about, say, RIAA legal tactics (which I could tell from your
other posts you feel strongly about). Does the fact that there are other derivative works that were published for profit and not sued by J.K.Rowling not soften your opinion at all? She wasn't out for the money, either, although she got these 6750 as an award.
I am curious what is it that makes you so mad about this case. I am not convinced of this, but even assuming that the judge and J.K.Rowling were in fact wrong, all that happened is that she prevented a publication of one Harry Potter reference book (not the first) that she felt went too far in copying her work.
You should have considered doing a chargeback on your credit card for the extra amounts. They are not allowed to increase your services without a notification and rather than argue with them - I have gotten a charge-back honored even in a less obvious situation (where formally the service provider was correct, but I felt that they have been extremely and purposely misleading in their offer).
It's a double win - you get your money back and the service provider/vendor feels the pinch.
Slashdot Mirror
I almost want them to sell show-based subscriptions. Or allow me to donate money to the show balance. I am worried that the fact that I religiously watch a few particular shows is not counted in the rating of the show and that might lead it to die. Perhaps if people could pay for subscriptions, we could have saved Firefly before it got canceled!
Of course I would probably want a view without ads if I am going to pay money for a subscription...
If my memory serves, statisticians have invented a way to work around a "biased" (i.e. embarrassing) question where people are likely to lie. The system is very simple -- you ask the recipient to flip a coin and change their answer depending on the outcome. That allows you to extract the correct population mean (since the error is known to be 50%), but you can't tell what the true answer of the surveyed person is. If anyone in that company had taken a course of statistics (and wanted right answers), they could easily work around the "people lie about file-sharing" problem.
I was going to moderate here, but you pushed me to answer. Mind you, I think this woman should be punished. But you are still wrong. There is no loophole in the law. She was charged for some bullshit crime that was at best tangentially related to what she actually did (violating TOS). Someone who didn't do anything bad (i.e. practical joke with no bad consequences) could be charged for the same thing.
If we want her to go to jail (which she should) we should find a law that she violated. Violating TOS and misrepresenting yourself online is not a jail-able crime, I would hope. If what she did is not a crime, perhaps we should make it a crime, but in that case she will walk.
eBay is on decline? Has netcraft confirmed it? If you are selling something you basically have two venues to do so -- eBay or Amazon. That's where people go first and that's what google returns. Where do you buy things -- craigslist?? I don't like eBay, but it is both cheaper to buy there and there is plenty of stuff simply unavailable outside of eBay. And once you are stuck with eBay you are stuck with paypal which is now fully integrated.
What are you talking about?? Tesla Motors does not live off government money. GM and AIG do. Tesla Motors borrowed money from the government. And now that it is turning profits the chances of it paying the money back are higher than ever. That's what bailout should do -- lend money to companies that are viable and will even pay that money back! (As opposed to the companies that will use up the money and go bankrupt (GM) or continue sucking money down without being useful (AIG)).
No, no, no. He might be in need of a psych. treatment, but maybe so are you for thinking he should be forced into one by a judge. There is no crime in pushing the limits of the law, just in breaking the law! If he didn't break the law he should be left the fuck alone. Regardless of how sick he is. How are you justifying what you just wrote??
Make the punishment fit the crime.
You can start by telling me what his crime is. Keeping in mind that disgusting you or me is not a crime.
I, however, would rather pay than have even more commercials. They should really offer a choice as long as they don't expect both a pay and commercials. I would pay a monthly fee or maybe per episode subscription (as long as I can re-watch it) if I could remove the commercials and thus support a good service.
I had always wondered if the revenue from online adverts is much lower than that from TV commercials? I hope they start monitoring the viewership closely and maybe consider the subscription income when dropping TV shows? I am concerned that me watching a few shows religiously does not reflect in their publicly known ratings.
Fox have now acknowledged their mistake in cancelling Firefly
Sadly, it is not all about the quality of the show. Firefly is a much, much better show than Dollhouse. But... Dollhouse is a LOT cheaper to make. I've seen discussions about how cheap it is (and that apparently it was kept on the assumption that the costs would lowered further). Firefly, however, did not skimp on special effects (I think I remember reading that each episode cost at least 1M). Fox could have a dozen shows like Dollhouse on the budget of Firefly and that is what they are clearly doing.
Personally, I stopped watching it halfway through the pilot because I thought it was cheesy and stupid
Consider giving it another chance - try to get through 2 or 3 episodes and see if you reconsider. I've had people tell me that for the first episode or two they thought "WTF??" and then they got into it. I have also read that Whedon wanted to open with some other episode (possibly #3, not sure) but instead was forced to write a more "action-packed" pilot which is what you saw. It was never meant to be the pilot or possibly not even meant to be an episode at all.
And now I am not going to moderate here... Tell me - how are people who use personal services "pervs"? Prostitution is (mostly) illegal in US, but how does that make someone who's paying for sex with a consenting adult a pervert??
Perhaps by you. I have played multi-player SC, but except for the fact that it was fun I can't remember anything else.
But I'll remember the story for a long time. Heck, my laptop's name is Tassadar!
I know I will begin my slide towards the circle of hell reserved for the grammar Nazis by doing this...
But it's "Hear, hear!"
I disagree. I think this actually goes well beyond random anecdotes and there is a clear pattern. Over many, many years, USPS has never lost a piece of mail or a package (except for a few rebate letters, btw, but I am pretty sure these are suspect). Not for me, not for anyone in my family, not for anyone I know.
On top of that, my father runs a business that involves mailing a lot of books and software all over the world and, again, domestically USPS never loses anything. FedEx and USPS aren't quite so cool - they might or might not lose your package. Although these are personal anecdotes, I think the combined number of data points runs into many, many thousands.
Indeed. I have read several reviews before seeing the movie and they all spent a full paragraph talking about blue swinging schlongs throughout the movie. I expected that Dr. Manhattan had bludgeoned several people with his penis, or that it had some speaking scenes. In reality there are a couple of shots that briefly show full frontal nudity. Maybe reviewers were shown some un-edited version of the movie?
I am going to assume that you are (somewhat) serious despite the Funny mods. My understanding is that this movie is a very unique experiment because it is
If this movie is deemed a success, that gives hopes for just about any other comic/story to become a film. If it is deemed a failure (or moderate success), all we are going to see is Keanu Reeves in Spiderman VIII.
Every time this comes up I feel the need to correct it. IANAL, but I think I understand the difference.
RIAA is bringing civil suits against all those victims. Innocent until proven guilty motto only applies to criminal lawsuits. A civil lawsuit is a 50/50 decision and victory is handed to the party that shows to be at least 51% in the right. Regardless of whether two different parties are people, or one of the parties is big and evil corporation.
You might recall that Democrats did not actually hold Congress majority. They had a majority in the House and they essentially had nothing on Congress (50+1 indep is NOT majority). My impression was that republicans were able to stop just about everything Democrats tried pretty easily, because they had a bare majority assuming not a single person defected.
Not that I am defending Democrats, but I've seen some attempts to improve things which were easily blocked.
You would think so... many of them advertise as referrers (have the damn referrer ID in the link), so they don't want you to contact them, just to click and pass their mostly anonymous referrer ID to the seller.
And then there's the stock pump and dump schemes that don't want you to contact them.
You are missing the point of the lawsuit. You do know that DVDShrink is no longer being developed or hosted due to the legal threat to the authors? (DMCA or some such).
I am assuming that if the lawsuit is successful, maybe DVDShrink authors will come out of the hiding?
You are absolutely correct. In addition, many people don't want to find a cable that would transfer this data (I bought my phone specifically because it has a proper mini-USB port, but not all do) and many people don't want to pay $20-$40 for a software that lets you talk to your phone, because it would *not* show up as a USB device...
Exactly! Or, to pick something less arcane, do DVD players allow me to skip DVD commercials and anti-copy warning? Also, no. Is there some DVD seal of approval that is withheld if my DVD doesn't say (X) when I press fast forward during some commercials and all of the "though shalt not infringe" warnings??
And is there a law that goods/services need to be sold at razor thin margins? I am as pissed off as the next guy that they rob parents using teenager fad (my sister) of sending 10 messages per minute... but the market price is set by demand...?
Next thing you'll tell me is that it does not cost almost $1.99 to send that ringtone to my phone?
I find it interesting that you seem more incensed about this than about, say, RIAA legal tactics (which I could tell from your other posts you feel strongly about). Does the fact that there are other derivative works that were published for profit and not sued by J.K.Rowling not soften your opinion at all? She wasn't out for the money, either, although she got these 6750 as an award.
I am curious what is it that makes you so mad about this case. I am not convinced of this, but even assuming that the judge and J.K.Rowling were in fact wrong, all that happened is that she prevented a publication of one Harry Potter reference book (not the first) that she felt went too far in copying her work.
That was the most concise explanation of Obama's nomination. We seem to be severely lacking education...
It's a double win - you get your money back and the service provider/vendor feels the pinch.