Is there a working PCjr anywhere in the world today? I know there are working Commodore 64s, for example, but is there a working PCjr anywhere in America right now?
(I know, silly question, but think of it. I have a 20-year TV that shows no sign of stopping. Is there a working PCjr anywhere? It's not like it was ever beloved like the C64 or an Apple II...so did anyone take care of one?)
"All 7 and we'll watch them fall
They stand in the way of love
And we will smoke them all
With an intellect and a savoir-faire
No one in the whole universe
Will ever compare
I am yours now and u are mine
And together we'll love through
All space and time, so don't cry
One day all 7 will die"
I can understand why Prince would be tempted to attack the P2P culture. As far back as the early 90s, he was one of the most bootlegged artists around. Seriously- I have hundreds of live shows, along with a ton of unreleased songs, on my hard drive. At least 20% of my 60 GB iPod is made up of Prince music, both released and unreleased. If all you know Prince for is Purple Rain, you're missing out on an artist with a passion for jazz and funk- he's James Brown and Miles Davis put together with a better voice. I've been grooving to his Vegas 3121 concerts and his concert at Montreux for the last few months, and they are SWEET.
But this solution is just nuts. Killing the Pirate Bay and YouTubers isn't going to stop the flow of bootleg tracks. When Prince was a Warner Brothers artist and downloading free music was only a Cory Doctorow dream, the problem was just as bad.
When he went on his own, some of his solutions were laughably bad. He sold "Crystal Ball", a 4-CD set, directly to his fans; however, once he had their money, he released the same set (minus the soundtrack to his ballet, which wasn't really why anyone bought the set) to retailers at a lower price, then took up to a year to mail out the copies to the fans who bought them first. His NPG Music Club cost fans hundreds of dollars for very little benefit over the life of the club- 12 "radio shows" that hinted at the vast material in his vaults, one acoustic CD, and preferrential seating at concerts. When he then decided to sell albums directly to fans (the little-known Chocolate Invasion was one), he encoded them in low bit-rate DRM'd Windows Media.
I love the music that Prince has made over the years, and I want to pay him for that music. All he'd have to do is hook up with iTunes or Amazon.com and sell high-bit DRM-free MP3s, and he'd be raking in great money. Does he need my money? Of course not; he's one of the richest men in the world. But the best reason for paying an artist isn't because the MPAA or the RIAA forces you to; it's because you want to show respect and thank an artist that has added something to your life. I want to thank Prince by paying him some money. I hope he realizes this someday.
PS- if you want to hear some GREAT Prince music, try hunting down the 3121 show from 12/2/06, the Small Club show from 8/18/88, the Montreux Jazz Festival show from 6/16/07, the Paisley Park show with Miles Davis from 12/31/87, or the Fillmore show from San Francisco from 2/14/04.
One other way to save money is to buy an older edition of a math book. It's not as if there's been great advances in trig or algebra over the last ten years, and you can sometimes get a used math book that might be an edition or two behind for only a few books. Use that extra money to get the solutions manual.
Someone else said it here, but it bears repeating: Do as many problems as you can stomach. For the type of math you're trying to relearn, there's no better learning method than trying as many problems as you can. And stretch yourself by doing the harder problems that usually come at the end of the problems list.
I wish the original poster much luck in reaching his goal.
How the heck did this get modded as insightful? This is a positively xenophobic interpretation of Muslims and Islam.
I've worked with many Muslims over the years. I've enjoyed working with them as much as I enjoy working with anyone. In *my* country, Muslims are certainly welcome. Are there murderous, extremist Muslims out there? Sure. And there's murderous, extremist people in every religion. (For example, see whitehouse.gov.)
He did have his own music store for a while- NPGMusicClub.com. Problem was, he wasn't very good at it. First, he tried to sell the 4-CD set Crystal Ball, but ended up shipping the set very late, and he released it to stores at a lower price before sending it to the customers who pre-ordered it at a higher price. At times, he had a yearly fee of $100 for various goodies such as concert pre-orders and exclusive CDs. Finally, he ditched all that and sold DRM-laden files. In the end, he shut the store down.
Interesting note- Prince is one of the most bootlegged artists I've ever seen. I have GIGS of live shows on my hard drive; his live shows are amazing. His aftershows are legendary. I'd love to see him sell those recordings through eMusic or in some sort of DRM-free format. I'd rebuy whatever I own just to make sure he got paid for music I've enjoyed throughout my life (I'm a big Prince fan).
Now if only I knew how to get the newspaper in the US...
I wonder if the death of the small CD retailer has had a larger effect on CD sales. Just about every used CD shop I've ever shopped at are gone or have had to expand the line of merchandise they carry. And mid-level retailers are gone too. I went to the Monmouth Mall in NJ the other day, and noticed that there was no music retailer in there anymore. If I want a CD, I have to purchase it at a big-box retailer like Circuit City, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or Target, or buy it from an online retailer.
With the death of the small retailers has come the disappearance of the used CD market. In the pre-Internet days, I wanted cheaper used CDs instead of new CDs. Now, I can't buy used CDs in any store near me, and I know that if I don't like the CD, I can only get rid of it on eBay.
I second the Canon suggestion. I get a notice when the tank is low, but I can print until the tank runs out. And the sensor is accurate, at least from an eyeball perspective. Since I can see how much ink is left, I can wait until the tank is empty before changing it.
I've lost a few hours fixing the computers of friends who installed BearShare and were suddenly snowed in with adware/spyware/malware. I'm no RIAA supporter, but even a broken clock's right twice a day.
In my experience, the video iPod is much tougher to scratch. Maybe it's the soft case that it comes in, maybe it's a tougher case, but after a few weeks with this thing in my shirt pocket, it's virtually scratch-free except for a few small scratches on its back. In comparison, my 4G iPod was badly scratched after only a few days. Maybe Apple is getting its act together.
Even if you're never going to use the video features, the extended battery life, bigger capacity, clearer screen, and tougher housing make it an easy choice for those who use their iPods frequently over the nano and photo models.
I just replaced a keyboard because I dripped soy sauce onto it, and the sauce gelled underneath the keys, getting everything gummy.
Since I eat at my desk quite a bit, I needed to figure out a way to keep this from happening again. Answer? Wireless keyboard. Now I can move the keyboard before I eat.
Maybe the RIAA has decided that, since we've all downloaded the *good* music, they're just going to create crappy pop syrup that no person with two ears will want on his hard drive. If they put enough Ashlee Simpson records out, eventually the downloaders will give up looking new music, and the industry can go back to overcharging for silver platters with decent music.
Secret Industry Memo From: RIAA To: All artists
Don't forget- Every time a crappy song is played on the radio, a downloader goes to hell. So record CRAP!
Actually, EA looked into the exclusive with the NFL long before it was announced that ESPN NFL 2k5 was going to ship with the $19.95 price point. If anything, that move may have prompted the NFL to sign with EA (rather than vice versa), as a price war for video game products is not seen as good for their business.
Given that one of their "Best Fall Software Downloads" was riddled with spyware (as I found out the hard way!), I'm all for this. Any major magazine recommending vendors of malware will never get my attention again.
A tech support person with an understanding of his customers? Who are you trying to fool?:)
Actually, I recently did what one of your customers did. I downloaded a program that PC Magazine had recommended without googling the company first. Result? My system was loaded with spyware. 6 hours to fix. It's fixed now, but I was lucky- I caught the infection fast. At the same time, my ISP throttled my connection (a decision I have *no* problem with), so I had to spend an hour on hold with tech support and then another 6 hours waiting for a security rep to call me back to verify I had removed the spyware.
Now, I'm patient. I knew all of this would take time, and that helped me deal with it. But if I was a non-techie just trying to get my e-mail up and running, I can't say I wouldn't just reformat the whole thing.
Good luck with your business, although if you're as friendly with your customers as you seem to be, I doubt you'll need the luck. And if you're in Ocean County in Jersey, let me know- I might know some clients!
Bloat-free, great mp3 tagging features, easy to work with, and I can use all sorts of formats (except iTunes, but that's fixed with a quick CD burn-and-rip). There's no skins to speak of, but who really needs skins to listen to music? All I want is something that works without hogging every last bit of system resources.
Best of luck to the remaining WinAMP team. Sounds like a difficult environment, even if they're not dead. Everybody wants a music store in addition to a media player; I'm imagining a faceless suit popping in every day, asking, "Is it done yet? Is it? Time's a wasting!"
Yeah, you know, God forbid we actually count the farking votes or something...
Over 100,000 people in Ohio just got told, "Hey- you know that vote you submitted? Screw you! Thanks for playing!"
But hey, as long as there's no protracted fight, all's okay, right?
I remember an America that used to fight for the things worth fighting for. Now, if it doesn't make for good TV, screw it. Sigh...
And I'd be happy to concede the election to Bush if all of the votes were counted. I'd be disappointed, but I do believe in the democratic process. But if we're not even going to count the votes...and let Diebold screw with the election tallys...and ignore the people's votes, counting more on computer models...why bother?
Somewhere out there is the America I want to belong to. This one doesn't feel right anymore.
Went to a Wawa (it's a Philly area convenience store) to buy a sandwich for me and my wife. Total was $11, I have $15 in the account from an eBay auction I sold last week.
Selected debit- transaction denied. Selected debit again- transaction denied. Selected credit- this time it went through. (Otherwise I was just going to pay cash.)
When I checked my account when I got home, the balance was negative- they double-debited the transaction.
Now, I'm not worried- even my bank has made an error or two like this, and a call to customer service tomorrow should clear things up. And even if it doesn't, it's $11.
But I do feel very bad tonight for people depending on the money in that account. They're in a lot of trouble tonight.
Exactly the point I was going to make. Sure, the PS@ is inferior to a good DVD player. But sometimes, that's not enough.
My wife hates my home theater. She wants something simple. So we use the PS2 as a DVD and game machine, while the old DVD player collects dust somewhere else. It's a compromise that I'm happy with; it's not like the other DVD player was that much better, and now I get to play PS2 games. And since PS2 plays games that she now likes (thank you, Naughty Dog!), we both play the PS2, and I probably will be able to get the PS3 at some point down the line.
The DVD player is a stealth feature. Without it, men with wives would never get a game system.
In fact, I doubt I could have finished Cryptonomicon without my eBook.
I read eBooks on my Sony Clie. I like that I can carry these books around in my shirt pocket. While I would like a larger device at times (especially one that could read.cbr and.cbz comic book files, as I'm an vid graphic novel reader), I can make do with the smaller device. Since I'm a cubicle jockey, I can take the Clie into the mensroom for a quick 5-minute reading break without being obvious. That's a plus!
If an eBook is more than $5-7 dollars, I won't consider a purchase. A $20 eBook is madness. I won't buy many paper books for $20; why would I buy an electronic book for that amount? Price them like paperbacks, and I'll be happy to buy them.
What discourages me is the lack of eBooks from smaller authors. It's little work to take a Microsoft Word doc and turn it into an e-book; why not take advantage of that and push books from authors like Caitlin Kiernan (a fantastic goth-oriented writer who is as skilled with language as Umberto Eco)? eBooks have done wonders for Cory Doctorow's career; why not try them with smaller names that can't penetrate the best seller market?
Wasn't for free. They halved the connected speed when they took over from the old @Home network, then gave you back that speed. Meanwhile, you paid the same fee regardless of the connection speed. And yet, they mock Verizon DSL for charging the same amount regardless of the connection speed!
However, I can't boycott Comcast. I'm a Sixers and Flyers fan...sigh...
Slashdot Mirror
Is there a working PCjr anywhere in the world today? I know there are working Commodore 64s, for example, but is there a working PCjr anywhere in America right now?
(I know, silly question, but think of it. I have a 20-year TV that shows no sign of stopping. Is there a working PCjr anywhere? It's not like it was ever beloved like the C64 or an Apple II...so did anyone take care of one?)
Anyone remember the chorus to Prince's 7?
"All 7 and we'll watch them fall
They stand in the way of love
And we will smoke them all
With an intellect and a savoir-faire
No one in the whole universe
Will ever compare
I am yours now and u are mine
And together we'll love through
All space and time, so don't cry
One day all 7 will die"
I expect a Linux-flavored version in 5, 4, 3,...
I can understand why Prince would be tempted to attack the P2P culture. As far back as the early 90s, he was one of the most bootlegged artists around. Seriously- I have hundreds of live shows, along with a ton of unreleased songs, on my hard drive. At least 20% of my 60 GB iPod is made up of Prince music, both released and unreleased. If all you know Prince for is Purple Rain, you're missing out on an artist with a passion for jazz and funk- he's James Brown and Miles Davis put together with a better voice. I've been grooving to his Vegas 3121 concerts and his concert at Montreux for the last few months, and they are SWEET. But this solution is just nuts. Killing the Pirate Bay and YouTubers isn't going to stop the flow of bootleg tracks. When Prince was a Warner Brothers artist and downloading free music was only a Cory Doctorow dream, the problem was just as bad. When he went on his own, some of his solutions were laughably bad. He sold "Crystal Ball", a 4-CD set, directly to his fans; however, once he had their money, he released the same set (minus the soundtrack to his ballet, which wasn't really why anyone bought the set) to retailers at a lower price, then took up to a year to mail out the copies to the fans who bought them first. His NPG Music Club cost fans hundreds of dollars for very little benefit over the life of the club- 12 "radio shows" that hinted at the vast material in his vaults, one acoustic CD, and preferrential seating at concerts. When he then decided to sell albums directly to fans (the little-known Chocolate Invasion was one), he encoded them in low bit-rate DRM'd Windows Media. I love the music that Prince has made over the years, and I want to pay him for that music. All he'd have to do is hook up with iTunes or Amazon.com and sell high-bit DRM-free MP3s, and he'd be raking in great money. Does he need my money? Of course not; he's one of the richest men in the world. But the best reason for paying an artist isn't because the MPAA or the RIAA forces you to; it's because you want to show respect and thank an artist that has added something to your life. I want to thank Prince by paying him some money. I hope he realizes this someday. PS- if you want to hear some GREAT Prince music, try hunting down the 3121 show from 12/2/06, the Small Club show from 8/18/88, the Montreux Jazz Festival show from 6/16/07, the Paisley Park show with Miles Davis from 12/31/87, or the Fillmore show from San Francisco from 2/14/04.
One other way to save money is to buy an older edition of a math book. It's not as if there's been great advances in trig or algebra over the last ten years, and you can sometimes get a used math book that might be an edition or two behind for only a few books. Use that extra money to get the solutions manual. Someone else said it here, but it bears repeating: Do as many problems as you can stomach. For the type of math you're trying to relearn, there's no better learning method than trying as many problems as you can. And stretch yourself by doing the harder problems that usually come at the end of the problems list. I wish the original poster much luck in reaching his goal.
Sell them to Nintendo and make them into Giant-size DS machines. Now senior citizens with bad eyes can play Brain Age!
How the heck did this get modded as insightful? This is a positively xenophobic interpretation of Muslims and Islam.
I've worked with many Muslims over the years. I've enjoyed working with them as much as I enjoy working with anyone. In *my* country, Muslims are certainly welcome. Are there murderous, extremist Muslims out there? Sure. And there's murderous, extremist people in every religion. (For example, see whitehouse.gov.)
He did have his own music store for a while- NPGMusicClub.com. Problem was, he wasn't very good at it. First, he tried to sell the 4-CD set Crystal Ball, but ended up shipping the set very late, and he released it to stores at a lower price before sending it to the customers who pre-ordered it at a higher price. At times, he had a yearly fee of $100 for various goodies such as concert pre-orders and exclusive CDs. Finally, he ditched all that and sold DRM-laden files. In the end, he shut the store down.
Interesting note- Prince is one of the most bootlegged artists I've ever seen. I have GIGS of live shows on my hard drive; his live shows are amazing. His aftershows are legendary. I'd love to see him sell those recordings through eMusic or in some sort of DRM-free format. I'd rebuy whatever I own just to make sure he got paid for music I've enjoyed throughout my life (I'm a big Prince fan).
Now if only I knew how to get the newspaper in the US...
I wonder if the death of the small CD retailer has had a larger effect on CD sales. Just about every used CD shop I've ever shopped at are gone or have had to expand the line of merchandise they carry. And mid-level retailers are gone too. I went to the Monmouth Mall in NJ the other day, and noticed that there was no music retailer in there anymore. If I want a CD, I have to purchase it at a big-box retailer like Circuit City, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or Target, or buy it from an online retailer. With the death of the small retailers has come the disappearance of the used CD market. In the pre-Internet days, I wanted cheaper used CDs instead of new CDs. Now, I can't buy used CDs in any store near me, and I know that if I don't like the CD, I can only get rid of it on eBay.
I second the Canon suggestion. I get a notice when the tank is low, but I can print until the tank runs out. And the sensor is accurate, at least from an eyeball perspective. Since I can see how much ink is left, I can wait until the tank is empty before changing it.
1. Doesn't hog system resources
2. Does seem to pick up viruses when needed
3. Updates by itself quite frequently and leaves me alone
So it does its job quite well, doesn't hog my machine, and keeps itself in shape. Couldn't really ask for more, could I?
I've lost a few hours fixing the computers of friends who installed BearShare and were suddenly snowed in with adware/spyware/malware. I'm no RIAA supporter, but even a broken clock's right twice a day.
In my experience, the video iPod is much tougher to scratch. Maybe it's the soft case that it comes in, maybe it's a tougher case, but after a few weeks with this thing in my shirt pocket, it's virtually scratch-free except for a few small scratches on its back. In comparison, my 4G iPod was badly scratched after only a few days. Maybe Apple is getting its act together.
Even if you're never going to use the video features, the extended battery life, bigger capacity, clearer screen, and tougher housing make it an easy choice for those who use their iPods frequently over the nano and photo models.
Since I eat at my desk quite a bit, I needed to figure out a way to keep this from happening again. Answer? Wireless keyboard. Now I can move the keyboard before I eat.
Maybe the RIAA has decided that, since we've all downloaded the *good* music, they're just going to create crappy pop syrup that no person with two ears will want on his hard drive. If they put enough Ashlee Simpson records out, eventually the downloaders will give up looking new music, and the industry can go back to overcharging for silver platters with decent music.
Secret Industry Memo
From: RIAA
To: All artists
Don't forget- Every time a crappy song is played on the radio, a downloader goes to hell. So record CRAP!
Actually, EA looked into the exclusive with the NFL long before it was announced that ESPN NFL 2k5 was going to ship with the $19.95 price point. If anything, that move may have prompted the NFL to sign with EA (rather than vice versa), as a price war for video game products is not seen as good for their business.
Given that one of their "Best Fall Software Downloads" was riddled with spyware (as I found out the hard way!), I'm all for this. Any major magazine recommending vendors of malware will never get my attention again.
A tech support person with an understanding of his customers? Who are you trying to fool? :)
Actually, I recently did what one of your customers did. I downloaded a program that PC Magazine had recommended without googling the company first. Result? My system was loaded with spyware. 6 hours to fix. It's fixed now, but I was lucky- I caught the infection fast. At the same time, my ISP throttled my connection (a decision I have *no* problem with), so I had to spend an hour on hold with tech support and then another 6 hours waiting for a security rep to call me back to verify I had removed the spyware.
Now, I'm patient. I knew all of this would take time, and that helped me deal with it. But if I was a non-techie just trying to get my e-mail up and running, I can't say I wouldn't just reformat the whole thing.
Good luck with your business, although if you're as friendly with your customers as you seem to be, I doubt you'll need the luck. And if you're in Ocean County in Jersey, let me know- I might know some clients!
Bloat-free, great mp3 tagging features, easy to work with, and I can use all sorts of formats (except iTunes, but that's fixed with a quick CD burn-and-rip). There's no skins to speak of, but who really needs skins to listen to music? All I want is something that works without hogging every last bit of system resources.
Best of luck to the remaining WinAMP team. Sounds like a difficult environment, even if they're not dead. Everybody wants a music store in addition to a media player; I'm imagining a faceless suit popping in every day, asking, "Is it done yet? Is it? Time's a wasting!"
Over 100,000 people in Ohio just got told, "Hey- you know that vote you submitted? Screw you! Thanks for playing!"
But hey, as long as there's no protracted fight, all's okay, right?
I remember an America that used to fight for the things worth fighting for. Now, if it doesn't make for good TV, screw it. Sigh...
And I'd be happy to concede the election to Bush if all of the votes were counted. I'd be disappointed, but I do believe in the democratic process. But if we're not even going to count the votes...and let Diebold screw with the election tallys...and ignore the people's votes, counting more on computer models...why bother?
Somewhere out there is the America I want to belong to. This one doesn't feel right anymore.
Went to a Wawa (it's a Philly area convenience store) to buy a sandwich for me and my wife. Total was $11, I have $15 in the account from an eBay auction I sold last week.
Selected debit- transaction denied. Selected debit again- transaction denied. Selected credit- this time it went through. (Otherwise I was just going to pay cash.)
When I checked my account when I got home, the balance was negative- they double-debited the transaction.
Now, I'm not worried- even my bank has made an error or two like this, and a call to customer service tomorrow should clear things up. And even if it doesn't, it's $11.
But I do feel very bad tonight for people depending on the money in that account. They're in a lot of trouble tonight.
Exactly the point I was going to make. Sure, the PS@ is inferior to a good DVD player. But sometimes, that's not enough.
My wife hates my home theater. She wants something simple. So we use the PS2 as a DVD and game machine, while the old DVD player collects dust somewhere else. It's a compromise that I'm happy with; it's not like the other DVD player was that much better, and now I get to play PS2 games. And since PS2 plays games that she now likes (thank you, Naughty Dog!), we both play the PS2, and I probably will be able to get the PS3 at some point down the line.
The DVD player is a stealth feature. Without it, men with wives would never get a game system.
In fact, I doubt I could have finished Cryptonomicon without my eBook. I read eBooks on my Sony Clie. I like that I can carry these books around in my shirt pocket. While I would like a larger device at times (especially one that could read .cbr and .cbz comic book files, as I'm an vid graphic novel reader), I can make do with the smaller device. Since I'm a cubicle jockey, I can take the Clie into the mensroom for a quick 5-minute reading break without being obvious. That's a plus!
If an eBook is more than $5-7 dollars, I won't consider a purchase. A $20 eBook is madness. I won't buy many paper books for $20; why would I buy an electronic book for that amount? Price them like paperbacks, and I'll be happy to buy them.
What discourages me is the lack of eBooks from smaller authors. It's little work to take a Microsoft Word doc and turn it into an e-book; why not take advantage of that and push books from authors like Caitlin Kiernan (a fantastic goth-oriented writer who is as skilled with language as Umberto Eco)? eBooks have done wonders for Cory Doctorow's career; why not try them with smaller names that can't penetrate the best seller market?
I use the Mozilla Mail client (as opposed to Thunderbird) and Norton AV caught and deleted a virus last night. So it does work for MM.
Preinstalled != free. It may be a hidden cost, but it's a cost.
Wasn't for free. They halved the connected speed when they took over from the old @Home network, then gave you back that speed. Meanwhile, you paid the same fee regardless of the connection speed. And yet, they mock Verizon DSL for charging the same amount regardless of the connection speed!
However, I can't boycott Comcast. I'm a Sixers and Flyers fan...sigh...