I have an HP Omnibook 800CT which I bought about four years ago when HP was having a make-them-go-away clearance sale. Small, cute, a bit slow by today's standards, but runs Linux great.
The 800CT uses a LIon battery. In anticipation of possible battery problems, I purchased a spare, but it has never needed to be put to use. The original battery has maintained its charge life over the four years I've had it.
HP had a truly gifted team designing the 800CT. It's a damn shame they abandoned it.
Could someone post or provide a pointer to the alleged "license" that allegedly constrains the use of the iTunes SDK? Is this a legitimate contract that must be entered into and signed before you get your hands on the SDK, or is it yet another one of those worthless "shrinkwrap licenses"?
This is happening slowly, but SURELY. In 2010 Slashdot will have articles such as "ChildTracker-2000(TM) is now a mandatory installation at all Hospitals in the United States(C). All newborns will be protected with a tiny chip installed under their skin in the palm of their hand."
And then, in about three decades:
"Capricorn 14. Year of The City 2040. Carousel begins..."
I know the intention was satire, but I find it interesting that you chose to contrast speeding with unsanctioned copying, two offenses which have roughly equal detriment to society -- that is to say, virtually none at all.
However, some futher contrast is also useful to consider:
Impact on Society of Speeding:
Increased fuel usage,
Slight increase of hazard to other drivers, depending on circumstances,
Slight increase of hazard to driver and his/her vehicle, depending on circumstances.
Impact on Society of Unsanctioned Copying:
Increased bandwidth usage,
Immeasurably small impact to copyright holder's revenue stream, depending on circumstances,
Slight decrease of available bandwidth to other network users, depending on circumstances,
Slight increase of hazard to user's computer (viruses, etc.), depending on circumstances.
Penalties for Speeding:
Fine ranging from $50-500, depending on jurisdiction,
"Points" assessed against driving license,
In especially egregious cases, suspension or revocation of driving license.
Penalties for Unsanctioned Copying:
$500,000 fine.
5 years in prison.
Loss of right to vote.
Loss of right to use computers.
In especially egregious cases... Well, really, what does it matter after all that?
It seems the RIAA and/or BSA have learned to troll Slashdot, since the headline is grievously misleading.
This, "landmark agreement," simply states that BSA and RIAA will lobby against all new legislation on digital policy. Under this "balanced" approach, not only would Senator "Fritz" Hollings' (D-S.C.) bill for mandatory Digital Restrictions Mechanisms get the kibosh, so also would Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) initiative to make exercising Fair Use rights an affirmative defense against DMCA prosecution.
The most telling quote was from BSA head Robert Holleyman, who described the DMCA as, "generally working as it was intended."
This "compromise" measure is nothing of the sort, as it merely seeks to affirm the status quo, doing nothing to redress the harm done and still being done by the DMCA and the lesser-known NET Act.
I also note -- with piqued curiosity -- how the Associated Press report on this story has had significant changes made in the last few hours. The first version I read contained Holleyman's telling DMCA quote and mentioned the effects on Lofgren's and Boucher's bills. The latest version has a considerably different slant, soft-pedaling the announcement and eliding Holleyman's quote.
One example of an arcade game employing a stationary bike was Prop Cycle from Namco. You flew a pedal-powered flying bicycle around, running into balloons and flying through hazards to score points.
I thought it was whimsical and a lot of fun, but it never showed up at many arcades.
As I read the subpoena, they were specifically instructed not to make the subpoena public to as not to alert the subject(s) of the investigation to the existence of the investigation.
What subject? The "subject" of the investigation is named in the subpoena as, "John Doe."
In an age when it is orders of magnitude easier to copy, what should the rights holders do to protect their work? Think positive! Frankly, I don't know.
Congratulations. Unlike the greedy little so-and-sos in Hollywood, you are thinking clearly, and have identified the core problem. However, to get to the beginnings of a solution, you need to throw out a few more assumptions.
Consider the reality of computers and digital media. Computers are machines that, among other things, make perfect copies of digital information. Indeed, computers as we understand them would not be able to function without this ability. Because of this, every computer is like a completely independent factory, fully capable of churning out artifacts identical in quality and characteristics to that of a "manufacturer." Thus, everyone who owns a computer possesses their very own fully-operational factory, which may be turned to whatever purpose its owner wishes. The distinction between a "user" and a "manufacturer", therefore, ceases to exist; all users are likewise manufacturers.
These characteristics have always been true of computers, nor have they ever been secret. Now, given this cold, hard reality, what kind of cretin would create a business model fundamentally based on their company being the sole source of manufactured artifacts, given that all their "customers" are also manufacturers?
It's a mug's game from the word, "Go," and anyone who tells you different has designs on your wallet.
The "solutions" proposed by Hollywood attempt, from a technological point of view, to establish themselves as a sole source -- the only operating factory. To do so, they would need to eliminate all the other factories that aren't theirs, and they propose to do this through Digital Restrictions Mechanisms, eliminating their customers manufacturing capabilities. But to eliminate that capability would be to destroy computers as we know them today. This is why computer scientists and professionals have been laughing in Hollywood's face every time they've raised this issue:
Computers and digital media -- by definition -- come with manufacturing (copying) abilities. You can't eliminate copying without destroying the very computer you're trying to harness.
(Hollywood seems to think that Silicon Valley's inastringency on this issue is born out of politics or petty personality conflicts (since that's the sort of game Hollywood plays all the time). It's not. What they want was proved impossible by Turing decades ago, but they don't get that. It's difficult to explain to someone illiterate in math that 2 + 2 does not and never can equal 5. "Just change the value of 2," they say. Well, then it wouldn't be 2 anymore, would it?...I digress)
So. If we accept that eliminating all the competing factories out there is Just Not Going To Happen -- that you can never realistically be the sole source of any artifact -- what can you control? What scarce resources do you still control that can't (easily) be taken from you or diluted?
I don't have a complete answer yet. ("WHAT!? I read that whole rant for nothing!?") However, I am firmly convinced that a lasting, workable solution will be founded on giving you control of your time and your reputation. The core idea is that you will build a reputation for yourself -- say, by releasing little code trinkets on the net -- that will draw people to you seeking your expertise. Once done, you charge them for your time, which is still a scarce resource that can't be copied by computers.
The reason I feel this will be important is because I foresee that, one day, physical objects will become as easy to duplicate as digital objects. When that day comes, if we haven't worked out a new socio-economic model that acknowledges and permits free copying to exist, we are fscked. Think Global Civil War-level fscked. You think BMW's just going to let you make copies of their cars? Dream on, loser. It's not gonna happen -- unless they've been slowly weaned into the idea through the socio-economic model built around computers and digital media.
I do not have the Jeffersonian measure of wisdom required to design this new framework entirely on my own, which is why I encourage further discussion on the issue. But the bottom line is, computers have changed the rules. There is now a factory in every home, and scarcity is now a completely artificial construct. Every day we refuse to acknowledge this is another day that we've needlessly screwed ourselves.
I can't believe it took me ten minutes to figure this out. He's caching the result of the strcmp(), which seems like a fairly pointless optimization...
The following is from the 1976 movie Network, a great film that stills bears watching to this day. Mr. Jensen, chairman of the network, is angrily lecturing Howard Beale, an insane news anchorman whose exhortation to viewers blocked an important business deal (quotes taken from IMDB):
"YOU HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE, MR. BEALE, AND
I... WON'T... HAVE IT! IS THAT CLEAR?
"You think you've merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians! There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars! It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature! AND YOU! WILL! ATONE!! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21 inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
"The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. Our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock -- all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel."
"Why me?"
"Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday."
"I have seen the face of God."
"You just might be right, Mr. Beale."
The film is packed full of other great scenes and quotes. (Check out the scene where the network is negotiating next year's distribution deal for footage shot by a domestic terrorist group.) It's an excellent, prescient, and somewhat bleak film. Go hunt it down and rent it. You shan't be disappointed.
Why are they taking up the court's time requesting a stay for that? It's not like said program isn't posted in a million other places...
Because, once armed with a decision in their favor, the DVD CCA can use it to strong-arm ISPs and individuals and intimidate them into taking down the information. Even though a victory against one defendant in a tort case doesn't gurarantee victory against subsequent defendants, a win for the DVD CCA here could get a lot of fence-sitters -- as well as defenseless people -- to cave in.
Call me hopelessly tacky, misguided, a fan of The Prisoner, or simply an (unwilling) product of the 1970's, but I still think those chairs are damn cool.
Having grown up in the "Space Age", all the futurists promised that we'd all get flyingcars, space travel would become commonplace, and we would all get to live on the moon or on orbital space stations. Universally, the images accompanying such prognostications were of sleek, clean, sweeping lines and curves; neo-art deco, if you will. You can see a prototypical example of this vision of the future in last half hour of the film Things To Come. The interior of Klaatu's spaceship in The Day The Earth Stood Still is another well-known example. Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture probably evokes this best. (It also probably doesn't help that I grew up in San Rafael, CA, just two miles away from this, Frank Lloyd Wright's last public building commission.)
So I can't help it, but every time I see designs like that, it still evokes within me a vision of a bright future, where people are happy and prosperous, we're going to the stars, and everything looks darned cool.
even if it meant your children will be able to go the best schools? What if you need expensice non-cover medical treatment? What if you children would die a slow and painfull death without expensive medical treatment? how about the extra couple hundred grand a year you could donate to the EFF to fight bad laws?
You're offering one of the classic tests of personal ethics and character: What is the point beyond which a man will not pass? "Your life could be easier / you could be more prosperous / your children will have a better life / you'll save your mother's life... But you have to do this reprehensible thing in exchange."
I see it this way: Yeah, my children and I might be better off financially, but I would have achieved that at the expense of millions of irate Internet users. My reputation among my friends, family, and colleagues would be destroyed. I would have to conceal my identity and my profession, and my children would need private tutoring as they would never survive long in a public or private school as the, "spammer asshole's bastard children." Sorry, I'm not going to weather that.
You're also seem to be indulging in, "single-level thinking," and not considering repercussions down the line. Despite my newfound wealth, it may not be possible for my children to be admitted to the best schools, as they might refuse them based on my profession (yes, they can do this). And that painful illness I or my children have may not get the fullest or most skilled attention of the doctor, as s/he despises what I do to his/her email box every day. Contrariwise, having a reputation as the guy who destroyed the spam servers might get me some consideration by the attending physician when I can't quite make the bills...
Idealistic? Probably. But I'd rather live in a world of conscientious people than one of cutthroat opportunists who are only out for themselves and the rest can deal or go fsck themselves.
If you inherited this business from Mr. Ralsky and started making hundreds of thousands of dollars, how many of you would shut it down out of the goodness of your heart?
Me. In an instant, without hesitation or a second thought.
The company would be dissolved; all workers let go with two weeks severance; all mailing lists destroyed; copies of the automated spamming software would be made available to anti-spam activists for study; the servers would be wiped, installed with Linux or FreeBSD, and donated to local schools; and any monies left over would be donated to CAUCE and the EFF.
Some forms of making oneself wealthy are simply Not Done.
Laws like this do nothing but raise costs for consumers.
No, the costs are already there, and always have been. What such a law would do is put the costs up front where the consumer can see them, rather than decades down the road, when the consumer is asked to pass a bond measure to pay to clean up a toxic superfund site.
You might argue that deferring the cleanup affords certain economic advantages, such as economies of scale (clean up everyone's mess at once rather than piecemeal) and availability of newer, cheaper cleanup technologies. But right now, there is precious little development happening on cleanup technologies, because the dumps, "aren't causing any problems" (yet). As for economies of scale, such claimed "economies" become unclear when superfund site cleanup costs regularly push into the billions of dollars.
So, yes, in an ideal world, you should be paying the disposal costs up front for the simple reason that you're going to be paying it anyway, one way or another.
Like it or not folks, as e-mail becomes more important, it will be used by business to do business. Hopefully they will refrain from jamming everyone's inbox with "buy buy buy," (something I do not support), but if businesses and professionals can't introduce themselves to one another, the economy stops. Period.
If you think business will need to rely on blind dispatch of email to random people to grow and prosper, then business is in deep doo-doo.
Schwab
Re:Cost not MPG is what people use.
on
239 MPG Car
·
· Score: 2
Most people I know judge fuel consumption on the same basis. Cost, not MPG. We buy fuel by price, not volume. Does anyone actually use MPG figures as an every day referance anymore?
I do.
Every time I fill up, I do a mental calculation on what the MPG was for the tankful. Then I reset the trip odometer and drive until the next fill up. I usually get around 32 MPG, and have never dropped below 30 (Honda Civic EX). If ever it does drop below 30, I'll know something's wrong.
...Except that, if I own an XBox, and I want to play online, I must subscribe to XBox Live. I can't sign up with AT&T Broadband or Speakeasy.net or Earthlink or Covad; Microsoft won't let me. It's either their service, or tough shit.
Slashdot Mirror
I have an HP Omnibook 800CT which I bought about four years ago when HP was having a make-them-go-away clearance sale. Small, cute, a bit slow by today's standards, but runs Linux great.
The 800CT uses a LIon battery. In anticipation of possible battery problems, I purchased a spare, but it has never needed to be put to use. The original battery has maintained its charge life over the four years I've had it.
HP had a truly gifted team designing the 800CT. It's a damn shame they abandoned it.
Schwab
Could someone post or provide a pointer to the alleged "license" that allegedly constrains the use of the iTunes SDK? Is this a legitimate contract that must be entered into and signed before you get your hands on the SDK, or is it yet another one of those worthless "shrinkwrap licenses"?
Schwab
The government program to develop this site has been code-named, "The Forbin Project."
The Main Access and Control Terminal will be located in a rather angular-looking building in the hills overlooking Berkeley, Calif.
Schwab
And then, in about three decades:
"Capricorn 14. Year of The City 2040. Carousel begins..."
Schwab
I know the intention was satire, but I find it interesting that you chose to contrast speeding with unsanctioned copying, two offenses which have roughly equal detriment to society -- that is to say, virtually none at all.
However, some futher contrast is also useful to consider:
Impact on Society of Speeding:
Impact on Society of Unsanctioned Copying:
Penalties for Speeding:
Penalties for Unsanctioned Copying:
Now someone tell me that's a balanced policy.
Schwab
It seems the RIAA and/or BSA have learned to troll Slashdot, since the headline is grievously misleading.
This, "landmark agreement," simply states that BSA and RIAA will lobby against all new legislation on digital policy. Under this "balanced" approach, not only would Senator "Fritz" Hollings' (D-S.C.) bill for mandatory Digital Restrictions Mechanisms get the kibosh, so also would Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) initiative to make exercising Fair Use rights an affirmative defense against DMCA prosecution.
The most telling quote was from BSA head Robert Holleyman, who described the DMCA as, "generally working as it was intended."
This "compromise" measure is nothing of the sort, as it merely seeks to affirm the status quo, doing nothing to redress the harm done and still being done by the DMCA and the lesser-known NET Act.
I also note -- with piqued curiosity -- how the Associated Press report on this story has had significant changes made in the last few hours. The first version I read contained Holleyman's telling DMCA quote and mentioned the effects on Lofgren's and Boucher's bills. The latest version has a considerably different slant, soft-pedaling the announcement and eliding Holleyman's quote.
So the newswires aren't our friends, either.
Schwab
One example of an arcade game employing a stationary bike was Prop Cycle from Namco. You flew a pedal-powered flying bicycle around, running into balloons and flying through hazards to score points.
I thought it was whimsical and a lot of fun, but it never showed up at many arcades.
Schwab
Submitted three days ago, and bounced:
My write-up was better, and also called attention to the SSN requirement, and how question 12 in their FAQ addresses concerns over this.
Schwab
Damn, I must have missed out. Mine's only a 12-speed.
:-),
Schwab
What subject? The "subject" of the investigation is named in the subpoena as, "John Doe."
Schwab
No. If you play it backwards, you'll hear the opposite of what you'd normally expect from Microsoft. So you'll hear God speaking.
:-),
Schwab
Congratulations. Unlike the greedy little so-and-sos in Hollywood, you are thinking clearly, and have identified the core problem. However, to get to the beginnings of a solution, you need to throw out a few more assumptions.
Consider the reality of computers and digital media. Computers are machines that, among other things, make perfect copies of digital information. Indeed, computers as we understand them would not be able to function without this ability. Because of this, every computer is like a completely independent factory, fully capable of churning out artifacts identical in quality and characteristics to that of a "manufacturer." Thus, everyone who owns a computer possesses their very own fully-operational factory, which may be turned to whatever purpose its owner wishes. The distinction between a "user" and a "manufacturer", therefore, ceases to exist; all users are likewise manufacturers.
These characteristics have always been true of computers, nor have they ever been secret. Now, given this cold, hard reality, what kind of cretin would create a business model fundamentally based on their company being the sole source of manufactured artifacts, given that all their "customers" are also manufacturers?
It's a mug's game from the word, "Go," and anyone who tells you different has designs on your wallet.
The "solutions" proposed by Hollywood attempt, from a technological point of view, to establish themselves as a sole source -- the only operating factory. To do so, they would need to eliminate all the other factories that aren't theirs, and they propose to do this through Digital Restrictions Mechanisms, eliminating their customers manufacturing capabilities. But to eliminate that capability would be to destroy computers as we know them today. This is why computer scientists and professionals have been laughing in Hollywood's face every time they've raised this issue:
Computers and digital media -- by definition -- come with manufacturing (copying) abilities. You can't eliminate copying without destroying the very computer you're trying to harness.
(Hollywood seems to think that Silicon Valley's inastringency on this issue is born out of politics or petty personality conflicts (since that's the sort of game Hollywood plays all the time). It's not. What they want was proved impossible by Turing decades ago, but they don't get that. It's difficult to explain to someone illiterate in math that 2 + 2 does not and never can equal 5. "Just change the value of 2," they say. Well, then it wouldn't be 2 anymore, would it? ...I digress)
So. If we accept that eliminating all the competing factories out there is Just Not Going To Happen -- that you can never realistically be the sole source of any artifact -- what can you control? What scarce resources do you still control that can't (easily) be taken from you or diluted?
I don't have a complete answer yet. ("WHAT!? I read that whole rant for nothing!?") However, I am firmly convinced that a lasting, workable solution will be founded on giving you control of your time and your reputation. The core idea is that you will build a reputation for yourself -- say, by releasing little code trinkets on the net -- that will draw people to you seeking your expertise. Once done, you charge them for your time, which is still a scarce resource that can't be copied by computers.
The reason I feel this will be important is because I foresee that, one day, physical objects will become as easy to duplicate as digital objects. When that day comes, if we haven't worked out a new socio-economic model that acknowledges and permits free copying to exist, we are fscked. Think Global Civil War-level fscked. You think BMW's just going to let you make copies of their cars? Dream on, loser. It's not gonna happen -- unless they've been slowly weaned into the idea through the socio-economic model built around computers and digital media.
I do not have the Jeffersonian measure of wisdom required to design this new framework entirely on my own, which is why I encourage further discussion on the issue. But the bottom line is, computers have changed the rules. There is now a factory in every home, and scarcity is now a completely artificial construct. Every day we refuse to acknowledge this is another day that we've needlessly screwed ourselves.
Schwab
*smack hand on forehead*
I can't believe it took me ten minutes to figure this out. He's caching the result of the strcmp(), which seems like a fairly pointless optimization...
Schwab
The following is from the 1976 movie Network, a great film that stills bears watching to this day. Mr. Jensen, chairman of the network, is angrily lecturing Howard Beale, an insane news anchorman whose exhortation to viewers blocked an important business deal (quotes taken from IMDB):
The film is packed full of other great scenes and quotes. (Check out the scene where the network is negotiating next year's distribution deal for footage shot by a domestic terrorist group.) It's an excellent, prescient, and somewhat bleak film. Go hunt it down and rent it. You shan't be disappointed.
Schwab
Because, once armed with a decision in their favor, the DVD CCA can use it to strong-arm ISPs and individuals and intimidate them into taking down the information. Even though a victory against one defendant in a tort case doesn't gurarantee victory against subsequent defendants, a win for the DVD CCA here could get a lot of fence-sitters -- as well as defenseless people -- to cave in.
Schwab
Call me hopelessly tacky, misguided, a fan of The Prisoner, or simply an (unwilling) product of the 1970's, but I still think those chairs are damn cool.
Having grown up in the "Space Age", all the futurists promised that we'd all get flying cars, space travel would become commonplace, and we would all get to live on the moon or on orbital space stations. Universally, the images accompanying such prognostications were of sleek, clean, sweeping lines and curves; neo-art deco, if you will. You can see a prototypical example of this vision of the future in last half hour of the film Things To Come. The interior of Klaatu's spaceship in The Day The Earth Stood Still is another well-known example. Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture probably evokes this best. (It also probably doesn't help that I grew up in San Rafael, CA, just two miles away from this, Frank Lloyd Wright's last public building commission.)
So I can't help it, but every time I see designs like that, it still evokes within me a vision of a bright future, where people are happy and prosperous, we're going to the stars, and everything looks darned cool.
Schwab
You're offering one of the classic tests of personal ethics and character: What is the point beyond which a man will not pass? "Your life could be easier / you could be more prosperous / your children will have a better life / you'll save your mother's life... But you have to do this reprehensible thing in exchange."
I see it this way: Yeah, my children and I might be better off financially, but I would have achieved that at the expense of millions of irate Internet users. My reputation among my friends, family, and colleagues would be destroyed. I would have to conceal my identity and my profession, and my children would need private tutoring as they would never survive long in a public or private school as the, "spammer asshole's bastard children." Sorry, I'm not going to weather that.
You're also seem to be indulging in, "single-level thinking," and not considering repercussions down the line. Despite my newfound wealth, it may not be possible for my children to be admitted to the best schools, as they might refuse them based on my profession (yes, they can do this). And that painful illness I or my children have may not get the fullest or most skilled attention of the doctor, as s/he despises what I do to his/her email box every day. Contrariwise, having a reputation as the guy who destroyed the spam servers might get me some consideration by the attending physician when I can't quite make the bills...
Idealistic? Probably. But I'd rather live in a world of conscientious people than one of cutthroat opportunists who are only out for themselves and the rest can deal or go fsck themselves.
Schwab
Me. In an instant, without hesitation or a second thought.
The company would be dissolved; all workers let go with two weeks severance; all mailing lists destroyed; copies of the automated spamming software would be made available to anti-spam activists for study; the servers would be wiped, installed with Linux or FreeBSD, and donated to local schools; and any monies left over would be donated to CAUCE and the EFF.
Some forms of making oneself wealthy are simply Not Done.
Schwab
Certainly. Just like the DVD CCA sued 500 different people, who are named in the suit as John Does 1-500.
Legal mechanisms are in place to file suit against persons whose identities are unknown. That's not a stumbling block at all.
Schwab
No, the costs are already there, and always have been. What such a law would do is put the costs up front where the consumer can see them, rather than decades down the road, when the consumer is asked to pass a bond measure to pay to clean up a toxic superfund site.
You might argue that deferring the cleanup affords certain economic advantages, such as economies of scale (clean up everyone's mess at once rather than piecemeal) and availability of newer, cheaper cleanup technologies. But right now, there is precious little development happening on cleanup technologies, because the dumps, "aren't causing any problems" (yet). As for economies of scale, such claimed "economies" become unclear when superfund site cleanup costs regularly push into the billions of dollars.
So, yes, in an ideal world, you should be paying the disposal costs up front for the simple reason that you're going to be paying it anyway, one way or another.
Schwab
Which is more price-prohibitive?
Schwab
What, these people have never heard of Google? Pricewatch.com? Pricegrabber.com? ResellerRatings.com?
If you think business will need to rely on blind dispatch of email to random people to grow and prosper, then business is in deep doo-doo.
Schwab
I do.
Every time I fill up, I do a mental calculation on what the MPG was for the tankful. Then I reset the trip odometer and drive until the next fill up. I usually get around 32 MPG, and have never dropped below 30 (Honda Civic EX). If ever it does drop below 30, I'll know something's wrong.
Now if the thing just had an oil gauge...
Schwab
...Except that, if I own an XBox, and I want to play online, I must subscribe to XBox Live. I can't sign up with AT&T Broadband or Speakeasy.net or Earthlink or Covad; Microsoft won't let me. It's either their service, or tough shit.
Sounds like I can either vote for the democratically elected leader, or not vote at all. Yeah, that's competing on the merits, all right...
Schwab
Bah! Wil Wheaton is doing just fine, thank-you-very-much, bantering with Travis Oates on the G4 show, Arena.
What? You don't receive the G4 channel? Yell shrilly at your cable provider until they carry it.
Schwab