Free is the most stupid French company. it provides low quality DSL which hardly works and they keep blaming France Telecom for their problem. Though you pay them a subscription every month even when it's not working, they would not assume this problem.
Free tries to play the pseudo rebel ISP and want to talk to the geek community. They just try to be pseudo cool. The truth is, if they dont send this email, then Free users will directly go to phase 2 of the 3-strike law without even being aware of this. Genius
Then again, anything Free is worth exactly what you paid for it.
... as the negotiators are not under the Senate's control.
So how is it that negotiators who are negotiating a treaty that will have far-reaching implications for the people of Mexico not be under their government's control? That sounds about as thoroughly fucked up as it is in D.C.
In conclusion: Your conspiracy theories cloud the war while aiding the enemy, and I wish that you'd stop. Thanks!
Not so. I wish you'd actually educate yourself as to the real history of the media industry, the true motivations of the people behind them, and what their current efforts regarding the Internet really are.
None of the devices and technologies of which you speak were invented by the content industry. The RIAA originally came about as a standards organization (e.g. the RIAA compensation curve) and has since mutated into a lawsuit mill. So they aren't that bright, have never been that bright, and never will be that bright. Those were ALL technologies created by hardware companies trying to make a buck, technologies which the media conglomerates either decided to endorse (if they saw profit in it), or try to kill off (if they felt threatened by it.) They have had no qualms about going to Congress in an effort get anything they don't like banned by law! Those are the facts. Where you get your information from is a mystery to me.
And just for the record, they've made plenty of attempts at intervention. They're still doing it, at both the technological, legal and governmental levels. That fact those efforts have not been particularly effective (yet!) in the U.S. doesn't mean they aren't trying, or might not be more successful in the future. In conclusion: your naivete concerning the media cartels is almost endearing, but is limiting our ability to offer a proper defense to the enemy, while simultaneously aiding and abetting his efforts.
Start with Ray Beckerman's blog, if you want to start playing a little catch-up here. I think your knowledge of this topic is, well, inadequate.
There are plenty of applications that are much larger than 32 megs. The latest version of emacs is about 45 megs.:) Also, ever downloaded OpenOffice? That's one huge application.
Ever downloaded Microsoft Office? That's one huge application.
> The specific reasons for this aren't important, the fact that those reasons cannot be changed is.
"cannot be changed"? You meant this in the greater context of the discussion which centers on Bittorrent?
Because I can see that it might be possible to fix this latency under certain specific circumstances which might come about in the future. If we assume that most Linux users in this future have constant availability of their net connection and are willing to run some kind of specialized P2P protocol server, then the protocol would merely have to randomly query N peers from a locally cached peer list, and fallback on centralized servers in case of failure. For small N this would only add a very small latency for the very first downloaders (assuming such an N is still large enough to give good connectivity to the generated graph).
What it comes down to is this: Bram Cohen wrote Bit Torrent for the express purpose of downloading large files, where the initialization time is a relatively small percentage of the overall transmission time. That's what it's designed to do... but, as you say, that doesn't mean it can't be further optimized for smaller files. Maybe putting more intelligence in the tracker, I don't know. I'd like to know what outfits like Valve have done with it: their Steam Content Distribution System continually updates game files in the background, and presumably they aren't all huge. So I'm guessing they've managed to make it work for smaller files too. They did have Bram Cohen working for them at one point.
WoW (and other MMOs) needs torrents, because they have an very high to extremely high burst ratio. When a new patch is deployed for Linux it needs to propagate out to various distributions, people need to start packing it and then end users auto update will pick it up eventually. This means it's often distributed over time. When WoW deploys a new patch, they have 10 million people trying to get it at once in order to be first in new instances. Even the big distributors have trouble coping with this - and over a short period of time the need for bandwith will drop to very low levels as people are getting up-to-date, so there is no financial incentive for Blizzard to invest in the hardware to cope with deployment.
Depends. Take Valve's Steam Content Distribution System, which is, so far as I know, the first major commercial deployment of swarming technology. They actually hired Bram Cohen, the guy who came up with Bit Torrent, to work on Steam. The Steam client begins downloading files in the background well before a game's release date, continually updating them with new data as necessary. Then, when the product that you bought is finally "released", why, you already have it! But it's still a Torrent-based scheme under the hood. Given the sheer size of modern game software, it's really about the only practical way to deliver that many terabytes of data to millions of users.
It's perfectly legal to download copyrighted material with the permission of the copyright holder (unless it breaks any other laws) in every country.
Why would the RIAA or anybody else want to poison Linux updates?
Because they, point-blank, would like to see ALL downloading of ANY files that are not expressly approved BY THEM to be made illegal and/or blocked by ISPs under government mandate. Yes, that's how they think. Do they care about Linux updates, specifically? Of course not: but the media cartel is all about banning entire technologies (cassette tape, DAT, writeable CDs and DVDS, the VCR, you-name-it.) If it can be used to copy entertainment data they feel they have the right to eliminate it, and should there be some "collateral damage", well, that's perfectly acceptable. Don't underestimate these people: yes, they're not particularly bright but they are dangerous, having both tremendous resources and the willing ears of imbecilic and corrupt lawmakers worldwide.
I know. I remember back when one of the companies started offering 40 hours per month for the same price AOL was charging for 15 hours. I thought I was in heaven. Heck I had almost TWO HOURS PER DAY available to be online with my spiffy 14.4k modem. This was after growing up using BBS's with a 2400 BAUD modem. Damn I feel old and I'm not even 30 yet:(.
Get off my lawn. I started out on a 300 bps acoustic coupler, using a 110 baud Olivetti teletype.
I have no interest at all in owning a "smart phone" or whatever until per meg billing is abolished.
Well, I have T-Mobile and they're pretty good about it. I pay about $25/month for unlimited data. Now, as I understand it, you get 3G speeds up 'til ten gigs, after which they back you off to Edge network speeds. Some outfits just shut you off if you go over some limit, but even if I go over that ten gigs I still get service.
I'm not actually sure if that policy is still in force, however. But I've never had an issue with them, not one.
They had designed their phones such that there was a shortcut button to their web portal. Users without a data plan, taken to that portal, were charged for the data at the usual ridiculous out-of-plan rates. They could have the portal blocked but this just meant they were charged for the data used in retrieving the "this portal is blocked" page instead. So there's an interesting bit of background detail going on here. Maybe $2 per customer isn't much to the customer, but it's a tidy bit of extra revenue to Verizon.
Sprint did something kinda similar to me (note that I've not been with Sprint for some time.) I had a semi-smart phone that had a built-in Web browser. It was pretty limited, and I didn't bother to buy a data plan for the thing. In any event, it turned out that every time I went to check my minutes, I was being charged about two bucks per kilobyte. My first bill had a couple hundred dollars of "data charges" on it, with no explanation of what they were for. So I called up and complained, and at first I met with some resistance until I finally got hold of a supervisor (who was from New Jersey, not Bangladesh) who explained what was going on and agreed to write off the charges.
Left a bad taste in my mouth on that one. Then I went through about a year and a half of monthly calls to Sprint to get weirdass charges removed. Finally went to T-Mobile and haven't looked back.
The same thing happens with banks, for that matter, or any instance where you're charged for something. What are the odds you'll be accidentally credited instead of, say, debited twice for the same thing? And if multiple erroneous debits wind up overdrawing your account, how good are the odds that the offending party will reimburse the overdraft charges?
These errors always seem to be at the expense of the consumer and it's a struggle just to get back to zero, much less be compensated for your time and trouble.
Yeah, you're right about that (and it's statistically improbable at best.)
Still, I did have one positive experience along those lines once. Gotta be about twenty five years ago, but at the time I was pretty broke and was waiting for some money to come in, so I could open another checking account and get away from a bank that had seriously screwed me over (in fact, that's why I was pretty broke.) Suddenly, a substantial amount of money appeared in my account: obviously a banking error, but I immediately withdrew some of it, used it to open an account at another bank, then immediately withdrew those funds and put them back in my original account. A couple of days later, the original bank fixed its mistake, but that was all the time I needed.
It's also hardly limited to Verizon. I've been with Sprint for several years and had a few occasions where they put strange charges on my bill. Of course, I called and complained and they took them off, saying they were "billing errors." I don't know what I'd prefer, that they're so shady they're purposely tacking bullshit charges onto people's bills, or they are so incompetent they don't know how to keep such mistakes from happening.
I can only guess how many people get those charges who never bat an eye and just pay them.
Yes, I had much the same experience with Sprint. It's why I went to T-Mobile: believe me, I asked around and tried to get an idea of if I would experience the same problems. Everyone I spoke to at the time was very positive about T-Mobile's billing practices.
With Sprint, I would get charged.25c per text message even though my account had unlimited texting. Then the bastards would spam me, and charge me for the privilege (the same.25c per message.) Then, on top of that, I would get Internet charges on an account that didn't have a data plan, and twenty or thirty bucks a month would show up for watching TV shows on a phone that didn't support video playback. As you said, when I called they would immediately take them off, but that's just ridiculous. Comcast would pull similar crap. I eventually had enough of both of them.
At the moment, I have U-Verse for my Internet and phone service (dropped the TV because, well, we really don't watch it enough to justify the expense, although the service was excellent) and T-Mobile for my cell phone (with data plan.) Both have given me great service for the money, and not a single billing error. Not one. So it's certainly possible to run an honest billing system and some companies do. Well, you have to figure AT&T has plenty of experience with that, and as far as T-Mobile... well, they're just Deutsche Telekom's US division. I'm not at all surprised that the Germans know how to do proper accounting.
Matter of fact, the only time I've had to call AT&T U-Verse support was when we started getting all kinds of noise and dropouts on the incoming VDSL signal. Turned out it wasn't AT&T's fault... it was coming in on the power line. The only time I've called T-Mobile's customer service was when I upgraded my plan.
Now, just to be fair, Sprint's cell service never gave me any cause for complaint: it was their stupidass billing that lost me as a customer. Comcast, on the other hand, ran all the usual "traffic management" interference on me, dropped my second IP address but continued to charge me for it, refused to accept that it wasn't working even though their own technician said it wasn't, had a ridiculously slow backchannel (16 mbit/sec down, about 34k up) and generally just irritated the fuck out of me. Then one day this young Japanese individual knocked on my door, politely asking if I was interested in AT&T's U-Verse service. I practically yanked the guy into the house, signed up on the spot.
Sprint and Comcast both keep sending me junk mail with the usual "we want you back!" crap. No thanks, you had your chance.
tower: AC310 heavy drop to 30 thousand and proceed to outer marker on heading 31 you are clear for runway
Hm, I wonder where AC310 heavy is ?
Ha... excellent point. In fact, there's a small airport a couple of miles from me that has a restaurant just outside the perimeter, where you can watch small aircraft coming and going. Interestingly, at each table are small speakers where you can listen to the controller chatter.
According to the logic invoked by the arrogant fruitbaskets that are afraid of a goddamn iPhone app, that restaurant should be closed down as an "aid to terrorists."
Well, short-term, you're right, they're behaving exactly as you would expect, if the intent is not to secure us but to control us. Long-term, well, they're asking for trouble. They're not invulnerable, or invincible, even though they may have convinced themselves that they are. Americans aren't desperate enough now to take any significant action, we still have some disposable income, food on table, the lights are still on. If our government(s) continue on this self-destructive orgy of dismantling our industry and the jobs that go with it, looting the Treasury, forestalling any attempt by our creative technical and business minds to engage our foreign competition, things will eventually get nasty. It won't happen right away, but there's a price to be paid for high treason.
Yes, I consider what our government and its private-sector conspirators have done to us in the name of the "environment" and the "global economy" and "free trade" to be nothing less than that.
$20 is about what you would pay for some online build-your-own-box vendor to build you a box to your specs.
You would get a much better box out of the deal.
I wouldn't use a Revo for anything but an appliance.
I agree, but just remember that "better" is a relative term. Not everyone buys PCs using the same criteria... in fact, I'd say that the blind focus on price that most consumers have has been detrimental to the industry as a whole.
Just out of curiosity, what is a "tylenol fanboy"?
Or you could have purchased an Acer Revo for 200 bucks. It does Hd video comfortably and draws 20 watts so is cheap to run.
Assuming your time is worth $20/hour, what was the real cost of searching for parts, putting it together etc etc?
Well, considering that it has all standard components in it that I can replace from multiple sources vs. the custom weird stuff that you often see in low end equipment, I consider myself ahead on the deal. I absolutely refuse to buy a computer system that locks me into the manufacturer for parts. I don't look at this as just "oh, look, I put together a really, really cheap PC" it's "I got a good deal on quality parts on a system I intend to maintain myself."
Dell and HP and the others seriously rip you off on RAM* or don't spend enough money on other components (you can't even look at the specs or manufacturer on the power supply, for instance).
For me, anyway, that's reason enough not to buy a packaged system. The Dells and HPs of the world are interested in minimum acceptable quality for the most profit, I'm interested in the best quality for a reasonable price (not necessarily the lowest.) Those are incompatible goals, and the only way to resolve the conflict is to take matters into your own hands. That's pretty much the same attitude I've always taken towards my entertainment systems too: I pick and choose and get what I want out of it, not what some vendor thinks I want.
We have a roomful of senior DHS and other government officials. The head of the group stands up and says, "Gentlemen, the results are now in... everything is an aid to terrorism."
It is? I managed to save quite a bit of money (a few hundred) building my own computer rather than buying a pre-built one with nearly the same specs.
Really. Especially if you cruise online suppliers looking for a good combo deal, they show up now and then. In my case, I got a nice Micro-ATX motherboard with a 64-bit Athlon 3000+ CPU for fifty bucks off Newegg last year. Even with case, RAM and DVD player it was under two hundred. I wasn't sure of the motherboard video (reviews said it didn't handle 1920x1080 well) so I added another $35 for an ATI slimline video card with HDMI out. This machine sits in living room connected to my TV, but it's otherwise a pretty decent PC. Looks slick too: people think it's just a DVD player.
Slashdot Mirror
Miniaturized relays are interesting, but an inverter which operates at 0.0005 Ghz is less interesting.
Also less interesting? That if we were to get it up to 1 GHz, then the processor would exhaust itself in two seconds.
Good enough for the flight controller in a smart missile.
Free is the most stupid French company. it provides low quality DSL which hardly works and they keep blaming France Telecom for their problem. Though you pay them a subscription every month even when it's not working, they would not assume this problem.
Free tries to play the pseudo rebel ISP and want to talk to the geek community. They just try to be pseudo cool. The truth is, if they dont send this email, then Free users will directly go to phase 2 of the 3-strike law without even being aware of this. Genius
Then again, anything Free is worth exactly what you paid for it.
... as the negotiators are not under the Senate's control.
So how is it that negotiators who are negotiating a treaty that will have far-reaching implications for the people of Mexico not be under their government's control? That sounds about as thoroughly fucked up as it is in D.C.
In conclusion: Your conspiracy theories cloud the war while aiding the enemy, and I wish that you'd stop. Thanks!
Not so. I wish you'd actually educate yourself as to the real history of the media industry, the true motivations of the people behind them, and what their current efforts regarding the Internet really are.
None of the devices and technologies of which you speak were invented by the content industry. The RIAA originally came about as a standards organization (e.g. the RIAA compensation curve) and has since mutated into a lawsuit mill. So they aren't that bright, have never been that bright, and never will be that bright. Those were ALL technologies created by hardware companies trying to make a buck, technologies which the media conglomerates either decided to endorse (if they saw profit in it), or try to kill off (if they felt threatened by it.) They have had no qualms about going to Congress in an effort get anything they don't like banned by law! Those are the facts. Where you get your information from is a mystery to me.
And just for the record, they've made plenty of attempts at intervention. They're still doing it, at both the technological, legal and governmental levels. That fact those efforts have not been particularly effective (yet!) in the U.S. doesn't mean they aren't trying, or might not be more successful in the future. In conclusion: your naivete concerning the media cartels is almost endearing, but is limiting our ability to offer a proper defense to the enemy, while simultaneously aiding and abetting his efforts.
Start with Ray Beckerman's blog, if you want to start playing a little catch-up here. I think your knowledge of this topic is, well, inadequate.
10/04/2000 44.31 10/04/2010 33.03
Their price gouging isn't doing much for their stock price.
Good.
There are plenty of applications that are much larger than 32 megs. The latest version of emacs is about 45 megs. :) Also, ever downloaded OpenOffice? That's one huge application.
Ever downloaded Microsoft Office? That's one huge application.
> The specific reasons for this aren't important, the fact that those reasons cannot be changed is.
"cannot be changed"? You meant this in the greater context of the discussion which centers on Bittorrent?
Because I can see that it might be possible to fix this latency under certain specific circumstances which might come about in the future. If we assume that most Linux users in this future have constant availability of their net connection and are willing to run some kind of specialized P2P protocol server, then the protocol would merely have to randomly query N peers from a locally cached peer list, and fallback on centralized servers in case of failure. For small N this would only add a very small latency for the very first downloaders (assuming such an N is still large enough to give good connectivity to the generated graph).
What it comes down to is this: Bram Cohen wrote Bit Torrent for the express purpose of downloading large files, where the initialization time is a relatively small percentage of the overall transmission time. That's what it's designed to do ... but, as you say, that doesn't mean it can't be further optimized for smaller files. Maybe putting more intelligence in the tracker, I don't know. I'd like to know what outfits like Valve have done with it: their Steam Content Distribution System continually updates game files in the background, and presumably they aren't all huge. So I'm guessing they've managed to make it work for smaller files too. They did have Bram Cohen working for them at one point.
This is spot on.
WoW (and other MMOs) needs torrents, because they have an very high to extremely high burst ratio. When a new patch is deployed for Linux it needs to propagate out to various distributions, people need to start packing it and then end users auto update will pick it up eventually. This means it's often distributed over time. When WoW deploys a new patch, they have 10 million people trying to get it at once in order to be first in new instances. Even the big distributors have trouble coping with this - and over a short period of time the need for bandwith will drop to very low levels as people are getting up-to-date, so there is no financial incentive for Blizzard to invest in the hardware to cope with deployment.
Depends. Take Valve's Steam Content Distribution System, which is, so far as I know, the first major commercial deployment of swarming technology. They actually hired Bram Cohen, the guy who came up with Bit Torrent, to work on Steam. The Steam client begins downloading files in the background well before a game's release date, continually updating them with new data as necessary. Then, when the product that you bought is finally "released", why, you already have it! But it's still a Torrent-based scheme under the hood. Given the sheer size of modern game software, it's really about the only practical way to deliver that many terabytes of data to millions of users.
It's perfectly legal to download copyrighted material with the permission of the copyright holder (unless it breaks any other laws) in every country.
Why would the RIAA or anybody else want to poison Linux updates?
Because they, point-blank, would like to see ALL downloading of ANY files that are not expressly approved BY THEM to be made illegal and/or blocked by ISPs under government mandate. Yes, that's how they think. Do they care about Linux updates, specifically? Of course not: but the media cartel is all about banning entire technologies (cassette tape, DAT, writeable CDs and DVDS, the VCR, you-name-it.) If it can be used to copy entertainment data they feel they have the right to eliminate it, and should there be some "collateral damage", well, that's perfectly acceptable. Don't underestimate these people: yes, they're not particularly bright but they are dangerous, having both tremendous resources and the willing ears of imbecilic and corrupt lawmakers worldwide.
What the hell is that? And how do you download any sort of media?
Netflix?
Is that like being mistaken about a mistake?
Yes indeed it is, and eventually Verizon will want their customers to return that 90 million in mistakenly issued refunds.
I know. I remember back when one of the companies started offering 40 hours per month for the same price AOL was charging for 15 hours. I thought I was in heaven. Heck I had almost TWO HOURS PER DAY available to be online with my spiffy 14.4k modem. This was after growing up using BBS's with a 2400 BAUD modem. Damn I feel old and I'm not even 30 yet :(.
Get off my lawn. I started out on a 300 bps acoustic coupler, using a 110 baud Olivetti teletype.
I have no interest at all in owning a "smart phone" or whatever until per meg billing is abolished.
Well, I have T-Mobile and they're pretty good about it. I pay about $25/month for unlimited data. Now, as I understand it, you get 3G speeds up 'til ten gigs, after which they back you off to Edge network speeds. Some outfits just shut you off if you go over some limit, but even if I go over that ten gigs I still get service.
I'm not actually sure if that policy is still in force, however. But I've never had an issue with them, not one.
They had designed their phones such that there was a shortcut button to their web portal. Users without a data plan, taken to that portal, were charged for the data at the usual ridiculous out-of-plan rates. They could have the portal blocked but this just meant they were charged for the data used in retrieving the "this portal is blocked" page instead. So there's an interesting bit of background detail going on here. Maybe $2 per customer isn't much to the customer, but it's a tidy bit of extra revenue to Verizon.
Sprint did something kinda similar to me (note that I've not been with Sprint for some time.) I had a semi-smart phone that had a built-in Web browser. It was pretty limited, and I didn't bother to buy a data plan for the thing. In any event, it turned out that every time I went to check my minutes, I was being charged about two bucks per kilobyte. My first bill had a couple hundred dollars of "data charges" on it, with no explanation of what they were for. So I called up and complained, and at first I met with some resistance until I finally got hold of a supervisor (who was from New Jersey, not Bangladesh) who explained what was going on and agreed to write off the charges.
Left a bad taste in my mouth on that one. Then I went through about a year and a half of monthly calls to Sprint to get weirdass charges removed. Finally went to T-Mobile and haven't looked back.
Verizon never does the right thing.
Right is relative. I doubt you'll hear their stockholders complaining.
The same thing happens with banks, for that matter, or any instance where you're charged for something. What are the odds you'll be accidentally credited instead of, say, debited twice for the same thing? And if multiple erroneous debits wind up overdrawing your account, how good are the odds that the offending party will reimburse the overdraft charges?
These errors always seem to be at the expense of the consumer and it's a struggle just to get back to zero, much less be compensated for your time and trouble.
Yeah, you're right about that (and it's statistically improbable at best.)
Still, I did have one positive experience along those lines once. Gotta be about twenty five years ago, but at the time I was pretty broke and was waiting for some money to come in, so I could open another checking account and get away from a bank that had seriously screwed me over (in fact, that's why I was pretty broke.) Suddenly, a substantial amount of money appeared in my account: obviously a banking error, but I immediately withdrew some of it, used it to open an account at another bank, then immediately withdrew those funds and put them back in my original account. A couple of days later, the original bank fixed its mistake, but that was all the time I needed.
But you're right, that's pretty goddamn rare.
It's also hardly limited to Verizon. I've been with Sprint for several years and had a few occasions where they put strange charges on my bill. Of course, I called and complained and they took them off, saying they were "billing errors." I don't know what I'd prefer, that they're so shady they're purposely tacking bullshit charges onto people's bills, or they are so incompetent they don't know how to keep such mistakes from happening.
I can only guess how many people get those charges who never bat an eye and just pay them.
Yes, I had much the same experience with Sprint. It's why I went to T-Mobile: believe me, I asked around and tried to get an idea of if I would experience the same problems. Everyone I spoke to at the time was very positive about T-Mobile's billing practices.
.25c per text message even though my account had unlimited texting. Then the bastards would spam me, and charge me for the privilege (the same .25c per message.) Then, on top of that, I would get Internet charges on an account that didn't have a data plan, and twenty or thirty bucks a month would show up for watching TV shows on a phone that didn't support video playback. As you said, when I called they would immediately take them off, but that's just ridiculous. Comcast would pull similar crap. I eventually had enough of both of them.
... well, they're just Deutsche Telekom's US division. I'm not at all surprised that the Germans know how to do proper accounting.
... it was coming in on the power line. The only time I've called T-Mobile's customer service was when I upgraded my plan.
With Sprint, I would get charged
At the moment, I have U-Verse for my Internet and phone service (dropped the TV because, well, we really don't watch it enough to justify the expense, although the service was excellent) and T-Mobile for my cell phone (with data plan.) Both have given me great service for the money, and not a single billing error. Not one. So it's certainly possible to run an honest billing system and some companies do. Well, you have to figure AT&T has plenty of experience with that, and as far as T-Mobile
Matter of fact, the only time I've had to call AT&T U-Verse support was when we started getting all kinds of noise and dropouts on the incoming VDSL signal. Turned out it wasn't AT&T's fault
Now, just to be fair, Sprint's cell service never gave me any cause for complaint: it was their stupidass billing that lost me as a customer. Comcast, on the other hand, ran all the usual "traffic management" interference on me, dropped my second IP address but continued to charge me for it, refused to accept that it wasn't working even though their own technician said it wasn't, had a ridiculously slow backchannel (16 mbit/sec down, about 34k up) and generally just irritated the fuck out of me. Then one day this young Japanese individual knocked on my door, politely asking if I was interested in AT&T's U-Verse service. I practically yanked the guy into the house, signed up on the spot.
Sprint and Comcast both keep sending me junk mail with the usual "we want you back!" crap. No thanks, you had your chance.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
What the hell is that? And how do you download any sort of media?
"The medium is the message."
tower: AC310 heavy drop to 30 thousand and proceed to outer marker on heading 31 you are clear for runway
Hm, I wonder where AC310 heavy is ?
Ha ... excellent point. In fact, there's a small airport a couple of miles from me that has a restaurant just outside the perimeter, where you can watch small aircraft coming and going. Interestingly, at each table are small speakers where you can listen to the controller chatter.
According to the logic invoked by the arrogant fruitbaskets that are afraid of a goddamn iPhone app, that restaurant should be closed down as an "aid to terrorists."
The government is not being stupid
Well, short-term, you're right, they're behaving exactly as you would expect, if the intent is not to secure us but to control us. Long-term, well, they're asking for trouble. They're not invulnerable, or invincible, even though they may have convinced themselves that they are. Americans aren't desperate enough now to take any significant action, we still have some disposable income, food on table, the lights are still on. If our government(s) continue on this self-destructive orgy of dismantling our industry and the jobs that go with it, looting the Treasury, forestalling any attempt by our creative technical and business minds to engage our foreign competition, things will eventually get nasty. It won't happen right away, but there's a price to be paid for high treason.
Yes, I consider what our government and its private-sector conspirators have done to us in the name of the "environment" and the "global economy" and "free trade" to be nothing less than that.
"Sworn to protect us" my ass.
$20 is about what you would pay for some online build-your-own-box vendor to build you a box to your specs.
You would get a much better box out of the deal.
I wouldn't use a Revo for anything but an appliance.
I agree, but just remember that "better" is a relative term. Not everyone buys PCs using the same criteria ... in fact, I'd say that the blind focus on price that most consumers have has been detrimental to the industry as a whole.
Just out of curiosity, what is a "tylenol fanboy"?
Or you could have purchased an Acer Revo for 200 bucks. It does Hd video comfortably and draws 20 watts so is cheap to run.
Assuming your time is worth $20/hour, what was the real cost of searching for parts, putting it together etc etc?
Well, considering that it has all standard components in it that I can replace from multiple sources vs. the custom weird stuff that you often see in low end equipment, I consider myself ahead on the deal. I absolutely refuse to buy a computer system that locks me into the manufacturer for parts. I don't look at this as just "oh, look, I put together a really, really cheap PC" it's "I got a good deal on quality parts on a system I intend to maintain myself."
Dell and HP and the others seriously rip you off on RAM* or don't spend enough money on other components (you can't even look at the specs or manufacturer on the power supply, for instance).
For me, anyway, that's reason enough not to buy a packaged system. The Dells and HPs of the world are interested in minimum acceptable quality for the most profit, I'm interested in the best quality for a reasonable price (not necessarily the lowest.) Those are incompatible goals, and the only way to resolve the conflict is to take matters into your own hands. That's pretty much the same attitude I've always taken towards my entertainment systems too: I pick and choose and get what I want out of it, not what some vendor thinks I want.
We have a roomful of senior DHS and other government officials. The head of the group stands up and says, "Gentlemen, the results are now in ... everything is an aid to terrorism."
It is? I managed to save quite a bit of money (a few hundred) building my own computer rather than buying a pre-built one with nearly the same specs.
Really. Especially if you cruise online suppliers looking for a good combo deal, they show up now and then. In my case, I got a nice Micro-ATX motherboard with a 64-bit Athlon 3000+ CPU for fifty bucks off Newegg last year. Even with case, RAM and DVD player it was under two hundred. I wasn't sure of the motherboard video (reviews said it didn't handle 1920x1080 well) so I added another $35 for an ATI slimline video card with HDMI out. This machine sits in living room connected to my TV, but it's otherwise a pretty decent PC. Looks slick too: people think it's just a DVD player.