When will the bug regarding VLC no longer even seeing UPnP streams be fixed? It started with rincewind, and I'm stuck with a very old version for the time being until you fix this... Debian Linux (Sid) Mint Linux
I have 22 TB of MKV films I've ripped from DVD's and Blu-Rays, I've Used VLC for ten years now to watch movies which is being sent via Mediatomb, now two of my machines no longer even see the mediatomb UPnP stream. Only my old Debian Stable machines vlc still do.
speaking as I have an over 4 TB music collection,(luckily, I've kept every cd I ever bought, except a few stinkers, and ripped them as original.wav file using EAC or CDparanoia) audacious does a good job of playing everything I throw at it, except some of my very first.wav's I ripped or composed back in the early 90's, before MP3 was out.
Of course, back then I only had a 10 Meg hard drive, so I could only rip 5-10 second pieces of music from Cd's... but it's still funny as hell when Joe Walsh's intro to Meadows pops up inverted (I ripped the first 10 seconds where he does his vocal theatrics, then reversed it)..
now, if you want to include mp4/mkv video files, then you'll need to go to VLC, it seems to handle my 24 TB film collection being served as UPnP via mediatomb just fine.
just because xx size is overkill to you, doesn't mean someone else doesn't have a valid reason why they need it.
p.s. I also rsync (always using append) my entire collection over to two different backup servers on a weekly basis... to lose everything I've ever done on computer from music, to film, to documents, to photos, to.... would be catastrophic.
p.p.s. fuck Itunes. Never used it, even when I had an Ipod, it was always a bloated piece of crap. It sure was a PITA to hack the Ipod to install an os that allowed me to drag and drop music files on it, instead of that Itunes bullshit filesystem (those who know, know, those who don't, just ignore this)
I just moved to an area with terrible internet, so streaming netflix is on ly barely viable, and that's only if nothing else on my network is using any bandwidth....:( sucks.
At the same time I've noticed my netflix disks getting delivered later then stated, and received later then normal, although I only moved 4 miles geographically....
I am upset over the loss of saturdays, and have also noticed the dvd side of it getting thinner and thinner. Although I've been a member of netflix since, oh, 08 or so, I'm thinking seriously about cancelling because it doesn't fill my needs nearly as well as it used to.
unfortunate, because hulu can suck a dick with their advertising model even if you pay for a film, and amazon and google's ppv ain't gonna cut it either.
There is absolutely no comparison, on my LCD colours look artificial and 'hopped up' after watching the exact same video on my Plasma. I know network and cable streams suck, but I have my own HTPC, with over 8000 films, and there's a huge difference. Especially on black and white films, and especially with higher resolution video, a-la Blu-ray.
I'm sad that Panasonic (the maker of the best plasmas) has decided to get out of the business, but hopefully in ten or more years, when It's time for me to look for a new screen, OLED will finally be up to todays plasma technology.
The naysayers simply haven't done their homework. Read any review, consumer level or Professional, and plasmas always have a better picture in every way then anything else.
Their only failings are slightly higher power consumption, not quite as bright, and highly reflective screens. Lifespan? meh, 100,000 hours to 'half-life' and as others have said, old cathode ray tubes were rated 25,000 hours.
Tis a sad day, but I knew it was coming, from insiders in the business.
Just because, I went and burned a DVD, booted it, created a flashram usb,(effortless install) booted it, (really really fast boot, in the realm of fifteen seconds start to finish) created another flashram (on an sdcard, no less) booted it,(again, really really fast) booted and checked wifi on three different devices, all of which have given me mucho problems in the past. All three devices wifi was detected, and within seconds I had internet access, with no stress or effort.
I chose to create an additional data partition on each flashram, encrypted. Works a treat! if you don't enter a password at the password prompt, it will instead just boot 'vanilla' knoppix
7.2 is really nice! It even automatically enabled compiz-fusion on the netbook.
jaz
Re:Anybody use Knoppix today? Great stuff at one t
on
Knoppix 7.2 Released
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
It's still my go to system on a disk whenever anyone has issues with windows, or (much more rare) linux computers.
I've tried all kinds of 'other' live cd's Knoppix was the first, and is still, imo, the best.
I think my oldest knoppix cd is 3, or maybe earlier.
I agree. In ten years of Debian on all my machines, I can count the numbers of 'catastrophic' failures of apt-get or aptitude on one hand, and those were all a dist-upgrade when something MAJOR changed and I didn't catch it before upgrading. IOW, there was clear wording available to warn me to wait.
Debian Sid is a perfectly acceptable day-to-day OS for desktop use, IMO.
I've also almost NEVER had a problem updating a Stable Distro to Testing, or Sid.
Debian mostly, just works. I enable non-free sources, and deb-multimedia, but that's about all I mess with beyond 'stock' Stable, or Testing, or Sid(experimental) jaz
I used Kanotix, Sidux, and Aptosid (related debian-derived distros)for a long, long time. It's nice to see a new Aptosid version, I may have to give this a spin, after updating all my server machines to Wheezy.
All I know is my galaxy s II (I777) runs excellent on Cyanogenmod 9 stable. I have no force crashes, and AFAIK, there is nothing I'm missing from stock.
If they ever release a RC for 10, I'll upgrade, because there are a number of (mostly little) things JB does better then ICS, but as it stands, my phone is faster, better battery, and does everything the stock rom did, without all that bloatcrap.
(Aside) Come on, Samsung, give us a pure android experience, not cluttered with a buch of shit. You build GREAT phones, build a GREAT OS.
No, dipshit anonymous coward, It means I'm willing to put up with a bit more configuration/troubles then the usual user if I perceive an improved user experience.
This is Excellent! I've been using XFCE4 for damn near 10 years now, having it be the 'default' means that things like vnc etc etc won't default to gnome (gnome sucks ass) without a customized config file. It also means I can let the 'default' desktop system get installed instead of manually installing the DE and WM I want instead of GDM and Gnome.
Yay Debian!!!!!
jaz
Re:The most human side of scifi...
on
Ray Bradbury Has Died
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I brooded by our third-floor hotel window. On the Dublin street below a man passed, his face to the lamplight. "Him,' I muttered. "Two days ago----'
Two days ago as I was walking along, someone had "hissed' me from the hotel alley. "Sir, it's important! Sir!'
I turned into the shadow. This little man in the direct tones said, "I've a job in Belfast if I just had a pound for the train fare!'
I hesitated.
"A most important job!' he went on swiftly. "Pays well! I'll--I'll mail you back the loan! Just give me your name and hotel----'
He knew me for a tourist. But it was too late; his promise to pay had moved me. The pound note crackled in my hand, being worked free from several others.
The man's eye skimmed like a shadowing hawk. "If I had two pounds, I could eat on the way----'
I uncrumpled two bills.
"And three pounds would bring the wife----'
I unleafed a third.
"Ah, hell!' cried the man. "Five, just five poor pounds, would find us a hotel in that brutal city and let me get to the job, for sure!'
What a dancing fighter he was, light on his toes, weaving, tapping with his hands, flicking with his eyes, smiling with his mouth, jabbing with his tongue.
"Lord thank you, bless you, sir!'
He ran, my five pounds with him. I was half in the hotel before I realized that, for all his vows, he had not recoreded my name. "Gah!' I cried then.
"Gah!' I cried now at the window. For there, passing below, was the very fellow who should have been in Belfast two nights ago.
"Oh, I know him,' said my wife. "He stopped me this noon. Wanted train fare to Galway.'
"Did you give it to him?'
"No,' said my wife simply.
Then the worst thing happened. The demon glanced up, saw us and darned if he didn't wave!
I had to stop myself from waving back. A sickly grin played on my lips. "It's got so I hate to leave the hotel,' I said.
"It's cold out, all right.'
"No,' I said. "Not the cold. Them.'
And we looked again from the window. There was the cobbled Dublin street with the night wind blowing in a fine soot along one way to Trinity College, another to St. Stephen's Green. Across by the sweet shop two men stood mummified in the shadows. Farther up in a doorway was a bundle of old newspapers that would stir like a pack of mice and wish you the time of evening if you walked by. Below, by the hotel entrance, stood a feverish hothouse rose of a woman with a bundle.
"Oh, the beggars,' said my wife.
"No, not just "oh, the beggars,'' I said. "But, oh, the people in the streets, who somehow became beggars.'
My wife peered at me. "You're not afraid of them?'
"Yes, no. Hell. It's that woman with the bundle who's worst. She's a force of nature, she is. Assaults you with her poverty. As for the others-- well, it's a big chess game for me now. We've been in Dublin--what?--eight weeks? Eight weeks I've sat up here with my typewriter, and studied their off hours and on. When they take a coffee break, I take one, run for the sweet shop, the bookstore, the Olympia Theatre. If I time it right, there's no handout, no my wanting to trot them into the barbershop or the kitchen.'
"Lord,' said my wife, "you sound driven.'
"I am. But most of all by that beggar on O'Connell Bridge!'
"Which one?'
"Which one, indeed! He's a wonder, a terror. I hate him, I love him. To see is to disbelieve him. Come on.'
On the way down in the elevator my wife said, "If you held your face right, the beggars wouldn't bother you.'
"My face,' I explained patiently, "is my face. It's from Apple Dumpling, Wisconsin, Sarsaparilla, Maine. KIND TO DOGS is writ on my brow for all to read. Let the street be empty-- then let me step out and there's a strikers' march of freeloader
original article, sorry for the fucked formatting.
[quote] A few years ago, Apple sold me a $4,000 computer with a defective graphics chip/logic board. The defective part was the Nvidia 8600M GT GPU, and when it was discovered that the machine was defective, Apple refused to take it back and issue me a refund. Instead, they promised to replace the 8600M GT boards when they failed, up to 4 years from the date of purchase.
Three years later, the board failed, and predictably, Apple refused to replace it. Instead, they used the fact that the machine wouldnâ(TM)t boot (due to the failed logic board) to deny the repair. Not only that, but in addition, they tried to charge me a hefty sum of money to have it replaced, knowing full well that Nvidia pays for the full repair cost.
Three and a half months ago, after having my repair denied, I announced on this very site that I was going to sue Apple. Reading these lawsuit threats often, many people assumed that I was bluffing or blowing off steam, but true to my word, I did exactly what I said I was going to do. I sued Apple.
I did not take this step lightly, however. In the months following the announcement, I did everything in my power to keep my dispute with Apple out of the court system.
First, I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. In their rebuttal to the BBB, Apple blatantly lied about the diagnostics they had run on my computer, and the BBB promptly closed the case, leaving Appleâ(TM)s âoeA+â rating intact.
Next, I spoke with Apple Executive Services ⦠three separate times. Each time, I was told that âoeWe value each customer and hope that they have a positive experience with Apple, and are sorry that you did not have this experience, but you will get nothing.â ⦠or something to this effect.
After that, I sent a demand letter to Apple via certified mail. I informed them that if I did not have my issue resolved within 10 days, I would sue.
Only then, after Apple failed to reply, did I file a Small Claims lawsuit.
Last week, the trial was held.
I arrived at the King County Courthouse shortly after 8am, and about forty five minutes later, the clerk performed roll call. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Apple had sent not one, but two people to represent the company. When Apple told me that I would get nothing, they really meant it.
After calling roll, and before calling the docket, the clerk went down the case list and asked each litigant if they would be willing to try mediation. Mediation keeps cases out of the court system, and keeps the outcomes confidential. This is especially beneficial to companies, as having judgements issued against them by customers is bad PR.
Always one to exhaust all good-faith remedies before resorting to more drastic measures (really, nobody can say I didnâ(TM)t try my hardest to stay out of court), I agreed to try mediation, and to my surprise, so did Apple.
Since everything said in the mediation room is confidential, I cannot go into details about what happened there, but I will tell you that it failed (for the same reason that everything else failed), and the case was sent back to the courtroom.
In retrospect, I am glad that mediation did fail. After seeing that Apple sent two guys ⦠two guys who were in continuous contact with Apple legal via text and cell ⦠I knew that I was outgunned, outspent, and out-everything elsed. $500,000,000,000 vs. $37 and a pack of chewing gum is not a fair fight. Because of this, I offered settlements that were ridiculously favorable to Apple and unfavorable to myself, but even these were rejected. Thank goodness that they were.
After failing mediation, shortly after 11am, we were called before the judge, sworn in, and I read my opening statement. I said basically everything Iâ(TM)ve been saying on this blog for the last several months. I stuck to the facts, handed my exhibits to the clerk (several printed pages), an
I also, was bit by this hardware failure, My HP Pavilion laptop constantly froze and would refuse to wake from sleep. I discovered this hardware issue on my own, and found a telephone number for HP.
I called the telephone number, HP ran my serial number, and then said that a box would be waiting for me at home tomorrow, and to send my laptop back (after backing up all my data) and I would receive it back with a replaced MoBo.
Well, I got my laptop back one week later. As specified, it had a brand new Mobo in it, with a different serial # ( I peeked at the original before sending it back) I still have the laptop, and it still freezes. , just about ALL Nvidia GPUs of this run were bad, although that didn't become common knowledge 'till the Register I beleive, told everyone, and that was months after I'd already had mine replaced
But, HP did not try to stonewall me, they tried to fix the problem.
I've already sworn off any apple product for life, due to other issues, (Itunes is eeevil) but this is ridiculous.
Who could guess twenty years ago, that Bill Gates would become the Largest Philanthropist in the world, and Steve Jobs would become...'Evil'?
as the original article says, apple has become exactly what they said they were railing against with that infamous commercial.
The interesting thing to me is, my experiance was totally different. I discovered the books in my mothers closet (where she put books after she read them, she never re-reads a book) and knew nothing whatsoever about them, or tolkien, or hobbits. (mid seventies, deeply religious upbringing) the Art on the cover was what first grabbed me (these were the official del paperpacks, with that amazing picture drawn by tolkien over all four books)
It was only after working into them, I began to go 'oh wow!' I had no preconceptions about the books, which I suspect was a reason why they were so amazing to me.
Also, at that time, I was a voracious reader of andrew langs coloured fairy books, and had already read Beowulf on my own, (confused as hell by it) and Oedipus Rex. I suspect they all 'set the stage' for my entering Tolkiens world mythology.
I'm in exactly the same boat, from 11 on, I read TLOTR once a year on average. Now it's the Silmarillion, and the Histories of Middle Earth I enjoy more.
Also, Tolkien introduced me to Finnish Literature, and re-ignited my love of old english poems and prose. I just finished re-reading Beowulf.
When I was younger, I'd usually skip over Tolkiens poems, but now, I linger over them, he was a most excellent writer.
Like the Parent, I have read thousands of books, and Tolkiens mythology always draws me back to his works.
Off-topic, the films weren't 'bad' but they were massively abridged, with a few stupidisms thrown in (Aragorn & the Wargs.)
However, leaving out the scouring of the shire was just criminal.
Slashdot Mirror
How does everyone miss
"and does not affect Android Oreo (8.0) in its default state."
in the original article?
Jesus, has it been that long?
Sure do wish I'd signed up the first couple of years I browsed /.
When will the bug regarding VLC no longer even seeing UPnP streams be fixed? It started with rincewind, and I'm stuck with a very old version for the time being until you fix this...
Debian Linux (Sid)
Mint Linux
I have 22 TB of MKV films I've ripped from DVD's and Blu-Rays, I've Used VLC for ten years now to watch movies which is being sent via Mediatomb, now two of my machines no longer even see the mediatomb UPnP stream. Only my old Debian Stable machines vlc still do.
I have somewhere my soundfile of barney singing that damn song, merged into the doom shotgun twice, with the death scream after.
Still makes me giggle when I find it.
I keyed into acid mode one night, right after dropping two tabs.... it got REAAALLLLY weird after a half hour or so... man. That was 25 years ago.
speaking as I have an over 4 TB music collection,(luckily, I've kept every cd I ever bought, except a few stinkers, and ripped them as original .wav file using EAC or CDparanoia) audacious does a good job of playing everything I throw at it, except some of my very first .wav's I ripped or composed back in the early 90's, before MP3 was out.
Of course, back then I only had a 10 Meg hard drive, so I could only rip 5-10 second pieces of music from Cd's... but it's still funny as hell when Joe Walsh's intro to Meadows pops up inverted (I ripped the first 10 seconds where he does his vocal theatrics, then reversed it)..
now, if you want to include mp4/mkv video files, then you'll need to go to VLC, it seems to handle my 24 TB film collection being served as UPnP via mediatomb just fine.
just because xx size is overkill to you, doesn't mean someone else doesn't have a valid reason why they need it.
p.s. I also rsync (always using append) my entire collection over to two different backup servers on a weekly basis... to lose everything I've ever done on computer from music, to film, to documents, to photos, to .... would be catastrophic.
p.p.s. fuck Itunes. Never used it, even when I had an Ipod, it was always a bloated piece of crap. It sure was a PITA to hack the Ipod to install an os that allowed me to drag and drop music files on it, instead of that Itunes bullshit filesystem (those who know, know, those who don't, just ignore this)
MooT!
This should be interesting.
I gave up on Google+ a couple of years ago, but still frequent 4chan...
I just moved to an area with terrible internet, so streaming netflix is on ly barely viable, and that's only if nothing else on my network is using any bandwidth.... :( sucks.
At the same time I've noticed my netflix disks getting delivered later then stated, and received later then normal, although I only moved 4 miles geographically....
I am upset over the loss of saturdays, and have also noticed the dvd side of it getting thinner and thinner. Although I've been a member of netflix since, oh, 08 or so, I'm thinking seriously about cancelling because it doesn't fill my needs nearly as well as it used to.
unfortunate, because hulu can suck a dick with their advertising model even if you pay for a film, and amazon and google's ppv ain't gonna cut it either.
this article, and the linked website are absolute shite.
What the fuck, Slashdot?
my stuff never gets posted, but shit like this does?
FFS.
There is absolutely no comparison, on my LCD colours look artificial and 'hopped up' after watching the exact same video on my Plasma. I know network and cable streams suck, but I have my own HTPC, with over 8000 films, and there's a huge difference.
Especially on black and white films, and especially with higher resolution video, a-la Blu-ray.
I'm sad that Panasonic (the maker of the best plasmas) has decided to get out of the business, but hopefully in ten or more years, when It's time for me to look for a new screen, OLED will finally be up to todays plasma technology.
The naysayers simply haven't done their homework. Read any review, consumer level or Professional, and plasmas always have a better picture in every way then anything else.
Their only failings are slightly higher power consumption, not quite as bright, and highly reflective screens. Lifespan? meh, 100,000 hours to 'half-life' and as others have said, old cathode ray tubes were rated 25,000 hours.
Tis a sad day, but I knew it was coming, from insiders in the business.
jaz
Just because, I went and burned a DVD, booted it, created a flashram usb,(effortless install) booted it, (really really fast boot, in the realm of fifteen seconds start to finish) created another flashram (on an sdcard, no less) booted it,(again, really really fast) booted and checked wifi on three different devices, all of which have given me mucho problems in the past. All three devices wifi was detected, and within seconds I had internet access, with no stress or effort.
I chose to create an additional data partition on each flashram, encrypted. Works a treat! if you don't enter a password at the password prompt, it will instead just boot 'vanilla' knoppix
7.2 is really nice! It even automatically enabled compiz-fusion on the netbook.
jaz
It's still my go to system on a disk whenever anyone has issues with windows, or (much more rare) linux computers.
I've tried all kinds of 'other' live cd's Knoppix was the first, and is still, imo, the best.
I think my oldest knoppix cd is 3, or maybe earlier.
jaz
I agree. In ten years of Debian on all my machines, I can count the numbers of 'catastrophic' failures of apt-get or aptitude on one hand, and those were all a dist-upgrade when something MAJOR changed and I didn't catch it before upgrading. IOW, there was clear wording available to warn me to wait.
Debian Sid is a perfectly acceptable day-to-day OS for desktop use, IMO.
I've also almost NEVER had a problem updating a Stable Distro to Testing, or Sid.
Debian mostly, just works. I enable non-free sources, and deb-multimedia, but that's about all I mess with beyond 'stock' Stable, or Testing, or Sid(experimental)
jaz
I used Kanotix, Sidux, and Aptosid (related debian-derived distros)for a long, long time.
It's nice to see a new Aptosid version, I may have to give this a spin, after updating all my server machines to Wheezy.
Keep on Truckin' guys!
jaz
Gnome is not my choice. :)
Good job Debian! my upgrades from Squeeze to Wheezy were painless, and soon I'll be trying a new install from a netinstall cd.
Debian and XFCE are all I need.
jaz
My mod points ran out yesterday, so I can't mod you up.
But, and this is coming from a linux and android fan, Your post is spot on!
FUD sucks no matter where it's coming from, and this (OP and thread) is totall sheit.
Mod Parent Up!
All I know is my galaxy s II (I777) runs excellent on Cyanogenmod 9 stable. I have no force crashes, and AFAIK, there is nothing I'm missing from stock.
If they ever release a RC for 10, I'll upgrade, because there are a number of (mostly little) things JB does better then ICS, but as it stands, my phone is faster, better battery, and does everything the stock rom did, without all that bloatcrap.
(Aside) Come on, Samsung, give us a pure android experience, not cluttered with a buch of shit. You build GREAT phones, build a GREAT OS.
jaz
No, dipshit anonymous coward, It means I'm willing to put up with a bit more configuration/troubles then the usual user if I perceive an improved user experience.
Awesome!
Can't wait for this.
I run Cyanogenmod 9 on my Galaxy S II, everything works great, and battery life is excellent.
I run 10 on my Transformer TF 300, it works well, a little bit buggy.
I run 7 on my HTC Inspire, works fine.
Cyanogenmod is the ONLY way to run android, IMO.
But then again, I'm a linux user on desktops.
jaz
This is Excellent! I've been using XFCE4 for damn near 10 years now, having it be the 'default' means that things like vnc etc etc won't default to gnome (gnome sucks ass) without a customized config file. It also means I can let the 'default' desktop system get installed instead of manually installing the DE and WM I want instead of GDM and Gnome.
Yay Debian!!!!!
jaz
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+beggar+on+Dublin+bridge.-a03579795
"A fool,' I said. "That's what I am.'
"Why?' asked my wife. "What for?'
I brooded by our third-floor hotel window. On the Dublin street below a man passed, his face to the lamplight. "Him,' I muttered. "Two days ago----'
Two days ago as I was walking along, someone had "hissed' me from the hotel alley. "Sir, it's important! Sir!'
I turned into the shadow. This little man in the direct tones said, "I've a job in Belfast if I just had a pound for the train fare!'
I hesitated.
"A most important job!' he went on swiftly. "Pays well! I'll--I'll mail you back the loan! Just give me your name and hotel----'
He knew me for a tourist. But it was too late; his promise to pay had moved me. The pound note crackled in my hand, being worked free from several others.
The man's eye skimmed like a shadowing hawk. "If I had two pounds, I could eat on the way----'
I uncrumpled two bills.
"And three pounds would bring the wife----'
I unleafed a third.
"Ah, hell!' cried the man. "Five, just five poor pounds, would find us a hotel in that brutal city and let me get to the job, for sure!'
What a dancing fighter he was, light on his toes, weaving, tapping with his hands, flicking with his eyes, smiling with his mouth, jabbing with his tongue.
"Lord thank you, bless you, sir!'
He ran, my five pounds with him. I was half in the hotel before I realized that, for all his vows, he had not recoreded my name. "Gah!' I cried then.
"Gah!' I cried now at the window. For there, passing below, was the very fellow who should have been in Belfast two nights ago.
"Oh, I know him,' said my wife. "He stopped me this noon. Wanted train fare to Galway.'
"Did you give it to him?'
"No,' said my wife simply.
Then the worst thing happened. The demon glanced up, saw us and darned if he didn't wave!
I had to stop myself from waving back. A sickly grin played on my lips. "It's got so I hate to leave the hotel,' I said.
"It's cold out, all right.'
"No,' I said. "Not the cold. Them.'
And we looked again from the window. There was the cobbled Dublin street with the night wind blowing in a fine soot along one way to Trinity College, another to St. Stephen's Green. Across by the sweet shop two men stood mummified in the shadows. Farther up in a doorway was a bundle of old newspapers that would stir like a pack of mice and wish you the time of evening if you walked by. Below, by the hotel entrance, stood a feverish hothouse rose of a woman with a bundle.
"Oh, the beggars,' said my wife.
"No, not just "oh, the beggars,'' I said. "But, oh, the people in the streets, who somehow became beggars.'
My wife peered at me. "You're not afraid of them?'
"Yes, no. Hell. It's that woman with the bundle who's worst. She's a force of nature, she is. Assaults you with her poverty. As for the others-- well, it's a big chess game for me now. We've been in Dublin--what?--eight weeks? Eight weeks I've sat up here with my typewriter, and studied their off hours and on. When they take a coffee break, I take one, run for the sweet shop, the bookstore, the Olympia Theatre. If I time it right, there's no handout, no my wanting to trot them into the barbershop or the kitchen.'
"Lord,' said my wife, "you sound driven.'
"I am. But most of all by that beggar on O'Connell Bridge!'
"Which one?'
"Which one, indeed! He's a wonder, a terror. I hate him, I love him. To see is to disbelieve him. Come on.'
On the way down in the elevator my wife said, "If you held your face right, the beggars wouldn't bother you.'
"My face,' I explained patiently, "is my face. It's from Apple Dumpling, Wisconsin, Sarsaparilla, Maine. KIND TO DOGS is writ on my brow for all to read. Let the street be empty-- then let me step out and there's a strikers' march of freeloader
original article, sorry for the fucked formatting.
[quote]
A few years ago, Apple sold me a $4,000 computer with a defective graphics chip/logic board. The defective part was the Nvidia 8600M GT GPU, and when it was discovered that the machine was defective, Apple refused to take it back and issue me a refund. Instead, they promised to replace the 8600M GT boards when they failed, up to 4 years from the date of purchase.
Three years later, the board failed, and predictably, Apple refused to replace it. Instead, they used the fact that the machine wouldnâ(TM)t boot (due to the failed logic board) to deny the repair. Not only that, but in addition, they tried to charge me a hefty sum of money to have it replaced, knowing full well that Nvidia pays for the full repair cost.
Three and a half months ago, after having my repair denied, I announced on this very site that I was going to sue Apple. Reading these lawsuit threats often, many people assumed that I was bluffing or blowing off steam, but true to my word, I did exactly what I said I was going to do. I sued Apple.
I did not take this step lightly, however. In the months following the announcement, I did everything in my power to keep my dispute with Apple out of the court system.
First, I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. In their rebuttal to the BBB, Apple blatantly lied about the diagnostics they had run on my computer, and the BBB promptly closed the case, leaving Appleâ(TM)s âoeA+â rating intact.
Next, I spoke with Apple Executive Services ⦠three separate times. Each time, I was told that âoeWe value each customer and hope that they have a positive experience with Apple, and are sorry that you did not have this experience, but you will get nothing.â ⦠or something to this effect.
After that, I sent a demand letter to Apple via certified mail. I informed them that if I did not have my issue resolved within 10 days, I would sue.
Only then, after Apple failed to reply, did I file a Small Claims lawsuit.
Last week, the trial was held.
I arrived at the King County Courthouse shortly after 8am, and about forty five minutes later, the clerk performed roll call. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Apple had sent not one, but two people to represent the company. When Apple told me that I would get nothing, they really meant it.
After calling roll, and before calling the docket, the clerk went down the case list and asked each litigant if they would be willing to try mediation. Mediation keeps cases out of the court system, and keeps the outcomes confidential. This is especially beneficial to companies, as having judgements issued against them by customers is bad PR.
Always one to exhaust all good-faith remedies before resorting to more drastic measures (really, nobody can say I didnâ(TM)t try my hardest to stay out of court), I agreed to try mediation, and to my surprise, so did Apple.
Since everything said in the mediation room is confidential, I cannot go into details about what happened there, but I will tell you that it failed (for the same reason that everything else failed), and the case was sent back to the courtroom.
In retrospect, I am glad that mediation did fail. After seeing that Apple sent two guys ⦠two guys who were in continuous contact with Apple legal via text and cell ⦠I knew that I was outgunned, outspent, and out-everything elsed. $500,000,000,000 vs. $37 and a pack of chewing gum is not a fair fight. Because of this, I offered settlements that were ridiculously favorable to Apple and unfavorable to myself, but even these were rejected. Thank goodness that they were.
After failing mediation, shortly after 11am, we were called before the judge, sworn in, and I read my opening statement. I said basically everything Iâ(TM)ve been saying on this blog for the last several months. I stuck to the facts, handed my exhibits to the clerk (several printed pages), an
I also, was bit by this hardware failure, My HP Pavilion laptop constantly froze and would refuse to wake from sleep. I discovered this hardware issue on my own, and found a telephone number for HP.
I called the telephone number, HP ran my serial number, and then said that a box would be waiting for me at home tomorrow, and to send my laptop back (after backing up all my data) and I would receive it back with a replaced MoBo.
Well, I got my laptop back one week later. As specified, it had a brand new Mobo in it, with a different serial # ( I peeked at the original before sending it back)
I still have the laptop, and it still freezes. , just about ALL Nvidia GPUs of this run were bad, although that didn't become common knowledge 'till the Register I beleive, told everyone, and that was months after I'd already had mine replaced
But, HP did not try to stonewall me, they tried to fix the problem.
I've already sworn off any apple product for life, due to other issues, (Itunes is eeevil) but this is ridiculous.
Who could guess twenty years ago, that Bill Gates would become the Largest Philanthropist in the world, and Steve Jobs would become .. .'Evil'?
as the original article says, apple has become exactly what they said they were railing against with that infamous commercial.
jaz
The interesting thing to me is, my experiance was totally different. I discovered the books in my mothers closet (where she put books after she read them, she never re-reads a book) and knew nothing whatsoever about them, or tolkien, or hobbits. (mid seventies, deeply religious upbringing) the Art on the cover was what first grabbed me (these were the official del paperpacks, with that amazing picture drawn by tolkien over all four books)
It was only after working into them, I began to go 'oh wow!' I had no preconceptions about the books, which I suspect was a reason why they were so amazing to me.
Also, at that time, I was a voracious reader of andrew langs coloured fairy books, and had already read Beowulf on my own, (confused as hell by it) and Oedipus Rex. I suspect they all 'set the stage' for my entering Tolkiens world mythology.
I'm in exactly the same boat, from 11 on, I read TLOTR once a year on average. Now it's the Silmarillion, and the Histories of Middle Earth I enjoy more.
Also, Tolkien introduced me to Finnish Literature, and re-ignited my love of old english poems and prose. I just finished re-reading Beowulf.
When I was younger, I'd usually skip over Tolkiens poems, but now, I linger over them, he was a most excellent writer.
Like the Parent, I have read thousands of books, and Tolkiens mythology always draws me back to his works.
Off-topic, the films weren't 'bad' but they were massively abridged, with a few stupidisms thrown in (Aragorn & the Wargs.)
However, leaving out the scouring of the shire was just criminal.
jaz