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User: angle_slam

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Comments · 1,416

  1. Re:If it's so new... on Consumers Union Wants You to Share Your Story · · Score: 1

    I understand I had a legal obligation to honor the contract. My point is that other companies put customer service ahead of the contract. I mentioned the health club. (LA Fitness) I signed a 3 year deal with them and still had a year left. AND I prepaid. I wrote them a letter explaining my situation, they said, "mail me a copy of your new driver's license (to show there was no club near my new address) and we'll refund the difference". That's customer service. When they expand to my new area, am I more or less likely to join that club? Am I more likely to tell my friends and co-workers about them?

  2. Re:If it's so new... on Consumers Union Wants You to Share Your Story · · Score: 4, Informative
    Also, the few I read seemed to me like more of cases where people failed to read the fine print and then got upset when the other party enforced their contract rights.Because sometimes, customer satisfaction should come ahead of contract rights. For example, last year, I moved pretty suddenly (I got a job offer in mid-December and was moved 800 miles away by mid-January. Every company I dealt with realized this was an extraordinary circumstance and just let me out of any service-contract that was geographically limited. This included companies who are usually villified, such as the cable company and the health club.

    There was one exception though, the alarm company. Turns out the automatic renewal was a year contract, not a monthly contract. And it had to be cancelled by December 8. I didn't get my job offer until December 15, so I did what I did with every other company--told them I was moving, was completely unable to use their service, and requested to be let out of the contract. They wouldn't budge. "A contract was a contract." So I had the absurdity of having a contract to protect my house that went from January 8, 2004 to January 8, 2005, even though I moved out of the house on January 15, 2004!

    Turns out that is part of their scheme. In fact, a lot of alarm companies do the same thing--they put you on a yearly, automatically renewed contract, but bill you monthly (or quarterly) so you think you can cancel at any time. The reality is alarm monitoring services are 100% useless.

    There was a new commercial that one alarm company had. The smoke detector portion of the alarm went off. Then the phone rang. It was the alarm company asking if your house was on fire. The tag line? "Does your smoke detector do this?" My response--no, but if my house was really on fire, it wouldn't be forcing me to answer the phone in a burning building.

  3. Re:And if you want something really cool on FireWire for 75% Better Mac mini Disk Performance · · Score: 1

    A blank DVD+R is cheaper than a blank floppy.

  4. Re:if Opera is out.. on Which is Better, Firefox or Opera? · · Score: 1

    Yep. Closed source can still be cheap, or even free.

  5. Re:Maybe you should judge for yourself? on Ebert Gives 'Sith' Positive Review · · Score: 1

    BS. If 1) were true, Ebert would never give a bad review to any movie ever. He does.

  6. Re:3 PS3s on 512MB GeForce 6800 Ultra Reviewed · · Score: 1

    By the time you can actually buy a PS3, these cards won't be $999.

  7. Re:PC Gaming is dying, nVidia and ATI are killing on 512MB GeForce 6800 Ultra Reviewed · · Score: 1
    Half finished products that require patches and updates to work correctly?

    This whole "patches are bad" argument sucks for one reason--it assumes that console games are always bug free. But they're not. MVP Baseball 2004 came out with a fairly big bug on Xbox, PS2, and PC (left handed hitters had a serious lack of power). The PC version got patched. The PS2 version never did (I don't know about XBox). So why is the fact that the PS2 version can't get patched a good thing?

  8. Re:Maybe it's just my surfing habits on Internet Explorer's Share Dips Below 90% · · Score: 1

    Sites have become better. Several airlines and banking sites used to require IE. They don't anymore. In fact, the only time I regularly use IE is to access Windows Update.

  9. Re:Electric Boogaloo? on Broadcast Flag 2 - Electric Boogaloo · · Score: 1

    Yes.

  10. Re:Good start on The Xbox 360 Unveiled · · Score: 1
    The #1 question still is: backwards compatibility.

    The #1 question for you is backwards compatibility. There are plenty of people (me included) who don't give a shit about backwards compatibility. Either 1) they don't own an XBox, so have no Xbox games to play; or 2) they do have an XBox, so if they wanted to play an XBox games (as opposed to XBox 360), they'll use the machine they already own.

  11. I actually was sick for Ep 2 on Star Wars Sickout · · Score: 1
    I missed work the day Ep 2 came out because I was sick. Thing is, I really was sick: I had about a 101 degree fever and couldn't eat. But I still saw the movie.

    My wife is sick now, so I wonder if I will "really" be sick next Thursday.

  12. Re:Isn't that how you do character development? on Newest Star Wars Reviews Suprisingly Positive · · Score: 1
    Just because Tarkin requested for Vader to release someone doesn't mean he was barking orders.

    Can you imagine one of the Generals in TESB "requesting" Vader to stop choking the other Admiral? Of course not, they were terrified of him. They weren't terrified of him in ANH (as seen by the guy (who Vader was choking) challenging Vader in the first place).

  13. Re:Isn't that how you do character development? on Newest Star Wars Reviews Suprisingly Positive · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Vader had more character development in ep 4 & 5 than any other bad guy has had in ep 1-3.

    Vader grew between 4 & 5. But it seemed that it was because Lucas decided to change the course of the picture. I think some say that Lucas had the entire 9 movie series planned out before starting ep. 4. I don't believe it. Vader was the leader in ep. 5, second only to the Emperor. That's not true in ep. 4, where Tarkin seemed to be the leader.

    That is why there seems to be growth in Vader between 4 & 5--the whole Vader is Luke's father, turned by the Emperor storyline wasn't in existence at the time.

  14. Re:Foregone conclusion on Newest Star Wars Reviews Suprisingly Positive · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The scale goes from 0 to 100. 62 and 65 aren't bad. In fact, rottentomatoes considers 60 and above to be "recommended".

  15. Re:Before you take a pdf to Kinkos... on Printing (Big) Manuals? · · Score: 1

    Kind of absurd that they won't let you print out a paper copy of a manual. Don't they realize that it's easier to distribute an electronic copy than it is 1000 pieces of paper? What exactly are they worried about? Even if you assume that grandparent pirated the software, the fact that he can't print out documentation doesn't exactly stop him from using the pirated program.

  16. Re:Courts on Fair Use Review in Australia · · Score: 1
    But in a field as fast moving as copyright, it is very difficult for Congress to continually have to make new laws in order to account for technological developments.

    The current US Copyright law was passed in 1976. But they were talking about it for a decade. In 1976, the cassette deck was far from a household item and the VCR was just introduced. By 1992, when the AHRA was passed, the big worry was DAT, so they specifically had to pass the AHRA just to deal with the big problem of DAT. Of course, DAT went nowhere. Big hard drives, MP3 compression, and broadband was far from lawmakers minds at that time.

    If they pass a law now directed at P2P and Torrents, who knows how long those laws will even be relevant, rendered obsolete by technological advances?

  17. Re:SW:ROTS reviews on Initial ROTS Reviews Hit the Internet · · Score: 1
    I partially agree. I think it is important to show that Anakin was taken away from his mother at a young age, because losing his mother was the first time his anger takes over. But I think the entire plot of Ep 1 could have been condensed into a 30 minute flashback right before AOTC. Then spend the rest of the 3 movies showing everything from AOTC through ROTS (including the Clone Wars shorts).

    While I agree that you can't go to the Clone Wars without showing the villain, I don't think TPM did that at all.

  18. Re:SW:ROTS reviews on Initial ROTS Reviews Hit the Internet · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The disappointment is simple. In Ep 4-6, we learn that Luke's father was a great pilot and a Jedi apprentice who was eventually seduced by the Dark Side. Ep 1 had VERY little to do with that.

    What should have happend was AOTC as Ep 1. Then Ep 2 can cover the Clone Wars, with ROTS still being Ep 3. That would have been a more effective story because it would have built Anakin up as a hero more, making his Fall greater. As it stands, he is a whiny jerk who wants power. What it should have been is a War Hero who saved the Galaxy. THEN he got hungry with power.

  19. Re:you mean like CSI? on Mathematicians Become Hollywood Consultants · · Score: 1

    Yeah, you need a suspension of belief when you watch CSI. It's a lot easier when they cover topics you don't know much about. I don't know much about gun powder residue or matching bullets, so when they solve a crime that way, I really don't mind. But there was one episode where a guy took a picture with a 35 mm camera. In a small corner of the photo, there is a light. They zoom in and not only could they tell that it was a gunshot, they could see the tatoo that gave away the identity of the killer. Being a photo buff, that episode really made me cringe (at most, all you would see is a blob of light). But if they cover other topics, well they have to solve the crime in an hour, so I don't really care that much.

  20. Re:best pratices on Organizing MP3s and Other File Collections? · · Score: 1
    I like to make my album names like: "1 - 1987 - Kill 'Em All" "2 - 1989 - Ride The Lightning" "3 - 1991 - Master Of Puppets"

    Why not put the actual year the album is released?

    1983 - Kill 'Em All

    1984 - Ride the Lightning

    1986 - Master of Puppets.

  21. Re:Tag and Rename on Organizing MP3s and Other File Collections? · · Score: 1

    I use Tag and Rename also. It's a great program for editing tags. However, the original question asks about organizing files, not editing tags.

  22. Re:Uphill Battle on CMU Professor's Rebuttal Against RIAA Propaganda · · Score: 1
    Why would you listen to an artist if you hadn't already heard the artist

    I've heard this argument many times here and I am completely surprised. I would guess that over 75% of my music collection (and it's a pretty large collection) consists of music I never heard before buying the album. Not just albums I never heard from artists I'm familiar with, but albums from artists I had never heard before. That's what music was always about to me. Get recommendations of music from people with similar tastes. Then buy it. Sometimes, you're pleasantly surprised. Other times, it's a dud. That's the breaks. Even in the Napster era, I would more often just buy a CD instead of downloading a track (the unreliability of ID3 tags has a lot to do with that, though).

    (I stopped listening to the radio over 10 years ago, so that isn't a help).

    In the past people didn't feel like chumps for plunking down $10 for and album and $15 for a CD, because there weren't millions of others are getting this stuff for free.

    "Everybody else is doing it" is an adolesent excuse.

  23. Re:Non religious on PlayStations of the Cross · · Score: 1
    I was surprised that there is such a thing as Christian Metalcore. A group like Zao is harder than anything you'll hear on the radio or MTV today, with distorted guitars and distorted vocals--the prototype of what some would think is "devil music". Yet the band is overtly Christian. Not like some rappers, who praise God all the time, but rap about about hos, killing, etc. Nope, Zao sings about God.

    Here is their bio from Christianpunks.com

  24. Re:Don't be paranoid! on Identity Theft Prevention Tips? · · Score: 1
    That's not 'identity theft' per se. It's merely selling your contact information to others so they can send junk mail to you.

    I've done the same thing. One of my credit cards sent me a credit card with the wrong name. (It's very close, though). Odd things I've noticed: 1) No one has ever noticed that it doesn't match my license. 2) If I get mail sent to that particular name, I can throw it away without opening it because I know it is junk mail (except for the credit card bill, of course).

  25. Newegg alternative? on Online Shoppers Aren't Impulsive · · Score: 1

    I like Newegg. Their prices and service are top notch. I liked them a lot better, though, when I lived in Arizona and didn't have to pay sales tax. Now that I live in California, I have to pay 8.25%. One of the reasons to shop on-line is to save sales tax. Any good, reliable alternative to Newegg?