No amount of software will fix a hardware limitation. You'll never get 1080p HD video over an S-VIDEO cable... the modulators attached to the actual jack just can't do it. Same with the Sony issue.
The key words were "not many". There are very few backlit keyboards on PCs in general. Go ahead... find me more than, say, 5% of PC laptops that have backlit keyboards. I'll wait.
Actually, there isn't a sole in the world that buys Apple, period. On the other hand, there are many souls that buy Apple because of the hardware. Not many PC's have the nice backlit keyboards and such. There's no PC that's directly comparable to the Macbook Air. And so on.
The problem is that it doesn't work, and that the user can't return the thing. It doesn't MATTER whose fault it is. If I buy a 5oz hammer and realize that it won't hammer in railroad spikes, I can return the thing if it's in good condition. It doesn't matter that I'm the moron... I can still return it. I cannot do the same thing with a game. That is the issue... I've just dropped $50 on something that I can't fix, that was advertised to me as working.
The 3rd party peripherals, those are just a pure money grab. There's no reason for the drives to cost as much as they do other than Microsoft wanting to exploit lock-in.
For certain values of "good" that don't include banning for playing a non-hacked game and exploiting a bug in the software, as well as locking out 3rd party peripheral storage... yeah, that's a GREAT gaming system.
Look at it more like a small loan than a lease. That's basically all it is... not everyone has $1000 on hand for a phone. Lots of people need phone service but their budgets are stretched as it is. It's the same reason that those payday loan places exist... you shouldn't need them, but lots of people just do.
Leases make sense when you want something new every few years. They don't if you want to actually own the thing and use it for more than a short period of time. Different goals in mind... most people like getting a new cell phone every two years, all the new gadgets and features and stuff.
90% of people don't do that with their computers. If you can do that competently, then the warranty is a waste of time. But for the majority of the population where a computer is just a Facebook appliance, it depends on how much it'd cost for them to pay for service. If a hard drive goes south outside of the basic warranty, most people will end up paying hundreds of dollars to get it replaced. May as well get a warranty at that rate, especially if you need faster repair turnaround than sending it off to China for service.
I never buy the extended warranties. But that doesn't mean that nobody should. It depends on your competency and inclinations.
Depends entirely on the product in question. Most of the time the warranty's are a waste. But there are a few cases (as Consumer Reports notes) where it actually is worthwhile insurance.
By your logic, ALL insurance is a waste and only stupid people should have it as a protection against unexpected major financial expenditures.
Doesn't matter. They perceive it as less risk because they're trading money for a service or product. Trading a nearly free service for a valuable product? What's the catch? Or they get wind of the "catch" and perceive it to be "give all of your software away free if you even look at the GPL!" and it gets shitcanned that way.
Management only fears one thing worse than expenses: the unknown. The GPL ecosystem is completely unknown to a lot of the gray-hairs that don't understand that software is not a physical product like a coffee pot. The economy changes when your cost to replicate a thing is effectively zero. That's why a lot of companies pay a ton of cash to MySQL and other open-source software companies... they just don't want to have to think about the licensing, they want to do it the old way.
And then have their nephew install Office on every computer from the same, single, legal install disc.
The real problem is that some people are highly visual, and some are audio-centric. I personally agree with you... I hate the voices. They always seem to be badly timed. I prefer to have the map show me where I'm going. I'll glance at it and make my own decisions, thank you.
And if you are tooling down a highway, who looks at the map?
I take it you didn't drive much before GPS was common... the same people that try to read and drink an un-lidded cup of coffee on their morning commute are the types of people who look at maps while driving. It's unsettlingly common.
Would a paper map have said that trucks weren't allowed? He could ignore the road signs no matter what navigation aid he was using. He was just an idiot... GPS doesn't make people any stupider than they already are.
Except that the 3D display gives you more information about things like how far it is to the turn. You have to mentally scale the map compared to where you are to see how far away your turn is... a 3D GPS display gives you a very easy to decipher and understand picture of what's coming up. It may not be a problem for you, but just reading a map is a chore for many, many people.
"However if you were just blindly following its directions, you might still be sitting on the autobahn."
And if you're that kind of person, it doesn't matter what kind of map you're following. GPS is nice because it knows where you are. Maps, you have to figure that out. Admittedly, it's not hard and should be a skill you have, but why do all your division longhand if you have a calculator?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but the fries are the best out there
Earth? For God's sake how could you miss Earth?
And heart. Almost wish you could forget that useless kid, doesn't it?
No amount of software will fix a hardware limitation. You'll never get 1080p HD video over an S-VIDEO cable... the modulators attached to the actual jack just can't do it. Same with the Sony issue.
The key words were "not many". There are very few backlit keyboards on PCs in general. Go ahead... find me more than, say, 5% of PC laptops that have backlit keyboards. I'll wait.
Actually, there isn't a sole in the world that buys Apple, period. On the other hand, there are many souls that buy Apple because of the hardware. Not many PC's have the nice backlit keyboards and such. There's no PC that's directly comparable to the Macbook Air. And so on.
The problem is that it doesn't work, and that the user can't return the thing. It doesn't MATTER whose fault it is. If I buy a 5oz hammer and realize that it won't hammer in railroad spikes, I can return the thing if it's in good condition. It doesn't matter that I'm the moron... I can still return it. I cannot do the same thing with a game. That is the issue... I've just dropped $50 on something that I can't fix, that was advertised to me as working.
Non-hacked game banning
The 3rd party peripherals, those are just a pure money grab. There's no reason for the drives to cost as much as they do other than Microsoft wanting to exploit lock-in.
For certain values of "good" that don't include banning for playing a non-hacked game and exploiting a bug in the software, as well as locking out 3rd party peripheral storage... yeah, that's a GREAT gaming system.
Look at it more like a small loan than a lease. That's basically all it is... not everyone has $1000 on hand for a phone. Lots of people need phone service but their budgets are stretched as it is. It's the same reason that those payday loan places exist... you shouldn't need them, but lots of people just do.
Leases make sense when you want something new every few years. They don't if you want to actually own the thing and use it for more than a short period of time. Different goals in mind... most people like getting a new cell phone every two years, all the new gadgets and features and stuff.
90% of people don't do that with their computers. If you can do that competently, then the warranty is a waste of time. But for the majority of the population where a computer is just a Facebook appliance, it depends on how much it'd cost for them to pay for service. If a hard drive goes south outside of the basic warranty, most people will end up paying hundreds of dollars to get it replaced. May as well get a warranty at that rate, especially if you need faster repair turnaround than sending it off to China for service.
I never buy the extended warranties. But that doesn't mean that nobody should. It depends on your competency and inclinations.
Depends entirely on the product in question. Most of the time the warranty's are a waste. But there are a few cases (as Consumer Reports notes) where it actually is worthwhile insurance.
By your logic, ALL insurance is a waste and only stupid people should have it as a protection against unexpected major financial expenditures.
"lost". Loosed is a word meaning letting something loose. Lost is the past-tense of lose.
Doesn't matter. They perceive it as less risk because they're trading money for a service or product. Trading a nearly free service for a valuable product? What's the catch? Or they get wind of the "catch" and perceive it to be "give all of your software away free if you even look at the GPL!" and it gets shitcanned that way.
Because the **AA can afford better legislation than you can. How much cash did you use to buy off^W^W^W^W donate to your local senator last year?
Management only fears one thing worse than expenses: the unknown. The GPL ecosystem is completely unknown to a lot of the gray-hairs that don't understand that software is not a physical product like a coffee pot. The economy changes when your cost to replicate a thing is effectively zero. That's why a lot of companies pay a ton of cash to MySQL and other open-source software companies... they just don't want to have to think about the licensing, they want to do it the old way.
And then have their nephew install Office on every computer from the same, single, legal install disc.
The more people I meet, the more it seems like that's the case.
The real problem is that some people are highly visual, and some are audio-centric. I personally agree with you... I hate the voices. They always seem to be badly timed. I prefer to have the map show me where I'm going. I'll glance at it and make my own decisions, thank you.
I think you need to take away your dad's video games until he can separate reality from fantasy... ;)
I take it you didn't drive much before GPS was common... the same people that try to read and drink an un-lidded cup of coffee on their morning commute are the types of people who look at maps while driving. It's unsettlingly common.
Would a paper map have said that trucks weren't allowed? He could ignore the road signs no matter what navigation aid he was using. He was just an idiot... GPS doesn't make people any stupider than they already are.
Except that the 3D display gives you more information about things like how far it is to the turn. You have to mentally scale the map compared to where you are to see how far away your turn is... a 3D GPS display gives you a very easy to decipher and understand picture of what's coming up. It may not be a problem for you, but just reading a map is a chore for many, many people.
"However if you were just blindly following its directions, you might still be sitting on the autobahn."
And if you're that kind of person, it doesn't matter what kind of map you're following. GPS is nice because it knows where you are. Maps, you have to figure that out. Admittedly, it's not hard and should be a skill you have, but why do all your division longhand if you have a calculator?
I don't know about that...
Yeah, how stupid is he, not knowing that Canada is a state?