True, you can get it back, but at the expense of how much time and aggravation?
Around here you pretty much have to return empties at the grocery stores, and they've all switched to automated machines that force you to stick the bottles in one at a time, with a significant delay in between.
I'd estimate that, at $0.05 a piece, I've got about $75.00 worth of empties in my garage but I never get around to returning them because of the time it would take.
Trash pickup is pricy. In the winter months, between not using large amounts of water for gardening and working long hours (therefore not being home very much) I can sometimes get the water portion of my water bill down below $5.00. Even during those months the total bill is over $40 after they add the trash pickup charges on.
So, they'd STILL be having my eyes on theirs, and not on the competition's, for the duration of the show. What happens after the show...
Right, it's what happens after the show that they're concerned with. They'd rather have you watch ANOTHER one of their shows than spend time with the competition. In their eyes, every minute that you spend watching a competitor's show is lost revenue for them.
This was exactly the reason for the "super sized" episodes of Friends. NBC believed that people would be loyal enough to Friends to watch those extra 10 minutes, and therefore miss the first 10 minutes of Survivor. They further believed that a significant portion of those viewers would then on NBC rather than turning to CBS because "well, we already missed part of Survivor, I guess we might as well watch this show here which we can see from the beginning".
According to the ratings on those particular Thursday nights, NBC was right. Large numbers of people skipped the first 10 minutes of Survivor to watch the end of Friends, and a large subset of those people stayed tuned to NBC rather than changing channels to catch Survivor.
The (publically) stated purpose for the extra 10 minutes tacked onto Friends was exactly what I'm saying, to take viewers away from Survivor. The two shows normally ran in non-conflicting time slots, so by your theory NBC shouldn't have cared if you watched Survivor.
Sure, they want you to have your eyeballs on their ads, but that's not quite enough. They also try very hard to keep your eyeballs OFF of the competition's ads. The only real mechanism they have for accomplishing this is through scheduling, like "super sizing" Friends to take eyeballs away from Survivor.
TV on demand takes that ability away from them. (Yes, they're losing it anyway, but you can bet they'll hang on as long as they can.)
That still doesn't explain why the water from my garden hose becomes toxic to my plants when it's raining, yet they seem to be thrilled with it when the sun is out.
If you had replied with something along the lines of overwattering causing root rot, that would have at least made a little sense. Your enviro-weenie paranoia, however, is just stupid.
I've stopped schlepping the notebook almost entirely, except as a mobile presentation, or vacation or other relocation. The Treo handles most of my info needs, which is mostly PIM
I've been trying to get to that point, but at the moment I have a pretty sweet "pseudo" telecommuting arrangement set up that allows me to avoid actually setting foot in the office very often. The downside, of course, is having to lug the laptop around. The Treo comes damn close to replacing it, but there are still times when you still need a bigger computer, and a keyboard that lets you use all ten fingers.
Admittedly, this is a rather rare situation, and should in no way be taken as negative commentary toward the Treo.
Sorry, I somehow managed to gloss over the "streaming from home" part of your post. What can I say? It's late and my brain is trying very hard to shift into dumbass mode. Sorry 'bout that.
I have to admit, streaming my own collection from home does sound interesting. My only concern would be that having an active data connection seems to block incoming voice calls.
OK, good points. I guess I was just thinking from my own personal perspective. I'm stuck lugging a laptop bag with me wherever I go, so tossing the iPod in there is no big deal and gives me access to all of MY music and playlists, rather than what some streaming radio station happens to be playing. (along with tons more storage than I get with the SD cards I have for my Treo.)
But, I guess I could see where using the Treo as a music source could come in handy if I wasn't chained to this damn laptop bag 24/7.
So, you're saying that if I add the wireless modem BT profile to my Treo 650 and use it as a modem with my laptop, Sprint isn't going to throw a hissy fit?
Not that I'll be using it very much, but I have a couple of business trips coming up and it would be nice to have a way access the network at the office in the event of an emergency without paying the $20 for 15 minutes that the hotel I'll be staying at charges.
especially with the Treo's hifi stereo DAC and neat stream players
That's one thing I've been curious about ever since I got my Treo 650: What's the point of having the nice DAC when the speaker is such a worthless piece of shit? Sure, I could carry headphones with me, but if I'm having to carry extra stuff, why not just throw my iPod in the bag, too?
I did look into the highspeed wireless service, but at the time the drivers for the required pcmcia card were windows only (I need something that will work with OSX).
To be honest, in your situation I'd probably go with the high speed wireless, buy a cheapass X86 box to run Windows on, the use ICS to get the Mac online.
If you have a good option for bandwidth and it's just a driver issue, that can be worked around. To me that would be much more palatable than putting up with the drawbacks of either satellite or cell.
Wiith GPRS or EDGE service it combines multiple radio channels and Time Slots to give you higher data rates.
It's worth mentioning that this is exactly the reason why the carriers frown on using your phone as a modem for your laptop. Checking a few e-mails on a minuscule cell phone screen doesn't tie those extra channels up for very long, but once you connect it to a computer for some "real" 'net activity, you're tying up some resources...
This is why the "unlimited" data plans for, say, a Treo are so much less than those for the PC cards.
I added it to my plan about 2 months ago, so if they've discontinued it, it's been very recently.
I was with Verizon for a long time due to their excellent coverage, but my lust for a Treo 650 finally got the better of me, and Sprint charges me less for 400 voice minutes plus unlimited data than Verizon wanted for JUST the data.
When I heard about the $5.00 no roaming option, I switched to Sprint the same day.
Our T1 at the office costs us just a shade over $500 a month. Divided between 8 to 12 users, that wouldn't be too outrageous. I have more users than that on this T1, plus the office phone system (quite busy) is VOIP, and have never once felt the need for more bandwidth.
Add in some high end WiFi gear and a tall pole, and things just might work out.
I've used my cell phone to connect to the 'net on occasion. The speed actually impressed me, considering the road those packets were having to travel, but the latency was horrendous. It seemed like the connection would burst data at a high speed for a second or two, then completely pause for a second or two.
Worked fine for e-mail and casual web browsing, but if you're interested in gaming, keep looking.
Whether or not the whingers are getting louder, or I'm getting older the trolls are definitely beginning to drone on. If there was somewhere else to go I would be there.
Agreed. Maybe it really is an age thing.
I've been around here a long time, but a lot of the comments have really started to grate on my nerves the past couple of years. Hell, I think I made a grand total of 4 posts in all of 2004.
The problem is that there really isn't anyplace else as good for getting a quick synopsis of current IT related news.
OK mods, go ahead and hammer me. My karma can take it. (oh, there's also the fact that I don't give 2 shits about my karma....)
Slashdot Mirror
True, you can get it back, but at the expense of how much time and aggravation?
Around here you pretty much have to return empties at the grocery stores, and they've all switched to automated machines that force you to stick the bottles in one at a time, with a significant delay in between.
I'd estimate that, at $0.05 a piece, I've got about $75.00 worth of empties in my garage but I never get around to returning them because of the time it would take.
Yep, that's the way it works here, too.
Trash pickup is pricy. In the winter months, between not using large amounts of water for gardening and working long hours (therefore not being home very much) I can sometimes get the water portion of my water bill down below $5.00. Even during those months the total bill is over $40 after they add the trash pickup charges on.
So, they'd STILL be having my eyes on theirs, and not on the competition's, for the duration of the show. What happens after the show...
Right, it's what happens after the show that they're concerned with. They'd rather have you watch ANOTHER one of their shows than spend time with the competition. In their eyes, every minute that you spend watching a competitor's show is lost revenue for them.
This was exactly the reason for the "super sized" episodes of Friends. NBC believed that people would be loyal enough to Friends to watch those extra 10 minutes, and therefore miss the first 10 minutes of Survivor. They further believed that a significant portion of those viewers would then on NBC rather than turning to CBS because "well, we already missed part of Survivor, I guess we might as well watch this show here which we can see from the beginning".
According to the ratings on those particular Thursday nights, NBC was right. Large numbers of people skipped the first 10 minutes of Survivor to watch the end of Friends, and a large subset of those people stayed tuned to NBC rather than changing channels to catch Survivor.
The (publically) stated purpose for the extra 10 minutes tacked onto Friends was exactly what I'm saying, to take viewers away from Survivor. The two shows normally ran in non-conflicting time slots, so by your theory NBC shouldn't have cared if you watched Survivor.
It's the TV on demand that's the problem.
Sure, they want you to have your eyeballs on their ads, but that's not quite enough. They also try very hard to keep your eyeballs OFF of the competition's ads. The only real mechanism they have for accomplishing this is through scheduling, like "super sizing" Friends to take eyeballs away from Survivor.
TV on demand takes that ability away from them. (Yes, they're losing it anyway, but you can bet they'll hang on as long as they can.)
The part that always bothered me about that scene was that when he started using the keyboard, he was actually a pretty fast typist.
Where would he have ever had the need to develop those skills?
Yes, I have.
That still doesn't explain why the water from my garden hose becomes toxic to my plants when it's raining, yet they seem to be thrilled with it when the sun is out.
If you had replied with something along the lines of overwattering causing root rot, that would have at least made a little sense. Your enviro-weenie paranoia, however, is just stupid.
I've heard of some wacky weight loss ideas, but isn't that a little extreme? :-)
I've stopped schlepping the notebook almost entirely, except as a mobile presentation, or vacation or other relocation. The Treo handles most of my info needs, which is mostly PIM
I've been trying to get to that point, but at the moment I have a pretty sweet "pseudo" telecommuting arrangement set up that allows me to avoid actually setting foot in the office very often. The downside, of course, is having to lug the laptop around. The Treo comes damn close to replacing it, but there are still times when you still need a bigger computer, and a keyboard that lets you use all ten fingers.
Admittedly, this is a rather rare situation, and should in no way be taken as negative commentary toward the Treo.
Sorry, I somehow managed to gloss over the "streaming from home" part of your post. What can I say? It's late and my brain is trying very hard to shift into dumbass mode. Sorry 'bout that.
I have to admit, streaming my own collection from home does sound interesting. My only concern would be that having an active data connection seems to block incoming voice calls.
OK, good points. I guess I was just thinking from my own personal perspective. I'm stuck lugging a laptop bag with me wherever I go, so tossing the iPod in there is no big deal and gives me access to all of MY music and playlists, rather than what some streaming radio station happens to be playing. (along with tons more storage than I get with the SD cards I have for my Treo.)
But, I guess I could see where using the Treo as a music source could come in handy if I wasn't chained to this damn laptop bag 24/7.
So, you're saying that if I add the wireless modem BT profile to my Treo 650 and use it as a modem with my laptop, Sprint isn't going to throw a hissy fit?
Not that I'll be using it very much, but I have a couple of business trips coming up and it would be nice to have a way access the network at the office in the event of an emergency without paying the $20 for 15 minutes that the hotel I'll be staying at charges.
especially with the Treo's hifi stereo DAC and neat stream players
That's one thing I've been curious about ever since I got my Treo 650: What's the point of having the nice DAC when the speaker is such a worthless piece of shit? Sure, I could carry headphones with me, but if I'm having to carry extra stuff, why not just throw my iPod in the bag, too?
Oops, correction...
That $500/month covers the T1, plus the DSL service at my house and the DSL at the owner's house.
I did look into the highspeed wireless service, but at the time the drivers for the required pcmcia card were windows only (I need something that will work with OSX).
To be honest, in your situation I'd probably go with the high speed wireless, buy a cheapass X86 box to run Windows on, the use ICS to get the Mac online.
If you have a good option for bandwidth and it's just a driver issue, that can be worked around. To me that would be much more palatable than putting up with the drawbacks of either satellite or cell.
I just hope they set up a webcam first. Fireworks are cool!
Wiith GPRS or EDGE service it combines multiple radio channels and Time Slots to give you higher data rates.
It's worth mentioning that this is exactly the reason why the carriers frown on using your phone as a modem for your laptop. Checking a few e-mails on a minuscule cell phone screen doesn't tie those extra channels up for very long, but once you connect it to a computer for some "real" 'net activity, you're tying up some resources...
This is why the "unlimited" data plans for, say, a Treo are so much less than those for the PC cards.
I added it to my plan about 2 months ago, so if they've discontinued it, it's been very recently.
I was with Verizon for a long time due to their excellent coverage, but my lust for a Treo 650 finally got the better of me, and Sprint charges me less for 400 voice minutes plus unlimited data than Verizon wanted for JUST the data.
When I heard about the $5.00 no roaming option, I switched to Sprint the same day.
Go with the microwave.
This is an excellent idea.
Our T1 at the office costs us just a shade over $500 a month. Divided between 8 to 12 users, that wouldn't be too outrageous. I have more users than that on this T1, plus the office phone system (quite busy) is VOIP, and have never once felt the need for more bandwidth.
Add in some high end WiFi gear and a tall pole, and things just might work out.
I believe you can run an IP connection from your PC through the Treo, but I haven't verified that.
http://www.treocentral.com/content/FAQ/38.htm
I haven't been over to HF for awhile, but a few months ago the scuttlebutt was that Verizon was clamping down on the minutes only data usage.
Has that changed?
I've used my cell phone to connect to the 'net on occasion. The speed actually impressed me, considering the road those packets were having to travel, but the latency was horrendous. It seemed like the connection would burst data at a high speed for a second or two, then completely pause for a second or two.
Worked fine for e-mail and casual web browsing, but if you're interested in gaming, keep looking.
Strictly speaking, it does account for the statement that the Enterprise E is the sixth Starfleet ship to bear the name.
The real explanation, of course, is that B&B don't give a rat's ass about Trek and its fans, much less continuity.
How do you figure that?
Whether or not the whingers are getting louder, or I'm getting older the trolls are definitely beginning to drone on.
If there was somewhere else to go I would be there.
Agreed. Maybe it really is an age thing.
I've been around here a long time, but a lot of the comments have really started to grate on my nerves the past couple of years. Hell, I think I made a grand total of 4 posts in all of 2004.
The problem is that there really isn't anyplace else as good for getting a quick synopsis of current IT related news.
OK mods, go ahead and hammer me. My karma can take it. (oh, there's also the fact that I don't give 2 shits about my karma....)