Why doesn't Apple have a refund policy for the App Store? The upshot of the DRM on the apps is that they can relatively easily yank the device from your phone once you get your refund. I feel for the guy who clicked it and didn't realize '1-click purchase' was enabled. It was a legitimate mistake - why not let him have a refund?
To avoid scammers who want to use something until they get tired of it or it outlives its usefulness, just institute a 10-day refund policy. If I can return it and it's not defective, why not give me a refund? Most brick and mortar stores will do this for you.
The other thing he screwed up is not taking any action on it at all. It was a great line, but jeez, maybe he coulda given Bruce a heads-up on the issue. It seemed like the perfect time to have his pal Superman to come dressed as Batman so Bruce could show up beside him and quell any rumours.
You've got a point, I'm still just a little disappointed. I've just always seen google as doing smart, useful things with simple user interfaces. Search, Gmail, Google Calendar, even Google Docs are good examples of this. But this just seems to represent a lot of what I hate about the Internet: frivolous and time-wasting. It's just weird to associate Google with those ads asking you to create your own MVU or whatever.
It's like finding out you can beat your dad at arm wrestling.
I second this. I love sleeping in on the weekends, but if I could avoid sleep, I'd be able to have a job and still do my hobbies and enjoy more social time on my off-hours. Sleep is a big productivity hole to me. While I doubt any drug could every replace such a sleep, if there were one with no side effects, I'd do it in a heart-beat. As I would a 'fitness' pill.
But I still think the first amendment (caution, I'm not an American, so I'm not an expert), in spirit, applies to court decisions. Since a court decision is essentially a law, then a court shouldn't be able to make a ruling that violates someone to free speech. Again, if I go to a public square, and I say I hate Best Buy (but not slander them), and Best Buy sued me to get me to shut the hell up, I don't think it's constitutional for a court to side with Best Buy, and essentially use government force to shut me up.
Surely this is in the spirit of the First Amendment, no?
Yes, but that means that corporations can't go to court to get someone to stop staying something they don't like, because the court is a part of the government, and that would mean the government is abridging someone's free speech. Best Buy is entirely within its rights to kick you off its own property for criticizing them or pretty much saying anything they don't like, but they're not allowed to go knocking on your door and telling you not to say something. Well, I guess they're allowed to, but you don't have to obey them by law.
I guess that's what I was getting at. Not that a neuron holds a single memory, but that they hold parts of memories and and an individual neuron can't be replaced in whole when it dies with the same memory/thinking bits that the old one has (and in fact, I believe the body stops creating new neurons period after a while?).
Even though the cells replace most of their molecules over time, I'd still argue that it's different than the theoretical transporter, which essentially vaporizes your entire body, stores it as information, and then recreates it using available matter on the surface. Again, there's no way to fundamentally prove that the new person isn't just a copy and the old one is dead, but it seems pretty likely that that the original would be considered 'dead'. Still, it's a pretty mind-fucking hypothesis in a lot of ways.
That's not true of your memory though. Your memory-containing neuron cells aren't replaced. When a neuron that contains memories dies, those memories are dead. It doesn't transfer them to new ones.
To be honest, I don't understand the hate for UAC. Ubuntu asks me for my password before installing software or even updates, or doing a lot of other tasks like editing system files. How is this any different?
Sorry, this probably doesn't belong on a public discussion, but I'm really curious about a couple things you mentioned:
1) What video editing software are you using for Ubuntu? I've been looking high and low and can't find any.
2) What method did you use to get WinXP as a virtual machine? I've seen various different instructions for this out there, but just wanted to get an idea of what software someone used to do it successfully.
Alleluia brother! Your story mirrors mine almost perfectly. Although in my own narrative, eMusic and Amie Street, with their great web-interfaces and no-DRM, have also stepped up alongside Amazon. Between the three of those sites, I tend to find everything I want in a guilt-free way. If I can't, well, then I'll download it off BitTorrent. I know that my argument isn't really ethically justified, but I kind of want to support labels that provide DRM-free, reasonably priced music, and not support those who don't. Hopefully they'll come around.
Really? One of the most popular single-player games out there is Tetris. What's the storyline for that?
Same with Serious Sam. Great first person shooter that didn't even pretend to try to have a story-line. Just lots of monsters, and shoot them and live. Sorry, I just don't buy that a story is necessary for a game, and for me (and I know it's just an opinion) I think trying to shoehorn a linear storyline into something that's inherently non-linear hinders the game.
You're equating good gameplay with good character and story development. For me, if I want character and story, I read a book or watch a movie. I play games to experience playing a game. Sometimes a story can make the gameplay compelling, but without gameplay, it's dead to me.
And that's why I take issue with your swipe at Id. I never played Quake, but Doom (and especially Doom 2) represented amazing gameplay to me. The level design and re-playability were phenomenal. They weren't just about aiming and shooting, they were about managing ammunition, health levels, and strategizing who to take out first and what route to take to avoid death. That, again, to me, remains the cornerstone of a great FPS, and Id invented it with Doom.
Actually, I believe 'color' was the invention of Daniel Webster and his "American Spelling," along with a lot of the other simplified spellings which were supposed to make spelling and literacy more widespread because they would be easier. Same with theater, laffter, coff, nife, and the other accepted American spellings.
Cool, thanks for the info. From my experience in Ubuntu, it sounds like the repositories and package manager would most likely work in a similar way. The DVD would definitely come in handy when there is no or slow Internet connection to the box you're working on.
Okay, I can see how that's a pretty good idea then.
I wonder though how the repositories work that way then? Would the package manager always point to the DVD for packages to install? Would the Internet repositories still be available or would the repo list need to be updated?
What's the difference between the Ubuntu CD and DVD? I noticed the DVD is 4.4 GB, but what are they filling up the rest of the space with? A full high-res movie of Nelson Mandela talking about Ubuntu, and a 5.1 surround mix of ubuntu sax.ogg?
I would actually love to learn how to write a script to do this. I've been meaning to learn some coding to help hammer out some issues I think exist with Linux adoption.
Any help/resources you could provide me with would be greatly appreciated.
You know, your comments for me summed up why I really can't move over to Ubuntu or Linux in generally permanently.
While it's nice that you get iPod support out of the box and there are lots of media programs (like Amorak, Songbird, Rythmbox, etc) to choose from them, none of them really handle my iPod as well as iTunes does, for at least my needs.
Just to put it out there, in case and *nix media player developers are listening:
- Handle audio+video in one application
- "Smart" Syncing: Choosing to sync whole library, some playlists. Also choosing to sync all of music, but just selected videos. Syncing just unheard podcasts or tv shows, last 3 episodes of each podcast or tv show, or last 3 unheard episodes of each podcast or tv show.
- Auto-sync when I connect (I know some people hate this but I find it easier to just stick the iPod in in the morning while I brush my teeth and know that it's synced when I unplug it. Speaking of which...
- Auto un-mount after sync. So I can just plug in, let sync, and un-plug.
I can't be the only one out there who uses and likes all these features of iTunes. I really want to live in the Ubuntu world though, especially because most of the media players I've tried natively allow you to transfer music FROM an iPod without too much hassle and from within the media player interface.
This is the main thing keeping Windows my 'production' OS.
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Sorry, I meant Brick and Mortar stores selling physical goods. To be honest, I've never actually tried this with software bought at stores.
Why doesn't Apple have a refund policy for the App Store? The upshot of the DRM on the apps is that they can relatively easily yank the device from your phone once you get your refund. I feel for the guy who clicked it and didn't realize '1-click purchase' was enabled. It was a legitimate mistake - why not let him have a refund?
To avoid scammers who want to use something until they get tired of it or it outlives its usefulness, just institute a 10-day refund policy. If I can return it and it's not defective, why not give me a refund? Most brick and mortar stores will do this for you.
Can I just give a brief shout-out to k-Dice? It's a little buggy at times, but man, is it addictive and fun to play.
The other thing he screwed up is not taking any action on it at all. It was a great line, but jeez, maybe he coulda given Bruce a heads-up on the issue. It seemed like the perfect time to have his pal Superman to come dressed as Batman so Bruce could show up beside him and quell any rumours.
Does the same apply to pointing a radio telescope to the planet to listen for signs of intelligent life?
Is it not possible, now that we know where is, to point a big-ass telescope at it and take a look to see if we can see us some cities?
It's like finding out you can beat your dad at arm wrestling.
What's next, a program to install animated smileys to your Outlook e-mails?
I second this. I love sleeping in on the weekends, but if I could avoid sleep, I'd be able to have a job and still do my hobbies and enjoy more social time on my off-hours. Sleep is a big productivity hole to me. While I doubt any drug could every replace such a sleep, if there were one with no side effects, I'd do it in a heart-beat. As I would a 'fitness' pill.
Surely this is in the spirit of the First Amendment, no?
Yes, but that means that corporations can't go to court to get someone to stop staying something they don't like, because the court is a part of the government, and that would mean the government is abridging someone's free speech. Best Buy is entirely within its rights to kick you off its own property for criticizing them or pretty much saying anything they don't like, but they're not allowed to go knocking on your door and telling you not to say something. Well, I guess they're allowed to, but you don't have to obey them by law.
Even though the cells replace most of their molecules over time, I'd still argue that it's different than the theoretical transporter, which essentially vaporizes your entire body, stores it as information, and then recreates it using available matter on the surface. Again, there's no way to fundamentally prove that the new person isn't just a copy and the old one is dead, but it seems pretty likely that that the original would be considered 'dead'. Still, it's a pretty mind-fucking hypothesis in a lot of ways.
That's not true of your memory though. Your memory-containing neuron cells aren't replaced. When a neuron that contains memories dies, those memories are dead. It doesn't transfer them to new ones.
To be honest, I don't understand the hate for UAC. Ubuntu asks me for my password before installing software or even updates, or doing a lot of other tasks like editing system files. How is this any different?
1) What video editing software are you using for Ubuntu? I've been looking high and low and can't find any.
2) What method did you use to get WinXP as a virtual machine? I've seen various different instructions for this out there, but just wanted to get an idea of what software someone used to do it successfully.
Alleluia brother! Your story mirrors mine almost perfectly. Although in my own narrative, eMusic and Amie Street, with their great web-interfaces and no-DRM, have also stepped up alongside Amazon. Between the three of those sites, I tend to find everything I want in a guilt-free way. If I can't, well, then I'll download it off BitTorrent. I know that my argument isn't really ethically justified, but I kind of want to support labels that provide DRM-free, reasonably priced music, and not support those who don't. Hopefully they'll come around.
Same with Serious Sam. Great first person shooter that didn't even pretend to try to have a story-line. Just lots of monsters, and shoot them and live. Sorry, I just don't buy that a story is necessary for a game, and for me (and I know it's just an opinion) I think trying to shoehorn a linear storyline into something that's inherently non-linear hinders the game.
You're equating good gameplay with good character and story development. For me, if I want character and story, I read a book or watch a movie. I play games to experience playing a game. Sometimes a story can make the gameplay compelling, but without gameplay, it's dead to me.
And that's why I take issue with your swipe at Id. I never played Quake, but Doom (and especially Doom 2) represented amazing gameplay to me. The level design and re-playability were phenomenal. They weren't just about aiming and shooting, they were about managing ammunition, health levels, and strategizing who to take out first and what route to take to avoid death. That, again, to me, remains the cornerstone of a great FPS, and Id invented it with Doom.
Whoops, make that Noah Webster! Thanks again wikipedia.
(Okay, kidding about the last 3)
Cool, thanks for the info. From my experience in Ubuntu, it sounds like the repositories and package manager would most likely work in a similar way. The DVD would definitely come in handy when there is no or slow Internet connection to the box you're working on.
I wonder though how the repositories work that way then? Would the package manager always point to the DVD for packages to install? Would the Internet repositories still be available or would the repo list need to be updated?
What's the difference between the Ubuntu CD and DVD? I noticed the DVD is 4.4 GB, but what are they filling up the rest of the space with? A full high-res movie of Nelson Mandela talking about Ubuntu, and a 5.1 surround mix of ubuntu sax.ogg?
Any help/resources you could provide me with would be greatly appreciated.
While it's nice that you get iPod support out of the box and there are lots of media programs (like Amorak, Songbird, Rythmbox, etc) to choose from them, none of them really handle my iPod as well as iTunes does, for at least my needs.
Just to put it out there, in case and *nix media player developers are listening:
- Handle audio+video in one application
- "Smart" Syncing: Choosing to sync whole library, some playlists. Also choosing to sync all of music, but just selected videos. Syncing just unheard podcasts or tv shows, last 3 episodes of each podcast or tv show, or last 3 unheard episodes of each podcast or tv show.
- Auto-sync when I connect (I know some people hate this but I find it easier to just stick the iPod in in the morning while I brush my teeth and know that it's synced when I unplug it. Speaking of which...
- Auto un-mount after sync. So I can just plug in, let sync, and un-plug.
I can't be the only one out there who uses and likes all these features of iTunes. I really want to live in the Ubuntu world though, especially because most of the media players I've tried natively allow you to transfer music FROM an iPod without too much hassle and from within the media player interface.
This is the main thing keeping Windows my 'production' OS.