I fly over 250,000+ miles a year. I refuse to go through those damn porno scanners on the grounds that they're 1) a giant waste of money 2) provide little to no additional security. So while the Fly By program may work to speed things up, we wouldn't need them it if we didn't have ridiculous security theater to go through.
Like everyone else has posted, if you block everything, you're not going to get spam. Just as bad as yahoo in terms of blocking legitimate email, and just like yahoo, somehow spam actually makes it through MORE than legit email. Not sure why gmail can seem to get the whole spam/ham thing correct relatively quickly even with no recipients, and you don't have to jump through nearly as many crazy hoops as a mail provider to get your emails through
please continue contributing to the steve jobs fund!
If that doesn't exemplify your lack of adult level conversational skills in one sentence, I don't know what does. Please come back when you're ready to interact at an intelligent level.
You seem to have a hard time differentiating between blind loyalty and brand loyalty due to past performance and experience. Please do us all a favor and toss your fanboy / anti-fanboy rhetoric to the side; it will make your life infinitely better since you will spending less time arguing about pointless specs and more time using the tools you choose.
And seriously, if I have to explain why tech superiority does not automatically equal a superior user experience, you really need to grow up a bit before you start having adult conversations.
You're pretty much the typical example of a techie who doesn't get usability and functional design, and instead pushes technological talking points above all else (and usually AT the expense of all else). If you spit out those points to a typical person, none of that would matter, or even make sense to them. Products more technologically advanced does not equal superior. It just means they have better tech. When you realize the difference and what how technology ENABLES superiority but does not just blindly grant it, you'll take that brave first step into the real world.
Uh, if you actually knew anything about the products they make, you'd realize Denon's at the top of their game; their preamps, for example, are often considered on the high end of things (though with terrible UIs). The reason they made that cable (and the similar HDMI one) is because they also know idiots will buy something like that; read up on the history of the AK-DL1 and you'll see the whole thing was basically a joke that some people actually are dumb enough to buy into.
Fortunately their other products are quite serious and they don't do silly things with quality and price on that end.
Well yes - your other mentioned products where pretty much the definition of niche. You could make an argument for MD maybe, but everything else didn't nearly hit the level of minidv. DVD and Bluray are way more of a group effort as well.
Uh, minidv? For real? You do know that minidv, though not SUPER popular, was by no means a niche product. It also introduced a whole generation of filmmakers to DIY filmmaking.
Not that I like the Sony of 2000s on or so, but come on now, give credit where credit's due.
I'm not sure where you get your info from, but asterisk is extremely pervasive, either as a complete replacement for phone systems (small business) to OEM'd interfaces (too many to count) to partial replacements for portions of existing calling systems (a similar way to how Linux crept into IT infrastructure). Hell, tons of those offshore call centers are based around asterisk and its queue features.
For real? Asterisk is extremely pervasive from what I've seen. The only place it's NOT pervasive is among hobbyists who a) have no need for a PBX type system and b) have no idea how to get it to interface with anything interesting.
Why do people keep suggesting Lynx? I'm glad you know about 90s-era text browsing, but even that's moved on. If you're going this route, use Links people!!
There are a couple posts alluding to this fact, but I'll just go on a bit more about it.
The general public doesn't care about quality. They care about convenience, then price, then quality. DVDs were way more convenient than VHS tapes, competed decently in terms of price (players and discs were more inline with expectations vs something like Laserdisc), and quality was a significant improvement, especially with progressive scan.
Bluray can be a significant jump over DVDs as well, but to get there you have to invest in a TV that performs well at a size big enough to appreciate the quality. Unfortunately most people just buy mediocre to bad LCD TVs with horrible color reproduction with contrast and brightness settings completely messed up for proper viewing. Then they put a 42" TV in their living room and sit 10 feet or more away from it. At that distance/size ratio, you might as well be watching a DVD; not that it matters, because without TV calibration, your stuff is going to look awful. It's not hard to calibrate a TV, and even with only a rudimentary set of controls (a color slider, a brightness slider, a contrast slider) you can get decent results. These days it's not even that hard to find an ISF capable TV that allows you to dial in each color and black/white levels perfectly.
But it's all lost on the masses because most people don't bother, and don't even know what they're missing. That, plus the fact that the convenience factor is the same and the price is noticeably a notch higher causes slow uptake in sales. Just look at streaming video and downloaded MP3s - even the masses know the quality isn't exactly great, but the convenience factor has caused streaming to explode in popularity.
I'm a total film fanatic. I'm not a crazy audio/videophile, but I DO like to have my stuff set up so that I can really see/hear details; my TV and sound system are calibrated properly (no, I don't use $400 HDMI cable, nor do I buy into any snake oil components - I just calibrate down to standards). That said, I haven't repurchased any of my existing DVD library, unless there's a significant increase in the value of the product. North By Northwest, for example, is a DVD I repurchased as a Bluray because it had a TON of extras, came with a great production book, and the transfer is absolutely, eye burningly beautiful. It's almost up there with a pristine film print. But for the most part, I don't re-purchase any of my existing library. I do buy NEW stuff as Bluray by default.
While you may be right that PCs are better for certain classes of games, consoles are just as good at different classes as well. As for being diverse... that's up for debate. Consoles have some crazy niche titles that would never show up on the PC and vice versa. You just don't hear about them as much because they're drowned in the roar of the AAA titles every year.
Ok, you've just gone into fanatic mode and are just tossing around just as much fud. Clearly you've never worked for any business larger than a handful of users that use those apps. WINE is not a solution for any kind of centralized management, even on a terminal server. And even if you could work out all the kinks (handling policies, handling automated rollouts across multiple terminal servers, integrating printers, dealing with UI issues that confuse users), by the time you've done all that, you've already sunk more into time costs versus licensing fees.
While I will say that Windows-only apps are annoying, there are plenty of them, and they are a necessary evil where no counterpart exists (and I'm not talking things like Office here).
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I fly over 250,000+ miles a year. I refuse to go through those damn porno scanners on the grounds that they're 1) a giant waste of money 2) provide little to no additional security. So while the Fly By program may work to speed things up, we wouldn't need them it if we didn't have ridiculous security theater to go through.
Like everyone else has posted, if you block everything, you're not going to get spam. Just as bad as yahoo in terms of blocking legitimate email, and just like yahoo, somehow spam actually makes it through MORE than legit email. Not sure why gmail can seem to get the whole spam/ham thing correct relatively quickly even with no recipients, and you don't have to jump through nearly as many crazy hoops as a mail provider to get your emails through
Did you really have to explain it? This is /.
please continue contributing to the steve jobs fund!
If that doesn't exemplify your lack of adult level conversational skills in one sentence, I don't know what does. Please come back when you're ready to interact at an intelligent level.
You seem to have a hard time differentiating between blind loyalty and brand loyalty due to past performance and experience. Please do us all a favor and toss your fanboy / anti-fanboy rhetoric to the side; it will make your life infinitely better since you will spending less time arguing about pointless specs and more time using the tools you choose.
And seriously, if I have to explain why tech superiority does not automatically equal a superior user experience, you really need to grow up a bit before you start having adult conversations.
You're pretty much the typical example of a techie who doesn't get usability and functional design, and instead pushes technological talking points above all else (and usually AT the expense of all else). If you spit out those points to a typical person, none of that would matter, or even make sense to them. Products more technologically advanced does not equal superior. It just means they have better tech. When you realize the difference and what how technology ENABLES superiority but does not just blindly grant it, you'll take that brave first step into the real world.
now explain to me why ipad sells more.
Because hardware specs do not make a product superior.
Uh, if you actually knew anything about the products they make, you'd realize Denon's at the top of their game; their preamps, for example, are often considered on the high end of things (though with terrible UIs). The reason they made that cable (and the similar HDMI one) is because they also know idiots will buy something like that; read up on the history of the AK-DL1 and you'll see the whole thing was basically a joke that some people actually are dumb enough to buy into.
Fortunately their other products are quite serious and they don't do silly things with quality and price on that end.
Kind of amazing how badly you don't get it. But given your history I suppose this is par for the course.
"... to substitute for the blocked USAsian sites is a bonus."
I stopped reading the moment you used that ridiculous, immature term referring to people that live in the USA.
Would be neat if the actual Xbox Live clients would connect via IPv6, but as far as I know, the 360 doesn't even have a v6 network stack.
It's kind of amazing how over your head this conversation is.
Let me join in:
Yes. I get the whoosh.
Yes. I get the irony.
Yes. I get the meta.
You do not.
The ironing is delicious.
Pedantic. Ignoring.
*shrug* I've heard all sorts of things. With or without GV, asterisk isn't niche.
Well yes - your other mentioned products where pretty much the definition of niche. You could make an argument for MD maybe, but everything else didn't nearly hit the level of minidv. DVD and Bluray are way more of a group effort as well.
Uh, minidv? For real? You do know that minidv, though not SUPER popular, was by no means a niche product. It also introduced a whole generation of filmmakers to DIY filmmaking.
Not that I like the Sony of 2000s on or so, but come on now, give credit where credit's due.
I'm not sure where you get your info from, but asterisk is extremely pervasive, either as a complete replacement for phone systems (small business) to OEM'd interfaces (too many to count) to partial replacements for portions of existing calling systems (a similar way to how Linux crept into IT infrastructure). Hell, tons of those offshore call centers are based around asterisk and its queue features.
For real? Asterisk is extremely pervasive from what I've seen. The only place it's NOT pervasive is among hobbyists who a) have no need for a PBX type system and b) have no idea how to get it to interface with anything interesting.
Hint: google voice uses asterisk.
Why do people keep suggesting Lynx? I'm glad you know about 90s-era text browsing, but even that's moved on. If you're going this route, use Links people!!
There are a couple posts alluding to this fact, but I'll just go on a bit more about it.
The general public doesn't care about quality. They care about convenience, then price, then quality. DVDs were way more convenient than VHS tapes, competed decently in terms of price (players and discs were more inline with expectations vs something like Laserdisc), and quality was a significant improvement, especially with progressive scan.
Bluray can be a significant jump over DVDs as well, but to get there you have to invest in a TV that performs well at a size big enough to appreciate the quality. Unfortunately most people just buy mediocre to bad LCD TVs with horrible color reproduction with contrast and brightness settings completely messed up for proper viewing. Then they put a 42" TV in their living room and sit 10 feet or more away from it. At that distance/size ratio, you might as well be watching a DVD; not that it matters, because without TV calibration, your stuff is going to look awful. It's not hard to calibrate a TV, and even with only a rudimentary set of controls (a color slider, a brightness slider, a contrast slider) you can get decent results. These days it's not even that hard to find an ISF capable TV that allows you to dial in each color and black/white levels perfectly.
But it's all lost on the masses because most people don't bother, and don't even know what they're missing. That, plus the fact that the convenience factor is the same and the price is noticeably a notch higher causes slow uptake in sales. Just look at streaming video and downloaded MP3s - even the masses know the quality isn't exactly great, but the convenience factor has caused streaming to explode in popularity.
I'm a total film fanatic. I'm not a crazy audio/videophile, but I DO like to have my stuff set up so that I can really see/hear details; my TV and sound system are calibrated properly (no, I don't use $400 HDMI cable, nor do I buy into any snake oil components - I just calibrate down to standards). That said, I haven't repurchased any of my existing DVD library, unless there's a significant increase in the value of the product. North By Northwest, for example, is a DVD I repurchased as a Bluray because it had a TON of extras, came with a great production book, and the transfer is absolutely, eye burningly beautiful. It's almost up there with a pristine film print. But for the most part, I don't re-purchase any of my existing library. I do buy NEW stuff as Bluray by default.
Just watch the release of North By Northwest. It's absolutely beautiful, sometimes shockingly so, on Bluray. Film res is WAY above standard DVD.
While you may be right that PCs are better for certain classes of games, consoles are just as good at different classes as well. As for being diverse... that's up for debate. Consoles have some crazy niche titles that would never show up on the PC and vice versa. You just don't hear about them as much because they're drowned in the roar of the AAA titles every year.
Ok, you've just gone into fanatic mode and are just tossing around just as much fud. Clearly you've never worked for any business larger than a handful of users that use those apps. WINE is not a solution for any kind of centralized management, even on a terminal server. And even if you could work out all the kinks (handling policies, handling automated rollouts across multiple terminal servers, integrating printers, dealing with UI issues that confuse users), by the time you've done all that, you've already sunk more into time costs versus licensing fees.
While I will say that Windows-only apps are annoying, there are plenty of them, and they are a necessary evil where no counterpart exists (and I'm not talking things like Office here).