From the guys who are seemingly responsible for the MTV Movie Award parodies and "Not Another Teen Movie"
This has box office gold written all over it...
Any troller of Fatwallet or Slickdeals knows this type of behavior. Office Depot is just as bad about this type of thing. Internet shoppers or deal hunters are scum that are to be avoided at all costs and they make this clear to you. My favorite ploy was when item I paid for online to be picked up in the store was backordered because the order confirmation had the word 'backorder' printed on it in a legend describing your transaction detail. Explaining to the person that the 0 under Backordered meant the item was not backorderd took 15 minutes. When picking up a cheap monitor I ordered using an online coupon, the manager was kind enough to complete my transaction and let me know he didn't have to honor the price I had already paid, but he would anyway. Me letting him know I would consider this fraud and would contact my CC company for buyer protection hurried the process along, but he let me know even though they appreciate Internet Shoppers, I shouldn't order from them anymore (how he'll remember is beyond me, but if I can get an extra 50 dollars off something by buying a 49 cent box of paperclips, I probably won't pass it up)
It's just a small piece in the larger puzzle where being educated about ANYTHING is a detriment to you being able to function in modern American society.
The best way to combat the new policies I've found is to use their 'double points' offer for using the Best Buy CC.
The best example is when buying a video game. I go in to pick up GTA:SA, get the game, and get one of their 'Gamer Giftcards' (a coupon on the back of the case gives you 5 dollars off a game price $20 dollars or more). You go up to the register and make a pile for the gift card, and then leave the out of reach of the clerk. You buy the gift card using your Best Buy CC, putting fifty bucks on the card. This gives you $100 dollars towards the new minimum. You then take the gift card and the aforementioned coupon from the gift card case and proceed to check out with the game. The coupon from the back of the gift card takes care of tax (effectively) and you use your reward zone card with the gift card to buy the game, giving you $150 towards the new minimum and earning you $5 in Best Buy bucks for a $50 dollar purchase.
The decent clerks just get pissed about having to do two transactions and send you on your way, but the extra time this takes is more than made up for by the joy in watching someone who takes clerkin' at Best Buy way too seriously scan your cards over and over again trying to figure out a way to prevent you from doing this. I love leaving their checkout and looking back at the line that has formed behind me while I give them the old lady with a coupon act.
Just out of spite, any purchase over 20 bucks now results in a gift card purchase first.
If they find water on the Red Planet that would once mean there were oceans...and that would mean a Crimson Tide and a rematch of one of the better games from last year
Re:Their gender detection code leaked already!!
on
Guilty By Association
·
· Score: 2, Funny
If they're trying to catch people using business contacts or over a certain age the code will probably need to look like:
COPY SLASHDOT
PERFORM P-1000-INITIALIZE
IF VAR-COUNT GREATER THAN 75 THEN
MOVE 'YOU ARE FEMALE' TO OUT-REC ELSE
MOVE 'YOU ARE MALE' TO OUT-REC END-IF
So it's only one person's cat who did "the most amazing thing today" and only one person's friend "acted like my friend but was really just a big bitch all along" and everyone else is just copying?
Oh to find that cat...
I haven't seen the shows since I originally TiVo'd them (foolishly, I assumed I would have the repeats to record) so I don't remember the episode title but the episode came down to the crew having captured a henchman of who I assumed would be one of the big bads for the series. The henchman was being uncooperative and would not respond to the Captain's questioning. After the henchman informed the crew he would let the big bad know about them, it looked like the henchman would be taken as a prisoner in the regular Star Trekian way, but the Captain rounded and kicked the guy into the intake flow of the engines. Problem solved, crew flew off.
I think the best way would be to describe it as a Western set in space instead of true Sci-Fi. It stayed more to the conventions of the old serial style westerns than it did to modern Sci-Fi. If you've ever enjoyed Tombstone or any number of old black and white westerns and you don't mind Sci-Fi, you'll love this show. However, if you're expecting Farscape or Babylon 5 style Sci-Fi, then you'll be sorely disappointed. If you don't go in thinking the show will suck, I think you'll find you're watcing a great show.
There was a sign outside our local theater playing this movie: "No Refunds Given For the Content of 'In the Cut'"
Who knew Meg Ryan going topless drove that many people to demand a refund?
Not Trolling, but I just didn't find Kill Bill all that amazing. It's like Tarantino is the nerdish kid that the cool kids let hang out with them, and tell him he's cool, even when he pulls down his pants at the party and shows his wang to all the cheerleaders after one too many O'Douls. Every scene was just screaming "LOOK HOW FUCKING COOL I AM MOTHER FUCKER" and it just got tiring after about ten minutes. All the "odes" to the Shaw Brothers and other 70's style Kung Fu just felt like he was asking for validation, for everyone to tell him just how cool his pet project was.
By contrast, Return of the King, shows how to deliver. It was easily one of the best movies this year, for nerds and for "normal" moviegoers alike. There are few, if any, unnecessary scenes in the over 3 hours the movie played. In the previous two, you could count on the Arwen dream scenes for a chance to get to the bathroom, but ROTK gave you no such opportunities. The battles dwarfed Helms Deep and the incomprehensibly presented battle for the dock in Matrix Revolution just paled in comparison.
I would say the Matrix follow-ups are the biggest disappointments, giving a great example of how throwing cash at a franchise always isn't the best thing to do, while X2 shows how upping the budget and actually having a script that makes sense and stays true to the spirit of the overall story of the franchise can give it huge momentum for the years to come.
My biggest surprise was Dirty Pretty Things. After writing this off as a wife movie (due to Audrey Tautou being in it), I really enjoyed the movie and look forward to it coming out on DVD. It was in limited release and come out around here in the later part of the year, so it may still be playing where you are. Do see it if you have the chance
As a former customer of Alienware, there can be no doubt that their review units are far superior to what we mere mortals get when we order the same system. At least some recent reviews (I believe in PC Gamer) admit that the review units are overclocked and tweaked for the best performance and your actual milage may vary.
You have to doubt a companies commitment to their paying customers when the review unit creates pants wetting excitement among magazines, but once you get it in your home you find it's all the same parts as in the review, but the performance is no where near the reviewer's benchmarks. You also have to wonder about a company who's support is mentioned in every review as being excellent, top rate when the review unit is having problems, but when an average joe tries to get support on a bad motherboard that's affecting gaming, you get advice such as "try unplugging your cable modem and plugging it back in to help with your gaming problems"
Not trying to troll against AW, (I can't help ranting about them when I get the chance, however) it's just that this type of behavior can be seen with any company that tries to hype a high end product and build a reputation among consumers.
I guess it all comes down to "Buyer Beware", but it would be nice to be able to trust reviews every once in a while
Slashdot Mirror
From the guys who are seemingly responsible for the MTV Movie Award parodies and "Not Another Teen Movie" This has box office gold written all over it...
more importantly, what provisions are in place to prevent the Daleks from getting this technology?
Standing in line to buy a Bread CD? "In Soviet Russia...."
Any troller of Fatwallet or Slickdeals knows this type of behavior. Office Depot is just as bad about this type of thing. Internet shoppers or deal hunters are scum that are to be avoided at all costs and they make this clear to you. My favorite ploy was when item I paid for online to be picked up in the store was backordered because the order confirmation had the word 'backorder' printed on it in a legend describing your transaction detail. Explaining to the person that the 0 under Backordered meant the item was not backorderd took 15 minutes. When picking up a cheap monitor I ordered using an online coupon, the manager was kind enough to complete my transaction and let me know he didn't have to honor the price I had already paid, but he would anyway. Me letting him know I would consider this fraud and would contact my CC company for buyer protection hurried the process along, but he let me know even though they appreciate Internet Shoppers, I shouldn't order from them anymore (how he'll remember is beyond me, but if I can get an extra 50 dollars off something by buying a 49 cent box of paperclips, I probably won't pass it up)
It's just a small piece in the larger puzzle where being educated about ANYTHING is a detriment to you being able to function in modern American society.
The best way to combat the new policies I've found is to use their 'double points' offer for using the Best Buy CC.
The best example is when buying a video game. I go in to pick up GTA:SA, get the game, and get one of their 'Gamer Giftcards' (a coupon on the back of the case gives you 5 dollars off a game price $20 dollars or more). You go up to the register and make a pile for the gift card, and then leave the out of reach of the clerk. You buy the gift card using your Best Buy CC, putting fifty bucks on the card. This gives you $100 dollars towards the new minimum. You then take the gift card and the aforementioned coupon from the gift card case and proceed to check out with the game. The coupon from the back of the gift card takes care of tax (effectively) and you use your reward zone card with the gift card to buy the game, giving you $150 towards the new minimum and earning you $5 in Best Buy bucks for a $50 dollar purchase.
The decent clerks just get pissed about having to do two transactions and send you on your way, but the extra time this takes is more than made up for by the joy in watching someone who takes clerkin' at Best Buy way too seriously scan your cards over and over again trying to figure out a way to prevent you from doing this. I love leaving their checkout and looking back at the line that has formed behind me while I give them the old lady with a coupon act.
Just out of spite, any purchase over 20 bucks now results in a gift card purchase first.
If they find water on the Red Planet that would once mean there were oceans...and that would mean a Crimson Tide and a rematch of one of the better games from last year
If they're trying to catch people using business contacts or over a certain age the code will probably need to look like:
COPY SLASHDOT
PERFORM P-1000-INITIALIZE
IF VAR-COUNT GREATER THAN 75 THEN
MOVE 'YOU ARE FEMALE' TO OUT-REC
ELSE
MOVE 'YOU ARE MALE' TO OUT-REC
END-IF
WRITE OUT-FILE FROM OUT-REC
STOP RUN
So it's only one person's cat who did "the most amazing thing today" and only one person's friend "acted like my friend but was really just a big bitch all along" and everyone else is just copying? Oh to find that cat...
Someone standing up for the little guy....
Does it seem kind of backwards to be using Oil in the fuel cell process?
This is getting needlessly messianic
I think the best way would be to describe it as a Western set in space instead of true Sci-Fi. It stayed more to the conventions of the old serial style westerns than it did to modern Sci-Fi. If you've ever enjoyed Tombstone or any number of old black and white westerns and you don't mind Sci-Fi, you'll love this show. However, if you're expecting Farscape or Babylon 5 style Sci-Fi, then you'll be sorely disappointed. If you don't go in thinking the show will suck, I think you'll find you're watcing a great show.
There was a sign outside our local theater playing this movie: "No Refunds Given For the Content of 'In the Cut'" Who knew Meg Ryan going topless drove that many people to demand a refund?
By contrast, Return of the King, shows how to deliver. It was easily one of the best movies this year, for nerds and for "normal" moviegoers alike. There are few, if any, unnecessary scenes in the over 3 hours the movie played. In the previous two, you could count on the Arwen dream scenes for a chance to get to the bathroom, but ROTK gave you no such opportunities. The battles dwarfed Helms Deep and the incomprehensibly presented battle for the dock in Matrix Revolution just paled in comparison.
I would say the Matrix follow-ups are the biggest disappointments, giving a great example of how throwing cash at a franchise always isn't the best thing to do, while X2 shows how upping the budget and actually having a script that makes sense and stays true to the spirit of the overall story of the franchise can give it huge momentum for the years to come.
My biggest surprise was Dirty Pretty Things. After writing this off as a wife movie (due to Audrey Tautou being in it), I really enjoyed the movie and look forward to it coming out on DVD. It was in limited release and come out around here in the later part of the year, so it may still be playing where you are. Do see it if you have the chance
You have to doubt a companies commitment to their paying customers when the review unit creates pants wetting excitement among magazines, but once you get it in your home you find it's all the same parts as in the review, but the performance is no where near the reviewer's benchmarks. You also have to wonder about a company who's support is mentioned in every review as being excellent, top rate when the review unit is having problems, but when an average joe tries to get support on a bad motherboard that's affecting gaming, you get advice such as "try unplugging your cable modem and plugging it back in to help with your gaming problems"
Not trying to troll against AW, (I can't help ranting about them when I get the chance, however) it's just that this type of behavior can be seen with any company that tries to hype a high end product and build a reputation among consumers.
I guess it all comes down to "Buyer Beware", but it would be nice to be able to trust reviews every once in a while