Yes, I was doing Internet support during the days of the Trumpet winsock. The Windows 95 "nuke and pave" Dial-up networking was a lot easier and quicker than troubleshooting Trumpet. You could teach a monkey how to do it in 10 minutes.
Plus Trumpet cost like $20 back in the day. All that "Internet stuff" was shareware and would nickel and dime Windows 3.1 users to death. Windows 95 got around some of this. Even though IE is garbage, without it, folks would probably still be paying $25 a copy for Netscape.
True this. I ran my BBS under WFWG 3.11 and just Renegade, some mail exchange software, and my word processing software being open at the same time 24/7 required monthly nuke and paves.
Desqview was nicer for stability, but had no GUI. It also didn't let me run a few applications I needed at the time.
Windows 95 kicked total butt in comparison to 3.1. The GUI was much cleaner and applications only tended to crash one at a time instead of blowing out the filesystem when a software bug rears it's head.
Hell, in 96, I recall Linux + X not being a very stable desktop by today's standards either.
Windows ME seems to be the last OS I really had much trouble with. But what do I know. I've only got experience with OS7-X, Windows 3.1-Vista, Debian, Slackware, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DOS, and various mutants in the TRS80 line.
Yeah, I think this fellow was smoking something. I ran Debian and Windows 95 on my PPro200. GlQuake ran very smooth on my 3dfx card and ran the Windows binary faster than my roommate's P200 MMX. This was memorable since I had to hear about all these mutlimedia extensions in his cpu that would make it 20% faster, or some such BS until we ran benchmarks and the PPro came out on top. Photoshop also ran noticeably more responsive when applying filters.
I don't know why folks have to poop on the interview. Your high points in a career can be defined as the best times you had, which aren't necessarily connected to raw sales figures. It could have just been exciting times as the pace of change was picking up, computers were getting better, competition for the desktop had an unknown future, all these neat people had put together open source stuff your for your developers to peek at and get ideas for your product, Apple was floating around the dumper, the Internet was being discovered by many and had seemingly unlimited potential. Hell, it could have been the last time Gates had a good lay.
Nah, I'm not one of those $800 video cards types by far. I've got a $40 PCI 5500FX video card in a dual core 4400+ system. It can do Gnome and Quake2, that's about it.
I also agree with the IQ test, I blame my score on not knowing so much about Russian history, as this kept coming up.
My RL friends are mostly folks who end up with more than one console. It's not about being bleeding edge as much as just knowing there will always be lots of folks to play in multi-player games. I look at it as the cheap route these days. I could drop $400 on a video card and $400 on a better monitor and fit right into the gaming crowd for the PC, but got tired of constant upgrades. The $400 console seemed like a better way to spend my money since I wouldn't have to worry about frame rates, people doing wall hacks other exploits in shooters, and so on. It makes for a much friendlier and social environment once a few adults make their way on the friends list.
The three year warranty surprise on the Xbox has been nice. My original unit got the red ring, but I had it fixed and sold it (I don't trust refurbs from anyone after I had a refurb monitor that caught on fire a few years ago). I then used the money to get an Elite model, since the black worked better with my entertainment center and really needed the extra storage space for music and videos.
I just wish the thing has built-in Internet radio streaming. Deleting my TwonkyMedia Server config file every thirty days is getting old.
On the 360, at least, all rendering is done internally at the native resolution of the game and the video output for a normal tv is simply scaled down. Of the ~100 people on my Live friend's list, as well as the people I know in real life, none of them use a non-HD display. It's rather odd someone would pay $400 for a console, $60 for a game and not have a display that'll show the graphics worth a toot.
You might want to check into the controller issue before getting too terribly snappy about it. Classic fighting game franchises do not want to get too nutty with making differing control systems for different systems, especially Capcom. Reading their forums, developers tend to be very strict about keeping things true to the arcade. The issue you cite is backwards from the way I think Nintendo handles it. In order to get signed, you must utilize the motion capabilities, with the option of supporting VC and GC controllers. This is a Nintendo issue, not a developer issue.
I think your sarcasm detector is a bit off base when it comes to my remark about the visuals vs fun. Think about it. This is why/. failed miserably on the little IQ test to people from myspace. A certain sect of Wii users keep talking about how great the games are, but the folks I know who own a Wii (of my personal friends) do not play the Wii by themselves. It is simply reserved for when company is over. It makes for a great system when you've got four people who want something fun to play while drunk.
While at our own homes, we all get online and play games on the 360 together. It's just how folks I know are. The games for the 360 I own are visually appealing and have great game play, but tend to be best when played full screen and not in divided boxes (which is how the funner 360 games will appear with multiple controllers). In the case of arcade to 360 ports, games like VF5 is simply amazing.
You seem to get the impression that I'm knocking the Wii, while I am not. I am just saying there's more than company x hates Nintendo behind why the Wii is missing out on some of the big blockbuster games.
Is Nintendo down with this requirement for games not in the realm of Virtual Console? I seem to remember reading somewhere you had to use the gesturing, or whatever they call it, to some extent to release a game for this system.
I really wish that game didn't look exactly like Fight Night: Round Three, all the way down to the way impact shots appear. I was pretty happy to see a new boxing game on the horizon, but if it uses Fight Night's engine, might as well get that from the bargain bin since it'll be the same game with different character models. I wasn't impressed with the overly simple fight system, but I figure it's fun for folks not too into the strategy side of things.
As far as this being released on the Wii (I didn't know until your post), I wonder if people understand how bad for your joints "shadow punching" is. I'd much prefer to use the dual analog sticks to control punches like on the Playstation or 360 than mess up my elbows.
They'll make some money. I don't have a clue as to how much but that shouldn't be the focus as far as the consumer is concerned. As long as there are plenty of people to play online and it's a fun game, that's all I will be caring about.
DoA4, well everything in the DoA series, has been quick to the bargain bin. It's got a sloppy control system but tends to be released early in the life of consoles, so each time a new one comes out it sells because it's usually the first to utilize the console's graphical abilities. The Soul Calibur series is the only one I found that seemed to be able to balance simple controls and slop with enough depth to expand into tactical, calculating game play without spending lots of time practicing (compared to Tekken 3, VF. or SF games).
As for Virtua Fighter and Street Fighter 2 HF, I never have trouble finding a large number of people to play online. The games (unlike DoA 4) are actually fun and not some little kid riding the wave of latency to get through defenses. As for the Street Fighter 2 HF players on Xbox Live Arcade, there is a mix of old people (like me) and a ton of younger people playing it.
I think everyone was surprised at the mass appeal the 2D fighter still has. Here's some linkage regarding SF2 HF's initial sales:
Additionally, I don't even have trouble finding people to play online to this day even playing Street Fighter Anniversary Edition (an old Xbox1 title people continue to play on their 360s due to the lack of a modern SF game to play, but will probably last beyond the new release dates due to them being different games, with different moves, and different characters).
Personally, I like all good fighters. So much, I raped a wireless 360 controller for parts and built a custom arcade controller using Sanwa parts with a Japanese SF button layout for the above games. It's nice to see such controls actually coming out with decent quality parts from companies like Hori, albeit, none of them are wireless and built by me!
After playing a few games on the Wii, I can understand why this one didn't make the cut. There appears to be a large number of colors, lots of background detail all being rendered, detailed character models, no FMV pseudo 3D, and the need to run at 70-80 fps for the game to feel responsive.
Then there's the controller. That's probably the biggest problem with porting the game. In order to have a real Street Fighter that is true to it's roots, you need 6 buttons with a sane layout.
I got a 360 instead of a Wii, much because I knew the PS3 and 360 were going to get the big arcade ports and blockbuster releases while the Wii was going to focus on "fun games not focused on graphics", as they say.. I had enough of that in the 80s and 90s.:)
Quite a humorous response you have there. The people I know using Vista are using it on their laptops and game systems. None of them are Cathy. Most are administrators or artists.
None of these folks are scared of UAC. They'll just downgrade if problems get out of hand.
I've been working in IT since 1991, using computers and playing with code since 1976.
You don't know a very diverse bunch of people if you don't know knowledgeable people using Vista. Sorry, your "only ignorants use [insert Microsoft product you don't like here]" is ridiculous.
You will also find the more seasoned folks don't get quite so excited, jumping in the bash-wagon.
Yes, but you aren't seeing things from the company's point of view. Would they go out and hire a technical support team for both Linux and Windows? That's expensive. Most companies aren't going to sell products without support, and thus aren't going to bloat up their staff expenses over a tiny minority.
Plus there's nothing stopping you from setting up Linux on one of these systems to begin with. Not a big deal, really, as the Windows license probably makes the hardware TCO less ala other hardware vendors.
I believe you can downgrade from Vista to XP if you got a new computer with Vista installed on the same license. It looks like people are falling victim to more AC FUD.
Windows 98? Not much a fan of bluetooth, usb 2.0, plug and play actually working, etc?:)
People forget how when Windows 95 came out, XP came out, [insert major OS update here] came out, lots of people flipped their shit over the speed and bloat of the new system. If companies listened to this grumbling, we'd still be computing in 64k environments.
Why would Microsoft care about people using VMWare on a Mac? This doesn't seem like a risk since they got to sell their licensed copy of Windows to a Mac user, which seems like a real plus.
The vast majority of people I have known with intel based Macs tend to multi-boot Windows/OSX or Linux/OSX.
I suspect people who post things like this don't run Vista. Everyone I know who got it with a new machine kept it, enjoy it, and have not had any problems with it so far. But read/. and you'll find these so-called administrators, power users, etc telling nothing but horror stories. It seems to add some ammo as to why myspace users rank so much higher on IQ than/. according to that retarded 60 second test linked the other day.:)
I won't be running it, but that's because I don't buy pre-built machines with a license included and don't really use the PC for gaming, so the lineup of freebie operating systems does me fine.
That's what happens when you spend a lot of money buying things to hook up to their wire. Should have known they have a history of screwing people over. I know it sounds bad to say, but only people living under a rock trust their cable company not to pull some underhanded shit. They have plenty of money and lobbying power to make sure to screw you without much worry of retribution.
That's why I never bothered to pay for a DVR with exception to when I used satellite service. I didn't mind this since I ended up ripping the HDD out of there and using it in a PC after I moved to a place that was impossible to set a dish up at. It wasn't a bad deal @ $79 on sale with a 1 year agreement.
Got to love the new Publix "twins" commercials. They take every opportunity to play the commercials twice in the same commercial break, like it's witty of them to reference things coming in twos, then playing the same bile back-to-back.
Unfortunately, we don't have much as far as inherent rights to access other people's property under our own terms, so I won't be griping too much when things go whichever way. I always considered my DVRs to be a temporary bit of fun, in the same vein as Napster was hilariously fun to try and justify, then see major media outlets defend it with the same things us Internet kooks were saying. I got my first "Technology" interview using a popular crackpot point of view.
My advice? Email your cable company's PR departments NOW and tell them you do not want SDV, especially in its current form. And if nothing else, they should act responsibly and tell all current AND FUTURE customers, EXACTLY what SDV means. That's not going to stop them. As you cited earlier in your post, only a minuscule number of people know about this. Not many people are going to care, also, as the vast majority of subscribers just use the DVR that comes with the service.
It's been shown these people are willing to piss off customers in droves, with little worry, as most people are so addicted to their Shark Week and cable modem-- they will likely be sticking around even after throwing a few fits with their support staff.
After many years of broadband in various areas, I've had five different cable modem services. Two of them were constantly in the dumper, for multiple years where there would be constant outages. Various visits at both locations were explained as "a problem with a bad line somewhere nearby, but there's no way to find it". I was also told I was the only customer reporting issues at both of these locations, but I know the outages were wide-spread as all the open wifis around both places would suddenly have the same problems getting outside connectivity.
Charter used to have hilariously bad routing, too. For about a year, I had one service that routed everything from Atlanta to NYC and back down to someplace like Birmingham to get anywhere. Even local datacenters where I was used to 8-10ms latency, but this was all boosted up to about 90ms at best. Not good for Counter-Strike! Multiple support requests, even calling their NOC and rattling some cages didn't get an answer.
Anyway, I'm just saying they don't give a shit. There's plenty of non-savvy folks out there that just want TV to make pretty colors and have lots of channels.
You can join the unibomber creepy guy club and just ditch cable. I get just about everything I cared to watch before in clear HD, including two PBS networks (one uses it's.3 signal to broadcast different programming) with decent stuff to watch sometimes. Don't get me wrong, most of PBS is shit. Ballroom dancing? Whew. At least it's free and without commercials.
Yes, the cable companies love to rip on consumers. I've got a Sony TV with a built-in OTA and cable tuners with a cable card slot. Both Comcast and Charter claimed they do not know what I am talking about when I ask for a card for my TV's tuner. Both services had install people who also claimed they didn't know what I was talking about even while showing them the slot on the back of the TV.
I find it hard to believe that three people (Comcast sent two monkeys to set up my last service, Charter sent one the year prior) who install cable for a living had no idea what a cable card is, not to mention not knowing TVs come with built-in tuners. It wasn't a huge deal, but I wanted to use the third tuner while both of the PVRs tuners were tied up recording things my roommate wanted and I wasn't interested in seeing.
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Yes, I was doing Internet support during the days of the Trumpet winsock. The Windows 95 "nuke and pave" Dial-up networking was a lot easier and quicker than troubleshooting Trumpet. You could teach a monkey how to do it in 10 minutes.
Plus Trumpet cost like $20 back in the day. All that "Internet stuff" was shareware and would nickel and dime Windows 3.1 users to death. Windows 95 got around some of this. Even though IE is garbage, without it, folks would probably still be paying $25 a copy for Netscape.
True this. I ran my BBS under WFWG 3.11 and just Renegade, some mail exchange software, and my word processing software being open at the same time 24/7 required monthly nuke and paves.
Desqview was nicer for stability, but had no GUI. It also didn't let me run a few applications I needed at the time.
Windows 95 kicked total butt in comparison to 3.1. The GUI was much cleaner and applications only tended to crash one at a time instead of blowing out the filesystem when a software bug rears it's head.
Hell, in 96, I recall Linux + X not being a very stable desktop by today's standards either.
Windows ME seems to be the last OS I really had much trouble with. But what do I know. I've only got experience with OS7-X, Windows 3.1-Vista, Debian, Slackware, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DOS, and various mutants in the TRS80 line.
Yeah, I think this fellow was smoking something. I ran Debian and Windows 95 on my PPro200. GlQuake ran very smooth on my 3dfx card and ran the Windows binary faster than my roommate's P200 MMX. This was memorable since I had to hear about all these mutlimedia extensions in his cpu that would make it 20% faster, or some such BS until we ran benchmarks and the PPro came out on top. Photoshop also ran noticeably more responsive when applying filters.
I don't know why folks have to poop on the interview. Your high points in a career can be defined as the best times you had, which aren't necessarily connected to raw sales figures. It could have just been exciting times as the pace of change was picking up, computers were getting better, competition for the desktop had an unknown future, all these neat people had put together open source stuff your for your developers to peek at and get ideas for your product, Apple was floating around the dumper, the Internet was being discovered by many and had seemingly unlimited potential. Hell, it could have been the last time Gates had a good lay.
That'd explain it. Nobody I've known uses the home version of a Microsoft OS.
I don't quite see how not having legit media comes with some mights and maybes, as you should have legit media if you plan to run something.
Plus she can still get to all those crazy websites that use too much flash that seems to crap out on systems not powered by Apple or Microsoft.
I heard girls like those sites.
Nah, I'm not one of those $800 video cards types by far. I've got a $40 PCI 5500FX video card in a dual core 4400+ system. It can do Gnome and Quake2, that's about it.
I also agree with the IQ test, I blame my score on not knowing so much about Russian history, as this kept coming up.
My RL friends are mostly folks who end up with more than one console. It's not about being bleeding edge as much as just knowing there will always be lots of folks to play in multi-player games. I look at it as the cheap route these days. I could drop $400 on a video card and $400 on a better monitor and fit right into the gaming crowd for the PC, but got tired of constant upgrades. The $400 console seemed like a better way to spend my money since I wouldn't have to worry about frame rates, people doing wall hacks other exploits in shooters, and so on. It makes for a much friendlier and social environment
once a few adults make their way on the friends list.
The three year warranty surprise on the Xbox has been nice. My original unit got the red ring, but I had it fixed and sold it (I don't trust refurbs from anyone after I had a refurb monitor that caught on fire a few years ago). I then used the money to get an Elite model, since the black worked better with my entertainment center and really needed the extra storage space for music and videos.
I just wish the thing has built-in Internet radio streaming. Deleting my TwonkyMedia Server config file every thirty days is getting old.
On the 360, at least, all rendering is done internally at the native resolution of the game and the video output for a normal tv is simply scaled down. Of the ~100 people on my Live friend's list, as well as the people I know in real life, none of them use a non-HD display. It's rather odd someone would pay $400 for a console, $60 for a game and not have a display that'll show the graphics worth a toot.
/. failed miserably on the little IQ test to people from myspace. A certain sect of Wii users keep talking about how great the games are, but the folks I know who own a Wii (of my personal friends) do not play the Wii by themselves. It is simply reserved for when company is over. It makes for a great system when you've got four people who want something fun to play while drunk.
You might want to check into the controller issue before getting too terribly snappy about it. Classic fighting game franchises do not want to get too nutty with making differing control systems for different systems, especially Capcom. Reading their forums, developers tend to be very strict about keeping things true to the arcade. The issue you cite is backwards from the way I think Nintendo handles it. In order to get signed, you must utilize the motion capabilities, with the option of supporting VC and GC controllers. This is a Nintendo issue, not a developer issue.
I think your sarcasm detector is a bit off base when it comes to my remark about the visuals vs fun. Think about it. This is why
While at our own homes, we all get online and play games on the 360 together. It's just how folks I know are. The games for the 360 I own are visually appealing and have great game play, but tend to be best when played full screen and not in divided boxes (which is how the funner 360 games will appear with multiple controllers). In the case of arcade to 360 ports, games like VF5 is simply amazing.
You seem to get the impression that I'm knocking the Wii, while I am not. I am just saying there's more than company x hates Nintendo behind why the Wii is missing out on some of the big blockbuster games.
Is Nintendo down with this requirement for games not in the realm of Virtual Console? I seem to remember reading somewhere you had to use the gesturing, or whatever they call it, to some extent to release a game for this system.
I really wish that game didn't look exactly like Fight Night: Round Three, all the way down to the way impact shots appear. I was pretty happy to see a new boxing game on the horizon, but if it uses Fight Night's engine, might as well get that from the bargain bin since it'll be the same game with different character models. I wasn't impressed with the overly simple fight system, but I figure it's fun for folks not too into the strategy side of things.
As far as this being released on the Wii (I didn't know until your post), I wonder if people understand how bad for your joints "shadow punching" is. I'd much prefer to use the dual analog sticks to control punches like on the Playstation or 360 than mess up my elbows.
They'll make some money. I don't have a clue as to how much but that shouldn't be the focus as far as the consumer is concerned. As long as there are plenty of people to play online and it's a fun game, that's all I will be caring about.
DoA4, well everything in the DoA series, has been quick to the bargain bin. It's got a sloppy control system but tends to be released early in the life of consoles, so each time a new one comes out it sells because it's usually the first to utilize the console's graphical abilities. The Soul Calibur series is the only one I found that seemed to be able to balance simple controls and slop with enough depth to expand into tactical, calculating game play without spending lots of time practicing (compared to Tekken 3, VF. or SF games).
As for Virtua Fighter and Street Fighter 2 HF, I never have trouble finding a large number of people to play online. The games (unlike DoA 4) are actually fun and not some little kid riding the wave of latency to get through defenses. As for the Street Fighter 2 HF players on Xbox Live Arcade, there is a mix of old people (like me) and a ton of younger people playing it.
I think everyone was surprised at the mass appeal the 2D fighter still has. Here's some linkage regarding SF2 HF's initial sales:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6155288.html
Additionally, I don't even have trouble finding people to play online to this day even playing Street Fighter Anniversary Edition (an old Xbox1 title people continue to play on their 360s due to the lack of a modern SF game to play, but will probably last beyond the new release dates due to them being different games, with different moves, and different characters).
Personally, I like all good fighters. So much, I raped a wireless 360 controller for parts and built a custom arcade controller using Sanwa parts with a Japanese SF button layout for the above games. It's nice to see such controls actually coming out with decent quality parts from companies like Hori, albeit, none of them are wireless and built by me!
Well, this game is 1920x1080 which is a bit above what the Wii can output (480p?). Here's a link to some video of the game play:
:)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1984902683377515982
After playing a few games on the Wii, I can understand why this one didn't make the cut. There appears to be a large number of colors, lots of background detail all being rendered, detailed character models, no FMV pseudo 3D, and the need to run at 70-80 fps for the game to feel responsive.
Then there's the controller. That's probably the biggest problem with porting the game. In order to have a real Street Fighter that is true to it's roots, you need 6 buttons with a sane layout.
I got a 360 instead of a Wii, much because I knew the PS3 and 360 were going to get the big arcade ports and blockbuster releases while the Wii was going to focus on "fun games not focused on graphics", as they say.. I had enough of that in the 80s and 90s.
The taxpayer? That should have been so obvious it goes without explanation.
There. Someone typed it for you.
Yeah, I can't pick on you for using it on an older machine. I'd just pull my hair out trying to use it on a modern set up.
Quite a humorous response you have there. The people I know using Vista are using it on their laptops and game systems. None of them are Cathy. Most are administrators or artists.
None of these folks are scared of UAC. They'll just downgrade if problems get out of hand.
I've been working in IT since 1991, using computers and playing with code since 1976.
You don't know a very diverse bunch of people if you don't know knowledgeable people using Vista. Sorry, your "only ignorants use [insert Microsoft product you don't like here]" is ridiculous.
You will also find the more seasoned folks don't get quite so excited, jumping in the bash-wagon.
Yes, but you aren't seeing things from the company's point of view. Would they go out and hire a technical support team for both Linux and Windows? That's expensive. Most companies aren't going to sell products without support, and thus aren't going to bloat up their staff expenses over a tiny minority.
Plus there's nothing stopping you from setting up Linux on one of these systems to begin with. Not a big deal, really, as the Windows license probably makes the hardware TCO less ala other hardware vendors.
I believe you can downgrade from Vista to XP if you got a new computer with Vista installed on the same license. It looks like people are falling victim to more AC FUD.
How dare you bring facts and truth to a discussion about a Microsoft product.
We'll see you modded as a troll, sparky!
Windows 98? Not much a fan of bluetooth, usb 2.0, plug and play actually working, etc? :)
People forget how when Windows 95 came out, XP came out, [insert major OS update here] came out, lots of people flipped their shit over the speed and bloat of the new system. If companies listened to this grumbling, we'd still be computing in 64k environments.
Why would Microsoft care about people using VMWare on a Mac? This doesn't seem like a risk since they got to sell their licensed copy of Windows to a Mac user, which seems like a real plus.
The vast majority of people I have known with intel based Macs tend to multi-boot Windows/OSX or Linux/OSX.
I suspect people who post things like this don't run Vista. Everyone I know who got it with a new machine kept it, enjoy it, and have not had any problems with it so far. But read /. and you'll find these so-called administrators, power users, etc telling nothing but horror stories. It seems to add some ammo as to why myspace users rank so much higher on IQ than /. according to that retarded 60 second test linked the other day. :)
I won't be running it, but that's because I don't buy pre-built machines with a license included and don't really use the PC for gaming, so the lineup of freebie operating systems does me fine.
That's what happens when you spend a lot of money buying things to hook up to their wire. Should have known they have a history of screwing people over. I know it sounds bad to say, but only people living under a rock trust their cable company not to pull some underhanded shit. They have plenty of money and lobbying power to make sure to screw you without much worry of retribution.
That's why I never bothered to pay for a DVR with exception to when I used satellite service. I didn't mind this since I ended up ripping the HDD out of there and using it in a PC after I moved to a place that was impossible to set a dish up at. It wasn't a bad deal @ $79 on sale with a 1 year agreement.
Got to love the new Publix "twins" commercials. They take every opportunity to play the commercials twice in the same commercial break, like it's witty of them to reference things coming in twos, then playing the same bile back-to-back.
Unfortunately, we don't have much as far as inherent rights to access other people's property under our own terms, so I won't be griping too much when things go whichever way. I always considered my DVRs to be a temporary bit of fun, in the same vein as Napster was hilariously fun to try and justify, then see major media outlets defend it with the same things us Internet kooks were saying. I got my first "Technology" interview using a popular crackpot point of view.
It's been shown these people are willing to piss off customers in droves, with little worry, as most people are so addicted to their Shark Week and cable modem-- they will likely be sticking around even after throwing a few fits with their support staff.
After many years of broadband in various areas, I've had five different cable modem services. Two of them were constantly in the dumper, for multiple years where there would be constant outages. Various visits at both locations were explained as "a problem with a bad line somewhere nearby, but there's no way to find it". I was also told I was the only customer reporting issues at both of these locations, but I know the outages were wide-spread as all the open wifis around both places would suddenly have the same problems getting outside connectivity.
Charter used to have hilariously bad routing, too. For about a year, I had one service that routed everything from Atlanta to NYC and back down to someplace like Birmingham to get anywhere. Even local datacenters where I was used to 8-10ms latency, but this was all boosted up to about 90ms at best. Not good for Counter-Strike! Multiple support requests, even calling their NOC and rattling some cages didn't get an answer.
Anyway, I'm just saying they don't give a shit. There's plenty of non-savvy folks out there that just want TV to make pretty colors and have lots of channels.
You can join the unibomber creepy guy club and just ditch cable. I get just about everything I cared to watch before in clear HD, including two PBS networks (one uses it's
It takes a /. user to put cable company conspiracies on par with our war troubles.
:)
Then folks wonder why facebook has a higher average IQ according to that 60 second test the other day.
Yes, the cable companies love to rip on consumers. I've got a Sony TV with a built-in OTA and cable tuners with a cable card slot. Both Comcast and Charter claimed they do not know what I am talking about when I ask for a card for my TV's tuner. Both services had install people who also claimed they didn't know what I was talking about even while showing them the slot on the back of the TV.
I find it hard to believe that three people (Comcast sent two monkeys to set up my last service, Charter sent one the year prior) who install cable for a living had no idea what a cable card is, not to mention not knowing TVs come with built-in tuners. It wasn't a huge deal, but I wanted to use the third tuner while both of the PVRs tuners were tied up recording things my roommate wanted and I wasn't interested in seeing.