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User: PollGuy

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Comments · 58

  1. So long Music Industry... on Media Research Exec Says Music Industry Is On Its Last Legs · · Score: 5, Funny

    So long Music Industry, and thanks for all the Phish!

  2. As long as a Netflix movie on Apple Begins Fixing MacBook Pro Issues · · Score: 1

    How long will the repair take?

    I live in New York. My Powerbook needed a new screen and a new keyboard a few months ago. DHL picked it up from my office Tuesday morning and arrived back in the office by 9:58 Thursday. This with a round trip to Texas, IIRC. Incredible how well-tuned the system is.

    Of course, all my data was gone*, but who's counting?

    * It was there, but the /Users partition mount was disabled, probably because they needed to boot of an external drive to verify the fix. So after a scare I remounted and all was well.

  3. ugh on Toy Story 3 Scrapped · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's probably also why "Cars" was looking to be a piece of crap - since the movie was simply being done to fulfill a contractual obligation, Pixar would phoen it in, and Disney could choke on their contract. I wouldn't be surprised if "Cars" goes into turnaround now that there's a real reason to make it.

    I can't believe nonsense like this gets to be modded to +5.

    John Lasseter is directing this film, personally. Doing a bad job on a film just to fulfill a contractual obligation would do incredible damage to the Pixar brand. No one with any position of authority would tolerate any trash going out under the Pixar name at all, let alone deliberately out of spite for one's business partner. And it's not like ALL the profits from the 5 (or, rather 6) films went to Disney, there was a somewhat even split, so Pixar has a lot on the line with each title.

    The teaser trailer for Cars wasn't that great, sure. To get a better idea of what the film will be, check out the little-circulated international trailer.

  4. Re:Dude, read the article more closely. on ABC Affiliates Grapple With TV-Show Downloads · · Score: 1

    Your analogy would hold if it was a clean break, but not if FedEx kept helping to push sales of the product without getting any part of the new pie.

    From the article: ABC affiliates are concerned that they weren't given an opportunity for financial participation in a new form of distributing shows that derives value through the promotion and broadcasting of affiliates (emphasis mine).

    I was also just bothered by the mocking tone of your original post; Leon Long did not strike me as a crybaby in any way other than oversimplification.

  5. Dude, read the article more closely. on ABC Affiliates Grapple With TV-Show Downloads · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The complaint didn't come from an ABC competitor, it came from an ABC affiliate. As in, one of the local stations that takes a part of the pie generated by the public's eyeballs. What ABC has done is completely circumvented its own affiliates without even so much as a heads up, which is quite a rude thing to do to your distribution channel. If iTunes TV distribution takes viewers away from the affiliates, Apple will win at their expense.

    This is a far more subtle relationship than your "business models change, you have to adapt or die" dismissal warrants.

  6. just mod it funny on iPod nano Owners In Screen Scratch Trauma · · Score: 1

    Of course I didn't write the article. I linked to the professional review by Ars Technica. The whole thing is a joke. That the moderator took it seriously and called it informative -- making other people read it as if it were serious -- is very unfortunate...

  7. Proof positive!! on iPod nano Owners In Screen Scratch Trauma · · Score: 4, Funny

    I got an iPod nano last week, and yes, it has been scratching up like mad. And I'm not doing anything remotely bad to it -- just the kinds of things that "respectful" users do.

    I've taken pictures of the damage and written up a log of how I've been using my nano. Here's a picture, and here's the full write-up.

    When's the recall?

  8. Diebold Demonstration Video on Slashback: Indymedia, Starfighter, Mozparty · · Score: 5, Funny

    I came across this Diebold training video. Check it out.

  9. If the Astros put on Yankees uniforms... on If Windows Came to PPC, Would You Switch? · · Score: 5, Funny

    would you root for them?

  10. Ego? or, transcending the edit wars? on Ask Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales About Online Collaboration · · Score: 1

    I've seen occurrences where people are overprotective of their work and revert back to it when any change is made -- even if it's a good change, such as one that clarifies or corrects bad prose. Basically, some people put their ego above the good of the article.

    I don't have the patience to get into an edit war with someone over a clarification, and I wonder if Wikipeida could (and should) be expanded to counter the ego effect. In particular, maybe a few concepts could be borrowed from Slashdot: a contributor's behavior is judged by moderators, giving people incentive to stick around on the same account and build up good reputations. Any reversion by a low-credit or no-credit user against the work of a high-credit user could be flagged in a particular way on the "recent changes" page.

    A system that rewards good behavior would make me, for one, more inclined to work on Wikipedia (articles on film history and natural language processing are a bit lacking). You could give authorities such as professors good accounts, right off the bat, to get them to contribute their expertise without worrying about bicker-battles with teenagers. Basically, it needs some way to unflatten the user pool.

  11. Build at the North Pole -- on Scientist Sees Space Elevator in 15 Years · · Score: 1

    Then RKO's master plan will come true!

  12. Indeed.... on Student Uncovers US Military Secrets · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... especially the famous 19-minute expletive.

    Good thing Ned Flanders wasn't around.

  13. In case of slashdotting... on Amazon's Search Engine Goes Live · · Score: 5, Funny

    here's Google's (rather curious) cache

    Show me an A9 cache of Google's cache and we'll talk...

  14. Muybridge on A Movie From Before Movies Were Invented · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is just around the time when Muybridge was doing his work on the motion of horses and people.

    For those who don't know this reference, it is to Eadweard Muybridge, an American immigrant from Britain who created created the first prototypical movie in the 1870, well before Edison or the Lumiere brothers, by having multiple cameras expose in sequence. He was asked to settle a bet on whether all four of a galloping horse's feet are ever all off the ground at the same time.

  15. with distributed.net... on Probable Solution Found for ECC2-109 Challenge · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Maybe even fast enough to get first post!

  16. To what end? on Computerized Time Clocks Susceptible to 'Manager Attack' · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So you can sue and use your journal as evidence? Who's going to believe that it is more reliable than the computer records?

  17. Re:lawyers on Automobiles Evolve to Live Up to Their Name · · Score: 2, Funny

    I had a slightly different reaction to that same line (Like, what will lawyers do if self-driving cars get in accidents?)

    It was: oh, I wouldn't worry about the laywers, I'm sure they'd find some way to litigate over it.

  18. I don't know, I bet it's a seed of truth. on 500 EURO reward for finding car by finding laptop · · Score: 3, Funny

    Note the department: real-submissions-unedited

    Becha someone really thought we would be ready/willing/able/inclined enough to help, and michael saved it, since truth is stranger than fiction.

  19. Re:Great. on Testing Relativity · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sure it is, if you don't mind turning into a chunk of latex and procreating with your boss.

    Sayyyyyy.....

  20. not necessarily on The Fabric of the Cosmos · · Score: 1

    As Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart famously said of pornography, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

  21. that explains it! on Why iPod Can't Save Apple · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, but this article is different... I don't think they used the term beleagered once.

    You're saying that "beleaguered" is not a part of Apple's full company name? Wow!

    (credit where credit is due)

  22. it's the personnel that are geniuses on Star Trek's Design Influence On Palm, New Tech · · Score: 1

    And yet, over and over again, our plucky crew members will beam onto a ship of a completely alien race they've never met before, walk up to a completely alien console that is completely unmarked and still know exactly how to use it, including correctly interpreting the monitor's output in a completely alien language they've never seen before.

    And they always seem like hard-to-learn panels, too -- the kind where there are only four or five unmarked buttons, whose functions seem to change every time they are pushed, so that an entire range of functions can be carried out just by pressing them over and over again.

    Man, I wish I could pick up new UIs that easy. Or maybe there is some sort of trans-galactic UI style recommendation to which every species subscribes, just in case this situation should come up.

  23. Correction:"Microsoft Code in Every HD-DVD Player" on Microsoft Code in Every HD-DVD Player · · Score: 1

    If that's our battle cry, my, times have changed...

  24. "Microsoft Code in Every HD-DVD Player" on Microsoft Code in Every HD-DVD Player · · Score: 1

    If that's are battling cry, my, times have changed...

  25. Re:One way or the other it's coming. on Cell Phone with Camera = Scanner · · Score: 1

    But if enough students scan journals at high resolution and then organize and exchange them through the Net, there will be an enormous levelling of the academic playing field.

    Uh, it's already level. The whole point of a library is that it offers public information and education, not reserved for the academics or "haves." You can go and find any journal or other material you want, and so can Jo Blo. The only limiting factor is that people don't realize it's there for the taking, and throw up their hands if something's not on Google.