I'm not downplaying their stupidity. I know of it intimately.
My local best buys are rife with kids who picked a department out of a hat to work in.
I was shopping for a cell phone headset, and found another customer milling over buying an iPod. The employee was lost as to how it worked, what music was compatible, if it even worked on a PC. I waved mine around, offered help, and the BB employee VANISHED for 20 minutes. I ended up helping the customer all the way to getting his 'pod out of lockup. He even chased me down at the register to thank me...
2 weeks later, I was shopping for a wireless router, and accessories for my computers and xbox. I had the video games guy tell me that the xbox MUST be wireless when you have a wireless router. meaning, you can't run a line from the ports on the back of the router to the unit.
And the computer dept guy told me that the wireless unit had to be from linksys in order to work with the xbox adapter.
I don't take terrible issue with their advice, since I choose to ignore it, and go against their recommendations. But there are people out there spending their hard earned cash on stuff they don't need, want, or are pressured into buying, simply because the 16 year old on the floor is supposed to be a percieved "authority" on their chosen department's products. Their customers don't deserve this service. People are being lied to about quality and preference by a child's part time job. If the kid's got parents that bought him a Sony/Panasonic/Samsung/etc. TV/VCR/DVD player, they're biased. Let them spend their own money, do their own research and form their own REAL opinion about what's good and what's not, and not base it off of what they think looks cool.
Hell, I'd even settle to find a kid working at a BB who can properly manage to navigate their way through setting a TV up via Video Essentials. They don't even align their floor models for good color and brightness.
That's why I'd support Tweeter or Ultimate Electronics over BB, since at least they have the forsight to hire people who have SOME knowledge of what they sell.
When I'm out shopping in retail outlets, I can drown out sales people and muzak of Best Buy with my iPod.
I've grown fond of not having to pay attention to the part timers there pestering me if I know what a wireless router's for, or if I need 6 years of free magazines.
Now I have another sales pitch to ignore from Best Buy.
So far, I've ignored: MSN Real Rhapsody Entertainment Weekly Time Best Buy Credit Cards Alienware Systems The Rolling Stones
now: Napster!
Best Buy: The corporate whores of consumer electronics!
Not so much the camcordering and NV goggles to counteract them, but I cannot stand the copy protection that's on prints nowdays...
The copy control dots that are on screen drive me nuts. Look for brown dots to appear on screen in white/cream colored footage onscreen. You'll see little brown shit-stain colored dots onscreen sporadically. I see them all the time now. Starting with Kill Bill, EVERY movie I've seen has these things in them.
They even had it in the extended version releases of the LOTR movies that played in theaters...
And now, to top it off, I saw Troy on Friday, and the print's brightness wavered constantly through the movie... The projectionist told me it must have been the print, because the lamp was okay. I trust the projectionist at my local theater... He knows what he's doing as opposed to most multiplexes...
If studios want to continue this paranoid habit of churning out shitty looking prints to theaters, I'll stop going. And I can convice friends and family of the same, real easy like.
Seriously... Most consoles are boring looking as all get out.
If you base your console purchases on the "look" of the system, you are the perfect Phantom customer...
Jobs specifically quotes that songs are staying at the $.99 level... This was addressed last week out of the fact that this story about the RIAA is 2 weeks old...
And BTW, if you complain about the new pricing structure for iTunes... The terrorists will win...
You know that Fox News Channel is on your Comcast lineup right?
Guess who owns it?
Same dude that owns DTV...
Don't worry about "if" they're going to carry it...
These new megaconglomerate-overlords of the media, don't get wrapped up in petty bickers over providers. They just drop the channel outright if the money isn't there.
So, so long as Comcast pays their fees to DTV, it'll be on, and they'd be stupid not to...
Just be forewarned, FOX could have easily spent this money on developing even MORE crappy reality TV shows... All the development costs go to a six pack of beer and a half crazed development exec, who thinks up all their reality programming.
With the sole exceptions of Simpsons, 24, and Bernie Mac, FOX hates it's viewers... (The Littlest Groom, When Animals Attack, World's Deadliest _______?, Who wants to Marry a Millionaire, The Mask, Return to Eden..., etc...)
You can knock that out easy...
Later goes by your calendar date... It just waits a day or two to pester you again.
If you roll your calendar forward... THEN press later. Roll your calendar back, and then bang, no more upgrade annoyances.
For some reason it won't allow you to do it past 2029, though... I guess that's when it'll all come crashing down....
With crap like "The Apprentice", "Survivor" or "American Idol" on TV, I really don't care if you can time shift your TV anymore. I WANT to miss shows like this.
NO TV show's worth the trouble to deal with this like this...
Let them have their flagged programming to save themselves from the phantom pirates that're downloading their precious shows on the internet.
It's honestly getting a little too retarded for my taste anyways... My TV shows have to be watermarked to impede me from watching them properly... My trips to see movies have amber dots all over the 'fcuk'ing screen to properly illustrate that could be pirated from this location and been noticed...
What's next? Nielsen lo-jack bracelets?
If it comes to it... I'll create my own shadow puppet shows in my own home, and my TV can sit in the corner until it learns that ruining the experience of watching content with this crap isn't good for anyone.
I'm not worried about it...
Sony's theorizing on PS2's dual use is a joke for me...
My PS2 is for gaming. If I want to watch DVD's, I use my DVD players. I have a changer and a region free. When Sony introduces a region free DVD changer with an integrated PS2 in it, I'll look at it.
So, on the PSP front, the PSP will play games for me. I won't watch TV on it. That's what my Apple video iPod will do... Games and watching TV are only connected by the tube, IMO.
OR... It's because they know the GBA is already region free and they want a part of that market that caters to import gaming.
As someone who bought a GBA (not SP) from Japan, this would get me to buying a PSP before it hits stateside, since I'm not fearful of Japanese racing/puzzle/platform games. A Japanese RPG... That's something I don't import. EVER.
So long as they import DDR to the PSP, I'll be happy...
It's as costly as Encore, and a MUCH better authoring program, with a much better looking DVD as your end result.
I only use encore when People need to know how to use encore. Otherwise it's junk compared to ReelDVD
And not an Apple.
I can freely recommend ReelDVD, which is a VERY robust DVD authoring app that doesn't pander with wizards, EZ buttons, and such. It's pricy, Approx $500-600, but worth every penny if you want to use these DVD's to make money.
Everyone that's reading into this as a social cutoff...
I listen to my ipod to get all the advertising crap outta the way.
My ipod features the following: - no jingles (I'm lovin' it!) - no commercials - no stupid DJ patter - no canned muzak - no stupid top 40 music - no sales pitches
If ANYONE can find a way to where I can have a productive day with MUSIC in it without this, then please illuminate me as to how. Otherwise, your "social interactions" reasoning holds very little water in my case.
I wasn't exactly people friendly to begin with, so this device didn't change all that much for me. It's not as if a person's gonna start bungee jumping with friends, or impromptu weenie roasts are going to start breaking out everywhere when people stop using these things...
I disagree. I think kids at school should be allowed to wear them while not in a lesson or class. It's not disruptive to the neighbors, and like the article states, it gives the user back some control over their life.
I don't know what school you went to, but when I was bombarded by ads and promotional people for: Red Bull, Pepsi, Coke, EMI, SONY Records, MTV, book manufacturers, Jostens, magazine subscription, and the like I would have killed to have an ipod. It's insane how badly companies want to advertise their crap on you in college.
It's the same basis that I wear and carry my ipod with me everywhere now.
If I want the social interaction, I turn the ipod off.
That music that your students are listening to can help them focus during studying too.
maicrowsopht.com
haughtmeil.com
emessen.com
mykreusauft.com
IE defaults to MSN, and there's a direct link to the most important area on MS's site RIGHT on the freakin' start button. Do they really think that someone's going to get confused about reaching microsoft?
This is the last windows OS I'll ever run...
Said in on '98se, ME, 2K, and I REALLY mean it this time on XP...
A popular technology one in general, is this constant belief that Nintendo only caters to kids...
That's about the only damn way I'd buy a MS console. I bought and returned an xbox in a day, because the games were just REALLY lackluster.
I own the nintendo because nintendo makes games.
When microsoft figures out that when you make games, and make them good, you sell to a dedicated fanbase, who unquestioningly buys them for the 1st party content.
Xbox is having to fight it out with Sony over 3rd party stuff, and thinks themselves content with it's sales. I find the sales to be really poor. When you consider the sales from the point of view of 3rd party relied sales VS the Nintendo "audience" there's no question that Nintendo has it going on. They may be 3rd, but they've got a built in audience with their games. Xbox is strutting because they're over Nintendo, who's dealing with a totally different base anyway.\
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not downplaying their stupidity. I know of it intimately.
My local best buys are rife with kids who picked a department out of a hat to work in.
I was shopping for a cell phone headset, and found another customer milling over buying an iPod. The employee was lost as to how it worked, what music was compatible, if it even worked on a PC. I waved mine around, offered help, and the BB employee VANISHED for 20 minutes. I ended up helping the customer all the way to getting his 'pod out of lockup. He even chased me down at the register to thank me...
2 weeks later, I was shopping for a wireless router, and accessories for my computers and xbox. I had the video games guy tell me that the xbox MUST be wireless when you have a wireless router. meaning, you can't run a line from the ports on the back of the router to the unit.
And the computer dept guy told me that the wireless unit had to be from linksys in order to work with the xbox adapter.
I don't take terrible issue with their advice, since I choose to ignore it, and go against their recommendations. But there are people out there spending their hard earned cash on stuff they don't need, want, or are pressured into buying, simply because the 16 year old on the floor is supposed to be a percieved "authority" on their chosen department's products. Their customers don't deserve this service. People are being lied to about quality and preference by a child's part time job. If the kid's got parents that bought him a Sony/Panasonic/Samsung/etc. TV/VCR/DVD player, they're biased. Let them spend their own money, do their own research and form their own REAL opinion about what's good and what's not, and not base it off of what they think looks cool.
Hell, I'd even settle to find a kid working at a BB who can properly manage to navigate their way through setting a TV up via Video Essentials. They don't even align their floor models for good color and brightness.
That's why I'd support Tweeter or Ultimate Electronics over BB, since at least they have the forsight to hire people who have SOME knowledge of what they sell.
When I'm out shopping in retail outlets, I can drown out sales people and muzak of Best Buy with my iPod.
I've grown fond of not having to pay attention to the part timers there pestering me if I know what a wireless router's for, or if I need 6 years of free magazines.
Now I have another sales pitch to ignore from Best Buy.
So far, I've ignored:
MSN
Real Rhapsody
Entertainment Weekly
Time
Best Buy Credit Cards
Alienware Systems
The Rolling Stones
now: Napster!
Best Buy: The corporate whores of consumer electronics!
Um, hello? Contra/Super Contra? Wasn't this kinda halo with no flood?
Not so much the camcordering and NV goggles to counteract them, but I cannot stand the copy protection that's on prints nowdays...
The copy control dots that are on screen drive me nuts. Look for brown dots to appear on screen in white/cream colored footage onscreen. You'll see little brown shit-stain colored dots onscreen sporadically. I see them all the time now. Starting with Kill Bill, EVERY movie I've seen has these things in them.
They even had it in the extended version releases of the LOTR movies that played in theaters...
And now, to top it off, I saw Troy on Friday, and the print's brightness wavered constantly through the movie... The projectionist told me it must have been the print, because the lamp was okay. I trust the projectionist at my local theater... He knows what he's doing as opposed to most multiplexes...
If studios want to continue this paranoid habit of churning out shitty looking prints to theaters, I'll stop going. And I can convice friends and family of the same, real easy like.
They add Bonzi Buddy on his surfboard into the shot, I'm okay with the lava surfing stuff...
The more CG they cram in the better...
Seriously... Most consoles are boring looking as all get out. If you base your console purchases on the "look" of the system, you are the perfect Phantom customer...
Writing joke comments about fart noises is newsworthy?
Slow news day or lazy editor...? You decide.
Seriously, I really want console announcements...
I am VERY interested in what SEGA's got on their plate. I'm hoping their secret is worth it... They're REALLY tight lipped about it.
http://www.macminute.com/2004/04/28/itunescall
Jobs specifically quotes that songs are staying at the $.99 level... This was addressed last week out of the fact that this story about the RIAA is 2 weeks old...
And BTW, if you complain about the new pricing structure for iTunes... The terrorists will win...
umm...
You know that Fox News Channel is on your Comcast lineup right?
Guess who owns it?
Same dude that owns DTV...
Don't worry about "if" they're going to carry it...
These new megaconglomerate-overlords of the media, don't get wrapped up in petty bickers over providers. They just drop the channel outright if the money isn't there.
So, so long as Comcast pays their fees to DTV, it'll be on, and they'd be stupid not to...
Just be forewarned, FOX could have easily spent this money on developing even MORE crappy reality TV shows... All the development costs go to a six pack of beer and a half crazed development exec, who thinks up all their reality programming.
With the sole exceptions of Simpsons, 24, and Bernie Mac, FOX hates it's viewers... (The Littlest Groom, When Animals Attack, World's Deadliest _______?, Who wants to Marry a Millionaire, The Mask, Return to Eden..., etc...)
Do ANY of you want the Swan to return?
I didn't think so...
You can knock that out easy... Later goes by your calendar date... It just waits a day or two to pester you again. If you roll your calendar forward... THEN press later. Roll your calendar back, and then bang, no more upgrade annoyances. For some reason it won't allow you to do it past 2029, though... I guess that's when it'll all come crashing down....
With crap like "The Apprentice", "Survivor" or "American Idol" on TV, I really don't care if you can time shift your TV anymore. I WANT to miss shows like this.
NO TV show's worth the trouble to deal with this like this...
Let them have their flagged programming to save themselves from the phantom pirates that're downloading their precious shows on the internet.
It's honestly getting a little too retarded for my taste anyways... My TV shows have to be watermarked to impede me from watching them properly... My trips to see movies have amber dots all over the 'fcuk'ing screen to properly illustrate that could be pirated from this location and been noticed...
What's next? Nielsen lo-jack bracelets?
If it comes to it... I'll create my own shadow puppet shows in my own home, and my TV can sit in the corner until it learns that ruining the experience of watching content with this crap isn't good for anyone.
I'm not worried about it... Sony's theorizing on PS2's dual use is a joke for me... My PS2 is for gaming. If I want to watch DVD's, I use my DVD players. I have a changer and a region free. When Sony introduces a region free DVD changer with an integrated PS2 in it, I'll look at it. So, on the PSP front, the PSP will play games for me. I won't watch TV on it. That's what my Apple video iPod will do... Games and watching TV are only connected by the tube, IMO.
OR... It's because they know the GBA is already region free and they want a part of that market that caters to import gaming.
As someone who bought a GBA (not SP) from Japan, this would get me to buying a PSP before it hits stateside, since I'm not fearful of Japanese racing/puzzle/platform games. A Japanese RPG... That's something I don't import. EVER.
So long as they import DDR to the PSP, I'll be happy...
It's as costly as Encore, and a MUCH better authoring program, with a much better looking DVD as your end result. I only use encore when People need to know how to use encore. Otherwise it's junk compared to ReelDVD
And not an Apple. I can freely recommend ReelDVD, which is a VERY robust DVD authoring app that doesn't pander with wizards, EZ buttons, and such. It's pricy, Approx $500-600, but worth every penny if you want to use these DVD's to make money.
Everyone that's reading into this as a social cutoff...
I listen to my ipod to get all the advertising crap outta the way.
My ipod features the following:
- no jingles (I'm lovin' it!)
- no commercials
- no stupid DJ patter
- no canned muzak
- no stupid top 40 music
- no sales pitches
If ANYONE can find a way to where I can have a productive day with MUSIC in it without this, then please illuminate me as to how. Otherwise, your "social interactions" reasoning holds very little water in my case.
I wasn't exactly people friendly to begin with, so this device didn't change all that much for me. It's not as if a person's gonna start bungee jumping with friends, or impromptu weenie roasts are going to start breaking out everywhere when people stop using these things...
I disagree. I think kids at school should be allowed to wear them while not in a lesson or class. It's not disruptive to the neighbors, and like the article states, it gives the user back some control over their life.
I don't know what school you went to, but when I was bombarded by ads and promotional people for:
Red Bull, Pepsi, Coke, EMI, SONY Records, MTV, book manufacturers, Jostens, magazine subscription, and the like I would have killed to have an ipod. It's insane how badly companies want to advertise their crap on you in college.
It's the same basis that I wear and carry my ipod with me everywhere now.
If I want the social interaction, I turn the ipod off.
That music that your students are listening to can help them focus during studying too.
I would assume the series will be out by this fall, since Cartoon Network is planning on airing it by around August or so...
maicrowsopht.com haughtmeil.com emessen.com mykreusauft.com IE defaults to MSN, and there's a direct link to the most important area on MS's site RIGHT on the freakin' start button. Do they really think that someone's going to get confused about reaching microsoft?
When you arrive at the con, setup an entrance hall called "#1 welcome"...
Lock in the new arrivals till they pony up.
My joke is funny... You just haven't realized it yet.
This is the last windows OS I'll ever run... Said in on '98se, ME, 2K, and I REALLY mean it this time on XP... A popular technology one in general, is this constant belief that Nintendo only caters to kids...
Is the console "dick swinging" going to end and the REALLY good console games come out?
Some of the best console titles end up being mid - late gen games to the console.
FFVII-IX, Syphon Filter, MGS; Shenmue, surely others I've missed, it seems that truly innovative titles hit a console late in it's development cycle.
That's about the only damn way I'd buy a MS console. I bought and returned an xbox in a day, because the games were just REALLY lackluster.
I own the nintendo because nintendo makes games.
When microsoft figures out that when you make games, and make them good, you sell to a dedicated fanbase, who unquestioningly buys them for the 1st party content.
Xbox is having to fight it out with Sony over 3rd party stuff, and thinks themselves content with it's sales. I find the sales to be really poor. When you consider the sales from the point of view of 3rd party relied sales VS the Nintendo "audience" there's no question that Nintendo has it going on. They may be 3rd, but they've got a built in audience with their games. Xbox is strutting because they're over Nintendo, who's dealing with a totally different base anyway.\
What's even better is the screencap of bill infront of the WALL OF HAMBURGERS! What a slap in the face to the Meatrix!