Is your netflix queue so short that you notice a 28 day lag?
Not really. I mostly use my Netflix account for TV shows anyway. I've gone through Magnum PI, the Wire, Band of Brothers, Rome, Boston Legal, and the Sopranos. I'm not a big movie buff but occasionally one will come out that I want to see right away (recently it was Star Trek). In those instances I'll bump it to the top of my queue.
You can live without credit. It's occasionally a PITA but it's certainly doable. Ditto for banks -- a few of my co-workers get checks that they cash at the employers bank and use greenbacks for everything.
Anyway, nowhere in the United States are you required by law to cough up your SSN and DOB to register for a friggen website.
" It's the latest way for Hollywood to combat falling DVD sales due to netflix and other cheaper content avenues."
I'm pretty annoyed with Netflix for cutting deals with a few studios to delay new releases. They got some sort of concession on pricing and in exchange agreed not to put up new releases right away. Rather than pay full price for the DVDs and make them available right away they opted to go along with Hollywood's protectionism of a dying business model.
Seems rather stupid to me. How many people actually buy a movie because they can't find it for rental? Somebody who liked the movie is going to buy it regardless of it being available on Netflix. Somebody who didn't like it that much or whom just doesn't see the point in owning many movies (I'm in this category, how many times are you going to watch the same movie?) wouldn't buy it regardless of rental availability.
I noticed something similar when I picked up a copy of Gran Torino a few months ago. It came with a little insert that had a code I could allegedly use to download a digital copy of the movie. I thought, "That's cool, I can put it on my laptop and watch it on my next trip." Then I got to the website and was eventually prompted for a credit card number. They wanted more money for the privilege of obtaining a DRM'ed copy of the movie I already paid for.
That's a nice rant you've got there, but rather misses the point. Hollywood (i.e: the MPAA) seems to mostly support Democratic candidates. A Democratic President is now reneging on his campaign promises of transparency so that he can negotiate a new copyright treaty behind closed doors and eventually impose it on the peoples of the world.
Also, your notion of elements of the Tea Party movement morphing into progressive leftists is laughable but rather off-topic I'm afraid.
The idea of the Electoral College doesn't make any more sense than the United States Senate does, yet nobody really talks about how California has the same amount of representation as Montana in a national legislative body.
Both make perfect sense if you remember the fact that California and Montana are sovereign states that retain all powers not specifically delegated to the Federal Government nor refused to the States.
Because any and all criticism of Barack H. Obama is flamebait. The same criticism of George W. Bush using the same language regarding the same topic would have warranted a +5 insightful. Didn't you read that part of the moderation faq?
Barack H. Obama was bought and paid for by Big Media <-- -1, troll
George W. Bush was bought and paid for by Big Oil <-- +5, insightful
Yeah, I agree. To me, it's somewhat like roads. The government owns one set of roads everyone can use, and in return you get a bunch more competition at the higher level on top of those roads.
My fear with the municipal owned network as described by the GP is that it would grow into a revenue stream for Government. To use your road example, many decades ago New York State issued bonds to pay for the construction of the New York State Thruway. To repay those bonds they passed a law saying that the Thruway would be a toll road, with the understanding that the tolls would go away once the bonds were repaid. Those bonds were repaid in 1999. Guess what? The Thruway is still a toll road.
It's not maintenance expenses -- NYS still gets Federal highway money from the gasoline tax to pay for that. It's just a revenue stream for the state government. The money goes to the Thruway Authority which uses it for all manner of things not related to the original bond purchase.
I hate the current broadband monopoly but I'd honestly rather deal with a system wherein new competitors would dig up the roads (provided they are willing to pay to have them repaved) before I'd want to see the Government own the network. If you think it's bad now wait until politics enters the calculation. Wait until the network is held hostage by a public employees union that wants more money. Wait until the network is used as a revenue source to support all manner of Governmental programs that have nothing to do with broadband.
Every single commodity or good that you can possibly purchase has been regulated at multiple points. Nothing you can possibly buy today is actually produced by a "free market". Absolutely nothing.
That's not true. My weed dealer doesn't have to deal with the consumer product safety commission;)
You also definetly don't want to do it for a living.
Why not? My whole family has a machinist background. Used to own their own business too -- I worked many a summer in the machine shop doing everything from grunt work (deburring parts) to production on CNC lathes and milling machines. I would have no issues doing it for a living. There are much worse jobs out there. The only problem that I see with the machinist profession is that it's slowing being murdered by cheap overseas labor. Is that why you say that you wouldn't do it for a living or is there something else at play?
The difference is that this was not a publicly available email adress.
So? Was he ordered not to disclose the address? I've been a party to lawsuits before and received private e-mail addresses of the Judge and attorneys. I've never been asked nor ordered not to disclose those addresses.
I hate spam as much as the next guy but why should something that is easily remedied with technology be a concern of government? I'm also not convinced that talking people into sending e-mails to a Judge should qualify as spam in the classical sense. When I think of spam I think of UCE -- unsolicited commercial e-mail.
What's next, will it be called spam if some activist/interest group convinces it's members to flood their Congress-critters in-boxes with messages?
It would be better to shift into neutral, I would think. Turn the key too far and you will lock your steering wheel. Yes, people shouldn't do that, but during a crisis situation with a flight-or-fight response you lose a lot of fine motor skills. Better to keep your hands away from the keys and rely on the transmission to disconnect the engine from the drive train.
I do agree with you that it's too easy to get a license in the US. Not sure if standards like what you describe would work here but we do need to see some improvement in this arena. I've been with far too many drivers who panic when things go wrong. I've never panicked behind the wheel -- even when I got broadsided by some idiot who ran a stop light and went into a 360 degree spin I managed to keep my emotions in check. Of course I freaked the hell out afterward when it was all over......
Would you have modded my post down? Pointing out that institutions who treat you as a customer instead of a number in a database are better to do business with is flamebait nowadays?
Slashdot Mirror
Is water wet?
Not when it's in the solid state....
Passwords that expire every 15 minutes, your IT people are idiots and don't care or understand security.
You neglected one possibility: Your IT people are sadists who are sick of dealing with lusers ;)
Is your netflix queue so short that you notice a 28 day lag?
Not really. I mostly use my Netflix account for TV shows anyway. I've gone through Magnum PI, the Wire, Band of Brothers, Rome, Boston Legal, and the Sopranos. I'm not a big movie buff but occasionally one will come out that I want to see right away (recently it was Star Trek). In those instances I'll bump it to the top of my queue.
Even if I cared the redbox is not far away.
Redbox cut a similar deal as I recall.
You can live without credit. It's occasionally a PITA but it's certainly doable. Ditto for banks -- a few of my co-workers get checks that they cash at the employers bank and use greenbacks for everything.
Anyway, nowhere in the United States are you required by law to cough up your SSN and DOB to register for a friggen website.
7. ???
8. Profit!
(Sorry, I couldn't help myself)
" It's the latest way for Hollywood to combat falling DVD sales due to netflix and other cheaper content avenues."
I'm pretty annoyed with Netflix for cutting deals with a few studios to delay new releases. They got some sort of concession on pricing and in exchange agreed not to put up new releases right away. Rather than pay full price for the DVDs and make them available right away they opted to go along with Hollywood's protectionism of a dying business model.
Seems rather stupid to me. How many people actually buy a movie because they can't find it for rental? Somebody who liked the movie is going to buy it regardless of it being available on Netflix. Somebody who didn't like it that much or whom just doesn't see the point in owning many movies (I'm in this category, how many times are you going to watch the same movie?) wouldn't buy it regardless of rental availability.
I noticed something similar when I picked up a copy of Gran Torino a few months ago. It came with a little insert that had a code I could allegedly use to download a digital copy of the movie. I thought, "That's cool, I can put it on my laptop and watch it on my next trip." Then I got to the website and was eventually prompted for a credit card number. They wanted more money for the privilege of obtaining a DRM'ed copy of the movie I already paid for.
Yeah, that was going to happen.....
If you are going for cheap hydro power and a cooler climate why not put your data center in Western NY?
How delightfully Orwellian of them. I'm glad we stand ready to spill American blood and treasure to defend them.
Bush bought his ability to alienate the media by starting two ill-conceived wars
Bush started the war in Afghanistan? I thought the smoking pile of rubble in Lower Manhattan had something to do with that?
Now, which of the two compromises do you prefer?
The one that doesn't involve us meekly supplicating to our enemies while pissing off our important (Canada, the UK, Israel) friends?
That's a nice rant you've got there, but rather misses the point. Hollywood (i.e: the MPAA) seems to mostly support Democratic candidates. A Democratic President is now reneging on his campaign promises of transparency so that he can negotiate a new copyright treaty behind closed doors and eventually impose it on the peoples of the world.
Also, your notion of elements of the Tea Party movement morphing into progressive leftists is laughable but rather off-topic I'm afraid.
The last time a state tried to assert it's rights as a sovereign entity we had a civil war over the results.
Says who? The States do it in the courts all the time. Sometimes they even win.
The idea of the Electoral College doesn't make any more sense than the United States Senate does, yet nobody really talks about how California has the same amount of representation as Montana in a national legislative body.
Both make perfect sense if you remember the fact that California and Montana are sovereign states that retain all powers not specifically delegated to the Federal Government nor refused to the States.
Why mark the above post Flamebait?
Because any and all criticism of Barack H. Obama is flamebait. The same criticism of George W. Bush using the same language regarding the same topic would have warranted a +5 insightful. Didn't you read that part of the moderation faq?
Barack H. Obama was bought and paid for by Big Media <-- -1, troll
George W. Bush was bought and paid for by Big Oil <-- +5, insightful
Yeah, I agree. To me, it's somewhat like roads. The government owns one set of roads everyone can use, and in return you get a bunch more competition at the higher level on top of those roads.
My fear with the municipal owned network as described by the GP is that it would grow into a revenue stream for Government. To use your road example, many decades ago New York State issued bonds to pay for the construction of the New York State Thruway. To repay those bonds they passed a law saying that the Thruway would be a toll road, with the understanding that the tolls would go away once the bonds were repaid. Those bonds were repaid in 1999. Guess what? The Thruway is still a toll road.
It's not maintenance expenses -- NYS still gets Federal highway money from the gasoline tax to pay for that. It's just a revenue stream for the state government. The money goes to the Thruway Authority which uses it for all manner of things not related to the original bond purchase.
I hate the current broadband monopoly but I'd honestly rather deal with a system wherein new competitors would dig up the roads (provided they are willing to pay to have them repaved) before I'd want to see the Government own the network. If you think it's bad now wait until politics enters the calculation. Wait until the network is held hostage by a public employees union that wants more money. Wait until the network is used as a revenue source to support all manner of Governmental programs that have nothing to do with broadband.
Every single commodity or good that you can possibly purchase has been regulated at multiple points. Nothing you can possibly buy today is actually produced by a "free market". Absolutely nothing.
That's not true. My weed dealer doesn't have to deal with the consumer product safety commission ;)
I concur with that. I just don't think 'spamming in general' should be a crime. In this instance it may well have been contempt of court though.
Dad, is that you?
You also definetly don't want to do it for a living.
Why not? My whole family has a machinist background. Used to own their own business too -- I worked many a summer in the machine shop doing everything from grunt work (deburring parts) to production on CNC lathes and milling machines. I would have no issues doing it for a living. There are much worse jobs out there. The only problem that I see with the machinist profession is that it's slowing being murdered by cheap overseas labor. Is that why you say that you wouldn't do it for a living or is there something else at play?
The difference is that this was not a publicly available email adress.
So? Was he ordered not to disclose the address? I've been a party to lawsuits before and received private e-mail addresses of the Judge and attorneys. I've never been asked nor ordered not to disclose those addresses.
Second, Spamming in general should be a crime!
I hate spam as much as the next guy but why should something that is easily remedied with technology be a concern of government? I'm also not convinced that talking people into sending e-mails to a Judge should qualify as spam in the classical sense. When I think of spam I think of UCE -- unsolicited commercial e-mail.
What's next, will it be called spam if some activist/interest group convinces it's members to flood their Congress-critters in-boxes with messages?
It would be better to shift into neutral, I would think. Turn the key too far and you will lock your steering wheel. Yes, people shouldn't do that, but during a crisis situation with a flight-or-fight response you lose a lot of fine motor skills. Better to keep your hands away from the keys and rely on the transmission to disconnect the engine from the drive train.
I do agree with you that it's too easy to get a license in the US. Not sure if standards like what you describe would work here but we do need to see some improvement in this arena. I've been with far too many drivers who panic when things go wrong. I've never panicked behind the wheel -- even when I got broadsided by some idiot who ran a stop light and went into a 360 degree spin I managed to keep my emotions in check. Of course I freaked the hell out afterward when it was all over......
I was asked, well if your car suddenly accelerated out of control, what will you do!
Push my clutch in. Manual transmissions rock :)
Would you have modded my post down? Pointing out that institutions who treat you as a customer instead of a number in a database are better to do business with is flamebait nowadays?
The first NSF fee is because your account *MIGHT* become overdrawn. It's like a warning shot. They still charge you
I find that a little hard to believe. Got a link to the bank policy where they state that they do that?
Something like 75% of a banks income, comes from NSF fees.
And 98% of all statistics are made up on the spot.....