Except for that whole Contract with America thing most of which was passed by the House but then killed in Committee by the Senate or vetoed by the President. They did for a brief moment become conservatives again. That brief moment coincided with when I began voting for them again.
"The sad thing is that the Democrats, instead of actually listening to all the voters they've disenfranchised, seem to treat "What are you going to do, vote Republican?" as a policy platform."
As someone who tends to vote Republican, I can tell you that strategy worked for Republicans for about 8 years. The war on terror might've added a year or two though. That's about how long ago the Republicans stopped pushing a conservative agenda and started asking their constituents, "What are you going to do, vote Democrat?" It is indeed pathetic.
"Obvious example: you enter a light on green behind a very slow vehicle that just turned right. The light changes to yellow precisely as you cross the line. You will not get out of the intersection before it turns red no matter how hard you press on the accelerator. The lights are timed to allow the intersection to clear only at typical driving speeds, not from a dead stop. However, you entered the intersection legally because the light was not yet yellow."
Are you from a state with driver's training? I'd wager you're not. The traffic laws don't always protect us every conceivable situation. Sometimes we have to open up our own can of common sense and use it. If there's a car in front of you that's in the intersection, you shouldn't be in it yet. That's not always a law depending on state but should be taught by a driving instructor, listed in your driving manual, or easy enough to figure out on your own. You should only enter the intersection when you have an unimpeded path to the direction you're going. That means not drifting into the intersection while waiting to turn left at a red light or getting in the intersection while a car with the right of way over you is also in the intersection (even if you're following them and they're going the and direction you are). I know that's not common practice but those guidelines are there to keep you from breaking the law. If you're in a situation where the law is enforced very strictly, it would be a good idea to follow those guidelines.
Now improprieties with the yellow light are another matter. I don't understand the "window of two or more seconds in which it is neither possible to stop prior to entering the light nor to completely clear the light prior to the light turning red." Are you slowing down as you approach the intersection? It's a good idea even if the light is green. You never know what the other cars (or that evil ornery light)is going to do.
Like I said earlier, these things aren't laws in most cases. They're just guidelines to keep you from breaking laws.
Re:It's just a rumor right now.
on
AMD's New DRM
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· Score: 1
"However, I couln't help giggling when I showed them Wii Sports Tennis and they kept pushing buttons when they swing"
But at the same time, I'm quite upset with Wii baseball for requiring me to press a button to throw a curve ball or slider. I know the grip and release are probably a bit too subtle to get down accurately with a Wiimote but they could've at least made it possible to throw special pitches with an exaggerated version of the pitch.
"And what's your brilliant solution when you have to choose between signing up for a contract and not having service?"
If the contract is not worth it, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that solution. To quote the WOPR, sometimes the only winning move is not to play.
Hanna-Barbara was the good stuff. Who remembers the Hercules cartoon where Hercules often fought enemies BEHIND A BOULDER to cut down on production costs? That was crappy TV at its finest.
"Go to your electrical shop and they don't sell bag cleaners anymore, all you see is the cyclone ones."
I recently bought a vacuum and ran across many bag models from Oreck, Eureka, Hoover, Kennemore, and several others while shopping. If by "electric shop" you mean "Wal-Mart" then you are very correct. They only sell cyclones now but that's the only place I didn't see a bag vacuum. Sure there were a lot of cyclone everywhere I looked but bags are hardly extinct. I went with an Oreck because the particular model was better at cleaning hardwood (which is about 70% of my flooring). I don't see how changing a filter (or two) when it clogs and emptying a canister every time you vacuum is better than changing out a bag when it clogs. The only annoyance I see is that you have to have spare bags on hand but that's no worse than needing to have spare filters on hand. Then again, my old vac was a Rainbow so I'm a bit jaded to emptying out the canister every time since the Rainbow had a canister of filthy water.
"yet this era was considered the capitalist ideal"
You're 30 years too soon on that one, smart guy.
Q: What 20th Century decade is the capitalist ideal? A: The 80's
And for what it's worth, this conservative is happy right where he's at. I have more money (even adjusting for inflation) and work less hours than my parents did. Then again, I learned long ago that I have to aim higher if I want to make a decent living. And it's a good thing too because my family occupation (residential construction) is near impossible to make money in today. But much like retail pay/benefit decreases, you could see the trend coming for at least a decade.
"If in fact books were the best money maker in the store, then why did best buy destroy that section?"
I never said that's where they made most of their money. I only said that's the only type of retail establishment I still see out of what Media Play offered. Every other item they sold is now usually found as a loss leader to move big ticket electronic items. But there are still places like Barnes and Noble and Borders that may sell other things but still make most of their money off of book sales. Musicland and Best Buy probably didn't have the purchasing power to buy enough volume to keep up with the other book stores so I guess they just eventually gave up and cut their book inventory severely. I didn't mind at the time because I got some wicked good deals on clearance books. I eventually moved about an hour away from my nearest Media Play so I missed the very end, but it was already pretty bad when I left the area.
Media Play went and bet of every losing horse in electronics retail. They focused on PC Gaming, video (VHS and later DVD) sales, CD sales, and books. Books sales was the only market they were in that can still make money today. While their store makeup made them something I dearly loved, they couldn't keep it up without fundamentally changing what they are. Best Buy may have killed them but they were already dying. This is a far cry from the Geek Squad that was on the rise when Best Buy purchased them.
"but the the amazing part of the film is that we don't know if it ever happened. Pure Dick."
Did you ever actually read the short story? There was no ambiguity. Just like there was no ambiguity on whether or not the ending of Minority Report was real or whether or not Deckard was a replicant. To call such a thing "Pure Dick" makes me question exactly which Dick you are referring to? It's surely not Philip K Dick.
I disagree with their definition of "low end." Maybe low end as far as what they tested, but there are a lot of non-X2 Athlon 64s and Pentium/Celeron Ds being sold. At the true low end, AMD is still more than competitive. It's only when you near the most-horsepower-per-dollar peak that Intel really pulls away (and that's where they seem to start measuring here). It's worth noting that I have no dying love of AMD. I have two AMD processors and one Intel processor running in my current personal machines and plan to get a Core 2 as soon as the next significant price drop occurs.
"You're neglecting the supply side of the price/quantity equilibrium."
Most games on a given platform despite their differences are priced within about $5 of each other at launch. Pricing them any lower tends to give consumers the impression that the game is a "value" (read "inferior") game. That impression is worth more than any possible collusion. Pricing them much higher simply keeps consumers from buying in the first place. At launch, games are priced as high as consumers will tolerate. After that, game prices will depreciate thanks to other factors. A game may launch at $60 but thanks to things like the supply of similar games or the quality of the game in question, the price may remain high or drop drastically or something in-between. The price of a game can only realistically go down so pricing as high as consumer tolerance is the best move. So yes I do ignore the supply side of the equation but only because it doesn't matter when considering initial pricing.
"(Now in your defense, you did disguise your rationality by using "bare" instead of "bear".)"
Yeah I noticed that after I hit submit. I guess I've seen the "We bare all." billboard a few too many times on I-85.
As long as people are willing to pay $60 per title, that's what they will cost. You can break down the numbers all you want but if the market won't tolerate $60 games, there sure as heck won't be any. The least important links in the chain will either be paid less or eliminated entirely.
Reading comprehension never was the strong suit of the AC. Just because I'm not aware of a BluRay "win" doesn't mean I've sunk any money into an additional movie player at this point. I have yet to see someone stock one format but not the other. That's going to have to happen before any such format can be considered a "win." I rarely use my DVD player. Why would I buy an HD-DVD player or BluRay player?
"Now that BluRay has won the HD format war drive manufacturing costs are going to plummet just like every other mass market electronics items."
I must've missed the memo. When exactly did BluRay win a hardware war? Last I saw, the two HD players were just gearing up and both have approximately the same number of titles available.
I think s/Now that BluRay has won/If BluRay wins/ is what you're looking for.
"Why would anyone even bother installing "true" Debian at this point?"
Because Ubuntu's installer hung up my machine every time I tried to run it and Debian didn't (neither did FC4 but who wants that?). I really wanted a decent apt-get implementation and went straight to Ubuntu. After about 4 tries at install, I tossed the Ubuntu install CD in my stack of useless CDs (yes I did verify the CD was good) and downloaded the Debian net install CD. It installed quickly and cleanly and it has even passed the wife acceptance factor. As long as people are making their secondary boxes into Linux machines, Debian is far from dead.
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"I guess if you can afford a room big enough to house it, you can afford the TV."
Yeah, it's real hard housing a 4' x 7.5' TV.
Except for that whole Contract with America thing most of which was passed by the House but then killed in Committee by the Senate or vetoed by the President. They did for a brief moment become conservatives again. That brief moment coincided with when I began voting for them again.
"The sad thing is that the Democrats, instead of actually listening to all the voters they've disenfranchised, seem to treat "What are you going to do, vote Republican?" as a policy platform."
As someone who tends to vote Republican, I can tell you that strategy worked for Republicans for about 8 years. The war on terror might've added a year or two though. That's about how long ago the Republicans stopped pushing a conservative agenda and started asking their constituents, "What are you going to do, vote Democrat?" It is indeed pathetic.
"Obvious example: you enter a light on green behind a very slow vehicle that just turned right. The light changes to yellow precisely as you cross the line. You will not get out of the intersection before it turns red no matter how hard you press on the accelerator. The lights are timed to allow the intersection to clear only at typical driving speeds, not from a dead stop. However, you entered the intersection legally because the light was not yet yellow."
Are you from a state with driver's training? I'd wager you're not. The traffic laws don't always protect us every conceivable situation. Sometimes we have to open up our own can of common sense and use it. If there's a car in front of you that's in the intersection, you shouldn't be in it yet. That's not always a law depending on state but should be taught by a driving instructor, listed in your driving manual, or easy enough to figure out on your own. You should only enter the intersection when you have an unimpeded path to the direction you're going. That means not drifting into the intersection while waiting to turn left at a red light or getting in the intersection while a car with the right of way over you is also in the intersection (even if you're following them and they're going the and direction you are). I know that's not common practice but those guidelines are there to keep you from breaking the law. If you're in a situation where the law is enforced very strictly, it would be a good idea to follow those guidelines.
Now improprieties with the yellow light are another matter. I don't understand the "window of two or more seconds in which it is neither possible to stop prior to entering the light nor to completely clear the light prior to the light turning red." Are you slowing down as you approach the intersection? It's a good idea even if the light is green. You never know what the other cars (or that evil ornery light)is going to do.
Like I said earlier, these things aren't laws in most cases. They're just guidelines to keep you from breaking laws.
I like your style. Buy high, sell low.
"However, I couln't help giggling when I showed them Wii Sports Tennis and they kept pushing buttons when they swing"
But at the same time, I'm quite upset with Wii baseball for requiring me to press a button to throw a
curve ball or slider. I know the grip and release are probably a bit too subtle to get down accurately with a Wiimote but they could've at least made it possible to throw special pitches with an exaggerated version of the pitch.
"I'VE NEVER SEEN THE WII"
Then you need to lose some weight, dude. You should just be able to look down and there it is.
"And what's your brilliant solution when you have to choose between signing up for a contract and not having service?"
If the contract is not worth it, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that solution. To quote the WOPR, sometimes the only winning move is not to play.
Soccer because you can't use your hands?
Darts because the object is to reach 0?
Gymnastics because Romanians are good at it?!
Oh, I thought we were talking about something else.
To be fair, I completely agree that TrackMeNot does nothing useful but waste bandwidth. There are far better ways to avoid external tracking.
Hanna-Barbara was the good stuff. Who remembers the Hercules cartoon where Hercules often fought enemies BEHIND A BOULDER to cut down on production costs? That was crappy TV at its finest.
"Go to your electrical shop and they don't sell bag cleaners anymore, all you see is the cyclone ones."
I recently bought a vacuum and ran across many bag models from Oreck, Eureka, Hoover, Kennemore, and several others while shopping. If by "electric shop" you mean "Wal-Mart" then you are very correct. They only sell cyclones now but that's the only place I didn't see a bag vacuum. Sure there were a lot of cyclone everywhere I looked but bags are hardly extinct. I went with an Oreck because the particular model was better at cleaning hardwood (which is about 70% of my flooring). I don't see how changing a filter (or two) when it clogs and emptying a canister every time you vacuum is better than changing out a bag when it clogs. The only annoyance I see is that you have to have spare bags on hand but that's no worse than needing to have spare filters on hand. Then again, my old vac was a Rainbow so I'm a bit jaded to emptying out the canister every time since the Rainbow had a canister of filthy water.
"yet this era was considered the capitalist ideal"
You're 30 years too soon on that one, smart guy.
Q: What 20th Century decade is the capitalist ideal?
A: The 80's
And for what it's worth, this conservative is happy right where he's at. I have more money (even adjusting for inflation) and work less hours than my parents did. Then again, I learned long ago that I have to aim higher if I want to make a decent living. And it's a good thing too because my family occupation (residential construction) is near impossible to make money in today. But much like retail pay/benefit decreases, you could see the trend coming for at least a decade.
"If in fact books were the best money maker in the store, then why did best buy destroy that section?"
I never said that's where they made most of their money. I only said that's the only type of retail establishment I still see out of what Media Play offered. Every other item they sold is now usually found as a loss leader to move big ticket electronic items. But there are still places like Barnes and Noble and Borders that may sell other things but still make most of their money off of book sales. Musicland and Best Buy probably didn't have the purchasing power to buy enough volume to keep up with the other book stores so I guess they just eventually gave up and cut their book inventory severely. I didn't mind at the time because I got some wicked good deals on clearance books. I eventually moved about an hour away from my nearest Media Play so I missed the very end, but it was already pretty bad when I left the area.
Media Play went and bet of every losing horse in electronics retail. They focused on PC Gaming, video (VHS and later DVD) sales, CD sales, and books. Books sales was the only market they were in that can still make money today. While their store makeup made them something I dearly loved, they couldn't keep it up without fundamentally changing what they are. Best Buy may have killed them but they were already dying. This is a far cry from the Geek Squad that was on the rise when Best Buy purchased them.
"but the the amazing part of the film is that we don't know if it ever happened. Pure Dick."
Did you ever actually read the short story? There was no ambiguity. Just like there was no ambiguity on whether or not the ending of Minority Report was real or whether or not Deckard was a replicant. To call such a thing "Pure Dick" makes me question exactly which Dick you are referring to? It's surely not Philip K Dick.
"When did smartphones become a religion?" Well I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
"do you relize that you're saying AMD is on it's way to absolences?"
Your point being? I've already stated that I have no great love for AMD. It wasn't karma whoring. It was truth.
"With four cores, you can play your game AND burn a disc AND have some crap going in the background and not have to care unless you become I/O-bound."
That's s pretty big "unless" considering becoming I/O bound is such a common occurrence. "Until" is probably a much better word to use.
I disagree with their definition of "low end." Maybe low end as far as what they tested, but there are a lot of non-X2 Athlon 64s and Pentium/Celeron Ds being sold. At the true low end, AMD is still more than competitive. It's only when you near the most-horsepower-per-dollar peak that Intel really pulls away (and that's where they seem to start measuring here). It's worth noting that I have no dying love of AMD. I have two AMD processors and one Intel processor running in my current personal machines and plan to get a Core 2 as soon as the next significant price drop occurs.
"You're neglecting the supply side of the price/quantity equilibrium."
Most games on a given platform despite their differences are priced within about $5 of each other at launch. Pricing them any lower tends to give consumers the impression that the game is a "value" (read "inferior") game. That impression is worth more than any possible collusion. Pricing them much higher simply keeps consumers from buying in the first place. At launch, games are priced as high as consumers will tolerate. After that, game prices will depreciate thanks to other factors. A game may launch at $60 but thanks to things like the supply of similar games or the quality of the game in question, the price may remain high or drop drastically or something in-between. The price of a game can only realistically go down so pricing as high as consumer tolerance is the best move. So yes I do ignore the supply side of the equation but only because it doesn't matter when considering initial pricing.
"(Now in your defense, you did disguise your rationality by using "bare" instead of "bear".)" Yeah I noticed that after I hit submit. I guess I've seen the "We bare all." billboard a few too many times on I-85.
As long as people are willing to pay $60 per title, that's what they will cost. You can break down the numbers all you want but if the market won't tolerate $60 games, there sure as heck won't be any. The least important links in the chain will either be paid less or eliminated entirely.
Reading comprehension never was the strong suit of the AC. Just because I'm not aware of a BluRay "win" doesn't mean I've sunk any money into an additional movie player at this point. I have yet to see someone stock one format but not the other. That's going to have to happen before any such format can be considered a "win." I rarely use my DVD player. Why would I buy an HD-DVD player or BluRay player?
"Now that BluRay has won the HD format war drive manufacturing costs are going to plummet just like every other mass market electronics items."
I must've missed the memo. When exactly did BluRay win a hardware war? Last I saw, the two HD players were just gearing up and both have approximately the same number of titles available.
I think s/Now that BluRay has won/If BluRay wins/ is what you're looking for.
"Why would anyone even bother installing "true" Debian at this point?"
Because Ubuntu's installer hung up my machine every time I tried to run it and Debian didn't (neither did FC4 but who wants that?). I really wanted a decent apt-get implementation and went straight to Ubuntu. After about 4 tries at install, I tossed the Ubuntu install CD in my stack of useless CDs (yes I did verify the CD was good) and downloaded the Debian net install CD. It installed quickly and cleanly and it has even passed the wife acceptance factor. As long as people are making their secondary boxes into Linux machines, Debian is far from dead.