I got into computers in the mid to late eighties, when a second-hand Commodore (or no, it was a Vic20 first) wasn't all that much more expensive than a second-hand Atari2600 with a bunch of games
Atari 2600 booted instantly. Adding a 1541 floppy drive to a Commodore 64 to shortcut obscene Datassette loading times made it a lot more expensive.
Unless you have a reason to specifically get a Wii U, why wouldn't you get a used Wii with a bunch of controllers and a mountain of games for half the price?
All Wii games with online play relied on GameSpy. Its closure killed online play for Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and to many players, continuing online play in those franchises is a good "reason to specifically get a Wii U".
i can play console games on the couch on a big screen tv with a well-made controller.
PCs have VGA and usually DVI or HDMI out; HDTVs have HDMI and usually VGA in. (HDMI is DVI-D with audio in the blanking period and a different connector.) Set the PC next to the TV, connect a well-made Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller to its front USB port, and play.
i'm not spending 1500 dollars on a gaming pc every few years.
The beauty of desktop PCs is that there are so many builds to choose from that you're more likely to find one to fit your needs. There are $500 builds that'll match any current console, and even the integrated HD Graphics in Intel Core i series CPUs is running games at lower settings nowadays.
you can't play nintendo games on a pc.
Or on a PS4 or Xbox One. Nor can you play Halo on PS4 or any Nintendo console. (On PS1 through PS3 you can make a joke involving the numbering system of Nine Inch Nails albums; PS4 dropped this capability.) But there aren't a lot of critical games that are on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 or both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One but not on Windows. In addition, a lot of especially indie games are PC-first or PC-only.
I was referring not to children who own a home but instead to parents who own or rent a home.
Oh none. So what does the homework have to do with it?
A parent who suddenly loses his or her job does not suddenly cease to be responsible for his or her children.
affluence choices
I apologize, but I fail to understand what you mean by "affluence choices".
Or do you reckon they'll find a way to manage without, however debilitating that is?
By "debilitating" do you include a choice to fail to graduate on time, a choice to move from the school system to the criminal justice system?
Phone is nearly as necessary as food today, and more necessary than internet.
By "phone" do you mean a land line shared by all residents or individual mobile phone plans for each resident? And by "Internet" do you mean wired or mobile?
1. Choose a band that writes its own songs. Such a band collects "publishing" royalties on the musical work in addition to royalties on the sound recording. 2. Choose a band that isn't signed to a major record label, one that still owns its own recordings. Such a band collects a larger share of royalties on the sound recording, even if it does pay a distributor such as CD Baby.
Why can't a cover band in such an ASCAP desert buy its own portable license from the major performance rights organizations that covers any venue of a given size class that the band performs in?
Perhaps the complaint is that Google isn't quite up-front about this wall of separation. One solution might be to split search and other services into separate businesses within Alphabet.
There may be a violation of Amazon's T&Cs, but that's not the FBIs job to deal with.
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and other wire fraud statutes give the FBI jurisdiction over TOS violations. You might have heard of the CFAA from the Aaron Swartz tragedy.
Plans may change. Shopping, for example, occasionally takes far longer than I had arranged due to unforeseen complications. Besides, I carry a cell phone because my ride has occasionally not shown up due to having fallen asleep.
Sometimes it meant taking public transport instead
I ride the bus, but I carry a cell phone because plans may change. I may end up with things to do after the city buses stop running for the night or for the weekend.
Or plans may be unsuitable for public transport in the first place. For example, a few years ago, I was taking a college class that got out at 9 PM, when the last bus pick-up of the evening was at 8:45 or so (source: fwcitilink.com). I rode the bus there and pre-arranged a ride home, but my pre-arranged ride slept in a couple times. I was able to call my second and third choices for a pick-up.
riding a bike
I ride a bike, but I carry a cell phone because plans may change. My bike has at times broken down.
or hoofing it on foot.
I walk some places, but I carry a cell phone because my limit for continuous walking is about 7.5 miles or 12 km, and my limit for things being within practical walking distance is about a third of that.
The time I blew up the motor in my car I hitched a ride
Some people are willing to pay $7.50 per month for a cell phone for the safety of not having to hitchhike.
(#51942103) Payphones? Even when they were very prevalent I can't remember ever needing to use one. (#51947607) to the nearest gas station and used the landline there [...] there was a payphone I would have been told to use if it hadn't been broken.
So you did manage to "remember ever needing to use one."
There are definite advantages to having a cell phone, but it brings a cash cost
Plus the cost of having to sit and wait for a bus or walk home instead of getting work done for which you would be paid.
I think most people could get by without them with little real danger.
Some people would disagree with you about "little real danger" associated with hitchhiking.
Whilst this is technically true, it's assuming a home internet connection (when the point I got from the story is you can't assume this).
The assumption was that porting your landline to magicJack may free up enough money in the budget to buy home Internet from the cable company.
Also, there are cellphone options even cheaper (if you don't need many minutes); specifically, the plan I started my kids off with at $10 every 4 months (100minute pool to use over the course of the 4 months @ $2.50/mo, taxes included, PagePlus).
Is this carrier willing to activate low-minute, voice-only service on a smartphone? Or is it like Virgin Mobile was a few years ago, where only flip phones qualified for this sort of low-usage service and people with smartphones had to settle for a substantially more expensive ($35/mo) plan intended for higher-usage subscribers, which includes 450 minutes and data? The notice "You cannot activate a 4G device on this plan" on Page Plus's page for the plan you describe worries me.
A 300 GB per month cap on Comcast is much better for home use than a 10 GB per month cap on cellular, especially in a household with more than one person.
As for console devs - if you say there's a barrier to entry via the dev kit (I don't know much about console coding)
Console makers traditionally require "relevant industry experience", "financial stability", and a "secure office" (source: warioworld.com) before a developer can purchase required tools. Before about 2012, home offices were not considered "secure" in this manner. And it's difficult for an indie studio to show "relevant industry experience" if its employees haven't lived in the Austin, Boston, or Seattle area.
then Gamestop is already shooting itself in the foot looking for "indie" developers who probably can't afford that barrier to entry in the first place, right?
A publisher can help developers find resources to port a finished or nearly finished game to another platform. For example, a company as big as GameStop is a shoo-in for "financial stability".
Remembering phone numbers and begging for permission to use someone else's cell phone won't work if "any random person" agrees with jedidiah that a cell phone is a luxury.
Payphones? Even when they were very prevalent I can't remember ever needing to use one.
Instead of a cell phone or payphone, what did you use to arrange a ride (if you don't drive) or to arrange assistance in case of car trouble (if you do)?
If I could get my relatives and work to learn how to use email and such properly I'd be tempted to kill the landline phone.
If you're far from a public phone, you're likely also far from a public Internet terminal.
Why do you presume a situation that demands huge data use over the internet to "prove" that it will be more expensive for poor people to use wireless internet than wired
Because Slashdot has posted stories of users that found themselves in such "a situation that demands huge data use over the internet". It's in at least one comment to each story about the Get Windows 10 (GWX) app or Windows 10's automatic updates (example).
don't own mutliple PCs
I imagine that a lot of parents own more than one PC so that their children do not have to stand in line for a chance to do their homework. So may I quote you on recommending choosing to own only one PC in order to save on overage fees during update season in case the breadwinning parent loss his or her job?
The answer instead is cellular internet would be much faster but... how much would it cost.
Let's just say that when the data usage overage to download a game purchased on Steam exceeds the price of said game, there's a problem. That's like buying a $30 trinket on eBay with $300 shipping.
Say a statute S enacted by a legislature L, be it Congress or the legislature of any of the several states, makes an act A into a crime, but a higher law such as the Constitution denies L power to enact S. Then anyone who intends to perform A has standing to sue the Attorney General of the same jurisdiction for an injunction against enforcement of S. Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123. For example, a Communist party would have standing to sue AG Loretta Lynch for an injunction against the CCA.
The following may be a bit of a stretch, but a defense to defamation could include assisting such a suit and getting the defamation case put on hold until the statute's constitutionality can be decided.
Sure, the phone carrier will recompress the streams to whatever the local tower can handle.
In Binge On, the carrier doesn't necessarily "recompress". When the user requests video from a participating provider, T-Mobile applies a QoS throttle on the order of 1.5 Mbps, as described in its white paper. The video provider detects low throughput and switches to an appropriate stream. This bitrate is sufficient for standard-definition (360p or 480p), as shown by TXD2005 and TXD2009 encoding standards that specify close to 1 Mbps for a 90 minute movie on one CD.
Then go with the satellite because satellite ISPs are at least more likely than cellular ISPs to offer an unmetered or less harshly metered period in the early mornings, during which one can complete bulk downloads.
Good luck with that, especially if you work from home, or if you own multiple PCs during months when Microsoft is pushing out a new 3 GB build of Windows to licensees.
Snopes says the Lifeline program began with landlines under President Ronald W. Reagan and was extended to mobile phones under President George W. Bush. Perhaps AC thinks Welfare is these Presidents' middle name.
Slashdot Mirror
I got into computers in the mid to late eighties, when a second-hand Commodore (or no, it was a Vic20 first) wasn't all that much more expensive than a second-hand Atari2600 with a bunch of games
Atari 2600 booted instantly. Adding a 1541 floppy drive to a Commodore 64 to shortcut obscene Datassette loading times made it a lot more expensive.
You want to count exclusives? Show me Stephen's Sausage Roll or Undertale or Stardew Valley or A Good Snowman for PS4.
Unless you have a reason to specifically get a Wii U, why wouldn't you get a used Wii with a bunch of controllers and a mountain of games for half the price?
All Wii games with online play relied on GameSpy. Its closure killed online play for Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and to many players, continuing online play in those franchises is a good "reason to specifically get a Wii U".
i can play console games on the couch on a big screen tv with a well-made controller.
PCs have VGA and usually DVI or HDMI out; HDTVs have HDMI and usually VGA in. (HDMI is DVI-D with audio in the blanking period and a different connector.) Set the PC next to the TV, connect a well-made Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller to its front USB port, and play.
i'm not spending 1500 dollars on a gaming pc every few years.
The beauty of desktop PCs is that there are so many builds to choose from that you're more likely to find one to fit your needs. There are $500 builds that'll match any current console, and even the integrated HD Graphics in Intel Core i series CPUs is running games at lower settings nowadays.
you can't play nintendo games on a pc.
Or on a PS4 or Xbox One. Nor can you play Halo on PS4 or any Nintendo console. (On PS1 through PS3 you can make a joke involving the numbering system of Nine Inch Nails albums; PS4 dropped this capability.) But there aren't a lot of critical games that are on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 or both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One but not on Windows. In addition, a lot of especially indie games are PC-first or PC-only.
I was referring not to children who own a home but instead to parents who own or rent a home.
Oh none. So what does the homework have to do with it?
A parent who suddenly loses his or her job does not suddenly cease to be responsible for his or her children.
affluence choices
I apologize, but I fail to understand what you mean by "affluence choices".
Or do you reckon they'll find a way to manage without, however debilitating that is?
By "debilitating" do you include a choice to fail to graduate on time, a choice to move from the school system to the criminal justice system?
Phone is nearly as necessary as food today, and more necessary than internet.
By "phone" do you mean a land line shared by all residents or individual mobile phone plans for each resident? And by "Internet" do you mean wired or mobile?
Two tips:
1. Choose a band that writes its own songs. Such a band collects "publishing" royalties on the musical work in addition to royalties on the sound recording.
2. Choose a band that isn't signed to a major record label, one that still owns its own recordings. Such a band collects a larger share of royalties on the sound recording, even if it does pay a distributor such as CD Baby.
Why can't a cover band in such an ASCAP desert buy its own portable license from the major performance rights organizations that covers any venue of a given size class that the band performs in?
OUYA and GameStick consoles run Android/Linux, and Steam Machine runs a customized Debian GNU/Linux.
Compare Apple TV and PlayStation 4, which run a FreeBSD-based operating system.
Perhaps the complaint is that Google isn't quite up-front about this wall of separation. One solution might be to split search and other services into separate businesses within Alphabet.
There may be a violation of Amazon's T&Cs, but that's not the FBIs job to deal with.
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and other wire fraud statutes give the FBI jurisdiction over TOS violations. You might have heard of the CFAA from the Aaron Swartz tragedy.
If I needed a ride I arranged it before hand.
Plans may change. Shopping, for example, occasionally takes far longer than I had arranged due to unforeseen complications. Besides, I carry a cell phone because my ride has occasionally not shown up due to having fallen asleep.
Sometimes it meant taking public transport instead
I ride the bus, but I carry a cell phone because plans may change. I may end up with things to do after the city buses stop running for the night or for the weekend.
Or plans may be unsuitable for public transport in the first place. For example, a few years ago, I was taking a college class that got out at 9 PM, when the last bus pick-up of the evening was at 8:45 or so (source: fwcitilink.com). I rode the bus there and pre-arranged a ride home, but my pre-arranged ride slept in a couple times. I was able to call my second and third choices for a pick-up.
riding a bike
I ride a bike, but I carry a cell phone because plans may change. My bike has at times broken down.
or hoofing it on foot.
I walk some places, but I carry a cell phone because my limit for continuous walking is about 7.5 miles or 12 km, and my limit for things being within practical walking distance is about a third of that.
The time I blew up the motor in my car I hitched a ride
Some people are willing to pay $7.50 per month for a cell phone for the safety of not having to hitchhike.
(#51942103) Payphones? Even when they were very prevalent I can't remember ever needing to use one.
(#51947607) to the nearest gas station and used the landline there [...] there was a payphone I would have been told to use if it hadn't been broken.
So you did manage to "remember ever needing to use one."
There are definite advantages to having a cell phone, but it brings a cash cost
Plus the cost of having to sit and wait for a bus or walk home instead of getting work done for which you would be paid.
I think most people could get by without them with little real danger.
Some people would disagree with you about "little real danger" associated with hitchhiking.
Whilst this is technically true, it's assuming a home internet connection (when the point I got from the story is you can't assume this).
The assumption was that porting your landline to magicJack may free up enough money in the budget to buy home Internet from the cable company.
Also, there are cellphone options even cheaper (if you don't need many minutes); specifically, the plan I started my kids off with at $10 every 4 months (100minute pool to use over the course of the 4 months @ $2.50/mo, taxes included, PagePlus).
Is this carrier willing to activate low-minute, voice-only service on a smartphone? Or is it like Virgin Mobile was a few years ago, where only flip phones qualified for this sort of low-usage service and people with smartphones had to settle for a substantially more expensive ($35/mo) plan intended for higher-usage subscribers, which includes 450 minutes and data? The notice "You cannot activate a 4G device on this plan" on Page Plus's page for the plan you describe worries me.
A 300 GB per month cap on Comcast is much better for home use than a 10 GB per month cap on cellular, especially in a household with more than one person.
As for console devs - if you say there's a barrier to entry via the dev kit (I don't know much about console coding)
Console makers traditionally require "relevant industry experience", "financial stability", and a "secure office" (source: warioworld.com) before a developer can purchase required tools. Before about 2012, home offices were not considered "secure" in this manner. And it's difficult for an indie studio to show "relevant industry experience" if its employees haven't lived in the Austin, Boston, or Seattle area.
then Gamestop is already shooting itself in the foot looking for "indie" developers who probably can't afford that barrier to entry in the first place, right?
A publisher can help developers find resources to port a finished or nearly finished game to another platform. For example, a company as big as GameStop is a shoo-in for "financial stability".
Remembering phone numbers and begging for permission to use someone else's cell phone won't work if "any random person" agrees with jedidiah that a cell phone is a luxury.
Payphones? Even when they were very prevalent I can't remember ever needing to use one.
Instead of a cell phone or payphone, what did you use to arrange a ride (if you don't drive) or to arrange assistance in case of car trouble (if you do)?
If I could get my relatives and work to learn how to use email and such properly I'd be tempted to kill the landline phone.
If you're far from a public phone, you're likely also far from a public Internet terminal.
Why do you presume a situation that demands huge data use over the internet to "prove" that it will be more expensive for poor people to use wireless internet than wired
Because Slashdot has posted stories of users that found themselves in such "a situation that demands huge data use over the internet". It's in at least one comment to each story about the Get Windows 10 (GWX) app or Windows 10's automatic updates (example).
don't own mutliple PCs
I imagine that a lot of parents own more than one PC so that their children do not have to stand in line for a chance to do their homework. So may I quote you on recommending choosing to own only one PC in order to save on overage fees during update season in case the breadwinning parent loss his or her job?
The answer instead is cellular internet would be much faster but ... how much would it cost.
Let's just say that when the data usage overage to download a game purchased on Steam exceeds the price of said game, there's a problem. That's like buying a $30 trinket on eBay with $300 shipping.
Say a statute S enacted by a legislature L, be it Congress or the legislature of any of the several states, makes an act A into a crime, but a higher law such as the Constitution denies L power to enact S. Then anyone who intends to perform A has standing to sue the Attorney General of the same jurisdiction for an injunction against enforcement of S. Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123. For example, a Communist party would have standing to sue AG Loretta Lynch for an injunction against the CCA.
The following may be a bit of a stretch, but a defense to defamation could include assisting such a suit and getting the defamation case put on hold until the statute's constitutionality can be decided.
Sure, the phone carrier will recompress the streams to whatever the local tower can handle.
In Binge On, the carrier doesn't necessarily "recompress". When the user requests video from a participating provider, T-Mobile applies a QoS throttle on the order of 1.5 Mbps, as described in its white paper. The video provider detects low throughput and switches to an appropriate stream. This bitrate is sufficient for standard-definition (360p or 480p), as shown by TXD2005 and TXD2009 encoding standards that specify close to 1 Mbps for a 90 minute movie on one CD.
A landline is more expensive these days!
If you already have an always-on Internet connection, a magicJack landline is about $3 per month.
Then go with the satellite because satellite ISPs are at least more likely than cellular ISPs to offer an unmetered or less harshly metered period in the early mornings, during which one can complete bulk downloads.
From that page: "You will be required to verify an existing U.S. phone number to get a Google Voice number."
just use less data
Good luck with that, especially if you work from home, or if you own multiple PCs during months when Microsoft is pushing out a new 3 GB build of Windows to licensees.
Snopes says the Lifeline program began with landlines under President Ronald W. Reagan and was extended to mobile phones under President George W. Bush. Perhaps AC thinks Welfare is these Presidents' middle name.