Land lines can accept Collect Calls. Where the person calling you might be stuck in a situation where they are far away, and can't afford to pay for a call (such as a pay phone, stuck in a prison, in jail for some reason). They can ask the operator to reverse the charges, so that you, the one receiving the call, can talk to that person.
VOIP phones don't have the billing infrastructure and laws/regulations that require they have this ability. As a result, loss of land lines means less and less ability for a family member to be able to reach you in an unexpectedly harsh emergency.
The only reason I still have a land line is because this happened to me. A family member ended up in jail, and the only way that they were able to call and let me know was because I had a land line. If I hadn't had one, I suppose I would have found out... eventually? Somehow? It's hard to say.
I really feel like we're losing something, and not many people are giving serious thought to this particular service, because it's so rarely used, and hard to predict what conditions would have to happen for it to be useful.
DVD's are fragile things. When exposed to the hostile environment of the Postal system, and to Renters, they get damaged pretty quickly.
As a result, physical DVD's must be repurchased by Netflix over and over, if they are a popular rental item. This represents a measurable revenue stream for the film industry, and they are probably quite happy with it.
Streaming movies don't incur this damage and don't generate the same revenue stream for DVD sales.
I'd be curious to see some statistics from Netflix, telling how many times they are able to rent out a disc before it comes back unplayable. I know I've had a fair few unplayable discs shipped to me by Netflix.
The disk drives weren't faster, it was the I/O interface to the computer that was faster. PET's used the IEEE-488 parallel bus, while the C64 used the IEEE-488-"C" serial bus. Obviously a parallel bus can move more bits at a time than a serial bus at the same operating frequency.
When compared to the tape drives, the disk drive was blazing fast.:)
How is it different from what my FIOS TV service is doing?
I have noticed that they often replace the commercials from the feed, with their own commercials. I mostly notice this because they do such a poor job of it, often cutting their commercial in a few seconds late, and cutting it out a second or two early.
Is Verizon violating the copyright on the video feed that they are supplying to me? Are they depriving the feeds of their ad revenue by supplanting the commercials with their own?
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When is it useful to form a bluetooth connection between two phones? I have formed bluetooth links with all sorts of devices (computers, headsets, keyboards, tablets), but never with another person's phone. How is such a connection useful? Why do we need to make it so easy that it can be done in such short order?
The reason that the set-top box manufacturers are not willing to sell directly to the consumer, is due to support costs. They don't want to have to staff a support organization to answer customers' stupid questions about their product. They would rather that the cable operators field those calls, and only pass real issues on to the box manufacturers.
I was given to understand that this is exactly how AdBlock operates: Your browsers goes ahead and fetches the blocked content, it is simply not displayed.
In other words, the advertiser sees you downloaded the ad, but has no idea whether it shows up on your screen.
Are you saying that you want every device on the entire internet to be able to speak to your system directly, without hindrance, by default?
You want everyone else's systems to be able to be contacted, directly, without hindrance, by default?
You do realize that the internet used to be like that, right? Do you remember what happened as a result? Do you know why firewalls were invented in the first place?
Anyone using the word "meatspace" and trying to sound serious just comes off as sounding like a complete twit who's trying to sound clever. God, I hate that word.
Can you imagine the President giving a speech: "We're fighting them in Meatspace in order to head off their attack in Cyberspace." Aggghh!!
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Land lines can accept Collect Calls. Where the person calling you might be stuck in a situation where they are far away, and can't afford to pay for a call (such as a pay phone, stuck in a prison, in jail for some reason). They can ask the operator to reverse the charges, so that you, the one receiving the call, can talk to that person.
VOIP phones don't have the billing infrastructure and laws/regulations that require they have this ability. As a result, loss of land lines means less and less ability for a family member to be able to reach you in an unexpectedly harsh emergency.
The only reason I still have a land line is because this happened to me. A family member ended up in jail, and the only way that they were able to call and let me know was because I had a land line. If I hadn't had one, I suppose I would have found out... eventually? Somehow? It's hard to say.
I really feel like we're losing something, and not many people are giving serious thought to this particular service, because it's so rarely used, and hard to predict what conditions would have to happen for it to be useful.
As a result, physical DVD's must be repurchased by Netflix over and over, if they are a popular rental item. This represents a measurable revenue stream for the film industry, and they are probably quite happy with it.
Streaming movies don't incur this damage and don't generate the same revenue stream for DVD sales.
I'd be curious to see some statistics from Netflix, telling how many times they are able to rent out a disc before it comes back unplayable. I know I've had a fair few unplayable discs shipped to me by Netflix.
+1 This is just so that they can figure out how people go about hacking their phones, so that they can design phones that are more hack-resistant.
You win the "Whoosh" award.
BT means BlueTooth, of course.
Thanks, Ants.... Thants.
I think you words out.
"Flammable" means "it can burn." Like a piece of wood. If you hold a match to it for a while, it will eventually start burning.
"Inflammable" means "capable of bursting into flame." Like a pool of gasoline: If a flame touches it, it will be a raging fire, instantly.
So these two words are not exactly interchangeable; there is a difference in meaning.
Actually, Zork runs on anything.
The disk drives weren't faster, it was the I/O interface to the computer that was faster. PET's used the IEEE-488 parallel bus, while the C64 used the IEEE-488-"C" serial bus. Obviously a parallel bus can move more bits at a time than a serial bus at the same operating frequency. When compared to the tape drives, the disk drive was blazing fast. :)
It's a dessert topping and a floor wax!
Did you try listening to music on the iPod?
Maybe you'd care to explain the joke, for those of us who have no idea what you're talking about.
I believe the word you're looking for is "trawl."
That could lead to Trouble. Sorry!
Yeah but it takes 5 minutes to boot GEOS.
How is it different from what my FIOS TV service is doing?
I have noticed that they often replace the commercials from the feed, with their own commercials. I mostly notice this because they do such a poor job of it, often cutting their commercial in a few seconds late, and cutting it out a second or two early.
Is Verizon violating the copyright on the video feed that they are supplying to me? Are they depriving the feeds of their ad revenue by supplanting the commercials with their own?
It's always about YOU, isn't it?
Damn, I lost a whole round of Crystite production!
What?? "Fire in the Store"?! NOOO!!!
When is it useful to form a bluetooth connection between two phones? I have formed bluetooth links with all sorts of devices (computers, headsets, keyboards, tablets), but never with another person's phone. How is such a connection useful? Why do we need to make it so easy that it can be done in such short order?
The reason that the set-top box manufacturers are not willing to sell directly to the consumer, is due to support costs. They don't want to have to staff a support organization to answer customers' stupid questions about their product. They would rather that the cable operators field those calls, and only pass real issues on to the box manufacturers.
Ancient Chinese Secret, huh?
I was given to understand that this is exactly how AdBlock operates: Your browsers goes ahead and fetches the blocked content, it is simply not displayed.
In other words, the advertiser sees you downloaded the ad, but has no idea whether it shows up on your screen.
The best of both worlds.
Are you saying that you want every device on the entire internet to be able to speak to your system directly, without hindrance, by default?
You want everyone else's systems to be able to be contacted, directly, without hindrance, by default?
You do realize that the internet used to be like that, right? Do you remember what happened as a result? Do you know why firewalls were invented in the first place?
Can you imagine the President giving a speech: "We're fighting them in Meatspace in order to head off their attack in Cyberspace." Aggghh!!