Thant and you don't want the minimum wage employee down at Wallgreens starting up a new web site dedicated to showing those naked pictures of your wife. VCRs became popular because people doing things that they were embarassed to do in public. Same with home photo printing.
With the current state of "IP" law, it will be illegal to index any new information anyways. So, once the corporation that owns it decides to delete it, it won't count.
Shakespeare was crap. It is crap, and the only reason it is still around is because people like crap. Anyone that thinks Shakespeare is quality, certainly does not understand it.
There is a difference between "Quality" and "What I like". That includes childrens shows. I left all off all of the shows that I like, but are not what I would call "Quality" shows.
Tripping the Rift is still on the air. The new season started a few weeks ago. While I do watch it, it is not what I would call "quality" TV. I do think that the old SG1 cast was getting tired of the show, and it was coming through. I also think that once the Farscape cast gets settled in, they will be as good as the original. Farscape would have had an even better following if not for the muppets, so they should do well on SG1.
Good Eats, Arrested Development, SG: SG-1, Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer, Jimmy Nutron, The Fairly Odd Parents, South Park, Spongebob Squarepants, Danny Phantom, Lazy Town, That 70's Show, Street Smarts, Scrubs.
There are many others that people are telling me are "Quality" programs, that I am not familar with as I havn't watched them, or they are not my families demographics. My Name is Earl, Lost, Surface...
Then their are all of the one-off programs produced on the Big Head channels, like History, Science, Biography, TLC, Discovery as well as all of the DIY channels.
Then if you STILL can't find anything, most of "quality" programming from the past is available on a rotating basis.
The first thing to do if you want quality TV is to get a DVR. I love my ReplayTVs, and until the broadcast flag goes into effect, you could go with Tivo. This will mean that the 20 or 30 hours of quality tv that is on a week that is spread across a hundred different channels, will be on when YOU have the time to watch it.
I listed 14 specific shows that I could think of. In my 35 years of television watching, there has never been 14 quality shows airing at the same time, and I see no evidence that it happened before I was born. Thats not even counting the one-offs and rotating blocks. This truly is the golden age of television. (and don't try to play the "television is inherently bad" card.)
Even just a few years ago, we heard about this 'pixie dust' stuff for hard drives. This technology was supposed to make hard drive density high enough that you could go down to your local Fry's, and for a few hundred dollars buy a terrabyte drive. When will the empty promises end?!?!?!
But! If these tribesmen see smoke from our coal burning power plants, they would very likely figure out that there are people making the smoke. The parent isn't saying that advanced alien civilizatons wouldn't use tech we don't understand. He is just saying that we would likely see something that we could recognize as artificial, and thus intellegent in origin. The trick isn't in understanding alien transmissions right away. The first step is finding out if they even exist. If you can do that, THEN you spend the extra time and money figuring out if they have anything interesting to say.
So, this guy is trying to convince us that if DRM (Digital Restriction Mechanism) is not implemented and backed by law, that every media company in the world is going to just close up shop? Riiiiggghhhht......
What makes it even worse is that the sellers of DVDs specifically tell you that you are BUYING THE MOVIE. When they adverise it, they don't say "buy the dvd". The say "BUY SPIDERMAN ON DVD". The say "HITCHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, OWN THE MOVIE". Then you go to the store where there is a sign that says "SALE". You pick it up and pay money for it, and you get a SALES RECIPT. In all fairness, the MPAA members are commiting fraud on virtually every DVD sale they make. The are absolutly clear that they are selling you the movie. They are not licensing you the movie. The reason they don't advertise to buy a license to the movie today is because they know that, contrary to the belief of many people here, Joe sixpack does NOT know the current state of copyright. Joe Sixpack has no idea that courts are allowing MPAA members to sell a product, and then steal it back from the purchaser.
If the MPAA members would advertise "Rent/License your copy today!" in their commercials, many of thier critics would stop criticizing them.
Wrong. When you go to a restaurant, they give you this thing...It's called a menu. At any respectable resaurant, that menu will list how much money you must give the restaurant to get the food. Once you have paid for the food, you can do anything you wan't with the food as long as it doesn't damage anyone elses property, or violate any other laws. The food is yours. If you wan't to eat it in public that is ok. If you want to take it home, and make food that looks, tastes, and smells just like it, that is ok too.
Since they are installing IE and a second browser anyway, they could have installed Firefox as the default browser with the "IE View" extension. Then the user would have a good browser, AND be able to use the IE engine at will. Heck, they could even easily set specific pages to use the IE engine by default while getting Firefox for everything else.
It is amazing that businesses cannot figure out that cubicles are a complete and utter failure. Whats worse is that companies then decide to put employees who do not have the mental capability to think if there is any noise in the room in this environment. This leads to the mentally deficent to consistantly complain because the guy in the cube next to them is having a conversation.
Walls, solve this problem. Those with problems thinking can have their quite, and those that do not can have their noise. Everyone is more productive.
The problem is that you dismiss the serious harm caused by the law. Teaching these kids that media should be censored by the goverment, and that the adults in their households can not make informed decisions trains the kids to just accept that "the government" knows best. This means that when they get to voting age, they will not vote based what is right, but on what they are told to vote for. This in turn leads to politicians that can get away with things like building prisions to hold people without trial, and attacking other countries for having "Weapons of Mass Destruction" when in reality they are just trying to make their daddy proud.
If you have a door, and behind that door is either vast riches or a man eating tiger, the best thing to do is leave the door shut.
The one thing that this toy does not do that really seperates it from a real pet is that you have to plug it in. If they sold it with at "doggie bed" that would allow the aibo to recharge via induction, and the aibo could find the bed when it was low on power, THEN I would consider buying one. If I have to plug it in, it is a toy. If I could leave one in my house while I went away on vacation, and when I came back it was greeting me at the door, that would be a pet.
How about looking at it the other way around. If they could make a profit at all on broadcast from ads, then, they pay for the production from ad revenue just like they would from a broadcast airing. Then the doller per subscriber is just gravy. If they don't have enough people interested to finance the show, and make a profit based entirely on ad revenue, then they probably shouldn't make new episodes, and we should all shut up about it.
Really the biggest advantage to having a "subscription" cost to a straight to dvd tv show (that has commercial breaks in the show) would be to prevent people that are not really interested in watching the show from ordering it 'just in case'.
Doesn't that mean that, like the movie, they only have rights if it is "broadcast"? I would cough up a nominal fee for a subscription to a DVD distribution of the series. The disks themselves are obsurdly cheap to produce and mail, so that shouldn't be a limiting factor. Heck, if they made the subscription REALLY cheap, (like, less than 2 dollars an episode) I wouldn't even mind if it had commercials.
Here is my suggestion:
*Produce a 26 episode season.
*Take subscriptions at $26 a year.
*Send one disk every 2 weeks in a netflix style mailer. (Heck, maybe even contract with Netflix to do your mailing for you.)
*Run comercials in the episodes just as if they were broadcast to add revenue to the subscriptions.
At a dollar an episode, I wouldn't be offended by the commercials. If they charged more, the commercials would have to go. The shows would not be broadcast, so that might be the loophole. The commercials should be able to be sold at a much higher price than when broadcast, as the commercial will be always be in the episode for the life of the disk. The advertisers would also have a dramatically more accurate picture of how many people are watching the show. You could be pretty sure that no one would ever miss an episode, as they could watch it at their leisure.
"There are two kinds of bikers. Those that have gone down, and those that will".
Seriously, motorcycles are dramatically more dangerous than cars. While I support those that choose to ride, and will always pull to the side of my lane so that they can lane split, I also realize that they are not a viable solution for the majority of people.
"I'd just as soon see the industry grind to a halt until they find a way to nip these miscreants in the bud."
Yeah, and lets do the same for other products like houses. Lets not allow the sale of houses until they are secure.
With every product, you take risk. The trick is figuring out where the risk/cost sweet spot is. Obviously, Medical/Financial data needs to have stiffer restrictions than say, an online recipie book. This kind of logic is what leads to things like banks being more secure than houses. Obviously information that is used to create financial data should be considered financial data in and of itself. e.g. SS numbers, stree address...
I have yet to meet an adult American that has not knowingly and intentionally commited a crime. Whether it is speeding, copyright violation, jay walking, or a thousand other crimes that the vast majority of the population does not find to be a big deal. Now it is possible that you are that one magical person that has never jay walked, littered or sped, but I highly doubt that.
If you are not that mythical 'never commited a crime' person, then you are hypocrate. If you are, then I just have to say 'Wow', good for you.
Ok, everybody jokes about using a P4 as a heater. I am here to say that for the last two weekend, I did in fact use a P4 as a heater. I am remodling my home, and have removed all of the sheetrock and insulation from the Living Room/Dining Room/Kitchen. The Dining Room is where the only wall heater in the house is located. This means that running it would be useless. All of the heat would just go up through the attic, and out the vents. So, I closed the door on the bedroom, and ran my P4 3.2ghz laptap through the night. It doesn't compare to a real live heater, but it was enough to keep me comfortable.
So, this Qwest employee is saying that Qwest knowingly and intentionally harasses people. That they call, and keep calling people that they know are trying to avoid them. Isn't that called stalking?
Either you said this badly, or you are trying to fudge the non-numbers.
Far as this, well a mono-rail screams money pit. But thats not to say mass transit is bad. If a mass transit system is done right it will be a boon to the area. Since construction of freeways and other roadways can be scaled back. Even when running in debt, a proper mass transit system is much cheaper then continually building more freeways, high way, and repairing them, expanding them.
Sure it's cheaper to RUN a mass transit system than it is to BUILD new roads. But what are the price differeces between BUILDING new mass transit and BUILDING new roads. To date, I haven't seen a mass transit (at least in the US) that even comes on the radar when it comes to flexability. Most cities with mass transit shut them down during non-profitable times like the middle of the night. This makes them useless, and fudges the accounting.
One must also add the cost of time. Even at minimum wage, spending an extra hour getting to and from every place you want to go adds up really quick. Mass transit is MAY be cheaper for the limited number of people living in high density housing that also work in high density job sites, but it completely fails when you look at having either low density housing or low density job sites.
That's how I got out of my AT&T/Cingular contract. While Cingular is still trying to claim that it is impossible for them to fulfill thier contracts with AT&T bought customers, after filling a complaint with the FCC, I got a call from their "office of the president". When I kept pressing the person on the phone, and kept telling them that they are under contract, and breaking my phone service is a violation of that contract, they eventually cancelled my contract withour penelty.
The conversation went along the lines of...
Me: You have broken my phone. You need to fix the service or cancel the contract without penalty.
Cingular: We are aware of the problem, it is caused by our upgrades to the system. We can sell you a new phone, and move you to the Cingular network. That would solve the problem.
Me: Would that require a restart of the contract period? What would be the cost?
Cingular: Yes, it would restart your contract period. It would be about $10 more a month, and you would get 200 less minutes.
Me: Why would I sign a new contract with a company that has violated their existing contract, AND pay more for less minutes? That would be stupid of me wouldn't it?
Cingular: Well, I guess. There really isn't anything else we can do...
Me: No, you need to fulfill the existing contract.
Cingular: We can't do that.
Me: Then you are in breach of contract. To continue to bill me for a service that you know you are not providing is fraud.
Cingular: Well, if you read your contract, we don't guarantee service in all areas.
Me: I'm not complaining about various dead zones. I am complaining about zones that previously had service, and no longer has them. I am complaining about voice mail being delivered days later, and out of order. I am complaining about sitting still, and having calls disconnect.
Cingular: What would you like us to do about that?
Me: I would like you to fulfill your contract.
Cingular: Well, we don't like to do this, but we could cancel your contract.
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Thant and you don't want the minimum wage employee down at Wallgreens starting up a new web site dedicated to showing those naked pictures of your wife. VCRs became popular because people doing things that they were embarassed to do in public. Same with home photo printing.
With the current state of "IP" law, it will be illegal to index any new information anyways. So, once the corporation that owns it decides to delete it, it won't count.
Shakespeare was crap. It is crap, and the only reason it is still around is because people like crap. Anyone that thinks Shakespeare is quality, certainly does not understand it.
There is a difference between "Quality" and "What I like". That includes childrens shows. I left all off all of the shows that I like, but are not what I would call "Quality" shows.
Tripping the Rift is still on the air. The new season started a few weeks ago. While I do watch it, it is not what I would call "quality" TV. I do think that the old SG1 cast was getting tired of the show, and it was coming through. I also think that once the Farscape cast gets settled in, they will be as good as the original. Farscape would have had an even better following if not for the muppets, so they should do well on SG1.
Good Eats, Arrested Development, SG: SG-1, Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer, Jimmy Nutron, The Fairly Odd Parents, South Park, Spongebob Squarepants, Danny Phantom, Lazy Town, That 70's Show, Street Smarts, Scrubs.
There are many others that people are telling me are "Quality" programs, that I am not familar with as I havn't watched them, or they are not my families demographics. My Name is Earl, Lost, Surface...
Then their are all of the one-off programs produced on the Big Head channels, like History, Science, Biography, TLC, Discovery as well as all of the DIY channels.
Then if you STILL can't find anything, most of "quality" programming from the past is available on a rotating basis.
The first thing to do if you want quality TV is to get a DVR. I love my ReplayTVs, and until the broadcast flag goes into effect, you could go with Tivo. This will mean that the 20 or 30 hours of quality tv that is on a week that is spread across a hundred different channels, will be on when YOU have the time to watch it.
I listed 14 specific shows that I could think of. In my 35 years of television watching, there has never been 14 quality shows airing at the same time, and I see no evidence that it happened before I was born. Thats not even counting the one-offs and rotating blocks. This truly is the golden age of television. (and don't try to play the "television is inherently bad" card.)
Wrong. There is a ton of great television right now. You stop watching American Idol long enough to find it.
I hear you, I remember when they were promising optical disks that would hold as much data as hundreds of floppy disks, and would be 100x bigger than that 5 megabyte hard drive in your PC. Where are they?!?!?!
Then you had promises that they would release optical disks that would hold gigabytes...that's right GIGABYTES, of data. Did they ever show up?
Even just a few years ago, we heard about this 'pixie dust' stuff for hard drives. This technology was supposed to make hard drive density high enough that you could go down to your local Fry's, and for a few hundred dollars buy a terrabyte drive. When will the empty promises end?!?!?!
But! If these tribesmen see smoke from our coal burning power plants, they would very likely figure out that there are people making the smoke. The parent isn't saying that advanced alien civilizatons wouldn't use tech we don't understand. He is just saying that we would likely see something that we could recognize as artificial, and thus intellegent in origin. The trick isn't in understanding alien transmissions right away. The first step is finding out if they even exist. If you can do that, THEN you spend the extra time and money figuring out if they have anything interesting to say.
So, this guy is trying to convince us that if DRM (Digital Restriction Mechanism) is not implemented and backed by law, that every media company in the world is going to just close up shop? Riiiiggghhhht......
What makes it even worse is that the sellers of DVDs specifically tell you that you are BUYING THE MOVIE. When they adverise it, they don't say "buy the dvd". The say "BUY SPIDERMAN ON DVD". The say "HITCHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, OWN THE MOVIE". Then you go to the store where there is a sign that says "SALE". You pick it up and pay money for it, and you get a SALES RECIPT. In all fairness, the MPAA members are commiting fraud on virtually every DVD sale they make. The are absolutly clear that they are selling you the movie. They are not licensing you the movie. The reason they don't advertise to buy a license to the movie today is because they know that, contrary to the belief of many people here, Joe sixpack does NOT know the current state of copyright. Joe Sixpack has no idea that courts are allowing MPAA members to sell a product, and then steal it back from the purchaser.
If the MPAA members would advertise "Rent/License your copy today!" in their commercials, many of thier critics would stop criticizing them.
Wrong. When you go to a restaurant, they give you this thing...It's called a menu. At any respectable resaurant, that menu will list how much money you must give the restaurant to get the food. Once you have paid for the food, you can do anything you wan't with the food as long as it doesn't damage anyone elses property, or violate any other laws. The food is yours. If you wan't to eat it in public that is ok. If you want to take it home, and make food that looks, tastes, and smells just like it, that is ok too.
Since they are installing IE and a second browser anyway, they could have installed Firefox as the default browser with the "IE View" extension. Then the user would have a good browser, AND be able to use the IE engine at will. Heck, they could even easily set specific pages to use the IE engine by default while getting Firefox for everything else.
It is amazing that businesses cannot figure out that cubicles are a complete and utter failure. Whats worse is that companies then decide to put employees who do not have the mental capability to think if there is any noise in the room in this environment. This leads to the mentally deficent to consistantly complain because the guy in the cube next to them is having a conversation.
Walls, solve this problem. Those with problems thinking can have their quite, and those that do not can have their noise. Everyone is more productive.
The problem is that you dismiss the serious harm caused by the law. Teaching these kids that media should be censored by the goverment, and that the adults in their households can not make informed decisions trains the kids to just accept that "the government" knows best. This means that when they get to voting age, they will not vote based what is right, but on what they are told to vote for. This in turn leads to politicians that can get away with things like building prisions to hold people without trial, and attacking other countries for having "Weapons of Mass Destruction" when in reality they are just trying to make their daddy proud.
If you have a door, and behind that door is either vast riches or a man eating tiger, the best thing to do is leave the door shut.
The one thing that this toy does not do that really seperates it from a real pet is that you have to plug it in. If they sold it with at "doggie bed" that would allow the aibo to recharge via induction, and the aibo could find the bed when it was low on power, THEN I would consider buying one. If I have to plug it in, it is a toy. If I could leave one in my house while I went away on vacation, and when I came back it was greeting me at the door, that would be a pet.
How about looking at it the other way around. If they could make a profit at all on broadcast from ads, then, they pay for the production from ad revenue just like they would from a broadcast airing. Then the doller per subscriber is just gravy. If they don't have enough people interested to finance the show, and make a profit based entirely on ad revenue, then they probably shouldn't make new episodes, and we should all shut up about it.
Really the biggest advantage to having a "subscription" cost to a straight to dvd tv show (that has commercial breaks in the show) would be to prevent people that are not really interested in watching the show from ordering it 'just in case'.
Doesn't that mean that, like the movie, they only have rights if it is "broadcast"? I would cough up a nominal fee for a subscription to a DVD distribution of the series. The disks themselves are obsurdly cheap to produce and mail, so that shouldn't be a limiting factor. Heck, if they made the subscription REALLY cheap, (like, less than 2 dollars an episode) I wouldn't even mind if it had commercials.
Here is my suggestion:
*Produce a 26 episode season.
*Take subscriptions at $26 a year.
*Send one disk every 2 weeks in a netflix style mailer. (Heck, maybe even contract with Netflix to do your mailing for you.)
*Run comercials in the episodes just as if they were broadcast to add revenue to the subscriptions.
At a dollar an episode, I wouldn't be offended by the commercials. If they charged more, the commercials would have to go. The shows would not be broadcast, so that might be the loophole. The commercials should be able to be sold at a much higher price than when broadcast, as the commercial will be always be in the episode for the life of the disk. The advertisers would also have a dramatically more accurate picture of how many people are watching the show. You could be pretty sure that no one would ever miss an episode, as they could watch it at their leisure.
I'm ready to sign up...
"There are two kinds of bikers. Those that have gone down, and those that will".
Seriously, motorcycles are dramatically more dangerous than cars. While I support those that choose to ride, and will always pull to the side of my lane so that they can lane split, I also realize that they are not a viable solution for the majority of people.
"I'd just as soon see the industry grind to a halt until they find a way to nip these miscreants in the bud."
Yeah, and lets do the same for other products like houses. Lets not allow the sale of houses until they are secure.
With every product, you take risk. The trick is figuring out where the risk/cost sweet spot is. Obviously, Medical/Financial data needs to have stiffer restrictions than say, an online recipie book. This kind of logic is what leads to things like banks being more secure than houses. Obviously information that is used to create financial data should be considered financial data in and of itself. e.g. SS numbers, stree address...
I have yet to meet an adult American that has not knowingly and intentionally commited a crime. Whether it is speeding, copyright violation, jay walking, or a thousand other crimes that the vast majority of the population does not find to be a big deal. Now it is possible that you are that one magical person that has never jay walked, littered or sped, but I highly doubt that.
If you are not that mythical 'never commited a crime' person, then you are hypocrate. If you are, then I just have to say 'Wow', good for you.
Ok, everybody jokes about using a P4 as a heater. I am here to say that for the last two weekend, I did in fact use a P4 as a heater. I am remodling my home, and have removed all of the sheetrock and insulation from the Living Room/Dining Room/Kitchen. The Dining Room is where the only wall heater in the house is located. This means that running it would be useless. All of the heat would just go up through the attic, and out the vents. So, I closed the door on the bedroom, and ran my P4 3.2ghz laptap through the night. It doesn't compare to a real live heater, but it was enough to keep me comfortable.
So, this Qwest employee is saying that Qwest knowingly and intentionally harasses people. That they call, and keep calling people that they know are trying to avoid them. Isn't that called stalking?
Remember. You eat what you kill.
Either you said this badly, or you are trying to fudge the non-numbers.
Far as this, well a mono-rail screams money pit. But thats not to say mass transit is bad. If a mass transit system is done right it will be a boon to the area. Since construction of freeways and other roadways can be scaled back. Even when running in debt, a proper mass transit system is much cheaper then continually building more freeways, high way, and repairing them, expanding them.
Sure it's cheaper to RUN a mass transit system than it is to BUILD new roads. But what are the price differeces between BUILDING new mass transit and BUILDING new roads. To date, I haven't seen a mass transit (at least in the US) that even comes on the radar when it comes to flexability. Most cities with mass transit shut them down during non-profitable times like the middle of the night. This makes them useless, and fudges the accounting.
One must also add the cost of time. Even at minimum wage, spending an extra hour getting to and from every place you want to go adds up really quick. Mass transit is MAY be cheaper for the limited number of people living in high density housing that also work in high density job sites, but it completely fails when you look at having either low density housing or low density job sites.
That's how I got out of my AT&T/Cingular contract. While Cingular is still trying to claim that it is impossible for them to fulfill thier contracts with AT&T bought customers, after filling a complaint with the FCC, I got a call from their "office of the president". When I kept pressing the person on the phone, and kept telling them that they are under contract, and breaking my phone service is a violation of that contract, they eventually cancelled my contract withour penelty.
The conversation went along the lines of...
Me: You have broken my phone. You need to fix the service or cancel the contract without penalty.
Cingular: We are aware of the problem, it is caused by our upgrades to the system. We can sell you a new phone, and move you to the Cingular network. That would solve the problem.
Me: Would that require a restart of the contract period? What would be the cost?
Cingular: Yes, it would restart your contract period. It would be about $10 more a month, and you would get 200 less minutes.
Me: Why would I sign a new contract with a company that has violated their existing contract, AND pay more for less minutes? That would be stupid of me wouldn't it?
Cingular: Well, I guess. There really isn't anything else we can do...
Me: No, you need to fulfill the existing contract.
Cingular: We can't do that.
Me: Then you are in breach of contract. To continue to bill me for a service that you know you are not providing is fraud.
Cingular: Well, if you read your contract, we don't guarantee service in all areas.
Me: I'm not complaining about various dead zones. I am complaining about zones that previously had service, and no longer has them. I am complaining about voice mail being delivered days later, and out of order. I am complaining about sitting still, and having calls disconnect.
Cingular: What would you like us to do about that?
Me: I would like you to fulfill your contract.
Cingular: Well, we don't like to do this, but we could cancel your contract.
Me: Without any penalty to me?
Cingular: Yes.
Me: Ok. That would be acceptable.