When I lived with my parents, their Aliant high speed was $40 (this was a few years ago), provided of course that you went with Aliant for your long distance provider. While I currently use Eastlink (I agree with you on them being the only ISP worth their salt in the area), I've heard the opposite in terms of availability: that Aliant shows up in a neighborhood before Eastlink's Cable service does.
Regarding Eastlink's BW caps, I don't know if I've truly noticed them... I know they've definitely capped Bittorrent upload speeds to 15KBps (because people were leaving torrents open forever, no doubt), although this only applies to traffic leaving the Eastlink subnet. I still occasionaly get Bittorrent DL speeds of 200KBps, and I haven't noticed any other rate caps on my connection. I've also generated over 50 Gigs ul/dl traffic in a month and haven't heard a peep from them. Either way, they're much better than Aliant, for a much better price (especially if you bundle)
While much of Canada's population does lie within 100 miles of the US border, that says nothing about why Canada's broadband infrastructure has been ahead of the States in recent years.
Where I'm from (Halifax, Nova Scotia), we've had residential broadband access in some form or another since as far back as 1995 or 1996. Much of rural Nova Scotia and PEI have broadband access. The greatest thing about it all is that the prices are relatively reasonable, around $40CAN per month, with varying degrees of speed/accessibility
On the other hand, there isn't a whole lot of "wasteland" to fill between towns, meaning that setting up so many additional connections will always yield a decent increase in subscriber base.
This kind of article shows up every now and then, doesn't it? Oh well. It's not Canada's fault that there's just SO MUCH MORE UNITED STATES to cover.
Yes, but 95% of men aged 18-35 like porn too, but you don't see them putting a whole lot of sex on the big screen...
(actualy, studies have apparently shown that people don't want to see sex, like say in Eyes Wide Shut, but they do like teeny-sex, like in al those teey sex movies. I guess ephebophiliacs are on to something...)
(of course, then you have to put up with the worms and bugs eating you when you're in the ground, nibble nibble nibble, which can hurt a lot, if you're not quite dead.)
(or, if you prefer, incineration, where they put you in a furnace and burn you to ashes, crackle crackle crackle, which again, can hurt a lot if you're not quite dead.)
The difference between these award shows and, say, the Oscars is that the actors who are accepting awards at the Oscars are people we know (not personally, for the most part), and also they can actually speak when they get up to the podium.
On the other hand, the chumps that make video games are usually not very well known (outside of a select few, your Carmacks, your Meiers, etc...), and we as a viewing public don't really give a shit about who they are and what they have to say, because chances are they aren't going to be able to say it interestingly anyway. Just like the technical Oscars.
On the other hand, who's the target demo for this sort of thing? Late teens and early 20's males. Let's cram as much crap as we possibly can into a couple of hours! They should just give in and not bother censoring... Anyone who'd be offended by the tripe they'll show probably isn't going to be watching anyway.
/didn't watch it this year//watched it last year, "meh"s all around.
To be fair, thecopy of Grand Finale I have isn't exactly legit... It's most of Grand Finale, plus the Dream Oath Opera I mentioned, along with a remixed version of "Prelude" with some cool electric guitar licks thrown in. Definitely a bit of a stylistic stretch in the end (from orchestral to operatic to contemporary), but I've grown used to it.
Thanks for the recommendation tho, I'll look for it.
I've been listening to FF music for about 7 years now. I actually have a copy of "Kefka's Domain" (the OST for FF3, as it's the American version) that I used to listen to on a regular basis.
Aside from the game OSTs available for purchase, there already exist a fair amount of Final Fantasy music that was recorded by orchestra. There are several "Piano Collection" compilations (where pieces are performed solo on Piano), as well as some strange remix collections, but my personal favorite (and I still listen to it regularly) is a collection called "Grand Finale", which consists of orchestral renderings of Final Fantasy VI (III)'s tracks. They are all great, although some people have questioned the use of certain instruments here and there (bagpipes on Relm's track?).
If you're real hard core, try to find the Dream Oath Opera (from FFVI)... A 20-minute or so version of it exists out there somewhere, complete with Japanese vocals. Simply amazing.
Slashdot Mirror
Woof?
When I lived with my parents, their Aliant high speed was $40 (this was a few years ago), provided of course that you went with Aliant for your long distance provider. While I currently use Eastlink (I agree with you on them being the only ISP worth their salt in the area), I've heard the opposite in terms of availability: that Aliant shows up in a neighborhood before Eastlink's Cable service does.
Regarding Eastlink's BW caps, I don't know if I've truly noticed them... I know they've definitely capped Bittorrent upload speeds to 15KBps (because people were leaving torrents open forever, no doubt), although this only applies to traffic leaving the Eastlink subnet. I still occasionaly get Bittorrent DL speeds of 200KBps, and I haven't noticed any other rate caps on my connection. I've also generated over 50 Gigs ul/dl traffic in a month and haven't heard a peep from them. Either way, they're much better than Aliant, for a much better price (especially if you bundle)
While much of Canada's population does lie within 100 miles of the US border, that says nothing about why Canada's broadband infrastructure has been ahead of the States in recent years.
Where I'm from (Halifax, Nova Scotia), we've had residential broadband access in some form or another since as far back as 1995 or 1996. Much of rural Nova Scotia and PEI have broadband access. The greatest thing about it all is that the prices are relatively reasonable, around $40CAN per month, with varying degrees of speed/accessibility
On the other hand, there isn't a whole lot of "wasteland" to fill between towns, meaning that setting up so many additional connections will always yield a decent increase in subscriber base.
This kind of article shows up every now and then, doesn't it? Oh well. It's not Canada's fault that there's just SO MUCH MORE UNITED STATES to cover.
Yes, but 95% of men aged 18-35 like porn too, but you don't see them putting a whole lot of sex on the big screen... (actualy, studies have apparently shown that people don't want to see sex, like say in Eyes Wide Shut, but they do like teeny-sex, like in al those teey sex movies. I guess ephebophiliacs are on to something...)
Heh. Pirates of the Pirates of the Carribean.
You know, death cures everything!!
(of course, then you have to put up with the worms and bugs eating you when you're in the ground, nibble nibble nibble, which can hurt a lot, if you're not quite dead.)
(or, if you prefer, incineration, where they put you in a furnace and burn you to ashes, crackle crackle crackle, which again, can hurt a lot if you're not quite dead.)
So... How long until Skype-Lite comes along? Any takers? :)
Commit him? Didn't he die several years ago? /Cubs win! Cubs win!
The sad part about this is that someone actually got paid to sit down and crank out that tripe.
:)
The WORSE part about it is that some people are actually going to buy into what they're selling.
Oh well, in a country that re-elected Bush, anything can happen!!
email me and I'll see what I can do (click through to my site, email's on there)
The difference between these award shows and, say, the Oscars is that the actors who are accepting awards at the Oscars are people we know (not personally, for the most part), and also they can actually speak when they get up to the podium.
On the other hand, the chumps that make video games are usually not very well known (outside of a select few, your Carmacks, your Meiers, etc...), and we as a viewing public don't really give a shit about who they are and what they have to say, because chances are they aren't going to be able to say it interestingly anyway. Just like the technical Oscars.
On the other hand, who's the target demo for this sort of thing? Late teens and early 20's males. Let's cram as much crap as we possibly can into a couple of hours! They should just give in and not bother censoring... Anyone who'd be offended by the tripe they'll show probably isn't going to be watching anyway.
/didn't watch it this year//watched it last year, "meh"s all around.
To be fair, thecopy of Grand Finale I have isn't exactly legit... It's most of Grand Finale, plus the Dream Oath Opera I mentioned, along with a remixed version of "Prelude" with some cool electric guitar licks thrown in. Definitely a bit of a stylistic stretch in the end (from orchestral to operatic to contemporary), but I've grown used to it.
Thanks for the recommendation tho, I'll look for it.
I've been listening to FF music for about 7 years now. I actually have a copy of "Kefka's Domain" (the OST for FF3, as it's the American version) that I used to listen to on a regular basis. Aside from the game OSTs available for purchase, there already exist a fair amount of Final Fantasy music that was recorded by orchestra. There are several "Piano Collection" compilations (where pieces are performed solo on Piano), as well as some strange remix collections, but my personal favorite (and I still listen to it regularly) is a collection called "Grand Finale", which consists of orchestral renderings of Final Fantasy VI (III)'s tracks. They are all great, although some people have questioned the use of certain instruments here and there (bagpipes on Relm's track?). If you're real hard core, try to find the Dream Oath Opera (from FFVI)... A 20-minute or so version of it exists out there somewhere, complete with Japanese vocals. Simply amazing.