And that's as stupid of a statement as the idiots who always vote party line Republican or Democrat. You'd vote for hitler (third party) against FDR (Democrat) or Abe Lincoln (Republican)?
Name the last "FDR" or "Abe Lincoln" to make a ballot, and someone may be forced to reconsider their third party position.
[Game 1] froze up and [Game 2] has load screens longer than the [previous-Gen system]. [Game 3] only looks marginally better than [previous-Gen games]. [Game 4] doesn't look any better. At least, with [something we haven't seen yet], there are things to be excited about.
Congratulations, you just expressed the "pre-order letdown" of every console since the Sega Genesis.
And you still may be overstating it when you consider the fact that some ads are quite sneaky (the faint gray "special advertising section" type on the bottom of the page), and even "legitimate" ads that are merely shills for particular products.
Cutting those, I'd imagine a Maxim or Cosmo dips down into the single digits.
3.) The name is stupid and personifies what I hate about this machine and its community. Microsoft's marketing drones, in trying to decide how they'd market to drooling middle school gamers, thought "Well, gee, they'll see the '3' after Playstation 3 and think it's better than the '2' after X-Box 2. But we can't call it X-Box 3." Then they turn to their young, "dynamic" new guy they hired from an MTV marketing firm. "What would sound hardcore and hip to the kiddies?" "I've got it! It's better than 3, because it's 360!!!" And thus, a stupid market-drone name, X-Box 360, was born.
I agree. "Super Nintento Entertainment System" was far more imaginative and descriptive.
Here, here! My wife and I live in Huntsville, AL, and we own our own home, two cars, plenty of creature comforts, have no consumer debt, and have very active social lives on a combined $32k take home salary.
Add to that the fact that you could double Alabama property taxes, and they would still be the lowest in the nation.
Make fun of Alabama all you want. It keeps the idiotic Northerners out who like paying too much for things and giving the rest of their money to the government.
I seem to remember there being a "score" value on the status screen in the pause menu (like anyone ever checks that), but it's been a couple of months since I cracked open my GTA:SA (error edition!), so I could be blowing smoke here.
Jesus. Instead of doing something like, I don't know, asking them to stop, or changing seats, you instead vandalize their property.
Do you expect people to slash your tires every time you park slightly crooked in a parking lot?
Congratulations, you're the lowest form of asshole. How the hell were they infringing on your learning experience anyway? If you can't help but watch the porn on their laptop, that's your problem. Adopt qualities that are less akin to a ferrett.
The American computer-using public is used to "ad-supported" meaning "free to me." We're also used to "ad-supported" meaning "not going to last very long."
Would the OS be crippled? Could a purchase un-cripple it (and remove advertisements)?
And how intrusive are these ads? Is this a thirty second video commercial while the OS loads, or am I going to be receiving pop-ups every 30-45 seconds? Am I sacrificing monitor space to keep a banner ad on the screen at all times?
Is there some technical reason that the DNS servers you propose couldn't somehow do some sort of automatic TLD addition for the (null) TLD to be effective for their country?
For instance:
Have all current null TLDs be appended in the DNS to add ".us" to the end. So "slashdot.org" becomes "slashdot.org.us"
Currently, http://slashdot.org/ goes here. A German firm also wishes to register slashdot.org for use in Germany. Someone in Germany typing slashdot.org into their favorite browser would then be directed to the German slashdot.org website. Americans would still come here. However, a German could type "slashdot.org.us" and get here, while an American could type "slashdot.org.de" and go to the German site.
I honestly think that an infrastructre like this would solve everyone's problems. Dogs and cats going their separate ways, mass euphoria!
Sorry for sounding like a dumb arse, but whats this "default rate", or more specifically how does it work?
The "default rate" is the APR that a credit card will charge you if you are considered to be "default" on the card. With most cards, it takes two late payments over the course of 12 months to go to the default rate. It only takes one slow pay to lose any promotional rate that you may get ("0% introductory APR") when you sign up. Typically, it's something more disgusting than the standard 18% or so. Look for 26-30% APRs for default rates.
A couple of years ago, credit card companies passed along the idea of "universal default." The idea being that creditors can pull your credit report, and can make adjustments to your rate based on your payment history of everything you borrow. Miss a payment on your car payment or mortgage? You're now in universal default, and your credit card rate is now through the roof.
Credit cards companies do nothing to protect their clients. Every "consumer protection" is a protection for themselves.
Over what period of time? You certainly don't get the $500 instantaneously.
A good mortgage today (considering a HELOC) is, what, 6 percent? I challenge you to find a no-risk growth fund of any sort that will pay 11% or more.
You can't do it. Your perfect scenario, while quaint...doesn't work.
And if you're considering cash advances on a 0% APR intro rate on a credit card, you're still introducing risk. What if the truck carrying your check to repay the debt is blown up by a terrorist, or is in a massive accident, and the payment is late? What if your city is hit by some massive storm that renders you without power or internet capability, making you unable to pay electronically? What if the bank no longer honors the stated rate?
All of these things make your 0% APR a 30% APR. And with the new "universal default" rule on virtually every account these days, if you miss your cell phone payment, they can jump you to the default rate on your credit card.
Is all that risk really worth what is likely the equivilant of 40 hours (or less) of your time if you took on an extra few shifts at work over the same time period?
Why give people your hard earned cash up front when you can get a free 30-day float on the money?
The thing you're not taking into account is risk. There is an absolute risk that something will happen to you (get laid off, catastrophic car accident, H5N1, etc.) that will cause you to not be able to pay your bill, and your precious -1% APR becomes 32% instantly.
It's a part of the financial equation that people just don't take into account. There is a reason you don't support your family without health insurance: because the risk of injury/disease causing a major financial hit is greater than the premium you pay, so you pay the premium to mitigate that risk.
On the same hand, you pay that extra 1% up front to mitigate the risk that you won't be able to pay the bill. Or that someone goes dumpster diving for your receipt that has your full credit card number and expiry on it and starts running up charges at Ta-Ta's.
Phase 1) Stop living beyond your means. Trade in the SUV for a (very) used sedan. Move out of the suburbia colonial into a bungalow. Stop trying to keep the game machine up to the latest and greatest. If you paying for cable/internet/games/eating out with a credit card then you can't afford them; stop buying them. No one ever got rich on credit card reward points.
Phase 2) Cancel and cut up all your credit cards and HELOCs. No, you don't need one for emergencies. Yes, you can cancel credit going forward if you don't have a zero balance.
Phase 3) Pay bare minimums on everything, live on ramen noodles and mac and cheese. Take every extra cent you have and put it in the bank until you have an emergency fund of $500 to $1000. With this, you shouldn't need to go into debt if something catastrophic happens.
Phase 4) Pay off all debt except your house, smallest balance to largest, using the same phase 3 plan you did to start an emergency fund. At this speed, attacking the largest interest rate will save you, maybe, a Big Mac's worth of money. Plus, the rush of actually having more money to attack more stuff is pretty cool.
Phase 5) Fully fund your emergency fund to cover 3-6 months of expenses. You now never have to borrow again.
Phase 6)...
Phase 7) Profit! And have the added benefit of telling those nasty credit card companies that you haven't had a credit card in N years, and you've had no inclination to start.
Phase 8) Write all these peoplecertified mail, return receipt requested and request to be taken off their mailing lists.
Phase 9) Only borrow to purchase a home, and only do it with someone who does manual underwriting (does more than plug numbers in a computer and generate a FICO score), because you have no credit rating any more (and that's a good thing, further discourages bad spending habits).
With some games (such as City of Heroes), the purchase price goes to the game developer. The subscription fees (as well as customer service, maintainence, etc.) are handled by a completely different company. In the CoH example, Cryptic Studios created the game (and continues to create content updates on a very regular basis that they don't charge extra for), and NC Interactive handles the server maintainence and customer service. While I'm not silly enough to believe that Cryptic doesn't recieve some portion of the subscription fees (as a "royalty" or "license" fee, I'm sure), you're not truly paying the same people twice for the same game.
It makes me wonder if there is a market for these game stores to stock branded blank CD's, and images of the PC demos that can be burned in a matter of minutes while the customer is looking around the store.
Someone has mentioned the aversion to clicking advertisements, or slow internet connections. For some small price (US$2.95 or so), plus the store's name all over the demo CD, would it actually drive sales of PC games? I say yes. Not only does the customer get to try out the game and find out if it will work on his/her rig, but they get a nice reminder of where to go to pick up the game if they decide they want to check out the whole thing.
And it's not like the store needs to have screened CD's with the game's name on it, maybe write it in marker on a designated part of the CD. Screen the store's name (address, phone number, blood type) on the CD as a reminder of where to go buy the game when the customer finally makes the final purchase decision.
Even better, return the CD, and get some sort of credit toward the final purchase (the $2.95 paid, perhaps).
Then again, I've got a 41 minute wait to download F.E.A.R. from FilePlanet.
Slashdot Mirror
Now Osama is going to change his long distance calling plan.
Finally, someone has a reason to take a call from a telemarketer.
I once dated a girl named David. Best seventeen seconds of my life.....
http://www.watergate.info/nixon/resignation-letter .shtml
And that's as stupid of a statement as the idiots who always vote party line Republican or Democrat. You'd vote for hitler (third party) against FDR (Democrat) or Abe Lincoln (Republican)?
Name the last "FDR" or "Abe Lincoln" to make a ballot, and someone may be forced to reconsider their third party position.
Keep in mind that they are separate sentences. Therefore, a story can be "News for Nerds," "Stuff that matters," or both!
As for me, being a guy who used to have to fix printers and copiers (among other random IT things), I can appreciate the story.
So go pound sand.
Son of a! Stupid buttons next to each other. *sigh*
[Game 1] froze up and [Game 2] has load screens longer than the [previous-Gen system]. [Game 3] only looks marginally better than [previous-Gen games]. [Game 4] doesn't look any better. At least, with [something we haven't seen yet], there are things to be excited about.
Congratulations, you just expressed the "pre-order letdown" of every console since the Sega Genesis.
And you still may be overstating it when you consider the fact that some ads are quite sneaky (the faint gray "special advertising section" type on the bottom of the page), and even "legitimate" ads that are merely shills for particular products.
Cutting those, I'd imagine a Maxim or Cosmo dips down into the single digits.
3.) The name is stupid and personifies what I hate about this machine and its community. Microsoft's marketing drones, in trying to decide how they'd market to drooling middle school gamers, thought "Well, gee, they'll see the '3' after Playstation 3 and think it's better than the '2' after X-Box 2. But we can't call it X-Box 3." Then they turn to their young, "dynamic" new guy they hired from an MTV marketing firm. "What would sound hardcore and hip to the kiddies?" "I've got it! It's better than 3, because it's 360!!!" And thus, a stupid market-drone name, X-Box 360, was born.
I agree. "Super Nintento Entertainment System" was far more imaginative and descriptive.
Here, here! My wife and I live in Huntsville, AL, and we own our own home, two cars, plenty of creature comforts, have no consumer debt, and have very active social lives on a combined $32k take home salary.
Add to that the fact that you could double Alabama property taxes, and they would still be the lowest in the nation.
Make fun of Alabama all you want. It keeps the idiotic Northerners out who like paying too much for things and giving the rest of their money to the government.
I seem to remember there being a "score" value on the status screen in the pause menu (like anyone ever checks that), but it's been a couple of months since I cracked open my GTA:SA (error edition!), so I could be blowing smoke here.
*cue typewriter sounds*
Judge Wapner, we hardly knew ye.
Jesus. Instead of doing something like, I don't know, asking them to stop, or changing seats, you instead vandalize their property.
Do you expect people to slash your tires every time you park slightly crooked in a parking lot?
Congratulations, you're the lowest form of asshole. How the hell were they infringing on your learning experience anyway? If you can't help but watch the porn on their laptop, that's your problem. Adopt qualities that are less akin to a ferrett.
The American computer-using public is used to "ad-supported" meaning "free to me." We're also used to "ad-supported" meaning "not going to last very long."
Would the OS be crippled? Could a purchase un-cripple it (and remove advertisements)?
And how intrusive are these ads? Is this a thirty second video commercial while the OS loads, or am I going to be receiving pop-ups every 30-45 seconds? Am I sacrificing monitor space to keep a banner ad on the screen at all times?
Is there some technical reason that the DNS servers you propose couldn't somehow do some sort of automatic TLD addition for the (null) TLD to be effective for their country?
For instance:
Have all current null TLDs be appended in the DNS to add ".us" to the end. So "slashdot.org" becomes "slashdot.org.us"
Currently, http://slashdot.org/ goes here. A German firm also wishes to register slashdot.org for use in Germany. Someone in Germany typing slashdot.org into their favorite browser would then be directed to the German slashdot.org website. Americans would still come here. However, a German could type "slashdot.org.us" and get here, while an American could type "slashdot.org.de" and go to the German site.
I honestly think that an infrastructre like this would solve everyone's problems. Dogs and cats going their separate ways, mass euphoria!
Sorry for sounding like a dumb arse, but whats this "default rate", or more specifically how does it work?
The "default rate" is the APR that a credit card will charge you if you are considered to be "default" on the card. With most cards, it takes two late payments over the course of 12 months to go to the default rate. It only takes one slow pay to lose any promotional rate that you may get ("0% introductory APR") when you sign up. Typically, it's something more disgusting than the standard 18% or so. Look for 26-30% APRs for default rates.
A couple of years ago, credit card companies passed along the idea of "universal default." The idea being that creditors can pull your credit report, and can make adjustments to your rate based on your payment history of everything you borrow. Miss a payment on your car payment or mortgage? You're now in universal default, and your credit card rate is now through the roof.
Credit cards companies do nothing to protect their clients. Every "consumer protection" is a protection for themselves.
Over what period of time? You certainly don't get the $500 instantaneously.
A good mortgage today (considering a HELOC) is, what, 6 percent? I challenge you to find a no-risk growth fund of any sort that will pay 11% or more.
You can't do it. Your perfect scenario, while quaint...doesn't work.
And if you're considering cash advances on a 0% APR intro rate on a credit card, you're still introducing risk. What if the truck carrying your check to repay the debt is blown up by a terrorist, or is in a massive accident, and the payment is late? What if your city is hit by some massive storm that renders you without power or internet capability, making you unable to pay electronically? What if the bank no longer honors the stated rate?
All of these things make your 0% APR a 30% APR. And with the new "universal default" rule on virtually every account these days, if you miss your cell phone payment, they can jump you to the default rate on your credit card.
Is all that risk really worth what is likely the equivilant of 40 hours (or less) of your time if you took on an extra few shifts at work over the same time period?
Why give people your hard earned cash up front when you can get a free 30-day float on the money?
The thing you're not taking into account is risk. There is an absolute risk that something will happen to you (get laid off, catastrophic car accident, H5N1, etc.) that will cause you to not be able to pay your bill, and your precious -1% APR becomes 32% instantly.
It's a part of the financial equation that people just don't take into account. There is a reason you don't support your family without health insurance: because the risk of injury/disease causing a major financial hit is greater than the premium you pay, so you pay the premium to mitigate that risk.
On the same hand, you pay that extra 1% up front to mitigate the risk that you won't be able to pay the bill. Or that someone goes dumpster diving for your receipt that has your full credit card number and expiry on it and starts running up charges at Ta-Ta's.
Phase 1) Stop living beyond your means. Trade in the SUV for a (very) used sedan. Move out of the suburbia colonial into a bungalow. Stop trying to keep the game machine up to the latest and greatest. If you paying for cable/internet/games/eating out with a credit card then you can't afford them; stop buying them. No one ever got rich on credit card reward points.
...
Phase 2) Cancel and cut up all your credit cards and HELOCs. No, you don't need one for emergencies. Yes, you can cancel credit going forward if you don't have a zero balance.
Phase 3) Pay bare minimums on everything, live on ramen noodles and mac and cheese. Take every extra cent you have and put it in the bank until you have an emergency fund of $500 to $1000. With this, you shouldn't need to go into debt if something catastrophic happens.
Phase 4) Pay off all debt except your house, smallest balance to largest, using the same phase 3 plan you did to start an emergency fund. At this speed, attacking the largest interest rate will save you, maybe, a Big Mac's worth of money. Plus, the rush of actually having more money to attack more stuff is pretty cool.
Phase 5) Fully fund your emergency fund to cover 3-6 months of expenses. You now never have to borrow again.
Phase 6)
Phase 7) Profit! And have the added benefit of telling those nasty credit card companies that you haven't had a credit card in N years, and you've had no inclination to start.
Phase 8) Write all these people certified mail, return receipt requested and request to be taken off their mailing lists.
Phase 9) Only borrow to purchase a home, and only do it with someone who does manual underwriting (does more than plug numbers in a computer and generate a FICO score), because you have no credit rating any more (and that's a good thing, further discourages bad spending habits).
Ok, that was longer than expected. And, to be fair, it wasn't my idea originally.
I'm not a great supporter of disclaimers, but here I think it would serve well.
"This book was supposedly written with an intelligent design. Approach it with an open mind, and you be the judge."
Congratulations, you just quoted the most useless part of every EULA ever.
You can't sign away your right to sue. Ever.
At least not in my state.
China may very well be communist.
The problem is that the people in power believe that they are the only ones able to effectively and equally distribute the wealth.
And, of course, those in power are certainly more equal than others.
With some games (such as City of Heroes), the purchase price goes to the game developer. The subscription fees (as well as customer service, maintainence, etc.) are handled by a completely different company. In the CoH example, Cryptic Studios created the game (and continues to create content updates on a very regular basis that they don't charge extra for), and NC Interactive handles the server maintainence and customer service. While I'm not silly enough to believe that Cryptic doesn't recieve some portion of the subscription fees (as a "royalty" or "license" fee, I'm sure), you're not truly paying the same people twice for the same game.
It makes me wonder if there is a market for these game stores to stock branded blank CD's, and images of the PC demos that can be burned in a matter of minutes while the customer is looking around the store.
Someone has mentioned the aversion to clicking advertisements, or slow internet connections. For some small price (US$2.95 or so), plus the store's name all over the demo CD, would it actually drive sales of PC games? I say yes. Not only does the customer get to try out the game and find out if it will work on his/her rig, but they get a nice reminder of where to go to pick up the game if they decide they want to check out the whole thing.
And it's not like the store needs to have screened CD's with the game's name on it, maybe write it in marker on a designated part of the CD. Screen the store's name (address, phone number, blood type) on the CD as a reminder of where to go buy the game when the customer finally makes the final purchase decision.
Even better, return the CD, and get some sort of credit toward the final purchase (the $2.95 paid, perhaps).
Then again, I've got a 41 minute wait to download F.E.A.R. from FilePlanet.
With a quick search I can find it at £1.27 *per kilo*.
Which is then marked up in American movie theatres to about 1 GBP per popped ounce (plus salt, oil, fat, sticky fingers, etc.).
Not to mention the US$10 ticket to see the movie.