"Actually, TV has become more and more complicated. A TV show used to have one plotline and a linear progression. You could pretty much sit down and follow any episode of a show without prior knowledge"
What are you comparing things to: the 1950s with Milton Berle and his short sketch comedy? For decades, you've had "many plotlines and many interpersonal relationsships" TV shows. Soap operas as a rule have always been that way. Prime time soaps like Dallas and Dynasty were like this more than 20 years ago. The two syndicated space station sci fi shows (more than 20 years ago) had this, along with numerous other shows.
"i work for a cable company as a service tech, and i can assure you that we have set time frames, within a two hour time frame, for appointments."
That's a terrible burden to put on the customer all because the cable company has a "to hell with customers" attitude and can't be bothered to serve them well. You can be sure that if there were competing cable companies, you'd be setting and keeping appointments on the minute (just like plumbers and other service people that have to compete to make customers happy).
I'm just glad that your Screw You Inc cable company does not run restaurants as well: "Thanks for your order, sir. Your dinner will arive at your plate any time between 30 minutes and 3 hours from now."
"And if you ran a cable company, your techs would be right on time. Even if they spent the last 30 minutes re-running a cable for a customer they didn't anticipate doing it for. Somehow, they would still arrive on time"
I'd just run it like the plumber, electrician, or anyone else instead. They have no problem with trying to keep with exact appointments. None of this "sit at home for an entire day because we're so badly run we have no idea when we'll get there" stuff. I wonder how the plumbers and electricians manage to keep appointments and the cable company can't? Hmmm. maybe because the plumbers and electricians actually have to compete with other plumbers and electricians.
"I know that experience, however it's typical of the phone company too where I live (Embarq). On several occasions I've had lightining strike out the phone lines and Sprint / Embarq take over a week to get a service man out."
He would have taken 3 days to get there, no doubt, if he had not stopped to feed the giant tortoise he rode to your site.
"GIT R DONE!"
BR.
Larry, with his can-do-and-do-it-quickly attitude is rather unique among cable guys. I remember 15 calls over much of a year to get the cable company to BURY the cable that snaked over the surface of the front lawn. The calls were always answered with "We'll do it by Friday".
When you set up appointments for our cable guy to come fix something, the company will only narrow down "when will he appear" to one day. Can you imagine a dentist working that way? "Come any time during the day for a tooth cleaning". Yeah right. Is the service this abominably bad, where they even refuse to make timely appointments, elsewhere?
Region coding? About reducing sales
on
30 Days of DRM
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
From the article: "Region coding is not about copyright, it is about market controls and a loss of consumer property rights. It should not benefit from additional copyright legal protections that would come from anti-circumention legislation."
How about the idea that region coding is all about reducing sales and increasing unauthorized duplication of DVDs? I run into so many DVDs that are not sold in any form for my region, and will never be sold for my region. That leaves me the options (a) not buying it at all, or (b) buying it and cracking it or perhaps getting a more usable pre-cracked version (barring the ability to get a DVD player that does all regions).
If you are making a case for a certain situation, and the examples directly depict that situation, then the only "stupid" thing would be NOT to argue such examples.
"For every example you can throw out about Linux/Mac/Windows/etc being better, someone else can throw out a counter example thats every bit as valid."
Straw man. Where did I compare Windows' usability to anything else? I didn't. Feel free to go off on some unrelated tangent about fanboy wars. Oh wait.... you already did. Nothing new to see, move along.
" Over here on XP I've had no crashes in 5 years and support for all the software and hardware I actually want to use."
I get nasty bluescreens once or twice a week. Not only that, they are the type of bluescreen that automatically tries to fill all available disk space with a memory dump unless I hit the "power off" button real quick. Hardware support? Not bad, but I did recently get a printer that had drivers for 98 but did not work with XP. I find those every once in a while.
"Where did you get that info? The government just isn't providing any funding."
It's just another version of the argument "The government not bothering to fund it = the government banning it". The argument has been used for years to portray the reduction in the funding of "official government art" as a draconian effort to censor things.
Slashdot Mirror
Q. How can you tell when a politician is lying?
"Were .mp4 files around back in 1997?"
He has some MP4 files that Bush actually recorded with his Powerbook in 1972.
"Actually, TV has become more and more complicated. A TV show used to have one plotline and a linear progression. You could pretty much sit down and follow any episode of a show without prior knowledge"
What are you comparing things to: the 1950s with Milton Berle and his short sketch comedy? For decades, you've had "many plotlines and many interpersonal relationsships" TV shows. Soap operas as a rule have always been that way. Prime time soaps like Dallas and Dynasty were like this more than 20 years ago. The two syndicated space station sci fi shows (more than 20 years ago) had this, along with numerous other shows.
"i work for a cable company as a service tech, and i can assure you that we have set time frames, within a two hour time frame, for appointments."
That's a terrible burden to put on the customer all because the cable company has a "to hell with customers" attitude and can't be bothered to serve them well. You can be sure that if there were competing cable companies, you'd be setting and keeping appointments on the minute (just like plumbers and other service people that have to compete to make customers happy).
I'm just glad that your Screw You Inc cable company does not run restaurants as well: "Thanks for your order, sir. Your dinner will arive at your plate any time between 30 minutes and 3 hours from now."
"And if you ran a cable company, your techs would be right on time. Even if they spent the last 30 minutes re-running a cable for a customer they didn't anticipate doing it for. Somehow, they would still arrive on time"
I'd just run it like the plumber, electrician, or anyone else instead. They have no problem with trying to keep with exact appointments. None of this "sit at home for an entire day because we're so badly run we have no idea when we'll get there" stuff. I wonder how the plumbers and electricians manage to keep appointments and the cable company can't? Hmmm. maybe because the plumbers and electricians actually have to compete with other plumbers and electricians.
"I know that experience, however it's typical of the phone company too where I live (Embarq). On several occasions I've had lightining strike out the phone lines and Sprint / Embarq take over a week to get a service man out."
He would have taken 3 days to get there, no doubt, if he had not stopped to feed the giant tortoise he rode to your site.
"GIT R DONE!"
BR. Larry, with his can-do-and-do-it-quickly attitude is rather unique among cable guys. I remember 15 calls over much of a year to get the cable company to BURY the cable that snaked over the surface of the front lawn. The calls were always answered with "We'll do it by Friday".
When you set up appointments for our cable guy to come fix something, the company will only narrow down "when will he appear" to one day. Can you imagine a dentist working that way? "Come any time during the day for a tooth cleaning". Yeah right. Is the service this abominably bad, where they even refuse to make timely appointments, elsewhere?
From the article: "Region coding is not about copyright, it is about market controls and a loss of consumer property rights. It should not benefit from additional copyright legal protections that would come from anti-circumention legislation."
How about the idea that region coding is all about reducing sales and increasing unauthorized duplication of DVDs? I run into so many DVDs that are not sold in any form for my region, and will never be sold for my region. That leaves me the options (a) not buying it at all, or (b) buying it and cracking it or perhaps getting a more usable pre-cracked version (barring the ability to get a DVD player that does all regions).
So you basically were making a point that had nothing to do with what I was saying.
I was thinking more in terms of an AYB reference. Sound OK with you?
They might as well call it "Space shuttle soon to be cancelled Stargate spinoff"
Good luck! As long as they keep those motherf%^#ing snakes off the shuttle, they're in good shape!
"My 20 month-old daughter bluescreened"
Don't tell me. You let her put that cheap off-brand USB drive in her mouth again, didn't you? The one without the proper drivers?
"Arguing by example is stupid."
If you are making a case for a certain situation, and the examples directly depict that situation, then the only "stupid" thing would be NOT to argue such examples.
"For every example you can throw out about Linux/Mac/Windows/etc being better, someone else can throw out a counter example thats every bit as valid."
Straw man. Where did I compare Windows' usability to anything else? I didn't. Feel free to go off on some unrelated tangent about fanboy wars. Oh wait.... you already did. Nothing new to see, move along.
"'Snakes on a Plane will win a best picture Oscar before Microsoft gets acquired by LBO firms.' What do you think?"
Anyone would dance like Balmer if you put a dozen fer de lance's in their shorts.
"If Star Trek had had stem cells, they may have been able to give Jordi true-color vision"
I think the real reason had to do with a copyright dispute with Intel over some of the advanded rendering algorithms in the VISOR.
"to having a pretty glass theme on a DRM foundation"
Glass? Are you referring to how the OS is easily broken, or how the DRM schemes are easily shattered?
"You've never had 4 toddlers on a saturday morning ....AAAARG!"
I know, I know, you just can't help it. But it's still a few weeks until the day
"Zittrain"
?????
"Linux is 15 and is getting set to screw that tramp from Redmond on the desktop!"
Just let me know the day this happens. I'll make sure NOT to turn the computer on until THAT freak show is OVER!
" Over here on XP I've had no crashes in 5 years and support for all the software and hardware I actually want to use."
I get nasty bluescreens once or twice a week. Not only that, they are the type of bluescreen that automatically tries to fill all available disk space with a memory dump unless I hit the "power off" button real quick. Hardware support? Not bad, but I did recently get a printer that had drivers for 98 but did not work with XP. I find those every once in a while.
"Where did you get that info? The government just isn't providing any funding."
It's just another version of the argument "The government not bothering to fund it = the government banning it". The argument has been used for years to portray the reduction in the funding of "official government art" as a draconian effort to censor things.
Yeah, but does it run Linux? Tell me that, mr auto-shop-class smarty pants!
"arguably the first usable version"
I don't expect the first usable version of Windows until 2022.