I may be wrong (or old-fashioned), but isn't it the possession of those actual CDs & cassettes that give you the license to listen to the content on them? Once you pass those on to someone else, aren't you technically also giving away the license to listen to the content? (Not that anyone's going to be knocking on your door to check that all the content on your server is properly licensed.......... probably.....)
When Sprint took over Nextel several years ago, the first thing they did was blow millions of dollars to upgrade those stores to their current "standards". Then not long after that, they started closing dozens (if not hundreds) of stores that were 'under-performing'.
Just imagine how much the insanity will be ratcheted up a few notches with this merger.
That wouldn't help. The prices for landline service (& long-distance) were almost as bad. And remember that several of these current players also provide landline service.
I worked on the Sprint Campus for over a decade. Didn't notice it myself (the short time I had a Sprint phone), but heard a lot of complaints over the years about poor connections - there at the Sprint HQ!
Looks like the J3 is still a "slab of toast" at 5". Too big, larger than the older Moto G.
I have a Motorola E4, which is 5", that I just bought for home wi-fi use (like a mini-tablet) for when my Moto G gets too old. But I still prefer using the G over the E4, even without having to lug it around outside the house.
I just ordered a Huawei that's smaller than the Moto G (smaller screen size anyway) from my cell provider, Net 10. The reviews weren't so great, but then maybe those customers were looking for a portable computer. Me, I just want a good phone with clear sound & good connections. (& just enough extra functionality to check email, though I'll still miss my flip phone)
It's nice to find I'm not the only one who feels stupid talking into a "slab of toast". A mobile phone is supposed to be just that - *mobile*, not a computer you have to lug around. For that reason, my primary phone is still a flip phone.
Only reason I'm looking to migrate to a "bloatphone" is that my work finally blocked personal email access, so I'd like something on which I can monitor email. But it has to be small & I'm not laying out hundreds of $$. Anything larger than, say, a Moto G is too big (& even smaller would be better).
Personally, I think it would be great if it turned out that this whole 'smartphone' thing was just a fad -like Beany Babies, netbooks, & boomboxes- that eventually faded away. And then they would again start making reasonably sized cellphones, focusing on quality & longevity, rather than size & feature bloat.
... does it have to be said that "You cannot (successfully) legislate morality"? If you want to go that route, it could be argued that junk food, caffeine, and porn are all addictive to an extent and should be "regulated". But people need to take & accept responsibility for their own behavior.
Good idea, except that I never have cared for Win7 either. Its interface is only slightly less sucky than Win 8/10. And 7 refuses to run some older software, even in compatibility mode. I have 7 in a virtual machine under Linux on my laptop, just in case I really need it. Most of the time, I just use Linux Mint.
I have an XP machine right now that would be totally usable for pretty much all I need - browsing, email, budgeting, music production/editing. Absolutely the ONLY reason I can't (or rather, don't) use it is because it stopped getting security updates. It's frustrating to have to junk a perfectly good machine (or use it strictly offline), for no good reason.
I agree 110% with pretty much everything you said. And it probably holds true for almost every industry out there.
I've always been a bit of a moron when it came to understanding economics, but it seems to me that the stock market is based on the principle of "forever expansion". After all, how can investors make money if profits & stock prices don't go up all the time? But how can this be anything but a ticking time bomb? No market can expand forever. The American (Western?) business model is built on an unstable foundation.
I can't recall ever having had to read one bit of a man page to set up wi-fi. In both Linux Mint & windows, all I've had to do was click the icon in the tray, select the network, and enter the password. Surely, Chromebooks would be just as simple, since they're designed to be used on wi-fi?
So, when running XP as the o/s, is it any safer to run a web browser under a Linux Virtual Machine, or are you still at risk, since XP still handles the basic behind-the-scenes networking? (I asked this question in the VirtualBox forum a while back and don't believe I ever did get a solid answer.)
It's curious that you would still have problems hearing the movies these days, considering that the last movie I went to, the theater had bumped the volume level up to about the same point as a heavy metal concert! Do they really think it "improves" the experience to deafen the audience?
As perhaps part of that aging population myself (mid-50s), in addition to the unpleasant theater experiences -e.g.ridiculous volume levels & endless commercial spam before the movie- I guess I've just seen so many movies up to this point that it's hard to find one that has a fresh concept. Everything just seems like a rehash of what's already been done. Maybe the whole industry has a built-in self-destruct mechanism for that very reason.
Only problem is that you usually have to provide extra personal info that was used in creating the account, if you want to reset the password. (although sometimes they just email a link to do this, which in this case seems rather poor security-wise)
Answering my own comment.... Even though I wasn't sure what to search for, I tried Googling this issue anyway. For anyone else who might be annoyed by this, it's called "infinite scrolling" & appears to be have been around for much longer than I thought. Here's info on it: https://www.smashingmagazine.c...
And a couple of attempted solutions (imperfect, it seems):
I started noticing this in the last year or so. Not sure if it's the result of scripting, new browser "functioning", or an HTML5 thing.
Normally, the scroll bar gives you some idea how far you have left to get to the bottom of the page you're on, right? But now, I'll be just about to the bottom (alright, I'm done with this page!); then suddenly, the scrollbar indicator suddenly jumps about halfway up the page & more content loads at the bottom. And often when this happens, I completely lose my place on the page. WTF?!? How can I turn off this INFURIATING behavior?
I have no latency like that on my microwave.
Of course, it's my brother's old used one from about 20-30yrs ago and the only control is a dial timer that goes up to about 12 min.;)
That's annoying as hell in Linux AND Windows. I click to start a program (expecting it to start IN THE BG!), then go back to working in the prog window I was first in. Suddenly the new program forces itself right in my face, even while I was typing in the first window. Annoying as hell.
Same problem in Linux. I think Mint Mate uses either Nautilus or a re-branded Nautilus (I might be wrong) as file manager. When I go to copy or delete a bunch of files (in the hundreds), it takes forEVER to "prepare", and sometimes it seems to completely hang. I end up switching to another file manager & it does the same task almost immediately.
Exactly what I was thinking. As a matter of fact, I'd like to see a separate post discussing what could possibly be done to change the whole business model of the electronics industry as a whole. The world really needs to move back toward devices & appliances that are more viable for the long-term - devices that are much more easily repairable & upgradeable, and definitely move away from the "replace & throwaway every six months" mentality.
I'm thinking that would be during the flush process, after the recently added "contents" are gone, but the water hasn't started filling back up. So there's a chance you can just towel it off and it'll keep working for you.;)
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I may be wrong (or old-fashioned), but isn't it the possession of those actual CDs & cassettes that give you the license to listen to the content on them? Once you pass those on to someone else, aren't you technically also giving away the license to listen to the content? (Not that anyone's going to be knocking on your door to check that all the content on your server is properly licensed. ......... probably.....)
Maybe I'm having better luck or you're doing more strenuous work, but LM Xfce has worked okay for me in a VM under winXP.
Last I knew, ProtonMail is not set up for access by any desktop client. Other than their webmail, I think the only option is their own mobile app.
When Sprint took over Nextel several years ago, the first thing they did was blow millions of dollars to upgrade those stores to their current "standards". Then not long after that, they started closing dozens (if not hundreds) of stores that were 'under-performing'.
Just imagine how much the insanity will be ratcheted up a few notches with this merger.
That wouldn't help. The prices for landline service (& long-distance) were almost as bad. And remember that several of these current players also provide landline service.
I worked on the Sprint Campus for over a decade. Didn't notice it myself (the short time I had a Sprint phone), but heard a lot of complaints over the years about poor connections - there at the Sprint HQ!
Looks like the J3 is still a "slab of toast" at 5". Too big, larger than the older Moto G.
I have a Motorola E4, which is 5", that I just bought for home wi-fi use (like a mini-tablet) for when my Moto G gets too old. But I still prefer using the G over the E4, even without having to lug it around outside the house.
I just ordered a Huawei that's smaller than the Moto G (smaller screen size anyway) from my cell provider, Net 10. The reviews weren't so great, but then maybe those customers were looking for a portable computer. Me, I just want a good phone with clear sound & good connections. (& just enough extra functionality to check email, though I'll still miss my flip phone)
It's nice to find I'm not the only one who feels stupid talking into a "slab of toast". A mobile phone is supposed to be just that - *mobile*, not a computer you have to lug around. For that reason, my primary phone is still a flip phone.
Only reason I'm looking to migrate to a "bloatphone" is that my work finally blocked personal email access, so I'd like something on which I can monitor email. But it has to be small & I'm not laying out hundreds of $$. Anything larger than, say, a Moto G is too big (& even smaller would be better).
Personally, I think it would be great if it turned out that this whole 'smartphone' thing was just a fad -like Beany Babies, netbooks, & boomboxes- that eventually faded away. And then they would again start making reasonably sized cellphones, focusing on quality & longevity, rather than size & feature bloat.
... does it have to be said that "You cannot (successfully) legislate morality"? If you want to go that route, it could be argued that junk food, caffeine, and porn are all addictive to an extent and should be "regulated". But people need to take & accept responsibility for their own behavior.
Good idea, except that I never have cared for Win7 either. Its interface is only slightly less sucky than Win 8/10. And 7 refuses to run some older software, even in compatibility mode. I have 7 in a virtual machine under Linux on my laptop, just in case I really need it. Most of the time, I just use Linux Mint.
I have an XP machine right now that would be totally usable for pretty much all I need - browsing, email, budgeting, music production/editing. Absolutely the ONLY reason I can't (or rather, don't) use it is because it stopped getting security updates. It's frustrating to have to junk a perfectly good machine (or use it strictly offline), for no good reason.
I agree 110% with pretty much everything you said. And it probably holds true for almost every industry out there.
I've always been a bit of a moron when it came to understanding economics, but it seems to me that the stock market is based on the principle of "forever expansion". After all, how can investors make money if profits & stock prices don't go up all the time? But how can this be anything but a ticking time bomb? No market can expand forever. The American (Western?) business model is built on an unstable foundation.
I can't recall ever having had to read one bit of a man page to set up wi-fi. In both Linux Mint & windows, all I've had to do was click the icon in the tray, select the network, and enter the password. Surely, Chromebooks would be just as simple, since they're designed to be used on wi-fi?
So, when running XP as the o/s, is it any safer to run a web browser under a Linux Virtual Machine, or are you still at risk, since XP still handles the basic behind-the-scenes networking? (I asked this question in the VirtualBox forum a while back and don't believe I ever did get a solid answer.)
It's curious that you would still have problems hearing the movies these days, considering that the last movie I went to, the theater had bumped the volume level up to about the same point as a heavy metal concert! Do they really think it "improves" the experience to deafen the audience?
As perhaps part of that aging population myself (mid-50s), in addition to the unpleasant theater experiences -e.g.ridiculous volume levels & endless commercial spam before the movie- I guess I've just seen so many movies up to this point that it's hard to find one that has a fresh concept. Everything just seems like a rehash of what's already been done. Maybe the whole industry has a built-in self-destruct mechanism for that very reason.
Only problem is that you usually have to provide extra personal info that was used in creating the account, if you want to reset the password. (although sometimes they just email a link to do this, which in this case seems rather poor security-wise)
Answering my own comment.... Even though I wasn't sure what to search for, I tried Googling this issue anyway. For anyone else who might be annoyed by this, it's called "infinite scrolling" & appears to be have been around for much longer than I thought. Here's info on it: https://www.smashingmagazine.c...
And a couple of attempted solutions (imperfect, it seems):
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/kill-infinite-scroll/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/
Normally, the scroll bar gives you some idea how far you have left to get to the bottom of the page you're on, right? But now, I'll be just about to the bottom (alright, I'm done with this page!); then suddenly, the scrollbar indicator suddenly jumps about halfway up the page & more content loads at the bottom. And often when this happens, I completely lose my place on the page. WTF?!? How can I turn off this INFURIATING behavior?
I have no latency like that on my microwave. Of course, it's my brother's old used one from about 20-30yrs ago and the only control is a dial timer that goes up to about 12 min. ;)
That's annoying as hell in Linux AND Windows. I click to start a program (expecting it to start IN THE BG!), then go back to working in the prog window I was first in. Suddenly the new program forces itself right in my face, even while I was typing in the first window. Annoying as hell.
Same problem in Linux. I think Mint Mate uses either Nautilus or a re-branded Nautilus (I might be wrong) as file manager. When I go to copy or delete a bunch of files (in the hundreds), it takes forEVER to "prepare", and sometimes it seems to completely hang. I end up switching to another file manager & it does the same task almost immediately.
I think that's only a "page hit" ranking, though, and doesn't reflect what people actually use. Personally, I use LMint on both my desktop & laptop.
Seconded. They'll have to pry XP from my cold, dead keyboard!
Exactly what I was thinking. As a matter of fact, I'd like to see a separate post discussing what could possibly be done to change the whole business model of the electronics industry as a whole. The world really needs to move back toward devices & appliances that are more viable for the long-term - devices that are much more easily repairable & upgradeable, and definitely move away from the "replace & throwaway every six months" mentality.
I'm thinking that would be during the flush process, after the recently added "contents" are gone, but the water hasn't started filling back up. So there's a chance you can just towel it off and it'll keep working for you. ;)