The whole purpose of the tag is to force people to buy new hardware, plain and simple.
exactly.
if someone wants a hi-def dvd player now, they'll buy one "sans-chip" -- then in three years time (give or take), if they want to watch new hi-def dvd releases, they'll need to buy *another* hi-def dvd player (with the "chip").
it's all about forced obsolescence. this should not be a new concept to anyone, the pc industry has been subject to it since day one.
that seems to be happening a lot more these days. companies flexing muscles as a negotiation tool. the riaa against xm radio, dell using amd against intel, and countless others.
The biggest features we're looking for are the ability to centrally manage updates (which rules of AVG's free edition)
actually, wouldn't the license agreement rule out AVG FREE edition in your situation?
AVG Free Edition is for private, non-commercial, single-home computer use only. Use of AVG Free Edition within any organization or for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited. (from http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1/)
however, they do have a fairly decent commercial product for the price. look at their network edition http://www.grisoft.com/doc/Networks/lng/us/tpl/tpl 01/ only $8.20 per seat, per year, at the 50-74 seat price point. this version includes centrialized management and lan updates. runs on all released windows win95 and up, and i386 linux.
..except that they can't get local numbers everywhere yet, but that's the fault of the smaller telco's who aren't under the fed's microscope.. and don't let 3rd parties in the door.
did have a call quality problem initially, but that ended up being the connection it was using; 128k upstream was too slow, even though it's only supposed to need ~90k or less. upgraded the dsl to 256k upload and everything is perfect (aside the fact from our telephone number being based in a city on the other side of the state).
just imagine the impact in the market if dell just up and switched *everything* over to amd chips exclusively (providing of course, amd could deliver the quantity needed).
looks like they already removed the offending 'suggested' searches when you start typing 'servercheck' into a 'suggest-enabled' search box. i only get four suggests, and none of them are crack or serial related.
case closed.
i'm sure all they had to do is ask google and they would've complied. some people (and companies) like to bitch (file lawsuit) first / think later (or not at all).
heck, i wouldn't be suprised if google had a database that holds terms not to relate to one another when 'suggesting' a search, and that they have a nifty little interface for that database so their worker bees can efficiently update it whenever needed.
the only thing i can think of (other than the obvious lure of the large settlement) why people constantly harrass google in the courts over trivial matters like this, that could easily be solved with some good ol' fashioned common sense, is that these people are short-selling google stock, and then trying to make a buck when the stock dips on the negative press (knowing full well that the settlement will never happen).
>> hotels aren't going to put their front desk software on a phone, businesses aren't going to hire people to work on pda's.
perhaps not, but picture a hotel with wireless handhelds where the bellhops check guests in..
or in lower-budget chains, self-service kiosks..
or the guest checks himself in via his own phone, and via bluetooth (or other close-proximity wireless technology), his phone becomes his room key.
maybe it's the hotel front desk clerk that's on their way to obsolescence. to be replaced by personal (or business) assistants or concierge services, both requested via the hotel's intranet through the guest's cell phone or in-room interactive tv.
>> Bad examples. Does giving IE and WMP away for free cost >> Microsoft $4 Billion plus in losses like the Xbox did?
Any idea on how much Microsoft has dumped into development of these products (IE, WMP, other bundled apps) over the last 12-13 years? Plus the legal expenses in defending their antitrust cases? Settlements, etc... Oodles and oodles. Did I say oodles?
If WMP was a stand alone product distributed by anyone else, it would sell at a $99.99 (or higher) retail price point. Realplayer, Quicktime and other players wouldn't be free downloads today either.
If Microsoft hadn't started giving away Internet Explorer (the formerly-available-by-itself program) and never bundled it with their operating system, than no one would be giving away a web browser today. Hell, the internet itself would be a totally different landscape; as only those with the money to buy a browser (or knowledge enough to install whatever open source alternative there might be) would be online.
Firefox itself may not exist today if it wasn't for Internet Explorer and the need and desire for an alternative. Netscape might still be an independent company instead of the forgotten step-child of a mega corporate empire. And if people always had to purchase their browser separately, Opera might enjoy more than a sliver of market share.
Between just IE and WMP, Microsoft is giving away $150+ worth of software free with every Windows license, and most every Windows license sold nets them far less in direct revenue than $150.00. Only retail full versions of Windows come close to selling for price they should, given the expense to produce the product. Most Windows licenses come from deep discounted OEM licenses, and those are the loss leaders... those are the desktop equivalent to the Xbox.
So yes, the Xbox and IE/WMP are very similar. And it's all in the name of monopolizing their respective markets, which they already do on the desktop and online with browsing... and that's with the blessing of the American government, no less.
Windows isn't their cash cow, MS Office is; and only because of their willingness from the start to spend money on bundling features into Windows. Windows is the loss leader (so ok, it sustains itself now) that drives the MS Office sales.
The console market isn't much different. Microsoft is prepared to spend (and lose) money in order to dominate (and eventually monopolize) the market and shatter their new competitors, in their ultimate quest of global conquest and domination. Same game, different opponents. Just no antitrust lawsuits looming over the horizon (yet)...
The Xbox is the loss leader that Microsoft hopes will eventually monopolize the console market. The Xbox hardware isn't the cash cow, and maybe they'll break even on game sales, and have the occasional top-selling 'must have' title; but it's what is yet to come for the Xbox you have to look out for.....
Perhaps your cable or DSS receiver sports a third generation Xbox, HD-DVD player, and an HD DVR (naturally made from WMP and all the ugliness that go with it) built right in. Instant 60+ percent penetration into American homes. Which might finally attract some attention from regulators, but just like with Windows, it will be too late to stem the tide.
it will last as long as the riaa believes it to be a worthwhile marketing gimmick.. which is all it is.
they (the riaa) also now have something else to counter the 'i was just evaluating to see if i wanted to buy it' argument some people make for pirated mp3's. and at what cost to them? none, heck, they're getting paid for it.
i am extremely loyal to my preferred game console too...
don't have one, don't intend to get one. period. far better things to spend hard-earned cash on. where's that option in the survey? the majority of the population couldn't care less about the latest-and-greatest brain-mushing video game console.
haven't bought a console in over 20 years. and yes, we still have the ol' 2600 & it sees regular use to this day. try as they may, but no one has come close to recreating super-breakout on a 2600 with paddles. it just can't be done with a game pad, joystick, mouse or keyboard.
there are cable internet subscribers here who have had the same 'dynamic' ip address since the service launched five years ago. they assign ip's by your nic or router's mac, and they never change. they only reassign (currently unused ip's) when they reach the end of the address pool and have to start over from the 'top' of the list.
with dsl from the telco here, though, you could end up with a different ip every day (sometimes even more often than that), and it's very rarely ever one you've had before).
i agree, to a point, with tfa, but he fails to mention multiple visitors to the same site who are behind nat and share the same ip. those visitors, though, will more than likely be outnumbered by those whose ip's change regularily on a typical site.
the number of actual unique visitors will be lower than the number claimed, when using only ip address to determine a unique visitor. it's obvious skewing of the data, but what organization doesn't do that if it will benefit themselves?
i can't even begin to count the number of people i know that use google to find everything. they want to go to msn, they google for 'msn'. they want to go to yahoo, they google for 'yahoo'. 9 times of 10 they get where they're going, but that other time.. look out. a shady, spyware or popup infested ad destination is just a click away... it's really sad watching them at the msn home page (the lovely default in windows) and then search for 'google'.
they have no grasp of the concept of the address bar or how to use it, and you can try, try, try all you want to teach them, but they just go back to googling for things like 'microsoft' and 'itunes' (even with the bloody itunes program installed on their computer).
if you changed their homepage to something without a search box on it, they'd swear up and down that the internet was broken.
and of course, these are the people that will click on anything, don't read before clicking, and never have ever seen the phrase 'sponsored links'. they think they got spyware, so they google for spyware, end up clicking on an ad for some scumware and then, whaddyaknow. their internet does break on them anyway.
i live and die by the backspace key, i type quite fast and don't have the best eyesight in the world; so ocassionally miss a typo before hitting enter to load an address. i absolutely hate typosquatters (squatters in general really. they're the only reason we need more tld's in the first place).
if it wasn't for good ol' firefox & a few handy extensions (or my beloved debian desktop, which is just a kvm switch away), i would get infested with crap myself. and i see the results first-hand, of people who do (people like your mom and grandparents), as a result of typing in things like goggle.com (http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?t=6537), or worse.
that 'did you mean...' is handy, i use it myself (especially after a little mexican swamp water), but it needs to be more prominent on screen, and for the really common misspellings, perhaps even change the search term automatically by default (with advanced option to disable the autocorrect).
it sucks that companies are basically held hostage to try to get these similarily spelt domain names just to protect their own corporate identity. while i haven't gone that far myself (not nearly as big as a state famr or bist bye), but i have gotten all the tld's i can get my hands on for my companies' actual domain names. even with cut-rate domain registrations, i cringe every year when they come due again, and my bill is only a few hundred bucks a year. just imagine what the domain registration costs are for one of the big companies that maintains a portfolio of hundreds or more.
Gnaps was assigning and using phone numbers (they're a CLEC) *outside* a phone number's local area, to expand their coverage area. They were scamming Verizon left & right abusing how they rate and bill local calls.
Verizon is partly to blame here, by assuming that calls coming in were "local" calls if they were from & to telephone numbers in the same exchange (NXX).
It's 100% high-grade FUD for everybody except those who got shafted by Gnap's shady schemes. Those people should be looking for another provider. This has absolutely no bearing on regular dialup users. Regular dialup POP's are equipment installed at CO's, data centers or other locations, the DCS goes & internet traffic goes out at each location; or DCS traffic is carried by dedicated line to where the POP is physically located.
from the above link...
Global NAPs' VNXX System
Under the traditional system for rating calls, whether a call is "local" or "interexchange" depends on geographically defined local calling areas. The DTE established the existing geographic local calling area structure for Massachusetts after a generic proceeding "in which all interested Parties had the opportunity to comment." Verizon implements this system by comparing the "NXX" numbers (the "NXX" is the middle three digits of a ten-digit phone number) of the caller and the recipient. The "NXX" has generally been associated with a particular "switch" (that is, the equipment that routes phone calls to their destination) physically located within a local calling area; NXXs have thus served as proxies for geographic location. This means that if the NXX numbers of the caller and the recipient were within the same local calling area, one could assume that the caller and recipient were actually physically within the same calling area and bill the call as a local call.
Global NAPs has the ability to assign its customers "virtual" NXXs (VNXX), so that a Global NAPs customer can be given VNXX numbers that are different than those that would normally be assigned to him based on his physical location. This allows a party to call what appears to be a "local" number, although behind the scenes that call is actually routed to a different local calling area. When the party making such a call is a Verizon customer, the call is transmitted outside the local calling area by Verizon.
Many of Global NAPs' ISP customers use VNXX arrangements, and many of these ISPs' end-user customers use Verizon for local phone service. To access the Internet, the end-user dials in to a VNXX number assigned to his or her own local calling area. Then, Verizon transports the call across local calling areas to Global NAPs' point of interconnection with the Verizon network. Global NAPs and Verizon agree that "[u]nder VNXX arrangements, the Verizon end user's call to the ISP's server is toll-free [to the end user] whether or not the ISP's server is located in the same local exchange area in which the end-user originates the call." (emphasis added)
this isn't that much different than the intra-LATA toll free numbers that are (and have been) getting shut down for similar "loopholes" that CLECs have found to abuse. neither case affects regular providers or their subscribers, only those who use a company that's been skirting the rules.
My contacts at national and wholesale dialup providers are just laughing their asses off at these particular companies who have no one to blame for their misfortune but themselves. There's a local dialup provider around here that got sucked into one of these scams, and they'll probably end up going out of business as a result of that boneheaded decision. But it's their OWN fault that they shut down their own POPs, DCS and dedicated lines that used to carry all their dialup traffic.
I would acutally welcome such flags in programs. It will make it so much easier to detect and autoskip commercials in mythtv.
Doesn't Nielsen (Media Research) already have a way to encode signals in broadcasts with program & commercial identification? (used in their automated meter boxes and to track air times of commercials). I don't know of any recording devices that automatically detect those signals yet...
the west and east coast's "Primetime" is 8pm to 11pm, in the middle of the country, it's 7pm-10pm. the ending time for the most restrictive broadcast rules is 10pm, which is why those fucktard bible thumpers are pushing only for the mountain and central timezones to file complaints.
back in the 'old days' it was cheaper to have "most" of the country receiving the same feed, which is why central time's primetime is one hour earlier; so they could use the same feeds as the east coast.
with technology so much improved today, what's the big difference between having "three" feeds we have now for the lower-48 (east/central - mountain - pacific) and four, one for each timezone?
so, the solution is quite simple. change the primetime for the middle of the country to 8pm to 11pm. problem solved. then the broadcast networks have an hour, coast-to-coast, that they could air the "more desirable" and "more realistic" content.
i kinda like the earlier primetime myself, the later times was one of the hardest things to get used to (besides cost of living, commute times, awful traffic, etc...) between minnesota and washington dc when i lived out east.
but i would gladly sacrifice an hour of sleep on nights i would watch network television, just so these bullshit complaints and fines would just fucking go away.
and with the absolutely brilliant performance of the american hockey team this year; they might actually get a half-dozen hits on their stream. ebersol himself could host the stream on his home broadband connection and still have the pipe left to seed the latest survivor episode.
Slashdot Mirror
The whole purpose of the tag is to force people to buy new hardware, plain and simple.
exactly.
if someone wants a hi-def dvd player now, they'll buy one "sans-chip" -- then in three years time (give or take), if they want to watch new hi-def dvd releases, they'll need to buy *another* hi-def dvd player (with the "chip").
it's all about forced obsolescence. this should not be a new concept to anyone, the pc industry has been subject to it since day one.
how long until there's an "xbox genuine advantage" program in place that requires a net connection every time you change discs?
that seems to be happening a lot more these days. companies flexing muscles as a negotiation tool. the riaa against xm radio, dell using amd against intel, and countless others.
actually, wouldn't the license agreement rule out AVG FREE edition in your situation?
however, they do have a fairly decent commercial product for the price. look at their network edition http://www.grisoft.com/doc/Networks/lng/us/tpl/tp
a. symantec's bottom line needs the influx of settlement cash
b. they've got no chance in hell of finishing vista-compatible products in time, so they need another delay
c. they actually have a case.
same here, use smarty & php. makes it very easy to dig through code, and even easier to change the look of pages.
css driven templates are definately the way to go.
..except that they can't get local numbers everywhere yet, but that's the fault of the smaller telco's who aren't under the fed's microscope.. and don't let 3rd parties in the door.
did have a call quality problem initially, but that ended up being the connection it was using; 128k upstream was too slow, even though it's only supposed to need ~90k or less. upgraded the dsl to 256k upload and everything is perfect (aside the fact from our telephone number being based in a city on the other side of the state).
The great news is, they have already been receiving our TV signals.
which is exactly why we haven't heard a peep out of anyone, anything, anywhere, yet.
just imagine the impact in the market if dell just up and switched *everything* over to amd chips exclusively (providing of course, amd could deliver the quantity needed).
looks like they already removed the offending 'suggested' searches when you start typing 'servercheck' into a 'suggest-enabled' search box. i only get four suggests, and none of them are crack or serial related.
case closed.
i'm sure all they had to do is ask google and they would've complied. some people (and companies) like to bitch (file lawsuit) first / think later (or not at all).
heck, i wouldn't be suprised if google had a database that holds terms not to relate to one another when 'suggesting' a search, and that they have a nifty little interface for that database so their worker bees can efficiently update it whenever needed.
the only thing i can think of (other than the obvious lure of the large settlement) why people constantly harrass google in the courts over trivial matters like this, that could easily be solved with some good ol' fashioned common sense, is that these people are short-selling google stock, and then trying to make a buck when the stock dips on the negative press (knowing full well that the settlement will never happen).
>> hotels aren't going to put their front desk software on a phone, businesses aren't going to hire people to work on pda's.
perhaps not, but picture a hotel with wireless handhelds where the bellhops check guests in..
or in lower-budget chains, self-service kiosks..
or the guest checks himself in via his own phone, and via bluetooth (or other close-proximity wireless technology), his phone becomes his room key.
maybe it's the hotel front desk clerk that's on their way to obsolescence. to be replaced by personal (or business) assistants or concierge services, both requested via the hotel's intranet through the guest's cell phone or in-room interactive tv.
>> Bad examples. Does giving IE and WMP away for free cost
>> Microsoft $4 Billion plus in losses like the Xbox did?
Any idea on how much Microsoft has dumped into development of these products (IE, WMP, other bundled apps) over the last 12-13 years? Plus the legal expenses in defending their antitrust cases? Settlements, etc... Oodles and oodles. Did I say oodles?
If WMP was a stand alone product distributed by anyone else, it would sell at a $99.99 (or higher) retail price point. Realplayer, Quicktime and other players wouldn't be free downloads today either.
If Microsoft hadn't started giving away Internet Explorer (the formerly-available-by-itself program) and never bundled it with their operating system, than no one would be giving away a web browser today. Hell, the internet itself would be a totally different landscape; as only those with the money to buy a browser (or knowledge enough to install whatever open source alternative there might be) would be online.
Firefox itself may not exist today if it wasn't for Internet Explorer and the need and desire for an alternative. Netscape might still be an independent company instead of the forgotten step-child of a mega corporate empire. And if people always had to purchase their browser separately, Opera might enjoy more than a sliver of market share.
Between just IE and WMP, Microsoft is giving away $150+ worth of software free with every Windows license, and most every Windows license sold nets them far less in direct revenue than $150.00. Only retail full versions of Windows come close to selling for price they should, given the expense to produce the product. Most Windows licenses come from deep discounted OEM licenses, and those are the loss leaders... those are the desktop equivalent to the Xbox.
So yes, the Xbox and IE/WMP are very similar. And it's all in the name of monopolizing their respective markets, which they already do on the desktop and online with browsing... and that's with the blessing of the American government, no less.
Windows isn't their cash cow, MS Office is; and only because of their willingness from the start to spend money on bundling features into Windows. Windows is the loss leader (so ok, it sustains itself now) that drives the MS Office sales.
The console market isn't much different. Microsoft is prepared to spend (and lose) money in order to dominate (and eventually monopolize) the market and shatter their new competitors, in their ultimate quest of global conquest and domination. Same game, different opponents. Just no antitrust lawsuits looming over the horizon (yet)...
The Xbox is the loss leader that Microsoft hopes will eventually monopolize the console market. The Xbox hardware isn't the cash cow, and maybe they'll break even on game sales, and have the occasional top-selling 'must have' title; but it's what is yet to come for the Xbox you have to look out for.....
Perhaps your cable or DSS receiver sports a third generation Xbox, HD-DVD player, and an HD DVR (naturally made from WMP and all the ugliness that go with it) built right in. Instant 60+ percent penetration into American homes. Which might finally attract some attention from regulators, but just like with Windows, it will be too late to stem the tide.
It works GREAT! Wonder how long it will last.
it will last as long as the riaa believes it to be a worthwhile marketing gimmick.. which is all it is.
they (the riaa) also now have something else to counter the 'i was just evaluating to see if i wanted to buy it' argument some people make for pirated mp3's. and at what cost to them? none, heck, they're getting paid for it.
i am extremely loyal to my preferred game console too...
don't have one, don't intend to get one. period. far better things to spend hard-earned cash on. where's that option in the survey? the majority of the population couldn't care less about the latest-and-greatest brain-mushing video game console.
haven't bought a console in over 20 years. and yes, we still have the ol' 2600 & it sees regular use to this day. try as they may, but no one has come close to recreating super-breakout on a 2600 with paddles. it just can't be done with a game pad, joystick, mouse or keyboard.
there are cable internet subscribers here who have had the same 'dynamic' ip address since the service launched five years ago. they assign ip's by your nic or router's mac, and they never change. they only reassign (currently unused ip's) when they reach the end of the address pool and have to start over from the 'top' of the list.
with dsl from the telco here, though, you could end up with a different ip every day (sometimes even more often than that), and it's very rarely ever one you've had before).
i agree, to a point, with tfa, but he fails to mention multiple visitors to the same site who are behind nat and share the same ip. those visitors, though, will more than likely be outnumbered by those whose ip's change regularily on a typical site.
the number of actual unique visitors will be lower than the number claimed, when using only ip address to determine a unique visitor. it's obvious skewing of the data, but what organization doesn't do that if it will benefit themselves?
i can't even begin to count the number of people i know that use google to find everything. they want to go to msn, they google for 'msn'. they want to go to yahoo, they google for 'yahoo'. 9 times of 10 they get where they're going, but that other time.. look out. a shady, spyware or popup infested ad destination is just a click away... it's really sad watching them at the msn home page (the lovely default in windows) and then search for 'google'.
they have no grasp of the concept of the address bar or how to use it, and you can try, try, try all you want to teach them, but they just go back to googling for things like 'microsoft' and 'itunes' (even with the bloody itunes program installed on their computer).
if you changed their homepage to something without a search box on it, they'd swear up and down that the internet was broken.
and of course, these are the people that will click on anything, don't read before clicking, and never have ever seen the phrase 'sponsored links'. they think they got spyware, so they google for spyware, end up clicking on an ad for some scumware and then, whaddyaknow. their internet does break on them anyway.
i live and die by the backspace key, i type quite fast and don't have the best eyesight in the world; so ocassionally miss a typo before hitting enter to load an address. i absolutely hate typosquatters (squatters in general really. they're the only reason we need more tld's in the first place).
if it wasn't for good ol' firefox & a few handy extensions (or my beloved debian desktop, which is just a kvm switch away), i would get infested with crap myself. and i see the results first-hand, of people who do (people like your mom and grandparents), as a result of typing in things like goggle.com (http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?t=6537), or worse.
that 'did you mean...' is handy, i use it myself (especially after a little mexican swamp water), but it needs to be more prominent on screen, and for the really common misspellings, perhaps even change the search term automatically by default (with advanced option to disable the autocorrect).
it sucks that companies are basically held hostage to try to get these similarily spelt domain names just to protect their own corporate identity. while i haven't gone that far myself (not nearly as big as a state famr or bist bye), but i have gotten all the tld's i can get my hands on for my companies' actual domain names. even with cut-rate domain registrations, i cringe every year when they come due again, and my bill is only a few hundred bucks a year. just imagine what the domain registration costs are for one of the big companies that maintains a portfolio of hundreds or more.
if only the average citizen (and enough of them) were that smart.
Once i got to the gist of the issue, the above pretty much sums it up.
http://fsnews.findlaw.com/cases/1st/052657.html
Gnaps was assigning and using phone numbers (they're a CLEC) *outside* a phone number's local area, to expand their coverage area. They were scamming Verizon left & right abusing how they rate and bill local calls.
Verizon is partly to blame here, by assuming that calls coming in were "local" calls if they were from & to telephone numbers in the same exchange (NXX).
It's 100% high-grade FUD for everybody except those who got shafted by Gnap's shady schemes. Those people should be looking for another provider. This has absolutely no bearing on regular dialup users. Regular dialup POP's are equipment installed at CO's, data centers or other locations, the DCS goes & internet traffic goes out at each location; or DCS traffic is carried by dedicated line to where the POP is physically located.
from the above link...
this isn't that much different than the intra-LATA toll free numbers that are (and have been) getting shut down for similar "loopholes" that CLECs have found to abuse. neither case affects regular providers or their subscribers, only those who use a company that's been skirting the rules.
My contacts at national and wholesale dialup providers are just laughing their asses off at these particular companies who have no one to blame for their misfortune but themselves. There's a local dialup provider around here that got sucked into one of these scams, and they'll probably end up going out of business as a result of that boneheaded decision. But it's their OWN fault that they shut down their own POPs, DCS and dedicated lines that used to carry all their dialup traffic.
I would acutally welcome such flags in programs. It will make it so much easier to detect and autoskip commercials in mythtv.
Doesn't Nielsen (Media Research) already have a way to encode signals in broadcasts with program & commercial identification? (used in their automated meter boxes and to track air times of commercials). I don't know of any recording devices that automatically detect those signals yet...
Best Buy withdrew their offer.
around the same time that one of their guys said "hey boss, check out what i found on usenet!" ???
this is from a few years ago... http://www.mslinux.org/
soon as the p0rn industry figures out how to use these things, they'll blow right off the shelves.
the west and east coast's "Primetime" is 8pm to 11pm, in the middle of the country, it's 7pm-10pm. the ending time for the most restrictive broadcast rules is 10pm, which is why those fucktard bible thumpers are pushing only for the mountain and central timezones to file complaints.
back in the 'old days' it was cheaper to have "most" of the country receiving the same feed, which is why central time's primetime is one hour earlier; so they could use the same feeds as the east coast.
with technology so much improved today, what's the big difference between having "three" feeds we have now for the lower-48 (east/central - mountain - pacific) and four, one for each timezone?
so, the solution is quite simple. change the primetime for the middle of the country to 8pm to 11pm. problem solved. then the broadcast networks have an hour, coast-to-coast, that they could air the "more desirable" and "more realistic" content.
i kinda like the earlier primetime myself, the later times was one of the hardest things to get used to (besides cost of living, commute times, awful traffic, etc...) between minnesota and washington dc when i lived out east.
but i would gladly sacrifice an hour of sleep on nights i would watch network television, just so these bullshit complaints and fines would just fucking go away.
the average rate around here for "in-shop" computer work (labor) is about 50 bucks an hour.. at 2 hrs...
$100.00 per "victim"
- 7.50 cash payment
- 8.88 value of an album download at wally world
- 15.00 value of a replacement cd
$ 68.62 greedy lawyers' share per claim.
and with the absolutely brilliant performance of the american hockey team this year; they might actually get a half-dozen hits on their stream. ebersol himself could host the stream on his home broadband connection and still have the pipe left to seed the latest survivor episode.