Huh? It is $3 an episode, or $31 for the whole season ($2.40/episode). Seems reasonable to me....
Considering that I buy episodes at $35 per season of various shows on DVD (Earl, BBT, South park), I'd say the price of only the data is exhorbitant. They have to manufacture those DVDs, package them, warehouse them, transport them by truck and train, have retail shelf space available for them, and it's $3 more than an Amazon download?
Fucking ripofff if you ask me. How much per viewer do they get from over the air broadcast? I'll be willing to bet they're not paying $2.40 per person per episode.
Most juries make their decisions based on emotional reasoning, rather than on the law. That's why so many people are in prison in this country compared to others, and also why so many innocent people are released from prison every year based on new evidence.
Actually, no. We have "three strikes" laws, other countries don't. We actively target drug users and pretty much ignore the dealers, other countries have either legalized these drugs or only incarcerate dealers.
Then there's corruption at the police and prosecutor levels. Illinois got rid of the death penalty when it was found that half the men there were innocent, and in almost all cases evidence helpful to the defendant had been destroyed or covered up, or evidence against the defendant was manufactured.
In the US? I've seen no indication of such for over ten years.
and yes, even a drug issue that needs to be addressed (meth).
Yes, they should just legalize the shit so I can get cold medicine without looking like a criminal. If an adult wants to thoroughly fuck his life up with meth, why should I or my government stop him? I know quite a few hopeless alcoholics, and you know how that prohibition turned out.
But I think you allude to that; it's all about more profits for the rich.
Or Netflix streaming, which while it has spotty coverage it will still have higher than 0% of recent shows.
I'm running Linux on the box the TV's plugged into, and refuse to install Silverlight on the Win 7 notebook (but I don't want to watch TV on it anyway when I'm at home) so netflix isn't an option for me.
Nothing will ever get me to subscribe to cable again guys.
Ditto here. If HULU requires cable, then HULU (I use the free version) will NEVER get my money.
Sorry, the days of me paying for commercials is gone
You know, cable has gotten steadily worse since I first got it in 1980. Back then HBO came with the basic package (there was only a basic package), there were maybe two dozen channels counting over the air. Ten bucks a month.
None of the cable channels had commercials. If cable channels would have had commercials, cable would never have gotten off the ground. People were NOT uysed to paying for TV, the "no commercials" was the draw. Now? You have that god damned network logo at the bottom right, at all times (and yes, this is advertising) and often have an ad running at the bottom left while the show is still running! I'm supposed to PAY for that??
Meanwhile, the quality of the shows has gone steadily downhill. Discovery Channel was a nerd's paradise, with astronomy, physics, biology, interesting stuff. Now? Fishermen, lumberhacks, truckers, motorcycle modders. Except for MythBusters DSC is worthless.
Same for the history channel. Same for almost every cable channel there is.
Now, there's over 100 worthless, commercial-laden channels... reality shows, women's programming, so many sports channels they're showing poker on one of them, none of which has anything the least educational or interesting.
Ex-business model indeed. IMO they'd have a lot more success shedding their eXtreme greed and going back to their old model. Otherwise, they'll not last long.
Mod parent funny! "Liberal pinko!" Of course, Gingrich probably would call someone like him a liberal. He and Perry and Paul would probably be against the interstate highway, too.
I thought it was derivative shit when it came out and I still think it is derivative shit.
Every new book, movie, song, painting, is "derivative shit". Art is like engeneering and science, in that everything new comes from what has come before.
Romeo and Juliet has been rewritten thousands of times and will be rewritten thousands of more times..
And evolution is more than natural selection. Sometimes evolution is driven by unnatural selection; e.g. lightning strikes, floods, tornados, etc., things that an organism can't evolve for. When we had tornados here in 2006 the next day there were thousands of dead birds, literally a dead bird every foot or so. Nothing natural about those selections.
Dumb luck plays a huge part in evolution, far more than anyone realizes.
And it isn't just organsims that evolve, societies do as well. Human societies and other social species. Those strange mating dances birds do, moose butting horns, woman wearing makeup, all part of evolution, causing and being affected by it.
people classically selected out through illness, disease and general stupidity on their own behalf are being protected from these dangers and surviving
To some extent, yes. But intelligence as a survival trait is greatly overrated, and was even more overrated in the past. How much brainpower do you need to shovel horse manure or plow a field? With the exception of dangerous animals, today's human's environment is far more dangerous than in the past. 200 years ago there were no autos, planes, motorcycles, or skyscrapers to kill you. Unless you pissed off the nobility or ran across a bear you were pretty safe.
And high intelligence is mostly hereditary, but low intelligence is usually brought about by environmental factors; fetal alcohol syndrome, umbilical cord wrapped around the baby's neck, brain damage while learning to walk, high fever from an infection, etc.
As to illness, with the exception of hereditary illnesses and heredetary suceptability to or immunity from certain illnesses, getting sick and dying is dumb luck, not "natural" selection. In fact, most evolution probably does boil down to dumb luck, especially in higher species.
We have protected these people to extreme levels and they are still reproducing at a rate that would protect their line against extinction.
Your nephew wouldn't have died from a Lincoln Log splinter. 200 years ago your sister would have likewise protected him from bears and wolves.
I strongly believe that evolution and natural selection of the human species is more visible and obvious now than ever. Especially when you see the members of the subspecies called "Walmart People" surviving and thriving and even reproducing.
Here's a hint -- your "walmart people" didn't spring into existance with Sam Walton's birth. These people have always been around. They're fat because their anscestors had little food, and the ones who could survive on little food didn't die out. Evolution made them fat.
Ever notice ugly couples? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The fact that they are surviving and mating means they fit the environment. Maybe it's us who don't? I mean, my late friend Linda, who died of cancer at age 48, dumb as a post, had 13 children. 12 still survive and most have had their own children. Meanwhile, I have only two daughters and no grandkids. My genes may well be bred out of the species shortly.
Jar Jar's not human so... wait a minute, NONE of the Star Wars characters are human -- they're all from a galaxy long long ago and far far away. So WTF does Star Wars have to do with human Identity?
The fucking topic is why Linux hasn't taken off on the desktop, some damned MS shill tells a bunch of damned lies about Linux, and setting the record straight is offtopic?
Please bring back the old style metamods!! Whoever modded the previous comment "oftopic" should NEVER EVER get mod points.
I don't know what distro you're using, but in kubuntu its file manager shows system/root files under your user account. Right click, "open with" and a SUDO password box pops up. Enter the password and edit the file. No shell needed.
Of course, with most things you don't have to edit the config file, it has its own "control panel" like Windows does.
It was the '60s and I was a new driver, had only driven cars without power. It tok a bit of learning to learn how far to turn the wheel. It was more like driving a simulator than a real car.
I recently installed Win 7. It was quick and painless. Popped it in, it ran for a few minutes, then asked some questions like Do I want a US keyboard, and what timezone did I want. A little bit later I had Win7 installed.
It sounds like they have made vast improvements in the installer since XP. Kudos to them. However, you shouldn't have had to wait "for a few minutes" to answer the setup questions, that's the first thing that happens with a Linux install.
And, you had to install apps with Win 7, everything. In Linux, most apps you'll need are installed with the OS.
I set up Blue tooth on a couple of computers. Simple easy, had to start/restart the device a couple of times. But it finally hooked up to it.
That was pretty much my experience with the Win 7 notebook. Linux? No installation needed, the bluetooth just worked, out of the box.
Last time I installed a linux on a machine (yes a few years ago, but more recent than your XP machine) I ended up bricking the machine.
How can you brick a machine installing an OS? The installer doesn't write to the BIOS.
BUT I had to compile half the stuff I needed
What stuff? I've been using Linux sine 2002 and have yet to see a program I had to compile.
50% of the US population doesn't pay federal income tax at all
And when my grandfather was a young man in the 1920s, only the rich paid federal tax. It should be that way agin IMO.
However, suppose I am a bazillionaire, and I get a crazy hair up my arse and invest the sum total of my fortune into tax free bonds. Do you find it to be "fair," if I don't pay taxes on those at all?
No, I wouldn't find it fair, but I would find no fault with you. The fault would be the government's.
"In the home, however, Linux is far superior to Windows." No it isn't, because it fails in a big way with media, meaning sound and video.
I haven't seen that problem in ten years. When I did see it, the video worked fine on a monitor in Linux but not S-Video. The drivers in that card have been fixed, I'm still using it and it now works 100% in Linux, on the TV through s-video. However, when I paid $125 for XP several years ago, it did NOT recognise my onboard sound chip and couldn't find its drivers. Mandrake had no problem with the chip.
As always, YMMV.
No issues, it plays at full speed, you can even do video playback while doing other things like sliding the window around and it doesn't miss a beat. You can have a video playing with sound, and music playing from another program and they mix seamlessly.
Linux? Not so much. You CAN get a Linux system that can do that, well mostly, but getting an arbitrary system to do it is far harder. Linux has all kinds of problem when it comes to audio and video.
My Linux box is ancient. 1.7 gHz chip, 750 m RAM, and it has no problem at all doing what you're bragging about your new machine doing.
Gets even worse if you start talkign media production. Say Joe Blow has a nice AVCHD camera and wants to make videos to upload to Youtube. Don't say this isn't a "normal user" thing either, the vast quantity of crap on Youtube attests otherwise. Well on Windows it is real easy. It has a built in program (Movie Maker) that can do basics, but you can easily get all sorts of programs like Vegas Movie Studio that do a real good job. It is as simple as plugging in your camera, importing clips, editing, and then having the software upload them to Youtube.
MovieMaker won't read the videos I take with my Motorola phone, and I haven't been able to find softwaer that will (and the files need to be converted before YouTube will accept them).
Linux? All in the repository.
Photos? I bought a bluetooth dongle to move files from the phone to either computer. It had an install CD for Windows, installation took fifteen minutes and required four reboots. Linux? I plugged the dongle in and it worked. No installation, no reboots.
And bluetooth is iffy and flakey on the Win 7 notebook, works flawlessly in the Linux box.
Where do you guys come up with this crazy shit, anyway?
I'd say it's ironic, but some grammar nazi will jump all over me and tell me I'm using it wrong (which I probably am).
Hmmm, I'd guess they'd go after "less" which they would point out should be "fewer";). But that little joke aside, personally I think that the fact that there is such a wide choice of distros is a plus, not a minus. It's not like a TV where you pay money for it, take it home, and find out that it lacks features you need while you paid for features you'll never use. If you don't like a particular distro, trying a different one is as easy is pi (but not pie, I don't know how to make pie).
When you buy a car does it bother you that there are dozens of different automakers, each with a lot of different models? Does the fact that there are dozens of cell phone manufacturers, or that each phone's OS is slightly different?
Do you shy away from Howard Johnson's because you can't decide which flavor you want? Choice is a GOOD thing.
Too many distros, sheesh... afaic there can't be too many. The more the better.
It's in Mexico. Isn't Mexico City still the world's most polluted city, or did some Chinese city beat them at that prize? I doubt they're too worried about the environment in any case.
The issues with Linux have not changed in the past 10 years. It's disappointing that no progress has been made.
Jesus, that's pure 100% unadulterated BULLSHIT. Sorry, dude, I'm calling you out as a damned liar. I guess MS shills have mod points today or you'd be at -1 for your malicious lies.
Sure it's easier to install than it used to be, but for most people it's not as simple as putting the disk in and running the installer.
No, it is just that simple. Windows is the OS that's a pain in the ass to install; at least until XP (haven't installed any newer versions of Windows so MS may have actually gotten their act together).
Despite the fact that it's become easier, it's still not easy enough for the general public.
More lies. Anyone who can use Windows can just as easily use KDE. And in truth, KDE is actually EASIER to use than Windows in almost all respects.
Why are you MS shills so afreaid of Linux? Scared you'll lose all your PC Repair business if folks started using an OS that just works?
Good negotiators don't come cheap, and that's what the union is for -- negotiating a contract, and making sure that the contract is honored by the employer. Sometimes the union has to sue the employer, and lawyers don't come cheap either. And those the workers employed to run their union need office space, and that ain't cheap either.
With a union you're almost guranteed to take home more money than your equivalent in a non-union shop, even after dues. Plus you'll have far better benefits than the nonunion shop. Union dues are an investment, not an expense. You get those dues back many times over.
If all unions did was lobby for better conditions, they wouldn't be despised quite so much.
They don't lobby the employer, they negotiate with the employer, which is what makes them valuable. You, alone, go into the boss, hat and hand, asking "may I please have another crumb?" while collectively, it's "give us all raises or go out of fucking business." Unions are about giving power to workers, which is why the rich and the Republicans hate them so much.
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Huh? It is $3 an episode, or $31 for the whole season ($2.40/episode). Seems reasonable to me....
Considering that I buy episodes at $35 per season of various shows on DVD (Earl, BBT, South park), I'd say the price of only the data is exhorbitant. They have to manufacture those DVDs, package them, warehouse them, transport them by truck and train, have retail shelf space available for them, and it's $3 more than an Amazon download?
Fucking ripofff if you ask me. How much per viewer do they get from over the air broadcast? I'll be willing to bet they're not paying $2.40 per person per episode.
Most juries make their decisions based on emotional reasoning, rather than on the law. That's why so many people are in prison in this country compared to others, and also why so many innocent people are released from prison every year based on new evidence.
Actually, no. We have "three strikes" laws, other countries don't. We actively target drug users and pretty much ignore the dealers, other countries have either legalized these drugs or only incarcerate dealers.
Then there's corruption at the police and prosecutor levels. Illinois got rid of the death penalty when it was found that half the men there were innocent, and in almost all cases evidence helpful to the defendant had been destroyed or covered up, or evidence against the defendant was manufactured.
The truth is there *is* a cyber war issue,
You have data to support that hypothesis?
just as there is a terror issue
In the US? I've seen no indication of such for over ten years.
and yes, even a drug issue that needs to be addressed (meth).
Yes, they should just legalize the shit so I can get cold medicine without looking like a criminal. If an adult wants to thoroughly fuck his life up with meth, why should I or my government stop him? I know quite a few hopeless alcoholics, and you know how that prohibition turned out.
But I think you allude to that; it's all about more profits for the rich.
Or Netflix streaming, which while it has spotty coverage it will still have higher than 0% of recent shows.
I'm running Linux on the box the TV's plugged into, and refuse to install Silverlight on the Win 7 notebook (but I don't want to watch TV on it anyway when I'm at home) so netflix isn't an option for me.
Nothing will ever get me to subscribe to cable again guys.
Ditto here. If HULU requires cable, then HULU (I use the free version) will NEVER get my money.
Dumbasses.
Sorry, the days of me paying for commercials is gone
You know, cable has gotten steadily worse since I first got it in 1980. Back then HBO came with the basic package (there was only a basic package), there were maybe two dozen channels counting over the air. Ten bucks a month.
None of the cable channels had commercials. If cable channels would have had commercials, cable would never have gotten off the ground. People were NOT uysed to paying for TV, the "no commercials" was the draw. Now? You have that god damned network logo at the bottom right, at all times (and yes, this is advertising) and often have an ad running at the bottom left while the show is still running! I'm supposed to PAY for that??
Meanwhile, the quality of the shows has gone steadily downhill. Discovery Channel was a nerd's paradise, with astronomy, physics, biology, interesting stuff. Now? Fishermen, lumberhacks, truckers, motorcycle modders. Except for MythBusters DSC is worthless.
Same for the history channel. Same for almost every cable channel there is.
Now, there's over 100 worthless, commercial-laden channels... reality shows, women's programming, so many sports channels they're showing poker on one of them, none of which has anything the least educational or interesting.
Ex-business model indeed. IMO they'd have a lot more success shedding their eXtreme greed and going back to their old model. Otherwise, they'll not last long.
It sounds like your problem isn't with Linux, but with Gnome.
I never did like Gnome.
Mod parent funny! "Liberal pinko!" Of course, Gingrich probably would call someone like him a liberal. He and Perry and Paul would probably be against the interstate highway, too.
Wonderful sarcasm.
I thought it was derivative shit when it came out and I still think it is derivative shit.
Every new book, movie, song, painting, is "derivative shit". Art is like engeneering and science, in that everything new comes from what has come before.
Romeo and Juliet has been rewritten thousands of times and will be rewritten thousands of more times..
And get sports and political talk shows where?
On the rare time I might want to watch a baseball game, I'll just go down the street to the bar. Political talk shows? Over the antenna every Sunday.
And evolution is more than natural selection. Sometimes evolution is driven by unnatural selection; e.g. lightning strikes, floods, tornados, etc., things that an organism can't evolve for. When we had tornados here in 2006 the next day there were thousands of dead birds, literally a dead bird every foot or so. Nothing natural about those selections.
Dumb luck plays a huge part in evolution, far more than anyone realizes.
And it isn't just organsims that evolve, societies do as well. Human societies and other social species. Those strange mating dances birds do, moose butting horns, woman wearing makeup, all part of evolution, causing and being affected by it.
people classically selected out through illness, disease and general stupidity on their own behalf are being protected from these dangers and surviving
To some extent, yes. But intelligence as a survival trait is greatly overrated, and was even more overrated in the past. How much brainpower do you need to shovel horse manure or plow a field? With the exception of dangerous animals, today's human's environment is far more dangerous than in the past. 200 years ago there were no autos, planes, motorcycles, or skyscrapers to kill you. Unless you pissed off the nobility or ran across a bear you were pretty safe.
And high intelligence is mostly hereditary, but low intelligence is usually brought about by environmental factors; fetal alcohol syndrome, umbilical cord wrapped around the baby's neck, brain damage while learning to walk, high fever from an infection, etc.
As to illness, with the exception of hereditary illnesses and heredetary suceptability to or immunity from certain illnesses, getting sick and dying is dumb luck, not "natural" selection. In fact, most evolution probably does boil down to dumb luck, especially in higher species.
We have protected these people to extreme levels and they are still reproducing at a rate that would protect their line against extinction.
Your nephew wouldn't have died from a Lincoln Log splinter. 200 years ago your sister would have likewise protected him from bears and wolves.
I strongly believe that evolution and natural selection of the human species is more visible and obvious now than ever. Especially when you see the members of the subspecies called "Walmart People" surviving and thriving and even reproducing.
Here's a hint -- your "walmart people" didn't spring into existance with Sam Walton's birth. These people have always been around. They're fat because their anscestors had little food, and the ones who could survive on little food didn't die out. Evolution made them fat.
Ever notice ugly couples? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The fact that they are surviving and mating means they fit the environment. Maybe it's us who don't? I mean, my late friend Linda, who died of cancer at age 48, dumb as a post, had 13 children. 12 still survive and most have had their own children. Meanwhile, I have only two daughters and no grandkids. My genes may well be bred out of the species shortly.
Jar Jar's not human so... wait a minute, NONE of the Star Wars characters are human -- they're all from a galaxy long long ago and far far away. So WTF does Star Wars have to do with human Identity?
You guys are going to make me RTFA, aren't you?
The fucking topic is why Linux hasn't taken off on the desktop, some damned MS shill tells a bunch of damned lies about Linux, and setting the record straight is offtopic?
Please bring back the old style metamods!! Whoever modded the previous comment "oftopic" should NEVER EVER get mod points.
Now, THIS comment IS offtopic.
I don't know what distro you're using, but in kubuntu its file manager shows system/root files under your user account. Right click, "open with" and a SUDO password box pops up. Enter the password and edit the file. No shell needed.
Of course, with most things you don't have to edit the config file, it has its own "control panel" like Windows does.
It was the '60s and I was a new driver, had only driven cars without power. It tok a bit of learning to learn how far to turn the wheel. It was more like driving a simulator than a real car.
I recently installed Win 7. It was quick and painless. Popped it in, it ran for a few minutes, then asked some questions like Do I want a US keyboard, and what timezone did I want. A little bit later I had Win7 installed.
It sounds like they have made vast improvements in the installer since XP. Kudos to them. However, you shouldn't have had to wait "for a few minutes" to answer the setup questions, that's the first thing that happens with a Linux install.
And, you had to install apps with Win 7, everything. In Linux, most apps you'll need are installed with the OS.
I set up Blue tooth on a couple of computers. Simple easy, had to start/restart the device a couple of times. But it finally hooked up to it.
That was pretty much my experience with the Win 7 notebook. Linux? No installation needed, the bluetooth just worked, out of the box.
Last time I installed a linux on a machine (yes a few years ago, but more recent than your XP machine) I ended up bricking the machine.
How can you brick a machine installing an OS? The installer doesn't write to the BIOS.
BUT I had to compile half the stuff I needed
What stuff? I've been using Linux sine 2002 and have yet to see a program I had to compile.
I have no clue what MS marketers are saying.
Pretty much what you're saying.
Now they want a war on drugs. A war on DRUGS! They ought to start a war on war! --Mojo Nixon, Burn Down The Mall
50% of the US population doesn't pay federal income tax at all
And when my grandfather was a young man in the 1920s, only the rich paid federal tax. It should be that way agin IMO.
However, suppose I am a bazillionaire, and I get a crazy hair up my arse and invest the sum total of my fortune into tax free bonds. Do you find it to be "fair," if I don't pay taxes on those at all?
No, I wouldn't find it fair, but I would find no fault with you. The fault would be the government's.
As a percentage of income yes, I did pay more in taxes than Apple.
"In the home, however, Linux is far superior to Windows." No it isn't, because it fails in a big way with media, meaning sound and video.
I haven't seen that problem in ten years. When I did see it, the video worked fine on a monitor in Linux but not S-Video. The drivers in that card have been fixed, I'm still using it and it now works 100% in Linux, on the TV through s-video. However, when I paid $125 for XP several years ago, it did NOT recognise my onboard sound chip and couldn't find its drivers. Mandrake had no problem with the chip.
As always, YMMV.
No issues, it plays at full speed, you can even do video playback while doing other things like sliding the window around and it doesn't miss a beat. You can have a video playing with sound, and music playing from another program and they mix seamlessly.
Linux? Not so much. You CAN get a Linux system that can do that, well mostly, but getting an arbitrary system to do it is far harder. Linux has all kinds of problem when it comes to audio and video.
My Linux box is ancient. 1.7 gHz chip, 750 m RAM, and it has no problem at all doing what you're bragging about your new machine doing.
Gets even worse if you start talkign media production. Say Joe Blow has a nice AVCHD camera and wants to make videos to upload to Youtube. Don't say this isn't a "normal user" thing either, the vast quantity of crap on Youtube attests otherwise. Well on Windows it is real easy. It has a built in program (Movie Maker) that can do basics, but you can easily get all sorts of programs like Vegas Movie Studio that do a real good job. It is as simple as plugging in your camera, importing clips, editing, and then having the software upload them to Youtube.
MovieMaker won't read the videos I take with my Motorola phone, and I haven't been able to find softwaer that will (and the files need to be converted before YouTube will accept them).
Linux? All in the repository.
Photos? I bought a bluetooth dongle to move files from the phone to either computer. It had an install CD for Windows, installation took fifteen minutes and required four reboots. Linux? I plugged the dongle in and it worked. No installation, no reboots.
And bluetooth is iffy and flakey on the Win 7 notebook, works flawlessly in the Linux box.
Where do you guys come up with this crazy shit, anyway?
All of it.
I'd say it's ironic, but some grammar nazi will jump all over me and tell me I'm using it wrong (which I probably am).
;). But that little joke aside, personally I think that the fact that there is such a wide choice of distros is a plus, not a minus. It's not like a TV where you pay money for it, take it home, and find out that it lacks features you need while you paid for features you'll never use. If you don't like a particular distro, trying a different one is as easy is pi (but not pie, I don't know how to make pie).
Hmmm, I'd guess they'd go after "less" which they would point out should be "fewer"
When you buy a car does it bother you that there are dozens of different automakers, each with a lot of different models? Does the fact that there are dozens of cell phone manufacturers, or that each phone's OS is slightly different?
Do you shy away from Howard Johnson's because you can't decide which flavor you want? Choice is a GOOD thing.
Too many distros, sheesh... afaic there can't be too many. The more the better.
It's in Mexico. Isn't Mexico City still the world's most polluted city, or did some Chinese city beat them at that prize? I doubt they're too worried about the environment in any case.
The issues with Linux have not changed in the past 10 years. It's disappointing that no progress has been made.
Jesus, that's pure 100% unadulterated BULLSHIT. Sorry, dude, I'm calling you out as a damned liar. I guess MS shills have mod points today or you'd be at -1 for your malicious lies.
Sure it's easier to install than it used to be, but for most people it's not as simple as putting the disk in and running the installer.
No, it is just that simple. Windows is the OS that's a pain in the ass to install; at least until XP (haven't installed any newer versions of Windows so MS may have actually gotten their act together).
Despite the fact that it's become easier, it's still not easy enough for the general public.
More lies. Anyone who can use Windows can just as easily use KDE. And in truth, KDE is actually EASIER to use than Windows in almost all respects.
Why are you MS shills so afreaid of Linux? Scared you'll lose all your PC Repair business if folks started using an OS that just works?
WTF does a union need to charge union dues for?!?
Good negotiators don't come cheap, and that's what the union is for -- negotiating a contract, and making sure that the contract is honored by the employer. Sometimes the union has to sue the employer, and lawyers don't come cheap either. And those the workers employed to run their union need office space, and that ain't cheap either.
With a union you're almost guranteed to take home more money than your equivalent in a non-union shop, even after dues. Plus you'll have far better benefits than the nonunion shop. Union dues are an investment, not an expense. You get those dues back many times over.
If all unions did was lobby for better conditions, they wouldn't be despised quite so much.
They don't lobby the employer, they negotiate with the employer, which is what makes them valuable. You, alone, go into the boss, hat and hand, asking "may I please have another crumb?" while collectively, it's "give us all raises or go out of fucking business." Unions are about giving power to workers, which is why the rich and the Republicans hate them so much.