I don't think I've seen so many troll mods in a row before. Obviously some pissed off christians have mod points today.
I'm a Christian, and just find ignorant people funny.
My favorite, though, is definitely the evangelizing atheist:D
I do, however, consider it important to respect peoples religious beliefs... to an extent. Keep holy the Sabbath? Sure. Blame the rape victim? Not so much....
Netflix streaming content is best on an HTPC or other set-top device, IMHO. That crowd is best served by Windows Media Center or an embedded platform, Linux based or not.
In my view, when it comes to consuming content, it's best to treat the TV and all its attachments as appliances, really. If you're using a set top device, chances are good that the vendor knows best for creating an easy to use environment that facilitates the 10 foot UI. Otherwise, go with a media center package that gives you what you want. *I* want CableCARD and Netflix support, so I use Windows Media Center. If I didn't care about those things, I'd probably run on MythTV or XBMC. The underlying OS itself doesn't really matter:-P
It is a necessary evil that DRM support (natch) is and will be an overbearing requirement for IPTV. As such, the least of all evils when it comes to compatibility is Silverlight on Windows (it seems). While still inherently evil by means of imposing artificial restrictions on the software/hardware combos you use to consume content without having a crap user experience, the glass ceiling is probably the highest in that particular arena.
At least, that's what my own experience in the field has shown.
When I can upgrade the IGP soldered into a motherboard, I'll let you know.
Silverlight is not all flowers and charm, but for streaming video, it works a whole hell of a lot better. Hardware accelerated h264 playback has been around for/years/ now, and the fact that F/OSS apps make extensive use of it (MPC homecinema, ffmpeg-dxva, et al.) while flash can barely support any chip outside of flagship models or current-gen Intel IGPs is appalling.
And even then cancellation would mean then end of payment, regardless of what the contract says
If my service was canceled and my hardware was taken away from me, I sure as hell wouldn't keep paying the bill.
Gotta make sure it's less than $2000 though. A judge would throw that shit right out. But if Jammie Thomas is any indication, a jury would be stupid enough to hand back a verdict saying you actually owe them the money.
Why spend twice as much as you need to? If you're halfway competent at your job, you will have Linux machines (definitely not MS if you want to manage cost).
Most of the cost of IT is personell. At larger businesses, that may not show due to the sheer volume of hardware/software that you buy to implement something, but for 20 users... not so much.
Yep, and when you have eventually paid for the item in full, or eventually go into the store and buy it outright, it's all yours. Until then, it belongs to someone else - the manufacturer or the phone company.
So what's your point again?
My point is that though it may seem like that's the case, it's not. If it were, you would have the option of surrendering the device and paying the difference between the device's FMV and the ETF in the event that you decide to break the contract, but you don't. There's no lien on the device itself. Once the sale is made and the 30 day return window has lapsed, the service provider couldn't care less what you do with it so long as you maintain service with them.
If you want absolute proof that it really is the case that you own the phone outright from the moment you acquire it regardless of subsidy, there's a simple question to ask yourself: "Does the monthly cost of my cellular service go down when my contract expires and I am presumably done paying off the device itself?"
You'll also notice that your bill doesn't state recurring fees for the hardware either.
So I'll reiterate:
If I buy your shit from you, it's not your shit anymore. It's my shit and you have no damn business telling me what I do with it, and no, I signed no contract stating otherwise.
Don't ever forget that, and don't ever let a retailer tell you differently.
They wouldn't be able to strip you of control over your own property (which it does eventually become.)
Eventually?!
My phone was mine the instant I bought it. I did, however, acquire it for a sub-retail price by agreeing to be either a customer of the reseller for 24 successive months or to pay them $375, pro-rated monthly after fulfillment of the first 12 months of the prior option have elapsed.
Contract or not, there's no fucking way that the device belongs to anyone other than its owner. The fact that rooting *a computer* that you own is dangerous and sometimes impossible, warranty or not, is egregiously offensive to me as a consumer.
If I buy your shit from you, it's not your shit anymore. It's my shit and you have no damn business telling me what I do with it, and no, I signed no contract stating otherwise.
Don't ever forget that, and don't ever let a retailer tell you differently.
Slashdot coders needs to augment the available HTML markup to include sentence diagramming features.
There truly is nothing like tacking an adjective onto a verb in a troll-induced defense! It clearly shows an individual's ability to write professional.
That's fine but if they can't deliver 'unlimited' bandwidth then they need to stop offering 'unlimited' bandwidth.
Unbelievable.
I wouldn't believe in unlimited bandwidth either. Aside from the fact that such a thing does not and cannot exist, I feel sad for you (and for most) because you've drunk a bit too much of the "shared bandwidth problem" Kool-Aid in spite of the fact that you seem to oppose the common practices that today's ISPs are implementing. As such, I'll present you with a short list of points that more people should understand:
Oversubscription of limited bandwidth is a problem.
Top tier IXP interconnects that implement paid-peer billing calculate usage with a long standing, industry accepted metric that is understood as both fair and appropriate for billing the inexorably limited commodity that's actually being sold: bandwidth.
Because overall bandwidth limits are precisely at issue at all levels of the network, it makes perfect sense to offer unlimited transfer to customers at the very endpoints of those networks from both a marketing perspective and a financial one.
If you don't see what I'm getting at yet, let me give you an example.
You own a network that has a larger number of total segments than it does interconnects between those segments. Every node on the network is connected through 10 Gbps Ethernet. You want to transfer 15 exabytes of data between two nodes that are on the two logically "farthest" network segments. Will your network have a serious bandwidth problem?
Possible answers include:
Yes. I will attempt to transfer that data at 10 Gbps until the transfer is complete.
No. I will instead opt to transfer that data at 1 Gbps until the transfer is complete.
This is where the problem really lies. The amount of data you transfer over a given period of time does not a bandwidth problem make. However, the time over which you transfer an arbitrary amount of data can, but it certainly doesn't have to.
Still, it is of course true that bandwidth constraints and overall transfer totals are certainly correlated, but---due to the irrefutable fact that the total number of bits running through a bus neither inhibits nor alters the bus's fundamental ability to transfer said bits at any given time (i.e. unlike power wires, ethernet cables and fiber don't "sag" under high load)---the practice of metering a fundamentally and quantitatively unlimited function of a network is unfair, fallacious, disingenuous, and patently retarded at best.
If the last mile ISPs want to solve their bandwidth problem, then need to stop billing people for what is a fundamentally unlimited resource and start billing them proportionately for what is.
...Then again, I suppose that selling an unlimited commodity like it's a precious one is a great way to make money.
Text to speech on my Hero doesn't let you change from Navigator to phone, nor start the text messaging app though.
I'm going to assume you mistyped, otherwise your reply makes no sense taken in the GP's context, soo....
Let me get this straight... you're lamenting the fact that you can't use your voice to tell your phone that it should send a text message? Maybe someday these advanced phones we have now will allow you to communicate through your voice alone!
You might find twitter feeds from tech writers interesting, if you're into that.
Following a few select users has been fairly valuable for me in keeping up to date on the iOS jailbreak stuff and learning about new tweaks that hit the Cydia store. Otherwise speaking, most of the stuff on Twitter's rather annoying.
You can't build a heavily community-driven business model around things like OO, Java, and, to some extent, Oracle, and then just cut it off and let things fester.
Slashdot Mirror
But it boils down to the question: Is computer technology inherently hard to use?
No. It's the metaphors, like files and folders, GUI and cursor, icons, etc. that are hard to comprehend.
Lack of comprehension impedes understanding.
Simple: this is slashdot and we hate flash and want to eliminate it
No no no... we hate flash because it sucks. We want flash to die to a better technology or for Adobe to get off their asses and fix it.
If you'll excuse me, I'll be turning up the volume so I can hear the YouTube video over my computer's fans.
I don't think I've seen so many troll mods in a row before. Obviously some pissed off christians have mod points today.
I'm a Christian, and just find ignorant people funny.
:D
My favorite, though, is definitely the evangelizing atheist
I do, however, consider it important to respect peoples religious beliefs... to an extent. Keep holy the Sabbath? Sure. Blame the rape victim? Not so much....
A (performance) modded car could be used almost exclusively to exceed the speed limit.
Which is completely necessary for robbing banks, which is of course the only reason to have such fast cars.
Following your logic, there is a God.
And he's cloning sheep!
Netflix streaming content is best on an HTPC or other set-top device, IMHO. That crowd is best served by Windows Media Center or an embedded platform, Linux based or not.
:-P
In my view, when it comes to consuming content, it's best to treat the TV and all its attachments as appliances, really. If you're using a set top device, chances are good that the vendor knows best for creating an easy to use environment that facilitates the 10 foot UI. Otherwise, go with a media center package that gives you what you want. *I* want CableCARD and Netflix support, so I use Windows Media Center. If I didn't care about those things, I'd probably run on MythTV or XBMC. The underlying OS itself doesn't really matter
It is a necessary evil that DRM support (natch) is and will be an overbearing requirement for IPTV. As such, the least of all evils when it comes to compatibility is Silverlight on Windows (it seems). While still inherently evil by means of imposing artificial restrictions on the software/hardware combos you use to consume content without having a crap user experience, the glass ceiling is probably the highest in that particular arena.
At least, that's what my own experience in the field has shown.
When I can upgrade the IGP soldered into a motherboard, I'll let you know.
/years/ now, and the fact that F/OSS apps make extensive use of it (MPC homecinema, ffmpeg-dxva, et al.) while flash can barely support any chip outside of flagship models or current-gen Intel IGPs is appalling.
Silverlight is not all flowers and charm, but for streaming video, it works a whole hell of a lot better. Hardware accelerated h264 playback has been around for
Hulu's even worse for continuing to use flash.
It'd be nice if they'd get their act together like Netflix did and switch to a platform that doesn't suck so damn much.
Power Mac G4 as a weapon? It must have had on-chip 128 bit encryption.
And even then cancellation would mean then end of payment, regardless of what the contract says
If my service was canceled and my hardware was taken away from me, I sure as hell wouldn't keep paying the bill.
Gotta make sure it's less than $2000 though. A judge would throw that shit right out. But if Jammie Thomas is any indication, a jury would be stupid enough to hand back a verdict saying you actually owe them the money.
Why spend twice as much as you need to? If you're halfway competent at your job, you will have Linux machines (definitely not MS if you want to manage cost).
Most of the cost of IT is personell. At larger businesses, that may not show due to the sheer volume of hardware/software that you buy to implement something, but for 20 users... not so much.
Yep, and when you have eventually paid for the item in full, or eventually go into the store and buy it outright, it's all yours. Until then, it belongs to someone else - the manufacturer or the phone company.
So what's your point again?
My point is that though it may seem like that's the case, it's not. If it were, you would have the option of surrendering the device and paying the difference between the device's FMV and the ETF in the event that you decide to break the contract, but you don't. There's no lien on the device itself. Once the sale is made and the 30 day return window has lapsed, the service provider couldn't care less what you do with it so long as you maintain service with them.
If you want absolute proof that it really is the case that you own the phone outright from the moment you acquire it regardless of subsidy, there's a simple question to ask yourself: "Does the monthly cost of my cellular service go down when my contract expires and I am presumably done paying off the device itself?"
You'll also notice that your bill doesn't state recurring fees for the hardware either.
So I'll reiterate:
If I buy your shit from you, it's not your shit anymore. It's my shit and you have no damn business telling me what I do with it, and no, I signed no contract stating otherwise.
Don't ever forget that, and don't ever let a retailer tell you differently.
"there's no fucking way that the device belongs to anyone other than its owner"
Well, hard to argue with that. :*)
Hahahaha! I tripped over that as well but couldn't think of anything better to put in its place in the 5 or 6 seconds' thought I gave to it :D
They wouldn't be able to strip you of control over your own property (which it does eventually become.)
Eventually?!
My phone was mine the instant I bought it. I did, however, acquire it for a sub-retail price by agreeing to be either a customer of the reseller for 24 successive months or to pay them $375, pro-rated monthly after fulfillment of the first 12 months of the prior option have elapsed.
Contract or not, there's no fucking way that the device belongs to anyone other than its owner. The fact that rooting *a computer* that you own is dangerous and sometimes impossible, warranty or not, is egregiously offensive to me as a consumer.
If I buy your shit from you, it's not your shit anymore. It's my shit and you have no damn business telling me what I do with it, and no, I signed no contract stating otherwise.
Don't ever forget that, and don't ever let a retailer tell you differently.
What?
Homosaywhat?
What. You happy now?
Shame I'm not using my Mac.
"I speak it perfect" is grammaticality incorrect.
Slashdot coders needs to augment the available HTML markup to include sentence diagramming features.
There truly is nothing like tacking an adjective onto a verb in a troll-induced defense! It clearly shows an individual's ability to write professional.
...ly.
That's fine but if they can't deliver 'unlimited' bandwidth then they need to stop offering 'unlimited' bandwidth.
Unbelievable.
I wouldn't believe in unlimited bandwidth either. Aside from the fact that such a thing does not and cannot exist, I feel sad for you (and for most) because you've drunk a bit too much of the "shared bandwidth problem" Kool-Aid in spite of the fact that you seem to oppose the common practices that today's ISPs are implementing. As such, I'll present you with a short list of points that more people should understand:
If you don't see what I'm getting at yet, let me give you an example.
You own a network that has a larger number of total segments than it does interconnects between those segments. Every node on the network is connected through 10 Gbps Ethernet. You want to transfer 15 exabytes of data between two nodes that are on the two logically "farthest" network segments. Will your network have a serious bandwidth problem?
Possible answers include:
This is where the problem really lies. The amount of data you transfer over a given period of time does not a bandwidth problem make. However, the time over which you transfer an arbitrary amount of data can, but it certainly doesn't have to.
Still, it is of course true that bandwidth constraints and overall transfer totals are certainly correlated, but---due to the irrefutable fact that the total number of bits running through a bus neither inhibits nor alters the bus's fundamental ability to transfer said bits at any given time (i.e. unlike power wires, ethernet cables and fiber don't "sag" under high load)---the practice of metering a fundamentally and quantitatively unlimited function of a network is unfair, fallacious, disingenuous, and patently retarded at best.
If the last mile ISPs want to solve their bandwidth problem, then need to stop billing people for what is a fundamentally unlimited resource and start billing them proportionately for what is.
...Then again, I suppose that selling an unlimited commodity like it's a precious one is a great way to make money.
Text to speech on my Hero doesn't let you change from Navigator to phone, nor start the text messaging app though.
I'm going to assume you mistyped, otherwise your reply makes no sense taken in the GP's context, soo....
Let me get this straight... you're lamenting the fact that you can't use your voice to tell your phone that it should send a text message? Maybe someday these advanced phones we have now will allow you to communicate through your voice alone!
You might find twitter feeds from tech writers interesting, if you're into that.
Following a few select users has been fairly valuable for me in keeping up to date on the iOS jailbreak stuff and learning about new tweaks that hit the Cydia store. Otherwise speaking, most of the stuff on Twitter's rather annoying.
has Hollywood's latest bandwagon hit the skids already?
I sure as hell hope so.
Uh, no, we don't. If China decided to call on that debt, they would not have a legal right to claim any part of that directly from American citizens.
I can think of about 2,000,000,000 people who could exercise their ability to say otherwise.
But my Top tobacco always tastes better when I smoke it out of a $300 glass pipe!
Don't forget the double bubbler! The Top is SOOO SMOOTH that way! And you can add ice cubes!
Also, the article states that he would only mod for backups, and if piracy were brought up it would be a "no-deal".
Lol. Just like the head shop up the street that sells all those wicked, color-changing bow^H^H^H tobacco pipes!
You can't build a heavily community-driven business model around things like OO, Java, and, to some extent, Oracle, and then just cut it off and let things fester.
It seems to be working just fine for Slashdot.
=)
I am really my soul.*
...
* "Soul" in this context means "testicles."
I really, really hope you appreciate how incredibly gay you just made Mortal Kombat.