Seriously, what's the complaint here? Even if you're too lazy to do it yourself, they'll let you get an ad-free version after a couple of weeks. Some of you guys are way too picky.
Oh God, an egoist... We tried that 20 years ago, it was called the Reagan administration, it was an abject failure, and has been re-popularized by a famous name and a sort of misguided nostalgia. Please, take an entry-level philosophy course or something, get over this rationalized sociopathy.
Dude, you don't know pain until you've dealt with the DVD version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. 10 minutes of ads 9that, mercifully, can be fast forwarded), followed by a menu system clogged up with obnoxious voiceovers and cheesy video segments that can't be skipped and take at least a minute each, set up in such a way that one must go through at least two menus before even finding the "play" button. Throw in a bevy of confusing and useless menu "options" and consistently horrid scripting, and it's almost like 20th Century Fox wants to keep people from being able to rehearse for shadow casting.
I suppose if the software sucks so much you could, ya know, decide not to use it? kind of like people who decide that MS Office sucks and decide to use OOo instead. It would sure beat the hell out of bitching and moaning and not doing anything about it.
Be fair to AOL, they started out with a better product at a better price. The fact that once they made it to the top and bought out Time Warner they lost their edge and spiraled into a vortex of overpriced suck doesn't change that.
The EU already has slapped them down. The problem is that M$ doesn't care what the EU has to say, because that's just one market. A large market to be sure, but not the largest, and not one that they ever had the firmest grasp on anyway. Plus, the EU doesn't have jurisdiction over the corporate heads, so the worst they can do is fine MSFT, the options of personal fines or even jail time are simply unavailable.
As much as it sucks, we actually need the DOJ on this one, because the EU won't cut it.
Oh, and even if you aren't actually replying to a quote (because, for example, you use GMail and it already reads like a book), please for the love of God strip out all the cruft like signatures ads (I'm in a lot of Yahoo! Groups, which tack ads onto everything... come to think of it, so does plain old Yahoo! Mail), because the rest of us probably didn't want to read it the first time, let alone have it waste our visual real estate when we're trying to read a completely different email.
My friend, the solution is to reclaim the computer and set some rules prohibiting stupidity. If you're really ballsy you could just go for the throat and declare no MySpace, though that runs the risk of being willfully ignored and undermining the whole effort. I'd just go for explaining to her why it's completely idiotic to leave that up, especially since it clearly wastes a lot of energy and slows the machine down significantly.
I speak from personal experience, by the way: mine used to have a thing for leaving Photoshop open with 20+ extremely hi-rez photos loaded for hours at a time; then she'd get mad at me when I closed it because my machine only had 256 megs of RAM and just touching the mouse caused it to lag out. It can be done, though.
Pounds are also a measure of weight, so GP is not using an inappropriate unit. There is no American/Imperial unit for mass, which is why mass is always measured in SI/metric units.
I think you've kinda missed the point of musicals and opera. Obviously nobody runs around singing through their problems in real life, but a large number of people (I would venture to say "most") relate to music in very emotional ways. the reason that musicals and operas work is that they intertwine music, with all of its emotional meta-data, into the drama such that both are considerably more significant to the audience. By the way, "straight" movies do this too, by having distinctive music in the background during particular scenes.
Well, that and it just adds another element of talent to the production, adding another reason for critics and audience to slather it up with praise and adoration. Simply put, people like listening to talented singers.
Sorry, I didn't spend my time bouncing around juvey because I'm not a fucking moron. From what I've heard, though, it's not exactly a fun place to be.
Oh, and no, I wasn't a goody two-shoes as a kid, I just learned quick how to talk my way out of trouble with my parents and teachers, then applied the same techniques to the cops the couple of times it became an issue.
Viral marketing covers a lot of techniques. Generally, celebrity spokespeople are not considered to be "viral" because everybody knows celebrities are walking billboards; consider the awards shows, during which every celebrity worth their salt walks the carpet in clothing "borrowed" from a huge name designer in return for their dutifully announcing to anyone who will listen that it was made by so-and-so.
What is viral is inserting your product into TV shows, movies, music videos etc. "I, Robot" was a giant Audi ad, I caught a bit of "Prison Break" once where the protagonist made a special point of showing us all the spiffy click out aspect of his SanDisk USB flash drive, and Cadillac seems to do nearly all of its advertising for the Escalade by putting them in hip-hop videos.
Another common viral marketing technique is unorthodox sample distribution. Red Bull hires groups of attractive young women to go around malls, shopping centers, and downtown areas handing out cans of red bull to retail employees or anyone they notice staring at their cleavage. The idea of course is that you'll develop a craving for bitter, oversweet caffeine water, and you'll remember how cool it was that time you were given a free Red Bull by a pretty girl and decide to buy some.
Astroturfing also falls under the 'viral" label, though it's the one most widely regarded as outright fraudulent.
When somebody gets hit by a con man, do you just shrug and say "well, serves you right for being an idiot?" I'm guessing you do. I'm also guessing you haven't the least bit idea how contracts are written and "sold' to artists, or how cash advances (which require repayment with interest) are often given in lieu of an actual signing bonus (which is just a lump sum with no debt attached) but without describing the difference. I'm going to further guess that you don't realize record contracts are written in harsh legalese by extremely talented lawyers, and pitched to artists by their peers (most A&R reps are either musicians themselves, and the ones that aren't are usually hipster types who are still very involved in the "scene") who know all the right things to say, even if none of them are remotely true.
The artists are getting screwed because they don't have any viable options (sorry, but trying to subsist on a part-time day job and DIYing an album is simply not viable), and nobody seems willing to put the screws on the lawyers at the top because they're too busy tilting at Metallica. The fact is, artists SHOULD be hurt by piracy, because artists SHOULD profit off of their work, but most of them really aren't because they really don't, and a newly signed band is lucky if they're still together and none of the members have had to file for bankruptcy withing 6 months of signing.
Re:If I post like this, it's redundant.
on
AACS Cracked Again
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· Score: 1
Yes, except for the small problem that it's only one word long, and thus does not repeat itself. Good effort, though.
So... police should be held accountable to the law when there is no compelling reason for them not to be? What, exactly, were you trying to prove again? Nice one, Descartes.
I believe the theory is that strangers sneaking about your home at night pose an imminent threat even without doing anything else. For all that I abhor unnecessary violence and feel that many in this country are altogether too willing to use lethal force against any presumed "threat", I have to admit that this seems pretty sensible to me. If you're sneaking around my home in the middle of the night, I'm going to take that as an implicit threat on myself and my family, because you certainly don't have any benign reasons to be there.
That said, any cop worth the stamped sheet metal badge would claim that they clearly announced their identity and presented a valid warrant, and for some reason people are always willing to believe them about it.
Parent is, by virtue of being the first post in the article, not redundant. If you don't know what that word means, don't moderate it.
In any case, owned indeed. And bravo for thinking to use an Xbox 360 in the hack, that's definitely worth some bonus points.
Re:from MPAA to DELL
on
AMD's New DRM
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
You seem to be operating under the pretense that Dell is willing to not only take a stand for their home customers, but willing to do so against extremely large corporate interests. I'm not sure where you got this idea, but I assure you it is quite wrong. If nothing else, Michael Dell wants DRM for political reasons; he's a top Republican, and cramming this through could probably net him some serious political (and financial) capital in "liberal" Hollywood.
This is almost as stupid as thinking the Nazgul are on "our" side, and that if a FOSS user is in hot water with M$ etc. they'll swoop in and save the poor soul in order to protect open source... it's a nice dream, but they'd much rather cut all ties between you and IBM, burden you with any number of minor problems they can scrounge up, and watch you go down in flames as their patsy.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, what's the complaint here? Even if you're too lazy to do it yourself, they'll let you get an ad-free version after a couple of weeks. Some of you guys are way too picky.
Oh God, an egoist... We tried that 20 years ago, it was called the Reagan administration, it was an abject failure, and has been re-popularized by a famous name and a sort of misguided nostalgia. Please, take an entry-level philosophy course or something, get over this rationalized sociopathy.
Dude, you don't know pain until you've dealt with the DVD version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. 10 minutes of ads 9that, mercifully, can be fast forwarded), followed by a menu system clogged up with obnoxious voiceovers and cheesy video segments that can't be skipped and take at least a minute each, set up in such a way that one must go through at least two menus before even finding the "play" button. Throw in a bevy of confusing and useless menu "options" and consistently horrid scripting, and it's almost like 20th Century Fox wants to keep people from being able to rehearse for shadow casting.
Microsoft and Apple seem to think so, I don't see why ESR shouldn't be able to do the same.
I suppose if the software sucks so much you could, ya know, decide not to use it? kind of like people who decide that MS Office sucks and decide to use OOo instead. It would sure beat the hell out of bitching and moaning and not doing anything about it.
Can there be a "-1, Asinine" moderation?
Be fair to AOL, they started out with a better product at a better price. The fact that once they made it to the top and bought out Time Warner they lost their edge and spiraled into a vortex of overpriced suck doesn't change that.
The Utah legislature doesn't want to break their streak. They haven't written a good law since 1886, and by God, they want to keep it that way!
The EU already has slapped them down. The problem is that M$ doesn't care what the EU has to say, because that's just one market. A large market to be sure, but not the largest, and not one that they ever had the firmest grasp on anyway. Plus, the EU doesn't have jurisdiction over the corporate heads, so the worst they can do is fine MSFT, the options of personal fines or even jail time are simply unavailable.
As much as it sucks, we actually need the DOJ on this one, because the EU won't cut it.
That was probably the most awesome thing I've read in a week.
Thank you.
Yes! Top quoters are simply infuriating!
Oh, and even if you aren't actually replying to a quote (because, for example, you use GMail and it already reads like a book), please for the love of God strip out all the cruft like signatures ads (I'm in a lot of Yahoo! Groups, which tack ads onto everything... come to think of it, so does plain old Yahoo! Mail), because the rest of us probably didn't want to read it the first time, let alone have it waste our visual real estate when we're trying to read a completely different email.
My friend, the solution is to reclaim the computer and set some rules prohibiting stupidity. If you're really ballsy you could just go for the throat and declare no MySpace, though that runs the risk of being willfully ignored and undermining the whole effort. I'd just go for explaining to her why it's completely idiotic to leave that up, especially since it clearly wastes a lot of energy and slows the machine down significantly.
I speak from personal experience, by the way: mine used to have a thing for leaving Photoshop open with 20+ extremely hi-rez photos loaded for hours at a time; then she'd get mad at me when I closed it because my machine only had 256 megs of RAM and just touching the mouse caused it to lag out. It can be done, though.
Pounds are also a measure of weight, so GP is not using an inappropriate unit. There is no American/Imperial unit for mass, which is why mass is always measured in SI/metric units.
No, in Windows 3.x some of the users got weapons, and none of their computers survived long enough to schedule much of anything.
I think you've kinda missed the point of musicals and opera. Obviously nobody runs around singing through their problems in real life, but a large number of people (I would venture to say "most") relate to music in very emotional ways. the reason that musicals and operas work is that they intertwine music, with all of its emotional meta-data, into the drama such that both are considerably more significant to the audience. By the way, "straight" movies do this too, by having distinctive music in the background during particular scenes.
Well, that and it just adds another element of talent to the production, adding another reason for critics and audience to slather it up with praise and adoration. Simply put, people like listening to talented singers.
"real Mac user: ...the round pegs in the square holes..."
Nope, just square.
Sorry, I didn't spend my time bouncing around juvey because I'm not a fucking moron. From what I've heard, though, it's not exactly a fun place to be.
Oh, and no, I wasn't a goody two-shoes as a kid, I just learned quick how to talk my way out of trouble with my parents and teachers, then applied the same techniques to the cops the couple of times it became an issue.
Viral marketing covers a lot of techniques. Generally, celebrity spokespeople are not considered to be "viral" because everybody knows celebrities are walking billboards; consider the awards shows, during which every celebrity worth their salt walks the carpet in clothing "borrowed" from a huge name designer in return for their dutifully announcing to anyone who will listen that it was made by so-and-so.
What is viral is inserting your product into TV shows, movies, music videos etc. "I, Robot" was a giant Audi ad, I caught a bit of "Prison Break" once where the protagonist made a special point of showing us all the spiffy click out aspect of his SanDisk USB flash drive, and Cadillac seems to do nearly all of its advertising for the Escalade by putting them in hip-hop videos.
Another common viral marketing technique is unorthodox sample distribution. Red Bull hires groups of attractive young women to go around malls, shopping centers, and downtown areas handing out cans of red bull to retail employees or anyone they notice staring at their cleavage. The idea of course is that you'll develop a craving for bitter, oversweet caffeine water, and you'll remember how cool it was that time you were given a free Red Bull by a pretty girl and decide to buy some.
Astroturfing also falls under the 'viral" label, though it's the one most widely regarded as outright fraudulent.
When somebody gets hit by a con man, do you just shrug and say "well, serves you right for being an idiot?" I'm guessing you do. I'm also guessing you haven't the least bit idea how contracts are written and "sold' to artists, or how cash advances (which require repayment with interest) are often given in lieu of an actual signing bonus (which is just a lump sum with no debt attached) but without describing the difference. I'm going to further guess that you don't realize record contracts are written in harsh legalese by extremely talented lawyers, and pitched to artists by their peers (most A&R reps are either musicians themselves, and the ones that aren't are usually hipster types who are still very involved in the "scene") who know all the right things to say, even if none of them are remotely true.
The artists are getting screwed because they don't have any viable options (sorry, but trying to subsist on a part-time day job and DIYing an album is simply not viable), and nobody seems willing to put the screws on the lawyers at the top because they're too busy tilting at Metallica. The fact is, artists SHOULD be hurt by piracy, because artists SHOULD profit off of their work, but most of them really aren't because they really don't, and a newly signed band is lucky if they're still together and none of the members have had to file for bankruptcy withing 6 months of signing.
Yes, except for the small problem that it's only one word long, and thus does not repeat itself. Good effort, though.
So... police should be held accountable to the law when there is no compelling reason for them not to be? What, exactly, were you trying to prove again? Nice one, Descartes.
I believe the theory is that strangers sneaking about your home at night pose an imminent threat even without doing anything else. For all that I abhor unnecessary violence and feel that many in this country are altogether too willing to use lethal force against any presumed "threat", I have to admit that this seems pretty sensible to me. If you're sneaking around my home in the middle of the night, I'm going to take that as an implicit threat on myself and my family, because you certainly don't have any benign reasons to be there.
That said, any cop worth the stamped sheet metal badge would claim that they clearly announced their identity and presented a valid warrant, and for some reason people are always willing to believe them about it.
Parent is, by virtue of being the first post in the article, not redundant. If you don't know what that word means, don't moderate it.
In any case, owned indeed. And bravo for thinking to use an Xbox 360 in the hack, that's definitely worth some bonus points.
You seem to be operating under the pretense that Dell is willing to not only take a stand for their home customers, but willing to do so against extremely large corporate interests. I'm not sure where you got this idea, but I assure you it is quite wrong. If nothing else, Michael Dell wants DRM for political reasons; he's a top Republican, and cramming this through could probably net him some serious political (and financial) capital in "liberal" Hollywood.
This is almost as stupid as thinking the Nazgul are on "our" side, and that if a FOSS user is in hot water with M$ etc. they'll swoop in and save the poor soul in order to protect open source... it's a nice dream, but they'd much rather cut all ties between you and IBM, burden you with any number of minor problems they can scrounge up, and watch you go down in flames as their patsy.
The alternative is that they start locating the actual authors and killing or imprisoning them, because they sure as hell aren't going to stop.
Politics 101, those in power will do anything to stay in power, and those without are powerless to get it.