And yet when my daughter invites her schoolmates over to do "homework", it's amazing how often I go down to the office, and find three or four of them watching raptly while the other one dances around, regardless of what game they're playing. I can confidently say that I have never seen anyone at our house play any Wii game while seated.
Interesting. The superiority of Xbox and PS3 must be the reason that I can find copies of GHIII for both of those systems gathering dust at Toronto stores, while I haven't been able to find a single copy for the Wii since I started looking in November.
After searching unsuccessfully at 30-odd stores in the Greater Toronto Area since November, I have been unable to locate a single copy of "Guitar Hero III" for the Wii. It's perpetually on back order at Best Buy, the Wal-Mart's I've visited have lots of copies for the PS3 or Xbox, but none for the Wii. A manager at HMV told me he's received four (!) copies since the launch, and they sold in less than an hour.
Meanwhile, a quick google revealed many vendors in the US (not including individuals hawking them on e-bay and the like) possess stock. I could order one from Red Octane, for example, but by the time they add on the cross-border shipping, extra tax and duty, etc., the price of the game doubles! And since Toronto is in the top 10 MSA's in North America, I can't understand why it should be easier to find the game in, say, Buffalo, than in Toronto.
So, I decided to contact Activision. I went to their website, and tried to send a message using their contact form. Howeve, every time I chose "Consumer Support", my message disappeared and I was automatically sent to page reporting bug fixes and the like. Not at all what I wanted.
My next step was to select the "Contact Us" option, and take down their phone number, which their site lists at 310-252-2200. I called that today at lunch. To my surprise, I was answered by Mattel's automatic attendant system. After navigating through their Byzantine menus, I finally reached a human being, and asked "What's up with Guitar Hero for the Wii?". The representative was quite confused - "What's a Wii?" she wanted to know. I told her, and explained why and how I'd gotten to her. She put me on hold for a few minutes, and then came back to explain that Activision licenses the Mattel trademark. I then asked her why AV's website listed Mattel's phone number as their contact number. She couldn't answer that. I suggested she might want Mattel's legal department to investigate. She replied, quite firmly, "You bet I will!".
Quite curious, in my mind. Anyone out there know what's going on behind this?
Did you actually read my comment? Or, for that matter, any of the articles regarding this fraud?
Yes, the trader was limited to a few millions on his own account, but he is alleged to have rigged the accounting mechanisms that were supposed to keep him in check; this allowed him to build much bigger positions than he was supposed to have.
Every trader has a limit to his positions. The more senior, and the more you have proved yourself, the higher that limit is. This guy was supposedly quite junior, and so likely would have been limited to a few millions. 7 billion was WAAAAY over his limit, and he is accused of jiggering the reporting controls so that his disastrously wrong positions weren't reported to those responsible for oversight.
This isn't insightful; it's ignorant. I just visited the blog, and they make it clear that they won't post profanity or abuse, but they'll let just about anything else go through. I went through the liquids thread, and 99% of the comments were critical from one degree to another of the current policy. No censorship there that I could see. Hundreds of people pointed out the idiocy of allowing up to 10 bottles in your "baggy", all 10 of which could ostensibly be carrying 3 oz of some explosive, which you could then combine on the plane. Or, you carry a bunch in your baggy, and your accomplice carries some in his baggy, and you meet up on the plane to combine them.
And, of course, water. I suggested that the simple solution is for the agent to request that you drink some of the water, and then the agent sniff the bottle. If anyone here knows of a colourless, odourless explosive you can safely drink, I'd like to be apprised of it. They posted my comment unedited.
Why don't you bother to check it out before making such an uninformed comment? Oh, right, this is/.
This is in response to all the posts that suggest Bush is anxious/eager to start a war with Iran before he leaves office, and not just palantir0's post.
You are all touching in your paranoid naivete. Bush is less than a year away from retiring to Crawford, and leaving all the crap behind. Far from starting another war, he'd be happy if there were signs that Iraq was cooling down. At this point in time, he's more concerned with his place in history than he is with bombing Iran. He'd like to be remembered as the man who started the process of bringing democracy to the middle East, not a trigger-happy fool. After Inauguration Day, you won't hear any more from him until he's out working the stump for brother Jeb in 2012.
Oh, this is complete nonsense. My chosen candidate has lost in many elections here in Canada, and I've never doubted the integrity of the process. I'm not happy he/she lost, but I've never had the slightest reason to doubt the process itself was fair and above board.
Well, after yesterday's move over $900, I and my family have approximately $300,000 Cdn in gold and gold shares. (I buy the metal through the ETF that holds actual bullion.) And, as I've pointed out repeatedly here, from 1800 to 1912, the price level in US under a gold standard for the most part FELL by almost 50%. That rewards savers, as their purchasing power grows each year.
Then, in 1913, you got the Federal Reserve. Since then, the price level has risen by 20 times (that's 2000%, in case you're mathematically challenged). I did tax returns for farmers' widows in the late 70's; they were living in penury because the lousy 4% their bonds were paying them - which offered them a fairly good standard of living in the late 60's - had fallen by almost 50% in real terms.
Or you could study Great Britain, which had tremendous price stability from Waterloo until the start of WWI. A 2 cent stamp in 1810 was still 2 cents in 1910. How many times has the price of postage been raised in the last 30 years?
You want me to study history? You should do the same. From John Law's France to the Continental Congress to the Confederate States to Weimar Germany to Zimbabwe today - history is rife with examples of paper money not backed by some commodity eventually becoming worthless. And the US dollar is well on its way.
Well, my grandfather was American, but I'm Canadian through and through.
The reason I support Ron Paul is the Canadian and US economies are thoroughly tied together, and as someone famously said "When the US sneezes, Canada catches a cold". Already we've seen lumber towns in New Brunswick and BC shut down because the US housing slowdown has eroded the demand for our wood. Automobiles will slow down as well, affecting towns like Windsor and Oshawa.
Paul's economic policies - sound money, balanced budgets, etc. - will put the US economy back on a sounder footing, which will help Canadians across the country. His foreign policies - end the war, stop trying to be policeman of the world, etc. - should reduce terrorism everywhere. If nothing else, it might free us from those obnoxious TSA agents at US airports. Finally, his privacy policies - no Patriot Act, no eavesdropping without warrants, etc. - would restore rights for our US friends, and might help prevent a similar creeping fascism here in Canada.
So, in summary, I think Paul would be good for Canada as well as the US. However, I'm not telling anyone to vote for him; I'm just saying he has support outside the US as well. I don't disagree that it's insulting for foreigners to tell others who to vote for, but I don't think showing support is the same thing. You're free to disagree with that assessment of course, and I didn't take offence at your post.
Yep, RIM got screwed by some company that never produced a single physical device. RIM tried to play hardball, and not only paid millions in legal fees, they ended up paying a huge royalty fee to the suing firm, whose name escapes me. (NTP?)
Even the Entertainment Division posted a profit of $350 million. And profits from operating systems nearly - but not quite - doubled. It's a business problem I'd like to have.
There are those that thought the Bill of Rights was unnecessary and redundant since the government did not have the power to infringe on the people's rights, that power was not granted and could not be granted. Enumerating rights as protected was viewed as dangerous since rights not enumerated could be viewed as unprotected.
I kind of thought that was the purpose of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
I think people should recognize that an 18th century arm is not quite the same as a 21st century arm. In the 18th century, it was a manually reloaded rifle or bayonet
There was a reason why we got away from the gold standard
Yeah, so politicians can degrade the currency. You can look it up - the price level in the US from 1800 to 1912 fell by 50%. Then, they created the Federal Reserve system in 1913. Since then, the price level has gone up 2000%. And the people this hurts most are usually older people living on a fixed income.
Well, I have some anecdotal evidence. When my sister was a teenager, she was walking along Yonge Street in Toronto when she got pulled in for a free "personality" test from you know who. After she took the test, they put her in a small room, and played good cop/bad cop with her for almost two hours, with one dickhead telling her she was really a good person, and just needed some "communication" courses, while the other one said she was worthless, and they were just wasting their time on her. In the end, they got her to sign up for almost $3,000 worth of courses - and this was back in 70's, when $3G's could buy you a car. Luckily, she was only 17 at the time, so the contract wasn't binding.
A friend's sister had a similar experience, but since she was in her 20's, she ended up on the hook for over $1,000.
Don't deny what you're saying, but how many of those are of voting age, especially given the census stats the Globe and National Post are having a heyday with? If you go to the elections Canada website, you'll see more than 50,000 people voted in Richmond Hill; less than 15,000 voted in the Yukon. So it's not as bad as 1/20, but 1/3? You still think that's fair? I'm 1/3 the citizen of someone living in the Yukon? I probably pay more in taxes than most of those people, but my vote counts for less (and FWIW, I'm not the richest person in Richmond Hill by a wide margin).
Totally agree. The other brilliant thing about the US Congress is that reps are voted in for two-year terms, while senators are elected for six. From a sampling theory aspect, this provides a smoothing effect that is astonishing in that it was devised in the 1700's, long before sampling theory existed.
I am ashamed to say Canada's Senate is a joke. No one is elected; party hacks and bagmen get appointed until they're 75. We even had one senator who spent most of the year in Mexico, rarely attending any sessions. And the number of senators from each province is decided by an archaic formula that gives fast growing provinces like BC and Alberta short shrift. But as long as Ontario and Quebec have the majority of senators, and a de facto constitutional veto, the desire of many Canadians for a "Triple-E" senate (equal, elected, effective) will go unfulfilled.
Yes, and we have the same problem in Canada. My riding has a population of 100,000; some rural ridings have about 5,000. Is my vote worth 1/20th of that of an Inuit in the Yukon Territory? My government seems to think so.
Canada crosses 5 time zones, and we always have a result before midnight EST. And we don't have any electronic voting machines - every thing is done by hand. A couple of hours to tally results? Most polls report results in under an hour after closing.
Maybe it's because you have that ridiculous system where you vote for 20-30 offices on a single day. We only have to count for one.
Slashdot Mirror
Before I get flamed, I entered the phone number incorrectly. 310-255-2000
And yet when my daughter invites her schoolmates over to do "homework", it's amazing how often I go down to the office, and find three or four of them watching raptly while the other one dances around, regardless of what game they're playing. I can confidently say that I have never seen anyone at our house play any Wii game while seated.
Interesting. The superiority of Xbox and PS3 must be the reason that I can find copies of GHIII for both of those systems gathering dust at Toronto stores, while I haven't been able to find a single copy for the Wii since I started looking in November.
Meanwhile, a quick google revealed many vendors in the US (not including individuals hawking them on e-bay and the like) possess stock. I could order one from Red Octane, for example, but by the time they add on the cross-border shipping, extra tax and duty, etc., the price of the game doubles! And since Toronto is in the top 10 MSA's in North America, I can't understand why it should be easier to find the game in, say, Buffalo, than in Toronto.
So, I decided to contact Activision. I went to their website, and tried to send a message using their contact form. Howeve, every time I chose "Consumer Support", my message disappeared and I was automatically sent to page reporting bug fixes and the like. Not at all what I wanted.
My next step was to select the "Contact Us" option, and take down their phone number, which their site lists at 310-252-2200. I called that today at lunch. To my surprise, I was answered by Mattel's automatic attendant system. After navigating through their Byzantine menus, I finally reached a human being, and asked "What's up with Guitar Hero for the Wii?". The representative was quite confused - "What's a Wii?" she wanted to know. I told her, and explained why and how I'd gotten to her. She put me on hold for a few minutes, and then came back to explain that Activision licenses the Mattel trademark. I then asked her why AV's website listed Mattel's phone number as their contact number. She couldn't answer that. I suggested she might want Mattel's legal department to investigate. She replied, quite firmly, "You bet I will!".
Quite curious, in my mind. Anyone out there know what's going on behind this?
IIRC, in Japan they actually have toilets that do this for you.
Yes, the trader was limited to a few millions on his own account, but he is alleged to have rigged the accounting mechanisms that were supposed to keep him in check; this allowed him to build much bigger positions than he was supposed to have.
Understand now?
And, of course, water. I suggested that the simple solution is for the agent to request that you drink some of the water, and then the agent sniff the bottle. If anyone here knows of a colourless, odourless explosive you can safely drink, I'd like to be apprised of it. They posted my comment unedited.
Why don't you bother to check it out before making such an uninformed comment? Oh, right, this is /.
You are all touching in your paranoid naivete. Bush is less than a year away from retiring to Crawford, and leaving all the crap behind. Far from starting another war, he'd be happy if there were signs that Iraq was cooling down. At this point in time, he's more concerned with his place in history than he is with bombing Iran. He'd like to be remembered as the man who started the process of bringing democracy to the middle East, not a trigger-happy fool. After Inauguration Day, you won't hear any more from him until he's out working the stump for brother Jeb in 2012.
Oh, this is complete nonsense. My chosen candidate has lost in many elections here in Canada, and I've never doubted the integrity of the process. I'm not happy he/she lost, but I've never had the slightest reason to doubt the process itself was fair and above board.
I think Dick Cheney might have a suitable vault available soon!
Then, in 1913, you got the Federal Reserve. Since then, the price level has risen by 20 times (that's 2000%, in case you're mathematically challenged). I did tax returns for farmers' widows in the late 70's; they were living in penury because the lousy 4% their bonds were paying them - which offered them a fairly good standard of living in the late 60's - had fallen by almost 50% in real terms.
Or you could study Great Britain, which had tremendous price stability from Waterloo until the start of WWI. A 2 cent stamp in 1810 was still 2 cents in 1910. How many times has the price of postage been raised in the last 30 years?
You want me to study history? You should do the same. From John Law's France to the Continental Congress to the Confederate States to Weimar Germany to Zimbabwe today - history is rife with examples of paper money not backed by some commodity eventually becoming worthless. And the US dollar is well on its way.
The reason I support Ron Paul is the Canadian and US economies are thoroughly tied together, and as someone famously said "When the US sneezes, Canada catches a cold". Already we've seen lumber towns in New Brunswick and BC shut down because the US housing slowdown has eroded the demand for our wood. Automobiles will slow down as well, affecting towns like Windsor and Oshawa.
Paul's economic policies - sound money, balanced budgets, etc. - will put the US economy back on a sounder footing, which will help Canadians across the country. His foreign policies - end the war, stop trying to be policeman of the world, etc. - should reduce terrorism everywhere. If nothing else, it might free us from those obnoxious TSA agents at US airports. Finally, his privacy policies - no Patriot Act, no eavesdropping without warrants, etc. - would restore rights for our US friends, and might help prevent a similar creeping fascism here in Canada.
So, in summary, I think Paul would be good for Canada as well as the US. However, I'm not telling anyone to vote for him; I'm just saying he has support outside the US as well. I don't disagree that it's insulting for foreigners to tell others who to vote for, but I don't think showing support is the same thing. You're free to disagree with that assessment of course, and I didn't take offence at your post.
Yep, RIM got screwed by some company that never produced a single physical device. RIM tried to play hardball, and not only paid millions in legal fees, they ended up paying a huge royalty fee to the suing firm, whose name escapes me. (NTP?)
How fast can he run? Faster than a woman? (OK, for those who don't get the reference, it's from Bobby Bitman's movie "Chariot of Eggs".)
Bzzt - wrong. Entertainment Division made a $351 million PROFIT for MS. Thanks for playing.
Even the Entertainment Division posted a profit of $350 million. And profits from operating systems nearly - but not quite - doubled. It's a business problem I'd like to have.
I kind of thought that was the purpose of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Right, because they didn't have cannons then.
Cannons were introduced in Europe around 1300 AD.
Yeah, so politicians can degrade the currency. You can look it up - the price level in the US from 1800 to 1912 fell by 50%. Then, they created the Federal Reserve system in 1913. Since then, the price level has gone up 2000%. And the people this hurts most are usually older people living on a fixed income.
Well, I have some anecdotal evidence. When my sister was a teenager, she was walking along Yonge Street in Toronto when she got pulled in for a free "personality" test from you know who. After she took the test, they put her in a small room, and played good cop/bad cop with her for almost two hours, with one dickhead telling her she was really a good person, and just needed some "communication" courses, while the other one said she was worthless, and they were just wasting their time on her. In the end, they got her to sign up for almost $3,000 worth of courses - and this was back in 70's, when $3G's could buy you a car. Luckily, she was only 17 at the time, so the contract wasn't binding. A friend's sister had a similar experience, but since she was in her 20's, she ended up on the hook for over $1,000.
Don't deny what you're saying, but how many of those are of voting age, especially given the census stats the Globe and National Post are having a heyday with? If you go to the elections Canada website, you'll see more than 50,000 people voted in Richmond Hill; less than 15,000 voted in the Yukon. So it's not as bad as 1/20, but 1/3? You still think that's fair? I'm 1/3 the citizen of someone living in the Yukon? I probably pay more in taxes than most of those people, but my vote counts for less (and FWIW, I'm not the richest person in Richmond Hill by a wide margin).
I am ashamed to say Canada's Senate is a joke. No one is elected; party hacks and bagmen get appointed until they're 75. We even had one senator who spent most of the year in Mexico, rarely attending any sessions. And the number of senators from each province is decided by an archaic formula that gives fast growing provinces like BC and Alberta short shrift. But as long as Ontario and Quebec have the majority of senators, and a de facto constitutional veto, the desire of many Canadians for a "Triple-E" senate (equal, elected, effective) will go unfulfilled.
Yes, and we have the same problem in Canada. My riding has a population of 100,000; some rural ridings have about 5,000. Is my vote worth 1/20th of that of an Inuit in the Yukon Territory? My government seems to think so.
Canada crosses 5 time zones, and we always have a result before midnight EST. And we don't have any electronic voting machines - every thing is done by hand. A couple of hours to tally results? Most polls report results in under an hour after closing. Maybe it's because you have that ridiculous system where you vote for 20-30 offices on a single day. We only have to count for one.