That spoonful of sugar can't mask the bitter taste of your own medicine, can it, fancy espionage agency?

The only way this could be useful is if it unleashes a finger of doom from a minigun to do away with the "motorist" causing the backup.

Although, I'll "settle" for having this scout go out, locate said "motorist" and send me back footage of why this one person is causing the 2 mile backup behind them.

My morbid sense of curiosity demands that I know who the fuck just backed up the turnpike.

Electronics that smoke themselves? Have had plenty of them.

They all spewed magic smoke shortly after warranty expiration. Coincidence? I THINK NOT! BWAHAHA!

Just like Slashdot will spew magic smoke when its bitch daddy Dice pulls the plug on classic. All that will remain is a box full of bad smells and no life.

That, sir, is probably the best Fuck Beta comment yet. Bravo. Bra-vo!

What TFS really means is that out of the suck generated by Beta, a new site will emerge, free from corporate cocksuckery.

Beta: Only slightly better than Facetwat.

Y te digo algo mas...

Beta is as useless as Slashot Mobile. I quit using that to read, even tho I enjoyed reading slash on the go. But not anymore.

And soon, I guess I won't be here at all. because fuck beta.

Nothing of value will be lost. Users will probably create a fork / clone / workalike, and Dice will have a nice shiny site with diddly squat for content. At best, it'll be like CNN's coments.

Slashdot, it was swank knowin' ya. Don't look now, but I think that stink behind you is the Grim Reaper come to collect you.

...from the black hole known as Beta is a festering pustule of mediocrity -- the ashes of what probably once was the most interesting site on the 'net.

Put another way, Beta sucks so hard it bends light.

Al Carajo con Beta!

I certainly hope Splashdata isn't reading passwords from SplashID users who store their SplashID data in Splash's servers. For your convenience in backing up and restoring, etc, of course.

BNL was also the government.

The apple doesn't fall from the tree -- the internet's daddy was DARPAnet, brought to you by DARPA, who is part of Dept. of Defense -- good 'ole DoD.

In other words, the internet is a military brat. It wasn't militarized, it was born into a military family.

The Government knows what's best for you.

Ugh just thinking of that sentiment gives me the creeps real bad. That's all I heard when I was a kid / teen ('80's for the curious). That's the party line no matter what party was up at bat.

If this stays, I thinks our world is over. Aw hell it was over in 1973, it's just taken it 40 years for the corpse to realize it.

Still, in a word, Bullshit! Even if they had this deep, massive, dynamic oh-so-easy-to-misuse body of information back in 2001, they wouldn't find the perps before the planes took off because they (NSA, FBI, USA) can't find their own asshole with two hands *and* a flashlight! (torch for our uk-ish readers).

And even that's irrelevant, really. If this stays, we've become a de-facto dictatorship with a rotating figurehead and lower cabinet, to present the illusion of movement at the top every n years. LIke said up there in the main thread, the 4th Amendment is dead, if this thing stays. And that's the paper-thin line that keeps us from being a police state, at least on paper it does.

Y'know, now I think of the third paragraph up there.. we became one a long time ago, didn't we -- a dictatorship with a rotating head.

Just my phone. It's my camera / music player / movie player / compass / satnav / videocamera / processing lab / editing room / maps / guide to strange places out of the beaten path, etc.

But this year's chistmas vacation, there's a piece of electronica that saw way more use than all of your list combined: My lcd projector.

I just binged on about 20 hours of Tiny Toons, the last two volumes that'd been held up forever.

My brain has stopped working. It's not aware that Monday I go back to work.

Aww, look at it. It had to type that last sentence and it's already bawling its eyes our in the corner. It's ok, brain -- I have all of Soul Eeater to kill whatever cells you have left. And if that's not enough, there's always a return engagement of Panty and Stocking..

Streaming and The Cloud: Where the Content Owner or designated representative can come in and remove content you had paid for.

What, exactly, is so appealing about this model? If it's the lack of physical media to store / move, I can *sorta* see that.. but other than that.. where's the appeal in paying for something that the seller / owner can just *zap* out of your world? Does not compute.

And don't give me the "I can view from any device at any time" schtick. Let's take "Wreck-It Ralph." I bought the BD / DVD combo. Ripped the DVD into an apple-friendly format and have it in my phone as part of my "desert island" playbill. The actual disc set is just chillin' in my shelf, and gets played -- a lot. So.. I just do'nt follow. Sorry. I have it in two devices at once. I can make that 3 or 4 without much trouble -- without having to "stream" it from somewhere.

I simply don't see the value of paying for something you can't hold in your hand and can be taken away at a whim. Sounds to me like a model made by criminals bent on theft.

If you want to keep it, get it in physical format.

...that's an A-T field!

You're just accounting for pressing and packaging the disk.

Really good mikes cost a lot of money. Five digits USD is not uncommon. Renting a studio is expensive, and so's building one. THen there's mixing, editing and all that. Talented, skilled engineers cost money, and lots of it.

I'm not rooting for the labels, but props where props are due: "The Labels" know / knew what they were doing. Archiv / Deutsche Gramophone, Atlantic, Telarc, RCA, Columbia, Decca all went out of their way to get better sound. They invented, innovated, adapted new technologies / methods. And that aspect of their business has my support.

Example: Deutsche Gramophone worked with Yamaha to make a recording system capable of getting a 144db dynamic range. That's beyond ridiculous. I have a set of Beethoven Symphonies recorded with this. I had to get a much better amp. The old one couldn't handle it cleanly. When was the last time some indie producer pushed the limits like that?

But of course, if one listens only on crap earbuds or a crap car stereo, then who cares, right? I bet you 9 out of 10 people just flat out don't care about how it sounds, and by extension how your body perceives it. It's more than just your ear holes, you know.

I still think streaming is for suckers. You pay for something that can be arbitrarily taken away by the "content owner" at their whim.