Comment Self slashdotted (Score 1) 71
Maybe they should publish the video on a few other sites. Unless it's a lengthy clip of a small rotating circular symbol.
The difference is choice.
In the Apple model, yes, they have built that walled garden. Yes, they are generally sealed units with limited upgrade options. But with Apple in 2014, they're just one vendor among many viable alternatives. Depending on who you ask, they're somewhere between 8% and 15% of the market. That leaves a huge selection of alternate vendors from which to choose.
Microsoft, lest anyone forget, is a convicted (unfortunately never punished) monopolist. Is the late '90s they had something like 98% marketshare. In MS' world, you have no choice but to submit to his will and his ecosystem. You would not be free to leave and switch vendors because there would be no alternatives available. And while Gates may have recently been able to buy them a better reputation with his so-called charity work; you're a damn fool if you think he is anything but a viciously ruthless businessman who wanted nothing less than complete dominance over you.
Hmm.. I kind of hate defending Microsoft after having spent so much effort supporting the MS boycott. However, locking you into hardware vendors was never a MS thing. MS generally did their evil by forcing companies to sell MS and no alternative OS based products. They also did their thing buy stealing competing software outright. In the 90's there were thousands of examples on the now defunct vcnet.com (the url was vcnet.com/bms but no more) boycott site where the evil was being documented.
Bash MS, yes. But do it for valid reasons or you just shoot holes in your cause.
Cool, the people involved in this are going before a jury, right?
Whoah there. Corporations are only people when it's in their benefit.
Minimum basic cable price (if I don't want to sell my entire soul to the cableco) where I am is $39.48 + $3.99 for a converter box
They blatantly lie and claim that the box is "necessary" "because digital", but it isn't. The real reason they want you to use the box is because of their unilateral insistence on encrypting even the signals that you'd otherwise be able to get unencrypted from an antenna anyway, so that they can charge you a rental fee. But even then, it still isn't necessary because you can get a CableCard instead.
When I had cable TV (only because the TV + internet bundle was cheaper than internet-only that year), I refused the box (and refused to be charged for the box) as a matter of principle.
I used a cablecard for a few years. You still have to rent the card, although in my case it was $1 cheaper than a box. They still get to know what you're watching. You have to provide "guide" services somehow, as cablecards don't include that functionality.
Depending on where you live or who your provider is you may be able to get analog cable despite the claims. My local cable company tells you that it's digital only and you must have a card/box. My dad plugged his coax straight into his tv (which does not have or support a card) and he gets about 100 channels. So, I say try plugging the coax in and find out what is really what.
Reminds me of the gratuitous bong-rip philosophy you see on Ashton Kutcher's news site A+, which is bizarrely one of the most-viewed websites in the US.
Never heard of it before.
And who or what is Ashton Kutcher?
He's an American actor. Did a tv program called "that 70's show". I think he does chick flick type movies now, not really sure.
I myself only heard about it from an article making fun of it:
Thanks, that was downright hilarious. I think the idea posited by cracked that a+ is a gag is likely to be accurate.
And I care about one more crappy corporate-controlled portal site why? Other than the "will they set up a GeoCities page next"-esque shock-value that any company in 2014 still believes their customers give the least damn about their ISP's home page, of course. If Verizon doesn't want news about the ways the intelligence community and Verizon conspire to rape us all, hey, their portal. And if I want actual news, hey, not their portal. It all balances out.
TFA made it sound like they were hiring "reporters" (sounded to me more like bloggers) who are actually writing content rather than running a portal.
Reminds me of the gratuitous bong-rip philosophy you see on Ashton Kutcher's news site A+, which is bizarrely one of the most-viewed websites in the US.
Never heard of it before.
My motto is "Find a fucking dictionary"
I don't know about you, but I don't think I could properly evaluate it if I had to avoid browsing to any website where I might need to enter a password, or unzip password-protected zip files, or, well, do anything that would involve me entering a password.
Why would you use a pre-alpha release of ANY os on your main computer? Or you can download the ISO, enter the key (it's all over the net), and set up an entirely fake user account. It's not like Microsoft has the same "real names" policy as facebook.
Somehow I suspect that pirating something that's being exposed for how much it phones home might not be the smartest idea in the world.
As long as Comcast and Time Warner are competing with each other, Netflix can say "Well Comcast only charged us this much, can you lower your price?" to Time Warner.
And Time Warner will say "How nice that Comcast is giving you a break. But if you want access to our customers -- which you cannot get from Comcast -- then this is the price."
Well, maybe one day unicef will get into the extortion business. Until then, we're the people to see. Do you want access to our customers or not?
I can't support this merger given how horrible my current experience is with TWC. They've been to my house 6 times over 8 weeks and still no service. I've missed neatly 3 full days of work. It's not like I have another option either. One customer service rep canceled my order accidentally and had to start a new order.
Make sure you file a complaint with the FCC. You must know that the FCC isn't reading slashdot comments. Here: http://www.fcc.gov/complaints
For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!
