I was in the same boat with you, but since MLB.tv offers a YEAR of games for what one month of cable or satellite costs I've cut that cord and haven't looked back. Supposedly the Xbox One will have all live streaming NFL games, but I haven't seen it in action yet. I hope more leagues go the way of MLB.tv- I gladly pay for the games I want to watch without getting all the extra channels or insane pricing for such little use.
Agreed. It's $7 for adults, kids 5 and under are free, and you can bring food in yourself or get reasonably priced food at their snack shack (which has 10x the items of the regular theaters). For my family of four that's a total price of $14 before food for two movies and I don't have to worry about ruining someone else's experience, because it's almost all families anyway!
At the regular theaters the price is closer to $40 on tickets alone, not to mention (young) kids aren't necessarily welcome anyway. I may be the smaller demographic, but apparently there are enough of me out there to keep these drive-in's alive.
I'm in just about the same boat as you, being product evaluator for the company. What's funny is that the iPad has actually made it easier for our field guys to do their work. The most they do is key in a few numbers, print and/or scan a few pages, take photos, and possibly map shapes via GPS. Doing this kind of work on a laptop is doable, but tedious. The iPad has made a one-stop device that is portable, easy to use, and has a shallow learning curve.
The Surface RT on the other hand doesn't play well with the scanners we have, doesn't have 10m GPS support, and in general is hard to use fully without the "keyboard" it came with. It's the 2013 equivalent of a netbook, with less compatibility. Battery life was great, but I think that was due more to non-use than use. It's been on my desk since we could get one and no one has taken it for more than a weekend. The only question I have after each evaluation is "did you like using it?" to which the response has been a resounding "it's kinda cool, but I don't see it replacing my android/iPad".
Anyone who is using an iPad for full-fledged document, spreadsheet, or powerpoint creation is either unprepared or extremely advanced. No, it's not a great device for creation. But it's a great device for quick edits, consumption, and presentation.
As for the androids, it'd be nice for the manufacturers to standardize things like keyboards. Half the time I have to google image search the keyboard layout because it isn't exactly the same as the device we have.
Microsoft is late to the game and trying to use their last bargaining chip- the Office Suite. The problem is that many iOS and Android apps exist for that already and do everything else better. Too little, too late.
This may not be a great solution for you, but if you have an iOS or Android device that can spoof your location you can catch all the MLB.tv action by "putting" your device in a different state. As an A's fan living in Texas the out-of-market restriction isn't an issue, but now that 2/5 of the AL West is in Texas it may become burdensome.
I subscribe to MLB.tv for ~$120/year. This covers spring training, the regular season, and some of the post season. The rest of the post season was available last year for ~$5. I'm not sure how much money the MLB makes off of this, but I prefer this service over paying for cable or satellite and then the sports packages on top of all that.
MLB.tv apps are available for all of my iOS, Android, XBMC, and computer. This service I GLADLY pay for over the $50+/mo cost of Cable TV for only a handful of games.
I believe the NFL is still in agreement with dish over the "Sunday Ticket", otherwise their might be some hope to catch the one NFL game a week I care to see.
Live sports are getting there, but just not at a quick pace.
This, 100%.
When Ubuntu went to Unity is when I went to Mint full time. When Mint went to Gnome 3 is when I went to Mint XFCE full time.
Why is it so hard to understand that the desktop environment is probably about as good as it will get? I probably sound like a stick in the mud, but the biggest annoyance in UI the past few years has been putting the ribbon on everything and tabs on top, at the top. The last one is the single reason I don't use Chrome on a daily basis and the former is the reason that I do any and all
The only interface enhancement that has blown my mind in the past ten years is the way my Apple laptop handles multi-touch in the trackpad. One finger for cursor, two for moving 360* in pages/apps, and three for dragging. There aren't any accidental swipes down or across the page like I have on my Win7 laptop and it's poor implementation of touch-sensitive areas.
For the desktop, I've found Mint XFCE to be a speedy, awesome, no-unneccessary-frills alternative. It's awesome.
That right there is the problem. Not the phone, but the users. As a previous poster stated (and the article mentioned), the only people buying a new Blackberry are the ones that already have an old Blackberry. RIM needs to start thinking about what they can offer to consumers (and business) that no one else does. They don't have the app market, music/video store, or appeal that both Apple and Android have.
What RIM needs to do is go to the carriers and give them whatever cash is left to allow BB phones a 100% truly unlimited-in-ever-sense data plan. A few years ago when I was shopping for data plans, the iPhone "unlimited" was somewhere around $30/mo, and the Blackberry "unlimited" was $50-60/mo. This may be the fault of the carriers, but it hurts RIM nonetheless. If WinMo and RIM want to compete they need to offer what no one else does: unlimited data.
Oh, and they need to stop forcing that sh!tty BB Enterprise Server. We're not paying an extra $60k/year to duplicate the functionality of our current mail server.
Did you follow the eBay link? The remote is $18, not the player.
Yes, if the oil was obtained on U.S. soil.
That is a selfish viewpoint, but I don't expect Iran to look out for us over themselves.
We are all running out of time and these guys are making obscene profits as is. I live in West Texas and see this on a daily basis. Other than safety, there is little account for responsible spending. Example: workers that used to check and maintain the pumpjacks are promoted to "manager" and told to call a consulting/maintenance firm to do any repairs, costing a ton more than just using the person that was hired to do the original job.
If they obtain it from U.S. soil, refine on U.S. soil, and sell on U.S. soil there is no reason for a spike for the U.S. caused by world factors.
An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says 'Beam me up, Scotty'.
