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Comment I thought Glenn Beck is a rapist? (Score 1) 413

I thought I read somewhere that Glenn Beck is a rapist. That Glenn Beck raped someone back in the 1980s. Am I mistaken in remembering that Glenn beck raped someone in the 1980s? I could have sworn I read somewhere that Glenn Beck was a rapist. I don't really care for his show, and he seems to have a lot of crackpot ideas. Still, I don;t think they'd give him his own radio show if Glenn Beck was a rapist. I mean, if Glenn Beck raped someone in the 1980s, would Fox News give him a TV show? I don't believe Fox News supports rapists.

Comment Re:Guilt-free Piracy (Score 1) 244

It was about 10GB. 95 files, all 90-100MB each. Pretty good encode for the file size too.

I already have 3 video players installed -- bsplayer (my favorite, if old), Media Player Classic (for .mkv), and Windows Media Player (if all else fails). I should not need more than that. Never liked VLC.

Comment Some of each (Score 1) 695

Since we are coming out of a below-average period in global temperature history, as well as a low in recent history (the Little Ice Age following the medieval warm period), I believe some component of current trends is natural. I also believe (sub)urbanization introduces some degree of measurement bias -- a location that was relatively rural 80 years ago now surrounded by suburban sprawl, shopping centers and parking lots will have a higher local temperature from local effects in addition to any possible regional change.

However, I cannot deny the likelihood that emissions, deforestation, and other man-made factors have an impact on climate. The big question that remains unresolved is how much of the current trend is natural, and how much is caused by man.

Comment Re:stupid suckers (Score 1, Interesting) 447

Apparently.

I watch all my TV over the Internet, sans commercials. All hail Bittorrent and TV release groups.

I remember someone commenting on why sports figures get paid in the tens of millions, and it was 'because people are willing to pay to see them". Teams pay players because they can jack up prices on ticket sales and TV rights for ESPN. Because they in turn can jack up charges to cable providers, and they in turn can jack up prices to cable subscribers. Lebron gets a 50m paycheck because of the idiots who pay for ESPN. Count me out of that nightmare.

What cable companies need to do is not cave in to ESPN's $4/subscriber pricing, or anyone else's. Then ESPN can go back to the league and offer less for the rights. Then teams can pay their players less. Everyone wins except a few hundred pro athletes. Sure, some competing channel to ESPN will crop up, offer more, and hopefully fail when they cannot sell their channel, but that's how markets work.

But then I watch mostly Scripted television, documentaries, and anime, so what do I care. Channels are supposed to earn their revenue off of advertising sales. Cable companies are supposed to sell a service (high quality image distribution of content) not the content itself. Like many, I will either watch ads, or pay for content, but not both.

So now I download all the TV I watch off the Internet. Have been doing so for 10 years now. And I will never go back.

Comment god, I hope not. (Score 0) 192

Despite Skype's recent disaster with its client (5.x is worse than 4.x), it pales in comparison to how crappy Facebook is.

After years of resisting, I finally caved and opened a Facebook account so I could watch some Tsunami footage on some guy's page. Since then I have tried to search for some "friends" on Facebook only to find it has the clumsiest user interface and lacks a lot of basic features. I wanted to add friends from my high school class (or at least find them). There is no simple, intuitive way to do this, I kinda had to luck across the page that let's me search for people who listed my high school as theirs. Great! Except I cannot limit the search by class year, so I get hundreds, if not thousands of people from the past 20 years since I graduated. When all they need to do is add a "Class of XXXX" filter. How simple it would be.

This is not the only thing wrong. For a site worth billions, it is incredibly primitive and lacking in features. I helped my mom upload a picture for her profile. When there was some adjustments available, I expected to be able to select a part of the image and crop it for her profile. Such functionality is not hard, and I'd expect it form such a major player like Facebook, but alas, they are in the stone age in this regard. The lolcats site is higher-tech.

Facebook sucks, and I would not want to trust them with skype. I use skype to talk to friends online pretty much every day. I use the 4.x client, and skype is decent enough to let me continue to do so without forcing me to upgrade to their new, crappier client. Recommend I upgrade? Yes. Force? No. Facebook has lucked into a following despite its shoddiness. It's like a retarded kid winning the lotto. Zuckerberg is king retard in this.

Comment Re:poor content (Score 3, Interesting) 118

With you in spirit, but your statements are tinged with hyperbole. The major networks air more than 2 good shows a week, and more and more "cable channels" like AMC, USA, TNT, etc have begun airing some quality original programming. However, for every show like 30 Rock or The Closer, we get ten Real Worlds, Survivors, or Dancing with the Stars.

Premium channels have been booming with original content in recent years. Maybe it's just because I did not have access to them much before BT trackers and release groups got into them, but I think there are more original shows on HBO, Showtime, etc than there used to be. Sure, you had things like 1st and Ten, Dream On, and the Red Shoe Diaries on HBO and Showtime 15-25 years ago, but now you have so much more. A lot of great shows in recent times have come form these networks (Deadwood, Weeds, Dexter, The Sopranos), along with a great deal more entertaining ones (The Tudors, Rome, Secret Diary of a Call Girl (not original, I know)).

As someone else has stated, the real problem is that TV providers have made it an increasingly hostile environment to watch their content.
  - More commercial time per hour. The average 1-hour show is under 44 minutes now.
  - Channel identifier logos on constantly. In the beginning these were semi-transparent line-art, now they are colorful and often animated.
  - Squashed and sped-up credit sequences. Sure, few people want to see them, but sometimes we do, and without commercial/news at 10 hype
  - Pop-up in-show ads "New Episode of Dancing With the Stars NEXT" at the bottom of the screen, blocking this show
  - Time-shifting to screw up DVR users
  - Loudness tricks to make commercials seem louder than the show. Gotta crank up the movie because it's so quiet, then WHAM! "BUY ZEST SOAP!"
  - Constant schedule changes

I gave up cable TV about 8-9 years ago. I was heavy into anime at the time, had just moved, so I went with internet and substantial DVD purchases (back when DVDs were still $30 each, though you could get them for ~33-50% off online). I found out I just did not need to veg out in front of TV shows I didn;t care about every evening. I read more books, was online more, had other things to do.

It was liberating. ^_^

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