Comment: Re:TCO (Score 1) 561
Ashamed of the current government of my country.
And not only because of this.
Comment: Re:No he doesn't (Score 2) 231
Indeed. There's no agenda to put out crappy media, but the vast consolidation gives them an oligopoly. With only five competetitors, and all of them producing dreck, there's no need to produce anything BUT dreck.
The less competition there is, the less work they have to do to compete.
Which means, the less they have to come up with new ideas. They just default to the same behaviors that all big companies do: playing it safe.
And in entertainment, that means more of the same.
More Jersy Shore clones.
More "housewives of..."
More fake drama applied to "reality" situations.
And more fake outrage and opinion force-feeding trying to pass for journalism.
Bleah
The last time my cable company increased my rates, I dropped to a smaller package (causing a net reduction in the bottom line on my bill). And I still only watch a couple hours a week max.
There's just not that much on that can hold my interest enough to sit thru the commercial break(s)
Comment: Re:Only a problem in the USA (Score 1) 228
They come from a (probably) fake caller-ID in Texas, to my (work) cell.
We also get them 1-2 times a moth on an un-listed test phone in the back of the shop. Obviously, someone's robot is dialling random numbers, because we've had that number for 20+ years, and it has never been given out to anyone outside our department.
Comment: Re:Recipe For Disaster (Score 1) 199
The distro equipment can be rented from the same companies that the concert crews rent from.
Comment: Re:I've noticed this too (Score 4, Insightful) 601
It's the asynchronous nature of e-mail that improves my productivity.
Add in the CYA factor of being able to save, and forward old e-mails, and I can't see why anyone would want to move away from e-mail.
Unless they don't want to be held accountable for what they said months ago, or if they prefer to spend all their time in conference calls about work, as opposed to actually doing work...
Comment: Re:enhance your shopping experience? (Score 2) 198
To make it easier to spend money.
And to make you and me feel better about spending more money.
The end result is the same. Less money in my pocket. And I'm supposed to be happy about that.
Just like a good little consumer should....
Comment: Re:enhance your shopping experience? (Score 3, Insightful) 198
Just like those "customer loyalty" thingies. Do you really thing they are for *your* benefit?
They will use it to improve their ability to get money out of your pocket and into theirs.
Why do I want to help them do that??
Comment: Re:Scientists Vote Sceptic (Score 1) 695
Those who don't accept the climate scientists' data call themselves "climate change skeptics". Yet in the normal use of the word, scientific data is pretty much the only thing sceptics will accept.
Should the first option, then, be more like: "I trust the information that shows that climate change is happening, and that humans are influencing the climate to change in ways that are generally un-favourable for the inhabitants of the earth".
And perhaps the 3rd option more like "I am not convinced of the truth of either side"
Which is what I intended when I voted "Believe it (not a researcher)"
Comment: Re:This is obviously the future (Score 1) 243
Do you see more jobs because of computers, or fewer? Mostly, I see more lower-paying, low-quality McJobs.
That's the same problem that Henry Ford identified.
"If no one pays people do do stuff, who is going to be my customer."
Ford's solution was to pay his employees enough so they could afford to buy his product.
So, given that even the lowest paying jobs are being automated out of existence, who is getting paid enough to buy the stuff that all these "newly profitable" companies are producing with their human-free factories and farms?