Go to Craigslist. It's a rare day when there are no ads for product reviewers. The pay is so dreadful the people writing them really don't have time to go to the website to see the product, let alone use it.
Sports fans have endured this for years now. Want to watch the MN Timberwolves? You must have a cable package that includes Fox Sports, ESPN, TNT/TBS and access to NBA TV. If you do it right, you may be able to watch your team play in their taxpayer-subsidized arena for a little less than $7 a game (x 82 games).
Welcome to our brave new rentier society. And once you're used to paying these rents, you'll be ready for a world in which you never get to own anything. Your car will be leased, your home rented, major appliances leased, and, of course, any entertainment you purchase can be deleted remotely at the behest of just about anyone who's not you.
I couldn't watch my team over the internet (legally) when I lived in Minnesota, and now that I'm in Wisconsin I find myself in a no cable address with a worse than nothing Frontier phone system that doesn't support DSL. Literally my only broadband solution was to pay Verizon $120 a month for 30GB of insanely fast and incredibly expensive broadband.
I can watch my team on NBA League Pass now (TNT and ESPN games excepted) but I can't afford the broadband (those game streams suck up a lot of bandwidth.
We are the most corrupt country on earth, Russia included. Worse, we don't even know the only standing that count, namely which billionaire has/is the biggest dick.
I moved to a remote rural location with no cable or dish options available. I had to set up a Verizon Home Fusion device. It is amazing. It can download the Library of Congress in about half an hour. OK, 30mbps isn't that fast, but at $5 a GB I had to dump my Netflix account because I couldn't afford the bandwidth it used.
That and even at 30 mbps, Netflix was choppy and unwatchable. All other streaming video was better, including illegal NBA feeds.
State of the art wireless technology, but it couldn't stream Netflix worth a crap.
i SERIOUSLY doubt 90-99% of the people who were protesting against the illegal invasion of iraq, know SHIT about pincus, but i bet most of them had heard of -and been influenced by- greenwald and moulitsas ( as much of a demo-shill as he has become)...
But unlike Greenwald and (Markos) Moulitsas, members of Congress and people in the Pentagon did read Pincus.
I'm not nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize, just saying that he was an establishment voice for reason at a time when the establishment had gone batshit insane. Also, he's 83 years old and entitled to his opinions.
He was more critical of the BS leading up to and during the Iraq War than almost any other columnist I can think of.
He's very old, very pro-defense establishment, but he's not half the hack his boss, Fred Hiatt is.
Agree with you that this is a bad column, but I think it lacks context. Pincus did a better job of trying to slow the rush to war than Glenn Greenwald, Marcos Moulitsas and all the other bloggers combined (myself included).
For those who don't know Bryson, his breakout novel, "A Walk in the Woods," was based on his hiking the Appalachian Trail with a high school buddy. Yes, Stephen Katz was a real person. It's not clear if Bryson has any documentation from "Katz" allowing him to freely recount their trip.
All you really need to know about Bryson is that he was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, but now speaks with a British accent.
A friend recently published a book on Amazon. I bought a copy and then found out I could not read it on my Kindle due to DRM protection.
The problem was that I broke my Kindle and bought a used replacement but did not register it with Amazon. That's what DRM is now about: you cannot read DRM content on an unregistered device.
Why does that not scare the hell out of civil libertarians.
CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) is not a part of this, and every tech/repair person I've ever talked to joked with me about piracy. They simply don't care.
Sadly, they're regional so you can't switch to their DSL product, but Qwest/CenturyLink has always been a great ISP.
I accidentally bought Word 6 before it went on sale (clerical error) and because of that and my very busy resume writing service I got to be a primary troubleshooter for MS on that horrible release. Apparently not one single beta tester typed over 50 wpm, and they didn't realize how buggy the Typeahead buffer was. Word was literally dropping words and letters at random out of what I was inputting and suddenly my workload doubled due to the need for very close proofreading. Resulted in involuntary eye twitches and then my heart went out of rhythm, something that's never happened before or since.
in this country. When Microsoft's super-buggy Word 6.0 resulted in my hospitalization (cardiac arrhythia), the MN AG's office refused to even consider suing Microsoft. They flat out told me that Microsoft was bigger than Minnesota, and there was no point to litigation.
Clinton's DOJ gave MS a free pass on monopolistic abuses. I don't think that horse is ever getting put back into the barn.
I'm bad on this topic. I used to use other search engines just to go against the grain, but Google won me over. Of all the major players online, I cannot think of anyone else who's been more useful to me, especially not for free.
It would break my heart to learn that Google's as bad as the rest of them.
Fifteen years is an awesome achievement, especially in a demanding area like IT trends. I've been tracking blogs pretty closely since my first one in 1999, and you are easily one of the most prolific quality bloggers out there.
And no, I don't know why your anniversary isn't on all the news wires, or why you haven't received a MacArthur grant yet.
Re: Re: Re: Using her numbers, at one time I would have been subject
Shhh! Don't tell Anonymous Coward how it works!
Yes, there may have been one or two songs I downloaded that I didn't upload, but that happens when you're the last to grab the second album from a one-hit wonder band.
"If I went to a site called "pirate movie download den", I can be pretty sure they don't have the rights. When in doubt, air on the side of caution."
OK, guide me through the world I live in. I go to one torrent site and they have very strict rules for uploading. Nothing on any label that objects to their music being shared, nothing by any artist who objects. I've uploaded there and I'm very confident that the music I get at their site is OK to share and distribute.
The other sites I go to don't have rules, but I see a lot of the same music, so I know they have music that I can legally download.
HOW DO I TELL WHICH IS WHICH? Are average music consumers really expected to keep up-to-date lists of all the no-downloading-allowed labels and artists? Seriously?
I think what you're saying is that "free" should not be a legal distribution model. And you also seem to be saying that content that is legally uploaded and downloaded from a site like Pirate Bay is somehow tainted because not all of their torrents are OK with the RIAA/MPAA/porn producers, etc.
You don't seem shy about reiterating your arguments. Please respond.
Using her numbers, at one time I would have been subject
to BILLIONS of dollars in fines. And as a Minnesota blogger I kept posting that fact over and over again every time Jammie's case came up in the newspaper. I would leave comments in local newspapers explaining that I had downloaded literally over 100,000 songs.
No one ever sued me.
The difference? Jammie had a job and money in the bank. I didn't.
RIAA never sues anyone who doesn't have money to pay, or a paycheck to slap a lien on.
This is all about money, and only about money.
Fuck the Eighth Circuit and the whores who sit on it.
On the post: Medialink Threatens Customer With Lawsuit For Writing A Negative Amazon Review
On the post: Would You Pay $50 Per Episode To See Game Of Thrones?
This is nothing new
Welcome to our brave new rentier society. And once you're used to paying these rents, you'll be ready for a world in which you never get to own anything. Your car will be leased, your home rented, major appliances leased, and, of course, any entertainment you purchase can be deleted remotely at the behest of just about anyone who's not you.
On the post: Baseball Is Back! Too Bad I Still Can't Watch My Local Team On My MLB.TV Subscription...
Amen
I can watch my team on NBA League Pass now (TNT and ESPN games excepted) but I can't afford the broadband (those game streams suck up a lot of bandwidth.
We are the most corrupt country on earth, Russia included. Worse, we don't even know the only standing that count, namely which billionaire has/is the biggest dick.
On the post: Netflix, YouTube Streaming Gets Worse on Major ISPs, Who In Turn Blame the Deep, Dark Mysteries of the Internet
More anecdotal evidence
That and even at 30 mbps, Netflix was choppy and unwatchable. All other streaming video was better, including illegal NBA feeds.
State of the art wireless technology, but it couldn't stream Netflix worth a crap.
There's something else going on here.
On the post: Baybrook Remodelers, Still In The Midst Of Suing People For Negative Reviews, Deploys A Disastrous SEO Hitman
This sounds like a job for Anonymous
On the post: Washington Post Columnist Says 'Complainers' Will Be At Fault For Next Terrorist Attack
Re: Re: To Pincus's credit
But unlike Greenwald and (Markos) Moulitsas, members of Congress and people in the Pentagon did read Pincus.
I'm not nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize, just saying that he was an establishment voice for reason at a time when the establishment had gone batshit insane. Also, he's 83 years old and entitled to his opinions.
On the post: Washington Post Columnist Says 'Complainers' Will Be At Fault For Next Terrorist Attack
To Pincus's credit
He's very old, very pro-defense establishment, but he's not half the hack his boss, Fred Hiatt is.
Agree with you that this is a bad column, but I think it lacks context. Pincus did a better job of trying to slow the rush to war than Glenn Greenwald, Marcos Moulitsas and all the other bloggers combined (myself included).
On the post: Author Claims Copyright Over Interview He Gave 20 Years Ago
A good writer but too full of himself
All you really need to know about Bryson is that he was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, but now speaks with a British accent.
On the post: Undownloading: Further Proof Those eBooks You Paid For Really Aren't Yours
DRM
The problem was that I broke my Kindle and bought a used replacement but did not register it with Amazon. That's what DRM is now about: you cannot read DRM content on an unregistered device.
Why does that not scare the hell out of civil libertarians.
On the post: Comcast: We Won't Terminate Your Account Under Six Strikes; We'll Just Block Every Single Website
Sadly, they're regional so you can't switch to their DSL product, but Qwest/CenturyLink has always been a great ISP.
On the post: Microsoft Sued Because It Overloaded Surface Tablet With Pre-Installed Apps
Re: Re: There is no consumer protection
http://mfinley.com/articles/cardiac.htm
I accidentally bought Word 6 before it went on sale (clerical error) and because of that and my very busy resume writing service I got to be a primary troubleshooter for MS on that horrible release. Apparently not one single beta tester typed over 50 wpm, and they didn't realize how buggy the Typeahead buffer was. Word was literally dropping words and letters at random out of what I was inputting and suddenly my workload doubled due to the need for very close proofreading. Resulted in involuntary eye twitches and then my heart went out of rhythm, something that's never happened before or since.
On the post: Microsoft Sued Because It Overloaded Surface Tablet With Pre-Installed Apps
There is no consumer protection
Clinton's DOJ gave MS a free pass on monopolistic abuses. I don't think that horse is ever getting put back into the barn.
On the post: FTC Offers $50,000 To Whoever Can Come Up With A Way To Stop 'Rachel From Cardholder Services'
How can I contribute to that reward?
It's gotten to where I'm beginning to involuntarily hate everyone named Rachel.
On the post: Court Rules Yellow Pages Are Protected Speech
Outrageous
Corporate litterers now have more rights than human beings engaged in political protest.
On the post: FTC Supposedly Getting Ready To Go After Google For Antitrust Violations
Re: Re: Given the Microsoft precedent
It would break my heart to learn that Google's as bad as the rest of them.
On the post: FTC Supposedly Getting Ready To Go After Google For Antitrust Violations
Given the Microsoft precedent
If what Microsoft did was legal, it is not possible to break this law.
On the post: Come Celebrate 15 Years Of Techdirt (And 50,000 Posts)!
Congratulations
And no, I don't know why your anniversary isn't on all the news wires, or why you haven't received a MacArthur grant yet.
On the post: Court: Fining Jammie Thomas $9,250 Per Song Infringed Motivates Creative Activity
Re: Re: Re: Using her numbers, at one time I would have been subject
Yes, there may have been one or two songs I downloaded that I didn't upload, but that happens when you're the last to grab the second album from a one-hit wonder band.
On the post: Court: Fining Jammie Thomas $9,250 Per Song Infringed Motivates Creative Activity
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
OK, guide me through the world I live in. I go to one torrent site and they have very strict rules for uploading. Nothing on any label that objects to their music being shared, nothing by any artist who objects. I've uploaded there and I'm very confident that the music I get at their site is OK to share and distribute.
The other sites I go to don't have rules, but I see a lot of the same music, so I know they have music that I can legally download.
HOW DO I TELL WHICH IS WHICH? Are average music consumers really expected to keep up-to-date lists of all the no-downloading-allowed labels and artists? Seriously?
I think what you're saying is that "free" should not be a legal distribution model. And you also seem to be saying that content that is legally uploaded and downloaded from a site like Pirate Bay is somehow tainted because not all of their torrents are OK with the RIAA/MPAA/porn producers, etc.
You don't seem shy about reiterating your arguments. Please respond.
On the post: Court: Fining Jammie Thomas $9,250 Per Song Infringed Motivates Creative Activity
Using her numbers, at one time I would have been subject
No one ever sued me.
The difference? Jammie had a job and money in the bank. I didn't.
RIAA never sues anyone who doesn't have money to pay, or a paycheck to slap a lien on.
This is all about money, and only about money.
Fuck the Eighth Circuit and the whores who sit on it.
Next >>