|
Jedi Knight Luigi posted:You’re correct about the outdoor ones, like the one clearly in this picture. It’s just screaming “Waukesha, Wisconsin” to me (Former speaker Ryan’s blood-red home district outside Milwaukee) I think it's less the mailboxes and more "Wisconsin". Or Midwest in general, really.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 13:00 |
|
|
# ? Apr 17, 2024 23:21 |
|
Also FedEx is usually far far shittier than USPS unless you live in a heavily urban area.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 16:05 |
Shrapnig posted:Good news, Amazon does the majority of their shipping through USPS, an entity whose infrastructure is infinitely shittier than that of FedEx and UPS. UPS and FedEx will also hold packages for you, this isn’t some new frontier in the shipping industry. Yeah FedEx absolutely does not hold packages in St. Louis at least. Google ships with FedEx and they have lost every single package I have ordered. The first time it happened I figured it was a fluke since USPS/Amazon finds me just fine, so I just had Google reship the package. It got lost again, but my 'neighbor' about a mile up the road got it and brought it over. Next time I ordered something I called and tried to give FedEx instructions to leave it at my apartment's main office. No dice. Ok, can I require a signature? Nope. Can I give a phone number if the guy gets lost? Nah. Can I just pick it up from a drat FedEx office? Negatory. So they attempted to deliver it, I was home the entire time, and when it got marked as delivered there was nothing out front. My maintenance guy found it in front of an abandoned building in the complex though, which was nice. All in all I ordered four packages that used FedEx and got exactly zero of them delivered to my door. I've called and complained and they just say it's marked as delivered so I'm a liar. I've tried to make arrangements and they tell me to pound sand. So I'm just never going to use them again if I don't have to. I've literally never had an issue with any other company.
|
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 18:14 |
ElwoodCuse posted:Real talk: Netflix's days are numbered. Not like, immediately, and never underestimate the power of auto billing, but dropping all this money on original content people don't care about and the rights to Friends will not end well. Plus Disney and everyone else keeping streaming rights for themselves Yeah like 90% of Netflix's original stuff I don't care about at all, regardless of how critically acclaimed it is. I already know one person weighing their decision to continue subscribing when they heard about the price hike.
|
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 18:21 |
|
Terrible Opinions posted:Also FedEx is usually far far shittier than USPS unless you live in a heavily urban area.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 18:24 |
|
That Lasership company Amazon has been using is some bullshit. Sure, leave my package on the steps, in the rain, without even knocking, that's cool.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 18:39 |
|
Randaconda posted:That Lasership company Amazon has been using is some bullshit. Sure, leave my package on the steps, in the rain, without even knocking, that's cool. A metric buttload of people at my job (I work in Lower Manhattan) have their packages from Amazon shipped to the mailroom, and most have them have specifically mentioned Lasership as the reason.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 18:43 |
|
Pope Corky the IX posted:A metric buttload of people at my job (I work in Lower Manhattan) have their packages from Amazon shipped to the mailroom, and most have them have specifically mentioned Lasership as the reason. There's a massive thread on the Amazon forums with people bitching about Lasership that has been going for years.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 18:49 |
|
The USPS and Amazon partnership was not perfect but yeah, the new Amazon shipping service is pretty bad. So far I've seen them in handicap spaces, double parking and blocking parking spaces at my apartment for no reason when closer-to-entrance street parking is a few feet away, and packages in some of the worst places possible.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 19:02 |
|
Even with the taking pictures thing Amazon does they still miss it, though I get a nice pic of some dudes house for my trouble
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 19:30 |
I got a delivery notice but couldn't find the package so I looked at the picture on the website. It was left in the middle of my lawn in the dark with my house (with the front light on) visible within the picture the person had taken.
|
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 19:46 |
|
Randaconda posted:They changed my Xanax prescription last week, and now I have two GURPS 4e hardbacks on the way that I have no memory of buying. Which ones didja get
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 23:07 |
|
Black August posted:Which ones didja get Ultra Tech and Space.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 23:20 |
|
ElwoodCuse posted:Real talk: Netflix's days are numbered. Not like, immediately, and never underestimate the power of auto billing, but dropping all this money on original content people don't care about and the rights to Friends will not end well. Plus Disney and everyone else keeping streaming rights for themselves Everyone is trying to make their own streaming services and that's impacting the Netflix catalog (i.e. losing Marvel and Star Wars stuff). They're cramming in original content so it doesn't look like a barren wasteland and they can hang while all the new streaming services crash and burn and then Netflix can buy that content again. Netflix got burnt bad when Starz was pressured to abandon their deal and since then they've focused on original material to avoid that again. The idea that the market will support streaming services for individual networks or studios is not going to survive. Disney might make it work, but CBS's streaming service is terrible. They've got decades of material, but they won't put more than a few years of any one show online so it feels like you're paying for a trial version of the real service. Also networks can't appear to get rid of the commercial model in streaming because it probably devalues their core broadcast product. Netflix doesn't have that problem.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 23:23 |
|
Randaconda posted:Ultra Tech and Space. Your unconscious self is clearly hungry for them TL12 superdrugs and hope of escape from Hellworld, I can’t blame it
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 23:26 |
|
Black August posted:Your unconscious self is clearly hungry for them TL12 superdrugs and hope of escape from Hellworld, I can’t blame it My GURPS space stuff tends to run towards low magic weird Cthulhu-type stuff, but in space, for some reason. But hell, it's GURPS, it's designed for weird poo poo like that.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 23:28 |
|
My stuff trends on me looking through source books and imagining what it would be like if I had friends to play with
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 23:30 |
|
Iron Crowned posted:My stuff trends on me looking through source books and imagining what it would be like if I had friends to play with I have to most of my rp online nowadays. All of my old group died or moved away.
|
# ? Jan 22, 2019 23:50 |
|
I got a rock solid group from years of playing in TG here, and we are one month from the end of a 10-year campaign, after which I am done with RP for a good god drat long time
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 01:10 |
|
Krispy Wafer posted:Everyone is trying to make their own streaming services and that's impacting the Netflix catalog (i.e. losing Marvel and Star Wars stuff). They're cramming in original content so it doesn't look like a barren wasteland and they can hang while all the new streaming services crash and burn and then Netflix can buy that content again. Netflix got burnt bad when Starz was pressured to abandon their deal and since then they've focused on original material to avoid that again. Yeah, consumers just arent going to pay $10+ dollars for every single channel they want to watch. Hell, I only have internet through comcast, but a 150 channel package with the on-demand library is only 30 bucks more a month.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 02:29 |
|
Kanish posted:Yeah, consumers just arent going to pay $10+ dollars for every single channel they want to watch. Hell, I only have internet through comcast, but a 150 channel package with the on-demand library is only 30 bucks more a month. The area I live in has one provider for internet and they require a triple package in order to get a sane price. If you want internet alone it costs more than internet, cable and telephone. They also have seriously low data caps on the internet which prevents you from using streaming services very often. The package I had before I got sick was ~150 a month for 4Mbit down 1Mbit up and a 200 GB cap.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 02:39 |
|
There are lots of random streaming services that I've never heard of which I assume will be dead in a year In the end, the services powered by actual content are the ones that are going to survive, so probably Hulu, Disney Plus, HBO Go, and Netflix assuming they don't lose too many subscribers to competition
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 02:40 |
|
FilthyImp posted:Amazon also does returns through a drop-off table in some Kohls locations. I just did this today and drat if it’s not a smart move by kohl’s. While I was there at least 5 other people came in to return stuff and when you do your return you get a 25% off coupon on your total purchase. I have to imagine they are getting a pretty decent return for letting amazon use the small space and two employees.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 02:41 |
|
It's too early to know for sure if it's a trend or if things snap back but some studies suggest since streaming services fractured piracy has increased, whereas it had been on a steady downward move prior to that. There definitely is a future where Netflix can't sustain itself, although I would not be surprised if Netflix and cable companies eventually partner (either offering Netflix (or perhaps offering Netflix discounts), or maybe even [premium?] Netflix Channel[s]) as cable companies seek to have more content people care about and Netflix gets a financial partner to back its shows and such.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 02:46 |
|
Kanish posted:Yeah, consumers just arent going to pay $10+ dollars for every single channel they want to watch. Ok so this is crazy but check it, what if we bundle all the channels, then the popular ones can subsidize the niche ones and it’ll be overall cheaper than buying a la carte.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 03:02 |
|
Gynocentric Regime posted:Ok so this is crazy but check it, what if we bundle all the channels, then the popular ones can subsidize the niche ones and it’ll be overall cheaper than buying a la carte. Time is a flat circle
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 03:30 |
|
Gynocentric Regime posted:Ok so this is crazy but check it, what if we bundle all the channels, then the popular ones can subsidize the niche ones and it’ll be overall cheaper than buying a la carte. Trust the networks to implement the details while missing the point. The point being, we wanted a la carte so we could stop paying for garbage we didn't want and save money on TV. So of course what people do want gets balkanized to gently caress and you wind up paying more.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 03:37 |
|
Although it helps if you don't care about sports. ESPN is about 7 goddamn dollars of a cable TV bill, and it's unlikely they'd be able to support themselves without non-sports people subsidizing the costs of all their rights contracts.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 04:20 |
|
rndmnmbr posted:Trust the networks to implement the details while missing the point. The point being, we wanted a la carte so we could stop paying for garbage we didn't want and save money on TV. So of course what people do want gets balkanized to gently caress and you wind up paying more. Right up until you say gently caress it and turn to piracy. It's like with Steam, they realised that you have to treat piracy as a service issue and people are actually happy to pay for convenience. rndmnmbr posted:Trust the networks to implement the details while missing the point. The point being, we wanted a la carte so we could stop paying for garbage we didn't want and save money on TV. So of course what people do want gets balkanized to gently caress and you wind up paying more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJoqqKuymYE comes to mind.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 04:53 |
|
rndmnmbr posted:Trust the networks to implement the details while missing the point. The point being, we wanted a la carte so we could stop paying for garbage we didn't want and save money on TV. So of course what people do want gets balkanized to gently caress and you wind up paying more. See the problem is though it takes more than you’re willing to pay to get just want you want because it’s being subsidized by the “garbage”. You want to pay the .25 your cable company was paying, but that only ever worked because every subscriber was paying that .25, cut the payers to 1/10 or 1/20 and the price has to go up.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 11:40 |
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:Right up until you say gently caress it and turn to piracy. It's like with Steam, they realised that you have to treat piracy as a service issue and people are actually happy to pay for convenience. To be fair, the PC gaming market might not be an example to follow. People will be happy to buy stuff once it's discounted by like 80% Maybe the economy just needs to stop sucking in general so people will actually have money to spend on stuff
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 14:29 |
|
Sir Lemming posted:To be fair, the PC gaming market might not be an example to follow. People will be happy to buy stuff once it's discounted by like 80% It's hard to describe just how much of a pain in the rear end buying (and selling!) PC games was before Steam.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 14:41 |
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:It's hard to describe just how much of a pain in the rear end buying (and selling!) PC games was before Steam.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 14:45 |
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:It's hard to describe just how much of a pain in the rear end buying (and selling!) PC games was before Steam. Go back another few years and you've got that same issue with music. The media industry in general was incredibly anti-consumer in how it distributed content. When digital music services finally came about, you'd have rules about which ones could be played on a computer, which ones could be loaded to your MP3 player, and if you were lucky you might have a a few that could get burnt to a CD. There was no standard until Apple forced it on the music industry. And even then the record labels tried to circumvent Apple by promoting competitor options. My favorite being Microsoft's own standard that they wouldn't even use on their own Zune player because it sucked so bad. The system for all media is so much better now.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 15:35 |
|
Krispy Wafer posted:Go back another few years and you've got that same issue with music. The media industry in general was incredibly anti-consumer in how it distributed content. A friend of mine works for Microsoft and take a wild guess what kind of laptops they insist on using.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 15:40 |
|
Pope Corky the IX posted:A friend of mine works for Microsoft and take a wild guess what kind of laptops they insist on using. If they care about hardware failure rates, it's not Surface Pro's. Back when Zunes were a thing, stories were Microsoft campus employees would hide their iPods and have a decoy Zune in case a manager asked what they were listening to.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 15:45 |
|
Krispy Wafer posted:If they care about hardware failure rates, it's not Surface Pro's. My point was that, similar to the Zune thing, plenty of employees at Microsoft use Macbooks and other Apple laptops almost exclusively.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 15:59 |
|
I remember the story of Gates not allowing his kids to own ipods with the "I've bought them the best Zunes" in the article, and in my head ( I think this is just in my head and not in reality) there's a picture of him smiling with his kids beside him obviously sad with Zunes in their hand.
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 17:57 |
|
Haifisch posted:Although it helps if you don't care about sports. ESPN is about 7 goddamn dollars of a cable TV bill, and it's unlikely they'd be able to support themselves without non-sports people subsidizing the costs of all their rights contracts. On top of that, ESPN now wants money from both a cable AND streaming subscription! Content ESPN used to stream ESPN+ posted:The service focuses primarily on overflow content similar to that of ESPN's existing digital service ESPN3 (which is distributed to subscribers of participating internet and television subscribers), though some of ESPN3's content has been shifted exclusively to ESPN+ "If you want to watch this sport you need a cable subscription, but if you want to watch that sport you need to subscribe to our streaming service." And to reiterate what Krispy Wafer stated, CBS All Access is trash. I tried it out for the new Star Trek series. The streaming quality was terrible, most series on the service only had the latest season available for streaming, and other series didn't even have that much! Want to watch a particular episode of the Late Show? Hope it's one of the arbitrary 20 they generously make available for $10/month! Doggles has a new favorite as of 18:45 on Jan 23, 2019 |
# ? Jan 23, 2019 18:39 |
|
|
# ? Apr 17, 2024 23:21 |
|
Ahhh, ESPN taking the Disney approach
|
# ? Jan 23, 2019 18:42 |