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I think we'll start seeing more convergence between the various standards -- today I watch more "television" on my PDA than I do on my actual television screen. I probably watch more on my t809 Samsung cell phone than on my TV, too.

AT&T re-merging means nothing to me as AT&T (and Comcast and T-Mobile and the Chicago Tribune and WGN radio) mean nothing to me at all -- they're all dated mechanisms that came about because of the FCC allowing them what no individual had a right to anymore: the airwaves. The local communities were colluding with the cartels as well, giving right of way to only a few select companies in exchange for a nice chunk of change over the decades. I constantly bring grief to my village council meetings when I decry the few dollars Comcast continues to pay the village for every bill they collect.

I see such a great waste in available bandwidth due to excessive (and in my mind unconstitutional) FCC regulation of frequencies. For me, data is data and I just want to get at it faster and in more areas. To think that we're still going to send data over the UHF and VHS frequencies 50,000 watts at a time in a "one size fits all" broadcast is unthinkable. Those same frequencies could be better used to let people get what they want, when they want, in the form they want, at the price they want. Imagine how much more bandwidth would be available if the frequencies were available for the NEXT wireless standards.

The typical replies to a proposal such as this are "someone will broadcast on every frequency so no one can communicate" or "without regulation we'd get interference all over the place." I can not see someone broadcasting 50,000 watts on every frequency as the power needed to run a transmittor at that power on every frequency would quickly bankrupt the transmitter. A brigand could send random bursts on random frequencies, but a good software radio can frequency hop fast enough to not make this a problem. The idea of interference is also reduced by the software radio idea -- plus the fact that transmitters want to get the signal out more than they want to block the signal gives me the belief that we won't see these problems. An advertiser in today's market COULD by every advertisement spot on every media format, but no one has. Why is that?

We have to stop thinking in terms of television, radio, cell phone, WiFi, narrowband, broadband, etc. Those terms can be filed next to telegraph. For me, I want real convergence: manufacturers finding ways to frequency hop faster, incorporating software radios that can adjust to what the receiver and the sender need rather than be shoehorned into a narrow band of frequencies and amplifier power.

Yet we all know -- or should know -- that the frequencies aren't regulated for the people, they're regulated to keep control of the system in the hands of the elite -- the distribution cartels. Nothing will change over time, in fact I believe we'll see our beloved Internet regulated "to protect the people" but in reality it'll be regulated to protect the content cartels. The RIAAs, the MPAAs, the publisher's associations and all the various collusive elements that controlled information yesterday are looking to control information tomorrow, and most people will not mind.

I mind because I see the power of data -- a small packet of information that isn't important until it is used. To think that we have gigahertz of bandwidth being used to try to give everyone the same thing is beyond me, and part of the reason I hate the FCC and want to see it disbanded completely so that society has a chance to meet our own needs in the future -- one IP connection at at time.

Could not connect: User root has already more than 'max_user_connections' active connections

Vista to eradicate spyware

It's still not a good thing, but note that Super Hero Happy Hour received the message in 2004. It's just now being brought to everyone's attention- and as others have pointed out, they've had the trademark for some time. The original BoingBoing post noted that Marvel was using a museum to strengthen its trademark argument (the TM note at the bottom of the page).

Still, between this and the NCSoft suit, I'm not at all happy with Marvel nowadays. This is the kind of thing that could hurt their authors. The Underwear Pervert blog (Boing Boing's suggestion to replace super heroes) gives examples of where authors published by these guys have used materials in the public domain, which they should be able to do.

Check out this hillarious spoof comic via BoingBoing.

Indeed, what an amazing and insightful "news" story. It's not because of cell phone technology that cell phones are such a drag in the US, it's because of the cell phone "service" providers. Who would have thought.

If you have time check out my post on why the patent system is broken, and how to fix it.

A summary:
The Problem: Way too many patents are filed for, way too many patents are recieved, and not enough are enforced (uncertainty is a problem).
The Fix: Either strengthen patents considerably (making it much harder to get one, but making litigation more predictable) or weaken patents considerably (making it trivial to get a patent and hard to enforce them). Either way.

In actuality that is quite possible. This is the first time the Supreme Court has heard a case on the scope of patentable subject matter, and it is quite possible that this case will have a profound effect on software and business process patents.

See the following for some speculation on the topic.

http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2005/10/supreme-c ourt-takes-patentable-subject.html

It may actuall be a fat wedge.

Other Alternate Reality Games have been a bit more successful. Home-grown games are numerous and plentiful. Corporate engines include I Love Bees, where people were asked to answer pay-phone calls all over the country to unravel a story, and the quite successful Perplex City, which employs collectible cards and a dozen websites to tell a story.

ARGs typically exist on the web primarily, so quite a bit different fFrom this interesting "escape" game. Really though, I hope they ask Jane McGonigal's input. She knows her stuff, yo.

• I disagree (Score:5, Funny) by Tezkah (771144) on Saturday March 18, @07:00PM (#14950017)
  (Last Journal: Tuesday July 19, @09:04PM) Yes, I agree that just repeating what the parent said merits a +3 Funny...
  Look before you mod, people. [ Reply to This | Parent ]
• Re:Humor? by fm6 (Score:2) Saturday March 18, @07:14PM

• I disagree (Score:5, Funny) by Tezkah (771144) on Saturday March 18, @07:00PM (#14950017)
  (Last Journal: Tuesday July 19, @09:04PM) Yes, I agree that just repeating what the parent said merits a +3 Funny...
  Look before you mod, people. [ Reply to This | Parent ]
• Re:Humor? by fm6 (Score:2) Saturday March 18, @07:14PM

Incidentally, John Howard's blog is still up. (Satire? This? Never!)

Initially I thought that they had shut down the John Howard Prime Minister blog (which is actually funny), but instead it looks like they removed some other website with no sense of humour.

Satire works so much better when it is *funny*.

It's harmful to both minors and adults.

Exposure to porn makes people more likely to believe that rape is acceptable. Exposure to porn makes people more likely to believe domestic violence is acceptable. Exposure to porn makes people more likely to be opposed to women's rights. Exposure to porn makes people believe fringe sexual activities like beastiality are more common than they really are. Exposure to porn makes people less happy with their own sexual partners and their sex lives.

And that's not even getting into the harm it does to the women actually appearing in pornography. That's just the users.

I used to think porn was harmless too, but there's a whole heap of research that shows it is anything but.

"Our innovations facilitate the power of people" - Steve Ballmer

"We want to get to the ultimate client experience by enabling our associates," Tim Huval BoA

In fact, Melbourne IT's procedures are so slack that they infamously transferred the panix.com domain to a third party without authorisation last year.

Not just that. They've also been accused of facilitating 419 fraud.

So, don't just blame the "Australian government" for this, as it's unclear who exactly intervened.

Better: Blame the "Australian government" for this, along with Melbourne IT. John Howard has lied to the Australian Public again and again.

He's currently under investigation for his role in collusion with Saddam's regime under sections.

...are both compulsive gamers. When I say compulsive I say it in the lightest possible meaning of the word, but we still tend to sit down in front of our two high-end computers and play computer games once we both get home from work. It is not the only thing we do, but it is the only thing that is relevant to this discussion, and your imaginations can fill in the blanks elsewhere - thank you.

I turned her almost accidentally to gaming and she only recently started a blog with the intent of chronicling her gaming, except she is too wrapped up in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind at the moment to actually make any updates to the blog. Go figure.

Our favorite genre is RPGs, for Role Playing Games. I prefer games with a deep, rich story and plenty of character development choices. She prefers games that are beautiful. Marriage is like that, you will like different things and you should just roll with it and get along on what you can get along on. That is also where it gets tricky.

Because we are both gamers, and because we love many of the same games we have tried to play them cooperatively. Here are the ones we have tried so far:

Neverwinter Nights (Wintel/Linux)

This was the game that really turned my wife onto gaming, and it was even her first ever contact with the "Dungeons and Dragons" franchise, imagine that. She has played this game and all of its expansions through at least twice, and four times for some. I have not even completed the original campaign. In this game, she is the master and I am the apprentice and my incessant questions about "Who was that?" and "Did you get that quest item?" or "Where does that road go?" became too much for her. We have completely different playing styles and couldn't cooperate.

System Shock 2 (Wintel)
This futuristic first-person RPG has an atmosphere thicker than custard pie and the 2.09 patch introduces a cooperative campaign mode for up to four players. We both love it, we've both played it through, but when we tried to play it together, we ran in different directions. When she was ambushed by a Hybrid from an angle she thought I had covered, I had actually wandered off in search of upgrade modules. It is a tense experience, but it is probably best experienced on your lonesome in a darkened room.

Guild Wars (Wintel)
We had great expectations for the cooperative possibilities in this game, and played through the entire "pre-searing" part of the game together. In this game we did not have the problem of running in different directions, but we were two different player classes. I was the tank warrior and she was the bow-equipped ranger/elementalist mage. She hit targets from a distance while I had to run up to them to attack. This meant she stood still and I ran ahead, and though I never ran far she still got the impression that I was leading the way instead of the ranger.

Icewind Dale II (Wintel)
Another Dungeons and Dragons franchise RPG, but this one was still in 2D art. She liked the 2D art, but decided that the characters "look like LEGOs" and refused to play on account of their miniscule modular ugliness.

Civilization IV (Wintel/?)
My wife not only made first aquaintance with gaming since she met me, but after her introduction to Civilization III, she also made the aquaintance of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. CivIII was her drug of choice and the first time she kept me up all night with a game, it was CivIII. So naturally we were both excited and frightened of the CivIV release. Carpal is painful and fixing it is not exactly free or pleasant. But! The turn-based nature of Civilization IV made this game the best possible cooperative game we have ever tried. Regardless of whether you play simultaneous or individual turns, you always have time to do what you want to and if your partner is ready with his/her turn before you are, you can zoom around the cities you have for some micromanagement.

Just make sure you divide the world between each other before you start. You do not want to get into a diplomatic border dispute with your spouse. And send reinforcements! / Per

I have Opera 8.52 and Flock 0.5.12 set up to _delete_ their ~/.opera or ~/.flock directories in ramdisk when these browsers are closed by the user. Done for security and to reclaim /ramdisk space.

Also, I have a preconfigured GuardDog firewall, allowing web surfing and email protocols by default, requiring no action or setup by the user, just boot the CD, and the firewall is up and doing what it does.

Tests on older computers with 128 MB of ram show that the livecd linux works just fine. I use a dual 200 mmx all the time, even for remastering.

I have a fully automated remastering script built in, and a script to copy the CD as a master copy, to a hard drive partition, for your use in remastering my CD. Both of these are very easy to use, just tell it where you want the "master copy" to be placed, and when you are ready to make an iso, tell it where to find the "master copy". These scripts are accessable via the IceWM or Fluxbox menus. Other included Window Managers are twm and KDE. Based on Knoppix 3.4, extensive changes have been made, including a choice of several mouse cursor themes on the fly. Very easy to try all of them, about 20 seconds for each. I have 12 built-in RSS feeds in Opera, they load in seconds after about 2 minutes of dial up online time, and provide an excellent preview of nearly 200 current news stories in Opera's Mail system, updated as long as the browser is open. Firefox 1.5.0.1 has 7 RSS feeds, handled as drop down lists from the bookmarks toolbar. Feel free to dig through the Getting Started Guide, link above for more unique features.

here Of course, you choose what to see and what not to see. Incidentally, I never have to use a commandline on Linux if I don't want to. It's just that there is no GUI in the world where you can download an HTML file and remove the tags, spellcheck the text, produce word-count statistics, bundle the results with the file, archive and compress it, and mail it to your business partner in a single step.

KPDF has an option to enable reading DRMed files but I dont hear anyone complaining about that.

KPDF is licensed under the GNU General Public License, and benefits from the GPL's strong copyleft protection. Therefore, the user will always have access to the KPDF source code (including any DRM components), allowing the user can remove the DRM and be left with a fully-functional PDF viewer.

This is less than can be said about GStreamer's plugins, which are proprietary and closed-source in order to prevent users from modifying them (ie. removing the DRM and being left with a functional plugin). GStreamer, being licensed as LGPL, allows proprietary and closed-source plugins to link to it, while KPDF, being licensed as GPL, does not. That's the fundamental difference, and that's why the Free Software Foundation warns against using the LGPL for any project.

Aaron Seigo, a lead KDE developer, has written extensively on this: DRM + source code = no DRM

Oh, and you can turn off the KPDF DRM at compile time and by unchecking "Obey DRM limitations" in Settings->Configure KPdf->General.

Since it doesn't seem to have been explicitly mentioned yet, I think it's important to point out that one of (if not the biggest) American concern is that technology given to the Brits will, because of the various partnerships in the defense industry, end up spread throughout the EU, possibly ultimately in China (if the embargo is ever lifted, or maybe even without that). Here are some relevant links: an admittidly biased blog, and a more objective defense industry news site.

• The Independent Invention Defense
• Striking down Business Method Patents
• Premature Patent Expiration for Lack of Usefulness
• Fine Patent Holders for Valid Prior Art
• Make Statutory Invention Registraions Free
• Introduce a "Limited Patent" Option

• The Independent Invention Defense
• Striking down Business Method Patents
• Premature Patent Expiration for Lack of Usefulness
• Fine Patent Holders for Valid Prior Art
• Make Statutory Invention Registraions Free
• Introduce a "Limited Patent" Option

• The Independent Invention Defense
• Striking down Business Method Patents
• Premature Patent Expiration for Lack of Usefulness
• Fine Patent Holders for Valid Prior Art
• Make Statutory Invention Registraions Free
• Introduce a "Limited Patent" Option

• The Independent Invention Defense
• Striking down Business Method Patents
• Premature Patent Expiration for Lack of Usefulness
• Fine Patent Holders for Valid Prior Art
• Make Statutory Invention Registraions Free
• Introduce a "Limited Patent" Option

• The Independent Invention Defense
• Striking down Business Method Patents
• Premature Patent Expiration for Lack of Usefulness
• Fine Patent Holders for Valid Prior Art
• Make Statutory Invention Registraions Free
• Introduce a "Limited Patent" Option

• The Independent Invention Defense
• Striking down Business Method Patents
• Premature Patent Expiration for Lack of Usefulness
• Fine Patent Holders for Valid Prior Art
• Make Statutory Invention Registraions Free
• Introduce a "Limited Patent" Option

• The Independent Invention Defense
• Striking down Business Method Patents
• Premature Patent Expiration for Lack of Usefulness
• Fine Patent Holders for Valid Prior Art
• Make Statutory Invention Registraions Free
• Introduce a "Limited Patent" Option

A French Knight? Isn't it obvious why? I'll tell you why...

Vive La Revolution!!!

--Pseudonymous Coward
http://deltanin.blogspot.com/

http://lilfields.blogspot.com/

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

http://alimohamed.blogspot.com/

http://baghdadgirl.blogspot.com/

http://democracyiniraq.blogspot.com/

http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

http://inlovewithiraq.blogspot.com/


Read what actual, really there all the time, Iraqis say.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

http://alimohamed.blogspot.com/

http://baghdadgirl.blogspot.com/

http://democracyiniraq.blogspot.com/

http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

http://inlovewithiraq.blogspot.com/


Read what actual, really there all the time, Iraqis say.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

http://alimohamed.blogspot.com/

http://baghdadgirl.blogspot.com/

http://democracyiniraq.blogspot.com/

http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

http://inlovewithiraq.blogspot.com/


Read what actual, really there all the time, Iraqis say.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

http://alimohamed.blogspot.com/

http://baghdadgirl.blogspot.com/

http://democracyiniraq.blogspot.com/

http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

http://inlovewithiraq.blogspot.com/


Read what actual, really there all the time, Iraqis say.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

http://alimohamed.blogspot.com/

http://baghdadgirl.blogspot.com/

http://democracyiniraq.blogspot.com/

http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

http://inlovewithiraq.blogspot.com/


Read what actual, really there all the time, Iraqis say.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

http://alimohamed.blogspot.com/

http://baghdadgirl.blogspot.com/

http://democracyiniraq.blogspot.com/

http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

http://inlovewithiraq.blogspot.com/


Read what actual, really there all the time, Iraqis say.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

http://alimohamed.blogspot.com/

http://baghdadgirl.blogspot.com/

http://democracyiniraq.blogspot.com/

http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

http://inlovewithiraq.blogspot.com/


Read what actual, really there all the time, Iraqis say.

By 2025 it is estimated that light trucks and cars (i.e. average Joe vehicles) will account for 45% of the US oil consumption.

You're way behind the times; they already do. The US burns about 9 million barrels/day of motor gasoline out of a hair over 20 million total.

Lightweight SUV class vehicles have been demonstrated using plain gasoline to acheive fuel economy beating today's compact and subcompact cars. By 2025 it is estimated that light trucks and cars (i.e. average Joe vehicles) will account for 45% of the US oil consumption.

Setting aside the question of why you drive a Suburban while touting light SUV-class stuff (hypocrisy?), the SUV form factor is inherently draggier than a car. The same powerplant technologies that can make a 40 MPG SUV can make an 80 MPG car. You know, like the Daimler-Chrysler ESX3, the GM ParadiGM and the Ford whateveritwas.

Hogwash. Do some research to at least validate part of your namesake.

Done long before you ever thought to ask. (More here).

Take it from the horse's mouth: 2005 ethanol production was only ~4 billion gallons. Production this year isn't even projected to reach 6 billion gallons.

Cellulosic ethanol has so much resource available to it only someone ignorant of the reality would make such a statement. Apparently this includes you. Cellulosic ethanol utilizes paper sludge, grasses, agricultural waste (of which we produce about one billion tons/year) that currently is generally burned or dumped into landfills. Waste biomass along can produce approximately 25-30 billion gallons of ethanol per year at current level of conversion technology.

I've read The Billion-Ton Vision. It projects a whole 10% of transportation fuels will come from biomass in 2020 (see the sidebar in the first page of the introduction, page 18).

How many people can actually use E85 when ethanol is only 10% of transportation fuel? That's the proof that the whole flex-fuel vehicle thing is a scam. The auto companies are getting CAFE credits for guzzling monsters that can run on E85, without there being enough ethanol to run more than a small fraction of them.

Production of ethanol loses about 50% of the energy right off the top; it disappears into the process either as metabolic losses of the yeast or process heat in hydrolization or distillation. That's energy that can be used productively if you aren't wedded to the idea of using liquid fuels. There are other ways to use biomass, such as carbonization. Direct-carbon fuel cells (a variant of molten-carbonate fuel cells) can convert charcoal to electricity at up to 80% efficiency, and the off-gas from carbonization is combustible and can run engines. With a scheme like that, you can do a lot more than just offset some fraction of oil consumption; you can:

• Provide all transport energy.
• Between carbonization and wind, provide most scheduled electric generation requirements now provided by gas and coal.
• Manufacture excess charcoal for use as a carbon-sequestering soil amendment (search for "terra preta de los indios", or start reading here).

Ethanol is a very lossy way of making biomass suitable for even lossier internal combustion engines. It's a dead end.

By using industry standard breeding and cropping practices, by 2050 using switc

By 2025 it is estimated that light trucks and cars (i.e. average Joe vehicles) will account for 45% of the US oil consumption.

You're way behind the times; they already do. The US burns about 9 million barrels/day of motor gasoline out of a hair over 20 million total.

Lightweight SUV class vehicles have been demonstrated using plain gasoline to acheive fuel economy beating today's compact and subcompact cars. By 2025 it is estimated that light trucks and cars (i.e. average Joe vehicles) will account for 45% of the US oil consumption.

Setting aside the question of why you drive a Suburban while touting light SUV-class stuff (hypocrisy?), the SUV form factor is inherently draggier than a car. The same powerplant technologies that can make a 40 MPG SUV can make an 80 MPG car. You know, like the Daimler-Chrysler ESX3, the GM ParadiGM and the Ford whateveritwas.

Hogwash. Do some research to at least validate part of your namesake.

Done long before you ever thought to ask. (More here).

Take it from the horse's mouth: 2005 ethanol production was only ~4 billion gallons. Production this year isn't even projected to reach 6 billion gallons.

Cellulosic ethanol has so much resource available to it only someone ignorant of the reality would make such a statement. Apparently this includes you. Cellulosic ethanol utilizes paper sludge, grasses, agricultural waste (of which we produce about one billion tons/year) that currently is generally burned or dumped into landfills. Waste biomass along can produce approximately 25-30 billion gallons of ethanol per year at current level of conversion technology.

I've read The Billion-Ton Vision. It projects a whole 10% of transportation fuels will come from biomass in 2020 (see the sidebar in the first page of the introduction, page 18).

How many people can actually use E85 when ethanol is only 10% of transportation fuel? That's the proof that the whole flex-fuel vehicle thing is a scam. The auto companies are getting CAFE credits for guzzling monsters that can run on E85, without there being enough ethanol to run more than a small fraction of them.

Production of ethanol loses about 50% of the energy right off the top; it disappears into the process either as metabolic losses of the yeast or process heat in hydrolization or distillation. That's energy that can be used productively if you aren't wedded to the idea of using liquid fuels. There are other ways to use biomass, such as carbonization. Direct-carbon fuel cells (a variant of molten-carbonate fuel cells) can convert charcoal to electricity at up to 80% efficiency, and the off-gas from carbonization is combustible and can run engines. With a scheme like that, you can do a lot more than just offset some fraction of oil consumption; you can:

• Provide all transport energy.
• Between carbonization and wind, provide most scheduled electric generation requirements now provided by gas and coal.
• Manufacture excess charcoal for use as a carbon-sequestering soil amendment (search for "terra preta de los indios", or start reading here).

Ethanol is a very lossy way of making biomass suitable for even lossier internal combustion engines. It's a dead end.

By using industry standard breeding and cropping practices, by 2050 using switc

I saw Matt Webb and Ben Cerveny demo Playsh at O'Reilly's ETech conference. The demo was pretty neat. I wrote up the talk and took some photos of the slides. You can see more here on my blog.

http://ptufts.blogspot.com/2006/03/playsh-playful- shell.html

Matt coded 90% of the Playsh environment in-game. Pretty cool.

--Pat

I installed that piece of shit for my kids. I went all the way through the updates/logins/EULAs over and over just to satisfy my morbid fascination that any one company could pack so much incompetence and arrogance into a single product's install program.

Anyway, it's a private firm, and they can ban whoever they want for whatever reason they want. Get over it. They did you a favor. WoW is going to drop off the face of the earth within a year or so. Nobody gets away with treating customers like crap for long. You heard it here first.

First of all, the First Amendment protects religion, speech, press, assembly, and petitioning. You probably meant the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search & seizure, or perhaps the Ninth Amendment's implied right to privacy.

Regardless, Google's own argument (PDF warning) is primarily about the burden of the request:

"A court must quash or modify a subpoena issued to a non-party if it subjects that person to undue burden." The court basically agreed, and the government agreed to accept less information.

Google goes on to say: "Search queries run on Google's databases come from such a wide variety of sources that Google's query data, stripped of personally identifying information, will not reveal whether the search query was run by a minor or adult, human or non-human, or on behalf of an individual or business. No conclusion can accurately be drawn from this data about individual behavior."

So if the search information isn't providing any useful data about individuals, as they argue, then it can't possibly be a violation of users' privacy. The court disagreed that the information was useless without identifying information.

Nowhere in Google's response do they mention anything about their Fourth Amendment rights, which is most likely because there is no legal challenge on those grounds. Furthermore, the court will only consider the arguments presented. It's like the old saying: You'll never get something if you don't ask for it. If Google fails to make a compelling argument, the judge typically won't just make one up on Google's behalf. That's not his job -- his job is to decide which argument has the most merit.

PS3 is being drowned in the boat anchors of DRM and Bluray.

http://kamalot.blogspot.com/2006/03/sonys-ps3-ark. html

And with Playstation division being the only division of Sony making any money, all of Sony is looking at using the PS3 to be their "Noah's Ark"; to save them from the flood.

Will it float?

Not having read the actual article and going by the misleading article blurb, I'd like to throw out my uniformed comment. To quote Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon: "What was that? An exhibition? We need emotional content. Try Again."

Sony has created the Playstation 3 (PS3), not as a game machine, but as a vessel to float the company into new lands. They are burdening the system with a new movie format (BluRay) unheard of levels of digital rights management for music and video, Memory Sticks and more.

The results are already starting to show. A year ago, Sony promised to launch the PS3 in Spring 2006. Instead, they waited till Spring 2006 to announce that they won't be launching the system until November 2006, in Japan , with other regions perhaps as soon as Spring 2007. Why? Digital Rights Management issues with the upcoming BluRay format.

The other divisions of Sony are dragging the PS3 down. The Playstation Portable (PSP) suffers from the same illness; too many hands in the basket. The PSP was designed around a slow-loading UMD format for distribution of movies which makes the machine less than ideal for game playing. Compared to ROM cartridges, UMDs are too slow loading and consume too much battery time. They make the machine more fragile and introduce problems with additional moving parts. In short, they are a sacrifice to the movie industry arm of Sony; giving up on the optimal game experience for the opportunity to sell you movies you probably already own on DVD.

The delays brought about by making compromises to the core functions of the system will put a great strain on Sony. Currently, their ark is full of holes and loaded with baggage. The flood waters rise. How many gamers will wait until this time next year in order to pick up a PS3 when Xbox 360 games are available today and are getting excellent review scores? How many will pass up the Revolution this holiday season when it is affordable and fun? How high will the waters rise before Sony can launch the ark?

Will it float?

More can be found here: Kamalot Blog

Sony has created the Playstation 3 (PS3), not as a game machine, but as a vessel to float the company into new lands. They are burdening the system with a new movie format (BluRay) unheard of levels of digital rights management for music and video, Memory Sticks and more.

The results are already starting to show. A year ago, Sony promised to launch the PS3 in Spring 2006. Instead, they waited till Spring 2006 to announce that they won't be launching the system until November 2006, in Japan , with other regions perhaps as soon as Spring 2007. Why? Digital Rights Management issues with the upcoming BluRay format.

The other divisions of Sony are dragging the PS3 down. The Playstation Portable (PSP) suffers from the same illness; too many hands in the basket. The PSP was designed around a slow-loading UMD format for distribution of movies which makes the machine less than ideal for game playing. Compared to ROM cartridges, UMDs are too slow loading and consume too much battery time. They make the machine more fragile and introduce problems with additional moving parts. In short, they are a sacrifice to the movie industry arm of Sony; giving up on the optimal game experience for the opportunity to sell you movies you probably already own on DVD.

The delays brought about by making compromises to the core functions of the system will put a great strain on Sony. Currently, their ark is full of holes and loaded with baggage. The flood waters rise. How many gamers will wait until this time next year in order to pick up a PS3 when Xbox 360 games are available today and are getting excellent review scores? How many will pass up the Revolution this holiday season when it is affordable and fun? How high will the waters rise before Sony can launch the ark?

Will it float?

More can be found here: Kamalot Blog

...for eight years so I'm not 100% surprised the French are trying something like this. In fact, I blogged about this quite extensively yesterday.

Precisely. And the fact that OSS allows a user the freedom to block obtrusive ads, customize to personal taste and generally have control over their machines is why I migrated and never looked back. Interesing that this is a story on /. today, since recently did I write a little something about How on Earth can Anybody Compete with Microsoft?

Here we agree on something. As I pointed out earlier today the legislative manipulations of RIAA and Disney were both wrong and counterproductive.

They were wrong in the first place because the RIAA tried to steal copyrights from its own artists by having Congress declare them to be 'works for hire'. Disney stole copyright works from the public domain.

These actions were wrong morally and they were wrong tactically. It is much harder to convince people that stealling is wrong when you are stealling yourself.

I think that the DVD zone system is foolish for the exact same reason. First it is wrong because the real purpose of the zone system is to support illegal differential pricing schemes. Once you have cheated the public by overcharging for the product it is going to be much harder to convince them that stealling content off bitorrent is wrong.

Off course people are very popular when they are giving away other people's property. The Kray twins were very popular in London's East End, Buch Cassidy, Jessie James and his gang were all pretty popular with the people who benefited from their generosity. And you will find the exact same rationalizations at work in the comments written at the time, the real criminals are the railway bosses etc etc.

Some national debt is necessary for manipulating interest rates (Fed) which can be good for lowering interest rates and fighting inflation. Too much debt though...

I completely disagree. Since the dawn of the Federal Reserve (1913) the dollar has lost over 95% of its value. Before this time when we had free market banking, the dollar of 1800 was equal to the dollar of 1912 minus maybe 2-3%. A 100% reserve banking standard is a requirement for a healthy financial review and the Keynesian economists that teach in the colleges and run the market today are wrong 100% that government should have anything to do with money.

Money should be a free market product, not something created on the whim of those in power. I fully believe that our economy is worse today than it was in the 80s, we just haven't realized it yet. I blog about this daily, and I've modified my life to live entirely off the dollar standard and I now live on a hard currency standard.

This same story was posted 14 days ago on News.com and I even posted it on my own blog, and then it takes 14 days to get Slashdotted! No wonder people are using Digg more and more.