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Welcome, once again, to another episode of cable operators complaining about internet delivery and content bundles. All together now - (sorry, I'm very snarky today) - cry me a river.

The real issue is that all of the current non-OTA TV delivery systems have bitten off much more than they can chew.

So far as I know, NO ONE in the USA is offering HD content as advertised:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Lite
http://www.highdefforum.com/directv-forum/29158-hd-lite-directv-picture-quality.html
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/51978-facts-about-hd-lite-e.html
http://forums.joeuser.com/309174
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2009/04/22/daily.4/
(I recognize that some of the above links seem to target satellite TV, but if you read through two things become apparent: users are equally slamming cable, and neither satellite nor cable has their arms around a solution.)

Like it or not, the #1 driver for a cable subscription is TV - and they already cannot deliver on that.

I'm not a big sports fan (but so what if I am or not?), but I can reliably report this: during a hockey and a basketball game, I DVR'd OTA and my so-called high-def service of same channels. Hockey results: OTA clear, puck actually disappeared with paid service. Round-ball results: OTA clear, paid service unable to distinguish if foot over line or ref was blind during slo-mo playback.

And here's some technical anecdotes:
1. Your channel package choice or size of bundle won't impact anything, it's backbone limited.
2. When I upgraded to "HD" satellite, my house's RG-58 didn't cut it due to bandwidth limits on the RG-58. The '58 was ok for the short wall-to-TV pigtails, not otherwise.
3. They can fiber this and cable that and MPEG-4 the other, but no one is supporting the infrastructure to get the job done.

And a real big issue - once you've made the grade to premium cable or premium satellite, and you've replaced your TV - name your reasons, they're all valid: a) I want a new one, b) new TV standards and my set is getting old anyway, c) time to branch out and support my computer and Hulu, HTPC, et al, in the living room - you'll replace that TV with an HDTV and you'll go with the HD package from your for-pay provider (cable or satellite). The HDTV is an investment-grade purchase, just like your PC (any flavor), and the HD programming is too small an incremental price increase to pass up.

Here's the invective we can now look forward to: if you're complaining about your TV quality, you'll be told the bandwidth suckers using torrents are to blame. If you're complaining about your internet service, you'll be told that the primary service is directed at TV quality. Either way, do not expect that the future holds a world where you're really going to get what you think you're paying for.

Mark my words.

(PS - No apologies to those not interested in HDTV, or TV - you're not the big market to these companies, and that's all I'm ragging on - I'm not dis'ing anyone's lifestyle or entertainment choices. HTH.)

Doesn't matter that copying went up, what matters is sales went up.

In short, I agree wholeheartedly.

• Game Developers Should Ignore Software Pirates
• "Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count."
• Game Developer Asks To Hear From Pirates (Maybe)

I'm posting these because you post made me remember the "Pirates don't count. Only paying customers count." part.

How does one define success? Profit or pure number of copies sold? Spore reportedly cost around $35 million to develop, while GalCiv II had a budget of less than $1 million. Will Spore bring in 35 times the sales of GalCiv II? I very much doubt it. GalCiv II had sold about 300,000 copies as of March (see link above) and Spore's sales are at least one million, but less than two. Looking at those numbers, Spore seems more like a failure, despite it's sales.

I think I need to rain on your parade a little. =)

Judging by what I've read about StarDock (e.g. http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303512/Piracy_PC_Gaming ,) they aren't doing what they do to "take the high road" or to win a fanbase that will get them buzz, they're doing it to maximize the dollars they earn.

As I understand it, this means deliberately ignoring "game developer dreams" and choosing to make games that can be done on the cheap and will be bought the most.

As I see it, StarDock isn't against copy protection measures in general, they are against them when they do not make good business sense (i.e. when the number of sales lost due to piracy is small, and and the few of those sales that copy protection techniques would recover would not be enough to make it worthwhile).

In other words, StarDock isn't against copy protection on principle, they are against taking a stance against piracy on principle when it would lead to bad business decisions.

My assumption is that StarDock's corner of the game business doesn't have enough second-hand sales for them to bother adding bonus content for the reason suggested in the story.

Yet another slashdot troll headline. A not unreasonable cooperative attempt by private companies to cut piracy with no government intervention whatsoever is an "attack on civil liberties."

Let's see if I have the basic dance correct: if a GOVERNMENT program comes out that attempts to curb piracy, then you scream and yell that privacy is a private matter between individual and rightsholder. If a PRIVATE progam is developed to combat piracy, even one with quite mild constraints like this one, we get bitching and whining that corportations are acting in place of government.

Here are the golden oldies we expect to see in this thread:

• I trade my linux binaries via P2P (fine - then you should have no problem of rightsholders doing file-hash-based enforcement)
• I learned about band X from P2p (fine - in which case if it makese economic sense for a company or band to release thusly, they will.. it's their decision to make)
• piracy involves guys with eye patches. this is copyright infringement. actually, it's both. get thee to a dictionary.
• yes, but they can't tell with absolute certainty who is using a given PC. absolute certainty is not a condition of law - reasonableness is.
• It's not illegal if it hasn't been released in my country (anime, etc). NONSENSE.
• P2P is fair use. No, it isn't. Especially in Britain, where the concept of fair use is much more restricted than in the USA (which *IS* an actual problem with the british system). But, don't worry - your 1.5 tb of movies and music isn't fair use ANYWHERE.

have i gotten the more obvious ones sorted?

What about the part of the depend that's below the equilibrium price? All those users who wouldn't buy it for this price even if there were no downloads possible, and thus if they download the album, the business isn't actually losing profit? Surely in those cases there is no damage done. And actually the popularity arising from such an action (they tell their friends about the album)), it might actually prove beneficial for the business.

What we must all consider is whether the costs of fighting piracy aren't higher than the actual costs of piracy. There are some articles out there saying that the best solution for business is to ignore piracy. All in all, preventing P2P music downloads can actually reduce to amount of music sold legally, and isn't that the main motivation of those businesses?

Oh wait, actually it might not be. There is one thing more important that money, and that is power. These enormous corporations want to get control, just like a lot of government officials. In which case, yes, I'm going to oppose these laws.

Oh, and as this is Slashdot, a reference to an appropriate xkcd comic is in order :P

This is an amazing blogspamming circle jerk. Slashdot posts a summary about a summary on Ars, about a summary on TechReport, about a blog post from the CEO of Stardock.

RTRFA (read the real f'ing article) here:
http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303512/Piracy_PC_Gaming

Dear Internet, please stop this crap, thanks.

http://lobsterhunter.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=167496

also fails to load... a few more of these and I'll start to wonder whether Amazon is nailing pages that might be negative about Kindle..

http://www.google.com/search?q=why+kindle+will+fail+mirror&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

So, I went to:

http://www.linuxchix.org/live?page=5

and nothing. Then, i just searched it, and STILL nothing...

is Amazon paying off or forcing people to end their anti-Kindle pages?

Is anyone else having problems finding negative Kindle blogs or articles or comments?

Pure coincidence - I happened upon this post just now that expresses the same sort of thing, with a different point:

http://www.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=153749

http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2005/04/freedom-of- speech.html post http://johngalt.joeuser.com/articles.asp?AID=88160 Bottom of page Admittedly, not a lot, but they are out there.

Kevlar isn't kevlar, you sad, stupid fuck. Kevlar isn't even relevant to rifle rounds, or most fragmentation explosives.

Military grade body armor uses ceramic plates, and the armor our troops first deployed with had none--it was what is considered "soft" body armor--kevlar. It barely stops a 9mm, and it serves as no protection against rifle rounds, or high velocity shrapnel--they might protect against hand grenade shrapnel at medium distance, but not against anything larger. Useless.

Our troops are currently deployed with Interceptor OTV vests. They're stiff, heavy, and they have an ceramic insert that is designed to protect the heart and lung area. You can see it here You see that little plate? It's so goddamned fragile, that if you so much as drop it, it becomes useless. If you duck for cover, there's a good chance that you'll break that plate, and whatever armor you had is now useless for anything stronger than a 9mm. That plate is designed to break apart, and absorb energy from a round. It's good for precisely ONE shot. Naturally, that plate is totally inflexible.

There are better armors on the civilian market. Take a look at Dragon Skin Armor It's made entirely of round titanium composite ceramic plates, intelocked, front, back, and side. They'll take dozens of 7.62 rounds, hundreds of 9mm rounds, more shrapnel than you can throw at it, they're just a tad heavier than Inteceptor armor, but they're very flexible, and they breathe like nothing else. It is a better system. It's a safer system. And now our troops can't use it, even if their families shipped them out at considerable expense.

I'm ex-military, and ex-republican (I'm a real conservative, not a pansy-ass neo-con like the shitheads that now occupy the Republican ranks), I was an officer in Desert Storm, and I can say, unafraid of criticism, that our troops don't have the best protection available for the cost we pay. It's a fact. There's better stuff out there, but the Pentagon is shitting their pants because it's a little more expensive. But to think that they won't allow our soldiers to use the better stuff, even if they afford it on their own... That's just fucking stupid!

To think that good men are dying while stupid-ass pieces of shit like yourself play the political card makes me want to explode something. You know what? You can sit on your blind as fuck ignorance and spin, motherfucker.

Well stated. Although I do not share your personal preferences, and I'm not sure what I would consider myself religiously (not aetheist) but definately not a fan of organized religion, you do have some valid points and I applaud your forwardness for risking the flames of trolls (This taking that your account is factual and not fabricated to generate support for your ideas). I read some similar thoughts on a blog the other day one of my friends sent me.

http://draginol.joeuser.com/index.asp?aid=100703

I am all for freedom of personal expression within bounds. Like the old axiom says, "Your freedom ends where mine begins." Any ideology that does not allow for differing view points is flawed.

Your link on dhimmis was most informative.

I read this bit in the NYT a few days ago and composed my own response.

http://zoomba.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=83176

In short, while publishers and developers are ultimately responsible for turning out rehashed games year after year after year, they only do it because WE want them to. We buy them. We DEMAND THEM (Starcraft 2 is a prime example of this demand).

I personally think that J. Michael Straczynski should have a go, he pulled off B5 on a shoestring. See his comments here http://www.joeuser.com/Forums.aspx?ForumID=10&AID= 65211. Imagine what he could do with Paramounts financing and marketing muscle.

Like wise I would like to see Jose Whedon thoughts and Quentin Tarantino's ideas. Even Jonathan Frakes has demonstrated enough talent as a director and producer with Roswell to put together a good team.

It's nice that Konfabulator is coming out for Windows but Arlo knows that Konfabulator is old news on Windows. Programs like DesktopX not only do everything (and more) and cost less, but have existed far longer than Konfabulator. http://www.desktopx.net.

And he also has to compete against freeware alternatives.

Here's an article that compares ALL of them:
http://frogboy.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=27014

I see your point, and I'm sure the publishers have their reason for pricing games at ~$50.

Maybe instead of dropping the price of games they need to improve the quality. I think it's absolutely rediculous when developers are working on a patch before it's even hit the stores. Most publishers put so much pressure on developers to release that they often release a buggy product. It seems to me to be part of the reason why people are more willing to warez.

I guess I just don't believe that people are inherently malicious in their actions and are more driven by market forces.

Check out this article believed to be written by one Brad Wardell of Stardock and Galactic Civilizations fame. I posted the article (and ranted a little) here if you are interested.

Fair Access Policy. Learn them, love them, leave them. Here is one war story.
There are sites dedicated to the incredible level of FAP abuse that is piled on customers.

Here is a place for you to study.
This may be more relevant to your needs, here.