Even worse, worse: Those companies, seing the net as a commercial cable TV operation will more and more pressure ISPs to allow "legitimate" spam.
Good point - I feel extremely irritated when I read e-mail which read 'this mail is legal and sent in accordance with.....' etc. as if they should be above reproach.
I must admit the the few bit of spam I receive almost exclusively come from PSINet. On the other hand, a mail to abuse@ does seem to cause the spams to cease for a few weeks, and I rarely see them returning from the same source (i.e. the style and content seem to be different).
Is it me, or does the introduction of a really hi-tech or 'concept' control pad which is shipped with the machine by default always indicate the impending doom of a console company? The only control pad I remember being as bizarre and uncomfortable as the Dreamcast's was the Atari Jaguar pad in the early 90's (remember them?) And look what happened - it was meant to be the resurrection of Atari but was really its death knell. We'll all know the fate of Microsoft when we see final pictures of the X-Box control pad.
I don't know - I think the console market is more about concept than implementation, i.e. what you're trying to achieve rather than exactly how it's done. Owning the Dreamcast would give them a method for how it's done; taking concepts and ideas from the Dreamcast can be done for free.
Also, the playing field and state-of-the-art will have changed so much by the time Sony is ready to release PSX3 or whatever their next machine will be called that the Dreamcast technology really won't help them all that much.
> Unfortunately, you won't find many more options > past these ones. The 'big floppy' drives (LS- > 120, Zip) are out of the question (drives cost > a pretty penny and are hardly a standard).
I'd disagree with this one. I'm at Sheffield University in the UK, and they have installed ZIP-100s in every machine across campus. I can buy them retail at GBP40 for an internal drive, so I reckon the uni must be getting them GBP30-35 in bulk (there's several thousand machines).
The disks are cheap (GBP10 for 100 megs = 10p/meg) and quite durable. Although slightly bulky, their bulk is an advantage because it makes people take greater care with them, and I've never had one go corrupt like a floppy does.
The format is a 'standard' - virtually everyone (in the UK at least) who needs to a bigger-than-floppy-smaller-than-CDR storage uses ZIP 100s, and they are accepted by most Mac/PC print shops so students who like to get their work printed properly won't have any problem.
I wouldn't touch LS-120. The disks are too flimsy and breakable, and the format is not common enough.
Regardless of whether or not it's fake, it's entertaining in two ways -- once as a fantasy tale of someone taking revenge on spammers, and once as a badly written overly dramatic technical article from an advanced TCP/IP know-how provider who can use advanced tools like NSLOOKUP and WHOIS...
And it looks like they're using Windoze and haven't got their DNS set up properly:-
C:\>nslookup *** Can't find server name for address 192.168.0.1: Non-existent domain *** Default servers are not available Default Server: UnKnown Address: 192.168.0.1
I my office we do desktop video editing. Our main edit machine as two 40 gig hard drives. That's 80 gigs. These drives are only offering five times more that our current spec. I'm sure in five years' time we'll be wanting that.
Re:First ontopic post? Informative even?
on
Update On WorkSpot
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· Score: 1
Yep, it's an I have to agree with you post. I do lots of work with Windows/Mac only development tools like Flash and Director, so I currently have Linux on my servers and NT on my workstations.
I've just upgraded two machines to W2K and I'm very happy with it. One machine is a PII350 with nice SCSI hard drives and lots of video capture hardware and lots of RAM and the other is a Cyrix 333 with 32 megs and a nasty integrated video/sound motherboard. Both machines installed without a hitch. I've still got driver problems with the video hardware, but I did under NT so I haven't lost anything. The OS seems much more stable than NT, catching driver errors that previously caused BSODs (Adobe Premier doesn't like my sound card). It feels much quicker, based on UI things like opening an explorer window and opening the Start menu, and even boots quicker.
I could go on, but Gary said pretty much all I could say. The conclusion: if you have to use NT becuase of company policy or Apps that you can't get for Linux then upgrade to 2000: it's quicker and more stable, and 'feels' like you're using a decent OS not a five-year-old update of ten-year-old technology (or whatever!).
1) I don't think it's true to say that Windows users generally don't use the RH button. Most of the time the context-sensitive menu is much _more_ intuitive for anyone than scrolling through (potentially) hundreds of menu buttons. It only takes novice users a few seconds to work out (or be told) that the LH button is the one to use. 2) Do the RSI studies take into account the awkward sitting position required to hold the Mac mouse _and_ keep a finger over the CONTROL or APPLE key to get the context-sensitive menu which most people would want to access every fourth click or so? 3) Why don't Apple take a middle ground and produce 2-button mice, and supply new Macs with _both_ buttons mapped to the left, so that new users don't get confused, with a Control Panel option to have a 'Power User' button mapping? I think that Apple are just holding out on this one becuase they don't want to give in. Almost all office and development software uses RH click context-sensitive menus. It's time to give in, Apple!
I guess this means that, for the time being, any software that needs reverse engineering might have to be done in Europe. What do people think about the chances of this kind of thing being done via Europe, i.e. someone in US discovers something dodgy in a programme, finds the offending code, then 'hints' to someone in Europe that they might like to release the information...? Or am I just being nieve?
Although all these restrictions will be a pain for the time being, I can't see how the law can continue to fly in the face of progress for ever. I remember reading "The Hacker's Handbook" (remember that?) in the 80s and all the controversy that caused. Back then, computer 'crimes' were being dealt with by analogy to existing laws. People in the UK were prosecuted for 'theft of electricity' and 'trespassing' until such a time as the law caught up. Now it seems like the law is getting ahead of things and listening to corporations rather than Real People.
As long as the flow of information continues, this can't go on forever.
It's interesting that no one ever points to the cost of laser discs (mentioned in my last post) as the result of a cartel. No, for that we have to wait for something popular with the/. community to cost too much.
I guess you missed the point of my original message: If you don't like paying the price for DVDs, then buy the video tape. Or rent the DVD, or VHS, or LD. You use the word cartel, but ignore the possibility of just ignoring the cartel by NOT buying in to their "insideous" plan by simply not purchasing their wares.
The price of laser discs was high becuase they were niche-market. People who wanted the quality and the experience were willing to pay for it. This is the way vinyl records will probably go now: if you want a decent player and decently mastered/pressed records then it'll cost you, becuase very few people want the added enjoyment that people claim they have over CDs.
DVDs are a different issue. They are a mass market product, which will gradually cause VHS to be phased out. Not immedietly, because we can't record yet, but they will, eventually. Now - with Laserdisc I could import American titles if I wanted to, but I would need to import a TV and voltage convertor to get it all to work. With DVD there's no technological barrier to watching DVDs anywhere.... except that which is forced on us, the consumer. Now, I don't think there's a problem with manufacturers selling anything they want. If they don't bow to consumer demands, they'll go out of business - who cares? It's their problem. But when they start arresting people for playing back movies which they legitimately own, that's going too far. I can't import movies from the US because they've been crippled. High street stores are scared to sell players that are multi-region in case they get accused of hacking. But the MPAA may just have met their match in Tesco, who are very used to getting their own way, and have the hard cash to back it up.
I posted a comment in a previous DVD topic, about the way encryption keys could be used by the DVDCCA to effectively make obscelete ranges of players by simply not encoding the keys on certain discs. If you feel confident in the DVDCCA then read this and tell me you don't feel scared. It seems to me that by letting earlier players be multi-region, they have seeded the market and let it grow, and now they're tightening the net. They've lied to movie studios and said that region coding is for anti-piracy; in fact it makes very little difference. I, for one, do not trust them.
I had an interesting conversation with someone today about PSX2. Apparently they will play DVD movies, and at £200 release price (don't know the $ price) they're in the same price band as entry-level DVD players. I'm hoping that they can be chipped easily, both for games and for DVD - if so they represent a very good investment for home entertainment. The chipping industry is alive and well in the UK, in fact the console shop around the corner from me has 'Pre-Chipped Consoles' in large letters in its window, so I guess there's no legal challenge:-)
Interestingly enough, when one of my friends bought a DVD last week, the guy in the high-street store told him that the player could play multi-region, but 'it's illegal to tell you how'. Sounds like some scaremongering going on to me....
You're right, they're usually dollar-pound equivalent here (i.e. $14 -> £14) which is terrible. Things are starting to change, though, and a couple of high street stores are starting to sell them at £10, although they usually have a very small catalogue. A cunning alternative I have found is
(no, I don't work for them!) who are a UK based company who seem to parallel-import from Europe. They have the top 75 at £8.99 each, including VAT and delivery. I've bought stuff from them, and they seem to be straight up. I'm hoping they will start to stock DVDs soon, or that some other company will follow their lead and parallel import DVDs. I think that the price policies are ridiculous considering audio tapes are available for around £8-10. It must now be way cheaper to duplicate CDs than audio cassettes considering the volumes they ship and the complexity of manufacture.
Are the DVD players available in the US multi-region hackable? I'm in the UK, and know of very few that aren't in fact, most people I know would refuse to buy a player that couldn't be software-hacked, although there's obviously less inclination to buy one that requires hardware mods.
This thread is a bit old now, so this post might never get read. But just in case...
I don't think there would ever be a problem with my (potential) children choosing a different religion. I believe that Christianity is about a relationship with God, and that children brought up in a Christian family should have such a relationship from the word 'go'. Either this relationship is real, or its false. I believe that the relationship in Christianity is real, and as real as the relationships I have with my friends and family. Nobody could brake those relationships down with mere words because they are based on the test of experience on a daily basis. The only exception to this is when somebody establishes a position of authority, and uses oppressive techniques (these kind of techniques are applied by cults to encourage members to brake away from family and friends etc.). I wouldn't expect that kind of bullying/oppression to take place in schools, and would therefore expect Christian children to maintain an active faith.
The only problem with this idea is that it is often broken down in the science lab. Despite evolutionary biology being broadly compatible with Christianity and despite efforts to remove the religious debate, in my experience Christianity (explicitly, not just theism in general) is still pitted against evolution in the classroom. In fact, efforts to be 'fair' about it have actually made the problem worse: I have seen biology textbooks that spend a page discussing 'creationism' and then say 'and here's an alternative theory' before going on to discuss three chapters of evolution. By setting them side by side, they appear to be contradictory. I believe that 'creationism' and evolution should not be pitted against each other: evolution is the current popular scientific theory and should be taught as such. [But it should also be made clear that it is only a theory!] Creationism in the pseudoscience sense is not central to Christianity: Jesus is. The sheer amount of 'fact' behind evolutionary theory makes it appear stupid and old-fashioned to believe in God, but the premise is false, because the two are not mutually exclusive.
I'm now regretting ranting about evolution, but I think the point is that Christianity is not given a fair hearing in schools in the UK, and my original post was to agree with Jon's point that Christians are taking the wrong tack by lobbying for creationist teaching (both in the US and in the UK). I understand their frustrations, but pitting creationism against evolution solves nothing. Instead we should be looking to see fair representation of all faiths (and not in the science lab!) where the truth is allowed to speak for itself. After all, we can't all be right. Can we?:-)
Point taken, but actually the professional formats have higher bandwidth than the domestic DVs (there are several) and use better (i.e. more expensive) compression algorithms than their domestic counterparts, reducing artifacts etc.
The problem is that DVD is rapidly becoming an installed base. I am developing CD-based multimedia presentations for a company, and it's very convenient to be able to produce full test versions in-house, and even to do our own duplication for small runs. As soon as this technology is available for DVD then we'll start using it. Another standard would be useful for backup and archive, but unless standalone readers are available too, then it will never catch on for general use. All shrinkwrap PCs (at least in the UK) now come with DVD readers, so DVD is the obvious choice for next generation multimedia titles. And even for backup and archive, part of the attraction of CDR is the fact that it can be read virtually anywhere. To have that convenience at 10-15 times the capacity would be amazing.
I would have to diagree with you. Having read the statement and assuming that what he says is correct (there is no reason to assume otherwise) this episode simply highlights the gulf between [old]media-oriented companies and the new media which is the internet. It's a shame that Wankel (!) felt the need to post messages about porn rather than something less controversial, but at least he was not abusive in the sense of being explicit or directed at anyone in particular.
I had an experience yesterday when I wanted to send an e-mail from my mobile phone. I discovered that there is no underscore (_) character on my keypad, which makes it impossible to e-mail half my friends who are hotmail (l)users. After speaking to tech support for 10 minutes they told me that I needed to press 'shift and the hyphen key'. I told them that my phone didn't have a shift key, and it became obvious that they didn't appreciate the difference between a phone keypad and a computer keyboard. They insisted I 'give it a try anyway' and suggested I call them back another time if it didn't work.
This may all seem irrelevant, but my point is this: companies like CNN and Virgin (my mobile network; UK) are operating in areas they don't understand, and their technical staff barely understand. Nobody in their right mind would use a windows server for something as potentially huge as CNN. I don't know how to close this gap, and perhaps you're right that the 'hacker doodz' image doesn't help... but I don't know what the solution is. Perhaps we should all make a concerted effort to explian as much as possible to as many people as possible. I'll be writing a letter to Virgin attempting to explain from first principles what an e-mail address is, and why underscores are essential, and why a shift key affects the case of letters and not symbols. Perhaps some letters need to be written to CNN. (And I do mean letters; e-mail is still not 'real' enough to make a difference).
I liked this article, and I actually think it's useful to agree and to disagree: in disagreeing we strengthen our own ideas and arguments, and possibly see areas where we are wrong. In verbal abuse, we simply admit that we've run out of arguments but don't have the courage to admit it.
I was especaially interested to read Jon's comments on Christianity. I am a committed Christian, and couldn't agree more with his criticisms of the contemporary Church. When people say to me 'what denomination are you' I say 'I'm Christian' for exactly the reasons Jon gave.
I think the whole censorship/education debate is a difficult one. It's dificult because althought the Christians are very extreme, it's normal to be as loud and extreme as possible when campaigning for an issue (although I'm not saying that I agree with any or all of these campaigns). Schools are not non-religious. Increasingly in the UK schools are poly-religious, and in the US, as I understand it, many schools would consider themselves athiest. Athiesm is in fact a religion in the sense that it is a standpoint of faith: you cannot prove that God exists any more than you can prove that He doesn't. One can only look at the available evidence and make a leap of faith: Christians make a leap in one direction; athiests in the other.
Despite this, I think that Christians should be campaigning for variety of teaching rather than oppressions: the truth should speak for itself.
Anyway, that was my 2c worth (I'm British to perhaps I should say 2p); thanks for listening!
The problem is that AFAIK Sony actually loses money on the Playstation, but gains it back from sales of games and licenses. While they're still selling games it's not a problem, but if the Playstation became a general device it may not be economically viable, and I don't know how Sony would respond.
I expect the way they would limit this kind of thing is to keep things proprietary so that you use SonyNet to link Playstations together rather than ethernet etc. and use thier ISP and so on.
I have to agree with the article. It's amazing how much hype I've heard about the Sega Dreamcast in the UK. "You can surf the internet you know" "it's much faster than a PC 'cos it's newer." Both of these consoles will catch on, and catch on big time. Perhaps the American market is different - over here web surfing is still an occasional thing for most people.
It does make sense though - why spend several hundred pounds/dollars just to be able to send a few e-mails? I think the machine looks very nice, but it would never replace my PC. But then, I'm not a 'home user'.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point - I feel extremely irritated when I read e-mail which read 'this mail is legal and sent in accordance with.....' etc. as if they should be above reproach.
I must admit the the few bit of spam I receive almost exclusively come from PSINet. On the other hand, a mail to abuse@ does seem to cause the spams to cease for a few weeks, and I rarely see them returning from the same source (i.e. the style and content seem to be different).
The 'visual memory' or whatever it's called isbizarre.
Is it me, or does the introduction of a really hi-tech or 'concept' control pad which is shipped with the machine by default always indicate the impending doom of a console company? The only control pad I remember being as bizarre and uncomfortable as the Dreamcast's was the Atari Jaguar pad in the early 90's (remember them?) And look what happened - it was meant to be the resurrection of Atari but was really its death knell. We'll all know the fate of Microsoft when we see final pictures of the X-Box control pad.
Also, the playing field and state-of-the-art will have changed so much by the time Sony is ready to release PSX3 or whatever their next machine will be called that the Dreamcast technology really won't help them all that much.
> Unfortunately, you won't find many more options > past these ones. The 'big floppy' drives (LS- > 120, Zip) are out of the question (drives cost > a pretty penny and are hardly a standard). I'd disagree with this one. I'm at Sheffield University in the UK, and they have installed ZIP-100s in every machine across campus. I can buy them retail at GBP40 for an internal drive, so I reckon the uni must be getting them GBP30-35 in bulk (there's several thousand machines). The disks are cheap (GBP10 for 100 megs = 10p/meg) and quite durable. Although slightly bulky, their bulk is an advantage because it makes people take greater care with them, and I've never had one go corrupt like a floppy does. The format is a 'standard' - virtually everyone (in the UK at least) who needs to a bigger-than-floppy-smaller-than-CDR storage uses ZIP 100s, and they are accepted by most Mac/PC print shops so students who like to get their work printed properly won't have any problem. I wouldn't touch LS-120. The disks are too flimsy and breakable, and the format is not common enough.
That was a JOKE. ;-)
And it looks like they're using Windoze and haven't got their DNS set up properly:-
I my office we do desktop video editing. Our main edit machine as two 40 gig hard drives. That's 80 gigs. These drives are only offering five times more that our current spec. I'm sure in five years' time we'll be wanting that.
Same here - I'm glad it's not just me!
I've just upgraded two machines to W2K and I'm very happy with it. One machine is a PII350 with nice SCSI hard drives and lots of video capture hardware and lots of RAM and the other is a Cyrix 333 with 32 megs and a nasty integrated video/sound motherboard. Both machines installed without a hitch. I've still got driver problems with the video hardware, but I did under NT so I haven't lost anything. The OS seems much more stable than NT, catching driver errors that previously caused BSODs (Adobe Premier doesn't like my sound card). It feels much quicker, based on UI things like opening an explorer window and opening the Start menu, and even boots quicker.
I could go on, but Gary said pretty much all I could say. The conclusion: if you have to use NT becuase of company policy or Apps that you can't get for Linux then upgrade to 2000: it's quicker and more stable, and 'feels' like you're using a decent OS not a five-year-old update of ten-year-old technology (or whatever!).
1) I don't think it's true to say that Windows users generally don't use the RH button. Most of the time the context-sensitive menu is much _more_ intuitive for anyone than scrolling through (potentially) hundreds of menu buttons. It only takes novice users a few seconds to work out (or be told) that the LH button is the one to use.
2) Do the RSI studies take into account the awkward sitting position required to hold the Mac mouse _and_ keep a finger over the CONTROL or APPLE key to get the context-sensitive menu which most people would want to access every fourth click or so?
3) Why don't Apple take a middle ground and produce 2-button mice, and supply new Macs with _both_ buttons mapped to the left, so that new users don't get confused, with a Control Panel option to have a 'Power User' button mapping?
I think that Apple are just holding out on this one becuase they don't want to give in. Almost all office and development software uses RH click context-sensitive menus. It's time to give in, Apple!
Although all these restrictions will be a pain for the time being, I can't see how the law can continue to fly in the face of progress for ever. I remember reading "The Hacker's Handbook" (remember that?) in the 80s and all the controversy that caused. Back then, computer 'crimes' were being dealt with by analogy to existing laws. People in the UK were prosecuted for 'theft of electricity' and 'trespassing' until such a time as the law caught up. Now it seems like the law is getting ahead of things and listening to corporations rather than Real People.
As long as the flow of information continues, this can't go on forever.
I guess you missed the point of my original message: If you don't like paying the price for DVDs, then buy the video tape. Or rent the DVD, or VHS, or LD. You use the word cartel, but ignore the possibility of just ignoring the cartel by NOT buying in to their "insideous" plan by simply not purchasing their wares.
The price of laser discs was high becuase they were niche-market. People who wanted the quality and the experience were willing to pay for it. This is the way vinyl records will probably go now: if you want a decent player and decently mastered/pressed records then it'll cost you, becuase very few people want the added enjoyment that people claim they have over CDs.
DVDs are a different issue. They are a mass market product, which will gradually cause VHS to be phased out. Not immedietly, because we can't record yet, but they will, eventually. Now - with Laserdisc I could import American titles if I wanted to, but I would need to import a TV and voltage convertor to get it all to work. With DVD there's no technological barrier to watching DVDs anywhere.... except that which is forced on us, the consumer. Now, I don't think there's a problem with manufacturers selling anything they want. If they don't bow to consumer demands, they'll go out of business - who cares? It's their problem. But when they start arresting people for playing back movies which they legitimately own, that's going too far. I can't import movies from the US because they've been crippled. High street stores are scared to sell players that are multi-region in case they get accused of hacking. But the MPAA may just have met their match in Tesco, who are very used to getting their own way, and have the hard cash to back it up.
I posted a comment in a previous DVD topic, about the way encryption keys could be used by the DVDCCA to effectively make obscelete ranges of players by simply not encoding the keys on certain discs. If you feel confident in the DVDCCA then read this and tell me you don't feel scared. It seems to me that by letting earlier players be multi-region, they have seeded the market and let it grow, and now they're tightening the net. They've lied to movie studios and said that region coding is for anti-piracy; in fact it makes very little difference. I, for one, do not trust them.
Um.... no, you were looking at the VHS prices. Here are the DVD prices:-
Title: Matrix, The (Wide Screen) (DVD)
RRP: £19.99
TESCO price: £ 17.99
Title: Blade (DVD)
RRP: £19.99
TESCO price: £ 17.99
Title: Notting Hill
RRP: £19.99
TESCO price: £ 17.99
Title: Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (DVD)
RRP: £17.99
TESCO price: £ 15.99
Title: Armageddon (DVD)
Format: DVD
RRP: £15.99
TESCO price: £ 13.99
etc....
Interestingly enough, when one of my friends bought a DVD last week, the guy in the high-street store told him that the player could play multi-region, but 'it's illegal to tell you how'. Sounds like some scaremongering going on to me....
cd-wow
(no, I don't work for them!) who are a UK based company who seem to parallel-import from Europe. They have the top 75 at £8.99 each, including VAT and delivery. I've bought stuff from them, and they seem to be straight up. I'm hoping they will start to stock DVDs soon, or that some other company will follow their lead and parallel import DVDs. I think that the price policies are ridiculous considering audio tapes are available for around £8-10. It must now be way cheaper to duplicate CDs than audio cassettes considering the volumes they ship and the complexity of manufacture.
Are the DVD players available in the US multi-region hackable? I'm in the UK, and know of very few that aren't in fact, most people I know would refuse to buy a player that couldn't be software-hacked, although there's obviously less inclination to buy one that requires hardware mods.
I don't think there would ever be a problem with my (potential) children choosing a different religion. I believe that Christianity is about a relationship with God, and that children brought up in a Christian family should have such a relationship from the word 'go'. Either this relationship is real, or its false. I believe that the relationship in Christianity is real, and as real as the relationships I have with my friends and family. Nobody could brake those relationships down with mere words because they are based on the test of experience on a daily basis. The only exception to this is when somebody establishes a position of authority, and uses oppressive techniques (these kind of techniques are applied by cults to encourage members to brake away from family and friends etc.). I wouldn't expect that kind of bullying/oppression to take place in schools, and would therefore expect Christian children to maintain an active faith.
The only problem with this idea is that it is often broken down in the science lab. Despite evolutionary biology being broadly compatible with Christianity and despite efforts to remove the religious debate, in my experience Christianity (explicitly, not just theism in general) is still pitted against evolution in the classroom. In fact, efforts to be 'fair' about it have actually made the problem worse: I have seen biology textbooks that spend a page discussing 'creationism' and then say 'and here's an alternative theory' before going on to discuss three chapters of evolution. By setting them side by side, they appear to be contradictory. I believe that 'creationism' and evolution should not be pitted against each other: evolution is the current popular scientific theory and should be taught as such. [But it should also be made clear that it is only a theory!] Creationism in the pseudoscience sense is not central to Christianity: Jesus is. The sheer amount of 'fact' behind evolutionary theory makes it appear stupid and old-fashioned to believe in God, but the premise is false, because the two are not mutually exclusive.
I'm now regretting ranting about evolution, but I think the point is that Christianity is not given a fair hearing in schools in the UK, and my original post was to agree with Jon's point that Christians are taking the wrong tack by lobbying for creationist teaching (both in the US and in the UK). I understand their frustrations, but pitting creationism against evolution solves nothing. Instead we should be looking to see fair representation of all faiths (and not in the science lab!) where the truth is allowed to speak for itself. After all, we can't all be right. Can we? :-)
Point taken, but actually the professional formats have higher bandwidth than the domestic DVs (there are several) and use better (i.e. more expensive) compression algorithms than their domestic counterparts, reducing artifacts etc.
:-)
Offtopic, sorry
The problem is that DVD is rapidly becoming an installed base. I am developing CD-based multimedia presentations for a company, and it's very convenient to be able to produce full test versions in-house, and even to do our own duplication for small runs. As soon as this technology is available for DVD then we'll start using it. Another standard would be useful for backup and archive, but unless standalone readers are available too, then it will never catch on for general use. All shrinkwrap PCs (at least in the UK) now come with DVD readers, so DVD is the obvious choice for next generation multimedia titles. And even for backup and archive, part of the attraction of CDR is the fact that it can be read virtually anywhere. To have that convenience at 10-15 times the capacity would be amazing.
I had an experience yesterday when I wanted to send an e-mail from my mobile phone. I discovered that there is no underscore (_) character on my keypad, which makes it impossible to e-mail half my friends who are hotmail (l)users. After speaking to tech support for 10 minutes they told me that I needed to press 'shift and the hyphen key'. I told them that my phone didn't have a shift key, and it became obvious that they didn't appreciate the difference between a phone keypad and a computer keyboard. They insisted I 'give it a try anyway' and suggested I call them back another time if it didn't work.
This may all seem irrelevant, but my point is this: companies like CNN and Virgin (my mobile network; UK) are operating in areas they don't understand, and their technical staff barely understand. Nobody in their right mind would use a windows server for something as potentially huge as CNN. I don't know how to close this gap, and perhaps you're right that the 'hacker doodz' image doesn't help... but I don't know what the solution is. Perhaps we should all make a concerted effort to explian as much as possible to as many people as possible. I'll be writing a letter to Virgin attempting to explain from first principles what an e-mail address is, and why underscores are essential, and why a shift key affects the case of letters and not symbols. Perhaps some letters need to be written to CNN. (And I do mean letters; e-mail is still not 'real' enough to make a difference).
I was especaially interested to read Jon's comments on Christianity. I am a committed Christian, and couldn't agree more with his criticisms of the contemporary Church. When people say to me 'what denomination are you' I say 'I'm Christian' for exactly the reasons Jon gave.
I think the whole censorship/education debate is a difficult one. It's dificult because althought the Christians are very extreme, it's normal to be as loud and extreme as possible when campaigning for an issue (although I'm not saying that I agree with any or all of these campaigns). Schools are not non-religious. Increasingly in the UK schools are poly-religious, and in the US, as I understand it, many schools would consider themselves athiest. Athiesm is in fact a religion in the sense that it is a standpoint of faith: you cannot prove that God exists any more than you can prove that He doesn't. One can only look at the available evidence and make a leap of faith: Christians make a leap in one direction; athiests in the other.
Despite this, I think that Christians should be campaigning for variety of teaching rather than oppressions: the truth should speak for itself.
Anyway, that was my 2c worth (I'm British to perhaps I should say 2p); thanks for listening!
I expect the way they would limit this kind of thing is to keep things proprietary so that you use SonyNet to link Playstations together rather than ethernet etc. and use thier ISP and so on.
It does make sense though - why spend several hundred pounds/dollars just to be able to send a few e-mails? I think the machine looks very nice, but it would never replace my PC. But then, I'm not a 'home user'.