The video rental store I used to be part-owner of is still using the POS / rental system I wrote in multi-user fox plus (the predecessor to Foxpro) back in 1988. One of the two networked 286's it was running on has been replaced with a 486 (the one the database is on), but the other one is still chugging away.
As far as I know, my old partner has only made a couple of small revisions to the code in all that time.
I was asked in a recent interview what my proudest work accomplishment was, and I listed that system in the top 3.
I really liked emusic and recommended it to a lot of people, but as others have noted, this change takes away the best thing about them: the ability to download albums by people you've never heard of before and give them a try. With a limit of 3 CDs worth of music per month, I would only want to download sure things rather than taking risks, at which point I'd be happier buying the CD used.
Oh well. I'll just download as much as I can in the next couple of weeks and then cancel, as I'm sure a large percentage of their current customers will.
Back in the mid-90's I taught sophomore world literature at the University of Texas in a computer classroom. At the same time I worked as a proctor in the Computer Writing and Research Laboratory there. I would highly recommend checking out their web site (http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu).
The lab's mission for the past decade or so has been to explore and facilitate the use of computers in a teaching environment, with a focus on teaching writing (since the lab is part of the English dept.). Not only should the web site have resources and advice you can use, but I'm sure that any of the people involved with the lab, whether graduate students or professors, would be glad to "talk" with you.
I used to be part owner of a video store and a lot of the comments above mine are true. Here's how it works.
There used to be a big gap between the "rental" release date and the "priced-to-own" release date (on the order of months, and many times never if a title wasn't that popular). This almost never happens any more. These days items are priced to own from the very beginning.
The studios originally did the rental pricing thing (anywhere from $90 - $100) because they figured it was the only way to recoup money they believed they were losing to video stores. This is because there are no special restrictions on rentals (not on videos, which don't have EULA's restricting their rental -- really, we bought many of our tapes from Target et al).
Eventually the studios tried releasing some bigger titles at a reasonable price from day one and found that their sales went up. Consumers bought more, and video stores bought more (which is why you see a hundred copies of the big new releases or more when you used to only see 10 or 20 at a lot of video stores).
I'm willing to bet piracy slowed down as well -- it just wasn't worth the trouble of paying to rent a tape, buying a blank tape and making a copy, even if you had the setup at home, especially since VHS copies degrade from generation to generation).
DVDs and CDs also don't have EULAs, and don't degrade when copied, which is why the MPAA and RIAA are so hot for building copy protection into PCs.
Amen to the point about anti-spammers. I work for the company that was providing the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) with the website for people to opt out of all DMA members mailing lists (www.e-mps.org). A number of spammers started adding a link to www.e-mps.org at the bottom of their messages, which caused SpamCop and other anti-spam organizations to start accussing us of being part of the spamming and sending complaints to our NAP, who several times threatened to cut off the e-mps site (thus cutting off people's chance to opt out of DMA mailing lists). Ironic and stupid all at the same time....
Read the Microsoft Knowledge Base article linked above: the word begin must be followed by two spaces (which makes it interesting that someone hit this by accident..)
I totally agree with this, with one proviso. There has to be a mechanism in place for parents to be able to tell the library that it's OK for their children to use the "adult" PCs.
The library I used to go to as a young teen had a similar setup with books. They had a long list of books that anyone under the age of 16 could not check out, but gave parents the option of signing a form granting permission for their children to check out ANY books. My parents signed that form because they felt I was mature enough to handle any reading material, but those parents that didn't feel their children were ready could feel safe knowing that their children were being kept away from "adult" material.
The way I see it, what happened was that the people/geeks that understood the problem said "Here's what might happen in a worst-case scenario" and all the media types (who know that bad news sells WAY better than good news) said "Here's what will probably happen" (which morphed in some cases to "Here's what will happen").
First off, the Pilgrims were seeking freedom to practice their own particular brand of Christianity, not seeking freedom for all. They were quite diligent in condemning those that didn't believe the same things they believed.
For the most part, the founding fathers were seeking freedom from paying taxes, not some great ideal of freedom. The same guy that wrote "all men are created equal" owned slaves!
I think most religions have a love/hate relationship with technology such as the printing press, radio, and television. On the one hand, it allows them to spread their message quickly. On the other hand, it allows everyone to spread their message quickly.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, if you're thinking that way, then I think you'll have to go back before English even existed, to the first conception of grammar.
Chaucer. Really?
Strict rules of spelling and grammar didn't come in until hundreds of years after Chaucer.
I just think it's weird to censor blood out of a FPS called "Blood Frontier", and then call it "kid mode".
When you turn on kid mode, the game is just called "Frontier".
En Vogue? Seriously?
"Free your mind and your ass will follow."
P Funk
So, when Bush referred to WMD in Iraq, was he just calling Saddam a Massive White Dude?
The video rental store I used to be part-owner of is still using the POS / rental system I wrote in multi-user fox plus (the predecessor to Foxpro) back in 1988. One of the two networked 286's it was running on has been replaced with a 486 (the one the database is on), but the other one is still chugging away.
As far as I know, my old partner has only made a couple of small revisions to the code in all that time.
I was asked in a recent interview what my proudest work accomplishment was, and I listed that system in the top 3.
I really liked emusic and recommended it to a lot of people, but as others have noted, this change takes away the best thing about them: the ability to download albums by people you've never heard of before and give them a try. With a limit of 3 CDs worth of music per month, I would only want to download sure things rather than taking risks, at which point I'd be happier buying the CD used.
Oh well. I'll just download as much as I can in the next couple of weeks and then cancel, as I'm sure a large percentage of their current customers will.
The lab's mission for the past decade or so has been to explore and facilitate the use of computers in a teaching environment, with a focus on teaching writing (since the lab is part of the English dept.). Not only should the web site have resources and advice you can use, but I'm sure that any of the people involved with the lab, whether graduate students or professors, would be glad to "talk" with you.
I used to be part owner of a video store and a lot of the comments above mine are true. Here's how it works.
There used to be a big gap between the "rental" release date and the "priced-to-own" release date (on the order of months, and many times never if a title wasn't that popular). This almost never happens any more. These days items are priced to own from the very beginning.
The studios originally did the rental pricing thing (anywhere from $90 - $100) because they figured it was the only way to recoup money they believed they were losing to video stores. This is because there are no special restrictions on rentals (not on videos, which don't have EULA's restricting their rental -- really, we bought many of our tapes from Target et al).
Eventually the studios tried releasing some bigger titles at a reasonable price from day one and found that their sales went up. Consumers bought more, and video stores bought more (which is why you see a hundred copies of the big new releases or more when you used to only see 10 or 20 at a lot of video stores).
I'm willing to bet piracy slowed down as well -- it just wasn't worth the trouble of paying to rent a tape, buying a blank tape and making a copy, even if you had the setup at home, especially since VHS copies degrade from generation to generation).
DVDs and CDs also don't have EULAs, and don't degrade when copied, which is why the MPAA and RIAA are so hot for building copy protection into PCs.
Amen to the point about anti-spammers. I work for the company that was providing the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) with the website for people to opt out of all DMA members mailing lists (www.e-mps.org). A number of spammers started adding a link to www.e-mps.org at the bottom of their messages, which caused SpamCop and other anti-spam organizations to start accussing us of being part of the spamming and sending complaints to our NAP, who several times threatened to cut off the e-mps site (thus cutting off people's chance to opt out of DMA mailing lists). Ironic and stupid all at the same time....
Read the Microsoft Knowledge Base article linked above: the word begin must be followed by two spaces (which makes it interesting that someone hit this by accident..)
The library I used to go to as a young teen had a similar setup with books. They had a long list of books that anyone under the age of 16 could not check out, but gave parents the option of signing a form granting permission for their children to check out ANY books. My parents signed that form because they felt I was mature enough to handle any reading material, but those parents that didn't feel their children were ready could feel safe knowing that their children were being kept away from "adult" material.
The way I see it, what happened was that the people/geeks that understood the problem said "Here's what might happen in a worst-case scenario" and all the media types (who know that bad news sells WAY better than good news) said "Here's what will probably happen" (which morphed in some cases to "Here's what will happen").
For the most part, the founding fathers were seeking freedom from paying taxes, not some great ideal of freedom. The same guy that wrote "all men are created equal" owned slaves!
I think most religions have a love/hate relationship with technology such as the printing press, radio, and television. On the one hand, it allows them to spread their message quickly. On the other hand, it allows everyone to spread their message quickly.