For price and ease of use, nothing beats a modded Xbox with XBMC. If you've already got the video sitting on a server, XBMC makes an excellent frontend.
How long? It's already been tried, don't you remember DIVX? Not the codec (DivX), the disc format. Circuit City tried to sell everyone a format that would only last for a few viewings, after that the content on the disc would be unreadable. We can see how well that did against DVD.
Myself for one. I think lobbying is very destructive in general, but it's never quite as cut-and-dried as "buying off" people. First of all, even with all the loopholes, it's very difficult for one donor to give enough money to a member of congress to severely sway them. I mean, these people are usually start out being comfortably well-off, even with the frequent pay cuts you get when you move from the private sphere to the public one.
Very few members of congress are going to let themselves be bought for a few thousand dollars. Just not worth it.
They're not being bought for a few thousands dollars during their term in office. They're being given lucrative positions after they leave office. That's the real payout.
I wish I had mod points. American liberals are quick to blame everybody but themselves for everything wrong with the US today. Maybe they think it will take the heat off their massive failures?
Flying a plane and removing a kidney are highly specialized skills that not everybody needs to know how to perform. We ALL live under the law constantly, it's a disgrace that those laws have been made so complex that the average citizen is unable to understand the laws which govern them.
But continue on with your completely inaccurate analogies if it makes you feel better.
Create enough laws and everyone is a criminal. I'm willing to bet that you do have something to hide, you just haven't been investigated yet. When investigation becomes a simple matter of asking a database that has been tracking you your entire whole life, it's easy to investigate everybody. Do you still say you have nothing to hide?
I realize full well that there are people out there stupid enough to fall for this. What's disheartening is that all of our senators are in that group.
And lose the backing of the entire computer industry? Not likely. When trying to launch a new media format, these companies need all they help they can get to foist the thing on the public. Telling huge swaths of the tech industry they're not needed doesn't help.
The important part is that everyone has the option of sending their children to those publicly funded schools. If someone makes the choice not to, that's wholly their decision. My daughter is home schooled, and sure it'd be nice to save some money on taxes, but I do recognize the education system as the worthwhile entity it is, despite the fact that my child doesn't use it.
Wrong. The roads are publicly funded, and everybody has the option of using them. Schools are publicly funded, and every citizen is allowed (nay required) to attend.
Have you ever tried getting a permit to lay wiring for a new telecom company you wanted to start? Good luck with that. Telecom companies are given special access to things like property easements and construction permits. Not every guy who walks in off the street gets to use those subsidies.
Roads and schools have nothing in common with corporate subsidies. Try again, skippy.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Libertarians are minarchists, not anarchists. You start with a flawed premise, so your entire rant is incorrect. Libertarians believe that any government which wields too much power becomes worthy of controlling. Why do massive corporations buy influence in government? Because government wields the power to make them even richer. Government is every bit as guilty of creating the economic divide as capitalists are. Remember, the corporation is a government sponsored entity. Without it, the corporate veil wouldn't exist and the executives would actually have to put their livelihoods on the line when they make some of the awful decisions they make.
Because they're expensive to keep? If the feds want to tax the internet (http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05 /24/1516253) they could start with an IP address tax. Those companies would quickly give them up and take more realistic blocks.
Sounds like a market begging for a product to me. An access point where you press a button and it spits out a receipt with a password on it. That password is then able to log in for a specified amount of time. I could imagine you'd be able to sell hundreds of thousands. Libraries, coffee shops, internet cafes, restaurants, hotels. Anywhere that patrons might want wifi but you don't want it freely available.
I've never really been behind the anti-Microsoft movement that has in the past insisted that they're abusing their monopoly. The whole thing with IE being bundled in the OS? Seriously, it's a damn browser which is probably appropriately a part of an OS in this day and age.
But these tactics against Linux now strike me as little more than a protection racket, and I wouldn't mind seeing MS bitchslapped for using it.
"That's a nice little company you've got there. I'd hate to see anything happen to it if you, say for instance, used Linux. Pay us and we'll make sure that doesn't happen."
Hit them with RICO charges for that one for all I care.
Disney actually started that if I recall. I don't know if it's the way they work anymore, but in the past they would make a large run of VHS copies of Snow White (or whatever their push was that summer) and when it was gone it was gone. If you wanted a copy you'd have to wait until the next time they brought it out of the closet.
talking with your colleagues about that great show that was on yesterday...
Oh no! You might actually have to *gasp* develop a real personality! There are few things more dull and uninspired than listening to other people yammer on about what they watched on TV last night.
Not to mention they'd be use less power, require less cooling, and run quieter. I wish some company would bring out a line of drives intended for more archival type purposes. Maybe with things like Windows Home Server coming out and consumer servers becoming more common we'll see a company create a line of drives for this market.
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I notice that you're using a pseudonym rather than posting under your full, legal name. What are you hiding?
Sure, if you have the resources of a large corporation with which to defend yourself from lawsuits.
Patent law makes that difficult. The DVD format and anything required to decode it will be patented for quite a few more years.
For price and ease of use, nothing beats a modded Xbox with XBMC. If you've already got the video sitting on a server, XBMC makes an excellent frontend.
How long? It's already been tried, don't you remember DIVX? Not the codec (DivX), the disc format. Circuit City tried to sell everyone a format that would only last for a few viewings, after that the content on the disc would be unreadable. We can see how well that did against DVD.
I wish I had mod points. American liberals are quick to blame everybody but themselves for everything wrong with the US today. Maybe they think it will take the heat off their massive failures?
Flying a plane and removing a kidney are highly specialized skills that not everybody needs to know how to perform. We ALL live under the law constantly, it's a disgrace that those laws have been made so complex that the average citizen is unable to understand the laws which govern them.
But continue on with your completely inaccurate analogies if it makes you feel better.
Yes, but did they do it on the internet?
Create enough laws and everyone is a criminal. I'm willing to bet that you do have something to hide, you just haven't been investigated yet. When investigation becomes a simple matter of asking a database that has been tracking you your entire whole life, it's easy to investigate everybody. Do you still say you have nothing to hide?
I realize full well that there are people out there stupid enough to fall for this. What's disheartening is that all of our senators are in that group.
Xbot? Are you 12 years old or do you just act that way?
I can't decide whether this is sarcasm or not. If not, you scare me.
No shit, the word "British" is right there in the 2nd Amendment. Wait a sec...
And lose the backing of the entire computer industry? Not likely. When trying to launch a new media format, these companies need all they help they can get to foist the thing on the public. Telling huge swaths of the tech industry they're not needed doesn't help.
The important part is that everyone has the option of sending their children to those publicly funded schools. If someone makes the choice not to, that's wholly their decision. My daughter is home schooled, and sure it'd be nice to save some money on taxes, but I do recognize the education system as the worthwhile entity it is, despite the fact that my child doesn't use it.
*bzzzzzzt*
Wrong. The roads are publicly funded, and everybody has the option of using them. Schools are publicly funded, and every citizen is allowed (nay required) to attend.
Have you ever tried getting a permit to lay wiring for a new telecom company you wanted to start? Good luck with that. Telecom companies are given special access to things like property easements and construction permits. Not every guy who walks in off the street gets to use those subsidies.
Roads and schools have nothing in common with corporate subsidies. Try again, skippy.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Libertarians are minarchists, not anarchists. You start with a flawed premise, so your entire rant is incorrect. Libertarians believe that any government which wields too much power becomes worthy of controlling. Why do massive corporations buy influence in government? Because government wields the power to make them even richer. Government is every bit as guilty of creating the economic divide as capitalists are. Remember, the corporation is a government sponsored entity. Without it, the corporate veil wouldn't exist and the executives would actually have to put their livelihoods on the line when they make some of the awful decisions they make.
Because they're expensive to keep? If the feds want to tax the internet (http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05 /24/1516253) they could start with an IP address tax. Those companies would quickly give them up and take more realistic blocks.
Heh, figures. My business ideas are always a day late and a dollar short. :P
Sounds like a market begging for a product to me. An access point where you press a button and it spits out a receipt with a password on it. That password is then able to log in for a specified amount of time. I could imagine you'd be able to sell hundreds of thousands. Libraries, coffee shops, internet cafes, restaurants, hotels. Anywhere that patrons might want wifi but you don't want it freely available.
I've never really been behind the anti-Microsoft movement that has in the past insisted that they're abusing their monopoly. The whole thing with IE being bundled in the OS? Seriously, it's a damn browser which is probably appropriately a part of an OS in this day and age.
But these tactics against Linux now strike me as little more than a protection racket, and I wouldn't mind seeing MS bitchslapped for using it.
"That's a nice little company you've got there. I'd hate to see anything happen to it if you, say for instance, used Linux. Pay us and we'll make sure that doesn't happen."
Hit them with RICO charges for that one for all I care.
Disney actually started that if I recall. I don't know if it's the way they work anymore, but in the past they would make a large run of VHS copies of Snow White (or whatever their push was that summer) and when it was gone it was gone. If you wanted a copy you'd have to wait until the next time they brought it out of the closet.
Not to mention they'd be use less power, require less cooling, and run quieter. I wish some company would bring out a line of drives intended for more archival type purposes. Maybe with things like Windows Home Server coming out and consumer servers becoming more common we'll see a company create a line of drives for this market.