Well, it's sad to see it all come to an end. Even after Crack closed it's doors, crack.com was still there, a reminder of what had been. I remember when it was hosted on a Mac connected via 56K dialup. Such a group of talent has rarely been assembled. I hope the price keeps climbing. $15K is nowhere close to the money that was put into Crack. Good luck, Dave & Jonathan. Hi Oliver!
I've been using business-class ADSL in my office for a year and a half. It's been fantastic. DL speeds of 6Mb. We got it set up before the big rush to DSL started, and the entire process was very quick and painless, taking less than a week. The only problems we've ever had have been traditional, that might happen anywhere (routers down, fiber cut, etc.) So, what's the root cause of this? The only thing obvious to me is customer service. The technology is proven, but getting access to it is the problem. Here in Austin, I've dealt with numerous DSL providers, most of which seem to be re-selling someone else's service. Six weeks seems to be the current bare minimum time to get DSL set up, even for a large company. At one point last year, I spoke with an installer for one of the largest DSL providers in the area. (I hesitate to name them, but their initials are SWB;) who said he was one of only 3 yes, THREE installers for business DSL in the entire central Texas region. Frankly, I consider it lucky that we have DSL at all. In 1996, I spoke with one of the VP's of that same corporation, DSL was being tested in Houston at that time, and asked how long we'd have to wait to see it in Austin. I was told it might never come, because of the price of changing over the infrastructure. I guess the increase in demand for bandwidth led some higher-up to decide a profit could be made, and the low levels of service quality are to be expected when your marketing department is tricking people into signing contracts they can't escape. The money just continues to flow.
It could grab all e-mail addresses from any incoming/outgoing messages in all your folders. Which is worse? Pissing off EVERYBODY or just those close enough to be in your address book?
"The e-mail you received was an invitation from MSN Explorer, sent on behalf of an existing user who changed their e-mail address and wants you to try MSN Explorer."
OK, so first, MS tried to dictate to the government who they can and can't sue. Now the corporation of the northern hemisphere sees fit to put words in our mouths. I've got news for them... I DO NOT want anyone to try MSN Explorer, therefore it is the absolute pinnacle of presumption to send an e-mail on behalf of me saying the opposite. Obviously, those who are complaining are of the same opinion. Of course, never has the court of Emperor Gates bowed to public opinion.
Back in the late 80's/early 90's, a company was launched which brought 10 minutes of advertising into public schools in exchange for free satellite receiving equipment and televisions. Channel One raised quite an uproar, and as a student during those times, I can say the content was just not worth it. This doesn't sound any different. The minute someone figures out how to beam an ad into my head is when I start pulling triggers. In the meantime, we just get to stand around and watch civilization slide back into the muck, greased by the slimy excrement that is the product of the corporate marketing engine.
After reading the article, I'd say it looks like Intel probably offerred Toshiba more in marketing dollars than Toshiba had already invested in Transmeta. Or someone's just looking to boost his shares of Intel. At least the article's fair, and gives Transmeta a chance to respond.
But I think the positive side to all of this is that merely a decade ago, this would not have been reported. Likely, there would have been no international effort to help with a rescue attempt. It is sad that a country with their economic woes must still funnel such vast funds into enormous military projects. Worse yet, when they fail. Maybe in another couple of decades even this won't happen.
re: Item 4 -- what height are you assuming? Mountains, to take an extreme case, are visible for quite a bit more than 7 miles!
I found an horizon calculator here, and at a height of just 50 feet (which is what, a 5-story building?) the horizon is ~9.5 miles.
This might be an issue in a suburban office park, but even here in little Baltimore we've got plenty of buildings higher than that. In particular, the World Trade Center in the harbor (which would never be confused with ones in New York) is 423 feet tall, giving an horizon of some 27 miles.
You are right, of course, but there may still be other obstructions in the way. And, of course, with greater and greater distance (and higher buildings) sway is much more of a problem. I daresay with a 2-story building over 1/2 to 1 mile distance, sway is not an issue, but atop the World Trade Center the sway can be several feet.
Add to this the fact that even a laser will spread and scatter greatly after a distance as great as 27 miles. For various reasons, it's unlikely that optical wireless can be made to cover great distances any time in the immediate future.
I did some research into IR wireless a couple of years ago and came up with the following (mostly from corporate literature):
1) An interesting application of this technology is for a business with offices on opposite sides of national borders. International law makes it very difficult to drop a land line across the border, as well as to get an RF license for traditional wireless. A couple of IR units can solve the problem nicely.
2) Corporate literature at the time stated that birds can SEE the lasers much as the reporter could with the special glasses. They therefore tend to avoid the beams.
3) The average limit was 1/2 mile, at which point, speeds up to 155Mbps could be obtained. Much greater distances could be achieved at the cost of bandwidth.
4) Something people seem to be leaving out is that because this is laser, the beam is a straight-line path. The maximum possible length of a link would be about 7 miles due to the curvature of the earth. Of course, this article discusses building wireless networks spread across multiple buildings, but the point is, you would have trouble making a single connection 'across town'.
5) There were numerous companies involved in this when I looked into it back in '98. Most of my info came from a company called Air Optics. I don't know if they're still around, but their literature was definitely impressive.
Really, though. This article doesn't explore in-depth the 'tests' he ran to determine he was being cheated for bandwidth.
Since SBC uses an ATM fabric all the way out to their DSL modems, it is possible to assign priority to different types of traffic. SO, it
is not a question of COULD SBC be doing this, but ARE they doing it?
The question to me is a matter of physical bandwidth vs. logical bandwidth. After all, the customer can still pass 384K of traffic, but there's nothing in the guarantee that says SBC's news servers must be able to support twenty-thousand users hitting them at 384K at the same time.
Good customer service would dictate that they attempt to keep up and provide servers which can handle the traffic. However, I think it would be terribly hard to PROVE that news bandwidth was being intentionally limited at the customer end. I'm not saying it COULDN'T be limited there, just that it could be limited elsewhere without technically violating the agreement. I would really appreciate more detailed information about the supposed 'tests' that have determined this.
1) What impact can you foresee should appeals to the Supreme Court fail? Would the scope be limited to deCSS, or would it suddenly be illegal to publish any sort of material that steps on the toes of large corporate consortiums, however innocently obtained? And I say publish, but would publishing be illegal, or are we only concerned with online posting, which I equate with publishing?
2) Given that deCSS was not written in the US, that its author is not a US citizen and thus not subject to any US law or court decision, and never entered into any agreements regarding trade secrets of the DVD consortium, the MPAA, etc., given these facts, isn't banning the publishing of this document something akin to banning any other foreign document, such as the Quran, The Satanic Verses, or perhaps a more instructional work such as the Kama Sutra?
3) This might qualify as a 'where do you go from here', but what will be the basis of your appeal? In my limited understanding of the appeals process, there must be some justification for making an appeal other than being unhappy with the outcome.
Nice to know that these elections are being taken seriously. Given the number of internet users, the number of people who registered with ICANN was dismal.
I agree. What I'd like to know is will there ever be another chance to register and vote? I feel the fairness of the process was spurious at best, considering I attempted numerous times to register, but repeatedly met errors which prevented me ever managing to complete the registration process. Given the technical difficulties they had, it's a wonder anyone managed to register for the voting at all, and I personally feel that due to this, the process, however seriously it is taken, is not representative of the community, and the results are therefore also misrepresentative of the community. Additionally, I never saw this publicized ANYWHERE except/. until after the registration period had ended. Of course, if your servers can't handle the load of people registering, you don't want to publicize the fact.
Bah! The whole process just sucks ass. ICANN stinks, and I have no illusions that the end result will remotely resemble a state of sanity.
Exactly! The above was a quote from the original article. The point is Microsoft wins market share by flooding the world with their shoddy product, mass-marketing until it's a household word, THEN they have the muscle to force the standards bodies to do things their way. Hence, 'inundation' not 'innovation'.
Microsoft also countered the W3C, as it has in the past, by saying that it innovates by shipping products first and works to define standards that will be established later.
Hmm, IMO the proper word is 'inundate', NOT 'innovate'. Sure, let's give MS the freedom to innovate... Just as long as we can have the freedom to immolate!
Of course there's a legitimate need for this information. There's ALSO a legitimate need for my shipping address when I order toys online. That doesn't stop my information from being misused. What if the governments all decided they wanted to get rid of the techies? It would be very easy to get those from ICANN and have us eliminated, read some science fiction. What promises are they making to keep this information anonymous? What if they publish it and some smart marketing company grabs it to target us for hi-tech marketing? There is ALWAYS a legitimate use for private information. The problem is there is ALWAYS a potential for abuse of private information. When you vote offline, your vote is not tied to your identity, nor is your information, AFAIK, available to anyone for purview. That system still works.
was that the membership application requires a valid, non-anonymous e-mail address, as well as postal address. Does anyone else see the potential for ICANN to make megabucks by selling the member-lists to mass-marketers? Fear.
if ICANN will really last, given recent media attention to the troubles it's having. It seems EVERY member nation has some problem or another with it. Don't know if it can do much good, but I'm going over there right now to see about joining up. This seems like too little, too late by way of advertising such an important issue.
You know, we moderate down user postings as flames & trolls, but then an article comes along like this that itself is a flame/troll. Useful, interesting news items are rejected while this opinionated blather is considered worthy of our perusal?
The guy talks about bloat, then puts up OS/X as a shining example of finesse and millions of investment in user testing? Has he seen the complaints about the new MacOS's usability?
So the open source community doesn't spend millions on R&D... SO WHAT? How COULD they? What still confuses me is: Is this a rant about technical problems with X, or is it a rant about the lack of innovation in window managers? Because I don't see much substance here regarding real problems with X, and I certainly don't see much being done in the MS/Mac world by way of giving users a CHOICE in their UI.
is that this is so acceptable to these corporations. In spite of the growing trend for things like this to happen, it was always good to think that there were good people, decent and true, who would stand up for what's right and help stop this kind of thing happening. Unfortunately, it appears nothing is so good and right as the almighty dollar, before which none may stand. It's amazing how Orwellian things are becoming, though not exactly in the manner Orwell predicted. Much like psychohistory, the results can be predicted with almost absolute certainty, but the methods by which those results are arrived are beyond scrutiny. I only wonder now how long it will be until television shows, newspapers, and eventually news programs are edited to 'correct' historical innacuracies when they step on some corporation's toes. Quick! Read this post while you can! It may not be here tomorrow!
certainly extensable to taking DNA samples, but until there are some big breakthroughs in fast, cheap DNA sequencing, and the solve the problem of making sure they get the right DNA, this particular device isn't going to be turning you over to the GATTACA police just yet.
That's already on its way. 'DNA computer chips' have been under development for years, and would allow for extremely fast sequencing in order to identify the presence of particular markers. I suspect sequencing any person's entire genome would take as long as the human genome project itself did. However, once we have identified the genes that code for particular traits, it will be a matter of simplicity to make detectors for those specific genes without sequencing an entire set of chromosomes. In my mind, the question has never been one of 'if', but always 'when'.
The U.S. Gov never ran it. It was always contracted out to a corporate 3rd party.
If memory serves, it was administered by the InterNIC, which is a registered service mark of the US Dept of Commerce. Under that arrangement, Network Solutions was under govt contract to do the grunt work, but their freedom to institute these outrageous policies was severely limited or nonexistent.
I'm not sure if NetSol can auction your name if you registered it with another registrar. It would depend, I think, on whether that registrar had paid for the name in time or not. It seems perfectly feasible for NetSol to auction the domain name if the registrar you work with didn't sent NetSol their money in time...
I don't see it this way. Why should another company pay NetSol anything at all? NetSol is only to be paid for names registered through them. As a domain-name holder, you are free to register with any service you like, pay them the required fees, and they must then pay their dues to ICANN. My real problem is that NetSol is beginning to take steps that will eventually serve to legitimize a claim to actual ownership of any domain they have in their database. The end result being that domains are only 'leased' officially, and you have no choice but to pay whichever registrar maintains the domain in their database. I do NOT feel a registrar should own ANY domains other than their own, and as consumers, we should have choices when registering a domain. In the end, if I have to search through multiple registrars until I find which one owns mydomain.com then pay them whatever exorbitant fee they want just for the privilege of temporary use of that domain, that would be a _very_bad_thing_. I have already heard warnings from friends to avoid using whois to search for unused domains, as certain registrars have taken up the practice of adding those domains to their databases and charging for the right to register. The whole business reeks to me like some kind of scheme to block off the sun and then charge rental time on patches of sunlight.
If they aren't the registrar for your domain name, then theoretically, they can't pull this BS, right? Just a couple of weeks ago, they were in the media for changes to their policies regarding what they view as domain ownership. At that time, I stated I'd be switching my company to another registrar as soon as the current term expires. Now my resolve (no pun intended) has been strengthened, and I will seriously encourage everyone I can to look elsewhere for domain needs. I most seriously wish the US Govt had never turned this over to the private sector in the first place.
If you went to this movie _expecting_ to see a classic, you would most certainly walk out with the feelings you relate here. I think you'll find much more to enjoy in a movie if you try to lower your expectations. This review has only served to reenforce my belief that reviews suck ass. I'm not gonna rely on anyone to tell me what to like or not like.
Titan AE had a couple, and really ONLY a couple of week points. The animation was spectacularly beautiful, the voice talents were fantastic, and the score was very well done. My only complaints would be a) that at certain points, critical backstory is left out and scenes seem to jump from one to another (probably to avoid boring the youngsters) and b) in a couple of places, characters are left with nothing to do. example: toward the end, while the men are fighting, Barrymore's character is knocked out, but Garofalo's character is nowhere to be found. I feel all the problems with this movie stem from those two roots. The one-dimensionality of the Drej could have been easily repaired with a little back-story, perhaps a prophecy that the humans would destroy them. But put yourself behind a child's eyes. Simple heroes and simple villains work better for a mind that doesn't yet grasp the subtle nuances of motivation. You have good guys and you have bad guys, and they fight, and the good guys win. End of story. I will say this much for it: The hype to content ratio was not one percent that of Phantom Menace. I enjoyed it more, and was less disappointed than after the letdown following the 15 year buildup for Phantom Menace.
Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez told the firm that the auctions were "an offence to the collective memory of the country" and ordered it to report back on July 24 to explain the measures it had taken to prevent the French from participating in the sales.
Oh, offensive to the collective memory of the people who urinated from the tops of buildings on Allied soldiers who had just freed them from the Nazis? Yes, the glorious French people, who stood up to defend the side of right, must be protected from the memory of that horrible evil by perpetuating not its name or symbols, but instead, its very practices. I hope the French government blocks access to/. so these articles can't offend the sensibilities of these fascist, censoring snobs. If we don't like something, let's just ignore it. It'll go away after a while.
While not mentioned here, I'd like to comment that as far as the state of PC games, console games, all games in general, I've really seen a decline in the last few years in the number of games that interest me. Since '93, I've seen the market grow from a fair mixture of games of all types to a predominance of three main genres, FPS, RTS, and Sports. FPS has driven an industry in improving capabilities of graphics hardware, from which all genres could benefit. Networking improvements have made RTS another prevalent system. Sports games seem to have become a standby, in attempts to maintain and increase the market share of that male 18-25 demographic. I have really had trouble finding original, quality, playable RPG's in the last couple of years, and the problem seems to be worsening. E3 has in the past been a great place for companies to show off their newest technological innovations, but seems to have become a place to show off the newest technology to get an extra fps in an FPS. It would be refreshing to hear some news of games using new and improved technologies in other areas to improve the experience in games of other genres.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it's sad to see it all come to an end. Even after Crack closed it's doors, crack.com was still there, a reminder of what had been. I remember when it was hosted on a Mac connected via 56K dialup. Such a group of talent has rarely been assembled. I hope the price keeps climbing. $15K is nowhere close to the money that was put into Crack. Good luck, Dave & Jonathan. Hi Oliver!
-Mike
I've been using business-class ADSL in my office for a year and a half. It's been fantastic. DL speeds of 6Mb. We got it set up before the big rush to DSL started, and the entire process was very quick and painless, taking less than a week. The only problems we've ever had have been traditional, that might happen anywhere (routers down, fiber cut, etc.) So, what's the root cause of this? The only thing obvious to me is customer service. The technology is proven, but getting access to it is the problem. Here in Austin, I've dealt with numerous DSL providers, most of which seem to be re-selling someone else's service. Six weeks seems to be the current bare minimum time to get DSL set up, even for a large company. At one point last year, I spoke with an installer for one of the largest DSL providers in the area. (I hesitate to name them, but their initials are SWB ;) who said he was one of only 3 yes, THREE installers for business DSL in the entire central Texas region. Frankly, I consider it lucky that we have DSL at all. In 1996, I spoke with one of the VP's of that same corporation, DSL was being tested in Houston at that time, and asked how long we'd have to wait to see it in Austin. I was told it might never come, because of the price of changing over the infrastructure. I guess the increase in demand for bandwidth led some higher-up to decide a profit could be made, and the low levels of service quality are to be expected when your marketing department is tricking people into signing contracts they can't escape. The money just continues to flow.
It could grab all e-mail addresses from any incoming/outgoing messages in all your folders. Which is worse? Pissing off EVERYBODY or just those close enough to be in your address book?
Back in the late 80's/early 90's, a company was launched which brought 10 minutes of advertising into public schools in exchange for free satellite receiving equipment and televisions. Channel One raised quite an uproar, and as a student during those times, I can say the content was just not worth it. This doesn't sound any different. The minute someone figures out how to beam an ad into my head is when I start pulling triggers. In the meantime, we just get to stand around and watch civilization slide back into the muck, greased by the slimy excrement that is the product of the corporate marketing engine.
After reading the article, I'd say it looks like Intel probably offerred Toshiba more in marketing dollars than Toshiba had already invested in Transmeta. Or someone's just looking to boost his shares of Intel. At least the article's fair, and gives Transmeta a chance to respond.
But I think the positive side to all of this is that merely a decade ago, this would not have been reported. Likely, there would have been no international effort to help with a rescue attempt. It is sad that a country with their economic woes must still funnel such vast funds into enormous military projects. Worse yet, when they fail. Maybe in another couple of decades even this won't happen.
You are right, of course, but there may still be other obstructions in the way. And, of course, with greater and greater distance (and higher buildings) sway is much more of a problem. I daresay with a 2-story building over 1/2 to 1 mile distance, sway is not an issue, but atop the World Trade Center the sway can be several feet.
Add to this the fact that even a laser will spread and scatter greatly after a distance as great as 27 miles. For various reasons, it's unlikely that optical wireless can be made to cover great distances any time in the immediate future.
I did some research into IR wireless a couple of years ago and came up with the following (mostly from corporate literature):
1) An interesting application of this technology is for a business with offices on opposite sides of national borders. International law makes it very difficult to drop a land line across the border, as well as to get an RF license for traditional wireless. A couple of IR units can solve the problem nicely.
2) Corporate literature at the time stated that birds can SEE the lasers much as the reporter could with the special glasses. They therefore tend to avoid the beams.
3) The average limit was 1/2 mile, at which point, speeds up to 155Mbps could be obtained. Much greater distances could be achieved at the cost of bandwidth.
4) Something people seem to be leaving out is that because this is laser, the beam is a straight-line path. The maximum possible length of a link would be about 7 miles due to the curvature of the earth. Of course, this article discusses building wireless networks spread across multiple buildings, but the point is, you would have trouble making a single connection 'across town'.
5) There were numerous companies involved in this when I looked into it back in '98. Most of my info came from a company called Air Optics. I don't know if they're still around, but their literature was definitely impressive.
It's what you do with it.
Really, though. This article doesn't explore in-depth the 'tests' he ran to determine he was being cheated for bandwidth.
Since SBC uses an ATM fabric all the way out to their DSL modems, it is possible to assign priority to different types of traffic. SO, it
is not a question of COULD SBC be doing this, but ARE they doing it?
The question to me is a matter of physical bandwidth vs. logical bandwidth. After all, the customer can still pass 384K of traffic, but there's nothing in the guarantee that says SBC's news servers must be able to support twenty-thousand users hitting them at 384K at the same time.
Good customer service would dictate that they attempt to keep up and provide servers which can handle the traffic. However, I think it would be terribly hard to PROVE that news bandwidth was being intentionally limited at the customer end. I'm not saying it COULDN'T be limited there, just that it could be limited elsewhere without technically violating the agreement. I would really appreciate more detailed information about the supposed 'tests' that have determined this.
1) What impact can you foresee should appeals to the Supreme Court fail? Would the scope be limited to deCSS, or would it suddenly be illegal to publish any sort of material that steps on the toes of large corporate consortiums, however innocently obtained? And I say publish, but would publishing be illegal, or are we only concerned with online posting, which I equate with publishing?
2) Given that deCSS was not written in the US, that its author is not a US citizen and thus not subject to any US law or court decision, and never entered into any agreements regarding trade secrets of the DVD consortium, the MPAA, etc., given these facts, isn't banning the publishing of this document something akin to banning any other foreign document, such as the Quran, The Satanic Verses, or perhaps a more instructional work such as the Kama Sutra?
3) This might qualify as a 'where do you go from here', but what will be the basis of your appeal? In my limited understanding of the appeals process, there must be some justification for making an appeal other than being unhappy with the outcome.
I agree. What I'd like to know is will there ever be another chance to register and vote? I feel the fairness of the process was spurious at best, considering I attempted numerous times to register, but repeatedly met errors which prevented me ever managing to complete the registration process. Given the technical difficulties they had, it's a wonder anyone managed to register for the voting at all, and I personally feel that due to this, the process, however seriously it is taken, is not representative of the community, and the results are therefore also misrepresentative of the community. Additionally, I never saw this publicized ANYWHERE except
Bah! The whole process just sucks ass. ICANN stinks, and I have no illusions that the end result will remotely resemble a state of sanity.
Exactly! The above was a quote from the original article. The point is Microsoft wins market share by flooding the world with their shoddy product, mass-marketing until it's a household word, THEN they have the muscle to force the standards bodies to do things their way. Hence, 'inundation' not 'innovation'.
Of course there's a legitimate need for this information. There's ALSO a legitimate need for my shipping address when I order toys online. That doesn't stop my information from being misused. What if the governments all decided they wanted to get rid of the techies? It would be very easy to get those from ICANN and have us eliminated, read some science fiction. What promises are they making to keep this information anonymous? What if they publish it and some smart marketing company grabs it to target us for hi-tech marketing? There is ALWAYS a legitimate use for private information. The problem is there is ALWAYS a potential for abuse of private information. When you vote offline, your vote is not tied to your identity, nor is your information, AFAIK, available to anyone for purview. That system still works.
was that the membership application requires a valid, non-anonymous e-mail address, as well as postal address. Does anyone else see the potential for ICANN to make megabucks by selling the member-lists to mass-marketers? Fear.
if ICANN will really last, given recent media attention to the troubles it's having. It seems EVERY member nation has some problem or another with it. Don't know if it can do much good, but I'm going over there right now to see about joining up. This seems like too little, too late by way of advertising such an important issue.
You know, we moderate down user postings as flames & trolls, but then an article comes along like this that itself is a flame/troll. Useful, interesting news items are rejected while this opinionated blather is considered worthy of our perusal?
The guy talks about bloat, then puts up OS/X as a shining example of finesse and millions of investment in user testing? Has he seen the complaints about the new MacOS's usability?
So the open source community doesn't spend millions on R&D... SO WHAT? How COULD they? What still confuses me is: Is this a rant about technical problems with X, or is it a rant about the lack of innovation in window managers? Because I don't see much substance here regarding real problems with X, and I certainly don't see much being done in the MS/Mac world by way of giving users a CHOICE in their UI.
is that this is so acceptable to these corporations. In spite of the growing trend for things like this to happen, it was always good to think that there were good people, decent and true, who would stand up for what's right and help stop this kind of thing happening. Unfortunately, it appears nothing is so good and right as the almighty dollar, before which none may stand. It's amazing how Orwellian things are becoming, though not exactly in the manner Orwell predicted. Much like psychohistory, the results can be predicted with almost absolute certainty, but the methods by which those results are arrived are beyond scrutiny. I only wonder now how long it will be until television shows, newspapers, and eventually news programs are edited to 'correct' historical innacuracies when they step on some corporation's toes. Quick! Read this post while you can! It may not be here tomorrow!
If memory serves, it was administered by the InterNIC, which is a registered service mark of the US Dept of Commerce. Under that arrangement, Network Solutions was under govt contract to do the grunt work, but their freedom to institute these outrageous policies was severely limited or nonexistent.
I don't see it this way. Why should another company pay NetSol anything at all? NetSol is only to be paid for names registered through them. As a domain-name holder, you are free to register with any service you like, pay them the required fees, and they must then pay their dues to ICANN. My real problem is that NetSol is beginning to take steps that will eventually serve to legitimize a claim to actual ownership of any domain they have in their database. The end result being that domains are only 'leased' officially, and you have no choice but to pay whichever registrar maintains the domain in their database. I do NOT feel a registrar should own ANY domains other than their own, and as consumers, we should have choices when registering a domain. In the end, if I have to search through multiple registrars until I find which one owns mydomain.com then pay them whatever exorbitant fee they want just for the privilege of temporary use of that domain, that would be a _very_bad_thing_. I have already heard warnings from friends to avoid using whois to search for unused domains, as certain registrars have taken up the practice of adding those domains to their databases and charging for the right to register. The whole business reeks to me like some kind of scheme to block off the sun and then charge rental time on patches of sunlight.
If they aren't the registrar for your domain name, then theoretically, they can't pull this BS, right? Just a couple of weeks ago, they were in the media for changes to their policies regarding what they view as domain ownership. At that time, I stated I'd be switching my company to another registrar as soon as the current term expires. Now my resolve (no pun intended) has been strengthened, and I will seriously encourage everyone I can to look elsewhere for domain needs. I most seriously wish the US Govt had never turned this over to the private sector in the first place.
If you went to this movie _expecting_ to see a classic, you would most certainly walk out with the feelings you relate here. I think you'll
find much more to enjoy in a movie if you try to lower your expectations. This review has only served to reenforce my belief that reviews suck ass. I'm not gonna rely on anyone to tell me what to like or not like.
Titan AE had a couple, and really ONLY a couple of week points. The animation was spectacularly beautiful, the voice talents were fantastic, and the score was very well done. My only complaints would be a) that at certain points, critical backstory is left out and scenes seem to jump from one to another (probably to avoid boring the youngsters) and b) in a couple of places, characters are left with nothing to do. example: toward the end, while the men are fighting, Barrymore's character is knocked out, but Garofalo's character is nowhere to be found. I feel all the problems with this movie stem from those two roots. The one-dimensionality of the Drej could have been easily repaired with a little back-story, perhaps a prophecy that the humans would destroy them. But put yourself behind a child's eyes. Simple heroes and simple villains work better for a mind that doesn't yet grasp the subtle nuances of motivation. You have good guys and you have bad guys, and they fight, and the good guys win. End of story. I will say this much for it: The hype to content ratio was not one percent that of Phantom Menace. I enjoyed it more, and was less disappointed than after the letdown following the 15 year buildup for Phantom Menace.
While not mentioned here, I'd like to comment that as far as the state of PC games, console games, all games in general, I've really seen a decline in the last few years in the number of games that interest me. Since '93, I've seen the market grow from a fair mixture of games of all types to a predominance of three main genres, FPS, RTS, and Sports. FPS has driven an industry in improving capabilities of graphics hardware, from which all genres could benefit. Networking improvements have made RTS another prevalent system. Sports games seem to have become a standby, in attempts to maintain and increase the market share of that male 18-25 demographic. I have really had trouble finding original, quality, playable RPG's in the last couple of years, and the problem seems to be worsening. E3 has in the past been a great place for companies to show off their newest technological innovations, but seems to have become a place to show off the newest technology to get an extra fps in an FPS. It would be refreshing to hear some news of games using new and improved technologies in other areas to improve the experience in games of other genres.