So... anyone who doesn't particularly like Stephen King (or who dislikes Stephen King fans) can just download a copy (or several) with no intention of reading or paying.
Particularly when you allow for download-bots, a model based on ( # payments / # downloads ) seems extraordinarily ripe for abuse.
Of course, as long as the conventional book market exists, this is a risk-free strategy for an established author. If King makes the desired amount of money from downloads, he keeps it free and clear. If he doesn't, he should have no problem finding a publisher to make a dead-tree version at his usual rate. Because there's no chance that he'll end up uncompensated for his time and effort, his threat to discontinue e-distribution in the event of non-payment is credible. This would not be the case for a new or unfamiliar author using the same distribution system.
'One very strange thing the TiVO does is delay all "live TV" about 4 seconds.'
This is an interesting limitation. Almost everything I watch is sports programming, but for local sports--specifically UNC Tar Heels football and basketball--I often turn down the sound and listen to the radio announcers. (I often do this when "Dick" Vitale is doing a game.) Clearly, this would be difficult with the TiVo delay.
(The CBS transmission mechanism for the NCAA tournament actually introduces a half-second delay relative to the radio--sometimes the radio announcers can call shots in or out before it's clear on TV--but it's not enough to make it hard to watch).
What would be really cool as an enhancement would be the ability to take video from a TV channel and audio from a radio station, then feed them both into the same feed so that they come out at the same time. Though if you live in an apartment complex as crowded as mine, you may still hear the cheers or curses of neighbors before you see what happened.
(A side note on the commercial-skipping discussions: live sports are still a case in which there would be room for commercials. Unless you want to get lots of replays and know that the game has progressed without you seeing it, you're going to hit a point where the game itself pauses for a commercial and you have to either (a) back up and look for interesting replays, (b) go to the bathroom, or (c) wait out the commercials.)
I'm working as an application developer on SAS in the Windows environment. I'm a Mac person at home, and since SAS has stopped actively developing their Mac product I was afraid I might be pushed into the grasp of Microsoft.
More importantly, for hopes of future development, having _ANY_ desktop platform version of SAS other than Windows greatly increases the likelihood of having even more versions. That is, a Linux version will force SAS to develop features in a way that doesn't depend on Windows, which will make it more feasible to port to other platforms at a later date.
There are lots of TI emulators, though not as many as there are for other platforms. A place to start looking for anything TI-related is at http://99er.hispeed.com. There's also TI-99/4A support in the multi-emulator MESS, at http://mess.emuverse.com.
You do need the system ROMs to run the emulator and the cartridge ROMs to play the games. There's PC software to do the dumps, and I'm sure that somewhere out there you can find already-dumped ROMS, but I have no idea where.
The names of the ships (Urbite, Dramite, one other that escapes me now) were derived from the names of the programmers. There's also the letters "Jed" and "Urb" in the landscape scrolling below the ship. Yes, you can fit programmers' credits into even a small game.
Unfortunately, my 90MHz 601 isn't quite up to running Parsec at a reasonable speed on Mac V9T9--although it does do a great job at MunchMan. I'll have to pick up the real thing next time I'm at the folks' place. That, or become the first and only person to upgrade to a G4 for the sake of TI-99/4A emulation.
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So... anyone who doesn't particularly like Stephen King (or who dislikes Stephen King fans) can just download a copy (or several) with no intention of reading or paying.
Particularly when you allow for download-bots, a model based on ( # payments / # downloads ) seems extraordinarily ripe for abuse.
Of course, as long as the conventional book market exists, this is a risk-free strategy for an established author. If King makes the desired amount of money from downloads, he keeps it free and clear. If he doesn't, he should have no problem finding a publisher to make a dead-tree version at his usual rate. Because there's no chance that he'll end up uncompensated for his time and effort, his threat to discontinue e-distribution in the event of non-payment is credible. This would not be the case for a new or unfamiliar author using the same distribution system.
'One very strange thing the TiVO does is delay all "live TV" about 4 seconds.'
This is an interesting limitation. Almost everything I watch is sports programming, but for local sports--specifically UNC Tar Heels football and basketball--I often turn down the sound and listen to the radio announcers. (I often do this when "Dick" Vitale is doing a game.) Clearly, this would be difficult with the TiVo delay.
(The CBS transmission mechanism for the NCAA tournament actually introduces a half-second delay relative to the radio--sometimes the radio announcers can call shots in or out before it's clear on TV--but it's not enough to make it hard to watch).
What would be really cool as an enhancement would be the ability to take video from a TV channel and audio from a radio station, then feed them both into the same feed so that they come out at the same time. Though if you live in an apartment complex as crowded as mine, you may still hear the cheers or curses of neighbors before you see what happened.
(A side note on the commercial-skipping discussions: live sports are still a case in which there would be room for commercials. Unless you want to get lots of replays and know that the game has progressed without you seeing it, you're going to hit a point where the game itself pauses for a commercial and you have to either (a) back up and look for interesting replays, (b) go to the bathroom, or (c) wait out the commercials.)
I cannot tell you how happy this makes me!
I'm working as an application developer on SAS in the Windows environment. I'm a Mac person at home, and since SAS has stopped actively developing their Mac product I was afraid I might be pushed into the grasp of Microsoft.
More importantly, for hopes of future development, having _ANY_ desktop platform version of SAS other than Windows greatly increases the likelihood of having even more versions. That is, a Linux version will force SAS to develop features in a way that doesn't depend on Windows, which will make it more feasible to port to other platforms at a later date.
This is great!
There are lots of TI emulators, though not as many as there are for other platforms. A place to start looking for anything TI-related is at http://99er.hispeed.com. There's also TI-99/4A support in the multi-emulator MESS, at http://mess.emuverse.com.
You do need the system ROMs to run the emulator and the cartridge ROMs to play the games. There's PC software to do the dumps, and I'm sure that somewhere out there you can find already-dumped ROMS, but I have no idea where.
An AC asks:
> Who are the dramite?
The names of the ships (Urbite, Dramite, one other that escapes me now) were derived from the names of the programmers. There's also the letters "Jed" and "Urb" in the landscape scrolling below the ship. Yes, you can fit programmers' credits into even a small game.
Unfortunately, my 90MHz 601 isn't quite up to running Parsec at a reasonable speed on Mac V9T9--although it does do a great job at MunchMan. I'll have to pick up the real thing next time I'm at the folks' place. That, or become the first and only person to upgrade to a G4 for the sake of TI-99/4A emulation.