There's a problem with your logic... Basically with every space program, as opposed to military programs such as the JSV fighters and miscellaneous other systems, there's a 10-20 year lag for R&D... In other words, what's built around state of the art technology takes about 10 years to test and make sure it doesn't blow up (at least often)... The space shuttle was first penned around 1972, during the Nixon administration... NASA, which was still in the red with the Apollo missions, needed a low cost launch vehicle, and the shuttle was the closest thing, due to it's reusable nature...
So it went through 10 years of development and testing, WITH 1970's technology, until it's first launch in 1980, which at the time meant that it's hardware was 10 years out of date... Continuing on to 1990, when the first glass cockpit upgrades were researched, and 1998 when the first ones were being installed... YET AGAIN, 10 year old technology being implemented... The fact of the matter is, when ANYTHING goes into space research, it has to be proven to be reliable, to survive extremes of temperature and vibration, to a factor of hundreds of times more strenuous than the average aircraft hardware... Furthermore, chances are, thanks to the neanderthals in power, they had to prove a valid need for an upgrade to the shuttle system...
On a similar note, does anyone recall WHY NASA upgraded their 30 year old computer systems? Because a computer student was researching telemetry monitoring software on his li'l 386, at mission control (while they were using "tried and true" computer systems), and at that particular point, the ancient computers failed, RIGHT in the middle of a shuttle launch... So basically every technician was huddled around one desktop system, displaying every bit of telemetry previously displayed on dozens of terminals, and NASA finally admitted they needed to update that as well... And several hundreds of thousands to completely retrofit mission control sure as hell beat the cost of building the old mainframe...
The trick, you see, isn't to completely scrap any particular system... Take the Russians for example, they've been using Soyuz capsules for HOW long now? And that's a 30-40 y.o. tech right there... When they tried to scrap it to bring out their shuttle (Buran), guess what killed the Russian economy?
Even the X-33 project is built around 10-15 y.o. technology (even though it isn't even officially built yet), so lets scrap it now, it isn't even flying, it's costing us billions, and it's just as antiquated...
Lets implement restrictions that if anything uses technology more than one year old, that we throw it away and replace it with a new version built on new technology (like we do already with our computers)!!! Yeah!!! THAT'LL bolster the economy, WOW!!!
Which is why you send the e-mail with a receipt mail tag... They cannot open said e-mail without sending back a message recieved notice... THEN you put your EULA into the text of the e-mail sent with the stipulation "By viewing this e-mail and sending back the receipt therein (which of course they have to do *before* reading it), it will be assumed that you have (a) read the requirements of the end-user's EULA and (b) agree to same... I'm sure this can be done at least a few times before they notice and start cancelling those messages...
The first ones to do it will be rich *really* soon...;)
I suppose that all those black people who wanted to be able to ride the bus in the front, or those who wanted to drink from a water fountain other than the "Coloreds Only" ones would qualify as criminals? How about the concientious objectors to the Vietnam war? Or the folks on the resistance within Nazi Germany? All of those people qualified as criminals too...
What's the difference? Not bloody much... The geeks/nerds in general are a cultural subset, just as much as gays, goths, wiccans, scientologists, etc...
We think differently (Um, thinking is bad, m'kay? Let us do it for you)...
We act differently (Gee, I'd LOVE to go watch monster truck rallies, but I have a D&D game in 3 hours, and a Q3 deathmatch going right now)...
We speak differently (Yer using big words, are you trying to make us look dumb?)...
We listen to different music (Turn that crap off! It's interfering with my Britany Spears album!)...
We look different (Hey NERD!!! You faggot, you aren't trendy enough to hang with us! Lets pound the crap outta him for 5 hours straight!)...
We've been profiled, defamed, stereotyped and belittled for decades... For what? For being different, for not thinking or acting in a nice sane spoonfed media glorp manner... For looking, thinking, talking, or doing anything else differently... Not in a criminal way, at least I like to imagine most of us do, just a different way that honestly causes no harm...
And YET despite this, we ARE criminals, we ARE constantly discriminated against (unless anyone sees a quick opportunity to profit from us)... And yet, just as intelligence is predetermined by genetics as race or sexual orientation, WE are the ones who're criminalized...
If Jack Valenti was saying "Those niggers (pardon my french) are using DeCSS to steal our precious movies!" instead of "hackers", how quickly would everyone be up in arms? I guarantee you if he did, the MPAA building would have been ashes within 10 minutes...
Lets face it folks, the DMCA qualifies as the open door for technological and cultural discrimination on a par with the old Jim Crow laws... Only instead of attacking one specific racial or cultural group, they're attacking people based on their intelligence instead...
How long til we see "Coders Need Not Apply" signs hanging in windows? Or would a concentration camp be needed til anyone notices the parallels?
Sony introducing a new CDR (CDR-W?) drive that can write and read 1.5 Gb or so discs... Only weeks after the first ripped DC ISO's started appearing... Can we say industrial sabotage? How do you ensure that a competitor's game system dies early? Improve the technology that allows their product to be copied... After all, they have a major uphill battle to compete with the DC, the PSX2 was rife with technical difficulties, while Sega was selling hand over fist...
This is a light emitting polymer that requires very little power to operate... Which is why it's considered as such a breakthrough for portable displays... It runs cooler than LED's (which are made of plastic too, and can run virtually forever, hence why they're incorporated even into streetlights), and therefore can have an indefinate lifespan... Now as to whether LEP's can maintain extended operations or not, and not suffer degradation or decomposition of their respective dyes, that's another question entirely...
Personally, I think Microsoft is barking up the wrong tree... If they really wanted to innovate, then they should just BUILD their own computer, and not use off the shelf tech to build the XBox... Just look at the specs, short of a floppy drive, it's a high end PC...
Hell, if Microsoft built a unique computer, that could also spare them from having to build flakey OS's for even flakier hardware supported systems, like Apple currently does... It isn't like they're at a loss for resources, I bet that if they were really serious, they could commission someone to build an alternative platform for them that could give Macintosh a run for it's money...
Why didn't they buy Amiga? Or at least try making a computer that's truly unique? There's gotta be something more that could be done on the consumer market, than the PowerPC*/*86 variety, it's to the point now where nobody is really innovating anything, or creating new concepts for computing, it's just the SAME system time and time again, nominally faster, with perty graphics and cases...
Ummmm... Do you know how much Kenny Baker gets paid to wear that "little costume"? A hell of a lot more than you or I make in a year, per day at the least... After all, he's essentially been in almost every George Lucas film to date, short of THX 1138 and American Graffitti... He wouldn't be in the flicks and costumes unless it was well worth his while...
Hell, there's people out there who're willing to wear stupid gorilla costumes just to hand out fliers for the local car dealership for minimum wage... If it was me, I'd be envious of Kenny Baker because he's small enough in stature to wear a robot costume and get paid massive amounts of money...
Well, technically Ahmed Best DID perform on the set of Episode 1, with full Jar Jar regalia, later the CGI was superimposed over his head and neck (complete with goofy looking Jar Jar hat), mainly to have a physical spatial reference for the animators, and something for the actors to look at so they wouldn't appear to be staring off into space (didn't quite work)...
No reason the R2D2 can't be done the same way... HOWEVER, when Anthony Daniels is replaced with CGI, THAT will be a sad day indeed...
A bit of history, since I've known a person who worked for Lucasfilms for a time... The original reason that Lucasfilms bankrolled Pixar in the first place, was because at the time, George Lucas was contemplating virtual sets and actors in the early 80's, even though at the time, a lot of it was relatively primative... And he used it pretty much from the getgo, Return of the Jedi, Willow, both used CGI in varying amounts... Pity he didn't use it in Howard the Duck, however...
He went into the 80's wanting to make movies completely CGI, he's about 75% there now...
I've been working, albeit nominally, in the Linux SH* project, providing hardware information for HP's Jornada 420, in an attempt to aid in retrofitting pocket PC's with the Linux operating system... So far, all attempts made by those working in the project have reached a "If you aren't working for Microsoft, we aren't telling you anything" response...
Gee, they drag Micro$oft into court, and simultaneously bash Win2K about it's 65,000 bugs (anyone find all of them yet? It's buggy, but not THAT buggy)... When was this? Gee, 18 months ago! Coincidence?
The DeCSS song! Try and ban a song for the code it contains, suckers! Moohahhahhhh!
166.90.148.115:5164
And Now, Playing Live on Shoutcast! *snicker*
on
DeCSS Source Song
·
· Score: 1
It's an open source song, so there's nothing in the rules that say I cannot play it ad infinitum, over and over on my channel on Shoutcast (see below), have fun!
The difficulty is in modern mass media, where the reporters rarely follow up on their reports or correct themselves, (at best, running their transcripts through a spell checker) when they're found at fault...
Example: About 10 years back, one of the news networks in the Bay Area was running a report on some sicko who was shooting stray cats with a bow and arrow... They showed an X-ray of one of the cats, showing a destinct arrowhead, with a blunt tip and springs sticking out of the side... The reporter decided she was suddenly a forensic expert, and an expert on archery to boot, claiming the arrow was "obviously designed so it couldn't be removed"... I'm an archer and bowhunter in the meanwhile, and identified the type of arrow the moment they showed it, known as a "judo point", it's an arrowhead designed for stunning small game, such as rabbits, at a distance... In the case of the cat they showed, it was obvious that whoever shot the arrow was within only a few feet of the cat, which is why it penetrated the skin... Anyway, I contacted the news channel, and informed them of the error, to which I got a "Yeahyeahyeah, we know, thank you. *click*"... Meanwhile, no retraction, no correction, nothing... Some ignoramous on the news was paid to broadcast a lie, whereas someone offering the truth was given a simple brushoff...
Of course, when you're talking mass media that is owned by a major motion picture corporation in part or in whole, then you're talking about something with a definate bias...
Case in point: Every news network has stated the same thing, that "DeCSS enables users to copy DVD's to their HD for viewing"... What they don't mention, is how large it would be, how it's preferred only on non Windows systems (come on, why use DeCSS when there's a plethora of players available for Windows systems?), due to the lack of support those non Windows systems have to play DVD's, etc?
Or one could simply look at the difference between the DeCSS case and Napster in the media... In the case of Napster and mp3's, the majority of the media isn't villifying them quite as much as they did with DeCSS, because they have less vested interests in the music industry... Out of all of the studios, perhaps 2 or 3 of the news producers are actually associated with the music recording industry... As opposed to the movie industry, which pretty much owns every single one of them... The printed news, in the meanwhile, is the most comprehensive (despite obvious technical inadequacies) source for unbiased information regarding the case...
As for providing it's importance in a manner that John and Jane Q Public can comprehend, use two analogies, one being the printing press (ie: A book publisher who wants to prevent you from reading anything, unless it's printed on a press they approve of), the other the gun (the US wants to take away your guns because you're using them for wall decorations and not killing anything with them like you should)... Those usually get both sides a little more enlightenment...
Hey, do you think we could sue the MPAA for libelous statements?
Lets face it, they accused everyone in the open source community of being thieves, a totally baldfaced lie... That's like going to a soup kitchen and locking up everyone in line for shoplifting...
Lets see what else the bible failed to mention:
Planets
Atomic energy
Periodic table of elements
Radio waves
Genetics
Rational thought and logic
"Ever notice that the people who believe in evolution the least, look really unevolved" - Bill Hicks (RIP)
For one, lets assume that this is the usual school computer class, which teaches NO programming/computer science, at best it'll teach basic web page design... At worst, all it'll teach them, is how to browse using a Microsoft platform... (1) Since hardware IS relatively cheap, and most students will be able to get by with a Pentium 200 MMX, teach the students to BUILD their own systems, with used parts if need be... That way, even if the kids cannot find immediate computer related work when they graduate, at least they'll have the basic skills for assembling systems to build on... (2) Teach the students to construct systems around Linux... The reason for this is relatively self explainatory... After all, why does Microsoft (and previously Apple) donate hardware to schools? To make students dependent on their OS's...
Whenever you recieve a mailing from Columbia House, BMG, or any other music clubs, send the form back stating "I refuse to purchase any further music from RIAA affiliates, due to their heavy handed and unfair anti competitive practices"... It'll cost you a postage stamp at the worst, but it'll (a) make a significant impact, considering the record industries cut their losses by dumping disks on the music clubs in bulk, and (b) The record labels won't look at sales stats based on the end of a financial quarter (which is coming up very soon)... This will take a long period (4 months, eh, long by nethead standards) period, and even moreso, they won't respond to the numbers, unless they notice that music clubs aren't purchasing disks in the future (or better yet, getting letters saying "Do you know about this??? --- Will really get their attention)...
Slashdot Mirror
There's a problem with your logic... Basically with every space program, as opposed to military programs such as the JSV fighters and miscellaneous other systems, there's a 10-20 year lag for R&D... In other words, what's built around state of the art technology takes about 10 years to test and make sure it doesn't blow up (at least often)... The space shuttle was first penned around 1972, during the Nixon administration... NASA, which was still in the red with the Apollo missions, needed a low cost launch vehicle, and the shuttle was the closest thing, due to it's reusable nature...
So it went through 10 years of development and testing, WITH 1970's technology, until it's first launch in 1980, which at the time meant that it's hardware was 10 years out of date... Continuing on to 1990, when the first glass cockpit upgrades were researched, and 1998 when the first ones were being installed... YET AGAIN, 10 year old technology being implemented... The fact of the matter is, when ANYTHING goes into space research, it has to be proven to be reliable, to survive extremes of temperature and vibration, to a factor of hundreds of times more strenuous than the average aircraft hardware... Furthermore, chances are, thanks to the neanderthals in power, they had to prove a valid need for an upgrade to the shuttle system...
On a similar note, does anyone recall WHY NASA upgraded their 30 year old computer systems? Because a computer student was researching telemetry monitoring software on his li'l 386, at mission control (while they were using "tried and true" computer systems), and at that particular point, the ancient computers failed, RIGHT in the middle of a shuttle launch... So basically every technician was huddled around one desktop system, displaying every bit of telemetry previously displayed on dozens of terminals, and NASA finally admitted they needed to update that as well... And several hundreds of thousands to completely retrofit mission control sure as hell beat the cost of building the old mainframe...
The trick, you see, isn't to completely scrap any particular system... Take the Russians for example, they've been using Soyuz capsules for HOW long now? And that's a 30-40 y.o. tech right there... When they tried to scrap it to bring out their shuttle (Buran), guess what killed the Russian economy?
Even the X-33 project is built around 10-15 y.o. technology (even though it isn't even officially built yet), so lets scrap it now, it isn't even flying, it's costing us billions, and it's just as antiquated...
Lets implement restrictions that if anything uses technology more than one year old, that we throw it away and replace it with a new version built on new technology (like we do already with our computers)!!! Yeah!!! THAT'LL bolster the economy, WOW!!!
Which is why you send the e-mail with a receipt mail tag... They cannot open said e-mail without sending back a message recieved notice... THEN you put your EULA into the text of the e-mail sent with the stipulation "By viewing this e-mail and sending back the receipt therein (which of course they have to do *before* reading it), it will be assumed that you have (a) read the requirements of the end-user's EULA and (b) agree to same... I'm sure this can be done at least a few times before they notice and start cancelling those messages...
The first ones to do it will be rich *really* soon...;)
I suppose that all those black people who wanted to be able to ride the bus in the front, or those who wanted to drink from a water fountain other than the "Coloreds Only" ones would qualify as criminals? How about the concientious objectors to the Vietnam war? Or the folks on the resistance within Nazi Germany? All of those people qualified as criminals too...
What's the difference? Not bloody much... The geeks/nerds in general are a cultural subset, just as much as gays, goths, wiccans, scientologists, etc...
We think differently (Um, thinking is bad, m'kay? Let us do it for you)...
We act differently (Gee, I'd LOVE to go watch monster truck rallies, but I have a D&D game in 3 hours, and a Q3 deathmatch going right now)...
We speak differently (Yer using big words, are you trying to make us look dumb?)...
We listen to different music (Turn that crap off! It's interfering with my Britany Spears album!)...
We look different (Hey NERD!!! You faggot, you aren't trendy enough to hang with us! Lets pound the crap outta him for 5 hours straight!)...
We've been profiled, defamed, stereotyped and belittled for decades... For what? For being different, for not thinking or acting in a nice sane spoonfed media glorp manner... For looking, thinking, talking, or doing anything else differently... Not in a criminal way, at least I like to imagine most of us do, just a different way that honestly causes no harm...
And YET despite this, we ARE criminals, we ARE constantly discriminated against (unless anyone sees a quick opportunity to profit from us)... And yet, just as intelligence is predetermined by genetics as race or sexual orientation, WE are the ones who're criminalized...
If Jack Valenti was saying "Those niggers (pardon my french) are using DeCSS to steal our precious movies!" instead of "hackers", how quickly would everyone be up in arms? I guarantee you if he did, the MPAA building would have been ashes within 10 minutes...
Lets face it folks, the DMCA qualifies as the open door for technological and cultural discrimination on a par with the old Jim Crow laws... Only instead of attacking one specific racial or cultural group, they're attacking people based on their intelligence instead...
How long til we see "Coders Need Not Apply" signs hanging in windows? Or would a concentration camp be needed til anyone notices the parallels?
Ahwell, rant mode off...
Sony introducing a new CDR (CDR-W?) drive that can write and read 1.5 Gb or so discs... Only weeks after the first ripped DC ISO's started appearing... Can we say industrial sabotage? How do you ensure that a competitor's game system dies early? Improve the technology that allows their product to be copied... After all, they have a major uphill battle to compete with the DC, the PSX2 was rife with technical difficulties, while Sega was selling hand over fist...
This is a light emitting polymer that requires very little power to operate... Which is why it's considered as such a breakthrough for portable displays... It runs cooler than LED's (which are made of plastic too, and can run virtually forever, hence why they're incorporated even into streetlights), and therefore can have an indefinate lifespan... Now as to whether LEP's can maintain extended operations or not, and not suffer degradation or decomposition of their respective dyes, that's another question entirely...
Personally, I think Microsoft is barking up the wrong tree... If they really wanted to innovate, then they should just BUILD their own computer, and not use off the shelf tech to build the XBox... Just look at the specs, short of a floppy drive, it's a high end PC...
Hell, if Microsoft built a unique computer, that could also spare them from having to build flakey OS's for even flakier hardware supported systems, like Apple currently does... It isn't like they're at a loss for resources, I bet that if they were really serious, they could commission someone to build an alternative platform for them that could give Macintosh a run for it's money...
Why didn't they buy Amiga? Or at least try making a computer that's truly unique? There's gotta be something more that could be done on the consumer market, than the PowerPC*/*86 variety, it's to the point now where nobody is really innovating anything, or creating new concepts for computing, it's just the SAME system time and time again, nominally faster, with perty graphics and cases...
Ummmm... Do you know how much Kenny Baker gets paid to wear that "little costume"? A hell of a lot more than you or I make in a year, per day at the least... After all, he's essentially been in almost every George Lucas film to date, short of THX 1138 and American Graffitti... He wouldn't be in the flicks and costumes unless it was well worth his while... Hell, there's people out there who're willing to wear stupid gorilla costumes just to hand out fliers for the local car dealership for minimum wage... If it was me, I'd be envious of Kenny Baker because he's small enough in stature to wear a robot costume and get paid massive amounts of money...
Well, technically Ahmed Best DID perform on the set of Episode 1, with full Jar Jar regalia, later the CGI was superimposed over his head and neck (complete with goofy looking Jar Jar hat), mainly to have a physical spatial reference for the animators, and something for the actors to look at so they wouldn't appear to be staring off into space (didn't quite work)...
No reason the R2D2 can't be done the same way... HOWEVER, when Anthony Daniels is replaced with CGI, THAT will be a sad day indeed...
A bit of history, since I've known a person who worked for Lucasfilms for a time... The original reason that Lucasfilms bankrolled Pixar in the first place, was because at the time, George Lucas was contemplating virtual sets and actors in the early 80's, even though at the time, a lot of it was relatively primative... And he used it pretty much from the getgo, Return of the Jedi, Willow, both used CGI in varying amounts... Pity he didn't use it in Howard the Duck, however...
He went into the 80's wanting to make movies completely CGI, he's about 75% there now...
Jack Valenti and the lawyers of the MPAA will be defrosted, to sue the scientists who figure out how to decrypt the recovered DVD...
I've been working, albeit nominally, in the Linux SH* project, providing hardware information for HP's Jornada 420, in an attempt to aid in retrofitting pocket PC's with the Linux operating system... So far, all attempts made by those working in the project have reached a "If you aren't working for Microsoft, we aren't telling you anything" response...
Gee, they drag Micro$oft into court, and simultaneously bash Win2K about it's 65,000 bugs (anyone find all of them yet? It's buggy, but not THAT buggy)... When was this? Gee, 18 months ago! Coincidence?
The DeCSS song! Try and ban a song for the code it contains, suckers! Moohahhahhhh! 166.90.148.115:5164
It's an open source song, so there's nothing in the rules that say I cannot play it ad infinitum, over and over on my channel on Shoutcast (see below), have fun!
166.90.148.115:5164
The difficulty is in modern mass media, where the reporters rarely follow up on their reports or correct themselves, (at best, running their transcripts through a spell checker) when they're found at fault...
Example: About 10 years back, one of the news networks in the Bay Area was running a report on some sicko who was shooting stray cats with a bow and arrow... They showed an X-ray of one of the cats, showing a destinct arrowhead, with a blunt tip and springs sticking out of the side... The reporter decided she was suddenly a forensic expert, and an expert on archery to boot, claiming the arrow was "obviously designed so it couldn't be removed"... I'm an archer and bowhunter in the meanwhile, and identified the type of arrow the moment they showed it, known as a "judo point", it's an arrowhead designed for stunning small game, such as rabbits, at a distance... In the case of the cat they showed, it was obvious that whoever shot the arrow was within only a few feet of the cat, which is why it penetrated the skin... Anyway, I contacted the news channel, and informed them of the error, to which I got a "Yeahyeahyeah, we know, thank you. *click*"... Meanwhile, no retraction, no correction, nothing... Some ignoramous on the news was paid to broadcast a lie, whereas someone offering the truth was given a simple brushoff...
Of course, when you're talking mass media that is owned by a major motion picture corporation in part or in whole, then you're talking about something with a definate bias...
Case in point: Every news network has stated the same thing, that "DeCSS enables users to copy DVD's to their HD for viewing"... What they don't mention, is how large it would be, how it's preferred only on non Windows systems (come on, why use DeCSS when there's a plethora of players available for Windows systems?), due to the lack of support those non Windows systems have to play DVD's, etc?
Or one could simply look at the difference between the DeCSS case and Napster in the media... In the case of Napster and mp3's, the majority of the media isn't villifying them quite as much as they did with DeCSS, because they have less vested interests in the music industry... Out of all of the studios, perhaps 2 or 3 of the news producers are actually associated with the music recording industry... As opposed to the movie industry, which pretty much owns every single one of them... The printed news, in the meanwhile, is the most comprehensive (despite obvious technical inadequacies) source for unbiased information regarding the case...
As for providing it's importance in a manner that John and Jane Q Public can comprehend, use two analogies, one being the printing press (ie: A book publisher who wants to prevent you from reading anything, unless it's printed on a press they approve of), the other the gun (the US wants to take away your guns because you're using them for wall decorations and not killing anything with them like you should)... Those usually get both sides a little more enlightenment...
Hey, do you think we could sue the MPAA for libelous statements? Lets face it, they accused everyone in the open source community of being thieves, a totally baldfaced lie... That's like going to a soup kitchen and locking up everyone in line for shoplifting...
Lets see what else the bible failed to mention: Planets Atomic energy Periodic table of elements Radio waves Genetics Rational thought and logic "Ever notice that the people who believe in evolution the least, look really unevolved" - Bill Hicks (RIP)
I dunno, but the cost of Europan sushi would be astronomical! (sorry, couldn't resist)
For one, lets assume that this is the usual school computer class, which teaches NO programming/computer science, at best it'll teach basic web page design... At worst, all it'll teach them, is how to browse using a Microsoft platform... (1) Since hardware IS relatively cheap, and most students will be able to get by with a Pentium 200 MMX, teach the students to BUILD their own systems, with used parts if need be... That way, even if the kids cannot find immediate computer related work when they graduate, at least they'll have the basic skills for assembling systems to build on... (2) Teach the students to construct systems around Linux... The reason for this is relatively self explainatory... After all, why does Microsoft (and previously Apple) donate hardware to schools? To make students dependent on their OS's...
And all I got was this lousy T-shirt... Sorry, that just popped into my head...
Whenever you recieve a mailing from Columbia House, BMG, or any other music clubs, send the form back stating "I refuse to purchase any further music from RIAA affiliates, due to their heavy handed and unfair anti competitive practices"... It'll cost you a postage stamp at the worst, but it'll (a) make a significant impact, considering the record industries cut their losses by dumping disks on the music clubs in bulk, and (b) The record labels won't look at sales stats based on the end of a financial quarter (which is coming up very soon)... This will take a long period (4 months, eh, long by nethead standards) period, and even moreso, they won't respond to the numbers, unless they notice that music clubs aren't purchasing disks in the future (or better yet, getting letters saying "Do you know about this??? --- Will really get their attention)...