Unfortunately, the movie rating system doesn't work well. Theatres rarely carry NC-17 or unrated films, under the assumption that they're pornography, which would get them in hot water.
As a result, dramas and other films which have nothing to do with pornography (ie, materials designed to stimulate) will never get proper exposure unless they are trimmed down to R rated levels. You could have the best movie ever made, oscar material up the wazoo, but definitely intended for a mature audience who can approach the concepts it explores in an adult fashion... but it better be R, or it's bad bad pr0n.
Websites will likely work the same way; if your site is rated too high, regardless of the INTENT of the site (sexual education materials, evidence of war atrocities in other counteries, etc) it'll be blacklisted.
In the first film, the helicopter crash is accidental. They're using the helicopter as a mobile gunmount to free Morpheus, and it goes down when the AGENTS shoot at it and they have to bail out or die.
It's all about the intention; this is different than the New Line direct to video movie that got released last week about terrorists hijacking a plane specifically to fly it into a city. Airborne vehicle + building isn't always a WTC reference. If we're going this far to look for inappropriate content, it's time to think twice.
If we ban virtual child porn because it's a simulation of an illegal action, why aren't we banning Quake 3?
The whole point of Quake 3 is to run around and murder people in messy ways in order to improve your score. I can't think of a more obvious way to say that it promotes manslaughter than that, and obviously the community places a moral and legal condemnation on the act of murder. Don't forget, according to certain senators, games like this are training people to become killing machines.
If we ban all forms of simulated illegal activity, all we'll have left are pictures of puppies and games where you collect fruit from the ground. (Without throwing it at evil turtles or cloud monsters, because that's assault, disorderly behavior, cruelty to animals and littering.)
I probably won't get modded up tremendously, but may I bow before you in respect for pointing out how well wrestling booking paralells modern day television program story planning? 'cause I'm gonna bow anyway.
A lot of Voyager's problems actually map one-to-one to some of the WWF's biggest blunders. Injury angles (and in Voyager's case, even stories where someone dies) watered down by a miraculous last minute healing or similar cheap dodge. Bringing in outside talent (7 of 9) and giving them a push to the moon to spurn audience interest in a generally lackluster cast... the list goes on.
Further proof that good writing = good writing, and bad writing = bad writing, regardless of what kind of show you're doing it for. Star Trek Enterprise has a ways to go to prove it's going to sustain audience interest and ratings, and they could learn a thing or two from one of the longest running shows on television that's also had to adapt with the times and adapt with its audience; the WWF.
Time to get learned. Which package do we get?
on
Blaming Encryption
·
· Score: 1
I'm a complete newbie to encryption. I've never bothered to encrypt my e-mail before for the usual reasons -- the people I'm mailing don't have decryption tools, nothing I send would be of any importance to anyone except us, and so on.
But with the iron hammer of legislation threatening to come down, I think I'd better download an open source encryption package ASAP before they get banned.
So for folks who are keenly following this situation but not sure what the next step is... what's the most commonly used Win9x compatable pacakge I can grab? I'd like to make sure I meet community standards and not start employing some backwoods, obscure encryption system.
(Of course, once it gets banned, I'll be using contraband... and hopefully 'not having anything of importance' will be enough to keep me out of the spooks' watchful carnivores.)
We need more public commentary like this from folks in respected professions.
Would the DeCSS case end result have changed if they weren't going after 2600 magazine, which is clearly known as an information source on how to break the law? (Regardless of their liability in the end.) 2600 was singled out for a reason; ethos. They lack it. It's not something that Joe Q. Public would acknowledge as legitimate and respectable.
But the scientific community, there we have a body of people who have that innate respect and the credentials for their words to carry weight. That's the sort of dissenting voice we need to fight the DMCA since they will be listened to and their needs will be addressed.
While the DMCA is flawed regardless and I'd say 2600 and the white lab coat type folks have equal justification, it's all about the spin and image of who's saying 'No' to it that matters.
What other communities or professions which get instant respect from the general populace could be affected by the DMCA? Maybe those sectors could speak up as well.
The Sims Online sounded more interesting anyway...
on
Simsville Canceled
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm almost glad they canned Simsville. Yet Another Micromanagement City Simulation was not needed (at least to this gamer, YMMV), but the plans they have in place for The Sims Online are intriguing. They're unlike anything the Sim series has done before as they shift emphasis from management to social interaction.
The whole game is a vast experiment in community, economics and social interaction... you're competing for visitors and popularity by having a superior house design and/or a home business. No wrangling with the AI and trying to get your Sims to brush their teeth every morning, no constant patrolling of their mood meters. I'm looking forward to playing it; call it a more constructive and pacifistic version of EverQuest, perhaps.
But I have to wonder, will adding the Simsville team onto The Sims Online push up the release date a bit? Or is that not really dependent on how many people you throw at a project?
Aliens are just aliens, not symbols of ourselves in various guises.
Actually, the article implied that the Aliens From The Future(tm) actually could be (or is) an alternate future humanity that's pushing for a more aggressive Federation that won't get stepped on by the Klingons and Borg and Dominion and so on.
I'm looking forward to that not just for the action/adventure yadda, but because seeing a NON-utopian alternate humanity that's trying to keep humanity from being the Trekkian utopia lends itself to some interesting moral plays. I can see a lot of great stories being played out over altering humanity's destiny and trying to push for one moral stance over the other.
About a year later they started coming out with these pirate sets which contained basically a preconstructed hull and sails... where's the fun in that?
Granted that specialized piece can be a pain... they can also be a bonus. One of the reasons I bought a lot of Town sets was so I'd have properly shaped windows and skylights that would look good on my buildings, rather than just leaving a gaping hole where a window should be. Fire hydrants and other small tools that were suitably sized for minifigs also helped, since you can't replicate those out of basic blocks.
As for the pirate ships, remember that the hulls were unique in that they could actually FLOAT on water. They were hollow and sealed so the air would keep them boyant! I built plenty of custom ships using the hull as a base, including a few luxury cruise ships and a Lucitania that I could detonate from my grey U-Boat. ^_^
I know the trend is to bash specialized parts, but in some situations, they helped cover the spots that imagination alone couldn't cover in a practical sense. At the same time, they expanded the ability to creatively construct beyond the limits of rectangles.
Cartoon Shading, and Dreamcast vs. PS2.
on
The New Zelda
·
· Score: 1
It's interesting to note that the cartoon-shading technique Sega used for Jet Set Radio was according to developer interviews 'a Dreamcast exclusive; we wanted to do something with the Dreamcast that COULD NOT be done on the Playstation 2.'
Not too long ago, when asked if Jet Set Radio Future (the sequel) would be an X-Box exclusive, Sega said it would be multiplatform after an exclusivity period runs out.
So here we have a toon shader on GameCube, and Monster Rancher 3 uses a toon shader on PS2...
It's getting hard to figure out what's hype, what's system FUD and what's a legit feature set for these machines.
Or put another way, you mention that you use a walker. Would you file a discrimination suit if you got turned down for a job as a jogging instructor?
As I was expecting -- another invalid comparison I've seen bandied about in this thread... because obviously I wouldn't have been applying to be a jogging instructor in the first place, I'd be looking for a job that fit well with my skills AND disability. There is a key difference which a pat one-liner like this ignores...
The situation here is not someone looking for work and being turned down, it's someone who had work in the first place and was quite capable of doing the work, then we have an injury scenario and the disability arises. There are always alternatives to giving someone the boot if accommodations won't allow them to continue on in their current role.
I'm reminded of a situation in the World Wrestling Federation (probably not a popular show with/.'ers, but read on) where a wrestler named Darren Drozdov was paralyzed from the neck down due to an on-job accident in the ring. Clearly he would not be wrestling again -- but the company paid for his therapy and continued to employ him as a columnist for their website instead rather than ejecting him for being unable to continue his then-current job. If a guy who can't even MOVE his hands can write a weekly column, why can't something be done with the reporter in question? She has value in her talents as a writer, even if the physical process of writing is an obstacle. If not having her continue in her same role, maybe in a similar one where her talents can be used while working around the accident.
However, I will grant that if nothing else can be done, if there are no roles she wants or they want her for and the injury simply is too debilitating, then her continued work for the company is not likely. That's where REASONABLE comes into the phrase Reasonable Accommodations; there's a fuzzy line after which it's too much to be expected to cover. Once you exhaust the possibilities, it is time to move on and find some other direction to take with your life. I'm simply not certain that is the case here.
I will commend the company for going out of their way to help her out and try to make things work; under ADA, they were compelled to do SOMETHING, but they've done more than the bare minimum. (That may be the source of dissent, that her accommodations can be seen as luxuries to folks who haven't experienced her disability. 'Daily massage' would sound like a luxury to someone who doesn't suffer chronic, crippling back pain.) I'm simply wondering if they couldn't do more given how other people with more crippling disabilities are still capable of doing jobs like hers with accommodations, like Darren Drozdov. Maybe they couldn't, but maybe they could and simply gave up before that point of unreasonablity.
(Of course, it's a concise Yahoo style article, so we don't have all the facts. Keep in mind we're dealing with a lot of speculation in all directions. Oh, how I hate the Reuters style...)
The minute I read the article, I realized what we'd be seeing in this thread on/.... lots of modded up (+2, Funny) jokes about laziness, mocking posts saying RSI and carpal tunnel don't exist, etc, etc. Sad, really, that things are that predictable...
Obviously, not every single person claiming to have a disability actually has one. The guys with temporary paper tags in their windows filling up the handicap spaces so I can't park close enough to unload my walker from the car are very suspect... but just from what I'm reading here, this looks legitimate rather than someone being 'Lazy'.
And in her chosen profession, yes, not being able to type is a serious problem. As the third judge pointed out, in modern life in general typing is becoming more and more of a critical skill unless you wanna stuff tacos for a living. (CmdrTaco?) It's not fair to punt someone from the line of work they've trained for just because they COULD do something else that doesn't involve typing.
So, if you take as truth that we are dealing with a legit disability here and it's one that directly relates to her livelihood... the issue then becomes 'Well, what can be done?'. To that, I'm not sure. It sounds like lots of accommodations have already been made, to the point where they've run out of things that can make the situation more bearable for the reporter and allow her to do her job. I'm not sure if firing was appropriate, but they have hit a wall. That's the real issue here; not if she's faking it, but how can this be handled in a feasible and reasonable way?
A) Because I want to quit my day job.
B) Because I PREFER reading off a screen.
Why quit my day job? I'm an author by night and a webmonkey by day. I publish online, distributing my work for free in text or HTML format (even though my peers balk at HTML, it's infinitely more flexible than 72 column formatted ASCII). I have little interest in traditional publishing models and all the rigamarole that comes with them; if I could self-publish, go indie with it online and make my work a complete user experience rather than just a long text string, I would. (And I do. But I can't do it for money beyond donations, because the tech and business methods haven't clicked yet.)
Why do I prefer reading off a screen? I don't care about the tactile paper and holding-a-real-object and such. It smacks of meaningless nostalgia to me. The refresh rate of reality and all the usual stuff people toss up to attack the idea of digital reading becomes a tired arguement with the same catch-phrase dismissals. The advantages to having books in digital form outweigh these conventions. I'd like to think I'm not the only person on earth who PREFERS reading from a screen, even if it seems that way at times.
If anything, online reading is far easier for me than normal reading; I have a physical disability (diastrophic dwarfism) which results in some hand deformity, making the act of holding up a book for a long period of time and reading from it very difficult. If I could download a small library to my PocketPC and browse it there nice and portable, I'd be in hog heaven. Instead, I have to handle huge, clunky hardbound books if I want to read the latest releases, which strain more than my eyes.
I've done my best to support eBooks, and support them the right way (no draconican digital rights management books exist on my computer, and yes, I want Dimitri free.) I've purchased and downloaded copies of Harlan Ellison's work and a few of the thousands of Star Trek books dumped to.LIT. I really want this to work; if I was a coder I'd lend a hand, if I was an economist I'd figure something out, but being an author the best I can do is hope for a good system to come along and keep an eye on things.
Even though Daikatana became the albatross around Ion Storm's neck, Anachronox ended up being a pretty good experiment. Problem is, it's only half of the story -- it ends where Part Two should technically begin.
Would it be possible for the reorganization to lead to Tom Hall being able to develop Anox 2, much in the way the Thief team reformed to develop Thief 3? Or will Eidos dump the franchise / hire some hacks other than TH to finish it in a bastardized way? (See also: Space Quest, and to a lesser extent, Monkey Island.)
It's really a shame that the gaming industry has developed into a Here Today, Gone Tomorrow mindset. For simple FPS shooters that's fine and dandy but for story-driven games like Undying, Thief, Half-Life, Deus Ex and Anachronox, it can end up killing off great concepts before they have a chance to fully develop. ---
Another important thing to consider when comparing Divx's failure to SDMI's probable failure: ownership rights. A major complaint, even from the couch potato sect, was that the DVDs they purchased still weren't theirs to own. They couldn't be played without authorization schemes and extra payments, and it didn't feel like you had done the deed of a typical VHS/DVD: "I bought it at the store, it is now mine to do with as I please." (Even if technically we still have ownership problems with DVD content, it SEEMS to be 0wn3d to the couchers since it's a physical object that plays back like a good 'ol VHS tape. One object, one movie, one item owned.)
With SDMI, again, you don't really own it. You're renting access to it. There's no payment per playback scheme (although one could be implemented) but with all the restrictions and difficulties in trying to listen to the actual music, you're SOL. Want to play that CD in your walkman? On your computer? In your SDMI stereo? On your Dreamcast? One of the above likely is not going to work unless you've upgraded every bit of your hardware to comply. That means that in effect you do not own what you just bought and cannot use it as you please.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, the movie rating system doesn't work well. Theatres rarely carry NC-17 or unrated films, under the assumption that they're pornography, which would get them in hot water.
As a result, dramas and other films which have nothing to do with pornography (ie, materials designed to stimulate) will never get proper exposure unless they are trimmed down to R rated levels. You could have the best movie ever made, oscar material up the wazoo, but definitely intended for a mature audience who can approach the concepts it explores in an adult fashion... but it better be R, or it's bad bad pr0n.
Websites will likely work the same way; if your site is rated too high, regardless of the INTENT of the site (sexual education materials, evidence of war atrocities in other counteries, etc) it'll be blacklisted.
I don't THINK you're trolling, so...
In the first film, the helicopter crash is accidental. They're using the helicopter as a mobile gunmount to free Morpheus, and it goes down when the AGENTS shoot at it and they have to bail out or die.
It's all about the intention; this is different than the New Line direct to video movie that got released last week about terrorists hijacking a plane specifically to fly it into a city. Airborne vehicle + building isn't always a WTC reference. If we're going this far to look for inappropriate content, it's time to think twice.
Here's a comparison that'll raise a few heckles.
If we ban virtual child porn because it's a simulation of an illegal action, why aren't we banning Quake 3?
The whole point of Quake 3 is to run around and murder people in messy ways in order to improve your score. I can't think of a more obvious way to say that it promotes manslaughter than that, and obviously the community places a moral and legal condemnation on the act of murder. Don't forget, according to certain senators, games like this are training people to become killing machines.
If we ban all forms of simulated illegal activity, all we'll have left are pictures of puppies and games where you collect fruit from the ground. (Without throwing it at evil turtles or cloud monsters, because that's assault, disorderly behavior, cruelty to animals and littering.)
I probably won't get modded up tremendously, but may I bow before you in respect for pointing out how well wrestling booking paralells modern day television program story planning? 'cause I'm gonna bow anyway.
A lot of Voyager's problems actually map one-to-one to some of the WWF's biggest blunders. Injury angles (and in Voyager's case, even stories where someone dies) watered down by a miraculous last minute healing or similar cheap dodge. Bringing in outside talent (7 of 9) and giving them a push to the moon to spurn audience interest in a generally lackluster cast... the list goes on.
Further proof that good writing = good writing, and bad writing = bad writing, regardless of what kind of show you're doing it for. Star Trek Enterprise has a ways to go to prove it's going to sustain audience interest and ratings, and they could learn a thing or two from one of the longest running shows on television that's also had to adapt with the times and adapt with its audience; the WWF.
I'm a complete newbie to encryption. I've never bothered to encrypt my e-mail before for the usual reasons -- the people I'm mailing don't have decryption tools, nothing I send would be of any importance to anyone except us, and so on.
But with the iron hammer of legislation threatening to come down, I think I'd better download an open source encryption package ASAP before they get banned.
So for folks who are keenly following this situation but not sure what the next step is... what's the most commonly used Win9x compatable pacakge I can grab? I'd like to make sure I meet community standards and not start employing some backwoods, obscure encryption system.
(Of course, once it gets banned, I'll be using contraband... and hopefully 'not having anything of importance' will be enough to keep me out of the spooks' watchful carnivores.)
We need more public commentary like this from folks in respected professions.
Would the DeCSS case end result have changed if they weren't going after 2600 magazine, which is clearly known as an information source on how to break the law? (Regardless of their liability in the end.) 2600 was singled out for a reason; ethos. They lack it. It's not something that Joe Q. Public would acknowledge as legitimate and respectable.
But the scientific community, there we have a body of people who have that innate respect and the credentials for their words to carry weight. That's the sort of dissenting voice we need to fight the DMCA since they will be listened to and their needs will be addressed.
While the DMCA is flawed regardless and I'd say 2600 and the white lab coat type folks have equal justification, it's all about the spin and image of who's saying 'No' to it that matters.
What other communities or professions which get instant respect from the general populace could be affected by the DMCA? Maybe those sectors could speak up as well.
I'm almost glad they canned Simsville. Yet Another Micromanagement City Simulation was not needed (at least to this gamer, YMMV), but the plans they have in place for The Sims Online are intriguing. They're unlike anything the Sim series has done before as they shift emphasis from management to social interaction.
The whole game is a vast experiment in community, economics and social interaction... you're competing for visitors and popularity by having a superior house design and/or a home business. No wrangling with the AI and trying to get your Sims to brush their teeth every morning, no constant patrolling of their mood meters. I'm looking forward to playing it; call it a more constructive and pacifistic version of EverQuest, perhaps.
But I have to wonder, will adding the Simsville team onto The Sims Online push up the release date a bit? Or is that not really dependent on how many people you throw at a project?
Actually, the article implied that the Aliens From The Future(tm) actually could be (or is) an alternate future humanity that's pushing for a more aggressive Federation that won't get stepped on by the Klingons and Borg and Dominion and so on.
I'm looking forward to that not just for the action/adventure yadda, but because seeing a NON-utopian alternate humanity that's trying to keep humanity from being the Trekkian utopia lends itself to some interesting moral plays. I can see a lot of great stories being played out over altering humanity's destiny and trying to push for one moral stance over the other.
About a year later they started coming out with these pirate sets which contained basically a preconstructed hull and sails ... where's the fun in that?
Granted that specialized piece can be a pain... they can also be a bonus. One of the reasons I bought a lot of Town sets was so I'd have properly shaped windows and skylights that would look good on my buildings, rather than just leaving a gaping hole where a window should be. Fire hydrants and other small tools that were suitably sized for minifigs also helped, since you can't replicate those out of basic blocks.
As for the pirate ships, remember that the hulls were unique in that they could actually FLOAT on water. They were hollow and sealed so the air would keep them boyant! I built plenty of custom ships using the hull as a base, including a few luxury cruise ships and a Lucitania that I could detonate from my grey U-Boat. ^_^
I know the trend is to bash specialized parts, but in some situations, they helped cover the spots that imagination alone couldn't cover in a practical sense. At the same time, they expanded the ability to creatively construct beyond the limits of rectangles.
It's interesting to note that the cartoon-shading technique Sega used for Jet Set Radio was according to developer interviews 'a Dreamcast exclusive; we wanted to do something with the Dreamcast that COULD NOT be done on the Playstation 2.'
Not too long ago, when asked if Jet Set Radio Future (the sequel) would be an X-Box exclusive, Sega said it would be multiplatform after an exclusivity period runs out.
So here we have a toon shader on GameCube, and Monster Rancher 3 uses a toon shader on PS2...
It's getting hard to figure out what's hype, what's system FUD and what's a legit feature set for these machines.
Or put another way, you mention that you use a walker. Would you file a discrimination suit if you got turned down for a job as a jogging instructor?
As I was expecting -- another invalid comparison I've seen bandied about in this thread... because obviously I wouldn't have been applying to be a jogging instructor in the first place, I'd be looking for a job that fit well with my skills AND disability. There is a key difference which a pat one-liner like this ignores...
The situation here is not someone looking for work and being turned down, it's someone who had work in the first place and was quite capable of doing the work, then we have an injury scenario and the disability arises. There are always alternatives to giving someone the boot if accommodations won't allow them to continue on in their current role.
I'm reminded of a situation in the World Wrestling Federation (probably not a popular show with /.'ers, but read on) where a wrestler named Darren Drozdov was paralyzed from the neck down due to an on-job accident in the ring. Clearly he would not be wrestling again -- but the company paid for his therapy and continued to employ him as a columnist for their website instead rather than ejecting him for being unable to continue his then-current job. If a guy who can't even MOVE his hands can write a weekly column, why can't something be done with the reporter in question? She has value in her talents as a writer, even if the physical process of writing is an obstacle. If not having her continue in her same role, maybe in a similar one where her talents can be used while working around the accident.
However, I will grant that if nothing else can be done, if there are no roles she wants or they want her for and the injury simply is too debilitating, then her continued work for the company is not likely. That's where REASONABLE comes into the phrase Reasonable Accommodations; there's a fuzzy line after which it's too much to be expected to cover. Once you exhaust the possibilities, it is time to move on and find some other direction to take with your life. I'm simply not certain that is the case here.
I will commend the company for going out of their way to help her out and try to make things work; under ADA, they were compelled to do SOMETHING, but they've done more than the bare minimum. (That may be the source of dissent, that her accommodations can be seen as luxuries to folks who haven't experienced her disability. 'Daily massage' would sound like a luxury to someone who doesn't suffer chronic, crippling back pain.) I'm simply wondering if they couldn't do more given how other people with more crippling disabilities are still capable of doing jobs like hers with accommodations, like Darren Drozdov. Maybe they couldn't, but maybe they could and simply gave up before that point of unreasonablity.
(Of course, it's a concise Yahoo style article, so we don't have all the facts. Keep in mind we're dealing with a lot of speculation in all directions. Oh, how I hate the Reuters style...)
The minute I read the article, I realized what we'd be seeing in this thread on /. ... lots of modded up (+2, Funny) jokes about laziness, mocking posts saying RSI and carpal tunnel don't exist, etc, etc. Sad, really, that things are that predictable...
Obviously, not every single person claiming to have a disability actually has one. The guys with temporary paper tags in their windows filling up the handicap spaces so I can't park close enough to unload my walker from the car are very suspect... but just from what I'm reading here, this looks legitimate rather than someone being 'Lazy'.
And in her chosen profession, yes, not being able to type is a serious problem. As the third judge pointed out, in modern life in general typing is becoming more and more of a critical skill unless you wanna stuff tacos for a living. (CmdrTaco?) It's not fair to punt someone from the line of work they've trained for just because they COULD do something else that doesn't involve typing.
So, if you take as truth that we are dealing with a legit disability here and it's one that directly relates to her livelihood... the issue then becomes 'Well, what can be done?'. To that, I'm not sure. It sounds like lots of accommodations have already been made, to the point where they've run out of things that can make the situation more bearable for the reporter and allow her to do her job. I'm not sure if firing was appropriate, but they have hit a wall. That's the real issue here; not if she's faking it, but how can this be handled in a feasible and reasonable way?
A) Because I want to quit my day job.
B) Because I PREFER reading off a screen.
Why quit my day job? I'm an author by night and a webmonkey by day. I publish online, distributing my work for free in text or HTML format (even though my peers balk at HTML, it's infinitely more flexible than 72 column formatted ASCII). I have little interest in traditional publishing models and all the rigamarole that comes with them; if I could self-publish, go indie with it online and make my work a complete user experience rather than just a long text string, I would. (And I do. But I can't do it for money beyond donations, because the tech and business methods haven't clicked yet.)
Why do I prefer reading off a screen? I don't care about the tactile paper and holding-a-real-object and such. It smacks of meaningless nostalgia to me. The refresh rate of reality and all the usual stuff people toss up to attack the idea of digital reading becomes a tired arguement with the same catch-phrase dismissals. The advantages to having books in digital form outweigh these conventions. I'd like to think I'm not the only person on earth who PREFERS reading from a screen, even if it seems that way at times.
If anything, online reading is far easier for me than normal reading; I have a physical disability (diastrophic dwarfism) which results in some hand deformity, making the act of holding up a book for a long period of time and reading from it very difficult. If I could download a small library to my PocketPC and browse it there nice and portable, I'd be in hog heaven. Instead, I have to handle huge, clunky hardbound books if I want to read the latest releases, which strain more than my eyes.
I've done my best to support eBooks, and support them the right way (no draconican digital rights management books exist on my computer, and yes, I want Dimitri free.) I've purchased and downloaded copies of Harlan Ellison's work and a few of the thousands of Star Trek books dumped to .LIT. I really want this to work; if I was a coder I'd lend a hand, if I was an economist I'd figure something out, but being an author the best I can do is hope for a good system to come along and keep an eye on things.
Even though Daikatana became the albatross around Ion Storm's neck, Anachronox ended up being a pretty good experiment. Problem is, it's only half of the story -- it ends where Part Two should technically begin.
Would it be possible for the reorganization to lead to Tom Hall being able to develop Anox 2, much in the way the Thief team reformed to develop Thief 3? Or will Eidos dump the franchise / hire some hacks other than TH to finish it in a bastardized way? (See also: Space Quest, and to a lesser extent, Monkey Island.)
It's really a shame that the gaming industry has developed into a Here Today, Gone Tomorrow mindset. For simple FPS shooters that's fine and dandy but for story-driven games like Undying, Thief, Half-Life, Deus Ex and Anachronox, it can end up killing off great concepts before they have a chance to fully develop.
---
Another important thing to consider when comparing Divx's failure to SDMI's probable failure: ownership rights. A major complaint, even from the couch potato sect, was that the DVDs they purchased still weren't theirs to own. They couldn't be played without authorization schemes and extra payments, and it didn't feel like you had done the deed of a typical VHS/DVD: "I bought it at the store, it is now mine to do with as I please." (Even if technically we still have ownership problems with DVD content, it SEEMS to be 0wn3d to the couchers since it's a physical object that plays back like a good 'ol VHS tape. One object, one movie, one item owned.)
With SDMI, again, you don't really own it. You're renting access to it. There's no payment per playback scheme (although one could be implemented) but with all the restrictions and difficulties in trying to listen to the actual music, you're SOL. Want to play that CD in your walkman? On your computer? In your SDMI stereo? On your Dreamcast? One of the above likely is not going to work unless you've upgraded every bit of your hardware to comply. That means that in effect you do not own what you just bought and cannot use it as you please.