Verizon won't even let their minimum-wage techs venture into the NYC sewers, yet CityNet, a new company, is sending a million-dollar robot to lay fiber-optic lines!
March 5, 2001 - Verizon Wireless today announced that Boxerjam, a developer of games for wireless devices, has been selected to provide Mobile WebTM customers with two new games to play on the wireless Internet: Knockout and Dr. Popko.
So instead of augmenting their maintenance force or their vanishing DSL support centers, they encourage the desk jockeys to play games on their cellphones. What is this new economy coming to?
(This was spotted on verizoneatspoop.com, which prominently displays the QRPFF perl script.)
I should know; back before I quit CompUSA, the 3650 was about as rare as the PS2 (back when Sony shipped 6 units per 3 weeks). We had to guard the four units on hold while holding back the tide of "Do you have the iPaq?" from the brainless lemmings.
I don't miss those days of "Do you have the iPaq?" and "Do you have the PS2?" at all. In fact, I think that I should've replied, "Do you have a legitimate reason for seeking that item, other than the sole comfort of possessing it?" Seriously, for all those people who want the iPaq for the sole purpose of an address and appointment book, go get a Palm; they're cheaper, more efficient, and more reliable.
Yup. Since it could be interpreted that way, Egghead left alone the orders that already shipped. For the people who got their 256MB stick for $35, it was awesome. Of course, I've seen 128 down at $35, so those days of exorbitant RAM prices are gone.
Back on September 24, 2000, Egghead.com advertised a 256MB stick of Crucial SDRAM for $35. HardOCP got the scoop on this (just keep searching for Egghead on that page). The price was wrong (it was supposed to be $350, not $35), but many people had already placed orders for it and had received confirmation messages. Two days later, Egghead announced that they were cancelling all orders for that item. Unfortunately for Egghead, a few of the orders were actually shipped out the door.
Sure, that was a slip-up on Egghead's part, but imagine it happening to them because of customers hacking the prices. No wonder Egghead.com has now made it to this list.
Running Linux on a machine with Rambus RAM? An open-source operating system running on ultra-proprietary RAM that was just made as a diversion for the legal eagles?
My prediction is that the resulting explosion would be similar to a matter-antimatter reaction.
Bill Gates to Linux users at COMDEX: "You can take your source code and shove it."
Derek Fawcus to the MPAA upon release of DeCSS: "You can take your Content Scrambling System and shove it."
LAME team to Fraunhofer IIS: "You can take your sluggish, proprietary fast fourier transform method and shove it."
ShugaShack users to George Broussard on February 7, 2001 after the cease-and-desist order on DIOQ3: "You can take your intellectual property issue and shove it."
I'm guessing that 1 and 3 would be the easiest to do, but access to hardware and capture cards is going to be a bit harder. For one thing, you'd need to get all the info and DDKs for every known capture card that you'd like to cover. Cards don't come cheap, and the manufacturers might cringe at the thought of their thousand-dollar capture card being run on an open-source operating system. Plus, you'd have to get around the many hurdles of X11 that would really kill framerate and potentially cause dropped frames. Perhaps an entirely rendering engine would be necessary (or even required).
I'm not saying that it would be impossible, but it'd require a lot of collaboration with the hardware makers as well as some tweaking on the software end.
Think about it. By having your right to make personal copies violated, you now have to purchase multiple copies of everything, and at RIAA/MPAA-suggested prices, which are never easy on the wallet.
Copy Protection only protects ourselves from ourselves. It also protects our money from ourselves, and secures it for the profiteering record and movie industries. Macrovision is all one greedy, corrupt, megalomaniacal farce. And they must be stopped.
(This was written while listening to a ripped audio CD track, since my soundcard does not apply the equalizer settings to the Audio CD channel.)
First they created the Macrovision protection scheme on VCRs and TV-Out devices. Then they created SafeDisc, which is responsible for ruining all sorts of game titles (including Diablo II, which is notorious for its flawed implementation of SafeDisc). And now this.
Is nothing safe from the grasp of Macrovision? Well, DeCSS has already been created; that's one example of a medium they neglected to taint.
Slashdot Mirror
Either way, this homebrew invention could double the power of a server closet. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these little things!
So far, it has worked for Gnutella.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/8/17408.html
If you can't defeat them, humiliate them!
Who else finds this funny?
So instead of augmenting their maintenance force or their vanishing DSL support centers, they encourage the desk jockeys to play games on their cellphones. What is this new economy coming to?
(This was spotted on verizoneatspoop.com, which prominently displays the QRPFF perl script.)
Ouch. A simple yes would've sufficed.
...but is it sub-pixel antialiased? That was on CmdrTaco's GUI wish list.
And with DeCSS, isn't this issue obsolete?
I don't miss those days of "Do you have the iPaq?" and "Do you have the PS2?" at all. In fact, I think that I should've replied, "Do you have a legitimate reason for seeking that item, other than the sole comfort of possessing it?" Seriously, for all those people who want the iPaq for the sole purpose of an address and appointment book, go get a Palm; they're cheaper, more efficient, and more reliable.
Now wait a minute. I found this on the site:
531 - 526 == 5. Not six, FIVE!
However, this is more of a crack, but "hall of cracks" would get the building inspectors riled.
This one is so funny, even my bird is laughing.
Now that Intel Intercast and WaveTop are dead as doornails, we can put that unused real estate to a better use!
(I hope.)
Sure, that was a slip-up on Egghead's part, but imagine it happening to them because of customers hacking the prices. No wonder Egghead.com has now made it to this list.
My prediction is that the resulting explosion would be similar to a matter-antimatter reaction.
Derek Fawcus to the MPAA upon release of DeCSS: "You can take your Content Scrambling System and shove it."
LAME team to Fraunhofer IIS: "You can take your sluggish, proprietary fast fourier transform method and shove it."
ShugaShack users to George Broussard on February 7, 2001 after the cease-and-desist order on DIOQ3: "You can take your intellectual property issue and shove it."
You hear that Jack Valenti?!?! *OINK! OINK! OINK!*
This all sounds logical; if you can't defeat the enemy with conventional means, use their own nefarious ways against them.
I'm not saying that it would be impossible, but it'd require a lot of collaboration with the hardware makers as well as some tweaking on the software end.
You probably have to enter a 5-word, 25-character Product Key just to get the damned thing running!
Innovations like this make me want to run into a server closet with a battle axe.
Copy Protection only protects ourselves from ourselves. It also protects our money from ourselves, and secures it for the profiteering record and movie industries. Macrovision is all one greedy, corrupt, megalomaniacal farce. And they must be stopped.
(This was written while listening to a ripped audio CD track, since my soundcard does not apply the equalizer settings to the Audio CD channel.)
Is nothing safe from the grasp of Macrovision? Well, DeCSS has already been created; that's one example of a medium they neglected to taint.