The need to attract new audiences is transforming gaming from a niche market to mainstream entertainment, and that means more grown-up fare.
Why? They already stated in the article that the gaming industry is huge. Mario has outsold Star Wars, a feat which ANY industry should be thrilled to attain. I believe the old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies quite nicely here...nothing appears to be broken, people are still buying Nintendo games left and right. If they made more games like the old Nintendo 8bit games, I'd go out and buy them. Castlevania for the GBA? Total throwback to castlevania 1-3 on the Nintendo...I bought them and am still playing them both. Zelda, rereleased on the GBA? Absolutely, getting it ASAP.
Why should the paradigm started by Miyamoto change while it still has consumers and they aren't complaining?
I always thought it was ironic that Metallica got popular for exactly the same reason that they were clamping down on Napster...bootlegging (not piracy...there is a difference). Metallica used to encourage their fans to record shows and pass tapes around, that's how bands with no radio play got notoriety. Live shows, touring and playing as much music as possible used to be the way to gain a name for yourself. Now, selling out to the highest bidder seems to be the way.
I would assume these actions will be treated very similarly to some of the tourny rules for Magic: The Gathering. In theory, you're supposed to 'ante' a card at the beginning of each game. Whoever wins the match wins the card. It's a matter of realizing what you're getting into...you're paying to play the game, what happens within the game can't have US laws applied to it.
i guess our kids will only be getting US approved history as usual.
I did research for my entire childhood before the internet came around. It's called a library, and they have lots of books and 'encyclopedias' that contain facts about the big expanses of land past the oceans.
Just because they HAVE access to the net doens't mean they are required to use only that.
It would be interesting to see the effect if corporate sponsorship wasn't allowed in this domain. Either that, or simply make it so that corporate logos couldn't be displayed. Perhaps then content really WOULD be king?
My problem with this is that I believe Microsoft should be able to bundle whatever it wants to with it's software. Sun has no reason to expect MS to bundle another company's software in with it's operating system. "Back in the day (tm)", companies would pay other software vendors for a veritable site license so that they could bundle that company's software in with theirs. However, if they didn't want to, they could write it in house or just not include that software. This is exactly the wrong way of doing it.
What's so wrong with the current development model? I've never physically installed the jdk on my machine, but I know I have a java VM running on there...it got installed when I needed it because the app in question popped a window up saying "We need java to run...do you want us to go out, download, and install this tiny vm for you?". I answered 'yes'. No big install process, I didn't have to go find the right version in a list of packages, just had to click yes (similar to the way that ActiveX is installed) and *BOOM!* I had a java vm.
People shouldn't worry that.NET is going to win out because it comes bundled. Think about it, ActiveX comes bundled with Windows too...but it's version 2.0 (3.0?) when you install 98. Starcraft won't even run on that, it requires 5.0, which comes on the CD. Easy install, but it's still an install and nobody cares about that..NET or Java will excel on their own merits, not whether or not MS is forced to bundle Java with Windows.
God I love this question. No, I'm not a 'Native American' in the sense of the first KNOWN people to have lived on this continent...however, when our ancestors came through and took the land, it became our posession through force. Let's not kid ourselves, taking land for expansion by force has happened throughout history and America is no different. Cohabitating with foreigners has never been the Anglo-Saxon idea of a good time. Now is no different.
While I have no problem living with or working with different people, there is a line that I think we have to draw and, frankly, I think we've stepped beyond where I would draw that line. I don't want anyone to get hurt or be killed during the deporation process (presuming they go quietly), but anything that removes foreigners (read: people not born here or who don't speak the language, which is English) from the US is okay with me.
I apologize to all the foreigners who are here that are being hassled to provide legitimate information, but if it's such a big deal then, hey, door's to your right.
Ummm, no, you're wrong. Here's the first thing that I found doing a basic search...landed on the CIA's numbers. That says 14.1. That means that for every 1000 people, 14.1 new people are born every year. The death rate, however, is here, at 8.7. Since they're both with respect to 1000 people, we can directly compare them. FYI, 14.2 is greater than 8.7 by 5.5. So for every 1000 people, our population goes UP by 5.5 per year. Granted, I'll attribute a lot of that to the immigrants and minorities that have way too many children for their own good, but the majority is still good American citizens.
As many other people have mentioned, there are other products that will fill in for each part of this one device. CD burners, DVD players, etc, can all handle what this thing does, and most people already have them.
The newest video card, on the other hand, is something that is required if you want to play games. I had to upgrade from my Voodoo 3/2000 not too long ago because I got a copy of Jedi Knight and Serious Sam 2 and neither would work with the Voodoo chipset. I upgraded to the middle (sortof) of the line GeForce card...not because it was cool, but because I really wanted to play these games.
That's a serious difference...whether or not there exist products that can fill your product's niche equally well.
This isn't a vaccine for cancer, it's a vaccine for the virus that leads to most cases of cervical cancer, HPV. Other cancers, heck even this type of cancer, are not helped by using this vaccine. It's only if you get it before you've contracted the virus, I'm guessing, that it's even effective. This is a long, long way from developing something that can remove/cure cancer 100% effectively.
Nothing is being stolen in the case of spam (processing power aside, yada yada, we're not all being paid by SETI@home).
It's analogous to locking you car, going inside, coming back out and finding a flyer on your windshield. Some places allow this, others don't, but we've ALL gotten these flyers before.
In my case, I don't figure it's a big deal, I'll throw it in the backseat with the rest of my trash.
I'm sure this is one of those discoveries where someone said "Oh, neat!" and 6 months/1 year from now we'll have cured cancer based on it. But I can't help but think, right now, "Why?"
This was either posted by a troll or a teenager...
Dude, you're posting on a forum in which a countless number of us have built our own arcade machines (myself included) just so we could play pac-man and galaga again. If there's one thing that sells remarkably well, it's computer nostalgia.
Microsoft, people say, has driven up prices and suppressed innovation. But this is a ticklish argument at best: after all, over the decade of Microsoft's hegemony, computing power has grown cheaper and cheaper. Innovation has thrived.
He's comparing apples to oranges...Microsoft is software based, they haven't designed any hardware (joysticks and future DRM technology not-withstanding). If you look at software, it HAS been stifled a bit...there are very few innovations in the OS market over the past decade. Windows has, just recently, incorporated functionality that Unix had 20 years ago.
Hardware has been where innovation has taken place. More transistors on a wafer, faster memory seek times, faster hard drive rotation, larger hard drive capacity. These are the big changes in computers, not the software.
The article doesn't mention exactly where, other than in a newsgroup, the subject was saying derrogatory things about Nam Tai, but when ARE you allowed to bash a company? Slashdot is, effectively, a newsgroup...we bash MS all the time here, along with tens of other companies. When does free speech cross that (hazy, at best) line into libel?
This sounds pretty preposterous to me...free speech ought to be free, if a company's product and good name can't stand up to people criticizing it, they probably shouldn't be in business. Having said that, I'm going to go back into my utopian cave now...
I know they say they're researching this to make soybeans "cheaper and better for the consumer", but I gotta believe that they're second goal (if not their primary) is to find a way to grow food during interstellar travel. That's always been one of the biggest problems facing astronauts, you COULD get to Mars, but it would take 10 years and you wouldn't be able to pack that much food. If they could grow food, though, people can live off of an all vegetable diet. Heck, you can breed animals given a renewable source of vegetable food for them.
When water is becoming a scarce commodity it makes no sense.
What are you talking about? Water is our most renewable natural resource, we have tons of it. It is relatively easy to purify and make drinkable. There are some places away from coastal areas that have difficulty getting water for crops, but we have a very ready supply of it for the rest of the world.
As for your analogy to the sniper, that's obscene.
Actually, I was contrasting them to show just how large a margin there is between an evil act and an immoral one. Had I been comparing their similarities, then you could have justified taking me out behind the woodshed and beating me to death.
Good, now maybe you'll understand that ethical behavior is absolute, not relative.
I'll give you that ethical behavior is absolute, but this did not cross the line between evil and immoral. IMHO, it's not even jumping on top of the line or anywhere in sight of the line. It's clearly on the immoral side, since nobody is getting hurt physically/emotionally/financially.
I'm horny, where's your sister (or underage daughter), I want to fuck her. She may call it rape, but hey it's not like I shot 14 people, killing 10, so she can't complain. I mean, it's not like I KILLED her and 9 of her friends, now is it?....
This is just assanine...I didn't think I would have to go into specifics (though, I did in a follow up post) about molestation being included as an evil act. I was giving examples that came to mind, extreme examples, and raping my sister wasn't one that came to mind (having no sister, mind you). Ofcourse this is an evil act, but you disprove your own point...how much ethical room is inbetween installing spyware and raping teenage girls? A lot.
Telling someone that they need this software installed in order to use their cable modem and then installing spyware is not exactly with their consent. You might want to read the Constitution sometime. Start with the fourth amendment.
I really fail to see how you're bringing up unlawful searches and seizures into this. At a base level, the 4th amendment protects people from coming into your home and searching your belongings without a warrant. You can say 'No' to them installing software as easily as you can say 'No' to the police when they come to your door without a warrant. Would anyone out there, if a policeman came to the door and asked to search their home, allow them? Yeah, probably, a few would. The rest of us would really question why it was necessary and what they were looking for. They'd better have a warrant in order to search my home, even though I don't have, to the best of my knowledge, anything illegal that they could arrest me for. The grand thing about softare installation is that there's no warrant.
I think there's room for different levels of evil here.
I'll give you that, there is. However, I don't think evil is the word we should be using to describe this 'act'. Immoral would be about as far as I would go, and who are we laying the blame on? Cable companies, for all I know, have had requests to put software on customers' computers by the customers. In my experience with the non-techy folks (family, mostly), they aren't happy with a new installation of ANYTHING unless they can see some physical evidence on the computer...an icon on the desktop/taskbar/start menu, for instance. This software probably gives them that.
So what's you're criterion for being evil? Killing people?
Honestly, yeah. I think you'd be hard pressed to convince a jury that anything short of killing someone in cold blood or molesting children was evil. Misappropriating hundreds of thousands of your employees pensions? Horribly immoral and wrong, but not even that would I call 'evil'. Evil is a word that really describes the root of your personality, whether or not you do things to screw people over royally for fun. A cable company that provides a service and happens to make additional profit by recording your web activity anonymously (yes, most are anonymous) is surely not evil, they're still looking to give the customer what they wanted.
Timeout...this is not evil. Someone sniping 14 people 'just because' is evil. Someone attempting to wipe a race off the planet is evil. This may be slightly immoral, but the reason they have you sign is because they want to make sure you authorized the install. If you don't want it, tell him not to install the software. 99% of the people out there DON'T CARE that it's on there, and probably at least half of them don't care what it's doing with their data.
Fact is, there is nothing illegal about them installing software on your computer with your consent. Their software isn't breaking the law and it isn't hurting your computer. You are requesting a service from them and, as part of that service, they are installing additional products as they see fit. Opt out, it's quite easy, I wouldn't let a cable installer within 10 feet of my computer ("Just hand me the cat-5 and nobody gets hurt...")
I'm embarassed that the parent post got modded up as Insightful.
I'm not trying to get around the copyright, but I have an honest question. If I were to download these books and then bring them into the US, would that be an illegal act? Specifically, how would I declare them when coming into the country? I doubt any immigration people have a clue about online books, let alone which ones are copyrighted.
I suppose it's the same case as coming into the US from Amsterdam and carrying weed with you, but it would seem that immigration is probably more apt to ask you about drugs than illegal books.
They never took off here because Sony never released pre-recorded stuff on them. All you could get for a long time (note: I had a MD player/recorder for 2 years) was blank discs, and to record on them was hell. You had to play music and hit the record button. Mine did a pretty good job of picking up on the space between tracks and splitting them, but it was still problematic.
The only people that I know who used them were those that had them as part of their entertainment centers. That means you had to have the portable player and the standalone recorder which, in this day and age isn't happening.
I suppose the greatest dilemna for Sony was that they didn't let anyone else produce material or hardware for the minidisc, it could have taken off had they done that.
Wouldn't common sense be to use existing laws to govern new things, in the spirit of the old law?
Wouldn't it be easier to just take things off the menu that don't taste good? No, ofcourse not, it's all subjective, just like common sense. What seems perfectly sensical to you or I may incense someone else. While I don't like all laws, I do find them necessary to nail down what is publicly legal and illegal.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding...personally I would like to have broad laws and then let a judge decide whether or not those laws apply to specific cases. Ofcourse, with the number of people suing other people today, that would require a tenfold increase in the judicial system in order to answer everyone's question. Maybe just have one person that decides everything and what he says goes.
Slashdot Mirror
The need to attract new audiences is transforming gaming from a niche market to mainstream entertainment, and that means more grown-up fare.
Why? They already stated in the article that the gaming industry is huge. Mario has outsold Star Wars, a feat which ANY industry should be thrilled to attain. I believe the old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies quite nicely here...nothing appears to be broken, people are still buying Nintendo games left and right. If they made more games like the old Nintendo 8bit games, I'd go out and buy them. Castlevania for the GBA? Total throwback to castlevania 1-3 on the Nintendo...I bought them and am still playing them both. Zelda, rereleased on the GBA? Absolutely, getting it ASAP.
Why should the paradigm started by Miyamoto change while it still has consumers and they aren't complaining?
--trb
I always thought it was ironic that Metallica got popular for exactly the same reason that they were clamping down on Napster...bootlegging (not piracy...there is a difference). Metallica used to encourage their fans to record shows and pass tapes around, that's how bands with no radio play got notoriety. Live shows, touring and playing as much music as possible used to be the way to gain a name for yourself. Now, selling out to the highest bidder seems to be the way.
--trb
I would assume these actions will be treated very similarly to some of the tourny rules for Magic: The Gathering. In theory, you're supposed to 'ante' a card at the beginning of each game. Whoever wins the match wins the card. It's a matter of realizing what you're getting into...you're paying to play the game, what happens within the game can't have US laws applied to it.
--trb
i guess our kids will only be getting US approved history as usual.
I did research for my entire childhood before the internet came around. It's called a library, and they have lots of books and 'encyclopedias' that contain facts about the big expanses of land past the oceans.
Just because they HAVE access to the net doens't mean they are required to use only that.
--trb
It would be interesting to see the effect if corporate sponsorship wasn't allowed in this domain. Either that, or simply make it so that corporate logos couldn't be displayed. Perhaps then content really WOULD be king?
--trb
No more megacorps to dictate what gets published and where
No more technological innovation, no more engineering marvels, no more advancement in our society...
Yeah, medieval days were nice and all, but I'll take my cable modem over feudalism anyday.
--trb
My problem with this is that I believe Microsoft should be able to bundle whatever it wants to with it's software. Sun has no reason to expect MS to bundle another company's software in with it's operating system. "Back in the day (tm)", companies would pay other software vendors for a veritable site license so that they could bundle that company's software in with theirs. However, if they didn't want to, they could write it in house or just not include that software. This is exactly the wrong way of doing it.
.NET is going to win out because it comes bundled. Think about it, ActiveX comes bundled with Windows too...but it's version 2.0 (3.0?) when you install 98. Starcraft won't even run on that, it requires 5.0, which comes on the CD. Easy install, but it's still an install and nobody cares about that. .NET or Java will excel on their own merits, not whether or not MS is forced to bundle Java with Windows.
What's so wrong with the current development model? I've never physically installed the jdk on my machine, but I know I have a java VM running on there...it got installed when I needed it because the app in question popped a window up saying "We need java to run...do you want us to go out, download, and install this tiny vm for you?". I answered 'yes'. No big install process, I didn't have to go find the right version in a list of packages, just had to click yes (similar to the way that ActiveX is installed) and *BOOM!* I had a java vm.
People shouldn't worry that
--trb
So... are you a native american?
God I love this question. No, I'm not a 'Native American' in the sense of the first KNOWN people to have lived on this continent...however, when our ancestors came through and took the land, it became our posession through force. Let's not kid ourselves, taking land for expansion by force has happened throughout history and America is no different. Cohabitating with foreigners has never been the Anglo-Saxon idea of a good time. Now is no different.
While I have no problem living with or working with different people, there is a line that I think we have to draw and, frankly, I think we've stepped beyond where I would draw that line. I don't want anyone to get hurt or be killed during the deporation process (presuming they go quietly), but anything that removes foreigners (read: people not born here or who don't speak the language, which is English) from the US is okay with me.
I apologize to all the foreigners who are here that are being hassled to provide legitimate information, but if it's such a big deal then, hey, door's to your right.
Flamebait, here I come.
--trb
Ummm, no, you're wrong. Here's the first thing that I found doing a basic search...landed on the CIA's numbers. That says 14.1. That means that for every 1000 people, 14.1 new people are born every year. The death rate, however, is here, at 8.7. Since they're both with respect to 1000 people, we can directly compare them. FYI, 14.2 is greater than 8.7 by 5.5. So for every 1000 people, our population goes UP by 5.5 per year. Granted, I'll attribute a lot of that to the immigrants and minorities that have way too many children for their own good, but the majority is still good American citizens.
Get your facts straight, GiMP.
--trb
As many other people have mentioned, there are other products that will fill in for each part of this one device. CD burners, DVD players, etc, can all handle what this thing does, and most people already have them.
The newest video card, on the other hand, is something that is required if you want to play games. I had to upgrade from my Voodoo 3/2000 not too long ago because I got a copy of Jedi Knight and Serious Sam 2 and neither would work with the Voodoo chipset. I upgraded to the middle (sortof) of the line GeForce card...not because it was cool, but because I really wanted to play these games.
That's a serious difference...whether or not there exist products that can fill your product's niche equally well.
--trb
This isn't a vaccine for cancer, it's a vaccine for the virus that leads to most cases of cervical cancer, HPV. Other cancers, heck even this type of cancer, are not helped by using this vaccine. It's only if you get it before you've contracted the virus, I'm guessing, that it's even effective. This is a long, long way from developing something that can remove/cure cancer 100% effectively.
--trb
Nothing is being stolen in the case of spam (processing power aside, yada yada, we're not all being paid by SETI@home).
It's analogous to locking you car, going inside, coming back out and finding a flyer on your windshield. Some places allow this, others don't, but we've ALL gotten these flyers before.
In my case, I don't figure it's a big deal, I'll throw it in the backseat with the rest of my trash.
--trb
I'm sure this is one of those discoveries where someone said "Oh, neat!" and 6 months/1 year from now we'll have cured cancer based on it. But I can't help but think, right now, "Why?"
--trb
This guy has 200 some on eBay, the Activision version, for $7.
t em =1396008968
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&i
--trb
This was either posted by a troll or a teenager...
Dude, you're posting on a forum in which a countless number of us have built our own arcade machines (myself included) just so we could play pac-man and galaga again. If there's one thing that sells remarkably well, it's computer nostalgia.
--trb
Microsoft, people say, has driven up prices and suppressed innovation. But this is a ticklish argument at best: after all, over the decade of Microsoft's hegemony, computing power has grown cheaper and cheaper. Innovation has thrived.
He's comparing apples to oranges...Microsoft is software based, they haven't designed any hardware (joysticks and future DRM technology not-withstanding). If you look at software, it HAS been stifled a bit...there are very few innovations in the OS market over the past decade. Windows has, just recently, incorporated functionality that Unix had 20 years ago.
Hardware has been where innovation has taken place. More transistors on a wafer, faster memory seek times, faster hard drive rotation, larger hard drive capacity. These are the big changes in computers, not the software.
--trb
The article doesn't mention exactly where, other than in a newsgroup, the subject was saying derrogatory things about Nam Tai, but when ARE you allowed to bash a company? Slashdot is, effectively, a newsgroup...we bash MS all the time here, along with tens of other companies. When does free speech cross that (hazy, at best) line into libel?
This sounds pretty preposterous to me...free speech ought to be free, if a company's product and good name can't stand up to people criticizing it, they probably shouldn't be in business. Having said that, I'm going to go back into my utopian cave now...
--trb
I know they say they're researching this to make soybeans "cheaper and better for the consumer", but I gotta believe that they're second goal (if not their primary) is to find a way to grow food during interstellar travel. That's always been one of the biggest problems facing astronauts, you COULD get to Mars, but it would take 10 years and you wouldn't be able to pack that much food. If they could grow food, though, people can live off of an all vegetable diet. Heck, you can breed animals given a renewable source of vegetable food for them.
--trb
When water is becoming a scarce commodity it makes no sense.
What are you talking about? Water is our most renewable natural resource, we have tons of it. It is relatively easy to purify and make drinkable. There are some places away from coastal areas that have difficulty getting water for crops, but we have a very ready supply of it for the rest of the world.
--trb
As for your analogy to the sniper, that's obscene.
Actually, I was contrasting them to show just how large a margin there is between an evil act and an immoral one. Had I been comparing their similarities, then you could have justified taking me out behind the woodshed and beating me to death.
Good, now maybe you'll understand that ethical behavior is absolute, not relative.
I'll give you that ethical behavior is absolute, but this did not cross the line between evil and immoral. IMHO, it's not even jumping on top of the line or anywhere in sight of the line. It's clearly on the immoral side, since nobody is getting hurt physically/emotionally/financially.
I'm horny, where's your sister (or underage daughter), I want to fuck her. She may call it rape, but hey it's not like I shot 14 people, killing 10, so she can't complain. I mean, it's not like I KILLED her and 9 of her friends, now is it?....
This is just assanine...I didn't think I would have to go into specifics (though, I did in a follow up post) about molestation being included as an evil act. I was giving examples that came to mind, extreme examples, and raping my sister wasn't one that came to mind (having no sister, mind you). Ofcourse this is an evil act, but you disprove your own point...how much ethical room is inbetween installing spyware and raping teenage girls? A lot.
--trb
Telling someone that they need this software installed in order to use their cable modem and then installing spyware is not exactly with their consent. You might want to read the Constitution sometime. Start with the fourth amendment.
I really fail to see how you're bringing up unlawful searches and seizures into this. At a base level, the 4th amendment protects people from coming into your home and searching your belongings without a warrant. You can say 'No' to them installing software as easily as you can say 'No' to the police when they come to your door without a warrant. Would anyone out there, if a policeman came to the door and asked to search their home, allow them? Yeah, probably, a few would. The rest of us would really question why it was necessary and what they were looking for. They'd better have a warrant in order to search my home, even though I don't have, to the best of my knowledge, anything illegal that they could arrest me for. The grand thing about softare installation is that there's no warrant.
I think there's room for different levels of evil here.
I'll give you that, there is. However, I don't think evil is the word we should be using to describe this 'act'. Immoral would be about as far as I would go, and who are we laying the blame on? Cable companies, for all I know, have had requests to put software on customers' computers by the customers. In my experience with the non-techy folks (family, mostly), they aren't happy with a new installation of ANYTHING unless they can see some physical evidence on the computer...an icon on the desktop/taskbar/start menu, for instance. This software probably gives them that.
So what's you're criterion for being evil? Killing people?
Honestly, yeah. I think you'd be hard pressed to convince a jury that anything short of killing someone in cold blood or molesting children was evil. Misappropriating hundreds of thousands of your employees pensions? Horribly immoral and wrong, but not even that would I call 'evil'. Evil is a word that really describes the root of your personality, whether or not you do things to screw people over royally for fun. A cable company that provides a service and happens to make additional profit by recording your web activity anonymously (yes, most are anonymous) is surely not evil, they're still looking to give the customer what they wanted.
--trb
Timeout...this is not evil. Someone sniping 14 people 'just because' is evil. Someone attempting to wipe a race off the planet is evil. This may be slightly immoral, but the reason they have you sign is because they want to make sure you authorized the install. If you don't want it, tell him not to install the software. 99% of the people out there DON'T CARE that it's on there, and probably at least half of them don't care what it's doing with their data.
Fact is, there is nothing illegal about them installing software on your computer with your consent. Their software isn't breaking the law and it isn't hurting your computer. You are requesting a service from them and, as part of that service, they are installing additional products as they see fit. Opt out, it's quite easy, I wouldn't let a cable installer within 10 feet of my computer ("Just hand me the cat-5 and nobody gets hurt...")
I'm embarassed that the parent post got modded up as Insightful.
--trb
I'm not trying to get around the copyright, but I have an honest question. If I were to download these books and then bring them into the US, would that be an illegal act? Specifically, how would I declare them when coming into the country? I doubt any immigration people have a clue about online books, let alone which ones are copyrighted.
I suppose it's the same case as coming into the US from Amsterdam and carrying weed with you, but it would seem that immigration is probably more apt to ask you about drugs than illegal books.
--trb
They never took off here because Sony never released pre-recorded stuff on them. All you could get for a long time (note: I had a MD player/recorder for 2 years) was blank discs, and to record on them was hell. You had to play music and hit the record button. Mine did a pretty good job of picking up on the space between tracks and splitting them, but it was still problematic.
The only people that I know who used them were those that had them as part of their entertainment centers. That means you had to have the portable player and the standalone recorder which, in this day and age isn't happening.
I suppose the greatest dilemna for Sony was that they didn't let anyone else produce material or hardware for the minidisc, it could have taken off had they done that.
--trb
Wouldn't common sense be to use existing laws to govern new things, in the spirit of the old law?
Wouldn't it be easier to just take things off the menu that don't taste good? No, ofcourse not, it's all subjective, just like common sense. What seems perfectly sensical to you or I may incense someone else. While I don't like all laws, I do find them necessary to nail down what is publicly legal and illegal.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding...personally I would like to have broad laws and then let a judge decide whether or not those laws apply to specific cases. Ofcourse, with the number of people suing other people today, that would require a tenfold increase in the judicial system in order to answer everyone's question. Maybe just have one person that decides everything and what he says goes.
Sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship, though.
--trb