I work in radio, and since WMP's little DRM fiasco, I've been on watch about this kind of thing. So far, afaik, we haven't had any problems with copy-protected CD's and ripping (or at least the FM people haven't come and whined to me yet....). But many stations have had problems with not being able to play "unblessed" mp3's. One of our content providers sent out a memo about a month ago telling stations how to fix their XP and 2k machines that'd been DRM'd. When the EULA change came about, I consulted with our operations manager, and the decision was that WMP would not be installed/upgraded on machines that have anything to do with audio production.
What's more disgusting, however, is the amount of hassle that's involved installing broadcast and/or production software these days. Hardware keys, bajillon digit serial numbers, activation. You think turbo tax is bad. I guess, however, my users never really have to struggle with that sort of thing like I do.
Steve Jobs, if you're listening, there's money to be made in the radio automation business using the Mac platform w/out DRM.
Are you just pointing out that I skipped these kinds of cases?... The conflict is always over things that can be P2Ped.
And my point is that there aren't a whole lot of things that fall into this category. That music happens to be one of them is immaterial. It could be blueprints or photographs, or anything. Digital distribution is quite limited in the grand scheme of things. Most of the things that are sold (services and durible goods) cannot be delivered digitally. We've got a long time before Coca-Cola is lobbying Congress to stop Cola piracy....
Although the thought of being able to fire up Limewire and get a cold Coke is quite an interesting idea. Maybe someday.:-)
Claiming that it is an "abuse" is begging the question.
To claim that P2P and related technologies are an "abuse" is to assume things that the parent poster has explicitly claimed are false assumptions. You can't proove [sic] he is wrong by assuming he is wrong.
This is true, and probably not the best choice of words on my part. I got a B in persuasive writing, and it shows sometimes.:-D A more correct thing to say would be used for purposes for which it was not originally intended.
Yes, someone on slashdot has actually used "begging the question" correctly LOL.
Listening to IT people argue about political science or philosophy is disgusting sometimes. Political Theory isn't a required class.:-) I had to take three classes of it; I'm convinced they were the same class, just nobody ever bothered to speak up about it.
Lets throw out all assumptions for a second. The purpose of law is the common benefit. The benefit of intellectual creations is roughly the number created times their distribution.
Except that you're making as assumption that law is for the common benefit. I could point out many instances where that's not the case. In fact, I think less than half the new laws created are for any common benefit today.
Strong copyright protections attempt to increase the motivation to create more, and it allows publishers to make a large investment in distribution.
Again, a stipulation that relies upon an assumption. There are things that are copywrited so that they won't/can't be reproduced or distributed.
The internet completely changes this balance. The cost of distribution approaches zero. There is no longer a need for large investments in distribution. Distribution costs are pure wasteful overhead, eliminating this is a huge increase in efficiency. The internet allows a huge increase in distribution.
Yes and no. And this is the element that the dot bombers never realized. For some items, this is true -- items that, themeselves, can be distributed electronically. Any durable item still needs a means of distribution (UPS). Sometimes, because of the specialization to the individual, the cost of distribution is more expensive than mass distribution. In the case of a CD, it is entirely conceivable that you could spend more money on a CD online than if you wandered over to Wal-Mart to pick it up.
I believe the best way to maximize the public benefit (creation times ditribution) is with "classic" copyright protection. Strong protection for all commercial use... and broad fair-use for all noncommercial use,
I think that you're probably correct here. Unfortunately, the focus is just the opposite. I'm a broadcaster. We're allowed, legally via license, to do things with sound files that Joe Consumer isn't. However, now we're being stifled by technology intended for Joe Consumer. Being one of the sysadmins here, I've had to put out nastygrams more than once, specifically telling people that use and/or upgrading of WMP on production machines is prohibited.
A couple of the companies who deliver content to us (spots, bits, etc.) have sent out letters and detailed instructions to tell lusers how to fix their computers after MS has fouled them up.
To put it another way: free markets are beneficial, we all agree on that. We also most note that free markets are self-organizing. Which means that most people act in a way that supports the existence of a free market.
Except that it's a chicken-or-the-egg problem. I disagree that free markets are self-organizing; trade existed, and markets emerged, mereged, and organized. Organization of this kind of thing is nearly always an afterthought, or a reaction. To take the state of nature argument, people act in a way that support the existence of free markets, only in situations where actors are of near equal standing, have something the other wants. This prevents the force or fraud angle. It would be nearly impossible for a consumer to deal with Wal-Mart in good faith without government protecting him from force or fraud.
What objectivism relies upon is that force and fraud never enter the equation between free individuals because it is antithetical to life. Hence the constant struggle between the protagonists in Rand's novels and the "looters."
When 20 million people trade files on P2P networks, they may be commiting an act which is morally wrong according to our present views, but they are merely exploiting a property of information that has always been bubbling under the surface: it can easily be copied.
This hasn't always been the case, and only technology has made it easy to copy. We've moved -- progressed to technologies that are copy-friendly for quality reasons, rather than for purposes of copying and "sharing." The fact of the matter is, Napster wouldn't have been popular if the mp3 kiddies had needed to dub everything from 45's.....old man voice....
In my day, sonny, we made mix tapes. Darn right it was a pain in the ass. And we knew it was wrong, but we didn't have the money to buy the real tape ourselves. We were too busy buying beer and cigarettes......:-) Well, we knew that was wrong, too.
Technology today is simply exposing the false assumption, made long ago, that information is difficult to copy.
Again, I don't think you can make that argument. We've created duplicating devices for convienience, and some people have chosen to abuse those. It's just the degree of abuse. Some of it, also, is a backlash against overwhelmingly high prices of music. I *could* make a photocopy of a thirty dollar, 350 page book, for about three dollars and fifty cents (assuming about $0.01 per page, which is what most high-end copiers do). It's just a pain in the ass, and not worth my time. If I'm real eager to read a book, and don't want to shell out the money for it, I'll go put it on reserve at the library. Barring that, I can wait the six to eight months it takes to come out in paperback. Yes, that costs more than the photocopies, but it's more portable, and easier to read. And legal.
The bottom line on filesharing is......If MP3's were a quarter or less to download from a publisher's website (and there was an easy way to be able to burn it to cd in cda format), p2p would dry up for music. It'd still be there for warez and pr0n.
A "free market" in information is therefore not self-regulating, and should not be called a free market at all. It's more like a kind of "non-laissez-faire capitalism"
I addressed that a bit above. Again, assuming adequate protections from force or fraud, laissez-faire capitalism can flourish. It just hasn't been tried very much.
We should ask ourselves, is the massive regulation required to prop up this system worth it? Or should we just fix this assumption and start anew?
The regulations that have been phased in since about 1900 have totally destroyed any opportunity for a nice, free capitalist system. And you have to be honest about the root of those regulations: Communist and Socialist influence. Alas, many people still subscribe to those morally bankrupt philosophies, so we're kind of stuck. Short of a bloody revolution, there is no way to start anew. I'm prepared to deal with the lousy situation we've got now. It's better than the alternative.
I interned at a place full of compulsive readers (lawyers). In the law library there was a shelf for book swap. Some interesting things up there, of course. I sort have set up something similar. It doesn't take much space, really, you just need like a shelf, or a box somewhere in the corner.
Of course, there is something comforting about there being a paucity of books on IT Management. I shudder to think what kind of bozo would get an MBA with a concentration in IT.
I've looked up my past personal sites, and realize how much they suck. Including the brief period where I was enamoured with IE 4.0 (MS had me on their free CD circuit).
As far as the commerical sites go, I think, inasmuch as bits and pieces are used as "fair use," and people aren't selling things that belong to someone else, I don't see a problem.
One of the more interesting things I've seen is what Art Bell and his webmaster did when Bell "retired" from broadcasting (let's see how long this one lasts...hmmph). They put out a CD that had some neat extra features, and authorization methods which allow you to access the website through the webmaster's site. Pretty cool, IMHO>
Have you reported this? Part of what the FCC is there for is to fix this sort of problem. I'd probably talk to the chief engineer of one of the stations, first, though.
Actually, it would be, and AC's (unless they're logged in, posting anonymously) would be 30 minutes and 100 comments behind.....
I could start reading at zero again.
FWIW, I did subscribe. It wasn't much. I just wanted to get the ads out of the story pages. Banner ads don't bother me. I went back and checked before I posted, and I've still got like 400 out of the 1000 pages left. It's been worth it, I think, and this will just convince me to renew when the time comes.
But seriously, objective pricing probably is gone. Why? Well, we've transitioned to a service-based economy, and it's difficult to stick a price label on an intangible product (intellectual property, anyone?).
What makes a copy of XP Pro worth $299? Nothing. The box and the disks themselves are probably only worth a few bucks. And people know that MS runs 85% margins on these things, but still continues to buy them. And when so much of the economy is based on sales of intangibles....
Same goes for getting work done on your car. How much money does a head gasket cost? Well, the gasket, itself, is under fifty dollars. How much does a head gasket job cost? That's a different question entirely, now isn't it?
They cold call people and have them listen to 5 seconds of the song. This tortured person is then asked to rate the song 1-5. The music industry then takes all the songs that get 1s and 5s and discards them. It turns out that often when one group rates a song a 5 another will really hate the song and rate it a 1. So what the industry is really looking for is songs that score 3s.
I don't know about country music, because, thankfully, I've never worked in that format. Most other music stations do something like this, but in different forms. Sometimes it's calling people and asking what they think of the songs currently in rotation, i.e. "Will you vomit if you hear this Nickleback record again?" Other times they pick a panel of listeners, and have them listen to snippets of about 100 songs (normally 20-30sec of each), and rate them. The ones that rate badly among everyone are thrown out. When you're focusing on your listeners, you can be less concerned about the positive extreme.
The reasoning behind all this is that if you hear a song that you'd rate a 1 (hate) you're likely to turn the radio dial. But if you hear a 3 you're not likely to have any particular response at all -- thus you'll stay tuned in for more comercials.
Well, my friend, if you listen to stations that don't beg for money every five minutes (in addition to the millions of dollars they get in tax money every year), that's kind of the name of the game: hold the audience long enough so that they'll listen to some commercials. You do it by having good programming and good talent.
I guess that's why when you listen to "Classic hits of the [6-9]0s" you hear the same tripe over and again.
Ummm....not quite. Classics stations are safe. There is a certain segment of the population that has been under the influence of illicit substances since 1968. They'll dig Iron Butterfly until they die in about 30 years.
The songs that will be hits are the ones that get the most spins, whether it's because a local program director/music director got sweet-talked by a distribution rep (aka legal payola), or because Clear Channel says it'll be a hit. IAADJ.
Furthermore, MTV has a big part to play, still, because how many fat, bald guys do you see with hit records? Take hot chick, add dance background, have hit. For variety substitute a few decent-looking boys for the hot chick.
As for this program, remember, the nutrimat in the Heart of Gold also determined Arthur Dent would like the Advanced Tea Substitute. See what happens if he drinks it too much.....
In the same article, it mentions the changes with the graphics subsystem in NT 4.0. IIRC, NT 4.0 only supported i386 and Alpha, while NT 3.51 those, plus ppc and mips.
They moved the graphics subsystem into the kernel, and it ceased to be a microkernel. When pretty much everything lives in userland, portability is pretty easy. In fact, you can essentially write a new kernel (with the same external interfaces) for each architecture if need be. You also get neat features like being able to restart networking or the graphics system if they crash, without bringing down the system.
The problem that you have on i386 is that context switching is expensive (read: slow as a dog). On other platforms (sparc, ppc), it's not that big a deal.
Now, Windows doesn't look like a microkernel at all. And it's not at all portable, either. From what I understand, the Itanic port is giving them big headaches, and Intel is none-too-pleased about it.
Slashdot Mirror
I work in radio, and since WMP's little DRM fiasco, I've been on watch about this kind of thing. So far, afaik, we haven't had any problems with copy-protected CD's and ripping (or at least the FM people haven't come and whined to me yet....). But many stations have had problems with not being able to play "unblessed" mp3's. One of our content providers sent out a memo about a month ago telling stations how to fix their XP and 2k machines that'd been DRM'd. When the EULA change came about, I consulted with our operations manager, and the decision was that WMP would not be installed/upgraded on machines that have anything to do with audio production.
What's more disgusting, however, is the amount of hassle that's involved installing broadcast and/or production software these days. Hardware keys, bajillon digit serial numbers, activation. You think turbo tax is bad. I guess, however, my users never really have to struggle with that sort of thing like I do.
Steve Jobs, if you're listening, there's money to be made in the radio automation business using the Mac platform w/out DRM.
Are you just pointing out that I skipped these kinds of cases? ... The conflict is always over things that can be P2Ped.
:-)
And my point is that there aren't a whole lot of things that fall into this category. That music happens to be one of them is immaterial. It could be blueprints or photographs, or anything. Digital distribution is quite limited in the grand scheme of things. Most of the things that are sold (services and durible goods) cannot be delivered digitally. We've got a long time before Coca-Cola is lobbying Congress to stop Cola piracy....
Although the thought of being able to fire up Limewire and get a cold Coke is quite an interesting idea. Maybe someday.
Claiming that it is an "abuse" is begging the question.
:-D A more correct thing to say would be used for purposes for which it was not originally intended.
:-) I had to take three classes of it; I'm convinced they were the same class, just nobody ever bothered to speak up about it.
... and broad fair-use for all noncommercial use,
To claim that P2P and related technologies are an "abuse" is to assume things that the parent poster has explicitly claimed are false assumptions. You can't proove [sic] he is wrong by assuming he is wrong.
This is true, and probably not the best choice of words on my part. I got a B in persuasive writing, and it shows sometimes.
Yes, someone on slashdot has actually used "begging the question" correctly LOL.
Listening to IT people argue about political science or philosophy is disgusting sometimes. Political Theory isn't a required class.
Lets throw out all assumptions for a second. The purpose of law is the common benefit. The benefit of intellectual creations is roughly the number created times their distribution.
Except that you're making as assumption that law is for the common benefit. I could point out many instances where that's not the case. In fact, I think less than half the new laws created are for any common benefit today.
Strong copyright protections attempt to increase the motivation to create more, and it allows publishers to make a large investment in distribution.
Again, a stipulation that relies upon an assumption. There are things that are copywrited so that they won't/can't be reproduced or distributed.
The internet completely changes this balance. The cost of distribution approaches zero. There is no longer a need for large investments in distribution. Distribution costs are pure wasteful overhead, eliminating this is a huge increase in efficiency. The internet allows a huge increase in distribution.
Yes and no. And this is the element that the dot bombers never realized. For some items, this is true -- items that, themeselves, can be distributed electronically. Any durable item still needs a means of distribution (UPS). Sometimes, because of the specialization to the individual, the cost of distribution is more expensive than mass distribution. In the case of a CD, it is entirely conceivable that you could spend more money on a CD online than if you wandered over to Wal-Mart to pick it up.
I believe the best way to maximize the public benefit (creation times ditribution) is with "classic" copyright protection. Strong protection for all commercial use
I think that you're probably correct here. Unfortunately, the focus is just the opposite. I'm a broadcaster. We're allowed, legally via license, to do things with sound files that Joe Consumer isn't. However, now we're being stifled by technology intended for Joe Consumer. Being one of the sysadmins here, I've had to put out nastygrams more than once, specifically telling people that use and/or upgrading of WMP on production machines is prohibited.
A couple of the companies who deliver content to us (spots, bits, etc.) have sent out letters and detailed instructions to tell lusers how to fix their computers after MS has fouled them up.
To put it another way: free markets are beneficial, we all agree on that. We also most note that free markets are self-organizing. Which means that most people act in a way that supports the existence of a free market.
....old man voice....
:-) Well, we knew that was wrong, too.
Except that it's a chicken-or-the-egg problem. I disagree that free markets are self-organizing; trade existed, and markets emerged, mereged, and organized. Organization of this kind of thing is nearly always an afterthought, or a reaction. To take the state of nature argument, people act in a way that support the existence of free markets, only in situations where actors are of near equal standing, have something the other wants. This prevents the force or fraud angle. It would be nearly impossible for a consumer to deal with Wal-Mart in good faith without government protecting him from force or fraud.
What objectivism relies upon is that force and fraud never enter the equation between free individuals because it is antithetical to life. Hence the constant struggle between the protagonists in Rand's novels and the "looters."
When 20 million people trade files on P2P networks, they may be commiting an act which is morally wrong according to our present views, but they are merely exploiting a property of information that has always been bubbling under the surface: it can easily be copied.
This hasn't always been the case, and only technology has made it easy to copy. We've moved -- progressed to technologies that are copy-friendly for quality reasons, rather than for purposes of copying and "sharing." The fact of the matter is, Napster wouldn't have been popular if the mp3 kiddies had needed to dub everything from 45's.
In my day, sonny, we made mix tapes. Darn right it was a pain in the ass. And we knew it was wrong, but we didn't have the money to buy the real tape ourselves. We were too busy buying beer and cigarettes......
Technology today is simply exposing the false assumption, made long ago, that information is difficult to copy.
Again, I don't think you can make that argument. We've created duplicating devices for convienience, and some people have chosen to abuse those. It's just the degree of abuse. Some of it, also, is a backlash against overwhelmingly high prices of music. I *could* make a photocopy of a thirty dollar, 350 page book, for about three dollars and fifty cents (assuming about $0.01 per page, which is what most high-end copiers do). It's just a pain in the ass, and not worth my time. If I'm real eager to read a book, and don't want to shell out the money for it, I'll go put it on reserve at the library. Barring that, I can wait the six to eight months it takes to come out in paperback. Yes, that costs more than the photocopies, but it's more portable, and easier to read. And legal.
The bottom line on filesharing is......If MP3's were a quarter or less to download from a publisher's website (and there was an easy way to be able to burn it to cd in cda format), p2p would dry up for music. It'd still be there for warez and pr0n.
A "free market" in information is therefore not self-regulating, and should not be called a free market at all. It's more like a kind of "non-laissez-faire capitalism"
I addressed that a bit above. Again, assuming adequate protections from force or fraud, laissez-faire capitalism can flourish. It just hasn't been tried very much.
We should ask ourselves, is the massive regulation required to prop up this system worth it? Or should we just fix this assumption and start anew?
The regulations that have been phased in since about 1900 have totally destroyed any opportunity for a nice, free capitalist system. And you have to be honest about the root of those regulations: Communist and Socialist influence. Alas, many people still subscribe to those morally bankrupt philosophies, so we're kind of stuck. Short of a bloody revolution, there is no way to start anew. I'm prepared to deal with the lousy situation we've got now. It's better than the alternative.
On a train!!!
In a station!!!!
Ahem.
Chewing gum.
:-D No need to overclock that.
I like AMD stuff better, myself. My last three systems have all been AMD. I recently got a PII free, tho, so it's been put into service and is okay.
The majority of my work, however, is done on a proc made by IBM.
I want a Power5.
After the chip containing this protection is released and these guys manage to get 'round it.
I interned at a place full of compulsive readers (lawyers). In the law library there was a shelf for book swap. Some interesting things up there, of course. I sort have set up something similar. It doesn't take much space, really, you just need like a shelf, or a box somewhere in the corner.
Ah yes, he used cyanide, when he could have used arsenic.
I personally am partial to "So Long Mom, I'm Off To Drop The Bomb," which deals with other elements, altogether.
The Dilbert Principle.
Of course, there is something comforting about there being a paucity of books on IT Management. I shudder to think what kind of bozo would get an MBA with a concentration in IT.
"MS is good. They told me so."
I've looked up my past personal sites, and realize how much they suck. Including the brief period where I was enamoured with IE 4.0 (MS had me on their free CD circuit).
As far as the commerical sites go, I think, inasmuch as bits and pieces are used as "fair use," and people aren't selling things that belong to someone else, I don't see a problem.
One of the more interesting things I've seen is what Art Bell and his webmaster did when Bell "retired" from broadcasting (let's see how long this one lasts...hmmph). They put out a CD that had some neat extra features, and authorization methods which allow you to access the website through the webmaster's site. Pretty cool, IMHO>
Dunno. I'd assume they've got engineers, though? My affiliation with British radio is only listening to the BBC when I was a kid in Germany.
Have you reported this? Part of what the FCC is there for is to fix this sort of problem. I'd probably talk to the chief engineer of one of the stations, first, though.
It doesn't mention in the article. I remember seeing a couple of times that some Debian stuff was sent for these types of experiements.
But in the absence of real evidence, I prefer to make things up.
They sent pr0n.
Actually, it would be, and AC's (unless they're logged in, posting anonymously) would be 30 minutes and 100 comments behind.....
I could start reading at zero again.
FWIW, I did subscribe. It wasn't much. I just wanted to get the ads out of the story pages. Banner ads don't bother me. I went back and checked before I posted, and I've still got like 400 out of the 1000 pages left. It's been worth it, I think, and this will just convince me to renew when the time comes.
That way, you never have to worry about prices.
But seriously, objective pricing probably is gone. Why? Well, we've transitioned to a service-based economy, and it's difficult to stick a price label on an intangible product (intellectual property, anyone?).
What makes a copy of XP Pro worth $299? Nothing. The box and the disks themselves are probably only worth a few bucks. And people know that MS runs 85% margins on these things, but still continues to buy them. And when so much of the economy is based on sales of intangibles....
Same goes for getting work done on your car. How much money does a head gasket cost? Well, the gasket, itself, is under fifty dollars. How much does a head gasket job cost? That's a different question entirely, now isn't it?
But that's a red herring. Whatever Scully did, it was still under the banner of Apple, and it was still the wrong thing to do.
Neither one of these lawsuits should have happened.
Providing a graphical interface to a computer shouldn't be a monopoly for one company. Apple was wrong to sue MS.
"Windows" is a generic name. "Lindows" is a stupid name.
Point taken. :-) But the reason I said it is I'm a fan of Frank Black, who as you see, has much less hair. Heh. Oh well.
They cold call people and have them listen to 5 seconds of the song. This tortured person is then asked to rate the song 1-5. The music industry then takes all the songs that get 1s and 5s and discards them. It turns out that often when one group rates a song a 5 another will really hate the song and rate it a 1. So what the industry is really looking for is songs that score 3s.
I don't know about country music, because, thankfully, I've never worked in that format. Most other music stations do something like this, but in different forms. Sometimes it's calling people and asking what they think of the songs currently in rotation, i.e. "Will you vomit if you hear this Nickleback record again?" Other times they pick a panel of listeners, and have them listen to snippets of about 100 songs (normally 20-30sec of each), and rate them. The ones that rate badly among everyone are thrown out. When you're focusing on your listeners, you can be less concerned about the positive extreme.
The reasoning behind all this is that if you hear a song that you'd rate a 1 (hate) you're likely to turn the radio dial. But if you hear a 3 you're not likely to have any particular response at all -- thus you'll stay tuned in for more comercials.
Well, my friend, if you listen to stations that don't beg for money every five minutes (in addition to the millions of dollars they get in tax money every year), that's kind of the name of the game: hold the audience long enough so that they'll listen to some commercials. You do it by having good programming and good talent.
I guess that's why when you listen to "Classic hits of the [6-9]0s" you hear the same tripe over and again.
Ummm....not quite. Classics stations are safe. There is a certain segment of the population that has been under the influence of illicit substances since 1968. They'll dig Iron Butterfly until they die in about 30 years.
The songs that will be hits are the ones that get the most spins, whether it's because a local program director/music director got sweet-talked by a distribution rep (aka legal payola), or because Clear Channel says it'll be a hit. IAADJ.
Furthermore, MTV has a big part to play, still, because how many fat, bald guys do you see with hit records? Take hot chick, add dance background, have hit. For variety substitute a few decent-looking boys for the hot chick.
As for this program, remember, the nutrimat in the Heart of Gold also determined Arthur Dent would like the Advanced Tea Substitute. See what happens if he drinks it too much.....
Alas, I am Windoze-free, having only my iBook to keep me company today. And IE 5.2 for the Mac doesn't reproduce the "feature"
Where going to a page like that could result in the sink filling with the BSOD....
In the same article, it mentions the changes with the graphics subsystem in NT 4.0. IIRC, NT 4.0 only supported i386 and Alpha, while NT 3.51 those, plus ppc and mips.
They moved the graphics subsystem into the kernel, and it ceased to be a microkernel. When pretty much everything lives in userland, portability is pretty easy. In fact, you can essentially write a new kernel (with the same external interfaces) for each architecture if need be. You also get neat features like being able to restart networking or the graphics system if they crash, without bringing down the system.
The problem that you have on i386 is that context switching is expensive (read: slow as a dog). On other platforms (sparc, ppc), it's not that big a deal.
Now, Windows doesn't look like a microkernel at all. And it's not at all portable, either. From what I understand, the Itanic port is giving them big headaches, and Intel is none-too-pleased about it.
Pull the cover, and re-jumper it to 100 MHz. If you don't start getting memory errors, enjoy it. If you do, well, jumper it back.
:-)
It's not like you've got any warranty to void.
And your system bus will run at full speed, also. 30 MHz vs 33 *does* make a difference on things like graphics and network cards.
I can only imagine what the poor sods with P75's had to put up with (25 MHz system bus).