The problem with SD drivers is that the SD Association prohibits distribution of source code for the drivers.
It's been the same issue for the Zaurus - binary-only SD drivers.
MMC drivers, OTOH, are available, but SD, no. (SD and MMC are different specs - SD cards are physically bigger, have more pins, and the write protect switch.) It's all due to the "Secure" part that 99% of the devices out there do not use (honestly, I've only seen a Panasonic MP3 player do that). (99% of said devuces use SD cards are larger memory - easier to fit in 1GB of flash in SD than MMC because of the physical size difference).
Of course, this can have interesting GPL issues...
Except, well, people need *practice*. And equipment needs to be *purchased* and *maintained*. Would you buy the latest gaming PC (or Mac) (the investment is similar), only to find that you are allowed to use it, say, the first weekend of a leap year?
Oh, BTW, low-frequency signals easily traverse the globe. A localized blackout like August 2003 may still result in communications failure because of interference from the other end of the country (where there *is* power).
And let's not forget everyone *ELSE* in the HF bands - we've got military, aviation (HF is the only way to communicate long distances), marine, broadcast (SW especially), CB, RC, cordless phones, etc. who use it for its special properties. Sure we can all switch to satellite, but are you willing to shell out the increased costs for satellite equipment in everything you do (taxes, shipping costs, tickets, imported goods...)? (As if we need *another* reason for companies to jack prices up!)
OTOH, it does make spying on internet traffic easier - sniff passwords 3000 miles away! Or someone will find a way to do BPL wardriving (imagine that... hitching internet service from someone in the next state! Though, this would lead to more spam...) Damn I'm conflicted.
(Then there is the fact that HAM radio is a regulated service, and BPL is unregulated.)
Actually, what we need is a virus that, in the email headers, adds:
X-Idiot-Who-Sent-This: <real_email>
(and variations thereof) to all the emails it sends. Fake the From: address, sure. But I'd like to know who the person is that I should LART for the 100,000 copies of MyDoom that I keep getting. Especially to addresses that I've given out or never even used.
Being Canadian, if I end up paying the tax, it makes it legal (partly why they want to legalize drugs - tax money!).
So it's legal to distribute music. All I need now is a pay service for KaZaA and other p2p users to simply send their music to me, and I'll send them back, therefore legalizing the music. I paid the tax, turning the formerly illegal music legal. There's a real possibility to make some money offering little more than FTP services to legalize music by paying the tax.
Damn, I should've done the same with CDs. Send me your music, I'll send back a burned CD (with the CD tax paid) with the same songs, but because the tax is paid, is now legit!
(If you paid the fine, might as well do the crime.)
PDAs are heading in two directions. Some people want larger displays (face it, the limiting factor on a PDA is how much you can cram on the surface respectably - keyboard, large screen, every connector up the wazoo, etc). And smaller, who want an even more portable device... so the good question is, what are we gonna end up with - implantable PDAs and PDAs that are mini-laptops?
You know, the flu doesn't spread so virulently during the summer. Heck, most of the time flu season is during the winter. The flu doesn't hide during the summer, it's just dormant and afflicting only a few people.
The question is, once fall/winter comes, will SARS spread again? And will it be worse now - i.e., is it dormant and people will unwittingly spread it to other people?
It may be contained now, but is it really? Or if the weather turns a bit cold, we see more outbreaks?
If you're like me and don't spend as much time playing games, but more time looking at text and video, a recent LCD monitor is quite good.
Me, I just purchased an NEC MultiSync LCD1760V - cost me not much more than $600 for a 17". It's bright (damned thing is set at 3% brightness...), and the nicest thing of all, 16ms full-cycle response time (12ms Tr, 4ms Tf, IIRC).
It's analog only, but it's one of the few monitors I've used that seem to lock bang on using "Auto" mode so I don't have to mess with fine adjustments. Does a decent job at non-optimal resolutions (it stretches the image out and does *some* antialiasing). Quite happy with it, really...
I know I wanted a 20" one that can do 1600x1200, but considering the price differential (costs $133 more than a 15", but gives more pixels, a 19" at 1280x1024 costs 50% more, and a 20" costs 200-300% more), it's in the sweet spot, and by the time I replace this, OLED displays will hopefully be out.
And hey, it's one less heat-generator in my room (instant-on and instant-off is very nice as well).
Works fine if your network runs Win9x, but Quake runs awful on WinNT/Win2k/WinXP machines. GL Quake is nice, *IF* you have a decent video card, but since most work machines tend to come with POS ATI 128-something or other, that really isn't an option.
Pick a simple game, like Tetrinet2/Tetrinet - first you'll get everyone in the office hooked (it's tetris... at least you can try to win some office chick time!). This runs on practically any machine that runs Win32 code, horribly addictive, and easily alt-tabbable...
Anyone notice how the remote looks vaguely similar to the Philips TiVo remotes (at least the HDR112/212/etc series)? Peanut shape, numberpad at the bottom, logo button, etc?
A Duron 1.2GHz with 256 MB of RAM is a low end system? That's a pretty decent low-end system of *now*, but what about using a machine that's 2 years old or more? You know, those sub 1-GHz machines and 128MB of RAM (if you're lucky)? Man, that low-end system is far faster than what I use at work (and what most people use).
What about memory consumption? Having to hit the swapfile more often because its running would slow down a compile job, or heck, just the apparent responsiveness of the system. If opening a document takes 10 seconds longer because the system has to swap, I'd say that has a far more annoying impact than the miniscule extra CPU resources...
Looks nice, but I don't see myself replacing my PalmIIIc yet (c'mon... someone make a non-Sony Palm that's as compelling!)
Funny, I saw this years ago
on
Airborne Mouse
·
· Score: 2
I think the guys at Gyration produced mice that weren't bound to the mouse pad eons ago (6+ years... I remember thinking about getting one, but they were *honkin'* expensive).
So what's different, other than being another mouse by the same company?
These new CD-RW drives are nice, but what I really want to know is can I use them to make a backup of my copy of NWN, WarCraft3, etc? Considering the damn copyrestrictions they place on them, with 90 day warranties for replacement (ha...). Especially considering if you have a "collector's edition" game with special CDs (e.g. Diablo 2, WarCraft 3, etc), if that CD gets damaged, the best you get is a replacement with a regular edition CD (hey, it's nice to have a goodlooking set!)).
A) No-CD cracks don't work because most games are beta-quality, and patches come out continually. B) Unauthorized patches are bad if you want network play (I paid for the game, I want to play online!) C) If my CD breaks, and I couldn't copy it, you bet I will look for a pirated copy. Sorry, but the price of today's games (add taxes and stuff, and it's over $100 Canadian!) mean I'll buy *ONE* copy. If it breaks, you're going to get roasted the next time one of your games comes out (I paid $100 for this shiny disc I can't use anymore?). D) A disposable CD-R backup is excellent when you go to LAN parties as well as to friend's houses. Never worry about losing a game somewhere.
(And it isn't a piracy issue. If I pirated the games, all I'd do is burn the damn ISOs onto CDs, copy them to my hard disk, and use a CD emulator like Daemon Tools (great for mounting Linux ISOs on Windows). I'd just need any damn CD-RW drive that can write a ISO9660 filesystem!)
Ah, furgitaboutit. I'll just use CloneCD to dump the CDs to ISOs.
I love pinball machines. They're great. However, the arcades I visit either end up ripping you off or the machines are in such a state of disrepair that well, it's not fun to play.
The main reason is probably because arcade machines, tend to be generic. Short of the special-equipment games like those from Konami (DDR, etc), all an arcade operator needed was to replace the CPU module, or even just the ROM cartridge. Whereas for pinballs, they have to ship the entire thing around (Pinball2000 attempted to resolve this, but ultimately, died because Williams decided to get out of the pinball business). So instead of a relatively simple job on putting in a new game up, you have to ship this $5000 pinball machine around (shipping $200 typically), rather than order a $100-$500 ROM cartridge (shipping trivial), or a hard drive...
Now, there are recreations of various pins around - thanks to Visual Pinball. Combine it with VPinMAME, and you can play some damn close reproductions to the real machines. (Hint to those interested: avoid the forums, or just read them. There's so much pettiness and egotism and selfishness on them that it's not worth it. Just leech. Your mind will thank you. I was on the forums back when WPCMAME was novel and everyone "played" them, and 2002 was nothing but a disaster for pinball emulation. Plus, you gotta register, and if you want to post, you better not register using a hotmail account - they want *real* email addresses).
However, check out ShivaSite (www.shivasite.com) for some of the best pin info ont he web!
I prefer to buy it by visiting the local computer shops here (Vancouver, BC, Canada).
They tend to be a bit cheaper, you don't have to worry about shipping... then again, there's the tax. For those of you living in large cities, they are often your best bet for the most common parts rather than trying to hunt through 100 different online vendors, dealing with damaged parcels, etc. Plus, with so many of them along the same road, it's easy to visit another shop if the one doesn't have what you want. And most are online so you can compare prices...
How about... another hard drive in a removable drive cage?
They're convenient and inexpensive, and about the only consumer-friendly way of backing up. I'm sure you can find hot-swappable IDE drive cages, or just reboot.
* Ads that are *INTERESTING*. I watch those on my TiVo. I skip the boring ones. * A *VARIETY* of ads. Even I get bored watching the same ad the upteenth time in half an hour. Penalties for those who show the exact same ad twice in one commercial break. * Pay-Per-Show. Let people buy shows without ads. Problem solved. If I want to watch x with ads, then make it so I have to watch the ads. If I don't want to watch it with ads, I'll buy it.
TiVo, ReplayTV, etc are not the problem. It's the archaic business model. If you require ads to be seen in this technological age, and lots of people have the technology to skip it, well, it's time to rethink the way you do business. Make people pay for shows is one solution. The shows I watch tend to get cancelled all the time (the only TV show I watch that I can count on running it's full length is Enterprise). Other than news, and the occasional movie, I only watch *5* (yes 5) hours of TV programming regularly. If I could pay for the shows that were cancelled, I could set my TiVo up to record them at any inane hour of the day (3:30 AM? why not?). Especially since it'll be commercial free.
Of course, the entire TV industry would be turned upside down now that ratings don't really matter - just making money from the show.
- Especially bitter because of the number of shows he watched has been cancelled or will be cancelled. Heck, the way the TV stations and studios are going, I might not even need a TiVo or TV anymore - there would be *NOTHING* interesting on for me to watch.
Since I got TiVo (What? You *don't* have a PVR yet? TiVo, ReplayTV, home built...), marathons just fill up the hard disk a little faster, but I guess I miss out on the 18-hours-on-the-couch feeling:).
And the first marathon I've watched was the Thanksgiving Junkyard Wars special (with the aid of TiVo - took me all weekend to get through all the episodes).
If you looked at the papers, you'd see that people are complaining about this. Saying stuff like "The industry is ineffectual, and all this bad stuff" etc. (Well, they're partially true, but that's another matter). This is simply political - BC has a pretty whacky political environment.
Of course, what no one realizes is well, why do *PARENTS* buy these things then? Parents are the ones who carry that money to buy these games (after all, they do cost $50+, and no kid I know gets an allowance that large unless they were extremely rich [rich rich, not "Canada Rich" which is what the government calls people making > $60k/year (Canadian - probably about US$37-38k)]. So if the parent is purchasing these games, they're just as fault as the game industry. And if the kid manages to save that much money, or has a job, they're more or less mature enough already to play these games.
It's just a cheap call to avoid involvement with the child. Perhaps there should be birth licenses, since it seems these parents don't even want to take a 5 minutes to read that little tag explaining the meaning of the little game ratings down at EB or where else. Or even spending time at the computer playing (*gasp*, what a novel concept! Quality time! I should patent that!) with their child.
There is a copy of Stranger in a Strange Land that was the original manuscript (~250,000 words) compared to the published first edition (~150,000 words). Years after Heinlein died, they got permission to reprint it, and it is available.
I'm finding it a tedious read though at times (the uncut version).
Theoretically, digital data lasts forever. Practically, it doesn't.
Sure, you may make a few dozen copies, keep them in a controlled temp vault, etc, and ensure that at a minimum 2 copies are readable (and make more as necessary), but,... technology *CHANGES*.
MPEG is accessible now. Will it be accessible 10 years in the future? Likely, yes. 20 years? Uh... about the only things we can read from 20 years back now is ASCII data and programs that use a well-defined fileformat (like the z-machine). Other proprietary fileformats have to keep getting refreshed to the latest and greatest, a monumental task in itself. 30 years from now, MPEG might just be a distant memory, with few, if any, computers even able to play back the streams (and also, find a reader for the media it is on).
So perhaps NHK would be copying the film onto archival film (film, vinyl (LP) and paper are one of the few mediums available that store data for a long time), and at the same time digitizing it. The digital copy is to be *searched* and *retrieved* quickly and easily, while the film is kept in enviromentally controlled vaults. Less wear and tear on the film, and the data is accessible in a more "today-ish" (i.e., in the next 10 years or so) format.
Analog media: format doesn't 'wear out', but the media does.
Digital media: media doesn't 'wear out' (easy to recopy data elsewhere), but the format does.
If you want to store stuff for archiving in digital form, make sure you include a complete computer, reader, schematics and mechanical diagrams, technical documents on how to read the media and how it is encoded, gas generator, enough gas to extract all data to 'modernize' it as well as chemical breakdowns... just to keep a few movies in MPEG.
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The problem with SD drivers is that the SD Association prohibits distribution of source code for the drivers.
It's been the same issue for the Zaurus - binary-only SD drivers.
MMC drivers, OTOH, are available, but SD, no. (SD and MMC are different specs - SD cards are physically bigger, have more pins, and the write protect switch.) It's all due to the "Secure" part that 99% of the devices out there do not use (honestly, I've only seen a Panasonic MP3 player do that). (99% of said devuces use SD cards are larger memory - easier to fit in 1GB of flash in SD than MMC because of the physical size difference).
Of course, this can have interesting GPL issues...
Except, well, people need *practice*. And equipment needs to be *purchased* and *maintained*. Would you buy the latest gaming PC (or Mac) (the investment is similar), only to find that you are allowed to use it, say, the first weekend of a leap year?
Oh, BTW, low-frequency signals easily traverse the globe. A localized blackout like August 2003 may still result in communications failure because of interference from the other end of the country (where there *is* power).
And let's not forget everyone *ELSE* in the HF bands - we've got military, aviation (HF is the only way to communicate long distances), marine, broadcast (SW especially), CB, RC, cordless phones, etc. who use it for its special properties. Sure we can all switch to satellite, but are you willing to shell out the increased costs for satellite equipment in everything you do (taxes, shipping costs, tickets, imported goods...)? (As if we need *another* reason for companies to jack prices up!)
OTOH, it does make spying on internet traffic easier - sniff passwords 3000 miles away! Or someone will find a way to do BPL wardriving (imagine that... hitching internet service from someone in the next state! Though, this would lead to more spam...) Damn I'm conflicted.
(Then there is the fact that HAM radio is a regulated service, and BPL is unregulated.)
The article said the software was free. Where can I get a copy of it? Is it free (beer) or free (speech)?
Actually, what we need is a virus that, in the email headers, adds:
X-Idiot-Who-Sent-This: <real_email>
(and variations thereof) to all the emails it sends. Fake the From: address, sure. But I'd like to know who the person is that I should LART for the 100,000 copies of MyDoom that I keep getting. Especially to addresses that I've given out or never even used.
Being Canadian, if I end up paying the tax, it makes it legal (partly why they want to legalize drugs - tax money!).
So it's legal to distribute music. All I need now is a pay service for KaZaA and other p2p users to simply send their music to me, and I'll send them back, therefore legalizing the music. I paid the tax, turning the formerly illegal music legal. There's a real possibility to make some money offering little more than FTP services to legalize music by paying the tax.
Damn, I should've done the same with CDs. Send me your music, I'll send back a burned CD (with the CD tax paid) with the same songs, but because the tax is paid, is now legit!
(If you paid the fine, might as well do the crime.)
PDAs are heading in two directions. Some people want larger displays (face it, the limiting factor on a PDA is how much you can cram on the surface respectably - keyboard, large screen, every connector up the wazoo, etc). And smaller, who want an even more portable device... so the good question is, what are we gonna end up with - implantable PDAs and PDAs that are mini-laptops?
C'mon, someone here was bound to make the association!
You know, the flu doesn't spread so virulently during the summer. Heck, most of the time flu season is during the winter. The flu doesn't hide during the summer, it's just dormant and afflicting only a few people.
The question is, once fall/winter comes, will SARS spread again? And will it be worse now - i.e., is it dormant and people will unwittingly spread it to other people?
It may be contained now, but is it really? Or if the weather turns a bit cold, we see more outbreaks?
Just puts it back at what it cost to pre-order. The pre-order price was $20, and now it's $25, minus 20%...
Not that great a discount, but a good second chance, I suppose.
If you're like me and don't spend as much time playing games, but more time looking at text and video, a recent LCD monitor is quite good.
Me, I just purchased an NEC MultiSync LCD1760V - cost me not much more than $600 for a 17". It's bright (damned thing is set at 3% brightness...), and the nicest thing of all, 16ms full-cycle response time (12ms Tr, 4ms Tf, IIRC).
It's analog only, but it's one of the few monitors I've used that seem to lock bang on using "Auto" mode so I don't have to mess with fine adjustments. Does a decent job at non-optimal resolutions (it stretches the image out and does *some* antialiasing). Quite happy with it, really...
I know I wanted a 20" one that can do 1600x1200, but considering the price differential (costs $133 more than a 15", but gives more pixels, a 19" at 1280x1024 costs 50% more, and a 20" costs 200-300% more), it's in the sweet spot, and by the time I replace this, OLED displays will hopefully be out.
And hey, it's one less heat-generator in my room (instant-on and instant-off is very nice as well).
Works fine if your network runs Win9x, but Quake runs awful on WinNT/Win2k/WinXP machines. GL Quake is nice, *IF* you have a decent video card, but since most work machines tend to come with POS ATI 128-something or other, that really isn't an option.
Pick a simple game, like Tetrinet2/Tetrinet - first you'll get everyone in the office hooked (it's tetris... at least you can try to win some office chick time!). This runs on practically any machine that runs Win32 code, horribly addictive, and easily alt-tabbable...
Anyone notice how the remote looks vaguely similar to the Philips TiVo remotes (at least the HDR112/212/etc series)? Peanut shape, numberpad at the bottom, logo button, etc?
A Duron 1.2GHz with 256 MB of RAM is a low end system? That's a pretty decent low-end system of *now*, but what about using a machine that's 2 years old or more? You know, those sub 1-GHz machines and 128MB of RAM (if you're lucky)? Man, that low-end system is far faster than what I use at work (and what most people use).
What about memory consumption? Having to hit the swapfile more often because its running would slow down a compile job, or heck, just the apparent responsiveness of the system. If opening a document takes 10 seconds longer because the system has to swap, I'd say that has a far more annoying impact than the miniscule extra CPU resources...
Here's another review from the folks at InfoSync: http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/2495.html.
Looks nice, but I don't see myself replacing my PalmIIIc yet (c'mon... someone make a non-Sony Palm that's as compelling!)
I think the guys at Gyration produced mice that weren't bound to the mouse pad eons ago (6+ years... I remember thinking about getting one, but they were *honkin'* expensive).
So what's different, other than being another mouse by the same company?
These new CD-RW drives are nice, but what I really want to know is can I use them to make a backup of my copy of NWN, WarCraft3, etc? Considering the damn copyrestrictions they place on them, with 90 day warranties for replacement (ha...). Especially considering if you have a "collector's edition" game with special CDs (e.g. Diablo 2, WarCraft 3, etc), if that CD gets damaged, the best you get is a replacement with a regular edition CD (hey, it's nice to have a goodlooking set!)).
A) No-CD cracks don't work because most games are beta-quality, and patches come out continually.
B) Unauthorized patches are bad if you want network play (I paid for the game, I want to play online!)
C) If my CD breaks, and I couldn't copy it, you bet I will look for a pirated copy. Sorry, but the price of today's games (add taxes and stuff, and it's over $100 Canadian!) mean I'll buy *ONE* copy. If it breaks, you're going to get roasted the next time one of your games comes out (I paid $100 for this shiny disc I can't use anymore?).
D) A disposable CD-R backup is excellent when you go to LAN parties as well as to friend's houses. Never worry about losing a game somewhere.
(And it isn't a piracy issue. If I pirated the games, all I'd do is burn the damn ISOs onto CDs, copy them to my hard disk, and use a CD emulator like Daemon Tools (great for mounting Linux ISOs on Windows). I'd just need any damn CD-RW drive that can write a ISO9660 filesystem!)
Ah, furgitaboutit. I'll just use CloneCD to dump the CDs to ISOs.
I love pinball machines. They're great. However, the arcades I visit either end up ripping you off or the machines are in such a state of disrepair that well, it's not fun to play.
The main reason is probably because arcade machines, tend to be generic. Short of the special-equipment games like those from Konami (DDR, etc), all an arcade operator needed was to replace the CPU module, or even just the ROM cartridge. Whereas for pinballs, they have to ship the entire thing around (Pinball2000 attempted to resolve this, but ultimately, died because Williams decided to get out of the pinball business). So instead of a relatively simple job on putting in a new game up, you have to ship this $5000 pinball machine around (shipping $200 typically), rather than order a $100-$500 ROM cartridge (shipping trivial), or a hard drive...
Now, there are recreations of various pins around - thanks to Visual Pinball. Combine it with VPinMAME, and you can play some damn close reproductions to the real machines. (Hint to those interested: avoid the forums, or just read them. There's so much pettiness and egotism and selfishness on them that it's not worth it. Just leech. Your mind will thank you. I was on the forums back when WPCMAME was novel and everyone "played" them, and 2002 was nothing but a disaster for pinball emulation. Plus, you gotta register, and if you want to post, you better not register using a hotmail account - they want *real* email addresses).
However, check out ShivaSite (www.shivasite.com) for some of the best pin info ont he web!
I prefer to buy it by visiting the local computer shops here (Vancouver, BC, Canada).
They tend to be a bit cheaper, you don't have to worry about shipping... then again, there's the tax. For those of you living in large cities, they are often your best bet for the most common parts rather than trying to hunt through 100 different online vendors, dealing with damaged parcels, etc. Plus, with so many of them along the same road, it's easy to visit another shop if the one doesn't have what you want. And most are online so you can compare prices...
How about... another hard drive in a removable drive cage?
They're convenient and inexpensive, and about the only consumer-friendly way of backing up. I'm sure you can find hot-swappable IDE drive cages, or just reboot.
There's lots of ways to fix this:
* Ads that are *INTERESTING*. I watch those on my TiVo. I skip the boring ones.
* A *VARIETY* of ads. Even I get bored watching the same ad the upteenth time in half an hour. Penalties for those who show the exact same ad twice in one commercial break.
* Pay-Per-Show. Let people buy shows without ads. Problem solved. If I want to watch x with ads, then make it so I have to watch the ads. If I don't want to watch it with ads, I'll buy it.
TiVo, ReplayTV, etc are not the problem. It's the archaic business model. If you require ads to be seen in this technological age, and lots of people have the technology to skip it, well, it's time to rethink the way you do business. Make people pay for shows is one solution. The shows I watch tend to get cancelled all the time (the only TV show I watch that I can count on running it's full length is Enterprise). Other than news, and the occasional movie, I only watch *5* (yes 5) hours of TV programming regularly. If I could pay for the shows that were cancelled, I could set my TiVo up to record them at any inane hour of the day (3:30 AM? why not?). Especially since it'll be commercial free.
Of course, the entire TV industry would be turned upside down now that ratings don't really matter - just making money from the show.
- Especially bitter because of the number of shows he watched has been cancelled or will be cancelled. Heck, the way the TV stations and studios are going, I might not even need a TiVo or TV anymore - there would be *NOTHING* interesting on for me to watch.
Since I got TiVo (What? You *don't* have a PVR yet? TiVo, ReplayTV, home built...), marathons just fill up the hard disk a little faster, but I guess I miss out on the 18-hours-on-the-couch feeling :).
And the first marathon I've watched was the Thanksgiving Junkyard Wars special (with the aid of TiVo - took me all weekend to get through all the episodes).
You might want to get a Windows machine for Pinball...
It's interesting, really.
If you looked at the papers, you'd see that people are complaining about this. Saying stuff like "The industry is ineffectual, and all this bad stuff" etc. (Well, they're partially true, but that's another matter). This is simply political - BC has a pretty whacky political environment.
Of course, what no one realizes is well, why do *PARENTS* buy these things then? Parents are the ones who carry that money to buy these games (after all, they do cost $50+, and no kid I know gets an allowance that large unless they were extremely rich [rich rich, not "Canada Rich" which is what the government calls people making > $60k/year (Canadian - probably about US$37-38k)]. So if the parent is purchasing these games, they're just as fault as the game industry. And if the kid manages to save that much money, or has a job, they're more or less mature enough already to play these games.
It's just a cheap call to avoid involvement with the child. Perhaps there should be birth licenses, since it seems these parents don't even want to take a 5 minutes to read that little tag explaining the meaning of the little game ratings down at EB or where else. Or even spending time at the computer playing (*gasp*, what a novel concept! Quality time! I should patent that!) with their child.
There is a copy of Stranger in a Strange Land that was the original manuscript (~250,000 words) compared to the published first edition (~150,000 words). Years after Heinlein died, they got permission to reprint it, and it is available.
I'm finding it a tedious read though at times (the uncut version).
Theoretically, digital data lasts forever. Practically, it doesn't.
... technology *CHANGES*.
Sure, you may make a few dozen copies, keep them in a controlled temp vault, etc, and ensure that at a minimum 2 copies are readable (and make more as necessary), but,
MPEG is accessible now. Will it be accessible 10 years in the future? Likely, yes. 20 years? Uh... about the only things we can read from 20 years back now is ASCII data and programs that use a well-defined fileformat (like the z-machine). Other proprietary fileformats have to keep getting refreshed to the latest and greatest, a monumental task in itself. 30 years from now, MPEG might just be a distant memory, with few, if any, computers even able to play back the streams (and also, find a reader for the media it is on).
So perhaps NHK would be copying the film onto archival film (film, vinyl (LP) and paper are one of the few mediums available that store data for a long time), and at the same time digitizing it. The digital copy is to be *searched* and *retrieved* quickly and easily, while the film is kept in enviromentally controlled vaults. Less wear and tear on the film, and the data is accessible in a more "today-ish" (i.e., in the next 10 years or so) format.
Analog media: format doesn't 'wear out', but the media does.
Digital media: media doesn't 'wear out' (easy to recopy data elsewhere), but the format does.
If you want to store stuff for archiving in digital form, make sure you include a complete computer, reader, schematics and mechanical diagrams, technical documents on how to read the media and how it is encoded, gas generator, enough gas to extract all data to 'modernize' it as well as chemical breakdowns... just to keep a few movies in MPEG.