"And last time I checked, the internet had all kinds of computers / OS's / etc connecting to it,"
Yes, and software for all of those platforms, for example, can assume that the underlying code is taking care of TCP/IP communication. Throw the PS2 into the mix, though, and you have to have an interface that's completely self-contained.
S-E made POL to be a common interface between multiple platforms, and they had to go by the lowest common denominator: the PS2. So while POL on Windows could have been stripped down, those would be potentially unreconcilable differences with the PS2 version where they have no such luxury.
"and it doesn't crash every 5 minutes for a day while the internet gods repeatedly fix the same problem, only to later blame it on total BS."
With worldwide gameplay and randomly distributed servers, they don't have the luxury of other MMORPGS of picking a convenient time during the work day or in the middle of the night when nobody is online. The Europeans go to bed and the Americans start playing. The Americans go to bed and the Japanese start playing. The Japanese go to bed and the Europeans start playing. GOTO.
There's been speculation about why Microsoft's anti-spyware tool only tries to "correct" or "fix" Sony/BMGs rootkit instead of flat-out removing it, and now I think we know why: they intend to do something similar.
"the display, the content and the hardware to play back that content... and PlayStation and Sony is the only organisation that has all three bits of the value chain together."
So the X360 won't play HD on Sony HDTVs?
Or is he saying "If you thought the X360 bundles were heinous, wait until you see us bundle a Sony HDTV with the PS3!"
At any rate, I was under the impression that Microsoft had Thompson (RCA) in their back pocket for a long time now. RCA put out those TVs with the proprietary Xbox hookups and the shape of the Xbox's DVD remote looked suspiciously familiar.
Meh. They'll both be up against a wall when the Revolution comes!
Would you rather have X360-only servers so you can play an MMORPG with the 4 North Americans and Europeans that could get an Xbox and the 2 Japanese who bothered to buy one? Wow, you'd have an entire party then!
If you're going to have universal, cross-platform servers, this is something that needs to happen. Deal with it.
"from back in the days of the original nes final fantasy games up though the "Secret of XXXXXXX" games."
Heretic! If you were truly a fan, then you'd know that "Secret of Mana" (Seiken Densetsu 2, sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure) and "Secret of Evermore" (a one-off for us ignorant gaijins, like Final Fantasy Mystic Quest) have absolutely nothing to do with each other!
Burn him!
(I liked Enix games better, anyway.)
"and even up to FF7, but recently they have been pissing off a lot of long time fans such as myself by implementing dumb ideas like this."
Simple reason, three little words: mass market appeal. The majority of Square Enix fans outside of Japan became fans starting with Final Fantasy VII, less because of the story and gameplay and more for the "Ooh, shiney!" factor. There's more money in "Ooh, shiney!" than there is in, say, Final Fantasy IX (the throwback to the Final Fantasy series of old, the one everybody seems to love to hate). I'd wager more people will buy Final Fantasy XII because of the gratuitous female butt shots (as pointed out by IGN) than will for the gameplay or story. Final Fantasy Extreme Beach Volleyball!
As much as I'd like to see an English version of Dragon Quest V for the PS2 (or IV for PSX, for that matter), I'm kinda hoping DQVIII continues to bomb in North America and Europe. So long as it stays a Japan-only kitsch thing, there's hope that it will stick with the fundamentals, making those rare DQ expeditions across the Pacific that much more valuable.
(And gimme SoulBlazer 4! And don't make me import it from fucking Australia like you did with 3!)
"All of your "one cent a dih or I..." statements don't work for the same reason "one cent a plate or I stand outside your restaurant and vomit continually" doesn't work; civil suits."
Even if you don't own the ground I stand on?
According to the original poster's anarcho-capitalist philosophy, he should have zero right to dictate that wires cross my property, to restrict the height of my buildings, or to keep me from operating a spark gap transmitter on my property. He is no more entitled to the air than I am, and if he wishes to have a "race to the sky" with microwave receivers or attempt to overpower my spark gap, he's welcome to it, but anything beyond that and he violates his own stated philosophy.
And in your example, it seems the best you can do is have me prosecuted for anti-decency laws, which would require a government to enforce those laws.
"conducting my lawful commerce,"
In order to have lawful commerce you need law. You need a government to decide that one type of use of a radio band is more better than another. This cannot sit with the original poster's stated anarcho-capitalist views.
"but if my laser is there first and you decide to block it, I have a cause of action."
Why? Did you ever ask to cross my property with a laser? In an anarcho-capitalist scenario, my right to my property is abolute, and your attempt to limit how high I build a structure on my property simply because you were using that airspace before me makes you a squatter at best.
" No single company has the money to invest or support a seperate Internet over the long run."
They're not interested in making a new internet, they're interseted in forking the original.
"There are too many ISPs and backbone providers competing in the open market."
How can you be on Slashdot without any sort of familiarity with the OSI model? It doesn't matter who you're paying to handle routing and whatnot when Ma Bell pwns Layer 1. Even those competing "backbone providers" are "competing" for time on Ma Bell's wires.
"Sure, the telcos likely control an enormous quantity of users' endpoints, but we will always have cable and dial-up (which isn't affected like DSL is as you can pick any ISP to dial into)."
But the telcos don't only control the last mile but also the backbone as well. You are using Ma Bell facilities on the internet regardless of who your ISP is. Sure, you can dial in to your ISP at 56k, but your ISP is only getting the data from Ma Bell's Frame Relay at 28.8 because you're not paying for "premium" service.
"The only way that U.S. Congress can facilitate a "total control takeover" would be to tax the smaller ISPs out of existance."
But you're in favor of Ma Bell doing just that: charging last-mile ISPs for "premium" content based on URL. It's somehow better that it's Bell doing it and not Congress?
" but I don't see 180 million users in the U.S. accepting a price increase"
Again, you're confused: It's not "Take it this way or change providers," it's "Take it this way or stay off the internet."
"The railroads that were built with private dollars and private aquisition of land were quickly regulated in order to control the procedures (and incorporate taxes), but the telegraphy lines were privately funded and controlled."
You must split hairs professionally. The telegraph lines were run along the railroad easements, easements the railroad businesses got through public lands for... let's call it "preferencial pricing."
Having the railroads as the middleman somehow makes it wholly private?
And let's not forget that all telegraph wires did was connect cities, nothing more. Nobody outside of Rockerfeller had their own private telegraph line. That would require crossing private property (as opposed to the public lands the railroads used), which brings us back to "One cent a 'dih' or I cut the cord."
Radiotelegraphy? Without the FCC, "One cent a 'dih' or I jam it."
"Government comes around with standards, but the protocols that continue to build on old protocols are invented by competitive companies."
Protocols, shmotocols, government provides the wires and keeps the radio frequencies free and clear.
"Government regulations hold us back. I lived in a town when I grew up that didn't mandate Ma Bell (we had a tiny local phone company called Centel)"
Could you have said "no" to Centel when they asked you for their first easment? If not, then they got to exist because of the local government you're decrying.
"Microwave direct connections make this concern invalid."
One cent a packet or I block line-of-sight.
"Anyone who attempts to break IPv4 would find themselves in a very lonely micronetwork."
You're assuming there'd be an IPv4 alternative to move to if the "special" networks don't work out. Again, we're not talking about the telcos running new wires, this is about them doing this on the existing network.
"Sure, over the past 100 years maybe you can argue you needed eminent domain, but I believe it could have been performed much faster without it."
Welcome to the 2000's, where everybody is trying to "cut the cord." Why should I have twisted pair running across my property when I use a cell phone? Why should I have coax when I don't watch TV? Judging from the prices both of these companies charge to their customers and considering that I see zero benefit from either, I'd say allowing these wires to continue to cross my property is worth a lot more than a measley $1.
"It would have been much more expensive, but this would have pushed inventors to find cheaper solutions through radiotelegraphy."
One cent a dih or I turn on my spark gap generator.
"And there would be 5 other wires ready to back it up."
I can get away with charging 1 cent per packet. Do you think your other neighbors, upon seeing this, won't want some of that as well? Can you guarantee a generous neighbor of yours will continue to be generous, or not sell the property to someone who would not be generous?
"Or a microwave direct connect."
Requires line of sight.
"Or a radiotelegraphy unidirectional signal."
Requires a clear spectrum.
"Or a satellite signal."
Still requires line of sight. I could either build a tall enough building to cast a shadow, or put my own microwave-opaque satellite up in a most inconvenient orbit.
"Back in the BBS days, you could have blown up my house. Today that would only stop one person, not billions."
Where were you when two certain first-tier providers were having a hissy fit and half the internet couldn't talk to the other half? I cut a cord going to your DNS cluster and all your customers are up a creek without an address resolution.
"It confuses me as to why Congress should have any say in companies creating additional networks."
Because the wires wouldn't have gotten run without eminent domain. Without government intervention (perish the thought!), you'd quickly arrive at one of the following extremes:
You don't get any internet connectivity because your neighbor won't let the wire run across his property.
In order to change service providers, you need a new physical wire run out to your house.
"Interstate commerce clause?"
Can you prove it's intrastate?
Is it possible to guarantee a connection, any connection, on the inernet is intrastate? The very fact that you can't is why we have this article submission to begin with.
"If companies want to try to create supernets for their customers to better access each other, I say allow them to."
Alright, but not on wires running across my property. How's that for "better access?"
"I can not imagine any supernet subverting the Internet in any way."
How not? You'd need new routing protocols (to distinguish between normal and "special" packets) and possibly a whole new DNS server structure (to tell which URL is in whose network). It has the potential to break IPv4 (at least) entirely.
"These supernets would just be a second backbone connecting their network together, correct?"
No. They want to do this with no new wires. It will use the existing network to carry proprietary traffic. If they wanted to run new wires, they likely woudln't have to approach Congress about anything.
"I just can't understand why Congress has any say in what companies do with their own property."
Because it wouldn't be "theirs" without eminent domain. Again: if the telcos can't force people to sell easements, there is no network, or at least none without obnoxiously high pricing (in order to all the prices asked for by the milllions of property owners nationwide).
Seriously, in your little anarcho-capitalist wet dream, I'm charging per packet to not put my shovel through the wire.
"and they should be free to supplement the "public need" for what other users are demanding/needing."
If that's what the public wants, they can ask for it themselves. Ma Bell ain't "the public" by any stretch of one's imagination.
Where else are people going to go for their reality TV fix? All they have to do is have fewer commercials in the DVD, or at least the appearance of fewer commercials.
"They must realize that not having commercials is half the appeal of the DVDs to begin with,"
Show me a DVD with no advertisements on it and I'll show you a DVD that came out of a burner. If it's pressed, it has advertising, and often it cannot be skipped.
You don't have to worry because you can't skip advertising on DVDs.
How much do you want to bet that, with the new high-def DVD format, publishers start selling DVDs with real commercials in where the commercial breaks are supposed to be, with the random access functions locked.
Miyamoto is still dropping hints that there's one more new big feature for the Revolution, and Sega execs have been quoted as saying that they're looking into the Revolution playing SMS/Genesis games as well as NES/SNES/N64.
"It is funny how anti-government geeks can be when it matters to them and how anti-freedom they can be when it is about controlling others. In "Taxachusetts" regulations are especially violent professional opinion and private rights."
Off-topic. We're discussing how Massachusetts manages its own employees. IT workers who do not work for the commonwealth will not be affected either way.
"Now, when someone recommends that bureaucrats set IT standards, it's tyranny!"
Slashdot Mirror
"And last time I checked, the internet had all kinds of computers / OS's / etc connecting to it,"
Yes, and software for all of those platforms, for example, can assume that the underlying code is taking care of TCP/IP communication. Throw the PS2 into the mix, though, and you have to have an interface that's completely self-contained.
S-E made POL to be a common interface between multiple platforms, and they had to go by the lowest common denominator: the PS2. So while POL on Windows could have been stripped down, those would be potentially unreconcilable differences with the PS2 version where they have no such luxury.
"and it doesn't crash every 5 minutes for a day while the internet gods repeatedly fix the same problem, only to later blame it on total BS."
With worldwide gameplay and randomly distributed servers, they don't have the luxury of other MMORPGS of picking a convenient time during the work day or in the middle of the night when nobody is online. The Europeans go to bed and the Americans start playing. The Americans go to bed and the Japanese start playing. The Japanese go to bed and the Europeans start playing. GOTO.
There's been speculation about why Microsoft's anti-spyware tool only tries to "correct" or "fix" Sony/BMGs rootkit instead of flat-out removing it, and now I think we know why: they intend to do something similar.
"No good programs to watch or games to play though, just a bunch of tables and chairs."
Sounds like an E3 tech demo. Is there somebody screaming in your ear about how many polygons it can display?
"the display, the content and the hardware to play back that content ... and PlayStation and Sony is the only organisation that has all three bits of the value chain together."
So the X360 won't play HD on Sony HDTVs?
Or is he saying "If you thought the X360 bundles were heinous, wait until you see us bundle a Sony HDTV with the PS3!"
At any rate, I was under the impression that Microsoft had Thompson (RCA) in their back pocket for a long time now. RCA put out those TVs with the proprietary Xbox hookups and the shape of the Xbox's DVD remote looked suspiciously familiar.
Meh. They'll both be up against a wall when the Revolution comes!
It's yet another article that totally forgets about the upcoming Nintendo Revolution!
Oh, wait... this is a different Microsoft vs. Sony hissy fit?
Would you rather have X360-only servers so you can play an MMORPG with the 4 North Americans and Europeans that could get an Xbox and the 2 Japanese who bothered to buy one? Wow, you'd have an entire party then!
If you're going to have universal, cross-platform servers, this is something that needs to happen. Deal with it.
"from back in the days of the original nes final fantasy games up though the "Secret of XXXXXXX" games."
Heretic! If you were truly a fan, then you'd know that "Secret of Mana" (Seiken Densetsu 2, sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure) and "Secret of Evermore" (a one-off for us ignorant gaijins, like Final Fantasy Mystic Quest) have absolutely nothing to do with each other!
Burn him!
(I liked Enix games better, anyway.)
"and even up to FF7, but recently they have been pissing off a lot of long time fans such as myself by implementing dumb ideas like this."
Simple reason, three little words: mass market appeal. The majority of Square Enix fans outside of Japan became fans starting with Final Fantasy VII, less because of the story and gameplay and more for the "Ooh, shiney!" factor. There's more money in "Ooh, shiney!" than there is in, say, Final Fantasy IX (the throwback to the Final Fantasy series of old, the one everybody seems to love to hate). I'd wager more people will buy Final Fantasy XII because of the gratuitous female butt shots (as pointed out by IGN) than will for the gameplay or story. Final Fantasy Extreme Beach Volleyball!
As much as I'd like to see an English version of Dragon Quest V for the PS2 (or IV for PSX, for that matter), I'm kinda hoping DQVIII continues to bomb in North America and Europe. So long as it stays a Japan-only kitsch thing, there's hope that it will stick with the fundamentals, making those rare DQ expeditions across the Pacific that much more valuable.
(And gimme SoulBlazer 4! And don't make me import it from fucking Australia like you did with 3!)
"All of your "one cent a dih or I..." statements don't work for the same reason "one cent a plate or I stand outside your restaurant and vomit continually" doesn't work; civil suits."
Even if you don't own the ground I stand on?
According to the original poster's anarcho-capitalist philosophy, he should have zero right to dictate that wires cross my property, to restrict the height of my buildings, or to keep me from operating a spark gap transmitter on my property. He is no more entitled to the air than I am, and if he wishes to have a "race to the sky" with microwave receivers or attempt to overpower my spark gap, he's welcome to it, but anything beyond that and he violates his own stated philosophy.
And in your example, it seems the best you can do is have me prosecuted for anti-decency laws, which would require a government to enforce those laws.
"conducting my lawful commerce,"
In order to have lawful commerce you need law. You need a government to decide that one type of use of a radio band is more better than another. This cannot sit with the original poster's stated anarcho-capitalist views.
"but if my laser is there first and you decide to block it, I have a cause of action."
Why? Did you ever ask to cross my property with a laser? In an anarcho-capitalist scenario, my right to my property is abolute, and your attempt to limit how high I build a structure on my property simply because you were using that airspace before me makes you a squatter at best.
" No single company has the money to invest or support a seperate Internet over the long run."
They're not interested in making a new internet, they're interseted in forking the original.
"There are too many ISPs and backbone providers competing in the open market."
How can you be on Slashdot without any sort of familiarity with the OSI model? It doesn't matter who you're paying to handle routing and whatnot when Ma Bell pwns Layer 1. Even those competing "backbone providers" are "competing" for time on Ma Bell's wires.
"Sure, the telcos likely control an enormous quantity of users' endpoints, but we will always have cable and dial-up (which isn't affected like DSL is as you can pick any ISP to dial into)."
But the telcos don't only control the last mile but also the backbone as well. You are using Ma Bell facilities on the internet regardless of who your ISP is. Sure, you can dial in to your ISP at 56k, but your ISP is only getting the data from Ma Bell's Frame Relay at 28.8 because you're not paying for "premium" service.
"The only way that U.S. Congress can facilitate a "total control takeover" would be to tax the smaller ISPs out of existance."
But you're in favor of Ma Bell doing just that: charging last-mile ISPs for "premium" content based on URL. It's somehow better that it's Bell doing it and not Congress?
" but I don't see 180 million users in the U.S. accepting a price increase"
Again, you're confused: It's not "Take it this way or change providers," it's "Take it this way or stay off the internet."
"The railroads that were built with private dollars and private aquisition of land were quickly regulated in order to control the procedures (and incorporate taxes), but the telegraphy lines were privately funded and controlled."
You must split hairs professionally. The telegraph lines were run along the railroad easements, easements the railroad businesses got through public lands for... let's call it "preferencial pricing."
Having the railroads as the middleman somehow makes it wholly private?
And let's not forget that all telegraph wires did was connect cities, nothing more. Nobody outside of Rockerfeller had their own private telegraph line. That would require crossing private property (as opposed to the public lands the railroads used), which brings us back to "One cent a 'dih' or I cut the cord."
Radiotelegraphy? Without the FCC, "One cent a 'dih' or I jam it."
"Government comes around with standards, but the protocols that continue to build on old protocols are invented by competitive companies."
Protocols, shmotocols, government provides the wires and keeps the radio frequencies free and clear.
"Government regulations hold us back. I lived in a town when I grew up that didn't mandate Ma Bell (we had a tiny local phone company called Centel)"
Could you have said "no" to Centel when they asked you for their first easment? If not, then they got to exist because of the local government you're decrying.
"Microwave direct connections make this concern invalid."
One cent a packet or I block line-of-sight.
"Anyone who attempts to break IPv4 would find themselves in a very lonely micronetwork."
You're assuming there'd be an IPv4 alternative to move to if the "special" networks don't work out. Again, we're not talking about the telcos running new wires, this is about them doing this on the existing network.
"Sure, over the past 100 years maybe you can argue you needed eminent domain, but I believe it could have been performed much faster without it."
Welcome to the 2000's, where everybody is trying to "cut the cord." Why should I have twisted pair running across my property when I use a cell phone? Why should I have coax when I don't watch TV? Judging from the prices both of these companies charge to their customers and considering that I see zero benefit from either, I'd say allowing these wires to continue to cross my property is worth a lot more than a measley $1.
"It would have been much more expensive, but this would have pushed inventors to find cheaper solutions through radiotelegraphy."
One cent a dih or I turn on my spark gap generator.
"And there would be 5 other wires ready to back it up."
I can get away with charging 1 cent per packet. Do you think your other neighbors, upon seeing this, won't want some of that as well? Can you guarantee a generous neighbor of yours will continue to be generous, or not sell the property to someone who would not be generous?
"Or a microwave direct connect."
Requires line of sight.
"Or a radiotelegraphy unidirectional signal."
Requires a clear spectrum.
"Or a satellite signal."
Still requires line of sight. I could either build a tall enough building to cast a shadow, or put my own microwave-opaque satellite up in a most inconvenient orbit.
"Back in the BBS days, you could have blown up my house. Today that would only stop one person, not billions."
Where were you when two certain first-tier providers were having a hissy fit and half the internet couldn't talk to the other half? I cut a cord going to your DNS cluster and all your customers are up a creek without an address resolution.
"you think everyone in North America is stupid"
Let's see... On the one hand, George W. Bush, on the other, Paul Martin.
All signs point to "yes."
Because the wires wouldn't have gotten run without eminent domain. Without government intervention (perish the thought!), you'd quickly arrive at one of the following extremes:
"Interstate commerce clause?"
Can you prove it's intrastate?
Is it possible to guarantee a connection, any connection, on the inernet is intrastate? The very fact that you can't is why we have this article submission to begin with.
"If companies want to try to create supernets for their customers to better access each other, I say allow them to."
Alright, but not on wires running across my property. How's that for "better access?"
"I can not imagine any supernet subverting the Internet in any way."
How not? You'd need new routing protocols (to distinguish between normal and "special" packets) and possibly a whole new DNS server structure (to tell which URL is in whose network). It has the potential to break IPv4 (at least) entirely.
"These supernets would just be a second backbone connecting their network together, correct?"
No. They want to do this with no new wires. It will use the existing network to carry proprietary traffic. If they wanted to run new wires, they likely woudln't have to approach Congress about anything.
"I just can't understand why Congress has any say in what companies do with their own property."
Because it wouldn't be "theirs" without eminent domain. Again: if the telcos can't force people to sell easements, there is no network, or at least none without obnoxiously high pricing (in order to all the prices asked for by the milllions of property owners nationwide).
Seriously, in your little anarcho-capitalist wet dream, I'm charging per packet to not put my shovel through the wire.
"and they should be free to supplement the "public need" for what other users are demanding/needing."
If that's what the public wants, they can ask for it themselves. Ma Bell ain't "the public" by any stretch of one's imagination.
Ah yes, here comes the Slashdot clergy to interpret the word of their god!
"At the risk of not selling any more DVDs?"
Where else are people going to go for their reality TV fix? All they have to do is have fewer commercials in the DVD, or at least the appearance of fewer commercials.
"They must realize that not having commercials is half the appeal of the DVDs to begin with,"
Show me a DVD with no advertisements on it and I'll show you a DVD that came out of a burner. If it's pressed, it has advertising, and often it cannot be skipped.
"Perhaps it's partially a matter of not buying into senseless hype?"
Dude, this is Japan! Their entire economy (if not culture) is built entirely on hype! I'm pretty sure it's the national currency over there...
"but there's also good product placement as well (see Blade Runner)."
Damn skippy! Any form of advertising that helps bring about the company's demise is A-OK in my book!
"I can buy DVDs and not worry about commercials,"
You don't have to worry because you can't skip advertising on DVDs.
How much do you want to bet that, with the new high-def DVD format, publishers start selling DVDs with real commercials in where the commercial breaks are supposed to be, with the random access functions locked.
"It would have to play my pirated"
Congratulations: you helped kill the Dreamcast. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have this Slashdot submission to begin with.
"This is like modding an xbox 360/ps3/whatever with a Z80 - why whould you want to do that?"
Because the Sega Master System kicked ass!
In general though, I already know it won't happen because
Miyamoto is still dropping hints that there's one more new big feature for the Revolution, and Sega execs have been quoted as saying that they're looking into the Revolution playing SMS/Genesis games as well as NES/SNES/N64.
What if the Revolution played Dreamcast games?
(How's that for outlandish rumor-mongering?)
"Why does this sound to me like a "bad idea"?"
Sounds no worse than putting telescopes on top of Mauna Kea to me.
"It is funny how anti-government geeks can be when it matters to them and how anti-freedom they can be when it is about controlling others. In "Taxachusetts" regulations are especially violent professional opinion and private rights."
Off-topic. We're discussing how Massachusetts manages its own employees. IT workers who do not work for the commonwealth will not be affected either way.
"Now, when someone recommends that bureaucrats set IT standards, it's tyranny!"
Did you even read the summary?
"There's a "zone" they get into, where distractions just don't get through - telephone,"
That right there may be a part of it.