It may look ridiculous to you, but it's the same suit other states have already won (e.g., California). The difference in Iowa is the AG's office says it is not willing to settle for Microsoft discount coupons. It wants cash for Iowans, arguing it's absurd to tell someone who's been "harmed" by MS that their remedy requires doing yet more business with the company that harmed them.
TiVo already has these capabilities where appropriate. The DirecTiVo boxes (integrated DirecTV DBS receiver and TiVo) support recording two streams simultaneously. You can also watch a third, recorded program at the same time. The new HD DirecTiVo supports this for OTA (broadcast) digital programming as well.
The stand-alone TiVos include a control port for a wired link to DirecTV STBs. Unfortunately, some of the new, cheap DirecTV receivers lack the proper input for wired control. Most, perhaps all of the older models had this port (called the "low-speed data port").
Me too. I thought Circuit City's involvement with DivX showed total contempt for their customers. That isn't acceptable to me. I haven't shopped there since.
iowa through to denver is about the flatest, boringest drive in the entire world.
Actually, western Iowa is somewhat hilly. It doesn't get really flat until Nebraska. In western Nebraska, you can lock the steering wheel straight and take a nap. Seems like a couple hundred miles of straight, flat four-lane.
Assuming you're coming down I-35 and heading west on I-80, there are at least two restaurants with public Wi-Fi access near the I-35/I-80 junction on the west side of Des Moines. They are Legends American Grille and Autographs Bar & Grill. The Valley West Mall is also nearby, reportedly has Wi-Fi access in the Food Court area. All three require a free ID that you can get from I-Spot Networks. I haven't tried any of them yet.
Good luck with the weather. March is unpredictable in this area, you can get anything from sunny and 70's to ice storms to heavy blizzards. Don't trust any forecast more than a couple of days in advance.
They are the same thing. TurboTax uses the Macrovision C-Dilla (Safecast) license manager. It is covertly installed when you install TurboTax. It is not removed when you remove TurboTax, however. Intuit now offers a C-Dilla uninstaller on their web site.
I'm one of the legions of long-time TurboTax users who switched to TaxCut this year. Glad I did, TaxCut works just as well, costs half as much, and has no DRM or other installation games. As a bonus, it imports TurboTax data flawlessly.
We went through this before, in the early days of the PC (early 80's). Companies kept using more and more obnoxious forms of copy protection, making software more brittle, and more and more difficult to install and use. Finally enough consumers revolted and the software companies wised up. Looks like Intuit needs a history lesson.
I detest cable companies. We've had DirecTV since the first month it was rolled out nationally. SBC is one of the few companies that could make me go back to cable. Your average cable company is awful. SBC is worse.
If this happens, I predict DirecTV quality, value, and subscriber base will steadily decline until SBC finally dumps it at fire-sale pricing. SBC epitomizes all that is wrong with American corporations these days.
A gross historical mistake, seen on the Forbes' slideshow:
1954 - Telstar The first commercial communications satellite is launched... Three full years before the launch of the first Sputnik (as everybody knows, the first satellite).
I noticed that too. It's a typo. If you click on the "more information" link on the slide, they show the correct year of 1962.
That's the one I was looking forward to the most. Differing reports on how close it was to completion. Some said it was 90% there. Other reports said at least another year of work. In any case, there was a tremendous amount of work done including great models and new content with the original cast.
I have boycotted Sierra ever since. Not only did they kill the game, they chose to throw away the work done instead of selling it to someone who would finish the game. A group of the original developers formed a company and tried to finish it independently, but Sierra would not cooperate. Since Sierra held the B5 license, they not only killed this game, they killed any hope of someone else doing a B5 flight sim.
I think justifying SPAM - any SPAM - as free speech is total hogwash. I don't care whether it is commercial (UCE) or political (UPE?) or charitable (UChE?) or whatever (UWE?). SPAM by any other name still costs me money. SPAM is a collect phone call. SPAM is picking my pocket.
If I claimed you must accept my collect call because I have a right to speak, most people would tell me to take a hike. Make the same claim for SPAM, however, and a lot of otherwise sensible folks nod their head and point to the First Amendment. Nonsense! Freedom of speech is not absolute. Just like a punch in the nose - your rights end where my nose (and my pocket) begins.
Directly or indirectly, SPAM is taking my time and my money without my permission. The fact that each individual message costs most people only a small amount is immaterial. The fact that the cost of each SPAM is not itemized, but is buried in a monthly ISP or circuit cost is immaterial. Collectively, SPAM costs very real money. SPAM now accounts for roughtly 40% of all e-email. That's a tremendous expense, and it's growing. I wonder if the apologists would be so sanguine if they got a separate $8 bill for their helping of SPAM every month.
IMHO, it's pretty simple. Yes, you have the right to speak. No, I do NOT have to pay for your desire to do so. Period.
Don't you slashdotters understand yet? The music indsutry is trying to obsolete CDs as quickly as possible so that a more "protectable" format can be produced.
Sony used to be such an innovative engineering company. They made exceptional products of the highest quality with all the cool features that customers craved. Sadly, they've lost their drive for excellence, becoming just another marketing-driven company churning out me-too equipment.
Their remaining innovation seems mostly directed at dumping crippled products on their customers. They push proprietary "standards" like SDMI and invent new ways to lock up the tripe they press on CDs. And, just like Microsoft, if there's an industry standard, it's a good bet Sony is pushing a competing technology.
Sony still lets the engineers out once in a while, to create products like the Aibo. It has little commercial significance, but it keeps their image polished. In their profit-making lines, they're coasting on their reputation. They still command premium prices, but the value behind the logo is gone. Substance and performance have been replaced with frills and flash.
Like most companies, some Sony products are very good, some are junk, most are so-so. Unfortunately, even the decent stuff may have proprietary bells and whistles that increase costs or limit compatibility. The Sony brand used to top shoppers' buying lists. Now, unless you know a product well, the Sony brand is best avoided.
IMHO, YMMV, etc.
Re:Per Transaction Fees Suck...
on
Add-Ons Add Up
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· Score: 2
The part of this that really chafes, however, is that ATMs were introduced with fanfare about how they cut banking costs by reducing the need for expensive human tellers. We saw this realized over the years as banks reduced their branch locations, presumably reducing employment in the process. Eventually, ATMs became more convenient and more accessible than going into a bank.
Once ATMs became so well-accepted, banks started deciding that they were extra overhead that justify additional charges. They seem to have forgotten about the money they saved on tellers. And, now that ATM fees seem to be taken for granted, we are coming full circle. Some banks have the gaul to charge for using a human teller.
I'm sure most banks can offer lovely rationalizations about why this is all fair and proper. Most people, myself included, don't buy it. This is reinforced by noticing that many smaller banks, whose costs should be higher than the conglomerates, actually charge lower and fewer fees for their services. To us, the mega-bank conglomerates are poster-boys for unfettered greed and a complete contempt for one's customers.
But that's just my $0.02 worth (plus a $5.00 handling fee, an $11.50 opinion-returned-with-statement charge, a $3.00 foreign ISP charge, and a $0.50 monthly keyboard depreciation fee).
Shut her down Scotty, she's sucking mud again.
on
Gnarly Error Messages
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· Score: 5, Funny
True story, this message was in Tandy Xenix c. 1982 or so. The Tandy 16/6000 ran Xenix (UNIX System III with a lot of the BSD enhancements) on a Motorola 68000, but used a Z80 subsystem for I/O processing, including the console. This message was generated on the console by the Z80 subsystem. I don't remember exactly what caused it - it was really rare - but it basically meant the system was thoroughly hosed. You could see the message in the "z80ctl" binary if you knew where to look.
I doubt you could get that message past the suits these days. If you did, I'm sure Paramount would demand a royalty every time the message appeared (Star Trek franchiise).
This is reportedly one of the reasons Hollywood is pushing for digital cinema instead of film. Aside from the extra control they gain, it also allows the studios to readily open a movie world-wide. They can get out of the expensive business of duplicating, shipping, and handling stacks of reels of film.
The down side is that each theater must invest a small fortune in very expensive digital projection equipment. This is a big reason why there has not been much progress on converting to digital cinema; most theaters run on pretty slim margins. And, like any digital storage medium, some people fear that a switch to digital movies will ultimately lead to the loss of those movies as technology changes. Will future generations be able to read the data from a movie saved today?
No, i think it did its job spledidly. It prevented the general populace from spreading movies where they don't want, and it still does . How many people do you think buy a Gateway Computer, with DVD, tech support, ect., and don't know jack about Regional encoding.
I think that's a U.S.-centric view of the situation. Region-free and region-selectable DVD players aren't that widespread in the U.S. simply because there's little incentive to do the mods here. We already get the widest selection of titles at the lowest prices. There are exceptions, of course, like Japanese anime lovers and film buffs looking for a certain, often uncut version of a film, but they're a small portion of the overall U.S. market.
The rest of the world is in a different boat. When you read about region-coding hacks, you are almost invariably reading about someone who wants to play Region 1 discs. This article is a case in point.
If you do a Google search for "region-free", most of the sites you find will be overseas. The retailers who sell region-free players and mods are everywhere but the U.S. When I ordered a mod board for my Pioneer, I ordered it from a European site and paid in Euros, even though the company shipped the product from an office in the U.S. Their major focus is Europe; they don't do much business here in the USA.
Having said that, I will be astonished if Hollywood really gives up on region-coding. They are the ultimate control freaks; it's hard to imagine they'll suddenly start selling what the customer wants instead of what Hollywood wants.
I don't have a reference, but I understood that there is a long-standing legal doctrine that recipients of unsolicited merchandise have no obligation whatsoever. Am I off base, or has this changed? According to the column, this doctor may not even have the right to throw the book away.
When one buys a product with a shrink-wrap license, the vendor can at least claim the customer made a decision to acquire it. This new scam is beyond outrageous.
I always thought a solution might be to automatically post a link to the Google cache as the first post for every story. That would kill two birds with one stone - dilute the/. effect -and- nullify the first-post crowd. What's the fun in claiming "second post?"
Though I really wish the newspaper analogy was solid, I don't think it is. From a legality standpoint, this may really be more akin to the marketing restrictions various manufacturers place on their products.
For example, certain companies (e.g., Sony, Bose, Pioneer Elite) prohibit mail-order and Internet sales of some of their products. Their contracts with retailers prohibit out-of-market selling, allegedly to "ensure that their products are properly set up and supported," but really to protect the margins of the local boutique retailers who cannot compete with mass market stores.
If you want to buy an Elite receiver, you can travel to New York to buy it from J&R, but you cannot mail order it from J&R. In short, you must travel to where the product is sold. This is obviously not fair to the consumer, but it must be legal because they keep doing it.
In the same way, I suspect the networks can claim the right to control how their product is delivered. They have decided to grant regional monopolies to local broadcasters, and using the same principal as Pioneer, they claim the right to prohibit other stations from broadcasting outside of their assigned areas. If you want to watch New York affiliates, you have to travel to the New York area.
This is speculation on my part. IANAL, and I have no first-hand experience with either industry. But, if this regulation is upheld, I'll bet this is the justification used. It's not right, it's not fair, but it's business as usual.
I actually had this happen to my 11-year-old. When I first tried to set up an @home account for him, his name (first.last) was already in use so I used another variant. With the disintegration of @home, their customers are moving to new ISPs. In the process, we discovered that my son's name had become available, both at @home and at our new ISP.
We switched his account to the first.last format, and he immediately started receiving lots of spam - including porn - meant for the previous user. My wife was horrified, and wouldn't let him check e-mail until she screened it first. Once we moved entirely off of @home, the problem went away... for now.
You should be careful before sending pages of porn to your congress-critters. I don't know the details, but I know there are laws in the U.S. re. snail-mailing porn. Your spammers would probably really enjoy having you in court, possibly even in jail, while they continue to spam porn to the world.
Just a thought.
Does anyone know the requlations regarding sending pornographic materials via the US Postal Service?
Don't listen to this guy. If everyone gave up before they started just because they were afriad to learn or try where would civilization be?
If we tried to learn bridge-building by starting with the Golden Gate, we'd be at the bottom of San Francisco Bay.
Who said anything about giving up? Just start with something manageable and build on the experience.
Programming is an art form. "Software Engineering" is an oxymoron unless your project is staffed with developers who are already proficient in building very similar systems.
If this is a commercial project, please tell us the name of the game so we can avoid it.
In all seriousness, in my opinion (unless you're doing this solely as a personal learning experience), you are starting with two critical strikes:
1. You're trying to do a major project in a language you don't know (and an immature one at that).
2. You're trying to do a major project in a genre with which you have no experience.
Either one could cripple the project. Put them both together and you're doomed before you start. You may eventually make it work - sort of - but it will never work well, and it will be riddled with bugs.
I encourage you to start by developing a small multi-player game in a language in which you are already proficient. This will let you focus on the design and structure without fighting the language. Keep it simple, manage the scale, but incorporate the kinds of capabilities you want in the final version.
When you've got that working, throw it awy and develop it again in C#. Since you're starting with a working design , you're now free to focus on the mechanics of the language. You need time to learn its limitations and idiosyncracies, and to become proficient. (I will let others debate the wisdom of C# - I'm skeptical of all proprietary languages, especially until they're field-proven.)
Once you have succesfully finished a small project in C#, you can begin planning your real game. Based on your experiences, you may decide to scrap C# entirely. If you choose to stick with C#, then throw away ALL of your original code and start over. No matter how good you think your first code was, by the time you finish the big project you will know that it's crap. Might as well get it out of the way up front to reduce re-work and improve the overall quality.
Of course, if this is a project you've been assigned as a commercial effort, you won't be given the luxury of doing it well. You probably already have a deadline pulled out of thin air, and you're probably already behind schedule. Speaking as a pointy-haired boss who actually has significant coding experience (a long time ago, in a galaxy... etc.), most PHB's have no clue when it comes to software development. They work with the suits to draw up pretty little Gantt charts, and haven't the foggiest notion as to why they are complete fantasies. You can see some of the results in the bargain bin of your local Best Buy, or in the "still delayed" list of your favorite gaming magazine.
If you dig around in the Press section, you can find a little more information. For example, this is quoted from a publication (?) called "Twice", whatever that is:
Icebox, LLC, the makers of a line of kitchen-centric interactive TV terminals, announced here that it will develop an interactive kitchen entertainment terminal as a rapid development partner for Microsoft's Windows CE.NET operating platform. Windows CE.NET is an embedded operating system designed for maximum interoperability between CE devices while allowing a broad range of Internet-based features including instant messaging and home networking capability using such standards as wireless 802.11. Icebox, LLC executives said the "thin client" OS needs minimal storage memory and is said to be ideal for typical CE devices that have only DRAM or internal Flash memory chips to store software programs. Other key benefits of the new version of the OS are said to be: reduced overall cost to consumers, faster delivery of products to market, and an open environment for third party developers to write additional software programs. Also, because device and software interoperability is enhanced, Windows CE.NET products will be less likely to crash, iCEBOX exeuctives said. iCEBOX executives said the new OS should cut down on product development cost since it is designed to require a minimal amount of customization when manufacturers plan to add new features or functions. Earlier iCEBOX products had been based on a Wind River operating system. Home networking and interoperability between CE devices will be enhanced as Microsoft expands its list of manufacturer partners building Windows CE.NET into next-generation devices. As a rapid development partner, iCEBOX has agreed to have a Windows CE.NET-enabled kitchen terminal by the second quarter of the year. The company is demonstrating an early prototype with an undercounter LCD display design at CES. iCEBOX expects its first Window CE.NET product will leverage such applications as Microsoft's calendar system for a family calendar. The company's kitchen terminals combine TV reception with DVD, and CD playback, and Internet access. "We're not inventing anything new, but it's useful," said Heidi Mikkelsen, Icebox's marketing manager. "You can have your morning coffee, see the news and check on the kids. And it doesn't take up a lot of counter space.
Anyone know what their previous products were ("based on a Wind River operating system")? Another blurb mentions that the iCEBOX is from the same people who developed the George Foreman grill.
I agree that they've come up with an ideal form for kitchen use. I'm not sure if it's worth $3000, but it's pretty cool.
... provides insight into how they imagine user-hostile digital right management systems
To me, "user-hostile" sounds too impersonal. I suggest "customer-hostile" instead. I think it better captures the contempt the industry feels for the people who buy their products.
It's also easier to say than, "I spent my hard-earned dollars on your over-priced, lowest-common-denominator tripe and now you're telling me I can't even play it how and when I want!?!"
Slashdot Mirror
... that we can boycott? (Or is Microsoft, in fact, at the root of it?)
It may look ridiculous to you, but it's the same suit other states have already won (e.g., California). The difference in Iowa is the AG's office says it is not willing to settle for Microsoft discount coupons. It wants cash for Iowans, arguing it's absurd to tell someone who's been "harmed" by MS that their remedy requires doing yet more business with the company that harmed them.
The stand-alone TiVos include a control port for a wired link to DirecTV STBs. Unfortunately, some of the new, cheap DirecTV receivers lack the proper input for wired control. Most, perhaps all of the older models had this port (called the "low-speed data port").
Me too. I thought Circuit City's involvement with DivX showed total contempt for their customers. That isn't acceptable to me. I haven't shopped there since.
Actually, western Iowa is somewhat hilly. It doesn't get really flat until Nebraska. In western Nebraska, you can lock the steering wheel straight and take a nap. Seems like a couple hundred miles of straight, flat four-lane.
Assuming you're coming down I-35 and heading west on I-80, there are at least two restaurants with public Wi-Fi access near the I-35/I-80 junction on the west side of Des Moines. They are Legends American Grille and Autographs Bar & Grill. The Valley West Mall is also nearby, reportedly has Wi-Fi access in the Food Court area. All three require a free ID that you can get from I-Spot Networks. I haven't tried any of them yet.
Good luck with the weather. March is unpredictable in this area, you can get anything from sunny and 70's to ice storms to heavy blizzards. Don't trust any forecast more than a couple of days in advance.
I'm one of the legions of long-time TurboTax users who switched to TaxCut this year. Glad I did, TaxCut works just as well, costs half as much, and has no DRM or other installation games. As a bonus, it imports TurboTax data flawlessly.
We went through this before, in the early days of the PC (early 80's). Companies kept using more and more obnoxious forms of copy protection, making software more brittle, and more and more difficult to install and use. Finally enough consumers revolted and the software companies wised up. Looks like Intuit needs a history lesson.
If this happens, I predict DirecTV quality, value, and subscriber base will steadily decline until SBC finally dumps it at fire-sale pricing. SBC epitomizes all that is wrong with American corporations these days.
I noticed that too. It's a typo. If you click on the "more information" link on the slide, they show the correct year of 1962.
I have boycotted Sierra ever since. Not only did they kill the game, they chose to throw away the work done instead of selling it to someone who would finish the game. A group of the original developers formed a company and tried to finish it independently, but Sierra would not cooperate. Since Sierra held the B5 license, they not only killed this game, they killed any hope of someone else doing a B5 flight sim.
If I claimed you must accept my collect call because I have a right to speak, most people would tell me to take a hike. Make the same claim for SPAM, however, and a lot of otherwise sensible folks nod their head and point to the First Amendment. Nonsense! Freedom of speech is not absolute. Just like a punch in the nose - your rights end where my nose (and my pocket) begins.
Directly or indirectly, SPAM is taking my time and my money without my permission. The fact that each individual message costs most people only a small amount is immaterial. The fact that the cost of each SPAM is not itemized, but is buried in a monthly ISP or circuit cost is immaterial. Collectively, SPAM costs very real money. SPAM now accounts for roughtly 40% of all e-email. That's a tremendous expense, and it's growing. I wonder if the apologists would be so sanguine if they got a separate $8 bill for their helping of SPAM every month.
IMHO, it's pretty simple. Yes, you have the right to speak. No, I do NOT have to pay for your desire to do so. Period.
They already have, SACD.
See also this article on Slashdot a couple of weeks ago.
Their remaining innovation seems mostly directed at dumping crippled products on their customers. They push proprietary "standards" like SDMI and invent new ways to lock up the tripe they press on CDs. And, just like Microsoft, if there's an industry standard, it's a good bet Sony is pushing a competing technology.
Sony still lets the engineers out once in a while, to create products like the Aibo. It has little commercial significance, but it keeps their image polished. In their profit-making lines, they're coasting on their reputation. They still command premium prices, but the value behind the logo is gone. Substance and performance have been replaced with frills and flash.
Like most companies, some Sony products are very good, some are junk, most are so-so. Unfortunately, even the decent stuff may have proprietary bells and whistles that increase costs or limit compatibility. The Sony brand used to top shoppers' buying lists. Now, unless you know a product well, the Sony brand is best avoided.
IMHO, YMMV, etc.
Once ATMs became so well-accepted, banks started deciding that they were extra overhead that justify additional charges. They seem to have forgotten about the money they saved on tellers. And, now that ATM fees seem to be taken for granted, we are coming full circle. Some banks have the gaul to charge for using a human teller.
I'm sure most banks can offer lovely rationalizations about why this is all fair and proper. Most people, myself included, don't buy it. This is reinforced by noticing that many smaller banks, whose costs should be higher than the conglomerates, actually charge lower and fewer fees for their services. To us, the mega-bank conglomerates are poster-boys for unfettered greed and a complete contempt for one's customers.
But that's just my $0.02 worth (plus a $5.00 handling fee, an $11.50 opinion-returned-with-statement charge, a $3.00 foreign ISP charge, and a $0.50 monthly keyboard depreciation fee).
I doubt you could get that message past the suits these days. If you did, I'm sure Paramount would demand a royalty every time the message appeared (Star Trek franchiise).
The down side is that each theater must invest a small fortune in very expensive digital projection equipment. This is a big reason why there has not been much progress on converting to digital cinema; most theaters run on pretty slim margins. And, like any digital storage medium, some people fear that a switch to digital movies will ultimately lead to the loss of those movies as technology changes. Will future generations be able to read the data from a movie saved today?
I think that's a U.S.-centric view of the situation. Region-free and region-selectable DVD players aren't that widespread in the U.S. simply because there's little incentive to do the mods here. We already get the widest selection of titles at the lowest prices. There are exceptions, of course, like Japanese anime lovers and film buffs looking for a certain, often uncut version of a film, but they're a small portion of the overall U.S. market.
The rest of the world is in a different boat. When you read about region-coding hacks, you are almost invariably reading about someone who wants to play Region 1 discs. This article is a case in point.
If you do a Google search for "region-free", most of the sites you find will be overseas. The retailers who sell region-free players and mods are everywhere but the U.S. When I ordered a mod board for my Pioneer, I ordered it from a European site and paid in Euros, even though the company shipped the product from an office in the U.S. Their major focus is Europe; they don't do much business here in the USA.
Having said that, I will be astonished if Hollywood really gives up on region-coding. They are the ultimate control freaks; it's hard to imagine they'll suddenly start selling what the customer wants instead of what Hollywood wants.
When one buys a product with a shrink-wrap license, the vendor can at least claim the customer made a decision to acquire it. This new scam is beyond outrageous.
I always thought a solution might be to automatically post a link to the Google cache as the first post for every story. That would kill two birds with one stone - dilute the /. effect -and- nullify the first-post crowd. What's the fun in claiming "second post?"
For example, certain companies (e.g., Sony, Bose, Pioneer Elite) prohibit mail-order and Internet sales of some of their products. Their contracts with retailers prohibit out-of-market selling, allegedly to "ensure that their products are properly set up and supported," but really to protect the margins of the local boutique retailers who cannot compete with mass market stores.
If you want to buy an Elite receiver, you can travel to New York to buy it from J&R, but you cannot mail order it from J&R. In short, you must travel to where the product is sold. This is obviously not fair to the consumer, but it must be legal because they keep doing it.
In the same way, I suspect the networks can claim the right to control how their product is delivered. They have decided to grant regional monopolies to local broadcasters, and using the same principal as Pioneer, they claim the right to prohibit other stations from broadcasting outside of their assigned areas. If you want to watch New York affiliates, you have to travel to the New York area.
This is speculation on my part. IANAL, and I have no first-hand experience with either industry. But, if this regulation is upheld, I'll bet this is the justification used. It's not right, it's not fair, but it's business as usual.
We switched his account to the first.last format, and he immediately started receiving lots of spam - including porn - meant for the previous user. My wife was horrified, and wouldn't let him check e-mail until she screened it first. Once we moved entirely off of @home, the problem went away ... for now.
Just a thought.
Does anyone know the requlations regarding sending pornographic materials via the US Postal Service?
If we tried to learn bridge-building by starting with the Golden Gate, we'd be at the bottom of San Francisco Bay.
Who said anything about giving up? Just start with something manageable and build on the experience. Programming is an art form. "Software Engineering" is an oxymoron unless your project is staffed with developers who are already proficient in building very similar systems.
In all seriousness, in my opinion (unless you're doing this solely as a personal learning experience), you are starting with two critical strikes:
1. You're trying to do a major project in a language you don't know (and an immature one at that).
2. You're trying to do a major project in a genre with which you have no experience.
Either one could cripple the project. Put them both together and you're doomed before you start. You may eventually make it work - sort of - but it will never work well, and it will be riddled with bugs.
I encourage you to start by developing a small multi-player game in a language in which you are already proficient. This will let you focus on the design and structure without fighting the language. Keep it simple, manage the scale, but incorporate the kinds of capabilities you want in the final version.
When you've got that working, throw it awy and develop it again in C#. Since you're starting with a working design , you're now free to focus on the mechanics of the language. You need time to learn its limitations and idiosyncracies, and to become proficient. (I will let others debate the wisdom of C# - I'm skeptical of all proprietary languages, especially until they're field-proven.)
Once you have succesfully finished a small project in C#, you can begin planning your real game. Based on your experiences, you may decide to scrap C# entirely. If you choose to stick with C#, then throw away ALL of your original code and start over. No matter how good you think your first code was, by the time you finish the big project you will know that it's crap. Might as well get it out of the way up front to reduce re-work and improve the overall quality.
Of course, if this is a project you've been assigned as a commercial effort, you won't be given the luxury of doing it well. You probably already have a deadline pulled out of thin air, and you're probably already behind schedule. Speaking as a pointy-haired boss who actually has significant coding experience (a long time ago, in a galaxy ... etc.), most PHB's have no clue when it comes to software development. They work with the suits to draw up pretty little Gantt charts, and haven't the foggiest notion as to why they are complete fantasies. You can see some of the results in the bargain bin of your local Best Buy, or in the "still delayed" list of your favorite gaming magazine.
In any case, good luck.
I agree that they've come up with an ideal form for kitchen use. I'm not sure if it's worth $3000, but it's pretty cool.
To me, "user-hostile" sounds too impersonal. I suggest "customer-hostile" instead. I think it better captures the contempt the industry feels for the people who buy their products.
It's also easier to say than, "I spent my hard-earned dollars on your over-priced, lowest-common-denominator tripe and now you're telling me I can't even play it how and when I want!?!"