God, I that is not the case. The one thing religion has proved here on Earth is that it's excellent at motivating people to kill other people. Hopefully, our progeny will leave the religions of Earth behind when they build new societies on different planets. Maybe by doing so they will have a better chance at acheiving something peaceful and stable.
And FYI, contrary to popular belief, colonization in the Americas was not driven by religion. But rather it was driven primarily by the All-American desire for capitalistic gain. Religious settlement was, for the most part, just a side show. Although there were some places in particular where religious settlement was the primary driver, ie. MARYland. But in general, if America had not been profitable for people, we probably wouldn't be what we are today. And likewise, unless people can find ways to make interplanetary colonization profitable, it will be a looooooong time coming.
I disagree that the Republicans still use fiscal conservatism as a point of difference with Democrats. Republicans are just as free with the money as Democrats. The difference is where the money goes. Democrats lean more toward social welfare and environmental spending, whereas Republicans lean toward corporate welfare and military spending. Fiscally speaking, Democrats and Republicans are just two sides of the same coin.
The real point of difference between Democrats and Republicans these days is social policy. Republicans are far more conservative in general, being led on the right by christian organizations. Democrats are more liberal, being led on the left by civil libertarians and environmentalists.
If you are worried about storing the credit card numbers, why not just put them in a db on some form of offline storage that is only connected on the day billing occurs. The only way you can really keep something secure for sure is to have it physically inaccessible.
Re:The problem is not a failure of the market
on
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I disagree. I see this as a market failure because the big broadcasters were able to move much faster than any sort of public opinion in acquiring the majority of the radio stations in America. They have reached a point where the public is pretty irrellevant to their programming, because they know the public HAS to listen to what they play because there are few to no alternatives. CC bought them all!
Advertisers can exert no pressure on CC either, because if they want to advertise on the air, well they have to do it on a CC station for the same reason the public has to listen to it. Their only choice is "Do I want to have my commericals on KRAP101.9 or KRAP106.7."
You can't even say that people have political recourse because politicians are bought and sold like stock. Political direction is sold to the highest bidder.
And so the invisible hand is amputated at the shoulder, and the market fails.
That has to be the biggest load of crap I have ever read on Slashdot, or possibly anywhere. I have never read such an overly cerebral explanation for why one crap movie does better than another crap movie. I'm not sure what planet this man lives on, but here I'm pretty sure that this "generation coup d'etat" was not evidence of masses of "rebellious youth" balking at mega-hype. If anything, it is totally the opposite. If you ask me it is evidence of a generation absurdly addicted to blindly following what the marketing droids beam out from every corner of our existence.
I'm not sure where this assertion that Spiderman was less hyped than Star Wars came from, but if this guy would just got to damn grociery store he would see it is totally false. I'm sorry, but I just cannot consider a movie whose main character's image has been used not just as a cereal box toy but actual cereal, to be less hyped than Star Wars. There are even Spiderman Pop-Tarts. What the hell is that? No, Spiderman's excellent performance owes itself to the insane and omnipresent marketing and franchise it garnered. For the past six months, Spiderman has been an inescapable image.
Then there is this issue of people avoiding Star Wars because it is too complex, having outgrown it's audience. In some ways, I can agree with this, but I cannot believe that this man believes that's actually a good thing. People don't want to see thoughtful movies anymore. People only want to see simplistic movies with linear, single-threaded plots. God forbid causing someone to actually think for a minute. Jesus!
Spiderman outperformed Star Wars because it is a typical summer action movie. It is full of the "beautiful" people. It is loaded with action. It has a simple, mind-numbing, predictable plot. Star Wars is a serial epic, presenting a complex plot that spans multiple movies. And let's not forget that Star Wars has developed a bit of geek stigma, which beyond the Slashdot world is generally looked upon grimmly. What kind of guy is going to take his braindead date to see a Star Wars flick? She would no doubt be far too confused to put out at the end of the night.
No no, this commentary gives far to much credit to the driving cultural motivations in our society. People are dumb, and getting dumber by the day as they consume more and more brain candy like Spiderman.
I think your head might explode if something caused you to passionately believe in both sides of the a single argument. It would be like tiny Israelis and Palestinians in your head.
I really get the feeling that, in general, the public is clueless about the things the MPAA, RIAA and others are trying to do to fair use rights. You never almost never hear about DRM in the mainstream media. I really feel that if people knew and understood the consequences of this sort of thing, that they might be more vocal to their congressional representatives. For once, I would like to see one those asinine email chain letters start circulating to inform people about this kind of legislation. It might be one of the few things those chain letters could be good for.
Spamming issues aside, email chains really are a great way to get a message out to huge numbers of people. People won't think twice about forwarding an email to everyone on their address list, and hence the flood of "Little Johnny Needs a Kidney" messages in my inbox. Remember how upset people get over the occaisional bouts of "Congress wants to tax email" type chains. When I last spoke to the representative for my district, he said they still get calls from irrate constituents complaining over email taxes.
The point is that email spreads messages very very rapidly and to a very large audience. All for free. And the more sensational the email the faster it spreads. It would be nice to see some nice, clear, and authoritative chain letter start circulation about DRM. It needs to be a message that informs people that it's not just an issue for nerds and computer geeks, but one that it really can and will impact their lives. And one that counters the claims by the RIAA and MPAA that this is really for their benefit.
People really do react when they think something they enjoy is threatened, the problem is just they just usually don't know or realize the threat until it's too late.
I think at least part of the reason why we are seeing these proposals one right after another is because the ban on soft money is right around the corner. When it takes affect, it will be at least a little harder for these groups to line pockets and buy congressional delegates. The MPAA, RIAA, etc. are really wanting to do these things while their influence is at it's max.
Can it be coincidence that the military is developing unmanned attack vehicles at the same time they are developing and promoting war games with realistic physics? Just yesterday, Boeing conducted the maiden flight of the X45A UCAV, an unmanned attack airplane that is designed to be shipped into a conflict region and flown in advance of manned aircraft. You can read about that at msnbc.com.
But as for these games, what better way to train people to control these vehicles than by getting young people to play them and master them in virtual form. Some day would you even know the difference if your networked war flight sim was really just a sim, or if the mission you thought you were flying virtually was actually being flown in some remote theater of battle.
If you really think about it has some very disturbing aspects. For one, imagine the level of detachment this allows a person. If you are flying a plane or driving a tank in the real world, seeing the innocent people living near your target might cause you to have second thoughts about hitting that target because you might kill innocents. But would you think twice about blowing up civilians in a game if that's what your mission called for? Probably not. It's just a game after all, right?
Now, of course if you knew the game you were playing was tied to events in reality, again, your morality might give you pause. But what if there was just a 1 in 100 chance that the events in the game were real. 1 in a 1000? At some point, you might stop worrying about it because you think it's just a game again. But imagine hundreds and thousands of 'soldiers' reporting for duty every day, with the only job being playing these war games for hours. It seems like a good way to commit acts that might be considered atrocities to the world without the moral and ethical concerns for the low level personnel.
But wouldn't that sort of, oh I dunno, be totally the opposite of the whole point behind large P2P networks? If the world of P2P consisted of what you propose, small, closed networks of a few individuals, then one's selection of media would be seriously curtailed. The beauty of large scale P2P is that you can find almost anything you want. And the odds of finding that rare gem of media increases as the network grows.
The aversion to people using your bandwidth is what causes the biggest problem in P2P networks...the lack of reciprocity. Sure people are willing to download gigabytes from someone else, but they are too selfish to share their own. It's that sort of behavior that cause the frustration of finding the media you are lookin for, only to be let down by a perpetual "request queued" messages. It's selfishness that is the real weakness in P2P sharing networks.
If you want a mini P2P system, then make your own software or use FTP.
Let us not forget that the first looping roller-coaster, the Flip-Flap, exerted 12g's of force on passengers as they went through 25-foot diameter loop. The coaster had a tendancy to snap people's necks as they went through the loop, sometimes killing them in the process. People paid just to watch it operate.
Instead of lowering the price on the XBOX, Microsoft could bundle in their dvd kit at the current $199 price for value added competition instead of direct price competition. It would be a smart move for Microsoft because 1) producing that kit is probably cheaper than lowering the price of the xbox $50, 2) it provides a great advertisement angle--"More raw power than Gamecube and a FREE DVD Player!", and 3) people are suckers for 'free' stuff and value added items.
Because the price gap between the Xbox and Gamecube is now just $50 dollars, I think consumers on the fence will be looking beyond just the price and more towards the things the consoles can do. And with the DVD kit, the Xbox wins the features competition, not necessarily because people would actually use the DVD features; but just because people like a bargain.
I believe this line of thinking might actually be applicable if you were to write a peice of software that would delete or corrupt data on hardware that it was not explicitly designed for. If you said "This software will not work on any computer except INSERTBRAND computer," then if Sony is not liable for what this cd does why should you be responsible for what your software does when you expressly said it won't work on anything but what you have approved?
You didn't say "Use of this software on unapproved hardware will eat your data," but Sony didn't put in their disclaimer that you may have to send your computer in for service after trying to use their disc. It seems like it would be like Microsoft selling copies of Windows to OEMs that looks at the BIOS to determine who the manufacturer of the computer is and if it's not the one hard coded into that particular distribution then it flashes over said BIOS. Thus the computer is basically rendered dead, and evil pirating is prevented!
Then when you sue Microsoft for killing your new motherboard, they will say "Well why were you trying to install 'Windows XP for Dell' on your home built machine?" Hmmm, a shocking concept.
Be careful if you decide to try using a dry erase marker. I once wrote on the label side of a Verbatim CD-R with a blue dry erase marker and it disolved the surface and caused it to flake. You could see through the disk in places. I dunno what it would do on the data side of the disk though, but you might take it into consideration.
To me, true intelligence is the ability to draw on the knowledge that you already possess to synthesize new ideas and concepts. It is the ability to think, REALLY think, that is important. That's the source of common sense, which sadly is lacking in most people these days.
That's why schools in the US are so abysmal. They have gone the route of trying to shovel in dry facts and data into the empty heads of the young rather than teaching them how to think. It's like mental welfare.
That's not deflation, that's devaluation due to innovation. In the real world, deflation has only occured twice in the history of the US economy, namely during the Great Depression and once before in the 1890's following the collapse of several railroad companies. But that is not to say deflation is impossible, just look at the Japanese economy.
I seem to recall that Neilson has some patents or IP that they use hedge out any competition with legal action. Now that I think about it, I wonder what one is to do if you are bound by a court order to violate someone elses IP. Are you personally liable for the violation? And if you are not, since the no one can sue the court, does the IP holder simply have to eat any loss of revenue?
I will never by a product that include technology from RealNetworks. Sony is probably wanting to license Real's techniques for tricking consumers into subscribing to their service.
But seriously. RealNetworks is a terribly anticonsumer company. They make crap software and use deceptive practices to snare consumers into their subscription trap. And then they share your personal information with "selected partners." It's evil I tell you, evil.
But sadly, it is the direction in which a lot of internet companies are heading these days. I respect the right to make a buck, but not through deceptive practices that take advantage of some consumers.
Backward compatability becomes and impediment to innovation over time. It's the same problem MS has had for years. Problems that existed in earlier architectures must be maintained in future version if the designers wish to maintain full backward compatability.
Microsofts endeavor to improve Windows over time was saddled with the problems that existed in the original MS DOS. Only by abandoning technologies of the past at some point can the designers expect to move forward with real innovation.
The way around that of course is to run virtual machines that abstract the software from the hardware. But using a virtual machine architecture has its own caveats, like adding additional complexity.
Personally, I would prefer that designers of game systems just avoid backward compatability issues. If there is some game from an older system that I want to play, it is likely that I have that older system to play it with anyway. I would rather designers focus on innovation than on life support for aging technology.
I bought a Gateway 2000 in '96 or '97, and in the book it recommended opening the case and familiarizing yourself with the internal components. It had a whole section on what the bits and peices were. It was lovely. How times change.
This and the news of their plan to use the cow against the RIAA makes it appear to me that they are gravitating toward and image change to set them apart from the other computer makers. This sort of "anti-establishment" plan could be an attempt to get the attention of all those millions of pirateers the RIAA is so afraid of. Grabbing just a portion of that market would be a signifigant win for Gateway with its recent lackluster business.
It all makes me wonder how long it will be until Gateway sheds it's cowspots in favor of eye patches and parrots. But seriously, I wonder if we will see them installing Kazaa or Morpheus by default before too long.
Ah yes, the early 90's the glory days of computer shopper. That once was a great magazine/catalog. I remember when it was once 2 inches thick, full of phone book like pages with ads upon ads of obscure little tech companies. I found some great bargans in that magazine.
But alas, I watched as it became slimmer and slimmer each month until it eventually shrivled into a clone of all the other computer magazines out there. Damn you ZD.
All it takes to kill the EULA craze is a strong precedent set in court that makes them illegal or limits their authority. Up until now, I have not seen any major cases challenging EULA, perhaps because for the most part they have been pretty banal and benign. But shinanigans like that of the Radlight EULA will land the EULA movement in court with a lovely challenge. And that's good for us.
Well hopefully it would be USB 2.0. Just about as fast as firewire. Backward compatible with USB 1.0 and 1.1. It would work on just about everyone's pc or mac.
If I remember correctly, bluetooth 1.1 comes in with a transfer rate of about 720Kbps and only works in about a 10m radius (for devices, access points have longer ranges). At that rate, It would take about 16 hours to copy 5GB of data to or from the device. So unless you plan on standing close to somebody for a quite a while, the mental images of swapping mp3 collections or walking for warez can be put on hold for now.
Now if they will support Bluetooth 2, the situation improves...
Slashdot Mirror
God, I that is not the case. The one thing religion has proved here on Earth is that it's excellent at motivating people to kill other people. Hopefully, our progeny will leave the religions of Earth behind when they build new societies on different planets. Maybe by doing so they will have a better chance at acheiving something peaceful and stable.
And FYI, contrary to popular belief, colonization in the Americas was not driven by religion. But rather it was driven primarily by the All-American desire for capitalistic gain. Religious settlement was, for the most part, just a side show. Although there were some places in particular where religious settlement was the primary driver, ie. MARYland. But in general, if America had not been profitable for people, we probably wouldn't be what we are today. And likewise, unless people can find ways to make interplanetary colonization profitable, it will be a looooooong time coming.
I disagree that the Republicans still use fiscal conservatism as a point of difference with Democrats. Republicans are just as free with the money as Democrats. The difference is where the money goes. Democrats lean more toward social welfare and environmental spending, whereas Republicans lean toward corporate welfare and military spending. Fiscally speaking, Democrats and Republicans are just two sides of the same coin.
The real point of difference between Democrats and Republicans these days is social policy. Republicans are far more conservative in general, being led on the right by christian organizations. Democrats are more liberal, being led on the left by civil libertarians and environmentalists.
If you are worried about storing the credit card numbers, why not just put them in a db on some form of offline storage that is only connected on the day billing occurs. The only way you can really keep something secure for sure is to have it physically inaccessible.
I disagree. I see this as a market failure because the big broadcasters were able to move much faster than any sort of public opinion in acquiring the majority of the radio stations in America. They have reached a point where the public is pretty irrellevant to their programming, because they know the public HAS to listen to what they play because there are few to no alternatives. CC bought them all!
Advertisers can exert no pressure on CC either, because if they want to advertise on the air, well they have to do it on a CC station for the same reason the public has to listen to it. Their only choice is "Do I want to have my commericals on KRAP101.9 or KRAP106.7."
You can't even say that people have political recourse because politicians are bought and sold like stock. Political direction is sold to the highest bidder.
And so the invisible hand is amputated at the shoulder, and the market fails.
That has to be the biggest load of crap I have ever read on Slashdot, or possibly anywhere. I have never read such an overly cerebral explanation for why one crap movie does better than another crap movie. I'm not sure what planet this man lives on, but here I'm pretty sure that this "generation coup d'etat" was not evidence of masses of "rebellious youth" balking at mega-hype. If anything, it is totally the opposite. If you ask me it is evidence of a generation absurdly addicted to blindly following what the marketing droids beam out from every corner of our existence.
I'm not sure where this assertion that Spiderman was less hyped than Star Wars came from, but if this guy would just got to damn grociery store he would see it is totally false. I'm sorry, but I just cannot consider a movie whose main character's image has been used not just as a cereal box toy but actual cereal, to be less hyped than Star Wars. There are even Spiderman Pop-Tarts. What the hell is that? No, Spiderman's excellent performance owes itself to the insane and omnipresent marketing and franchise it garnered. For the past six months, Spiderman has been an inescapable image.
Then there is this issue of people avoiding Star Wars because it is too complex, having outgrown it's audience. In some ways, I can agree with this, but I cannot believe that this man believes that's actually a good thing. People don't want to see thoughtful movies anymore. People only want to see simplistic movies with linear, single-threaded plots. God forbid causing someone to actually think for a minute. Jesus!
Spiderman outperformed Star Wars because it is a typical summer action movie. It is full of the "beautiful" people. It is loaded with action. It has a simple, mind-numbing, predictable plot. Star Wars is a serial epic, presenting a complex plot that spans multiple movies. And let's not forget that Star Wars has developed a bit of geek stigma, which beyond the Slashdot world is generally looked upon grimmly. What kind of guy is going to take his braindead date to see a Star Wars flick? She would no doubt be far too confused to put out at the end of the night.
No no, this commentary gives far to much credit to the driving cultural motivations in our society. People are dumb, and getting dumber by the day as they consume more and more brain candy like Spiderman.
I think your head might explode if something caused you to passionately believe in both sides of the a single argument. It would be like tiny Israelis and Palestinians in your head.
I really get the feeling that, in general, the public is clueless about the things the MPAA, RIAA and others are trying to do to fair use rights. You never almost never hear about DRM in the mainstream media. I really feel that if people knew and understood the consequences of this sort of thing, that they might be more vocal to their congressional representatives. For once, I would like to see one those asinine email chain letters start circulating to inform people about this kind of legislation. It might be one of the few things those chain letters could be good for.
Spamming issues aside, email chains really are a great way to get a message out to huge numbers of people. People won't think twice about forwarding an email to everyone on their address list, and hence the flood of "Little Johnny Needs a Kidney" messages in my inbox. Remember how upset people get over the occaisional bouts of "Congress wants to tax email" type chains. When I last spoke to the representative for my district, he said they still get calls from irrate constituents complaining over email taxes.
The point is that email spreads messages very very rapidly and to a very large audience. All for free. And the more sensational the email the faster it spreads. It would be nice to see some nice, clear, and authoritative chain letter start circulation about DRM. It needs to be a message that informs people that it's not just an issue for nerds and computer geeks, but one that it really can and will impact their lives. And one that counters the claims by the RIAA and MPAA that this is really for their benefit.
People really do react when they think something they enjoy is threatened, the problem is just they just usually don't know or realize the threat until it's too late.
I think at least part of the reason why we are seeing these proposals one right after another is because the ban on soft money is right around the corner. When it takes affect, it will be at least a little harder for these groups to line pockets and buy congressional delegates. The MPAA, RIAA, etc. are really wanting to do these things while their influence is at it's max.
Can it be coincidence that the military is developing unmanned attack vehicles at the same time they are developing and promoting war games with realistic physics? Just yesterday, Boeing conducted the maiden flight of the X45A UCAV, an unmanned attack airplane that is designed to be shipped into a conflict region and flown in advance of manned aircraft. You can read about that at msnbc.com.
But as for these games, what better way to train people to control these vehicles than by getting young people to play them and master them in virtual form. Some day would you even know the difference if your networked war flight sim was really just a sim, or if the mission you thought you were flying virtually was actually being flown in some remote theater of battle.
If you really think about it has some very disturbing aspects. For one, imagine the level of detachment this allows a person. If you are flying a plane or driving a tank in the real world, seeing the innocent people living near your target might cause you to have second thoughts about hitting that target because you might kill innocents. But would you think twice about blowing up civilians in a game if that's what your mission called for? Probably not. It's just a game after all, right?
Now, of course if you knew the game you were playing was tied to events in reality, again, your morality might give you pause. But what if there was just a 1 in 100 chance that the events in the game were real. 1 in a 1000? At some point, you might stop worrying about it because you think it's just a game again. But imagine hundreds and thousands of 'soldiers' reporting for duty every day, with the only job being playing these war games for hours. It seems like a good way to commit acts that might be considered atrocities to the world without the moral and ethical concerns for the low level personnel.
It's kinda scary.
But wouldn't that sort of, oh I dunno, be totally the opposite of the whole point behind large P2P networks? If the world of P2P consisted of what you propose, small, closed networks of a few individuals, then one's selection of media would be seriously curtailed. The beauty of large scale P2P is that you can find almost anything you want. And the odds of finding that rare gem of media increases as the network grows.
The aversion to people using your bandwidth is what causes the biggest problem in P2P networks...the lack of reciprocity. Sure people are willing to download gigabytes from someone else, but they are too selfish to share their own. It's that sort of behavior that cause the frustration of finding the media you are lookin for, only to be let down by a perpetual "request queued" messages. It's selfishness that is the real weakness in P2P sharing networks.
If you want a mini P2P system, then make your own software or use FTP.
Let us not forget that the first looping roller-coaster, the Flip-Flap, exerted 12g's of force on passengers as they went through 25-foot diameter loop. The coaster had a tendancy to snap people's necks as they went through the loop, sometimes killing them in the process. People paid just to watch it operate.
Instead of lowering the price on the XBOX, Microsoft could bundle in their dvd kit at the current $199 price for value added competition instead of direct price competition. It would be a smart move for Microsoft because 1) producing that kit is probably cheaper than lowering the price of the xbox $50, 2) it provides a great advertisement angle--"More raw power than Gamecube and a FREE DVD Player!", and 3) people are suckers for 'free' stuff and value added items.
Because the price gap between the Xbox and Gamecube is now just $50 dollars, I think consumers on the fence will be looking beyond just the price and more towards the things the consoles can do. And with the DVD kit, the Xbox wins the features competition, not necessarily because people would actually use the DVD features; but just because people like a bargain.
I believe this line of thinking might actually be applicable if you were to write a peice of software that would delete or corrupt data on hardware that it was not explicitly designed for. If you said "This software will not work on any computer except INSERTBRAND computer," then if Sony is not liable for what this cd does why should you be responsible for what your software does when you expressly said it won't work on anything but what you have approved?
You didn't say "Use of this software on unapproved hardware will eat your data," but Sony didn't put in their disclaimer that you may have to send your computer in for service after trying to use their disc. It seems like it would be like Microsoft selling copies of Windows to OEMs that looks at the BIOS to determine who the manufacturer of the computer is and if it's not the one hard coded into that particular distribution then it flashes over said BIOS. Thus the computer is basically rendered dead, and evil pirating is prevented!
Then when you sue Microsoft for killing your new motherboard, they will say "Well why were you trying to install 'Windows XP for Dell' on your home built machine?" Hmmm, a shocking concept.
Be careful if you decide to try using a dry erase marker. I once wrote on the label side of a Verbatim CD-R with a blue dry erase marker and it disolved the surface and caused it to flake. You could see through the disk in places. I dunno what it would do on the data side of the disk though, but you might take it into consideration.
To me, true intelligence is the ability to draw on the knowledge that you already possess to synthesize new ideas and concepts. It is the ability to think, REALLY think, that is important. That's the source of common sense, which sadly is lacking in most people these days.
That's why schools in the US are so abysmal. They have gone the route of trying to shovel in dry facts and data into the empty heads of the young rather than teaching them how to think. It's like mental welfare.
That's not deflation, that's devaluation due to innovation. In the real world, deflation has only occured twice in the history of the US economy, namely during the Great Depression and once before in the 1890's following the collapse of several railroad companies. But that is not to say deflation is impossible, just look at the Japanese economy.
I seem to recall that Neilson has some patents or IP that they use hedge out any competition with legal action. Now that I think about it, I wonder what one is to do if you are bound by a court order to violate someone elses IP. Are you personally liable for the violation? And if you are not, since the no one can sue the court, does the IP holder simply have to eat any loss of revenue?
I will never by a product that include technology from RealNetworks. Sony is probably wanting to license Real's techniques for tricking consumers into subscribing to their service.
But seriously. RealNetworks is a terribly anticonsumer company. They make crap software and use deceptive practices to snare consumers into their subscription trap. And then they share your personal information with "selected partners." It's evil I tell you, evil.
But sadly, it is the direction in which a lot of internet companies are heading these days. I respect the right to make a buck, but not through deceptive practices that take advantage of some consumers.
Backward compatability becomes and impediment to innovation over time. It's the same problem MS has had for years. Problems that existed in earlier architectures must be maintained in future version if the designers wish to maintain full backward compatability.
Microsofts endeavor to improve Windows over time was saddled with the problems that existed in the original MS DOS. Only by abandoning technologies of the past at some point can the designers expect to move forward with real innovation.
The way around that of course is to run virtual machines that abstract the software from the hardware. But using a virtual machine architecture has its own caveats, like adding additional complexity.
Personally, I would prefer that designers of game systems just avoid backward compatability issues. If there is some game from an older system that I want to play, it is likely that I have that older system to play it with anyway. I would rather designers focus on innovation than on life support for aging technology.
I bought a Gateway 2000 in '96 or '97, and in the book it recommended opening the case and familiarizing yourself with the internal components. It had a whole section on what the bits and peices were. It was lovely. How times change.
This and the news of their plan to use the cow against the RIAA makes it appear to me that they are gravitating toward and image change to set them apart from the other computer makers. This sort of "anti-establishment" plan could be an attempt to get the attention of all those millions of pirateers the RIAA is so afraid of. Grabbing just a portion of that market would be a signifigant win for Gateway with its recent lackluster business.
It all makes me wonder how long it will be until Gateway sheds it's cowspots in favor of eye patches and parrots. But seriously, I wonder if we will see them installing Kazaa or Morpheus by default before too long.
Ah yes, the early 90's the glory days of computer shopper. That once was a great magazine/catalog. I remember when it was once 2 inches thick, full of phone book like pages with ads upon ads of obscure little tech companies. I found some great bargans in that magazine.
But alas, I watched as it became slimmer and slimmer each month until it eventually shrivled into a clone of all the other computer magazines out there. Damn you ZD.
All it takes to kill the EULA craze is a strong precedent set in court that makes them illegal or limits their authority. Up until now, I have not seen any major cases challenging EULA, perhaps because for the most part they have been pretty banal and benign. But shinanigans like that of the Radlight EULA will land the EULA movement in court with a lovely challenge. And that's good for us.
Well hopefully it would be USB 2.0. Just about as fast as firewire. Backward compatible with USB 1.0 and 1.1. It would work on just about everyone's pc or mac.
If I remember correctly, bluetooth 1.1 comes in with a transfer rate of about 720Kbps and only works in about a 10m radius (for devices, access points have longer ranges). At that rate, It would take about 16 hours to copy 5GB of data to or from the device. So unless you plan on standing close to somebody for a quite a while, the mental images of swapping mp3 collections or walking for warez can be put on hold for now.
Now if they will support Bluetooth 2, the situation improves...