From the article:
Tan was prepared to pay HavenCo millions of dollars to host a Web site that would let customers stream movies from legally purchased DVDs, something that was not clearly illegal because only one customer at a time could view each stream, Lackey said. The Sealand royal family balked over the possibility of bad publicity, Lackey said. "I decided as soon as I got out of the meeting that I was going to quit," Lackey said.
No wonder they're going under. They're HavenCo, they should be hosting these types of sites. They turn down hosting sites like this that seem almost custom fitted to their business model! The king of sealand must be a quirky fellow indeed.
After checking out their site for a while, I have come to the conclusion that this project is relying on a lot of luck. I work for NASA's Balloon Program Office, and we fly balloons of this size and bigger. For one, this project has their balloon being made by a manufacturer that doesnt make balloons. Balloons of this size are a QA nightmare. Having miles of load tape and polyethylene, they are very hard to manufacture and test. Polyethylene is the same stuff they make sandwich baggies out of, very delicate.
I really have no clue why they wouldn't order their balloon from the same place most people interested in this sort of thing do, Raven Industries. Maybe they didnt have the dough. We don't fly people on our balloons, just huge science payloads in the range of 5-7000 pounds. I wish these guys the best, but I really beleive they are insane.
I've attempted to make a full switch to linux a few times in the past, and i will try again in the future. Things in the past that have caused me to switch back: one of the earlier times it was p2p(this is mostly fixed now, I was reliant on Neo Modus's Direct Connect which seems to have a gpl clone now), office(yet again fixed), proper dual monitor support for kde(fixed).
Just before the last time around, I joined an active gaming clan, which wouldnt have normally held me back(return to castle wolfenstein), except our clan uses TeamSpeak for voice communication during matches. Now TeamSpeak is releasing a linux version, and I've started playing Battlefield 1942. So the only thing holding me back from full time linux use is one game. C'mon EA, give us a linux version! props to teamspeak for taking the initiative to release a linux version for us though.
I guess i could have just said "Battlefield 1942", heh.
I remember my parents telling me about the first time they played pong. My dad is currently addicted to everquest, and we played tons of games from the old commodore 64 days to the present. Of course there are lots of older gamers, old people are bored!
Cd checks are always easily beatable, this has been said. What isn't easily beatable are auth servers that check your key whenever you play online. This works great for bf1942, sof2, rtcw, etc.
It works great for games that are geared towards multiplayer, and has forced me to buy many games that I may not have purchased otherwise.
When you have no cdrom drive in your crappy old server and want to install from isos, a floppy drive is handy. That's probably the only time I've used one in the last 3 years.
One of the main reasons my floppies havent all been packed away is the fact that aside from CDs, floppies are the only way to boot a system sometimes.
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From the article:
Tan was prepared to pay HavenCo millions of dollars to host a Web site that would let customers stream movies from legally purchased DVDs, something that was not clearly illegal because only one customer at a time could view each stream, Lackey said. The Sealand royal family balked over the possibility of bad publicity, Lackey said. "I decided as soon as I got out of the meeting that I was going to quit," Lackey said.
No wonder they're going under. They're HavenCo, they should be hosting these types of sites. They turn down hosting sites like this that seem almost custom fitted to their business model! The king of sealand must be a quirky fellow indeed.
After checking out their site for a while, I have come to the conclusion that this project is relying on a lot of luck. I work for NASA's Balloon Program Office, and we fly balloons of this size and bigger. For one, this project has their balloon being made by a manufacturer that doesnt make balloons. Balloons of this size are a QA nightmare. Having miles of load tape and polyethylene, they are very hard to manufacture and test. Polyethylene is the same stuff they make sandwich baggies out of, very delicate.
I really have no clue why they wouldn't order their balloon from the same place most people interested in this sort of thing do, Raven Industries. Maybe they didnt have the dough. We don't fly people on our balloons, just huge science payloads in the range of 5-7000 pounds. I wish these guys the best, but I really beleive they are insane.
I've attempted to make a full switch to linux a few times in the past, and i will try again in the future. Things in the past that have caused me to switch back: one of the earlier times it was p2p(this is mostly fixed now, I was reliant on Neo Modus's Direct Connect which seems to have a gpl clone now), office(yet again fixed), proper dual monitor support for kde(fixed).
Just before the last time around, I joined an active gaming clan, which wouldnt have normally held me back(return to castle wolfenstein), except our clan uses TeamSpeak for voice communication during matches. Now TeamSpeak is releasing a linux version, and I've started playing Battlefield 1942. So the only thing holding me back from full time linux use is one game. C'mon EA, give us a linux version! props to teamspeak for taking the initiative to release a linux version for us though.
I guess i could have just said "Battlefield 1942", heh.
Is a GPL'd margarita mix!
mmmm free as in margaritas.
that the dinosaur ate pringles and drank bawls for energy for those long nights of arguing on slashdot. :)
I remember my parents telling me about the first time they played pong. My dad is currently addicted to everquest, and we played tons of games from the old commodore 64 days to the present. Of course there are lots of older gamers, old people are bored!
Cd checks are always easily beatable, this has been said. What isn't easily beatable are auth servers that check your key whenever you play online. This works great for bf1942, sof2, rtcw, etc. It works great for games that are geared towards multiplayer, and has forced me to buy many games that I may not have purchased otherwise.
When you have no cdrom drive in your crappy old server and want to install from isos, a floppy drive is handy. That's probably the only time I've used one in the last 3 years.
One of the main reasons my floppies havent all been packed away is the fact that aside from CDs, floppies are the only way to boot a system sometimes.