Well, yes, I'm sure that ebay wouldn't want to have anything to do with a topic so controversial as pornography or sex. Certainly they would be very careful about products that were probably not legit in such areas. And certainly, they wouldn't want anything to do with dubious internet privacy software.
I think that if ebay is concerned about such issues, it's in a direct relation to profit/controversy... guess that freenet just isn't profitable enough for them.
How many will be picked off by curious geeks with screwdrivers in the middle of the night? A high-tech road marker would be a tasty thing to play with, provided one could kill any internal tracking capabilities.
I can't remember enough of the actual details to quote verbatim, but basically it was about how "Mr. Smith" encountered two individuals that were real asshats and dealt with them quite nicely.
Basically, after encountering asshat #1, he managed to get a phone # and started calling the guy about 2-3 times a week (on a calling-card or something equally difficult to track) and stating "you're an @sshole" before hanging up.
After a few months of this, it was starting to get boring - until Mr. Smith ran into a second asshat.
At this point, he got the number for asshat #2 and starting calling him in the same way. After about another month of this, he called asshat #1 again, but this time stayed on the line. The expected response was of course "who the f*** is this if I ever meet you I'm going to kick your ass."
To this, Mr. Smith responded "My name is (name of person #2), you're an a-hole, and I'll be at Central Park. If you're a man, show up and I'll kick your ass."
After hanging up on asshat #2, he then placed a call to asshat #2. After making the same statements, he had asshat #2 also ready for a rumble in the park
Call #3 was to the police a little while later, where he reported that a gang fight was arising in Central Park in about 5 minutes.
Can't remember where I heard this before, but it strikes me as a great way to get revenge. You could do the same to two groups in chatrooms, since the anonymity factor would be able the same.
Not sure about HIV, but I believe that are several strains of AIDS. There have been cases where two infected people have had intercourse (hey, it's cool, we're already infected), and suddenly got a lot sicker a lot quicker. Reason being, they can take drugs and live a fair bit longer, but the drugs are targetted at a particular subtype of the virus. Getting subtype B from another person when you're being treated for subtype A and suddenly you're in double trouble.
Not a contradiction, but a question. Aren't most vaccines generally consisting of dead virus cells. Not a weak strain (which, BTW if a little blood on the end of a needle turns into HIV, what do you need to do to make the thing weak?), but inert?
Are some vaccines "weak," and others "dead?" And why in any situation could you not take dead cells of any virus to use as a vaccine? Not sure how microbiotics work, but I do know that AIDS doesn't have a huge lifetime outside of a living organism (2 weeks for HIV was it?), so shouldn't we be able to get dead cells?
At 20GB that would be a cool use for it. Also, with the described CPU speed you could probably watch (tiny, but at least decent resolution) DivX movies? 20GB is enough to have a small distro with Mplayer etc.
I wonder what the video hardware is, and the controller specs. If somebody could hack up a driver for the buttons, it would also make a nice portable MAME/SNES/etc emulator. You could do a lot of this on windows too, but if somebody could manage drivers for the display/keyboard linux/OS could bring a lot of custom functionality to this little gadget.
A degree may show a willingness to challenge oneself, but more often it simply shows that you had both the money and time to go to University. I've got my diploma, and I know the contents of the equivilent degree course... while some of the basic problem solving theories and documentation/coding practices were useful, I could have learned them in a 2-4 month course. The rest is all pretty much dogcrap which has been of little use to me in my job, nor have any seen many other jobs where it would prove useful.
Ability to adapt, learn fast, and think outside "the box" (in this case, I have to think not only like a programmer but also as a user) have kept me my job and made me good at it. I learned more within the first 6 months at work than I did in college, and I'm still learning.
That being said, there's definately something to be said about programs that offer a "co-op" or paid practicum term. It helps pay the college bills, and gives really valuable experience. If anything out of college was useful to me, I'd say that my workterms were the most important.
Of course, I'd definately have trouble trusting some guy who claimed to have X years of experience in field Y. Even with a degree, I'd look much more at his employment history in related fields than post-secondary education. But if his experience was limited, a degree would still count for something.
Quite some time ago, a slashdotted mentioned this as having worked for him. I've yet to actually starting playing with mine (though I do have one), but I plan to basically have an apps which scans for the presence of a button (maybe upon a certain key being held) and grants access if the unique ID on the ibutton matches the one in records.
Anyone ever played with ibuttons or similar items for this purpose?
I could think of reasons other than backup in case of damage for allowing DVD copies:
Multi-Archiving: Just like I rip all my audio CD's into mp3 format so that I can have multiple albums on a single disc, so could I do with DVD and some fancy compressed formats
Format changes: Inevitably, the DVD format will be replaced - presumably with something that holds more data. In that case, maybe I'd like to put series X from several DVD's onto one disc of the new media.
Travel: I'm going on a trip soon. I'd much rather take copies of my DVD's when I'm away for 4 weeks than risk having them stolen/lost/etc while I'm away from home.
Mp3.com once had a good thing going with the many indie bands I discovered there. Over time, it went more corp-signed-artists, and began to mostly resemble the crap I heard and the radio and was trying to avoid. Now, free downloads and indie are both gone... what makes it different from any other mp3bandwagon.com outfit? Seems to me all they have is a name, and many other names have already eaten away at that mindshare whilst they'be been away.
As a British Columbian, government scandals in both Province (equiv to a state) and Country have become much more prominent lately.
Our Prime Minister (equiv President) is severly implicated in a scandal involve hundreds of millions of misallocated (equiv allocated to buddy buddy organizations equiv to stolen) funds. He claims he had no knowledge of such things happening in his previous position (blaming it on the former Prime Minister), at which point he was Finance Minister. How does the guy in charge of money miss something that big?
Then we have our dear Premier (equiv head of State). He's been nailed in Hawaii on a drunk driving charge. He's also managed to dunk thousands of government jobs (some dunking necessary, but not all at once), roll back healthcare worker wages by 11-15%, and privatize most of government industry. Much of our gov't owned industry has basically been sold off to private interests.
So basically, if the corporate climate is better, the political is just as bad (worse in some areas, better in others). I'd recommend you look at working someplace in Alberta (no Provincial Tax), and try to avoid Quebec (unless you're fluent in French).
I might just be a bit bitter and disallusioned, but I am seriously considering looking at my own career opportunities out-of-province and likely out-of-country. Perhaps somebody can comment on Corporate work in Australia for me - that's where I'd rather be.
No, I do enjoy a good debate. It's the heavy lacing of sarcasm and generally talking down to the parent that suggests flamebait.
"The big evil gov't is making sure you're who you say you are when you enter. Damn them!"
As with many slashdotters, I'm not an idiot, and my opinion was provided with some seriousness. I'm NOT the type to cower under my desk, tinfoil hat on head, waiting for the FBI to take me away - but I do have concerns, many legitimate, that the current government is moving towards a greater abuse of power than its predecessors.
By being condescending, you are making your point personal. Not a troll, but perhaps flamebait or at least somewhat disrespectful. And yes, this is the net, I'm somewhat used to it, I just hope that by bringing it to light perhaps more people will learn to curb their inflammatory natures.
Consider the comments made... given the tone and wording of the response, would you have used such in a formal debate in front of your peers?
Yeah, preventing children from seeing porn is so oppresionist. The fact is the net ISN'T blocked from home.
You know, there was a reason I included the link in the previous comment.Mainly because the current "filter" was blocking keywords such as "gay" - which included gay rights sites etc etc. Keeping children from pr0n is not a bad idea... letting idiots make your netfilters based on common words - especially without using a graded curve - is.
Have you ever actually witnessed a protest? For some reason, it's fashionable to get in the faces of police officers, yell at them, and act as though they have special privileges because they're mad. I'm surprised there aren't more protestor beatings by the civillians not protesting.
The fact is though, that while some force is authorized, a beating isn't. And having seen protests where the guy trying to leave peacefully gets his teeth knocked out, I'd say there's an ugly side too.
I could argue with you more over the other points. But it's not worth the time. Hopefully somebody will label you deservedly as flamebait.
Have pro-choice folks been shot protesting in front of the white house and Supreme Court?
No, but it's not that uncommon nowadays for protesters, including peaceful protests, to receive less-than-kindly treatment from law-enforcement officials.
Do you register with the government before going on vacation?
No, but unless you plan on jogging to your vacation spot you're still being tracked. Try crossing a border or taking a plane without being tagged in some fashion.
Will the secret police come to get you in the night because your neighbor told the authorities about your anti-Bush discussion at the block party?
Thanks to the Patriot Act and friends, nobody would know if you did. If your neighbour knew, he'd face jailtime for revealing such information, and you are no longer guaranteed a lawyer and/or speedy trial
From what I see, China's human right's violations are becoming much more visible. In fact, the government is often quite candid about much of what they do or expect from citizens. Seeing as they believe their actions are right (and by some standard they are) there is no need to hide them.
The US government, on the other hand, knows what it is doing is to some degree wrong, or at the least that it wouldn't be widely accepted. There is a lot of cloak and dagger going on. Bills pass hiding in other bills, favoring corporate interests. The same for privacy/rights-killing bills hiding under anti-terrorist sentiment. And if you think that nobody has been arrested without a lawyer or gag order... I think you might want to pay more attention to the world around you.
Which brings me to the question... if a program installed is popping up porno sites that include illegal material (kiddy, animal, etc), shouldn't the perveyor of that software (or the parent software which installed it etc etc) be liable?
I've not seen it myself, but I just recently ran into a low-tech computer user who proclaimed that his computer was getting popups of porn and, to quote, "sick shit, like kids and stuff."
I've had various sites sent me to popup hell with advertisements for so-called "lolita" porn, some of which is definately of dubious legality. I've not yet had any software do so, but then again I haven't accidentally installed such crapware in quite awhile.
If I were to be able to trace what were popping up the "sick shit," would I then be able to get a criminal investigation into the parent company. Moreso, could I do so without getting those with the actual material it downloaded (browser cache etc) nailed for having such things on their PC?
But he'd have a really fun time when a squirrel decides to abscond with his sensor, ants infest the electronics, or some other furry decides that protruding wires/etc look tasty.
Re:Why the insulting form of question?
on
Privacy in the Woods?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Why do we make fun of ourselves? Seriously, tinfoil hat jokes are often funniest amongst those that really focus on privacy.
Or is it the same as how people of certain ethnicities may use words that otherwise mock people of their own ethnicity (and would get people not of that ethnicity beaten for using them)?
I'm sure that many others of the so-called "tinfoil hat brigade" found the comment funny, so perhaps future comments should be addressed at "those of the tinfoil hat brigade with a bug up their butts"
Using Linux does not a non-scumbag one make.I'm sure that many twisted pr0n sites are hosted on linux boxen, as well as many spammers using the same. The tool doesn't necessary describe the user, just that it fits the user's requirements.
I had a similar experience. I went to a local best-buy clone and found an open portal into the neverworld, hoardes of evil demons walking around, and... oh wait those were the normal salespeople and customer service reps one would expect to see at Best Buy.
Seriously man, why would you pre-order from best-buy... customer service 0% - you'll be lucky to see your pre-order when it comes out.
I'd expect that this will be included with the windows version, not bought seperately, and will be compatible in network multiplay with windows machines. Can anyone confirm?
One item of note: the PC version will lack the cooperative multiplayer mode featured in previous DOOM games.
Does this mean that in the console version there is expected to be co-op multiplayer, or perhaps in a patch/mod later on?
Demo
Are/will there be any demos available. I'll probably toss out some cash for an upgrade if needed (yes, I know upgrading just for a game is a bit obsessive), but it would be nice to see how the game runs on my hardware before purchase (and I'd rather not pirate or try to get the unauth beta beforehand)
How about with a terminator style HUD?
on
The Face Detector
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Target Identified:
Name: Darl McBride
Employer: SCO
Karma: -5000
Options: Disable target, bring to penguin HQ for further questioning
Brute force: Authorized and encouraged.
It doesn't have to be great at everything, just great at the primary application, and convenient for others. My PS2 in many cases isn't the best DVD player, but it's been pretty good at playing some discs I borrowed from a friend recently (when my PC, which usually plays DVD's is busy burning them instead).
Sure, I could go buy a DVD player for cheap, but really the PS2 does the job, and nowadays I use it more for video than games.
Remember, not all of us have an ipod. If Sony adds said functionality for cheap and it works half-decently, it'll probably be useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, yes, I'm sure that ebay wouldn't want to have anything to do with a topic so controversial as pornography or sex. Certainly they would be very careful about products that were probably not legit in such areas. And certainly, they wouldn't want anything to do with dubious internet privacy software.
I think that if ebay is concerned about such issues, it's in a direct relation to profit/controversy... guess that freenet just isn't profitable enough for them.
Except the article mentions that at night existing reflectors are powered by the lights of approaching vehicles. No batteries....
How many will be picked off by curious geeks with screwdrivers in the middle of the night? A high-tech road marker would be a tasty thing to play with, provided one could kill any internal tracking capabilities.
I can't remember enough of the actual details to quote verbatim, but basically it was about how "Mr. Smith" encountered two individuals that were real asshats and dealt with them quite nicely.
Basically, after encountering asshat #1, he managed to get a phone # and started calling the guy about 2-3 times a week (on a calling-card or something equally difficult to track) and stating "you're an @sshole" before hanging up.
After a few months of this, it was starting to get boring - until Mr. Smith ran into a second asshat.
At this point, he got the number for asshat #2 and starting calling him in the same way. After about another month of this, he called asshat #1 again, but this time stayed on the line. The expected response was of course "who the f*** is this if I ever meet you I'm going to kick your ass."
To this, Mr. Smith responded "My name is (name of person #2), you're an a-hole, and I'll be at Central Park. If you're a man, show up and I'll kick your ass."
After hanging up on asshat #2, he then placed a call to asshat #2. After making the same statements, he had asshat #2 also ready for a rumble in the park
Call #3 was to the police a little while later, where he reported that a gang fight was arising in Central Park in about 5 minutes.
Can't remember where I heard this before, but it strikes me as a great way to get revenge. You could do the same to two groups in chatrooms, since the anonymity factor would be able the same.
Not sure about HIV, but I believe that are several strains of AIDS. There have been cases where two infected people have had intercourse (hey, it's cool, we're already infected), and suddenly got a lot sicker a lot quicker. Reason being, they can take drugs and live a fair bit longer, but the drugs are targetted at a particular subtype of the virus. Getting subtype B from another person when you're being treated for subtype A and suddenly you're in double trouble.
Not a contradiction, but a question. Aren't most vaccines generally consisting of dead virus cells. Not a weak strain (which, BTW if a little blood on the end of a needle turns into HIV, what do you need to do to make the thing weak?), but inert?
Are some vaccines "weak," and others "dead?" And why in any situation could you not take dead cells of any virus to use as a vaccine? Not sure how microbiotics work, but I do know that AIDS doesn't have a huge lifetime outside of a living organism (2 weeks for HIV was it?), so shouldn't we be able to get dead cells?
At 20GB that would be a cool use for it. Also, with the described CPU speed you could probably watch (tiny, but at least decent resolution) DivX movies? 20GB is enough to have a small distro with Mplayer etc.
I wonder what the video hardware is, and the controller specs. If somebody could hack up a driver for the buttons, it would also make a nice portable MAME/SNES/etc emulator. You could do a lot of this on windows too, but if somebody could manage drivers for the display/keyboard linux/OS could bring a lot of custom functionality to this little gadget.
A degree may show a willingness to challenge oneself, but more often it simply shows that you had both the money and time to go to University. I've got my diploma, and I know the contents of the equivilent degree course... while some of the basic problem solving theories and documentation/coding practices were useful, I could have learned them in a 2-4 month course. The rest is all pretty much dogcrap which has been of little use to me in my job, nor have any seen many other jobs where it would prove useful.
Ability to adapt, learn fast, and think outside "the box" (in this case, I have to think not only like a programmer but also as a user) have kept me my job and made me good at it. I learned more within the first 6 months at work than I did in college, and I'm still learning.
That being said, there's definately something to be said about programs that offer a "co-op" or paid practicum term. It helps pay the college bills, and gives really valuable experience. If anything out of college was useful to me, I'd say that my workterms were the most important.
Of course, I'd definately have trouble trusting some guy who claimed to have X years of experience in field Y. Even with a degree, I'd look much more at his employment history in related fields than post-secondary education. But if his experience was limited, a degree would still count for something.
Quite some time ago, a slashdotted mentioned this as having worked for him. I've yet to actually starting playing with mine (though I do have one), but I plan to basically have an apps which scans for the presence of a button (maybe upon a certain key being held) and grants access if the unique ID on the ibutton matches the one in records.
Anyone ever played with ibuttons or similar items for this purpose?
I could think of reasons other than backup in case of damage for allowing DVD copies:
Multi-Archiving: Just like I rip all my audio CD's into mp3 format so that I can have multiple albums on a single disc, so could I do with DVD and some fancy compressed formats
Format changes: Inevitably, the DVD format will be replaced - presumably with something that holds more data. In that case, maybe I'd like to put series X from several DVD's onto one disc of the new media.
Travel: I'm going on a trip soon. I'd much rather take copies of my DVD's when I'm away for 4 weeks than risk having them stolen/lost/etc while I'm away from home.
Need food:
Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow (etc etc)
Let me out of this room:
*Knock things off a shelf until let out*
Leave me alone:
*claws* *blood* "oh, the pain, the PAIN!"
Want attention:
Seek most obviously disinterested person (or the guy allergic to cats), rub against him, close to the face if possible.
Knowing who somebody is doesn't always indicate their intentions, unless the individual is on a list of known suspects.
More often, the data may help you find out who committed a crime, but that's after the crime has occured.
How about: 3 strikes you're out.
Mp3.com once had a good thing going with the many indie bands I discovered there. Over time, it went more corp-signed-artists, and began to mostly resemble the crap I heard and the radio and was trying to avoid. Now, free downloads and indie are both gone... what makes it different from any other mp3bandwagon.com outfit? Seems to me all they have is a name, and many other names have already eaten away at that mindshare whilst they'be been away.
As a British Columbian, government scandals in both Province (equiv to a state) and Country have become much more prominent lately.
Our Prime Minister (equiv President) is severly implicated in a scandal involve hundreds of millions of misallocated (equiv allocated to buddy buddy organizations equiv to stolen) funds. He claims he had no knowledge of such things happening in his previous position (blaming it on the former Prime Minister), at which point he was Finance Minister. How does the guy in charge of money miss something that big?
Then we have our dear Premier (equiv head of State). He's been nailed in Hawaii on a drunk driving charge. He's also managed to dunk thousands of government jobs (some dunking necessary, but not all at once), roll back healthcare worker wages by 11-15%, and privatize most of government industry. Much of our gov't owned industry has basically been sold off to private interests.
So basically, if the corporate climate is better, the political is just as bad (worse in some areas, better in others). I'd recommend you look at working someplace in Alberta (no Provincial Tax), and try to avoid Quebec (unless you're fluent in French).
I might just be a bit bitter and disallusioned, but I am seriously considering looking at my own career opportunities out-of-province and likely out-of-country. Perhaps somebody can comment on Corporate work in Australia for me - that's where I'd rather be.
No, I do enjoy a good debate. It's the heavy lacing of sarcasm and generally talking down to the parent that suggests flamebait.
"The big evil gov't is making sure you're who you say you are when you enter. Damn them!"
As with many slashdotters, I'm not an idiot, and my opinion was provided with some seriousness. I'm NOT the type to cower under my desk, tinfoil hat on head, waiting for the FBI to take me away - but I do have concerns, many legitimate, that the current government is moving towards a greater abuse of power than its predecessors.
By being condescending, you are making your point personal. Not a troll, but perhaps flamebait or at least somewhat disrespectful. And yes, this is the net, I'm somewhat used to it, I just hope that by bringing it to light perhaps more people will learn to curb their inflammatory natures.
Consider the comments made... given the tone and wording of the response, would you have used such in a formal debate in front of your peers?
Yeah, preventing children from seeing porn is so oppresionist. The fact is the net ISN'T blocked from home.
You know, there was a reason I included the link in the previous comment.Mainly because the current "filter" was blocking keywords such as "gay" - which included gay rights sites etc etc. Keeping children from pr0n is not a bad idea... letting idiots make your netfilters based on common words - especially without using a graded curve - is.
Have you ever actually witnessed a protest? For some reason, it's fashionable to get in the faces of police officers, yell at them, and act as though they have special privileges because they're mad. I'm surprised there aren't more protestor beatings by the civillians not protesting.
The fact is though, that while some force is authorized, a beating isn't. And having seen protests where the guy trying to leave peacefully gets his teeth knocked out, I'd say there's an ugly side too.
I could argue with you more over the other points. But it's not worth the time. Hopefully somebody will label you deservedly as flamebait.
Do they block internet content?
In public buildings, or libraries, yes
Have pro-choice folks been shot protesting in front of the white house and Supreme Court?
No, but it's not that uncommon nowadays for protesters, including peaceful protests, to receive less-than-kindly treatment from law-enforcement officials.
Do you register with the government before going on vacation?
No, but unless you plan on jogging to your vacation spot you're still being tracked. Try crossing a border or taking a plane without being tagged in some fashion.
Will the secret police come to get you in the night because your neighbor told the authorities about your anti-Bush discussion at the block party?
Thanks to the Patriot Act and friends, nobody would know if you did. If your neighbour knew, he'd face jailtime for revealing such information, and you are no longer guaranteed a lawyer and/or speedy trial
From what I see, China's human right's violations are becoming much more visible. In fact, the government is often quite candid about much of what they do or expect from citizens. Seeing as they believe their actions are right (and by some standard they are) there is no need to hide them.
The US government, on the other hand, knows what it is doing is to some degree wrong, or at the least that it wouldn't be widely accepted. There is a lot of cloak and dagger going on. Bills pass hiding in other bills, favoring corporate interests. The same for privacy/rights-killing bills hiding under anti-terrorist sentiment. And if you think that nobody has been arrested without a lawyer or gag order... I think you might want to pay more attention to the world around you.
Which brings me to the question... if a program installed is popping up porno sites that include illegal material (kiddy, animal, etc), shouldn't the perveyor of that software (or the parent software which installed it etc etc) be liable?
I've not seen it myself, but I just recently ran into a low-tech computer user who proclaimed that his computer was getting popups of porn and, to quote, "sick shit, like kids and stuff."
I've had various sites sent me to popup hell with advertisements for so-called "lolita" porn, some of which is definately of dubious legality. I've not yet had any software do so, but then again I haven't accidentally installed such crapware in quite awhile.
If I were to be able to trace what were popping up the "sick shit," would I then be able to get a criminal investigation into the parent company. Moreso, could I do so without getting those with the actual material it downloaded (browser cache etc) nailed for having such things on their PC?
But he'd have a really fun time when a squirrel decides to abscond with his sensor, ants infest the electronics, or some other furry decides that protruding wires/etc look tasty.
Why do we make fun of ourselves? Seriously, tinfoil hat jokes are often funniest amongst those that really focus on privacy.
Or is it the same as how people of certain ethnicities may use words that otherwise mock people of their own ethnicity (and would get people not of that ethnicity beaten for using them)?
I'm sure that many others of the so-called "tinfoil hat brigade" found the comment funny, so perhaps future comments should be addressed at "those of the tinfoil hat brigade with a bug up their butts"
Using Linux does not a non-scumbag one make.I'm sure that many twisted pr0n sites are hosted on linux boxen, as well as many spammers using the same. The tool doesn't necessary describe the user, just that it fits the user's requirements.
I had a similar experience. I went to a local best-buy clone and found an open portal into the neverworld, hoardes of evil demons walking around, and... oh wait those were the normal salespeople and customer service reps one would expect to see at Best Buy.
Seriously man, why would you pre-order from best-buy... customer service 0% - you'll be lucky to see your pre-order when it comes out.
Linux Version
I'd expect that this will be included with the windows version, not bought seperately, and will be compatible in network multiplay with windows machines. Can anyone confirm?
One item of note: the PC version will lack the cooperative multiplayer mode featured in previous DOOM games.
Does this mean that in the console version there is expected to be co-op multiplayer, or perhaps in a patch/mod later on?
Demo
Are/will there be any demos available. I'll probably toss out some cash for an upgrade if needed (yes, I know upgrading just for a game is a bit obsessive), but it would be nice to see how the game runs on my hardware before purchase (and I'd rather not pirate or try to get the unauth beta beforehand)
Target Identified:
Name: Darl McBride
Employer: SCO
Karma: -5000
Options: Disable target, bring to penguin HQ for further questioning
Brute force: Authorized and encouraged.
It doesn't have to be great at everything, just great at the primary application, and convenient for others. My PS2 in many cases isn't the best DVD player, but it's been pretty good at playing some discs I borrowed from a friend recently (when my PC, which usually plays DVD's is busy burning them instead).
Sure, I could go buy a DVD player for cheap, but really the PS2 does the job, and nowadays I use it more for video than games.
Remember, not all of us have an ipod. If Sony adds said functionality for cheap and it works half-decently, it'll probably be useful.