A couple of weeks ago I got an email advertising Tom Petty's new single, "The Last DJ", mentioned in this article. Although I'm not even a casual fan, I checked it out anyway... Definately worth a listen for anyone opposed to the Clear Clannel-ification of radio and the trend towards pay-per-play. Hard to beleive his label let him put this song on the CD let alone promote it as his first single!
It seems the streaming version is gone but you might be able to request it at a local rock & roll station.
"The Last DJ"
Well you can't turn him into a company man You can't turn him into a whore And the boys upstairs just don't understand anymore Well the top brass don't like him talking so much And he won't play what they want to play And he don?t want to change what don't need to change
CHORUS: There goes the last DJ Who plays what he wants to play And says what he wants to say Hey hey hey And there goes your freedom of choice There goes the last human voice There goes the last DJ
While some folks said you gotta hang him so high Cause you just can't do what he did There's some things you just can't put in the minds of the kids As we celebrate mediocrity Our boys upstairs want to see How much you want to pay for what you used to get for free
CHORUS
Well he got in a station down in Mexico And sometimes it'll kind of come in And I'll bust a move and remember how it was back then
I think this is an interesting idea. Candidates for mayor and city councils should be forced to compete on Sim City 3000 (on the hardest levels), and then voters can see how well they do managing a city and use this information to help them decide how to vote. After all, if a potential mayor can't run a pretend city, what chance does he have with the real thing?
Cause of all the birds that fly into the windmills and get chopped up! Especially the protected/endangered species! It's a environmental disaster!
Seriously, the bird problem may not be that bad, I don't know. Do a search on Google for "wind power birds" to research it. But I do distinctly recall the Audubon Society and/or Sierra Club opposing a new wind farm that was to be built in California, I think in the southern San Joaquin Valley/Southern CA area.
Now they may only have been objecting to the site, but my thinking is this: where ever there is wind strong enough to power windmills, there are going to be birds. (Of course, I Am Not a Wind Power Engineer.)
Locks don't make people honest. This is one of the most infuriating arguments I hear repeated over and over.
Macrovision made hooking up a DVD player to my existing satellite/TV/VCR/stereo that much more complicated. When I finally upgrade the rest of my home entertainment system, things will be easier, but right now it is irritating.
Macrovision also prevents me from recording my kids' movies to tape, which would be a great thing since I obviously don't want them handling the DVD's themselves...
Now if Macrovision wasn't there, I'd have more convenience and flexibility, but I wouldn't be running off hundreds of VHS copies of my DVDs and selling them either.
A sidebar in the Time magazine issue that featured TESB laid out the nine movie plan. At some point around 1980 he had a nine movie plan (probably once he realized he had the clout and resources to do it). Whether Lucas had the nine movies in mind from the very beginning is debatable.
However, I would not even try to debate that he at least had the "galactic backstory" in mind when writing ANH, even it he didn't plan on making those movies at that point. There are clear references to it in both the movie (eg Clone Wars) and the novelisation (references to the Emperor's rise to power). Surely some of the backstory has been refined to a certain degree (for instance the novel speaks of the Emperor using commercial/industrial elements to rise to power, but then came under the control of those same elements, clearly not the case as seen in ROTJ).
It seems to me that one more format is needed, what I understand is the blue laser technology that will allow higher capacity discs that deliver high definition video. In fact it's a shame that this technology wasn't used for DVDs in the first place. Maybe it's just taken longer to get ready?
No doubt having high definition movies available on disc would have made high definition TVs more attractive to consumers, increasing adoption rates. Right now, you've only got HD broadcasts, if you live in the right place. And the HD content could surely be scaled down to the NTSC format, making it compatible with existing TVs.
Sometimes to solve the chicken and egg problem, it helps to have more eggs (or chickens for that matter).
ATOC opened on fewer screens than Spiderman, news reports say because Lucas insisted on theatres with high quality sound, but also I've read because they wanted longer committments from theatres and smaller venues didn't want to tie up their screens as long as Lucas wanted...
For that reason alone I'd expect Spiderman to do better in the initial weeks.
Spider-man is now on track to massacre Star Wars, perhaps out-earning it in the early days of the summer by as much as $100 million, if projected patterns continue.
Spiderman has earned about $133M more than ATOC. It has also been out 25 days as opposed to ATOC's 12 days. I can't see how that statement makes any sense given the numbers. I doubt ATOC will only do $33M in the next two weeks.
And "Spiderman shows no signs of slowing down"? Then why did it gross $48M the weekend ATOC opened, but only 36M last weekend? Is that not slowing down? Are there even any movies that retain or increase their weekend grosses?
Who really cares which movie grosses the most anyway? ATOC will gross more anyway because people will need to go back 2-3 times just to figure out the plot!
Katz complains about Lucas going overboard on the marketing tie ins for TPM. Did he notice Lucas restrained these tie ins for ATOC?
Maybe Lucas maybe should push filming with digital cameras and put the digital set creation on the backburner for now. There may very well be something to filming in real instead of virtual sets, I can see the actors performance being affected by their environment and the "atmosphere" a period set might create, as opposed to a sterile blue screen set where the actors have to imagine the world they are acting in.
If directors see the advantages during production and post-production to filming in digitial, and the image quality of the end result up there on the theatre screen is as good or better than film, then digital filming/projection will gain ground, and the use of virtual sets will grow in situations where they are appropriate.
That's also why they used droids in EP1 rather than storm troopers, since the cloning hadn't started yet to give them the storm troopers...
I don't think so. The Trade Federation used droids in EP1 because that's what they had. They had no idea about the clones in Ep II (remember during the battle Nute Gunray wondered how the Republic raised an army so quickly?)
The clones were never meant for the Trade Federation and other Separatists, even though Dooku is behind both the development of the clones and the leader of the separatist movement. I just wonder what he told Jango, if he knew the clones were really meant for the Republic, or if Dooku just told him that's what they were telling the Kaminoans, they're really for the Separatists...
Sidious learned his lesson in EP1, where he was manipulating only one side of the conflict, and it didn't turn out the way he planned (although he was able to advance to the Chancellorship). This time around, he is behind the scenses directing the manipulation on both sides, to make sure all-out war happens, and that he is given emergency powers.
The key here was to both create the emergency (an iminent attack by the Separatists), and to have a way of dealing with it (a conveniently available clone army, which can only be used if the Senate gives him emergency powers, since the Republic doesn't have a standing army). A bit more of the politics here would have been nice, such as what the Senate was told about the clone army before or after the vote, are they investigating the Jedi Order for creating this clone army, etc.
This seems to have put the Jedi in an awkward position, of either having to take credit for the army (and losing the trust of the Republic for doing this in secrecy, maybe looking like they were going to make a power play to take over the Republic) or saying we have no idea who commissioned this army (and thus looking a bit incompetent for not forseeing it). Since Yoda indicates they did not want to reveal to the Senate that the dark side was clouding their ability to foresee events, they might have had to go with the former option, and seeds of distrust of the Jedi may help later when they are wiped out. I hope the novelisation expands on this...
There was just recently a story about this on theforce.net, old Lucasfilm publication (1981) indicates that the Stormtroopers are clones.
TIE pilots are possibly clones also, based only on the resemblance of the armor they wear, but not necessarily, so Luke could have been considering this career direction...
But I would guess if you go to the Academy and get drafted into the Imperial Navy/Army you get to be one of the guys that wear the black salad bowls on their heads, or an officer, etc.
Boba is supposed to be the first clone if I remember right, genetically unaltered. I understood this to mean that Jango is raising Boba like a son, though it's not specified whether Boba knows he's a clone or not; likely he does with hundreds of thousands of other kids that look just like him running around the place. Jango does get it in the end, not one of his clones, that much is clear.
Of course, Obi Wan was using the force, and was able to evade the laser blasts because of that... the missle was a little bit harder to deal with of course; still, Jango had to be an idiot to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book...
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere yet, but did anyone notice how ATOC reveals why the Stormtroopers just plain sucked in ANH?
The clones were of Jango Fett, and the Kaminoans were keeping him around while this whole cloning project was going on. So apparently they needed fresh material from him to keep making clones.
After ATOC, they no longer have Jango Fett to clone, they started making clones of one of the clones. And you know how if you make a copy of a copy, it's not as sharp as the original....
See the movie Multiplicity to get a better idea of why the Stormtroopers are the way they are....
Computer manufacturers, blank CD makers, ISPs and software firms such as Kazaa will pool funds and pay artists directly.
What the article doesn't expand on is what computer manufacturers and blank CD makers will contribute. Define computer manufacturers first (Gateway, HP, Dell, et al or does that include the guy slapping clones together in his garage?).
And I'm 100% against taxing blank data CDs to pay artists. We distribute our own software on CD-Rs; why should we have to pay artists for distributing our own software? Or why should someone burning Linux distributions have to pay up too? What about the other myriad non-music CD-R uses?
VAT is a tax to charge added value, that is the creation of weath in the UK. As if it was bad to create wealth.
Ok I am not an economist, but what is the theory or rationale behind the VAT? AFAIK, "wealth" is created when I can take something(s) and create something else I can resell for more than what I paid for the original something(s).
First, I can't think of a way that it makes sense for the purchaser to pay a tax because the seller has created "wealth" for himself/herself. Second, if the tax is applied as a percentage of the sale price, why is it if person A has profit margins of 20% and person B's is 50%, but they sell their products for the same price, the tax is the same for both products... so it doesn't really matter how much wealth is being created when the tax is applied?
Or did I miss something and the government is somehow adding value to the product, and charging for the added value they are providing?
Another thing: if it's to tax the creation of wealth in the country that is levying the tax, but the seller is outside the country, they are not exactly creating wealth for the taxing country now are they? Now it's a tax on wealth created outside the EU... How does this make sense?
Or is this just another way to fund the government?
If the VAT went away, would economic activity pick up because people now have more money to spend that was formerly going to the government?
The other interesting thing to see is how TPM stacks up after viewing Eps 2 & 3. After viewing these, will some of the decisions made in TPM to set up the other movies start to make sense?
Personally I can excuse Jar Jar, but the ending of the film has some flaws. Too much dumb luck, between Anakin blowing up the droid control ship and Jar Jar escaping the battle without a scratch. Wonderful lightsaber duel, no doubt one of the best things about the movie, but no verbal sparing like we've seen in eps. 4-6. Maul was definately underused. Perhaps if Lucas had brought another screenwriter in on TPM it might have had a more meaningful, dramatic ending that didn't depend on dumb luck.
Too much caffiene and I get irritable, can't focus on the job. A better combination for me is a couple of cans of Cokes or Pepsi for caffiene along with dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE is a precursor to acetylcholine), ginseng, ginko biloba, and multi-vitamins.
And while I have a 30 hour playlist of trance/techno/house music, I'm in the process of created an "A List" of tracks. Most of these can put me immediately in "the zone"...
Having a large monitor is extremely helpful, having two large monitors is even better.
Avoid Slashdot.org, and web browsing in general, unless you need to research something on the web.
If you have an office, get a lock on your door if at all possible to keep people from bugging you while working.
If you do have a lock on your door, make sure to set up a secret knock for the pizza guy to gain access.
I can't see how a Symantec could purchase a license to make pcAnywhere "legal". The clause from the license agreement is broad in its use of "any". No exceptions.
In any case, the person who is breaking the license agreement is the person who owns the computer. It is up to them to not use, or prevent, any remote control of their computer by software other than Microsoft's.
Which presents an interesting possibility. Can Symantec sue MS for restraint of trade. In theory, users read and agree to the conditions of the license agreement. So "everyone" "knows" that you can't use third party remote control software with Windows XP.
Sales of pcAnywhere 10.5 notwithstanding, can Symantec collect damages on every copy of pcAnywhere sold?
I didn't bother to read all of the messages here but it looks like a lot of knee jerking going on...
Microsoft is still trying to compete with mp3. mp3 is ubiquitous, from freely available rippers to file sharing networks to portable players to home audio equipment to car stereos, you can now obtain, burn and listen to mp3s anywhere. Why should Joe Schmoe use WMA instead of mp3 when WMA is not supported on the home/car/portable players?
Availability is the biggest immediate hurdle WMA faces if Microsoft is to get the labels on board to use their format. Then we can see if the masses take to jumping through expected DRM hoops.
So go with somewhat lower tech--if the humanitarian aid is including radios, why not TV's too? (assuming they can survive the landing impact) Then bombard them with foreign news and entertainment programming. Maybe that's not such a bad idea. I know I'd be ready to surrender if I had to watch Survivor, Big Brother, and The Weakest Link all the time.
I played this one last year for old times sake when I downloaded a Z-machine interpreter for Windoze... but I actually have a copy in the original packaging ("Official Documents File") for CP/M on an 8" disk. Dates back to 1983. Nice to have all the original junk from the package. I had the C-64 version when I was in high school and actually signed the Stellar Patrol Special Assignment Task Force card and carried it in my wallet. Geez, I was a loser!
I guess I keep it because someday it may be valuable! (Or maybe my dad might someday piece together one of his old systems for his "computer museum" and we could see if the disk is still readable.)
Slashdot Mirror
A couple of weeks ago I got an email advertising Tom Petty's new single, "The Last DJ", mentioned in this article. Although I'm not even a casual fan, I checked it out anyway... Definately worth a listen for anyone opposed to the Clear Clannel-ification of radio and the trend towards pay-per-play. Hard to beleive his label let him put this song on the CD let alone promote it as his first single!
It seems the streaming version is gone but you might be able to request it at a local rock & roll station.
"The Last DJ"
Well you can't turn him into a company man
You can't turn him into a whore
And the boys upstairs just don't understand anymore
Well the top brass don't like him talking so much
And he won't play what they want to play
And he don?t want to change what don't need to change
CHORUS:
There goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play
And says what he wants to say
Hey hey hey
And there goes your freedom of choice
There goes the last human voice
There goes the last DJ
While some folks said you gotta hang him so high
Cause you just can't do what he did
There's some things you just can't put in the minds of the kids
As we celebrate mediocrity
Our boys upstairs want to see
How much you want to pay for what you used to get for free
CHORUS
Well he got in a station down in Mexico
And sometimes it'll kind of come in
And I'll bust a move and remember how it was back then
CHORUS
But at least it's not (gasp!) nuclear!
I think this is an interesting idea. Candidates for mayor and city councils should be forced to compete on Sim City 3000 (on the hardest levels), and then voters can see how well they do managing a city and use this information to help them decide how to vote. After all, if a potential mayor can't run a pretend city, what chance does he have with the real thing?
Cause of all the birds that fly into the windmills and get chopped up! Especially the protected/endangered species! It's a environmental disaster!
Seriously, the bird problem may not be that bad, I don't know. Do a search on Google for "wind power birds" to research it. But I do distinctly recall the Audubon Society and/or Sierra Club opposing a new wind farm that was to be built in California, I think in the southern San Joaquin Valley/Southern CA area.
Now they may only have been objecting to the site, but my thinking is this: where ever there is wind strong enough to power windmills, there are going to be birds. (Of course, I Am Not a Wind Power Engineer.)
Locks don't make people honest. This is one of the most infuriating arguments I hear repeated over and over.
Macrovision made hooking up a DVD player to my existing satellite/TV/VCR/stereo that much more complicated. When I finally upgrade the rest of my home entertainment system, things will be easier, but right now it is irritating.
Macrovision also prevents me from recording my kids' movies to tape, which would be a great thing since I obviously don't want them handling the DVD's themselves...
Now if Macrovision wasn't there, I'd have more convenience and flexibility, but I wouldn't be running off hundreds of VHS copies of my DVDs and selling them either.
I hope this experiment goes well for Warner.
A sidebar in the Time magazine issue that featured TESB laid out the nine movie plan. At some point around 1980 he had a nine movie plan (probably once he realized he had the clout and resources to do it). Whether Lucas had the nine movies in mind from the very beginning is debatable.
However, I would not even try to debate that he at least had the "galactic backstory" in mind when writing ANH, even it he didn't plan on making those movies at that point. There are clear references to it in both the movie (eg Clone Wars) and the novelisation (references to the Emperor's rise to power). Surely some of the backstory has been refined to a certain degree (for instance the novel speaks of the Emperor using commercial/industrial elements to rise to power, but then came under the control of those same elements, clearly not the case as seen in ROTJ).
It seems to me that one more format is needed, what I understand is the blue laser technology that will allow higher capacity discs that deliver high definition video. In fact it's a shame that this technology wasn't used for DVDs in the first place. Maybe it's just taken longer to get ready?
No doubt having high definition movies available on disc would have made high definition TVs more attractive to consumers, increasing adoption rates. Right now, you've only got HD broadcasts, if you live in the right place. And the HD content could surely be scaled down to the NTSC format, making it compatible with existing TVs.
Sometimes to solve the chicken and egg problem, it helps to have more eggs (or chickens for that matter).
For that reason alone I'd expect Spiderman to do better in the initial weeks.
Spiderman has earned about $133M more than ATOC. It has also been out 25 days as opposed to ATOC's 12 days. I can't see how that statement makes any sense given the numbers. I doubt ATOC will only do $33M in the next two weeks.
And "Spiderman shows no signs of slowing down"? Then why did it gross $48M the weekend ATOC opened, but only 36M last weekend? Is that not slowing down? Are there even any movies that retain or increase their weekend grosses?
Who really cares which movie grosses the most anyway? ATOC will gross more anyway because people will need to go back 2-3 times just to figure out the plot!
Katz complains about Lucas going overboard on the marketing tie ins for TPM. Did he notice Lucas restrained these tie ins for ATOC?
Maybe Lucas maybe should push filming with digital cameras and put the digital set creation on the backburner for now. There may very well be something to filming in real instead of virtual sets, I can see the actors performance being affected by their environment and the "atmosphere" a period set might create, as opposed to a sterile blue screen set where the actors have to imagine the world they are acting in.
If directors see the advantages during production and post-production to filming in digitial, and the image quality of the end result up there on the theatre screen is as good or better than film, then digital filming/projection will gain ground, and the use of virtual sets will grow in situations where they are appropriate.
The clones were never meant for the Trade Federation and other Separatists, even though Dooku is behind both the development of the clones and the leader of the separatist movement. I just wonder what he told Jango, if he knew the clones were really meant for the Republic, or if Dooku just told him that's what they were telling the Kaminoans, they're really for the Separatists...
Sidious learned his lesson in EP1, where he was manipulating only one side of the conflict, and it didn't turn out the way he planned (although he was able to advance to the Chancellorship). This time around, he is behind the scenses directing the manipulation on both sides, to make sure all-out war happens, and that he is given emergency powers.
The key here was to both create the emergency (an iminent attack by the Separatists), and to have a way of dealing with it (a conveniently available clone army, which can only be used if the Senate gives him emergency powers, since the Republic doesn't have a standing army). A bit more of the politics here would have been nice, such as what the Senate was told about the clone army before or after the vote, are they investigating the Jedi Order for creating this clone army, etc.
This seems to have put the Jedi in an awkward position, of either having to take credit for the army (and losing the trust of the Republic for doing this in secrecy, maybe looking like they were going to make a power play to take over the Republic) or saying we have no idea who commissioned this army (and thus looking a bit incompetent for not forseeing it). Since Yoda indicates they did not want to reveal to the Senate that the dark side was clouding their ability to foresee events, they might have had to go with the former option, and seeds of distrust of the Jedi may help later when they are wiped out. I hope the novelisation expands on this...
There was just recently a story about this on theforce.net, old Lucasfilm publication (1981) indicates that the Stormtroopers are clones.
TIE pilots are possibly clones also, based only on the resemblance of the armor they wear, but not necessarily, so Luke could have been considering this career direction...
But I would guess if you go to the Academy and get drafted into the Imperial Navy/Army you get to be one of the guys that wear the black salad bowls on their heads, or an officer, etc.
Boba is supposed to be the first clone if I remember right, genetically unaltered. I understood this to mean that Jango is raising Boba like a son, though it's not specified whether Boba knows he's a clone or not; likely he does with hundreds of thousands of other kids that look just like him running around the place. Jango does get it in the end, not one of his clones, that much is clear.
Of course, Obi Wan was using the force, and was able to evade the laser blasts because of that... the missle was a little bit harder to deal with of course; still, Jango had to be an idiot to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book...
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere yet, but did anyone notice how ATOC reveals why the Stormtroopers just plain sucked in ANH?
The clones were of Jango Fett, and the Kaminoans were keeping him around while this whole cloning project was going on. So apparently they needed fresh material from him to keep making clones.
After ATOC, they no longer have Jango Fett to clone, they started making clones of one of the clones. And you know how if you make a copy of a copy, it's not as sharp as the original....
See the movie Multiplicity to get a better idea of why the Stormtroopers are the way they are....
R2's rocket boosters were out of warranty by the time of the original trilogy, that's why you don't see him flying around. Seriously.
What the article doesn't expand on is what computer manufacturers and blank CD makers will contribute. Define computer manufacturers first (Gateway, HP, Dell, et al or does that include the guy slapping clones together in his garage?).
And I'm 100% against taxing blank data CDs to pay artists. We distribute our own software on CD-Rs; why should we have to pay artists for distributing our own software? Or why should someone burning Linux distributions have to pay up too? What about the other myriad non-music CD-R uses?
Ok I am not an economist, but what is the theory or rationale behind the VAT? AFAIK, "wealth" is created when I can take something(s) and create something else I can resell for more than what I paid for the original something(s).
First, I can't think of a way that it makes sense for the purchaser to pay a tax because the seller has created "wealth" for himself/herself. Second, if the tax is applied as a percentage of the sale price, why is it if person A has profit margins of 20% and person B's is 50%, but they sell their products for the same price, the tax is the same for both products... so it doesn't really matter how much wealth is being created when the tax is applied?
Or did I miss something and the government is somehow adding value to the product, and charging for the added value they are providing?
Another thing: if it's to tax the creation of wealth in the country that is levying the tax, but the seller is outside the country, they are not exactly creating wealth for the taxing country now are they? Now it's a tax on wealth created outside the EU... How does this make sense?
Or is this just another way to fund the government?
If the VAT went away, would economic activity pick up because people now have more money to spend that was formerly going to the government?
The other interesting thing to see is how TPM stacks up after viewing Eps 2 & 3. After viewing these, will some of the decisions made in TPM to set up the other movies start to make sense?
Personally I can excuse Jar Jar, but the ending of the film has some flaws. Too much dumb luck, between Anakin blowing up the droid control ship and Jar Jar escaping the battle without a scratch. Wonderful lightsaber duel, no doubt one of the best things about the movie, but no verbal sparing like we've seen in eps. 4-6. Maul was definately underused. Perhaps if Lucas had brought another screenwriter in on TPM it might have had a more meaningful, dramatic ending that didn't depend on dumb luck.
Too much caffiene and I get irritable, can't focus on the job. A better combination for me is a couple of cans of Cokes or Pepsi for caffiene along with dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE is a precursor to acetylcholine), ginseng, ginko biloba, and multi-vitamins.
And while I have a 30 hour playlist of trance/techno/house music, I'm in the process of created an "A List" of tracks. Most of these can put me immediately in "the zone"...
Having a large monitor is extremely helpful, having two large monitors is even better.
Avoid Slashdot.org, and web browsing in general, unless you need to research something on the web.
If you have an office, get a lock on your door if at all possible to keep people from bugging you while working.
If you do have a lock on your door, make sure to set up a secret knock for the pizza guy to gain access.
This FAQ may be helpful on the question of when Uranium will run out:
l ea r-faq.html
l
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuc
I thought it was interesting that the naturally occuring uranium impurities in coal could produce more power via fission than burning the coal itself.
This page also has some interesting points:
http://pw1.netcom.com/~res95/energy/nuclear.htm
I can't see how a Symantec could purchase a license to make pcAnywhere "legal". The clause from the license agreement is broad in its use of "any". No exceptions.
In any case, the person who is breaking the license agreement is the person who owns the computer. It is up to them to not use, or prevent, any remote control of their computer by software other than Microsoft's.
Which presents an interesting possibility. Can Symantec sue MS for restraint of trade. In theory, users read and agree to the conditions of the license agreement. So "everyone" "knows" that you can't use third party remote control software with Windows XP.
Sales of pcAnywhere 10.5 notwithstanding, can Symantec collect damages on every copy of pcAnywhere sold?
I didn't bother to read all of the messages here but it looks like a lot of knee jerking going on...
Microsoft is still trying to compete with mp3. mp3 is ubiquitous, from freely available rippers to file sharing networks to portable players to home audio equipment to car stereos, you can now obtain, burn and listen to mp3s anywhere. Why should Joe Schmoe use WMA instead of mp3 when WMA is not supported on the home/car/portable players?
Availability is the biggest immediate hurdle WMA faces if Microsoft is to get the labels on board to use their format. Then we can see if the masses take to jumping through expected DRM hoops.
Because that's the only contract that was offered to them? Because they were not in a position to negotiate different/better terms?
Why would any computer sign any of Microsoft's contracts just so they could put Windows on their computers? Why would they agree to Microsoft's terms?
So go with somewhat lower tech--if the humanitarian aid is including radios, why not TV's too? (assuming they can survive the landing impact) Then bombard them with foreign news and entertainment programming. Maybe that's not such a bad idea. I know I'd be ready to surrender if I had to watch Survivor, Big Brother, and The Weakest Link all the time.
I played this one last year for old times sake when I downloaded a Z-machine interpreter for Windoze... but I actually have a copy in the original packaging ("Official Documents File") for CP/M on an 8" disk. Dates back to 1983. Nice to have all the original junk from the package. I had the C-64 version when I was in high school and actually signed the Stellar Patrol Special Assignment Task Force card and carried it in my wallet. Geez, I was a loser!
I guess I keep it because someday it may be valuable! (Or maybe my dad might someday piece together one of his old systems for his "computer museum" and we could see if the disk is still readable.)