3. Strategic partners: I don't care what the fuck people say about "Square's making Final Fantasy for the Xbox", I don't believe it. I see some console support from the Japanese developers, but MS needs to do better.
Or, MS can dump a couple million in a Japanese animation studio and create a new genre title 100% owned by MS; think Pokemon. After 6-8 months of constant Japanese airplay, they release the game(s) exclusively for Xbox.
We gaijin will tag along, assuming that anything anime is cool and good.
Sony's greatest strength is their massive reach into all media: movies, music and video games. They can release a movie and have exclusive rights to the game as well, and toss in a coupon for a discount on Sony music.
Nintendo has a hard-core base that will keep them going (plus several valuable properties, Mario and Pokemon--and they have Miyamoto), but they will never return to their 8-bit glory days. Sony is nearly unstoppable, but if anybody can take them on in a pissing match, MS has both the wallet and chutzpah.
By that argument, we should dismantle the EPA, OSHA, the FDA, and the EPA since they are unlikely to be perfect.
Which wouldn't get me very teary-eyed or even worried.
OSHA accomplishes what good it does by preventing thousands from working due to regulatory overhead for things as simplistic as insufficient foot-candles in the bathrooms. (A danger? Possibly--is 30 f/c more dangerous than 35 f/c? Not really, but could cost thousands to fix).
The FDA does some good, I'll admit. But so does Underwriters Laboratories, and they're cheaper than the FDA, too.
I won't mention the EPA--I only piss people off when I discuss the environment.
My local ISP started with dialup and moved into DSL--they still do DSL, but only for business. (I use them for both, dialup and business DSL) They were doing residential DSL, but stopped for the exact reasons described--BellSouth dragging heels, BellSouth impeding colo equipment, BellSouth being real shits.
They halted residential DSL for that reason. It sucked, because as I've used BellSouth DSL and Netdoor's DSL service, Netdoor kicks their ass sideways.
You overlook the main point--the very regulation that opened the local loop to DSL providers also provided for the fines if the RBOCs didn't do so. (I have some experience with this topic through my former job)
The argument can be made that the regulation wasn't good enough, that the regulation can be fixed, and I'd agree. The *possibility* of perfect governance is always there--the *liklihood* is that the regulation will be a dog's breakfast of loopholes, bad wording, or plain-old idiocy. From my experiences, I would rather depend on something other than the vagaries of the government.
And, in fact, the solution to the DSL/broadband problem isn't government. It's the private sector doing an end-run around the slow and quirky government regulators.
Since your whole premise is based on this mistaken notion, I don't see any point in more quotes/answers to the rest of it.
Well, that's how it is where I live. It is the usual case in most counties. It is the reason that I have AOL/TW Roadrunner in my county, and the county next door (with a rich WASPy residential taxbase) has nothing with their non-AOL/TW cable company.
In addition, my premise is not based on government mandated monopolies, but rather whether a government-based solution would remedy the problem or not.
You do not answer my comparison between homegrown dialup ISPs and their success in an unregulated and unprotected market, where the DSL providers, in a highly regulated and protected environment broke land-speed records for going belly-up. It's a quite interesting comparison.
Everyone who wants and could benefit from broadband.
Quality of life is subjective is my point. My dad could benefit from broadband... he doesn't want it. His quality of life would be enhanced with a new table saw.
Telecommunting's problems are outdated management ideas, not lack of broadband.
It's both. If broadband is not readily available, it makes telecommuting impractical for most people. If you think that broadband availability does not promote telecommuting, you're just kidding yourself.
I telecommuted via modem. Jamie Zawinski used to telecommute over a leased 64Kbit line (certainly not "broadband"). Telecommuting is not about video-conferencing (as nearly nobody does that), but sharing documents (Word files are easily transported over modem) or accessing CVS (certainly doable over modem), or even IM/email (millions of people are doing so over email).
Graphic designers may not be able to telecommute, but they can "work at home". SyQuest and Zip made a fortune on those people by allowing them to cart home hundred megabyte Photoshop files. You won't be sharing those over broadband, either.
We have a cable monopoly in my county because no other provider can foresee a feasible way to come in, run lines, and provide a service profitably. That's why you have cable monopolies in most areas.
No, it's because it is a county government endorsed monopoly. Your county government said, "Sure, AOL/TW, come in here and run wires! We'll pass laws that prevent others from doing the same!"
The fact of the matter is, few companies would have gone to the expense of building that infrastructure if they were NOT going to be given a monopoly. The cost is so high to run all that coax, if they didn't have a monopoly, they would have charged hundreds of dollars for hookups.
That is not to say that the monopoly granted was *neccessary*, but it affected *who* invested and *how much* infrastructure was built.
And you seem to feel that the way that the monopoly came into existence is important. I do not. They exist and now we need to do something to protect the consumer.
I simply don't believe that the next mandate from the government will benefit the consumers any more than the last bunch of government mandates. You assume that whatever law is passed will protect the consumer--it may *seem* to protect the consumer, but in reality it may *stregthen* the monopoly's hold, or alter the service it provides, or increases the cost.
The fact that such stories are so rare, and that he's still facing technological hurdles, shows just how absurd it is to rely on that to solve the problem for the population as a whole.
Rare? History is repleat with rags-to-riches success stories. How many roll-your-own ISPs were formed in the mid-90s? A lot of them are still doing fine--my local ISP certainly is, in a market that is almost completely unregulated, and unprotected from "industry giants" like AOL and Mindspring. They compete purely on quality of service.
However, the DSL companies, heavily regulated and "protected" by the 1996 Telecom Act... well, they're mostly all in the toilet. That government protection did little for them.
720x240 at 60 Hz, interlaced to give you 720x480 at 30 Hz, if I remember correctly. Some of the rows/columns aren't visible, though
720x480 is the way a computer sees TV resolution. TV uses rectangular pixels, computers use square pixels. That's why it's usual to specify TV resolution in lines.
For example, a VHS tape on standard play has about 300 lines of resolution. A new Sony Wega might have 500 lines of resolution. A DV camcorder might record 500 lines of resolution.
The lack of broadband is beginning to have a real effect on the economy, quality of life, education, and even traffic and pollution (since telecommuting is often impractical with a dial-up line).
Whose quality of life? My dad is perfectly happy without broadband at home. If he could, he'd dump the phone as well, but mom loves email.
Telecommunting's problems are outdated management ideas, not lack of broadband.
To all of you anti-government people, I say "get a clue!" The current system is not working and the free market is, by and large, not solving the problem.
While we're at it, let's pass a law forbidding bad luck and bad weather.
First, the reason we have telco and cable monopolies is because of legislation. You are advocating fixing the problem by calling the same people who screwed it up. If a plumber plugs your sewage line into your ice maker, do you call the same guy when you need to replace your faucets?
Second, how has the free market failed? The government-sanctioned monopoly wasn't providing the service, so a motivated guy put together an alternative. If, in the end, he isn't able to get access to the Qwest local loop, do you think he'll kick the dirt and say, "Darnit..."? Or do you think he'll move to 802.11b?
I get asked a lot about what computers to buy, what's good, what's bad.
My advice has been consistant for years: spend whatever money it takes to get a good monitor, sacrificing CPU speed, HDD size, or RAM--whatever it takes. You spend all of your time looking at the monitor, and almost none waiting on the computer. Get a good monitor that's big enough to see stuff. Nothing is sadder than to hear some dweeb going on about his P4, 1.9Ghz, 1Gig RAM, and watch him look at the world through a blurry 15in monitor.
I like Trinitrons (those are usually decent), some of the NECs and Hitachis (or RasterOps, which are just rebranded Hitachis).
Spend that cash on a good monitor. You can always carry it over to your next computer, or upgrade your current box. Good monitors (and keyboards, but good keyboards are still cheap) make the computing experience safer and more pleasurable.
I don't believe he's a dictator; rather, he's a polarized idealist. His represents the viewpoint of the other side. This necessitates him being stiff and uncompromising most of the time.
He does compromise, however. The LGPL is an example of that.
In fact, I bet Apple would love to see a modest investment, say $6 Bln - a fraction of MS' current warchest, estimated at >$30Bln - into Darwin. An investment into an OSS platform might be part of a settlement that would satisfy the 9 states. Maybe not, but it's worth a try.
I think we'd be whistling in the dark for a settlement from the anti-trust suit that will be much of anything. It certainly won't do us much good now, as I doubt the settlement will happen quickly. MS can delay quite a bit more, and until then, they are making money hand over fist.
A solid OSS OS like Darwin, with support from Apple and MS, available for X86 and PPC would be a considerable competitor to Linux.
Darwin, without the Apple-centric goodies on top, isn't much more than FreeBSD with chocolate chips. I wouldn't count on seeing anything like this while Jobs lives and breathes.
MS could move all the people in their development groups who might be sympathetic to Open Source over to these projects, energizing the Windows people to compete.
This would be good -- I wonder if they do this already? "That guy over there. He's a Linux lover. Put him in that trouble-maker group over there."
Now, it seems that the MS culture is one where they don't feel they have to compete on engineering as MS can depend on their power to intimidate and eliminate competitors. This fosters a sick culture of non-competition.
Possible, but I don't think so. MS seems to me to simply outwait and outspend competition when rivals threaten. I think that is why they've been so flaccid in combatting the midrange server marketshare erosion they're experiencing due to Free OSes. This competitor is not one they can outspend or outwait--in fact, out-waiting will likely eat them alive.
MS has the enviable position of massive cash reserves and a formidable installed base, but their strength can become a weakness; depending on their strengths (as they always have) doesn't work on a competitor that makes an end-run around them.
I think companies that are afraid of internal competition don't recognize that it's better to compete internally than to leave the opportunities up to your external competitors.
From what I've read, MS isn't a culture of non-internal competition. Rather, they're a complete opposite. I've read that the Office divisions on Mac and Windows are fierce competitors.
MS does produce good products (every now and then), and this can't always be pure accident.
I doubt that MS would ever do any of this, however.
There is no way we can condense MS's strategy in the limits of an HTML <TEXTAREA>. They may do parts of this, none of this, or the whole thing, as well as merge with Johnson & Johnson and make WindowsTP(tm) for the bathroom.
Personally, I don't see how Linux -- a GPL'd and Open Source OS -- could ever function within commercial software space. Their open source license is a strong attempt, not at freedom, but diluting a commercial Open Source company's profits (one area where they're really lacking). Yeah, that's a real open source attitude: virally affect all code it touches.
Besides, RMS has already made clear that capitalism is a threat to socialism; hence, his desire to have nothing to do with it.
That once parents get a hold of this kind of technology and use it with 4-year-olds, to track them down if they wander offthey're going to want to use it to monitor where their 15-year-olds go when they go out (which, IMHO, is a gross abuse of the technology).
Keeping an eye on a 4 year old is imperative--they don't have the experience to know that a street is dangerous and shouldn't be crossed alone, for example.
Keeping an eye on a 15 year old is just as imperative--they don't have the experience to know that the kid they're hanging around with might help get them in trouble with the law.
While some modicum of privacy should be allowed for teenagers, too much is dangerous. Too much privacy and you might not notice the danger signs of drug abuse, contemplations of suicide, illegal activities... any number of things.
You will soon see that despite rosy-colored memories of how much fun you had playing Empire or Sword of Aragon, suddenly it's apparent that, while great games for their time, our expectations are tremendously higher.
Maybe. But, then, gameplay is gameplay, and good gameplay stands out. Or do you think that old ass Galaga game is still in the arcade for shits and giggles?
Older games were built by people with a love for games and game playing. Recent games are built by automatons punching out Yet Another Quake Engine-Based FPS--the standouts still stand out because they have good people behind them.
Overall, I think the signal-to-noise ratio was much higher in years past because the industry was just getting underway. Great things were done back then--it's much more automated and industrialized now, packaged up in slick marketing and clever graphics.
While corporations might have the money, in a theoretical sense, they don't have the *profits* to fight such a battle. It would *not* "enhance shareholder value" to fight a long, *political* battle over a patent. Better to find some loophole, or some other method, to allow the corp to continue as before.
I don't know the ratios, but I imagine that if you looked, most freedom-inspired battles before the supreme court stem from individuals, not corporations.
And you've just struck on the problem of having the government do anything...
Suing the governemt, while possible, is an extremely daunting prospect. It takes lots of time and lots of money--two assets the government has in plenty, whereas most private companies or individuals don't.
Now, if the government wasn't doing so many other non-Constitutional things, perhaps some attention could be paid to the patent office and things like this could be prevented... nahh, I'm just a lunatic...
What this reminds me of, more than anyting else, is the early 80s, during the Great Video Game Console Crash.
I just don't know--Sony is big, MS is big, but MS has a habit (and reputation) for stick-to-ittiveness unmatched in any other company. Remember how god-awful Windows 1.0 was? Any other company would have given up immediately and filed Chapter 11--MS managed to trump and dominate a field that could have been Lotus's through a long campaign of shrewd marketing, crude marketing tricks, bull-headed stubborness, and a little bit of real cleverness.
But then, what do I know... I have yet to see the game that makes me want either an XBox, PS2 or GameCube. (Well, the Star Wars game for Gamecube, maybe) All they have are poor ripoffs of 3D-FPS, sports games that I don't care about, driving games that aren't as much fun as Spy Hunter was back in the day, and franchise games (FF Eighteen Bajillion Million, Yet Another Goddamn Mario Game, etc)
I don't understand--so Hollings doesn't get any money from Disney with CFR. How does that stop the SSSCA, or any other bad law from being proposed and/or enacted?
If you argue that Hollings won't introduce legislation unless he's paid money to do so, I could agree; except, whether they get money or not, it seems that politicians will pass crummy laws regardless.
I got as far as "maybe the Playstation 6 or 7 will be based on biotechnology", or some such garbage.
Please. This story is nothing more than a trumped up press release targetted towards the Xbox and GameCube in an attempt to either 1) slow their sales or 2) engender positive mindshare for the Playstation.
Distributed computing? In other words, "imagine a Beowulf cluster of these..."
Slashdot Mirror
Or, MS can dump a couple million in a Japanese animation studio and create a new genre title 100% owned by MS; think Pokemon. After 6-8 months of constant Japanese airplay, they release the game(s) exclusively for Xbox.
We gaijin will tag along, assuming that anything anime is cool and good.
Sony's greatest strength is their massive reach into all media: movies, music and video games. They can release a movie and have exclusive rights to the game as well, and toss in a coupon for a discount on Sony music.
Nintendo has a hard-core base that will keep them going (plus several valuable properties, Mario and Pokemon--and they have Miyamoto), but they will never return to their 8-bit glory days. Sony is nearly unstoppable, but if anybody can take them on in a pissing match, MS has both the wallet and chutzpah.
Which wouldn't get me very teary-eyed or even worried.
OSHA accomplishes what good it does by preventing thousands from working due to regulatory overhead for things as simplistic as insufficient foot-candles in the bathrooms. (A danger? Possibly--is 30 f/c more dangerous than 35 f/c? Not really, but could cost thousands to fix).
The FDA does some good, I'll admit. But so does Underwriters Laboratories, and they're cheaper than the FDA, too.
I won't mention the EPA--I only piss people off when I discuss the environment.
My local ISP started with dialup and moved into DSL--they still do DSL, but only for business. (I use them for both, dialup and business DSL) They were doing residential DSL, but stopped for the exact reasons described--BellSouth dragging heels, BellSouth impeding colo equipment, BellSouth being real shits.
They halted residential DSL for that reason. It sucked, because as I've used BellSouth DSL and Netdoor's DSL service, Netdoor kicks their ass sideways.
You overlook the main point--the very regulation that opened the local loop to DSL providers also provided for the fines if the RBOCs didn't do so. (I have some experience with this topic through my former job)
The argument can be made that the regulation wasn't good enough, that the regulation can be fixed, and I'd agree. The *possibility* of perfect governance is always there--the *liklihood* is that the regulation will be a dog's breakfast of loopholes, bad wording, or plain-old idiocy. From my experiences, I would rather depend on something other than the vagaries of the government.
And, in fact, the solution to the DSL/broadband problem isn't government. It's the private sector doing an end-run around the slow and quirky government regulators.
Since your whole premise is based on this mistaken notion, I don't see any point in more quotes/answers to the rest of it.
Well, that's how it is where I live. It is the usual case in most counties. It is the reason that I have AOL/TW Roadrunner in my county, and the county next door (with a rich WASPy residential taxbase) has nothing with their non-AOL/TW cable company.
In addition, my premise is not based on government mandated monopolies, but rather whether a government-based solution would remedy the problem or not.
You do not answer my comparison between homegrown dialup ISPs and their success in an unregulated and unprotected market, where the DSL providers, in a highly regulated and protected environment broke land-speed records for going belly-up. It's a quite interesting comparison.
Quality of life is subjective is my point. My dad could benefit from broadband... he doesn't want it. His quality of life would be enhanced with a new table saw.
It's both. If broadband is not readily available, it makes telecommuting impractical for most people. If you think that broadband availability does not promote telecommuting, you're just kidding yourself.I telecommuted via modem. Jamie Zawinski used to telecommute over a leased 64Kbit line (certainly not "broadband"). Telecommuting is not about video-conferencing (as nearly nobody does that), but sharing documents (Word files are easily transported over modem) or accessing CVS (certainly doable over modem), or even IM/email (millions of people are doing so over email).
Graphic designers may not be able to telecommute, but they can "work at home". SyQuest and Zip made a fortune on those people by allowing them to cart home hundred megabyte Photoshop files. You won't be sharing those over broadband, either.
We have a cable monopoly in my county because no other provider can foresee a feasible way to come in, run lines, and provide a service profitably. That's why you have cable monopolies in most areas.
No, it's because it is a county government endorsed monopoly. Your county government said, "Sure, AOL/TW, come in here and run wires! We'll pass laws that prevent others from doing the same!"
The fact of the matter is, few companies would have gone to the expense of building that infrastructure if they were NOT going to be given a monopoly. The cost is so high to run all that coax, if they didn't have a monopoly, they would have charged hundreds of dollars for hookups.
That is not to say that the monopoly granted was *neccessary*, but it affected *who* invested and *how much* infrastructure was built.
And you seem to feel that the way that the monopoly came into existence is important. I do not. They exist and now we need to do something to protect the consumer.
I simply don't believe that the next mandate from the government will benefit the consumers any more than the last bunch of government mandates. You assume that whatever law is passed will protect the consumer--it may *seem* to protect the consumer, but in reality it may *stregthen* the monopoly's hold, or alter the service it provides, or increases the cost.
The fact that such stories are so rare, and that he's still facing technological hurdles, shows just how absurd it is to rely on that to solve the problem for the population as a whole.
Rare? History is repleat with rags-to-riches success stories. How many roll-your-own ISPs were formed in the mid-90s? A lot of them are still doing fine--my local ISP certainly is, in a market that is almost completely unregulated, and unprotected from "industry giants" like AOL and Mindspring. They compete purely on quality of service.
However, the DSL companies, heavily regulated and "protected" by the 1996 Telecom Act... well, they're mostly all in the toilet. That government protection did little for them.
720x480 is the way a computer sees TV resolution. TV uses rectangular pixels, computers use square pixels. That's why it's usual to specify TV resolution in lines.
For example, a VHS tape on standard play has about 300 lines of resolution. A new Sony Wega might have 500 lines of resolution. A DV camcorder might record 500 lines of resolution.
Okay, I've been trolled and caught. But...
The lack of broadband is beginning to have a real effect on the economy, quality of life, education, and even traffic and pollution (since telecommuting is often impractical with a dial-up line).
Whose quality of life? My dad is perfectly happy without broadband at home. If he could, he'd dump the phone as well, but mom loves email.
Telecommunting's problems are outdated management ideas, not lack of broadband.
To all of you anti-government people, I say "get a clue!" The current system is not working and the free market is, by and large, not solving the problem.
While we're at it, let's pass a law forbidding bad luck and bad weather.
First, the reason we have telco and cable monopolies is because of legislation. You are advocating fixing the problem by calling the same people who screwed it up. If a plumber plugs your sewage line into your ice maker, do you call the same guy when you need to replace your faucets?
Second, how has the free market failed? The government-sanctioned monopoly wasn't providing the service, so a motivated guy put together an alternative. If, in the end, he isn't able to get access to the Qwest local loop, do you think he'll kick the dirt and say, "Darnit..."? Or do you think he'll move to 802.11b?
Nice troll, though.
Commercial crap like Slashdot? Or does Slashdot fall into the "acedemic" category?
This thing needs a pipe organ. I can just see James Mason playing Bach's "Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor" in the gallery.
Just need Kirk Douglas looking young again, and it'd be perfect.
Amen! Can I hear another! "Amen!"
I get asked a lot about what computers to buy, what's good, what's bad.
My advice has been consistant for years: spend whatever money it takes to get a good monitor, sacrificing CPU speed, HDD size, or RAM--whatever it takes. You spend all of your time looking at the monitor, and almost none waiting on the computer. Get a good monitor that's big enough to see stuff. Nothing is sadder than to hear some dweeb going on about his P4, 1.9Ghz, 1Gig RAM, and watch him look at the world through a blurry 15in monitor.
I like Trinitrons (those are usually decent), some of the NECs and Hitachis (or RasterOps, which are just rebranded Hitachis).
Spend that cash on a good monitor. You can always carry it over to your next computer, or upgrade your current box. Good monitors (and keyboards, but good keyboards are still cheap) make the computing experience safer and more pleasurable.
At first I thought this was the Alan Thicke troll...
I don't believe he's a dictator; rather, he's a polarized idealist. His represents the viewpoint of the other side. This necessitates him being stiff and uncompromising most of the time.
He does compromise, however. The LGPL is an example of that.
I think we'd be whistling in the dark for a settlement from the anti-trust suit that will be much of anything. It certainly won't do us much good now, as I doubt the settlement will happen quickly. MS can delay quite a bit more, and until then, they are making money hand over fist.
A solid OSS OS like Darwin, with support from Apple and MS, available for X86 and PPC would be a considerable competitor to Linux.
Darwin, without the Apple-centric goodies on top, isn't much more than FreeBSD with chocolate chips. I wouldn't count on seeing anything like this while Jobs lives and breathes.
MS could move all the people in their development groups who might be sympathetic to Open Source over to these projects, energizing the Windows people to compete.
This would be good -- I wonder if they do this already? "That guy over there. He's a Linux lover. Put him in that trouble-maker group over there."
Now, it seems that the MS culture is one where they don't feel they have to compete on engineering as MS can depend on their power to intimidate and eliminate competitors. This fosters a sick culture of non-competition.
Possible, but I don't think so. MS seems to me to simply outwait and outspend competition when rivals threaten. I think that is why they've been so flaccid in combatting the midrange server marketshare erosion they're experiencing due to Free OSes. This competitor is not one they can outspend or outwait--in fact, out-waiting will likely eat them alive.
MS has the enviable position of massive cash reserves and a formidable installed base, but their strength can become a weakness; depending on their strengths (as they always have) doesn't work on a competitor that makes an end-run around them.
I think companies that are afraid of internal competition don't recognize that it's better to compete internally than to leave the opportunities up to your external competitors.
From what I've read, MS isn't a culture of non-internal competition. Rather, they're a complete opposite. I've read that the Office divisions on Mac and Windows are fierce competitors.
MS does produce good products (every now and then), and this can't always be pure accident.
I doubt that MS would ever do any of this, however.
There is no way we can condense MS's strategy in the limits of an HTML <TEXTAREA>. They may do parts of this, none of this, or the whole thing, as well as merge with Johnson & Johnson and make WindowsTP(tm) for the bathroom.
It is fun to speculate. "If I was Bill, I'd...."
Personally, I don't see how Linux -- a GPL'd and Open Source OS -- could ever function within commercial software space. Their open source license is a strong attempt, not at freedom, but diluting a commercial Open Source company's profits (one area where they're really lacking). Yeah, that's a real open source attitude: virally affect all code it touches.
Besides, RMS has already made clear that capitalism is a threat to socialism; hence, his desire to have nothing to do with it.
Keeping an eye on a 4 year old is imperative--they don't have the experience to know that a street is dangerous and shouldn't be crossed alone, for example.
Keeping an eye on a 15 year old is just as imperative--they don't have the experience to know that the kid they're hanging around with might help get them in trouble with the law.
While some modicum of privacy should be allowed for teenagers, too much is dangerous. Too much privacy and you might not notice the danger signs of drug abuse, contemplations of suicide, illegal activities... any number of things.
I find it difficult to equate Enya to Celine. What other Enya title tracks for movies offend you?
Maybe. But, then, gameplay is gameplay, and good gameplay stands out. Or do you think that old ass Galaga game is still in the arcade for shits and giggles?
Older games were built by people with a love for games and game playing. Recent games are built by automatons punching out Yet Another Quake Engine-Based FPS--the standouts still stand out because they have good people behind them.
Overall, I think the signal-to-noise ratio was much higher in years past because the industry was just getting underway. Great things were done back then--it's much more automated and industrialized now, packaged up in slick marketing and clever graphics.
While corporations might have the money, in a theoretical sense, they don't have the *profits* to fight such a battle. It would *not* "enhance shareholder value" to fight a long, *political* battle over a patent. Better to find some loophole, or some other method, to allow the corp to continue as before.
I don't know the ratios, but I imagine that if you looked, most freedom-inspired battles before the supreme court stem from individuals, not corporations.
And you've just struck on the problem of having the government do anything...
Suing the governemt, while possible, is an extremely daunting prospect. It takes lots of time and lots of money--two assets the government has in plenty, whereas most private companies or individuals don't.
Now, if the government wasn't doing so many other non-Constitutional things, perhaps some attention could be paid to the patent office and things like this could be prevented... nahh, I'm just a lunatic...
Not as much as I used to. I tend to rehash my old carts instead. I'm too old for twitch-factor games, and too ADD for long RPG games.
I do want an Advanced Gameboy, though. There are a few games for that I wouldn't mind having, plus the "play anywhere-ability" of it.
What this reminds me of, more than anyting else, is the early 80s, during the Great Video Game Console Crash.
I just don't know--Sony is big, MS is big, but MS has a habit (and reputation) for stick-to-ittiveness unmatched in any other company. Remember how god-awful Windows 1.0 was? Any other company would have given up immediately and filed Chapter 11--MS managed to trump and dominate a field that could have been Lotus's through a long campaign of shrewd marketing, crude marketing tricks, bull-headed stubborness, and a little bit of real cleverness.
But then, what do I know... I have yet to see the game that makes me want either an XBox, PS2 or GameCube. (Well, the Star Wars game for Gamecube, maybe) All they have are poor ripoffs of 3D-FPS, sports games that I don't care about, driving games that aren't as much fun as Spy Hunter was back in the day, and franchise games (FF Eighteen Bajillion Million, Yet Another Goddamn Mario Game, etc)
I don't understand--so Hollings doesn't get any money from Disney with CFR. How does that stop the SSSCA, or any other bad law from being proposed and/or enacted?
If you argue that Hollings won't introduce legislation unless he's paid money to do so, I could agree; except, whether they get money or not, it seems that politicians will pass crummy laws regardless.
Again, how would CFR stop the SSSCA?
I got as far as "maybe the Playstation 6 or 7 will be based on biotechnology", or some such garbage.
Please. This story is nothing more than a trumped up press release targetted towards the Xbox and GameCube in an attempt to either 1) slow their sales or 2) engender positive mindshare for the Playstation.
Distributed computing? In other words, "imagine a Beowulf cluster of these..."
Care to explain how it would help this situation? I'm truly interested in how you think CFR would help.
Gotcha... I didn't see that.
Is this a PCCard thing, or an APM thing, though? (prolly a bit of both)