The reason this thread does not stimulate conversation is because, unike virtually every other game out there, NWN fans don't need to come to slashdot - or any other place - to talk about it.
The NWN forums are STILL busy as hell a year after release.
RE: Same old look to the game. On this point, I agree. That's why our group, http://www.DLAdventures.com, has over 9 original tilesets in progress, a dozen new monsters, music, voice acting, FMV and - yes - our own sound engineer and 3 composers to back it up. Add on 21 artists and its a formiddable crew. The majority of professional game developers don't have teams this large. And this is a MOD GROUP for Gods' sakes.
At 36 people, DLA is the largest mod group anywhere - for any game. We've recruited directly in over 50 3d schools, from professional game developers, and through various International Game Developers Association chapters world wide.
Rather than dis the game, you might take a breather and stop to wonder what elements of game play prompt the sort of dedication to NWN that its fans have - and maybe re-assess your own play style. If you've kicked the tires and seen enough - ok, fair enough. But don't say you have unless you have without playing Adam Miller's Shadowlords or Dreamcatcher series. 90% of prof RPG's aren't as good as his mods.
If DM'ing & computers is your thing - maybe modding the game is what'll turn your crank? Or is yet another Q3a/Half-Life/UT2K3 mod REALLY that important and innovative that the world can't do without your level?
Whatever the case, one year to the day (tomorrow) after release, the largest used computer game store in Toronto (Gamerama) has moved HUNDREDS of used copies of Morrowind and Dungeon Siege over that past 12 months.
The total number of NWN copies sold back or traded to Gamerama by dissatisfied players in the past year? Exactly 5.
THAT says more about NWN and its staying power than any single other thing you can say.
IMO, most of the suggestions here are far too complex to throw kids at. All but a one or two will be turned off.
Let the get a sene of accomplishment and wonder with just a few mouse clicks.
Neverwinter Nights' toolset was made for this. If you want them to think about puzzles and monster types and plot and ot be able to do it - this is the EXACT software you need.
And yes - the scripting language is there for some interesting stuff too.
Honestly, going to something as basic as a game developer's kit, while realisitc, is going to strike the kids with output that is cheesey.
If they want to work on puzzles and plot - let them feel like the accomplished something while playing with the software for only TEN MINUTES and you'll have even the unblievers hooked.
My suggestion? Use Neverwinter Nights. The game's toolset was created so that people could get a sense of accomplishment for 10 minutes work.
Give em a week - they can do some cool stuff. Not modeling necessarily (though they could if they needed to - say - make a treasure chest in Gmax.
They certainly could reskin a creature to make it a different color.
Lots of stuff there. Knights and wizards is an easy sell.
"Because most people are obviously using file sharing to find new music to purchase. A concept the RIAA can not comprehend."
I don't comprehend it either, because I downloaded a lot of MP3's via Napster and Morpheus - but I wouldn't go out and buy them afterwards. A 192 RIP was good enough for me.
In this way, the RIAA is right. You download the MP3 - you are far less likely to buy it.
There is, however, a very different consequence which comes with MP3 sharing. And it's one which the RIAA, on reflection, has decided it does not like much either:
Overall music purchases dip a little. People who download Mp3's, however, ultimately consume more music. They eat more music, pay less for it, and spend their dollars in a less market efficient fashion.
It's a "hobby effect". You begin to "get into music" more, and you will buy music - just usually not the specific music you downloaded.
The effect is then to redisribute the proceeds of sales from the "leading group of the day" to those who aren't in the spotlight, but come to your attention and you buy it.
So what's in this for the RIAA? The more they market a band, the more airplay the band gets, the more the music is likely to be pirated and the more net sales from that band are adversely effected by music sharing.
Small consolation to the recording label when they find out that - yeah - the kids really like Sum41, and they end up so inspired that they go search out Sum41 "influences", go to the music store to buy some old Green Day EPs.
THe RIAA may be engaged in a vain struggle, they may disinform and lie and distort the facts, but they aren't *stupid*.
You are completely missing the point. I suspect you have bever actually *gamed* in your life.
A MMORPG is missing the one thing to make the game complete: a DM.
A DM creates an adventure and takes care of his players. A DM challenges, interacts, and responds. A DM shift on the fly, takes over the reactuon of NPC's and anticipates where he can and fudges where he can't. A great DM can do htis on the fly without you even noticing he has done so.
It is this interaction which makes a limited group game infinitely better than a MMORPG which must necessarily be scripted & non-interactive. By it's design it is limted to hack and slash. A MMORPG inevitably degenertate into a *seize the treasure* focus, because it is inherent ot its design.
MMORPG *aren't* RPG's at all. NWN is the first such game with the potential to actually be one.
The sad thing is that you didn't think of this yourself. Evercrack players are getting a pale imitation of the real thing. What makes it sad is that they don't know any better.
"Distributes" is to give to another; hence - you borrow CD - make a copy - that is distributing.
There is no doubt that the section speaks to the commercial exploitation of another's work; but it does NOT restrict it to commercial exploitation at all. That is one of the reasons the offence can be by summary conviction (typically six months or less) or by indictment (up to 5 years in penitentiary)
The criminal power resides in Parliament and there are many criminal offences set out in statutes other than the Criminal Code of Canada.
Narcotics, for example, are not regulated through the Criminal Code. Trafficking contrary to the Narcotics Control Act remains punishable by up to life in prison. I'd say that's a "crime", wouldn't you?
When the Copyright Act makes reference to an offence punsishable as an indictable offence - it is making clear reference to the criminal power of Parliament.
I'm sorry I'm telling you something you don't want to hear - but that doesn't change the accuracy of my statement - or the innacuracy of yours.
It's not a matter of "credible conclusions". I'm a lawyer and have practiced law in Ontario for seven years now. Have you?
At the hearings on this matter reported on in the Toronto Star last fall, some bozo executive from the Canadian music indudtry reported to the Committee - with a straight face - that 86% of blank CDR's were used in Canada to pirate copyrighted music.
When I read this in the Toronto Star - I about fell off my chair. This guy is on drugs.
I expect that the vast majority of CDR's in Canada are used to pirate software first, movies second in terms of volume of dics used, with music bringing up the rear.
As for how this sort of tariff happened, well - it's been in place for quite a while - simply not as big. It has its historical roots as tariffs on cassette tapes.
Street level prices on CDR's in Toronto don't really reflect the OLD tariffs - let alone the new ones. I have my doubts this levy is currently being paid in the first place. Most of the cheap rate retail stores in Toronto, at least, are finding a way around it.
Oh - the total number of citizens who turned out to protest this tariff or report negatively to the Committee? That would be ZERO.
"Although don't call it pirating (which is a dumb term anyway), since it's not illegal. In Canada, we're allowed to borrow CDs and make copies of them for personal use."
Sorry to confuse you with the FACTS, but what you are referring to is contrary to the Copyright Act and is a criminal offence. At least - that's what I learned at *my* law school.
And NO - we don't have a judicially recognized "home taping" fair use recognition in Canada, even of discs you purchased. The Americans recognize such a right - Canada does not.
******************
Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42
42. (1) Every person who knowingly
(a) makes for sale or rental an infringing copy of a work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists,
(b) sells or rents out, or by way of trade exposes or offers for sale or rental, an infringing copy of a work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists,
(c) distributes infringing copies of a work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists, either for the purpose of trade or to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright,
(d) by way of trade exhibits in public an infringing copy of a work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists, or
(e) imports for sale or rental into Canada any infringing copy of a work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists
is guilty of an offence and liable (f) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding twenty-five thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both, or (g) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding one million dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to both.
As a Canadian lawyer, I thought I would disabuse a few posters here who do not understand what this decision was about.
This was a decision in respect of the constitutionality of a bylaw under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - as such - it was wholly concerned with the attempt of a governmental entity (a muncipality) attempting to regulate non-commercial speech.
It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the right of a citizen to criticize a company, their software, or otherwise, vis-a-vis that citizen and the company.
This was NOT a dispute between the insurance company and the citizen. That is an important distinction.
To clarify - the Candian Charter applies only to the relationship of an individual with the state or its agencies. It has no application - ZERO - as between an individual and another individual. No exceptions. Nada.
The SCC has time and time again struck down legislation that has attempted to regulate private speech that is not otherwise criminal in nature (advocates hate, criminal libel)or commercial in purpose. It has done so enthusiastically in the past, for example, by preventing municipalities from passing bylaws (without any rational restraint) against the posting of handbills on public property.
It has done so in this case by holding that a billboard erected by a customer with an axe to grind is not an "advertisment". Advertisements, as commercial speech, are not entitled to the same degree of deference and protection under the Charter as "political" or socially motivated speech. There is a significant difference between the two under Canadian law.
End result: You can't pass an oppressive bylaw which restricts a citizen from engaging in socially useful speech with other ctizens.
That's it - that's all. To attempt to extract a comment made by the court with respect to the potential social utility of a complaint about a company is to elevate obiter dicta and turn it into a "ruling". That isn't what they said and to suggest otherwise is to wholly miconstrue the meaning and effect of the judgment.
All you can determine from the judgment is a reaffirmation that an individual's complaint about a company is not "commercial speech" within Canada, and its nature does not change whether it is posted on the Net, on a handbill or on a billboard.
1 - You could insulate the embryos from radiation in transit and from harmful g effects;
2 - You could develop an automated process which would permit robotic technology to, either in space or on the ground in a landing pod, "kickstart" such an artficial womb;
3- Assume also we had some uberComputer/Droid that could feed and educationally/emotionally take care of a Primary colony of human children born using this tech (perhaps the biggest assumption of all);
THEN,
You could use this technology to use a relatively slow and VERY sub-light vessel to realistically colonize a star system with human kind using present day technology (apart from this UberMotherDroid). No cold fusion or other exotic tech required. You could do it. For real.
And if its doable for human kind - I see no reason why the engineering is not practicable for other mammals.
In short - you could send out an ARK based on this technology - and we *might* actually be able to pull it off.
Ridiculously hard? Foolishly expensive? Extremely likely to fail? YES. But theoretically possible?
Yes. The breathtaking implication is - Yes, it's doable.
Apart from this application - which would truly be the apex of evolution on this planet - I cannot see how these scientists can possibly justify this research ethically.
I am for applied genetics and I'll even support eugenics where many fear to tread. I'm the kind of guy who WOULD choose to have a genetically "perfect" child if the scenario of GATTACA presented itself to me and my wife.
But this? An artificial womb - a biological TANK for growing humans on earth?
Visceral or not - this just plainly offends me. It's reach-for-the-rifle-time if this is outside of a NASA's hands as far as I'm concerned.
I am not sure what my bandwidth usage in a given month is - but my guess is that its close to 50gigs.
That said, the vast majority of that *was* for NNTP - so that's local bandwidth use on Rogers own network - not off of it.
That difference is critical - as it means the variable cost of providing that bandwidth use is minimal. I repeat - the "hogs" were not (till now) sucking up bandwidth like this via Morpheus. They were doing it with Newsbin.
My biggest problem with this pricing scheme is that it is was announced at the same time - ON THE SAME DAY - as Rogers access to the @Home NNTP newservers went dark.
The suggestions by some posters here that Rogers newservers are now "not as good" as the old @Home groups is a HUGE understatement. The new Rogers NNTP access is simply awful - utterly awful. Binary groups might as well simply not be available at all.
They are now USELESS, utterly useless. And now the NNTP junkies will be forced to turn to Morpheus for the same content. Except Morpheus will be sharing files 24/7 and will do so off network. (This will cost Rogers some serious cash - Morpheus' variable cost to Rogers will be high).
In any event, I find it more than a little convenient how - on the same day that Rogers deliberately cuts off usable access to NNTP binary groups, an article is leaked to Globe And Mail threatening to up the fee charged to bandwidth hogs.
A mere coincidence? I think not.
Last 2 points
1 - In USD the propsed charge is not bad. Except I don't earn an income in USD. I earn it in CDN. And we don't make 40% more than you guys in absolute dollar terms.
It's an expensive hike guys. It will hurt a LOT.
2 - @Home didn't go under becasue of low bandwidth charges. They went under because some IDIOT paid billions for Excite at the height of the dot.com boom. Please fon't re-write history to suit your argument de jour.
One poster has mentioned that we have prgressed to the point where we are not evolving through creating new technologies.
This is, in part, quite correct.
Moreover, the original author has missed the blatantly obvious: we have evolved to the point where we now have our fingertips on the very keys of evolution itself.
No other species is able to alter itself on a genetic level by choice.
Natural selection may have become increasingly marginalized as an evolutionary mechanism. It is quite another thing to say that evolution itself has sopped. Au contraire, we are on the precipice of a new mode of evolution.
Re:Slashdot = Community??
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Browsing Alone
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Well - anybody who believes that the Red Cross, Boy Scouts and religious organizations are the true source of stability and strength of the nation is lost in some Thousand-Points-of-Light Norman Rockwell dreamland. That is not analysis - it is neo-conservative propaganda.
Technology need not inevitably make us better people, but it can empower us to be better citizens. Slashdot forums, while often demonstrating a decreasing signal to noise ratio, do enable us to read the views of others and form political and societal opinions at an individual level.
This enables us to be better citizens.
It does not necessarily produce an online "community". I am a member of a true online community. I interact with those people both online and offline. If my house burned down tonight - I'd have someplace else to sleep as a result. If I needed money - many of them would lend it to me. Last Xmas - some of them were on my list. Online communities *can* lead to the formation of a tribe - a clan - but it's not the rule.
Nevertheless, Slashdot is a place where:
- people can be friendly with one another (without necessarily being friends)
- act civilly, discuss both current events and politics; and,
- improve their understandings of technology, science, politics and society
It's the sort of forum which the Founding Fathers would have instantly recognized as being *virtuous*. Today we might call it empowering, or self-actualizing. Whatever the case - I think we might all agree that it is a "good thing".
The Net is not a virtuous antidote for alienation from society; it is simply a place where humans go. As such, it is a place where we bring our human frailties and faults: our lust, our greed, our prejudices and our cynicism.
It is also, in my experience, a place where we bring our intellect, our curiosity, and yes - even our decency and capacity to grow, to talk and to listen.
In between hype and cynicism, truth is often found.
It's not that they don't want your money - it's that they decided that if forced to choose beween losing your money because they pissed you off, and losing a whole lot more money because they DID NOT piss you off, they'd rather piss you off.
So they decided to piss you off. Got that?
They did not implement this scheme lightly. This was a direction from Bronfman and the Board of Directors. It has been delivered from on high like a stone tablet. And all the complaining in the world is not going to change this.
This is the result of a PRIME DIRECTIVE. Some underling didn't think this up all on his own during a coffee break.
Universal has concluded that piracy is the single biggest threat to its business. It is competing in the marketplace against FREE copies of what it already sells, and it is competing against FREE copies of what its competitors sell.
That's a battle they don't want to give up on without a fight. Can't blame 'em there.
So this is what they decided. They don't care about alternative OS's, they don't care about fair use, they don't give a rat's about how many letters you write, what bad publicity you give them, or how many copies of CD's you return.
>>THEY DON'T CARE
They think - and rightly so - that the MP3 and file sharing - in the long term - is a far graver threat to their bottom line than alienating any segment of their customer base.
Know something? They are right.
It's not going to work of course. Copy protection is a losing battle. But - go ahead guys. Give it your best shot Universal.
Amidst all this hysteria - get SERIOUS for a moment: if you buy a game, you don't RAVE about iD requiring a reg code for having to play Wolf Multiplayer online.
You don't RAVE about a software company using whatever flavour of the month watermarking scheme they have to inhibit piracy this month do you?
And you don't rave about the fact that the game only works with Windows either.
Universal has made a deliberate choice motivated by profit. They might be right - they might be wrong - but they genuinely feel they have no other choice.
So let em do it. You don't like it? Find a way around it. You can't do that? Then hats off to these guys for being the first company on planet Earth to make copy protection work on an mass scale.
Pissed about not being able to use Winamp to play your music? Then don't buy their product. Really - that's all there is to it. Vote with your wallet.
They think they will lose less in the long run by doing this than they will by not doing it. I am not sure that they are right in this belief - but that is only because copy protection is like locking a window, not like locking a vault. If you want to break the window to get in - you will.
If their copy protection scheme was foolproof, they'd be stupid NOT to do this.
If I have to read one more pious message about "rights" to make archival copies and "indignant" alternative OS users, I think I'll hurl.
Give it a rest. This is about money - and they decided you don't count. In the long run - they are probably right - so suck it up.
They don't broadcast shows because they want to - they broadcast shows because they have to.
They broadcast ADS because they want to.
If we record the shows, edit the ads, and repost the show - their profit model breaks down - in theory.
It gets worse for TV broadcast of movies and mini-series of course, but there is a pathological fear here when TV broadcasters of series and news worry so much.
Home taping has never been a threat. It wasn't to TV, it wasn't to Hollywood and it never really was to the RIAA either. VCR's always had a fast forward feature and some of them are damned good at filtering out ads. We all have VCR's - we don't systemically use them for this, by and large.
Why? We have better things to do with our time than waste EFFORT on filtering out ads.
Being able to make a perfect digital copy (a non-inferior good) and being able to choose it on demand from a pirated source scares the hell out of these companies.
As well it should at first blush I suppose, but is TV in THAT much of a problem position?
TV has less to fear from this technology than any other media. TV is too easy and too "free" to make ppl go out and chase it down to DL on a concerted basis.
Mp3's are traded for convenience and to avoid paying for them. Movies are traded for convenience and to avoid paying for them.
TV will be traded for convenience - as it is now to a limted degree. But as price is not an issue, the consumer does not perceive a substantial benefit to trade them on a concerted systemic basis.
If the only profit model they are really protecting is the ability to sell as many copies as they can of Season Two of The Sopranos on DVD, these guys need to chill out a little.
Okay - your market to sell Band of Broathers shrank a little. Other than that, so what?
TiVO is worth worrying about, but the net does not really add to the problem of TiVO to any appreciable degree.
The networks would be better off spending less effort on video on demand and more time on customized ad targeting.
We choose the show - our personal tastes determine the type of ads they stream to us. We don't waste the effort to filter them out or avoid them, because we don't mind watching them.
The worst case scenario in all of this is that TV simply has to broadcast ads that people choose to watch.
This happens in Europe and Japan already. The sun still rises and sets.
*slow down and take a breather for a moment will ya guys?
I remember the other snazzy mini-computer hack project we discussed here a month ago.
For those who don't remember, it is the snazzy looking but desperately underpowered IA-1
View the IA-1:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTo ol s/item-Details.asp?sku=C860-IA1
Now - question is - can you pull the guts out of the IA-1 and install the SV24 motherboard and p/s in it, get a decent hard drive in the space left (notebook or otherwise) AND manage to get that kewl monitor in the IA-1 working with the built in video card on the SV24?
Show me one of THOSE home hack projects, and my daughter will think you rule ('cause I'll build her one too).
Actually, exceeding the bandwidth cap is not only routinely easy - but I do that on my Cable connection on a >>daily basis.
NNTP alone eats up **easily** three GIGS a day. Binaries are bandwidth SOWS of awesome appetites.
I'd think that students switching to NNTP for their filez would solve most of their bandwidth issues - and switch the cries and screams to network admins dedicating some very serious hardware for local access NNTP servers. Still - a cheaper solution in the medium to long run than paying someone else for bandwidth.
The growing problem isn't mp3 files, its video files - and its a problem that is only going to get worse.
It amazes me how a "solution" is posed on this discussion group by imposing rationing and denying bandwidth access to users.
The users aren't accessing the system on a "grace and favour" model, They are doing it on a paying $10,000 plus dorm fees subscription model.
If someone tried to cap *my* pipe to 500 meg a week - I'd leave that service as fast as I could (mind you, one poster's reported 14 gig a week limit is pretty generous).
That may be what you thought you said, but we took it a very different way.
We understood the article to mean that broadband adoption was behind in the United States because of lack of content prompting people to buy it.
We think that's bullshit. The comparison to Canada proves the theory wrong. Canadian adoption of broadband has nothing to do with subsidies (which aren't there) and everything to do with advanced television cable technology and far higer market penetration of cable technology and more aggressive and regulated telcos - all of which makes the price of broadband in Canada *much* less than in the United States.
So - the point is - if the article is about why broadband adoption is lower in the US than in Canada - its about price. Content demanded by Canadians is precisely the same as demanded in the US; so why the discrepancy?
The whole premise of the article, (as we believed the premise to be) therefore made no sense to us.
Rogers IP is $39.95 CDN a month. If you are paying $60, you are buying extra IP addresses there buddy - or they are charging you more than they ought to be.
Current 6 month promo for Rogers is $20 a month too. Just moved and put it in the GF's name to get the promo deduction:-)
There is no doubt that the reason for the higher installed base in Canada is price. IF our price WAS $60 a month CDN for basic 1 IP Cable, you would not see the massive # of subscribers to @Home in Toronto that you do. At $40 CDN, its about $5 CDN a month higher than dial up with a dedicated phone line. Which means that I don't know anyone in Toronto anymore - literally - who still has dial up access in their personal res.
Seems to me the problem in the US is that it's closer to $15-$20 USD more a month than dial up ISP with a dedicated line. You don't need to look any farther than that to explain why dial up is still big in the US and invisible in Canada.
THAT SAID, Broadband to the workplace is still damned expensive in Canada. DSL is offered at $120 a month to my office in downtown TO. Until Rogers cable gets its act together on that front, it will be as high in price as Bell can get away with.
Which means I STILL have 56k dial up to the net in my office. Oh well - nice to have the extra password for access to LOOK's newsgroups from my home cable:-)
As I mentioned above in another reply - the parent article was wrong. Canadian broadband is not subsidized. The author's error was based on a proposed Canadian Federal plan for a National Broadband Program which WAS to be in effect now and has now since been scrapped. The National Strategy was scrapped after 9/11 and the Feds reorganized priorites in the budget to reflect security concerns.
Our broadband in Canada has a much higher installed base for the simple reasons that our cable TV companies are far more sophisticated and enjoy a far larger market penetration in Canada than in the United States.
Which means our delivery rates are cheaper. I'm paying $20 a month CDN for my cable IP right now. Anyone in the US getting unlimited 5mbps IP over cable for $12 a month? Didn't think so.
If that WAS the price - would you still subscibe to AOL? Didn't think so.
It's all about money. Make it cheap - the consumer will buy it.
We have cable TV wired into virtually every single urban residence within Canada -- that is almost *without exception* - and that's been the case for decades now. True, some choose not to have their cable turned "on", but the cable **is** still installed and there has never been a "last 50 foot" issue of any kind in Canada.
Our network infrastructure went "two way" in connection capabilities before the idea of IP over cable was thought of. Most cable cos did this in Candada to deal with pay services, installation issues and billing/piracy control. They were encouraged to do so by a CRTC policy which allowed them to charge a $50 fee for "installation" even if the installation was simply sending out a computer command to assign the account an account number.
It was - and is - free money due to natural churn - and the cable companies made sure they could take it for as little as possible. Fro example, in many neighbourhoods in Toronto, the tech for IP over cable was mostly already there and installed in the early 90's. (neighbourhood switching needed upgrading though to handle demand.)
We have that massive installed cable tv base, ironically, so that we can receive American television signals. (And we have the CRTC to ensure that we don't get too much American TV!).
Actually - the parent post is worse than crap - as the original article is simply misinformed.
We don't have government subsidy for broadband in Canada. We used to - the Feds paid for the main internet lines as part of educational costs for universities. That ended - as it has in the US - and at about the same time too.
And - we were going to implement that strategy again. Brina Tobin, Minister of Industry, had planned until September 11 on a national broadband strategy. This was mainly a regional economic development program to bring broadband to smaller regional centres in Canada - but that's ALL on hold now after 9/11. Tobin pretty much has admitted the project is dead.
The parent post is just wrong.
We have CHEAP broadband in Canada for one reason and one reason only: our cable companies are far more sophisticated and have far larger market pentration in Canada than in the USA.
And in order to compete agasint cable in the internet field, the Telcos have to price at the same rate.
In essence: Our TV cable systems rock.
It has always been thus. We (Canada) invented cable and turned it into a regulated utility through the CRTC. Ironically, we invented cable, and then regulated it, so that we got "enough" (but not TOO much) American television signals in our homes.
If you have never been to Canada, you simply don't appreciate how important and how pervasive TV cable is in this country.
Toronto's Ted Rogers' expanded cable operations in the USA. His former American company more or less laid all the coax in Southern California. But in the US - he was not protected from competition in cable as striclty as in Canada and his "increase the debt servicing load" public utility model for cable growth didn't work there.
But it works fine here. Our cable companies are far healthier and far better equipped to deliver broadband in Canada than in the USA. And lets be honest here - the reasons the Canadian numbers are so good is that our largest province - Ontario - is wired to the brim with fibre out the ass.
Despite the complaints (and we all have them)- they can have my Wave-cum-@Home-cum-Rogers cable modem when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
I currently pay $20 CDN for my broadband connection (special deal! normally it's $40). My speed is far higher than anything you can get via DSL and its unlimited and uncapped.
That isn't because it is subsidized, it's because after five decades of being in the telvision cable business, we have a cable tv market pentration higher than any other place on planet earth and our infrastructure reflects it.
Mr. "I teach at Stanford" Author should get his facts straight. He's just plain wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason this thread does not stimulate conversation is because, unike virtually every other game out there, NWN fans don't need to come to slashdot - or any other place - to talk about it.
The NWN forums are STILL busy as hell a year after release.
RE: Same old look to the game. On this point, I agree. That's why our group, http://www.DLAdventures.com, has over 9 original tilesets in progress, a dozen new monsters, music, voice acting, FMV and - yes - our own sound engineer and 3 composers to back it up. Add on 21 artists and its a formiddable crew. The majority of professional game developers don't have teams this large. And this is a MOD GROUP for Gods' sakes.
At 36 people, DLA is the largest mod group anywhere - for any game. We've recruited directly in over 50 3d schools, from professional game developers, and through various International Game Developers Association chapters world wide.
Rather than dis the game, you might take a breather and stop to wonder what elements of game play prompt the sort of dedication to NWN that its fans have - and maybe re-assess your own play style. If you've kicked the tires and seen enough - ok, fair enough. But don't say you have unless you have without playing Adam Miller's Shadowlords or Dreamcatcher series. 90% of prof RPG's aren't as good as his mods.
If DM'ing & computers is your thing - maybe modding the game is what'll turn your crank? Or is yet another Q3a/Half-Life/UT2K3 mod REALLY that important and innovative that the world can't do without your level?
Whatever the case, one year to the day (tomorrow) after release, the largest used computer game store in Toronto (Gamerama) has moved HUNDREDS of used copies of Morrowind and Dungeon Siege over that past 12 months.
The total number of NWN copies sold back or traded to Gamerama by dissatisfied players in the past year? Exactly 5.
THAT says more about NWN and its staying power than any single other thing you can say.
IMO, most of the suggestions here are far too complex to throw kids at. All but a one or two will be turned off.
Let the get a sene of accomplishment and wonder with just a few mouse clicks.
Neverwinter Nights' toolset was made for this. If you want them to think about puzzles and monster types and plot and ot be able to do it - this is the EXACT software you need.
And yes - the scripting language is there for some interesting stuff too.
AND they can play it before the week is out.
Honestly, going to something as basic as a game developer's kit, while realisitc, is going to strike the kids with output that is cheesey.
If they want to work on puzzles and plot - let them feel like the accomplished something while playing with the software for only TEN MINUTES and you'll have even the unblievers hooked.
My suggestion? Use Neverwinter Nights. The game's toolset was created so that people could get a sense of accomplishment for 10 minutes work.
Give em a week - they can do some cool stuff. Not modeling necessarily (though they could if they needed to - say - make a treasure chest in Gmax.
They certainly could reskin a creature to make it a different color.
Lots of stuff there. Knights and wizards is an easy sell.
"Because most people are obviously using file sharing to find new music to purchase. A concept the RIAA can not comprehend."
I don't comprehend it either, because I downloaded a lot of MP3's via Napster and Morpheus - but I wouldn't go out and buy them afterwards. A 192 RIP was good enough for me.
In this way, the RIAA is right. You download the MP3 - you are far less likely to buy it.
There is, however, a very different consequence which comes with MP3 sharing. And it's one which the RIAA, on reflection, has decided it does not like much either:
Overall music purchases dip a little. People who download Mp3's, however, ultimately consume more music. They eat more music, pay less for it, and spend their dollars in a less market efficient fashion.
It's a "hobby effect". You begin to "get into music" more, and you will buy music - just usually not the specific music you downloaded.
The effect is then to redisribute the proceeds of sales from the "leading group of the day" to those who aren't in the spotlight, but come to your attention and you buy it.
So what's in this for the RIAA? The more they market a band, the more airplay the band gets, the more the music is likely to be pirated and the more net sales from that band are adversely effected by music sharing.
Small consolation to the recording label when they find out that - yeah - the kids really like Sum41, and they end up so inspired that they go search out Sum41 "influences", go to the music store to buy some old Green Day EPs.
THe RIAA may be engaged in a vain struggle, they may disinform and lie and distort the facts, but they aren't *stupid*.
.Robert
*ahem* Guys. Keep up to date.
There IS no "Linux client" for NWN.
The linux portion of NWN is designed to run the server.
If you want to play, you want to DM or you want to design using the toolkit - you'll be doing it under Win.
For the MAc, there will be a player client at least, (presumably DM as well) but, again. the design toolset is a Win only beast.
You are completely missing the point. I suspect you have bever actually *gamed* in your life.
A MMORPG is missing the one thing to make the game complete: a DM.
A DM creates an adventure and takes care of his players. A DM challenges, interacts, and responds. A DM shift on the fly, takes over the reactuon of NPC's and anticipates where he can and fudges where he can't. A great DM can do htis on the fly without you even noticing he has done so.
It is this interaction which makes a limited group game infinitely better than a MMORPG which must necessarily be scripted & non-interactive. By it's design it is limted to hack and slash. A MMORPG inevitably degenertate into a *seize the treasure* focus, because it is inherent ot its design.
MMORPG *aren't* RPG's at all. NWN is the first such game with the potential to actually be one.
The sad thing is that you didn't think of this yourself. Evercrack players are getting a pale imitation of the real thing. What makes it sad is that they don't know any better.
Guys,
I checked the link and looked all around.
I don't see June 25 posted anywhere on their site. Under pre-orders, it simply refers you to EB, Toys r Us etc. No date is listed.
No date that I can discern is mentioned anywhere - and no release date mentioned on Bioware's announcements page in the NWN forums.
Vapor_announcements now? What gives?
"Distributes" is to give to another; hence - you borrow CD - make a copy - that is distributing.
There is no doubt that the section speaks to the commercial exploitation of another's work; but it does NOT restrict it to commercial exploitation at all. That is one of the reasons the offence can be by summary conviction (typically six months or less) or by indictment (up to 5 years in penitentiary)
The criminal power resides in Parliament and there are many criminal offences set out in statutes other than the Criminal Code of Canada.
Narcotics, for example, are not regulated through the Criminal Code. Trafficking contrary to the Narcotics Control Act remains punishable by up to life in prison. I'd say that's a "crime", wouldn't you?
When the Copyright Act makes reference to an offence punsishable as an indictable offence - it is making clear reference to the criminal power of Parliament.
I'm sorry I'm telling you something you don't want to hear - but that doesn't change the accuracy of my statement - or the innacuracy of yours.
It's not a matter of "credible conclusions". I'm a lawyer and have practiced law in Ontario for seven years now. Have you?
At the hearings on this matter reported on in the Toronto Star last fall, some bozo executive from the Canadian music indudtry reported to the Committee - with a straight face - that 86% of blank CDR's were used in Canada to pirate copyrighted music.
When I read this in the Toronto Star - I about fell off my chair. This guy is on drugs.
I expect that the vast majority of CDR's in Canada are used to pirate software first, movies second in terms of volume of dics used, with music bringing up the rear.
As for how this sort of tariff happened, well - it's been in place for quite a while - simply not as big. It has its historical roots as tariffs on cassette tapes.
Street level prices on CDR's in Toronto don't really reflect the OLD tariffs - let alone the new ones. I have my doubts this levy is currently being paid in the first place. Most of the cheap rate retail stores in Toronto, at least, are finding a way around it.
Oh - the total number of citizens who turned out to protest this tariff or report negatively to the Committee? That would be ZERO.
"Although don't call it pirating (which is a dumb term anyway), since it's not illegal. In Canada, we're allowed to borrow CDs and make copies of them for personal use."
Sorry to confuse you with the FACTS, but what you are referring to is contrary to the Copyright Act and is a criminal offence. At least - that's what I learned at *my* law school.
And NO - we don't have a judicially recognized "home taping" fair use recognition in Canada, even of discs you purchased. The Americans recognize such a right - Canada does not.
******************
Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42
42. (1) Every person who knowingly
(a) makes for sale or rental an infringing copy of a work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists,
(b) sells or rents out, or by way of trade exposes or offers for sale or rental, an infringing copy of a work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists,
(c) distributes infringing copies of a work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists, either for the purpose of trade or to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright,
(d) by way of trade exhibits in public an infringing copy of a work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists, or
(e) imports for sale or rental into Canada any infringing copy of a work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists
is guilty of an offence and liable
(f) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding twenty-five thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both, or
(g) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding one million dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to both.
As a Canadian lawyer, I thought I would disabuse a few posters here who do not understand what this decision was about.
This was a decision in respect of the constitutionality of a bylaw under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - as such - it was wholly concerned with the attempt of a governmental entity (a muncipality) attempting to regulate non-commercial speech.
It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the right of a citizen to criticize a company, their software, or otherwise, vis-a-vis that citizen and the company.
This was NOT a dispute between the insurance company and the citizen. That is an important distinction.
To clarify - the Candian Charter applies only to the relationship of an individual with the state or its agencies. It has no application - ZERO - as between an individual and another individual. No exceptions. Nada.
The SCC has time and time again struck down legislation that has attempted to regulate private speech that is not otherwise criminal in nature (advocates hate, criminal libel)or commercial in purpose. It has done so enthusiastically in the past, for example, by preventing municipalities from passing bylaws (without any rational restraint) against the posting of handbills on public property.
It has done so in this case by holding that a billboard erected by a customer with an axe to grind is not an "advertisment". Advertisements, as commercial speech, are not entitled to the same degree of deference and protection under the Charter as "political" or socially motivated speech. There is a significant difference between the two under Canadian law.
End result: You can't pass an oppressive bylaw which restricts a citizen from engaging in socially useful speech with other ctizens.
That's it - that's all. To attempt to extract a comment made by the court with respect to the potential social utility of a complaint about a company is to elevate obiter dicta and turn it into a "ruling". That isn't what they said and to suggest otherwise is to wholly miconstrue the meaning and effect of the judgment.
All you can determine from the judgment is a reaffirmation that an individual's complaint about a company is not "commercial speech" within Canada, and its nature does not change whether it is posted on the Net, on a handbill or on a billboard.
Regards,
:-)
Before I read your post - I wrote more or less the same comment drawing the same conslusions you did.
E X A C T L Y the same, more or less.
Put this tech in NASA's hands? Okay. But for use on earth for any purpose other than this?
I agree with the Brave New Worlders on this one.
Assume That:
1 - You could insulate the embryos from radiation in transit and from harmful g effects;
2 - You could develop an automated process which would permit robotic technology to, either in space or on the ground in a landing pod, "kickstart" such an artficial womb;
3- Assume also we had some uberComputer/Droid that could feed and educationally/emotionally take care of a Primary colony of human children born using this tech (perhaps the biggest assumption of all);
THEN,
You could use this technology to use a relatively slow and VERY sub-light vessel to realistically colonize a star system with human kind using present day technology (apart from this UberMotherDroid). No cold fusion or other exotic tech required. You could do it. For real.
And if its doable for human kind - I see no reason why the engineering is not practicable for other mammals.
In short - you could send out an ARK based on this technology - and we *might* actually be able to pull it off.
Ridiculously hard? Foolishly expensive? Extremely likely to fail? YES. But theoretically possible?
Yes. The breathtaking implication is - Yes, it's doable.
Apart from this application - which would truly be the apex of evolution on this planet - I cannot see how these scientists can possibly justify this research ethically.
I am for applied genetics and I'll even support eugenics where many fear to tread. I'm the kind of guy who WOULD choose to have a genetically "perfect" child if the scenario of GATTACA presented itself to me and my wife.
But this? An artificial womb - a biological TANK for growing humans on earth?
Visceral or not - this just plainly offends me. It's reach-for-the-rifle-time if this is outside of a NASA's hands as far as I'm concerned.
I'm in Toronto - and I am a bandwidth hog.
I am not sure what my bandwidth usage in a given month is - but my guess is that its close to 50gigs.
That said, the vast majority of that *was* for NNTP - so that's local bandwidth use on Rogers own network - not off of it.
That difference is critical - as it means the variable cost of providing that bandwidth use is minimal. I repeat - the "hogs" were not (till now) sucking up bandwidth like this via Morpheus. They were doing it with Newsbin.
My biggest problem with this pricing scheme is that it is was announced at the same time - ON THE SAME DAY - as Rogers access to the @Home NNTP newservers went dark.
The suggestions by some posters here that Rogers newservers are now "not as good" as the old @Home groups is a HUGE understatement. The new Rogers NNTP access is simply awful - utterly awful. Binary groups might as well simply not be available at all.
They are now USELESS, utterly useless. And now the NNTP junkies will be forced to turn to Morpheus for the same content. Except Morpheus will be sharing files 24/7 and will do so off network. (This will cost Rogers some serious cash - Morpheus' variable cost to Rogers will be high).
In any event, I find it more than a little convenient how - on the same day that Rogers deliberately cuts off usable access to NNTP binary groups, an article is leaked to Globe And Mail threatening to up the fee charged to bandwidth hogs.
A mere coincidence? I think not.
Last 2 points
1 - In USD the propsed charge is not bad. Except I don't earn an income in USD. I earn it in CDN. And we don't make 40% more than you guys in absolute dollar terms.
It's an expensive hike guys. It will hurt a LOT.
2 - @Home didn't go under becasue of low bandwidth charges. They went under because some IDIOT paid billions for Excite at the height of the dot.com boom. Please fon't re-write history to suit your argument de jour.
One poster has mentioned that we have prgressed to the point where we are not evolving through creating new technologies.
This is, in part, quite correct.
Moreover, the original author has missed the blatantly obvious: we have evolved to the point where we now have our fingertips on the very keys of evolution itself.
No other species is able to alter itself on a genetic level by choice.
Natural selection may have become increasingly marginalized as an evolutionary mechanism. It is quite another thing to say that evolution itself has sopped. Au contraire, we are on the precipice of a new mode of evolution.
Well - anybody who believes that the Red Cross, Boy Scouts and religious organizations are the true source of stability and strength of the nation is lost in some Thousand-Points-of-Light Norman Rockwell dreamland. That is not analysis - it is neo-conservative propaganda.
Technology need not inevitably make us better people, but it can empower us to be better citizens. Slashdot forums, while often demonstrating a decreasing signal to noise ratio, do enable us to read the views of others and form political and societal opinions at an individual level.
This enables us to be better citizens.
It does not necessarily produce an online "community". I am a member of a true online community. I interact with those people both online and offline. If my house burned down tonight - I'd have someplace else to sleep as a result. If I needed money - many of them would lend it to me. Last Xmas - some of them were on my list. Online communities *can* lead to the formation of a tribe - a clan - but it's not the rule.
Nevertheless, Slashdot is a place where:
- people can be friendly with one another (without necessarily being friends)
- act civilly, discuss both current events and politics; and,
- improve their understandings of technology, science, politics and society
It's the sort of forum which the Founding Fathers would have instantly recognized as being *virtuous*. Today we might call it empowering, or self-actualizing. Whatever the case - I think we might all agree that it is a "good thing".
The Net is not a virtuous antidote for alienation from society; it is simply a place where humans go. As such, it is a place where we bring our human frailties and faults: our lust, our greed, our prejudices and our cynicism.
It is also, in my experience, a place where we bring our intellect, our curiosity, and yes - even our decency and capacity to grow, to talk and to listen.
In between hype and cynicism, truth is often found.
Look. Universal doesn't CARE what you think.
It's not that they don't want your money - it's that they decided that if forced to choose beween losing your money because they pissed you off, and losing a whole lot more money because they DID NOT piss you off, they'd rather piss you off.
So they decided to piss you off. Got that?
They did not implement this scheme lightly. This was a direction from Bronfman and the Board of Directors. It has been delivered from on high like a stone tablet. And all the complaining in the world is not going to change this.
This is the result of a PRIME DIRECTIVE. Some underling didn't think this up all on his own during a coffee break.
Universal has concluded that piracy is the single biggest threat to its business. It is competing in the marketplace against FREE copies of what it already sells, and it is competing against FREE copies of what its competitors sell.
That's a battle they don't want to give up on without a fight. Can't blame 'em there.
So this is what they decided. They don't care about alternative OS's, they don't care about fair use, they don't give a rat's about how many letters you write, what bad publicity you give them, or how many copies of CD's you return.
>>THEY DON'T CARE
They think - and rightly so - that the MP3 and file sharing - in the long term - is a far graver threat to their bottom line than alienating any segment of their customer base.
Know something? They are right.
It's not going to work of course. Copy protection is a losing battle. But - go ahead guys. Give it your best shot Universal.
Amidst all this hysteria - get SERIOUS for a moment: if you buy a game, you don't RAVE about iD requiring a reg code for having to play Wolf Multiplayer online.
You don't RAVE about a software company using whatever flavour of the month watermarking scheme they have to inhibit piracy this month do you?
And you don't rave about the fact that the game only works with Windows either.
Universal has made a deliberate choice motivated by profit. They might be right - they might be wrong - but they genuinely feel they have no other choice.
So let em do it. You don't like it? Find a way around it. You can't do that? Then hats off to these guys for being the first company on planet Earth to make copy protection work on an mass scale.
Pissed about not being able to use Winamp to play your music? Then don't buy their product. Really - that's all there is to it. Vote with your wallet.
They think they will lose less in the long run by doing this than they will by not doing it. I am not sure that they are right in this belief - but that is only because copy protection is like locking a window, not like locking a vault. If you want to break the window to get in - you will.
If their copy protection scheme was foolproof, they'd be stupid NOT to do this.
If I have to read one more pious message about "rights" to make archival copies and "indignant" alternative OS users, I think I'll hurl.
Give it a rest. This is about money - and they decided you don't count. In the long run - they are probably right - so suck it up.
They don't broadcast shows because they want to - they broadcast shows because they have to.
They broadcast ADS because they want to.
If we record the shows, edit the ads, and repost the show - their profit model breaks down - in theory.
It gets worse for TV broadcast of movies and mini-series of course, but there is a pathological fear here when TV broadcasters of series and news worry so much.
Home taping has never been a threat. It wasn't to TV, it wasn't to Hollywood and it never really was to the RIAA either. VCR's always had a fast forward feature and some of them are damned good at filtering out ads. We all have VCR's - we don't systemically use them for this, by and large.
Why? We have better things to do with our time than waste EFFORT on filtering out ads.
Being able to make a perfect digital copy (a non-inferior good) and being able to choose it on demand from a pirated source scares the hell out of these companies.
As well it should at first blush I suppose, but is TV in THAT much of a problem position?
TV has less to fear from this technology than any other media. TV is too easy and too "free" to make ppl go out and chase it down to DL on a concerted basis.
Mp3's are traded for convenience and to avoid paying for them. Movies are traded for convenience and to avoid paying for them.
TV will be traded for convenience - as it is now to a limted degree. But as price is not an issue, the consumer does not perceive a substantial benefit to trade them on a concerted systemic basis.
If the only profit model they are really protecting is the ability to sell as many copies as they can of Season Two of The Sopranos on DVD, these guys need to chill out a little.
Okay - your market to sell Band of Broathers shrank a little. Other than that, so what?
TiVO is worth worrying about, but the net does not really add to the problem of TiVO to any appreciable degree.
The networks would be better off spending less effort on video on demand and more time on customized ad targeting.
We choose the show - our personal tastes determine the type of ads they stream to us. We don't waste the effort to filter them out or avoid them, because we don't mind watching them.
The worst case scenario in all of this is that TV simply has to broadcast ads that people choose to watch.
This happens in Europe and Japan already. The sun still rises and sets.
*slow down and take a breather for a moment will ya guys?
I remember the other snazzy mini-computer hack project we discussed here a month ago.
o ol s/item-Details.asp?sku=C860-IA1
For those who don't remember, it is the snazzy looking but desperately underpowered IA-1
View the IA-1:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchT
Now - question is - can you pull the guts out of the IA-1 and install the SV24 motherboard and p/s in it, get a decent hard drive in the space left (notebook or otherwise) AND manage to get that kewl monitor in the IA-1 working with the built in video card on the SV24?
Show me one of THOSE home hack projects, and my daughter will think you rule ('cause I'll build her one too).
At a more expensive price than at Tiger Direct.
s es .html#gbox
o ol s/search.asp?keywords=sv24
AMS=$279
http://www.american-media.com/amsestore/shop_ca
Tiger Direct= $249
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchT
Either way - these systems are a touch expensive.
Actually, exceeding the bandwidth cap is not only routinely easy - but I do that on my Cable connection on a >>daily basis.
NNTP alone eats up **easily** three GIGS a day. Binaries are bandwidth SOWS of awesome appetites.
I'd think that students switching to NNTP for their filez would solve most of their bandwidth issues - and switch the cries and screams to network admins dedicating some very serious hardware for local access NNTP servers. Still - a cheaper solution in the medium to long run than paying someone else for bandwidth.
The growing problem isn't mp3 files, its video files - and its a problem that is only going to get worse.
It amazes me how a "solution" is posed on this discussion group by imposing rationing and denying bandwidth access to users.
The users aren't accessing the system on a "grace and favour" model, They are doing it on a paying $10,000 plus dorm fees subscription model.
If someone tried to cap *my* pipe to 500 meg a week - I'd leave that service as fast as I could (mind you, one poster's reported 14 gig a week limit is pretty generous).
That may be what you thought you said, but we took it a very different way.
We understood the article to mean that broadband adoption was behind in the United States because of lack of content prompting people to buy it.
We think that's bullshit. The comparison to Canada proves the theory wrong. Canadian adoption of broadband has nothing to do with subsidies (which aren't there) and everything to do with advanced television cable technology and far higer market penetration of cable technology and more aggressive and regulated telcos - all of which makes the price of broadband in Canada *much* less than in the United States.
So - the point is - if the article is about why broadband adoption is lower in the US than in Canada - its about price. Content demanded by Canadians is precisely the same as demanded in the US; so why the discrepancy?
The whole premise of the article, (as we believed the premise to be) therefore made no sense to us.
Rogers IP is $39.95 CDN a month. If you are paying $60, you are buying extra IP addresses there buddy - or they are charging you more than they ought to be.
:-)
:-)
Current 6 month promo for Rogers is $20 a month too. Just moved and put it in the GF's name to get the promo deduction
There is no doubt that the reason for the higher installed base in Canada is price. IF our price WAS $60 a month CDN for basic 1 IP Cable, you would not see the massive # of subscribers to @Home in Toronto that you do. At $40 CDN, its about $5 CDN a month higher than dial up with a dedicated phone line. Which means that I don't know anyone in Toronto anymore - literally - who still has dial up access in their personal res.
Seems to me the problem in the US is that it's closer to $15-$20 USD more a month than dial up ISP with a dedicated line. You don't need to look any farther than that to explain why dial up is still big in the US and invisible in Canada.
THAT SAID, Broadband to the workplace is still damned expensive in Canada. DSL is offered at $120 a month to my office in downtown TO. Until Rogers cable gets its act together on that front, it will be as high in price as Bell can get away with.
Which means I STILL have 56k dial up to the net in my office. Oh well - nice to have the extra password for access to LOOK's newsgroups from my home cable
As I mentioned above in another reply - the parent article was wrong. Canadian broadband is not subsidized. The author's error was based on a proposed Canadian Federal plan for a National Broadband Program which WAS to be in effect now and has now since been scrapped. The National Strategy was scrapped after 9/11 and the Feds reorganized priorites in the budget to reflect security concerns.
Our broadband in Canada has a much higher installed base for the simple reasons that our cable TV companies are far more sophisticated and enjoy a far larger market penetration in Canada than in the United States.
Which means our delivery rates are cheaper. I'm paying $20 a month CDN for my cable IP right now. Anyone in the US getting unlimited 5mbps IP over cable for $12 a month? Didn't think so.
If that WAS the price - would you still subscibe to AOL? Didn't think so.
It's all about money. Make it cheap - the consumer will buy it.
We have cable TV wired into virtually every single urban residence within Canada -- that is almost *without exception* - and that's been the case for decades now. True, some choose not to have their cable turned "on", but the cable **is** still installed and there has never been a "last 50 foot" issue of any kind in Canada.
Our network infrastructure went "two way" in connection capabilities before the idea of IP over cable was thought of. Most cable cos did this in Candada to deal with pay services, installation issues and billing/piracy control. They were encouraged to do so by a CRTC policy which allowed them to charge a $50 fee for "installation" even if the installation was simply sending out a computer command to assign the account an account number.
It was - and is - free money due to natural churn - and the cable companies made sure they could take it for as little as possible. Fro example, in many neighbourhoods in Toronto, the tech for IP over cable was mostly already there and installed in the early 90's. (neighbourhood switching needed upgrading though to handle demand.)
We have that massive installed cable tv base, ironically, so that we can receive American television signals. (And we have the CRTC to ensure that we don't get too much American TV!).
That's Canada for ya.
Actually - the parent post is worse than crap - as the original article is simply misinformed.
We don't have government subsidy for broadband in Canada. We used to - the Feds paid for the main internet lines as part of educational costs for universities. That ended - as it has in the US - and at about the same time too.
And - we were going to implement that strategy again. Brina Tobin, Minister of Industry, had planned until September 11 on a national broadband strategy. This was mainly a regional economic development program to bring broadband to smaller regional centres in Canada - but that's ALL on hold now after 9/11. Tobin pretty much has admitted the project is dead.
The parent post is just wrong.
We have CHEAP broadband in Canada for one reason and one reason only: our cable companies are far more sophisticated and have far larger market pentration in Canada than in the USA.
And in order to compete agasint cable in the internet field, the Telcos have to price at the same rate.
In essence: Our TV cable systems rock.
It has always been thus. We (Canada) invented cable and turned it into a regulated utility through the CRTC. Ironically, we invented cable, and then regulated it, so that we got "enough" (but not TOO much) American television signals in our homes.
If you have never been to Canada, you simply don't appreciate how important and how pervasive TV cable is in this country.
Toronto's Ted Rogers' expanded cable operations in the USA. His former American company more or less laid all the coax in Southern California. But in the US - he was not protected from competition in cable as striclty as in Canada and his "increase the debt servicing load" public utility model for cable growth didn't work there.
But it works fine here. Our cable companies are far healthier and far better equipped to deliver broadband in Canada than in the USA. And lets be honest here - the reasons the Canadian numbers are so good is that our largest province - Ontario - is wired to the brim with fibre out the ass.
Despite the complaints (and we all have them)- they can have my Wave-cum-@Home-cum-Rogers cable modem when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
I currently pay $20 CDN for my broadband connection (special deal! normally it's $40). My speed is far higher than anything you can get via DSL and its unlimited and uncapped.
That isn't because it is subsidized, it's because after five decades of being in the telvision cable business, we have a cable tv market pentration higher than any other place on planet earth and our infrastructure reflects it.
Mr. "I teach at Stanford" Author should get his facts straight. He's just plain wrong.