I wouldn't consider it insightful - if the publisher is paying royalties, presumably they are also profiting. If the creator dies and copyright along with them, then the work becomes public domain and thus the publisher loses their revenue stream. So killing the author effectively kills their profit.
If anything, I would think they'd hire goons to *protect* the author in the case of a highly profitable work.
Well, on a show like xfiles where there is a "main plot" that runs through the whole series a spinoff is generally crap, but it isn't like the simpsons has any continuity or great depth to worry about. I think it could be done, but it wouldn't necessarily be easy.
How about a spin-off? Not likely any of those they used in the spin-off episode (though Wiggum P.I. wouldn't be too bad), but they have strong enough minor characters to come up with something. Maybe Moe's ala Cheers? Or Shatner's Angels - the three nerds go on missions dictated to them by their commander, William Shatner (hell, he could play himself - Comic Book Guy might suffice if the Shat is busy). If you just had to follow the spinoff cliche of having occasional characters from the original series Homer could easily fit into scripts for either.
I can't help but wonder if the Simpsons actors are trying to kill off the show... I know I'd probably be bored playing the same character(s) for 15+ years!
If you note, the only characters who have been in all of the Star Wars films so far are the two droids.
What about Anakin / Darth Vader?
Re:Yes to AOL, no to broadband?
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Who Is An ISP?
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You missed a few important words: "and may also include access to proprietary content" - *may* include. Any isp is covered, regardless of whether they have proprietary content. I read the provision of not including telecommunications services as meaning the people who provide the actual cables. So if someone uses AOL dial-up, AOL qualifies as an access service, but their phone company doesn't. If the phone company also provides internet services, then they would qualify. If the phone company qualified as a de facto 'access service' simply because their products can be used to send and receive tcp/ip, then manufacturers of bongos could also sue spammers, I would think. Well, maybe not, but wouldn't that be fun?
I wish they took the time to put in some more confirmation dialogs instead. Like maybe it's obvious to an experienced Mac user that plugging in my iPod to a machine with iTunes will clear it of all the music... But it sure was a surprize to me. Would asking "Are you sure you wanna delete 10 Gigs worth of MP3s off your iPod?" been so hard?!
Yeah, I hear that. I actually dj'd my own wedding this last weekend, and *exactly* that problem came up. I was using my ipod (well, my wife's actually - it was part of her non-diamond-ring engagement present) and we had all the songs we wanted to play on it along with a playlist. We figured hit play, maybe shuffle the order around a bit, instant party. I was using a friend's iBook to manage the playlist, and had it hooked up and working fine *several* times prior to the reception. Then we get to the reception, I attach the iPod, and it syncs - iPod music out, iBook music in. And my friend had nothing but gangsta rap and rave music on his iBook.
It ended up working out ok, after scrambling to borrow cds from our friends at the reception, but it very well could have been a fiasco. All this would have been avoided with one clearly worded dialogue. I love macs (and am planning to buy a new powerbook very soon) but this issue is definately what I would call a lack of user-friendliness.
...since what they are doing is clearly illigal. note this does not mean wrong or evil or unjust or whatever it justmeans they broke a law and the evidence is clear.
Little known fact: in the US a jury can find a defendant not guilty regardless of whether they obviously broke a law. Look up "jury nullification" on google and do a bit of reading, as it's fascinating stuff. Basically, juries have the authority to ignore the letter of the law and make decisions on what they (as the conscience of the community) feel is just. Judges and prosecuting attorneys will *never* tell a jury this, and I believe it's illegal for defense attorneys to do so - either the jury knows they can do this or they don't know. Judges will frequently tell juries that they must render their verdict based on the letter of the law, and while they usually should, if the law is unjust they are practically obligated (from the standpoint of maintaining a balance in the legal system) to ignore it.
Of course, these copyright infringement cases are going to civil court, so none of this applies unless a case somehow makes it to criminal court.
Bad analogy. I could definately see people knowing that distributing software is illegal but not be sure about music. Why? Because music gets played on the radio. There is no equivalent for software that I know of. The people in this story paid a fee to kazaa to listen to music, and almost certainly had no idea that what they were doing was any worse than taping songs off of the radio (a practice that is legal, as far as I know). Hell, if all they were doing was playing songs in kazaa's "theater" and searching for new stuff, its possible they had no idea they were sharing the music, as downloaded songs get shared automatically, not after the user specifically oks it.
Saying marijuana was outlawed because of how dangerous it is to people (young people in particular, because somebody has to think of the children) is very much akin to saying P2P should be outlawed because it will lead to massive poverty amongst artists. In both cases, the real antagonism comes from people who make a lot of money through business models that *should* have been killed by new technologies: cheap harvesting of hemp for paper vs more expensive, less efficient wood pulp, and cheap online music and movie distribution vs incredibly profitable meatspace distribution. Political corruption being used to pass laws isn't a new thing, and neither is FUD being used as a weapon to make people not mind when these corrupt laws are passed.
Sure, its annoying to get the calls, but someone feeds their family that way, is it RIGHT to screw them for a little convenience?
You know what? I've *never* purchased anything from a telemarketer. Ever. I've never even been slightly interested in doing so. If I want a product, I'm going to go and get it, not wait for it to come to me. In spite of the fact that I've never once purchased something from a telemarketer, I'm certain I've spent hours telling them to go away. That's hours of my time spent doing something that serves me no purpose and waste's someone else's time as well. How am I "screwing" them by telling them not to call me? Is it ok for them to inconvenience me to attempt to sell me crap I don't want so they can feed their family?
Why can't the media see thru lies like this one, and the RIAA, and simply report that companies are lying in order to survive.
It isn't that the media *can't* see through the RIAA's lies, its that they aren't willing to report it. At least, mainstream media isn't. I personally consider sites like/., the register, etc to be media, so in a sense the media *does* see what the RIAA is all about. But the major media companies aren't going to report about it, because they have such strong ties to (or ARE) RIAA member companies.
Since I first saw it in a game magazine a while back I've been thinking that Everquest Online Adventures might just be the worst cover art in the past 5 years (if not more!). See here.
I know extremely little about those programs (just gave a quick look at the sites) and haven't visited mp3.com umm... ever, but I don't think there would be anything wrong with what you described. The songs (judging by another response to your post) are freely distributed, as are those programs. Konami doesn't have a monopoly on "ddr-like" games, they just happened to make them really popular. IIRC, there was an aerobics game for the old 8-bit NES that used the Power Pad and was pretty comparable to DDR in general style, so there's some prior art if Konami claims a patent or some such jibba-jabba.
So no. What you described seems to be a perfectly valid alternative to buying Konami's game. It would require a lot more work and not be as user-friendly, so I doubt it even represents serious competition to Konami. I'll stick with my DDRMAX personally:)
Now there's an interesting troll. By your reasoning television, movies, and music are all "like modern drugs" as well. They're forms of entertainment that are completely pointless. Oh, except for the fact that some people enjoy the hell out of them, and feel their lives are much improved because of them. Hell, sports could fit into the same boat, the only difference being those who actually participate in them get exercise. But there's really no reason to watch sports. Completely pointless. And what was the point of your reading a childish book? Couldn't reading be considered to be "like a modern drug" as well? I've been unable to stop since I started back in kindergarten! And church! I seem to recall hearing an insightful comparison between that and opium some time ago...
I've heard people diss video games as horrible things like this before. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they're completely pointless. I would be sad to see video games disappear, and think my quality of life would degrade considerably. My fiance and I regularly sit around playing our GBA SPs together, and DDR is one of my favorite ways to work out. I've had loads of fun at LAN parties, or just playing some Bond on N64 with a few friends. I'll take my pointless quasi-drug over boredom and drudgery any day, thank you.
Oh, and I've probably gotten more entertainment value out of my $50 copy of Metroid Prime than you did out of any book you bought recently. I don't even want to think about how little I paid for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night per hour;)
As to getting a pro bono attorney and public support, the best way to do that is to take it to the news media immediately, and let THEM throw dirt at the RIAA mob.
Right... and which major media organization are you referring to? The networks aren't going to piss off the RIAA. This is the major problem with deregulation - the same people own all media - movies, music, print, television, radio. At this point the only media that could reasonably be expected to cover a story like this is the independent variety, and the unwashed masses pay no attention to independent *anything*.
Any model that requires payment is doomed because it can not compete with Kazaa-like stuff.
I've used services like kazaa quite a bit in the past, but I wouldn't if there was a good alternative service. By good, I mean it has to: - Not be outrageously expensive (pay-per-track would make the most sense). - Have a large library of songs. Even if it wasn't run by a group of record companies a very respectable library could be had if they just... - Pay the artist (or their corporate masters in the case of major-label bands). I'm not going to pay a penny for a work of art if it doesn't benefit the artist.
I would probably subscribe to a service that meets those three points. I certainly like being able to get music for free off of kazaa, but it has some annoying limitations that an "official" service wouldn't - I can't always find what I want, when I do find something the file could be mislabled or severely corrupted or of poor quality, there's no uniform naming scheme, the id3 tags are frequently missing album info etc. With an official service you would always know what to expect. I think that is a *huge* incentive right there, as current p2p apps are crap when it comes to knowing what you're going to get.
DRM is another sticky issue of course. Any subscription service would be afraid all of the files they distribute would be vulnerable to further distribution after the initial download. There isn't any easy way around this that I'm aware of - either you have DRM and annoy the bejeezus out of the end user or don't and risk that someone will use the media in some infringing way. But there will always be risk in any business, that's part of the nature of capitalism - if someone else can do it better and for less you're in danger. There's no way any service can be cheaper than free obviously, so its the 'better' part that needs to be focused on. Make a service that is convenient and delivers exactly what the customer expects (and doesn't annoy the bejeezus out of them preferably), and you'll have plenty of business. People don't mind paying for things, they just hate throwing their money away.
Gah, that was a longer rant than I was expecting... back to work.
Maybe more and more consumers are thinking that cd's are just not worth the money
And this will just become more and more the case as dvd players become more common. I can't *not* think that Joe Consumer will start to realize, however slowly, that when you can buy a 2-hour movie with multiple audio tracks, subtitles, trailers, behind-the-scenes documentaries etc etc that purchasing a 1-hour cd with maybe 4 good songs on it for the same frickin' price is a bad deal. Hrm, Lord of the Rings dvd or Lord of the Rings soundtrack cd... hrm...
I imagine that while these might be historical buildings, they are housing some form of office environment. Even if they are tourist attractions, they would still almost certainly have administration, advertising, tour management, etc etc, so having a need for networking isn't all that absurd.
Perhaps the webmaster is clever - knowing this is a page that might interest the slashdot crowd, he wrote a little script to check the/. front page frequently (say, once every minute or two) and if his domain ever shows up the site is immediately taken down and some sort of klaxon / alarm goes off.
Hmm... maybe somebody could make a new product out of this concept - McAfee Slashdot Protector or Symantec Anti-Slashdot or some such. If they do, and patent it, I officially declare this post to be prior art.
Which pledge were you saying? The only one I know never states "united we stand, divided we fall." I believe that was a slogan during the revolutionary war used to inspire people to join the common cause.
The pledge *does* however state "with liberty and justice for all," and I think we would do well to make sure this gets applied liberally to whatever corrupt management we can track down throughout these fiascos. The justice part anyway, which might in fact lead to a restriction of their liberties (say, the liberty of being able to not live in prison).
If I recall correctly, Stagecast has gone through many ownership / name changes over the years. At one point it was owned by Apple and had the moniker "cocoa" (completely unrelated to os x technologies of the same name). This is definately something I can see Woz loving, though I don't know if he had anything to do with it. A very cool little program, it allows people (targetted at kids, but anyone could enjoy it) to make their own simple games by basically building "levels" with various actors, each actor or class of actors having specific rules dictating behavior. I spent some time tinkering with this last year and found it pretty entertaining, though the demo version has some annoying limitations. Any grade school / middle school level computer teachers out there would do well to take a look at this package.
No, Best Buy's cost is most likely somewhere in the neighborhood of $350-$375. They make a *huge* profit on things like cables, but computer parts are usually pretty reasonably priced. I bought a Radeon 8500 from them a few months ago using an employee discount, and the price dropped from about $290-$260. I imagine the ti4600 is quite similar in markup.
If you live in the minneapolis / st paul area northern suburbs, I highly recommend GoldenGate ; they have *excellent* customer service (no scripts - the people you talk to actually *try* to help with problems), very decent prices, and consistently stable systems. Locally owned, not bought out by any larger isps (I'm 99% sure).
(and yes, I am a bit biased, as I'm a former employee, but they really do r0xx0r)
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I wouldn't consider it insightful - if the publisher is paying royalties, presumably they are also profiting. If the creator dies and copyright along with them, then the work becomes public domain and thus the publisher loses their revenue stream. So killing the author effectively kills their profit.
If anything, I would think they'd hire goons to *protect* the author in the case of a highly profitable work.
Well, on a show like xfiles where there is a "main plot" that runs through the whole series a spinoff is generally crap, but it isn't like the simpsons has any continuity or great depth to worry about. I think it could be done, but it wouldn't necessarily be easy.
How about a spin-off? Not likely any of those they used in the spin-off episode (though Wiggum P.I. wouldn't be too bad), but they have strong enough minor characters to come up with something. Maybe Moe's ala Cheers? Or Shatner's Angels - the three nerds go on missions dictated to them by their commander, William Shatner (hell, he could play himself - Comic Book Guy might suffice if the Shat is busy). If you just had to follow the spinoff cliche of having occasional characters from the original series Homer could easily fit into scripts for either.
I can't help but wonder if the Simpsons actors are trying to kill off the show... I know I'd probably be bored playing the same character(s) for 15+ years!
If you note, the only characters who have been in all of the Star Wars films so far are the two droids.
What about Anakin / Darth Vader?
You missed a few important words: "and may also include access to proprietary content" - *may* include. Any isp is covered, regardless of whether they have proprietary content. I read the provision of not including telecommunications services as meaning the people who provide the actual cables. So if someone uses AOL dial-up, AOL qualifies as an access service, but their phone company doesn't. If the phone company also provides internet services, then they would qualify. If the phone company qualified as a de facto 'access service' simply because their products can be used to send and receive tcp/ip, then manufacturers of bongos could also sue spammers, I would think. Well, maybe not, but wouldn't that be fun?
Well it isn't MSNBC, but space.com has a story with that exact headline (thank you google news): Space Storm Hits, Earth Survives
Are you sure they don't allow hex? He could have just ordered 44c of them.
I wish they took the time to put in some more confirmation dialogs instead. Like maybe it's obvious to an experienced Mac user that plugging in my iPod to a machine with iTunes will clear it of all the music... But it sure was a surprize to me. Would asking "Are you sure you wanna delete 10 Gigs worth of MP3s off your iPod?" been so hard?!
Yeah, I hear that. I actually dj'd my own wedding this last weekend, and *exactly* that problem came up. I was using my ipod (well, my wife's actually - it was part of her non-diamond-ring engagement present) and we had all the songs we wanted to play on it along with a playlist. We figured hit play, maybe shuffle the order around a bit, instant party. I was using a friend's iBook to manage the playlist, and had it hooked up and working fine *several* times prior to the reception. Then we get to the reception, I attach the iPod, and it syncs - iPod music out, iBook music in. And my friend had nothing but gangsta rap and rave music on his iBook.
It ended up working out ok, after scrambling to borrow cds from our friends at the reception, but it very well could have been a fiasco. All this would have been avoided with one clearly worded dialogue. I love macs (and am planning to buy a new powerbook very soon) but this issue is definately what I would call a lack of user-friendliness.
...since what they are doing is clearly illigal. note this does not mean wrong or evil or unjust or whatever it justmeans they broke a law and the evidence is clear.
Little known fact: in the US a jury can find a defendant not guilty regardless of whether they obviously broke a law. Look up "jury nullification" on google and do a bit of reading, as it's fascinating stuff. Basically, juries have the authority to ignore the letter of the law and make decisions on what they (as the conscience of the community) feel is just. Judges and prosecuting attorneys will *never* tell a jury this, and I believe it's illegal for defense attorneys to do so - either the jury knows they can do this or they don't know. Judges will frequently tell juries that they must render their verdict based on the letter of the law, and while they usually should, if the law is unjust they are practically obligated (from the standpoint of maintaining a balance in the legal system) to ignore it.
Of course, these copyright infringement cases are going to civil court, so none of this applies unless a case somehow makes it to criminal court.
Bad analogy. I could definately see people knowing that distributing software is illegal but not be sure about music. Why? Because music gets played on the radio. There is no equivalent for software that I know of. The people in this story paid a fee to kazaa to listen to music, and almost certainly had no idea that what they were doing was any worse than taping songs off of the radio (a practice that is legal, as far as I know). Hell, if all they were doing was playing songs in kazaa's "theater" and searching for new stuff, its possible they had no idea they were sharing the music, as downloaded songs get shared automatically, not after the user specifically oks it.
No tinfoil hat is necessary. Look at how laws are made today (ie, follow the money) - it wasn't any different back in the 1930's. Reading material:
A brief overview of William Randolph Hearst's campaign against "Marijuana - Assassin of Youth"
Saying marijuana was outlawed because of how dangerous it is to people (young people in particular, because somebody has to think of the children) is very much akin to saying P2P should be outlawed because it will lead to massive poverty amongst artists. In both cases, the real antagonism comes from people who make a lot of money through business models that *should* have been killed by new technologies: cheap harvesting of hemp for paper vs more expensive, less efficient wood pulp, and cheap online music and movie distribution vs incredibly profitable meatspace distribution. Political corruption being used to pass laws isn't a new thing, and neither is FUD being used as a weapon to make people not mind when these corrupt laws are passed.
Sure, its annoying to get the calls, but someone feeds their family that way, is it RIGHT to screw them for a little convenience?
You know what? I've *never* purchased anything from a telemarketer. Ever. I've never even been slightly interested in doing so. If I want a product, I'm going to go and get it, not wait for it to come to me. In spite of the fact that I've never once purchased something from a telemarketer, I'm certain I've spent hours telling them to go away. That's hours of my time spent doing something that serves me no purpose and waste's someone else's time as well. How am I "screwing" them by telling them not to call me? Is it ok for them to inconvenience me to attempt to sell me crap I don't want so they can feed their family?
It isn't that the media *can't* see through the RIAA's lies, its that they aren't willing to report it. At least, mainstream media isn't. I personally consider sites like
Since I first saw it in a game magazine a while back I've been thinking that Everquest Online Adventures might just be the worst cover art in the past 5 years (if not more!). See here.
I know extremely little about those programs (just gave a quick look at the sites) and haven't visited mp3.com umm... ever, but I don't think there would be anything wrong with what you described. The songs (judging by another response to your post) are freely distributed, as are those programs. Konami doesn't have a monopoly on "ddr-like" games, they just happened to make them really popular. IIRC, there was an aerobics game for the old 8-bit NES that used the Power Pad and was pretty comparable to DDR in general style, so there's some prior art if Konami claims a patent or some such jibba-jabba.
:)
So no. What you described seems to be a perfectly valid alternative to buying Konami's game. It would require a lot more work and not be as user-friendly, so I doubt it even represents serious competition to Konami. I'll stick with my DDRMAX personally
Now there's an interesting troll. By your reasoning television, movies, and music are all "like modern drugs" as well. They're forms of entertainment that are completely pointless. Oh, except for the fact that some people enjoy the hell out of them, and feel their lives are much improved because of them. Hell, sports could fit into the same boat, the only difference being those who actually participate in them get exercise. But there's really no reason to watch sports. Completely pointless. And what was the point of your reading a childish book? Couldn't reading be considered to be "like a modern drug" as well? I've been unable to stop since I started back in kindergarten! And church! I seem to recall hearing an insightful comparison between that and opium some time ago...
;)
I've heard people diss video games as horrible things like this before. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they're completely pointless. I would be sad to see video games disappear, and think my quality of life would degrade considerably. My fiance and I regularly sit around playing our GBA SPs together, and DDR is one of my favorite ways to work out. I've had loads of fun at LAN parties, or just playing some Bond on N64 with a few friends. I'll take my pointless quasi-drug over boredom and drudgery any day, thank you.
Oh, and I've probably gotten more entertainment value out of my $50 copy of Metroid Prime than you did out of any book you bought recently. I don't even want to think about how little I paid for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night per hour
As to getting a pro bono attorney and public support, the best way to do that is to take it to the news media immediately, and let THEM throw dirt at the RIAA mob.
Right... and which major media organization are you referring to? The networks aren't going to piss off the RIAA. This is the major problem with deregulation - the same people own all media - movies, music, print, television, radio. At this point the only media that could reasonably be expected to cover a story like this is the independent variety, and the unwashed masses pay no attention to independent *anything*.
Any model that requires payment is doomed because it can not compete with Kazaa-like stuff.
I've used services like kazaa quite a bit in the past, but I wouldn't if there was a good alternative service. By good, I mean it has to:
- Not be outrageously expensive (pay-per-track would make the most sense).
- Have a large library of songs. Even if it wasn't run by a group of record companies a very respectable library could be had if they just...
- Pay the artist (or their corporate masters in the case of major-label bands). I'm not going to pay a penny for a work of art if it doesn't benefit the artist.
I would probably subscribe to a service that meets those three points. I certainly like being able to get music for free off of kazaa, but it has some annoying limitations that an "official" service wouldn't - I can't always find what I want, when I do find something the file could be mislabled or severely corrupted or of poor quality, there's no uniform naming scheme, the id3 tags are frequently missing album info etc. With an official service you would always know what to expect. I think that is a *huge* incentive right there, as current p2p apps are crap when it comes to knowing what you're going to get.
DRM is another sticky issue of course. Any subscription service would be afraid all of the files they distribute would be vulnerable to further distribution after the initial download. There isn't any easy way around this that I'm aware of - either you have DRM and annoy the bejeezus out of the end user or don't and risk that someone will use the media in some infringing way. But there will always be risk in any business, that's part of the nature of capitalism - if someone else can do it better and for less you're in danger. There's no way any service can be cheaper than free obviously, so its the 'better' part that needs to be focused on. Make a service that is convenient and delivers exactly what the customer expects (and doesn't annoy the bejeezus out of them preferably), and you'll have plenty of business. People don't mind paying for things, they just hate throwing their money away.
Gah, that was a longer rant than I was expecting... back to work.
Maybe more and more consumers are thinking that cd's are just not worth the money
And this will just become more and more the case as dvd players become more common. I can't *not* think that Joe Consumer will start to realize, however slowly, that when you can buy a 2-hour movie with multiple audio tracks, subtitles, trailers, behind-the-scenes documentaries etc etc that purchasing a 1-hour cd with maybe 4 good songs on it for the same frickin' price is a bad deal. Hrm, Lord of the Rings dvd or Lord of the Rings soundtrack cd... hrm...
Proposed: Add another 128k ISDN line
I imagine that while these might be historical buildings, they are housing some form of office environment. Even if they are tourist attractions, they would still almost certainly have administration, advertising, tour management, etc etc, so having a need for networking isn't all that absurd.
Perhaps the webmaster is clever - knowing this is a page that might interest the slashdot crowd, he wrote a little script to check the /. front page frequently (say, once every minute or two) and if his domain ever shows up the site is immediately taken down and some sort of klaxon / alarm goes off.
Hmm... maybe somebody could make a new product out of this concept - McAfee Slashdot Protector or Symantec Anti-Slashdot or some such. If they do, and patent it, I officially declare this post to be prior art.
Which pledge were you saying? The only one I know never states "united we stand, divided we fall." I believe that was a slogan during the revolutionary war used to inspire people to join the common cause.
The pledge *does* however state "with liberty and justice for all," and I think we would do well to make sure this gets applied liberally to whatever corrupt management we can track down throughout these fiascos. The justice part anyway, which might in fact lead to a restriction of their liberties (say, the liberty of being able to not live in prison).
If I recall correctly, Stagecast has gone through many ownership / name changes over the years. At one point it was owned by Apple and had the moniker "cocoa" (completely unrelated to os x technologies of the same name). This is definately something I can see Woz loving, though I don't know if he had anything to do with it. A very cool little program, it allows people (targetted at kids, but anyone could enjoy it) to make their own simple games by basically building "levels" with various actors, each actor or class of actors having specific rules dictating behavior. I spent some time tinkering with this last year and found it pretty entertaining, though the demo version has some annoying limitations. Any grade school / middle school level computer teachers out there would do well to take a look at this package.
No, Best Buy's cost is most likely somewhere in the neighborhood of $350-$375. They make a *huge* profit on things like cables, but computer parts are usually pretty reasonably priced. I bought a Radeon 8500 from them a few months ago using an employee discount, and the price dropped from about $290-$260. I imagine the ti4600 is quite similar in markup.
If you live in the minneapolis / st paul area northern suburbs, I highly recommend GoldenGate ; they have *excellent* customer service (no scripts - the people you talk to actually *try* to help with problems), very decent prices, and consistently stable systems. Locally owned, not bought out by any larger isps (I'm 99% sure). (and yes, I am a bit biased, as I'm a former employee, but they really do r0xx0r)