Can someone please tell me they've improved upon the fonts? I can't tell from the screenshots and I won't have time to install it for a few days, but the default fonts for 9.0 are terrible. The default fonts on Red Hat are wonderful. Is RedHat using proprietary fonts? I'd like to know why Mandrake is behind in an area that is *very* important to the desktop user.
Re:When I was kid...
on
Robots!
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
>Why the hell would you make a robot that can't fire a gun?
The predator drone fires Hellfire missiles? Hows that grab ya?
It shouldn't be that tough to build a small stout robot that can shoot a small handgun at a decent sized target using some basic computer vision on a hobbyist's budget.
I probably shouldn't have said anything. Its going to be scary seeing this on slashdot next week: "Legobot fires.22 pistol. Three geeks injured."
>lastly, notice all the humanoid robots go around with slightly bent knees
This has to do with balance. A lot of robots have a "backpack" where designers put most of the electronics. By bending at the knee they're less likely to topple.
Asimo touring the us
on
Robots!
·
· Score: 3, Informative
On a related note, Honda's Asimo is touring the US. Asimo groupies you know who you are.
>I've found that a simple phone call can get almost all the traffic to stop immediately.
Yeah, because they know they got caught. Its illegal to spam fax and they're more than happy to stop. They much prefer that than going to the authorities or starting a civil law suit. I'm sure they were VERY polite.
"Oh sorry about that, we must have accidentally put you on our list."
>At least visit the damn site -- and maybe *gasp* glance at an advertisement
Huh? Lets see, if I want to watch it tomorrow then I have to RE-DOWNLOAD it within the frame of my browser. If I save it to disk then I can watch it again without re-downloading it. Now who's being frugal? Not to mention having the file itself makes for P2P sharing via your LAN or through some wacky Kazaa-like software. I'd rather have Bob send it to me through our 100mbps LAN than having both of us download it.
Web designers have to realize that embedded content is almost always a bad idea. It contribubtes to browser instability, forces users to redownload, and keeps users from intelligently sharing the data. I'd much rather deal with external viewers, at least when they crash they don't take all my browser windows with them. Hopefully, the design people will get a clue or at least have an obligatory direct download link.
Also, I hate to break it to you but there are no ads on that site.
Hold on here. Dreamcatcher is an R rated horror movie full of graphic monsters and the like inspiring fear into the crowd, but a little uber-soft "sex play" hedonism is wrong?
>Wachowski brothers never made the point that the machines were evil.
Exactly. People think I'm crazy when I mention that.
The core question, the one which tempted Cypher is, "Is reality worth fighting for when a much more benign form of Solipsism exists?"
Its very easy to see the humans as the traditional villians. They're the ones who want to fight. They're the ones who want to break the symbiotic relationship, which can be seen as a type of war sanction. They destroyed their own environment fighting the machines, suggesting that they are extremists who would rather ruin everything than give in to the enemy.
The machines are fairly reasonable throughout the movies (except for the dramatic scene about the "smell of humans" but thats Hollywood). They tried to build a perfect world for humans - which to me brings up a great philosophical question about what the religious really think the afterlife is. What is "heaven" to a complex highly-competitive mammal fighting to mate, reproduce, defend territory, and defeat its ideological enemies. The machines have human nature pegged and its hard to argue that they're hurting anyone. Considering its in their interest to keep people alive, I bet they have a great healthcare system too.
Interesting stuff, I really hope the humans lose or the other movies explore these issues. Perhaps in the end everyone will be a happy transhuman cyborg living on the real Earth.
Its a shame most of them look like total crap at 800x600. Increased resolution isn't necessary a good thing if you like big boxes and readable text. Sure the latter can be adjusted, but for everyday uses 800x600 is just fine. Leave the higher resolutions for games.
>Then, after you win your civil case and receive your settlement the District Attorney can arrest you for the crime you committed.
So be it. That money could pay off the fines or at least help. No where did I advocate letting them go scott free. In fact, I wonder how many people can even afford to pay them off without sueing the retailer? Hey, that means our cable rates go up if they don't to pay off their default.
>While it is illegal to make lethal booby traps--the 'nanny state' at work; you are making a false comparison.
Not at all. Both analogies have to do with DAMAGES while doing something illegal. A person still has rights even while doing illegal acts. All the schedenfraude in the world won't change that. You say 'just desserts' I say 'its a lot more complex than that.'
>The case here is criminaly-run, private enterprise sting operation.
Its only a sting if it has a warrant. This is fraud.
>Sorry, recent changes in the law do not mean that due process has been hurled out of the court system.
I suggest you do a google search for Jose Padilla.
Actually I'm not. Both have to do with damages while commiting an illegal act.
>"well officer, I was trying to by some cocaine, and i found out that it was 50% sugar!"
How about I was buying coke and half of it was cut with cyanide and a few friends died? Do we laugh them? If the nanny state says, "No drugs for you" that doesn't mean con artists get a free ride to do whatever they please.
I see no reason why the users of these devices shouldn't sue the retailers and manufacterers for false advertising. Just because something is contra-band doesnt give you the right to do what you please.
Its illegal to make lethal booby traps for criminals and for a good reason too. Not just to protect the police who might stumble on them (or kids or whomever) but because criminals actually have rights! Due process and all. Look it up sometime in the Constitution, its a fading fad thanks to post 9/11 hysteria but its still a good idea.
This isnt much of a surprise. We're already familiar with thousands of corporate logos and it doesn't seem to take much brain processing to spot one in a jumbled fast forward. We're already conditioned to find that Nike swoosh or Chevrolet logo.
I like to take it up a notch and silently think to myself, "Crap, crap, crap" as the commercials pass by. A little counter-conditioning can't hurt.
I don't even know why we even have an ad industry. I'm much more impressed by something as simple as, "This show is brought to you by Snickers" compared to a few fresh-faced teen models who would never eat a high fat and high sugar candybar begging Mom for a king-size snickers. Really now, they don't need to insult the intelligence of their audience to get attention.
The PC boom was dependant on the web/internet boom. Any OS can run a browser, it just happened that Microsoft was the de facto standard on the PC platform at the time.
If you want to thank anyone for ushering the information age you can start with UIUC's NCSA and Tim Berners-Lee.
Oh man, you shouldn't have linked to that site. I'm very tempted to buy this because its such a terrible pun. Guaranteed to make your sarcastic hipster friends jealous.
>After all, we would rail against a bill requiring MS products to be considered.
Yes, but only because they're a harmful monpooly. As great as the free market theories are, in practice once the market has been poisoned by a monopoly then corrective action is needed. That's what this bill does. This bill addresses the fact that the IT industry is in dire straights (mainly because of Microsoft) and is forcing competition through legislation.
It does more than that. It addresses "open standards" so as not to fall into another Microsoft-like trap.
Would I support a pro-Corel or pro-Apple bill? Sure. Just because the feds let Microsoft get away with a slap on the wrist doesn't mean the states will. Or perhaps its more accurate to say: that doesnt mean that the states didn't learn a lesson from the anti-trust trial.
I think the need for open standards and the alternative of using free/open software has hit critical mass. Expect more talk or legislation along these lines. The worst thing the anti-trust trial did for Microsoft is expose HOW they control things.
>It seems to me, that the astronauts should have the final say in what is safe enough.
I also know lots of poor people willing to do work that is 1,000 times more dangerous. Its not always in the best interest of the individual to let them make decisions regarding work safety.
Regardless, the difference between "old time explorers" and today is that, counter to the wants of almost every power structure, human life is seen as valuable and that there should be a significant investment in keeping from getting hurt, regardless if they want to or not. Today's explorers do not live in an *ahem* vacuum. There are part of the process of space exploration. The days of getting a crew of men and some money and going exploring without any oversight are long gone. That economic system is simply done. Worse, the need for astronauts themselves is questionable.
Also, how many engineers would want to work on a project with an 80% survival rate? There are personal ethics involved on many fronts. The most important is probably the tax payer. I'd like to see you sell a hypothetical 80% survival rate to Joe Taxpayer. If thats the best you can do he would probably say, "then spend the money on education, etc"
Lastly, part of why societies invest in space exploration is to figure out ways to tame space. There simply won't be any attempts at permanent bases and colonization when safety is job #59.
> As a sociologist, I really do need to call "random" people
Well, that's your problem. Where is it listed that researchers have the right to arguably violate privacy? Yes, I fully understand that this would hurt the social sciences, but there's no real reason why a society comitted to privacy should respect your need to do research.
If there was a significant privacy movement (dont laugh, the data mining backlash has already begun) I doubt there would be much sympathy for your position. In fact, I could imagine some pretty significant improvements of an opt-in only society - no more "no need to go out and vote folks the game is pretty much over" news predictions, no more questionable consensus on what Joe Sixpack really thinks, no more poisoning the well by ideological groups propping up some statistic or another, etc.
As far as "random" goes, well I'm glad you put that in quotes. Phone polls have their faults. How much time do you give people to answer questions? Can they research something on google first? Nope, sometimes you guys take some preconception from the unprepared and present it as fact, especially in political polls.
Maybe you're better off using email, but then who will respect your right to spam? It seems we're lax on telephones because its old technology and the call from the Fraternal Order of Police or from NEEDY_CHARITY is something of a tradition.
>And it is in the public's interests to have accurate statistics
Is it? Maybe its more in the public's interest to opt-in and have you guys work out the problems with randomness on your own. Its been illegal to ask for religious preference for the federal census for decades and it doesn't seem like we're the worse for the wear for it.
Perhaps I'm advocating a neo-luddite approach, but I don't think so. You're advocating an approach which NEEDS to break the rules of consent for data. I'm saying that a very militant privacy policy does not hurt researchers very much and may be more valuable to the public than having an hourly gallup poll of what teens think of the President's tie or whatever is on cnn's front page right now.
The religious lobbies in the US simply would not stand to be cut out like this. Toss in local police/firefighters etc and it would impossible for this bill to gain support in an ultra-conservative atmosphere, especially in regards to religion. Those are constitiuents Bush cannot afford to offend, and considering he's a born-again, denies evolution, and starts his day with lotsa prayers he probably doesn't want to jepordize the influx of funds into the nation's churches.
Telemarketing is more or less a dead business. Not to be ovely cynical here, but spam has taken its place. Will we be seeing more spam now that shady telemarketers can't call? I think so. This bill really needed an email no spam list rider.
Someone want to recommend a book for the less uninitiated regarding PHP and SQL? There was a review for one a few weeks back, but the edition was really old. I believe a new edition was due soon, but of course I can't find the thread now.
>But (more seriously), doesn't is just scare the hooey out of you that brute force password cracking is now running around as an autonamous virus on the Net???
Actually I feel more secure, especially if this thing hits critical mass. We're supposed to pick strong-ish passwords under the assumption that we are targeted or that we can easily be targeted. The days of 'no can access this machine anyway so I can be light on the security' are loooong gone.
Every system admin is saying, "Told you so," but in real life Joe Sixpack won't learn until he's burned. Considering this thing doesn't completely trash computers, wipe irreplacable data, etc people with weak passwords are getting off easy. If you had to pick your worms this one ain't half bad.
Whats scary is that is if SMB/NetBIOS ports are open I can just write a worm that will do a net send with the data, "FROM: Administrator: Please change your password to 0wn3D for security reasons ASAP." Then add 0wn3D to the list of passwords. The strongest password in the world isn't going to help you if you believe that little pop-up is from your sysadmin.
>I'd rather spend some hard cash buying music online or in the local record store
Me too. Its somewhat hypocritical to condemn the RIAA and keep sucking the top 40 teat. There are plenty of indie bands out there which not only sound great (of course music taste is subjective), but also sell CDs for 10 dollars and throw eight dollar concerts. Its not like its hard to find lots of indie music.
I'm getting tired of hearing how we can appease the RIAA. They don't want a truce, they want you to buy their shiny CDs at 16 bucks a pop, listen to their radio stations and commercials, and go see their overpriced shows plus play the ticketmaster tax.
Capitalism is supposed to decentralize power, the RIAA is as centralized as you can get. Cut them out, ignore their products, and give your money to other markets.
Even if selling cycles was 10x more profitable, they still wouldn't got for it. Maintaining the current system is much more profitable and they're already commited to DRM and already told MP3 traders to piss off.
Yeah, if they want to be so draconian about it why not just put one hardware dongle in the box? Sadly, I know why, because trashing your hard drive is much cheaper than a 20 cent bit of plastic and an 80 cent chip.
Hopefully this class action will change the economics around a bit. It should be more expensive to ruin my system than to include a hardware dongle.
Slashdot Mirror
Can someone please tell me they've improved upon the fonts? I can't tell from the screenshots and I won't have time to install it for a few days, but the default fonts for 9.0 are terrible. The default fonts on Red Hat are wonderful. Is RedHat using proprietary fonts? I'd like to know why Mandrake is behind in an area that is *very* important to the desktop user.
>Why the hell would you make a robot that can't fire a gun?
.22 pistol. Three geeks injured."
The predator drone fires Hellfire missiles? Hows that grab ya?
It shouldn't be that tough to build a small stout robot that can shoot a small handgun at a decent sized target using some basic computer vision on a hobbyist's budget.
I probably shouldn't have said anything. Its going to be scary seeing this on slashdot next week: "Legobot fires
>lastly, notice all the humanoid robots go around with slightly bent knees
This has to do with balance. A lot of robots have a "backpack" where designers put most of the electronics. By bending at the knee they're less likely to topple.
On a related note, Honda's Asimo is touring the US. Asimo groupies you know who you are.
Wow, Nouse is the coolest thing I've seen on slashdot in ages. Mod parent up please.
Nothing like playing games with your nose. Now I'm tempted to borrow a USB2 card for nose to nose pong!
>I've found that a simple phone call can get almost all the traffic to stop immediately.
Yeah, because they know they got caught. Its illegal to spam fax and they're more than happy to stop. They much prefer that than going to the authorities or starting a civil law suit. I'm sure they were VERY polite.
"Oh sorry about that, we must have accidentally put you on our list."
Bullshit.
>At least visit the damn site -- and maybe *gasp* glance at an advertisement
Huh? Lets see, if I want to watch it tomorrow then I have to RE-DOWNLOAD it within the frame of my browser. If I save it to disk then I can watch it again without re-downloading it. Now who's being frugal? Not to mention having the file itself makes for P2P sharing via your LAN or through some wacky Kazaa-like software. I'd rather have Bob send it to me through our 100mbps LAN than having both of us download it.
Web designers have to realize that embedded content is almost always a bad idea. It contribubtes to browser instability, forces users to redownload, and keeps users from intelligently sharing the data. I'd much rather deal with external viewers, at least when they crash they don't take all my browser windows with them. Hopefully, the design people will get a clue or at least have an obligatory direct download link.
Also, I hate to break it to you but there are no ads on that site.
>and I have got to say I was Totally Embarrassed.
Hold on here. Dreamcatcher is an R rated horror movie full of graphic monsters and the like inspiring fear into the crowd, but a little uber-soft "sex play" hedonism is wrong?
Let me guess, you're an American.
>Wachowski brothers never made the point that the machines were evil.
Exactly. People think I'm crazy when I mention that.
The core question, the one which tempted Cypher is, "Is reality worth fighting for when a much more benign form of Solipsism exists?"
Its very easy to see the humans as the traditional villians. They're the ones who want to fight. They're the ones who want to break the symbiotic relationship, which can be seen as a type of war sanction. They destroyed their own environment fighting the machines, suggesting that they are extremists who would rather ruin everything than give in to the enemy.
The machines are fairly reasonable throughout the movies (except for the dramatic scene about the "smell of humans" but thats Hollywood). They tried to build a perfect world for humans - which to me brings up a great philosophical question about what the religious really think the afterlife is. What is "heaven" to a complex highly-competitive mammal fighting to mate, reproduce, defend territory, and defeat its ideological enemies. The machines have human nature pegged and its hard to argue that they're hurting anyone. Considering its in their interest to keep people alive, I bet they have a great healthcare system too.
Interesting stuff, I really hope the humans lose or the other movies explore these issues. Perhaps in the end everyone will be a happy transhuman cyborg living on the real Earth.
Its a shame most of them look like total crap at 800x600. Increased resolution isn't necessary a good thing if you like big boxes and readable text. Sure the latter can be adjusted, but for everyday uses 800x600 is just fine. Leave the higher resolutions for games.
>Then, after you win your civil case and receive your settlement the District Attorney can arrest you for the crime you committed.
So be it. That money could pay off the fines or at least help. No where did I advocate letting them go scott free. In fact, I wonder how many people can even afford to pay them off without sueing the retailer? Hey, that means our cable rates go up if they don't to pay off their default.
>While it is illegal to make lethal booby traps--the 'nanny state' at work; you are making a false comparison.
Not at all. Both analogies have to do with DAMAGES while doing something illegal. A person still has rights even while doing illegal acts. All the schedenfraude in the world won't change that. You say 'just desserts' I say 'its a lot more complex than that.'
>The case here is criminaly-run, private enterprise sting operation.
Its only a sting if it has a warrant. This is fraud.
>Sorry, recent changes in the law do not mean that due process has been hurled out of the court system.
I suggest you do a google search for Jose Padilla.
Actually I'm not. Both have to do with damages while commiting an illegal act.
>"well officer, I was trying to by some cocaine, and i found out that it was 50% sugar!"
How about I was buying coke and half of it was cut with cyanide and a few friends died? Do we laugh them? If the nanny state says, "No drugs for you" that doesn't mean con artists get a free ride to do whatever they please.
I see no reason why the users of these devices shouldn't sue the retailers and manufacterers for false advertising. Just because something is contra-band doesnt give you the right to do what you please.
Its illegal to make lethal booby traps for criminals and for a good reason too. Not just to protect the police who might stumble on them (or kids or whomever) but because criminals actually have rights! Due process and all. Look it up sometime in the Constitution, its a fading fad thanks to post 9/11 hysteria but its still a good idea.
This isnt much of a surprise. We're already familiar with thousands of corporate logos and it doesn't seem to take much brain processing to spot one in a jumbled fast forward. We're already conditioned to find that Nike swoosh or Chevrolet logo.
I like to take it up a notch and silently think to myself, "Crap, crap, crap" as the commercials pass by. A little counter-conditioning can't hurt.
I don't even know why we even have an ad industry. I'm much more impressed by something as simple as, "This show is brought to you by Snickers" compared to a few fresh-faced teen models who would never eat a high fat and high sugar candybar begging Mom for a king-size snickers. Really now, they don't need to insult the intelligence of their audience to get attention.
Lets see, I ran windows update today just to see if it checks for updates for services.
Nope. Nothing.
Ran MS's baseline analyzer to see what patches I was missing.
Windows Update is for the end user and only focuses on IE, Media Player, etc. Its not designed for servers.
>Unix had been around for 20 yrs and no boom.
The PC boom was dependant on the web/internet boom. Any OS can run a browser, it just happened that Microsoft was the de facto standard on the PC platform at the time.
If you want to thank anyone for ushering the information age you can start with UIUC's NCSA and Tim Berners-Lee.
Oh man, you shouldn't have linked to that site. I'm very tempted to buy this because its such a terrible pun. Guaranteed to make your sarcastic hipster friends jealous.
>After all, we would rail against a bill requiring MS products to be considered.
Yes, but only because they're a harmful monpooly. As great as the free market theories are, in practice once the market has been poisoned by a monopoly then corrective action is needed. That's what this bill does. This bill addresses the fact that the IT industry is in dire straights (mainly because of Microsoft) and is forcing competition through legislation.
It does more than that. It addresses "open standards" so as not to fall into another Microsoft-like trap.
Would I support a pro-Corel or pro-Apple bill? Sure. Just because the feds let Microsoft get away with a slap on the wrist doesn't mean the states will. Or perhaps its more accurate to say: that doesnt mean that the states didn't learn a lesson from the anti-trust trial.
I think the need for open standards and the alternative of using free/open software has hit critical mass. Expect more talk or legislation along these lines. The worst thing the anti-trust trial did for Microsoft is expose HOW they control things.
Knowing is half the battle, right?
>It seems to me, that the astronauts should have the final say in what is safe enough.
I also know lots of poor people willing to do work that is 1,000 times more dangerous. Its not always in the best interest of the individual to let them make decisions regarding work safety.
Regardless, the difference between "old time explorers" and today is that, counter to the wants of almost every power structure, human life is seen as valuable and that there should be a significant investment in keeping from getting hurt, regardless if they want to or not. Today's explorers do not live in an *ahem* vacuum. There are part of the process of space exploration. The days of getting a crew of men and some money and going exploring without any oversight are long gone. That economic system is simply done. Worse, the need for astronauts themselves is questionable.
Also, how many engineers would want to work on a project with an 80% survival rate? There are personal ethics involved on many fronts. The most important is probably the tax payer. I'd like to see you sell a hypothetical 80% survival rate to Joe Taxpayer. If thats the best you can do he would probably say, "then spend the money on education, etc"
Lastly, part of why societies invest in space exploration is to figure out ways to tame space. There simply won't be any attempts at permanent bases and colonization when safety is job #59.
You can always buy non-RIAA music.
> As a sociologist, I really do need to call "random" people
Well, that's your problem. Where is it listed that researchers have the right to arguably violate privacy? Yes, I fully understand that this would hurt the social sciences, but there's no real reason why a society comitted to privacy should respect your need to do research.
If there was a significant privacy movement (dont laugh, the data mining backlash has already begun) I doubt there would be much sympathy for your position. In fact, I could imagine some pretty significant improvements of an opt-in only society - no more "no need to go out and vote folks the game is pretty much over" news predictions, no more questionable consensus on what Joe Sixpack really thinks, no more poisoning the well by ideological groups propping up some statistic or another, etc.
As far as "random" goes, well I'm glad you put that in quotes. Phone polls have their faults. How much time do you give people to answer questions? Can they research something on google first? Nope, sometimes you guys take some preconception from the unprepared and present it as fact, especially in political polls.
Maybe you're better off using email, but then who will respect your right to spam? It seems we're lax on telephones because its old technology and the call from the Fraternal Order of Police or from NEEDY_CHARITY is something of a tradition.
>And it is in the public's interests to have accurate statistics
Is it? Maybe its more in the public's interest to opt-in and have you guys work out the problems with randomness on your own. Its been illegal to ask for religious preference for the federal census for decades and it doesn't seem like we're the worse for the wear for it.
Perhaps I'm advocating a neo-luddite approach, but I don't think so. You're advocating an approach which NEEDS to break the rules of consent for data. I'm saying that a very militant privacy policy does not hurt researchers very much and may be more valuable to the public than having an hourly gallup poll of what teens think of the President's tie or whatever is on cnn's front page right now.
> Why are surveys and charities exempt?
The religious lobbies in the US simply would not stand to be cut out like this. Toss in local police/firefighters etc and it would impossible for this bill to gain support in an ultra-conservative atmosphere, especially in regards to religion. Those are constitiuents Bush cannot afford to offend, and considering he's a born-again, denies evolution, and starts his day with lotsa prayers he probably doesn't want to jepordize the influx of funds into the nation's churches.
Telemarketing is more or less a dead business. Not to be ovely cynical here, but spam has taken its place. Will we be seeing more spam now that shady telemarketers can't call? I think so. This bill really needed an email no spam list rider.
Someone want to recommend a book for the less uninitiated regarding PHP and SQL? There was a review for one a few weeks back, but the edition was really old. I believe a new edition was due soon, but of course I can't find the thread now.
>But (more seriously), doesn't is just scare the hooey out of you that brute force password cracking is now running around as an autonamous virus on the Net???
Actually I feel more secure, especially if this thing hits critical mass. We're supposed to pick strong-ish passwords under the assumption that we are targeted or that we can easily be targeted. The days of 'no can access this machine anyway so I can be light on the security' are loooong gone.
Every system admin is saying, "Told you so," but in real life Joe Sixpack won't learn until he's burned. Considering this thing doesn't completely trash computers, wipe irreplacable data, etc people with weak passwords are getting off easy. If you had to pick your worms this one ain't half bad.
Whats scary is that is if SMB/NetBIOS ports are open I can just write a worm that will do a net send with the data, "FROM: Administrator: Please change your password to 0wn3D for security reasons ASAP." Then add 0wn3D to the list of passwords. The strongest password in the world isn't going to help you if you believe that little pop-up is from your sysadmin.
>I'd rather spend some hard cash buying music online or in the local record store
Me too. Its somewhat hypocritical to condemn the RIAA and keep sucking the top 40 teat. There are plenty of indie bands out there which not only sound great (of course music taste is subjective), but also sell CDs for 10 dollars and throw eight dollar concerts. Its not like its hard to find lots of indie music.
I'm getting tired of hearing how we can appease the RIAA. They don't want a truce, they want you to buy their shiny CDs at 16 bucks a pop, listen to their radio stations and commercials, and go see their overpriced shows plus play the ticketmaster tax.
Capitalism is supposed to decentralize power, the RIAA is as centralized as you can get. Cut them out, ignore their products, and give your money to other markets.
Even if selling cycles was 10x more profitable, they still wouldn't got for it. Maintaining the current system is much more profitable and they're already commited to DRM and already told MP3 traders to piss off.
> implementation really sucks on occasion
Yeah, if they want to be so draconian about it why not just put one hardware dongle in the box? Sadly, I know why, because trashing your hard drive is much cheaper than a 20 cent bit of plastic and an 80 cent chip.
Hopefully this class action will change the economics around a bit. It should be more expensive to ruin my system than to include a hardware dongle.