I don't know about YOUR DSL service, but MINE offers a 256k upstream. (The web-site only promises a 128k though, so apparently not everybody is so lucky...)
I picked up Metal Gear Solid 2, and to be quite blunt, I'm not impressed. Final Fantasy hasn't impressed me since the SNES days, and though I plan to pick up FFX as soon as I find a copy, I imagine I'll just give it to one of my friends like I do with every other shitty Playstation game I end up buying.
I have all three systems, the PS2, the XBox, and the Gamecube. As someone who is totally unbias, I can honestly say that the best reasons to own a PS2 are all PS1 games. Period. End of story.
Well, the one exception of course is Grand Theft Auto 3 which is VERY, VERY awesome. It's actually more than just stealing cars and running over people. It's somewhat a cross between Carmageddon and Driver, with a slight bit of racing and first person shooter thrown in. Quite a good game, and a whole lot of fun.
The other two games I've been playing the hell out of are Super Smash Bros. Melee and Halo of course. Those three titles are all excellent, which and each are somewhat different types of games.
I would find it very hard to recommend one system over the other. And if I had to recommend just one, it wouldn't be the PS2. In fact, right now the one system I have the MOST good games for is ironically the Dreamcast.
And it won't even stop people from ripping MP3s I bet.
Good. Then once it rips I'll burn my own copies since buying them isn't an option for me. I can't play them!
They of course will then blame MP3s on their deminished sales. I swear, the more 5417 that they do the less frequently I buy CDs. Before it all started I not only bought CDs regularly, I ripped them constantly and played them on my computer. I downloaded them very infrequently because quite frankly I LIKE having the original CDs, even if my CDs have become nothing more than a collection (as a medium, they are worthless.)
But anymore I almost don't care to buy CDs unless they are from my absolute favorite artists (Weird Al, Garbage, to name a couple...)
I know with a group of geeks like this I'll end up getting moded as troll or something, but I don't understand why anyone would think that Live! is outdated.
I agree completely! I mean, if someone thinks their Live! isn't quite good enough, maybe they need to overclock it!
So when the XBox's online program comes out in 6 months, will the users have to do the same thing?
On some titles, perhaps. Microsoft titles, most likely.
Good luck finding a non-Microsoft title that requires the user use Passport services, however.
My guess is that most the vast majority of internet capable games will be much like they are on the PC already. Peer to Peer or hosted on a service provided by the game developer.
Battle.Net comes to mind, though since it'll be a pay service for some of the upcoming titles I'm not 100% sure that I think that it's any better than Passport.
are you kidding? I played emulated n64 games on my PII-333 with a voodoo2. An x-box could certainly handle it, with enough CPU left over to simultaenously emulate a PSX and a SNES.
Actually, the PC isn't yet powerful enough to emulate a Nintendo 64. The emulations that are out are all very high level, and they simply "wrap" the N64 software to PC devices. Any attempt to emulate the Reality Engine or the Mips processor in the N64 with current PC hardware would be very, very, VERY slow. That's why N64 emulation is fairly splotchy. Games that use the N64's APIs very strictly run very well. Games that hack the hardware faily miserably.
Fortunately for emulation-fans, a lot of N64 games were very API dependant.
X-Box banners and fliers everywhere, but nary a gamecube one to be found. They just spent so much money that they saturated the ad space. That's what creates the illusion that they're so hot, walking in to the store and seeing big green X's everywhere will overwhelm most people.
I'm glad someone mentioned this.
Am I just warped, or am I the only person laughing my ascii off whenever I walk into a store and see that there are no XBoxes, but under all of the XBox banners, posters, stickers, displays, and demo units, there are almost always plenty of Gamecubes?
I have already decided to buy both the XBox and the Gamecube anyway -- but I've not been able to actually GET an XBox. At least Nintendo had no problems getting those Gamecubes out, so I'm not totally out of luck.:-)
Only notable titles for it are GT3, TTT, and MGS2.
I agree with you on the whole. The number of must-have games has always been in the single digits on the Playstation... but if you have a Playstation 2 do yourself a favor and get Devil May Cry. In fact, there are a FEW good original Playstation titles worth having, too. So if you went ahead got got shafted on a Playstation 2 purchase, make the best of it and buy ALL of the good games...
It won't be hard to do, there just aren't that many.
I love my Dreamcast, and especially now it is an incredible value.
I would feel my Dreamcast had MORE value to me if Sega hadn't decided to throw in the towel on the system.
Stop making them? Okay, I can half-way understand that when there is a surplus of units.
But to stop making games for the system though? C'mon!? Some stores have stopped stocking the games. Many of the last games to be released were cancelled. And a lot of the best games that were out for the system are no longer in stores, hard to find online, and not even in the pawn shops. All that's left on the shelves are games that nobody wanted or games that everybody has.
Shen Mue 2 not being released though, that's the one that really bothers me.
At least there are still emulators one can play with...
I can't say that I've had tears brought to my eyes over anything Microsoft has ever done.
Then you've never lost a years work to a Windows system failure!;-)
No, seriously...
I agree with you 100%!!! The NeoGeo is a completely different CLASS of machine ethically and philisophically. BUT -- it has many similarities in terms of expense, heavy hitting hardware, and target audience (Adult males with disposable income).
As much as I would much prefer to see SNK and the NeoGeo as the "Third Wheel" in this battle of systems, that isn't going to happen. Microsoft has more money to throw at the market they are trying to take, and the NeoGeo did remarkably well trying to get that exact same market given how little in terms of marketing they put into it.
What I'm basically saying is that the market does exist for hardcore gamers. The NeoGeo was proof of that. PC Gamers who buy a new NVidia card every 6 months are proof of that. The proof is everywhere that such a market exists, and Microsoft thinks they can have that market. I for one think they probably can.
Xbox will be dead in a year. The game industry doesn't give a shit about third place (ask Sega).
I doubt the XBox will be dead in a year, but I suspect the Gamecube will definately obtain a wider audience.
As for the Playstation 2, those who are most critical about the XBox "Invading" yet another market in an attempt to "own" it are yelling a big farking double standard the moment they fail to recognize that Sony has done that very same thing. Sony, in my opinion, is much worse. Not only is the PS2 inferior to both the XBox and the Gamecube, but never has there been a game console with such a high volume of crap games compared to excellent games.
Someone else stated that the Playstation is aimed at hardcore gamers, and I personally feel that comment is WAY off. Most hardcore gamers will buy ALL of the sytems, while just about anybody is prone to be drawn into the Playstation. If anything, the Playstation aims for just about everyone, including people who typically do not play games (to include demographics that were statistically the lowest percentage of game players before the original Playstation came out [anyone who has worked retail selling game consoles can sit back and look at their customers and figure this one out.])
The XBox will appeal to the hardcore gamer, and they will probably do quite well there.
The Sony will appeal to just about everybody, and they will probably do quite well there.
The Gamecube will appeal to Nintendo fans, children, parents of children, casual gamers, AND the really hardcore who just have to have it all. I think they'll do very well with that mix.
The XBox will probably be the least successful of all three but it will not be "dead" I do not think. Many months back I said there can not be a third place, and I still fully believe this (ask Sega). But sometimes you can win by playing a totally different game (ask NeoGeo owners...)
In the next round, it's shifted up - so instead of $100, $200, $400, it's $200, $400, $1000, or whatever - and the questions are harder.
What's easier, what's harder?
That's the point some people are making.
I've been forced to watch the show once or twice, which is sheer torture to me since I hate watching television. I feel naked when I'm unable to control the action on the screen, and when I don't have some kind of video game controller in my hand to do it with.
Anyway, while watching the show I was amazed at some of the questions some of my friends knew the answers to, and they were amazed some of the questions that I knew the answers to. But they were all totally different topics. The loosely science related questions were easy for me, but anything related to television, radio, or any other form of pop culture, and I didn't have a clue.
The fact is -- if you DON'T watch TV (and I don't) you're NOT going to know the name of the actor that played so and so on that show with what's his name. And you're certainly not going to know the name of their spouse!
When it comes to trivia such as this, the random topics that Weakest Link covers makes the show almost anybody's game I would think. What it really comes down to in the end is a little bit of luck, and a lot of charisma (so you don't get voted off so quickly!)
However, if you used these sources to produce hydrogen fuel that would then be used in power plants, you could potentially answer both of these problems. As a storage fuel, it could be moved to areas where the alternative "clean" power sources are not available.
So basically what we need then, are large solar powered water-to-hydrogen converter platforms located out off of the coasts. It's "real estate" that practically has no value at the moment, it has plenty of water, and plenty of skyline, and no other current use.
Since Innoculate IT was turned into costly crap I have swithced to AVG AntiVirus System [Grisoft.Com or Grisoft.Cz].
So far it seems fine for free Windows antivirus software. It's not overly bloated, it has some pretty simple Heuristics and it interfaces with Outlook to scan incoming and outgoing e-mail.
For those not wanting to use the pretty crappy commercial stuff, it's nice to have a free alternative even if may not be too much better.
When all things suck equally, I go for the cheapest.;-)
Re:M$ seem to be on to a winner here
on
XBox Netplay Already
·
· Score: 3, Informative
If they can get EA, Namco and Capcom to support them they should make a killing.
EA is already on. Supporting the XBox was a no-brainer for EA. Anything done for the XBox is an easy port to the PC, one of EA's lovely little battle turfs.
Capcom have discussed going totally multiplatform for a very long time. One option they have even mentioned several times was using emulation to lower the costs of making games. I believe this mostly applied to their fighting games, though. No matter how they do it, Capcom has expressed their desire to move away from exclusive platform titles. They are a software company wanting to sell games. They don't care about the platform. They're also a big name. At this point no single platform is so dominant that it can twist Capcoms huge arms. Capcom does what Capcom wants.
Namco on the other hand could be tricky. They're pretty big too but I think they are signed up with certain exclusivity deals, but how in depth those deals are I'm not too sure about. They certainly don't seem to be as restrictive as they once were, since we saw Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast, and will now see a version for the Gamecube. I wouldn't be surprised to see XBox support from Namco, but if I were to hear that certain contracts prevented them from doing so, I wouldn't be surprised by that either.
Sega is the one that has my attention. I know Sega plans to support the Gamecube, and have even allowed Acclaim to do a port of Crazy Taxi for the PS2. So far it seems Sega's biggest push seems to be towards the Gamecube but things may just appear that way at the moment (with Sonic Adventure 2 and Phantasy Star Online v2). It's my opinion that the XBox is really going to need some Sega titles. Rumor has it that ShenMu will be an XBox exclusive but that's just a rumor as far as I know. Still, exclusives can't hurt.
If I'm understanding this correctly -- even if it ever becomes a reality it won't be so much like everyone having their own personal flying aircraft as much as smaller commuter type services or the like. Instead of huge passenger jets that are best suited for flights over long distances, this sort of thing would be useful in small towns outside of larger cities requiring people to do more than an hours worth of driving to get to work every day. Not only would it reduce that but it would also increase the distance one could live from work. Instead of driving to work, or riding a bus every day, they simply swing down to the nearby landing strip and catch a ride on the next flight.
It seems like an obvious evolution in our transportation systems, really, since long commutes are getting more and more common and traffic is constantly getting worse.
It's worth quite a bit. I dispise spam and receive so much I've resorted to using a private e-mail address for real communication with just a few poeple and forwarding all junk to a box that I never check. Other semi-important stuff (such as site-registration etc) goes to a third... and yet still I have other mail addy's for other things.
It's annoying and I shouldn't have to do this.
But I think the more laws that we pass the more screwed we're letting ourselves get. If we are allowed to track down spammers we could fight them much easier. At the moment however everybody like you wants to just cut them off immediately with the legal system instead of using current laws to help us fight them without having to resort to piling on more and more laws every day.
And one other thing -- my anti-law feelings are definately Libertarian, not Republican. If you're going to call me names, get your shit straight. Nobody likes a twisted turd.
I hate spam, but I don't really think the government should be getting involved. They take enough liberties away from us. If they make more crap illegal then it'll be turned around and used against otherwise normal activity and pretty soon we'll have tons of law telling us what we can and can not do with the internet.
The only law that I think should be allowed concerns the requirement of those doing business on the net do so with full disclosure. If someone is going to mass e-mail they should not be allowed to misrepresent their e-mail address or host of origin. I consider that forgery and it should be punished as such.
Not only does it make finding those guilty of the forgery difficult to act against, but it also makes it hard to trust them enough to do business with them. It's for this reason that I do not do business with spammers. It's not enough that the products they are trying to sell to people are about totally worthless, but if you add to that the fact that they can't even tell you who they really are then one can only wonder who the hell WOULD want to do business with them in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
(1.5 Mbps downstream, 128 Kbps upstream).
I don't know about YOUR DSL service, but MINE offers a 256k upstream. (The web-site only promises a 128k though, so apparently not everybody is so lucky...)
I picked up Metal Gear Solid 2, and to be quite blunt, I'm not impressed. Final Fantasy hasn't impressed me since the SNES days, and though I plan to pick up FFX as soon as I find a copy, I imagine I'll just give it to one of my friends like I do with every other shitty Playstation game I end up buying.
I have all three systems, the PS2, the XBox, and the Gamecube. As someone who is totally unbias, I can honestly say that the best reasons to own a PS2 are all PS1 games. Period. End of story.
Well, the one exception of course is Grand Theft Auto 3 which is VERY, VERY awesome. It's actually more than just stealing cars and running over people. It's somewhat a cross between Carmageddon and Driver, with a slight bit of racing and first person shooter thrown in. Quite a good game, and a whole lot of fun.
The other two games I've been playing the hell out of are Super Smash Bros. Melee and Halo of course. Those three titles are all excellent, which and each are somewhat different types of games.
I would find it very hard to recommend one system over the other. And if I had to recommend just one, it wouldn't be the PS2. In fact, right now the one system I have the MOST good games for is ironically the Dreamcast.
And it won't even stop people from ripping MP3s I bet.
Good. Then once it rips I'll burn my own copies since buying them isn't an option for me. I can't play them!
They of course will then blame MP3s on their deminished sales. I swear, the more 5417 that they do the less frequently I buy CDs. Before it all started I not only bought CDs regularly, I ripped them constantly and played them on my computer. I downloaded them very infrequently because quite frankly I LIKE having the original CDs, even if my CDs have become nothing more than a collection (as a medium, they are worthless.)
But anymore I almost don't care to buy CDs unless they are from my absolute favorite artists (Weird Al, Garbage, to name a couple...)
Screw the rest of 'em.
I know with a group of geeks like this I'll end up getting moded as troll or something, but I don't understand why anyone would think that Live! is outdated.
I agree completely! I mean, if someone thinks their Live! isn't quite good enough, maybe they need to overclock it!
So when the XBox's online program comes out in 6 months, will the users have to do the same thing?
On some titles, perhaps. Microsoft titles, most likely.
Good luck finding a non-Microsoft title that requires the user use Passport services, however.
My guess is that most the vast majority of internet capable games will be much like they are on the PC already. Peer to Peer or hosted on a service provided by the game developer.
Battle.Net comes to mind, though since it'll be a pay service for some of the upcoming titles I'm not 100% sure that I think that it's any better than Passport.
Newspeak.
Hmm... Is this how it begins?
Well, wait, now, I suppose Newspeak would be listed then, wouldn't it?
Heh. Self referencing, even.
are you kidding? I played emulated n64 games on my PII-333 with a voodoo2. An x-box could certainly handle it, with enough CPU left over to simultaenously emulate a PSX and a SNES.
Actually, the PC isn't yet powerful enough to emulate a Nintendo 64. The emulations that are out are all very high level, and they simply "wrap" the N64 software to PC devices. Any attempt to emulate the Reality Engine or the Mips processor in the N64 with current PC hardware would be very, very, VERY slow. That's why N64 emulation is fairly splotchy. Games that use the N64's APIs very strictly run very well. Games that hack the hardware faily miserably.
Fortunately for emulation-fans, a lot of N64 games were very API dependant.
I compared the Gamecube against the XBox to see how they stacked up.
Can you guess which one was on top?
Did the same thing with a Saturn, too.
I would be ashamed to admit IT.
They've got to show off all those Bullet-Time special effects in s Star-Trek setting. Can't let the Matrix have all the fun.
X-Box banners and fliers everywhere, but nary a gamecube one to be found. They just spent so much money that they saturated the ad space. That's what creates the illusion that they're so hot, walking in to the store and seeing big green X's everywhere will overwhelm most people.
:-)
I'm glad someone mentioned this.
Am I just warped, or am I the only person laughing my ascii off whenever I walk into a store and see that there are no XBoxes, but under all of the XBox banners, posters, stickers, displays, and demo units, there are almost always plenty of Gamecubes?
I have already decided to buy both the XBox and the Gamecube anyway -- but I've not been able to actually GET an XBox. At least Nintendo had no problems getting those Gamecubes out, so I'm not totally out of luck.
Only notable titles for it are GT3, TTT, and MGS2.
I agree with you on the whole. The number of must-have games has always been in the single digits on the Playstation... but if you have a Playstation 2 do yourself a favor and get Devil May Cry. In fact, there are a FEW good original Playstation titles worth having, too. So if you went ahead got got shafted on a Playstation 2 purchase, make the best of it and buy ALL of the good games...
It won't be hard to do, there just aren't that many.
I love my Dreamcast, and especially now it is an incredible value.
I would feel my Dreamcast had MORE value to me if Sega hadn't decided to throw in the towel on the system.
Stop making them? Okay, I can half-way understand that when there is a surplus of units.
But to stop making games for the system though? C'mon!? Some stores have stopped stocking the games. Many of the last games to be released were cancelled. And a lot of the best games that were out for the system are no longer in stores, hard to find online, and not even in the pawn shops. All that's left on the shelves are games that nobody wanted or games that everybody has.
Shen Mue 2 not being released though, that's the one that really bothers me.
At least there are still emulators one can play with...
I can't say that I've had tears brought to my eyes over anything Microsoft has ever done.
;-)
Then you've never lost a years work to a Windows system failure!
No, seriously...
I agree with you 100%!!! The NeoGeo is a completely different CLASS of machine ethically and philisophically. BUT -- it has many similarities in terms of expense, heavy hitting hardware, and target audience (Adult males with disposable income).
As much as I would much prefer to see SNK and the NeoGeo as the "Third Wheel" in this battle of systems, that isn't going to happen. Microsoft has more money to throw at the market they are trying to take, and the NeoGeo did remarkably well trying to get that exact same market given how little in terms of marketing they put into it.
What I'm basically saying is that the market does exist for hardcore gamers. The NeoGeo was proof of that. PC Gamers who buy a new NVidia card every 6 months are proof of that. The proof is everywhere that such a market exists, and Microsoft thinks they can have that market. I for one think they probably can.
Smash Brothers is to be released December 3rd, I'm fairly sure.
Xbox will be dead in a year. The game industry doesn't give a shit about third place (ask Sega).
I doubt the XBox will be dead in a year, but I suspect the Gamecube will definately obtain a wider audience.
As for the Playstation 2, those who are most critical about the XBox "Invading" yet another market in an attempt to "own" it are yelling a big farking double standard the moment they fail to recognize that Sony has done that very same thing. Sony, in my opinion, is much worse. Not only is the PS2 inferior to both the XBox and the Gamecube, but never has there been a game console with such a high volume of crap games compared to excellent games.
Someone else stated that the Playstation is aimed at hardcore gamers, and I personally feel that comment is WAY off. Most hardcore gamers will buy ALL of the sytems, while just about anybody is prone to be drawn into the Playstation. If anything, the Playstation aims for just about everyone, including people who typically do not play games (to include demographics that were statistically the lowest percentage of game players before the original Playstation came out [anyone who has worked retail selling game consoles can sit back and look at their customers and figure this one out.])
The XBox will appeal to the hardcore gamer, and they will probably do quite well there.
The Sony will appeal to just about everybody, and they will probably do quite well there.
The Gamecube will appeal to Nintendo fans, children, parents of children, casual gamers, AND the really hardcore who just have to have it all. I think they'll do very well with that mix.
The XBox will probably be the least successful of all three but it will not be "dead" I do not think. Many months back I said there can not be a third place, and I still fully believe this (ask Sega). But sometimes you can win by playing a totally different game (ask NeoGeo owners...)
Now, next time those professional athletes go on strike we can just replace them with robots!
In the next round, it's shifted up - so instead of $100, $200, $400, it's $200, $400, $1000, or whatever - and the questions are harder.
What's easier, what's harder?
That's the point some people are making.
I've been forced to watch the show once or twice, which is sheer torture to me since I hate watching television. I feel naked when I'm unable to control the action on the screen, and when I don't have some kind of video game controller in my hand to do it with.
Anyway, while watching the show I was amazed at some of the questions some of my friends knew the answers to, and they were amazed some of the questions that I knew the answers to. But they were all totally different topics. The loosely science related questions were easy for me, but anything related to television, radio, or any other form of pop culture, and I didn't have a clue.
The fact is -- if you DON'T watch TV (and I don't) you're NOT going to know the name of the actor that played so and so on that show with what's his name. And you're certainly not going to know the name of their spouse!
When it comes to trivia such as this, the random topics that Weakest Link covers makes the show almost anybody's game I would think. What it really comes down to in the end is a little bit of luck, and a lot of charisma (so you don't get voted off so quickly!)
However, if you used these sources to produce hydrogen fuel that would then be used in power plants, you could potentially answer both of these problems. As a storage fuel, it could be moved to areas where the alternative "clean" power sources are not available.
So basically what we need then, are large solar powered water-to-hydrogen converter platforms located out off of the coasts. It's "real estate" that practically has no value at the moment, it has plenty of water, and plenty of skyline, and no other current use.
Your dog is going to go totally nuts every time you turn on your PDA.
You think the dogs are going to go nuts?
That's nothing compared to how the ladies will be acting when they start making 2.4 million RPM vibrators...
Since Innoculate IT was turned into costly crap I have swithced to AVG AntiVirus System [Grisoft.Com or Grisoft.Cz].
;-)
So far it seems fine for free Windows antivirus software. It's not overly bloated, it has some pretty simple Heuristics and it interfaces with Outlook to scan incoming and outgoing e-mail.
For those not wanting to use the pretty crappy commercial stuff, it's nice to have a free alternative even if may not be too much better.
When all things suck equally, I go for the cheapest.
If they can get EA, Namco and Capcom to support them they should make a killing.
EA is already on. Supporting the XBox was a no-brainer for EA. Anything done for the XBox is an easy port to the PC, one of EA's lovely little battle turfs.
Capcom have discussed going totally multiplatform for a very long time. One option they have even mentioned several times was using emulation to lower the costs of making games. I believe this mostly applied to their fighting games, though. No matter how they do it, Capcom has expressed their desire to move away from exclusive platform titles. They are a software company wanting to sell games. They don't care about the platform. They're also a big name. At this point no single platform is so dominant that it can twist Capcoms huge arms. Capcom does what Capcom wants.
Namco on the other hand could be tricky. They're pretty big too but I think they are signed up with certain exclusivity deals, but how in depth those deals are I'm not too sure about. They certainly don't seem to be as restrictive as they once were, since we saw Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast, and will now see a version for the Gamecube. I wouldn't be surprised to see XBox support from Namco, but if I were to hear that certain contracts prevented them from doing so, I wouldn't be surprised by that either.
Sega is the one that has my attention. I know Sega plans to support the Gamecube, and have even allowed Acclaim to do a port of Crazy Taxi for the PS2. So far it seems Sega's biggest push seems to be towards the Gamecube but things may just appear that way at the moment (with Sonic Adventure 2 and Phantasy Star Online v2). It's my opinion that the XBox is really going to need some Sega titles. Rumor has it that ShenMu will be an XBox exclusive but that's just a rumor as far as I know. Still, exclusives can't hurt.
If I'm understanding this correctly -- even if it ever becomes a reality it won't be so much like everyone having their own personal flying aircraft as much as smaller commuter type services or the like. Instead of huge passenger jets that are best suited for flights over long distances, this sort of thing would be useful in small towns outside of larger cities requiring people to do more than an hours worth of driving to get to work every day. Not only would it reduce that but it would also increase the distance one could live from work. Instead of driving to work, or riding a bus every day, they simply swing down to the nearby landing strip and catch a ride on the next flight.
It seems like an obvious evolution in our transportation systems, really, since long commutes are getting more and more common and traffic is constantly getting worse.
Your time isn't worth anything, is it?
It's worth quite a bit. I dispise spam and receive so much I've resorted to using a private e-mail address for real communication with just a few poeple and forwarding all junk to a box that I never check. Other semi-important stuff (such as site-registration etc) goes to a third... and yet still I have other mail addy's for other things.
It's annoying and I shouldn't have to do this.
But I think the more laws that we pass the more screwed we're letting ourselves get. If we are allowed to track down spammers we could fight them much easier. At the moment however everybody like you wants to just cut them off immediately with the legal system instead of using current laws to help us fight them without having to resort to piling on more and more laws every day.
And one other thing -- my anti-law feelings are definately Libertarian, not Republican. If you're going to call me names, get your shit straight. Nobody likes a twisted turd.
I hate spam, but I don't really think the government should be getting involved. They take enough liberties away from us. If they make more crap illegal then it'll be turned around and used against otherwise normal activity and pretty soon we'll have tons of law telling us what we can and can not do with the internet.
The only law that I think should be allowed concerns the requirement of those doing business on the net do so with full disclosure. If someone is going to mass e-mail they should not be allowed to misrepresent their e-mail address or host of origin. I consider that forgery and it should be punished as such.
Not only does it make finding those guilty of the forgery difficult to act against, but it also makes it hard to trust them enough to do business with them. It's for this reason that I do not do business with spammers. It's not enough that the products they are trying to sell to people are about totally worthless, but if you add to that the fact that they can't even tell you who they really are then one can only wonder who the hell WOULD want to do business with them in the first place.