The excuse to not release it for "competitive" reasons is laughable.
A) The ONLY competition that exists is the OTHER mega telecommunications conglomerate Rogers Communictions/Shaw/Cogeco/Etc... Who also use the exact same practices.
B) ALL the other independent ISPs it was pointed out sometime ago, use either Bell's or Rogers's lines, and thus are traffic shaping also if they know it or not.
C) The only reason they don't want to release is this isn't mainstream news yet. Your average Joe doesn't know what the heck traffic shaping is. However when journalists start looking it up to report on it, thats a lot more negative press, and frankly people are getting pretty sick and tired of the communication duopoly. They might also remind people about reports of bandwidth capping, or that how they hardly ever really provide the speed that they advertise. They lie, cheat, steal, annoy, mismanage, and impose fictional means and limited options to ensure profit. Heck you ever wonder why Bell Canada doesn't offer Dry DSL? Gee could it be because they are a PHONE company, and you don't need a active phone line to use it. Its all about selling packages, and convergence. I think it is time Canada took a SERIOUS look at our telecommunications situation, and what is being done around the world. If we want to be competitive into the future, leaving it in the hands of these asshats probably isn't a very good idea.
A more accurate description would be "Rocky and not a gas giant".
I think the point is that in the past we could only detect large gas giants, and now we can see smaller ones.
If I remember correctly the observed light from a star will wobble due to planets orbit around it. Larger the planet, bigger the wobble, and easier to see. Something like that anyway.
Oh and they don't actually see them, its is more like they make observations that they exist. They can do calculations to figure out density, but thats about it I think.
Is it just me or is this so stupid as to being ridiculous?
Last I checked the OLPC was all about providing a cheap alternative for kids growing up in undeveloped countries (or however you want to PC poor or 3rd world countries). The intent being to offer them some opportunities they might not have otherwise have had.
An e-book reader?
I will do one better. I will design and create a new exciting technology, that will last for hundreds of years, require no power or recharging, and is 100% recyclable.
I call it a "Book"! Amazing!
Seriously, if that is the issue, print some cheap books, and ship then over. Better yet look into the practices by the publishing companies which are brutal. Legislate some change there to help everyone, even domestically!
Having Vista for about a year now, I just suffered my first security problem.
Got a Trojan called Velemonde or something like that. Nasty bugger. Took hours to get rid of it (if I even did, popups stopped anyway).
However I am pretty sure it wasn't vista's fault. A more likely scenario is that when I passed out from a hard nights drinking my idiot friends that crashed the night before decided to go on the internets to some dubious websites and download everything and then run everything.
Am I going to go out and get Norton or something like that? No, I am going to set a password, and tell my friends to %$^@! off when they want access (at least when I am not there watching).
Just because you know where to go, what to download and what not to, and particularly what to run and not run, doesn't mean people that access your computer do.
I was not a happy camper yesterday. Not only did I get hosed with the Trojan, but when fixing it I did a System Restore which then nerfed my WOW install and wouldn't allow yesterdays patch... Which took almost as long to fix... what a pain in the ass.
Anyway moral of the story is no anti-virus software can protect you from drunken idiot friends.
Just like net neutrality this is simply the infrastructure monopolies trying yet again to press against the chains of their regulators so that they may squeeze the populace for more money for their greedy corporations. Whew.
Basically as I see it you have Bell Canada who own (think they own) all the phone lines in Canada, and Rogers Communications that own (think they own) all the cable in Canada. To my knowlege A) most of that infrastructure was built with taxpayer money, thus actually owned by taxpayers and B) is so important to the Country that they can cry and bitch and whine all they like but when push comes to shove the Government isn't about to allow any corporation (no matter how deep they are into their pockets) to have that kind of power over them. It would be like the power company saying well, we propose a law that some people can't have power. Not going to happen.
I think at this point the Government should reconsider the leeway they give the two giants and seriously think about rather than regulating two obsolete giants, they take the power back, take all their privilages away, and open the market up to independent ISPs and communication companies on equal footing backed by state run infrastructure. Its too important for decisions by corporations who by definition owe their loyalty to their shareholders and not the people of Canada.
OK I feel a bit communist right now, but I hate Bell and Rogers sooooo much!/rant
After reading this I will now NOT purchasing this game, which before today, I was excited to buy.
The reason is simple. Authorization makes some sense where you are providing a service, so for instance version management. It even makes some sense in a optional voluntary situation (where you want automatic patches).
However to make it mandatory for a single player game? Thats BS. I am sure someone will find a hack around this about a week after release, in which case perhaps I might download that. What happens when the discontinue they DRM service? Your game doesn't work. So not only are they supposedly preventing piracy (I see this really only making it worse, see above), but they are also puting conditions on how long you use their product.
Mass Effect 2 coming out? Well maybe we won't let you play the first one anymore. Its one thing to stop supporting software so that it slowly becomes obsolete and unplayable (usually an OS problem). It is another thing entirely to disable someone else's software that they bought. Heck there are tons of folks out there that make hacks and patches to keep old games running on new machines. I still enjoy Masters Of Orion 2 on my Vista machine. Just think if your old favorite games had this type of DRM, brutal. Not to mention if you are anyplace for a prolonged period of time that has little or no internet access. Sorry no gaming for you.
Anyway I will be voting with my currency and saying NO to Mass Effect now.
Not to mention the fact that just in the past year or so people have gotten shafted by companies selling DRM videos online, then just up and stopping their DRM server for whatever reason. People that spend hundreds of dollars on videos now cannot watch any of them. Why would anyone pay into a system like that again. I know I would not.
I agree it opens it up for abuse, however I think it is better than what exists, that is being horribly abused now.
Also I believe the guy in question wanted to sell cracked copies of WOW (which is what the whole case is about). I could be wrong I didn't rtfa (just remember the non dup post from before). If that is the case then he would be selling their code.
Even if that isn't the case you could probably make the argument that this isn't software on a disk that you are selling any more. It is a subscription to gain access to a server that presumably has other software running on it, that interacts with the client software. A step further is due to the shared nature of the environment, one user using it, would be in a sense 'sharing' it with everyone one the server (not they they would get any good from it, only bad).
Anyway as I said only playing devil's advocate here.
If it wasn't a PR nightmare, I would say for Blizzard to forget about "booting" "bots" etc... If it is indeed hard to find the culprits, up the ante. Simply put in the EULA that only unmodified copies (or only those modified by Blizzard) have authorized access to their private servers. All other connections will be viewed as an unauthorized breach punishable by criminal law. It would be the same if I "hacked" into some companies computer system. It is illegal.
Of course we all know how popular it makes you when you start throwing college students, 14 year old girls, and grandparents into court and jail.
Blizzard also has about a bazillion dollars at this point from WOW. They can sit in court forever, throw crazy amounts of money at it and not flinch. That shouldn't matter, but in reality it probably does.
I HATE the practice of the a) open this product to be able to read the EULA and you agree to it... and b) we will write a EULA that is 100 pages long and would take 10 lawyers a year to figure out what it actually says so you will agree to it without reading it... and finally c) we will write our EULA so that we can basically change it at anytime and too bad.
That said I have no problem with agreeing to a EULA (as if you signed it) upon payment. However the contents of that EULA cannot be hidden within.
I have no problem with this, if the EULA is on the packaging, and is in plain language, and can base my purchasing decision upon that. I think EULA's would be a lot less restrictive if companies knew this might be a selling feature (or not).
Also just to clarify a point, I doubt any software you ever buy anywhere is sold as anything but a limited use licence for use, not as a product or commodity. Some business and development software will also set out distribution rights, and additional costs such as royalties etc.
I remember once upon a time looking into some development software for handheld devices. They had several development packages to choose from, a personal copy for like 200$, an office distribution of like 20 licences, and larger package of like 200 (into the thousands $$$), and finally an unlimited package that had a per licence fee (even more). This was all for software I had written using their software. However it was all laid out in a chart, and I could compare their software and what it could do, VS competitors, and their licencing requirements. Then you can make an informed decision based on, quality of software, cost, flexibility, and whatever else is important to you. It goes without saying that those with the best software can have a more restrictive licence, as people will still buy it. I suppose you could argue that Blizzard would probably fit that bill.
The key I think is you have to prove in court that significant portions (that would probably be in air quotes and left to the determination of the judge) of your IP has been used in the creation of some other entity.
Just playing devil's advocate here, I agree with most of what you say... However at the core here is what is IP? If I buy a book, say Harry Potter, I CAN do whatever I want to my copy. I can rename it to Mary Snotter, and change the name of Dumbledor to Blumbledor, and make a surprise ending that shows Snotter to be the ultimate evil. However can I sell this work? (ok this is a bad example, but lets presume for a second that it wasn't a Parody). You could sell the physical copy of the book again with your writing all over it I don't see a problem there. However as soon as you start making copies of your hybrid work and distributing them and selling them, well I would expect you would get your ass sued.
I am pretty sure that if I reversed engineered Windows, renamed, it Bimbos, replaced all the inline commenting with "Bill Gates is Gay", and sold it, I am pretty sure Microsoft would be within its rights to prevent me from connecting to update servers, and probably suing me several ways from Tuesday. IANAL so this is all just my opinion...
I guess we will find out when the real lawyers get finished with it in the courts...
Build it into the licencing agreement. If people find your licence too restrictive, well they are welcome to go elsewhere.
This is not a software issue, this is a licencing issue.
I know licences are used all the time to say you can use this a certain way, but not this way, or that way, etc. So long as both the Licencee and Licencor both have their eyes open as to the agreement, I fail to see much of an issue here....and remember kids a licence is just the right to use, not ownership, so this has nothing to do with buying a physical object and how you use that. AKA buying a jeep but not allowed to drive on dirt roads, or using a screw driver for non-screw related purposes.... Totally different. Though if a maker of a screw driver started puting said restrictions on their screw drivers, I would think that company would not be in business long, so its pretty much a moot point.
Well as far as science fiction and particularly fantasy novels I can't think of any that have been movies better than mediocre at best, sadly.
Lord of the Rings, so far as I know is the best Science Fiction/Fantasy Movie adapted from a novel.
I am not including those that could be called "Historical" (air quotes there for creative licence within movies).
There are some out there, I liked Starship Troopers (even though many people did not).
One of the worst screw ups I thought was Battlefield Earth. I mean LOTR was basically 3, 400 page books made into 3, 3-3.5 hour movies, or 1200+ pages into 10+ hours of film. Battlefield Earth they tried to stuff another 1200+ page book, but this time into less than 1 hour 30 minutes. They were surprised that it sucked?
As for pure fantasy... I can think of none. Though maybe I am not trying hard enough...
I don't think I have read any Leiber, but in the context of this discussion, if you come out with a Movie with any one of those names, or any one of those books (possible exception might be Zelazny Lord of Light), the response you would get is "Huh, who? No thanks". I liked Tolkien, but his stuff is getting made into movies due to a market that already exists and a public that knows of him.
Mind you "Left Hand of Darkness" does have the ring of a cool movie title, Oscar for sure!
I don't know about p2p throttling, but I have been a Cogeco customer for years.
Its primary selling point for me is that it is better than Bell.
The short version of my story goes like this. I bought a new computer almost a year ago. At one point I decided to download a whole bunch of old TV shows. I went to log on one day and could not. On my second or third try I then was redirected to a URL that basically said "Cogeco disconnected you". So I call up and basically say "WTF?". The answer I got, is that you have a 60GB cap, that you exceeded. My response was "WTF is a cap?". Their response, it is a cap or limit on how much you can download and upload combined. My response "Since when?! I never signed anything about a cap. This is bullshit". Their response, check you EULA. I say "thanks", and proceed to do so. 'Lo and behold, it is there. It turns out there is also a line in the agreement that basically says that they can at ANY time add ANY thing to the agreement and they don't really have to notify you. You see because they posted the changed agreement in an obscure URL on their website that i am sure everyone monitors daily. I have had my connection suspended once since then.
Apparently the reason for the "caps" and canceling of service, is that your increased activity (going beyond the cap) MAY indicate that your computer has been compromised by hackers (ohhh noes!) and are now illicitly using your connection for nefarious means, so it only a precaution that it is being disconnected. Once you call in prove, that no it was you they will reconnect you with 1GB worth of cap space, if you go beyond that, they cancel your account for 24 hours and then you can activate for another GB of Cap. If you go beyond that, they cancel you for the rest of the month. The last time I got canceled, I had the one GB cap, and WOW decided to download automatically an 500MB update I was a bit worried.
What really burns me is that they have these cap but offer no way to monitor your cap space. NONE! The only way to check is to call in and ask one of their tech people, and the last time I did that (when I was worried there), they didn't really either know or were not sure.
Now I said to myself that if this happened again I would go someplace else and vote with my money so to speak (been a customer for 10+ years). However all the other ISP's than have no cap limit, all use BELL or Cogeco lines, thus no matter who you go with, if Bell or Cogeco decide to throttle or whatever, all the "compitition" by default will also.
Anyways it is one of those frustrating things, that due to the monopoly there is NOTHING you can do about it. You have two choices: 1) Do whatever Bell and Cogeco say and pay want they want, or 2) Don't have an internet connection.
The only good part about the situation (sorta) is that I did actually learn a lot about the issues, the industry, the alternatives (such that they are), etc.. that I would not have if I wasn't so pissed off that I went on a learning tear.
Anyway I need an internet connection, so I bend over and take it like everyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
The excuse to not release it for "competitive" reasons is laughable.
A) The ONLY competition that exists is the OTHER mega telecommunications conglomerate Rogers Communictions/Shaw/Cogeco/Etc... Who also use the exact same practices.
B) ALL the other independent ISPs it was pointed out sometime ago, use either Bell's or Rogers's lines, and thus are traffic shaping also if they know it or not.
C) The only reason they don't want to release is this isn't mainstream news yet. Your average Joe doesn't know what the heck traffic shaping is. However when journalists start looking it up to report on it, thats a lot more negative press, and frankly people are getting pretty sick and tired of the communication duopoly. They might also remind people about reports of bandwidth capping, or that how they hardly ever really provide the speed that they advertise. They lie, cheat, steal, annoy, mismanage, and impose fictional means and limited options to ensure profit. Heck you ever wonder why Bell Canada doesn't offer Dry DSL? Gee could it be because they are a PHONE company, and you don't need a active phone line to use it. Its all about selling packages, and convergence. I think it is time Canada took a SERIOUS look at our telecommunications situation, and what is being done around the world. If we want to be competitive into the future, leaving it in the hands of these asshats probably isn't a very good idea.
Are we laughing at the fact that his salary is 1$ or are we laughing that he is considered an engineer?
A more accurate description would be "Rocky and not a gas giant".
I think the point is that in the past we could only detect large gas giants, and now we can see smaller ones.
If I remember correctly the observed light from a star will wobble due to planets orbit around it. Larger the planet, bigger the wobble, and easier to see. Something like that anyway.
Oh and they don't actually see them, its is more like they make observations that they exist. They can do calculations to figure out density, but thats about it I think.
Just picturing a house boat in the high seas made me laugh.
I see a fat guy flipping burgers on his bbq in flip flops, with nothing but ocean horizon as far as the eye can see!
http://www.ironsky.net/site/
Go to the moon to fight Nazis of course!
Sorry Indie, Commies are the poor mans Nazis when it comes to evil villains!
...and the blackjack.
They are after the secret recipe to our maple donuts!
Damn you China, damn you straight to hell!!!!!
So long as each contain some sort of mission, preferably an impossible one, then I am OK with it.
Also 30 seconds of Mission Impossible theme upon startup is mandatory!
"...though most people seem confused about what they're waiting for..."
So idiots line up at an Apple store, what else is new? How is this News?
Is it just me or is this so stupid as to being ridiculous?
Last I checked the OLPC was all about providing a cheap alternative for kids growing up in undeveloped countries (or however you want to PC poor or 3rd world countries). The intent being to offer them some opportunities they might not have otherwise have had.
An e-book reader?
I will do one better. I will design and create a new exciting technology, that will last for hundreds of years, require no power or recharging, and is 100% recyclable.
I call it a "Book"! Amazing!
Seriously, if that is the issue, print some cheap books, and ship then over. Better yet look into the practices by the publishing companies which are brutal. Legislate some change there to help everyone, even domestically!
Nobel Peace Prize here I come!
Having Vista for about a year now, I just suffered my first security problem.
Got a Trojan called Velemonde or something like that. Nasty bugger. Took hours to get rid of it (if I even did, popups stopped anyway).
However I am pretty sure it wasn't vista's fault. A more likely scenario is that when I passed out from a hard nights drinking my idiot friends that crashed the night before decided to go on the internets to some dubious websites and download everything and then run everything.
Am I going to go out and get Norton or something like that? No, I am going to set a password, and tell my friends to %$^@! off when they want access (at least when I am not there watching).
Just because you know where to go, what to download and what not to, and particularly what to run and not run, doesn't mean people that access your computer do.
I was not a happy camper yesterday. Not only did I get hosed with the Trojan, but when fixing it I did a System Restore which then nerfed my WOW install and wouldn't allow yesterdays patch... Which took almost as long to fix... what a pain in the ass.
Anyway moral of the story is no anti-virus software can protect you from drunken idiot friends.
Just like net neutrality this is simply the infrastructure monopolies trying yet again to press against the chains of their regulators so that they may squeeze the populace for more money for their greedy corporations. Whew.
/rant
Basically as I see it you have Bell Canada who own (think they own) all the phone lines in Canada, and Rogers Communications that own (think they own) all the cable in Canada. To my knowlege A) most of that infrastructure was built with taxpayer money, thus actually owned by taxpayers and B) is so important to the Country that they can cry and bitch and whine all they like but when push comes to shove the Government isn't about to allow any corporation (no matter how deep they are into their pockets) to have that kind of power over them. It would be like the power company saying well, we propose a law that some people can't have power. Not going to happen.
I think at this point the Government should reconsider the leeway they give the two giants and seriously think about rather than regulating two obsolete giants, they take the power back, take all their privilages away, and open the market up to independent ISPs and communication companies on equal footing backed by state run infrastructure. Its too important for decisions by corporations who by definition owe their loyalty to their shareholders and not the people of Canada.
OK I feel a bit communist right now, but I hate Bell and Rogers sooooo much!
After reading this I will now NOT purchasing this game, which before today, I was excited to buy.
The reason is simple. Authorization makes some sense where you are providing a service, so for instance version management. It even makes some sense in a optional voluntary situation (where you want automatic patches).
However to make it mandatory for a single player game? Thats BS. I am sure someone will find a hack around this about a week after release, in which case perhaps I might download that. What happens when the discontinue they DRM service? Your game doesn't work. So not only are they supposedly preventing piracy (I see this really only making it worse, see above), but they are also puting conditions on how long you use their product.
Mass Effect 2 coming out? Well maybe we won't let you play the first one anymore. Its one thing to stop supporting software so that it slowly becomes obsolete and unplayable (usually an OS problem). It is another thing entirely to disable someone else's software that they bought. Heck there are tons of folks out there that make hacks and patches to keep old games running on new machines.
I still enjoy Masters Of Orion 2 on my Vista machine. Just think if your old favorite games had this type of DRM, brutal. Not to mention if you are anyplace for a prolonged period of time that has little or no internet access. Sorry no gaming for you.
Anyway I will be voting with my currency and saying NO to Mass Effect now.
Not to mention the fact that just in the past year or so people have gotten shafted by companies selling DRM videos online, then just up and stopping their DRM server for whatever reason. People that spend hundreds of dollars on videos now cannot watch any of them. Why would anyone pay into a system like that again. I know I would not.
lol, whoops your right... about the tie anyway :)
I agree it opens it up for abuse, however I think it is better than what exists, that is being horribly abused now.
Also I believe the guy in question wanted to sell cracked copies of WOW (which is what the whole case is about). I could be wrong I didn't rtfa (just remember the non dup post from before). If that is the case then he would be selling their code.
Even if that isn't the case you could probably make the argument that this isn't software on a disk that you are selling any more. It is a subscription to gain access to a server that presumably has other software running on it, that interacts with the client software. A step further is due to the shared nature of the environment, one user using it, would be in a sense 'sharing' it with everyone one the server (not they they would get any good from it, only bad).
Anyway as I said only playing devil's advocate here.
I think this is a fair assessment.
If it wasn't a PR nightmare, I would say for Blizzard to forget about "booting" "bots" etc... If it is indeed hard to find the culprits, up the ante. Simply put in the EULA that only unmodified copies (or only those modified by Blizzard) have authorized access to their private servers. All other connections will be viewed as an unauthorized breach punishable by criminal law. It would be the same if I "hacked" into some companies computer system. It is illegal.
Of course we all know how popular it makes you when you start throwing college students, 14 year old girls, and grandparents into court and jail.
Blizzard also has about a bazillion dollars at this point from WOW. They can sit in court forever, throw crazy amounts of money at it and not flinch. That shouldn't matter, but in reality it probably does.
I agree with you 100% with a cravat.
I HATE the practice of the a) open this product to be able to read the EULA and you agree to it... and b) we will write a EULA that is 100 pages long and would take 10 lawyers a year to figure out what it actually says so you will agree to it without reading it... and finally c) we will write our EULA so that we can basically change it at anytime and too bad.
That said I have no problem with agreeing to a EULA (as if you signed it) upon payment. However the contents of that EULA cannot be hidden within.
I have no problem with this, if the EULA is on the packaging, and is in plain language, and can base my purchasing decision upon that. I think EULA's would be a lot less restrictive if companies knew this might be a selling feature (or not).
Also just to clarify a point, I doubt any software you ever buy anywhere is sold as anything but a limited use licence for use, not as a product or commodity. Some business and development software will also set out distribution rights, and additional costs such as royalties etc.
I remember once upon a time looking into some development software for handheld devices. They had several development packages to choose from, a personal copy for like 200$, an office distribution of like 20 licences, and larger package of like 200 (into the thousands $$$), and finally an unlimited package that had a per licence fee (even more). This was all for software I had written using their software. However it was all laid out in a chart, and I could compare their software and what it could do, VS competitors, and their licencing requirements. Then you can make an informed decision based on, quality of software, cost, flexibility, and whatever else is important to you. It goes without saying that those with the best software can have a more restrictive licence, as people will still buy it. I suppose you could argue that Blizzard would probably fit that bill.
This isn't to say if there even SHOULD be IP or not. It exists legally now and thus will help determine the case...
I am not 100% sure an idea should be anyone's "property".
the SCO VS UNIX case is the same as well...
The key I think is you have to prove in court that significant portions (that would probably be in air quotes and left to the determination of the judge) of your IP has been used in the creation of some other entity.
Just playing devil's advocate here, I agree with most of what you say... However at the core here is what is IP? If I buy a book, say Harry Potter, I CAN do whatever I want to my copy. I can rename it to Mary Snotter, and change the name of Dumbledor to Blumbledor, and make a surprise ending that shows Snotter to be the ultimate evil. However can I sell this work? (ok this is a bad example, but lets presume for a second that it wasn't a Parody). You could sell the physical copy of the book again with your writing all over it I don't see a problem there. However as soon as you start making copies of your hybrid work and distributing them and selling them, well I would expect you would get your ass sued.
I am pretty sure that if I reversed engineered Windows, renamed, it Bimbos, replaced all the inline commenting with "Bill Gates is Gay", and sold it, I am pretty sure Microsoft would be within its rights to prevent me from connecting to update servers, and probably suing me several ways from Tuesday. IANAL so this is all just my opinion...
I guess we will find out when the real lawyers get finished with it in the courts...
Build it into the licencing agreement. If people find your licence too restrictive, well they are welcome to go elsewhere.
...and remember kids a licence is just the right to use, not ownership, so this has nothing to do with buying a physical object and how you use that. AKA buying a jeep but not allowed to drive on dirt roads, or using a screw driver for non-screw related purposes.... Totally different. Though if a maker of a screw driver started puting said restrictions on their screw drivers, I would think that company would not be in business long, so its pretty much a moot point.
This is not a software issue, this is a licencing issue.
I know licences are used all the time to say you can use this a certain way, but not this way, or that way, etc. So long as both the Licencee and Licencor both have their eyes open as to the agreement, I fail to see much of an issue here.
Well as far as science fiction and particularly fantasy novels I can't think of any that have been movies better than mediocre at best, sadly.
Lord of the Rings, so far as I know is the best Science Fiction/Fantasy Movie adapted from a novel.
I am not including those that could be called "Historical" (air quotes there for creative licence within movies).
There are some out there, I liked Starship Troopers (even though many people did not).
One of the worst screw ups I thought was Battlefield Earth. I mean LOTR was basically 3, 400 page books made into 3, 3-3.5 hour movies, or 1200+ pages into 10+ hours of film. Battlefield Earth they tried to stuff another 1200+ page book, but this time into less than 1 hour 30 minutes. They were surprised that it sucked?
As for pure fantasy... I can think of none. Though maybe I am not trying hard enough...
I don't think I have read any Leiber, but in the context of this discussion, if you come out with a Movie with any one of those names, or any one of those books (possible exception might be Zelazny Lord of Light), the response you would get is "Huh, who? No thanks". I liked Tolkien, but his stuff is getting made into movies due to a market that already exists and a public that knows of him.
Mind you "Left Hand of Darkness" does have the ring of a cool movie title, Oscar for sure!
Here here! NHL Hitz 2003! We had to search for a copy, but so much fun!
I don't know about p2p throttling, but I have been a Cogeco customer for years.
Its primary selling point for me is that it is better than Bell.
The short version of my story goes like this. I bought a new computer almost a year ago. At one point I decided to download a whole bunch of old TV shows. I went to log on one day and could not. On my second or third try I then was redirected to a URL that basically said "Cogeco disconnected you". So I call up and basically say "WTF?". The answer I got, is that you have a 60GB cap, that you exceeded. My response was "WTF is a cap?". Their response, it is a cap or limit on how much you can download and upload combined. My response "Since when?! I never signed anything about a cap. This is bullshit". Their response, check you EULA. I say "thanks", and proceed to do so. 'Lo and behold, it is there. It turns out there is also a line in the agreement that basically says that they can at ANY time add ANY thing to the agreement and they don't really have to notify you. You see because they posted the changed agreement in an obscure URL on their website that i am sure everyone monitors daily. I have had my connection suspended once since then.
Apparently the reason for the "caps" and canceling of service, is that your increased activity (going beyond the cap) MAY indicate that your computer has been compromised by hackers (ohhh noes!) and are now illicitly using your connection for nefarious means, so it only a precaution that it is being disconnected. Once you call in prove, that no it was you they will reconnect you with 1GB worth of cap space, if you go beyond that, they cancel your account for 24 hours and then you can activate for another GB of Cap. If you go beyond that, they cancel you for the rest of the month. The last time I got canceled, I had the one GB cap, and WOW decided to download automatically an 500MB update I was a bit worried.
What really burns me is that they have these cap but offer no way to monitor your cap space. NONE! The only way to check is to call in and ask one of their tech people, and the last time I did that (when I was worried there), they didn't really either know or were not sure.
Now I said to myself that if this happened again I would go someplace else and vote with my money so to speak (been a customer for 10+ years). However all the other ISP's than have no cap limit, all use BELL or Cogeco lines, thus no matter who you go with, if Bell or Cogeco decide to throttle or whatever, all the "compitition" by default will also.
Anyways it is one of those frustrating things, that due to the monopoly there is NOTHING you can do about it. You have two choices: 1) Do whatever Bell and Cogeco say and pay want they want, or 2) Don't have an internet connection.
The only good part about the situation (sorta) is that I did actually learn a lot about the issues, the industry, the alternatives (such that they are), etc.. that I would not have if I wasn't so pissed off that I went on a learning tear.
Anyway I need an internet connection, so I bend over and take it like everyone else.
Grind? I think you are getting ahead of your self.
Here is my version of the REAL WOW movie:
King: You must defeat the great evil!
Player1: OK!
[Insert 1.5 hours of travel time (lightly jogging)]
Narrator: To be continued...