If support for these 2% is the reason for a 30% increase in implementation and maintenance, I'd say it is unreasonable to support their ancient browsers unless these 2% bring 30% of the sales volume.
A traditional supermarket cannot accommodate for a dozen customers at once that cannot read. Since illiterates form maybe 3% of the people, I'd say they're willfully excluding 3% of their customers. The benefits of doing business with them doesn't warrant the expenses incurred.
And I fully regard using IE6 in the open Internet as being comparable to full, feral illiteracy. An upgrade from IE6 to IE7, IE8 or Firefox can be had from Microsoft / Mozilla Foundation for absolutely no charge and has been for several years now.
Yes, I know that companies, especially some 100.000-employees-and-up force their employees to use only IE6, whatever the cost or reason behind that decision may be.
Unless these companies form your most vital customers, it is economically useless to cater for IE6. I'd rather say companies who cannot muster the forces to roll out a *free* browser upgrade probably are crooked somehow anyway.
Our bars and shops do the same: they don't have a watering place for the remaining customers riding there on horses. Shops in Pennsylvania in reach of thousands of Amish still have, but for a very real reason, not a single digit percentage of customers.
People cannot be trialed for the same crime EVENT multiple times. But they can be trialed for unlimited separate events of the same type of crime.
Example: OJ Simpson was trialed and acquitted for the alleged murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. He cannot be re-trialed for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, but he can be trialed for any other murders he is suspected of having committed.
If that wasn't the case, Alice could, after being acquitted of murdering Bob, not only kill Charlie and Eve, but go on a nationwide killing spree without breaking the law. That would be disturbing to say the least.
But I don't know if that is just an Urban Myth, since verdicts are commonly overturned by higher courts and that could mean a re-trial after the suspect was acquitted or convicted.
On the other hand, corporations cannot commit crimes, their employees and owners do. Corporations can be sued in civil courts, though.
Also, civil lawsuits are a completely different matter and with the usual IANAL warning, I certainly think you cannot sue for the same even multiple times, but through several levels.
A corporation still can be sued many times over for similar events, which I am very thankful for, otherwise we would have one person suing carmaker X for faulty brakes and everyone else crashing their cars with no recourse.
Any operator who transfers, accepts, exchanges, holds, lends, saves money on behalf of someone else is a bank, if the operator's funds and the transferred funds coalesce for a fraction of a second.
Any operator who does the same without coalesced funds is a courier.
(IMHO)
Both need to be tightly regulated: operating with other people's money needs to be as reliable as guarding nuclear weapons.
Dust is blown off ten seconds after applying full engine power.
Ice and snow are much worse. If there's any chance in guaranteeing that snow will be blown off like dust when the plane starts accelerating, it could save some manual de-icing time and effort and increase airport capacity.
Yep, that would mean a lot of assistant systems going down and people might be completely unfamiliar with that.
On the other hand, what if one of these assistant systems has a malfunction so severe that we need to shut everything down in the first place?
What if the steering assistant is malfunctioning to constantly steer left with full force?
What if the anti-lock brakes prevent any braking because they wrongly assume the wheels are locking when they are not because of a faulty sensor?
The more complex an electronic system is, the more severe the possible scenarios can be if a sensor or interlock fails - or unforeseen inputs, deadlocks or race conditions (in the IT sense) are met. Electronics can fail because of damage, age, contamination - or martens gnawing the cables, anyway.
As the first full-electronic cars reach the end of their lifespan in some years, we will certainly see more and more of these incidents and hopefully we get an "emergency cutoff" switch then.
An all-electronics-out scenario must remain possible and be survivable with basic training. The vehicle may be destroyed in the process, but the people inside need a chance when all electronics fail.
- the driver must be able to initiate a complete all-out scenario via a big red button somewhere in the cockpit - this all-out scenario must be survivable for the people inside, if not the car itself - the emergency-cutoff switch must be well protected against accidental pressing - all drivers need to learn and train for this all-out scenario once every few years
additionally - all cars should have a radar-operated distance holder capable of automatic braking, helps in many situations and also in case the driver in the vehicle in front hits the the all-out button.
Other than that, people should have enough of a safety distance to all cars in front of them or face severe penalties. A car doing a full emergency braking in the middle of the freeway should not be hit by anything from behind. Only morons don't keep their distance and they should meet the full force of the law.
Helicopter pilots must train for engine-off autorotation landings every year. Common vehicle drivers have much more luxury: with the engine out, they just need to come to a full stop.
Gee, I noticed that, too. For politically correct reasons, here is the prescribed terminology:
Rule 1 a) Severe cold is weather. b) Severe heat is climate change. c) Rule 1 overrides all other rules.
Rule 2 a) Local temperatures are unimportant weather. b) Global temperatures are evidence for climate change. c) Rule 2 is overridden by Rule 1.
Rule 3 a) Decrease in temperature or sea level are isolated, shortlived or anomalous events. b) Increase in temperature or sea level are climate change.
Rule 4 a) IPCC selects the temperature stations to include in global averages. b) IPCC selects the trees to include in tree ring proxy data. c) IPCC selects the sea level reading stations to include in global averages.
Rule 5 a) Temperature stations in the middle of dense and growing cities are preferred. b) Temperature readings from nations with a high degree of Internet connectivity are suboptimal.
Rule 6 a) IPCC calculates the global average and presents the results. b) Only IPCC-accredited personell is allowed for verification.
Many other major things in modern history had something to do with government invention and usually some million people died in the ordeal.
Keep the market competitive, keep contracts honored, protect the goddamn borders and then some. Everything else is pissing the taxpayer's money away for issues of political importance, more often than not political capital. Once you enable political capital to be a viable alternative to monetary capital, you will notice that people are constantly producing political capital, because it's so easy to write pamphlets, manuscripts, ideas, manifests and declaration and so incredibly hard to have a viable business running.
Trust me: never allow anyone to pay in "good will" or "good will" quickly replaces hard cash for everything. As "good will" cannot provide free lunches, even large economic bodies like the Warsaw Pact can go bankrupt within a decade if they rely on that.
By that logic, you could justify billions of tax dollars for each and everyone and the classic avenue of Statism. An entanglement of state and corporations was called Fascism by Mussolini himself and as we have state and corporations entangled enough as it is, we don't need more of it.
Mod parent up, this a primary if not the only reason for this development:
"Referring to Lotus’s plans to produce the next Lotus Elise and Exige, the statement from Tesla said, “we do not plan to sell our current generation Tesla Roadster after 2011 due to planned tooling changes at a supplier for the Tesla Roadster”."
Add the fact that two wheels are impractical bordering on insane to drive on all that frozen Climate Change currently covering the a large fraction of the northern hemisphere. This day it was another 50cm of it in parts of Western Europe and we rather need snowmobiles or 6-wheelers right now to get anywhere.
Social communities also build through abstraction behind a screen. On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog and all.
Social activity usually reinforces existing social circles which is exactly what you don't want in a recently-assembled company. Because they already have social circles, as small circles form spontaneously and you don't want to reinforce them, since that would break out the trench warfare.
You need to equalize them first so they can socialize as a singular group. This is exactly what they do over at Camp Pendleton, but not everyone is willing to join the Marines just for the social events.
Racial prejudice isn't even a problem of any particular culture: all cultures are xenophobic towards all other cultures, except the European-American culture, that tends to punish itself more about it.
Japanese steam baths will not let anyone in that doesn't look Asian. No matter if they've got Japanese passports or not. Muslims regard non-Muslims as heathen and infidels. Indians despise Pakistani, Shiite Muslims despise Shia Muslims Hell, even Chinese from the north don't speak too fond of Chinese from the south and vice-versa. And both dislike the Chinese from Beijing and Shanghai, that also dislike each other. Some Scottish and English attend football meets of their teams like a religious mass. And last but not least there are Hutu and Tutsi and probably a thousand other ethnic hatred all among the world.
The more I know about that the more think "us vs. them" and "our group first" is kind of hardwired into the human brain.
Even some racist remarks may hold a tiny grain of truth.
If you ever worked at a bi-national company with half the employees coming from country A and the other half from country B, you'd know exactly what kind of self-segregation would ensue. On both sides, of course.
I think one could generalize to say similar situations arise most of the time when there is more than one ethnic group with a 10% share among employees. A dominant group can assimilate or absorb a rather large number of strangers, as long as the strangers themselves are diverse enough to not be perceived as a bloc.
Although I can only speak for companies where that dominating group was European and some Russians and Indians where absorbed pretty well - I don't know if Indian-dominated companies can absorb some Europeans and Russians, of if a Russian company could absorb Japanese.
But I know that two or more dominant groups will start trench warfare as soon as perceived or real blocs are formed.
Oh and foreigners can be pretty xenophobic too, they are all humans, not noble savages.
I guess "Us vs. them" and "Our Group first" are the default behavior traits in the human brain that need quite some force to be overridden, if possible at all.
Without the second amendment and the right to keep and bear firearms, you have about 30 years left to use the other rights before they are declared illegal, too.
If you think the constitution applies only to things invented BEFORE the constitution, then I'd like to introduce you something which was invented only a few years ago, to see if you still think that's right. How about a little fun with the high-voltage tazer?
The freedom of speech also include electronic speech, written speech and emailed speech. The protection against unwarranted search and seizure of your home also includes search and seizure of your vehicle and handbags while on the road.
And that means the freedom of movement not only concerns your feet, but also all other means of transport. There are many laws regulating this right, because traveling in steel cans and aluminum tubes at high-speeds requires much more discipline and education to avoid accidents. But other than that, the right to move is at the bottom of all this. Good luck getting anywhere on foot in a modern-day world, anyway.
You are right: Going to prison is losing freedom, not a waived right to be free.
Everyone is born with all freedoms and all rights - laws can only take rights away in order to maintain freedom for everyone, as in "your right to swing your fist end before my face".
Birth rates should be significantly slowing down when medicine and food supply are good enough to assure that most children reach adulthood.
They should and they do in some countries and/or cultures. In others, the population count suddenly explodes, with 8-10% increase per year, sustained for decades. The health and food supply then drops of course as infrastructure and resources are stretched above and beyond. But the population level usually remains stable after that, until another WHO or other rich benefactor throws in another round of vaccination, food supply, affordable emergency housing.
Example: Gaza Strip, Westbank, Palestine: during events that Palestinians love to call "2nd Holocaust", the population increased from 500.000 to 7.000.000 in less than 40 years. The population still increases by 8% each year with no slowing in sight, as Arab neighbors and of course the ever-benevolent EU continue to give millions in aid, food and medicine. They still call it Holocaust, though.
___ Food, medicine, wealth and the chance of children to reach adulthood are only some factors in the decision or non-decision to have offspring. Of equal or higher importance are - access to contraceptives - the willingness to use them - the cultural status of the number of children among adults, - prevalence of adultery, - risk-seeking behavior - men's and women's rights in relation to each other - religious affiliation - strength of religious beliefs
While shortages of food, medicine, housing and access to contraceptives "simply" need an amount of X million Dollars or Euros to improve, all the other factors are inherent in each and every culture. They can change and they can be changed, but it will take decades and money alone will not help much there.
Food, medicine and housing shortage will reduce the population growth only indirectly, but with a vengeance: by children dying en masse. Foreign aid, oil booms etc. will not alleviate much when the Average Joe thinks that the a lot of children are a symbol of wealth, if all the priests or imams or holy books tell them that having more children is the will of god or all men and women willfully or habitually engage in risk-seeking sex, or sex while under the influence or anything like that.
When all of Joes friends awe at his virile manliness for fathering 10 kids, and Joe's wife (and everyone else's) is subdued, veiled, imprisoned by other Joes, the mob rule in Joe's country or Joe's favorite religion's Gestapo - then no amount of wealth or poverty is going to stop him using his god-given tools of manliness without the god-forbidden sins of rubbery latex.
Bankrupt companies do not phase into a void: they are sliced in marketable packages that are sold for several pennies each.
One package include all the hard drives in the server farm, maybe the server farm itself - and another the ownership rights to the blockbuster titles of yester-decades.
If Steam goes bankrupt, EA will buy off everything they have for a dollar and then lay waste to the remains. Your game will not come out of copyright, but a penny-pincher you've probably never heard of will now own it.
The problem is that they use an inferior protocol over unsuitable media needing a ridiculously expensive cable to compensate. But we knew that, did we?:)
Slashdot Mirror
If support for these 2% is the reason for a 30% increase in implementation and maintenance, I'd say it is unreasonable to support their ancient browsers unless these 2% bring 30% of the sales volume.
A traditional supermarket cannot accommodate for a dozen customers at once that cannot read. Since illiterates form maybe 3% of the people, I'd say they're willfully excluding 3% of their customers. The benefits of doing business with them doesn't warrant the expenses incurred.
And I fully regard using IE6 in the open Internet as being comparable to full, feral illiteracy. An upgrade from IE6 to IE7, IE8 or Firefox can be had from Microsoft / Mozilla Foundation for absolutely no charge and has been for several years now.
Yes, I know that companies, especially some 100.000-employees-and-up force their employees to use only IE6, whatever the cost or reason behind that decision may be.
Unless these companies form your most vital customers, it is economically useless to cater for IE6. I'd rather say companies who cannot muster the forces to roll out a *free* browser upgrade probably are crooked somehow anyway.
Our bars and shops do the same: they don't have a watering place for the remaining customers riding there on horses. Shops in Pennsylvania in reach of thousands of Amish still have, but for a very real reason, not a single digit percentage of customers.
People cannot be trialed for the same crime EVENT multiple times. But they can be trialed for unlimited separate events of the same type of crime.
Example: OJ Simpson was trialed and acquitted for the alleged murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. He cannot be re-trialed for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, but he can be trialed for any other murders he is suspected of having committed.
If that wasn't the case, Alice could, after being acquitted of murdering Bob, not only kill Charlie and Eve, but go on a nationwide killing spree without breaking the law. That would be disturbing to say the least.
But I don't know if that is just an Urban Myth, since verdicts are commonly overturned by higher courts and that could mean a re-trial after the suspect was acquitted or convicted.
On the other hand, corporations cannot commit crimes, their employees and owners do. Corporations can be sued in civil courts, though.
Also, civil lawsuits are a completely different matter and with the usual IANAL warning, I certainly think you cannot sue for the same even multiple times, but through several levels.
A corporation still can be sued many times over for similar events, which I am very thankful for, otherwise we would have one person suing carmaker X for faulty brakes and everyone else crashing their cars with no recourse.
Any operator who transfers, accepts, exchanges, holds, lends, saves money on behalf of someone else is a bank, if the operator's funds and the transferred funds coalesce for a fraction of a second.
Any operator who does the same without coalesced funds is a courier.
(IMHO)
Both need to be tightly regulated: operating with other people's money needs to be as reliable as guarding nuclear weapons.
Dust is blown off ten seconds after applying full engine power.
Ice and snow are much worse. If there's any chance in guaranteeing that snow will be blown off like dust when the plane starts accelerating, it could save some manual de-icing time and effort and increase airport capacity.
Yep, that would mean a lot of assistant systems going down and people might be completely unfamiliar with that.
On the other hand, what if one of these assistant systems has a malfunction so severe that we need to shut everything down in the first place?
What if the steering assistant is malfunctioning to constantly steer left with full force?
What if the anti-lock brakes prevent any braking because they wrongly assume the wheels are locking when they are not because of a faulty sensor?
The more complex an electronic system is, the more severe the possible scenarios can be if a sensor or interlock fails - or unforeseen inputs, deadlocks or race conditions (in the IT sense) are met. Electronics can fail because of damage, age, contamination - or martens gnawing the cables, anyway.
As the first full-electronic cars reach the end of their lifespan in some years, we will certainly see more and more of these incidents and hopefully we get an "emergency cutoff" switch then.
An all-electronics-out scenario must remain possible and be survivable with basic training. The vehicle may be destroyed in the process, but the people inside need a chance when all electronics fail.
- the driver must be able to initiate a complete all-out scenario via a big red button somewhere in the cockpit
- this all-out scenario must be survivable for the people inside, if not the car itself
- the emergency-cutoff switch must be well protected against accidental pressing
- all drivers need to learn and train for this all-out scenario once every few years
additionally
- all cars should have a radar-operated distance holder capable of automatic braking, helps in many situations and also in case the driver in the vehicle in front hits the the all-out button.
Other than that, people should have enough of a safety distance to all cars in front of them or face severe penalties. A car doing a full emergency braking in the middle of the freeway should not be hit by anything from behind. Only morons don't keep their distance and they should meet the full force of the law.
Helicopter pilots must train for engine-off autorotation landings every year. Common vehicle drivers have much more luxury: with the engine out, they just need to come to a full stop.
Nah, the science is settled and the time for debate is over. (Always has been, now get back in line!)
Gee, I noticed that, too. For politically correct reasons, here is the prescribed terminology:
Rule 1
a) Severe cold is weather.
b) Severe heat is climate change.
c) Rule 1 overrides all other rules.
Rule 2
a) Local temperatures are unimportant weather.
b) Global temperatures are evidence for climate change.
c) Rule 2 is overridden by Rule 1.
Rule 3
a) Decrease in temperature or sea level are isolated, shortlived or anomalous events.
b) Increase in temperature or sea level are climate change.
Rule 4
a) IPCC selects the temperature stations to include in global averages.
b) IPCC selects the trees to include in tree ring proxy data.
c) IPCC selects the sea level reading stations to include in global averages.
Rule 5
a) Temperature stations in the middle of dense and growing cities are preferred.
b) Temperature readings from nations with a high degree of Internet connectivity are suboptimal.
Rule 6
a) IPCC calculates the global average and presents the results.
b) Only IPCC-accredited personell is allowed for verification.
Rule 7
a) IPCC is allowed to "hide the decline".
I'm all for it. All commercial equipment has huge red Emergency Off buttons, just in case.
One Emergency Button and a visible manual brake please. And off means everything off except the warning lights flashing.
Many other major things in modern history had something to do with government invention and usually some million people died in the ordeal.
Keep the market competitive, keep contracts honored, protect the goddamn borders and then some. Everything else is pissing the taxpayer's money away for issues of political importance, more often than not political capital. Once you enable political capital to be a viable alternative to monetary capital, you will notice that people are constantly producing political capital, because it's so easy to write pamphlets, manuscripts, ideas, manifests and declaration and so incredibly hard to have a viable business running.
Trust me: never allow anyone to pay in "good will" or "good will" quickly replaces hard cash for everything. As "good will" cannot provide free lunches, even large economic bodies like the Warsaw Pact can go bankrupt within a decade if they rely on that.
By that logic, you could justify billions of tax dollars for each and everyone and the classic avenue of Statism. An entanglement of state and corporations was called Fascism by Mussolini himself and as we have state and corporations entangled enough as it is, we don't need more of it.
Mod parent up, this a primary if not the only reason for this development:
"Referring to Lotus’s plans to produce the next Lotus Elise and Exige, the statement from Tesla said, “we do not plan to sell our current generation Tesla Roadster after 2011 due to planned tooling changes at a supplier for the Tesla Roadster”."
Add the fact that two wheels are impractical bordering on insane to drive on all that frozen Climate Change currently covering the a large fraction of the northern hemisphere. This day it was another 50cm of it in parts of Western Europe and we rather need snowmobiles or 6-wheelers right now to get anywhere.
Social communities also build through abstraction behind a screen. On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog and all.
Social activity usually reinforces existing social circles which is exactly what you don't want in a recently-assembled company. Because they already have social circles, as small circles form spontaneously and you don't want to reinforce them, since that would break out the trench warfare.
You need to equalize them first so they can socialize as a singular group. This is exactly what they do over at Camp Pendleton, but not everyone is willing to join the Marines just for the social events.
The beer parties with your Middle Eastern immigrants will be a blast.
Try to get a job in Japan then. Or in India.
Sure they will respect you professionally, but don't expect to be invited to too many non-formal dinners.
Racial prejudice isn't even a problem of any particular culture: all cultures are xenophobic towards all other cultures, except the European-American culture, that tends to punish itself more about it.
Japanese steam baths will not let anyone in that doesn't look Asian. No matter if they've got Japanese passports or not.
Muslims regard non-Muslims as heathen and infidels.
Indians despise Pakistani, Shiite Muslims despise Shia Muslims
Hell, even Chinese from the north don't speak too fond of Chinese from the south and vice-versa. And both dislike the Chinese from Beijing and Shanghai, that also dislike each other.
Some Scottish and English attend football meets of their teams like a religious mass.
And last but not least there are Hutu and Tutsi and probably a thousand other ethnic hatred all among the world.
The more I know about that the more think "us vs. them" and "our group first" is kind of hardwired into the human brain.
Even some racist remarks may hold a tiny grain of truth.
If you ever worked at a bi-national company with half the employees coming from country A and the other half from country B, you'd know exactly what kind of self-segregation would ensue. On both sides, of course.
I think one could generalize to say similar situations arise most of the time when there is more than one ethnic group with a 10% share among employees. A dominant group can assimilate or absorb a rather large number of strangers, as long as the strangers themselves are diverse enough to not be perceived as a bloc.
Although I can only speak for companies where that dominating group was European and some Russians and Indians where absorbed pretty well - I don't know if Indian-dominated companies can absorb some Europeans and Russians, of if a Russian company could absorb Japanese.
But I know that two or more dominant groups will start trench warfare as soon as perceived or real blocs are formed.
Oh and foreigners can be pretty xenophobic too, they are all humans, not noble savages.
I guess "Us vs. them" and "Our Group first" are the default behavior traits in the human brain that need quite some force to be overridden, if possible at all.
Without the second amendment and the right to keep and bear firearms, you have about 30 years left to use the other rights before they are declared illegal, too.
If you think the constitution applies only to things invented BEFORE the constitution, then I'd like to introduce you something which was invented only a few years ago, to see if you still think that's right. How about a little fun with the high-voltage tazer?
It's the freedom of movement, dear AC.
The freedom of speech also include electronic speech, written speech and emailed speech.
The protection against unwarranted search and seizure of your home also includes search and seizure of your vehicle and handbags while on the road.
And that means the freedom of movement not only concerns your feet, but also all other means of transport. There are many laws regulating this right, because traveling in steel cans and aluminum tubes at high-speeds requires much more discipline and education to avoid accidents. But other than that, the right to move is at the bottom of all this. Good luck getting anywhere on foot in a modern-day world, anyway.
You are right: Going to prison is losing freedom, not a waived right to be free.
Everyone is born with all freedoms and all rights - laws can only take rights away in order to maintain freedom for everyone, as in "your right to swing your fist end before my face".
Kings award rights, citizens are born with them.
Birth rates should be significantly slowing down when medicine and food supply are good enough to assure that most children reach adulthood.
They should and they do in some countries and/or cultures. In others, the population count suddenly explodes, with 8-10% increase per year, sustained for decades. The health and food supply then drops of course as infrastructure and resources are stretched above and beyond. But the population level usually remains stable after that, until another WHO or other rich benefactor throws in another round of vaccination, food supply, affordable emergency housing.
Example:
Gaza Strip, Westbank, Palestine: during events that Palestinians love to call "2nd Holocaust", the population increased from 500.000 to 7.000.000 in less than 40 years. The population still increases by 8% each year with no slowing in sight, as Arab neighbors and of course the ever-benevolent EU continue to give millions in aid, food and medicine. They still call it Holocaust, though.
___
Food, medicine, wealth and the chance of children to reach adulthood are only some factors in the decision or non-decision to have offspring. Of equal or higher importance are
- access to contraceptives
- the willingness to use them
- the cultural status of the number of children among adults,
- prevalence of adultery,
- risk-seeking behavior
- men's and women's rights in relation to each other
- religious affiliation
- strength of religious beliefs
While shortages of food, medicine, housing and access to contraceptives "simply" need an amount of X million Dollars or Euros to improve, all the other factors are inherent in each and every culture. They can change and they can be changed, but it will take decades and money alone will not help much there.
Food, medicine and housing shortage will reduce the population growth only indirectly, but with a vengeance: by children dying en masse. Foreign aid, oil booms etc. will not alleviate much when the Average Joe thinks that the a lot of children are a symbol of wealth, if all the priests or imams or holy books tell them that having more children is the will of god or all men and women willfully or habitually engage in risk-seeking sex, or sex while under the influence or anything like that.
When all of Joes friends awe at his virile manliness for fathering 10 kids, and Joe's wife (and everyone else's) is subdued, veiled, imprisoned by other Joes, the mob rule in Joe's country or Joe's favorite religion's Gestapo - then no amount of wealth or poverty is going to stop him using his god-given tools of manliness without the god-forbidden sins of rubbery latex.
Bankrupt companies do not phase into a void: they are sliced in marketable packages that are sold for several pennies each.
One package include all the hard drives in the server farm, maybe the server farm itself - and another the ownership rights to the blockbuster titles of yester-decades.
If Steam goes bankrupt, EA will buy off everything they have for a dollar and then lay waste to the remains. Your game will not come out of copyright, but a penny-pincher you've probably never heard of will now own it.
Never forget that The Man is always right.
I wonder if the printed genome sequence of a super-flu virus is prohibited. And how the hell do they plan to enforce all this?
The problem is that they use an inferior protocol over unsuitable media needing a ridiculously expensive cable to compensate. But we knew that, did we? :)
Differential signalling: yes.
Low voltage: no.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_signaling
Just like HDMI, DVI, USB and eSATA.
And they carry Gigabits per Second, i2s carries only 6.1 Megabit/s when playing SACDs or similar.
The simple fact that audiophile-grade interconnects are concerned with "jitter" point out the whole debacle.