The 'net will never be totally consumed by corporate media.
Unless the corporate media buy all the major search engines on the 'net.
And even if they did, new ones would crop up.
You see, the vast majority of WWW users surf. They type phrases into search engines, and click on the results. As long as someone will be able to see slashdot.org, or my site, or some other independent site, we'll exist, and more people will publish independent sites.
Yes, the number of non-savvy folks out there who never even make it past the front page/portal/AOL experience will never see us, but that's okay.
If part of being independent IS being independent, we don't need EVERYONE, especially all the newbies, tuning in anyway.
I can't believe noone else has thought of this yet.
I was so excited I plunked down $20 as a gamble of sorts that the following "hack" might fall through the cracks, or at least cause them fits at some point:
Go to www.tv whore-site
Notice alongside all those $1000 +++ auctions little neat table in lower left of page.
Yes, the one about "register your favourite email address for just one dollar a year!"
Think up the most obvious prime-real-estate.tv domain possible (i already took sex.tv, news.tv, sports.tv and others)
Proceed to fill out form requesting webmaster@greatdomainname.tv , to be forwarded to your normal email address
Proceed to next page, and voila! you're allowed to order.
Unless their admins are reading this message, you're now reading a post from webmaster@sex.tv.
Re:In The Spirit Of Quickies
on
Quickielanche
·
· Score: 2
To follow up to my own post, seems there's a lot of questions surrounding the mysterious "cube full 'o peanuts"
In no particular order:
1) this isn't an illusion...well, not really. Those are real packing peanuts, alright, in a real cubicle.
2) The whole thing took about 20 minutes to set up, and less than 10 minutes to breakdown and clean up.
3) I have all the "other" pictures of the setup of this prank, so when I see this posted as a quickie link 6 months from now off of tedsbeavertraps.com I'll be able to show that this was indeed the product of my co-workers' own sick minds.
Stay tuned, we will probably run a detailed story next week sometime on theswindle.com with all the setup pics, and detailed instructions on how to do this to one of your co-workers. Estimated total cost of materials: $25.
Hell, I just got bought out by AOL-Time-Warner. Woohoo.
In The Spirit Of Quickies
on
Quickielanche
·
· Score: 5
Just thought I'd share this photo of what happened to one of my co-workers last week. We're a pretty cruel bunch, and simple pranks just don't cut it in my office.
Was the karmic punishment for those stupid enough to actually VISIT the xbox.com site the insanely small seizure-inducing text, or quite possibly the ugliest logo I've ever seen in my life?
I reserve judgement on the xbox - I won't bash it simply because Microsoft will build it. I'll bash it if it comes to market and sucks.
But for the love of GAWD, please, xbox people, hire a clueful web designer. I'd be happy to forward my resume.
Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") is the title and copyright owner of the Program and offers this License which gives the licensee ("you") the legal permission to copy, distribute, modify and/or create derivatives based on the Program. The act of running the Program is not restricted.
wow, now there's something I never thought I'd see in my lifetime.
from section 4, "disclaimer of warranties":
THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PEROFRMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFENCTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION
looks like someone needs to use a spellchecker. Sheesh. Does this void the liscense?
And of course, this would be the world's first "open" liscence to include the infamous clause:
LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY UNDER THIS LICENSE SHALL NOT EXCEED FIVE DOLLARS (U.S.$5.00).
I found the concept behind this thing fairly interesting, and alas, I was unable to access the coveted spec, I keep getting active server pages telling me I haven't "Registered" yet, but when I "register", all I get is a blank page with no links. Granted, I'm using Netscape in probably the mosty Netscape-hostile environment in the universe. Anyone fare better?
(AP - New York) - Marketing executives from Microsoft online presence MSN announced today another big publicity/ad campaign stunt featuring a "living online" experience. In this experiment, a newly cloned pig named DotComPig will be given a swank Upper East Side apartment, and survive solely on goods purchased online.
When asked how the pig would be trained to surf the web, much less put up with the frequent lag times and error pages generated by MSN, marketing worm Brad Sythe exclaimed "He's a fucking pig! We're just going to carve him up and use him for catering at the wrap party afterward anyway! Jeez!".
The new ad campaign is expected to begin next week.
Seriously. When you think about it, there's nothing TrustE can do to prevent privacy policy violations from ALL the sites certified after the initial process. And yes, most of this is TrustE's fault, or better put, a serious ethical problem with TrustE's business model.
TrustE is a really well-entrenched brand name.
TrustE is in business to make money.
TrustE makes that money selling the essentially one-time process of certifying sites' privacy policy, for hundreds to thousands of dollars a pop.
TrustE relies on a QUANTITY of business to keep them afloat.
Since TrustE has an enormous amount of customers(sites) they've certified, to properly police all of them (protect the integrity of their seal) would cost far more than the revenue generated from the initial process.
Thus, the certification is symbolic at best.
So, what have we learned?
We didn't have this problem (as much) back in the BBS days, when everything was local. You knew your friendly (or not so friendly) sys0p, and his reputation preceded him. No silly seal necessary.
Of course, I realize this is a global network now, and this "everything is local" paradigm is dead.
But by the same token, nothing beats doing business with who you know and trust, symbolic declarations of good intentions be damned.
I don't begrudge TrustE - they have a hell of a racket, make a TON of cash, and I'm sure in the same position I'd do the same thing.
theswindle.com is gonna have a monster traffic today, egads.
In their "press release", Microsoft says:
With 450 researchers working in four Microsoft Research labs on three continents, and thousands of engineers developing more than 100 different software products, bridging research with product development poses a formidable challenge. To ensure communication between Microsoft Research and the teams developing Microsoft products, Microsoft Research formed the Technology Transfer Group.
Headed by Schofield, the four-person group serves as a liaison between Microsoft Research and the company's product groups, working to ensure Microsoft research is incorporated into the appropriate software products as they're being developed.
Now, there will be no shameless anti_Microsoft comment here. I think I see the fundamental problem with their "research" group. They clearly are not technical, or endowed programmers. I don't doubt MS has all these folks, but they're basically asking hundreds of starving artists who may have never heard of a symbolic link before, a core UNIX feature, to come up with creative ideas. Of COURSE this very idea will come up and they will honestly feel it's innovative.
For all the Microsoft haters out there, be GLAD they just now figured this out. Things would be much worse for you if their research group consisted of 500 subscribers to the linux-kernel mailing list.
1) Growing sites that may change servers, or domain names (add/on to dedicated URL, change domain name for legal/incorporation/buyout reasons), will see the massive traffic bleed they suffer until everyone realizes their site has changed virtually disappear. Yes, putting a redirect page on your "old home" may help, but for things like RSS file addresses, and other external connectors, which may have an effect on your site, this is a problem.
Ultimately, of course, for this to TRULY work there needs to be technology like this built into not only browsers, but virtually any software that uses HTTP communication (XML parsers, bots, spiders, etc).
2) I want to start offering streaming video on my site, and the single biggest obstacle for doing that is COST. Bandwidth, unless you OWN the pipe, is NOT cheap. I can (albeit in a somewhat underhanded fashion) set up a script to register, say, 24 different "free site" pages with the content to be the "correct" version of my page once an hour, and, unless the content is in VERY heavy demand, essentially have a free method of streaming video on my site.
Egads, I'm already feeling dirty about what I just said. Okay, maybe that's a little TOO unethical. But I guarantee someone will do it.
The REAL New Middle Media
on
Middle Media
·
· Score: 3
I'm really surprised that noonne has yet made this observation (perhaps someone did, if so I apologise, I did skim through the responses fairly quickly)
The REAL new "middle media" is right here. Really.
Slashdot is the PERFECT example of "middle media".
Everyone seems to agree that "old media" , (and I think we're getting to hung up on defining "old media" by the FORM of physical media used to communicate the message, rather than the ORGANIZATIONAL structure used to generate the information dissemenated by that media) is not going away anytime soon. Fair enough. I would agree with that.
Problem as I see it is, with all of the vast amounts of "old media" out there and all the thousands of "new media" outlets emerging, it's simply WAY too much information for the average person who consumes information as a small subset of their normal lives to take in.
So, as I see it, in my humble opinion, the idea of a "middle media" is very much valid, and I'm convinced will emerge as a titan on not only the 'net but all forms of communication. But I define the "middle media" as a collection of somewhat specialized collators of all media, like Slashdot is for technology/Linux/techonology-politics.
A weblog of sorts, with the added benefit of INSTANT feedback in the form of truly open comments, taking what is otherwise a LONG, painful process of debating and agonizing amoung the media outlets over every story and making it a VERY fast, (in Slashdot's case a few hours) intense discussion, and then we all move on to the next story.
I'm convinced also that this model will begin to appear in print and television as well. I can TOTALLY see a "Slashdot TV" program with Taco and Hemos (or two scantily clad babes playing the roles of Taco and Hemos) burning through the best-of-the Slashdot news for the day/week, taking phone calls and adding their own pithy wit to the mix. Hell, if I lived in Michigan, I'd have already put my 10 years experience in TV to work and got them to do it by now, but I'm sure someone will soon, and it will work.
(AP) - Los Angeles - Fox Networks announced today the newest prime-time special to debut for the May sweeps week.
"Who Wants To Marry A Crusty, Guiness-In-His-Beard Drunk European Guy" will bring the chance to one lucky American girl to get hitched to the most prolific European male in today's exciting culture. 50 women will compete in such events as the drunken foosball tournament, back shaving competition, and the semi-final contest, the fish-wrapping race. The mystery Guiness-In-His-Beard Drunk European Guy will receive advice and counsel from special guest judges ZZ Top and former professional wrestler "Hillbilly Jim". The happy couple, at the conclusion of the show will be wed in an exciting 3 minute ceremony, followed by 15 minutes of commericals and an exciting trailer for the upcoming "Robbie Knievel jumps over 50,000 bowls of steaming hot grits on top of a 200 foot-high pile of Windows 2000 Advanced Server CDs".
sorry, I have a touch of the flu and the Dimetapp is getting to me.
(heh, "Dolphin Developer". kinda rolls off the toungue).
We the people demand new-fangled versions of the following Nintendo classics upon the release of the new Dolphin console. Failure to help deliver on these demands will result in an unspeakable loss of personal karma:
He HAS to vigorously defend the GPL. To not do so would not only be unfair to his work, the liscence, and the community in general, but who would want to be the first person to weaken the integrity of the GPL by allowing a high-profile violation like this? Sounds about as well-advised as this dern train jump thing on fox right about now. Egads.
the other case aims to prevent people from using DeCSS, a program that can unscramble encrypted digital video disks (DVD) and let people copy them.
1) When the (supposedly) clueful media just can't get it right regarding WHAT DeCSS actually DOES, they CANNOT expect the respect of the clueful community they so desparately seek respect from.
they've all banded together to try and make it clear to the Congress that if a hosting or thievery or absconding or illegal use, or unauthorized use of the property of all these enterprises -- which, by the way, dominate the world -- is allowed to go untended by some kind of a protective shield, the nation's economy is the loser.
2) Now THAT's scary. This guy really believes that not only do these mega-entertainment-conglomerates actually "dominate the world" , he says so in a tone that actually screams "and that's the way it SHOULD be, damnit". I'm surprised noone has brought this up yet.
I personally got burnt out on fighting games in general long ago (Street Fighter 2). I will admit however that the Dreamcast brings to the table graphics and control good enough to spark some new interest.
The emerging genre of "extreme vehicular antics" is what has me excited most, tho. Crazy Taxi is fantastic; when it comes to mindless destruction based entertainment, nothing beats the kind of game that lets you drive around a beautifully rendered city and wreak utter havoc. The realism that these games have makes it an experience you just have to push that little-punk-snot-nosed-kid-hogging-up-the- Dreamcast-kiosk-at-Electronics-Boutique aside to try for yourself. Yah.
As someone who has worn out more modems than I care to admit over the last 15 years, I personally would admit getting a kick out of an ANSI BBS door port of Quake. On principle.
The point being, while I love 3d grafx, and GUIs and all, and I'm no Luddite, I loved the increased stimulation of one's mind and sense of community that the "golden years" of text/ANSI based modeming carried. Sigh. Sorry. I apologize. Nostalgia mode OFF.
You know, the term "Open Access", in this context is such a misnomer on so many levels, it's frightening.
AOL loved to throw around this term, "Open Access", around in its quest to grab some cable bandwith to fill with its garbage content.
"Open Access".
Open. Is AOL open in ANY respect? No. Is the AOL source open? No. Is their infrastructure open? No. Hell, is their "forums" and "online communities" open? Not even close.
Access. Well, obvious jokes aside, access to AOL is pretty pitiful any way you look at it.
Yet, AOL comes up with this sick phrase and to think that ANYONE let them get away with it in the first place is what amazes me.
How about "open access" to the smaller ISP's who want to offer TCP/IP over the cable infrastructure? That's a hell of a lot closer to open access. Just my 2 cents.
Please, please visit my web site. I never get much traffic on weekends.
Slashdot Mirror
I felt the need to express my outrage at the whole sad Metallica situation myself. Sad, really.
The 'net will never be totally consumed by corporate media.
Unless the corporate media buy all the major search engines on the 'net.
And even if they did, new ones would crop up.
You see, the vast majority of WWW users surf. They type phrases into search engines, and click on the results. As long as someone will be able to see slashdot.org, or my site, or some other independent site, we'll exist, and more people will publish independent sites.
Yes, the number of non-savvy folks out there who never even make it past the front page/portal/AOL experience will never see us, but that's okay.
If part of being independent IS being independent, we don't need EVERYONE, especially all the newbies, tuning in anyway.
Just my 2 cents.
I can't believe noone else has thought of this yet.
.tv domain possible (i already took sex.tv, news.tv, sports.tv and others)
I was so excited I plunked down $20 as a gamble of sorts that the following "hack" might fall through the cracks, or at least cause them fits at some point:
Go to www.tv whore-site
Notice alongside all those $1000 +++ auctions little neat table in lower left of page.
Yes, the one about "register your favourite email address for just one dollar a year!"
Think up the most obvious prime-real-estate
Proceed to fill out form requesting webmaster@greatdomainname.tv , to be forwarded to your normal email address
Proceed to next page, and voila! you're allowed to order.
Unless their admins are reading this message, you're now reading a post from webmaster@sex.tv.
(evil, EVIL snicker)
I'm wondering where the outrage from the transvestite community is.
Clearly this raises the barrier to entry for countless TV-themed websites worldwide.
I don't know too many independently wealthy transvestites.
At least that's the impression I get from Springer.
here's my mirror
To follow up to my own post, seems there's a lot of questions surrounding the mysterious "cube full 'o peanuts"
In no particular order:
1) this isn't an illusion...well, not really. Those are real packing peanuts, alright, in a real cubicle.
2) The whole thing took about 20 minutes to set up, and less than 10 minutes to breakdown and clean up.
3) I have all the "other" pictures of the setup of this prank, so when I see this posted as a quickie link 6 months from now off of tedsbeavertraps.com I'll be able to show that this was indeed the product of my co-workers' own sick minds.
Stay tuned, we will probably run a detailed story next week sometime on theswindle.com with all the setup pics, and detailed instructions on how to do this to one of your co-workers. Estimated total cost of materials: $25.
Hell, I just got bought out by AOL-Time-Warner. Woohoo.
Just thought I'd share this photo of what happened to one of my co-workers last week. We're a pretty cruel bunch, and simple pranks just don't cut it in my office.
Was the karmic punishment for those stupid enough to actually VISIT the xbox.com site the insanely small seizure-inducing text, or quite possibly the ugliest logo I've ever seen in my life?
I reserve judgement on the xbox - I won't bash it simply because Microsoft will build it. I'll bash it if it comes to market and sucks.
But for the love of GAWD, please, xbox people, hire a clueful web designer. I'd be happy to forward my resume.
I'm only slightly skeeved that I covered this story, flaming editorial and all, days ago and got nary a visitor ...heh.
Quoting from around the liscence text:
Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") is the title and copyright owner of the Program and offers this License which gives the licensee ("you") the legal permission to copy, distribute, modify and/or create derivatives based on the Program. The act of running the Program is not restricted.
wow, now there's something I never thought I'd see in my lifetime.
from section 4, "disclaimer of warranties":
THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PEROFRMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFENCTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION
looks like someone needs to use a spellchecker. Sheesh. Does this void the liscense?
And of course, this would be the world's first "open" liscence to include the infamous clause:
LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY UNDER THIS LICENSE SHALL NOT EXCEED FIVE DOLLARS (U.S.$5.00).
heh.
I found the concept behind this thing fairly interesting, and alas, I was unable to access the coveted spec, I keep getting active server pages telling me I haven't "Registered" yet, but when I "register", all I get is a blank page with no links. Granted, I'm using Netscape in probably the mosty Netscape-hostile environment in the universe. Anyone fare better?
(AP - New York) - Marketing executives from Microsoft online presence MSN announced today another big publicity/ad campaign stunt featuring a "living online" experience. In this experiment, a newly cloned pig named DotComPig will be given a swank Upper East Side apartment, and survive solely on goods purchased online.
When asked how the pig would be trained to surf the web, much less put up with the frequent lag times and error pages generated by MSN, marketing worm Brad Sythe exclaimed "He's a fucking pig! We're just going to carve him up and use him for catering at the wrap party afterward anyway! Jeez!".
The new ad campaign is expected to begin next week.
"Trust Noone".
Seriously. When you think about it, there's nothing TrustE can do to prevent privacy policy violations from ALL the sites certified after the initial process. And yes, most of this is TrustE's fault, or better put, a serious ethical problem with TrustE's business model.
TrustE is a really well-entrenched brand name.
TrustE is in business to make money.
TrustE makes that money selling the essentially one-time process of certifying sites' privacy policy, for hundreds to thousands of dollars a pop.
TrustE relies on a QUANTITY of business to keep them afloat.
Since TrustE has an enormous amount of customers(sites) they've certified, to properly police all of them (protect the integrity of their seal) would cost far more than the revenue generated from the initial process.
Thus, the certification is symbolic at best.
So, what have we learned?
We didn't have this problem (as much) back in the BBS days, when everything was local. You knew your friendly (or not so friendly) sys0p, and his reputation preceded him. No silly seal necessary.
Of course, I realize this is a global network now, and this "everything is local" paradigm is dead.
But by the same token, nothing beats doing business with who you know and trust, symbolic declarations of good intentions be damned.
I don't begrudge TrustE - they have a hell of a racket, make a TON of cash, and I'm sure in the same position I'd do the same thing.
theswindle.com is gonna have a monster traffic today, egads.
In their "press release", Microsoft says:
With 450 researchers working in four Microsoft Research labs on three continents, and thousands of engineers developing more than 100 different software products, bridging research with product development poses a formidable challenge. To ensure communication between Microsoft Research and the teams developing Microsoft products, Microsoft Research formed the Technology Transfer Group.
Headed by Schofield, the four-person group serves as a liaison between Microsoft Research and the company's product groups, working to ensure Microsoft research is incorporated into the appropriate software products as they're being developed.
Now, there will be no shameless anti_Microsoft comment here. I think I see the fundamental problem with their "research" group. They clearly are not technical, or endowed programmers. I don't doubt MS has all these folks, but they're basically asking hundreds of starving artists who may have never heard of a symbolic link before, a core UNIX feature, to come up with creative ideas. Of COURSE this very idea will come up and they will honestly feel it's innovative.
For all the Microsoft haters out there, be GLAD they just now figured this out. Things would be much worse for you if their research group consisted of 500 subscribers to the linux-kernel mailing list.
I hereby reserve the following domains:
- monicalewinsky.sucks
- webfilteringsoftware.sucks
- twopartypolitics.sucks
and, for the easy ransom booty as proved by history,
- georgewbush.sucks
- georgebush.sucks
- whinytexasgovernor.sucks
and of course, for my own peace of mind,
- theswindle.sucks
waiting to see the utterly absurd yet inevitable tidal wave of legal actions such a proposal, if implemented would cause, such as:
- microsoft.sucks
- celinedion.sucks
- kathieleegifford.sucks
I'll explain the 2 that come to mind right away:
1) Growing sites that may change servers, or domain names (add/on to dedicated URL, change domain name for legal/incorporation/buyout reasons), will see the massive traffic bleed they suffer until everyone realizes their site has changed virtually disappear. Yes, putting a redirect page on your "old home" may help, but for things like RSS file addresses, and other external connectors, which may have an effect on your site, this is a problem.
Ultimately, of course, for this to TRULY work there needs to be technology like this built into not only browsers, but virtually any software that uses HTTP communication (XML parsers, bots, spiders, etc).
2) I want to start offering streaming video on my site, and the single biggest obstacle for doing that is COST. Bandwidth, unless you OWN the pipe, is NOT cheap. I can (albeit in a somewhat underhanded fashion) set up a script to register, say, 24 different "free site" pages with the content to be the "correct" version of my page once an hour, and, unless the content is in VERY heavy demand, essentially have a free method of streaming video on my site.
Egads, I'm already feeling dirty about what I just said. Okay, maybe that's a little TOO unethical. But I guarantee someone will do it.
I'm really surprised that noonne has yet made this observation (perhaps someone did, if so I apologise, I did skim through the responses fairly quickly)
The REAL new "middle media" is right here. Really.
Slashdot is the PERFECT example of "middle media".
Everyone seems to agree that "old media" , (and I think we're getting to hung up on defining "old media" by the FORM of physical media used to communicate the message, rather than the ORGANIZATIONAL structure used to generate the information dissemenated by that media) is not going away anytime soon. Fair enough. I would agree with that.
Problem as I see it is, with all of the vast amounts of "old media" out there and all the thousands of "new media" outlets emerging, it's simply WAY too much information for the average person who consumes information as a small subset of their normal lives to take in.
So, as I see it, in my humble opinion, the idea of a "middle media" is very much valid, and I'm convinced will emerge as a titan on not only the 'net but all forms of communication. But I define the "middle media" as a collection of somewhat specialized collators of all media, like Slashdot is for technology/Linux/techonology-politics.
A weblog of sorts, with the added benefit of INSTANT feedback in the form of truly open comments, taking what is otherwise a LONG, painful process of debating and agonizing amoung the media outlets over every story and making it a VERY fast, (in Slashdot's case a few hours) intense discussion, and then we all move on to the next story.
I'm convinced also that this model will begin to appear in print and television as well. I can TOTALLY see a "Slashdot TV" program with Taco and Hemos (or two scantily clad babes playing the roles of Taco and Hemos) burning through the best-of-the Slashdot news for the day/week, taking phone calls and adding their own pithy wit to the mix. Hell, if I lived in Michigan, I'd have already put my 10 years experience in TV to work and got them to do it by now, but I'm sure someone will soon, and it will work.
Just my 2 cents, of course.
(AP) - Los Angeles - Fox Networks announced today the newest prime-time special to debut for the May sweeps week.
"Who Wants To Marry A Crusty, Guiness-In-His-Beard Drunk European Guy" will bring the chance to one lucky American girl to get hitched to the most prolific European male in today's exciting culture. 50 women will compete in such events as the drunken foosball tournament, back shaving competition, and the semi-final contest, the fish-wrapping race. The mystery Guiness-In-His-Beard Drunk European Guy will receive advice and counsel from special guest judges ZZ Top and former professional wrestler "Hillbilly Jim". The happy couple, at the conclusion of the show will be wed in an exciting 3 minute ceremony, followed by 15 minutes of commericals and an exciting trailer for the upcoming "Robbie Knievel jumps over 50,000 bowls of steaming hot grits on top of a 200 foot-high pile of Windows 2000 Advanced Server CDs".
sorry, I have a touch of the flu and the Dimetapp is getting to me.
(heh, "Dolphin Developer". kinda rolls off the toungue).
We the people demand new-fangled versions of the following Nintendo classics upon the release of the new Dolphin console. Failure to help deliver on these demands will result in an unspeakable loss of personal karma:
- Metroid
- Kid Icarus
- Balloon Fight
- Clu Clu Land
and, for the love of gawd, we DEMAND a Dolphin version of
- Donkey Kong Jr. Math
He HAS to vigorously defend the GPL. To not do so would not only be unfair to his work, the liscence, and the community in general, but who would want to be the first person to weaken the integrity of the GPL by allowing a high-profile violation like this? Sounds about as well-advised as this dern train jump thing on fox right about now. Egads.
1) When the (supposedly) clueful media just can't get it right regarding WHAT DeCSS actually DOES, they CANNOT expect the respect of the clueful community they so desparately seek respect from.
they've all banded together to try and make it clear to the Congress that if a hosting or thievery or absconding or illegal use, or unauthorized use of the property of all these enterprises -- which, by the way, dominate the world -- is allowed to go untended by some kind of a protective shield, the nation's economy is the loser.
2) Now THAT's scary. This guy really believes that not only do these mega-entertainment-conglomerates actually "dominate the world" , he says so in a tone that actually screams "and that's the way it SHOULD be, damnit". I'm surprised noone has brought this up yet.
I personally got burnt out on fighting games in general long ago (Street Fighter 2). I will admit however that the Dreamcast brings to the table graphics and control good enough to spark some new interest.
The emerging genre of "extreme vehicular antics" is what has me excited most, tho. Crazy Taxi is fantastic; when it comes to mindless destruction based entertainment, nothing beats the kind of game that lets you drive around a beautifully rendered city and wreak utter havoc. The realism that these games have makes it an experience you just have to push that little-punk-snot-nosed-kid-hogging-up-the- Dreamcast-kiosk-at-Electronics-Boutique aside to try for yourself. Yah.
My two cents only, of course.
As someone who has worn out more modems than I care to admit over the last 15 years, I personally would admit getting a kick out of an ANSI BBS door port of Quake. On principle.
The point being, while I love 3d grafx, and GUIs and all, and I'm no Luddite, I loved the increased stimulation of one's mind and sense of community that the "golden years" of text/ANSI based modeming carried. Sigh. Sorry. I apologize. Nostalgia mode OFF.
You know, the term "Open Access", in this context is such a misnomer on so many levels, it's frightening.
AOL loved to throw around this term, "Open Access", around in its quest to grab some cable bandwith to fill with its garbage content.
"Open Access".
Open. Is AOL open in ANY respect? No. Is the AOL source open? No. Is their infrastructure open? No. Hell, is their "forums" and "online communities" open? Not even close.
Access. Well, obvious jokes aside, access to AOL is pretty pitiful any way you look at it.
Yet, AOL comes up with this sick phrase and to think that ANYONE let them get away with it in the first place is what amazes me.
How about "open access" to the smaller ISP's who want to offer TCP/IP over the cable infrastructure? That's a hell of a lot closer to open access. Just my 2 cents.
Please, please visit my web site. I never get much traffic on weekends.