I'm not clear on this: What is to stop a teenager from filling out the "parent password" field?
Several things. First off, if my password ever fails, they're off the computer for a week or three. Or perhaps I'm the one who sets up the account. Or password recovery for the parental password goes to my email account. There's all sorts of ways to ensure this works.
I think this proposal fits into the "technical solution to a social problem" box.
Yep. There are myriad technical solutions to social problems. (i.e. Ankle monitors for people under house arrest to alleviate prison overcrowding) Y not this one?. Anyway, if I were MySpace, under threat of legislation, I'd be all over features like this to demonstrate how responsible we are (and to get blowhard politicians to shut the hell up).
To date, I've never done any of the many things I could do to monitor my child. I consider this a gross invasion of his privacy (and damn would he be pissed!). But he knows the threat is there, so this will affect his behavior, and for me, if I ever do need to check up on something, I could. Between this and actually communicating what is ok and what isn't, what is smart and what isn't, I feel pretty good.
This is the nth time I've heard the whole "government playing babysitter" scenario in which some pandering pol tries to appear sincere by creating an enemy out of something and then going to war against it. In fact, it's the most popular scam out there for politicians
I'm not that stupid; STFU and balance the budget. For my part I'll be the parent and teach my kids how to surf safe and take responsibility.
But that said, I would appreciate it if "under 18" accounts had a second password for parents to monitor activity/check their sent mail/inbox/chats/lockout the account etc.
I do have a firewall and know how to use it. I can and do monitor the sites they visit, but password protected sites are a problem to actively monitor.
.Net KICKS ASS. For all you might hate M$,.Net is the cat's own ass, or what the cat wishes his ass was, for a programming language. Extending it to the shell is a good thing. Only people who have never actually seen the productivity they can get using C# would compare it to Bash or Perl. Owait... this is/. Most people don't bother informing themselves, much less RTFA before spouting their opinion.
What's the problem? Owait... this is/., and people here need to h8 M$. I swear if M$ started giving away money, people would complain they are driving up inflation. (ok, not that M$ would ever give anything away... but that's beside the point)
Is the system intelligent enough to figure out that the rpg was fired over the heads of friendly troops and not to detonate where it will do more damage than it would hitting a fully armored tank?
Just idly speculating, but if the folks who designed this did it right, the system will consult the IVIS system to look for friendlies in the path of the return trajectory and take that into account for the firing solution.
That said, I have no idea if it actually does this =P
A minimum of 20 megs of ram per app, assuming that they are not actually DOING anything. If they actually do something, crud, heh, plan on a few hundred at least.
ok troll, did you just pull this number out of your ass? You obviously aren't basing this on, say, real world applications you've written, 'cos if you were, you would not be making such a patently wrong statement.
I've got a solution with eleven different projects open, hundreds of pages, hundreds of classes, and VS 2005 is using 120meg after way to many compilations, and the web server using another 25.
...the US would no doubt have been expecting this demand at some point, because if the tables were turned, the US would be demanding the same thing.
Similarly, this isn't a matter of an exceptional lack of trust on the part of the UK - in matters of national security, you shouldn't be trusting anyone to this level.
This pretty much hits to the heart of the source code issue - well said!
I can only think that there are RAF generals who remember accepting American promises of how the F-111 would perform and cancelling the TSR-2 program, only to find that when the F-111 was actually delivered, it was much more expensive and didn't perform as well. As Ronnie once said "Trust, but verify".
- Developer time is *always* more expensive than hardware. Using an extreme edge case of a fifty line app that runs on ten thousand servers does not change this.
- As someone who's programmed since 6502 assembly was state of the art, on every OS under the sun, in just about every language worth learning, and can testify that.Net is the cat's own ass. My personal productivity and that of my entire team is better than any other language I've ever used, not by a little, but my a significant amount.
- Maintenance, flexibility and security are all drastically improved.
- Only a dolt would say a managed development environment is inferior because it isn't as fast as native code. That's like saying apples are better than banannas because they taste different.
- As for what started this whole thread "eating your own dogfood", IMO the author has no real appreciation for just how HUGE the M$ codebase is. Even if they were to decide they're not interested in profit anymore (as if), why?. There are plenty of.Net reference applications, and no dev team likes to do a lot of work to get something that's essentially the same.
- Recall that apps like notepad and solitare were the reference/utility apps of their day. They were never intended to be competitive in the market in the own right. IMO the original authors are probably astonished their apps are still being used so many years later.
This tree-climbing robot thing is cool and all, but could we go back to discussing ways of bedding Shania Twain? IMO, a far more interesting discussion.
I'm curious about the feasability/economics of the following geothermal concept:
Find someplace where the magma layer is relatively shallow that's relatively near a coastline, and drill a tunnel in the shape of a U, with one end under the water and the other exiting into a steam turbine. Make the depth of the tunnel (bottom of the "U") deep enough to heat the water to boiling. Inlet water pressure and/or a one way flow mechanism would ensure the steam is forced to exit through the turbine.
Voila, electricity with a bonus of desalinated water!
Obviously there would be issues to deal with such as drilling in such a hot environment and the salt/impurities of the water, but these seem managable. For such a simple concept, IMO it bears at least some idle./ speculation.
I'm curious why these discussions always seem to devolve into some variation of "a is better, and you're a poopyhead for even thinking that b will be better."
Personally, I'm buying them both, the same way I have since the Atari 2600 (Coleco, Vectrex, Intellivision, nintendo, playstation, etc etc).
oh for fuck's sake... all the Unix bigots are really starting to get on my nerves.
Ever heard of doing an impartial evaluation of solutions and making an impartial choice based on economics? All I ever hear around here is "Windows sucks, Unix rules", which is about the perfect definition of simplistic hyperbole.
While it might be true that IIS has only been rock solid as of +- Windows 2000, it *is* a truly rock solid web server. Badly configured Unix boxes can be infected just as readily as badly configured Windows boxes. As someone who has run a large datacenter, I know firsthand the economics of running Windows servers versus *nix servers.
And that's why Windows servers have the market share, and will until the geeks start writing the checks.
I totally agree that we should teach kids to question the status quo.
IMO, there's nothing quite so effective to teach kids to do this than to present them with a bunch of morons presenting things that are impossible to prove as incontrovertable fact.
I'm gonna make some counterpoints to several things that have been said, replying to C10H14N2's awesome post 'cos that's what started the thread going toward jury nullification:
Our legal system isn't here for justice, it is here to allow society to continue to function without devolving into anarchy
I'm a little shocked that someone could say this with a straight face; I realize it may be technically correct but is as cynical a statement as I've ever heard. Let me put it another way: if people ever start to believe that our legal system is not here to serve justice, I guarantee you we'll learn the true meaning of anarchy -- and I'll be somewhere near the front of the mob.
I love that your quote applies to when Mr. Adams was living under British law with no representation in either Commons or Lords rather than under American law.
Irrelevant. Mr. Adam's statement is no less true because at the time he lived under British Common law. If anything, IMO it makes his testimony more lucid.
That is incorrect. First of all, your family may be affected in indirect ways. You may not even be aware of the underlying causes. There may very well be long term consequences of altering social fabrics in this way. You can't necessarily say that a law shouldn't exist because you haven't personally experienced the effects that the law would seek to control.
I don't at all claim that a law shouldn't exist if I'm not affected by it - my claim is if one person or class' actions are negatively affecting another person of class, that's a legitimate claim for creation of a law restricting those actions. An amorphous claim that we don't know if it might have a negative impact is not.
While I'd certainly agree that it's reasonable to investigate the issues to determine if there is a negative impact on something like legalizing gay marriage, if at the end of the day it's unknown, then I have a hard time saying that's an acceptable basis for law.
You bring a very interesting point in that at some point, many laws are based on subjectivity, such as your "where should the line be drawn on guns" question; some would argue pop guns, others will argue bazookas. In this case, as in many others, nobody can legitimately claim to be wholly correct. So where do we draw the line?
Obviously, there isn't an easy answer. My own personal guide is the "does it negatively affect others, directly and unambigously?" test. If this case, legal marriage for gays wins hands down. Machine guns for civilians is much harder. In the end, if Democracy is simply the tyranny of the majority, I hope I'm in the biggest mob =).
Finally, I too, disagree with the position that Republicans are mass-murduring sick fucks, but I'd argue that the one in the White House sure is =)
First off, I have to state that we agree on far more than we disagree.
You conveniently ignore my response to your comparison of homosexuality to pedhophilia; I have to assume it's because you agree it's an invalid (to be kind) comparison.
Apparently you think its fine for two people to get married regardless of sex. What about three people? They can all definitely be in love and everything is consensual. Is this a valid form of marriage?
You ask the question "could a marriage between 3 people be valid", and I have to that up until recently, the Mormon church said yes; in many parts of the world they still consider a marriage between more than two persons perfectly valid.
This illustrates my position on this matter: 2, 3 or 5 - it doesn't affect me. So where does any right I might claim to tell you which number should work for you stem from?. The Supreme Court has found that moral condemnation cannot be the sole basis for a law. When it starts to affect me, then I have a valid case for ethically asserting some law should exist to govern this interaction between your family and mine.
Stop making ad hominem attacks in the name of objectivity. Why don't you give me a definition for marriage that is non-discriminatory that fits your view of the world, and I'm sure I can find a group that isn't included and who's relationship could be considered harmless.
First, it wasn't an ad hominem attack; it was an attack. I attacked you, period for your crass statement; I didn't attack you to further my position.
Second, I stated my world view above; go ahead and give me a group that might claim discrimination. I'll state ahead of time that if you do give some reasonable group, I'll probably alter my definition to include them somehow.
I've got so no agenda on this issue you don't even know. Furthermore, don't push your objectivism philosophy on me.
Your action of trolling a topic on nuclear power gives me reason to believe you have an agenda. Furthurmore, objectivism is the basis for western law, so it's a pretty good philosophy to adhere to when you're debating the merits of some law. Or to put it another way: if you try to debate a law on the basis of subjectivity, you'll lose, and you'll lose badly.
I don't care if the government gets rid of the word marriage and all civil procedures are called unions and ONLY the religious portion is called marriage. That wouldn't bother me a bit.
I think this forms the basis for an agreement. Get government out of the marraige business; leave it the sole domain of the church. Governments perform unions which bestow all of the various legal rights and responsibilities (power of attorney, taxation, divorce, custody, adoption, etc, etc.), and churchs perform marriages, which seems to me to bestow more or less a title.
I'm just fine with that.
Especially if their being outside of an "accepted" defintion does not result in any actual loss of freedoms.
If you define "loss of freedom" to be jail or slavery, then one might construe your argument to have some merit. But we all know that's not the context of the definition we're using in a debate of marriage, so why have you tried to change it?
Finally, there's this:
Get off your high horse, PUHLEASE
I'm not passing judgement on you, per se, and I don't feel in any way superior to you, so I don't agree that I'm on some high horse. I would argue that a simple debate on a matter of law does not put me here. If you want to debate, stick to the facts and leave the hyperbole.
Lemme get this straight: You use the most extreme examples possible to support your flawed position and distort the issue (and troll I might add) and you accuse someone *else* of being dishonest and manipulative? PUHLEASE.
The fact is, bigots of every age have justified their feelings, but the fact is, these feelings are subjective. Law is about objectivity, and therefore, discrimination of any class is unethical.
You can *feel* that God created man, but until you can prove it, stay the hell out of my child's science curriculum.
You can *feel* that a fetus is a person, and therefore worthy of the protection that those outside of the womb get, but until you can objectively prove it, shut the hell up about murder. If you prove it's alive, I'll get in line next to you.
You can xenophobically *feel* that homosexuality is wrong, but to compare it to pedophilia only shows you as a crass person. Who is the victim in a consenual sexual relationship? Are they scarred for life? As someone who's worked with victims, it makes my skin crawl to hear bigots make this comparison. You will never hear a victim make this comparison - only bigots who could never understand.
Feel that homosexuality is choice all you want, but those folks who live it might just know a little better, and to say you know better shows you as a crass person pushing a personal agenda.
If you accept that homosexuality is not a choice, then you must accept they are a discriminated class, and therefore worthy of equal protection under the law. Thus, they have an equal right to civil marriage.
Religous marriage is based on subjectivism, so if therefore allowed to discriminate against anyone they choose for reasons they feel in their hearts. I don't care if the churh won't marry gays, but when the government won't, it's discrimination, plain and simple.
You're missing the point; this is not about what's legal or ethical to charge for software, it's about market perceptions, which guide people's actions as least as much as reality.
If people perceive they're being screwed -- which you get primarily on price, not value -- they will tend to react.
As long as companies like Adobe justify charging $700 for Photoshop, and rationalize it partially "to make up for the ten people who steal it", I will have no sympathy for companies who lose money to software piracy.
As long as products like iTunes charge a reasonable price for a reasonable product (both reasonables debatable, but the point stands), I will happily plunk down my $.99 cents per song.
In other words, don't make me feel like you're screwing me, and I won't feel like I have to screw you back.
Ipod went USB for one reason only: it's cheaper.
When you want to hit a $99 price point and still have a decent margin, you don't start by using the most expensive of your possible engineering choices.
As long as nobody seems to care how wildly off topic this whole alternatives-to-a-space-elevator thing is, and we aren't actually letting things like reality spoil the fun:
Why not build a tunnel that forms a ring, say 20 miles around (for the sake of nice round numbers could be fifty for all I care), suck the air out, line it with a magrail-type propulsion system and run some thing we'd like to blast to orbit up to escape velocity, switch it to a inclined section of track and let it go?
Why wouldn't this work daddy? Why?
Slashdot Mirror
If the new Iraqi government survives after the US pulls out against the insurgency, would this be a victory?
I'm not clear on this: What is to stop a teenager from filling out the "parent password" field?
Several things. First off, if my password ever fails, they're off the computer for a week or three. Or perhaps I'm the one who sets up the account. Or password recovery for the parental password goes to my email account. There's all sorts of ways to ensure this works.
I think this proposal fits into the "technical solution to a social problem" box.
Yep. There are myriad technical solutions to social problems. (i.e. Ankle monitors for people under house arrest to alleviate prison overcrowding) Y not this one?. Anyway, if I were MySpace, under threat of legislation, I'd be all over features like this to demonstrate how responsible we are (and to get blowhard politicians to shut the hell up).
To date, I've never done any of the many things I could do to monitor my child. I consider this a gross invasion of his privacy (and damn would he be pissed!). But he knows the threat is there, so this will affect his behavior, and for me, if I ever do need to check up on something, I could. Between this and actually communicating what is ok and what isn't, what is smart and what isn't, I feel pretty good.
This is the nth time I've heard the whole "government playing babysitter" scenario in which some pandering pol tries to appear sincere by creating an enemy out of something and then going to war against it. In fact, it's the most popular scam out there for politicians
I'm not that stupid; STFU and balance the budget. For my part I'll be the parent and teach my kids how to surf safe and take responsibility.
But that said, I would appreciate it if "under 18" accounts had a second password for parents to monitor activity/check their sent mail/inbox/chats/lockout the account etc. I do have a firewall and know how to use it. I can and do monitor the sites they visit, but password protected sites are a problem to actively monitor.For that matter, why even go to Vista?
For the cool 3dee interface, duh!There, I said it.
.Net KICKS ASS. For all you might hate M$, .Net is the cat's own ass, or what the cat wishes his ass was, for a programming language. Extending it to the shell is a good thing. Only people who have never actually seen the productivity they can get using C# would compare it to Bash or Perl. Owait... this is /. Most people don't bother informing themselves, much less RTFA before spouting their opinion.
What's the problem? Owait... this is /., and people here need to h8 M$. I swear if M$ started giving away money, people would complain they are driving up inflation. (ok, not that M$ would ever give anything away... but that's beside the point)
Just idly speculating, but if the folks who designed this did it right, the system will consult the IVIS system to look for friendlies in the path of the return trajectory and take that into account for the firing solution.
That said, I have no idea if it actually does this =P
$.02++
The infragistics chart control rocks... and no active X
ok troll, did you just pull this number out of your ass? You obviously aren't basing this on, say, real world applications you've written, 'cos if you were, you would not be making such a patently wrong statement.
I've got a solution with eleven different projects open, hundreds of pages, hundreds of classes, and VS 2005 is using 120meg after way to many compilations, and the web server using another 25.
Similarly, this isn't a matter of an exceptional lack of trust on the part of the UK - in matters of national security, you shouldn't be trusting anyone to this level.
This pretty much hits to the heart of the source code issue - well said!
I can only think that there are RAF generals who remember accepting American promises of how the F-111 would perform and cancelling the TSR-2 program, only to find that when the F-111 was actually delivered, it was much more expensive and didn't perform as well. As Ronnie once said "Trust, but verify".
- Developer time is *always* more expensive than hardware. Using an extreme edge case of a fifty line app that runs on ten thousand servers does not change this.
- As someone who's programmed since 6502 assembly was state of the art, on every OS under the sun, in just about every language worth learning, and can testify that .Net is the cat's own ass. My personal productivity and that of my entire team is better than any other language I've ever used, not by a little, but my a significant amount.
- Maintenance, flexibility and security are all drastically improved.
- Only a dolt would say a managed development environment is inferior because it isn't as fast as native code. That's like saying apples are better than banannas because they taste different.
- As for what started this whole thread "eating your own dogfood", IMO the author has no real appreciation for just how HUGE the M$ codebase is. Even if they were to decide they're not interested in profit anymore (as if), why?. There are plenty of .Net reference applications, and no dev team likes to do a lot of work to get something that's essentially the same.
- Recall that apps like notepad and solitare were the reference/utility apps of their day. They were never intended to be competitive in the market in the own right. IMO the original authors are probably astonished their apps are still being used so many years later.
This implies that there is someplace where the laws of the U.S. are particularly respected... including the U.S.
If George W doesn't have to follow the law, why should I???
This tree-climbing robot thing is cool and all, but could we go back to discussing ways of bedding Shania Twain? IMO, a far more interesting discussion.
Find someplace where the magma layer is relatively shallow that's relatively near a coastline, and drill a tunnel in the shape of a U, with one end under the water and the other exiting into a steam turbine. Make the depth of the tunnel (bottom of the "U") deep enough to heat the water to boiling. Inlet water pressure and/or a one way flow mechanism would ensure the steam is forced to exit through the turbine.
Voila, electricity with a bonus of desalinated water!
Obviously there would be issues to deal with such as drilling in such a hot environment and the salt/impurities of the water, but these seem managable. For such a simple concept, IMO it bears at least some idle ./ speculation.
Personally, I'm buying them both, the same way I have since the Atari 2600 (Coleco, Vectrex, Intellivision, nintendo, playstation, etc etc).
Ever heard of doing an impartial evaluation of solutions and making an impartial choice based on economics? All I ever hear around here is "Windows sucks, Unix rules", which is about the perfect definition of simplistic hyperbole.
While it might be true that IIS has only been rock solid as of +- Windows 2000, it *is* a truly rock solid web server. Badly configured Unix boxes can be infected just as readily as badly configured Windows boxes. As someone who has run a large datacenter, I know firsthand the economics of running Windows servers versus *nix servers.
And that's why Windows servers have the market share, and will until the geeks start writing the checks.
IMO, there's nothing quite so effective to teach kids to do this than to present them with a bunch of morons presenting things that are impossible to prove as incontrovertable fact.
Our legal system isn't here for justice, it is here to allow society to continue to function without devolving into anarchy
I'm a little shocked that someone could say this with a straight face; I realize it may be technically correct but is as cynical a statement as I've ever heard. Let me put it another way: if people ever start to believe that our legal system is not here to serve justice, I guarantee you we'll learn the true meaning of anarchy -- and I'll be somewhere near the front of the mob.
I love that your quote applies to when Mr. Adams was living under British law with no representation in either Commons or Lords rather than under American law.
Irrelevant. Mr. Adam's statement is no less true because at the time he lived under British Common law. If anything, IMO it makes his testimony more lucid.
I don't at all claim that a law shouldn't exist if I'm not affected by it - my claim is if one person or class' actions are negatively affecting another person of class, that's a legitimate claim for creation of a law restricting those actions. An amorphous claim that we don't know if it might have a negative impact is not.
While I'd certainly agree that it's reasonable to investigate the issues to determine if there is a negative impact on something like legalizing gay marriage, if at the end of the day it's unknown, then I have a hard time saying that's an acceptable basis for law.
You bring a very interesting point in that at some point, many laws are based on subjectivity, such as your "where should the line be drawn on guns" question; some would argue pop guns, others will argue bazookas. In this case, as in many others, nobody can legitimately claim to be wholly correct. So where do we draw the line?
Obviously, there isn't an easy answer. My own personal guide is the "does it negatively affect others, directly and unambigously?" test. If this case, legal marriage for gays wins hands down. Machine guns for civilians is much harder. In the end, if Democracy is simply the tyranny of the majority, I hope I'm in the biggest mob =).
Finally, I too, disagree with the position that Republicans are mass-murduring sick fucks, but I'd argue that the one in the White House sure is =)
You conveniently ignore my response to your comparison of homosexuality to pedhophilia; I have to assume it's because you agree it's an invalid (to be kind) comparison.
Apparently you think its fine for two people to get married regardless of sex. What about three people? They can all definitely be in love and everything is consensual. Is this a valid form of marriage?
You ask the question "could a marriage between 3 people be valid", and I have to that up until recently, the Mormon church said yes; in many parts of the world they still consider a marriage between more than two persons perfectly valid.
This illustrates my position on this matter: 2, 3 or 5 - it doesn't affect me. So where does any right I might claim to tell you which number should work for you stem from?. The Supreme Court has found that moral condemnation cannot be the sole basis for a law. When it starts to affect me, then I have a valid case for ethically asserting some law should exist to govern this interaction between your family and mine.
Stop making ad hominem attacks in the name of objectivity. Why don't you give me a definition for marriage that is non-discriminatory that fits your view of the world, and I'm sure I can find a group that isn't included and who's relationship could be considered harmless.
First, it wasn't an ad hominem attack; it was an attack. I attacked you, period for your crass statement; I didn't attack you to further my position.
Second, I stated my world view above; go ahead and give me a group that might claim discrimination. I'll state ahead of time that if you do give some reasonable group, I'll probably alter my definition to include them somehow.
I've got so no agenda on this issue you don't even know. Furthermore, don't push your objectivism philosophy on me.
Your action of trolling a topic on nuclear power gives me reason to believe you have an agenda. Furthurmore, objectivism is the basis for western law, so it's a pretty good philosophy to adhere to when you're debating the merits of some law. Or to put it another way: if you try to debate a law on the basis of subjectivity, you'll lose, and you'll lose badly.
I don't care if the government gets rid of the word marriage and all civil procedures are called unions and ONLY the religious portion is called marriage. That wouldn't bother me a bit.
I think this forms the basis for an agreement. Get government out of the marraige business; leave it the sole domain of the church. Governments perform unions which bestow all of the various legal rights and responsibilities (power of attorney, taxation, divorce, custody, adoption, etc, etc.), and churchs perform marriages, which seems to me to bestow more or less a title.
I'm just fine with that.
Especially if their being outside of an "accepted" defintion does not result in any actual loss of freedoms.
If you define "loss of freedom" to be jail or slavery, then one might construe your argument to have some merit. But we all know that's not the context of the definition we're using in a debate of marriage, so why have you tried to change it?
Finally, there's this:
Get off your high horse, PUHLEASE
I'm not passing judgement on you, per se, and I don't feel in any way superior to you, so I don't agree that I'm on some high horse. I would argue that a simple debate on a matter of law does not put me here. If you want to debate, stick to the facts and leave the hyperbole.
The fact is, bigots of every age have justified their feelings, but the fact is, these feelings are subjective. Law is about objectivity, and therefore, discrimination of any class is unethical.
You can *feel* that God created man, but until you can prove it, stay the hell out of my child's science curriculum.
You can *feel* that a fetus is a person, and therefore worthy of the protection that those outside of the womb get, but until you can objectively prove it, shut the hell up about murder. If you prove it's alive, I'll get in line next to you.
You can xenophobically *feel* that homosexuality is wrong, but to compare it to pedophilia only shows you as a crass person. Who is the victim in a consenual sexual relationship? Are they scarred for life? As someone who's worked with victims, it makes my skin crawl to hear bigots make this comparison. You will never hear a victim make this comparison - only bigots who could never understand.
Feel that homosexuality is choice all you want, but those folks who live it might just know a little better, and to say you know better shows you as a crass person pushing a personal agenda.
If you accept that homosexuality is not a choice, then you must accept they are a discriminated class, and therefore worthy of equal protection under the law. Thus, they have an equal right to civil marriage.
Religous marriage is based on subjectivism, so if therefore allowed to discriminate against anyone they choose for reasons they feel in their hearts. I don't care if the churh won't marry gays, but when the government won't, it's discrimination, plain and simple.
You're missing the point; this is not about what's legal or ethical to charge for software, it's about market perceptions, which guide people's actions as least as much as reality. If people perceive they're being screwed -- which you get primarily on price, not value -- they will tend to react.
As long as products like iTunes charge a reasonable price for a reasonable product (both reasonables debatable, but the point stands), I will happily plunk down my $.99 cents per song.
In other words, don't make me feel like you're screwing me, and I won't feel like I have to screw you back.
Ipod went USB for one reason only: it's cheaper. When you want to hit a $99 price point and still have a decent margin, you don't start by using the most expensive of your possible engineering choices.
As long as nobody seems to care how wildly off topic this whole alternatives-to-a-space-elevator thing is, and we aren't actually letting things like reality spoil the fun: Why not build a tunnel that forms a ring, say 20 miles around (for the sake of nice round numbers could be fifty for all I care), suck the air out, line it with a magrail-type propulsion system and run some thing we'd like to blast to orbit up to escape velocity, switch it to a inclined section of track and let it go? Why wouldn't this work daddy? Why?