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About me

My posting summary

1 to 10 of 13

My comments

• First, I'll state up front that I do not download illegal music. I really don't. I mostly just listen to LastFM. Good. That's out of the way. I do, however, understand why so many people do, and it doesn't bother me even a little bit from an ethical stand point. Original copyright laws in the US protected an 'original work' for 20 years. After which time it went into the public domain. That was considered a reasonable amount of time for the artist/author/publisher to recoup the cost from producing their work and make a REASONABLE profit. It was Disney that started lobbying for the extension of copyright protection, and on numerous occasions succeeded in extending it just as it was about to expire on "steamboat willy" and Mickey Mouse. We should go back to the 20 year limit. Piracy today only illustrates how ridiculously inexpensive the marginal cost of each extra copy of a work has become. The profits today are NOT reasonable. Even if all that money went to the artist it would be unreasonable. But the fact that most of it it goes into corporate pockets makes it just that much more outrageous. And before anyone calls me anti-capitalist/free market, let me say this: We do not have a free market in the US. That is a fallacy. Our markets are highly regulated already and we subsidize lots a huge industries. We already have a socialist economic policy. It is just tilted towards the large corporations instead of the general public.
  
  So, in regards to this newest policy of the RIAA. It will fail. It will fail because of the mass of people who see that paying even $1 per song or $12 per album of their hard earned money is adding up to sums that are unconscionable. So they will find a way around it. In reply to: "Sources: AT&T, Comcast may help RIAA foil piracy"

  January 28, 2009

  0 replies

• I run boxee on Linux and now (as of a couple days ago) Windows. I like it a lot, but I still prefer XBMC for playing my local media, and just use boxee for streaming video. Of course, I don't get ABC on either of my platforms, and I don't get Netflix either. And since I really have no intention of buying a mac just to run boxee, these limitations are really starting to annoy me. In reply to: "Boxee adds ABC content, offers Windows alpha"

  January 23, 2009

  0 replies

• Too bad the web browser in the Wii is such a royal pain to use. Browsing in 480P is damaging to ones sanity. Flash is definitely the killer app missing here though that would make it somewhat useful. But still, not really. In reply to: "Opera's new SDK: Better browsing on consumer electronics?"

  January 7, 2009

  0 replies

• Advocasy is not fanboism
  The comment is relevant. We're talking about piracy. And Linux is a perfectly viable and legal option for avoiding piracy. I have one legal copy of windows XP in my house. And I use it on my primary desktop. I have several other computers that now run Ubuntu because I don't want to pay for multiple copies of windows. People should continue to use whatever operating system they want. If they want one or more copies on windows then that is exactly what they should own (not pirate). But if they don't want to pay for multiple copies, then they should just find something else to use. I'm not being a fanboy for Linux. I'm making a statement against piracy.
  
  Why Microsoft has not come up with a site license for home users that adds maybe $50 for the 2nd or 3rd copy of the OS is baffling to me.
  
  Glenn In reply to: "Microsoft's piracy problem could grow"

  April 25, 2008

  2 replies

• Yacrosoft
  Just had to put this out there. Yacrosoft was my favorite fake name floated out there for a Microsoft/Yahoo merger. Microhoo is just too lacking in the "Yak" department. In reply to: "Microhoo: Where's the outrage?"

  April 10, 2008

  0 replies

• I'm Jewish, and I (quite obviously) abhor any anti-semitic hate speech whether it comes from Nazis, neo-Nazis or any other group. Just as most right-thinking human beings abhor any form of hate speech, regardless of the target group. I also abhor hate speech against Muslims. I do have Muslim friends (yes Jews and Muslims can get along), and I have seen first hand the discrimination they face in this country. And I unfortunately have to agree that at least in the US, these hate groups have a right to free speech. But there is in fact a real difference between what the Central Council of Jews in Germany is seeking vs the Islamic extremists you speak of. First of all, the Danish cartoonist who drew a caricature of Mohammad had his life threatened over what was essentially a political cartoon, even if it was in poor taste. Those extremists are perpetrators of hate just as much as the KKK or neo-Nazi groups. The central council is taking a more measured (and sane) approach. You are free to disagree with them, but please do not lump them in with people who preach violence. In this narrow sense, yes they are in fact different.
  
  Then there is another issue entirely. The US constitution protects free speech, but only in a public forum. There is no right to free speech in a private forum. As far as I know, there is no legal precedent that YouTube or any other internet site is actually a public forum (YET). So YouTube/Google could remove anything from their site for any reason. In reply to: "Nazi uproar over YouTube leaving bad choices all around"

  March 21, 2008

  0 replies

• No family plan yet though
  If you are living alone this makes a lot of sense. But double the price for a couple with 2 cell phones, and $200 is outrageous. When the cost of the unlimitted plan for 2 phone is less than or equal to the cost of an inexpensive family plan with 2 phones ($59.99) plus the cost of a landline (about $40), then I'll be interested. So yea, cut the price in 1/2 and you've got something there. In reply to: "Cutting the cord for all-you-can-eat wireless plans"

  March 4, 2008

  0 replies

• that was circuit city
  Actually, it was Circuit City and Blockbuster that backed the ill fated Divx format. (Not to be confused with the DivX codec) Best Buy had nothing to do with it. In reply to: "Best Buy kicks HD DVD while it's down"

  February 12, 2008

  0 replies

• 3DO - awful
  Does anyone remember the gaming system from 3DO that relied on 3rd party HARDWARE manufacturers to build 3DO compatible systems?
  
  That has to be failure head and shoulders above the jaguar. In reply to: "The worst game console(s) ever"

  February 4, 2008

  1 reply

• Your are right...and wrong
  Yes, the patent system is broken. It gives too much protection for too long a time period, and many patents are granted that are too broad and they should be dismissed out-of-hand. But this is not an example of that broken-ness. If there was even a Patent case that should have been upheld, this was it. Tivo DID invent the DVR and the case was not even about DVRs in general, but about specifics in the Tivo software that DISH copied. In reply to: "Appeals court agrees Dish DVR infringed on TiVo patent"

  February 1, 2008

  1 reply