Shameless Words from Shameless Geeks

Gaming has lost another great, David Arneson passed away a few days ago. David Arneson was the co-creator of D&D. I wish I could say something but the sadness over the loss of another gaming great has left me without words.

Well, it looks like the French said “no” to “three strikes”. Unfortunately, It looks like they will “pitch” it again later.

The interesting thing is that the vote was “poorly attended". Could it be that politicians were smart enough to stay away from an unpopular vote pushed by the entertainment industry? Vote in favor, lose the next election. Vote against, lose lots of campaign contributions AND the bully pulpit of the entertainment industry. It’s a no-win situation for them.

Again, we see the bloated and over-hyped numbers attributed to losses due to piracy. These are always based on the number of downloads observed, with a big multiplier for those that they think they missed. Most of the downloaders wouldn’t have purchased the pirated content anyway.

Your average person doesn’t mind paying a reasonable fee for entertainment. The amount people are willing to pay for a movie theater seat is proof of that. It’s just that, in an age of easy distribution, nobody wants to pay huge profits to a company whose only contribution is an outdated distribution network.

The New York Times today posted a good article about the new French system to stop piracy. This is the same system Steven Soderbergh proposed to congress and what the movie and record industry want in the USA. Hopefully this law will not pass in the USA, the privacy violations alone make me shudder.

I do not know why, but I really want to read Batman 116 from 1958. Lets see there is one of three ways, through finding it in a trade paperback (a collection of several comic books), by buying the issue on the secondary market or if I am really lucky at a store or convention. Oh poo, I am not lucky, the local store in town will not let me and there are no comic book conventions in Austin right now. Double whammy, there is no trade paperback that contains a copy of Batman 116. So on to the last option, to buy a copy from the secondary market. So off to Mile High Comics I go, ah there it is, no too bad it’s out of stock. Off to MyComicShop.com, ah too bad they are out too. Well there always EBay, hey look there it is in Spanish, no I do not want to read Brave and Bold 116, ah there it is two copies. Ah man this urge is going cost me a lot, one is 69.99 with 4 days left and the other copy is over Two hundred dollars. Logging into PayPal, darn it I am broke. Maybe I should not have bought the State Puff Marshmallow Man last week, man was he expensive. Did enjoy eating him and I even crossed streams.
Hold on what’s this you say there is a digital copy available? Hot dog, so how much? Free you say? Bonus, hold on here a moment, isn’t download comics off the Internet illegal. Why yes it is. As Nancy Regan told us say I am just going to have to say NO to your crack, excuse me digital comic book. But darn it, I really want to read Batman 116. So begins the trail down dark path that creates a Pirate.
Wait there is hope, to stop me from turn into one of those evil Pirate. DC Comics could create a way so I can legally buy digital copies of your books; all it takes is a little work. Marvel already lets me, why not you?

Ah Internet Piracy, the scourge that never goes away. Hollywood and music industry have been struggling with it for years. Yet no matter what they do it seems to never go away or even really decrease. When is the movie and music industry going learn the story of the sun and the wind? What is the story of the sun and wind, well it goes like this: One time the wind bet the sun he could get a guy walking down the road he could get him to take off his coat. So the wind blew and blew on the guy and all it did was to get to him button up tighter and tighter. Then the sun took his turn and he raised himself high in the air and with in seconds the coat was gone. The moral of the story is for the movie industry is stop attacking the pirates; they just get better at hiding from you. Instead create a system so we can access any movie at any time with out nasty DRM for an affordable price and no $15 a movie is not affordable. Guess what Hollywood, that system is already in place its called Netflix. To kill the vast majority of the movie pirate all Hollywood has do is make all the movies viewable not just the small list they currently have. Then again this Hollywood, they will continue to attack p2p like the wind. Hollywood when you wake up and become the sun make sure there is no DRM, Shameless hates DRM.

Wow… I think LeakeNova has a point there. There are several problems I see with the sudden shift in pricing:

1. Was there any advance warning to those who were signing contracts with TWC? I would hate to see people who signed up for unlimited bandwidth, paid for the in-home equipment, then got shafted by the new pricing structure. I also would see any attempt by TWC to fine people for breaking these contracts as a criminal offense. Bait and switch.

2. Does TWC intend to do anything for those who fall far short of their bandwidth cap? I doubt it. Rollover bits would be nice, but I doubt you will see those either. I’d love to be able to save up bandwidth for the November gaming season when all of the new Christmas games show up on Steam.

3. As usual, the punishment for going over your limit is SEVERE. Why does everything over the limit cost many times as much as everything under the limit? I could never get that. Does the over-the-limit bandwidth suddenly cost more for the company to transfer? NO. They are the same bits. It’s really either a punishment, or a way to force you into a more expensive plan. It’s almost like the provider considers themselves judge, jury and executioner. They will, however, tend to be lenient if you throw money at them.

Lucky for me, I’m not troubled by these problems… yet. I feel for you LeakeNova. I’d be annoyed too.

Lets hope, for all of our sake, that TWC does a face-to-floor dance because of this. i would hate this example to spread to my neighborhood.

BTW… I the rats and roaches agreed to start paying rent, as long as I guaranteed them unlimited network access. The basement is no longer available. Sorry.

Well after a very long disappearance I have returned to blogosphere. Why you ask? Simple to mock, okay complain, Time Warner Cable decision to charge for the amount we download. This decision is horrible for me. I watch streaming movies from Netflix daily, I download video games from Steam, and I use a ton of bandwidth when I work from home which I do pretty much everyday for at least 1-2 hours. Thanks to Time Warner Cables decision I will not be doing any of those things anymore, I can not afford the bill. To make matters worse, thanks to where I live the only high speed provider I have access to is Time Warner Cable. Austin is looking less grand everyday, shudder the thought I may be moving back to Virginia. Shameless is the basement still for rent?