The The MPAA is arguing that if they could directly turn those plugs on and off, they could offer more goods to consumers.

I agree with you that the "could" is not being used by mistake. "Would" (conditional tense) implies intent, a promise that they are going to offer more goods, if the ability to turn plugs on and off were provided first.

The use of "could" means that the MPAA are going to be in a position to offer more goods to consumers. If they decide not to offer more goods after all, should they gain the ability to turn plugs on and off, they would not have reneged on any implicit commitments.

In English, the MPAA phrasing also implies that one ("more goods to consumers") follows so naturally and logically from the premise ("give me the power to turn plugs on and off") that no explicit additional promise needs to be made. These sneaky subtleties are what make English fun and infuriating in equal measure.

It appears that there are registration date and update date fields in at least some whois records. I don't know who is actually responsible for these though, and if the block is from a major company that is just reassigning ips between servers then there is only a small possibility of the record being changed (some providers let you set part of the whois record yourself)

Most of Mono (which is C# and the CLR implementation) is not vulnerable to Microsoft.

The C# language specification and Common Language Infrastructure are EMCA standards and are covered by the Microsoft Community Promise. Since Mono is a clean-room implementation of .NET and C# (both EMCA standards), they do not infringe on any of Microsoft's copyrights. And the Community Promise means that Microsoft guarantees that it won't use any of its patents against third-party implementations of .NET and C# like Mono.

sound low rent?
Look at their site, once you get past how "bling bling" it looks, its actually got very little content, and a hell of a lot of ads.

I also fail to picture why one would want to use an auction for this thing. You don't stay rich by squanding large sacks of money away on items you've not checked out.
Meeting in person would give you a far better idea of whats involved, as well as either talk the price down to something more resonable, or have it explained why its worth so much.

Thats the full description of a yacht with a minimum bid of 2.7 million dollars.
If that auction site was worth a damn, they'd actually either give pages of material about the product, or refuse to list it on such small infomation.
I'm done talking about the site, the fact that the site hit slashdot both gives credence to them, and lowers my perception of slashdot.
I just hope slashdot got a pile of cash for advertising it.

As the x86 architecture has already eloquently proven to us, (and Windows to a degree as well, given that the customer perception was that Windows was free, due to the CPU tax) competitive fitness in the marketplace is determined purely by price.

Technological/engineering quality does not enter into the equation at all; if it did, we'd all be using MIPS or ARM processors, and the x86 would be dead.

From the market point of view, it doesn't matter in the slightest that these disks might be more reliable, or last much longer than conventional DVDs. The cheapest solution always wins, and usually, the cheapest solution is also the worst technological solution, not the best.

I would love to own one of these burners, and also several of these DVDs, because I'm one of the few very rare individuals who values technical excellence more than superficiality. However, the economic problem is still a very practical one for me, sadly; I'm on a pension.

Hence, I might really want stone DVDs, but if I can only afford conventional ones, conventional are what I will buy.

'Twas a good thought; unfortunately my phone tells me that the "MEdia Net" profile is locked.

(It's a Samsung W580i. Anyone know how to unlock those settings?)

Cheap ones? I bought nothing but brand name, expensive CDR/RW years ago and I find that most
of them, particularly the RWs are hosed. I was paying as much as $5/each in 1997-2000.