Yep, I definitely concur. I've received several freebie books at conventions which have invariably led to me following up with purchases by that same author. Another success story is the Baen free library.

It is sad that so many of these large media companies are unable to grasp the changing landscape of content delivery. It's almost like a mantra for corporate America, "Since it has always worked this way before, then it should always work this way hence."

I actually just finished Android's Dream! I really enjoyed that book, though I went in to it thinking it was part of the Old Man's War books, so was a bit confused initially. The ending was spot on, though. :)

I'm currently reading Zoe's Tale. Not as strong of a start as Android's Dream but still seems promising to me. Once I'm done with this, and David Weber's By Heresies Distressed, I'll be sure to check out Agent to the Stars.

Oh! I recently (this year) started reading Scalzi's Old Man's War books, and have thoroughly enjoyed them. I wasn't aware he is also a consultant on SG: Universe. Unfortunately I haven't been able to fully engage in any of the SG series. (Even when the Farscape folks crossed over.) But this might be the tipping point. I'll definitely have to check it out. :)

Maybe we should think twice before launching an attack against an Utu-class planetoid?

Mutineer's Moon
http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/0671720856/0671720856.htm

Where are mod points when you need them?? +5 pseudo mod points Also bear in mind one of my favorite quotes (which I first read playing Civ4, sadly), "If you speak the truth, have a foot in the stirrup".

I'm kind of partial to Steam, but I think that mostly has to do with the continued quality of their games. Oh, wait ... you mean if the developers make money they continue to make good games??? Someone call the press!! ;)

Also, BigJClark, that sig is hilarious. I laughed loud enough to attract unwanted coworker inquiry. :D

Quick! Everybody VOTE!! :)

I use an NVidia GeForce 5200 video card...though Doom 3 is out of the question.

And why is that? I played Doom3 on a GeForce 2 Ultra 64M. You'd think a card 2-3 generations ahead of that would be able to play it adequately.

(rest of system is a Athlon XP2400+, 1G PC3200, 80G SATA - nice but nothing to write home about)

...while labor for customizing software was not subject to sales tax, the base price of software sold was...

So your solution, which begins as a $1 peice of 'standard' code that you sell:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
#
# Script Solutions, INC.

print "Hello, World!";

...can then be 'customized', for any fee, tax-free. Right?